BPP presents final play of season

The Bloomington Playwrights Project will begin running its final mainstage play of the season this weekend. \n"The Button," a comedy by Jon Brooks' about life in 21st-century America, was runner-up in the 2004 Reva Shiner Full-Length Play Contest at the BPP. \nA New York City native, Brooks recently had another of his plays, "Better Than Hitler," performed at the 2004 Bay Area One Acts Festival in San Francisco. Last year, his one-act play "Red Light" was a finalist in the Playwrights Center of San Francisco's DramaRama festival. \nThis will be the second play to run from the contest. Earlier this season, the BPP produced the contest winner "Maleficia." BPP Artistic Director Rich Perez said "The Button" was given a full stage production as a runner-up because it had an intriguing theme of responsibility. Usually the award of full-stage production is reserved for the contest winner.\n"The play is very political -- a commentary on the fact that everyone who is involved in something that is a little unsavory bears some culpability, some responsibility for what happens," said Matt Kirkham, who plays the main character, Joe. \n"The Button" is about the world's most perfect job and according to the BPP's description of the play, "You press that little red button once a day, every day, and the paychecks keep rolling in. There's just one nagging question, which no one seems to be able to answer: exactly what does that little button do?" \nGuest artist Jonathan Rest, a member of The Lincoln Center Theater Director's Lab and the Artistic Director for the Jewish Theater of Pittsburgh, is directing the show. Rest earned his master's in fine arts from the Carnegie-Mellon School of Drama and an M.D. from the University of California at San Francisco. In addition to his directing, Rest has authored stage adaptations of "To Kill a Mockingbird" and "The Jazz Singer." He also wrote a multimedia presentation titled "Cosmic Chemistry Adventure," which is featured at Pittsburgh's Carnegie Science Museum. \nRest said he hopes the audience will enjoy both the light and dark moments in the play that cause the greater message to hit home -- that all actions have consequences.\nRest and the cast will hold a reception at which the audience can ask questions after their performance on June 26.\nThe cast features several members of the talented BPP Ensemble of Artists, including Matthew Kirkham, Amanda Scherle, Carmine DePaulo, Breshuan Joyner and Abhi Kumar. \nThe actors in "The Button" have endured an intense rehearsal schedule that began three weeks before its opening night. \nKirkham said the cast was fueled by the lack of time to prepare for the play.\n"Usually shows peak in rehearsal and go downhill from there, but with this show, everything is going to be fairly new, and that will work for us instead of against us," he said.\n-- Contact staff writer Liv Cole at olcole@indiana.edu .