Événement

Fourteen Days In July by Lewis Schrager

For fourteen days in July 2000, Israeli and Palestinian negotiators met at the Camp David presidential retreat in an attempt to hammer out terms of a historic agreement to end the conflict between their peoples. In his new drama, Fourteen Days in July, Lewis Schrager draws from Ambassador Dennis Ross s recounting of those negotiations, documented in his classic memoir The Missing Peace, to create the first staged production of those dramatic, and ultimately failed, negotiations. Fourteen Days in July presents a unique glimpse into the strategy and psychology of the key players in the negotiation, including Ehud Barak, Prime Minister of Israel, Yasir Arafat, Chairman of the Palestinian Authority, President Bill Clinton, and Ambassador Ross, U.S. Envoy to the Middle East and President Clinton s chief peace negotiator, as they struggled to overcome generations of hostilities, myths and grievances to reach a comprehensive peace settlement. The failure of these negotiations, as dramatized in Fourteen Days in July, provides a sobering reminder of how tragically close a peace agreement once had been, and a hopeful reminder that, with good will and trust on both sides, an end to this seemingly endless conflict is, in fact, achievable.

Playwright's Bio: Fourteen Days in July represents Lewis Schrager s third staged dramatic production. Others include Levy s Ghost, the story of Commodore Uriah Levy (Baltimore, 2005), and Shadow of the Valley (St. Paul, MN, 2005). Schrager also has published a dozen short stories in literary journals including South Carolina Review, Southwestern American Literature, South Dakota Review, Cottonwood, Bryant Literary Review, Colere, and Quiddity. He lives in North Bethesda, MD, with his wife, Frances, and children, Elana and Alec. Schrager is a graduate of the Johns Hopkins University and the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, and serves as vice president of Scientific Affairs for Aeras, a non-profit biotechnology firm committed to developing vaccines for tuberculosis.