Alfred and Victoria - A Life & Child of Luck & Is He Still Dead?

ALFRED AND VICTORIA: A LIFE
"...how tasteful, elegant and strangely poignant this version of the Bloomingdale-Morgan scandal proves to be. Playwright Freed has wisely elected not to further exploit this couple for melodramatic purposes. ALFRED AND VICTORIA: A LIFE is a love story, and one of the few truly moving romances to be seen on a local stage in quite some time. Freed's fragmented approach to the Bloomingdale-Morgan story allows him to more freely explore the complex Pygmalion-Galatea, Lear-Cordelia elements. Freed's alternative approach is more provocative, equating sexual politics with America's post-1960s move to a permanent war economy... Freed's play [is] so curiously moving." Richard Stayton, Los Angeles Herald Examiner. First presented by the Los Angeles Theater Center - One male, one female; unit set

CHILD OF LUCK
"Freed's scorching drama is so hot it sizzles. Freed may be the best hard- ball playing political dramatist around. His plays don't just suggest a political viewpoint, they are about the political mechanism itself. Freed's view of American politics is deeply cynical and astute. His style is ruthless and relentless. The cold-hearted CHILD OF LUCK cuts to the quick. In the first campaign of the 21st century, John Kelly, the son of an assassinated politician who served as John Kennedy's right-hand man, announces his candidacy for president." Kathryn Bernheimer, Sunday Camera
"Freed's audacity is admirable. You even have to admire the shameless way he draws on recent headlines. By piling scandal upon scandal, Freed creates a delirious, nightmarish America that easily could represent where we're headed over the next ten years." Alan Stern, The Denver Post. Premiered by the Denver Center Theater

IS HE STILL DEAD?
"Beckett's spirit inhabits IS HE STILL DEAD?, which the playwright has subtitled `A Comedy,' referring to a vaudevillian give-and-take between the Joyces as they attempt to flee Nazi-occupied France in 1940, two months before Joyce died. The tensions fan the flames of an already volatile marriage." Jan Stuart, The New York Times
"Every precious image of the world premiere of IS HE STILL DEAD? should be savored and celebrated.... Donald Freed's play captures both detail and essence as he explores a day in the life of the writer James Joyce and his wife Nora.... The script, a wise and witty one...[is] brilliantly conceived.
Theater at its best, IS HE STILL DEAD is a play which, without becoming overly sentimental, speaks of love through the ages. The characters live on." Fred Sokol, Union News (Springfield MA). Originally produced by the Long Wharf Theater, New Haven CT