A Public Reading of an Unproduced Screenplay about the Death of Walt Disney

by Lucas Hnath

Overview

Tony Award–nominated playwright Lucas Hnath’s darkly clever A Public Reading of an Unproduced Screenplay About the Death of Walt Disney centers on the reading, in a generic corporate conference room, of a stylized screenplay written by the great man himself, in the ultimate act of self-mythologizing.

Read by the people it’s about—Walt himself, his brother/henchman Roy, and Walt’s resentful daughter and her ex-jock husband, it’s about Walt’s last days on earth. It’s about a city he’s going to build that’s going to change the world. And it’s about his brother. It’s about everyone who loves him, and how sad they’re going to be when he’s gone.

Can Walt control the future from the grave? Why does his daughter hate him so much? Were thousands of lemmings harmed in the making of a famous Disney nature film? Stay tuned . . .

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781468310825
Publisher:	The Overlook Press
Publication date:	02/04/2020
Pages:	112
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.10(h) x 0.60(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Lucas Hnath is a resident playwright at New Dramatists, and his plays have been produced or developed at Actors Theatre of Louisville, The Culture Project, Ontological-Hysteric Theatre, Ensemble Studio Theatre, and Raddlestick Playwrights Theatre, among others. His play A Doll’s House, Part 2 premiered on Broadway in 2017 and received eight Tony nominations including Best Play and an Outer Critics Circle Award nomination for Outstanding New Broadway Play.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“   . . . superb . . . A Public Reading is a meditation on the human desire to aspire to the status of a god, and the corrupting influence of this wish on the spirit and the flesh.”  —Charles Isherwood, The New York Times

“Enjoyably weird . . . nothing that ever came out of the Magic Kingdom was this animated.”  — Time Out NY

Editorial Reviews

Superb . . . A Public Reading is a meditation on the human desire to aspire to the status of a god, and the corrupting influence of this wish on the spirit and the flesh.”

The New York Times

Enjoyably weird . . . nothing that ever came out of the Magic Kingdom was this animated.

Time Out NY

. . . superb . . . A Public Reading is a meditation on the human desire to aspire to the status of a god, and the corrupting influence of this wish on the spirit and the flesh.

Charles Isherwood - The New York Times

   . . . superb . . . A Public Reading is a meditation on the human desire to aspire to the status of a god, and the corrupting influence of this wish on the spirit and the flesh.”  —Charles Isherwood, The New York Times

“Enjoyably weird . . . nothing that ever came out of the Magic Kingdom was this animated.”  — Time Out NY

From the Publisher