Mark Twain’s Long Lost Play—Is He Dead? Debuts On Footlight’s Stage
August 11, 2010
CHARLESTON, SC – Footlight Players Theatre, the oldest continuously performing theatre company in the Southeast, launches it’s 79th season with the premier of Mark Twain’s previously unpublished play Is He Dead?.
A highly entertaining comedy, Is He Dead? is now available to the wide audience Mark Twain intended for it to reach. Written in 1898 in Vienna as Twain emerged from one of the deepest depressions of his life, the play illustrates its author’s superb gift for humor operating at its most energetic. The unknown manuscript of Is He Dead?, went unpublished and unproduced until discovered by renowned Mark Twain scholar Shelley Fisher Fishkin in 2009 and was then adapted for the stage by David Ives.
Richly intermingling elements of burlesque, farce and social satire with awry look at the world market in art, Is He Dead? centers on a group of poor artists in Barbizon, France, who stage the death of their friend Jean-Francois Millet in order to drive up the price of his paintings. To make this scheme succeed, the artists hatch a number of hilarious plots involving cross-dressing, a full-scale fake funeral, lovers’ deceptions and much more.
Mark Twain was fascinated by the theater and made many attempts at playwriting—Is He Dead? has been called his best. Although Is He Dead? may have been considered too edgy for the Victorian 1890s, today’s audiences will thoroughly enjoy Twain’s well-crafted dialogue, intriguing cast of characters, the characteristic ebullience, humor and wit that earned him the reputation as the greatest American humorist of his age.
The Footlight Players Theatre production of Is He Dead? is directed by Greg Tavares, a founding member of The Have Nots! comedy improv company and a co-founder and the co-artistic director of Theatre 99.
Tavares holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in acting from the University of South Carolina and a Masters of Fine Arts degree in directing from the University of Nebraska. Is He Dead? is Tavares’ first production with the Footlight Players and features a cast of eleven talented local actors.
Performance dates for Is He Dead? are August 27–28; September 2–4; 9–11 at 8:00 p.m. and August 29 and September 12 at 3:00 p.m.
Tickets are $25 for adults, $22 for seniors, $15 for students. To purchase tickets, contact the Footlight Players box office at (843) 722.4487 or visit www.etix.com purchase your tickets online.
Footlight Theatre, home to Footlight Players, is located at 20 Queen Street in downtown Charleston and produces between eight and ten productions per year marking the company as the most active community theatre in the southeast.
Footlight Players
Footlight Players theatre is the longest continuously performing theatre company in the Southeast and has been producing performances since 1931. Presenting on average six Main Stage and two Late Night productions annually, Footlight Players is notably one of the leading community theatres in the South focused on providing quality entertainment for and by the community. For more information on Footlight Players, Inc. call (843) 722.7521 or visit FootLightPlayers.net
