Arts Independent

“I draw inspiration and patterns in my work from the comedic geniuses of Mel Brooks, Neil Simon, and Carl Reiner. It’s their kind of ‘laugh till you think’ philosophy that I put into my work,” says the ambitious, actor/producer/director/playwright, Jeffrey E. Milstein.

JEM Productions presents the world premiere of his uproarious send-up of the prison system: Fort Dicks, a new musical. Based a true story, Milstein, a prolific author both in NYC and regionally, “lampooning to the tooning of Brooks, Reiner, and Simon” in telling the story of a low-level prison in the famed military installation … and then sets the whole things to music! The dark social commentary is played like a Marx Brothers movie complete with sight-gags and prat falls. The cast features Sean Farrelly & Joe Sherbin; with Marek Ardito-Proulx, Pauline Breeze, Dana Cavagnaro, Carlos Cervantes, Mario Claudio, Sunflower Duran, Annabel Espinal, Donna Glaesener, Dominick Gonzalez, Andrew Gordon, Jason Lee, Federica Morra, Richard Sacher, Lindsy Thomas, and Laura Young

We met with the heir to the humor fortune of Sid Caesar for a few serious words about art and his take on it.

Tell us about the play and what was the inspiration in writing it?  

Fort Dicks, The Musical which I wrote the dialogue and lyrics for the songs is about the justice system and how it treats white collar criminals. I will be directing and producing the play at the Chernuchin Theatre at ATA at 314 West 54th Street in NYC. As you can see from the name of the play, it is a comedy which makes fun of the prison system and not the Army camp as you might think. My inspiration in writing the play in 2006, was real life experiences with the system and how unfairly the inmates are treated. If you make fun of the system, it will be corrected.

Tell us about yourself as a director. 

I am a full-time accountant with my own business, I have written, novels, plays and a sitcom in addition to acting on stage and on film. I started out as an assistant director and when the cast came to me to make changes, I couldn’t as an AD. So I started writing my own works so I could adapt them to the cast. I have performed plays in New York City and New Jersey of original material that I wrote.

What is your style of directing and how do you go about choosing your team? 

My style of directing is actor friendly. When you get a cast for a show, then own you, you do not own them. Since I have acted myself, I know what it’s like on both sides of the stage and I try to work within the cast. I choose my team of actors from actors that I have worked with before and I know what they are capable of and I audition for new talent because they bring a fresh idea to the table.

Do you feel the play resonates with audiences today?  

When you speak to people, it is amazing how many have or know of someone that has been incarcerated. Not only is it bad for the accused, but it is a hardship on the family. When they visit the inmate, they are treated like criminals and not family. Nobody should have to go thru that. Recently, due to DNA testing, people have been released from prison after spending years in the institution. THey have lost family, friends and self-esteem. No amount of money can make up for that. The system is wrong and has to be fixed.

You have a solid career in the arts and a good relationship at the ATA. Tell us about directing in NYC – good and bad – and tell us about the venerable ATA – good and -um bad. 

It is good to direct in NYC because the talent pool is great. You are able to pick and choose talent from NY, NJ, PA and CT. ATA is a great venue to present new work to a large audience. I like working on a stage that gives the talent different areas of egress and exit from the stage. You do not get that with a small theatre. Even though it is expensive to rent the Chernuchin Theatre, it is good in the long run. James Jennings is good to work with from ATA if he likes the play. He is not into comedy and musicals. Only drama. So this play is not up his alley but I want to take it to the next plateau.

Milstein appeared as Uncle Henry, regionally, for an acclaimed from of Wizard of Oz. (photo from the Yardley Players production at Mercer County Community College’s Kelsey Theatre).

Were you always a playwright or is this a stop in a more intricate journey? 

I have been an accountant since 1975 and still am to this day picking up new clients wherever I go. However, I love theatre and would like to make it my life’s work. I enjoy comedy and love the sight gags and shtick that the audience will laugh at. To take their cares away for a few hours is a god send.

What’s your next endeavor? 

My next endeavor is a play that I wrote and will perform at my local theatre in NJ called “The Dinner.” It is about a husband and wife who have their son, daughter in law and grand-daughter over to the house for dinner. It is a comedy taken from real life and will be showcased in January 2019. Watch for it. Sight gags and shtick are what makes the play move and the audience to come alive and be a part of the show. We get our energy from a good audience.

FORT DICKS, A MUSICAL

Friday and Saturday November 9 & 10; 16 & 17 @ 8:00 p.m.

