photographs by Barry Wisdom /     Writer’s block has stymied everyone at one time or another. Remember those fourth-grade book reports that had us biting our nails and chewing our pencils? It’s no different for those masochistic enough to choose playwriting as a profession. Some may attempt to lubricate their path to inspiration with hot buttered rum (heavy on the butter, even heavier on the rum). A fortunate few, however, are able to navigate the blockade and find their way to an emergency slide. Sometimes said slide is an express ride that leaves them sitting with a good play in less time than it takes to compose a grocery list. Count David Mitchell Robinson, author of “Carapace”

photographs by Barry Wisdom / Longtime B Street Theatre patrons are used to seeing company members Kurt Johnson and Jamie Jones light up the stage – usually as boyfriend-girlfriend or husband and wife. Since their first pairing in 1996 – in Anthony Clarvoe’s sweet-and-funny romcom “Let’s Play Two” – Johnson estimates he and Jones have played opposite one another 12 times. With the Family Series production of Lois Lowry’s “Anastasia Krupnik,” which runs Jan. 12 through Feb. 17, Jones and Johnson are making it a baker’s dozen of shared theatrical memories at the B Street, though they actually met back in 1992 while performing at the Utah Shakespeare Festival. While they socialized offst

photographs by Barry Wisdom / Go ahead and Google “Hansel and Gretel,” and nearly 200,000 results will pop up – results that feature such headlines as: “a tale of childhood terror”; “maternal cannibalism”; “gruesome fairy tales”; and “a tale dark and Grimm.” Nothing like a soothing, happy-go-lucky story before bedtime. Happily, in adapting Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm’s 1812 classic about a runaway brother and sister and their wicked encounter with a wand-wielding witch, B Street Theatre Associate Producer-Resident Playwright Jerry R. Montoya (and young son Malachi) have given the two-dimensional story a hilarious and heartfelt makeover. In replacing the Grimms’ original series of nightmare

  It’s a common bedtime plea: “Just one story!” Usually, it’s a child making the request of his or her mother or father. But when Jerry R. Montoya, associate producer and contributing playwright for the B Street Theatre, came down with a major case of writer’s block, it was his son, Malachi, who was getting the “Pretty-please-tell-me-a-story” treatment. “I was working on a stage adaptation of ‘Hansel & Gretel,’” began Montoya. “Like many of the Grimm fairytales, it’s very short with not a lot of backstory, told in a straight line with a clear message.” “One night, I was re-outlining the plot and waiting for inspiration,” Montoya continued. “I was kind of moving forward, but without a

Photographs by Barry Wisdom “I can’t image anyone working harder,” actor Phil Cowan said of director Elisabeth Nunziato during a break in rehearsals for “Shining City,” the Conor McPherson dramedy that opened on the B Street Theatre’s B3 stage Sunday. “She’s very passionate about her work,” echoed Kevin Karrick, who plays Ian, a Dublin-based priest-turned-therapist whose first patients include Cowan’s character, John, a widower haunted (perhaps literally) by memories of his recently deceased wife. But Ian’s troubles extend beyond his patients’ problems, as he deals with his own commitment issues with girlfriend Neasa (Holly Dale). Nunziato, a B Street company member whose own B Street h