Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Anton, Himself: First & Last
    Anton, Himself: First & Last
    Anton, Himself: First & Last
    Ebook83 pages51 minutes

    Anton, Himself: First & Last

    By Karen Sunde

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    A Solo Play - Anton, Himself: First & Last

    The 2nd most produced playwright in the world
    finds you in his study
    and confides in you

    Your First act happens October 18, 1896, the day after Chekhov’s disastrous opening of The Seagull.
    Your Last act happens January 16, 1904, the day before Chekhov’s triumphant & final opening - of The Cherry Orchard.

    Both days are challenging in the extreme, but essential to him, and for us.

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    Production History

    Anton, Himself (First) was commissioned and produced by the Actors Theatre of Louisville, published in Moscow Art Theatre, a monograph for ATL’s Russian Classics in Context Festival

    Then it was exported by Artistic Director Oleg Yefremov to his Moscow Art Theatre, and to the Yalta Festival in Russia.

    Next it was performed at Peoples Light & Theatre Company, Malvern PA, together with Masha, Too, which PLT had commissioned to accompany it, and then at the Chekhov Now Festival in New York, and the Vancouver Fringe Festival.

    Anton, Himself (Last) was commissioned by and produced at
    Grand Valley State University, Allendale, MI to accompany Anton, Himself (First).

    What Else They Say about Anton:

    “Sunde opens the door for us upon that fascinating, tangled world of the writer in his most intimate moments of creating new work. ...what adds great richness to the underlying comedy is...that here (he) will turn his uncertain career around.”
    Roger Ellis, ed, Scenes and Monologs From The Best New Plays, Meriwether Publishing.
    “An evening in the mind of...Chekhov. ...beautifully sublime portrayal of a man”
    CFRO 102.7 FM Vancouver

    “You don't have to like Chekhov to love Anton, Himself ...Sunde credibly takes us to 1896... A compelling performance... The audience loved this production.”
    The Fringe Review, Vancouver
    “Torn between his passion and his pragmatism...an intensely personal side of the author is revealed...a real treat.”
    Terminal City, Vancouver
    “With a voice both poetic and theatrical... (Sunde’s is) a distinctive, even unique, contemporary American drama, more akin to European than to other American plays. ...she chooses personal canvases upon which to paint her funny, thrilling, searing, moving scenes. ...

    “While viewers need know nothing about Chekhov to enjoy (Anton, Himself), Sunde interlards the action with jokes...intriguing to knowledgeable viewers.

    “In inquiring about our past, Sunde remarks upon our future. That she does so with a sure histrionic sense is a guarantee that her work will endure in the American theatre after our more commercial fare has proven ephemeral.”
    Contemporary Dramatists, London

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherKaren Sunde
    Release dateMar 29, 2018
    ISBN9781370056637
    Anton, Himself: First & Last
    Author

    Karen Sunde

    An actor turned writer, Karen performed many leading roles Off-Broadway, and was Associate Director of CSC Repertory. Her plays have been performed Off-Broadway, in regional theatres, on a USA tour, and in eleven countries and seven languages. Sunde’s first screenplay, UNDERCOVER PATRIOT was a finalist at Sundance. She wrote PARALLEL LOVES for Terra Bella Entertainment, Los Angeles; BOULE DE SUIF (adapt Maupassant) for Dace Direction, London; DREAM HOUSE for Passport Films, NYC; THE FASTEST WOMAN ALIVE for Howard S Shulman Productions, NYC; THE SECRET SHIP; FINAL QUEST: THE MOUNTAIN OF THE GODS; TRIPPING TAMMY; CHICKS GOTTA SWIM; LOVE HITS EARTH (& Other Disasters); NEXT!; adaptations of HOW HIS BRIDE CAME TO ABRAHAM, screenplay an "Official Selection" at Oaxaca FilmFest, www.AbrahamFilm.org, and IN A KINGDOM BY THE SEA, won the Gold Prize at Hollywood Screenplay Contest. Published plays: DARK LADY, produced Abbey Theatre, Ireland, Aalborg State Theatre, Denmark, optioned for film; BALLOON, won three VILLAGER awards Off-Broadway, nominated Best Play by Outer Critics Circle, aired Radio France; HAITI: A DREAM in FACING FORWARD, produced Seven Stages, Atlanta, aired WNYC, WHYY, NPR; TO MOSCOW, premiered Ankara National Theatre, Turkey, Chain Lightning, New York; OH WILD WEST WIND in ROWING TO AMERICA, produced Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey (PTNJ). PLAYS BY KAREN SUNDE includes TRUTH TAKES A HOLIDAY, read La MaMa, New York City (NYC); IN A KINGDOM BY THE SEA produced PTNJ, HOW HIS BRIDE CAME TO ABRAHAM, produced PTNJ, Praxis Theatre Project, NYC, premiered at The Unicorn, Kansas City. ANTON, HIMSELF for Actors Theatre of Louisville, also played The Moscow Art Theatre, the Yalta Festival in Russia, Peoples Light and Theatre, NYU in New York. THE FASTEST WOMAN ALIVE produced Luna Stage, NJ, Praxis, NYC, Edinburgh Festival (2010); KABUKI OTHELLO, produced People's Light and Theatre Company and Annenberg Center, Philadelphia; Wisdom Bridge, Chicago; KABUKI LADY MACBETH produced Chicago Shakespeare Theater, cited for five JEFF Awards, including "Best New Work," Best Production," "Best Direction:" IN A KINGDOM BY THE SEA. Scenes from TO MOSCOW; ANTON, HIMSELF; MASHA, TOO; and ABRAHAM appear in SCENES & MONOLOGS FROM THE BEST NEW PLAYS. Among 23 plays--for Actors Theatre of Louisville; People's Light and Theatre; The Acting Company, NYC, Sunde wrote KABUKI MACBETH, KABUKI KING RICHARD and ACHILLES, which toured Hungary, Cyprus, and Japan. She co-wrote musical QUASIMODO,(a musical) premiered Byrdcliffe Festival, Woodstock, NY, produced Lahti City Theatre, Finland. For Cheltenham Center, Philadelphia, she wrote LA PUCELLE (ME & JOAN) and DADDY'S GONE A-HUNTING (TRACKING BLOOD WHITE). In NYC: for Chain Lightning, WHEN REAL LIFE BEGINS, for The Working Theatre, 2020 SEXCARE in FREE MARKET; for Tisch School, NYU, Table and Chair Handmade Theatre, PLEASE GOD, NO WEDDING OR SHOOTING AT THE END! Opera THE SPA with composer Michael Dilthey. also at https://www.dramaticpublishing.com/authors/profile/view/url/karen-sunde Sunde’s won a McKnight Fellowship, an NDEA Fellowship, the Aide de la Creation award in France, the Bob Hope Award, Gold Prize in Hollywood Screenplay Contest, lives in New York City, served on the theatre panel of New Jersey Council on the Arts, and the new plays panel of the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, was faculty at New Hampshire Institute of Art's Writing for Stage & Screen MFA program, La MaMa ETC (New York)'s nominee for the Laura Pels/​PEN award, consultant for musical DAMASCUS SQUARE.

