Staged Reading - Lobby Hero

By Kenneth Lonergan

A Staged Reading

Directed by Robert Estes

Tuesday - May, 17th, 2011 -  8 p.m.

ONE NIGHT ONLY

 

What does it take to be a hero? Superpowers like Spiderman, Superman or Batman? Or just the unlikely powers of a low level lobby attendant?

Kenneth Lonergan's (screenwriter of You Can Count on Me) intricate, compact, comic Lobby Hero tautly explores the moral complexities involved in deciding how to do the right thing. (donation or pay what you can)

Lobby Hero

By Kenneth  Lonergan

A Staged Reading, Directed by Robert Estes

ONE NIGHT ONLY: Tuesday – May 17th, 2011 8 p.m.

What does it take to be a hero? Superpowers like Spiderman, Superman or Batman? Or just the unlikely powers of a low level lobby attendant? Kenneth Lonergan's (screenwriter of You Can Count on Me) intricate, compact, comic Lobby Hero tautly explores the moral complexities involved in deciding how to do the right thing.

Directors Note: I once took a play writing class with the English playwright David Edgar in which he said that when he writes political plays he tries to show each character at their best, otherwise there really wouldn't be any drama, i.e., if a character on one side of the political divide is taking bribes, then that is just wrong and it really isn't possible to have an incisive, complicated debate between competing political visions.

In Lobby Hero, each character isn't shown at their best, in fact, they do things that are legally as wrong as bribery, yet, I still think Edgar's idea applies, in that each character is trying to do the right thing, or they are at least doing right things as well as wrong. So they may not be at their best, but they're trying to do their best....which is a hard enough act for any of us to pull off.

Robert Estes (Director): Robert Estes is a member of the board of Actors Ensemble.  He most recently directed Heartbreak House by George Bernard Shaw, the first production of the 2011 Actors Ensemble season.  He made his directorial debut with Actors Ensemble in a well-received 2010 production of Sam Shepard's Curse of the Starving Class.  He also recently directed Other People's Money for Masquer's in Point Richmond, and is well known for his Grove talks before performances at Orinda's California Shakespeare Theatre.

Place: The Lobby of an Apartment Building in New York City

Time: the present

 

Cast (in order of appearance):

 

Jeff..........Thomas Arndt

William....Stuart Hall

Dawn.......Laura Wiley

Bill..........Greg Estes

Thanks to:  Alecks Rundell, Vicki Siegel, Jerome Solberg