ABET | Atlantic Beach Experimental Theatre

 

AFTER THE MURDERS:
The Quest of Lizzie Borden

afterthemurdersby RICHARD WOLF

OCT  23-25, 30-31 and NOV 6-7 | 2009

Showtimes : Fri & Sat at 8:00pm | Sunday at 2:00pm
Box Office Opens : 45 minutes before show
Doors Open : 30 minutes before show
Admission : Adults - $15 | Senior, Student, Military - $12

MYSTERY/DRAMA | WORLD PREMIERE by Fernandina Beach’s Richard Wolf. Acquitted of the ax murders of her father and stepmother in 1893, Lizzie Borden lived another 34 years and stayed right in Fall River, Massachusetts. Many of the events in her life during those subsequent years were both bizarre and fascinating as this compelling play reveals.

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Directed by JACK BARNARD.

Directed by JACK BARNARD

with
KAREN GARRETT as Lizzie Borden
SUSAN ROCHE as Emma Borden
REDGIE GUTSHALL as Gus
GRETTA RUSSE as Nance O’Neill
DAVID BOYER as Hosea Knowlton, Mr. Tilden, and Andrew Borden
ISOM STEVE PHILIPS as Judge Dewey, Reverend Jubb, and Mr Thurber
KYLE SIEG as Ray
THOMAS RUSS as Charles Holmes and Andrew Jennings
CARLEY MULLEN as A Young Girl
MARGARET HENNESSEY as Bridget Sullivan
CLAYTON ZEROSKI as Eli Bence

ARTICLES and REVIEWS

REVIEWS

I liked Richard Wolf’s script and it kept our interest, with its focus on aspects of Lizzie’s life that have received little prior attention on stage. This play has great potential… Don’t miss this one. Even though you know the ending, the journey getting there is interesting.
- DICK KEREKES, eu Jacksonville | READ FULL REVIEW…

The title role is adeptly performed by Karen Garrett, whose portrayal captures Borden’s emotional highs and lows throughout the show…  Redgie Gutshall delivers a memorable performance as the cynical newspaper man, Gus.
- TAMARA McCLARAN, Shorelines | READ FULL REVIEW…

ARTICLE

Lizzie lived well after the trial, but she was shunned by the townspeople,” Barnard said. “She was an outcast, but she never left.
- TAMARA McCLARAN, Shorelines | READ FULL ARTICLE…

THE VERDICT

NOT GUILTY!

Joe Howard | Boston Globe | June 20, 1893

lizzieborden“I want to go home: take me straight home tonight.”

“Tonight?”

“Yes, tonight, I want to see the old place and settle down at once.”

That Lizzie Borden should throw her hands upon the rail, her face upon her hands, and indulge in hearty sobs after the ordeal facing her hand uplifted above her head, the foreman of the jury as he pronounced the words. “Not guilty,” was to have been expected.

Nothing else?

Well, yes. If she were an ordinary woman she would have cried and cried, perhaps fainted, then smiled and in effective pose reasserted the habitudes of her sex.

The difficulty is she is not an ordinary woman she is a puzzle psychologic.

ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT

READ MORE about how Mr. Wolf came to write this extraordinary play.

RICHARD WOLF is a playwright, novelist and composer.  His musical Durante was performed in Los Angeles and subsequently directed by Ginger Rogers in New York.  Circle Repertory Theater produced his play Peace At Hand in NYC.  His musical The Ebony Game, about a Negro League baseball team in 1946, was done at the Waverly Place Theatre off-Broadway in New York, directed and choreographed by Louis Johnson (choreographer of the original production of Purlie on Broadway).  Charlie, a musical about Chaplin, was done at Theatreworks in Palo Alto, Calif.  Hot Properties, a romantic comedy set during the Cannes Film Festival, was produced at The Lambs in NYC.  Rear End was produced at ABET in the fall of 2008.  After the Murders is a play about Lizzie Borden during her 34 years of life after her acquittal will be produced by the Atlantic Beach Experimental Theatre in the fall of 2009.  Bookstore, a musical for which he wrote the book and music with lyrics by Jane McAdams, a former Motown lyricist, was produced by A.C.T. in Fernandina Beach, FL and subsequently received a staged reading at the York Theatre in NYC.

Mr. Wolf is an accomplished pianist who played in numerous restaurants, hotels and theatre venues around NYC where he lived for over 30 years and his one-man play, A View From the Piano, reflects on those years.  His published novels include Host to Homicide, about a serial killer who is murdering talk show hosts; One Wild Ride, a comedy-mystery set in L.A.’s motion picture community; and Tears Enough For All, a WWII novel set in Nazi-occupied France.