Posts from — March 2008

Hello, and welcome to the Tidewater Rep Blog. I’m Annie, and I probably have the longest job title of anyone else who will be posting on this blog – I am the Assistant to the Artistic Director, Associate Company Manager, and Assistant Director for Of Mice and Men. I love each and every moment of my busy (and poly-syllabic) job, and today, my mission is to share with you–our dear patrons and readers–some information about the playwrights whose great work we’re showcasing this summer at TRR.

We’ve got three plays and four playwrights – Quilters, though strongly engineered by the individual efforts of my fellow multi-tasker Barbara Damashek, was also a collaboration with Emmy-award winner Molly Newman. Our third, John Steinbeck, is closest to my heart and not just because I’m AD’ing his show. I’ll always remember in 10th grade being transfixed by the novel Of Mice and Men and by my fantastic English teacher who taught us the principals of literary analysis. Six weeks later when everyone else in the class was sick to death of analyzing the same story every day, I was still enthralled. Our fourth playwright of this season is Larry Shue, whose life was cut tragically short, but not before he left us with some of the most funny, feel-good plays of his generation.

So, enough of my introductory ramblings, keep reading to meet the playwrights! (in order of performaces).

Molly Newman / Quilters
Molly Newman is an Emmy-award winning writer who, in addition to penning Quilters with Barbara Damashek, has worked extensively in television. Her television work includes Brothers and Sisters, Tracey Takes On (for which she and the writing team won an Emmy), Murphy Brown, and The Larry Sanders Show. Newman and Damashek shared a Tony Award Nomination for their work on Quilters.

Barbara Damashek / Quilters
Barbara Damashek’s work on Quilters earned her a Tony Nomination for writing, but she served as much more than a playwright for the original and Broadway productions. Damashek was also the director, music director, and orchestrated the music. Damashek’s original turn on Broadway was a decade earlier with 1971’s Unlikely Heroes, an evening of three one act plays by renowned author Phillip Roth, featuring Dan Ackroyd. Damashek was the music researcher and editor for the three plays: Defender of the Faith, Epstein, and Eli, the Fanatic.

John Steinbeck / Of Mice & Men
John Steinbeck is a Nobel and Pulitzer Prize-winning author and one of Americ’s most beloved literary legends. Steinbeck began his life as a reporter in Salinas, California, and used his experiences during the Dust Bowl and Great Depression to expose and explore the struggles endured by the working class, particularly migrant workers. His novella, Of Mice and Men, was published in 1937, and his first work to focus on California and migrant workers. In 1939, Steinbeck published The Grapes of Wrath, for which he received the Pulitzer. Steinbeck’s writing career thrived throughout his life, and over a dozen of his works were adapted for film, theatre, or both. He even received an Academy Award Nomination for Best Story for Alfred Hitchcock’s Lifeboat in 1944. John Steinbeck died of a heart attack in 1968 at his apartment in Manhattan, but his ashes were scattered in Salinas, California, where many believe was the source of his passion and creativity.

Larry Shue / The Foreigner
Larry Shue published two very popular and oft-performed full-length comedies in his tragically short life. Our artistic director had the good fortune of working with Larry when he was rehearsing The Chicago Premiere of The Foreigner. The Nerd and The Foreigner are known for being light-hearted with incredibly outlandish humor. Shue’s other plays include Grandma Duck is Dead, My Emperor’s New Clothes, and Wenceslas Square. He also worked as an actor, appearing in television’s One Life to Live, The Mystery of Edwin Drewd as well as performing in his own productions of The Nerd and The Foreigner. In 1985, Larry Shue’s life was cut short in a commuter plan crash over the Shenendoah Valley in West Virginia when flying home to see his grandmother. Larry Shue may have left us too soon, but his heart-warming and side-splitting comedies are a wonderful legacy for a multi-talented playwright.