FORT WORTH, Texas — “The World According to Ives 2025” — four short plays by David Ives — runs Nov. 6-8 at 7:30 p.m. at the Joe B. Rushing Center for the Performing Arts Mainstage at Tarrant County College South. Admission is free.
The plays are presented by special arrangement with Dramatists Play Service, Inc., New York. Director of Theater Lindy Benton-Muller first put Ives’ work on the TCC South stage 19 years ago and decided it was time for more. “Some of these short plays I’ve waited more than 30 years to stage!”
Ives, 75, is an American playwright, screenwriter and novelist perhaps best known for his comic one-act plays. Vincent Canby in The New York Times called him “wizardly … magical and funny … a master of language.” Peter Marks, also of the Times, hailed Ives as “a maestro of the short form.”
Mere Mortals eavesdrops on three construction workers on lunch hour as they share increasingly amazing secrets — all while perched on a girder 50 stories up.
Joe: Jack Pruett
Charlie: Shaye Klingensmith
Frank: Zach Zare
The Universal Language brings together Dawn, a young woman with a stutter, and Don, the creator and teacher of Unamunda, a wild comic language. After their lesson sends them into a dazzling display of hysterical verbal pyrotechnics, their relationship begins to change.
Dawn: Haley Sutter
Don: Eduardo Ibarra
Young Man: Zach Zare
The Philadelphia features a young man at a restaurant where he has fallen into a “Philadelphia,” a Twilight Zone-like state in which he cannot get anything he asks for.
Al: Shaye Klingensmith
Waitress: Briana Britt
Mark: Jack Pruett
In Sure Thing, two people meet in a cafe and find their way through a conversational minefield as an offstage bell interrupts their false starts, gaffes and faux pas on their way to finding love.
Bill: Zach Zare
Betty: Haley Sutter
Bell: Eduardo Ibarra
In addition to this cast, the Carillon Theater Company includes Vaushawn Brown, Miranda Lemoine and Arleen Martinez.
Celebrating 60 years of excellence and impact in 2025, Tarrant County College is one of the nation’s largest higher education institutions and boasts the second lowest tuition of Texas’ Top 10 community colleges. A comprehensive community college with six campuses in Tarrant County, TCC offers a range of opportunities for learners of all ages and backgrounds.