Another Great Review & Some BIG NEWS REVEALED...

Check out some excerpts form Robert Zaller's review of WHEN WE GO UPON THE SEA posted Saturday, April 17 on BroadStreetReview.com:

[ed. note: Red highlights added for emphasis...]

Lee Blessing’s new play, When We Go Upon the Sea, imagines George W. Bush in a place liberals would love to see him: awaiting trial as a war criminal in The Hague. Blessing has plenty of fun with “George,” as he calls him, but he points a darker finger at the rest of us, Americans and Europeans alike.

... the true interest of the play lies in the subtly entwined strands of shared history and guilt ... The larger question the play raises, however, is whose hands are clean enough to judge? ...

If Blessing’s mysterious hotel is to be regarded as the anteroom to judgment, then what it finally represents is the moral limbo we all inhabit, the impossibility of judgment itself. ...

Conan McCarty’s “George” is both a dead-on imitation and a satire of our 43rd president, although in the case of George W. Bush imitation and satire are almost indistinguishable. Peter Schmitz’s Piet, at once deadpan and provocative, makes a genuine character out of an enigmatic symbol, and Kim Carson is a businesslike temptress whose personal trauma is revealed only as a self-alienated, third-person soliloquy that makes her the most mysterious presence of all.

Between these slick European types, W.’s transparent foibles seem almost winning. He was, in retrospect, the perfect American dictator.

Director Paul Meshejian keeps the proceedings going as well as their static framework allows; set, lighting and sound all contribute to the ambivalent, subtly menacing mood the play evokes.

When We Go Upon the Sea is New York-bound after its Philadelphia run. It’s well worth seeing here, a play whose invitation to mock our last president lets none of us off the hook.

That's right! InterAct's production of WHEN WE GO UPON THE SEA is moving to New York for an Off-Broadway run in June! The details are being ironed out now so check back soon for details. In the meantime, thanks to Robert Zaller at BroadStreetReview.com for breaking the story.

Links to more information about WHEN WE GO UPON THE SEA:

Read Robert Zaller's Full Review

Read The Inquirer's Rave Review

Purchase Tickets

Play Description, Artist Bios & Performance Calendar
(including a talk-back with playwright Lee Blessing)

An Interview with Playwright Lee Blessing

Actor Conan McCarty on Playing George W. Bush

InterAct's 20/20 New Play Commission Program

WHEN WE GO UPON THE SEA Featured in the Inquirer

In today's Philadelphia Inquirer, columnist Chris Klein included a nice mention of how Cari Feiler Bender's family and friends joined forces to honor Cari's 40th birthday by sponsoring InterAct's commission of WHEN WE GO UPON THE SEA. Read his full story here.

Click here to learn how you too can sponsor a 20/20 New Play Commission.

InterAct Commissioned VEILS In Reading at Actor's Studio

This Saturday, September 12, the InterAct Theatre commissioned play, VEILS by Tom Coash, will be presented in a staged reading as part of The North Shore Readers Theatre Collaborative at The Actor's Studio in Newburyport, Massachusetts. VEILS was commissioned by InterAct in 2008 through it's 20/20 New Play Commissions program.

Tom Coash, playwright of VEILS and CRY HAVOC,
which InterAct premiered during its 2002/2003 Season

Written as the third in a trilogy of plays based on playwright Tom Coash's time as an academic living in Egypt, VEILS tells the story of Intisar, an African-American Muslim girl studying at the American University in Cairo, and Samar, her Egyptian roommate, who embark on a project exploring the controversy that arises when the university institutes a ban on women wearing burkas on campus. Along the way they discover that cross cultural friendships in a post-9/11 world require courage and understanding.

Read more about the reading of VEILS here:

NewburyportArts.blogspot.com

and here:

RonPullins.com

More information about InterAct's 20/20 New Play Commission program available here:

InterActTheatre.org/20-20-commission-program

InterAct Hosts Reading of Lee Blessing's 20/20 Commissioned Play

On Sunday, November 30, InterAct conducted a reading of Lee Blessing’s WHEN WE GO UPON THE SEA, which was one of five plays InterAct commissioned in February 2008, as part of its new 20/20 New Play Commission program. Set in the future at a four-star hotel in The Hague, WHEN WE GO UPON THE SEA reveals an introspective yet defiant George W. Bush on the eve of his international war crimes trial. The reading of the play was held in New York and was attended by Cari Feiler Bender, former InterAct Board Chair, in whose name the commission was sponsored, along with many of her friends and family who contributed to the commission.

- Seth Rozin
Producing Artistic Director

Left to Right: Playwright Lee Blessing, Commission Sponsor Cari Feiler Bender
& InterAct Producing Artistic Director Seth Rozin

[Photos provided by and used with permission of Cari Feiler Bender]

To learn how you too can sponsor a 20/20 New Play Commission or for information on the other four 2008 playwright recipients and their plays, visit: www.interacttheatre.org/20-20-commission-program.html.