Last Man Club
Axis Company's 20th Anniversary Season
Written & Directed by Randy Sharp
June 5 - 27, 2019Wednesdays - Saturdays at 8PM
Added Performance Monday, June 24 & Tuesday, 25 at 8PM. The June 28 performance has been cancelled.
Adults $30; Seniors/Students $20; Artists/Under 30 $10; First Ten Tickets for each show are $10 | Veterans & Active U.S. Service Members and Their Families, FREE
The Dust Bowl: 1930-1939. While this period in American history has been mythologized for 82 yearsthe most famous images being bread lines and soup kitchens in the cities, and Henry Fonda in his jalopy, driving to the green fields of Californiathe truth is more complex and difficult to comprehend. The Great American Desert of the Texas and Oklahoma plains was an unimaginably blank landscape. Destroyed by the greed of wheat farmers who plowed under the bluestem and buffalo grass that held the dirt in place, the plains blew up into the air in dust storms that packed enough static electricity to power the city of New York. Ten years of drought marked by short rains black with soil made people believe they were truly witnessing the end of the world. For all the thousands who fled this terror, many refused to leave their dust covered farms, even after all the animals died and they were eating bitter roots to survive. Using any means necessary, Axis will bring the sensation of this period to the audience so they not only hear and see this truly American disaster, but feel it as well.
Last Man Club is about one of the desolate families who stayed. With no one else around for a hundred miles, Major's busted family lives in a one room dugout as he tries to reconcile himself to the fact that his own kin has taken the money and run. Out of the biggest storm in the history of the Dust Bowl200 miles wide, 15,000 feet highcome two desperate men promising a way out. Their visit is a welcome break in the grinding routine of storm/quiet/storm/quiet that Wishful Hi, Saromybride and Uncle Pogord have endured under Major's iron, heartbroken hand. But did his brother really get out and away? Who are these people? Where'd that money come from? Will the machine work? Are there lights in the sky?
Running Time is approximately 75 minutes with no intermission.
Last Man Club is about one of the desolate families who stayed. With no one else around for a hundred miles, Major's busted family lives in a one room dugout as he tries to reconcile himself to the fact that his own kin has taken the money and run. Out of the biggest storm in the history of the Dust Bowl200 miles wide, 15,000 feet highcome two desperate men promising a way out. Their visit is a welcome break in the grinding routine of storm/quiet/storm/quiet that Wishful Hi, Saromybride and Uncle Pogord have endured under Major's iron, heartbroken hand. But did his brother really get out and away? Who are these people? Where'd that money come from? Will the machine work? Are there lights in the sky?
Running Time is approximately 75 minutes with no intermission.
Featuring: Spencer Aste, Brian Barnhart, George Demas, Britt Genelin, Jon McCormick and Lynn Mancinelli
writer/director: Randy Sharp
dramaturge: Marc Palmieri
stage manager: Erik Savage
asst. stage manager: Laurie Kilmartin
light designer: David Zeffren
assistant light designer: Amy Harper
original sound designer: Steve Fontaine
additional sound design & score: Paul Carbonara
costume designer: Karl Ruckdeschel
design & set carpentry: Chad Yarborough
prop design/construction: Lynn Mancinelli
production assistant: Natasha Jacoel-Kaminsky
box office manager: Kara Kirby
website & graphic designer: Ethan Crenson
publicity/PR: Blake Zidell & Assoc.
AXIS COMPANY
Artistic Director - Randy Sharp
Producing Director - Brian Barnhart
Executive Producer - Jeffrey Resnick
2013 DRAMA DESK Nomination | Best Sound Design, Steve Fontaine
“ ...(an) atmospheric, expertly structured one-act drama...the Dust Bowl illusion is masterly...(a) story of deception, despair and some surprising aspects of persistent hope.”
“Dust Settlers Follow a Storm”
By Lana Bortolot, The Wall Street Journal
“...Axis Company offers a deeply unsettling sensory overload in their dark and disturbing play about die-hard survivors of the Dust Bowl...'Last Man Club' is 'The Twilight Zone' takes American history, a prairie psychological thriller." ”
Zachary Stewart
“If you are a student of theatrical design, a Dust Bowl history buff, or very drawn to the tragic, then this play is for you.”
Huffington Post
“'The Grapes of Wrath' meets 'The Road Warrior' in the excellent Axis Company production of artistic director Randy Sharp's 'Last Man Club'. ”
This Week In New York
“'Last Man Club'...brings the audience into the heart of America's Dust Bowl in the 1930s...(a) superb production design...extraordinary...remarkable...the spirits, the moods, the notions of 'Last Man Club' and its people are authentic, no matter how far away from New York City in 2012 they may seem to be.”
Martin Denton, NYTheatre.com
“'Last Man Club' is both feeble and full, real and not real, hopeless and hopeful, mean and meek, starved and sated. In other words, the play is many things all at the same time, but mainly a full meal of a theatrical experience that has a depth that only an ensemble group like Axis can bring to it...The actors and the directing are all spot-on bringing their talents to bear, blending the darkness of life with the only thing that keeps us alive, that spark of hope, whether real or imagined.”
The Front Row Center
“There are no sure bets in theater. That's the excitement and reality of live performance and creative risk taking. There are, however, reliable pockets of extraordinary levels of sustained excellence. One can presume a visit to the small Greenwich Village basement space of the Axis Company will include mind-blowing ambiance. 'Last Man Club' beautifully overloads the senses and transports you to the Dust Bowl in the 1930s.”
Joe Lombardi, Broadway World
“...a tense dystopian mood piece from writer/director Randy Sharp at Axis Theater. This one-act historical drama blows in with gale force as Sharp and her creative team unearth the allure and agony of Depression-era manifest destiny compounded by an environmental crisis.”
Derek McCracken, Broadway World
“...the bold standard of boundary-breaking Off-Broadway theatre...with costumes seemingly plucked from Steinbeck's 'The Grapes of Wrath', and a cast of Axis rep veterans, this study in loss and borderline despair may sound bleak on steroids, but I assure you the script, direction (both by Randy Sharp), design, and actors elevate it to something as raw as it is wistful, wrapped in humor and drama.”
City Guide New York
WATCH the trailer from LAST MAN CLUB (2019)