"ROAD'S END" SYNOPSIS

"Road’s End" is a seven-character comic drama set on Labor Day weekend in 1969. The characters are recent college graduates who gather at a beach house for a last weekend together before scattering to their respective futures. Like anyone leaving college and coming of age, these characters are in the process of deciding what to do with their lives, but must do so amid the social upheaval of their times. Because of the turmoil surrounding the Vietnam War, the values and institutions which have sustained the characters as they grew up are no longer relevant to their lives. Thus, like the absence of God suggested by existentialist philosophers, the war creates the moral void in which the characters must act. It is the true existentialist experience: without a predetermined moral code, the characters must define themselves by the choices they make, and suffer the anxiety and despair that accompanies that process.

The central character is Jay, a young man facing his draft physical and the dilemma of what to do if he is called to serve. The other characters are as follows: Mark, a Rhodes Scholar with an apparent political future; BJ, a budding feminist headed to law school; Zack, a disillusioned anti-war activist; Blossom, a spaced-out hippie with whom Zack has been traveling since they met at Woodstock; Rob, who is going into the Air Force and is likely destined for Vietnam; and Sarah, Rob’s new wife, a former sorority girl. Together, they face a crisis when it is learned that Zack and Blossom have participated in the firebombing of a draft office and are on the run. The process of deciding what to about the fugitives in their midst brings out their true natures. Jay overcomes his profound ambivalence and indecision, and ultimately embraces the need to make the choices that will define him.

DEVELOPMENT, PRODUCTION HISTORY

"Road's End" has received public readings at Lord Leebrick Theatre in Eugene, OR, and two in New York City.  Its premiere production was at Actors Cabaret of Eugene in the spring/summer of 2005, directed by Joe Zingo, who also served as dramaturg.  It is now available for production.