A Slight Discomfort

The Florida premier of a play by Jeff Metcalf featuring Paul Kiernan

The Studio@620 is pleased to present the Florida premier of "A Slight Discomfort", a play by award winning play-write Jeff Metcalf featuring Paul Kiernan.

A Funny, Touching, Warm, Informative, Frank, Inspiring, Entertaining Play about ... Prostate Cancer?!  Yes, that's right - an amazing play about prostate cancer.   Award-winning playwright Jeff Metcalf has written a remarkably honest- and outrageously funny - play about his experience with prostate cancer. This one man play follows Jeff's journey from diagnosis at age 54 through his life surviving the disease. “I’m here because of closet space, ritual and humor,” says Metcalf. A Slight Discomfort is about living - really living. Its universal themes and appeal are not limited to men. As one female audience member put it, "I have a prostate - I've been married to the same man for 20 years!" It explores the shared experience of being human and dealing with a crisis with grace and humor. A Slight Discomfort takes us from laughter to tears, from blushing to bravo, from thought to action, from tragedy to triumph. Superb actor Paul Kiernan is Jeff Metcalf. His portrayal makes women want to hug him and men want to have a beer with him. He is everyman.

Featured on NPR's "Hearing Voices"

"Skillful balance of humor and emotion..."  - The Salt Lake Tribune

"...actor Paul Kiernan has the daunting task of bringing ... Metcalf's words to life, which he does with a wonderful mix of humor, fear, vulnerability and defiance.  Kiernan really shines..."  - Deseret News

"... just a note to compliment you on your production...we were informed, entertained, and moved." - David N. Sundwall, MD, Executive Director, Utah Department of Health

"... beautiful and poignant accomplishment ... a masterwork ... his play is funny, irreverent, challenging, sad, tender, and daring: All of which are characteristic of true art."  - Maximilian Werner, University Writing Program, University of Utah

About Paul Kiernan

A proud member of Actor’s Equity Association, Paul Kiernan has worked regional theater, film and TV for the past 22 years. With the Utah Contemporary Theater in Dirty Blonde and Distant Music. He has been seen at Salt Lake Acting Company in; Freedomland, The Memory of Water, The Beard of Avon, Cowboys, Cabbies and Saturdays Voyeur, The Water Project. Moonlight and Magnolias, Skin in Flames and the world premiere of Sexsting. At The Pioneer Theater; One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Peter Pan, MacBeth, Cyrano, Jekyll and Hyde, Ten Little Indians, Julius Caeser, Pride and Prejudice, You Can’t Take I With You. Regionally; Cyrano in Cyrano, Hangar Theater, New York. Three seasons with the Shakespeare Festival of St. Louis in Macbeth, As You Like It and The Tempest. The Great Lakes Theater Festival; Merry Wives of Windsor, You Can’t Take It With You, As you Like It and Amadeus in rotating repertory. Film and Television includes; Blank Slate for TNT, Touched by an Angel, Cover me, Everwood, Roseanne, The HBO Series From the Earth to the Moon, Walker Texas Ranger, SeaQuest DSV. Films; Ice Spiders, The Cell 2, The Moldonado Miracle, Alien Express, Double Teamed, Disney’s Luck of the Irish, Go Figure, Little Secrets. As a writer his plays have been produce in NYC at St. Mark’s in the Bowery, The Orlando Theater Project, Invictus T. C. The Theater company in Orlando and The Boar’s Head Theater. He holds an MFA from Brandeis University.

About Jeff Metcalf

Jeff Metcalf is an award-winning teacher and writer who lives with his wife and two children in Salt Lake City, Utah. A professor of English at The University of Utah, Jeff has been the recipient of the 2008 University of Utah Outstanding Faculty Award, the John Huntsman Award for Excellence in Education, the National Council Teachers of English Outstanding Teacher Award, a Fullbright Memoral Scholar Award, a Writers at Work Lifetime Achievement Award, and many other awards. His fiction, essays, and plays have appeared in numerous local and national magazines. SLAC credits include: WHERE TO? CABBIES, COWBOYS, AND TREE OF THE WEEPING VIRGIN, HOMECOMING, and BETWEEN WORLDS. When he is not teaching or wirting, Metcalf’s free time is spent stalking mercurial trout on the West’s great fly fishing water.