We have also done both Faith County and Tomatoes.  I have to agree with Slicksister and say that Faith County is my favorite.  It is absolutely hysterical if the cast is given somewhat free rein with the characters.   They absolutely must be played over he edge, but not in their own eyes. 

For my wedding garb, (I was Luther) I had a doubleknit light brown tuxedo with dark brown trim.  (And to think someone actually wore that thing before I found it at a flea market!)  The tux was several sizes too big, for Luther would not have had one, but borrowed it from someone.  For my signature finish, I wore a John Deere baseball cap.

Tomatoes can also be hysterically funny, but again, agreeing with Slicksister, we also changed some of the words (don't like to do it, but if you know your patrons, you know what they will and will not accept.)  I think the key to Tomatoes is,again, havinga cast that is not afraid to be a little wild. 

We did Tomatoes last year for the second time, the first being about ten years ago.  It was a hit both times, but still believe Faith County was a bigger hit with the audiences.  We had patrons come to see it twice during the same run, just to catch what they might have missed the first time. 

Quoting slicksister and Unclepeter

"Tomatoes is quite funny too, but we had some problems with some of the lines/words in it (mongoloid, retard) so we changed them to make them a little less offensive."

"...we also changed some of the words (don't like to do it, but if you know your patrons, you know what they will and will not accept.)"

Be extremely careful in changing dialog of an author's play.  No theatre company professional or otherwise has the right to do that without the consent of the author and or the organization granting the performance rights.   If the dialog will offend your audience I would suggest not doing the play.   You open yourself up to a world of legal hassles in changing dialog, no matter how well meaning your intentions.

I can certainly understand the intention and I'm not sure that I might not have done the same given similar circumstances. 

I guess the lessons here are:

1. be accutely aware of what may or may not be offensive your audience.

and

 2. never talk to the press.  

2. never talk to the press. ??????

Learn to talk to the press? Yes

Do interviews in a quiet, private location? Yes

Not talk to them? NO

I can't speak for other parts of the country but if we are lucky enough to actually get a reporter to do an article it is huge and our ticket sales increase greatly. The press is an integral and neccessary part of theater (my PR person calls them a neccessary evil). If you are going to put yourself into a position to be contacted by the press learn to speak with them, have 4 or 5 set quotes you use to describe the show or give insight into it. Learning to speak in quotes will make the articles better, make your reporter's job easier and cover your butt.

Hi,

     I totally agree with you, acmeactor.  The press is an intregal part of theatre. I am lucky in that the two theatre critics for papers- one a local paper that comes out 3 times a week & the other a daily (except for Sunday) metropolitan- are fans of my work so they always go out of their way to write stories.  One even put my name in the headline which was the first time ever my name was in the headline!!!!  Both have in the past given me not-so-good reviews but the faults they pointed out were valid and I learned from them.  I've gotten more good than not-so-good reviews.  Received some of my best for playing a corpse in a play. I've even gone as far as to email them and thank them for their review (whether good or bad) and we end up back and forth discussions about past theatre experiences.  Even though a critic is just one person's point of view, I always learn from them. I may not always agree with what they say but I do respect their opinions as they come from years and years of reviewing plays- professional and community theatre.

My comment "never talk to the press" was tounge-in-cheek.  But apparently some folks just didn't get it.   Anyway I agree that one must be carefull if you're going be interviewed about a show and conoting anything negative about the play or the production is only going to hurt you in the end.   You have use the press to your advantage.

I only wish the local papers would do real reviews at my ct rather a version of our press release of what it's about and who's in it.

Joan54,

   I totally agree with you.  Plays, when written, reflected what life was like at that time.  The playwrights then never imagned how life would change in the future.  The plays weren't written with the intent of doing harm.  They are like a history lesson. A slice of what life was like, what issues were improtant, what beauty there was and what injustices there were.  There are many awesome plays written years ago that I'm sure aren't done because of the storyline.  I'm mom to two sons with autism.  I watch plays, movies etc that are about autism.  This whole PC things drives me nuts, too.  If we allow it to happen and go too far then many of the treasures that reflect life and times in the past will be lost forever.  And not just plays, but books,music, art etc.

Yeah.   Someone can find something to be offended by in every play...we're working on Taming of the Shrew and you wouldn't believe how many frowns we're getting from the feminist ( and I consider myself one) group.  Get over it!  We're going to bend a bit by having Kate give a broad wink as the curtain goes down but actually (as the director and I both quietly say) Kate was broken and subdued by the end of that play as Shakespeare wrote it.  It's just not funny to "tame" women in our society....although for some reason we are allowed to "tame" men.

