From White Plains in Backstage New York

Check out this wonderful review on Backstage New York. Be sure to pick up this week's print edition for a hardcopy!

‘From White Plains’ Is as Thoughtful as It Is Passionate

By Erik Haagensen

Fault Line Theatre’s “From White Plains” is a drama about high school bullying that is as thoughtful as it is passionate. It’s also clearly the product of a close collaboration among playwright-director Michael Perlman and his four-person cast—Craig Wesley Divino, Karl Gregory, Jimmy King, and Aaron Rossini—who get “written with” billing. I’m generally skeptical of authorship by committee, and there are moments that feel insufficiently shaped out of an intense rehearsal improvisation, but they are gratifyingly few. Transferred from a short Off-Off-Broadway run last spring and nominated for a GLAAD Award, “From White Plains” fully deserves a much wider audience.

The smart setup eschews TV-movie clichés by focusing on bully Ethan long after the fact, at age 30. The play begins with a dumbfounded Ethan realizing that he has just been called out for his abuse on international television by former classmate Dennis, who is accepting an Oscar for his original screenplay that details Ethan’s behavior, which Dennis blames for the suicide of his best friend. Ethan’s buddy John is watching with him, equally gobsmacked. The two straight boys met in college, so John has no way of knowing the truth of the accusations. Completing the quartet is Dennis’ boyfriend Gregory, whose quiet, self-effacing love and support are the antithesis of Dennis’ activist anger and drama-queen tendencies.

Unsatisfied with letting his film speak for itself, Dennis goes on the social-media warpath against Ethan as they trade dueling videos about whether or not Ethan now sincerely regrets his actions and how he should make amends. Soon Ethan’s life is falling apart. He loses his job and his girlfriend, and John begins pulling away. The gentle Gregory is increasingly dismayed by Dennis’ behavior, which begins to feel as if he’s now the bully, and their relationship is also endangered. It all comes to a head when Ethan agrees to apologize in person to Dennis on national TV.

On Tristan Jeffers’ spare but effective apartment unit set, Perlman keeps the 95-minute intermissionless proceedings clipping along in a staging that constantly reminds us how interconnected people are these days by their Internet devices. Actor Gregory is a fiery and relentless Dennis, admirably unafraid of the filmmaker’s unattractive qualities. Obsessive, vengeful, and childishly passive-aggressive, Gregory’s Dennis still has enough charm, wit, and playfulness to make us understand his lover’s feelings for him. As Gregory the character, King is an intriguing mixture of conflict aversion and spine, wisdom and timidity. The two actors’ scenes together crackle with sexual tension.

Rossini vividly charts Ethan’s disintegration into shame and self-hatred and is heartrending in a desperate last-minute bid to salvage John’s friendship. Divino’s expressive eyes alert us to emotions that this regular guy either doesn’t want or know how to show, and he’s particularly good in a scene in a subway car that has John and Gregory, as strangers, conducting a deceptively casual conversation about media coverage of the story.

“From White Plains” poses tough questions about responsibility, maturity, and forgiveness that you’ll likely be pondering long after it’s over.

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From White Plains is a TimeOut NY Critics Pick!

We're so proud to hear that From White Plains received 4 STARS and was a CRITICS PICK in TimeOut NY today:

From White Plains

Revenge is not very sweet in From White Plains, a poignant and balanced look at the psychic bruises of teenage cruelty. The play begins with an acceptance speech about the unacceptable. Dennis (Karl Gregory) has won an Oscar for his screenplay about his geeky, gay high-school friend Mitchell, who has since killed himself; he uses his television platform as an anti-bully pulpit, making a point of calling out Mitchell’s primary abuser by name. The bully in question, Ethan (Aaron Rossini), watches the speech from home, dumbfounded; now 30, he barely remembers his thoughtless hallway jabs at Dennis and Mitchell, but he knows that his life is about to be upended. And Dennis keeps hitting him: In a furious Internet video, he attacks the “people—for lack of a better word” who denied Mitchell’s personhood. The irony of reducing Ethan to subhuman status is not lost on Dennis’s benign, accommodating boyfriend, Gregory (Jimmy King), who tries to intervene. Like Ned Weeks in The Normal Heart, however, Dennis doesn’t allow much room for anyone else on his soapbox.