    Read more from Karen Sunde

    Related to Anton, Himself

    Related ebooks

    Performing Arts For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Confronting Anti-Semitism In Russia, In Words And Then Music

      Apr 3, 2017

      After the death of Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko on April 1, we revisit a 2000 feature about his most famous work, 'Babi Yar,' and the collaboration it inspired with composer Dmitri Shostakovich.

      3 min read

    • Article

      Portrait Of A Production

      Mar 1, 2020

      Portrait Of A Production
      14 min read

    • Article

      Take This Waltz

      Sep 12, 2018

      Take This Waltz
      7 min read

    • Article

      Inspiringpresences

      Dec 23, 2020

      Inspiringpresences
      7 min read

    • Article

      Where To Start With Stephen Sondheim: 10 Of The Best From The Maestro

      Nov 29, 2021

      Sondheim is gone but his songs and shows, as Cameron Mackintosh said, will be performed forever. Fortunately there is a wealth of material – recordings, documentaries, books – that give us a good idea of his impact on the culture of his times. I here

      5 min read

    • Article

      Direct from America

      Feb 23, 2020

      Direct from America
      4 min read

    • Article

      Shall We Dance: Balanchine Sets Tchaikovsky In Motion

      Apr 20, 2018

      Conductor Marin Alsop muses on the power of ballet and her memories of watching choreographer George Balanchine bring the music of Tchaikovsky to life with the New York City Ballet.

      2 min read

    • Article

      Beyond Gimmicks

      Aug 17, 2017

      RENÉE E. D’AOUST teaches online at North Idaho College and Casper College, and is the managing editor of Assay: A Journal of Nonfiction Studies. Her first book, Body of a Dancer (Etruscan Press), was a ForeWord Reviews “Book of the Year” finalist. In

      5 min read

    • Article

      Curriculum

      Sep 7, 2021

      Curriculum
      3 min read

    • Article

      Nemesis

      Dec 15, 2020

      Nemesis
      10 min read

    • Article

      My Worst Moment: 'Death Of Stalin's' Jason Isaacs And The Missing Co-star

      Mar 22, 2018

      Well-known in the U.K., British actor Jason Isaacs is probably best recognized in the U.S. as Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potter films, or more recently as "Star Trek: Discovery's" Captain Gabriel Lorca. He's also currently filming the second season o

      4 min read

    • Article

      Richard Morrison

      Apr 16, 2024

      When people want to mock my inky profession, they usually wheel out that old insult: ‘Nobody ever erected a statue to a critic.’ To which I always reply: ‘Oh, but they did!’ Go to Zwickau in Germany and you will find a fine statue of Robert Schumann,

      3 min read

    • Article

      Allure Of The East

      Jul 9, 2020

      Allure Of The East
      7 min read

    • Article

      Editor’s Note

      Jul 25, 2019

      IF THE FIERCE WOMAN IN A BROCADE JACKET ON OUR cover is unfamiliar to you, allow us to correct that. Playwright Adrienne Kennedy is an American original as distinctive as any artist who’s ever walked among us. Born in 1931, she began writing her lyri

