Tag: The Totalitarians

GSC “The Totalitarians” is alive, funny, passionate, and crazy. Representing the very best of live regional theatre…

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Tom Hauck reviews the Gloucester Stage Company’s current production, “The Totalitarians.”

In the New England premiere of “The Totalitarians,” the rollicking new play by Peter Sinn Nachtrieb now at the Gloucester Stage Company, we meet four hapless souls who have each latched onto a personal mission that they think will give their lives meaning.

Perky blonde Penelope Easter (Breean Julian) desperately wants to get elected to any high office in the state of Nebraska. In her Quixotic quest she is aided and abetted by Francine (Amanda Collins), a hack campaign manager who sees in Penny a potent vehicle for her own nationwide ambitions. Meanwhile, Francine’s physician husband, Jeffrey (Lewis D. Wheeler), wants his wife to set her sights on having children. He’s pulled into the election drama by his patient Ben (Alex Portenko), a mentally unstable cancer victim who’s convinced that Nebraska is being prepped for a dictatorship.

The result is a dark comedy in which the four characters expend tremendous energy—both emotional and physical—in pursuit of their objectives. The audience’s laughter is quickly followed by gasps of horror as the stakes get higher and the plot hurtles toward the inevitable collision of competing desires.

There are many good reasons to hurry to the Gloucester Stage Company before the show closes on September 24 and heads to New York. Cristina Todesco’s scenic design, a foreboding wall built of mysterious doors, is stunning. The four actors, ably directed by Jeff Zinn, hurl themselves into their parts with astonishing energy and passion. The message of the play is timely yet everlasting. But perhaps the best reason is that “The Totalitarians” is alive, funny, passionate, and crazy. Representing the very best of live regional theatre, what unfolds on the stage is an experience that you can’t get anywhere else at any price.

Now playing September 1st through September 24th. For more information and tickets, visit the Gloucester Stage Company website here.

Strong language – mature audiences only.

JEFF ZINN MAKES GLOUCESTER STAGE DIRECTING DEBUT WITH NEW ENGLAND PREMIERE OF PETER SINN NACHTRIEB’S POLITICAL COMEDY, THE TOTALITARIANS

Posted on by Kimsmithdesigns

Lewis_Amanfa_Seated_DSC1103Lewis D. Wheeler and Amanda Collins

Gloucester Stage Company continues its 37th season of professional theater on Cape Ann with the New England premiere of Peter Sinn Nachtrieb’s The Totalitarians from September 1 through September 24 at 267 East Main Street, Gloucester, MA. Gloucester Stage Managing Director Jeff Zinn makes his Gloucester Stage directing debut with this off-the-wall-satire of the zany world of politics. Peter Sinn Nachtrieb has written a not-so-tall-tale of an oligarchic takeover led by a Palinesque Manchurian candidate, and possibly thwarted by a hapless one-man commando squad…in Nebraska? This raucous dark comedy about the state of modern political discourse, modern relationships, and how easy it is to believe truths without facts features a cast of GSC veterans Amanda Collins and Lewis D. Wheeler, and GSC newcomers Breean Julian and Alex Portenko. According to Director Zinn, “As we all watch, with our jaws dropped, the daily excesses of candidates and hear the commentators remark, ‘you can’t make this stuff up,’ I am incredibly grateful to Peter Nachtreib for ‘making stuff up’ that rises to the occasion. Some may find the humor in The Totalitarians outrageous, but in this political moment I believe outrage is exactly what we need.”

San Francisco-based playwright Peter Sinn Nachtrieb’s play, The Totalitarians was commissioned through the National New Play Network and New Dramatists Full Stage USA program and premiered in 2014 at Southern Rep, Woolly Mammoth and Z Space. The Totalitarians will soon be published by Dramatists Play Service. Mr. Sinn Nachtrieb’s other works include boom, TCG’s most produced play 2009-10; BOB, the winner of the Barrie and Bernice Stavis Award at the 2011 Humana Festival for New American Plays at Actor’s Theatre of Louisville; T.I.C. (Trenchcoat In Common), Hunter Gatherers, winner of the 2007 ATCA/Steinberg New Play Award and the 2007 Will Glickman Prize; Colorado; and Litter: The True Story of the Framingham Dodecutuplets. His work has been seen off-Broadway and across the country including at Ars Nova, SPF, Woolly Mammoth, Seattle Repertory, Actors Theatre of Louisville, San Diego Rep, and in the Bay Area at A.C.T., Encore Theatre, Killing My Lobster, Marin Theatre Company, Impact Theatre, and The Bay Area Playwrights Festival. Projects in process include an original musical called Fall Springs: A MusicalDisaster (with composer/lyricist Nikko Tsakalakos) and the Z Space commission, A House Tour of the Infamous Porter Family Mansion led by guide Weston Ludlow Londonderry. Mr. Sinn Nachtrieb holds a degree in Theater and Biology from Brown and an MFA in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University. He is a member of New Dramatists and is the Playwright in Residence at Z Space in San Francisco.

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