Shel Silverstein - Theater

Theater

In January 1959, Look, Charlie: A Short History of the Pratfall was a chaotic off-Broadway comedy staged by Silverstein, Jean Shepherd and Herb Gardner at New York's Orpheum Theatre on Second Avenue in the Lower East Side. Silverstein went on to write more than 100 one-act plays. The Devil and Billy Markham, published in Playboy in 1979, was later adapted into a solo one-act play that debuted on a double bill with Mamet's Bobby Gould in Hell (1989) with Dr. Hook vocalist Dennis Locorriere narrating. Karen Kohlhaas directed An Adult Evening of Shel Silverstein, produced by New York's Atlantic Theater Company in September 2001 with a variety of short sketches:

  • "One Tennis Shoe"—Harvey claims his wife is becoming a bag lady.
  • "Bus Stop"—Irwin stands on a corner with a "bus stop" sign.
  • "Going Once"—A woman auctions herself.
  • "The Best Daddy"—Lisa's daddy shot the pony he got for her birthday.
  • "The Lifeboat is Sinking"—Jen and Sherwin play a game of Who-Would-You-Save-If—the family was drowning.
  • "Smile"—Bender plans to punish the man responsible for the phrase "Have a nice day".
  • "Watch and Dry"—Marianne discovers her laundry hasn't been cleaned.
  • "Thinking Up a New Name for the Act"—Pete thinks "meat and potatoes" is the perfect name for a vaudeville act.
  • "Buy One, Get One Free"—Hookers offer a golden opportunity.
  • "Blind Willie and the Talking Dog"—Blind Willie's talking dog argues they could profit from his talent.

A production of "An Adult Evening of Shel Silverstein" was produced by a Hofstra University theater group called, "The Spectrum Players" which was founded by Francis Ford Coppola in 1959. The production used a "victorian sailors on shore leave watching a play" aesthetic and used live rag-time and an MC character not in the script to transition between pieces. The production was directed by Richard Traub of Chicago, IL and starred several of Hofstra's most promising young actors; Nick Pacifico, Amanda Mac, Mike Quattrone, Ross Greenberg, Chelsea Lando, Allie Rightmeyer, and Paolo Perez as the MC.

In December 2001, Shel's Shorts was produced in repertory as two separate evenings under the titles Signs of Trouble and Shel Shocked by the Market Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Signs of Trouble was directed by Wesley Savick, and Shel Shocked was directed by Larry Coen.

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