ROBERT SCHENKKAN

PULITZER PRIZE-WINNING PLAYWRIGHT & SCREENWRITER

News

‘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.

The Border Comes To Borderlands: BUILDING THE WALL by Robert Schenkkan

August 30, 2017

A famous playwright's play that just opened in New York this summer is coming to Tucson's internationally recognized Borderlands Theater. And you would have a difficult time finding a bigger name than the author, Robert Schenkkan, who has won a Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize. What if President Trump is impeached after a failed plan to declare martial law following a terrorist incident in New York? It is 2019 and a history professor interviews a former detention center supervisor and Trump supporter now imprisoned. To read more, click here.

LA Production of BUILDING THE WALL closes 5 month Run!

August 28, 2017

Last night, The Fountain Theater closed their production of BUILDING THE WALL. Theirs was the first production of a National New Play Network rollout, driven by the passion and enthusiasm of Artistic Director Stephen Sachs, Producer Simon Levy, and director Michael Michettii. The original cast was Bo Foxworth and Judith Moreland, later replaced by Victoria Platt. The show was extended three times and eventually played for five months, or 80 performances for 6300 patrons. Since its LA opening in February, it has had 14 other domestic productions and has an additional thirteen currently scheduled for the near future, plus productions in Europe. Words matter. Make your voice known. Resist with what you have.

From Schenkkan to Shakespeare, the same urgent warning

July 4, 2017

One play was written more than 400 years ago, the other last October. Both written by playwrights worried about the future of their countries. One author took months to pen his work, the other took one week.  One writer has been dead 400 years, one is very much alive, chronicling the current political crisis of his time with a dire new play now playing on our Fountain stage. Both authors and their plays have been in the news in recent weeks, igniting a firestorm of national conversation on the role of theatre to express political outrage, and its fundamental right and responsibility to do so. The Fountain Theatre is a voice in that debate.  To read more, click here.

Imagining Trump's Border Plan as a Guantánamo for 'Illegals'

July 4, 2017
  • The new play, "Building the wall" envisions mass deportations and unlawful detainment as Greek tragedy. His play Philoctetes, Sophocles tells a story of deceit: The Greek commander Odysseus wants to convince the titular exiled war hero to fight again, and he enlists Neoptolemus, a young, impressionable boy to lie for him. "I know, my boy, it isn't part of your nature to tell untruths or resort to double-dealing," he says to Achilles's son, "but victory's a prize worth gaining." Neoptolemus is persuaded, and the plot centers on his uneasiness with these double-dealings, and on the growing trust between him and Philoctetes. In the end, Neoptolemus's compassion and integrity override the Greek interest, and he comes clean, confessing Odysseus's scheme to Philoctetes. The play represents the failure of rhetorical manipulation in the face of one's own natural moral intuitions, our own sense of right and wrong. To read more, click here.

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