Tag Archives: Assassins

Pulitzers Play Little Rock: Top Dog/Underdog at The Weekend Theater

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TopDog-UnderDog-Poster-SmallWhile the Sondheim-Weidman musical Assassins is playing currently at The Weekend Theater, it is not the only title produced there with characters named Lincoln and Booth.

Suzan-Lori Parks’s Top Dog/Underdog is a two character play featuring brothers named Lincoln and Booth.  Winner of the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, this is a darkly comic fable of brotherly love and family identity.

The play tells the story of Lincoln and Booth, two African American brothers whose names were given to them as a joke, foretelling a lifetime of sibling rivalry and resentment.

In 2014, The Weekend Theater presented the play.  The brothers were played by Byron Thomas Jr. and Jermaine McClure.  The latter also directed the play.

2018 marks the 100th anniversary of the first Pulitzer Prize for Drama being given. To pay tribute to 100 years of the Pulitzer for Drama, each day this month a different Little Rock production of a Pulitzer Prize winning play will be highlighted.  Many of these titles have been produced numerous times.  This look will veer from high school to national tours in an attempt to give a glimpse into Little Rock’s breadth and depth of theatrical history.

Pulitzers Play Little Rock: RABBIT HOLE at Weekend Theater

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RabbitHoleTWTThe announcement that the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Drama went to David Lindsay-Abaire for Rabbit Hole was a bit of surprise.  The play had actually opened on Broadway the prior season.  (While now the Pulitzer year equals the calendar year, at that time, the Pulitzer calendar went from Autumn to Autumn.)

Lindsay-Abaire’s play tells the tale of a family coming to grips with the accidental death of a four year old son.  The Weekend Theatre brought the play to life on a Little Rock stage in 2009.  Andy Hall directed the production (duties he has performed for the current Weekend Theatre production of Assassins).

Patti Airoldi took on the central role of the aggrieved mother.  Duane Jackson played her husband, Patti German played her mother, and Regi Ott was her somewhat unconventional sister.  William Moon rounded out the cast.

Though the play veers to the edge of maudlin, it never gets there.  The script presents how different people cope with grief and guilt without becoming a “Very Special Episode” of After School Special.

2018 marks the 100th anniversary of the first Pulitzer Prize for Drama being given. To pay tribute to 100 years of the Pulitzer for Drama, each day this month a different Little Rock production of a Pulitzer Prize winning play will be highlighted.  Many of these titles have been produced numerous times.  This look will veer from high school to national tours in an attempt to give a glimpse into Little Rock’s breadth and depth of theatrical history.