by Jane Shepard

If YOU CAN’T TAKE IT WITH YOU had a demented country cousin, it would be "DUCKS’ CROSSING." Wander on over to Minnie Evan’s PARTHANON POOL HALL -- it’s just down the road, where the quackers have their own crossing (y’know, like a deer crossing, only smaller.) The beer is cold, the table is tilted, and so are the inhabitants, especially when one of them makes a bid for the pool hall itself, and sets loose love, lawsuits, and the mysterious figure that has haunted the Parthenon for 60 years. Yes, there is a drunken confession, a fabulous courtroom scene, a pig, magical happenings, a mail order philosophy course, and unlikely love. Don’t miss the fun, it’s a warm & wacky wink at the nature of community & yearning.
Playwright JANE SHEPARD has had plays staged around the city. Including: STRANGE GRACE, which was read last year at The Public Theater’s New Works Series and work-shopped this summer at New York Stage & Film; NINE at Circle Rep’s Lab; ONE MOLECULE at Circle in the Square; PRELUDE TO WALKING at Synchronicity Space; a national tour of her children’s opera HAROLD & THE PURPLE CRAYON, including The Promenade off-Broadway; COMMENCING at HERE (Jane Chambers Award Nomination); GOD IS A DYKE at the Westbank; HELLEDEN at Wings Theater; and the multi-media piece A PLAY at the Salon. Her monologue A RAGE OF CHAOS, featuring Michael Warren Powell as a man living with the losses of AIDS, has been staged in such forums as the Duplex, Judson Church, & the Carmel Festival for the Performing Arts. In film, Shepard was nominated for a Writer’s Guild of America Award for Best Screenplay for her script FREAK CITY. Produced as a Showtime Original Movie, it starred Natalie Cole, Samantha Mathis, Jonathan Silverman, and Academy Award Winners Marlee Matlin & Estelle Parsons. Jane made her producing & directing debut with the featurette NINE, based on her stage play. NINE was awarded Honorable Mention from the Rochester Film Fest, and has just received distribution. Jane is a graduate of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, and is the recipient of awards from the Writer’s Guild, and, twice, the New York Foundation for the Arts. She is also an actress, composer & cartoonist.

Director JULIE HAMBERG previously staged S.N. Behrman’s rarely revived RAIN FROM HEAVEN for Reckless where she is Associate Artistic Director. Her past collaborations with playwright Jane Shepard include directing a reading of STRANGE GRACE at The Public Theatre's New Works Now! Festival 2000. As a four-time alumnus of the Lincoln Center Theater’s Directors Lab, she was awarded a Workshop Production in 1997 to direct Simon Fill’s POST PUNK LIFE. Julie has directed new plays at The ArcLight, the Westbeth Theatre Center, NYC's Fringe Festival, Six Figures, Gilgamesh, New Georges, The Lab and Circle Rep Lab. She also served as assistant director at Manhattan Theatre Club, The Public Theatre and most recently as a Drama League Fellow as assistant director to Daniel Sullivan on Shaw’s MAJOR BARBARA for the Roundabout Theatre on Broadway.

Featured in the cast are ANNA EWING BULL, TASHA GUEVARA, G.R. JOHNSON, TOM JOHNSON, JON KRUPP, CAROLYN POPP, GEORGE SHEFFEY, CASEY STEWART-LINDLEY, MARK WATSON, and KATHERINE GOOCH.

“DUCKS’ CROSSING” begins previews January 10th at 8 p.m. and opens Monday, January 14th at
8 p.m. Performances run Wednesdays through Mondays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 7 p.m., through January 27th.