Co Sponsored by

The Jewish Theatre of Bloomington

Talley's Folly

by Lanford Wilson

[Winner of the 1980 Pulitzer Prize for Drama]

Co Sponsored by The Jewish Theatre of Bloomington

directed by Tom Evans

Celebrate 30 Years of the Bloomington Playwrights Project with a special production of the Pulitzer Prize Winning Romance from our inaugural year

September 4, 5 & 10 - 12 @ 8pm
and September 6 @ 3pm

Tickets $25
available at Buskirk Chumley Box Office and online at www.buskirkchumley.org

Special Group Rates available. Contact bppwrite@newplays.org for more information.

The Bloomington Playwrights Project kicks off its 30th year with a very special production of Talley's Folly by Lanford Wilson, the Pulitzer Prize winning drama of our inaugural year, 1980, as well as the New York Drama Critics Circle Award. This romantic comedy is set one evening, in an old boathouse near Lebanon, Missouri in 1944. The play follows the courtship of two unlikely lovers, Sally Talley and Matt Friedman. Sally is from a conservative, small-town, wealthy family of bigoted Protestants, and Matt is a Jewish accountant twelve years older than Sally. The story of how they become brave enough to reveal their most painful secrets touched audiences and critics, and the play's Broadway run was a great success. Almost three decades after its first production, Talley's Folly is considered one of Wilson's most hopeful and affirming plays.

Lee Parker stars as Matt Friedman, a 43-year-old Jewish accountant from St. Louis, and Emily Goodson stars as the somewhat younger Sally Tally, a gentile from a wealthy Lebanon, Missouri family.

Imagine a Romeo and Juliet who are deeply in love, but it is only Romeo who knows that they are destined to be eternal lovers, while Juliet remains reluctant, dragging her feet, saying, "I'm just not sure. We're from such different backgrounds." But imagine also that this story has a much happier ending.

"You can expect to laugh, and you can expect to have your heart warmed," says Director Tom Evans. "You can expect to have a good time."

Directing at BPP has come full circle for Evans. Back in the 1980's Jim Leonard, a former student of Mr. Evans at Hanover College wrote The Diviners. Evans's staging of his play won the National Student Playwriting Prize and launched Leonard's theatre career. Around the same time Jim Leonard and Tom Moseman founded the first incarnation of the Bloomington Playwrights Project. One of the earlier new works they presented was Evans's Hanover College staging of The Diviners, done in the basement of the old city library. Later, Leonard and Evans went to New York where Evans directed the first professional staging of The Diviners at Circle Repertory, the company for which Lanford Wilson (author of Talley's Folly) wrote. As fate would have it Wilson acted as dramaturge for that New York staging of Leonard's play.

Talley's Folly is co-sponsored by the Jewish Theatre of Bloomington, which is hosting a special community reception and discussion after the Thursday, September 10th performance. The discussion will focus on the issues faced by interfaith couples like Sally and Matt in the play and feature several interfaith couples from the Bloomington community.

"The Jewish Theatre of Bloomington produces works that arise from or reflect the Jewish experience and whose themes are also applicable to universal issues of the human condition. Each post-performance discussion provides an invaluable opportunity to explore social issues raised in the play."

The reception and discussion are free to ticket holders for that night's event and will feature light appetizers and beverages.