JUNGLE ROT
by Seth Greenland
WORLD PREMIERE!
MY MEMORY. It's rare that a new play makes you roar with laughter as you're reading it, but I sure did with Seth’s wonderful script. We staged a reading of it in our first DiscoveReads new play workshop, and audiences loved it. We needed extra financial support to produce it, and it took some years to find it. Imagine our joy when the Kennedy Center called to say they were awarding us a major grant -- one of only 7 out of 140 submissions! Watching the show on opening night, and knowing I’d finally made it happen after three years, was one of the most satisfying feelings I’ve ever had.
FUNNY, DARING PLAY HOUSE PRODUCTION. Just about everyone associated with Jungle Rot has a grand time of things, sending up Cold War tension and CIA shenanigans with exuberant wit and grand style. Seth Greenland’s biting satire is raucously funny, easily the most successful production of the season. Director Roger Danforth has put a stiffy shine on the material. Jungle Rot moves quickly and surely; this two-and-a-half hours flies. – The News-Herald
IMPRESSIVE WORLD PREMIERE OF JUNGLE ROT. Combine a nefarious assassination plot with a modern-day Lady Macbeth and you get Seth Greenland’s very funny play Jungle Rot. Greenland’s play is extremely intelligent, witty, entertaining, and fresh. Aided by James Noone’s magical sets, director Roger Danforth’s production of this world premiere makes an impressive debut. -- Cleveland Jewish News
CIA FOIBLES PROVOKE THOUGHTS AND LAUGHTER. Jungle Rot is the best new script the Play House has produced in some years. Given a first-class production directed by Roger Danforth, it does what all good plays do: keeps you wondering what will happen next. And it’s funny. Although this political satire gives us a look at a dark, crazy world, Greenland maintains a light comic tone, never gives us much chance to think about it. Until of course, it’s over. -- Cleveland Plain Dealer
JUNGLE ROT USES CIA FOR COMEDY This presentation is the world premiere of Jungle Rot, one of the best and funniest plays staged at the Play House in several years. – Record-Courier
Presented at THE KENNEDY CENTER, Washington, DC. December 1994
Premiere production: THE CLEVELAND PLAY HOUSE, Cleveland, OH, January 1995
HONORS: Steinberg Citation, American Theatre Critics Association (as one of three best new plays produced nationally that year).
Received a major grant from the Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays.
Published in The Best Plays of 1994-1995.
Sets by James Noone
Lighting by Richard Winkler
Costumes by David Toser
Sound by Jordan Davis
Dramaturg -- Scott Kanoff
Featuring Richmond Hoxie, Kay Walbye, David Adkins, Robert Machray, Leon Addison Brown, Lianne Kressin, Dudley Swetland, Danny Johnson, Tony Sias, Karen Ogle, Joseph Edwards and Darryl Trammer.
Photos by Richard Termine