Mr. Burns: The Podcast

Anne Wasburn's new play is currently receiving its world premiere at Woolly Mammoth Theater Company in Washington, DC. Almost all of the recollection of the Cape Feare episode of The Simpsons that the characters do in the first act is from a Civilians workshop in 2008, in which a group of Associate Artists led by Anne Washburn and Steve Cosson attempted to recreate the Cape Feare episode of The Simpsons from memory. This podcast episode features some of the hilarious audio taken during that workshop. This episode also has an interview with playwright Anne Washburn, who discusses the role of the workshop in her creative process and her interest in this subject matter. Matt Maher, an actor in the original workshop and a Simpsons savant, then speaks about the exercises in the workshop and even tells us about his personal favorite Simpsons moments. Composer Michael Friedman talks about the music in the play and shares an excerpt of his post-Apocalyptic score of jumbled pop hits, as well as some of the music from the third act in which The Simpsons have spawned a whole new mythology and entertainment.

We're so excited to be able to bring you this behind the scenes look at this show, which has been called "kookily brilliant" and "inexhaustibly brilliant" in the Washington Post!

And don't miss the show's trailer:


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Mr. Burns, a post-electric play

Check out the blog post on Woolly Mammoth's blog about Mr. Burns, a post-electric play discussing our role in the show's development. Here's an excerpt:

In 2008, a group of Civilians Associate Artists set out to explore the notion of a post-apocalyptic Simpsons narrative. Playwright Anne Washburn, director Steve Cosson, and six actors got together for a one week workshop focused on the topic. They did many different kinds of improvisation exercises, one of which was focused on recreating theCape Feare episode of The Simpsons from memory (and as it turns out, our Associate Artist Matt Maher was incredibly good at this). Anne Washburn then took her notes and audio recordings and started writing what is now Mr. Burns, a post-electric play. The Act 1 recollection of the Simpsons episode is pulled almost verbatim from these exercises. The rest of Act I, and Acts II and III were created by Anne, although very much inspired by the energy and capacity of the original actors and by her discussions with Steve. The characters share first names –and some share a few characteristics—with the actors in the original workshop. We’ll leave you to find out who is who, and to guess which qualities match up with their real-life counterparts!

For the whole post, click HERE!

The show is starting it's first day of tech today, with the first performance on May 28. This new show by Anne Washburn with music by Michael Friedman directed by Steve Cosson is not to be missed - get tickets HERE!

Mr. Burns - Workshop at Playwrights Horizons

A few years ago, a group of actors along with playwright Anne Washburn and Steve Cosson got together for a kind of a workshop - not a traditional one, in that they weren't working with an early draft of a script. There was no script yet, so the actors were working together on exercises as led by Anne and Steve. In one of the week's activities, Anne asked the actors to try to retell the "Cape Fear" episode of The Simpsons. This sparked what has become her new play, MR. BURNS. The play had a traditional workshop last week at Playwrights Horizons, which culminated in a reading. Per the program notes:

"The recollection of the Simpsons episode in the first act is largely verbatim, arranged from material collected in sessions with the actors Quincy Tyler Bernstine, Maria Dizzia, Gibson Frazier, Matthew Maher, Jennifer R. Morris, Sam Breslin Wright, and Colleen Werthmann. Special thanks to Matt Maher for his superior recall."

The cast was:
Matthew Maher as Matt
Gibson Frazier as Gibson
Jennifer R. Morris as Jennifer
Colleen Werthmann as Colleen
Quincy Tyler Bernstine as Quincy
Sam Breslin Wright as Sam
Rebecca Hart as Maria

You'll probably notice that five of the original actors returned for the reading. It's worth noting that they aren't actually playing themselves, but rather fictionalized characters originally inspired by work that they did in the original workshop (and Rebecca as a fictionalized character originally inspired by Maria Dizzia's participation in the workshop). Michael Friedman has written the score, full of references to some of the really iconic pop songs of our time. For more, check out the wonderful feature in Seattle's publication, The Stranger, which was written about a workshop that we did in July of this year.

Photos by Sam Breslin Wright. For more, check out his flickr HERE!

Here's the view from the rehearsal room.

Writer's Assistant Josh Luxenberg and Playright Anne Washburn in the back
left, Director Steve Cosson and AD Jay Stull

Colleen Werthmann, Jennifer R. Morris, Josh Luxenberg, Rebecca Hart,
Gibson Frazier, Michael Friedman, and Matthew Maher

Jennifer R. Morris, Matthew Maher, and Rebecca Hart

Working on the stage where the reading was held

MR. BURNS Workshop in Seattle

Earlier this month, Steve Cosson along with Associate Artists Anne Washburn and Michael Friedman were out in Seattle for a two-week workshop of MR. BURNS: A POST ELECTRIC PLAY at Seattle Repertory Theatre. Below are some cool photos from rehearsal, plus some of the Space Needle!

The readings got a fantastic write-up by Brendan Kiley in The Stranger. It contains a really interesting discussion about the script (which is still a work in progress) and points to some of the fascinating questions raised by the text. Here's an excerpt:

"The conceit of Mr. Burns—a single episode of The Simpsons growing from light entertainment into an epic, given the proper cultural/material conditions—is simultaneously cheeky, touching, and sad. Did the Iliad come from such circumstantial, vicious origins? Or the Oresteia? Or the Bible? Or everything we call culture?"

For the article, click HERE! There's also a very cool illustration inspired by the show drawn by James Yamasaki at the top of the article - check it out!

And for more info about MR. BURNS, click HERE!