From BJ Jones, Artistic Director and Director of The Outgoing Tide

About a year and a half ago, I called Bruce Graham, a terrific playwright and an old friend, whose play I performed in at Northlight back in the 80s called The Belmont Avenue Social Club, which was directed by Mike Nussbaum.  It was very successful with our audiences as well as receiving some Jeff nominations.  Bruce and I had kept in contact over the years.

I told Bruce I was looking for a new play for John Mahoney and I to work on, and we talked about some ideas.  He was particularly interested in a play about a retiree with dementia and how that might play out and said he would work on it.  I was keen on the topic matter and, in particular, the notion of self determination.  I hadn’t seen a play that told that story, that wasn’t about ethics really, or morality or politics, it was about one man’s decision and how it impacted his family.  He sent me a treatment, a page or two of the plot and character breakdowns, and we moved to the next stage, a first draft.  Within a month or two, Bruce sent us the draft and we talked about reading it in our Interplay Reading Series.

Next I contacted John Mahoney, told him what we were thinking about, and sent him the script, which he read immediately and called to tell me how much he enjoyed it.  Next we read The Outgoing Tide for our Interplay Series, and audience members were very moved and excited by the work.  At the discussion afterwords it was clear that we had something and that our audience responded to.  Bruce, who is a very fast writer and listens to an audience with a keen ear towards editing and pruning, had a new draft in days.  With John’s enthusiasm for the project, we decided to end the current season with The Outgoing Tide.

It was at this point that we decided to read it at Play Penn, the new play development series in Philadelphia, artistically directed by our friend Paul Meshejian, to get a sense of how we were progressing.  Last summer in Philadelphia we read the play with an entirely different cast of wonderful Philly actors, to see how resilient the play would be, and it was.  The comments were positive and energizing.

This fall, Rondi Reed came on board to read the play one Saturday morning, the week before she headed to LA to join the cast of the new TV series Mike and Molly.  Bruce was thrilled with her reading, John was excited and Rondi was very keen to join the project, schedule permitting.  By January we knew she would be available, and with Thom Cox on board to play their son, we had our cast set.

Nearly two years in the process, here we are moving into rehearsal with our dream cast.

It looks easy doesn’t it?  But the factors involved are challenging and never predictable.  You can have a terrific script and wonderful artists, but schedules, budgets, or exciting new projects can rise up and shift your priorities.

We are so happy to be in the room with these dear friends, whose years of mutual experience and trust have brought us to this place.  And in a few weeks you will join us to see the results of our work and share in our process.

It doesn’t get any better than this.