This week’s edition of L.A. Theatre Works will feature the play Work Song: Three Views on Frank Lloyd Wright by Jeffrey Hatcher, starring Robert Foxworth and Amy Brenneman.
In Work Song, tensions between master architect and Frank Lloyd Wright and his tempestuous relationships are explored in this uniquely prismatic view of one of the great architects of the modern era. Over the course of a 70-year career, Wright brought a radical approach to architecture, creating a new vision of what a building should and could be. Interior and exterior spaces related both to each other, their natural environment, and to the people who moved between, and lived within them. He created some of the most monumental and intimate spaces in America, designing everything from banks and office buildings to churches, a filling-station, and a beer garden. His masterpieces include the house Fallingwater and the Guggenheim Museum in New York. Wright once remarked : “I’ve been accused of saying I was the greatest architect in the world, and if I said so, I don t think it would be very arrogant, because I don t believe there are many great architects, if any. For 500 years what we call architecture has been phony.” But in contrast to the beauty and harmony of his buildings, Wright himself could be cruel and violent. His private life was marked by financial and emotional turmoil, and, with the brutal slaying of his wife, her children, and other members of the household, appalling tragedy.
About the Author
ERIC SIMONSON (Playwright/Director) is an ensemble member of the renowned Steppenwolf Theatre Company, a post he still holds while working as a writer and director for film, television, theatre and opera. His plays and adaptations have been performed at theatres across the country including Steppenwolf, Seattle Rep, Kansas City Rep, Arizona Theatre, The Kennedy Center, Huntington Theatre, City Theatre of Pittsburgh and L.A. Theatre Works. Most recently he completed a documentary called A Note of Triumph: The Golden Age of Norman Corwin, which received a nomination for the International Documentary Association (IDA) and won the 2006 Oscar for Best Documentary Short. He was also nominated for an Oscar in the same category for his film On Tiptoe: Gentle Steps to Freedom in 2001. That film won the IDA Distinguished Achievement Award and received an Emmy nomination after it aired on HBO/Cinemax.
JEFFREY HATCHER (Playwright) Jeffrey is an award-winning member and alumnus of The Playwrights Center, the Dramatists Guild, the Writers Guild, and New Dramatists and has written numerous plays on and off Broadway, that have been produced all over the world.
