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When You Comin' Back, Red Ryder?
When You Comin' Back, Red Ryder?
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Author: Mark Medoff Publisher: Dramatists Play Service (cover may change) Format: Softcover # of Pages: 61 Pub. Date: 1974 Edition: Acting ISBN-10: 0822212404 ISBN-13: 9780822212409 Cast Size: 3 female, 5 male
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About the Play:
When You Comin' Back, Red Ryder? has long been a favourite of acting teachers for Female/Male Scenes.
When You Comin' Back Red Ryder? is a full length drama by
Mark Medoff. When a small, sleepy New Mexico diner is visited
by a fugitive couple, locals and visitors have their lives upended
and their dreams and inner desires confronted. When You Comin' Back Red Ryder? is timeless in its
exploration of fear and repression that is still relevant in this day
and age of corporate theft and world terrorism.
When You Comin' Back, Red Ryder? is structured around two sets of couples and the havoc caused by the unexpected intrusion of a violent, perhaps psychopathic, drug smuggler. The scene is an
all-night diner in a sleepy southwestern town, the time early Sunday
morning, when the night attendant, young Stephen (Red) Ryder, is
about to turn his duties over to his daytime counterpart, Angel. Her
friend Lyle, who runs the gas station and motel across the road,
stops by for breakfast, followed by an affluent young couple en route
to New Orleans. With the arrival of another couple, Teddy and Cheryl,
the existing calm quickly vanishes. Their car, in which they are
smuggling drugs into California, has broken down, and while they
wait for it to be repaired, Teddy, the smuggler, begins to taunt and then bully the diner regulars until they accede to his will. With black, sardonic humour he gets at each in
turn, stripping away their pretensions and exposing their innermost
secrets and fears. They are soon his helpless victims, too terrified
to resist as he binds and robs them before heading off down the
highway, this time alone. In the end the others, after freeing
themselves, realize that they have come through their ordeal without
serious harm – at least physically. But for each a searing moment
of truth has been faced and, in a deeper sense, they know that they
have been changed more than they would have the desire, or perhaps
courage, to admit. When You Comin' Back, Red Ryder? is a favourite
with college theatre programs because of its realistic style and
challenging characters.
When You Comin' Back, Red Ryder? was first presented
Off-Broadway in 1973 by New York's famed Circle Repertory Company.
The play was a hit and transferred to Off-Broadway's Eastside
Playhouse, where it ran for over 300 performances. The first of Mark Medoff's plays to receive a New York City staging, he won the Outer
Critics Circle John Gassner Playwriting Award (1975); the Drama Desk
Award Outstanding New Playwright (1974); and the OBIE Award
Distinguished Play (1973-74). The play has become a
favourite scene study vehicle in acting classes and workshops and is
regularly performed in regional repertory, high school, college, and community
theatre productions.
Cast: 3 female, 5 male
What people say:
"It is a fascinating and
commanding play … one of the very best plays of the season…."
— The New York Times
"…we are in the hands of a
playwright who knows what he is doing every step of the way."
— The New Yorker
"…very skillful and very
effective…." — The Village Voice
"Medoff wrote a symphony of colorless cruelty... It's a play about the rich core of fear; how the simple folk who symbolize America's goodness are so easily made vulnerable by the guileful and crafty." — Backstage
About the Playwright:
Mark Medoff (1940-2019) was an American playwright,
screenwriter, film and theatre director, actor, and professor. He
wrote 30 plays and wrote, produced or directed 19 movies. He found
his greatest success with his play Children of a Lesser God,
which received both the Tony Award and the Olivier Award, as well as
Outer Critics and Drama Desk awards. He was nominated for an Academy
Award for the film script of Children of a Lesser God and a
Cable ACE award for his HBO premiere movie Apology. He
received OBIE, Outer Critics and Drama Desk awards for When You
Comin' Back Red Ryder?. He was Dramatist in Residence and
Professor Emeritus of Theatre Arts at New Mexico State University,
where he served on the English and Theatre Arts faculties for
twenty-seven years.
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