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• 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?’” (more…)

• A View of the Harbor
• By Richard Dresser
• Directed by Charles Towers
• Produced by the Contemporary American Theater Festival
• Reviewed by Tim Treanor

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

• Stick Fly
• By Lydia R. Diamond
• Directed by Liesl Tommy
• Produced at the Contemporary American Theater Festival
• Reviewed by Tim Treanor

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: (more…)

• Wrecks
• By Neil LaBute
• Directed by Ed Herendeen
• Produced by the Contemporary American Theater Festival
• Reviewed by Tim Treanor

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. (more…)

• Pig Farm
• By Greg Kotis
• Directed by Ed Herendeen
• Produced at the Contemporary American Theater Festival
• Reviewed by Tim Treanor

 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. (more…)

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.

(more…)