This Friday and Saturday night (March 4 & 5) at 8pm, Arts Fifth Avenue will host a staged reading of Fort Worth playwright Steven Alan McGaw’s script landscape with stick figures. Originally written in 2000 as a one-act, the play was developed into a full-length version in 2001 and has been produced in Fort Worth and Dallas as well Portland (OR) and Knoxville (TN). The show was inspired by the 1999 Columbine school shootings and concerns a teenage killer, his classmates, and his family. More than that, though, landscape with stick figures is about the ultimate mystery of horrific acts and the desperate, sometimes absurd attempts to explain them. This weekend’s A5A staged reading – which is produced by SceneShop — presents a significantly revised play ten years after its debut.
“When I wrote the script, I was firm that I wanted it to happen in 1998, the year before Columbine,” said McGaw. “I felt that the shadow of that event loomed so large, it might overtake the story and theme I was trying to present. Now after a decade, I no longer believe that. In all, I cut a few scenes, trimmed others, and dropped several pages. I guess I just wanted to have my say one more time.”
