Watermarks by Abbott Alexander
A Fugue. Set inside the most famous gift-card shop in the world, a manager competes with his one and only customer over what is and is not.
Tickets: $20 Suggested Donation
(Tickets are donation only)
Performance Dates:
February 14th - 23rdFridays and Saturdays at 8pm
Sundays at 2pm
About the Creative Team
Linda Pace - Producer
Linda Pace, a screenplay writer and playwright, studied at The Goodman School of Drama at the Art Institute in Chicago. Linda moved to Los Angeles, and her play, The Flag Factory, was developed through Theatre West's Workshop with Betty Garrett. Bethune Theatredanse commissioned Linda to write Bird of Passage, an original play tailored to the dance company merging ballet, poetry, media, and sculpture, which premiered in Hollywood at the Coronet Theatre in Los Angeles.
Linda piloted over two decades of heart-pounding, worldwide events as Vice President of Special Projects, creating and overseeing World Premieres and marketing Universal Feature Films. Linda considers Schindler's List a highlight with Benefit Premieres worldwide for Holocaust museums. The tour ended in Washington, DC, saluting the living Schindler Survivors. It was hosted by Justice Ginsburg at the US Holocaust Museum, with President Clinton and Hillary Clinton in attendance. Most harrowing was a World Premiere of King Kong for 10,000 guests in New York's Time Square – and it snowed! Most daunting was the Fast and Furious Five World Premiere in Brazil. Getting the word out on Get Out was an exciting grassroots campaign that featured fan art at Special Awards Screenings. Linda worked on Universal Pictures' Franchise Films, including Jurassic Park, The Bourne Identity, The Fast & the Furious, Despicable Me, Bridget Jones, American Pie, Mamma Mia!, and Pitch Perfect.
Currently, Linda is creating a TV series entitled TentPole, inspired by her journals of Hollywood madness, which she developed through Greenlight Women's International Writers' Workshop and culminated in a staged reading at Theatre West.
Linda's TV Pilot, The Pleasure Garden, was inspired by her Italian family's Renaissance battle over the rise of fascism in their seaside town in Italy and was developed through Greenlight Women's Connections. The Pleasure Garden is recognized by numerous Film Festivals and Fellowships, mentioning a few: Austin Film Festival, Screencraft, Table My Read at Sundance, Page International Screenwriter's Awards, Save The Cat, Palm Springs International Film Festival, Venice Under the Stars International Film Festival, Rome World Cinema Festival, Big Apple Film Festival, Milan FFI, FilmHaus, Toronto International Film Festival, Santa Barbara International Film Festival, and CineStory.
Linda produced Abbott Alexander's ground-breaking play The Long Gravel Road to critical success at Theatre West and is thrilled to be producing Abbott's new exciting work, Watermarks.
Member: Dramatists Guild, Theatre West, and Greenlight Women
Marco Rivera - Director
Marco Rivera—associate with the SITI Company, The Berliner Ensemble, The Polish Theatre of New York, The Bertolt Brecht Institute, and the LA Guild of Puppetry—is a director, creative producer, and UCLA School of Theatre, Film, and Television Directing and Dramaturgy alumni.
As a producer, Marco has developed live-event, film, and television content for: Walt Disney Imagineering (Star Wars Land and Downtown Disney District), Warner Bros. Companies (Do Good Films and 19f Productions), Violent Pink Productions, and Create The Writer’s Room.
Marco's theatrical work includes: Karen Sacarías’ Just Like Us with the UCLA Latinx Theatre Comunión, Robert Wilson’s Letters to a Man with Mikhail Baryshnikov, the USA premiere of Lope De Vega’s Women and Servants as part of The Latino Theatre Company’s Encuentro Festival, the USA premiere of Dea Loher’s Life on Praça Roosevelt, the West Coast Premiere of The Pride by Alexi Kaye Campbell, and Swan Lake at the Ricardo Montalban Theatre and Hudson Theatre in NYC.
Abbott Alexander - Playwright
Abbott starred in the NBC daytime dramas, Lovers and Friends and For Richer, For Poorer. He played drums in a punk band, was a conjurer in a street circus, and received scholarships to New York ballet studios.
Abbott starred in Theatre West’s 40th-anniversary revival of Spoon River Anthology, directed by original Broadway cast members Betty Garrett and Joyce Van Patten. He also starred in Hugh Leonard’s Irish legacy, A Life, at Theatre 40.
The Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle nominated him as Best Actor in Tennessee Williams’ Kingdom of Earth. His acclaimed one-person show, Sonata for Rimbaud, ran for six months in Hollywood, played at the Edinburgh Festival in Scotland, and received the LA Weekly award for ‘Best Creation.’
Abbott played the ‘Anthem Sprinter – Doone’ in Ray Bradbury’s Irish comedy hit, Falling Upward!, at Garry Marshall’s Falcon Theatre and the landmark El Portal.
Alexander played Vincent Van Gogh in Universal Pictures’ Starry Night, which had its World Premiere at the Montreal Film Festival.
One Night Beyond, Alexander’s fearless journey into the dark mystical netherworld of the supernatural, was nominated for Best Solo Performance by the Valley Theatre Awards. More recently, also nominated by the Valley Theatre Awards for Best Solo Show, was The Long Gravel Road, Alexander’s re-imagining of the Parsifal Myth.
