ROBERT SCHENKKAN

PULITZER PRIZE-WINNING PLAYWRIGHT & SCREENWRITER

News

Building the Wall - Miami New Times

September 21, 2017

As if the current political climate weren't dire enough, many of the Floridians who voted for Donald Trump were recently made refugees themselves by Hurricane Irma in an ironic twist of fate. Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Robert Schenkkan’s Building the Wall revolves around an immigrant detention center as it spirals into chaos after implementing Trump’s policies. For a disturbing and human look at the consequences of xenophobic laws and bureaucratic negligence, see this play starring local actors Gregg Weiner and Karen Stephens. 7:30 p.m. Thursday through October 8 at the Adrienne Arsht Center, 1300 Biscayne Blvd., Miami; 877-949-6722; arshtcenter.org. Tickets cost $34 to $54.

The Trump Resistance Begins On Broadway Read more: http://forward.com/culture/art/378194/the-trump-resistance-begins-on-broadway/

September 2, 2017

The telescreens mounted above the doorways from the Hudson Theatre’s lobby to its auditorium — you might call them Samsung plasmas, but you’d be missing the point — display some familiar slogans: “War Is Peace”; “Ignorance Is Strength”; “Love Is Fear.” “This Bill That Cuts Billions From Medicaid Does Not Cut Medicaid” is not among them, but it could be. This is the new opened staging of George Orwell’s “1984,” and doublethink is the lingua franca here. To read more, click here.

Bards of America Historical plays for a nation “stuck in the middle”

September 2, 2017

Thirty years ago, when Alison Carey ’82 and Bill Rauch ’84 were traveling the country with Cornerstone Theater Company, the ensemble they co-founded after graduating, they would set up shop for months at a time in churches and storefronts and abandoned gymnasiums. In small-town West Virginia or Nevada or North Dakota, they worked with local residents to produce classic plays adapted to the particularities of their communities. In town after town, a similar thing kept happening: the plays were almost always set in the present, but invariably, Carey says, “You’d bump into the past.” To read more, click here.

Staging Building the Wall Before Trump Builds His Wall The playwright of All the Way races to get his latest work in theatres before Trump starts building his wall

September 2, 2017

Robert Schenkkan had no time to waste. The playwright couldn't afford the years it took to craft his Pulitzer Prize winner, The Kentucky Cycle, or the Tony Award-winning All the Way or its sequel, The Great Society. Likewise, the standard route for developing a new play – workshopping it for months at assorted regional theatres before mounting the premiere – would take too long. Given the threat to the republic, this new drama inside him needed to get out and on a stage – make that many stages, all across the land – posthaste. This was an urgent cry for the nation: one-if-by-land, two-if-by-sea urgent. To read more, click here.

‘Building the Wall’ a riveting warning about political extremes in age of Trump

September 2, 2017

Playwright Robert Schenkkan has been having a great couple of years. America, on the other hand, has not. Those two circumstances converge in Schenkkan’s taught, timely, must-see new play, “Building the Wall,” an excoriating critique of the virulent rhetoric — and actions — in contemporary American politics. To read more, click here.

BWW Previews: BUILDING THE WALL at The Adrienne Arsht Center For The Performing Arts

August 30, 2017

City Theatre (@citytheatremia) and the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami-Dade County (@arshtcenter) are proud to present the South Florida premiere ofBUILDING THE WALL, a National New Play Network Rolling World Premiere written by Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning playwright Robert Schenkkan (The Kentucky Cycle, All the Way, Hacksaw Ridge). Local award-winning actors Gregg Weiner and Karen Stephens have been cast for the Miami production directed by City Theatre Artistic Director Margaret M. Ledford. BUILDING THE WALL will be playing September 21 - October 8 in the intimate Carnival Studio Theater (Ziff Ballet Opera House). To read more, click here.

Stage Left Theatre to Present Chicago Premiere of Robert Schenkkan's BUILDING THE WALL

August 30, 2017

Stage Left Theatre announces the upcoming Chicago premiere of Building the Wall, written by Robert Schenkkan and directed by co-artistic director Amy Szerlong. Building the Wall is the first production of Stage Left's 36th season. Press opening is Thursday, September 21, at 8 PM at Athenaeum Theatre Chicago, 2936 N. Southport Ave. The show runs through October 22nd. To read more, click here.

Hacksaw Ridge wins AWGIE writing award

August 30, 2017

Mel Gibson's WWII epic Hacksaw Ridge has taken out the award for best original feature film at the annual Australian Writers' Guild awards. Aussie screenwriter Andrew Knight and US writer Robert Schenkkan won the award for their writing on the film. To read more, click here.

Schenkkan’s “Building the Wall” kicks off strong fall season of theater

August 30, 2017

Robert Schenkkan’s “Building the Wall” Opens 7:30 p.m. Aug. 30, with various dates and times through Sept. 10. $15-$26. Oscar G. Brockett Theatre, 300 E. 23rd St. theatredance.utexas.edu/event/building-wall. From Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning playwright Robert Schenkkan — who was the creative mind behind “All the Way,” a recent Zach Theatre production — comes this incendiary political thriller to open the University of Texas Department of Theatre and Dance’s season. To read more, click here.

Robert Schenkkan’s ‘Building the Wall’ races from page to Austin stage

August 30, 2017

As timely as the latest political scandal, “Building the Wall” issued like a blaze of lighting from the mind of Robert Schenkkan, the Tony Award- and Pulitzer Prize-winning author who grew up in Austin. 

The 90-minute, two-person drama about America after an envisioned impeachment of President Donald Trump has its regional premiere at the University of Texas on Thursday and runs through Sept. 10. A public conversation will take place on Sept. 7 at the Brockett Theatre. To read more, click here.

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