The following articles appeared in Actors Theatre's subscriber newsletter prior to the 2001 Humana Festival

HEAVEN & HELL (ON EARTH): A DIVINE COMEDY
A Dramatic Anthology by Robert Alexander, Jenny Lyn Bader, Elizabeth Dewberry, Deborah Lynn Frockt, Rebecca Gilman, Keith Glover, Hilly Hicks, Jr., Karen Hines, Michael Kassin, Jane Martin, William Mastrosimone, Guillermo Reyes, Sarah Schulman, Richard Strand, Alice Tuan and Elizabeth Wong
2001

Heaven and Hell: whether they’re construed as actual places or states or states of mind, these extreme realms—with their contrasting promises of ecstasy or misery—have fueled both the literary and the popular imagination for centuries. But what might Heaven and Hell look like to young people in America as they attempt to navigate their lives, circa 2001? Putting a contemporary spin on an eternal obsession, Actors Theatre posed this question to 16 devilishly talented playwrights, each of whom has contributed a scene or monologue to this unique collaboration. The result is Heaven and Hell (On Earth): A Divine Comedy, a collection of surprising, diverse impressions generated around a single thematic spark.

This experiment, which brings together myriad voices to create a single theatrical event, was inspired by the success of last year’s Back Story, an anthology adapted by 18 writers from Joan Ackermann’s short story about the intertwined lives of a pair of characters—a brother and sister. Heaven and Hell (On Earth) tackles a different challenge, this time opening up provocative thematic territory and inviting playwrights to invent the characters and their wildly varied dilemmas. It’s a play devised for 22 young actors, and the members of Actors Theatre of Louisville’s 2000-2001 Apprentice Company will play these characters from the twentysomething generation.

Sixteen playwrights, 22 actors, one event—in this comic anthology, the diversity of voices, identities, and points of view are integral to both its moment-to-moment pleasures and its cumulative impact. As the characters reveal their own experiences of vice and virtue, salvation and damnation, we see them grappling with everything from finances to relationships to the loss of youth itself. And for these witty playwrights, contemporary heavens and hells, like good and evil, are not always so easy to tell apart—because here on earth, experience is complicated, shifting, and often a matter of our own perception.

— Amy Wegener