PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — A new theater company in Philadelphia is working to bring a new approach to storytelling.
Philly native R.T. Bowersox is one of the original on-air personalities for QVC, the TV shopping network based in West Chester.
But a few years back, he retired from that gig, moved to Florida and started writing plays.
“My dad was on Broadway so I have that in the blood, and I’m a playwright and screenwriter by training from UCLA,” said Bowersox.
“I couldn’t get the theaters down there to produce my plays, so I just started producing my own.”
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In 2010, he founded TheatreXP in Key West.
“I rented other theaters during their dark times and put my shows on, which seemed to catch on,” he said.
“We had a 10-year run down there. Produced over 40 different shows, created some new types of theater down there, and did quite well.”
The call of home brought Bowersox and his wife, actor/writer Melody Moore, back to Philadelphia. Over the last few months, TheatreXP has had small performances at the Fringe Arts Festival and Playpenn.
Now here in Philadelphia, he is producing Crossing the Veil, a feature set at a funeral where a man’s family reflects on his life.
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He says the play features a unique writing style, one he’s developing and hopes to implement in other works. It uses simultaneous monologues and dialogues.
“This will be the first feature full-fledged play that we’re going to produce here,” he said.
“It's the story of a man’s spirit. His spirit appears in the viewing room just as his ex-wife, his son and his daughter come in to pay their last respects. They can’t see or hear him, but he can see and hear them.”
The play is scheduled to run at the newly-refurbished Plays and Players Theater in Philadelphia from Nov. 4-26.