Actor, Writer, Storyteller
© Jim Stowell 2019
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1st Stage Theatre Presents The 3rd Annual Logan Festival of Solo Performance The Things They Carried Written by Tim O’Brien, dramatized by Jim Stowell Directed by Kate Alexander Featuring David Sitler WHERE 1st Stage Theatre 1524 Springhill Road, McLean, VA. (703) 854/1856 WHEN July 11-7:30pm July 14-5:00pm July 18-7:30pm July 20-8:00pm July 21-5:00pm David Sitler David is thrilled each time he goes onstage in Jim Stowell’s beautiful adaptation of THE THINGS THEY CARRIED.  He first performed the show to rave reviews at Florida Studio Theatre in 2018 and will be at the Logan Festival at 1st Stage in VA  and Centenary Stage in NJ this year.  He has worked on Broadway, National Tours, with many Off and Off-Off Broadway Theatre Companies and Regionally from coast to coast in roles from Atticus to Scrooge.  As well as many award winning films and TV shows.  More info at www.davidsitler.com. Tim O’Brien “Tim O’Brien is the best American writer of his generation,” Tom Dowling, San Francisco Examiner. Tim O’Brien grew up in Worthington, MN. The “Turkey Capitol of the World.” When he was a boy Tim performed magic shows in his backyard for the neighborhood kids. He was drafted in 1968 and assigned to 3 rd Platoon, A Company, 5 th Battalion as a foot soldier. Tim is now a visiting professor and endowed chair at Southwest Texas State University. THE 2019 MINNESOTA FRINGE FESTIVAL BEARDOG PRODUCTIONS PRESENTS  Turn Here—Sweet Corn Written by Atina Diffley, Dramatized by Jim Stowell Director - Scott Jones Featuring Megan Wells  This is a story of Martin and Atina Diffley and their two children living happily on their organic farm that has been in the Diffley family for four generations. This is the story of learning that fear doesn’t always mean run, sometimes it means fight. Atina’s story is powerful, magical, heartbreaking and full of hope. WHERE: The Augsburg Studio Theater on the campus of Augsburg University at 2211 Riverside Ave. Minneapolis, 55454. WHEN:                         August 3rd 1:00pm Aug. 4th 5:30pm                             Aug. 5th 10:00pm                           Aug. 10th 8:30pm Aug 11th 2:30pm. For tickets: fringefestival.org/tickets Or at the box office prior to show. Megan Wells: (Actress) She is a national award winning Story and theater artist. She combines the worlds of theater, storytelling and writing. A BFA and a MFA in theater. Many professional credits both as an actress and director in Chicago where she was honored with a Joseph Jefferson Award. Most recently she has been honored as an Oracle by the National Storytelling Network, inducting her into the Circle of Excellence of storytellers in America. She is the Artistic Director of the Ray Bradbury Storytelling Festival, Her full repertoire of performances, including her adaptation and performance of Dracula, and her performance schedule is available at her website: www.meganwells.com United Solo Theater Festival THE THINGS THEY CARRIED Produced by Beardog Productions Directed by Bob Waters Featuring Jim Stowell Monday, November 11th 7:00pm Theater Row 410 West 42nd Street New York City               Telecharge—212-239-6200 http://allaboutsolo.com/the-things-they-carried-carries-a-hit/ The Things They Carried premiered at The History Theater, St. Paul, MN. March 15th, 2014. “Superb!” Minneapolis Star-Tribune. The Lied Center in Lincoln, NE. Opening November 5th, 2015. Directed by Jim Stowell.  “The production is a stirring, emotional and indeed, a frightening one, yet highly recommended.” Lincoln Journal Star, Lincoln, NE. The Florida Studio Theatre in Sarasota, FL March 24th, 2018. Featuring David Sitler. “Truthful, gripping and gutsy.” The Observer. The Minnesota Fringe Festival. August, 2018.  “Engaging, evocative and highly recommended.” Minneapolis Star Tribune, August 2018, featuring Jim Stowell as Tim. United Solo Theater Festival, New York City. October 2nd, 2018. “Stowell’s acting is an emotional powerhouse…he regales the audience with a story of tragedy, loss, zero happy endings, a dose of humor and in spite of it all, hope.” All About Solo.                     Jim Stowell A professional actor, director, playwright and storyteller for around fifty years. Jim Stowell is the co-founder of two theater companies in Minneapolis that brought over twenty new plays to the stage. He has written and directed eleven full cast plays, including two children’s plays, two adaptations, a Spanish language one-act and the book for a musical comedy that has been running somewhere in America for the last 14 years with bookings into 2020 and produced three spinoffs. Written and performed twelve one man plays that were commissioned and produced by six different theaters in Minneapolis-Saint Paul. His work has also been performed in New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, Houston, in a big blue tent in Northern Wisconsin, an Art Center in Mexico, a theater in Guatemala, a school in Nicaragua, a banana plantation in Honduras and a jungle village in Brazil.
The previous productions have proven this story connects with Vietnam vets but it transcends Vietnam and speaks to the veterans, their families and to all of us today. Again and again at after show “talk backs” audience members have stood up and said, “Thank you for telling this story.”
Fifty-one years on from the Tet Offensive, Tim O’Brien’s book The Things They Carried remains a lyrical testimony to what the war in Vietnam was like day to day for the men who fought it. It has become a classic that captures a sense of the time and place in a voice that is truthful and beautiful and courageous. In David Sitler’s engaging personification of Tim O’Brien’s witness to the reality of combat it’s all there; memory, imagination, love, loss and the redemptive power of storytelling.