Hamlet’s Ghost

Written by Lawrence DuKore

Two young actors meet on an empty stage in Philadelphia to rehearse their roles of Hamlet and Ophelia. The young man is named William Macready, the same name as the great nineteenth-century British actor. Macready’s nemesis in the nineteenth century was the American actor Edwin Forrest.* Miraculously, from a dark corner of the stage emerges that very Edwin Forrest, now a ghost and very confused about the time change—and Willie Macready.

*In 1849, Shakespearean tensions were brewing as the American patriots supported the new American theater star Edwin Forrest, while the New York City aristocrats favored the British actor William Macready. On May 10, 1849, both Macready and Forrest were scheduled to perform Macbeth in separate theaters just blocks from each other. That night, about 10,000 people rioted in the streets of New York; the reasons for the tensions were complex, but one can argue that the kernel of the riot was an argument over which actor was the better Macbeth. As many as 31 people were killed in the riot, and the new Astor Opera House was destroyed.

Tickets:
$10 at the door

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Lawrence DuKore, author of The Day Brando Died, may well be legendary among playwrights because he has managed to make a living writing. His career began with the writing of the screenplay for the Richard Pryor movie Greased Lightning. He followed this success with the teleplay A Mistaken Charity, which was produced by PBS/American Playhouse and nominated for a Writers Guild of America award for best dramatic writing. As a lyricist, his songs have been recorded by Bernadette Peters and Chita Rivera. Mr. DuKore has also written daytime tv serials: One Life to Live for ABC, and Search for Tomorrow for NBC. For Saturday morning television, he wrote the cartoon series, Thunder Cats and Silver Hawks. For somewhat older teenage girls, his novels, Never Love a Cowboy and Long Distance Love, were published by Bantam. The Boy Barrier and its French version, La Rivale, were published by Scholastic.

Mr. Dukore was for many years a member of the Actors Studio Playwrights/Directors Unit and the HB Playwrights Foundation (Uta Hagen/Herbert Bergof). His plays have been produced regionally and off-Broadway. Exploding the Swan had its world premiere at the Montauk Playhouse. His play, Spinsters, was presented at Tennessee Stage (Knoxville) and also at CenterStage in Greenville, South Carolina. More recently, Tennessee Stage presented his coal-mining play, Carry Me Back to West Virginia. Mr. DuKore has been a semi-finalist three years running in the American Globe Theatre Festival of One Act Plays. He was a finalist in the Heideman Awards competition at the Actors Theatre in Louisville for his one-act play, When Men Were Men. His one-act play, The Day that Brando Died, was also a finalist in the Heideman Awards at the Actors Theatre in Louisville. His play Black & White All Over was directed by Andre De Shields and presented Off Broadway by Actors Equity for Black History Month. Recently, his interracial love story, Up From Stardom, was presented at the HRC showcase Theater in Hudson, New York.

To contact Lawrence DuKore: lawrencedukore@gmail.com