Pictured: left to right- Jonathan Fielding, Deyki Ronge,Alex Pelletier and Greg Weiner in Westminster. Photo by Sorcha Augustine.

Issues of class, social prejudices and good breeding run amok in the world premiere of Westminster at Urbanite Theatre. The play by Brenda Withers was the winner of Urbanite’s 2023 Modern Works Festival and is one of three world premieres at the black-box theater this season.

“Westminster did win the festival, audiences really responded to it and this is our second play coming out of the festival that has won that has moved from a script reading into a full fledged production,” says Summer Wallace, founding producing artistic director at Urbanite and director of the show. “I wish we could produce all of the other winners as well but sometimes we just can’t because of what the set calls for and it just doesn’t fit in our little gem of a space. This season I was also particularly looking for a comedy that has bite, no pun intended and this one really fits the bill.”

Wallace says “no pun intended” because Westminster is in part a story about a dog. The story begins when one of the main characters, Pia, is given a surprise rescue dog by her old friend Krys. The pair and their respective partners then square off in an ideological battle: why should Pia look after a boisterous rescue that she didn’t ask for? Why would Krys assume that this is an appropriate gesture? And what happens when two childhood friends, who attended college together, reconnect under such fraught circumstances?

“We find out over the course of the play what Pia and Krys really think of each other and through this challenge of this dog that Pia may or may not want, the truth of who they are as people and as friends gets revealed. The playwright really is playing with acceptable social prejudices,” says Wallace. “What happens when we leave our biases unchecked and cling to our point of view on the world and always make things someone else’s problem as opposed to accepting any personal responsibility for anything?”

March 22 to April 28, 1487 2nd Street, Sarasota, 941-321-1397.

Pictured: left to right- Jonathan Fielding, Deyki Ronge,Alex Pelletier and Greg Weiner in Westminster. Photo by Sorcha Augustine.

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