Eric Percival
     Marci Adilman
     Raissa Dorff
     Nathaniel Shaw

           Written by:  Lanford Wilson
Performances at:  Stella Adler Black Box Theatre

      Time:  1970
Location:  Two Suburban homes north of Chicago






Lanford Wilson wrote of Serenading Louie, “Someone said you never finish a thing, you abandon it. That is truer of this play than anything else I’ve attempted. And still I weep for these characters pain. I couldn’t save them but I love them.” This statement has strongly affected the way we approached this piece. Once while doing my preliminary script work, I put on Judy Collins’ “Who Knows Where The Time Goes.” Wilson wrote the entire play to this song, playing it at top volume, bawling like a child and singing along loudly. (Hopefully none of you were his neighbors at the time.)

Similarly, I found myself rather teary eyed listening to that music because I had come to love the characters in the play too. Perhaps it was just that I had been raised in suburbia so these adults with their weekly card games and children's sleepovers seemed - well, familiar. But then again, perhaps it is also how Mr. Wilson wrote these characters with such complexity, depth and compassion.