And I send a hug across the ether to you as a sister mom of "disordered" kids.  Keep the humor in the situation...that's how we make it through every day. 

That's right.  If you can't approach life with a optomisticpoint of view, than you'll always be sad and dreading the worst.

     My CT did 'Taming of the Shrew' years ago.  The crew always wrote a short parody of the play to perform at the closing night party.  The parody for this play was called 'Screwing of the Tame'.

     A hug right back at you.  I had a drywall guy in last week to repair 12 holes in drywall throughout the house that my oldest autistci son did when having his meltdowns.  Now, that he's got past puberty, he's settled down and off all meds.  Yeah!!!!  They were a blessing when we needed them.  He still has a huge hole in the bottom half of his bedroom door.  The cats like it so as they come and go in and out of his room at will.  M-m-m-m.  New way a making cat/dog doors.  It's sort of become part of the landscape upstairs.

Small world!

My eldest son (age 16) also has autism.  We just got him out of the hospital a couple days ago because we discovered he was ingesting things that weren't food.  (Small objects, coins, etc etc.)  This was a behavior that we thought he'd outgrown at age 8.  It was a rude awakening for all of us.

He also has a neat, fist-sized hole in his bedroom drywall from a frustration outburst.  My background in building sets and props has help me learn how to repair just about everything in my house.  I haven't had the time to fix that hole just yet.

My wife is a writer and her first full-length play is about the joys and frustrations of raising a child with this disorder.  It had a staged reading last year and there is a possibility it will go into a full production this fall.  The language in her script is extremely raw and honest and sure to offend those with delicate sensibilities.

PS:  When our CT did "Shrew" our take was that Petruchio was enamored with the firey, obstinate Kate and -- when he realizes she is tamed at the play's end -- discovers he's ruined the part of her personality that made their relationship so fun and exciting.  It was a bittersweet ending and it still pi**ed people off.

What an interesting twist...we never thought of that one.  By the way have any of you "Shrew" people ever seen the DVD performance of the Shrew from the Broadway Theater Archives..1976.?  It has got to be the best.....particularly the staging and use of music.....check it out.

I would love to read her play.....hope it gets produced.  My daughter has so many funny stories from the psyc. wards I wish we could work them into a play.  I know it sounds strange to people unfamilar with daily contact with affective disorders and mental illness but you really do laugh almost as often as you cry....

Hi,

     I wish I could.  The scripts are usually destoyed after the party.  Let's just say the female roles were played by the male crew members who were in drag with balloons in their chests.

      I think they basically just re-wrote the lively scene between Kate and what's his name- you know- the scene that alludes to bee stings?

We've read Faith County, but ended up doing Faith County II: An Evening of Culture. Hysterical show, I think better than the original, and one of my personal favorites, mostly because I'll never have another role that allows me a 10-minute death scene -- got to die all over the stage, take out set pieces while I did it, take an offstage phone call in the middle of it and then go back out to gasp, gurgle and flop my last. Loved it!  We did Cahoots this year; I didn't work it except for set design, so it was one of the few shows that I actually got to sit out in the house and watch as an audience member. The director did a great job and he had a wonderful cast -- I actually laughed so hard that I had tears running down my face and my stomach hurt! THAT doesn't happen often. It's a difficult show because there's not a likeable character in it -- the actors and director have to be able to make everything these characters do plausible, as well as keep the audience from turning ugly and hating them all. We've also done Absence of a Cello -- I think it's a terrific period piece, and unusual for its time, in that the wife is an early version of what would eventually come to be called a feminist. It also allowed us to use a bunch of those late 50's, early 60's outfits that people are always donating to theaters. I wouldn't recommend trying to do that one as anything other than a period piece -- it's a real early 60's time capsule. Terrific comedy-drama, though, with really interesting charcters, very witty dialogue and intricate relationships to explore.

No, I didn't. I had a sofa and chair DSL, the trunk against the wall DSR, the sliding glass door and balcony on the SL wall, dining table and chairs USR, with kitchen entrance offstage R, and the front door USC. The director liked that much better than what was in the book -- he was having nightmares about how he was going to block conversations around someone standing in the trunk in front of the sofa, and about throwing someone off the balcony if everything was plainly visible because the balcony was USC. I'll try to find a photo of the set and post it for you.