Theatre Santa Fe Presents “The Day They Shot John Lennon,” Nov. 10-13

August 30, 2010

Theatre Santa Fe‘s Fall 2010 play, entitled “The Day They Shot John Lennon”, will be showing at 8 p.m., Nov.10-12, and at 2 p.m. on Nov. 13 in the E Auditorium for your viewing pleasure. The play was written by James Mclure and is being directed by Terry A. Klenk.

Comprised of a deftly blended series of encounters between a group of strangers who assemble at the site of John Lennon's assassination, the play captures the sense of shock and uncomprehending loss that followed that awful event. The play was first produced by the McCarter Theatre in Princeton, N.J.

The Story: 

The action of the play takes place on the street in front of the Manhattan apartment where John Lennon was killed. Deeply moved and shocked by this awful event, many New Yorkers spontaneously assembled there to pay tribute to their slain idol, and it is from the interwoven stories of a cross section of people that the author builds his play.

Included are a young advertising executive and a “women's libber” who had both been at Woodstock, a group of high school students preoccupied with romantic disputes and entanglements, a pair of Vietnam vets with larceny in mind, an elderly Jewish man from a neighboring building who mistakenly thinks that the murder victim was Jack Lemmon, and a hip, young, would-be comic who is the son of the old Jewish gentleman's doorman.

Through the interaction of these people—sometimes humorous, sometimes moving, sometimes menacing—the author points out the larger significance of the event which has brought them together; the shock wave which was felt across the nation by this further evidence of the violence and ugliness lurking in our communal soul.

 “…we're transported right back to that December 1980 day of mourning when the songs of an era took on sad, new ironies, and when no one could think of the right words to express an inexplicable loss.” —NY Times.