Richard Krevolin's OUR TOWN... BUT WILDER To Hold Special Post Show Talkbacks

Off-Broadway's Our Town... But Wilder, a new comedy that centers on a small-town high school theater department in the 1980's and the chaos that ensues from a love affair between a teacher and a student, will be presenting special post-show talkbacks featuring several prominent figures from the worlds of journalism, law, and religion. The production, written by Richard Krevolin, is currently in previews and has an open-ended run at Actors Temple Theater, 339 West 47th St. The official opening is slated for Sunday, October 16 at 2:00PM. www.ourtownbutwilder.com

James Ledbetter (Reuters / Slate) will lead the talkback on Saturday October 8th

"Our Town is one of the most revealing and enduring American plays ever written," said Ledbetter. "I'm excited to explore with Krevolin how his play looks at small new england towns today in the 21st century."

Elie Honig (Former Assistant US Attorney for the Southern District of New York & CNN Contributor) will lead the talkback on Sunday, October 9th

"35 years ago, the writer/director, Rich Krevolin was my summer camp counselor. He was a mad, creative genius back then, and he turned it into a career. Join us for the talkback, see how this play was created, and what went on behind the scenes. It'll be great fun and lots of laughs."

Bradley Honan (CEO & President of Honan Strategy Group - a Democratic polling and data analytics firm) will lead the talkback on Saturday, October 15th

"Talkback's are invaluable both to the audience and the artists involved, said Honan. "Theater is about stimulating conversations and what could be more valuable or educational than to have a chance after a show to share you thoughts and discover the origins of the play and the process of its creation."

Irwin Kula (President, CLAL, Making Jewish a Public Good) will lead the talkback on Sunday, October 16th

"I am very much looking forward to doing this talk back with Rich as I think this play has particular resonance at this moment in America," said Rabbi Kula. "As a country we had a sense until recently that, however incrementally, we were indeed making progress on growing past our prejudices and on better communicating with each other- not simply despite but considering our differences. These days in America many people are indeed "lamenting" where we are. We look down on those people just forty years ago who held "obviously" noxious and prejudicial views of others and yet these days we have gnawing feeling that with all our progress there is an id of America that has (re)surfaced - a repressed mix of fear and even hate of the other. We are used to looking back and feeling how superior and more evolved we are in relation to the other, to the stranger, to those who are different and make us uncomfortable --and yet are we really! For me this play lifts this question of how much more evolved are we really?"

Set in a small New England town in the 1980's, Our Town... but Wilder tells the story of high school student Bentley Cramer, a sexually confused theater kid. When Bentley becomes the stage manager in his high school's production of Thornton Wilder's Our Town, a series of comic mishaps lead him on a journey of self-discovery as he learns about the fragile coexistence of beauty/community and intolerance/divisiveness that often co-exist in small town America.

The cast of Our Town...But Wilder features Robert Aloi, Camber Carpenter, Chris Carver, Ben Elias, Scott Kall, Frances Karagio, Joseph Monseur, Anne Nadell, Kathryn Taylor, Caitlin Wells.

The production features lighting design by Aurora Winger. The Stage Managers are Jackie Perez and Devin McKenzie. Casting is by Lindsay Chag. General Management is by Edmund Gaynes.

Our Town... But Wilder was inspired by Thornton Wilder's most famous play, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Our Town, which has never stopped being produced since its premier in 1938. Small-town community plays a titular role in both plays. Wilder's play takes place in a New England town called Grover's Corner, while Krevolin's is set in Irrelevant, Connecticut. Both towns serve as a vehicle to capture the essence of life in small town America.

"I've loved Our Town since I first watched the play on PBS as a child," says Krevolin. "It's a fantastic vehicle to show how some things in small New England towns never seem to change; from the welcoming sense of knowing your neighbors to the beauty in aspects like the fall foliage to the puritanical intolerance of race, religion, and sexuality. Both works are contemplative pieces about humanity, though unlike Wilder's play, this play is a transgressive comedy which challenges us to laugh while thinking more deeply about who we are as Americans, both in the past and in the present."

Krevolin became a theater lover and fan of Thornton Wilder's plays while growing up in a small Connecticut town in the 1970s/80s. He wrote Our Town... But Wilder while in grad school in 1990 and promptly put it on the shelf, where it sat for the next 30 years. Then, just a few years ago, he returned to his high school for a ceremony. Coincidentally, only days before the event there had been anti-semitic and homophobic incidents at the school, which reminded him of the similar issues he had written about decades earlier. The fact that some things never seemed to change in small town America compelled him to unearth and revise the play for audiences today.

Performances are on Saturdays at 8:00PM, Sundays at 2:00PM and Monday at 7:00PM. The running time is 95 minutes with no intermission.

Tickets are $59.50 and can be purchased online at: https://www.telecharge.com/Off-Broadway/Our-Town-but-Wilder/Overview

About The Playwright:

Richard Krevolin is a graduate of Yale College. Richard went on to earn a master's degree in screenwriting at UCLA's School of Cinema-Television, and a master's degree in playwriting from USC. He has been an adjunct Professor of Dramatic Writing at USC School of Cinema/TV, UCLA, Pepperdine, Emerson, Ithaca College, University of Redlands and The University of Georgia. He has several scripts in development in Hollywood including "SAFER" with Tom DeSanto Productions (X-Men, Transformers). He was one of the writers of the documentary, "Fiddler on the Roof: 30 Years of Tradition." He wrote and directed the PBS documentary about theater during the Holocaust, "Making Light in Terezin." And recently, he wrote and directed the feature film, "Attachments" starring Academy Award nominated Actress, Katharine Ross. His play, Trotsky's Garden, was a finalist for the Eugene O'Neill National Playwrights' Conference. His one-man show, Yahrzeit, a finalist in the HBO New Writer's Project, was a hit at the Santa Monica Playhouse, running for five sold-out months; under a new name, Boychik, it opened Off-Broadway at Theater Four in New York City in 1997 and then toured the country. His plays have been performed with Ed Asner, Allen Arbus, Jean Smart, Mackenzie Phillips and Richard Kline. His Off-Broadway stage play, "Lansky," written with Joe Bologna, was nominated for an Outer Critics Circle Award and was a big hit at the National Yiddish Theater in Tel Aviv. His play, "The Gospel According to Jerry" opened at the Minnesota Jewish Theater and then was produced across the country and his play "Sort of a Love Story" written with Academy Award nominated writer, Joe Bologna, was produced at the El Portal Theater in LA.

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