About This Show
Hollywood Playhouse opens 2003-2004 Season with Patriot Acts, two plays about blacklisting: The Value of Names by Jeffrey Sweet and the world premiere of Words of Mass Deception by Roger Martin.
For the evening opener, Words of Mass Deception, local award-winning playwright Roger Martin was commissioned specifically for this production by Playhouse Artistic Director Andy Rogow. Rogow challenged Martin to write a play based on the true incident that occured last spring in which actress Susan Sarandon was un-invited to speak at a United Way function in Tampa because of her anti-war views.
In The Value of Names, playwright Jeffrey Sweet’s most produced play, Benny Silverman, a celebrated comic actor, has revived his career via television after many years of forced inactivity following his having been named on the Hollywood blacklist of Joseph McCarthy.
Due to the timeliness of this subject, several post-performance discussions have been scheduled. Lauderhill Commissioner Levoyd Williams will speak on September 7, attorney Bruce Rogow will appear on September 14, and local ACLU Executive Director Howard Simon will close out the series on September 21.
