Night Song for the Boatman
NIGHTSONG FOR THE BOATMAN BY JOVANKA BACH
Opens Nov. 19th at the Odyssey Theatre for a limited engagement
Producer John Stark, was rummaging through his dear deceased wife Jovanka Bach’s belongings, when he uncovered a hidden treasure – a never before seen copy of a play entitled Nightsong For The Boatman, which she had written over twenty years ago, and filed away without telling him about it. And when John read it he was utterly amazed. He immediately went into production with the piece which he ranks alongside the best works of Albee, Beckett and Ionesco.
Harry Appleman, an aging, alcoholic, washed-up poet, plays dice with fate, and loses. He is called upon to make a mysterious boat trip, by voices from the wilderness, but through various cunning contrivances he tries to avoid his mortality. Then he discovers his humanity when he learns he can’t sacrifice his daughter Jessie, for the boat trip, but a tricky graduate student, Gordon Levy will do instead.
Stark, opens Nightsong For The Boatman at the Odyssey Theatre in Los Angeles, November 19th, for a limited engagement, before moving it to the off-Broadway Barrow Group Theatre, in New York, where he has staged a number of his wife’s plays, including Chekhov and Maria, which is now a feature film, airing on Super Channel Canada, and coming up soon on PBS, BBC, and Russian TV
Jovanka Bach who passed away in 2006, after a lengthy battle with cancer, was both a physician and playwright, who managed to successfully write over a dozen plays, short stories, and two novels, while working as a full time medical practitioner in Los Angeles. The Odyssey Theatre, where several of Bach’s plays were premiered, have all been directed by her husband, writer/producer, John Stark. Bach’s “ Balkan Trilogy,” an ambitious undertaking covering three plays that chronicle the rise and fall of Yugoslavia both under Tito, and the present regime, has been widely acclaimed with successful productions at the Odyssey and off-Broadway at the Barrow Group Theatre. Bach’s most recent play ‘O’Neill’s Ghosts’ has been likened to ‘Long Day’s Journey Into Night’, by Eugene O’Neill, and is in fact a sequel to that play about the O’Neill family. It premiered at the Odyssey recently and plans are now being made for production in New York and London. An early play, “Sylvie” was recently revived by John Stark at the Odyssey, and successfully staged in Las Vegas. “Mercy Warren’s Tea” was chosen Best Drama when it was originally broadcast on American Public Radio in 1977. It was recently staged successfully at the Odyssey Theatre. Just before passing away, Jovanka Bach completed a trilogy of children’s short stories entitled “Paddy The Flat-Footed Platypus” and two short stories, “My Mother’s Hair” and “Where The Wildflowers Blooms.”
See more information, film clips and reviews at :www.JohnStarkProductions.com
Contact:
John Stark Prods.Ph/fax : (818) 222 6031
Email: JohnStarcevich1@sbcglobal.net