Sunday matinées: November 11 & 18 @ 2:00 p.m.

American Theatre of Actors, 314 W 54th St, New York City

Tickets: Brownpapertickets.com

Jail time never was this much fun!

British actor, Stephen Bergman, returns to the stage for a staged reading of award-winning playwright, Maura Campbell’s tale of … Stephen Bergman!

Ms. Campbell, while in London on another project, met Mr. Bergman a short film and read his journal about his ordeal and recovery from Stage 4 throat cancer. So taken with the story, she created MASSIVE. Massive concerns George, a British actor who endures intensive radiation and chemotherapy for a massive throat tumor caused by the HPV virus. Thanks to the morphine treatments, George thinks he’s dead – or at least his life is starting to look that way. Left alone with his mother-in-law (who’s addicted to online shopping), a pet Beetle named Prince Hal, and the ghost of his dead brother when his wife is rushed to the hospital herself, George confronts the massive upheaval that is the stage show of his life: the roles he’s played, the disease, the treatment, his debilitating tracheotomy, and those poor souls in the chemo ward who never made it out, alive. All the while an omnipresent Kafkaesque Creature teaches George that grotesqueness and beauty co-exist in every moment and how to live in the world we create for ourselves.

A private (by invitation only) staged reading of the play will be October 29, 2018 at 7PM on Theatre Row, 416 West 42nd Street, New York, NY. For further information, please contact Jay Michaels at JMAE.events@gmail.com or 646-338-5472.

Campbell and Bergman decided that she would create a stage play tackling the disease, treatment and massive upheaval on the family. Bergman provided the film footage and journal for Campbell’s research.

We had the pleasure of speaking with Mr. Bergman about his ordeal and the play that came out of it.

Tell us about yourself as an artist

To be an artist a person has to be creative. This is something I have striven for in my everyday life as well as on stage. Creativity comes in my forms; we can talk about the painter, writer or actor being an artist but creativity can exist anywhere. Acting can be creative and life changing. When an actor takes on a role, they live in someone else’s skin, understand what makes them tick and then present it to the audience. That is a powerful experience for actor and audience. If the world were stripped of creativity then it is a lonely, barren place for all of us.

We can hear the play but tell us YOUR story. 

In May 2015 I was diagnosed with Stage 4 Squamous Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) Cancer. It was on my right tonsil at the back of my throat. From that day my whole life changed. It was a gruelling and torturous time with no respite. Although I have to acknowledge that I am not alone in this experience. There are many people who have been through what I have.  Many suffered more and some haven’t survived.

On leaving hospital I decided I had to take back some control of my life. I started filming, took photos and kept an intimate journal not knowing whether I was going to live or die. I think I did it to try and make sense of what was happening to me. I went through seven months of radical treatment; I had massive doses of chemo and radiotherapy. My physical recovery took almost a year but emotionally it was far reaching. It affected my confidence.  I had major anxiety, which impacted on my relationships with my wife and daughter. This all went in my journals and film where I recorded my inner most thoughts and fears. I think that is what Maura found interesting.

I soon realised that I had a resource that could be useful. I was approached by an HPV cancer charity to make a 5 minute film supporting the vaccination of boys in the UK. This is where my journey started. From my misery have come the most incredible experiences.  I have appeared on television, written newspaper articles, presented at conferences and I spoke to Government about my experience.  I even rowed the Mediterranean to highlight the cause. I met Maura in December 2017 as a cast member of ‘Cross Talk’, her fantastic play about addiction. We immediately connected and shared stories from our lives and here we are today with ‘Massive’, a creative collaboration.

We all try to make sense of the world – why do you think this happened to you?

What happened to me is ‘life’. It wasn’t a judgement on my life style. HPV is passed by intimate contact. 80% of adults in the UK and US carry it without ever knowing. It is responsible for 5% of all cancers globally. For most nothing will ever happen; for the unlucky few it mutates into cancer.

How do you look at life and the arts now? 

I live life much more in the ‘now’. If I have an idea, I get on and do it. It is partly about my age but it is also because I had a near death experience. When I first met Maura, she was honest and open, which was refreshing and appealing. That helped me share my story with her.

Maura Campbell is a great playwright. She can take the big subjects and write sensitive and witty dialogue without losing the serious message. I believe this play has happened for a reason. All art is there to entertain but great art entertains and we learn from it. ‘Massive’ certainly does that.

What’s next? 

