For this Throwback Thursday, I am highlighting the Beverly Hills/LA production of my historical drama “Fifteen Men in a Smoke-Filled Room” about the nomination of Warren G. Harding for president at the Republican National Convention of 1920.
Of all my plays, “Fifteen Men” (thus shorteningly called) is very special to me, because it was the first straight play I wrote that was worthy of anyone’s second glance – and indeed, I first wrote the play (as odd as it seems to say, considering how theatrically rich, weighty, and traditional it is) when I was 16 and in full-throttle Arthur Miller/Tennessee Williams/Peter Shafer mode.
Over the years, I never lost faith in “Fifteen Men” and kept tweaking it, with my exertions finally being rewarded when the play was given a staged reading by the Villagers Theatre of Somerset, NJ (thanks to its artistic director, Catherine MacPherson) – which was the first time a straight play of mine got anyone’s attention (my work “Hail and Reign” had already been produced, but that was a musical).
Unbeknownst to me at the time, the staged reading at Villagers would begin a 7-year odyssey where “Fifteen Men” would be recognized in 14 – yes, 14 – playwriting contests – my most awarded play by far – and was given staged readings by Firehouse Center for the Arts (Newburyport, MA), Eventide Arts (Dennis, MA), Dezart Performs (Palm Springs, CA), the Baltimore Playwrights Festival (“it’s obvious”, MD), Long Beach Playhouse (Long Beach, CA), the Historic Elitch Gardens Theater (Denver, CO), and even the North American Actors Association in London, where “Fifteen Men” was read in Covent Garden.
Despite all the attention and recognition, I never could get “Fifteen Man” actually produced, long after other plays of mine had started to make the theatrical rounds – until, that is, an angel named Tom Eubanks, Artistic Director of Elite Theatre Company in Oxnard, CA, gave the play a shot and had it produced at Elite in 2018 – after which a theatre-goer (to whom I am eternally grateful) referred the play to the gentlemanly David Hunt Stafford, Artistic Director of Theatre40 in Beverly Hills, which subsequently did a wonderful production of the play right before COVID threw the world for a loop.
Of all the reviews of the play (some of which didn’t quite understand what I was trying to do with it, as it is NOT a political play, despite the political setting), the best comes from Eric A. Gordon of “People’s World” who understood that, as its heart, “Fifteen Men” is a modern Greek tragedy, using dramatic aspects of Greek theater – everything from the chorus (represented by a radio announcer in the play), to the doom-laden hero, to the uncontrollable and unavoidable pull of fate – or to quote Mr. Gordon: “(Warren G.) Harding is portrayed as an unconscious tool of other men, other forces, almost hounded by inevitable fate, preordained by destiny as if in some ancient Greek play where the gods command the last word in the action.”
