W&L Professor’s Play Feature at Orlando Playfest

In his new play titled “The Tragedy of John Wilkes Booth,” Chris Gavaler, visiting assistant professor of English at Washington and Lee, casts the motivation for Booth’s assassination of President Abraham Lincoln in theatre rather than political terms. Gavaler, whose one-act play”Man Woman Hombre Mujer” won all the top awards the Pittsburgh New Works Festival in the fall, has staged several readings of his Booth play, including readings this week at Playfest in Orlando, Fla. In December the play was also featured at the Hamner Theatre as part of the Virginia Playwrights Initiative (VPI). In an interview this week with The Orlando Sentinel, Gavaler said that the play had been revised significantly since the reading in December. Gavaler is in good company in Florida. Actress Olympia Dukakis is appearing later this week as Prospera in two readings of Another Side of the Island, her new adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Tempest.