About This Show
This concept for The Direct Line Play came from The National Theatre in London. The National asked twenty-five British playwrights to each write a three-minute scene. It is like a tale told around a campfire where a story teller begins a once-upon-a-time story and stops at a certain point. The next person continues the story and on and on it goes until we have a chain story. Instead of a campfire, the Provincetown Repertory uses e-mail. Instead of a story they create a play with many of the most exciting playwrights working in the American theatre today. Ms. Sturner met with Bella Rodriguez, producer of the Chain Play at the National Theatre and she is advising them on this groundbreaking event.
The “direct line” is from Terrence McNally’s “Master Class” In Act two, Maria Callas says, “When I sing Medea I could feel the stones of Epidaurus beneath the wooden floorboards at La Scala. I was standing where Medea, Electra, Klyemnestra had stood. There was a direct line through me to the composer to Euripides to Medea herself.”