Tonight, Saturday
ENGAGE with the 16th Street Theater for a reading, followed by a dialogue with the playwright, director and cast...

This is not a play, per se, but a cold reading. Audience participation. I went on Friday and the reading was very cool.

Eat dinner at Bodhi Thai, or Wishbone, or the Mexican place a block east of the theater.

Only five bucks. Saturday, September 26, 2009!



DEFAMATION by Todd Logan
Directed by Richard Shavzin

Saturday, Sept 26 at 5:00 PM

$5 donation

Call (708) 795-6704 x105 to reserve, or email reservation to info@16thstreettheater.orgVery limited ticket availability!

Race, religion, class collide when a South Side African American woman sues a Jewish North shore real estate developer for defamation.

Todd Logan speaks about his newest play:

"In a speech in February, Attorney General Eric Holder made 'controversial' comments that in spite of Obama's election there continues to be serious racial divide in America. As I was working on DEFAMATION, one of Holder's comments struck at the heart of the play. He said, 'As a nation we have done a pretty good job in melding the races in the workplace. We work with one another, lunch together and, when the event is at the workplace during work hours...we socialize with one another fairly well, irrespective of race. And, yet, even this interaction operates with certain limitations. We know by 'American instinct,' and by learned behavior, that certain subjects are off limits and that to explore them risks, at best, embarrassment, and, at worst, the questioning of one's character. And outside the workplace the situation is even more bleak in that there is almost know significant interaction between us. On Saturdays and Sundays, America in the year 2009 does not, in some ways, differ significantly from the country that existed 50 years ago.'

"I believe Holder is right. I also find it's generally true, regardless of race, class and politics, when most people go to bed at night, it's in a in a segregated town, community, neighborhood, block, or building. For several years I've been trying to write a play that deals with the question, 'what does it really say about ourselves about where we go to bed at night?' After many aborted attempts, I finally found a dramatic way into the subject through a story about a professional African American woman, a successful Jewish businessman and a watch." -- Todd Logan, playwright
- posted by Mark @ 8:10 AM