Tom Anastasi (Playwright)
Role Play will be Tom Anastasi’s  18th  production of his 5th  play by six community and three professional companies in New Hampshire.  Tom Anastasi is a national best-selling author, an award-winning playwright, and is experienced in all aspects of theater including writing, directing, acting, and producing.  Recent acclaims include the New Hampshire Theater Award for best original play in 2005 (Christmas Stories) and in March, 2004, Anastasi won the full-length play category in the New American Playwright’s Festival competition for his political thriller Deadline, which premiered in April, 2006.  (Deadline was a New Hampshire Theatre Award Finalist in 2006 for Best Original Play) His mystery-comedy, The Magic of Crime, co-written with New York Times theater critic E. Kyle Minor, was acclaimed as one of the top six outstanding performances of 2002 by New Hampshire’s arts newspaper, the HippoPress and has had several successful runs.

Anastasi’s work, Surviving Evil: The story of Holocaust survivor Stephen H. Lewy, was produced by Second Stage Productions, the professional division of Manchester Community Theatre Players. In addition to public performances, it was on tour for hundreds of high school and middle school students during National Holocaust Remembrance Week the first week in May, 2006.  It’s first public performance was produced as part of the Kristallnacht remembrance November 9-11 in Nashua, New Hampshire.

Tom has acted in over 75 plays and musicals and has directed thirteen, including a 2003 New Hampshire theater award winner.  He is Vice-President of Manchester Community Theatre Players.

Role Play
An original play by Tom Anastasi
Music by Jon Bellini

Thursday, November 15, 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, November 17, 7:30 p.m.
Jewish Federation Theatre
698 Beech St., Manchester, NH

For tickets, call 603-627-7679
Tickets are $12 for adults, $10 for seniors and $8 for 17 and under.
Production Crew
Director   Tom Anastasi
Music Director Jon Bellini
Technical Director           Alan D. Kaplan
Stage ManagerLaura Montville
Set Design      Kevin Roberge
Program Design      Fran Short
Poster Design Aaron Nickulas

Synopsis
The title Role Play comes from role play exercises, which are theater games where you try to convince someone that you are a different person from whom you really are.  “That’s what the characters in Role Play do throughout the show,” said Anastasi,   “As the show progresses, the characters realize they are so good at acting they've even been fooling themselves. The show is about  trying to save Curtain Call, a fictional theater company, but it’s also about  characters finding the perfect person for them, not the person they’ve been playing when not on stage.”
Cast
Kendra Sullivan      Valerie Torsi
Grace Morin   Marilyn Valentine
Crystal Devlin Mary Reilly
Sarah Goldman      Katie Anastasi
Marty Stevenson    Kevin Roberge
Jim Oswald    Marc Murai
Dr. Miranda Goldman     Michelle Scott
Roland Henry, IV    Andrew Siegel
Rabbi Saul Goldman      Brian Grodman

MCTP
Jewish Federation Theatre
698 Beech Street, Manchester, NH  03104
603-627-7679