A comedy in two acts. Written and directed by Johnny Ormsbee.

About the Production

This spring the Theater Arts Department’s Student Productions Association (S.P.A.) at Lane Community College will present a new work by local playwright Johnny Ormsbee. “First I am excited about the cast. It is a great group of talent, as good as Eugene has to offer.” says Ormsbee. The production centers around a character named Samuel. “I hesitate to say much, for interpretation may just prove me wrong. For me the character of Samuel (Dylan Skye Kennedy) is a metaphor for all of humanity, just as the corpse (Chip Sherman), Lucy (Michelle Nordella), Dagot (Scott Shirk) and the rest of the cast represent the same. We are dealing with the subconscious and the birth of all things. The artist is Adam and the world is ours.” Much has been discussed with the cast in order to inform their decisions, and yet what inevitably is important is this: Samuel feels stuck in this place where nothing happens, a corpse keeping him company rises to dance and sing, usually at the most inappropriate time and finally people come and go. Mr. Ormsbee’s play was created to pay homage to the work of Samuel Beckett the Nobel Prize winning author who wrote Waiting For Godot and has become something more. In addition to Beckett’s work Ormsbee sights John Schmor as an influence. “His work is always brave and explorative, I wish there where more directors in Eugene willing to do what felt right for the stage rather than simply putting half-assed theater into the bread of our community. Or accepting avant-garde as an excuse to not be real.”

Johnny Ormsbee has directed Beckett’s End Game and Waiting for Godot at the V.L.T. his directing credits also include several short plays. As an actor he had the pleasure of working with Lane Community College’s Theatre Arts instructor Patrick Torelle in an earlier production of Godot. “I was changed by my involvement in that show and as an actor have not found anything as moving, nor as challenging since. In writing A Soft Kiss While Visiting Samuel I wanted to create something to challenge the actor while also providing that ritual which comes from involvement in mythological story telling. I believe that Beckett’s world provides just that, so we have gone into his head with express permission from the ghost.”