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Paragon Springs
Paragon Springs
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Author: Steven Dietz Publisher: Dramatists Play Service (cover may change) Format: Softcover # of Pages: 81 Pub. Date: 2011 Edition: Acting ISBN-10: 0822224682 ISBN-13: 9780822224686 Cast Size: 4 female, 6 male
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About
the Play:
Paragon Springs is a full-length drama by Steven Dietz,
based on Ibsen's An
Enemy of the People. The
middle-American town of Paragon Springs boils when Dr. Thomas
Stockman pries into the contamination of its famous "healing
waters." Is he a hero of democracy or an enemy of the people?
The ensuing political gamesmanship pits truth against power, husband
against wife, brother against brother. Can the town survive?
Especially
recommended for school and contest use.
Paragon Springs is a town with a secret. It is 1926 in the
American heartland, and the famed "healing waters" of the
town's warm springs are a point of civic pride and the tourists who
come to bath in the springs are the main source of the town's
prosperity. Dr. Thomas Stockman, the chief medical officer of the
springs, has discovered a problem. The water is dangerously
contaminated. Stockman's discovery plunges the town into confusion as
the Mayor undertakes to manage the crisis by discrediting the doctor.
In this vibrant, often funny, and highly theatrical American
resetting of Henrik Ibsen's famed social drama, An
Enemy of the People, Steven Dietz puts the
lure of capitalism and the greed of small-town self-interest squarely
on trial – laced with Dr. Stockman's lasting cry that "the
majority is always wrong!" This is an entertaining and
illuminating drama with powerful contemporary resonance. From Flint
Michigan to the waters of Southwest Florida, Paragon Springs is a timely play
about the human cost of political gamesmanship.
Paragon Springs premiered in 2000 at Milwaukee Repertory
Theatre in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Since
then the play had regional premieres at professional theatres across
the US and
is regularly performed in high school, college, and community theatre
productions.
Cast: 4 female, 6 male
What people say:
"Steven Dietz has
written a masterpiece. Dietz makes his freely adapted version of
Ibsen's An Enemy of the People resonate powerfully for our time –
confronting the enduring issues of pollution, cover-ups,
whistle-blowing, greed, populism, social responsibility and personal
integrity. Dietz unfolds and details the story with a gifted use of
language, including a great diatribe against the evils of
majority-pandering, full of such passion and truth that it needs to
be heard again and again." — Shepherd Express
"A playwright who loves to
stir the pot, Steven Dietz is well-matched in
his firebrand adaptation of Henrik Ibsen's An Enemy of the People.
This very American potboiler reinvents the danger of thwarting public
opinion. Dietz moves the action from nineteenth-century Norway to
1926 Wisconsin, a time filled with the pride that precedes a fall.
Along with Ibsen's bitter critique of the supposed freedom of the
press, Dietz depicts the power of the newly perfected radio to rouse
the rabble to a false cause." — Chicago Free Press
"Dietz's Paragon
Springs is an inspired reworking of An Enemy of the
People. By moving the story to the American Midwest of the 1920s, he
has allowed it to breathe a kind of Sinclair Lewis–like air that is
both bracing and apt. The sea change works wonders, resulting in a
play that feels fresh, immediate and, at moments, even comic. Paragon
Springs raises fascinating questions about the nature of
democracy and the role of consensus vs. that of the individual
maverick. The play is not just vivid, compelling, and filled with
complex characters – it is also eerily prophetic." — The
Chicago Sun-Times
"This is theatre at its
zenith. An intensely powerful show that reminds us of the moral
quandaries of modern society. Dietz roots his play in Ibsen's
storytelling style, yet Dietz has given Paragon Springs
a distinctly American tone." — ChicagoCritic.com
About the Playwright:
Steven Dietz is one of America's most widely-produced
contemporary playwrights, known for his quirky comedies that are popular
at regional theatres. Since 1983, his thirty-plus plays
have been seen at over one hundred regional theatres in the United
States, as well as Off-Broadway. International productions have been
seen in over 20 countries and his work has been translated into 10
languages. He teaches playwriting and directing at the University of
Texas at Austin.
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