Lucy Van Atta Archives - TheaterScene.net

Lucy Van Atta

Dogg’s Hamlet, Cahoot’s Macbeth

July 20, 2019

Dedicated to “creating socially and politically acute theatre for the 21st century” the PTP/NYC (Potomac Theatre Project) for their 33rd season offers this exuberant revival of Tom Stoppard’s 1979 two one-act plays, "Dogg’s Hamlet, Cahoot’s Macbeth," which cheekily satirize the theater and political oppression. Inspired by Wittgenstein and his fellow Czech playwright Pavel Kohout, Mr. Stoppard as he did in his monumental "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead" again here ingeniously appropriates Shakespeare for his own ingenious purposes. [more]

The Possibilities & The After-Dinner Joke

July 25, 2018

If "The After-Dinner Joke"’s 66 scenes seem cinematic, that is due to the fact that it originally was a teleplay commissioned by BBC for the series "Plays for Today" examining public issues. Churchill chose to deal with the politics of charitable institutions. Selby, personal secretary to the sales manager, decides that she gets no fulfillment from her work and tells her boss Mr. Price that she is resigning to be a do-gooder. Price offers her a job at the same salary working as a campaign organizer raising funds in towns throughout Britain for one of the charities that he has founded. [more]