‘Trying’ With Chance Lang Succeeds

By Ernest Kearney  —  Trying began as a CalArts venture entitled Self Portrait Project and it is what it is, an emotional shaggy dog story more Yorkshire Terrier than Bernese Mountain Dog.

Silver Medal (via The TVolution)

A wretched soul exiled to an unsympathetic friend’s attic wallows in a pool, two-parts self-pity, one-part BevMo! warehouse, and in forty-five minutes manages to follow a broken heart through the seven levels of hell to achieve a small but significant redemption.

As a drama, it’s rather broken by its brevity, but as a slice-of-life character study, albeit a very thin slice, it does succeed due to Playwright/Actor Chance Lang, whose very strong, very sincere, and ever-so-very engaging performance, sells it.    

For that performance a Silver Medal.

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Trying is playing at the
Hollywood Fringe Festival 2023
at the
Asylum @ Stephanie Feury Studio Theatre in Hollywood.
For Hollywood Fringe Festival Details, Trying Show Information and Tickets Click HERE.

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HFF2023
Written by

An award-winning L.A. playwright and rabble-rouser of note who has hoisted glasses with Orson Welles, been arrested on three continents and once beat up Charlie Manson. His first play, "Among the Vipers" was a semi-finalist in the Julie Harris Playwriting Competition and was featured in the Carnegie-Mellon Showcase of New Plays. It was produced at the NPT Theater in Ashland, Oregon and Los Angeles’ celebrated Odyssey Ensemble Theatre. His following play, “The Little Boy Who Loved Monsters” was produced at The Hollywood Actors Theater, where he earned praise from the Los Angeles Times for his “…inordinately creative writing.” The play went on to numerous other productions including Berlin’s The Black Theatre under the direction of Rainer Fassbinder who wrote in his program notes of Kearney, “He is a skilled playwright, but more importantly he is a dangerous one.” Ernest Kearney has worked as literary manager or as dramaturge for among others The Hudson Theater Guild, Nova Diem and the Odyssey Ensemble Theatre, where he still serves on the play selection committee. He has been the recipient of two Dramalogue Awards and a finalist or semi-finalist, three times, in the Julie Harris Playwriting Competition. His work has been performed by Michael Dunn, Sandra Tsing Loh, Jack Colvin and Billy Bob Thornton, and to date, either as playwright or director, he has upwards of a hundred and thirty productions under his belt, including a few at the Bob Baker Marionette Theater as puppeteer. Kearney remains focused on his writing, as well as living happily ever after with his lovely wife Marlene. His stage reviews and social essays can be found at TheTVolution.com and workingauthor.com. Follow him on Facebook.

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