The Plays

411

It started in a Marie Callendar's in Fremont back in 1999. I was chatting with Matt Bogen after a show and we were throwing ideas back and forth. Somehow the subject of Stephen Wright came up, and I started riffing on his joke about calling information to find out where his socks were. By the end of the conversation I had the bare idea of someone calling 411 and getting an oracle, and the image of an eternal group therapy session with Oedipus, Macbeth and Banquo, Saul of Israel, David Koresh and the 8-Ball woman.

It would be five years and three rewrites before 411 made it to the stage. Acts I and II have changed very little from the first draft, but it took me years to find out exactly what happened in Debbie's afterlife. The role of Debbie was originally written for Renee Racan, who left the Bay Area to pursue her MFA before the show found itself.

411 was the premiere production of Cassandra's Call Productions, at the Next Stage in San Francisco in October of 2004. The company itself takes its name obliquely from the play, as I never found a way to work Cassandra into the group therapy session at the end of the play and I wanted to give her her due.

I hope to bring it back some time in the next couple of years, as it was warmly received by audiences but as a new play by a new company, we were unable to attract the press to the show.

No need to wait, though. You can read it here

posted by Dan Wilson @ 9:44 AM