Sometimes I get lazy and just cut and paste press releases. Today is one of those days:
View from the Pews - an irreverent homage to a girlhood spent on the red velvet pews of a Southern, gospel church - written and performed by Louisville actor and playwright, Clara Harris, has been invited to the Women's Work Festival in Nashville with the Tennessee Women's Theatre Project, launching an exciting beginning to a new phase in the life of this work. The Bard's Town will host a Louisville preview on May 14th at 7 PM.
A full-length solo show, View from the Pews began as a ten-minute piece performed as part of the Kentucky Girlhood Project in 2007, at The Late Seating at Actors, and again in 2009, at the Rud. Entitled Good Little Church Girls, the ten-minute piece was so well received and stimulated such interesting conversations with women and men, alike, about their own relationship with their spiritual upbringing, that it became clear there was something more in the material to mine.
View from the Pews finally emerged and had a reading at The Bard's Town in 2011. Following that, the script underwent significant changes and rewrites, while Harris continued to write other pieces. In 2011, it was selected as a semi-finalist for the Kentucky Theatre Association's Roots of the Bluegrass New Play Award.
While plans to produce View from the Pews last year fell through, Harris used the break to serve as Artist-in-Residence for a week at Wildacres Retreat in North Carolina, while another play penned by the Louisvillian, Bake-Off of Doom, was selected as a semi-finalist at HotCity's Greenhouse Festival in St. Louis.
"As a Tennessee native, I am thrilled to have the opportunity to finally get View from the Pews up on its feet properly, and that it will be in my home state," Harris says.
There will be a free Louisville preview for those who cannot make the May 18th show in Nashville at The Bard's Town on Tuesday, May 14th at 7:00 PM. Come early to eat, and drink service continues through the approximately one hour show. The Bard's Town's Open Mic follows in the Lounge at 8 PM.
Clara Harris is an actor, singer, and writer based in Louisville, Kentucky. A proud member of Actors Equity Association, she has been seen regularly with StageOne Family Theatre and on an assortment of film and voiceover projects. Clara writes and acts in the radio detective drama Knight & Noon, airing on Crescent Hill Radio, and will soon launch Swamp Witch Studio LIVE! with ART+FM, a weekly show taped live, once a month, featuring scenes & monologues and local musicians. More information can be found at clara-harris.com . @claraharris
Follow the show, part of three play cycle called Things We Say to Girls, on Twitter, @TWS2G, and Facebook, facebook.com/TWS2G.



