The Concord Theatricals Read More Plays Club focuses on recognizing select Concord Theatricals plays as important works of literature, uniting theatre lovers and creating a digital space dedicated to celebrating great artists, good conversation and plays on the page.
Each club session features a fantastic Concord Theatricals title and artists connected to the work in an hour-long candid discussion around the creation and history of the play. Readers have a chance to engage with the artist and learn more about their motivations, their creative process, and the work itself.
For our seventh session, on Monday, November 1, 2021, we read and discussed…
Gnit by Will Eno (US/UK)
Gnit by Will Eno (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy) Based on Henrik Ibsen’s classic play Peer Gynt, Gnit follows Peter Gnit on a desperate search for his “True Self” after being banished from his town. Armed only with tales from his dying mother of his absent father, Peter falls in and out of love, makes and loses his fortunes, and has little to no regard for those around him. All the while, he continues on his unrelenting quest to find himself at whatever cost. Gnit is a rollicking modern cautionary tale from Pulitzer Prize-nominated playwright Will Eno, author of The Realistic Joneses, Thom Pain: Based on Nothing, and Middletown.
Playing at Theatre for a New Audience October 30th – November 21st, 2021.
Watch the full session below!
Participants
Will Eno (Playwright) recently completed the Residency Five Fellowship at the Signature Theatre, which premiered his play Title and Deed in 2012, and The Open House, in 2014 and Wakey, Wakey in 2017. Will’s play The Underlying Chris premiered at 2nd Stage Theatre in October 2019, directed by Kenny Leon, and The Plot premiered at Yale Repertory in November 2019, directed by Oliver Butler. The Realistic Joneses appeared on Broadway in 2014, where it won a Drama Desk Award, was named USA Today’s “Best Play on Broadway,” topped the The Guardian’s 2014 list of American plays, and was included in The New York Times’ “Best Theatre of 2014.” The play was recently included in “25 Significant Plays of the last 25 Years” in The New York Times. The French premiere, Juste Les Jones, will be directed for the Paris stage by documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman. The Open House won the 2014 Obie Award, the Lortel Award for Outstanding Play, and a Drama Desk Award, and was included in both the Time Out New York and Time Magazine Top 10 Plays of the Year. Title and Deed was on The New York Times and The New Yorker magazine’s Top Ten Plays of 2012. Middletown, winner of the 2011 Horton Foote Award, premiered at the Vineyard Theatre and subsequently at Steppenwolf Theater and many other American Theaters and universities. The Canadian premiere, at The Shaw Festival in 2017, received a rapturous response from critics and audiences and was remounted in 2018 in Toronto. Thom Pain (based on nothing) was a finalist for the 2005 Pulitzer Prize and has been translated into more than a dozen languages. It was performed by Michael C. Hall in a sold-out revival at the Signature Theater in the fall of 2018. The L.A. premiere was performed by Rainn Wilson at the Geffen Playhouse in 2016, and a film was made from those performances, directed by Will and Oliver Butler. In spring 2019 Will wrote the book for the hugely successful ad campaign Skittles Commercial: The Broadway Musical, which also starred Michael C. Hall.
Amy Rose Marsh (Moderator, Vice President, Acquisitions and Artistic Development, North America) began her theatrical licensing career with Samuel French as a literary intern in 2007 and has spent the last 13 years with Samuel French, now under the umbrella of Concord. During her time at Samuel French, she has been responsible for bringing more than 600 new plays and musicals into print, including new works by Sarah Ruhl, Dave Malloy, Chris Miller and Nathan Tysen, Agatha Christie, Will Eno, Thornton Wilder, Lisa Kron and Jeanine Tesori, and Suzan-Lori Parks, among others. She is a passionate advocate for diversity in the theatre and believes strongly in the power of art to impact the world for the better. She currently sits on the Board of Theater Masters and is a proud ambassador for the National New Play Network.
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For more information about the Read More Plays Club, click here.
