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Planet Fires
Author(s):
Thomas Babe
THE STORY: The action of the play centers on the picaresque adventures of Henry Hitchcock, a Union Army deserter, and Will Hill, a runaway slave with whom Henry has journeyed to the north. They join the traveling circus run by a flamboyant impresario named Bartholomew Van Amburgh, who wants to make Will, the newly freed slave, the centerpiece of his sideshow. A shrewd capitalist ringmaster, Van Amburgh is obsessed with money and machines--the sinister harbinger of the increasingly industrialized nation which will arise from the ashes of the Civil War. The irony of the play is centered on the question of how such "growth and progress" will benefit the country and what quality of life--and freedom--it will provide for its citizens, black and white alike. Along the way Henry and Will encounter, and debate with, such personages as Frederick Douglass, Susan B. Anthony, and even Abraham Lincoln--with results that are both comic and dramatic, and which foreshadow the dilemmas and disorders which we are still struggling to resolve in our own time.
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| Genre(s): | Drama
| | Time Period(s): | Not Available | | Play Type: | Play | | Runtime: | Not Available | | Acts: | Not Available | | Set Complexity: | Not Available | | Set Information: | Not Available | | Year First Published: | Not Available | | Total Characters: | 6 | | Male Characters: | 4 | | Female Characters: | 2 | | Androgynous Characters: | Not Available | | Minimum Cast: | Not Available | | Maximum Cast: | Not Available | | Cost: | FEE: $50 per performance
Royalty/cost information prone to change.
Please check with the publisher for the most accurate information. | | Publisher: | Dramatists Play Service
Click on the publisher's name above for additional information, including updated prices. | | ISBN: | Not Available |
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