Alumni news, in brief:

Read (and listen) about Karen Zacarías' new play, Just Like Us (based on Helen Thorpe's book), which is playing to sold out houses in Denver...

Check out Will Fancher's new writing project -- to write one new song each week for a year -- and make a request (I'm going to!)...

Cliff Odle is one of the producers and organizers of UMass Boston's The Emancipated Century, staged readings of all ten plays in August Wilson's Century Cycle. Take a look at the project's Web site for a full schedule of readings and related events. Next up is Jitney on Nov. 18, right here at BPT...

Wes Savick's new play FAB! or whatever opens at Suffolk University's Modern Theatre this Thursday...

Love-filled alumni news, in brief:

Monica Bauer's Off-Broadway bound My Occasion of Sin was awarded Best New Script at the Omaha Arts and Entertainment Awards, and her Made For Each Other was accepted to the Edinburgh Free Fringe...

Joyce Van Dyke's Deported/a dream play -- which opens on Mar. 8 -- is on the list of The Boston Globe's Critic's Picks...

Great review of Molly Smith Metzler's Elemeno Pea, now playing at South Coast Rep, right here...

Blood Rose Rising (co-written by Steve Barkhimer) opens Feb. 17 at the Davis Square Theatre, and Will Fancher's The River Was Whiskey opens at Middle Tennessee State University on Feb. 16...

Our Girl in Trenton, by Cliff Odle, will be part of Central Square Theatre's PlayPen Readings on Feb. 27...

Richard Snee will appear in the world premiere of Boston Children's Theatre's Reflections of a Rock Lobster Mar. 3-11...

The curtain will come down on the Broadway production of Lydia Diamond's Stick Fly on Feb. 26. Get tickets...

MJ Halberstadt reflects on the KCACTF Region 1 experience on his blog, and you can watch Colleen Hughes' KCACTF entry The Button here...

Raw and Honest

Kenard Jackson (top) and Alex Pollock (bottom)

The first time I read a draft of The River was Whiskey, I realized that it was a gift—it was so rich and full of opportunities even at the early stages of working with the text.  Even the very first stage directions are compelling and immediately brings you into the world of the play. Will has created a story where the language is rich and incisive but even the moments of silence are heavy and telling. The play brings to light a small piece of American history that connects us all to the larger, more complicated idea of the South and dramaturgically experienced, is enhanced by the Americana music that Will amazingly composed. The background of this play and his creation process are extraordinary. His influences, drawn from many details of his life and Southern American cultural history, combine into a work that translates on stage into something challenging, raw and honest.

The rehearsal process was such a learning experience as an actor. Working with Will and our director Jim, the play became a ‘rolling stone’ that constantly gathered greater meaning. I was honestly terrified during the time leading up into the first days of rehearsal. But Will has invested so much personally into the show that he created a common ground that enabled me to work on this project fearlessly—that’s what’s beneficial about working so closely with a playwright in the rehearsal process.

Exploration and Discovery

Jim Loutzenhiser and Sarah Newhouse

One of the things I love about working with new material is the possibility of being part of the creation. Having been working on existing material for quite some time, it's been a breath of fresh air to revisit the unique process of putting a new play on its feet. My early career was filled with new work; it seems like it was all I did for a while, as a young professional in NYC. Playwrights Horizons, Ensemble Studio Theatre, my own production company: my experiences were full of exploration & discovery. And some of those early writers I got to work alongside have been successful beyond what we imagined at the time.

But back to the here & now. It has been quite something to see the elements of this show come together. From my very first read of it, I knew the play was rich in atmosphere & loaded with feeling. It is about sin, 

religion, race and redemption. It has a specificity that cannot be ignored, yet it is about all of us. And it is a ghost story. Perfect for this season. I hope you enjoy watching it as much a I have enjoyed being part of the amazing team of artists that is bringing The River Was Whiskey to theatrical life!

- Sarah Newhouse

Original Sin

Sarah Newhouse and Jim Loutzenhiser

The characters in this play all swim in a world of manmade suppression: levees, intense racism, artificial borders (“toe across Bradford Street”), sanctioned deities (“God” and “the Devil”), prohibition, and institutional marriage. And each has different strengths and tactics to survive it. Will’s remarkably precise and funny language fuels the fire. (As an actor I can feel it when I’m saying a line incorrectly.)

