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And thank you Kerry Reid for mentioning our Festival in your round-up, Theatre Around the World in Chicago.
Kinda nice to get press when you haven’t even solicited any yet. Right on. Let it be known you were the first…
Now that we all now know the identity behind @MayorEmanuel, we can return to mocking/celebrating our national leaders, past and present. Originally staged with The Neo-Futurists , the “44 Plays for 44 Presidents Festival” seeks to bring simultaneous productions of the show to theatres across the U.S. for the 2012 election season. The idea is to have 44 separate productions—one for each playlet—produced with each company’s own spin, which will then be recorded and shared online Election Day. If you’re interested in knowing more, e-mailplaysforpresidents@gmail.com . To our knowledge, Jimmy Carter remains the only actual president who has seen this show—he took it in at Dad’s Garage in Atlanta several years ago.
http://online.performink.com/columns/behind-the-curtain/342-behind-the-curtain-3-4-11
Four presidents were assassinated. Did you know that? They were
1. Abraham Lincoln
2. James Garfield
3. William McKinley, and
4. John F. Kennedy.
But how many Presidents had actual bullets fired at them. You ready?
Ten! And they are…
1. Andrew Jackson: When the would-be-assassin’s gun misfired at point-blank range, Jackson beat him repeatedly with his cane.
2. Abraham Lincoln
3. James Garfield: He survived for weeks. Songs were written about him–of course you had to go out and buy the sheet music and play those songs at home, which I suppose one might do in a fit of highly dedicated melancholy…Garfield should have pulled through but Alexander Graham Bell killed him. Bell had just invented a metal detector and was using it to find the bullet. Instead, he found metal bed springs under Garfield’s mattress that he kept mistaking for bullets. The doctors basically probed Garfield to death and he died of infection.
4. William McKinley: Killed by an anarchist. He also lived for several days after he was shot and died of infection. Theodore Roosevelt was the Vice President at the time. When McKinley died, Senator Mark Hannah said “that damned cowboy is president now.”
5. Theodore Roosevelt: That same damned cowboy delivered a speech with the bullet still in him. “It takes more than a bullet to stop a bull moose!” he famously declared. The crowd roared. Too bad for him it happened in the days before the sound bite. He failed to win a third term.
6..Franklin D. Roosevelt: The mayor of Chicago, Anton Cermack, was killed in the attack.
7. Harry Truman: This led to a dramatic and bloody shootout between the two would-be assassins and the secret service.
8. John F. Kennedy
9. Gerald Ford: He was shot at twice. And both attackers were women!
10. Ronald Reagan: Jodie Foster’s decision to appear in Silence of the Lambs may be a direct result of John Hinkley Jr.’s attempt to kill Ronald Reagan. She confessed in an interview once that she became drawn to those types of movies after having been stalked by Hinkley, who attempted to kill Reagan to impress her. Not that it got him a date or anything, but it did apparently leave an impression.
OK, OK…yes, you’ve got us. There really are only 43 Presidents…there have been 44 presidencies because Cleveland was the only President ever re-elected as an ex-President. So basically, he served four years, got Papa Bushed, but then came back and beat the guy who kicked him out.
So why have we been looking for 44 Productions? Personally, I’m still holding out hope that there will be two, very tight companies/schools that will collaborate to record Grover Cleveland Part I and Grover Cleveland Part II videos that look and feel consistent and use both casts. (Hint, hint.)
Also, if we get more than 44, there will be some sharing involved anyway. So why split hairs? It’s a snappier mission to shoot for 44. Right? Right?
Just a reminder of how far we’ve come in a little more than a week:
We currently have four cities represented. And they are…Chicago, Austin, Atlanta and Little Rock. For every producer that has thus far reserved a spot in the Festival, there’s another poised to join. I just can’t spill the beans yet. And for every company in or almost-in, there are twice as many still considering whether they want to join (that I know of). I wish I could tell you about all the exciting ideas and possibilities that have been batted around behind the scenes, but my friend Sean Malone tells me it’s always wise to under-promise and over-deliver, so I’ll shut up now.