‘Massive’ is a universal story of a family that have to live with a cancer sufferer.  I am a positive person who wants to enjoy life to the full. A dreadful thing happened to me but some very good stuff has come out of it.

This play needs to be seen by a much wider audience. There is so much to connect with. It is about how people cope under adverse, life threatening conditions.

What do practically ALL independent  theaters and company have in common other than a passion to present great art… Joan Kane and Bruce A! Kraemer.

For a decade or more, Ms. Kane has helmed shows at nearly every prominent theater company and festival in NYC. With Bruce, – and armed with advise from one of off-off Broadway’s founders and champions, they formed Ego Actus, a diverse and powerful theatrical company dedicated to providing audiences with a complete theatrical experience – from developed scripts to the best production values. Kane and Kraemer (btw, his middle name IS punctuated with an exclamation point… it’s not a typo) are not just fine theater producers but dedicated priests of the temple of the arts, weaving a tapestry of quality live stage works that will serve as a learning tool for generations to come.

Now they are cleverly voicing political opinions – not in protest but with a simple example. They’ll give no credence to deficient examples of the presidency… they’ll hand us a story of a REAL president. Ego Actus’ production of Give ’em Hell, Harry! holds a candle up to the nature of Harry S. Truman. A president interested in war … as in ending it.

Stage and film actor, J. Dolan Byrnes takes command of the role from October 18 – 28 (Thursday – Saturdays at 8:00 p.m. and Sundays at 3:00 p,m.) at the Episcopal Actors Guild, 1 East 29th Street, NYC. Tickets are $20 and can be purchased at https://www.artful.ly/Ego-Actus.

Let’s hear from the power couple themselves.

Tell Us About Yourselves as Artists

Joan Kane and Bruce A! Kraemer have both been in the New York City theatre scene our entire adult lives. We work so closely together that sometimes it seems that our marriage is a 24/7/365 production meeting. Joan directs, Bruce designs, we both produce. We like working together and find that our separate talents compliment each other. What we don’t do, we hire other people for. For example, we never act in our shows.

What made you decide to bring back Samuel Gallu’s “Harry?”

Harry Truman was a completely honest man. The contrast of him and his presidency to current events and the current office holder could not be more stark. This play demonstrates that honesty works. The current administration proves that dishonesty only breeds more dishonesty and everyone suffers as a result

Hmmmm, I think I now have my answer but, let’s get to the elephant in the room; are you making a statement about today’s political climate?  

We are totally making a statement about today’s political climate. The Harry Truman was so much more like what a president should be than the current guy. People need to be reminded that civility, honesty, fairness and compassion for the common man are what leadership are supposed to be about.

Ego Actus is a very busy company! Tell us about the company and why you started it?

Ellen “LaMama” Stewart was something of a mentor for Joan and when Joan asked her how to get hired as a director, Ellen said something llke, “Don’t wait for someone else to hire you, do your own thing. So we formed Ego Actus in 2009, right around when our children finished college. We choose to do plays we like and, as it happens, about 60% of those plays have been written by women, although we do not give ourselves a specific mandate to be feminist.

How has the world changed in the time you’ve been doing theater? How has the theater changed because of it?

The world keeps changing like crazy, It used to be that you could characterize decades as having signature social mores, styles and arts. Now things change radically, sometimes from one season to the next or even faster. The theater not only has to keep up, It has to keep ahead of the curve. This means shows have to be short and on point at all times. Technology has to be sophisticated and current. These days all but the most modest independent theaters have computer operated lighting, sound and often projections.

What’s next. 

The next production from Ego Actus will be Sycorax, Cyber Queen of Qamara, by Fengar Gael, directed by Joan Kane, opening at the HERE Arts Center November 2 and running through November 18. We are also currently in negotiations for some 2019 projects

Caligula
by Albert Camus

Reviewed by Robert Viagas

Albert Camus’s absurdist drama Caligula chronicles the last three years in the brief and twisted life of ancient Rome’s most off-the-rails emperor as an examination of the prerogatives and perils of ultimate power. Medicine Show Theatre’s Off-Off-Broadway revival of the 1944 play refrains from drawing specific links to any current American politicians, but if you find yourself thinking of a certain resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, well, that’s all on you.

The poetic script draws a vivid picture of life in the First Century A.D. Roman court, where aristocrats are held hostage, taunted, and often executed on the young emperor’s gruesome whim. His absolute power corrupts him absolutely and, with so many of his old friends and spouses abruptly dead, he has nothing left but to secretly aid in the plot to assassinate…himself.

