By Douglas Langworthy, Literary Manager, Denver Center Theatre Company

Robert Sicular and Yetta Gottesman in Mariela in the Desert. Photo by Terry Shapiro.

Our production of Karen Zacarias’ play Mariela in the Desert should have been a fairly straightforward mounting of an existing script. Since the play had been produced four times previously at theatres all across the country, our director, Bruce Sevy, had assumed the script was locked in and ready to go…until he called Karen to tell her we were going to do Mariela—and Karen asked if she could do some rewriting.

And so instantly, the play became a “new” play again, and the playwright became an integral part of the rehearsal process. Karen has a quote she loves to share: “Plays are never finished, they’re just abandoned.” This was just one of those projects that she had set aside to work on other plays. But she never felt she’d gotten it quite right. So with the theatre’s blessing, she dove right back into a play she had begun some eight years earlier.

She admits that, like one of the characters in her play, she had started the play seeing things from the outside, and now it was time to see things from the inside. While the plot remained virtually intact, she made significant adjustments to the characters, making them more human, more complex, more able to love. She deleted the first scene and wove the essential information into the next one. The tone of the play became warmer and more accessible. Up through the first preview actors were having to absorb the latest changes. The excitement that goes along with developing a new play and having the playwright in the room is palpable as this fifth production of Mariela heads toward opening.

Is the play finished now? Did Zacarias get it right this time? She says “yes,” this is the version of the play that will live on in future productions and hopefully in published form. Time to finally abandon this one and start the next play and the next.

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Featured this week for “YouTube Tuesday” is Mariela in the Desert, a beautiful story of a family of Mexican Artists living in the desert north of Mexico City, playing now through May 15 in The Ricketson Theatre.  Here are scenes from the play:

In this segment from the latest “10 Minute to Curtain” episode, Playwright Karen Zacarías and director Bruce Sevy talk about the process of revisiting, revising, and “re-premiering” Mariela in the Desert:

Catch more Mariela in the Desert videos on YouTube.

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It’s Merle Haggard’s 73^rd Birthday AND the first Tuesday of April, which means it’s time for a new episode of “10 Minutes to Curtain”!

This month, go behind-the-scenes with playwright Karen Zacarías to learn about the “re-premiere” of Mariela in the Desert, learn from actor John Hutton about the challenges of playing Iago in Othello, find out what everyone backstage at Mama Hated Diesels is talking about, and get a preview of the Theatre Company’s 2010-2011 Season with Artistic Director Kent Thompson.

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For today’s YouTube Tuesday, Randal Myler and Dan Wheetman talk about how they created the world premiere musical, Mama Hated Deisels, a rambunctious musical portrait of America’s long-distance truckers.  The first preview performance, which is also the $10 Student Night, is on Friday! 

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Photographer and Denver Center Trustee Jim Steinberg has embarked on a journey to photograph the open roads and the truckers who travel them. Photos from his 6.606 mile journey will be featured in Mama Hated Diesels this spring! The play, which runs March 19-May 9 in The Stage Theatre, is a world premiere musical about America’s long-distance truckers.

Follow Jim’s journey on his blog: Colorado Scenic Byways.

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Today was the final day of the 5^th Annual Colorado New Play Summit.   What a journey!

Our day started with a moving  reading of The House of Spirits by Caridad Svich.  This play, based on the novel by Isabel Allende, looks at four generations of political and social upheavals in Latin America through the powerful lens of memory.   After the reading we heard from actor Randy Moore and the playwright herself, Caridad Svich:

Next we took a break for lunch followed by the Panel Discussion in the Seawell Grand Ballroom where members of the American Theatre Critics Association discussed the relationship between new works and the critics.  Here, Charlie talks to critics John Moore, Jeffrey Eric Jenkins and Chris Jones:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwA0w65HXpo

For our last theatrical event of the summit, we attended Eventide in The Stage Theatre.  Read at the New Play Summit last year, this companion piece to Plainsong is based on a book by Kent Haruf and adapted for the stage by Eric Schmiedl.  The play had the audience in tears of sorrow and joy at the end – a great way to end the Summit.

Following the play, a bittersweet Closing Reception commenced in the Seawell Grand Ballroom.  What a great festival.  We hope to see you all next year for the 2011 Colorado New Play Summit.  Also, stay tuned for the announcement of the Denver Center Theatre Company’s 2011 Season next month, which is sure to feature some of the plays read at this year’s Summit.

We’ll wrap things up with some comments posted on Facebook and Twitter this week about the Summit:

Carole Healey The Play Summit rehearsals have begun and I am doing the wonderful new play, Map of Heaven. We read through Michelle Lowe’s gripping script and then, Scott Schwartz, our director led us through a fascinating discussion of themes, characters and we opened up a discussion of topics ranging from health care to art and it…‘s meanings…It is going to be an intense week, full of discovery. This is why we love the theatre. Carole Healey

cars21  (answering the question “What was your favorite reading at the Summit and why?”) @DenverCenter HOUSE because it paints a landscape I want to see fully realized & introduced us to a family I want to learn more about.

xagoeson  “Eventide” @DenverCenter was really, really good. You have 2 more weeks. Go see it.

bestplays  After one fully staged production, three play readings and s playwright’s slam, it’s clear that DCTC exists in no other theater’s shadow.

corteseatwork 7th inning stretch for Ken Weitzman’s THE CATCH at the New Play Summit! First act was knocked out of the park!

corteseatwork Full house for EVENTIDE tonight, the final event of the New Play Summit; some great theatre packed into these past few days!

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Phew!  What a long (yet glorious) day of new plays.  Here’s a run-down of our activities today:

10am – Coffee in the lobby (Yessss…).

