Little League manager faces bleak future in Players Centre world premiere

Douglas Gearhart works as a military intelligence analyst who describes himself as “very much an outsider in the theater world.”

But he is finding some success as a playwright. He is the author of six plays, and one of them, “The Manager,” won the 2020 Players Centre New Play Festival and will have its world premiere July 28-31.

The plot of “The Manager” revolves around Rusty (played by Scott Ehrenpreis), an out of work middle-aged Little League baseball manager who has apocalyptic visions. His marriage is failing and now, in his last year as a coach, he is wondering what it will all mean for his relationship with his son, Axl (played by Jhonny Lopez-Lopez), a struggling youth baseball player. The play leans into many of the themes prevalent in Gearhart’s five other works, particularly marriage and parenthood.

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Gearhart said he came up with the story in 2019 via “the germ of an idea.” Drawing on childhood memories from Little League baseball, Gearhart put together the script that will be the first of his works to actually become an on-stage production.

A Maryland native, Gearhart had a long journey to becoming a playwright. He has worked as a mental health counselor, a soldier, a bellhop and an intelligence analyst, with each job shaping his perspective and influencing his writing.

His three tours in Iraq, in 2003, 2006 and 2009, particularly shaped his writing.

“Those kinda things inform what I’ve written, simply because that’s my experience,” Gearhart said. “I started putting things down and thinking about writing plays a long time ago.”

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What started as Gearhart just jotting down ideas became a true hobby about six years ago, as he began to write full-length scripts. Among Gearhart’s other plays are “The Fat Sergeant,” “Buckets of Rain,” “Just Like Stealing” and “Bottom Lip (Moral Waiver).”

“The Manager” was presented as a reading at the 2020 Players Centre New Play Festival, featuring works by area writers, and was selected as the winner. That distinction comes with a full production at the Players Centre, typically the following summer.

But due to the pandemic, the Players Centre has been behind schedule.” Last month, the theater presented the 2019 winner, “Damaged Goods” by Ron Pantello. Next summer, the theater hopes to present the 2021 and 2022 winners.

Director Amanda Schlachter, an assistant professor of theater at State College of Florida, acknowledged that while the delay has not been ideal, there is a bright side.

“I think in a lot of ways, it’s given (Gearhart) more space to kind of be able to sit with the script, and then hearing it out of actors’ mouths and us having discussions about it, he’s able to be like ‘Oh, yeah, yeah,’ or it’s not even rewriting, some of it’s just restructuring a little bit,” Schlachter said.

Gearhart agreed. The Tampa resident has made the hourlong drive to the Players Centre for most rehearsals, which has given him a chance to talk about the script with Schlachter and the cast and make changes.

“It’s amazing to me. Writing is a lonely process, but when you put it out there and actors start speaking out loud ... I’d say the play has developed considerably even from the version that won the festival,” he said.

The play features a minimalist set, with Schlachter saying the action takes place in a Little League dugout and field. Plus, the cast consists of only four actors (plus two understudies). On stage alongside Ehrenpreis and Lopez-Lopez are Kenji Trujilo as Rusty’s wife, Meghan, and Josh Brin as Rusty’s friend Brett. The set is by Justice Wickstrom, the theater company’s new production manager. Diana Cepeda is the stage manager.

“It's nice, because it’s so intimate,” Schlachter said. “And I think that when you have a cast that’s so reliant on each other, I mean, all acting, in my opinion, is about connection. It’s about how people talk and listen, it’s about being present with one another.”

Schlachter hopes the Players production will be the first of many for “The Manager.”

“The audiences that will come to the Manager, they’ll be seeing the world premiere,” she said. “And so that’s exciting. Because 10 years from now, when it’s being produced at whatever theater in Chicago, (you can say), ‘Yeah, I saw the world premiere, I was one of the cast members,’ that kind of thing.”

‘The Manager’

By Douglas Gearhart. Directed by Amanda Schlachter. Runs July 28-31 at the Players Centre for Performing Arts, Crossings at Siesta Key, 3501 S. Tamiami Trail, Sarasota, Suite 1130. 941-365-2494; theplayers.org

This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Players Centre: Baseball and the future at the heart of ‘The Manager’