Thank you to everyone who attended our workshop on June 29th, 2022!
Synopsis
Sometime in the middle of the 20th century, a thriller named At Hotel MacGuffin was not released to cinemas. This play, which does exist, is an adaptation of that movie, which does not exist. Miss Olivia Blonde, a mysterious transsexual, checks in to the Hotel MacGuffin. She flees her apartment, plagued by a cockroach infestation, only to find the hotel itself is infested- with spies. Alongside a precocious heirex, dashingly incompetent concierge, and brassy lounge singer, Miss Blonde is swept up into a very queer case of missing persons, missing jewels, and missing the point. Drag, melodrama, noir, and cabaret combine into the feeling that you’ve been here before, you’ll be here again, and you’ll still be looking for that last piece. An instant classic from a time that didn’t happen, you never loved the original and can now enjoy all the nostalgia you don’t remember in an evening you’ll never forget.
About the Playwright
M Sloth Levine (they/them/theirs) is a playwright, director, and designer. Their plays are sour gummy worms, sharp and sticky sweet. They write for gothic dollhouses, for costume trunks full of rubber masks and elastic tutus. These plays are made of velvet, petrified wood, slime, celluloid, gold leaf, weed, gelatin, and citric acid.
Sloth's plays have been developed at Roundabout Theater Company, Company One, Sparkhaven Theatre, Central Square Theatre, Tufts University, University of Massachusetts Amherst, University of Wisconsin Madison, and Parity Productions as the 2021 Parity Development Award winner. Sloth has recently served as the Script Supervisor on Andrew Lloyd Webber's Bad Cinderella. They're a member of The Fled Collective, which workshopped their gothic epic The Castle of Ghoul Hammond and How It Fell Into The Void in 2022. They've been a member of Company One's VoltLab and PlayLab writer's groups and in 2020 their live web-series Tales from Camp Strangewood was produced with a grant from the Mayor's Office of Boston. They graduated from Emerson College with a BA in Theatre Studies: Directing & Playwriting.
Watch the trailer for AT HOTEL MACGUFFIN:
Workshop at The Duplex, June 2022. Pictured (left to right): Garnet Williams as “Miss Olivia Blonde,” Dani Martineck as “Mister Jimmy Bell,” Lizzie Milanovich as “Miss Cedar St. Sturbridge,” and Darius-Anthony Robinson as “Miss Georgia Kaplan.”
JUNE '22 workshop CAST & CREATIVE TEAM
CAST
Dani Martineck (they/them) – Mister Jimmy Bell
Lizzie Milanovich (they/them) – Miss Cedar St. Sturbridge
Darius-Anthony Robinson (he/they) – Miss Georgia Kaplan
Garnet Williams (she/they) – Miss Olivia Blonde
TEAM
Director: Ludovica Villar-Hauser (she/her)
Playwright: M Sloth Levine (they/them)
Company Dramaturg: Jennifer Kranz (she/her)
Assistant Director: Mack Brown (they/them)
Costume Designer: Jules Peiperl (they/them)
Sound Designer: Emma Lea Hasselbach (they/she)
Movement Director: Alex Might (she/her)
Properties Designer, Production Stage Manager, Covid Compliance Officer: Becca Silbert (she/her)
Assistant Stage Manager, Stage Directions: Maddie Jewell (she/they)
Piano: Patrick Swailes Caldwell (they/them)
Video: Cedric Cannon (he/him)
Photography: Allison Stock (she/her)