Fever - A Play

By Joseph K. Adams

FEVER is a two act play by Joseph K. Adams. Premiered in 1980 at the Deja Vu in Hollywood, CA and well received by critics, FEVER is a romance of the 1930s inspired by the style of Teatro Latino.

A cast of characters wait for the arrival of a plane to carry them away from a remote location where a plaugue has created a society of fear.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Joe Adams
• Release date: Aug 7, 2013
• ISBN: 9781497758582

Book preview

Fever - A Play

by Joseph K. Adams

Published by Joe Adams, 2013.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Oak & Lotus Publications | Raleigh, North Carolina

Notes on Fever

CAST

THE SETTING

THE SET

AT RISE

End of Scene 1 | Scene 2

Scene 3

End of Scene 3 | Scene 4

END OF ACT ONE

ACT TWO | Scene I

End of Scene 1 | Scene 2

End of Scene 2 | Scene 3

Scene 4

END

Fever Rises At The Deja Vu | by John C. Mahoney

Fever | Reviewed by Polly Warfield

Fever

Other Books by

Individual plays are available from the author in | playbook format for use in individual production.

Oak & Lotus Publications

Raleigh, North Carolina

Fever © 1982, 2010 by the Author All Rights Reserved

Performance and Staged Reading rights can be negotiated with the Author through:

Joseph K. Adams

[e-mail]

Copyright 1982, 1989 by the Author

All Rights Reserved

FEVER premiered July 12, 1981 at the Deja Vu in Hollywood, California. The original cast of Fever included:

Doc - Michael Abrams

Alma - Lianne Shirmer, Yolanda Gonzales

Javier - John Beckman

Carmen - Naomi Serotoff

Sra. Lopez - Silvana Gillardo

Velayas - Avner Garbi

Corbett - Lawrence Hudd

Director: - Joseph K. Adams

Stage Manager - Gregg A. Roebuck

Props - Vivian Scholl

Produced by - Joseph K. Adams and Lawrence Hudd for House on Fire

The author wishes to express his gratitude to the members of the first production who helped to shape the final form of this play.

Notes on Fever

Fever remains on of my favorite theatrical experiences. From the fall of 1980 to the fall of 1983 I remained a playwright-in-residence with the Deja Vu in Hollywood. Smitty was both welcoming and demanding. He created an arena in the Deja Vu and Fifth Estate theaters where young writers could run wild, banging into walls, until they learned their way around.

I banged into a lot of walls.

Some of the productions were heartbreaking - casts of talented people, lured to Hollywood for glamor and fortune, playing for free in backstreet theaters and forced to bring their own costumes. They came together with a dream of the art of theater and frequently a cast would have several stellar participants and one or two who insisted on sabotaging the work and themselves.

I was pleased to work with some exceptional talents, but also have the scars of a few who blossomed into a full blown psychosis when their performances undercut other actors, they forgot lines or whole chunks of the drama, and who vented their frustrations on their fellow cast members. Some, I am sure, still bear psychic scars from the era.

But Fever was a jewel. The cast was scrambled with one replacement immediately after opening, and jelled into a family where everyone was sure their needs would be met and they were free to support the work of their compatriots.

Fever gave me the courage to step beyond my fragile sense of playwright and director and become an almost judicial figure where my job was to see that the best idea was made real in the play.

And many times the best idea was not mine. Rehearsal was a classic exercise in Die Probe, a chapter from Uta Hagen’s theatrical textbook Respect for Acting.,  where every aspect of character, setting, and interaction was open for examination. 

As the result of excellent improvisations within each character, the cast contributed freely to the drama and as both author and director I was free to incorporate the superior ideas into the script.

By the night of dress rehearsal we were ready. All of the fears and excitement came together to make us eager to bring in our invited audience to see what we had done the night before opening.

While dressing the set for the first scene, I could not help breaking into song - All My Loving by the Beatles. I don’t know where it came from. Close your eyes and I’ll kiss you, I sang as I dragged a bench for the depot onto the stage.

Tomorrow I’ll miss you, Michael Abrams joined as he came down the stairs from the tech area with a box of props.

Remember, I’ll always be true, came from the Tech Booth where my old buddy Gregg Roebuck prepared the lights.

In moments everyone from cast and crew had added a line and by the chorus we were all on stage, primping the world of Fever for presentation to the world, in harmony – and in my memory it was a very sweet harmony, indeed.

That night, when the lights came down on the closing scene, the lights came back up and the cast began entering to take their bows.

No one applauded.

It took almost two minutes of very awkward silence as the final cast member took his place on stage before the audience could move. And the theater exploded in their cheers and applause.

It was