18.Mar.2010 Becky’s New Car: Notes from the Artistic Director
BENITA’S NEW PLAY
by Janet Allen, Artistic Director
It’s a pretty joyous day when we find a smart, insightful contemporary comedy to produce! Sadly, these days, comedy seems to be relegated to serial television and romantic movies—largely disposable forms. The shelf life of a comedy in the theatre isn’t all that long. In part, this makes a lot of sense; comedy is very time sensitive, and based on social mores and customs which are forever subtly changing. A comedy that hits just the right issues and edges today may seem horribly outmoded, or simply dull, in even five years. While there are timeless comedic ideas (farce elements seem never to die), social comedy, and the idiomatic language in which it is transmitted, changes practically overnight.
It’s also a joyous day when that comedy comes from a playwright we enjoy, whose work we have produced: and that’s the case with Steven Dietz. We opened last season with Steven’s Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure, to considerable audience enthusiasm. Consequently, we are pleased to be putting a very different piece of his into public attention in Indianapolis. We are joined in this little Steven Dietz celebration by our colleagues at the Phoenix Theatre, who are producing his Yankee Tavern in April—it’s a rare (and planned!) occurrence to be able to see two works by the same writer, and we hope by sharing this mini-festival with the Phoenix to stir some discussion among our patrons about contemporary American playwriting.
There’s another wonderful feature about this play that we didn’t know about until after we had selected it for production: the story behind its creation. The play was commissioned by Seattle’s A Contemporary Theatre (ACT). The funds for the commission were donated by Seattle businessman Charles Staadecker, who chose to honor his wife Benita’s birthday in 2005 with a special living gift: a new play. The program, titled New Works for the American Stage and devised by ACT’s artistic director, Kurt Beattie, seeks to match individual donors with writers to create works of art that honor the honoree as well as the artist and the art form. Becky’s New Car is receiving 10 regional theatre productions this year (not surprising, given its delightful content and refreshing style), and the Staadeckers are traveling to see them all. While spreading the word about the joy they have experienced in helping launch the play into the world, they will encourage other arts patrons to step up to help create art work that inspires them.
In an article in the October edition of American Theatre, ACT artistic director Kurt Beattie noted, “This sort of thing happens all the time in classical music.” (The Staadeckers’ arrangement with ACT was inspired by their discovery of a similar practice at the Seattle Symphony, and the couple has since commissioned a trombone concerto from its resident composer Samuel Jones for their 25th wedding anniversary.) “If it happened more in the theatre it could be incredibly valuable, for both the artist and the philanthropist.”
So, as we open Becky’s New Car, and enjoy the play itself, we are also looking forward to meeting the folks that made it happen, and hearing first-hand the story about their role in its creation. In these challenging economic times, we need not only the laughs and the surprises that Becky brings us, but we need to reflect on how art gets made—one play at a time.
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