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Deneen Reynolds-Knott Wins College Collaboration Commission

Reynolds-Knott will develop a new play with Oklahoma City University, Centre College in Kentucky, and Furman University in South Carolina.

Deneen Reynolds-Knott.

BROOKLYN: The Farm Theater has awarded Deneen Reynolds-Knott the College Collaboration Project commission. Reynolds-Knott will work with Oklahoma City University, Centre College in Danville, Ky., and Furman University and Greenville, S.C. The project marks Oklahoma City University’s first collaboration with the Farm Theater, along with Centre College’s fifth and Furman University’s second times participating.

Reynolds-Knott will have the opportunity to meet with groups of students from each school via video conference at the beginning of the spring 2022 semester. Each school will produce the play in person during the 2022-23 academic year, and Reynolds-Knott will continue to revise the text throughout the process. Oklahoma City University will produce the play this coming November, while Centre College will produce the play in Feb. 2023 and Furman University in April 2023.

Reynolds-Knott is a Brooklyn-based playwright who will have a workshop production of her play Babes in Ho-lland, which was featured at the 2020 Bay Area Playwrights Festival, at Shotgun Players this winter. She was a member of Clubbed Thumb’s 2019-20 early career writers group and received the 2021 Clubbed Thumb constitution commission. Her work has been produced at Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Orlando Shakespeare Theater, Premiere Stages at Kean University, San Diego Rep’s 2021 Black Voices Reading Series, PlayPenn, and the Fire This Time Festival, among others. She has also developed work with Liberation Theatre Company’s writing residency, Project Y’s Playwrights Group, Rising Circle’s INKTank Development Lab, and the 3in3 playwright residency of the Frank Silvera Writers’ Workshop. Reynolds-Knott received her MFA from Columbia University.

The College Collaboration Project asks multiple schools to commission an early-career playwright to write a play that each school will independently produce throughout the academic year. The majority of characters in the play will be under 30 years of age so that undergraduate students can successfully play the roles, and the play will reflect the students’ thoughts on a theme suggested by the playwright. This is the Farm Theater’s 10th installment of the project.

The Farm Theater develops early-career artists that may not have the support system afforded to others through workshops, productions, and mentoring.

Full article from American Theatre.

Review: FREUD’S LAST SESSION, by Mark St. Germain, at King’s Head Theatre

Freud and C. S. Lewis meet and argue about God in the European debut of Mark St. Germain’s delectably brainy play.

BWW Review: FREUD'S LAST SESSION, King's Head Theatre
Photo Credit: Alex Brenner

Great minds meet at symposiums, state dinners, literary circles, in the theatre. They get together and discuss their theories, arguing and tearing each other apart in dramatic fashion. What happens when two of the most famous men of their time clash in a small Hampstead office right when the Second World War is about to explode?

When C. S. Lewis enters the ageing Sigmund Freud‘s study, he thinks he’ll have to defend his choice of slandering the father of psychoanalysis in his latest book. But Freud isn’t interested in that, he’s heard of the image his colleague painted and isn’t too bothered in his old age and failing health. What irks him is the fact that Lewis has, out of the blue and totally unexpectedly, gone from being a fervent atheist like himself to being a pious Christian man. Unacceptable, according to him.

Mark St. Germain‘s play Freud’s Last Session was an Off-Broadway hit about a decade ago and it’s now getting its long-awaited European premiere at the King’s Head Theatre directed by Peter Darney. Doctor Julian Bird (a real life psychiatrist turned actor in the early noughties, there probably isn’t a better role for him) and Séan Browne are the pugnacious peers. Factually, nothing really happens in the show but for a great battle of wit on theology and philosophy. It’s delectably brainy.

In reality, the two never met and the source material for St Germain’s text is an equally thought-provoking book by professor Armand Nicholi, The Question of God: C.S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud Debate God, Love, Sex, and the Meaning of Life. That title is all it takes to sum up the play.

With their positions being diametrically opposed and often brought up in related discussions, it’s a joy to see their spirits in the same room. They spar relentlessly, interrupted only by Freud feverishly turning the radio on to check if there are any reports of the impending declaration of war, the occasional military aircraft flying overhead, and phone calls to and from his daughter Anna.

Brawn is a tall and proud Lewis, towering over Bird’s Freud with his tinny Germanic accent and hobbling frame. They hit the other’s views, finding every weak spot, wounding their pride and patching it up only to attack again. Lewis is smug and slightly haughty with faith, whereas Freud is weary with cynicism. They (and therefore their core ideas) both contradict and justify themselves constantly, shaping and adapting theories to suit their interests and endgames.

The threat of war becomes fertile ground to debate whether God is actually good. Hitler’s spirituality and past as an altar boy also come into question as Lewis brings up his God’s greater plan and Freud points out the injustice and hypocrisy of Nazi cruelty. Inflammatory statements are made and the argument rages on.

It’s a stimulating show, one that will challenge the audience to bring their own beliefs to the table and see them destroyed and rebuilt on stage. It’s intellectually tense and truly well-written in its investigation of the two men and their ideologies. Whether people agree with one or the other, it’s quite the cerebral night out.

Freud’s Last Session runs at the King’s Head until 12 February.

Review by Cindy Marcolina for BroadwayWorld.com available here.

Meet Award-Winning Playwright, Director, and Actor: Psalmayene 24, Writer of Dear Mapel

Go on a journey through Psalm’s adolescence and major life milestones in his joyfully energetic coming of age story that will take you from Park Slope, Brooklyn to Washington, DC. Through a series of letters, both real and imagined, Psalm explores the power of the written word to connect us with our loved ones, our past, and our future. GET TICKETS TO DEAR MAPEL

Psalm—as his colleagues call him—is currently The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Playwright in Residence at Mosaic Theater and a member of The Cabinet at Studio Theatre. He is the writer and lyricist of The Blackest Battle (Theater Alliance) and the writer, director, and lyricist of the film The Freewheelin’ Insurgents (Arena Stage). His one-man play, Free Jujube Brown!, is recognized as a seminal work in Hip-Hop Theatre and is published in the anthology, Plays from the Boom-Box Galaxy: Theater from the Hip-Hop Generation (TCG). As an actor, Psalm has appeared on HBO’s critically acclaimed series The Wire and has been nominated for a Helen Hayes Award (Outstanding Lead Actor in a Musical). He is a proud member of Actors’ Equity Association.
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Join Psalm on the journey of a lifetime in Dear Mapel BUY TICKETS
With gratitude and admiration, Mosaic Theater Company is honored to dedicate the 21/22 Season in memory of our dear friend and supporter, Marvin Weissberg.