ACT TWO (KIMBERLY STUART)

Forty-year-old Sadie Maddox is an opera singer but isn't quite getting the high volume audience turn-out that she did when she was younger. Sadie called a meeting with Avi Feldman, a high falutin agent who Sadie said only signed: "...a new client only if six-figures were involved". She whole-heartedly agreed with Avi that she needed: "...a late career reinvention." Avi wanted Sadie to leave New York, go to Iowa and teach voice at Moravia College in Maplewood. Sadie was not impressed and this was not at all what she was expecting for a "career reinvention".

Supposedly, Avi had rented a bungalow for Sadie to live in while she was in Iowa. However, when Sadie deplanes she is met by someone from the University who tells her she's sorry but the bungalow had been sold, there is only one hotel in town and it's booked with students so Sadie will be staying with a family on a pig farm! For Sadie, this was akin to telling Queen Elisabeth that she had to live in an outhouse.

Then Sadie meets Mac, a veterinarian and she assumes they have nothing in common. He is a total country music fan and she's counting the days until she can return to New York. When the semester ends, Sadie packs up and decamps for the city that never sleeps then finds she can't sleep either. Will Sadie find the courage and grace she needs to embrace her Act Two?

April 25, 2011