THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO THOMAS JEFFERSON, CHARLES DICKENS AND COUNT LEO TOLSTOY: DISCORD
by Scott Carter.
November 14 – November 24, 2024
Note first performance is Thursday, November 14
The first weekend of performances will include a talk-back after the show with author Scott Carter.
Directed and Designed by Carmen Borgia
Lights by Eric Leary
Costumes by Michelle Rogers
Production Stage Manager – Hannarose Manning
with
Zach Curtis as Count Leo Tolstoy
Jason Guy as Charles Dickens
Brian Linden as Thomas Jefferson
Read this preview in The Saratogian
Read this preview in The Berkshire Eagle
For Press Photos Click Here
Tickets are $28 online, $30 at the door, $15 for Students.
Thursday, Nov 14 and Sunday, Nov 17 are Pay-What-You-Will at the door.
“… the ninety-minute play soars with emotional confrontations, intellectual challenges and introspection often underscored by comedic interactions. The direction by Carmen Borgia, who also designed the set, is sharp and tight. Even in the quiet moments the emotions flood off the stage. The stage pictures are balanced and underline the hostility of the characters. The speeches in that last scene are beautifully phrased and insightful. His set does not have a specific identity which allows Eric Leary’s lighting to underline the timbre of the various scenes. Above the stage a series of lit captions, some humorous, introduce each scene. Costume design by Michelle Rogers is minimally perfect to suggest each of the characters’ time period and identity. Once again, Bridge Street Theatre offers a compelling and beautifully staged production. Macy Levin BirkshireOnStage More…
“Compelling theater! … Three men – Thomas Jefferson, Charles Dickens, and Count Leo Tolstoy – on their deaths are assigned to a barren room in limbo where they meet (an unlikely situation in life), converse and ultimately arrive at the conclusion that they have been given the task of rewriting the Gospels. As collaborators they are an awkward crew. As new friends they are an impossible trio. As characters in Scott Carter’s excellent play, they are fascinating … Touches on more things than we expect and it touches us in more places than we hoped for.” J. Peter Bergman, Berkshire Edge More …
An American, an Englishman, and a Russian walk into…hey, stop me if you’ve heard this one. Coming to Catskill November 14-24, 2024, the closing production in Bridge Street Theatre’s 10th Anniversary Season – Scott Carter’s outrageous comedy “The Gospel According to Thomas Jefferson, Charles Dickens, and Count Leo Tolstoy: Discord”.
Sparks fly when all three of these old dead white guys find themselves trapped together in Purgatory until they’re able to crank out (if they can) an acceptable new translation of the Four Gospels. It’s Monty Python meets Jean Paul Sartre in this hilarious intellectual slugfest from the pen of the former executive producer of “Real Time with Bill Maher”. Featured in the cast are Brian Linden (Thomas Jefferson), Jason Guy (Charles Dickens), and Zach Curtis (Leo Tolstoy). Carmen Borgia directs and designs the sets and sound, with lighting design by Eric Leary, and costumes by Michelle Rogers. Production Stage Manager is Hannarose Manning.
Want a little food for thought along with your laughs? We’ve got ya covered. Come spend a little time in Purgatory with Jefferson, Dickens, and Tolstoy and find out whether or not they can manage to agree long enough to escape to either Heaven – or Hell!
Bios
Zach Curtis (Count Leo Tolstoy) recently completed his third and final season as Producing Artistic Director of the Chenango River Theatre in Greene, NY. He has also served as the Artistic Director for the Paul Bunyan Playhouse (Bemidji, MN – 9 seasons), Fifty Foot Penguin Theater (Mpls, MN – 10 seasons) and the Black Hills Community Theater (Rapid City, SD – 4 seasons). Born and raised in Minneapolis, he has appeared on dozens of stages in Minnesota, New York and across the U.S. including The Guthrie Theatre (Born Yesterday, His Girl Friday, Night of the Iguana), two seasons in the Acting Company at the Great River Shakespeare Festival (Shakespeare in Love, As You Like It, All’s Well, Midsummer), Homestake Opera House in Lead, SD (Guys and Dolls), Springer Opera House in Columbus GA (Of Mice and Men), Virginia Stage Company in Norfolk VA (Christmas Carol) and the Chenango River Theatre (Macbeth, Art, Wait Until Dark). He is thrilled to add Leo Tolstoy to his list of real-life people he’s played, which includes Julius Caesar, gangster Alvin Karpis, and both Babe Ruth and Lou Gerhig. He lives in Binghamton NY, with his sublime partner Andréa Gregori.