Richard Keyser presents an intense and frightening Caligula. He toys with his victims like a cat with a mouse, often employing a sneering sarcasm as a prelude to the knife. Among the best of his victim are the stoic Cherea (Janine Georgette) and his genuinely loving but corrupted Caesona (Demetrius Blocker), both cast non-traditionally.

The new translation by company member Chris Brandt walks a careful and smart line between being too stiff and unnatural, and too contemporary and colloquial. Caligula’s warped reasoning is articulated with a terrible clarity.

Also in the cast: Diana Westphal, Samuel Muniz, Christopher Cunningham, David Elyha, Alex Miskin, Mario Peguero, Perri Yaniv, and Joe Rivera.

The new translation by company member Chris Brandt walks a careful and smart line between being too stiff and unnatural, and too contemporary and colloquial. Caligula’s warped reasoning is articulated with a terrible clarity.

The rarely-revived drama was last seen on Broadway in 1960, directed by Sidney Lumet, with Kenneth Haigh in the title role and Colleen Dewhurst as Caesonia.

Directed by Mark J. Dempsey, Caligula is being presented as the 2018-19 season opener of The Medicine Show Theatre company at the Ensemble Studio Theatre space, 545 West 52^nd Street, Manhattan. Performances continue through October 14.

Ai had the great honor of speaking with stage and screen artist, Loretta Swit. Ms. Swit is also an accomplished fine artist with a book, SWITHEART – The Watercolour Artistry & Animal Activism of Loretta Swit to support animal welfare programs, highlighting Ms. Swit’s love of animals through the art she has created over the years.

While she is known [well] for her role as “Hot Lips” Houlihan in the landmark series, M*A*S*H, Ms. Swit is a versitile stage and film professional with credentaisl that include a scene-stealing “Pigeon sister” opposite Don Rickles and Ernest Borgnine in an L.A. run of “The Odd Couple” and “Agnes Gooch” in the Las Vegas version of “Mame” starring Susan Hayward and (later) Celeste Holm.  Broadway aidiences saw star-turns  in Same Time next Year, The Mystery of edwin Drood,  and regional productions of Shirley valentine, The Vagina Monologues, and now in the title role of mame.

TV audiences are aware that Ms. swit’s appearances read like a list of trhe golden age of television with Gunsmoke, Mission: Impossible, Hawaii Five-O, Mannix, the puilot of Cagney & Lacey and hybriding stage and snmall screen in the TV version of the stage musical It’s a Bird… It’s a Plane… It’s Superman! (1975).

You are a part of TV history but tell us about yourself as an artist?

I love watching films … oldies, new ones, classics … I’ll watch a great film over and over.
I love giving Master Classes. I love Q&As after a performance. I love the rehearsal process … love it!  I miss reading the way I did when I had more time.  I love dailies; it’s like going to school … watching yourself and learning.   

That was the most diverse answer to that question … ever. thank you!

You have some wonderful stage credentials including Same Time, Next Year and The Mystery of Edwin Drood on Broadway and multiple powerful roles across the country’s stage. Tell us about your relationship to live theatre. Also, NY v the rest of the country: how does the theatre differ?

My relationship to live theatre …  I’ve always felt to be a love affair.   The audience and the actor(s) taking a journey together, inseparable. Especially in the case of a one-person play like Shirley Valentine or Eleanor Roosevelt. It can be a remarkable experience to bond with the audience…….laughing together….crying.   Feeling together. I love touring.   I’ve worked in many of our most beautiful theatres, some of them converted opera houses……..others layered with posters and memories of great players….

Lets discuss M.A.S.H. and television …

Always a pleasure to talk about MASH.   We were blessed with the genius of Larry Gelbart and the wisdom and expertise of Gene Reynolds.   That’s for starters! Then we enjoyed a collection of incredibly gifted writers who consistently turned in literate, interesting, intelligent scripts … with a cast of actors —  beginning with the original six right through the departures and arrivals — who bonded at “hello” and became a  devoted family.

In addition to that was our ensemble who also felt a strong sense of family and connection. And our crew who worked hard, enjoyed laughing at us and with us.

Do you keep in touch with any of your co-stars? 

It’s deeper and more meaningful than “staying in touch.” We are family in its most sincere form.

That is truly wonderful to hear on so many levels. Aside from M.A.S.H., your name was on the credits of some of television’s most memorable series. How has the industry changed over the years?

