Cygnet Theatre Announces World Premiere of Local Playwright Richard Platt's RIPPLES ON WALDEN POND

Artistic Director Sean Murray is proud to announce Cygnet Theatre's second World Premiere production - acclaimed local writer Richard Platt's RIPPLES FROM WALDEN POND - An Evening with Henry David Thoreau.  This production, which began as a staged-reading in collaboration with Write Out Loud, will once again feature Cygnet Resident Artist Francis Gercke as Thoureau, and will be directed by Eric Poppick.  RIPPLES FROM WALDEN POND will run for four performances only, April 16th, 17th, 23rd, and 24th at 7:30pm.   All four performances will take place at Cygnet Theatre in Old Town State Historic Park.

RIPPLES FROM WALDEN POND introduces its audience to the inner-workings of arguably one of the most influential writers in the world, press notes state.  Although Thoreau died at the age of 44 in 1862, his books, poems and essays have continued to influence the greatest leaders of our time.  Thoreau's theory of civil disobedience influenced such thinkers and activists as Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., President John F. Kennedy and naturalist John Muir, as well as writers including Leo Tolstoy, Marcel Proust, William Butler Yeats, Ernest Hemingway and George Bernard Shaw.  Yet very little is known about this poet, abolitionist, naturalist, war resister, civil disobedient, critic of development, tax rebel, surveyor, historian, philosopher and teacher.  Richard Platt's Evening with Henry David Thoreau invites us into the mind of this extraordinary man.

Author Richard Platt has been a contributor to the literary quarterly Slightly Foxed since 2007.  His first novel, As One Devil to Another, a fiendish correspondence in the tradition of C. S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters, was recently published by TynDale House.  RIPPLES FROM WALDEN POND: An Evening with Henry David Thoreau marks Platt's first foray into stage plays.  In his introduction to the play, Platt writes, "By 1854, thirty-seven-year-old Harvard-educated Henry David Thoreau had written what would become one of the most reprinted and influential political essays in history, and no one knew it.  He had published his masterpiece, Walden, one of the few books of nineteenth-century American literature that can claim indisputable status as a classic, and no one read it.... A few close friends called him a seer and a poet.  Nathaniel Hawthorne called him a wholesome and healthy man to know.  Ralph Waldo Emerson, the most respected man of letters in America, called him his best friend.  Everyone else called him a failure.

"Thoreau is the quintessential American archetype: self-reliant, blunt, hostile to rank and privilege, unwilling to accept any philosophy as true without the test of implementation, and above all, fiercely and passionately steadfast in his insistence that government exists for the benefit of the governed, that its power is derived from the consent of the governed, and that each man is the equal of every other man and superior to any government...Ripples From Walden Pond is a gesture of both gratitude and homage.  Thoreau is one of the great men in the history of American letters."

RIPPLES FROM WALDEN POND stars Resident Artist Francis Gercke as the notorious author.  Gercke, who has appeared on Cygnet's stage in multiple productions (Glass Menagerie, Our Town, Love Song, A Number and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof - Critic's Circle Award for Best Actor), was an instrumental part of Cygnet's first World Premiere, THE TRAGEDY OF The CommonS.  When Stephen Metcalfe reached out to Cygnet with the early drafts of his play, it was Gercke who staged and directed Cygnet's first reading of COMMONS, later taking on the role of Spencer in Cygnet's full-production.  "I love new works," stated Gercke.  "They are incredible opportunities for an actor to work directly with the author to fully create a new life on stage, with no imprints left by actors who have done the role previously.  It's a very rare and unique experience."

RIPPLES FROM WALDEN POND runs April 16th, 17th, 23rd & 24th at 7:30 pm at Cygnet's Old Town Theatre located at 4040 Twiggs St. in Old Town San Diego State Historic Park.
 
Tickets can be purchased by visiting Cygnet's website at www.cygnettheatre.com or by calling the box office at 619-337-1525.  Tickets can also be purchased in person by visiting Cygnet's box office located at the Old Town Theatre, 4040 Twiggs St. in Old Town San Diego State Historic Park.

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