On September 25th, 2018 in the Dassance Fine Arts Center, (F)Actor Theatre Company presented a stage reading of Stephen Karam’s THE HUMANS.
THE HUMANS is a comedic play with serious undertones about a family’s Thanksgiving dinner. Accumulating four Tony awards for Best Play, Best Performance by an Actor and Actress in a Featured Role in a Play and for Best Scenic Design of a Play.
Director Joy Newkirk, felt that this was an extremely difficult play to do a stage reading for. Although it is a revolutionary play that can inspire many, Newkirk feels that when you have to sit down and read the play you miss out on a lot of what the show is about.
“[(F)Actor chose this show] because it is a contemporary piece that students may not run into in the classroom,” Newkirk said. “[(F)Actor] wanted to give them something that they could identify with and something that is still popular and theatrical; but this was still a hard one.”
With lots of edits to the script, Newkirk managed to pull off an amazing show. Each of the actors had lots of characterization that left the audience in fits of laughter.
“I felt that it was pretty slow in the beginning but it picked up towards the end,” said Crystal River High School Thespian, Tatyanna Lopez. “My favorite part was when Momo went off on an imaginary woman. I also really liked all the symbolism that was sprinkled throughout the show.”
“The ending was however you interpreted it,” Citrus High School Thespian, Jada Davis said. “It was really interesting and made us all think.”
(F)Actor, is a theatre company that is spearheaded by a group of high school theatre teachers with their goal to support their fellow high school theatre teachers and their own students.
(F)Actor holds main stage shows such as Picasso at the Lapin Agile and The Laramie Project in order to raise money for (F)Actor.
“A stage reading like this, takes about ten hours of rehearsal time,” said Newkirk. “When you rehearse a main stage show there is 100+ volunteer hours. We use the full shows to help raise money to do events like this.”
THE HUMANS is the first stage reading produced through (F)Actor. They purchased 300 scripts for everyone in attendance.
With the audience filled with high school theatre students from both Marion and Citrus county and CF theatre students alike; everyone walked away with a free copy of THE HUMANS.
(F)Actor has plans to produce another stage reading during the spring of A Doll’s House Part Two. If interested, keep your eyes peeled in the Dassance Fine Arts Center for future updates.

Story by Kevin Flaherty