FOMITE
Favor is a two-act, 5-actor play with music, inspired by a true story: HANSEL HALS, a young Dutch vaudeville performer and immigrant to Germany in the 1920s, achieves resounding success on the German stage for his role in “The Merry Widow” operetta, and works hard to become a major player in the German cinema. His ascension as an increasingly popular movie star parallels the inexorable rise of the German Third Reich, and he soon gains the admiration of the powerful Reich hierarchy and of the Chancellor himself. As he and the culture that adores him face increasingly fraught political and moral choices, can HANSEL HALS, as an acclaimed artist, make a principled stand, and potentially jeopardize the success of his career and his livelihood, or will he make compromises and succumb to the compelling allure of fame, fortune, and favor? What motivates our choices? Political ideology? Religion? Personal philosophy? And what do our choices cost us . . . in the end?
Praise for Favor
“What an exciting challenge for actors and directors who want to engage with a playwright who combines deep historical research with a compellingly inventive theatrical imagination! Damkoehler’s play breathes life into a nearly forgotten musical genre, and recreates an historical moment in which entertainment, politics, misinformation, and self-delusion form a massive web of permission for the denial of personal responsibility. The play barrels forward and backwards in time, yet maintains relentless forward motion as its real-life protagonist sinks deeper and deeper into a self-created cesspool of moral rot. With theatrical flair and deep psychological insight, Favor bores relentlessly into the soul of an artist who refuses to acknowledge the hideous price of his neutrality. It could not be more timely or more actable. This is a play that really needs to be read . . . and produced.”
––Brian McEleney, professional actor, director, playwright, Founding Director, Brown University/Trinity Rep M. F. A. Acting Program
“Bill Damkoehler is a great man of the theatre––a fantastic actor, director and playwright. I have been blessed in my career to act alongside Bill, to be directed by him and to have been cast in workshops of his plays. His play Favor is fascinating and well-timed, as our world seems more and more to repeat the mistakes of the past rather than progress to the future. The question of separating an artist’s work from the times in which he lives resonates today as profoundly as in earlier troubled times. Favor is different in tone than any of Bill’s other plays, which is beyond impressive; it’s simply world class, and demands your attention.”
––Fred Sullivan, Jr., professional actor, director, theater educator
“Favor combines historical research with inventive theatricality to explore the intersection of art, politics, and moral accountability. This gripping, timely, trenchant play challenges audiences to confront the complexities of personal obligation in the face of societal collapse.”
—Tyler Dobrowski, Artistic Director at Philadelphia Theatre Company
“I am wowed by William Damkoehler's new play, Favor––a brilliantly-crafted, two act play within a play; a fugue-infused work of creative genius and the utter embodiment of avant-garde theatre.”
––Fred Rosenblum, left coast poet
About the Author:
In a career spanning four decades as a member of the renowned Trinity Repertory Company’s resident acting ensemble, William Damkoehler appeared in well over a hundred productions, either in Trinity’s home spaces in Providence, RI, or with the company on Broadway, at the Edinburgh Theatre Festival in Scotland, in Boston, in Philadelphia, or on the venerable Straw Hat Summer Theater Circuit. Favorite roles include Ebenezer Scrooge, Macheath, George Antrobus and James Tyrone in A Christmas Carol, The Threepenny Opera, The Skin Of Our Teeth, and Long Day’s Journey Into Night, respectively. At Trinity, William also served as Director or Musical Director for many mainstage productions.
As a Theater Educator, William held for many years the position of Senior Lecturer at Rhode Island School Of Design where he established an ongoing Acting and Theater Production elective program in the Liberal Arts Division. He created and directed a touring group of senior citizens who performed “kitchen band” music and wrote and performed their own short comedies around the state in the Cranston, RI chapter of RSVP, the original federal Retired Senior Volunteer Program. He also taught and directed at Rhode Island College.
In addition to his playwriting, William’s free-lance writing saw non-fiction articles published in The Providence Journal-Bulletin and The New York Times. Excerpts of other fiction appear in the anthologies For The Love Of Writing and The Stories Start Here.
William currently lives in San Diego, California with his wife, Cynthia Strickland — also retired from Trinity Rep’s acting ensemble.
