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| GENRE |
Dramedy |
| LENGTH |
Full-length, 75-80 minutes
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| CAST |
1 male (1-5 actors possible: 1-5 males) |
| SET |
Bare stage with some wooden blocks or chairs
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| NOTES |
Adult language and content |
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| Willie Thomas, an overworked, alcoholic, African-American father, passes on a legacy of self-hate and anger to his four sons: Jimmy, Wesley, Cleve, and the youngest, Alex. Each finds his own way to digest this legacy -- Jimmy through hard drugs, Wes through petty crime, Cleve through education and the arts. The older brothers are seen through the eyes of young Alex, who had a pitchfork thrown at him by his father during a drunken rage. He desperately searches for self-definition as he attempts both to emulate and separate himself from his brothers and father. His search crystallizes when his father's true story is revealed -- as a child, Willie suffered a cruel injustice at the hands of a racist Alabama penal system, which virtually robbed Willie of his childhood. Written for one energetic actor, Throw Pitchfork explores serious terrain with much comedy. |
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| "The show is, in the end, an elegy for a father...a portrait of a father's poignant legacy and what struck me as a dead-on depiction of how a family diverges from a center." |
| --Bruce Weber, The New York Times |
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Read more reviews |
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Special Honors Award (Besonderer Auszeichnung), Thespis International Monodrama Festival, Kiel, Germany |
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| Throw Pitchfork, Kitchen Theater, Ithaca, New York (2002). Photo: David Ferguson. |
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