We sense that while this suppression can be “successful” for long periods, the primordial cataclysms are only that much greater when they finally come.  The “original sin” in the play seems to be both collective and individual. The vulnerable have been forced into “work” while those in positions of power take full opportunity to exploit. And a senseless murder has taken place. In an earlier version of the script, Evans said: “we were all drunk on the same evil…” His journey since then, I think: suppression of memory, exile, failed attempts at recovery, and now, after 19 years, and one of sobriety, a first real attempt to reclaim his place.

But sometimes a senseless act committed 20 years ago can’t be undone -- and sets off some weird kind of butterfly effect that, like a flood or great fire, may consume us all. And then, as Nettie says, “it’s done. It’s a storm. It’s only to be weathered. And maybe it comes for us.”

- Jim Loutzenhiser

Opening weekend...

El Demonio Rosa expects you to see The River Was Whiskey. 

(And he means business, y'all.)

For tickets, please visit bostonplaywrights.org or call 866.811.4111

The Flood

Playwright Will Fancher

In 2007 I had an image pop into my head of an old man and a young boy sitting in a rundown house, talking about their sins. In 2009, having turned that image into a play called The River was Whiskey and labored on it for a semester in Melinda Lopez's workshop here at BPT, I put it away for good. I had hit a brick wall. The language had curdled into a pointless babble of ain'ts and y'alls, the characters' motives and desires were murky at best (nonsensical at worst), and I was in open revolt against anything that might be regarded as southern gothic, which is all too often assumed to be the default style of a Southern writer. And there was nothing I could do to fix it. Every revision was just digging the hole deeper.

Alumni news, in brief:

The Book Club Play

Check out the new Web site for Joyce Van Dyke’s Deported… 

Stick Fly meets the press…

Zayd Dohrn’s Want opens 10/27 as part of Steppenwolf Theatre Company’s 7th Annual First Look Repertory of New Work (watch this space for more on this project later in the week)…

Actress Kate Snodgrass was featured in the reading of Don Cohen’s Length of Stay at the Munroe Center for the Arts, directed by Melinda Lopez…

New video for Karen Zacarías’ The Book Club Play, now at Arena Stage…

Gregory Fletcher interviewed Sons of the Prophet star Santino Fontana for the Stage and Cinema blog…

Will Fancher’s The River Was Whiskey opens this week right here at BPT…

Alumni news, in brief:

Genevieve Jessee

Genevieve Jessee’s Girl in, but not of, the 'Hood – which she wrote and will perform – is part of the San Francisco Fringe Festival this week…

Will Fancher’s The River Was Whiskey is not just part of our 30^th anniversary season. It’s also on the production calendar at his (other) alma mater, Middle Tennessee State University…

Emily Kaye Lazzaro’s Grief and Surfing had a reading at Oberon last week…

When you get a chance, check out John Greiner Ferris’ new blog, which focuses solely on playwriting…

30th Anniversary Season Announced!

Pictured: Ramona Lisa Alexander in Derek Walcott’s Ti-Jean & His Brothers

Photo by A.R. Sinclair Photography

Boston Playwrights’ Theatre continues its 30^th Anniversary season by presenting, in collaboration with Suffolk University, Robert Brustein’s Mortal Terror at the newly re-opened Modern Theatre at Suffolk University. National Medal of Arts winner Robert Brustein brings the spirit of William Shakespeare back to the stage in his imaginative story of political upheaval set during the ignition of the Gunpowder Plot. Featuring Stafford Clark-Price as William Shakespeare, together with Ken Cheeseman, Michael Hammond, Jeremiah Kissel, John Kuntz, Georgia Lyman, Christopher James Webb and directed by Daniela Varon.

Click here to purchase tickets.

The second and third new works celebrated in Boston Playwrights’ Theatre’s 30^th Anniversary season feature two recent graduates of Boston Playwrights’ Theatre’s MFA Playwriting Program.

In a suspenseful showdown between the old and new guard, The Farm by Walt McGough examines a profession where no one can be trusted. Directed by Elliot Norton Award-winner David R. Gammons and featuring Nael Nacer and Lindsey McWorter, “the farm” is the last place you want to get caught off guard.