FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE & BROADCAST

October 17, 2006

Salinas, CA

Press contact: Dawn Flood

publicity@westernstage.com

Please see release for all appropriate public information

The Western Stage to open Inherit the Wind

The Western Stage continues its 2006 season October 27^th with Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee’s classic courtroom drama Inherit the Wind. Based on the infamous 1925 Scopes “Monkey” Trial, this dramatization of the courtroom debate over whether evolution should be taught in public school is still as topical today as it was during its 1955 Broadway premiere. Inherit the Wind plays through November 19^th in the Studio Theater, Hartnell College Performing Arts Building. Performances are Fri and Sat at 8 pm and Sun at 2 pm. Tickets are $20 General Admission and $16 Sr/Jr/Mil and can be purchased through the TWS box office at 375-2111 or by visiting westernstage.com. (110 Word PSA)

Salinas, CA—October 17, 2006

Since its 1955 Broadway premiere, Inherit the Wind has proved as controversial as the historic courtroom drama it purports to recount. Great efforts were taken by playwrights Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee to clarify that what they were presenting was not intended as history but rather a critique of McCarthyism similar to Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. Despite these efforts Inherit the Wind was attacked for its liberal distortion of historic events, antagonism towards Christians, and bias in favor of teaching evolution in public schools. Even today, fifty-one years after its premiere and eighty-one years after the heated courtroom trial that inspired the play, Inherit the Wind still remains one of the most controversial and relevant plays in American theatre.

Audiences can investigate the controversy themselves in The Western Stage’s Studio Theater beginning October 27^th when the lights rise on the fictional town of Hillsboro, Tennessee where the fiery courtroom debate over whether Darwin’s theory of evolution should be taught in public schools takes place.

Since most people have learned about the Scopes “Monkey” trial through the play and its 1960 film adaptation, many have argued that Inherit the Wind has inadvertently skewed the historical record of the trial. That there was a trial in Dayton, Tennessee in which a teacher named John Scopes was prosecuted for teaching evolution in a public school is not in question. What is in question, however, are the details. Not only did Lawrence and Lee change the names of the characters and setting of the story, but they also freely altered events for both dramatic and political purposes. As the playwrights clearly state in the preface of the play, “Inherit the Wind does not pretend to be Journalism. It is theatre. It is not 1925.” Their intention was thus not to write an historical account of the Scopes “Monkey” Trial, but rather to use it as a vehicle to explore the then more contemporary issue of McCarthyism. It is a play about fear and political oppression just as much as it is about Creationism versus evolution.

Inherit the Wind opens with the arrest of Bertram T. Cates (Bumper Metcalfe), a school teacher modeled on mild-mannered John Scopes. Immediately the townspeople swarm around him as he is being marched to jail, condemning him for polluting their children’s minds by teaching Darwin’s theory of evolution. Even his girlfriend, Rachael (Aaron Lichtanski), is in disbelief, and is suddenly torn between her affection for Cates and her loyalty to her father, Reverend Brown (Terry Durney). From the opening scene on, it is clear the play is just as interested in creating a parable about the Communist scare as it is commenting on the debate over evolution. Scopes is a man being prosecuted for exploring ideas, not committing a crime.

In short order, two of the most famous lawyers in America arrive in Hillsboro amid much fanfare to lend their legal expertise and oration skills in what is sure to be “The Trial of the Century”. On the Prosecution side of the aisle is Senator Mathew Harrison Brady (Ken Cusson), a three time Democratic Presidential nominee and staunch anti-evolutionist, who is greeted by the townspeople with exceeding enthusiasm. On the Defense side is Henry Drummond, a Chicago attorney and free thinking agnostic with a reputation for exonerating high-profile defendants. He is greeted by a little girl who calls him “The Devil”.

Although Lawrence and Lee draw on Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan in their depiction of Drummond and Brady, they purposely exaggerate Senator Brady’s intolerance to make him appear more like Senator Joseph McCarthy. Much, in fact, has been made of their attempts to reduce him to a simpleton who had not even read Darwin’s Origin of Species. Bryan, unlike his fictional counterpart, had actually read Darwin’s texts and even quoted from them during the trial. The play additionally paints him as rabid for Cates prosecution. In truth, Bryan actually requested that that Scopes not be fined upon prosecution. (For more about the truth of the Scopes “Monkey” trial, see supplemental article)

Yet, as the decades have passed, it has ironically become the debate between Creationism and evolution that carries the greatest contemporary relevance. With the rise of the Intelligent Design movement out of the Seattle based Discovery Institute, the overt conflict at the center of the play is once again in public and legal debate—with a twist. Today the issue is not whether evolution should be taught in schools, but rather should Intelligent Design (a repackaged and quasi-scientifically updated version of Creationism) be taught in science class as an alternative to evolution. In this respect, Inherit the Wind is a play that bridges three distinct periods in American history: the Scopes “Monkey” Trial, the 1950’s Red Scare, and the current debate about Intelligent Design.

Inherit the Wind is directed by Jim McLean whose previous TWS directorial credits include Hello, Dolly!, Anything Goes, and Pride’s Crossing.

Performances are Fridays and Saturdays at 8 pm and Sundays at 2 pm in the Studio Theater, Hartnell College Performing Arts Building, October 27^th - November 19^th. Tickets are $20 General Admission and $16 Sr/Jr/Mil and can be purchased through the TWS box office at 375-2111 or online at westernstage.com.

Also, don’t miss TWS’ final show of the 2006 season, Oliver!, on the Main Stage Dec 1-17.

Dan Tarker

Literary Associate