Success Stories
Creative Heights Society has proudly supported the following stage and screen productions:
2024• Dovetail Actors Studio • “ZORA!” by Laurence Holder
This play ignites the spirit of Zora Neale Hurston. A small-town southern girl who longed to go to school and embraced her financial disparities by enrolling in high school with one change of underwear, one dress, and one pair of shoes. In January 1925, with $1.50 in her purse and a dream, Zora moved to Harlem and became the first black woman to study at Barnard/Columbia University, rose to fame as a writer, helped pioneer the Harlem Renaissance literary movement, secured a Guggenheim Fellowship Award to study in Haiti, Jamaica and throughout the gulf coast and ultimately became one of the world’s greatest literary geniuses.
2024 • Stephen Sheffer • “Lean-To”
Lean-To is a full-length play about three strangers who meet in the forest and spend a night together in a rustic, lean-to shelter. When the trio comes together around the warmth of a campfire, the spark that ignites between them becomes too hot to handle. The trio fragments but not before they experience the joy of authentic connection. Lean-To tells the story of three characters who are looking for their path – the wild world around them & the wild world inside of them. The trio experiences the joy of authentic connection...but then things go too far.
2024 • Lubomir Rzepka • "Coney Island Nursery Rhyme"
Based on a true story set in the 1920s, the play follows the esteemed incubator-doctor, showman, and unofficial father of Neonatology, Martin A. Couney. In a time where a eugenics-focused medical culture refused to employ incubator technology, Martin A. Couney took it upon himself to save premature babies in his own incubators at a sideshow at Coney Island where funds were used to hire nurses and essentially create an unofficial hospital. We focus on Beatrice Winthrop, a woman from the American gentry who seeks Couney's assistance after giving birth prematurely.
The story is an homage to an important, peculiar, and nearly forgotten part of history. It is a reflection on the nature of truth and trust, and perhaps most importantly, it is a meditation on what it means to “do the right thing” and how doing the right thing isn’t entirely free of consequence.
2024 • Christine Covode • Dear Mom, Sorry For Being a Bitch
Is a one-woman show (with guests) love letter and apology to her mom! The show focus on the arc of Christine’s life and relationship with her mom at various stops along the way. This coming-of-age show brings you into Christine’s distressed teenage mind as she slowly grows to love and understand the person who was always by her side. Retells each bitchy phrase of her life with honesty, Humor, and deep apology. You will leave the theatre wanting to give your mom a big ol’hug.
2024 • Amelia Hucker-Bauer • “All She Cares About is the Yankees” by John Ford Noonan
With help from friends on the outside, passion for baseball, and tons of grit, Spanky attempts to escape 43 days of self imposed isolation.
2024 • Michelle Risse •
“Unmasked”
In this musical, an archeology student presents her dean four diaries found in her most recent dig in Times Square, proving that everyone has a story to be valued and remembered.
2023 • Megan Higley •
“The Last Thing to Go”
Emily and Lorraine are experiencing a similar loss: both of their brothers died a few months ago. However, the nature of those deaths is vastly different. As these two women meet for the first time, they explore themes of grief, love, longing, and human connection.
2023 • Sam Kuhn • "THE ACTING LESSON."
By chance, three American meet in Paris, none of whom know how to act - either n life, theater, or Paris itself.
From the set of “Nana”
2023 • Hillary Carrigan • “NANA”
After leaving a toxic relationship, Natalie forms a connection with her estranged and newly widowed grandmother through a series of Sunday lunches.
2023 • Laura Feder and Kiirsten Marilyn • “Road to Ellen”
Faye, Celia and Geoffrey, 30ish-year-old artists struggling to survive in New York, face the realities of life in the concrete jungle, wondering if they made the right decision to follow their dreams.
Make it stand out
Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
2023 • Stephen T. Shore • “The Jump Shot”
A local bar outside of Winston-Salem, North Carolina is struggling to keep the lights on. Over the course of a single night, a lively ensemble of
outcasts come face-to-face with an event that will change their lives forever.
2022 • Jack Mulahy • “Gentle Boy”
A young African American tryies to navigate his painful upbringing through his photography. Isaiah is about to experience the first professional success of his young career. But sometimes generational trauma has other plans.
2022 • Loring Murtha and Martini Boy Entertainment • “Pearly Gates”
Patricia bites off more than she and Todd can chew when she agrees to let Rebecca's aunt Pearl stay with them for what turns into an open ended visit. As tensions run high and personalities clash, we get a peek at the generational differences, and missed opportunities that can result from preconceived notions.
Photo from the movie “Stag” supported by Creative Heights Society.
2022 • Alexandra Spieth • "STAG" is a horror-comedy movie about an urban loner who must fight for a chance at redemption when she attends her estranged BFF's bachelorette party. The film features themes of gaslighting, assault, and female politics.
2022 • “ABIGAIL” by Sarah Tuft • When a renowned stage actress hires her Hollywood husband to direct “The Crucible” on Broadway and he casts a YouTube star as Abigail Williams, the influencer’s objections to the role’s misogyny upend the play and all its players. ABIGAIL asks if we can really separate Art from Artist, while also offering a portrait of a marriage and an exploration of intergenerational conflict between women when sex, gender, and power collide.
2022 • Antigun Unit • “Sitting by Yourself Under the Cherry Tree” • A new play. When Kelly, a young addict on the run from the police, stumbles upon a summer arts festival, it rekindles her passion for art and her own lost promise.
2022 • Chain Theatre • “For My Very Own” The Chain Theatre’s One Act Festival production of Emma Lefkowitz’s play For My Very Own.
The Drama Company’s production of Michel-Marc Bouchard’s play “Lilies”