The Prisma Health Fringe Series is generously sponsored by

Prisma Health

C E N T R E S T A G E

proudly presents

September 21-29, 2021

By Anne Nelson

DIRECTOR
CHRISTOPHER ROSE

The Guys is presented by special arrangement with Dramatists Play Service, Inc., New York.

The Guys was developed and first produced by The Flea Theater in December 2001 in New York City. Jim Simpson, Artistic Director Carol Ostrow, Producing Director.

One Passage of The Guys, ‘The Science of Pain,’ was adapted from the book Listening to Prozac by Peter D. Kramer.

Any video and/or audio recording of this production is strictly prohibited.

Centre Stage is funded in part by a grant from the Metropolitan Arts Council, which receives funding from the City of Greenville, SEW Eurodrive, BMW Manufacturing Company, LLC, Michelin North America, Inc., and the South Carolina Arts Commission with support from the National Endowment for the Arts. This project is also funded in part by the South Carolina Arts Commission which receives support from the National Endowment for the Arts.

CAST

REED HALVORSON........NICK

BETH MARTIN........JOAN

PRODUCTION TEAM

CHRISTOPHER ROSE……DIRECTOR

LYDIA SEREMBA……ASSISTANT DIRECTOR

DAVID VEATCH……STAGE MANAGER

WHITNEY ARTER……LIGHTING DESIGN

MACIE BELK……SCENIC ARTIST

SPECIAL THANKS

Centre Stage would like to thank TJ Hills and Craig Smith for their construction assistance! 

Last, but not least, a special shoutout to our awesome Centre Stage Interns: Abby Gilbert, Chaz Haines, Kevin Arnold, Lydia Seremba, and MaryGrace Whitlock. We love working with you!

Where were you on September 11, 2001? Everyone old enough to remember that fateful day can well tell you the answer to that question.

I was working in a coffee shop on Main Street here in Greenville.  Everything was completely normal. One of our regular customers came in as he did every day. He ordered his Americano and sat down at the second table on the right to enjoy it, jamming out to some radio tunes through his earphones. His head did its normal bobbing dance…until suddenly, it stopped.  His face registered surprise and disbelief. He took off his headphones and looked at me. “Turn on your radio, man. A plane just flew into the World Trade Center!”

We listened to that radio together as the events unfolded. It seemed like the world stood still.

The next few weeks were a time that was different from any I remember before or since. Everywhere you turned people were helping one another, holding one another a little longer when they hugged and looking into each other’s eyes with more sincerity when they said, “How are you?”

In the time since, we have rallied.  Along with the buildings in southern Manhattan, we have rebuilt our value of individuality.  But, we have rebuilt it in such a way that we hardly see any issue, event, belief or opinion as something that does not pit “us” against “them.” We stand here twenty years later as a nation divided in ways that we never could have imagined on that day.

In The Guys, Anne Nelson’s rich text dives deeply into the beauty of diametrically opposite individuals being able to create beauty together when there is a space in which "us and them" becomes "we." For a brief moment after 9.11…a parenthetical blip on the timeline…we had no prepared arguments to dole out. So, we were just "we."

What a beautiful thing that was.

--Christopher Rose, Director