Do not expect the high level of production values that Lou Tyrrell, founding producing director of the late, lamented Florida Stage, delivered with regularity at Manalapan and at the Kravis Center, when he unveils his new venture — The Theatre at Arts Garage — this Tuesday night.
Still, his commitment to American playwrights and to developing new work for the stage will be unmistakably present at his new location in downtown Delray Beach.
At 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Tyrrell inaugurates his new company with a Master Playwright Series, the first of four sessions on Tuesday evenings throughout February. Yes, it sounds similar to the program that Palm Beach Dramaworks has long had, but the difference is Tyrrell has the contacts and relationships to bring here such world-class writers as Israel Horovitz, John Pielmeier, William Mastrosimone and John Guare.
“I just wrote them with the idea, and they responded so generously,” says Tyrrell. “I’d been in touch with Israel, so that was an easy one. John Guare responded, saying he’d been meaning to write, and yes, he’d love to help in any way he can. That was the response that many of them had. It was so gratifying to have people like that care.”
Each evening will feature a reading of a short play or a segment of a full-length work, followed by a talk and talk-back session with the playwright. The play choice was left up to each writer, though as Tyrell put it, “I told them I wanted to keep it as close to an hour as possible, perhaps something that showed off their earlier work. Trying to stay away from their better-known work, in favor of something that didn’t get as celebrated.”
Horovitz proposed reading his 1974 breakthrough absurdist one-act, Line, “soon approaching its 40th year of continuous performance at (New York’s) 13th Street Theatre,” the playwright says, “so it seemed like a good starting point.”
Line concerns five characters jockeying for position in a line of indefinite purpose. As Horovitz notes, “People ask, ‘Why is ‘Line’ so successful?’ I say it’s very cheap to produce. It takes a piece of tape. But there must be a lot of plays that are cheap to do. So the honest answer is, ‘I don’t know.’ If I knew, I might try to do it again.
“It’s funny, it’s sexy and it’s short. What could be better?”
Horovitz has volunteered to read the stage directions and the impressive local cast will include Ken Kay, Kim Cozort, John Felix, Todd Allen Durkin and Ryan Didato.
The following week (2/14), Pielmeier — best known for writing Agnes of God — will read his one-man-play Courage, playing J.M. Barrie, delivering an address to the graduating class of St. Andrew’s University in Scotland.
“I loved the idea of his writing about another writer, who we know best through ‘Peter Pan,’” says Tyrrell. As he says of Pielmeier, “The interesting thing with him is out of the gate he had this meteoric hit. That’s wonderful for him, but it shouldn’t and doesn’t diminish any other piece that comes from him.”
The third reading, Mastrosimone’s Cat’s-Paw (2/21), about a terrorist group intent on the pollution of the world’s water supply, had its world premiere over 20 years ago at Florida Stage. “It’s a high-stakes, riveting piece of muscular theater,” says Tyrrell. “When we did it, it was 10 years before 9-11, let alone (Oklahoma City bomber) Timothy McVeigh.”
The series concludes with the first act of Guare’s Lake Hollywood (2/28), which concerns the denizens of a New Hampshire lake resort, once intended as a retreat for Hollywood stars, now threatened by a nearby forest fire. “It’s a time-jump play,” says Tyrell. “Act One is 30-40 years earlier than Act Two, but each act kind of stands alone, so it really fit our needs.”
If there is sufficient audience interest, Tyrrell hopes to make the series a part of The Theatre’s regular programming. Looking ahead, he has already started talking to such A-list writers as Eve Ensler and Nilo Cruz about participating in the future.
Tyrrell sounds bullish about his new company, about the Arts Garage and about Delray Beach. “It is the perfect model for new work in the American theater today,” he enthuses. “It is in a vibrant, contemporary, happening city with a vibrant downtown with lots of dining options. It’s the kind of casual, edgy venue that the kind of programming that I’m most interested in can best be celebrated.”
MASTER PLAYWRIGHT SERIES at The Theatre at Arts Garage, 180 N.E. First St., Delray Beach. Tuesdays at 7:30 p.m., Feb. 7, 14. 21 and 28. Tickets: $15-$20 in advance; Four-play subscription: $48-$64. Call: (561) 450-6357.