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.

Popularity: 15% [?]

By Douglas Langworthy, Literary Manager, Denver Center Theatre Company

Alan Ayckbourn

Ayckbourn, who at age 72 has written more than 70 plays including ABSURD PERSON SINGULAR which is playing now in The Space Theatre, is considered the most prolific professional playwright living.  Each of his plays has some sort of stylistic device that makes each play easy to remember.  Here is a selected list of some of his more popular titles. Let us know which one you would like to see produced next!

Standing Room Only:  A maternity ward on a double-decker bus

Relatively Speaking:  A romance where no one knows who they’re in love with

How the Other Half Loves:  Three couples attend two dinner parties at the same time

Time and Time Again:  Three men chase after the ultimate trophy woman

The Norman Conquests:  Three plays, one cast

Bedroom Farce:  One night, three bedrooms

Season’s Greetings:  Another average Christmas with affairs and gunshots

Intimate Exchanges:  Two actors, one small decision, eight possible plays

Woman in Mind:  A woman with both a real and imaginary family

A Small Family Business:  Family furniture business turned drug-dealing ring

The Revenger’s Comedies: Two plays, one epic tale of revenge

Body Language:  Two women given the chance to exchange bodies

Time Of My Life:  A family drama that spans the past, present and future

Communicating Doors:  A time-travel comedy-thriller

By Jeeves:  A musical-turned-farce, all due to a missing banjo

Comic Potential:  A robot discovers her comedic acting abilities

House and Garden:  Two plays occurring simultaneously in two different theatres

Virtual Reality:  Miscommunication in a world of advanced technological communication

Damsels in Distress:  Three different plays with the same set and cast

Improbable Fiction:  One story told spanning multiple genres

Popularity: 34% [?]

(clockwise from upper right): Theresa Rebeck, Octavio Solis, Lisa Loomer and Marcus Gardley

Continuing its commitment to supporting new American playwriting, the Denver Center Theatre Company has recently commissioned plays from four exciting playwrights: Marcus Gardley, Lisa Loomer, Theresa Rebeck and Octavio Solis. Their projects, which will come to fruition over the next year or two, are all part of Artistic Director Kent Thompson’s keen interest in supporting new playwriting. Since coming to the Denver Center five years ago, Thompson has established a vigorous commissioning program (at least four plays per season) as well as the COLORADO NEW PLAY SUMMIT, a dynamic weekend each February featuring full productions and readings of brand new work.

Both Theresa Rebeck and Octavio Solis have received prior DCTC commissions, their plays going on to full productions during the Company’s 2007/08 season. Rebeck’s Our House, a satirical look at reality TV, has had a second production at New York’s Playwrights Horizons. Solis’ Lydia, a dark and haunting family saga set in El Paso, Texas, went on to receive four subsequent productions last year at theatres from coast to coast that included Yale Rep and the Mark Taper Forum.

Theresa Rebeck’s past New York productions include The Understudy, Mauritius, The Scene, The Water’s Edge, Bad Dates, The Butterfly Collection, Spike Heels and Omnium Gatherum (co-written, Pulitzer finalist). All of her plays have been published in acting editions by Samuel French. Publications also include Collected Plays Volume I-III and Free Fire Zone with Smith and Kraus. She has won the National Theatre Conference Award, the William Inge New Voices Playwriting Award, Boston’s Elliot Norton and IRNE awards, a Writer’s Guild Award, and Edgar and a Peabody.

Octavio Solis’ past productions include Man of the Flesh, Prospect, El Paso Blue, Santos & Santos, La Posada Mágica, El Otro, Dreamlandia, The Seven Visions of Encarnacion, Bethlehem and Gilbralter. His adaptation of Quixote based on the novel by Miguel de Cervantes was recently produced at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. He received the 2000/01 National Theatre Artists Residency Grant from TCG and the Pew Charitable Trusts.