Member: SAG, AEA, The Actors Studio
About the Cast
Steve Nevil
Steve Nevil is very happy to once again share the stage with his great friend Abbott Alexander. Steve got his big break when he was noticed by legendary film actress Olivia deHavilland at a UCLA acting competition. This led to being a series regular on NBC’s McLean Steven Show as son Chris, and forty years of guest appearances on TV have followed, including Lou Grant, Cheers, Fresh Prince, Quantum Leap, Trapper John, and House, with recurring roles on NBC's Mama’s Family and Hope and Gloria, and as a series regular on HBO’s first series Over Here, Mr. President.
Steve’s films include Stanley Kramer’s Oklahoma Crude and R.P.M. (both filmed in Stockton), The Howling, Coach, the long-lost Those Lips Those Eyes, the recent American Christmas, and the upcoming horror-satire Cowboy Killer, a Love Western.
On stage, Steve has appeared in such plays as The Genius (Mark Taper, with Mare Winningham), Chris Durang’s History of the American Film (Cider Mill Playhouse NY and the CAST), Period of Adjustment (directed by Marcia Rodd), and Alone Together (La Mirada Theatre, with Florence Henderson & Robert Reed). At Theatre West, he has played leading roles in Ray Bradbury’s Falling Upward (also at the Gary Marshall/Falcon Theatre), the 40th anniversary of Spoon River Anthology (directed by Betty Garrett), The Fantasticks, Our Man in Santiago (which moved to Off-Broadway in 2022), and most recently the Christmas comedy-mystery The G*ddamn Couple Down the Hall—Oh, and Merry Christmas.
As a playwright, Steve’s play Welcome to Heretofore received the BetterLemons Critics Choice Award from the Hollywood Fringe. His most recent play, The Night Forlorn (a western reimagining of Beckett’s Godot) received the Valley Theatre Award for Best Play of the season. For twenty years (yikes!), Steve has toured both coasts with his one-person show As Always, Jimmy Stewart, a play developed at TW and approved and supported by the Stewart family. It was finally taped for PBS affiliates late last year in front of a live audience.
Steve would like to acknowledge the incredible talents of this young ensemble of artists—including his daughter Scottie—who are contributing their talents to this netherworld tapestry, and a deep bow and thank you to our director Marco Rivera, for his passion, insight, talent, and patience.
Theatre West: Sally Spectre, Storybook Theatre's Aladdin & Cinderella, Winter Wishes Cabaret, So Many Stars Cabaret. The Road: Prop Design for Singularities, High Maintenance, Bisexual Sadness, & Robbin from the Hood. Other: Performances with Cal Phil Chorale at Disney Hall; Stage Management for the Devised Puppetry Project.
Scottie Nevil
Theatre West: Sally Spectre, Storybook Theatre's Aladdin & Cinderella, Winter Wishes Cabaret, So Many Stars Cabaret.The Road: Prop Design for Singularities, High Maintenance, Bisexual Sadness, & Robbin from the Hood.
Other: Performances with Cal Phil Chorale at Disney Hall; Stage Management for the Devised Puppetry Project.
Helen Floersh
Helen Floersh is a writer and actress whose love of the performing arts began in childhood. She grew up acting in plays at Nite Lite Theatre in Trenton, Tennessee, as well as writing and directing her own at home with the help of her younger siblings. In college, Helen studied opera under the instruction of James Harr.
After taking a break from the arts to pursue other interests, including journalism, she returned to acting in 2017 and has since played lead and supporting roles in several independent films. She is best known for her work as a host on the YouTube channel Wisecrack.
Helen joined Theatre West in 2024. Her favorite playwrights currently are Lynn Nottage and Henrik Ibsen.
Brianna Burnside
Briana Burnside is a Meisner-trained actor who loves storytelling in all forms! She is thrilled to be part of the Watermarks family and creating art with her castmates and fearless leader, Marco Rivera! You might have seen her on this stage last as Rosie Duck in The Ugly Duckling! Some of her favorite roles she has brought to life are: W (Lungs), Lucy the Slut (Avenue Q), Mrs. Van Buren (Intimate Apparel), Artemis (Goddess), and Gymnasia (A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum). When she’s not on stage, you can find her somewhere with her nose in a book and hanging out with her pup, Winston.
She thanks her friends and family for their endless support and dedicates this performance to her Uncle Steven, who always believed in her dreams, no matter how crazy and weird, and always embraced the silly!
Playwright's Note
My actor friend Steve Nevil kept bugging me to write about my experiences ‘looking after’ the famous director George Cukor three weeks before he died in 1983. So, we can blame Steve for everything. That urging became the nucleus for this Punch and Judy surrealistic fantasy showdown of double-meanings, puzzles and cultural associations. Watermarks personally became in itself a greeting card to someone I loved dearly, completely and fully but never showed that enough to them while they were alive.
‘Watermarks’ is a term used by printers to emblazon their crest or initials onto their paper when it’s held up to the light. Opaque branding. Hieroglyphics that move when held up to the sun. Therein lies the answer to the riddle of the Sphinx. But it’s still all Steve’s fault.
Director's Note
Watermarks is the exegesis of the human soul in a political vector. The ‘ideal human’ - indicative of the virtues and successes we most respect - is unraveled like an object upon a black hole. It is spaghettification in the theatrical sense. The ‘ideal man?’ The object onstage. The rest? The black hole itself. The play is such journey into singularity.
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