'Heartstrings' Plucked at Black Box Theatre

Playwright Puts Four Women's Stories on Stage

Lace valentines and a cast of four actresses concoct "Heartstrings," this weekend's fare at the Black Box Theatre in North Beach.

The love tale, being performed by the Twin Beach Players, is the creation of Phillip Grace, who once aspired to be an architect and a Texas state representative.

"Women need to be loved, wooed, dated. Or at least I think so," Grace said of one the themes of his play.

"Heartstrings," the first play he wrote after years of other artistic pursuits, has been performed at the French Embassy, off-Broadway and in summer theater in North Carolina and Tennessee. It was also produced at Washington's Studio Theater, and it won honors at the Columbia Festival of the Arts in 1997.

The Twin Beach Players' production is directed by Diane Belanger and features Regan Cushman as Anna, Clare O'Shea as Elizabeth, Joanne McDonald as Helen, and Marianne Rude as Barbara.

Cushman's Anna is a middle-aged unmarried woman with a pronounced Southern accent. O'Shea's Elizabeth is in her 50s, has a slight New Jersey accent and holds a glass in her hand much of the time. Helen, played by McDonald, is submissive to her husband at the beginning of the play but becomes a therapist by its end.

Rude has the second act all to herself, playing Barbara, about whom little can be said without revealing too much of the plot.

"I was in my 50s when I wrote this, and had many couple friends where the man treated the woman just terribly," Grace said. "I thought this was pitiful. . . . The first three [characters in Act 1] are various aspects of a woman I was dating. . . . I did interview my former lady friend, as well as others about how they would feel" if this happened to them.

Another friend, Eleanor Nelson, who is secretary of the Arts Council of Calvert, used the term "heartstrings" during a conversation with Grace, and he decided that would be the title.

Nelson met Grace through an event at Arena Stage in Washington. Later, she wrote his r¿sum¿ and edited the "Heartstrings" script.

Before he wrote the play, Grace spent years painting portraits and, with a furniture-maker friend's assistance, turning them into chairs he calls "GraceFolk." Hillary Clinton and Barbara Bush are among the celebrities, athletes and movie stars to have chairs painted of them.

Last year, he wrote a children's book, "The Lizard of Cupcake Lake," which, he said, in true Texan style, "I wish you all would review."

During his varied career, Grace also taught at Georgetown University and has written several books, including one he wrote while teaching at Georgetown, "A Silk Purse From a Sow's Ear: Handbook on Marketing Yourself."

Grace is working on an opera called "Unfinished Sermons, about a 35-year relationship between a liberal minister and a conservative parishioner.

"Heartstrings" will run for two weekends. The show is recommended for mature audiences.

The Twin Beach Players present "Heartstrings" at 8 p.m. Friday and Feb. 22 and at 7 p.m. Saturday and Feb. 23, at the Black Box Theatre, Union Church Education Building, 8912 Chesapeake Ave., in North Beach. Tickets are $15; seniors, students and members, $12. Tickets will be sold at the door a half-hour before curtain, and are also available at Richard's Bayside Florist, Fifth Street and Chesapeake Avenue; and Bayhill Market, 7544 Bayside Rd., Chesapeake Beach, 410-257-0021. For more information, call 443-624-1451 or go to the Twin Beach Players' Web site,http://www.twinbeachplayers.org.