Frozen Masterpieces

Written by Elena Naskova

Reading on Tuesday, March 26, 2024

Performed by Upright Theatre Company

Edward is a tattoo artist who is deeply captivated by the idea of putting his artwork on a “living, bleeding, twitching canvas." Valerie, searching for a way to express her pain and grief finds Edward’s studio. After tattooing Valerie's cancer-stricken left breast, Edward finds himself exhausted and spellbound by the whole experience, believing that something mystical has happened to him in the process of creating his first masterpiece. Both Edward and Valerie struggle for permanency against the destructive forces of time.

Elena Naskova was born and raised in Macedonia. Her plays have been produced and read in Independence, Portland, San Luis Obispo, San Francisco, North Hollywood, Chicago, Nantucket, Mesa/Scottsdale and Sheffield - UK, New York, Toronto, Bloomington, Oakland, San Francisco, Spain, Dubai, Spokane and Seattle. Elena has received an award for best play at the Edmond’s Driftwood Players ten-minute festival and was a second-place winner at the Las Vegas Little Theater’s New Works Competition. She is a proud participant in the William Inge New Play Lab in Independence, KS, and the 14/48 theater project in Seattle. Her plays have been published in Smith and Kraus’ ‘Best Women’s Monologues of 2019, in the ‘Fleas on the Dog’ magazine, ‘The True Acting Institute’, Borderless Thalia: A Multilingual Comedic Collection and other publications. Elena is a member of the Dramatist Guild and the Seattle Playwrights Circle.