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Like A Sack of Potatoesby Ric Siler
The ‘shotgun and rock salt talk’ usually was enough to keep boyfriends in line, but when one of his daughters marries an abusive husband, a farmer finds more drastic measures may be called for. Ric's play Where the Rain Never Falls was a semi-finalist in the Garry Marshall Theatre's New Works Festival. Watch Ric's solo piece, How Do You Say Prostate In Italian? on YouTube, click here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sR43O14nFY
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About the Playwright/Performer
When I told my parents I was moving to NY to pursue acting my mother said: ‘You’re going to be a writer.’ I didn’t know what she based that on, though I had dabbled in writing over the years, but she turned out to be at least half right. However, it took a while to get to the writing part. In fact, it was an audition for The Trip to Bountiful that kicked off the writing thing in earnest: I needed a regional monologue and didn’t have one, so I wrote something about my grandfather. I was cast in that production. That production changed my/our lives in many ways, and Bette said to me: ‘Look what happens when you write’. So I wrote. And here we are.
Long ago the kind of collaboration, love and mutual respect I share with Bette and Wallace was a dream, just like moving to NY was. And here we are. Over the years Bette and I have done several plays together, in fact we met doing a play not long after I moved to NYC. We didn’t know there was a missing link but there was and we found him eventually. What a beautiful thing it is to be walking the high wire in Scotland with these two friends and collaborators. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Bette has shared and inspired everything for the last thirty odd years, and Wallace is an amazing friend and collaborator who has provided an artistic home at the Woodstock Fringe Playwrights Unit since 2008. Wallace directed the 2010 world premiere of my solo piece, Old Hickory at the Woodstock Fringe Festival, at the histroic Byrdcliff Theater in Woodstock, and after that we were off to the races! The three of us have worked together on Wallace’s play It Can’t Happen Here, Breaking the Code and perhaps most significantly, Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days. The three of us also performed readings of our solo pieces in Poughkeepsie, NY under the auspices of the Dramatists Guild.
Bette has directed my four other solo pieces for E.A.T.’s One Man Talking series, the Midtown International Theatre Festival in NYC and in several venues in and around the mid-Hudson Valley.
My non-solo plays have been presented by the Abingdon Theatre, the Gallery Theatre, TRU Voices and the Pulse Ensemble, all in NYC; the Burning Coal Theatre in Raleigh, North Carolina; the Herbert Mark Newman Theatre in Pleasantville, NY and the Depot Theatre in Garrison, NY among others.
Among the honors bestowed upon my work: Thirty Odd Years won Best Original Script for the Theater Association of New York; Last Request was a finalist in the Theatreworks New Play Festival, Dead Authors was a finalist for the Terry Schreiber Studio’s New Works Project, Where the Rain Never Falls, was a semi finalist for the Garry Marshall Theatre’s New Works Festival and That Lonesome Valley was a semi finalist for the Playwrights First Award at the National Arts Club. Those last two plays, along with Working Man Blues, comprise a trilogy of plays about coal miners.
Aside from my work with Bette and Wallace, acting credits include The Trip to Bountiful, starring Ellen Burstyn, Counting the Ways, written and directed by Edward Albee and John Sayles’ film, Matewan. I have acted in my plays, What of the Bird? and Thirty Odd Years (both also with Bette) and the WBAI radio broadcast of Where the Rain Never Falls, with Norman Marshall. I am a member of Actors Equity, SAG/AFTRA, and the Dramatists Guild. Our daughter Laurette inspires me in everything I do, and isn’t afraid to hold my feet to the fire when it matters, much love to her.
In bocca al lupo!
Long ago the kind of collaboration, love and mutual respect I share with Bette and Wallace was a dream, just like moving to NY was. And here we are. Over the years Bette and I have done several plays together, in fact we met doing a play not long after I moved to NYC. We didn’t know there was a missing link but there was and we found him eventually. What a beautiful thing it is to be walking the high wire in Scotland with these two friends and collaborators. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Bette has shared and inspired everything for the last thirty odd years, and Wallace is an amazing friend and collaborator who has provided an artistic home at the Woodstock Fringe Playwrights Unit since 2008. Wallace directed the 2010 world premiere of my solo piece, Old Hickory at the Woodstock Fringe Festival, at the histroic Byrdcliff Theater in Woodstock, and after that we were off to the races! The three of us have worked together on Wallace’s play It Can’t Happen Here, Breaking the Code and perhaps most significantly, Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days. The three of us also performed readings of our solo pieces in Poughkeepsie, NY under the auspices of the Dramatists Guild.
Bette has directed my four other solo pieces for E.A.T.’s One Man Talking series, the Midtown International Theatre Festival in NYC and in several venues in and around the mid-Hudson Valley.
My non-solo plays have been presented by the Abingdon Theatre, the Gallery Theatre, TRU Voices and the Pulse Ensemble, all in NYC; the Burning Coal Theatre in Raleigh, North Carolina; the Herbert Mark Newman Theatre in Pleasantville, NY and the Depot Theatre in Garrison, NY among others.
Among the honors bestowed upon my work: Thirty Odd Years won Best Original Script for the Theater Association of New York; Last Request was a finalist in the Theatreworks New Play Festival, Dead Authors was a finalist for the Terry Schreiber Studio’s New Works Project, Where the Rain Never Falls, was a semi finalist for the Garry Marshall Theatre’s New Works Festival and That Lonesome Valley was a semi finalist for the Playwrights First Award at the National Arts Club. Those last two plays, along with Working Man Blues, comprise a trilogy of plays about coal miners.
Aside from my work with Bette and Wallace, acting credits include The Trip to Bountiful, starring Ellen Burstyn, Counting the Ways, written and directed by Edward Albee and John Sayles’ film, Matewan. I have acted in my plays, What of the Bird? and Thirty Odd Years (both also with Bette) and the WBAI radio broadcast of Where the Rain Never Falls, with Norman Marshall. I am a member of Actors Equity, SAG/AFTRA, and the Dramatists Guild. Our daughter Laurette inspires me in everything I do, and isn’t afraid to hold my feet to the fire when it matters, much love to her.
In bocca al lupo!
What is Hillbilly Gothic?
What exactly is ‘hillbilly gothic’? Although I don’t like labels, they can be useful in managing a potential audience member’s expectations. I decided on ‘hillbilly gothic’ as a way of distinguishing what I think makes my work unique. Not all my pieces would find room under the umbrella of ‘hillbilly gothic’, but the ones that do share some distinguishing characteristics: they take place in Appalachia (‘appal LATCH ia’ if you please) and they have of sense of suspence if not outright menace, which builds as the pieces progress. The third distinguishing characteristic is humor. Now when I say ‘humor’ it is very important to understand the humor is not at the expense of the characters; I welcome you into the world of these characters not to look down on them but to look into the mirror and find them there, just with a different accent.