“Do we have the buckets for the pirate-in-the-bathtub fight scene? How about the PVC pipes for the curtains?”

It’s 2021 in Washington, D.C. so no one is doing summer stock, aside from a crew of kids and college students loading up the family van. This is Embers Theatre. Back in the spring, unable to face another summer without pandemic closed theatres, I took all the money I’d saved up and bought a utility trailer.  I hired my brother to construct a modern “wagon” stage on the trailer and I co-wrote an original comedy, Something Extraordinary. We performed eight times in eight different counties that July. Responding to the call to “Give the Players a Stage,” our hosts volunteered their yards, decks, and driveways to be the stage and invited friends, family and strangers off the street to come and share in the festival.