May 19–21, 2016

Leeds Theatre

A part of Writing is Live 2016

Written by Rick Burkhardt ’16 MFA

Directed by Shira Milikowsky

Play: the Game -or- Game: the Play is an experiment—with music!—in bringing the board game to the stage. For this experiment, the playwright has designed a fully-functioning board game, based on the London blitz. Four characters meet in a nicely furnished North American den to play this game about London during the war. Within the game, four strangers, seeking shelter from the bombing, invent games to help them endure the blackout. How the war ends is well-known—but how the game ends may change the course of history.

—

Rick Burkhardt ’16 MFA has created original music, theatre, and text pieces that have been performed in over 40 US cities, as well as in Europe, Canada, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, and Taiwan. Burkhardt’s work has been supported by grants from ICElab, New Music USA, Meet the Composer, Jerome Foundation, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, the Millay Colony, Thomas Nee Commissioning Grant, Boswil Foundation, DAAD, and the US-Mexico Fund for Culture, as well as private and festival commissions. He has received Best Play awards at the San Francisco Fringe Festival and the New York Frigid Festival, and an Obie Special Citation Award for the music-theater work Three Pianos, created with Alec Duffy, Dave Malloy, and Rachel Chavkin. Burkhardt has collaborated with a wide variety of theater makers and ensembles including Lisa D’Amour, Erin Courtney, Kristen Kosmas, Sylvan Oswald, Anne Washburn, Hoi Polloi, Two-Headed Calf, and Banana Bag and Bodice. As a songwriter, he has shared stages with artists such as Pete Seeger, the Indigo Girls, Utah Phillips, Holly Near, and Peter Yarrow, and his original songs have received national radio play, including on NPR’s Morning Edition.