Prolific Playwright Mike Broemmel Selected to Write Set of One-Actor Plays by Kathleen Reynolds

DENVER - Sept. 22, 2015 - PRLog -- Act One Productions has selected playwright Mike Broemmel to author a series of five three-act play scripts for production in the United States, United Kingdom and Argentina. Broemmel comes off of a run of four successful plays produced in the United States: The Row, The Baptism, Goddess People and Six Joan Crawfords.

Broemmel sat for an interview following a keynote address to a convention of small business owners, speaking on creative media relations strategies in the 21^st century. He quickly shifted gears from the ins and outs of media relations to discussing theater productions and his scripts.

The first play coming down the pike in the Act One Productions series is entitled The Hours of Anne. The Hours of Anne premieres in Denver, Colorado in November, 2015.

“I’ve always been quite fascinated by Queen Anne Boleyn, particularly what I consider the very dignified manner in which she met her ultimate fate … her execution,” Broemmel explained. Anne Boleyn was the second wife of England’s King Henry VIII, ultimately being beheaded by the British monarch.

The next play on the block, written by Broemmel and produced by Act One Productions, is entitled Taking Tea with the Ripper. The play focuses on Jack the Ripper in the afternoon, evening and morning after the serial killer murdered his first victim on the streets of London’s West End. Taking Tea with the Ripper premieres in early 2016.

“I wanted to do something that departed from the typical take on Jack the Ripper. With this script, I really wanted to show the Ripper as Jack at home. The play opens with Jack having a nice afternoon tea,” Broemmel said. “Jack is no hero, that is certain.” With that noted by Broemmel, he remarked that he works to provide another side to the prolific serial killer.

“That was the task at hand in The Row,” Broemmel added. “The Row was the story of a man on the last day of his life on death row. I wanted to create a play which presented a person on death row as something truly three dimensional and human, despite the acts he committed that resulted in his sentence of death.” The Row won a variety of awards at the recent Colorado Theatre Festival.

A trio of plays are based on the lives of a trio of women who Broemmel has long found interesting. He noted that as a playwright, he is concerned about the dearth of play scripts with strong characters for older female actors. These plays feature lead characters who are women later in their own lives.

The Bonfils Girl tells the tale of the lesser known of the three women featured as characters in these plays. “Helen Bonfils should be far better known that she is,” Broemmel remarked. Helen Bonfils was the publisher of the Denver Post for decades, the first woman producer on Broadway and the founder of the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, one of the largest complexes of its kind in the United States. “She did a lot. But, one of the few quotes committed to paper made by Bonfils herself is that she didn’t think she accomplished very much. I’ve been researching, studying and occasionally writing about Helen Bonfils for the past ten years,” Broemmel said.

The fourth play in the series for Act One Productions is entitled Call Me Mrs. Evers. The play is based on the life of Myrlie Evers, the wife of slain civil rights leader Medgar Evers. “Mrs. Evers is such a strong, dignified and courageous person. She represents another person who I have always been fascinated with throughout the past decade or so,” Broemmel explained.

The final play in the set is entitled Der Frauline, and is developed from a short story of the same name by Broemmel. Both pieces are loosely based on the life of Leni Riefenstahl, the talented German filmmaker who was a favorite of Adolph Hitler. “Riefenstahl’s films about Hitler were amazing pieces of work, from an artistic standpoint,” Broemmel noted. “In the end, I tend to think that Riefenstahl never felt she did anything wrong by making films that were homages to Adolph Hitler.”

Each play features one actor. “These are three act plays that run about one hour. But, they all feature only one character. One actor literally carries the show,” Broemmel said.

Following their premiere productions, the shows will go on the road to different select cities. “I like the concept of being able to create and develop a play featuring a compelling character, performed by a solitary actor that can be taken on tour to different cities in the United States. These plays are also slated for production in the United Kingdom and Argentina, which is also exciting,” Broemmel said.

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