Jason Guy* (Charles Dickens) has suffered terribly in over 80 professional productions ranging from Shakespeare to tap dancing (sometimes both at once), and everything in between. He was poisoned (as Hamlet) and beaten (Malvolio) with the National Shakespeare Co.; betrayed (Brutus) and beheaded (Buckingham) at the American Shakespeare Center’s Blackfriars Playhouse; and flogged, twice (both Dromios) by the Hamptons Shakespeare Festival. Seeking solace in living Playwrights, Mr Guy lost his faith (“Doubt”), his friends (“Art”), and finally a finger (Arkansas Rep’s “The 39 Steps”). He was then vomited on in “God of Carnage” (Cape May Stage). Blaming scene partners, Jason performed every role in Cortland Rep’s “I Am My Own Wife”; it was the loneliest thing he’s ever done. But it was as Lloyd the Director (“Noises Off”) that he weathered the worst abuse known to man: Actors. Ironically, Jason just bowed Off-Broadway in “The Actors”, in which he learned that Actors playing Actors are kinder than the real thing. In a blissfully welcome turn of events he beat and pummeled others in the Flea Theater’s long-running “Back of the Throat”, Directed by Jim Simpson. In total, this litany of maltreatment has crossed four continents, fifteen countries, and all 50 of the United States.
Brian Linden* (Thomas Jefferson) is happy to return to Bridge Street Theatre where he appeared in Michelle Carter’s Better. His other regional work includes Picasso at the Lapin Agile, Lend Me a Tenor, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde at Chenango River Theatre, Waiting for Godot at the Colonial Theatre, A Bold Stroke for a Wife in the Expand the Canon Staged Reading Series at the Pittsburgh International Classic Theatre, and Copenhagen, The Road to Mecca, Drkside, Hysteria, and The Love Song of J. Robert Oppenheimer at Burning Coal Theatre Company, and David Edgar’s Iron Curtain Trilogy with them at the Cockpit in London. He has performed at Shakespeare festivals on Shelter Island and in Nebraska, Pennsylvania, San Francisco, Carmel, Idaho, and Marin. He lives in New York City where he has recently been part of a developmental workshop for McCourt, an adaptation by Ilya Khodosh of the novels ’Tis and Teacher Man with Tenney Diamond Productions. He sends his love to his companion VRS and in memory of CBX.
Scott Carter (Playwright) is Executive Producer / Co-creator of Regional Emmy winning talk show Love & Respect with Killer Mike (PBS / REVOLT TV). He was nominated for dozens of Primetime Emmys as Executive Producer / Writer of the first 1,100 episodes of Politically Incorrect (Comedy Central, ABC) and the first 16 seasons of Real Time with Bill Maher (HBO), for which he won Producers Guild of America and Writers Guild of America awards. In 2024, Scott was asked to speak at TEDx ASBURY PARK conference in New Jersey. His TEDx talk Indivisible is available on YouTube.
Carmen Borgia (Director/Designer) is a musician and sound designer with early roots in theatre. He did the sound mix for 2024’s Sundance non-fiction film and Emmy winner, Going To Mars as well as 2012 Emmy Documentary winner An Original Duckumentary – this is not a typo, it’s a doc about ducks narrated by Paul Giamatti. He also supervised the American voice dubbing for Pokemon on seasons 11-14. He and his wife, Alison Davy, moved from NYC to Catskill, NY in 2012. There, he founded Ukulele Catskill, a weekly ukulele jam for all skill levels that provides a fun public space for people to develop their musical skills. He hosts Ukulele’s Unleashed, a monthly radio show on the 3rd Tuesday of each month on WGXC, 90.7FM, and co-hosts another show with Nancy Giles called The Mosquito on 3rd Mondays. In 2023, he produced and directed an audio only version of his original musical, South, which won a Platinum Award in the National Audio Theatre’s AudioPalooza Festival. He has released two other albums of original music, 2004’s North and 2009’s Red Circle Line. You can find Carmen’s music on all the regular music streaming services. As far as theatre production goes, he is picking up at BST where he left off some years ago designing and tech-ing set, lights and sound for off-off Broadway productions in NYC, The Western Stage in Salinas, CA and the Margaret Jenkins Dance Company in San Francisco. He designed the set and sound for BST’s 2024 Uncle Vanya, and for BST’s Little Shop Of Horrors he designed the set and built the carnivorous plant puppets from scratch.
* Members of Actors’ Equity Association, the union of professional actors and stage managers in the United States.