Douglas Post is an excellent, articulate, and accomplished playwright of multiple genres, a fair and original lyricist and composer, and my favorite uncle (out of anybody's uncles anywhere). It disappoints me to see that many in the drama world outside Chicago are unfamiliar with the man and his plays.
Personal bias aside, his Earth and Sky stands as perhaps the best play I have ever read. It was going to be a movie for a while. Somebody bought the rights, commissioned Doug to do the screenplay, then they had him do it over again, then they asked someone else, and then the project died down. But Doug deserved to have that play known. I would suggest reading the play (or getting ahold of the radio production of it) to anybody, even people who aren't into reading scripts. Likewise for Drowning Sorrows. Doug excels at writing mysteries unbound by genre, where the gripping matters are personal more than plot related, and these are my favorite examples of his work in that vein.
He also has written several pop operettas and musicals, the most recent being a three woman revision of Antigone cast as a commentary on wars in general, and the strange atmosphere following September 11, 2001 without every directly addressing anything but the action in the play itself. This production has the feel of an upt-to-date, electric, rock-influenced musical, but I prefer his earlier work which features beatnick-tinged drum cycles by a colleague of his and piano provided by the man himself where the thing actually sounds like a percussion instrument much of the time.
Anyway, you few who are reading this should check out Douglas Post's page, linked in the title of this post, and seriously consider buying (or borrowing from me) some of his material. You shouldn't regret it.
Personal bias aside, his Earth and Sky stands as perhaps the best play I have ever read. It was going to be a movie for a while. Somebody bought the rights, commissioned Doug to do the screenplay, then they had him do it over again, then they asked someone else, and then the project died down. But Doug deserved to have that play known. I would suggest reading the play (or getting ahold of the radio production of it) to anybody, even people who aren't into reading scripts. Likewise for Drowning Sorrows. Doug excels at writing mysteries unbound by genre, where the gripping matters are personal more than plot related, and these are my favorite examples of his work in that vein.
He also has written several pop operettas and musicals, the most recent being a three woman revision of Antigone cast as a commentary on wars in general, and the strange atmosphere following September 11, 2001 without every directly addressing anything but the action in the play itself. This production has the feel of an upt-to-date, electric, rock-influenced musical, but I prefer his earlier work which features beatnick-tinged drum cycles by a colleague of his and piano provided by the man himself where the thing actually sounds like a percussion instrument much of the time.
Anyway, you few who are reading this should check out Douglas Post's page, linked in the title of this post, and seriously consider buying (or borrowing from me) some of his material. You shouldn't regret it.
The piano is a percussion instrument, but I know what you meant.
ReplyDelete-mattH
I know it's a percussion instrument. Few honestly treat it as such, though.
ReplyDelete