Internet Wiretap Edition of EXTRACTS FROM ADAM'S DIARY by MARK TWAIN

 ABOUT THE PLAY

This production is an original adaptation of Mark Twain's short story, "The Diaries of Adam & Eve." This multimedia premiere documents the world's first husband and wife in their meeting, courtship and married life. Twain's humor, grace and amazing ability to reveal life's truths provide rich material for presentation on the stage.

This production is the culmination of what has truly been a collaborative process. FPT Minister of Drama, Thom Hofrichter, is directing his own adaptation of Twain's short story. He envisioned the piece as a multimedia event, incorporating music, slides, movement, and amusing spectacle. Providing the music is composer Paul Andrew Coats, who is also the pastor at North Highlands Presbyterian Church. He will play his inventive score, which includes movements to depict the creation and the fall, live. First Church Member Patty Griest, is creating the slide show design which will tell the story of the world's creation and mans' fall through the use of art from children's books. The amusing spectacle takes the form of the set, which was conceptualized as a children's playground by the director, and has been brought to life by designers John Shoaff, Ron Badour, Jim Walker and Joe Shaffer. Their slides, monkey bars, swings, and merry-go-rounds, as well as the kiddy costumes designed by Mary Hopkins, give the other collaborators, actors Jan Venderly and Michael Young, a fertile set to let their imaginations play in. This is going to be a delightful show, great for the whole family. You won't want to miss it!

NEWS & NOTES

Adam, after spending a lifetime with Eve, realizes upon her death that "wheresoever she was, there was Eden," This beautiful sentiment, which is rendered with such clarity, brevity and beauty in Diaries of Adam & Eve, is very characteristic of Mark Twain's writing. Twain is one of the most quoted writers because of this style which combines wisdom with brevity and humor, Below are some of my favorite quotes from Mark Twain.

• I have had a "call" to literature, of a low order--i.e. humorous. It is nothing to be proud of, but it is my strongest suit...seriously scribbling to excite the laughter of God's creatures.
• Barring that natural expression of villainy, which we all have, the man looked honest enough.
• Tom [Sawyer] appeared on the sidewalk with a bucket of whitewash and a long-handled brush. He surveyed the fence, and all gladness left him, and a deep melancholy settled down upon his spirit. Thirty yards of board fence nine feet high. Life to him seemed hollow, and existence but a burden.
• Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do...Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.
• I am a great & sublime fool. But then I am God's fool, & all His works must be contemplated with respect.
• I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and did. I said I didn't know.
• All kings is mostly rapscallions.
• Hain 't we got all the fools in town on our side? and ain't that a big enough majority in any town?
• You can't pray a lie.
• All the modern inconveniences.
• One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives.
• Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is because we are not the person involved.
• When angry, count four; when very angry, swear.
• Nothing so needs reforming as other people 's habits.
• Put all your eggs in one basket and---WATCH THAT BASKET.
• If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.
• Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.
• It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.
• "Classic." A book which people praise and don't read. is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to.
• Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to.
• Each person is born to one possession which out-values all his others--his last breath.
• It takes your enemy and your friend, working together, to hurt you to the heart. The one to slander you and the other to get the news to you.
• The holy passion of Friendship is of so sweet and steady and loyal and enduring a nature that it will last through a whole lifetime, if not asked to lend money.
• When I was younger I could remember anything, whether it happened or not; but I getting old, and soon I shall remember only the latter.
• Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence in society.
• Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.

Diaries of Adam & Eve: A THEOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE

by John Stephen Park, Pastor of First Presbyterian Church

Relationships with other people form the spiritual web of our lives, with crucial strands being marriages, partnerships, family, and friends. According to many religious traditions, our deepest values are expressed through these essential bonds.

