New Mark Twain comedy "Is He Dead?" comes to life through FCCJ DramaWorks

New Mark Twain comedy "Is He Dead?" comes to life through FCCJ DramaWorks

Written in 1898 but undiscovered until 2002; became Broadway hit in 2007

WHAT: FCCJ DramaWorks production of "Is He Dead?" by Mark Twain (updated by playwright David Ives)

WHEN:
Nov. 13 at 7:30 p.m.
Nov. 14 and 15; 21 and 22 at 8 p.m.
Nov. 23 at 2 p.m.

WHERE:
Nathan H. Wilson Center for the Arts-Main Stage
Florida Community College South Campus
11901 Beach Blvd., Jacksonville

COST: $10 general admission/general seating; $8 for students, seniors and military with ID; $5 for FCCJ students and employees. For reservations call 904-646-2222.

DETAILS: The story is set in Paris in the 1840s and centers on actual French landscape painter, Jean-Francois Millet. In Twain's fictional account, Millet is a starving artist who cannot sell his paintings and is indebted to an evil picture dealer. Millet wants to marry his fiancé, but cannot because of his debts and because the picture-dealer also wants to marry her. Millet's pupils and sidekicks know that artists' paintings always become very expensive after the artist has died, so they hatch a plan where Millet fakes his own death to drive his prices up. Subsequently, in order to manage his newfound wealth, Millet disguises himself as his widowed twin sister, and thereby, the farcical complications ensue.

"Is He Dead?" was written in 1898 by literary genius, Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens), but never produced in his lifetime. In 2002, a Stanford University professor discovered the manuscript in a filing cabinet with other Twain papers. Contemporary playwright David Ives ("All in the Timing") tightened the structure and streamlined the action of the script while keeping Twain's language and jokes. The play opened on Broadway in December of 2007 to critical acclaim. A century after he wrote his play, Twain had a hit on Broadway.

The cast of "Is He Dead?" is comprised of 13 student actors from Northeast Florida, as well as two student designers and several student technicians. The production is directed by Professor of Theatre Ken McCulough, and the scenery designed by the Head of Theatre and Entertainment Technology Johnny Pettegrew.