PLAYBACK TO PREMIERE AT HOLLYWOOD FRINGE FESTIVAL

Playback

Los Angeles-based This Is A Front has announced the world premiere of PLAYBACK by Jessica Marie Fisher, directed by Producing Artistic Director Brian Eckert. It runs June 13, 15, and 28 at The Broadwater Main Stage as part of the Hollywood Fringe Festival.

It’s time for “Expiration Date,” Charlie’s latest viral podcast in which she interviews former couples about the demise of their relationships… starting with her own. But when information her ex-boyfriend doesn’t want released is shared without his consent, a dangerous power struggle ensues. PLAYBACK is a tense, controversial drama about narrative control, the violence of being turned into content, and our need to replay relationships better left in the past.

The company last produced a show in the Hollywood Fringe Festival in 2024 with “Mikvah Girls” by Emmy Weissman, also directed by Eckert, which won multiple awards, including the Fringe Award for Drama. It was also a finalist for the Top of Fringe and the International Fringe Encore Series hosted by SoHo Playhouse.

PLAYBACK is the second production as part of the company’s first fully-programmed season, Break-Up Season, a series of productions and events staging private relationships in public settings and examining why we can’t let go.

“We’re so excited to present this brand new play right off the success of ‘Keep Yourself Safe, or U-Haul Play’” says Eckert. “Both productions explore what it’s like to be seen by a partner and how we act when that’s threatened. In Playback, this is taken to an extreme. Exes are reuniting after ten years with cameras and microphones on from the start. Jess is asking some provocative questions here about consent, deservingness, and our pervasively digital age. I’m thrilled to hear a first audience’s response ."

The cast includes Everleigh Brenner (TIAF’s “A Public Reading of an Unproduced Screenplay about the Death of Walt Disney” and “Jackie”), Jack Menzies, Jimmy Berry, and Kylie Buckles-Hall. Brenner also serves as co-producer, alongside Eckert and Fisher.

Carly DW Bones serves as Intimacy Director and Amelia Anello designs sound.

Fisher’s other recent plays include “Scrambled Eggs,” which has been performed by companies in LA, West Virginia, and Arizona, and “Another Reason Not to Go,” which was recently produced by Flicker and Flame Theatre Group in Atwater. “Another Reason Not to Go” was the runner-up for Savage Wonder’s Full Length Play Competition and a finalist for both the Lanford Wilson New American Play Festival and Epiphanies New Play Festival.

PLAYBACK runs June 13, 15, & 28 at The Broadwater Main Stage (1076 Lillian Way, Los Angeles, CA 90038) as part of the annual Hollywood Fringe Festival.