THE WEDDING EVE Author's Note

AUTHOR’S NOTE

Growing up, I was aware of the screwball comedy form – mostly in kid-accessible vehicles like the ones created by the Marx Brothers where the verbal barbs might sail over a child’s head, but the slapstick lands square in the gut.  But it wasn’t until pursuing my film studies in Chicago that I fell in love with the more sophisticated companions to the genre – the films of Howard Hawks, Mitchell Liesen, Leo McCary, Frank Capra, and, of course, the great Preston Sturges, whose amazingly concentrated outpouring of comedy classics is matched only by his stunning fall from grace immediately following it.  In the screwball comedy, I discovered a marriage of high and low comedy, a bringing together of upper and middle classes, a form that not only accepts the outrageous actions of its characters but expects and encourages it.  The dialogue clocks in faster than the ear and mind can conceivably grasp it, the locales are almost always high society in nature so as to spoof the foibles of the rich and famous, and one gets the notion that the entire world these comedies depict is precariously spinning cockeyed on its axis.  One puff of reality would send it, the characters, and every manic oddball affiliation flying forever off into space.  It’s heady, delicious, intoxicating stuff, and I was hooked from the first moment I “got” all the layers of the storytelling. 

I’d been nurturing the idea of this show for a few years now.  The potential of revisiting this comic form not only excited me but so did the prospect of transplanting this genre, often associated with East coast sensibilities, to Hollywood.  I also knew it would be fun and fruitful to explore the time right after the repeal of Prohibition – the time when the Production Code, a particularly egregious period of imposed censorship on Hollywood films led by former postmaster Will Hays, was finally gaining a toehold (or chokehold) in the moviemaking world.  I also wanted to delve into the classic studio system itself where the stars often made the studios, and not the other way around.  I had the notion that Juno and Eve might be more than just your typical Hollywood types – that there might be another reason they came out West.   And I had the notion to create this story for Missy and Bob Moore.  How much more inspiration could you ask?  In fact, all of the actors have been a great inspiration as each character was developed specifically for their particular skills and talents.  They’ve proven to be endlessly adaptable, heroically patient beyond measure (sorry guys for all the last-minute rewrites), and an extreme joy to work with on this project. 

The Wedding Eve represents the 20^th original production created by or for The Backstage Theatre since I became artistic director in 2005.  That’s a pretty amazing statistic to fathom!  For a community theatre to introduce such a voluminous and respectable docket of new work, in under seven years, well that’s staggering.  I am particularly proud of how you, the audience, have embraced and supported this work.  It’s always fun, elating, terrifying, nerve-racking to create something new.  But unless it gets before an audience, it’s just writing in the dark.  Time to shine the Klieg light on the premiere of this one.

We hope you enjoy The Wedding Eve!