Preston Jones's A TEXAS TRILOGY Performed In Entirety
Sat Aug 16th
Benefit Performance for the ReGroup Theatre Company Features BBQ Dinner, Games and More
"Mandatory Theater Going" - Peter Filichia
The big characters from the small town of Bradleyville, Texas take New York City by storm this August for the first time in nearly 40 years.
ReGroup Theatre is proud to reintroduce the much-acclaimed work of Preston Jones to theatre lovers in the area with a one day marathon of “The Last Meeting of the Knights of the White Magnolia,” “Lu Ann Hampton Laverty Oberlander” and “The Oldest Living Graduate.”
This Saturday, Aug 16th, all 3 plays will be performed in order at McAlpin Hall starting at 2:30 PM. Between the first two shows there will be a wine and cheese reception, and between the latter shows, a full BBQ dinner will be served. Featuring a cast of 22, the plays are presented under the direction of Allie Mulholland. Benefit tickets are available for $100 by visiting https://web.ovationtix.com/trs/pe.c/9936546
Commonly known as “A Texas Trilogy,” the three plays centered on small-town life will be presented in a site-specific production at the renovated McAlpin Hall, 165 W 86th St, (Corner of Amsterdam) and will continue running in rep nightly through August 24, 2014. While the plays are interconnected, they stand alone and can be seen in any order.
The trio of plays set the theater world afire in 1974 upon its original run at the Dallas Theater Company. The plays drew such attention that critics and theater luminaries from around the nation were soon flying to Dallas to witness them.
Signed by legendary theater agent Audrey Wood, who also discovered Tennessee Williams and William Inge, Jones’s plays then saw a sold-out run at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. Jones went from obscurity to being on the cover of many national publications with many calling him a great American playwright. A bidding war then broke out to bring the plays to New York, finally arriving on Broadway in 1976.
“The Last Meeting of the Knights of the White Magnolia,” described at the time as “comic masterpiece,” centers on a fraternity of Bradleyville's “good ol’ boys” who were once concerned with patriotism and racial purity, but later became an excuse for dominoes and refreshments. Having dwindled steadily in membership, the lodge found a new recruit from a neighboring town, and his appearance gives the remaining members a chance to resurrect their ancient mystical initiation rite. But this event, despite its intentional seriousness, becomes one of the wildest, funniest scenes imaginable.
In “Lu Ann Hampton Laverty Oberlander,” a 17-year-old a high school cheerleader of the same name dreams of faraway places. However, after high school, she instead settles for marriage to a friend of her Korean War veteran brother. Ten years later, she is a divorced, single mother working as a beautician. She meets and marries Corky Oberlander. Ten years after that, Lu Ann is living with her teenaged daughter, her now alcoholic brother and ill mother.
The New York Times called it a “poignant, revealing and frequently hilarious play offers a touching—and telling—portrait of a girl (and then woman) trapped in the backwater of a small Texas town.”
“The Oldest Living Graduate,” which the New York Daily News called “an extremely funny play and an extremely touching one,” Is the story of an often cantankerous but thoroughly lovable curmudgeon whose spirit remains unbowed even in the face of approaching death. Colonel Kinkaid, a World War I veteran now confined to a wheelchair, regales anyone who will listen to his war stories. His son, an aggressive wheeler-dealer, learns that the Colonel is the oldest living graduate of Mirabeau B. Lamar Military Academy. When the school decides to hold a celebration honoring the old man, the son persuades them to do so in Bradleyville, hoping to benefit from the resulting publicity. But getting his father to agree to the plan and to part with a piece of property that the son covets for commercial purposes are other matters. Resolute to the end, Colonel Kinkaid resents being the “oldest living anything.”
The benefit is presented with special permission from the Theatre Authority.
Showtimes and ticketing information for the revival of A Texas Trilogy can be found at http://www.aTexasTrilogy.com.
About ReGroup Theatre
THE REGROUP THEATRE is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit theater company devoted to meaningful American Theater. Starting with the plays of the Group Theatre, ReGroup has presented six full productions of their lost plays, many for the first time in 80 years, along with 11 fully stages readings, including the unpublished Clifford Odets’ play Silent Partner and Johnny Johnson directed by Estelle Parsons. In addition to their productions, they have published three volumes of the lost Group Theatre plays, most of which have been out of print for 80 years or never before published. For more information, please visit http://www.regrouptheatre.org.
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