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Photo: Dmytro Kozatskyi - Call sign “Orest”Why AFT Theater?
Well, actually, why do theater at all? It’s a question that those of us who have made acting, directing, stage design and playwriting a lifelong vocation continually wrestle with. For most theater practitioners, there are two obvious answers:
1) To entertain. Yes, television and film entertain, but theater as a timed art delivers an element of immediacy, unpredictability, and even intimacy that cannot be equaled on screen. The audience exists within the same room as the characters who bring their story to life. In a fully realized live stage performance, anything can happen and there’s no net.
2) To touch people’s hearts. To share and connect with the audience, even in some small way, with insight into the human condition. And, perhaps on a good day, to awaken a bit of empathy in audiences and performers alike towards our fellow humans.
Those two reasons are enough. But there’s a third reason. And in a troubled and deeply conflicted world, maybe this one is at least as important. And here is where AFT Theater comes in.
The third reason is to deepen our understanding of some intractable social or political problem. Not with the intention of solving that problem, or even taking a side, but with the intention, simply allowing our audience and ourselves to think about it out loud. To examine that dilemma in a thorough, unbiased way. So that on this one day in an intimate theater space, we all may wrestle with an emotionally charged issue and keep our minds open.
But we don’t want to make this venture sound more earth-shattering than it is. AFT stands for A Few Thoughts. Only a few. We promise.
The Founding of AFT:
The origins of AFT were during the COVID shutdown. A small group of theater professionals, (most with decades in the business) got together online to find a way to keep practicing their craft. The result was, In Search of A PIG, a six-part sci-fi extravaganza, filmed in the actor’s homes and edited together. This online series won numerous awards around the world. We are including two episodes below for your viewing pleasure.
It has been a long and arduous journey from those early Zoom meetings to producing live theater, but the inspiration and love of craft that guided us then is still very much alive. We hope that you will join us for our inaugural production of Keith Szarabajka’s Slava Ukraini! (or Waiting for Elon).
one issue in two acts - by Steven Dierkes
Find out more in the play...
A Comedy - by Ken Levine
Find out more in the play...
A film by Jack Szarabajka (2022)
Awarded at film festivals around the world.
A film by Keith Szarabajka, directed by Tony Pasqualini (Ep1 & 6), Laura Stribling (Ep2), Chuma Hunter-Gault (Ep3), Jack Szarabajka (Ep4) and Kazu Takeda (Ep5).
Awarded at film festivals around the world.
Artistic Director
Keith Szarabajka (sarah-bike-ah) was co–artistic director at EST-LA from January 2015 to July 2021. Keith directed David McMillan’s WATCHING O.J. in 2015 -16. He was a co-author and original cast member of BLEACHER BUMS. Keith works extensively in stage , film, tv, audio books and video games. Keith produced with Tony Pasqualini the award-winning web/tv series IN SEARCH OF A P-I-G. He is currently raising funds to start a new theater company, AFT (a Few Thoughts) Theater Co.
Managing Director
An actor, playwright and director, Tony is a veteran of fifty years in the theater. He has performed in over a hundred plays on many stages around the country, including: The Arena Stage, Williamstown Theater Festival, Seattle Repertory Theater, Playwrights Horizons, Philadelphia Drama Guild and The Buffalo Studio Arena. Over the years some of his favorite roles include Shylock in The Merchant of Venice, Prospero in The Tempest, Lear in King Lear, Doug Schmidt in the West Coast premiere of Emily Mann’s Execution of Justice, and Jesse James in Jesse and The Bandit Queen. In Los Angeles, Tony just completed a three month, critically acclaimed run in the world premier comedy, Fostered, at the Pacific Resident Theater. He has also appeared at the South Coast Repertory playing Jim Bayless in All My Sons; Leonato in Much Ado About Nothing at A Noise Within; Donald Rumsfeld in What I Heard About Iraq at the Fountain Theater; Van Swieten in Amadeus at the Hollywood Bowl; Harold Levine in Watching OJ at Ensemble Studio Theater; Tim in A Great Wilderness at Rogue Machine Theater: and most dear to his heart, Andrew in Loyalties at PRT (a play that he also wrote). His play, Lost In Time, was produced in 2018 at Ensemble Studio Theater/LA, directed by AFT founder Keith Szarabajka, and published with Broadway Play Publishing. Tony has guest starred on over 50 television shows and films. A few favorites: Grace and Frankie; Mad Men; Modern Family; West Wing, The Office and Frasier.
Writer/Director
Ken Levine is an Emmy winning writer/director/playwright/major league baseball announcer/cartoonist. He has nine published fulllength stage plays that have been performed in New York, Los Angeles, and around the world. His short plays have won numerous awards here and abroad. Ken has written over 200 episodes of television for such shows as MASH, Cheers, Frasier, the Simpsons, and Wings. He has directed over 60 TV episodes and has co-written the movie, Volunteers starring Tom Hanks and John Candy. He has been the play-by-play voice of the Baltimore Orioles, Seattle Mariners, and San Diego Padres and hosted Dodger Talk for eight seasons. Ken has won a primetime Emmy, two Writers Guild Awards, a Peoples’ Choice Award, Peabody and Humanitas recognition. Currently Ken is a contributing cartoonist to the New Yorker Magazine. He’s done more but that’s enough.
Director
Jack Szarabajka is a director that has won numerous awards including indie short fest’s best director (June 2024). Jack has over 12 years of experience in the entertainment industry ranging from still photography, art direction, visual effects, and producing. He brings a collaborative energy to his projects while understanding the necessity to stay on schedule and under budget.
Writer
Member of the Dramatists’ Guild and the Ensemble Studio Theater/Los Angeles. Productions in London, New York, Los Angeles, and elsewhere in the U.S. and in Mexico. Prisoners of the Caucasus was long-listed for the Neem Prize at Vibrating Body Theater, St. Petersburg, Russia.
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Join us in supporting AFT - Your contribution truly makes a difference.
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