“Who’s the bully? Right?” asks a defensive, panicky Ethan of his best friend, John (Craig Wesley Divino). But Michael Perlman’s probing drama—written in collaboration with his able cast—does not settle for so easy a reversal. Although Ethan may have grown up in some ways, he’s still a bit of a jerk; and while Dennis may be dislikably insensitive and self-righteous, the play addresses the question of bullying with sincerity and insight. From White Plains is too neat in some places and sloppy in others (one accidental encounter, useful to the plot, feels contrived), but it makes powerful points about the persistence of damage. Ethan, at least, has had the luxury of moving on; in exacting the vengeance he has longed for, Dennis remains cramped in high-school mode, stuck in the office of his principles.—Adam Feldman

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Interview With Michael Perlman

Michael Perlman, writer/director of From White Plains, sat down with Adam Rothenberg of CallMeAdam.com to talk about the play, inspiration, and the creative process. Check it!

Michael Perlman is a NYC based director and playwright who earned his MFA in Directing from the Brown University/Trinity Rep MFA Directing Program. He won the Motif Award for Best Director for Hamlet at Brown/Trinity Rep MFA Program and his one-person show Flying on the Wing was presented at the New York Fringe Festival, where it was the winner of Outstanding Solo Show of 2006. Michael is proud to be a member of SDC and a Drama League Directing Fellow.

After it’s premiere at La Tea Theatre this past Spring, Fault Line Theatre’s presentation of Michael’s new show, From White Plains, (nominated for a GLAAD Media Award for Off-Off-Broadway Theater and for New York Innovative Theater awards for Outstanding Premiere Production and Outstanding Full-Length Script) about the lasting effects of gay bullying, is now playing at The Studio Theatre at Pershing Square Signature Center in New York City (480 W. 42nd Street, between 9th & 10th Avenue) through March 9. Click here for tickets!

For more on Michael be sure to visit http://www.michaelsperlman.com!

1. Who or what inspired you to become a playwright and director? That’s a really good question. I was drawn to theatre from a very young age. I had a lot of medical troubles when I was younger and theatre became a way for me to sometimes be a different person. I think the ability to tell stories in a way that is immediate allows the transportation of the body and not just the mind. It also allows the world to shift for people and see the world in a different way from different perspectives. It enables them ask questions they might not have asked before. I think that holistic experience is what kept me directing and writing. Someone once described marriage in a way that you have to wake-up and decide to be married to the person. I feel a life in the theatre, which I’ve chosen, is similar. You to wake-up everyday and decide, “Today I’m going to be a theatre artist.” I don’t think my decision to be in theatre happened in a moment, but it’s been a continual one for me.

2. Who haven’t you worked with that you would like to? There are many people I’d like to work with. There are many directors I admire and have a huge respect for. I’m a big admire of Mike Nichols who is just able to get to the heart of the story and characters. Whether it’s drama or comedy, he just gets that theatre is about people. I think Daniel Sullivan is similar. I feel John Doyle’s direction comes from the approach that it’s all about the actor on stage making the story happen. John and David Cromer understand that emotion and sentiment are important, but it’s not about the manipulation of sentimentality, it’s about the truth of it.

I don’t even think I could start talking about all the actors I want to work with. I love actors, so anytime I see a performance I love, I just want to work with that person.

3. What made you want to write From White Plains? Aaron Rossini and Craig Wesley Divino, Co-Artistic Directors of Fault Line Theatre, approached me to direct a new play. We had one play we wanted to do and another theatre picked it up and then there was another play we wanted to do and the writer’s agent wanted to wait to see what other theatres wanted to do it because Fault is still a relatively new theatre company. It started to feel like we were waiting for someone to say yes to us, so we decided to make a play happen ourselves. That, for me, is how the inspiration came about to write From White Plains. The play was also inspired partly by the actors I wanted to work with which shaped the characters and situation. It was also from reading the paper everyday, the continued conversations I’ve had about gay bullying and its affect on people, the fact that all these kids were deciding to end their life, and the outpouring of support from the “It Gets Better” project. It felt to me like this subject was such a great conversation, but it also becomes so black and white. Again, I’m very interested in discovering how one can see the world from different perspectives and so I approached this play as to how can we fully explore the gray area of this topic. How can we get every side to see the other side’s point of view and not to condemn or advocate that it’s okay to bully?

