For this Throwback Thursday, I wanted to highlight one of the best experiences in my entire playwriting career – and no, it doesn’t involve New York City or even London (my plays have been performed in both cities) but Northern Kentucky University.
As random as it sounds, Northern Kentucky University has a wonderful theater department and hosts a biennial festival of the new plays – the YES (Year End Series) Festival – which is the oldest collegiate new play festival in the United States and also one of the largest and most prestigious.
Back in 2015, I was very blessed for my tragicomedy “Encore, Encore” (about the famous wit Dorothy Parker and her first marriage) to be one of the three plays selected for production, where, with a wonderful student cast, inspired direction by established Cincinnati director Ed Cohen, and a fine set, “Encore, Encore” came to life before my eyes – and indeed, this production of my work remains one of the best I have ever had the pleasure of experiencing.
As one of the finalists for the festival, I was able to attend some of the early rehearsals in Highland Hills, Kentucky (just across from Cincinnati) and also attend the festival itself, where there was a special reception for the winners and I was given the chance to teach a special class to the theater students (the subject – history as represented in theater) – and in that regard, really have some great discussions with students who were very enthusiastic about my play.
One of the people who saw and reviewed “Encore, Encore” was Rick Pender, former chairman of the American Theatre Critics’ Association – who had some very kind words for the play:
I caught Crowley’s excellent tragicomedy Encore, Encore on Monday evening… The play traces (Dorothy Parker’s) meteoric writing career and her turbulent personal life. We see her become established as the sharp-tongued drama critic for Vanity Fair, and we witness the deterioration of her marriage.
NKU senior Victoria Hawley played the central role in a production directed by veteran guest director Ed Cohen. Crowley’s play, which uses Parker as its narrator as well as its central character, digs deep, providing a portrait of a vulnerable woman who lived her life in the spotlight and never found real happiness. Hawley portrays her from her first confident days at Vanity Fair, through her friendships and relationships with New York’s literary elite. She was known as flippant and brittle, a source of quick-witted, often obscene remarks, and Hawley handles them well — while also conveying Parker’s frustration and vulnerability.
NKU junior Hunter Henrickson rises to the challenge of playing Parker’s husband Eddie. He went off to World War I in France almost immediately after their marriage, returning after two brutal years in the field nursing service, shell-shocked and seriously dependent. Her intervening success became a source of friction and embarrassment between them. Henrickson showed Eddie’s initial, inebriated charm and did a fine job of playing the broken man he became. The show’s other fine performance came from junior Connor Moulton as Parker’s brash writing friend Robert Benchley, a steady source of insouciant foolishness.
