New Plays Jan. to Jun. 2004
Overview by Will Stackman

Recently, playwrights have again been bemoaning the fact that, nationally, producers seem unwilling to take a chance on new work. In spite of the economy, there always seem to be new plays coming from somewhere. During the first half of this calendar year, Jan. - Jun. 2004, at least two new full-length works a month were available to local audiences, most done by smaller theatres using their regular talent. In January, Somerville's Theatre Cooperative got the ball rolling with a comedy, "Thanksgiving Dinner When You're Dating Matt Damon", a catchy title for a routine play. At the end of the month, Sugan premiered "The Gigolo Confessions of Baile Breag", the third play in Ronan Noone's trilogy with Judith McIntyre, Billy Meleady, and Miguel Cervantes, a powerful cast for a difficult drama. In February, the industrial theatre playing at the Old Leverett Library in Harvard's riverside campus produced the "Tycho & Kepler", an engaging docudrama about two giants of Renaissance astronomy created as a group effort lead by Bill Donnelly. Theatre Cooperative did the next play in their series, Bill Doncaster's "Lead Me to the River...", while down at the BCA in the Leland, T& A put on Nancy Pearson"Unemployable Livia Peacock" In more upscale quarters, Boston Theatre Works did a full-scale production of Steven Bogart's Holocaust/Alzheimer's family drama, "The Conspiracy of Memory" with a strong cast and mixed results at the Boston Playwright's Theatre.

Immediately following in March, the Nora Theatre did the same with Larry Lane's bio-play "Van Gogh in Japan". The performances were even stonger, though the results were equally mixed. On the more experimental fron, Company One again collaborated Conrad Bishop and Elizabeth Fuller to create "Lost City", a collage piece based on charcater studies. Another troupe, Rough &Tumble continued their collaboration with Bill Donnelly to stage his screen play, "Backwater", drawing on their improvisational skills to set the seen and play a myriad of characters. In April, the Theatre Cooperative continued with Jerry Bisantz's "Tit for Tat", a well-realized comedy about infidelity. The Stoneham Theatre, just up the road so to speak did the first large scale production of John C. Picardi's "Sweepers", set in Boston's North End at the close of WWII. At the same time, incidentally, the second play in a series he's planned was opening in a much smaller theater in N.Y. The month ended with Letta Neely's "Last Rites" produced by Theatre Offensive/Heart Press down at the BCA.

Two plays for guys, by local guys, which had been in the works for a while, surfaced in May, with their authors involved in the production. Art Devine's "9 Ball", a post-Vietnam drama ran downtown at the Tremont, while Brendan Bates "Savior of Fenway", a barroom saga played at the renovated Durrell Hall in the Cambridge YMCA. Neither did exceptional business. The Theatre Coop ended its regular season with a full production of Vladimir Zevilinsky's "What Time Is It?", a fantastical farce set in Renaissance Nurenberg. It had been "commissioned" after having been read the year before. The only bona-fide new play produced by a major theatre--Jon Robin Baitz having been postponed indefinitely at the Huntington--was Rinne Groff's pseudo-historical "Ruby Sunrise" down in Providence at Trinity, which didn't quite live up to its potential, despite a first class-outing.

June was the month of "Sin - a Cardinal Deposed", Michael Murphy's docudrama created mostly from the depositions given by Boston's disgraced archbishop, Bernard, Cardinal Law. After all the buzz from Chicago and a false start when Wellesley backed out of hosting them in May, the run by the original Bailwick cast at the Regent in Arlington, a converted movie theatre, was successful and uneventful. The show was both more and less than expected, close to home yet formally distant. Local playwright's will probably be mining this territory for years, and of course, Ronan Noone's award-winning script exploring the same problem in Ireland was ahead of the curve three years ago.

This list is not exhaustive, and doesn't take into account short play complations such as the Boston Theatre Marathon held in April, the Playwrights' Platform annual effort in June, or bills like industrial's "SoapBox Derby", all displaying locally developed work. The common thread in most of the show's mentioned above is the active participation of the author in the production, sometimes even taking a leading role. There have been a few further efforts this summer. Elizabeth Wyatt is directing her "Gods & Goddesses" up at the West End Theatre in Gloucester, while the indefatigible G.L.Horton just had a staged reading of her "Good Blood & High Standards" in Cambridge, hoping for an out-of-state production. FusionWorks in Reading is doing several ten minute plays as their first MiniFest at the end of August. The beat goes on.

Just how much new work will get on this fall remains to be seen. Centastage and Wellesley Summer Theatre are kicking thins off in September with the world premiere of Kathleen Roger's "Ballast", a portion of which was seen two years ago at the Boston Theatre Marathon. WST's Nora Hussey directs Derry Woodhouse, Natalie Rose, and Alicia Kahn in this provocative script. Most of the usual smaller producer are banking on recent Off-Broadway fare. The Huntington is opening its second stage at the Pavilon by premiering Melinda Lopez's "Sonia Flew", which is not much of a risk, though a welcome step forward for a proven local playwright. Merrimack doesn't have anything new this fall, but Charles Towers will continue pushing the envelope all season, which has been satisfying his audience the last few years. There will undoubtedly be new efforts later in the season; most of the play discussed here weren't on the horizon last September. And much of the work announced is new to Boston and quite relevant.

New Plays