Arts of War on the Web

Standing O Productions, a new theater company in Severna Park, Maryland, will be present its version of the Vietnam War play Tracers Nov. 13-22. The play, first put together by a group of Vietnam veterans in Los Angeles in 1980, is a collage of interrelated scenes that follows the lives of a group of grunts as they move from basic training, on to combat in Vietnam, and to their homecoming.

For more info on dates, times and ticket prices, go to www.standingoproductions.org or call 410-647-8412

To learn more about the background of the play, check out the excellent 1985 New York Times article that ran when the play opened at the Public Theater.

Susan Austin Roth’s play, Missing Pages, which we’ve written about in these web pages, is a taut drama that zeroes in on the relationship between a World War II veteran with Alzheimer’s disease and his Vietnam veteran son, from whom he has been estranged for several years.

The latest production will be take place at the upcoming Capitol Fringe Festival,which will be held July 9-26 in Washington, D.C. There will be five performances of Missing Pages, on the 16th, 19th, 23, 25th and 26th.

For more info, go to Roth’s website or check out our previous entry.

Sara Krulwich/The New York Times

David Rabe, one of the nation’s most honored playwrights and screenwriters, is best known for Streamers, the last of his Vietnam War trilogy. Streamers, which Rabe wrote in 1976, is set in a basic training barracks in Virginia in 1965. It deals with the tensions that arise among a small group of trainees as the Vietnam War hovers ominously in the background. Rabe was drafted into the Army and served in a military hospital in Vietnam in 1966-67.

The latest New York City production of Streamers, by the Roundabout Theater Company, opened early in November and is scheduled to run through January 11 at the Laura Pels Theater. Directed by Scott Ellis, the play, which received a generally favorable review by Charles Isherwood in The New York Times, features Hale Appleman (as Richie), Brad Fleischer (as Billy) and J. D. Williams (Roger) (above).

For ticket information, click here.