Scandalous!

A Central Virginia native is bringing her work to Lynchburg this weekend.

Courtney Sale, a 1997 Amherst County High School grad, is directing “The Scandal!” a one-woman show scheduled for three performances at Randolph College: 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday.

Sale lives in New York and is the co-founder of a theater group called The Management.

Directing “The Scandal!” — written by playwright Kristen Kosmas — is a dream come true for Sale. The first time she saw it was about eight years ago in Seattle.

“I absolutely loved the play, and I knew at some point, I would be working on it,” she says.

“Kristen really has the ability to give the introvert’s voice. It’s a very literary piece. It’s really poetic.”

The play centers on Pink, a small-town woman who has decided to kill herself when she turns 33.

“She’s devised the perfect, poetic suicide plan for herself,” Sale says, adding that Pink plans to do it “Virginia Wolfe-style, taking herself out into the ocean to drown.”

But everything changes when Pink hits 30, and a mysterious stranger breezes through town.

Sale says he pulls Pink out of her shell and makes her reconsider the plan.

Amy Patrice Golden, a Los Angeles-based actress and Management co-founder, plays Pink.

“She’s an odd little duck,” Golden says. “She lives in a very small and very elemental world.”

That world is thrown into a tailspin once the stranger shows up.

“She learns to feel joy, and it’s really lovely,” Golden says.

“The play … speaks to every person that if you live in the moment, if you’re there, the most amazing things can happen.”

Golden has been staying with Sale in New York during rehearsals, and it’s a formula that’s worked for them.

“I have to live with all my actors from now on,” Sale jokes.

“We’ve been able to dig deeper into the script because we’ve been able to have this back and forth.”

They’re currently performing the play in New York.

The Management is one of the resident companies of the Horse Trade Theater Group, which operates three spaces in the East Village.

After the shows here this weekend, Golden will bring it to Los Angeles.

“The shows that we do, I think, are the kind of shows that can travel,” says Golden, who is also The Management’s executive director.

“I think they speak to people in a very personal way.”

“So many people in New York are trying to make a name for themselves and have an edge,” she adds. “We’re very cozy people.”

If you’re going--WHAT: ‘The Scandal!’
--WHEN: 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday
--WHERE: Randolph College’s Thoresen Theatre
--TICKETS: $12 general admission. Tickets can be purchased at the door (cash only) or online at www.LynchburgTickets.com