4. What do you hope audiences come away with after seeing the show? Audiences who have seen the show already, come back to me and tell me the experiences of their own lives, whether they’ve been bullied or been the bully themselves. A lot of people have asked questions about experiences in my life or in the actor’s life. The conversation goes way beyond the play. It’s always nice to have the “The play was great” conversation or “Wow, that was so moving,” and I will never begrudge someone for telling me I’ve done a great job, but it’s so much more rewarding for me to know that people have seen this play and that it started a conversation within themselves and others about their own life. It’s nice to see that they are seeing things from a different perspective or seeing their own perspective with a little more complexity. Having these people walk away having those conversations then that’s the theatre I want to be making.

5. From White Plains was presented as a showcase at La Tea Theatre this past Spring and is now premiering Off-Broadway at the Pershing Square Signature Center. What went through your mind when you found out a transfer was going to happen? Without trying to sound smart, it was “Oh yeah. Oh shit.” It was that exact progression. I was happy the show was having more of a life, but that also meant I had to go back and make it better. Hopefully, that’s what I’ve done. So many people said, “We’d love to bring so and so this, when can we see it again?” It’s a great feeling to know this show had that kind of affect on audiences. The main thing I’m excited about is that more people get to see the show.

6. How do you feel the play and cast have grown since this first presentation? I think there was a lot of flying by the seat of our pants in the last run. We were writing the play as we were putting it up. We didn’t know if it would work until there was an audience. I think now we can trust that the play works rather than be outside and inside it at the same time, we can all just be inside of it. We know the story we are telling. The show has a little more breath in it and it’s a little more grounded. I just hope we can make it deeper and richer. It’s been months since we’ve done the show and we’ve had time to sit and look at what was originially a placeholder and what we want the story to be. We’ve all had that much more life experience and every one of our life experiences contribute to who we are as artists, so those situations will change us, and they’ve already changed the play. So, there is more now for us to use to tell our story.

7. From White Plains is about taking responsibility for past actions, in this case, specifically bullying. If you feel comfortable speaking about it, have you had any specific incidents with bullying? Do you have any past actions that you’ve needed to take responsibility for? I was very lucky in that I never really got bullied too much when I was younger. Generally the bullies would defend if another bully would try to come at me. I was a short kid with a raspy voice and effeminate mannerisms and I just knew that I wasn’t going to survive very long if I didn’t figure out how to make people like me and be my friend and be on my side. So from a very young age, I learned how to charm people. While I wasn’t physically bullied, there were subtle ways in which I was bullied. For instance, people would use the word gay in a very derogatory way in front of me and that affected me.

I do have things in my past that I’ve done and feel bad about. Everyone who is scared of being on the outside has moments where they are happy to be on the inside. I’m sure I’ve laughed at a joke at someone else’s expense. I remember one time at camp there was this kid in our group of friends that we ragged on and one day he was like, “You know, it’s not really fun to hang out with you guys anymore, so I’m not going to” and he walked away. In that moment, I learned a lot from him. I still feel bad about picking on him. It was not the intended affect to make him not want to hang out with us, but that clearly became the affect.

I think doing this play has made us and I hope the audience to think, “Wow, that one time I laughed at someone affected that person and I don’t have to beat myself up about it, but it did affect them.” There is a ripple effect to everything we do.

8. What is your favorite part of the creative process in writing and directing a show? Definitely the collaboration. I do theatre because I get to do it with other people and I get to be in a rehearsal room and we figure it out all together and then do it live for an audience, which I consider part of the collaboration. I love the human interaction.

9. What have you learned about yourself from being a playwright and director? I’ve learned to give up control. Doing theatre, I try to give my collaborators a skeleton to work in and then trust that they know how to go there with me. The more control I give up, the more fun I have and the prouder I am of the work.

10. What’s the best advice you’ve ever received? I’ve received a lot of advice. One of my teachers said to me once, “Put what you love on stage.” It’s a great reminder to trust I have good taste so therefore I can make the show something I love. Instead of worrying who will like it, just know I created this for a reason, and I have to trust that my enjoyment of it is enough and then the audience will too.

I also love the line in Sunday in the Park with George, “Anything you do let it come from you, then it will be new.” I try to be as true to that as possible.

BONUS QUESTIONS:

11. Favorite way to spend your day? Relaxing, especially during this process because I’m writing and directing, so my brain doesn’t really get to shut off in that I’m always thinking about the play. I like to give myself some time on my day off to shut off. One of my teachers calls this “Me time” and I think that’s perfect.

12. If you could have any super power, which one would you choose? I would want to be able to transport myself instantly.