Over-all, technology has made much of it highly impersonal, and that’s sad because it’s contrary to how personal it is for an artist to offer himself/herself and isn’t permitted to do that anymore. Putting yourself in a script– reading it for the producer-director-writer. Very personal.  Winning or losing.  I think today artists feel they never got up to bat.    

Sadly, I agree. OK, do you think a series of its style depicting Vietnam or the Middle East Conflicts work today?

I think social media, all the news, videos, etc. cover it already.  Just put in a relationship or two and maybe you’ve already got yourself a pilot. Know what I mean?

I do. The hand-held phone has become the world stage – go and bad.
What do you still desire to do in your career? A particular part? Directing or producing?

More of the same!   A lot more !  As for a part, yes, I’ve read a few projects I’d love to do. And I still enjoy re-visiting characters like the great Eleanor Roosevelt.

That’s great. May we all have your vitality and interest. I read that you are still a supporter of Gene Frankel Studios and return to speak there on occasion. What’s your advice for the next generation of actors?

I love talking to students………anytime, if I’m available. I think what applies to all generations is the hard work to develop a good solid craft. It’s a tough, demanding road filled with hopeful competition. All you have is yourself. The more secure you are in your work, your craft, the stronger it makes you. There’s more, of course, but I’ll save it for our chat.

The Long Rail North, as part of New York International Fringe Festival – FringeNYC (a production of The Present Company), showing on Saturday October 13th – 4:45 pm; Monday October 15th  – 9:30 pm; Saturday October 20th – 7:00 pm; Tuesday October 23rd – 4:45 pm (Talkback directly following); Saturday October 27th – 12:15 pm. Tickets: $22      For tickets www.FringeNYC.org or www.thelongrailnorth.com

The Long Rail North centers on Pvt. Thomas Morgan, a black union soldier, who must escape via train with a young southern white girl named Molly Barnes that he rescued from a plantation fire of a nearby Civil War battle. Exhausted, with limited resources and even fewer allies, Morgan (played by Xavier Rodney) continues traveling north getting Molly to safety – despite her racist view of him and his race. Regardless of his good intentions, both union and confederate forces pursue them.

Michael Hagins is simply everywhere. He won awards at Planet Connections Theatre Festivity; turned some gents into swashbuckling jousters in Two Gentlemen from Verona; and put a war romance in the “Basement” of the Gene Frankel Theater. This is just the tip of a long dramatic iceberg of hot tickets. What all his work has in common is a sense of unification – color and culture butting heads to form a more perfect union. Long Rail North is another in the Hagins canon of powerful prose, thought-provoking messages, and when needed, rousing fight scenes.

Ai sat briefly with the prophetic and prolific author… only a second, we’s already working on something else!

Michael, why did you write this?

I wrote The Long Rail North when I was 20 years old and in college. I’ve been fascinated by the Civil War, and after watching Glory for the 20^th time and doing research on the 54^th Massachusetts, I had the idea of telling one man’s story doing everything he can save a white person, and a little girl who can’t defend herself properly. From then on, the play grew over 15 years from a one-act to a screenplay and eventually to the 5 person play going up in FringeNYC.  Unlike most works I’ve done, I’ve always known how the play moves and how it ends, and that’s because it all just clicked for me.  I remember when I finally put the final touches on this script 4 years ago, I felt like I could finally say “It’s ready to be seen by human eyes.”

How does this play resonate today – feel free to be political.

There are so many ways that this play is relevant today. Can a Black man travel with a white woman – let alone a 12 year old girl – and not be afraid of being stopped or accused of doing something illegal? Can a Black man feel welcome in the South or even certain parts of the North? Do people still think people are inferior because of their race or upbringing? In the Civil War, both Union and Confederate armies didn’t think much of Black men and women, who were willing to risk their lives to fight. In the Union, Black soldiers were paid $3 less than white soldiers, and most were encouraged to quit or change jobs and become doctors or scouts or cooks. In the Confederacy, laws were passed that any Black soldier who took up arms against the Confederacy and captured would be put back in slavery or even executed, and not treated as a prisoner of war. And in my story, one Black man continues to fight both sides, not caring of the consequences, showing bravery and courage and fighting against those who find him inferior, all to save one little girl, who happens to be white.

You are prolific and prophetic. In 100 years, what do you want history to note about your canon of work?

