The Overwhelming

July 20, 2008 by Tim Treanor  
Filed under CATF Reviews

  • The Overwhelming
  • By J.T. Rogers
  • Produced at the Contemporary American Theater Festival
  • Directed by Ed Herendeen
  • Reviewed by Tim Treanor

“When, in the history of the world,” the cynical American bureaucrat Woolsey (Michael Goodwin) asks Professor Exley, (Lee Sellars), new to Rwanda, “has there been a country with a foreign policy based on ‘It’s the right thing to do?’” Read more

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A View of the Harbor

July 19, 2008 by Tim Treanor  
Filed under CATF Reviews

“The rich are different from you and me,” F. Scott Fitzgerald once told Ernest Hemingway. “Yes,” Hemingway growled back. “They have more money.” Read more

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Stick Fly

July 18, 2008 by Tim Treanor  
Filed under CATF Reviews

Atop a stack of books in the summer home living room of the übersuccessful Levay family is The Audacity of Hope by Sen. Barak Obama (D. Ill.) The choice is significant: Read more

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Wrecks

July 18, 2008 by Tim Treanor  
Filed under CATF Reviews

Edward Carr (Kurt Zische) is a Chicago businessman who has lost his wife. Wrecks is Carr’s preparation for the eulogy he will utter for his beloved Mary Jo, who rests in the featureless wooden casket behind him. Read more

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Pig Farm

July 17, 2008 by Tim Treanor  
Filed under CATF Reviews

 Ultimately, I guess, this is a comedy. I can tell from the death scene. Pig Farm, though, looks for all the world like a modern Steinbeck story. Read more

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Almost Theatre Heaven - West Virginia

July 13, 2006 by Debbie Jackson  
Filed under Our Reviews

By: Debbie Minter Jackson

Contemporary American Theater Festival in Shepherdstown, WV July 13, 2006

Why, oh why has it taken me sixteen years to finally get to Shepherdstown, WV for the Contemporary American Theater Festival, which started the same year I moved here from Chicago? I have heard rumblings about it since its inception, so I had No excuse - reasons, sure, but no excuse. My reasons started with two little letters that implied unreachable distance, unknown parts waaaaay over the river and across mountains somewhere out yonder-WV. For some pathological reason, I was averse, okay, terrified, of crossing the Potomac into West Virginia on my own. This year I had fortification-fellow sisters of the Black Women Playwrights’ Group. We packed our bags, grabbed that highway, and in just shortly over an hour we were in Shepherdstown for an invigorating line-up of new plays. What an inauguration to what I am publicly announcing will be an annual pilgrimage for me. Sometimes, you just need a little nudge, okay, for me maybe a push, a hand, or even a kick to get me off my couch.

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