More on Michael: 

Other directing credits: A Christmas Carol, The Mourner’s Bench (Trinity Rep), Time of Your Life, Uncle Vanya, A Doll’s House (Brown/Trinity MFA Programs), Velocity of Autumn (Boise Contemporary Theater), Oklahoma (Maples Rep), Dog Park and Life Science (Brown/Trinity Playwrights Rep), We Are Proud to Present a Presentation…and Exquisite Corpse (New Plays Festival), Love, I Hear (Stephen Foster Productions), Iphigenia and Other Daughters (Temporary Theatre Company), The Last Five Years (Stamford Center for the Arts), Winnie-the-Pooh (Hangar Theatre Kidstuff), Emperor of Ice Cream…and Romeo and Juliet (Hangar Theatre Lab Company). Michael is proud to be a member of SDC and a Drama League Directing Fellow.

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Michael Perlman Interview with NYTheatre.com

Michael Perlman was interviewed by NYTheatre.com in anticipation of the opening of From White Plains. Check out his thoughts on actors, social change, and Jerome Robbins:

What is your job on this show?
Writer/Director.

When did you know you wanted to work in the theater, and why?
I fell in love with the theater at a very young age – the first show I went to was a production of GYPSY out on long island when I was four years old. And right away I was inspired by theater’s ability to transport its audiences and change them. But I remember a moment when I was a little older watching JEROME ROBBINS’ BROADWAY with my Grandmother and having the realization: “This is live! They’re doing this performance just for us, right here, right now.” And that moment changed me – I knew I wanted to be part of that.

Who is more important in the theater: the actor, the playwright, or the director?
When it comes down to it, all you really need in order to make theater happen is an actor and an audience. That’s how a story gets told. So in the most simplistic of ways, the actor is the most important because s/he is the only one you truly need. But in an ideal collaboration, no single collaborator is the most important. If it’s about the work, it’s not about what each person contributes, but the special alchemy of the collaboration that creates the full theatrical experience. As a director, I’m fully invested in making the playwright and actors feel as though they are the most important, because they’re bringing the ideas I don’t have on my own. And I hope that the actors and playwrights in turn see me as integral to their processes.

Do you think the audience will talk about your show for 5 minutes, an hour, or way into the wee hours of the night?
The great joy of our last, all too brief run of From White Plains was the conversations it inspire – not only into the wee hours of the night, but into the following days and weeks and months. Not only were people talking about the show itself, they were talking about their own lives and their own life experiences – and there is nothing more rewarding than that as an artist. Because this play asks the audience to see things from all perspectives, it also asks them to empathize with those around them and even their younger selves. So it’s a play that inspires questions and reflection – and therefore conversations continue long long long after the lights go down.

Which “S” word best describes your show: SMOOTH, SEXY, SMART, SURPRISING?
Surprising. I think people come in expecting to know what the play is and to know where their allegiances lie, but find out pretty quickly that nothing is black and white.

Can theater bring about societal change? Why or why not?
While I don’t think theater itself can bring about societal change, I do think theater can inspire its audiences to go out and bring about change. Theater serves as a mirror to society – reflecting back what its values are, where it’s heading, and what’s possible. But this is merely a reflection. If the audience doesn’t like what they see, it is each individual’s responsibility to go out and make change happen. Theater can’t do it on its own.

Matt Clevy as a Frog

Remember how awesome Frogs was?

To help remind you, here’s a snapshot of Communications Director Matt Clevy in his frog costume. How’s that for some holiday cheer?

Merry Christmas from everyone at Fault Line Theatre!

Interview with Karl Gregory

The blog is back folks! I hope you all had an amazing summer. Mine was wonderful, due in no small part to the fact that Fault Line Theatre was nominated for SIX IT Awards. We were all thrilled to receive such recognition in only our second season, but we couldn’t have done it without the support of our wonderful audiences. Thank you all so much, Check out the complete list of nominees here. The awards ceremony will take place on September 24th, and we are all very excited to see what happens.

Our dear friend and collaborator Karl Gregory was nominated for not one but two awards. He received an Outstanding Actor in a Featured Role nod for his performance as Aeschylus in Frogs, and an Outstanding Actor in a Lead Role for his work in From White Plains. Karl took the time to answer a few question before the ceremony:

Those who know you and your work know that you’re no stranger to awards, having won a SALT Award in 2005 for Fully Committed and getting the “Best Local Actor” nod in the Best of Ithaca Awards in 2010. Even so, how does it feel to be nominated for not one, but TWO IT Awards in the same season?

