Asheville’s Attic Salt Theatre Company announces the production of the affecting drama Lies, written by Jerry Slaff. Performances will be held Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. and Sundays at 2:30 p.m., from April 21 through April 30.
“A minimal production set solely in a prison interrogation room, Lies forces the viewer to concentrate on the two protagonists and try to discern what is the truth and who is the villain,” says the play’s director Jeff Catanese. “I want audience members to examine their own biases and how they affect what each of us takes at face value without question.”
Lies first came to Attic Salt through the 2020 Rising Star Playwriting Contest. It has won several playwriting awards including the Grand Prize at the 88th annual Writer’s Digest Writing Competition in 2019 and PlayFest Santa Barbara in April 2022. The show received its first full staging with LAB Theater Project, in Tampa, FL, in 2020.
The play revolves around Benny, a fresh-out-of-law-school public defender assigned a compelling case: to win the parole of a notorious German World War II radio propagandist who has a hard time telling the truth. Although set in the 1950s, the play deals with questions about truth that are very relevant today.
As the show plays out, the audience is asked to discern what is true and what is not, although the definitions seem to keep changing.
“I am very interested in the exploration of truth versus lies that runs through the play in general, but particularly through the character Beebee, whom I play,” says actor Christy Montesdeoca. “The question becomes whether her words are to be believed as her personal truth or her chosen lies?”
Jered Jackson Shults co-stars with Montesdeoca in Lies. Both have worked on many plays for Attic Salt over the past ten years. Nichole Sumpter serves as stage manager.
Tickets for Lies are $20 and are available at AtticSalt.org.