Four down, 40 to go….I would summarize by saying we’re off to a very good start, but if you’re in or thinking about joining, invite your friends from other theatre companies or schools to consider joining , too. We can do this, but ultimately, it will be a community effort.
Why historic? Why Ike?
LRCHS is the famous alma mater of The Little Rock Nine, a group of kids who in 1957 attempted to be the first African Americans to attend the school after the supreme court’s Brown Vs. The Board of Education ruling. The governor at the time actually sent the Arkansas National Guard to help prevent the children from entering the school in an act of defiance against the federal government.
With the help of these guardsmen, the kids were harassed and chased away by a mob of over a thousand angry white people.
Said Elizabeth Eckford, one of the Little Rock Nine:
They moved closer and closer … Somebody started yelling … I tried to see a friendly face somewhere in the crowd—someone who maybe could help. I looked into the face of an old woman and it seemed a kind face, but when I looked at her again, she spat on me.
Enter Dwight D. Eisenhower, who, despite the fact that he may have been somewhat sympathetic to the segregationists, ordered the U.S. Army to defend the students, take control of the National Guard away from Governor Faubus, and allow the kids to attend school under the protection of the 101st Airborne.
It wasn’t easy for the students going forward, and this moment really represented the beginning and not the end of the trials of desegregation. But it was a great victory, nonetheless.
Little Rock Central High School still exists and the student population is diverse and proud of its place in history. The school itself is also a National Historic Landmark and stands as a symbol of one of the most important moments in Civil Rights History.
The 44 Plays for 44 Presidents Festival is honored to reserve a place for LRCH and we sincerely hope you can join us in 2012.
We’re beyond thrilled to have a fundraising sage with strong ties to the national theater scene helping us in our efforts. Welcome aboard, Sean!
Sean Malone is President of the Ten Chimneys Foundation. Under Sean’s leadership, Ten Chimneys has garnered an international reputation as one of the most inspirational and innovative historic sites in the United States. In 2007, Ten Chimneys launched the Lunt-Fontanne Fellowship Program, a ground-breaking national program to serve American theatre – partnering with an acclaimed master teacher (Lynn Redgrave for the first year) and eleven of the most prestigious and accomplished regional theatres in the country. Prior to Ten Chimneys, Sean worked on national fundraising campaigns and played an integral role in a number of successful endeavors – including work for George Street Playhouse, The Grand Canyon Shakespeare Festival and Madison Repertory Theatre. In 2004, Sean Malone was named one of the city’s “Forty under 40” by the Milwaukee Business Journal. Sean has lectured at Oxford University, the National Arts Club, and the Williamstown Theatre Festival. He has appeared on CBS News Sunday Morning, NPR’s All Things Considered, and dozens of regional television and radio stations – and has been quoted in hundreds of newspapers and magazines, including The New York Times, The Globe and Mail, The Chicago Tribune, Playbill, and the Associated Press.
We now have more fans on the 44 Plays for 44 Presidents fan page, than George W. Bush has on his fan page. We have 99. He has 96. Come on over now and become our 100th fan.
The George W. Bush Fan Club on Facebook has a whopping 96 fans. 44 Plays for 44 Presidents currently has 64–most of which we got yesterday. Help me beat the Bush fans by the end of the day today! We only need 32 fans to do it!
Like our Facebook fan page and enlist your friends to help us.
Of course, Dad’s Garage, and of course Jimmy Carter. 44 Plays for 44 Presidents and Dad’s go way back. In fact, the success of 44 Plays is tied directly to the attention that Dad’s Garage paid to the show back in 2002. When former Artistic Director Sean Daniels saw it for the first time in Chicago, he knew Dad’s needed to mount their own version. And they did just months after the world premier in Chicago.
And guess what happened?
Jimmy Carter came and saw the show. He laughed hardest during the Regan play–and after his own play, the entire house gave him a standing ovation.
Wherever you are located, interested theater company, if you leave near an ex-President, this could happen to you.
Because Dad’s remounted the show, 44 Plays (then 43 Plays) caught the attention of Playscripts, Inc., who actually asked us if they could publish it. When does that ever happen?
In short, you can easily argue that the show would not have come as far as it has come without Dad’s.
We’re beyond thrilled that they’re considering joining the Festival in 2012.