A Kid Like Jake at Langhorne Players

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2. A Kid Like Jake

"[A] smart, fluent drama... Mr. Pearle has found an intriguing subject of real currency, and one that stirs our natural sympathy." ?NY Times.

"A KID LIKE JAKE is a searching, keenly perceptive look at how the nature-versus-nurture question can play out on the front lines of tolerance today." ?Time Out NY.

"Daniel Pearle's polished new dramedy... is full of perceptive details about the intense world of affluent parenting, where every child is gifted and the struggle for dominance begins at home." ?NY Magazine.

Jake, a preschooler never seen onstage, loves to dress as Cinderella and the Little Mermaid. When an education consultant suggests that Jake?s ?gender-variant play? might benefit him in the impossibly ruthless world of Manhattan kindergarten admissions, his parents must confront their son?s shifting identity and their own shaky marriage. ?We?ll get through this,? the older woman says to the younger, in a tone oozing sympathy and understanding, clearly intended to buck up faltering spirits. Ripped from its context, the line and its earnest reading might suggest that the troubles being faced are of a life-threatening or life-altering kind: a cancer diagnosis, the death of a close relative, a psychological breakdown. Um, no. The older woman, Judy (professional Austin actress, Laura Galt-Snavely), is merely referring to the arduous, nerve-rattling process of obtaining a place in one of Manhattan?s exclusive and expensive private schools for the 4-year-old son of Alex (Austin professional actress, Lara Wright), the anxious mother at the center of ?A Kid Like Jake,? a new play by Daniel Pearle that opens on August 7 at the McCallum Arts Center.

This production is the latest in a tradition of co-productions between MacTheatre and local professional Austin theatre. "I was completely thrilled that Half and Half Productions (BOB, Chicago, Passing Strange) wanted to work with McCallum to make this production a reality." Having Half and Half attached to the project enabled Jake's director, Joshua Denning, to cast local professional actors with the acting chops needed to pull off this contemporary dramedy that premiered just last year at Lincoln Center in New York.

Authors

• Daniel Pearle