Deed of Trust and The Gin Game

This week on L.A. Theatre Works, it’s a double feature: hour one of Deed of Trust by Claudia Allen with Tyne Daly and Sharon Gless, and hour two of The Gin Game with Katherine Helmond and Harris Yulin.

About Deed of Trust:

Set in rural Michigan in the 1930s, Deed of Trust is a gentle and poignant comedy of a dysfunctional family long before the dysfunction was coined. Issues of inheritance have splintered the family for 20 years before an enterprising sister begins a crusade for change.

A L.A. Theatre Works full-cast performance featuring: Tyne Daly, Sharon Gless, Tim Hendrickson, John Judd, Seana Kofoed and Ned Schmidtke.

About the playwright:

Claudia Allen, 55, perhaps the most prolific contemporary writer of lesbian-themed plays; 11 of her 24 produced plays have lesbian themes or a major character who is lesbian or bisexual, including “Hannah Free,” which premiered at Chicago’s Bailiwick Repertory Theatre in 1992 and became an award-winning feature film in 2009.

Next up at 8pm is hour two of The Gin Game by D.L. Coburn.

About the play:

The quiet porch of a rest home for the aged explodes with emotion when prim Fonsia Dorsey sits down to play gin rummy with the cynical Weller Martin. Fonsia is drawn to Wellerbut she just cant stop winning at cards, while Weller bemoans the bad luck that is ruining his game and has dogged him throughout his life. Tragic yet uproariously funny, this Pulitzer Prize-winning drama examines themes of individual responsibility and societys mistreatment of the aged.

A L.A. Theatre Works full-cast performance featuring: Katherine Helmond and Harris Yulin.

About the playwright:

Donald L. Coburn (born 4 August 1938) is an American dramatist. He received the 1978 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play, The Gin Game.

Coburn was born in Baltimore, Maryland to parents who divorced two years later. He graduated from high school in 1957, then served in the U.S. Navy from 1958 to 1960. He has been married twice, first to Nazle Joyce French, whom he married in 1964 and divorced in 1971, then to Marsha Woodruff Maher in 1975. He had his own advertising company from 1965 to 1968. He then worked for the Stanford Advertising Agency in Dallas, Texas from 1968 to 1971. He worked as a marketing consultant from 1973 to 1976.


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