a farce by Ron Hutchinson

Warning: Some strong language is used in this production. The phrases used are correct to the period the play is set in but may not be deemed politically correct by today's standards. The language used is intended to enhance the dramatics of the production and not to offend.

produced by special arrangement with Dramatists’ Play Service, Inc., New York

DIRECTOR: Nora Berg

PERFORMANCES: February 13 thru 16, 2008

SYNOPSIS:

It’s 1939 and Hollywood is abuzz. Legendary producer David O. Selznick has shut down production of his new epic movie, Gone with the Wind, a film adaptation of Margaret Mitchell’s novel. The screenplay, you see, just doesn’t work. So what’s an all-powerful movie mogul to do? While fending off the film’s stars, gossip columnists and his own father-in-law, Selznick sends a car for famed screenwriter Ben Hecht and pulls formidable director Victor Fleming from the set of The Wizard of Oz. Summoning both to his office, he locks the doors, closes the shades, and on a diet of bananas and peanuts, the three men labour over five days to fashion a screenplay that will become the blueprint for one of the most successful and beloved films of all time.

ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT:

Ron Hutchinson’s latest theatre work includes:

• Rat in the Skull (revival, Duke of York's Theatre 1995);
• an adaptation of Mikhail Bulgakov's Flight at the National Theatre 1997;
• Burning Issues, Hampstead Theatre Club 1999;
• Beau!, Theatre Royal, Bath, national tour and Haymarket, Leicester Square 2001;
• Lags, national tours 2002-03;
• Believers, for Playbox Young People's Theatre, 2003;
• Head/Case, Royal Shakespeare Company 2004;
• Moonlight and Magnolias, Goodman Theatre, Chicago 2004 and Manhattan Theatre Club 2005.

Mr. Hutchinson lives in Los Angeles where he is a writer/producer for features and television.

He was nominated for an Emmy for: the 2004 TV mini-series Traffic, the 1995 TV movie The Tuskegee Airmen, the 1994 TV movie The Burning Season, and he was the winner of an Emmy for Ben Kingsley's Murderers among Us: The Simon Wiesenthal Story, a 1989 TV movie. His latest film writing includes rewrites on Fox Pictures' remake of Flight of the Phoenix in 2004 (a remake of the 1965 film of the same name). Previously he wrote the screenplay for The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996), a remake of movies of the same title made in 1977 and 1932, and for which he won a Razzie Award for worst screenplay of 1996.

CAST