11am – First reading of the day in The Ricketson Theatre – Map of Heaven, a new play by Michele Lowe.  Michele is best known in Denver for Inana, which was read at the Summit in 2008 and premiered at The Denver Center in 2009.  Map of Heaven is a powerful story of an artist and her husband, a radiologist, and the devastating consequences that occur as a result of a single lapse of judgment.   Afterwards, Charlie Miller caught playwright Eric Schmiedl and director Scott Schwartz for their reactions on the play:

1:30pm – Lunch time!  Everyone gathered in the lobby of the Bonfils Theatre Complex for delicious sandwiches by Jay’s Hot Ticket Café.  Yum!

3pm – Back down to The Ricketson Theatre where we saw the reading of The Catch by Ken Weitzman. The play follows a failed dot-commer as he pots to regain his fortune by catching a star slugger’s record-breaking home run ball.   Here, Literary Manager Doug Langworthy and dramaturg Mike Sablone give their thoughts about the play:

5:30pm – Time for dinner in the Seawell Grand Ballroom.  Between bites, we had the opportunity to learn more about Civilization: (All You Can Eat), by Jason Grote.  Jason also wrote 1001, which premiered at The Denver Center in 2007:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxVVNVHzffc

7:30pm – Again to The Ricketson Theatre for the final reading of the day – Civilization (All You Can Eat).  What a unique show!  The play is a fierce burlesque of America’s love/hate obsession with food.  Here are some reactions to the show:

10pm – Finally, we ended the day with the Playwrights’ Slam in The Jones Theatre.  What a great way to wrap up a long day: Over drinks, several of our commissioned playwrights read excerpts from their plays in the works.

Now – off to bed!   Check in tomorrow night for our final summit recap.

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And we’re off!  The Colorado New Play Summit has officially begun.  First on the agenda tonight was a performance of the world premiere production of When Tang Met Laika, a play by Rogelio Martinez read at the Summit last year.  Because it takes place largely on the International Space Station, the play has a lot of interesting technological elements (video projections, turntables, moving scenery, etc), but they don’t distract from Rogelio’s compelling story.   The audience loved the show;  Actor Ian Merrill Peakes, who plays Patrick, said “The show was great tonight, we had a full house of smart, savy theatre-goers.  It was awesome.”

Before the performance, Charlie Miller had a chance to hear from Artistic Director Kent Thompson and playwright Jose Cruz Gonzalez:

After returning from their (theatrical) journey to space, festival attendees went up to the Seawell Grand Ballroom for the Opening Reception.  DCTC Artistic Director Kent Thompson gave a brief welcome to the enthusiastic crowd and mingling ensued.   At the reception, Charlie chatted with several theatre professionals about When Tang Met Laika:

That’s all for today – check back tomorrow for the next daily recap of the Summit.

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Welcome to the virtual Colorado New Play Summit — an online forum designed to share information about the Denver Center Theatre Company’s fifth annual festival of new theatrical works including the world premieres of WHEN TANG MET LAIKA and EVENTIDE plus readings of four exciting works in development.

Here you can read, comment on and share each day’s recap with your friends and colleagues in the industry. Need a description of the readings? Want to see what others are saying? Can’t wait to watch someone’s opinion of the activities? Make sure to plug in, log on and stay tuned.

Live updates and commentary on Twitter	Live video blogging on YouTube
Photo and video highlights on Facebook	Daily recaps on The Denver Center Blog

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By Douglas Langworthy, Literary Manager, Denver Center Theatre Company

Philip Pleasants and Mike Hartman in Plainsong. Photo by Terry Shapiro.

Here at the Denver Center we are currently mounting EVENTIDE by Eric Schmiedl based on the novel by Kent Haruf, author of the award-winning bestseller Plainsong, which we produced in Eric Schmield’s adaptation a few years back.

What I’ve been thinking about lately is terminology—while it’s true that the events of Eventide occur chronologically after the events in Plainsong, Kent Haruf prefers the term “companion piece” to “sequel.” The term “sequel” implies that you need to have seen the first play/read the first book to fully grasp the meaning of the second and, in this case, nothing could be further from the truth. Both stories stand on their own and tell a complete narrative. Yes, some characters from Plainsong appear in Eventide, but just as Plainsong has a beginning, middle and an end, so does Eventide. It’s true that having seen one enriches the experience of seeing the other, but in truth the plays stand alone and can be seen in any order.

All this got me to thinking about other famous companion pieces of the theatre. Lillian Hellman’s two plays about the greedy Hubbard family come immediately to mind: Another Part of the Forest and The Little Foxes. Forest was written years after Foxes even though in terms of the lives of the characters it chronologically precedes it. Tony Kushner’s Angels in America is composed of two separate plays—Millennium Approaches and Perestroika—but these plays are two halves of a whole (thus the over-arching title Angels in America) and as the action is continuous, should be viewed together to get the maximum impact. The dramatic appearance of the angel at the end of Millennium Approaches heralds (so to speak) the second play, Perestroika. Then there is House and Garden by Alan Ayckbourn, two separate plays played simultaneously by the same group of actors huffing and puffing between two different theatres. These are companion pieces of a sort, as it doesn’t matter which play you see first, but to truly appreciate the skills of the playwright and his acting team you really should see the other.

So to return to Plainsong and Eventide, wouldn’t it be great to produce both companion pieces in the same season using the same actors? To set the two dramas side by side and listen to them speak to one another? To create a true Coloradan event? As both plays have large casts, it would be a costly project, and these days that’s a big hurdle to overcome, but, hey, a guy can dream, right?

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