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by Jason Miller
PULITZER PRIZE WINNING DRAMA OPENS ITC’S 32nd
SEASON
The Illinois Theatre
Center of Park Forest will open their 2007-2008 season on September 21
with Jason Miller’s THAT CHAMPIONSHIP SEASON. The play earned the 1973
Pulitzer Prize for Drama, as well as the Tony Award and New York Drama
Critics Award for Best Play. Critics praised it as “the sort of play
that keeps theatre nourishingly and honorably alive.”
The play is set in
1972 in a small town near Scranton, Pennsylvania, the playwright’s home
town. The coach and four former players of a high school basketball
team that won the interstate championship 20 years earlier are gather
for a reunion. This annual event celebrates a victory “that gave a
defeated town something to be proud of”.
Miller creates
characters who are supposed to be the backbone of America, yet he
reveals them to be weak, cowardly, bigoted, corrupt, and sustained by
self-delusion. He displays a real understanding of these men. Having
grown up in what was at that time a depressed, cultureless coal mining
town, he is able to give the audience both an inside and outside view of
these men and the world they live in.
The reunion takes
place in the home of the now retired Coach. He is the moral, social,
and political mentor of his boys, and this is his only reason for
being. When one of his now 38-year-old former players says “Politics is
not basketball”, he answers, “…you get the crowd behind you and you
can’t lose. Everybody loves a winner.” He quotes his heroes, from
Teddy Roosevelt to JFK.
The team members at
the reunion include George Sikowski, the town’s mayor, who, with the
coach’s help won the election by just 32 votes against an old drunk.
Phil Romano is the town’s richest businessman. In high school, his
buddies depended on him for the use of his car, and now they depend on
his money to finance George’s campaign. James Daley is a junior high
school principal who has struggled to care for a dying father his own
large family, and now his alcoholic brother Tom. Drinking has turned
Tom into one of those men who utters bitter, sardonic truths that a
sober person would never dare say.
As the evening goes
on, we see the unity of the former team dissolve into squabbling,
insults, betrayal and near violence.
Jason Miller, an actor, director and
playwright, was born in Queens, NY, in 1940. His parents moved to
Scranton, Pennsylvania before he began school. After earning a Masters
Degree at Catholic University in Washing D.C., he settled in New York to
pursue careers in acting and playwriting. In 1973, the same year that
THAT CHAMPIONSHIP SEASON earned the Pulitzer Prize and the Tony Award,
Miller earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for
his role as Father Damian in “The Exorcist”.
In the 1980’s Miller returned to
Scranton to become Artistic Director of the Pennsylvania Summer Theatre
Festival and the Scranton Public Theater. Many of his later plays,
including BARRYMORE’S GHOST and NOBODY HEARS A BROKEN DRUM, premiered in
the Scranton area. Jason Miller died of heart failure in 2002. His
survivors include two ex-wives and four children, including actor Jason
Patric.
The cast for THAT CHAMPOINSHIP SEASON
includes ITC veterans Bernard Rice as The Coach and Peter Robel as Tom.
They are joined by newcomers Howie Johnson as George, Mark Stegman as
Phil, and Tucker Curtis as James. The production is directed by Etel
Billig.
THAT CHAMPIONSHIP SEASON runs Friday,
September 21 through Sunday, October 7. Performances are Wednesdays
through Saturdays at 8 PM, and Sundays at 2:30 & 7:30 PM. Tickets are
priced at $21 on Fri. & Sat., and $19 at all other times. There is a $1
discount for students & seniors. The Illinois Theatre Center is located
in Downtown Park Forest at 371 Artists Walk – off Indianwood Blvd.
between Orchard and Western. For tickets, call (708) 481-3510. NOTE:
The play contains explicit adult language and is not recommended for
children under 13.
September
21st to October 7th. |
