Reading Debut May 19: "Fun in Nuclear Park" by Larchmont Playwright Jeff Wanshel

Supported by a grant from the NYS Council on the Arts

press release from NYS Council on the Arts

(May 5, 2003) A reading of the full-length play, “Fun in Nuclear Park, ” a political satire concerning nuclear power by Larchmont resident Jeff Wanshel, will take place at 8 p.m. on Monday, May 19th in the Abbott Kaplan Theatre of the Performing Arts Center at Purchase College. Reservations are recommended, and may be obtained by calling (914) 428-4220. (For more details see flyer.)

Mr. Wanshel is an Obie-Award-winning playwright whose work has been featured at the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco, Lincoln Center and The American Place in New York City, on PBS and the BBC, and at the National Playwrights Conference. He received a $4,000 Individual Artist Grant from the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) to develop the play, with support from the Westchester Arts Council.

Written in a pop-cartoonish, science-fiction B-movie style, “Fun in Nuclear Park” is a comedy which follows the intrigues and exploits of detective Tick Dacy as he spars with public officials, scientists, and all manner of villains to uncover an explosive secret. The play’s subtitle, “A Science-Fiction Detective-Thriller Political-Satire,” hints at the play’s unique structure, which blends Wanshel’s considerable knowledge of the subject in an artful, humorous fusing of eclectic styles.

“I like to smash genres together in a pop art sort of way,” says Wanshel, who, when asked why he chose to write a play about nuclear power, references the pearl-in-the-oyster theory of art in which a grain of sand so irritates the oyster that it responds by covering it with a pearl (art).

Wanshel credits the NYSCA funding with spurring the development of the work. “Plays are not so much written as they are re-written,” he explains. “Hearing actors read a play aloud is the best way to gauge what an audience is responding to, see where you can cut lines, and refine the piece.”

Actors participating in the reading of “Fun in Nuclear Park” include Richard Council, Philip J. Cutrone, Kevin Geer, Pamela Gray, Larry Pine, and Nicholas Wyman. There will be a brief Q&A session following the play with Mr. Wanshel and Kyle Rabin, policy analyst at Riverkeeper, a Garrison, New York-based environmental advocacy organization.