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Winner of the Encore Producers Award at the 2016 Hollywood Fringe Festival
As Easter and Passover draw near, thoughts turn to stories of persecution, liberation, and rebirth. Joshua Crone's award-winning play examines those themes against the background of the 2015 shooting at Umpqua Community College: A school shooter invades the lives of a teenage evangelist, a juvenile delinquent, and a youth pastor with a troubled past, forcing them to ask whether faith is worth dying for and if not, how to go on living.
"A tightly-wound piece that packs considerable emotion into its brief run time."
-Kurt Gardner, ArtsBeatLA
Written and directed by Joshua Crone
Assistant director NYC: Tim Palmer
Assistant director LA: Aleksandar Adzic
Camera operator: Spencer Chase
Original music: Karolina Naziemiec
Featuring Alec Nevin, Joshua Crone, Varda Appleton, Billy Malone, Dolores Susan Merino, and Daniel Saulle as Keith (the Sunday matinee will feature Tim Palmer as Keith)
Note: There are no elevators in this historic NYC building.
Watch the HFF trailer
Critics say:
Hollywood Fringe Reviews: Washed in the Blood'
By Kurt Gardner
June 22, 2016
Invoking the Umpqua Community College shootings that took place last October in Oregon, Crone's new drama is a tightly-wound piece that packs considerable emotion into its brief run time.
Jordan Merimee plays Keith, a young evangelical whose faith is strong, thanks to the encouragement of his mentor, Pastor Jim (Richard Roddy). When delinquent Kevin (Jordan Michael Thompson) shows up at his school, Keith finds himself wanting to save this newcomer from the fires of hell, but he is also intrigued by the boys rebellious lifestyle. They make a deal: If Keith will try Kevin's way of life, Kevin will give religion a chance.
But when a shooter arrives, targeting his victims based on their belief, their lives are permanently altered, and Keith's faith is shattered to the core.
As portrayed by Merimee, Thompson, and Roddy, Crone's characters are intriguingly complex. Keith's fervent beliefs blind him to the obvious, including Pastor Jim's questionable past. The pastor himself uses religion as a weapon to maintain firm control of his followers, while Kevin questions everything and refuses to take any of it at face value.
Crone artfully utilizes video and visual effects to expand Keith's story in flashback and add characters that don't appear onstage: a police interrogator (voiced by Billy Malone); Keith's chemistry teacher (Varda Appleton); and his grandmother (Dolores Susan Merino). He also stages the siege in a stylized and highly dramatic manner.
Excerpts from reviews of Crone's 2019 NY premiere Squatters:
"It is hard to begin to describe Squatters in a way that both keeps the mystery of the show alive and accurately presents it in the light that it deserves, though I will start by saying this: I left the theatre feeling very moved."
-Max Berry, OnStageBlog
Full review
"[Crone's] play seems to be disjointed at first, but as the pieces fall into place you start to see how carefully assembled the story is, and how carefully he disassembles it again for you."
-Robert Viagas, Arts Independent
Full review
ReviewFix Interviews the Author
What was the inspiration for this project?
Inspiration probably isn't the right word for a play based on the shooting at Umpqua Community College. But there was something deeply moving in the reports of students answering yes when asked at gunpoint if they believed in God. I've always admired those who are willing to suffer, even die, for their beliefs, religious or otherwise. As I read the reports I asked myself: What would I have done as a younger man with fewer doubts? And if, in the moment of truth, I had denied my beliefs like Peter or Galileo, what then? That was the point of departure for Washed in the Blood.
What's your creative process like?
Writing is an exponential process. I spend a long time getting nowhere, researching tangential topics (alchemy, in this case), filling marble notebooks with character notes and storylines. Then come the false starts, usually brought on by haste, by trying to write while the voices are thin, the plot underdeveloped. Finally, if I'm lucky, the threads come together, the characters come to life, and I write very quickly, basically taking dictation. The challenge then is to slow down.
Directing is more of a linear process. I step back from the text and break it into manageable blocks. What doesn't work or isn't worth carrying gets fixed or discarded on the march towards opening night. Meanwhile the actors are going through what I went through writing, the same growing pains and false starts, until everything comes together. I make sure we get there, but the route we take is largely up to them.
What makes this different or special from the original?
As in the LA production, there is a lot of interaction between live and recorded performers. The recordings here are the same, but the live actors are different. The result is a unique situation in which actors come together across space and time to create something that lives--and dies--in the moment. Someone who saw both productions would probably appreciate this, especially if they knew that two of the recorded performers, Varda Appleton and Billy Malone, are originally from New York.
What did you learn/are learning about yourself through this process?
This is my second production since moving to New York eight months ago, and I'm still learning to navigate the waters. Doing theater here is more complicated and certainly more expensive, but also more rewarding. For one thing, the critical response is more nuanced and thoughtful. And for someone whose life is devoted to experimental theater, that alone is worth the price of rent.
What are your ultimate goals for this production or your company for the future?
The goal for this production is a double bill with my New York debut Squatters, ideally a full run at a larger venue like The Tank.
What's next?
I have a short play premiering May 1 at The Tank as part of You Are Not Alone, a festival of short plays directed by Squatters costar Dori Levit and centered around the anguish, stigma and difficulty of coping with mental illness. My contribution, The Jail at Philippi, was inspired by the true story of a therapist arrested for treating depression with magic mushrooms. In a similar vein, I recently wrote The Journey, a psychedelic comedy about a conservative young man who decides to take ayahuasca with his fiancée's family to earn her father's blessing. It's very much an LA story, but I'd love to premiere it at the New York Fringe Festival. Then there's Ashes, Ashes, my new play about the bombing of Hiroshima. A reading of it recently took place in LA with Japanese-American actress Kazumi Aihara and acclaimed theater and film director Robert Allan Ackerman. The goal is to premiere the play in 2020, the 75th anniversary of the bombing. And finally, I'm still looking for financing for my second feature, A Farewell Tour. It's a film about the death of a Japanese-American tour guide, an estranged member of an ancient family of Noh actors.
About the author
Joshua Crone took up playwriting as a Marine in Southern California and spent the next decade supporting his habit with jobs as a carpenter, programmer, fisherman, teacher, before settling on a career in Polish and German translation. Along the way, he produced plays in Krakow, Berlin and London, earned a Masters in philosophy from the Jagiellonian University and studied directing at the Polish National Film School in Lodz. Then he moved to Los Angeles, where he crewed on half a dozen films at AFI, produced several plays and shot his first feature, Manifesto. He currently lives in New York.
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LocationThe Nubox at the John DeSotelle Studio (View)
754 9th Ave, 4th Floor
New York, NY 10019
United States
Categories
| Kid Friendly: No |
| Dog Friendly: No |
| Non-Smoking: Yes! |
| Wheelchair Accessible: No |
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