JORDAN
HARRISON’s play KID-SIMPLE
premiered in the 2004 Humana Festival at Actors Theatre of Louisville
and has been produced in Chicago, Providence, Seattle, Los Angeles,
San Diego, and off Broadway at the SPF Summer Play Festival. His play
FINN IN THE UNDERWORLD will be produced this fall at Berkeley Repertory
Theatre. Jordan has enjoyed developmental experiences at Playwrights
Horizons, Seattle Rep, PlayLabs, Soho Rep, Clubbed Thumb, and Signature
Theatre Company. He is the recipient of the Heideman Award, two Jerome
Fellowships and a McKnight Grant from The Playwrights' Center, and an
NEA/TCG Playwright-in-Residence Grant with the Empty Space Theatre.
He has been commissioned by The Guthrie Theater/Children’s Theatre
Company and the National New Play Network. Jordan is a resident playwright
at New Dramatists and a graduate of Brown University’s MFA Playwriting
program.
ACT
A LADY
When the men of a tiny Prohibition-era town don petticoats to perform
a period melodrama, the biggest surprise is that more eyebrows aren’t
raised. The task of “acting a lady” awakens the passions
between Miles and his skeptical wife Dorothy, and the less speakable
desires of Casper, the local photographer. As opening night approaches,
the play-within-the-play begins to spill off the stage: Purloined emeralds,
silk snoods, and hungry ghosts descend upon the Midwestern cattle farming
town. By the time the show goes up, one starts to wonder: who is on
which side of the red velvet curtain? A rollicking fable about the woman
in every man and the man in every woman.
