The Official Blog of PURE Theatre

Will Northcut, Sullivan Graci-Hamilton, and Addison Dent in SPEECH & DEBATE by Stephen Karam, July 30–August 15, 2009

Co-directed by Sharon Graci and David Mandel, Speech & Debate is PURE’s 2009 Summer Slam production. Featuring Addison Dent (A Flea in Her Ear at The Village Playhouse), Sullivan Graci-Rogers (Hogs and A Waffle House Christmas with PURE), and Will Northcut (Rabbit Hole at PURE), the play is a hilarious look at three misfit teenagers in Salem, Oregon.

“A triumph . . . hilarious, cliche-free, and immensely entertaining” —The New York Times

“savvy comedy . . . bristling with vitality, wicked humor, terrific dialogue and a direct pipeline into the zeitgeist of contemporary youth . . . Karam has a keen ear for how teens talk, move and think, how they view each other and the adult world” —Variety

“One of the top ten plays of the year . . .  Even if you’re not fluent in IM, you’ll LOL at this subversive comedy . . . Mordant misfits Diwata, Solomon, and Howie come together via circumstance and learn valuable lessons: Sometimes you’ve got to ‘hold it in,’ as The Crucible‘s plucky Puritan Mary tells a sexually confused Abe Lincoln. And sometimes you need to crank up, strip down to a nude body stocking, make like Martha Graham, and let it out.” —Entertainment Weekly

Rodney and Sharon went out to Magnolia Plantation to get these shots of Sharon kissing a pig, putting lipstick on a pig, and doing other hog-related things. Here’s the final image we’re using on the postcards for PURE’s production of HOGS, Rodney’s modern adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE. More details about the poster design process here, if you’re interested.