A co-production with the Kean University Department of Theatre, the play was selected as winner of the 2009 Premiere Stages Play Festival. Set in 1840s London, the work concerns a struggling poet who visits his idol in search of inspiration, "but instead unleashes a madness that feeds his insatiable hunger for fame." According to production notes, "As art and ambition collide, how far will he go to make a name for himself in a world where the truth cannot be trusted?"
Premiere Stages' producing artistic director John Wooten directs. The cast comprises Fletcher McTaggart, Paul Molnar, Carl Wallnau and Audra Taliercio. The design team is Joe Gourley (sets), Karen Hart (costumes) and Nadine Charlsen (lights).
Performances play Thursdays-Saturday at 8 PM, Sundays at 3 PM and Friday, Sept. 18 at 3 PM in the Zella Fry Theatre.
To purchase tickets to performances in the 2009 season, call (908) 737-SHOW (7469) or visit www.keanstage.com.
* Earlier this summer, Premiere Stages offered the premiere of writer-director Wooten's "What If" play, Duck Crossing, an imagined account of George Washington and his fellow patriots getting stuck in the ice as they cross the Delaware in 1776. It featured Brian Sutherland as Washington, with Kevin Gilbert, Korey Jackson, Gary Littman, A.O. Moore and Christopher Oden.
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Premiere Stages "is committed to supporting emerging playwrights by developing and producing new plays" and provides playwrights "with an encouraging and focused environment in which they can develop their work through discussions, rehearsals, sit-down readings, staged readings and fully produced Equity productions." Premiere Stages has "a uniquely accelerated process" in which plays of promise "are developed and fully produced within a year of submission." According to the company, "in many professional theatres the time span between meeting a writer, staging a reading and producing the play can be years." At Premiere Stages, "immediately following the Spring Readings, two plays enter an intensive development phase. Playwrights work with a director, dramaturg, and design team to develop the play for a staged workshop or full production only a few months later."
