Saturday night date: One-act festival on Bainbridge

Bainbridge Performing Arts has the perfect cure for this Saturday night’s “do something” jitters: a one-act festival featuring local talent. The festival is presented by Dinah Manoff, a film, television and stage actress who teaches acting at the BPA. She has selected innovative and challenging one-act plays from both familiar and obscure playwrights and has recruited the best talent the island has to offer.

The Saturday, Jan. 23 event starts at 7 p.m. and includes the following plays:

“Judgment Call" by Frederick Stroppel, a play tha takes an ironic look into the world of baseball umpires by a New York-based playwright;
“Little Miss Fresno” by Ara Watson and Mary Gallagher deals hilariously with two very competitive mothers whose daughters are in the semi-finals of a local moppet beauty contest;
“The Fool" (or "The Retired Captain") by Anton Chekov is a short piece between a man and the matchmaker he employs to find a wife;
“This Property Is Condemned” by Tennessee Williams is a play written in 1946 and expanded into the film of the same name starring Natalie Wood and Robert Redford in 1966;
“Check Please” by Jonathan Rand follows a series of blind dinner dates that couldn’t get any worse — until they do.

Born in New York City to actress Lee Grant and writer Arnold Manoff, Dinah Manoff won both Theater World and Tony Award as Best Featured Actress for her performance in the Broadway production of Neil Simon’s I Ought To Be In Pictures, and she reprised the role in the motion picture of the same title. She has numerous theater credits, including Broadway plays, as well as television and film roles.

Cost: $10; addess: 200 Madison Avenue N, Bainbridge Island; for tickets call (206) 842-8569

For more details about the festival,cast or Bainbridge Performing Arts, go to http://www.bainbridgeperformingarts.org/