Photo courtesy of New City Players

A struggle is in progress between Megan (Krystal Millie Valdes) and Rick Montgomery (Todd Bruno) in  New City Players’ upcoming production of Stephen Brown’s play, Little Montgomery. 

You may have heard New City Players (NCP) present Stephen Brown’s play, Little Montgomery as a podcast during the height of the pandemic.

Soon, you will have the chance to experience the story as a live, professional, in-person NCP theater production. Specifically, NCP will present its live production from July 7-23 at Island City Stage, 2304 N. Dixie Highway in Wilton Manors. In addition, a preview performance will take place on July 6.

In conjunction with the production, the company will host weekly post-show talkbacks after every Sunday show that further explore the play’s themes.

The show’s title refers to the character Rick Montgomery, a pill-popping country singer whose kidnapping drives the plot. But the perpetrators are not seasoned crooks. Rather, they are two teenage girls, 16-year-old Megan and her not-so-trusty sidekick, Kimmy.

Wind of the incident reaches hardass police chief, Patty, bumbling officer, Larry, and his equally-inept protégé, Chet.

“The madcap game of cat and mouse that ensues is full of hilarious twists and turns that propel this high-octane comedy toward its surprisingly satisfying conclusion,” reads a press release from NCP. “At its core, Little Montgomery is a play about family; chosen family, given family, and the need each of us have to find out where we came from and seek a place we belong. It is heartwarming, hilarious, features a couple wonderful songs, and will give our audiences a couple hours to laugh and escape from it all while also enjoying a poignant story.”

South Florida theater audiences may remember Brown as the author of Everything is Super Great. That play, about loss and grief, experienced its co-world premiere at Theatre Lab in Boca Raton and Off-Broadway at 59E59.

But for Brown, life has hardly been super great. For instance, before he wrote Little Montgomery, he endured severe writer’s block and depression. As a result, Brown stopped communicating with people.

“But the one person who refused to go away was my best friend,” Brown wrote in his playwright’s message on New City Players’ website, newcityplayers.org. That best friend “would talk to me every day and forcibly pump me up with encouragement and love and sunshine and sparkles. He got me through it to the other side. So when my writer’s block finally broke, I was filled with this yearning to be around other people.”

But Brown didn’t only experience yearning. In addition, he felt “gratitude to my best friend for sticking by my side for two years of absolute misery. I had this new understanding of how powerful friendship can be.”

That understanding helped inform his writing in Little Montgomery.

“I just started writing all these people who were yearning for that friendship that was so important to me,” Brown said.

If nothing else, he encourages people who experience Little Montgomery to “send a text to your best friend saying you love them.”

The NCP production’s director is company member Michael Gioia. And the cast will include four company members reprising their roles from the podcast. Namely, they are Elizabeth Price as Patty, Timothy Mark Davis as Chet, Krystal Millie Valdes as Megan, and Casey Sacco as Kimmy. Joining these cast members will be Todd Bruno as Rick Montgomery and Seth Trucks as Larry.

NCP’s production of Little Montgomery will run from July 7-23, and will include a preview performance on July 6. Showtimes will be 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, as well as 3 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Performances will take place at Island City Stage’s intimate playing space at 2304 N. Dixie Highway in Wilton Manors.

Tickets are $35 for adults, $30 for seniors (65+), and $20 for students (under 25 with ID). For performances on Thursday, tickets will cost $20 for all. Opening night tickets will cost an additional $5, and will admit you to the performance and a post-show reception. For tickets, go to www.newcityplayers.org/season or call (954) 376-6114.