June 18 at 3:00pm
HB Playwrights Theatre
124 Bank Street, New York
Seating is Limited. RSVP Today!
On October 22nd, 1966, in a Nebraska cornfield, a pheasant flew. Shots were fired. In the blink of an eye, one life was shattered, and a family was forever changed. A musical memoir, IN THE BLINK OF AN EYE is the journey of a family’s unique cycle of violence, and a young girl’s struggle to imagine another way of life.
Writer Kate Fuglei traces how the gunshot that forever damaged her brother Kent rippled throughout her family and her life. Composer Leslie Steinweiss’s songs lift the experience through crisis into redemption. The creators of In The Blink Of An Eye hope to bring Kent Fuglei’s story alive, and to excavate and heal the ghosts of the past.
KATE FUGLEI (Book) is an actress and singer whose most recent leading man was Virgil the gorilla in the site-specific production of Animate. She was in the First National Broadway tour of Spring Awakening. Regional theater includes Arena Stage, Guthrie Theater, La Jolla Playhouse, the McCarter Theater, and the Utah Shakespeare Festival. Her one-woman show Rachel Calof toured the country and won best musical at the United Solo Festival. She has appeared in over forty television roles. Kate will be performing the role of Anna Akhmatova in The Beautiful Lady, written by Elizabeth Swados, and directed by Anne Bogart, at LaMama in May. She wrote In The Blink of An Eye (intheblink.net) based on her personal experience with gun violence. www.katefuglei.com.
KEN LaZEBNICK is a playwright, screenwriter, and television writer. With Garrison Keillor, he co-wrote Robert Altman’s last film, A Prairie Home Companion. He also wrote The Christmas Cot-tage, starring Peter O’Toole and Marcia Gay Harden. His most recent play, ANIMATE, premiered in 2021, and is the tenth play he has written for The Mixed Blood Theater. His play ON THE SPECTRUM received the Steinberg Award, and THE-ORY OF MIND, commissioned by Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, has been performed across the country. Over the past twenty-five years, he has written for many one-hour television dramas, including Touched By An Angel, Army Wives, and When Calls the Heart. He is Director of the LIU M.F.A. in Writing and Producing for Television.
LESLIE STEINWEISS (Music & Lyrics), a Brooklyn, NYC-based composer/lyricist and pianist writes for piano, chamber ensembles, theater, and film. He was composer-in-residence for the downtown theater company “Dearknows”. Recent works include: “The Grip of Evil/ The Endurance of Hope”, a cantata commemorating the Holocaust”, which was premiered in May of 2022 in Gloucester,Mass…music and lyrics for “In The Blink of an Eye” which marks the second collaboration with Kate Fuglei…“The Aether Project”, piano solo improvisations… and incidental music for “I Was a Stranger Too” a play by Cindy Cooper, recently performed at the Neighborhood House in Minneapolis in January 2023. Leslie is grateful to HB STUDIO for the opportunity to continue the development of “In the Blink of an Eye” www.intheblink.net
HB Studio is dedicated to training and practice for the theater, and seeks to provide a commerce-free environment for the nurturing and growth of theater artists. In pursuit of this goal, HB offers five one-week Rehearsal Space Residencies each year for the development of creative projects. The HB Rehearsal Space Residency is an opportunity for practicing theater artists to collaborate on experimental projects, develop new work, and share workshop presentations among peers and colleagues, for constructive critical feedback and mutual growth. The Rehearsal Space Residency is an open opportunity; you do not have to be affiliated with HB Studio to apply. However we do ask that our resident artists work with us to engage with our community of students and faculty while in residence at HB. For more information on our HB Residencies. Click here.
This program is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature, public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council, and many generous supporters.