Evening At The Talk House
Regional Premiere
Performances
Oct 5, 2017 -
Oct 21, 2017
Thu 7:30p
Fri & Sat 8p
Sun 2:30p
Special Performance:
Monday Oct 16 7:30p
Fri & Sat 8p
Sun 2:30p
Special Performance:
Monday Oct 16 7:30p
“You know, I’m so worried about Dick. I don’t know how much longer he’s going to be allowed to live.”
Cast & Personnel
Director
Dramaturgy
Cast
- Jeanne Harris
- Jovan Jackson
- Seán Patrick Judge
- Anne Quackenbush
- Rebecca Randall
- Charlie Scott
- Kyle Sturdivant
- Abraham Zeus Zapata
Fight Choreography
Scenic Design
Costume Design
Lighting Design
Sound Design
Prop Design
Production Manager
Stage Manager
Assistant Stage Manager
Booth Crew
Deck Crew
The Play
In an imagined near future, the creative team behind a critically lauded but ultimately unsuccessful play called “Midnight in a Clearing With Moon and Stars” have gathered at their old haunt, The Talk House. It’s the ten-year anniversary of what turned out to be one of the last plays ever performed. Some of them now make a lot of money in television, while those less successful in the entertainment business have had to take on more unsettling forms of employment to get by. Over the course of a night spent snacking, drinking, and reminiscing in this old wood-paneled club gone to seed, the characters begin revealing disturbing secrets about what their lives have become. The unnamed country they live in is ruled by a charming but frightening autocrat, and many people are finding themselves increasingly complicit and morally compromised in surprising and ominous ways.
This new darker-than-dark comedy by Catastrophic favorite Wallace Shawn (THE DESIGNATED MOURNER, MARIE AND BRUCE, OUR LATE NIGHT) examines the ways in which artists resist, try to hide from, and sometimes abet brutal state power. EVENING AT THE TALK HOUSE, which premiered at the National Theatre in London in 2015, now feels especially prescient. In 2017, Shawn discussed the play with the New York Times: “Plays began as political. The Greek plays were about communities and cities and kings and queens and how a country was run. We went through a brief period in the United States of somehow being so prosperous and secure that we forgot that we lived in the world, and plays were about what was happening in somebody’s kitchen.”
The Playwright
WALLACE SHAWN is best known for his character roles in such films as The Princess Bride, Toy Story, Young Sheldon, Clueless, Star Trek, and Annie Hall as well as his more serious turns in the films My Dinner with Andre and Vanya on 42th Street, but acting for him is something of a day job. His primary mode of expression is his writing and he is a writer unlike any other.
His plays include What We Did Before Our Moth Days, Grasses of a Thousand Colors, The Fever, The Designated Mourner, Evening at the Talk House, Aunt Dan and Lemon, and Marie and Bruce. He also co-wrote the screenplay for My Dinner with Andre with Andre Gregory, and he scripted and starred in Vanya on 42nd Street, a film adaptation of Anton Chekov’s play Uncle Vanya. His 2014 film A Master Builder was based on the play by Henrik Ibsen.
In the Media
Photo Sets
Evening At The Talk House
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An evening at the Talkhouse, By Wallace Shawn. Directed by Rob Shimko and Kyle Sturdivant- An evening at the Talkhouse, By Wallace Shawn. Directed by Rob Shimko and Kyle Sturdivant
- An evening at the Talkhouse, By Wallace Shawn. Directed by Rob Shimko and Kyle Sturdivant
- An evening at the Talkhouse, By Wallace Shawn. Directed by Rob Shimko and Kyle Sturdivant
- An evening at the Talkhouse, By Wallace Shawn. Directed by Rob Shimko and Kyle Sturdivant
- An evening at the Talkhouse, By Wallace Shawn. Directed by Rob Shimko and Kyle Sturdivant
- An evening at the Talkhouse, By Wallace Shawn. Directed by Rob Shimko and Kyle Sturdivant
- An evening at the Talkhouse, By Wallace Shawn. Directed by Rob Shimko and Kyle Sturdivant
- An evening at the Talkhouse, By Wallace Shawn. Directed by Rob Shimko and Kyle Sturdivant
- An evening at the Talkhouse, By Wallace Shawn. Directed by Rob Shimko and Kyle Sturdivant
- An evening at the Talkhouse, By Wallace Shawn. Directed by Rob Shimko and Kyle Sturdivant
- An evening at the Talkhouse, By Wallace Shawn. Directed by Rob Shimko and Kyle Sturdivant
- An evening at the Talkhouse, By Wallace Shawn. Directed by Rob Shimko and Kyle Sturdivant
- An evening at the Talkhouse, By Wallace Shawn. Directed by Rob Shimko and Kyle Sturdivant
- An evening at the Talkhouse, By Wallace Shawn. Directed by Rob Shimko and Kyle Sturdivant
- An evening at the Talkhouse, By Wallace Shawn. Directed by Rob Shimko and Kyle Sturdivant
- An evening at the Talkhouse, By Wallace Shawn. Directed by Rob Shimko and Kyle Sturdivant
- An evening at the Talkhouse, By Wallace Shawn. Directed by Rob Shimko and Kyle Sturdivant
- An evening at the Talkhouse, By Wallace Shawn. Directed by Rob Shimko and Kyle Sturdivant
- An evening at the Talkhouse, By Wallace Shawn. Directed by Rob Shimko and Kyle Sturdivant
- An evening at the Talkhouse, By Wallace Shawn. Directed by Rob Shimko and Kyle Sturdivant
- An evening at the Talkhouse, By Wallace Shawn. Directed by Rob Shimko and Kyle Sturdivant
- An evening at the Talkhouse, By Wallace Shawn. Directed by Rob Shimko and Kyle Sturdivant
- An evening at the Talkhouse, By Wallace Shawn. Directed by Rob Shimko and Kyle Sturdivant
- An evening at the Talkhouse, By Wallace Shawn. Directed by Rob Shimko and Kyle Sturdivant
- An evening at the Talkhouse, By Wallace Shawn. Directed by Rob Shimko and Kyle Sturdivant
- An evening at the Talkhouse, By Wallace Shawn. Directed by Rob Shimko and Kyle Sturdivant
- An evening at the Talkhouse, By Wallace Shawn. Directed by Rob Shimko and Kyle Sturdivant
- An evening at the Talkhouse, By Wallace Shawn. Directed by Rob Shimko and Kyle Sturdivant
- An evening at the Talkhouse, By Wallace Shawn. Directed by Rob Shimko and Kyle Sturdivant
- An evening at the Talkhouse, By Wallace Shawn. Directed by Rob Shimko and Kyle Sturdivant
- An evening at the Talkhouse, By Wallace Shawn. Directed by Rob Shimko and Kyle Sturdivant
- An evening at the Talkhouse, By Wallace Shawn. Directed by Rob Shimko and Kyle Sturdivant
- An evening at the Talkhouse, By Wallace Shawn. Directed by Rob Shimko and Kyle Sturdivant
- An evening at the Talkhouse, By Wallace Shawn. Directed by Rob Shimko and Kyle Sturdivant
- An evening at the Talkhouse, By Wallace Shawn. Directed by Rob Shimko and Kyle Sturdivant
- An evening at the Talkhouse, By Wallace Shawn. Directed by Rob Shimko and Kyle Sturdivant
- An evening at the Talkhouse, By Wallace Shawn. Directed by Rob Shimko and Kyle Sturdivant
