BRATTLEBORO — Shoot the Moon Theater Company opens its 2020 season as the company in-residence for Hooker-Dunham Theater with a two weekend-run of Lucas Hnath's A Public Reading of an Unproduced Screenplay About the Death of Walt Disney, Friday and Saturday, Jan. 31 and Feb. 1, and Feb. 7 and 8.
The 2013 dark comedy is an early career effort by Hnath, who has gone on to win an Obie Award for his 2016 play The Christians and receive a Tony nomination in 2017 for A Doll's House, Part 2.
As the play opens, Walt Disney (Colin Grube) reads aloud from a screenplay he's written about his favorite topic: himself.
The fictional memoir that ensues delves behind the public persona and the roots of what has become a vast entertainment empire, revealing Walt's ambitions and how they impacted his relationships with his brother Roy (Elias Burgess), his daughter Diane (Jennifer Moyse), and his son in-law Ron Miller (Harral Hamilton).
While Hnath's exploration of how Disney's myth intertwines with American culture appealed to artistic director Josh Moyse, he says what ultimately led him to select the work was the lyrical nature of the script.
“The dialogue is written in verse, so it reads more like a musical score than a play,” Moyse said in a news release. “It feels like the way people talk.”
Moyse also admits a personal fascination with the Disney empire after having a firsthand view of its influence while living in Los Angeles. He earned his Master of Fine Arts degree from the California Institute of the Arts that Walt Disney helped establish, staged plays at the Edna Disney Theater, and directed a fundraiser honoring the Disney family.
“The play asks great questions about creativity and what behaviors can be excused because someone is considered a great artist,” Moyse said.
Alistair Follansbee serves as stage manager for the production.