Plays by Dennis J Reardon
Description
This collection includes three full-length plays: STEEPLE JACK, THE PEER PANEL, and THE MISADVENTURES OF CYNTHIA M. STEEPLE JACK: Set in rural Kansas, STEEPLE JACK tells the story of a young girl, Jill, her father, Jay, and the two transients who enter into their lives. THE PEER PANEL: A meeting of administrators who must decide which playwrights will receive grants based on the work they have submitted transcends its purpose, raising larger questions of ideology, culture, and aesthetics. THE MISADVENTURES OF CYNTHIA M: In THE MISADVENTURES OF CYNTHIA M a beautiful young woman is thwarted in her aspirations both by her own limitations and by the society in which she lives.
Plays in This Collection
Press Quotes
STEEPLE JACK
“Like a well-cut diamond with many shining facets, playwright Dennis J Reardon has given theater audiences a quality gem in STEEPLE JACK. Set in rural Kansas, STEEPLE JACK is about bare bones existence: life and death, youth and maturity, males and females, good and evil, the relationships that hold life together and the need for love in the face of grief … a richly textured work, peopled with equally textured characters and dialogue … the mystic Steeple Jack conveys a sympathetic personality that is, despite his tramp-like appearance, otherworldly and eerily distant without seeming like something born of monster movies.” —The Bloomington Herald-Times
THE PEER PANEL
“Funny and incisive, THE PEER PANEL shapes a meditation on the future of the American theater into an absorbing, funny, and gracefully structured play … THE PEER PANEL evades its potential for caricature, thanks largely to Reardon’s uncanny command of each character’s voice … But THE PEER PANEL, while rooted in its characters’ preoccupations, isn’t just about theater. It’s also about the foundations of personal aesthetic preferences, about the ways in which culture and ideology and prejudice influence what we like — and how differences in taste can obstruct interpersonal connections. Sort of like Yasmina Reza’s ‘ART,’ only without the tedium.” —The Bloomington Herald-Times
THE MISADVENTURES OF CYNTHIA M
“[Cynthia] is quite a character. She’s an angry working girl who first seems a viper, then a bit more sympathetic and finally almost surrealistically transcendent. She’s always struggling to shed her skin. One character, charitably says, ‘She was born short of patience.’ Whether Cynthia’s making some extra money modeling lingerie for Busy Beaver or putting off her husband with her “not tonight honey nightgown,” she’s always fascinatingly and surprisingly inventing herself.” —George Walker, The Herald Times
Author
Dennis J ReardonDennis J. Reardon's first play, THE HAPPINESS CAGE, had the honor of being the inaugural production in Joseph Papp's Newman Theater, flagship venue for the complex now known as the Joseph Papp Public Theater. That widely acclaimed play went on to receive productions in Berlin, Amsterdam, and Johannesburg and was made into a film starring Christopher Walken. Mr. Papp subsequently produced Reardon's SIAMESE CONNECTIONS and THE LEAF PEOPLE, the latter premiering at Broadway's Booth Theater under the direction of Tom O'Horgan. Reardon's STEEPLE JACK won the National Play Award from both the National Repertory Theater Foundation and the Weissberger Foundation, and his comic drama, THE PEER PANEL, won the Theatre Memphis triennial National Playwriting Competition. He has been the recipient of a New York Creative Artists Public Service (CAPS) Award for UNAUTHORIZED ENTRIES, the Indiana Arts Commission Master Fellowship for BOONE DESCENDED, a Shubert Fellowship in Playwriting for THE HAPPINESS CAGE, the Avery Hopwood Award for SIAMESE CONNECTIONS, and a two-year Playwriting Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. His ten-minute play, SUBTERRANEAN HOMESICK BLUES AGAIN, has been produced throughout both America and Europe since premiering at Actors Theatre of Louisville. The collection Plays by Dennis J. Reardon (Broadway Play Publishing) came out in 2001 and includes STEEPLE JACK, THE PEER PANEL, AND THE MISADVENTURES OF CYNTHIA M. LAST DAYS OF THE HIGH FLIER received its premiere from Indiana University in 2004 and is also available through Broadway Play Publishing. Reardon served as the Head of the Playwriting Program at Indiana University from 1987 until 2008.
Book Information
| Publisher | BPPI |
|---|---|
| Publication Date | 10/1/2001 |
| Pages | 200 |
| ISBN | 9780881451993 |