I came across a great article today about Firehouse’s new works festival that highlights my play “Fifteen Men in a Smoke-Filled Room.”
2018 takes the stage: 16th annual New Works Festival celebrates New England playwrights
“Ellen Dempsey is the director of the 2018 full-length play “Fifteen Men In A Smoke-Filled Room” written by Colin Spear-Crowley of Westport, CT.
“The play is about Warren G. Harding and is set in 1920 at the Republican Convention,” Dempsey said. “It’s very much based on fact. The author calls it a tragedy and I think that holds true. In a lot of ways nothing has changed in the last 100 years.
“There was a lot of political maneuvering and the intrigue of hiding a political mistress. Did people really know and hide it, or did they not know? Mrs. Harding was a believer in psychics and a psychic told her that her husband would be elected and would die in office, and he did.”
Playwright Spear-Crowley is “a very good writer,” Easter Smith said, “and his stage direction is almost as good as his dialogue. He writes, ‘Don’t underestimate Mrs. Harding. She’s a tank in a bonnet.’”
“The play is political,” Dempsey said, “but it’s a human drama.””
Looking forward to the show tonight!
