Playwrights Theatre and Dreamcatcher Repertory Theatre are pleased to present Shakespeare in Vegas by Suzanne Bradbeer. The co-production will preview on April 4, 2013 and run through April 21, 2013.
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| Suzanne Bradbeer |
This comedy follows Tony, the producer,
and Margot, the displaced classical actress, to Las Vegas, where they
recruit the cast for a season of Shakespeare’s plays. Pickings prove to
be slim, as roles go to showgirls and other locals with questionable
credentials. Along the way, a generations-old family curse threatens to
bring their dream to an untimely end.
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1) We
did a reading of “Shakespeare in Vegas” in December of 2011 as part of our
FORUM roundtable reading series. Based on that reading and the discussion that
followed, what, if anything changed in the script?
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| "Shakespeare in Vegas" |
By
the time of the FORUM roundtable, I think I had learned almost everything I
could from readings of the script. It
was time to see the play on its feet.
I’m grateful that John [Pietrowski] and Laura [Ekstrand] thought so too.
In rehearsals, play revisions were
focused on the climactic scene and although we had a limited rehearsal period,
John was able to carve out time for us to focus on that scene, which was very
useful (and great fun).
2) You
have a series of children’s books that are currently be used to facilitate a
Head Start teaching program through Penn State. Can you tell us about your
books and how this program came to be?
Dr.
Carol Hammer, who ran that program, commissioned me to write a series of eight
books about a young girl who goes to visit her family in Puerto Rico. In the series, Rosa discovers in a very
personal way, the charms and surprises of the country of her heritage. The
series was part of a book-reading program promoting child literacy and language
development.
3) What
new projects are you working on?
I’m
currently working on a play called “The God Game”, which goes into
co-production in early ’14 at Gulfshore Playhouse in Naples, Florida and Capital
Rep in Albany. The play, while very
funny, is a drama about the intersection of religion and politics, and takes
place over the summer weekend when Tom, a rising political star, is asked to be
his party’s nominee for vice-president. The dilemma: Tom is a fierce advocate
for the separation of church and state, yet the campaign has asked him to sound
‘more Christian’ in his speeches and public statements.
4) You
had the opportunity to work with Arthur Miller and Jim Houghton as the
dramaturg on Miller’s “The American Clock” at Signature Theater. What did you
learn from this experience?
I
learned that Jim Houghton is not only a great producer, he is also a wonderful
director. I learned that even an icon
like Arthur Miller would express vulnerability about whether audiences were
responding to his work. I spoke to
Miller after an early preview – he was still making a few changes to the script
– and he asked me how the audience was responding to the play – did they like
it? I was very moved that a man with a
career like his: writer of some of the greatest plays of the 20th
century, Pulitzer Prize, Tony winner, produced all over the world (etc, etc),
still cared very much whether the audience in an 160 seat Off-Broadway theater,
was ‘getting’ his play.
5) Do
you have a favorite spring time activity or flower?
I
live about ten minutes from Central Park and one of my favorite things is to
walk there in the early days of spring, when you can see the changes to the
flora happening on a daily basis.
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| "Shakespeare in Vegas" |
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