Liz Bussey Fentress

Liz Bussey Fentress

Liz Fentress is an award-winning playwright, director and actor. Most recently her play STAGES OF BLOOM premiered in Bowling Green, KY, followed by a production in Louisville. Kentucky Educational Television's production of LIZ'S CIRCUS STORY which Liz wrote and performs, won the National Educational Television Association's award for Best Dramatic Narrative. Liz has also received playwriting...
Liz Fentress is an award-winning playwright, director and actor. Most recently her play STAGES OF BLOOM premiered in Bowling Green, KY, followed by a production in Louisville. Kentucky Educational Television's production of LIZ'S CIRCUS STORY which Liz wrote and performs, won the National Educational Television Association's award for Best Dramatic Narrative. Liz has also received playwriting awards from the Kentucky Arts Council and the Kentucky Foundation for Women.

Plays

  • STAGES OF BLOOM
    Following a troubling experience at church, ninety-year old Edith Jones looks to her award-winning roses for comfort. On a Friday night in September, joined by her hapless “yard-man,” a rigid brother-in-law, and a young college student and her Marine Corps boyfriend, in the backyard of her Victorian-era home, Edith struggles to assemble an entry for her very last rose show. A hybrid tea in perfect exhibition...
    Following a troubling experience at church, ninety-year old Edith Jones looks to her award-winning roses for comfort. On a Friday night in September, joined by her hapless “yard-man,” a rigid brother-in-law, and a young college student and her Marine Corps boyfriend, in the backyard of her Victorian-era home, Edith struggles to assemble an entry for her very last rose show. A hybrid tea in perfect exhibition form fails to hold the answers to her hard questions but, come Sunday morning, an enlightened Edith and her newfound friends are all ready to celebrate their own evolving “stages of bloom.”
  • THE HONEY HARVEST
    Melissa Holt has wanted to keep bees since, as a child, a Czech farmwoman told her that when times are good, honeybees sing. Now in her mid-twenties and the sole caregiver for her ailing father, Melissa sets up a beehive in the backyard and learns life-changing lessons: she installs package bees, catches a swarm during a thunderstorm, and harvests her first miraculous honey crop. She also learns the bees have...
    Melissa Holt has wanted to keep bees since, as a child, a Czech farmwoman told her that when times are good, honeybees sing. Now in her mid-twenties and the sole caregiver for her ailing father, Melissa sets up a beehive in the backyard and learns life-changing lessons: she installs package bees, catches a swarm during a thunderstorm, and harvests her first miraculous honey crop. She also learns the bees have their own ways and can’t be controlled. Melissa’s father rests beneath the most beautiful wind-blown white pine in all of western Wisconsin—-and the bees sing.
  • STRIKE ZONE
    It’s summer in a small Wisconsin town, and Beth Zeeman, with her new husband and new job, thinks she’s finally found her place in the world. But when a cop confirms troubling rumors, Beth is faced with the challenge of a lifetime: define who she really is, and what she really stands for.
  • LIZ'S CIRCUS STORY
    An autobiographical, one-actor play, LIZ'S CIRCUS STORY spans 23 years. At 21, just out of college, Liz takes a job as ring mistress, organist, and puppet show performer with the Franzen Bros. Circus, a brand-new, one-ring circus. Its founder, Wayne Franzen, had dreamed of starting a circus since he was a boy on a Wisconsin dairy farm. While portraying herself, Wayne, and an array of other circus...
    An autobiographical, one-actor play, LIZ'S CIRCUS STORY spans 23 years. At 21, just out of college, Liz takes a job as ring mistress, organist, and puppet show performer with the Franzen Bros. Circus, a brand-new, one-ring circus. Its founder, Wayne Franzen, had dreamed of starting a circus since he was a boy on a Wisconsin dairy farm. While portraying herself, Wayne, and an array of other circus characters and animals, Liz shares the trials and triumphs of the fledgling circus and her own efforts to pursue her dream of working in theatre.