Theatre Kids: A True Tale of Off-Off Broadway

Theatre Kids is a touching and irreverent account of post-9/11, pre-iPhone New York City, following an eccentric family of broke art-school survivors who staged an experimental, four-hour adaptation of William Faulkners novel As I Lay Dying inside an enormous wooden coffin. The production was doomed to fail, but it provided a safe space for emotionally messy hack magazine editor John DeVore to attempt sobering up following a devastating loss. The reviews were tepid, but the production ran for only eight performances. Theatre Kids is a buoyant, irreverent, and ultimately moving account of outsize ambition and dashed hopes in post-9/11, pre-iPhone New York City.

Format: Hardback
Length: 216 pages
Publication date: 18 August 2024
Publisher: Globe Pequot Press

Friendship, grief, and jazz hands collide in a remarkable tale set in 2004 in a small, windowless theater in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. An eccentric family of broke art-school survivors, led by a sweetly monomaniacal director, took on the challenge of adapting William Faulkner's novel As I Lay Dying into a four-hour experimental production. The cast and crew, including the director, poured their hearts and paychecks into the messy spectacle, which was doomed to fail by any conventional measure. Despite running for only eight performances, the reviews were tepid, with fewer than one hundred people seeing it. However, for emotionally messy hack magazine editor John DeVore, cast at the last minute in a bit part, it was a safe space to hide out and attempt sobering up following a devastating loss. Theatre Kids is DeVore's buoyant, irreverent, and ultimately moving account of outsize ambition and dashed hopes in post-9/11, pre-iPhone New York City. Sharply observed and bursting with hilarious razzle-dazzle, it will resonate with anyone who has ever, perhaps against their better judgment, tried to bring something beautiful into the world without regard for riches or fame.

Weight: 440g
Dimension: 236 x 160 x 23 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781493077762