Are you kidding me?!  It’s amazing.  I feel like Meryl!  Yeah, it feels nice to be recognized for what you do.  The NYC OOB world is full of new and interesting kinds of plays, and it’s definitely cool to be nominated as one of the best.

What were the biggest challenges for you in creating the role of Aeschylus in Frogs?

Well, I think the thing we all had to grapple with in that show was the level of absurd comedy while still being truthful, to the play and to ourselves.  Aeschylus was a freaking nutjob – a pompous, self-aggrandizing whack.  Who also happened to have a pretty solid point about the nature and purpose of art in society.  So how do you get that message across without losing the richness of character?  You put it all out on the table, faults, triumphs and egos, and you let the play do it’s job.

Speak a little bit about the process of creating From White Plains. How did it differ for you from other new play processes in which you’ve participated? Did the fact that the material hit so close to home make it more or less difficult to portray Dennis?

First of all, this was the first time that I had ever signed on to a project without having a script yet.  When we all came on board, Michael Perlman (writer/director) had a single idea, the inciting incident of the play.  We also had a fully assembled team.  Designers, producers, actors, and our writer/director were involved from conception through development, and into the theatre.  I’ve never experienced anything like that before, and I’ve got to say, you can feel the effect.  We have a play that is so undeniably in our bones, all of us.  As for Dennis, well…..  there was nothing easy about that part.  There’s a lot of me in there, ideas and things that came out of development.  I’ve always found it much harder to play myself onstage.  You have to be a lot more naked, willing to show all your baggage.  That final monologue hurt every night.  But I think it’s important that people see that hurt.  So I did it.  (And secretly loved it.)

Why do you think there was such an overwhelmingly positive response from audiences to From White Plains?

It’s not something anyone has ever seen.  I certainly never have.  We were thoughtful about crafting the play so that there was no enemy, no ‘bad guy’.  Just four human beings with completely different life experiences.  And isn’t that what life really is?  No one is the same, no one truly understands what you have been through, what makes you who you are.  We make other people feel bad, to make ourselves feel good.  But we must have some kind of honest discourse about what happens when society says it’s ok to treat people like they are less than human.  I think the real gem of the play is that it asks a lot of questions, and asks the audience to come up with more.  Because these questions don’t have answers.  It’s an ongoing conversation, and From White Plains bravely stepped out front to make sure we are having it.

We’d love for you to join us at the awards ceremony on September 24th. You can get your tickets here. Be on the lookout for more exciting news from Fault Line in the next few weeks!

The New York Innovative Theatre Awards

Communications Director Matt Clevy spoke with The New York Innovative Theatre Foundation about Fault Line Theatre's 6 nominations!

Full of IT

Fault Line Theatre has garnered six nominations this year for two different productions: Frogs by Aristophanes and From White Plains by Michael Perlman.

We asked Fault Line’s Communications Manager, Matt Clevy to tell us about this relatively new company.

What are the origins of Fault Line Theatre?

Fault Line Theatre is a collaboration between Craig Wesley Divino, Tristan Jeffers and Aaron Rossini, founded in 2010. Craig and Aaron were graduate students at the Brown University/Trinity Rep MFA Programs while Tristan was assisting Eugene Lee and designing for Brown and Trinity. They worked together on several projects, including a production of Henry V that they built together, and about a year after Craig and Aaron graduated, the three decided they wanted to continue producing their own work. Fault Line Theatre was created in August of 2010, and launched with a production of Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus in February 2011.

Karl Gregory in Frogs (photo by Jacob J. Goldberg)

You did a version of Aristophanes The Frogs.  How did you update it so that it would resonate for modern audiences?

Aaron was first drawn to direct Frogs because it created an opportunity to combine the two things he loves the most: theatre and cartoons. He saw in Aristophanes’ ancient comedy the origins of the vaudevillian performers that made Looney Tunes so brilliant. With that in mind we set to playing with language and movement to find the best way to nail each joke, which was usually the Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck way. We also added a musical element to the show: replacing what could be dry chorus speeches with hilarious and rousing musical numbers composed for us by Eric Thomas Johnson. Using familiar comedic tropes allowed us to create a world that anyone who’s ever seen a cartoon would recognize. Once we’d created that world, our job was to tell the story as clearly, immediately and specifically as we could. Through the rehearsal and design processes, we discovered that Frogs is really a play about the purpose of art, not just in the world of Aristophanes, but in our world. The play literally asks why we make art, and if you’re a producer of independent theatre that’s a question that certainly hits home.

