Boerne Community Theatre will produce “After the Fantasy,” a murder mystery in two acts written by local playwright Martin Vidal — an exciting theatrical venture that has been years in the making.
“After the Fantasy,” which runs May 10-26, follows the story of Sheriff Millar, who thinks she’s getting over a traumatic investigation involving a local fantasy writer, Elbert Hass, when fans, lawyers and eccentric family members keep coming out of the woodwork and adding more layers (and polearms) to the mystery.
In May 2019, Vidal — a local actor, director and playwright — was performing a small role in Ira Levine’s “Deathtrap” at Boerne Community Theatre when he was struck with sudden inspiration.
“There is a very small scene that I was in that made me think: ‘Huh. This feels like it could go somewhere completely different,’” Vidal said. By early 2020, Vidal had begun working on his own murder mystery play.
Written by Vidal and directed by Keisha McFerrin, the “After The Fantasy” cast features Kimberly Stoner as Sheriff Dale Millar, Joshua Davis as Deputy Mike Stevenson, Allen Rudolph as Alvin Pilgrim, Esq., Jeffery Hensel as Leslie De Fazi, Kareem Abu Dahab as David J. Jacobs, Emily Piperato as Susan Jacobs and Bethany Hatsios as Melissa Zamora.
While he has been writing creatively since the third grade, Vidal hadn’t done much playwriting since a course he took years ago at the University of Houston in which he created several unperformed scripts and scenes as a student.
“Honestly, being stuck at home during Covid probably helped keep me on task,” Vidal said. “After about two and a half years and eight drafts — it’s at 10 now — I had something I thought I could try and get on a stage. So I took it to BCT.”
At BCT, many colleagues read early drafts of the script and still more offered support, shared creative input and discussed the project with him.
“Because the BCT stage is technically where this whole thing started, it just felt like the right place to have it performed first,” he said.
Vidal’s own career has been, if not a mystery, an adventure: He worked retail, read claims for an international settlement, scheduled gas shipping and worked as a freelance writer.
He joined the United States Air Force in 1997, retiring in 2017 after obtaining a master’s in humanities from Tiffin University in 2012 and marrying his wife, Rebecca, in 2016.
He has worked in local theater since early 2013 at venues as varied as the Harlequin Dinner Theater, the Classic Theatre of San Antonio, the Public Theater of San Antonio (now San Pedro Playhouse), the nowclosed Sheldon Vexler Theatre, the Overtime Theater, the Magik Theatre, S.T.A.G.E. Bulverde, Kerrville’s Playhouse 2000 and BCT.
For details, visit www.boernetheatre. org or call the box office at 830-249-9166.
Boerne Community Theatre has been a cornerstone of the local arts scene for more than 30 years. The theater also offers BCT Academy classes for children ages 3-13, a teen troupe for youth ages 13-19, summer drama camps for all ages and adult acting classes.
Comment
Comments