|
HAMPSHIRE SHAKESPEARE CO. ANNOUNCES WINNER
OF CONTEST
TO WRITE THE CONCLUSION OF A 400 YEAR OLD PLAY!!!
Thomas of
Woodstock - an anonymous play with unmistakable connections to William
Shakespeare's great History Plays - will be liberated from obscurity when Hampshire
Shakespeare Company premieres the work July 15, 1999, with a new
conclusion written by Agawam resident, Mr. Frederick Carrigg.
Thomas of Woodstock will be performed at the following locations and
times:
- Lord Jeffery Inn, on the Common, Amherst;
at 7 pm on July 15, 20, 22, 27, 29
(A Renaissance Festival Cookout accompanies every performance at the Lord Jeffery Inn
from 6 pm - 7 pm.)
- Pines Theater, Look Park, Northampton; at
7 pm on July 16, 17, 18, 23, 24, 25
- Hartsbrook School, 193 Bay Road,
Hadley; at 7 pm on July 30, 31
This past spring, HSC held a contest to complete Thomas
of Woodstock, a 400 year-old Elizabethan play that was discovered without a
title or back page, leaving the existing manuscript authorless and without an ending.
There is no evidence that the manuscript was published in its day. Modern publications are
out of print and very difficult to find. In spite of dramatic passages that evoke the
craft of William Shakespeare and an unmistakable connection to Shakespeare's Richard
II, the play has not received a modern production. Until now.
Read Thomas
of Woodstock
HSC invited Len Berkman, Playwright and Dramaturg,
Smith College; Constance Congdon, Playwright in residence at Amherst College; and Ed
Golden, Director, UMASS Amherst Theater Department to help select the best conclusion from
the submissions of more than a dozen contestants which included dramatists, English
professors, poets, actors, teachers and others. After much deliberation, the ending
provided by Mr. Frederick Carrigg of Agawam, MA was chosen.
Read Frederick Carrigg's winning
entry
Mr. Carrigg has been, until recently, the porter at
the Agawam Stop and Shop supermarket. An avid play-goer since he was eight years old, he
studied playwrighting with Robert Lehan at Westfield State College. Mr. Carrigg's other
work includes Sweet Young Things, an adaptation of Moliere into a modern teen
comedy. He is a musician and lyricist with a background in video production and library
work.
Mr. Carrigg will recieve a cash prize of $200.00 and
will see his work fully produced on the opening night of Thomas
of Woodstock, July 15, 1999, at 7 pm, in the garden of the Lord Jeffery Inn,
Amherst.
|
