July 7, 2015

Fringe Preview: "Best Light" by Michelle T. Johnson

All week, we’ll be previewing the shows by MDC writers that will be featured in the upcoming Kansas City Fringe Festival, July 16-26. Click here for a complete schedule of Fringe shows by MDC playwrights (and staff!).

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By Michelle T. Johnson

Luke is a talented and successful artist who also works a “day job” as a graphic designer. He and his longtime girlfriend Maya are devoted to each other. The only wrinkle in an otherwise beautiful life is Luke's bipolar disorder, where taking his medication regularly to keep life in balance sometimes conflicts with the creative urges to which Luke needs to surrender. What choices does Luke make? What choices does Maya tolerate? When you are bipolar and play fast and loose with your medication, sometimes love means always having to say you're sorry.

Or, as director Teresa Leggard explains, “This play is about the struggle that arises when you have to choose between doing your best work and being your best self."

Playwright Michelle T. Johnson says she had been wanting to tell this story for a long time—and the script for this production started to take final shape at a January staged reading and talkback hosted at Midwest Dramatists Center (presented under the working title Cushioned Edges), which Leggard also directed. The Fringe production features Davis DeRock, Meredith Wolfe, Ted Collins, and Sherri Roulette-Mosley, with Thai Matthews serving as stage manager. 

Best Light will be performed at the Just Off Broadway (3051 Penn Valley Dr.) at the following times:

7/17- Friday- 11:00 pm*
7/18- Saturday- 4:00 pm**
7/20- Monday- 6:30 pm
7/24- Friday- 9:30 pm
7/25- Saturday- 8:00 pm

Purchase tickets HERE.

*Free guacamole and chips to celebrate opening night! 
**Free cinnamon rolls to celebrate making it through opening night!