"So he didn't anticipate the strong emotions his pared, intimate staging of Thornton Wilder's American classic would provoke first in Chicago ("utterly astounding," said Tribune critic Chris Jones) and then off-Broadway at the Barrow Street Theatre, where, to critical raves and word-of-mouth testimonials about its cathartic powers, it officially became the longest-running production in the play's 72-year history, with more than 500 performances."
Oh man, I would love to see this!
My first "near miss" of getting a play done in NYC involved this play in a roundabout way. My play MY TOWN, YOUR TOWN was about a production of Our Town that gets overthrown by the Black Panthers, who force the actors to do their alternative script instead. An NYC producer really wanted to do this baby but it scared off his investors, and we couldn't think of a way to water it down without ruining it. This was typical of my convoluted concepts early in my playwriting career.
I used this device later in THE HALF-LIFE CONSPIRACY in the play within the play, where a pissed off male forces a reading by his wife and her lover at gunpoint, "The Habits of Hubby." And this play a few years back was done in NYC, in a coffee house. So the circle was complete, sort of.
Oh man, I would love to see this!
My first "near miss" of getting a play done in NYC involved this play in a roundabout way. My play MY TOWN, YOUR TOWN was about a production of Our Town that gets overthrown by the Black Panthers, who force the actors to do their alternative script instead. An NYC producer really wanted to do this baby but it scared off his investors, and we couldn't think of a way to water it down without ruining it. This was typical of my convoluted concepts early in my playwriting career.
I used this device later in THE HALF-LIFE CONSPIRACY in the play within the play, where a pissed off male forces a reading by his wife and her lover at gunpoint, "The Habits of Hubby." And this play a few years back was done in NYC, in a coffee house. So the circle was complete, sort of.
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