Auburn University
Auburn University
 Theatre
Season Box Office Marketing Archives Programs
 

Homepage > Production Archives > Lonely Planet

Lonely Planet

Lonely Planet by Steven Dietz. Directed and Performed by matt Dewberry and Mark Holden with support from the Auburn University Department of Theatre.Performance Dates

August 25, 26, and 27 at 7:30 p.m. and on Sunday August 28 at 2:30 p.m.

CAST

Jody       Matt Dewberry
Carl       Mark Holden

The play is set in the early 1990s at Jodys Maps, a small map store on the oldest street in an American city.

PRODUCTION TEAM

Assistant Director   Ashley Nelson
Stage Manager   Ashley Nelson
Production Asst.   Katie Clausen
Faculty Mentor   Dan LaRocque

There will be one ten-minute intermission.

Authors Note

(written for the original production of the play at the Northlight Theatre in 1992)

In the midst of a world that is too big and too fast, a world where information rules like a dictator and news travels like a virus, it is easy to be overcome by the hopelessness of the world and the helplessness of we, its keepers. What impact can we have? What traces will we leave behind?

History, I believe, is not the story of grand acts and masterpieces. History, instead, is the inexorable accumulation of tiny events--footsteps and glances, hands in soil, broken promises, bursts of laughter, weapons and wounds, hands touching hair, the art of conversation, the rage of loss. Historians may focus on the famous, familiar names--but history itself is made, day after day, by all those whose names are never known, all those who never made a proclamation or held an office, all those who were handed a place on earth and quietly made a life out of it.

So, what do we affect during our lifetime? What, ultimately, is our legacy? I believe, in most cases, our legacy is our friends. We write our history unto them, and they walk with us through our days like time capsules, filled with our mutual past, the fragments of our hearts and minds. Our friends get our uncensored questions and our yet-to-be-reasoned opinions. Our friends grant us the chance to make our grand, embarrassing, contradictory pronouncements about the world. They get the very best, and are stuck with the absolute worst we have to offer. Our friends get our rough drafts. Over time, they both open our eyes and break our hearts. Emerson wrote, "Make yourself necessary to someone." In a chaotic world, friendship is the most elegant, the most lasting way to be useful. We are, each of us, a living testament to our friends' compassion and tolerance, humor and wisdom, patience and grit. Friendship, not technology, is the only thing capable of showing us the enormity of the world.

Steven Dietz, 1992.

"We shall leave some traces, for we are people and not cities."
-- Eugene Ionesco, The Chairs

LONELY PLANET is produced in cooperation with Dramatists Play Service. The company gratefully acknowledges the support and assistance of Professor Worth Gardner, Professor Tracy Oleinick, and the students and faculty of Auburn University Theatre.