An Abundant Life - Speaking Our Truth

Rich Orloff is a playwright who I've been honored to know for more than twenty years. I met him when I was cast in a play he had written that was performed as part of an evening of short plays with the Circle Repertory Company's LAB which I have been a part of since I first moved to New York City. As I've written in these pages before, I was fortunate enough to have an internship at Circle Rep right out of College, and I was invited to join the LAB the following year. At the time, though I knew that this was the best theater company in New York City with a history that dated back to the 1960's and Cafe Cino and some of the most extraordinary downtown theater that has ever graced the New York scene, in a strange way I took it for granted that this was the company where I'd found myself after college because I felt so at home there. And that is the beauty of Circle Rep, which is now known as New Circle Theatre Company. It is a theater home for those of us who have been fortunate enough to walk into its doors one day and be invited to be a part of its family. A few years back I participated in a celebration of the life of Michael Warren Powell who was the Artistic Director of the LAB, and though there were some people there who I hadn't seen in more than ten years, it felt like we'd just been hanging out in the green room yesterday.

Theater is one of the hardest art forms to love to do because Actors, Writers and Directors cannot work in a vacuum. We can practice our craft somewhat alone if we absolutely have to, but even writers need to get together with Actors and a Director and an audience if they want to hear and experience their play. Theater people need people, and as the Jule Styne and Bob Merrill song goes, "People who need people are the luckiest people in the world." When we are able to find a theater home like Circle Rep we are very lucky and very blessed, but sometimes it can be very lonely being a theater person, when you're between projects or at a time like we are in now when we can't get together for performances, or read-throughs, or just to hang out and talk shop.

That is why when I received word that David Kronick, the Executive Director of New Circle Theatre Company, was casting a play by Rich Orloff that was going to be done via Zoom for the 50th Anniversary of the shootings at Kent State, I responded to the call immediately. I love Rich and his plays and the opportunity to be working on a play of his with New Circle Theatre Company about a topic like that at a time like this is priceless.

"Days Of Possibilities" is written in a documentary style, and incorporates the true stories of Oberlin students who were involved in protests during the time from 1964 through 1970, when life as it had been known and what was felt to be the status quo were changing rapidly. Students who begin the play talking about the simple things of student life at a co-ed campus undergo a transformation that is at first subtle and over time becomes life changing for themselves and their families, and their actions and experiences inspire their own and future generations to recognize and rebel against social injustices and inequalities that had been accepted as the norm up until that point. I have a great respect for authority, and although I am a believer in non violence, I have a great respect for those who risk and give their lives in wars that they feel are necessary, but as is widely recognized now, there were important reasons to question that war and the draft that sent a generation of youth to fight it. But back in those days it was at first only courageous people and students like these who raised their voices to say they had serious questions that weren't being answered, and who put their lives on the line to try to change the world to a better one.

Rich Orloff is such an extraordinary playwright because he writes about very deep and very serious topics while still keeping them entertaining and sometimes even funny with moments of genuine humor. The play that I was in years ago was called "Prague Summer" which was about the opening up of Prague after the fall of Communism and the aftermath that created a gold rush of sorts with Capitalists racing to make a profit in a place that was very much part of an older more genteel Europe that today does not exist any more. I played the girlfriend of one of the characters, and as he describes to his friend how wonderful I am as a business woman and as a girlfriend, I arrive and I'm dressed as a cockroach, or as Rich corrected me, I am a cockroach. In his description I'm "a tall, sexy cockroach, with good business skills." The description is pure Rich Orloff magic, and the visual alone was memorable, and I kept that costume for years. One friend of mine asked me to wear it every year at his annual holiday costume parties. It's images like these along with his incisive writing that make Rich Orloff and his plays so important. His voice is unique and he writes a truth that needs to be heard because it's a way for us all to speak ours.

Rich Orloff's "Days Of Possibilities"

Performing Via Zoom May 4, 2020

Across The Nation

And At New Circle Theatre Company

New York City

For Information About How To Login

For This Historic Performance

https://www.richorloff.com/
https://www.richorloff.com/days-of-possibilities/

Photographs And Information
Courtesy Of Rich Orloff And His Website

Selected Screenshots From Rehearsals On Zoom

Blessings,

Jannie Susan