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The Mound Builders

The Mound Builders
Your Price: $18.95 CDN
Biz Staff Pick!
Author: Lanford Wilson
Publisher: Dramatists Play Service (cover may change)
Format: Softcover
# of Pages: 81
Pub. Date: 1996
Edition: Acting
ISBN-10: 0822213877
ISBN-13: 9780822213871
Cast Size: 4 female, 3 male

About the Play:

The Mound Builders has long been a favourite of acting teachers for Female/Female Scenes, Female/Male Scenes, and Male/Male Scenes.

The Mound Builders is a full-length drama by Lanford Wilson. A team of archaeologists descends on an Illinois town to unearth the mysteries of the Mound Builders before the site is flooded as part of a dam project. As they excavate the remains of this Native American civilization, they confront powerful and dangerous forces of ambition and legacy.

The Mound Builders dramatizes a confrontation of Native American traditions with the demands of 20th century society. At an archeological dig in the Midwest, a party of university scientists are unearthing vestiges of a lost Indian civilization. Heading the group is Dr. Howe, accompanied by his wife and daughter, and by a younger associate and his wife. They are all joined by Dr. Howe's sister, a famous and jaded novelist, who is "drying out" after many years of dissipation in remote parts of the world. There is also an outsider, the acquisitive son of a local landowner, who wants the digging site to be turned into a commercialized tourist trap. As they excavate they confront powerful and dangerous forces of ambition, greed and legacy. Interweaving past and present, the action of the play probes into the lives, and violent conflicts of this disparate group. Their story evokes resonances that illuminate what we are and will surely become, and which underscore the irony of our collective blindness to the disturbing lessons that a close study of the past must inevitably reveal. This searing drama of class, culture and gender clash finds a chilling relevance for the present – and future – in the unlocked mysteries of the past.

The Mound Builders premiered in 1975 Off-Broadway by the Circle Repertory Company and won the 1975 Obie Award for Distinguished Playwriting. This often-studied American theatre classic has become a favourite scene study vehicle in acting classes and workshops, was revived by Off-Broadway's Signature Theatre Company at The Pershing Square Signature Center in 2013, and is regularly performed in regional and college theatre productions.

Cast: 4 female, 3 male

What people say:

"It is probably Mr. Wilson's most profound and resonant play to date. It is original and brilliant and sends you out onto the street with your mind spinning cartwheels." — WQXR Radio

"…there is fabulous beauty in the play's writing." — New York Post

"The Mound Builders is among the five or ten most significant American plays of the decade." — Village Voice

About the Playwright:

Lanford Wilson (1937-2011) was one of the most distinguished American playwrights of the late 20th century. He was instrumental in drawing attention to Off-Off Broadway, where his first works were staged in the mid-1960s. He was also among the first playwrights to move from that milieu to renown on wider stages, ascending to Off Broadway, and then to Broadway, within a decade of his arrival in New York. His work has also long been a staple of regional theaters throughout the United States. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1980, was elected in 2001 to the Theater Hall of Fame, and in 2004 was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

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