5x10 Funny is two actors performing five 10-minute plays in less than 60 minutes. Don’t worry about the math; they’re all funny. All in different ways: a literary fantasy, a play about actors, mime, Shakespeare fan fiction and finally a dangerous comedy to close out the show. All five plays are about power from playwrights across the United States, and all appeared in the Stage It! 10-Minute Play Festival to rave reviews and audience response.
Melissa Hennig is excited to be sharing the stage with Frank, who is responsible for getting her back on stage in 2017 after a twenty-year hiatus. Even though her only other acting credits prior to 2017 were the Miller in Rumpelstiltskin in the 4th grade, and a summer of scripted bird shows in 1997, as a child, she played endless rounds of charades and “Make Me Laugh” with her three siblings and dreamed of becoming the next Carol Burnett. The same biology degree that qualified her to care for captive hawks and falcons brought her to Naples for an internship with The Conservancy of Southwest Florida, where she met and married her husband of twenty-five years. Together they have one son. Melissa now works for Collier County government where she has been with the Conservation Collier Program for over twenty years. Instead of caring for captive birds, she now cares for wild birds by acquiring and managing land that provides them with habitat. She can also be found in the woods talking to the wildlife in both their native tongue and English, but they usually don’t respond to English unless she yells really loud. Melissa loves performing in short plays and was lucking enough to have performed in all 7 annual Stage It! 10-Minute Play Festivals produced by Frank from 2017-2023. It is a treat for her to be able to bring these five wonderful plays to life. Some of her favorite roles in full-length plays over the years include Mrs. Peacock in Clue on Stage and Jeremy/Brother Venerius in The Divine Sister at the Center for the Arts Bonita Springs and Clown 1 in The 39 Steps at the Marco Arts Center Theatre. Melissa would like to recognize all the wonderful friends she’s made over the years performing 10-minute plays at the Center for the Arts Bonita Springs. We had a blast! Thank you for the memories.
Frank Blocker is making his third appearance at Fringe Fort Myers where his solo works won Best of Venue in the first two Fringe iterations. An actor and playwright, he made his Off-Broadway debut in both disciplines with the comedy Eula Mae’s Beauty, Bait & Tackle. His other Off-Broadway plays include Suite Atlanta, Southern Gothic Novel (New York Drama Desk Award nomination), Stabilized Not Controlled, and just last summer, Good Jew premiered at the Museum of Jewish History. He frequently appears locally at Naples’ TheatreZone, most recently appearing in Jersey Boys. Frank has compiled and edited ten volumes of short plays honoring other playwrights and is happy to bring back some of the best scripts from the Stage It! 10-Minute Play Festivals because audiences love ‘em. He is a member of Actors’ Equity Association, SAG/AFTRA and The Dramatists Guild. A California-born, Arizona and Oklahoma-raised, Atlanta actor, who did the “New York thing” for more than a decade, his New York credits include Roderick Usher in Steven Berkoff’s Fall of the House of Usher, Mr. Peachum in The Beggar’s Opera, Brecht’s Edward II, The Don Quixote Project, and Obie-winning West Village/East Village Fragments. Regional credits include The Mystery of Edwin Drood, The Divine Sister, Me and My Girl and Amadeus. He is Assistant Pastor at Jubilee Fellowship of Naples, Florida, where he now lives with his partner, artist/thinker Ted de Clercq, and retired greyhound racer, Razmus in their own tropical paradise of a yard.
You may also like the following events from Alliance for the Arts:
Also check out other
Arts events in Fort Myers,
Theatre events in Fort Myers,
Performances in Fort Myers.
