News

The Great Society has begun performances at the Alley Theatre.

Robert Schenkkan’s follow-up to All the Way continues the story of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s legacy as he champions the most ambitious legislative works in his vision for a Great Society even while the war in Vietnam spins out of control. Besieged by political opponents, Johnson marshals all his political wiles to try to pass some of the most important social programs in U.S. history while the country descends into chaos over the war and backlash against civil rights. To read more, click here.

In Robert Schenkkan’s Tony-winning drama All the Way, Lyndon Banes Johnson rose to the presidency following the assassination of John F. Kennedy. After a hard-fought election campaign that takes place over the course of the three-act work, the curtain comes down on Johnson’s legitimate, landslide victory in 1964.

But that was just the beginning, and Schenkkan admits he would have been “very disappointed” if he didn’t get explore what happened next. The Great Society, which premiered in 2014 at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, is named after Johnson’s ambitious plan to fight the war on poverty. But there was another war on hand, one taking place overseas, and it was spinning rapidly out of control. To read more, click here.

Political fatigue may be setting in around the country as many tire of polarized conversations that seem to go nowhere but down. Social media allows people to be more ‘involved’ in politics than ever before, but without true access to the long-term, behind-the-scenes political processes most just get to argue about the remote tips of the icebergs, the end results that are simplified in message for public platforms. The latest play presented by Grand Rapids Civic Theatre reminds us that much is left unseen and swirling under the surface, the complicated means to get to the end results. Maybe this is what we need to break our fatigue and get us back talking to each other, that understanding better the complicated and often less than righteous space in the means will help us, together, produce more positive ends. In any event, check your fatigue at the door when you go see All the Way, the Tony Award Winning play by Robert Schenkkan, in its premiere community theatre production at GRCT. To read more, click here.

When we think of Lyndon Baines Johnson, 36th President of the United States, we tend to think of the Vietnam War. Not many know that just days after LBJ stepped in as president following the assassination of John F. Kennedy, he approached Congress with his first priority as president: the Civil Rights Act of 1965. The act was originally Kennedy’s work and Johnson felt it important to pass it as soon as he could. Civic Theatre’s All The Way captures this, dishing out a history lesson laced with humor. Jon March, who plays LBJ in the play written by Robert Schenkkan, said it’s important for voters to understand this point of time in history. To read more, click here.

Playwright Robert Schenkkan wasted no time letting us know what he thought of the Trump administration.  Barely three months after inauguration, he already had a protest play on the boards at the Fountain Theatre, Building the Wall. A simple, two person interrogation room play, it was built around Bo Foxworth’s brave and frightening performance of a functionary who embraced with bureaucratic efficiency the most extreme xenophobic rhetoric. To read more, click here.

Robert Schenkkan’s The Great Society, the second part of the playwright’s drama about President Lyndon Baines Johnson, will make its Washington, D.C., debut February 2, 2018, at Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater, following the theatre’s critically acclaimed 2016 run of Schenkkan’s All the Way. Kyle Donnelly will also direct The Great Society, which chronicles LBJ’s second term as he seeks to maintain his relationship with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and complete a raft of ambitious social policy projects. Performances continue through March 11 on the Fichandler Stage. To read more, click here.

Arena Stage has announced complete casting for its D.C. premiere of The Great Society, the second half of Robert Schenkkan’s epic drama about President Lyndon Baines Johnson. Running from February 2-March 11, 2018, the production comes on the heels of Arena Stage’s 2016 run of All the Way, Schenkkan’s Tony-winning first installment. Kyle Donnelly directs. Jack Willis, who originated the role of LBJ in All the Way at Oregon Shakespeare Festival in 2012 and reprised his performance at Arena Stage in 2016, will return to the role again the lead the cast of The Great Society. To read more, click here.

“And kudos again to the Fountain Theatre for allowing us to huddle as a community to contemplate, through Michael Michetti’s scrupulous staging of Robert Schenkkan’s “Building the Wall,” the dangers of the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant sentiments and policies.”

Lately friends have been asking me what shows I’m most looking forward to this holiday season. And while it’s not a happy Christmas show I keep answering “Building the Wall” currently being offered from Azeotrope at 12th Avenue Arts. Then those friends look as me quizzically, I assume expecting some frothy musical or holiday classic at which point I say, “the new play from Robert Schenkkan, who wrote “All the Way” and “The Great Society” about LBJ” at which point those quizzical looks, rightfully, turn to ones of excitement and intrigue over another dose from a genius playwright. And now, Dear Readers, that I’ve virtually had the same conversation with you, you can understand why I tell you this is a play NOT TO MISS and how you MUST go get your tickets now. I’ll wait. Did you do it yet? OK. Now on with the review. To read more, click here.

Robert Schenkkan has dug deeply into the American past in his award-winning plays, some of which originated in his former home base of Seattle. But in his latest work, Schenkkan was compelled by current events to look ahead and imagine the future. His two-actor stage drama “Building the Wall” is set in 2019 in the wake of a major terrorist attack in the United States. President Donald Trump has ordered the immediate arrest and detention of tens of thousands of immigrants. Under pressure from the federal government, a prison official is one of those tasked with coordinating the mass detentions. And after things go horribly wrong, he’s one of those blamed for the policy’s tragic consequences. To read more, click here.