Willard Manus

The inspiration for my new play Bridge came when I read an article about the great tenor sax player, Sonny Rollins.  At the height of his career, Rollins stopped playing in public for two years. Instead, he went up on New York’s Williamsburg Bridge at night, found a private corner, a little sanctuary, where he could experiment and improvise to his heart’s content. Rollins, a deeply spiritual person as well as a skilled artist, had a blissful time up there.  Free of all commercial restraints, he played solo for hour after hour, expressing all of the sounds and feelings that bubbled up from deep within him.

In thinking about Rollins, a question suddenly occurred to me — what would he do if a desperately unhappy girl suddenly appeared and wanted to use his perch as a jumping off point — how would he handle it?

Yuki Matsuzaki and Jerry Boyd

Bridge began as a one-act play.  It was given a reading at the Actors Studio’s Playwrights/Directors Unit, of which I am a member.  Reactions on the whole were positive and I was encouraged to expand Bridge and turn it into a full-length play.  It took me a year of work – reading and thinking about suicide, writing and rewriting, before I was finally able to give Bridge two new scenes.  In each of these scenes, a new character shows up intending to use the bridge as an “exit point”.  Each time the musician is obliged, reluctantly, to become the bridge’s guardian over life and death.

I hope this doesn’t make Bridge sound grim and depressing.  Surprising things happen in my play — moments of sudden joy and hilarity, moments filled with beauty, music and even love.

I would describe Bridge as a dark play shot through with light.

Ilia Volok

As for ‘Roid Rage it is a 20-minute monologue delivered by a professional athlete puffed up on ego and steroids. He’s the kind of celebrity who believes that to be less than famous is to be less than human. ‘Roid Rage is a light play shot through with black humor.

Bridge and ‘Roid Rage, presented by Write Act Repertory Theatre. Opens July 19. Tues.-Wed. 7:30 pm through August 17. Tickets: $15. Write Act Repertory Theatre, 6128 Yucca Street (at Gower), Hollywood (on the grounds of St Stephen’s Episcopal Church). Free ample parking one block south, on Carlos Avenue. 323-469-3113. www.WriteActRep.org.

Willard Manus has had numerous plays produced by Write Act Rep, including Blues for Central Avenue (2009) and Just A Song at Twilight (2010).  Another play of his, Maxwell Street, recently premiered at the Barbara Morrison Performing Arts Center in Leimert Park Village.  The company has mounted several other plays of his, including The Last Laugh and In My Father’s House. His play about Marilyn Monroe, Marilyn’s Second Chance, was recently produced at the Richmond Shepard Theatre in NYC.  Manus is a journalist and novelist as well; he is the author of Mott the Hoople, the book from which the ’70s rock band took its name.  Manus’ latest novel, Love Under Aegean Skies, was recently published by Amazon as an E-book.  Bridge was developed at the Actors Studio Playwrights/Directors Unit.