Jimmy King and Karl Gregory in From White Plains (photo by Jacob J. Goldberg)

Fault Line Theatre created From White Plains. What was the inspiration for that? and how have audiences reacted to the piece?

From White Plains started with an idea for a moment: ‘a man wins an award for a screenplay about the death of his friend, a gay man bullied to suicide ten years before, and in his acceptance speech says the name of the bully.’ Michael Perlman and Fault Line Theatre had wanted to work together for some time, but hadn’t found the right play, and in December 2011 Michael brought us this idea and we decided to develop it together. We brought a cast and design team on board, and for the next four months we talked about what the story could be, who the characters were and what we were trying to accomplish. The entire team contributed source material, including news, pictures, videos and personal stories to a tumblr feed which now serves as a record of the process. Michael brought a first draft of the script to the actors in early May, and that script was collaboratively workshopped and rewritten over the four week rehearsal process, with Michael making his final changes the Thursday of the final week.

The reaction to From White Plains was overwhelmingly positive. Reviews were excellent, and we’re very proud to have received nominations from the NY Innovative Theatre Awards. I think people were affected by the play in very personal and very different ways. From White Plains’ great success is that is not a message play. The characters in the play have vastly different experiences and different perspectives on how to deal with them, and the focus of the action is on their relationships to one another. That allows the play to discuss a very important issue without beating on any particular drum, which in turn gives people a lot of space to choose how they engage. We held talkbacks with scholars from Brown and NYU, and the discussions were very exciting.

Fault Line was nominated for two different productions. What is the unique quality in your work that you think judges and audiences responded to.

I think it comes down to clarity and effective storytelling. We excel at rehearsing plays, we take our time at the table and refuse to let anything go unexplored. Rehearsing well means that we can communicate complex ideas and difficult questions simply and personally, and because we know what we’re doing the audience feels that we’re taking care of them and can relax and really engage. We also prioritize our actors above other considerations, and we’ve been able to assemble really incredible teams of actors for each show. There was a lot of spectacle in Frogs, but its strength came from the people on the stage.

What is Fault Line currently working on?

We’ve got a few exciting things coming up this season. One of our main goals is to find a venue for a larger, longer production of From White Plains, whether on our own or co-produced with another company. The play is important and we want to share it with as broad an audience as possible. This fall we’ll be producing a live performance of a somewhat notorious sci-fi radio show, and we’ve got a great group of people assembled to make that happen. There will be another new play in the late winter, and looking further ahead, we are developing a completely new adaptation of A Christmas Carol that will see production in December of 2013.

Congratulations to the Fault Line Theatre

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From White Plains in TheaterMania

TheaterMania gave our production of Michael Perlman's From White Plains an excellent review today! 

From White Plains

By: Dan Bacalzo

This outstanding new play approaches the timely topic of the bullying of gay teenagers with both complexity and empathy.

The bullying of gay teenagers has received an enormous amount of media attention in the last couple of years, so it’s no surprise that the subject is the focus of an increasing number of artistic works. The latest is the outstanding new play, From White Plains , now at La Tea Theatre at CSV Cultural Center , which explores the topic with both complexity and empathy.

This Fault Line Theatre production is conceived and directed by Michael Perlman and written and developed in collaboration with the company. The timely piece — which was created in four months — raises provocative questions about how one accepts responsibility for past actions, and what it takes to move ahead into a possibly better future.

As the play begins, Ethan Rice (Aaron Rossini) and his best friend John (Craig Wesley Divino) have been watching the Oscars and are in shock when Ethan is mentioned in one of the winner’s acceptance speeches. He’s been named as a man who bullied Mitchell Cole, the now deceased best friend of filmmaker Dennis Sullivan (Karl Gregory) when they were all in high school years ago. In his speech, Dennis goes on to say,

I hope this film helps all the Ethan Rices of the world see the effect they are having, and the Mitchell Coles of the world know they are not alone. So that maybe a few more of them see that life is worth living.

Ethan’s initial astonishment is soon replaced by a mixture of anger, fear, and regret. He makes an Internet video apologizing for his past behavior, prompting Dennis to do his own video questioning Ethan’s sincerity. More videos follow as Ethan’s personal and professional life comes apart and Dennis’ anger shows no signs of abatement.