Lisa Loomer’s play Living Out was produced at the Denver Center in the 2006/07 season. Her recent play, Distracted, played at the Roundabout Theatre Company in New York in 2009, had its world premiere at the Mark Taper Forum, and is currently being produced in regional theatres and in Europe. Her other plays include The Waiting Room, Expecting Isabel, Birds, Accelerando, Bocon! and Broken Hearts. Her awards include the Jane Chambers Award, the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize and The Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays Award.

Marcus Gardley recently received a Helen Merrill Award for an Emerging Playwright. His most recent play is Love is a Dream House in Lorin. Other produced plays include dance of the holy ghost, (L)imitations of life, and like sun fallin’ in the mouth. He is the recipient of the San Francisco Bay Area’s Gerbode Emerging Playwright Award, the National Alliance for Musical Theatre Award, a Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation Grant and an NEA/TCG Playwriting Participant Residency among others.

Popularity: 42% [?]

Russell Hornsby as Walter Lee. Photo by Terry Shapiro.

But as we all know, the production was a triumph both as a human drama and a political statement. The issues the play raises about the hurdles African-Americans face trying to advance in a segregated society were new to mainstream theatre audiences. New York Times critic Brooks Atkinson was struck by the play’s social resonance:  “A RAISIN IN THE SUN has vigor as well as veracity and is likely to destroy the complacency of anyone who sees it….It is a play about human beings who want, on the one hand, to preserve their family pride and, on the other hand, to break out of the poverty that seems to be their fate.”

The play stirred up considerable critical controversy at that time, in the days before the advances of the Civil Rights movement: Was the play intended for black or white audiences? Was this a specific story of a black family facing segregation on the South Side of Chicago, or a universal story about the power of the human spirit? Was Hansberry, who grew up in a middle class family, able to truthfully speak for members of the lower middle class?

To that last question, here’s what Hansberry had to say:  “I come from an extremely comfortable background, materially speaking. And yet we live in a ghetto, …which automatically means intimacy with all classes and all kinds of experiences. It’s not any more difficult for me to know the people I wrote about than it is for me to know members of my family. This is one of the things that the American experience has meant to Negroes. We are one people.”

To the second question, Hansberry responded:  “From the moment the first curtain goes up until the Youngers make their

Dawn Scott as Beneatha and Tyee Tilghmann as George Murchison. Photo by Terry Shapiro.

decision at the end, the fact of racial oppression, unspoken and unalluded to, other than the fact of how they live, is through the play. It’s inescapable. …It is always distinctly there but overtly it isn’t introduced until they are asked by the author to act on the problem which is the decision to move or not move out of this area.”

I believe this point, the fact that racism is inescapable, is one of the strongest reasons her play has become an American classic. Classics speak to us through time because something about them is still relevant to our lives, and even though we have an African-American President, racism is still inescapable in this country. And we still need plays like A RAISIN IN THE SUN to remind us of that.

One final note: I think it’s an incredible stroke of fate that RAISIN’s original director Lloyd Richards would go on to mentor playwright August Wilson whose work might never have been so readily accepted without Hansberry having prepared the ground.

Popularity: 49% [?]

By Douglas Langworthy, Literary Manager, Denver Center Theatre Company

This year we are excited to announce a new spin on our PERSPECTIVES ON THE PLAY on the Play” series. It will still happen the first Friday preview of every show at 6pm in The Jones Theatre and free and be open to the public. However, this year for most of the shows, instead of holding our regular extended discussion with the cast and crew, we will be inviting different members from the community with an expert perspective to talk about issues related to the play. Our first Perspective of the season was last Friday for THE VOYSEY INHERITANCE when I was joined by Buie Seawell, Professor of Business Education at the Daniels School of Business at the University of Denver. We had a really interesting conversation about the ethical issues in the play and we’ve put highlights of that on YouTube. Here is a video of Professor Seawell talking about Edward Voysey’s ethical dilemma.

Popularity: 7% [?]