The Quest For Don Quixote Lives - Mark Brown

The Quest For Don Quixote at TheatreSquared

I’m thrilled to say that my play The Quest for Don Quixote will be headlining the Arkansas New Play Festival this June at Theatre Squared in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

That is completely Judy Dench!

The Swank Press Release

Playwright Ben Eisenberg sits in a Starbucks, just one day before Don Quixote begins rehearsal. There’s just one problem — he hasn’t written it. His agent is apoplectic, the advance is long since spent, and adapting a 1000-page Renaissance adventure is beginning to feel a bit like, well, tilting at windmills. But then—whether from a stroke of genius or a near-lethal dosage of caffeine and Xanax—Starbucks itself begins to transform, and the errant knight arises in this delightfully theatrical, hilarious retelling of Cervantes’s classic tale. Playwright Mark Brown’s adaptation of Around the World in 80 Days (T2, 2014) was one of the nation’s top-produced titles in 2014.

A Second Life

I wrote The Quest for Don Quixote a few years ago. I was going through a particularly hard time in my life. More importantly, I wasn’t happy with the script. So I shelved it. But I always thought there was something in the idea that I hadn’t quite tapped into yet.

So last year I resurrected the script and did major rewrites. I wanted to see if it was worth moving forward with so the Hangar Theatre graciously put together a reading of it so I could hear the first act. The response was very positive so it was full steam ahead.

Flash forward to Theatre Squared getting its hands on it when they flew me out to see their production of Around the World in 80 Days. They liked it enough to make it part of their new play festival. And they liked it enough to give it a full, no scripts in hand, three-week workshop.

You Gotta Have Friends

I’m really looking forward to working with some of my friends on this project. My dear friend, Mark Shanahan, will direct the show. Mark directed a killer world premiere of my play Tom Jones last year at Florida Studio Theatre. He also directed Around the World in 80 Days about a thousand times last year. (Mark’s play The Ding Dong is also be part of the festival. It’s hilarious).

My good friend Bruce Warren will be playing Sancho Panza. Bruce was in the world premiere of Tom Jones and two productions of Around the World in 80 Days.

My alter-ego friend Mark Jacobson will be playing Ben Eisenberg. He’s almost as neurotic as I am, which is one of the many reasons we get along so well.