The mysterious is at the center of intimate relationships. As a character in a Joyce Carol Gates' novel states: "Marriage was the deepest, most mysterious, most profound exploration open to humankind; she had always believed that, and she believed it now...the plunging into one another's soul, this pressure of bodies together, so brutally intimate...was the closest one could come to a sacred adventure. Partners are bound together by desires and dreams, and as they go, in work and play, the two improvise a relationship to trek the sometimes daunting paths of communication, work, finances and possessions, parenting, aging, and much more. The intricate and daily working out of "two become one" is a deeply spiritual, and never trivial, pursuit.

A favorite question to ask a couple who are moving through counseling toward the marriage ceremony is, "Can you imagine being able to choose to go on in life without having this person at your side?" Our Adam could not and neither could his Eve. Better to have to go through the Fall and the post-garden life together than to have remained in the garden, each on his or her own.

This poem by Kuan Tao-Sheng sums up the nature of such a

romance:

Thank the Lord for what Eve labels as the "experiment"!

BIOGRAPHIES

Jan Venderly (Eve) returns to FPT after appearing as Emma in Tintypes two seasons ago. More recently she played one of the Pigeon sisters with her real life sister Leslie Hormann in Arena's The Odd Couple. At the Civic she has been seen as Liza Moriarty in Sherlock 's Last Case, Maggie in Lend Me A Tenor, and Mary Jane Wilkes in Big River. As a student at I.U. Bloomington she performed with the Singing Hoosiers, The American Cabaret Company, and the Yet Another Theater Company of Bloomington. Jan teaches journalism at New Haven High School. Her leisure time is spent singing, reading, traveling, and hanging out with her hubby, Ed.

Michael Young (Adam) last appeared at First Presbyterian in March, 1984, when he played Jerry in Edward Albee's The Zoo Story. He's been active in Fort Wayne Theatre for twenty-two years, primarily at the Civic Theatre. Since childhood Michael has been an avid reader and a fan of Twain since high school. In his twenties, he happened upon The Diaries of Adam & Eve, Letters from the Earth, and On the Darned Human Race, along with other lesser-known Twain works, and found they contained some of his most humorous, perceptive, and profound writing - full of the sardonic irony, laconic wit, and omniscient understanding of the human condition for which Mark Twain is famous. Michael is single and lives in the wooded hinterlands of Whitley County. He has worked over twenty-five years in heavy-highway construction. Currently, he is the full-time organizer for the International Union of Operating Engineers, Local No. 103. He encourages our audience to "Look for the Union Label" and to "Buy American/Buy Union."

Thom Hofrichter (adaptation, direction, light design) has just finished his first year as the Minister of Drama here at FPT. Although he had worked professionally across this country as an actor, director, and designer, for the 14 years prior to his job at FPT, he has always considered Fort Wayne his home since he was born and raised here. Adam & Eve marks the third script that Thom has written for theatrical presentation, the other two were The Dusty Mac Show and The Discovery of Columbus. Both these pieces were one-man educational shows that toured school districts where he was living at the time. In addition, Thom also contributed dialogue to a production called Going Forward Backward. This work, which premiered at The Milwaukee Repertory Theatre in 1991, was a movement piece conceived by Daniel Stein, and co-created by a cast of six actors through improvisation. This experience has been very rewarding and Thom looks forward to more original work to be offered to the patrons of FPT.

Paul Andrew Coats (original music and score, musician) is a recent transplant to Fort Wayne. A native of St. Louis, he moved to the Three Rivers area with his wife Ellen and daughter Emily to accept a position as Pastor of the North Highlands Presbyterian Church. An accomplished composer, his music includes: Instrumental Solos (A Gust of Happiness, Break Through, Fantasy for Violoncello, Nine Etudes, Sonata, Beginnings), Vocal (Windsor Psalms, Praise the Lord The Fig Tree, Even Though), Instrumental Ensembles (Suite San Francisco, Snow Pears, Jesus Wept), Orchestral (Creation, Tim Spell, Monet in Chicago, Christ Lives, And SaintsToo Must Die), Music for the Theater (A Christmas Carol). He has enjoyed his collaboration with Thom Hofrichter on Diaries of Adam & Eve and is grateful to have it premiered at FPT.

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