(Joe Meyers, entertainment journalist for the Connecticut Post and author of the blog Joe’s View, was our guest at last Friday’s invited workshop readings of ‘ROOM AT THE END OF THE HALL.’ Joe wrote a great piece on our Indiegogo fundraising campaign in December 2012 and he’s been a terrific friend to the project, having been instrumental in helping us spread the word and chronicling the play’s journey from page to New York stage. Below is an excerpt from Joe’s latest article on ‘ROOM,’ an insider perspective on our February 22nd workshop readings of Rocco’s latest draft of the play. Click here or scroll down to read the full article.)
The play “Room at the End of the Hall” got a step closer to a full production in New York City with a public reading on Feb. 22 for theater industry professionals and invited guests. Actor Sean Hudock (right) performed with Claybourne Elder whose Broadway credits include “Bonnie & Clyde.” Hudock is also serving as producer of the play by Rocco Natale, his friend since their days together at Greenwich High School. Photo by Chris Vongsawat.
CONNECTICUT POST: ‘ROOM’ PLAYS TO STRONG RESPONSE IN NEW YORK READINGS
by Joe Meyers; Published Thursday February 28, 2013
Last week, in a studio space high above 43rd Street in Manhattan, the dream of two Greenwich friends moved a big step closer to realization.
Writer Rocco Natale and producer/actor Sean Hudock put on two workshop performances of Natale’s play “Room at the End of the Hall” for invited audiences of industry professionals and friends and family.
Because I had written a piece in 2012 on the years of work they’ve put into the play and their innovative fundraising, Rocco and Sean invited me to the reading and I am happy to report that it went over like gangbusters.
The duo met their timetable for the workshop — with a month to spare — so it seems likely they will achieve their ultimate goal of a full production in New York City within the next few theater seasons.
Hudock and Natale and their director, Ross Evans, were able to get rising Broadway star Claybourne Elder to read one of the two roles in the powerful family drama.
Elder played Clyde Barrow‘s brother, Buck, in last season’s Broadway musical “Bonnie & Clyde” opposite Jeremy Jordan (of “Smash” and “Newsies’) and Laura Osnes (of the previewing “Cinderella” now on Broadway).
“Room at the End of the Hall” was gripping and moving even without any sets or costumes or stage lighting.
Natale follows the reunion/road trip of brothers Malky (Elder) and Doug (Hudock) who return to their closed-up family home in search of a diary they hope will contain answers to a terrible tragedy in their past.
In the course of trying to get into the house — the keys don’t work properly — we get a strong sense of the brothers’ past relationship, which has consisted of Doug coping with Malky’s mental illness and getting him out of one jam after another.
We see that the responsible family man Doug fears he might be only one false step away from the chaos in which his brother lives.
It was amazing to watch the two actors go so deep into their characters from behind the music stands holding scripts.
Although the presentation was technically a “reading,” Elder and Hudock both appeared to have most of their lines down, so the audience was able to go as far into the story as the actors did.
Like many of their New York City theater peers, Natale and Hudock got tired of waiting for someone else to produce “Room at the End of the Hall.”
Last year, they turned to the crowd-sourcing fundraising website Indiegogo and managed to come up with the funds for the private workshop production. Hudock and Natale’s project was just one of several notable theater projects in 2012 that were able to fund raise on the Internet — the downtown troupe The Amoralists did it for their acclaimed production of Derek Ahonen‘s “The Bad and the Better” and the company of the off-Broadway musical “Now.Here.This.” financed their cast recording through crowd sourcing.
“The way our generation is producing theater is in stark contrast to previous generations. It’s more of a grassroots thing,” Hudock said of not waiting for big commercial producers to option a play and then to begin raising money for it.
“Nothing against (old work), but our generation is tired of seeing the same plays or the same musicals produced over and over again,” Natale said.
Hudock and Natale have been friends since their Greenwich High School days and have been working together for several years to produce “Room” in New York.
Their next stop is somewhere off-Broadway and I have a hunch “Room” in a fully staged form will meet with good reviews and strong audience response. The fact that the play is a two-character, one-set piece should also result in a long after-life in regional and college theaters.