I would love for this show to continue to be a piece of historical fiction that talks about the taught ignorance not only in the Civil War but the times after that. As for my work, I’ve gone on such a range from comic sword-fighting shows to racial engaging work, and while I’d love for the fun works to continue to be lighthearted and fun for those seeking that, I also hope that my plays can open peoples’ eyes on the lone Black man facing and persevering so many trials and tribulations.

Tell us about fight choreography? Good/bad/why/ etc.

Fight choreography is a point of pride to me, because it allows the actors to engage in physical activity night after night without bumps and bruises. So many plays, both classical and contemporary, involve some form of stage combat, and safety needs to continue to be tantamount whenever such works are done. My show is lucky that we only have 5 nights of performance. Some Broadway shows perform 8 shows a week, and 2 a day in some cases, and without good fight direction, how could anyone do those many shows and not get hurt?

What’s next for this play and what’s next for you – in case they are separate questions.

I hope that The Long Rail North goes further. I’d love for this amazing cast and crew to move on and perform in a much bigger theatre. Every person involved is working so hard to bring this dream of mine to life, and all I can do to repay them is continue pushing for The Long Rail North to be picked up by producers and give it more life than just the month of October. As for me, as I continue advocating for this cast and crew to go further up the ladder, I will continue to write new work and find new ways to keep living the dream here in New York City.

Reviews by Robert Viagas

Jilted to Perfection by Debra Cook

Imagine a Wooster Group-style autobiographical monologue—think Spaulding Gray or Eric Bogosian—but presented as a stream-of-consciousness solo musical, and you’d have an idea of Debra Cook’s funny and poignant Jilted to Perfection, getting a showcase as part of the New York New Works Theatre Festival.

Subtitled “A MorMom’s Love,” her journey moves nimbly from her divorce, her struggle to transcend the Mormon world in which she was raised, and an unpromising romance with a Scientologist actor/director who believe she is his soul-mate.

Seated at a keyboard, Cook relates her self-described “squirrely” odyssey through life, swerving from one idealistic disaster to another, always trying to answer the questions, “Is it true that when you’re in love, you see all their brokenness and mess and love them anyway? Love them more?”

And then, out of the blue, in the final section, “The Good Fight,” Cook introduces a surprise guest performer, an angelic blonde waif (McKinslee Mitchell) who joins her on stage for a precociously powerful performance of a song about finding your destiny. The show ends with a surprise finale that I won’t spoil. But it is only one of the many unexpected and wonderful twists in this marvelous mini musical.

Directed by Kathy Morath, Jilted to Perfectionis being presented as part of the New York New Works Theatre Festival at The Acorn Theatre, 410 West 42^ndStreet, Manhattan. It was included in an evening of short plays and excerpts that included Glitched, How Alfo Learned to Love, Your Words Are Your Offering,and Flower of Iowa. A second performance is scheduled for Sept. 15.

Common Ground by Granville Burgess

The circumstances surrounding an historic 1863 meeting between President Abraham Lincoln and black former slave Frederick Douglass are the focus of Common Ground, an earnest new musical getting a showcase at New York New Works Theatre Festival.

Douglas, a gifted and outspoken abolitionist speaker who had helped recruit “colored” troops for the Union during the Civil War, was outraged that Lincoln was taking no special action against the Confederacy for torturing, murdering, or re-enslaving those troops when they were captured by the South, as opposed to white Union soldiers who were just incarcerated.

Judging from the seven songs performed in this sampler, composer Stan Wietrzychowski (Street Songs) and lyricist/librettist/director Granville Wyche Burgess have framed the story in the melodramatic style of the mid 19^thcentury operettas. Baritone Gary Harger (Lincoln) and tenor Robert Mack (Douglass), serve the score well with their lush, trained voices. Mack is especially moving on “Let Me Begin.” The writers make the most of the fact that Lincoln’s eventual killer, John Wilkes Booth (Benjamin McCormack), was a prominent actor known for his starring performance in Shakespeare’s assassination drama, Julius Caesar.

The show’s atmosphere is serious to the point of stiffness at times, though the game song, “What If?” gives the characters a chance to ask some of the difficult questions of the oft-told story in a light-hearted way.

Common Ground is being presented as part of the New York New Works Theatre Festival at The Acorn Theatre, 410 West 42^ndStreet, Manhattan. It was performed as part of an evening of short plays and excerpts that included Life or Not by Cayla Berejikian, Law of the Jungle by Sam Downey, The Kitty Bomb by Kevin Daly, and A Pitch From Satchel Paige by Loren and Jim Keller. A second performance is scheduled for Sept. 13.