      2 min read

    • Article

      The Fire This Time

      Sep 1, 2023

      The Fire This Time
      7 min read

    • Article

      George Onslow

      Jul 11, 2023

      George Onslow
      6 min read

    • Article

      Tracey Slaughter

      Apr 4, 2021

      The short-fiction writer, poet and creative-writing teacher is the editor of POETRY NZ YEARBOOK 2021 (MUP) and author of short-story collection DEVIL’S TRUMPET (VUP), to be published on April 7. George Eliot, MIDDLEMARCH: I was sweaty, freckled, rest

      1 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Anton, Himself

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Anton, Himself - Karen Sunde

      What the critics said

      "Much of (the Festival's) interest is due to Anton Himself and Masha,Too…

      It takes a certain chutzpah to write a play more or less in the voice of that master of indirection and self-absorption, Anton Chekhov. It takes chutzpah squared to write two of them. That, however, is what Karen Sunde has done... We'd owe Sunde a measure of grudging admiration merely for the attempt, but in fact she has succeeded in illuminating Chekhov and his sister Mariya, or Masha, at a critical juncture of their lives.

      PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER

      An evening in the mind of...Chekhov. ...beautifully sublime portrayal of a man.

      CFRO 102.7 FM Vancouver

      ...torn between his passion and his pragmatism...an intensely personal side of the author is revealed...a well-crafted play...a real treat.

      TERMINAL CITY, Vancouver

      "While viewers need know nothing about Chekhov to enjoy these three (To Moscow; Anton, Himself; Masha, Too) Sunde interlards the action with jokes about the stories and plays especially intriguing to knowledgeable viewers."

      CONTEMPORARY DRAMATISTS London

      "You don't have to like Chekhov to love Anton, Himself ...Sunde credibly takes us to 1896.

      Polished, compelling… The audience loved Anton."

      THE FRINGE REVIEW Vancouver

      Anton, Himself:

      First & Last

      Solo in 2 Acts

      by

      Karen Sunde

      Smashwords Edition

      Copyright Karen Sunde

      For rights to perform this play, apply to:

      130 Barrow #412

      New York, NY 10014

      tel/fx 212/366-1124

      www.karensunde.com

      karensunde.com@gmail.com

      CONTENTS

      INTRODUCTION – A passionate affair with no end in sight.

      ACT ONE

      ACT TWO

      PERFORMANCE NOTES – What it takes to scramble up this mountain

      OTHER PLAYS AND SCREENPLAYS by Karen Sunde

      PRODUCTION HISTORY

      ANTON, HIMSELF was commissioned and first produced by Actor’s Theatre of Louisville, directed by Frazier W. Marsh, performed by William McNulty, and published in Moscow Art Theater, a monograph.

      This production was exported by Oleg Yefremov, director of the Moscow Art Theatre to be performed at Yalta Festival and at Moscow Art Theatre, Russia

      ANTON, HIMSELF was subsequently produced and performed by Richard Levine at CHEKHOV NOW Festival in New York, and by David Wodchis at The Fringe Festival in Vancouver, BC.

      MASHA, TOO was meantime commissioned by The People’s Light and Theatre Company, Malvern, PA, to be produced together with ANTON, HIMSELF, directed by Abigail Adams, performed by Edith Meeks and Frank Wood. Both plays were subsequently directed by Roger Ellis in Grand Rapids, MI, and by H. Lee Gables, produced by LB Hamilton for the Washington Shakespeare Company in Washington DC.

      Selections from both ANTON and MASHA, as well as from Sunde’s TO MOSCOW appear in

      SCENES AND MONOLOGUES FROM THE BEST NEW PLAYS, Meriwether Publishing.

      ANTON, HIMSELF: First & Last was commissioned by director, actor, editor Roger Ellis, and first performed it at Grand Valley State University, Allendale, MI in January, 2018.

      INTRODUCTION

      I fell in love with Chekhov by acting him, having had the luck to play in four of his major plays. Then when I quit acting, I found myself sending a farewell valentine to that life by writing To Moscow, which wound Chekhov’s life and loves (Olga Knipper) with the birth of the Moscow Art Theater (Stanislavsky). It was well-received, produced (as far away as Turkey), and published…but then a funny thing happened: people kept wanting more.

      First, Actor’s Theatre of Louisville asked me to write a one-man play about Chekhov to produce in their Russian Classics in Context Festival. I wrote Anton, Himself, and To Moscow now had an off-spring. Then, most thrilling, the real-live Moscow Art Theatre witnessed it (they’d brought a play to the festival, too), and their legendary artistic director, Oleg Yefremov then took Anton, Himself to be performed in its actual setting – at their Yalta Festival in Russia, and then at the real Moscow Art Theatre.

      Still that wasn’t the end: Abigail Adams of Peoples Light & Theater, PA, saw Anton, Himself at Louisville, and lobbied me to write another play to accompany it, for Anton’s sister Masha. so that

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1