Welcome to another year of Page to Stage!

Welcome to the final installment of Page to Stage for the 2023-24 Season! It’s been a wild ride this year — we hope you’ve enjoyed it.

Our next play is The Lifespan of a Fact, script by Jeremy Kareken, David Murrell, and Gordon Farrell, based on the book by John D’Agata and Jim Fingal. The play opened in 2018, starring Daniel Radcliffe, Cherry Jones, and Bobby Cannavale.

In 2003, 16-year-old Levi Presley died by suicide in Las Vegas. In order to try to make sense of it, John D’Agata, an experimental essayist of some renown, crafted an essay on Levi Presley and Las Vegas, which was assigned for fact-checking to Jim Fingal, fresh out of college. Their argument over the relative weight of factual accuracy and narrative license, how to handle descriptions when sources are contradictory or absent, and the precise nature of truth, is the center of the play, which never forgets that it’s also about Levi Presley’s death.

How negotiable is a fact? We’re curious how you think about it.

Scripts are available through Amazon Services. The theater gets a small portion of the proceeds — and we’d appreciate the contribution — but you’re free to make your own arrangements.

If you’re interested, the book by John D’Agata and Jim Fingal, which arranges their robust exchange of opinion around the text of an early draft of the essay as they wrangle over the weight of facts, is available through WW Norton directly, using ISBN#978039334073-0. “All royalties from this book — for the life of its publication — are donated to a scholarship in Levi’s name at the Pino and Bantam ATA Black Belt Academy in Las Vegas, a Tae Kwon Do studio run by Levi’s best friend and his best friend’s mom. The scholarship will give underprivileged kids in Las Vegas the chance to discover the sport that Levi Presley loved.”

The Artist Lab is also hosting a FREE Premiere Event for opening night, 5-7 pm, featuring music, drinks, and terrific catering – you’ll pay for the food and booze, but the joy is free! We’ll see folks on Sunday, but if you’re in town Friday night, this promises to be a terrific event! Sign up through the same webpage that you use to purchase tickets (https://prospecttheaterproject.org/box-office/ and click on Special Event: Opening Night Party).

We look forward to seeing you at Page to Stage, on Sunday, July 14, immediately following the matinee performance, in the Artist Lab. Tremendous gratitude to the Artist Lab staff – Rachael Pearre and Julie Mello – for helping us coordinate and communicate.

Facts are simple and facts are straight
Facts are lazy and facts are late
Facts all come with points of view
Facts don’t do what I want them to

(1980 Brian Eno / Chris Frantz / David Byrne / Jerry Harrison / Tina Weymouth)

See you soon,
Shannon, Linda, Scott