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August 6, 2016

Money Man: “These are the times that try men’s souls”

As of this writing in the summer of 2016, Money Man is our most recent play. It imagines what Alexander Hamilton might have said to a group of friends who have come to be with him in the hour before he is rowed across the Hudson River to engage in his fateful duel with Aaron Burr.

People, quite logically, question why on earth I would write a Hamilton play in light of the overwhelming impact of Lyn-Manuel Miranda’s fabulously successful musical that opened on Broadway just before Money Man opened in a small town in the California foothills. It’s true that I had been working on my play for a year before I heard of Miranda’s project, but I might well have written it even if I had gone in knowing of the “competition.”

The two plays occupy opposite ends of the theatrical spectrum. Hamilton is epic, with a huge cast and on-stage music, made to be performed over hours in a theater holding better than a thousand people. Money Man is minimalist, made to be performed by a single actor, exploring the hero’s intimate thoughts. It could be performed in a living room and has been performed in classrooms.

The word “tragedy” has become a synonym for catastrophe/calamity/disaster/unfortunate occurrence. This itself is an unfortunate occurrence because we can use the word to mean what Aristotle meant only by prefacing the usage with a paragraph like this, explaining that there is now no word that means exclusively a story in which a largely admirable hero is brought down by uncontrolled aspects of his/her own character.

In this original sense Hamilton’s end was tragic. I became possessed with the idea of dramatizing how, at the brink of the abyss, this great mind would struggle to make sense of the absurd predicament he had blundered himself into.

That was two years ago. Now in the summer of 2016 I find myself wondering how many politicians are subjecting themselves to a similar self-examination. “These are the times that try men’s souls” as Thomas Paine wrote in The American Crisis in 1776.

Article by Rick Foster / Rick's Blog

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ABOLITION

ABOLITION tells the story of two friends, Frederick Douglass and John Brown, during the tumultuous decade leading up to the Civil War. Produced as an acclaimed two-man stage play in Sonora and Sacramento, Duende is now in production of a broadcast quality film adaptation.

Learn more about the progress of the film version, as well as the historical background of the stage play.

Theater venues interested in presenting our production of ABOLITION should contact us to discuss the possibilities.

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On the Blog

Tribute to Frederick Douglass

July 4, 2020 By Rick Foster

A Thumbnail View of Abolition

June 28, 2018 By Rick Foster

A Thumbnail Early Life of Frederick Douglass

June 28, 2018 By Rick Foster

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