Dennis’ boyfriend Gregory (Jimmy King) tries to get his lover to ease up, not understanding why Dennis can’t move beyond the past. Meanwhile, John finds himself distancing himself from his best friend, and Ethan discovers that there are still traces of his bullying past that creep into his everyday conversations, particularly when it comes to off-hand remarks that come across as anti-gay.

What makes the play so engrossing is that it develops each of these four characters’ perspectives enough to make it crystal clear why they behave like they do, even when that behavior may initially come across as unwise or unreasonable. In particular, a late-in-the-play speech from Dennis when he finally confronts Ethan face-to-face is gut-wrenchingly revelatory about why he’s having such a hard time forgiving his former classmate.

The four-person cast works well as an ensemble, and each brings a distinct, multi-layered characterization to his individual role. Perlman stages the piece with efficiency, and the action is well paced throughout its 90-minute running time.

View Original at TheaterMania.com

From White Plains in BroadwayShowbiz.com

Check out the great review for From White Plains at BroadwayShowbiz.com!

From White Plains

By: ProfMiller @The Theater 

It takes a lot of skill and smart self-editing to be able to write a play that deals with serious social issues while simultaneously engaging an audience at the personal level. What you wind up with all too often is something that is pedantic and preachy, an editorial posing as a play. But when a playwright is able to find the right balance, the results can be breathtaking.

Two stellar examples are Tony Kushner’s “Angels In America,” and Larry Kramer’s “The Normal Heart,” both of which were on soul-shaking display in recent revivals. Both plays dealt with the devastating topic of AIDS, and neither shied away from the medical details or the broader social and political issues involved; indeed both were quite passionate about them. But the playwrights’ greatest success was in bringing their stories to a human level by introducing us to characters we get to know and care about. The issues they face matter to us because the characters matter to us.

All this is by way of introduction to a new play, “From White Plains,” currently on view at the La Tea Theatre in the East Village, a work conceived and directed by Michael Perlman, who has been making a name for himself over the past few years as a performer (Outstanding Solo Show of 2006, New York Fringe Festival) and director.

“From White Plains,” a production of Fault Line Theatre, addresses the big social issue of bullying, especially of gay youth, by their peers. It raises questions of long-term consequences and culpability, male relationships (gay and straight), and even the power of social media to turn private matters into public ones.

The play opens on two long-time friends, both about 30 years of age, Ethan (Aaron Rossini) and John (Craig Wesley Divino). The pair is sitting on the sofa in Ethan’s apartment, drinking beers and casually watching the Academy Awards show on television. A filmmaker, Dennis (Karl Gregory), is being honored for a movie he has made about bullying. After a fumbling start to a seemingly unprepared speech, Dennis finds his voice. He speaks movingly of his friend Mitchell, who committed suicide after years of being bullied as a high school student in the New York suburbs of the title.

This is, of course, most appropriate for an Oscar speech before close to 40 million viewers. But Dennis has more to say. He wants to name names, and he identifies before the world the name of Mitchell’s chief tormentor.

And so, Ethan is outed. And nothing will ever be the same again.

Having set off this bomb, the play deals with the aftermath. Ethan loses his job, his girlfriend, and his best friend. Dennis, feeling empowered by his Oscar, uses social media to battle it out with Ethan. For his part, Ethan starts to fight back, but eventually he begins to do some soul-searching and attempts to apologize (although, of course, apologies under duress are always suspect.)

As in real life, things get complicated. Dennis’s new-found aggression turns on his boyfriend Greg (Jimmy King), whom Dennis badgers for not coming out to his parents, and John distances himself more and more from Ethan.

I have to say, it is quite possible to feel sympathetic towards Ethan, who is suddenly being held accountable for his actions from half a lifetime ago. Not that we want to let him off the hook, but we don’t know enough about Dennis’s friend Mitchell to be able to make a causal connection between the bullying and his suicide. It is not hard to understand how difficult a subject this is. You only have to consider the recent trial of the former Rutgers student who used a webcam to spy on his roommate in a sexual encounter with another man, and the suicide of that roommate after the video was posted.

Yet Ethan himself makes it challenging to feel too sorry for him. He still makes off-hand homophobic remarks, and confesses to John a long list of names of other individuals he bullied, starting in elementary school.

As the play moves towards a realistic ending, you have to admire Mr. Perlman and his co-creators from Fault Line Theatre. They make a real effort to allow everyone’s voice to be heard, so that everything is layered with complexity. I also like the way that the play shows the role of the Internet in the modern story of bullying, which can easily turn the tables from the old view of the bully as being the biggest and toughest kid in the room; YouTube and Facebook are equal opportunity outlets. The acting, too, is solid all around, and Mr. Rossini and Mr. Gregory make for a compelling pair of adversaries.

