There would be still people who would sing, who would dance, who would act, who would perform, even in the worst of times."Īctor Colleen Werthmann says she and her cast mates are constantly negotiating a razor's edge between comedy and tragedy. And we don't think probably people would want, even then, to be entertained. "When we think about apocalypse and zombie movies," he says, "we always think about society falling apart and everybody eating each other and killing each other and shooting and horror. Show composer Michael Friedman says Washburn has gotten at something about the creative impulse. In the second act, these same strangers have formed a theater troupe that goes around the blighted, dangerous countryside, performing Simpsons episodes - complete with commercials - for other survivors. In the first act, the strangers around the fire are just trying to hold onto their immediate past - in a world where there's now no electricity, never mind Google. Burns, the "Cape Feare" episode of The Simpsons morphs from a story shared 'round a campfire to include memories of a world-changing apocalypse - and over the years it becomes a shared cultural myth for surviving generations. The show had its world premiere at Washington, D.C.'s Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, a notable new-play incubator, and runs at New York's Playwrights Horizons through Oct. Burns: A Post-Electric Play, an audacious three-act drama that takes place in three different eras: right after the apocalypse, seven years after that, and 75 years further down the road. "I wanted to take a pop-culture narrative and push it past the apocalypse and see what happened," says Anne Washburn. Something very, very bad: The electrical grid is down, nuclear plants are imploding, most of the population of the United States has been wiped out. Then one member of the group hears a sound in the woods, and all of a sudden guns are drawn. The lights come up on a group of people around a campfire in the woods, trying to recall all the details of the hilarious Simpsons episode "Cape Feare," a parody of the Robert Mitchum and Robert De Niro movies, in which Bart Simpson is stalked by the evil but incompetent Sideshow Bob. If the world as we know it comes to an end, will art survive? And if it does, what kinds of stories will be told after the apocalypse? The answer might surprise you. Burns: A Post-Electric Play, a Simpsons-inspired fantasia of loss and remembrance by Anne Washburn. Morris (left), with Sam Breslin Wright, Gibson Frazier, Colleen Werthmann and Susannah Flood, in the third act of Mr. The first indication of his rich second act as a writer, born of his own challenges, was “Smokefall,” a beautiful family drama set (like “Birthday Candles”) in Grand Rapids that premiered at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre in 2014 and clearly was the work of a playwright who had come to understand one of life’s most profound truths.Who's That Masked Marge? Jennifer R. But his life took various challenging turns, his career stalled, personal issues accumulated and he ended up back in Michigan, living with his parents. The writer Noah Haidle once was a wunderkind New York playwright, the kind Broadway loves. No young person could have written this play the pain and discoveries of the author are all over every beautifully written line. For 90 minutes at the Roundabout Theatre on Broadway, face masks double as a means by which an emotionally wrought audience can wipe its eyes. The wonderful new drama “Birthday Candles,” which stars Debra Messing of “Will and Grace” fame, is a perfect example. Debra Messing, Christopher Livingston, Susannah Flood in Roundabout Theatre Company's "Birthday Candles."
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