Spread The Love: One Hundred Lies by Alan Haehnel

Theatrefolk starts a new video series today: Spread The Love.

There’s an unwritten rule when it comes to choosing plays for the catalogue: we must love it. We must be able to talk about it with enthusiasm and excitement. We must be able to suggest a play wholeheartedly to you, because we believe in it.

If you want to know why a certain play is in the Theatrefolk catalogue, click on the Spread the Love button on the front page of the website. There will be a new video each week.

And if there’s a Theatrefolk play you love, let everyone know! Send us a one minute video and we’ll spread the love for you.

Transcript

Hi. I’m Lindsay Price and I’m here at the Florida Theatre Conference with Craig Mason and this is Spread the Love. Each week we’re going to do a new video where we’re gonna tell you what we love about Theatrefolk plays. And the first one we’re doing is One Hundred Lies by Alan Haehnel. One Hundred Lies was performed here at FTC so we thought it would be a great one to start with. The story has a girl coming out on stage. She says, “We’re going to do a game show. It’s the hundred lies told to me and by me. And behind her is a huge, huge scoreboard.”

So Craig, tell me, what do you love about One Hundred Lies?

What I love about One Hundred Lies is that it has everything our customers are looking for. It’s got a really big cast. The cast size is 15. This production that happened today went up to 17, I think. Very simple set. There’s a scoreboard. It’s simple, there are simple ways of doing it; there are more complicated ways. There are a couple of chairs, a bench, really nothing in the way of set.

What I love about it is that it starts very funny, and then it gets very serious. And it has such a wonderful ending that somehow manages to combine a sadness with a really uplifting feeling.

Lindsay, what do you love about One Hundred Lies?

I want to first of all say is that I read the play three or four times from the time that Alan first sent it to us, and then through the editing process. I cried at the ending every single time. And what I like is that I like that it starts off… it starts of really kitschy, like “Game show”, like “Oh what are the hundred lies? Oh, it’s Christmas! Oh, it’s the Easter Bunny!” And then there’s a moment when two characters come onstage and Liz, who’s the main girl, she turns and looks at them and says, “No. I’m not ready for you yet.” And instantly you go, “Woah! There’s something else going on here.” And I love that. I love when plays take a left turn.

So that’s One Hundred Lies. Check it out. Join us here next week for another play we’re going to talk about on Spread the Love.

If there’s a Theatrefolk play that you love, that you want to talk about for one minute, send us a video and we’ll put it up on our website. Bye!