A LEGAL DRAMA OF EPIC PROPORTIONS
The casting for Pasadena Playhouse’s fresh take on Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee’s powerful drama Inherit the Wind has been announced. Playing November 1-26, 2023, with official opening on Sunday November 5 at 5pm. For this new production, audience members will be a part of the action with onstage seating in the courtroom gallery as well as a jury box located at the foot of the stage. Helmed by the sensitive director Michael Michetti the 17-member cast is led by Alfred Molina as Henry Drummond, John Douglas Thompson as Matthew Harrison Brady, Chris Perfetti as E.K. Hornbeck, Abubakr Ali as Bertram Cates, David Aaron Baker as Reverend Jeremiah Brown, Rachel Hilson as Rachel Brown, Jared Bybee as Dunlap, Brian Calì as Meeker, Marlene Forte as Mrs. Brady, Matt Gomez Hidaka as Howard Blair, Thomas Hobson as Tom Davenport, Michael Kostroff as Mayor, John W. Lawson as Bannister, Philip J. Lewis as Sillers, Gabriella Pizzigoni as Melinda Loomis, Rene Rivera as the Judge, and Pam Trotter as Mrs. Krebs. See bios here.The creative team includes Sara Ryung Clement (Costume Designer), Omar Madkour (Lighting Designer), Jeff Gardner (Sound Designer), Darryl Archibald (Vocal Arranger), and Jeffrey Bernstein (Vocal Director).
Dubbed “The Trial of the Century” (with rhetorical apologies to O.J.), the actual 1925 trial that inspired Inherit the Wind marked a milestone in the American legal system: The first time science vs. religion found its way to the public courthouse. The Scopes Trial (named after defendant John Scopes, who taught Darwinism in his small-town classroom) pitted the revolutionaries of scientific development against religious fundamentalists, who had the law on their side.
Scopes was represented by acclaimed defense attorney Clarence Darrow. Prosecuting was three-time Democratic presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan. The nation closely followed these legal celebrities whose arguments back then are painfully similar to the ones that remain unresolvable today. Lawrence and Lee draw heavily from the original trial, basing defense attorney Henry Drummond and prosecutor Matthew Harrison Brady strongly on Darrow and Bryan, respectively. Even the strategies employed by Drummond are constructed upon what happened in Dayton, Tennessee.
The background to the story, however, is very much fiction. Lawrence and Lee freely admit that the 1955 play was created for drama, not history. The reality is that Scopes was in cahoots with the ACLU from the moment he started teaching evolution so that the religious law could be tested in court, and Dayton denizens wanted the trial held there to boost the local economy, not to vilify Scopes. Lawrence and Lee successfully create tension with their alterations and resulting script, as much of the play’s drama comes from the fact that the town was solidly in support of the evangelistic Brady and was all-but-set to hang defendant Bertram Cates for daring to teach evolution in their conservative rural school.
Inherit the Wind
Pasadena Playhouse, 39 S. El Molino Ave. in Pasadena
November 1-26, 2023
for tickets (starting at $35-$117), call 626.356.7529 or visit Pasadena Playhouse
