By ANGELA RUIZ
Anyone who attended one of the Red Bank Charter School musical or theater productions in the mid to late 2010s likely remembers one particular kid who always seemed to sing her heart out with a huge smile and full-throated gusto.
Now that enthusiastic former kid, Faith King, is finding success writing plays of her own. And this week is a big one for her.
King, a Red Bank Charter School alumna and current senior acting major at West Virginia University, was recently awarded a $5,000 grant through the Broadway Licensing New Works Grant Program to produce her newest play, “Dead and Gone”. It debuts tomorrow on the WVU campus.
She will also see one of her plays brought to life closer to home this week, with a reading of her play “Floor Five” as part of “An Evening of One Acts” by the Stone Church Players, Friday in the Navesink section of Middletown. (click here for details)
Faith King
The one-act “Dead and Gone” surrounds the story of childhood best friends and neighbors, Ben and Fi, throughout a series of car rides in the week leading up to the funeral for Ben’s father. Ben and Fi share this time to navigate what their relationship with each other, as well as their relationship to Ben’s late father, looks like post-mortem. “Dead and Gone” offers its audience a brilliant story on overcoming shared tragedies — a message everybody will eventually relate to.
The production will run April 24–27 at the Antoinette E. Falbo Theater on the campus of WVU. Paired with the reading at the picturesque All Saints Memorial Church in Navesink, it marks a milestone moment for the young playwright that feels both personal and full-circle.
“I grew up doing theater like how other people grew up playing soccer,” King said.
“It’s such an honor to have two theaters that I really admire performing my plays,” she continued. “But I also feel as if there’s a large sense of accomplishment in it. Of course, nothing ever gets done alone, but to have a show premiering both in the place that I grew up in — literally — and one artistically has been… magical. There’s magic in the air this weekend, I feel like.”
Undoubtedly, Red Bank is a major scene for the arts, and growing up in such an environment helped foster King’s creativity and success in theater:
“I’m the luckiest girl in the world to be from Red Bank. There is art everywhere in Red Bank, and I was eager to find it,” King said. “I like to think that there’s a little bit of Red Bank in everything that I write.”
Reporter Angela Ruiz is a student at Monmouth County Communications High School.
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