World Builders
a love story
May 3 - 18
by Johnna Adams
Max and Whitney live in their own, imaginary worlds.
They are both patients in a clinical trial experimenting with a new drug – a treatment that will cure them of their schizophrenic dreams and flights of fancy – that will make them functioning members of society.
As the pills take effect their fantasies fade. And amidst their struggles to preserve their illusions they fall in love.
Max and Whitney must choose between a love that is real and the worlds that they have built.
WHAT PEOPLE SAY
Cuenca and Silberblatt give a seamless joint performance, precisely as required.
Erika Cuenca, "Whitney"
Erika Cuenca was most recently seen as Gloria/Nan in Hatch Arts Collective's production of Gloria and is currently on stage with PICT’s production of The Heiress. Here at off the WALL, she was last seen playing Laurel in Byhalia, MS.
Other local credits include: Travesties, A Woman of No Importance (PICT); The Diary of Anne Frank, L'Hotel(Pittsburgh Public Theater); Tigers Be Still, Opus (City Theatre); August: Osage County, A View From the Bridge,Umbrella Man (Playhouse REP); Closer, The Red Shoes (Quantum); Lebensraum, Mazel (JTOP); Byhalia, MS, 4.48 Psychosis, Scared of Sarah, Or,, A Feminine Ending, The Zero Hour, Gruesome Playground Injuries, The Other Place,How I Learned to Drive, Agnes of God, Stop Kiss, Shaken and Stirred (off the WALL Productions). Erika is a graduate of Point Park's Conservatory of Performing Arts and a member of Actors' Equity Association.
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Alec Silberblatt, "Max"
New York: The Mon Valley Medium (Emerging Artists Theater), The Cherry Orchard (Strange Sun Theater). Regional: Bad Jews (George Street Playhouse), Biloxi Blues (Ivoryton Playhouse), Lungs (Off the Wall Theater), Driftless (Hatch Arts Collective), A Skull in Connemara, Sharon's Grave, Romeo and Juliet, and The Heiress (PICT Classic Theater), Chickens in the Yard (Quantum Theater), Orphans (Lake Dillon Theater Company), Rabbit Hole (Pittsburgh Public Theater and Hartford TheaterWorks). Alec is also a playwright and his plays have been developed/produced with New Wave Theater Collective, Emerging Artists Theater, The Barrington Collective, Harridan Productions, Playhouse on Park, Rising Phoenix Rep, The NYU Stienhardt School, and The Middle Voice Theater Company. Training: CCM Acting, BFA.
Linda Haston, Director
Linda Haston is a professional (AEA) actress, singer, teaching artist and director. She has directed and performed with various Pittsburgh theatre companies. Some favorite performance roles: Irene Page in Bubbling Brown Sugar (starring Vivian Reed); Lily Ann Green in Lynn Nottage’s Crumbs from the Table of Joy; Jeannette in City Theatre’s 2005-2006 season opener of Crowns; Tituba in Quantum Theatre’s production of The Crucible; Mrs. Dickson in Lynn Nottage’s Intimate Apparel at City Theatre; Henry in the Club on National Tour as well as in Pittsburgh at Off the Wall Theatre, 2009; Addie in The Little Foxes and a Citizen in Our Town at the Pittsburgh Public Theatre. Since 2008, she has directed and/or performed at off the WALL Productions several highly successful plays: How I Learned to Drive, Four Dogs and a Bone, The Club (which she directed, choreographed and performed), And Baby Makes Seven, The Whale, Without Ruth, and An Accident. She has performed her acclaimed one woman show Mother Lode, written by otW’s Artistic Director Virginia Wall Gruenert, in Rep and in February 2017 at Urban Stages in New York City. As always, she is delighted to direct for off the WALL Productions, especially with this unique and lovely World Builders cast and crew. She is a board member at Pittsburgh New Works, off the WALL Productions, and Front Porch Theatricals, and the Education Director & Teaching Artist for Prime Stage Theatre. She also is an adjunct professor at the Conservatory at Point Park University.
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Johnna Adams, Playwright
Johnna Adams received a Steinberg/American Theatre Critics Association Citation in 2013 for her play Gidion’s Knot. She is the 2011 recipient of the Princess Grace Award and a 2012 Finalist for the Susan Smith Black-burn Award. Gidion’s Knot. was published in the December 2012 edition ofAmerican Theatre Magazine. The Contemporary American Theater Festival premiered Gidion’s Knot in 2012 and twelve regional productions were planned around the country in the following 2013-14 season.
Flux Theatre Ensemble (New York) produced her play Sans Merci in 2013 and was nominated for a New York Innovative Theatre Award for best play. Gidion’s Knot and Sans Merci are published by Dramatists Play Service, Inc. Johnna received a 2012 MFA in Playwriting from Hunter College with Tina Howe.