There was only one piece of the puzzle I wish had been brought up, and that is this: When all of this was going on, at a time when all of the individuals were still in school, where were the adults? Where were the teachers, the school administrators, the counselors, and the parents? I hold them as accountable as I do Ethan and others like him.

There really is a very recent movie called “Bully,” directed by filmmaker Lee Hirsch. Perhaps next year’s Oscars will find life imitating art.”

From White Plains in NYTheatre.com

From White Plains received an excellent review from Cory Conley today on NYTheatre.com!

The horrific scourge of suicides by so many young victims of anti-gay bullying has all the elements of cracking drama: stakes as high as life and death, a multi-layered clash of societal values, a trove of compelling stories, and a moral clarity that few theatrical topics can touch. But even if you throw all those into a pot and stir them around, you’re unlikely to come up with something quite as extraordinary as From White Plains, the new play from Fault Line Theater.

This gripping and full-blooded drama, conceived and directed by Michael Perlman, is so full of insight about prejudice, empathy, and the limits of forgiveness that it ought to be required viewing for anyone touched by, or concerned about, this mournful epidemic. But actually, that’s not its greatest achievement. From White Plains also happens to be as skillfully written, performed, and produced a piece of theater as any you’re likely to see for a while.

The action starts with Dennis Sullivan, who wins an Academy Award for his film “White Plains,” about a gay teenager who takes his life after an unbearable load of bullying by classmates. In his acceptance speech, Dennis dedicates the film to his lost friend Mitchell, whose own suicide fifteen years ago inspired the story. He also drops the name of Mitchell’s most relentless high school tormentor, Ethan Rice. And it is the grown-up Ethan, watching from a couch while his name is held up as a symbol of intolerance in front of the entire world, who opens the play.

Startled and confused, Ethan decides to post a video on the internet, apologizing for his past conduct. Dennis responds with a video of his own, in which he pointedly declines to accept the apology and then heats up the rhetoric by referring to Ethan as a “person, for lack of a better word.” As the videos multiply, and tempers get hotter, personal troubles soon plague both men—for Ethan, a fallout with his best friend John and his offstage fiancée; for Dennis, strained relations with his boyfriend Greg.

I probably shouldn’t say much more about what happens on stage, especially given that the evening is packed with surprises. One of the many virtues of Perlman’s script is that it unfolds with edge-of-your-seat suspense, and that it does so without sacrificing plausibility. (The only scene that feels even somewhat contrived—a chance encounter on the subway—is probably unavoidable in a play with only four characters.) Your sympathies will shift several times, sometimes in the space of a single scene, and that’s not just because of the winding plot, but because everyone here is drawn in three dimensions. Perlman and his team have not prepared an angry, one-sided screed against bigotry in which good triumphs over bad. Their intention is not to condemn the ignorant or flatter the enlightened, but to probe the complex attitudes of its characters. And the results are not exactly predictable.

There’s a strong case to be made, for instance, that Dennis is the least appealing of the group, with his righteous indignation and refusal to contemplate the humanity of his opponents. “It is better now,” insists Greg, referring to the increased acceptance of homosexuality among teens. “It just is.” But Dennis will have none of it: his friend is dead, Ethan’s apologies are insincere, and in any case, if everything’s so great, why won’t Greg come out to his parents?

The same holds true for Ethan’s story. It’s not that we’re supposed to feel sorry for the man who bullied a defenseless kid into suicide. But as his suddenly-public life begins to crumble, and his relationships evaporate, you might start to wonder: how much retribution is enough?

Each member of the all-male ensemble inhabits his role with such completion that you may forget you’re watching a play, and think you’ve stumbled into the living rooms and bars where it takes place. (According to press notes, Perlman assembled the script in collaboration with the cast, who based it partly on their own histories.) If there’s a standout, it’s Jimmy King, who, as Greg, is blessed with the play’s most accessible part and executes it with sensitivity and grace, most visibly in a fine monologue about confronting a gang of black teenagers.

In the end, what makes From White Plains essential viewing is simple: they’ve taken it seriously. There are no fancy theater tricks here, no ironic distancing, no tidy resolutions to assure us everything will turn out all right. What’s left are human souls confronting a human problem, and it is the gift of theater that we get to watch it right in front of us.

View Original at NyTheatre.com