The Whistleblower

• Written by: Itamar Moses
• Year: 2019 (world premiere)
• Director: To be announced
  
• Dates: Feb. 8-March 10, 2019 (Opens Feb. 15)
• Where: Space Theatre
• Genre: Contemporary comic drama
• About the author: Itamar Moses is the award-winning book writer of the musical The Band’s Visit, one of the most acclaimed new musicals on Broadway this season. That’s the story of a stranded Egyptian police band that is sent to a remote village in the middle of the Israeli desert and are taken in by the locals. He’s also the author of seven plays, two other musicals and an evening of shorts.
• The play at a glance: For screenwriter Eli, an offer to finally create his own TV show should be the ultimate culmination of his goals, but instead shocks him into wondering why he had those dreams in the first place. Armed with a new sense of spiritual clarity, he sets out on a quest to serve up some hard truths to his co-workers, family, exes and friends. What could possibly go wrong? The Whistleblower will be a lively world premiere about the lies we tell to protect ourselves  and how the tiniest gestures can have deep impact on those around us.
• Says new DCPA Artistic Director Chris Coleman: “Itamar Moses is an absolutely brilliant playwright and an exciting voice to have on the season. This new play is hilarious, thought-provoking and really kind of a spiritual journey. When this man recognizes that there is a discord between his inner self and his authentic self, he begins telling the truth about the relationships in his life. And the people around him think he’s lost his mind. He comes to a place that I think is very hopeful at the end. When I read it, I was absolutely knocked out. Itamar takes us on a humorous exploration of our purpose and whether our actions have the power to affect others. I’m incredibly honored to produce it as our second world premiere of the season.”

Read more: Los Angeles Times profile of Itamar Moses

• From the author: “Any piece of writing needs to be getting at some truth, or excavating something unspoken, in order to have energy and hold our attention. So I got really interested in the idea of a character who, either because he’s in a period of great clarity, or is maybe having some kind of psychological episode, or both, just starts channeling truth — or at least the truth as he sees it. I was compelled and amused by the idea of sort of firing this character out of a cannon at the beginning of the story and then watching as the sort of wind resistance of the rest of the world gradually brings him back down to earth.”
• Small world: Rob Nagle, who appeared in DCPA Theatre Company productions of The 39 Steps and Appoggiatura, was in the original cast of The Whistleblower as it was being developed at the South Coast Repertory’s 2015 Pacific Playwrights Festival in Costa Mesa, Calif. It was his third Moses play. “One thing I love about The Whistleblower, and many of Itamar’s plays, as well as James Still’s Appoggiatura, is that it’s a modern Odyssey,” Nagle told the DCPA NewsCenter. “Itamar takes characters through profound journeys of self discovery. And for me, that’s what great storytelling is all about.” (Pictured from left: Director Casey Stangl, Matthew Arkin and Rob Nagle in rehearsal for South Coast Repertory’s 2015 reading of ‘The Whitstleblower,’ Photo by Debora Robinson. Note: The DCPA production has not yet been cast.)
• What the critics have said about Itamar Moses’ work: Ben Brantley of The New York Times called The Band’s Visit “a Broadway rarity seldom found these days outside of the canon of Stephen Sondheim: An honest-to-God musical for grown-ups.”
• Fun facts: Moses, the child of Israeli immigrants, says seeing Tony Kushner’s Angels in America as a high-school senior in Berkeley, Calif., is what inspired him to become a playwright … Colorado theatre audiences got their first look at a Moses play in 2013 when the Boulder Ensemble Theatre Company staged an extended run of Bach at Leipzig, a comic farce based on the true story of when Germany’s greatest organist dies, and the town city council invites a small number of scheming musicians to audition for the appointment — including a young Johann Sebastian Bach. … The Band’s Visit stars Tony Shalhoub (Monk), whose brother is Denver actor Michael Shalhoub. … Coleman was onto Moses early. He staged the world premiere of his play Outrage at Portland Center Stage back in 2003, and the premiere of his play Celebrity Row in 2006, also at Portland … The Whistleblower was first introduced as a 2014 staged reading at the Perry-Mansfield Performing Arts School and Camp in Steamboat Springs (directed by Oliver Butler), and then was featured in South Coast Repertory’s 2015 Pacific Playwrights Festival alongside Qui Nguyen’s Vietgone, which will open the DCPA Theatre Company’s season in August. The tagline for the play then was: “Eli tries to rewrite the life he left behind — but the truth could ruin everything.” … Moses, who trained at New York University, was an Executive Story Editor for HBO’s “Boardwalk Empire.”