University of Alabama professor Seth Panitch’s play, “Hell: Paradise Found,” will hit the stage in New York City for two weeks starting July 10. Panitch believes hell may in fact hold the most interesting people, and his play examines what the afterlife would be like if this were true.
“This is actually a rewrite of a production I did in Los Angeles some time ago, and the Los Angeles production was very successful,” said Panitch, the head of the Master of Fine Arts and Bachelor of Arts acting programs at UA. “I was never able to take it to New York because other projects got in the way, and, also, once you have lived with a play for four months you really feel like putting it to bed, but it has been asleep for about 10 years, so I feel comfortable taking the covers off again.”
“Hell: Paradise Found” will run for two weeks at the 59E59 Theater. There will be a Tuscaloosa preview in the Allen Bales Theatre July 2 through 4 before the show moves Off-Broadway.
Panitch said the play was not a religious play but instead examines the way society demonizes human beings who are different from the social norm in a comedic way.
“Yeah, Hitler would be down there and Mussolini would be down there, but Shakespeare would be down, and James Dean would be down there, and Elvis would be down there and Sinatra would be down there,” he said. “And the question is, under those circumstances, who gets into heaven? Probably, under those constructs, people you wouldn’t want to have a drink with, people you wouldn’t want to hang out with because they’d probably be pretty boring and uninteresting.”
Panitch said taking the covers off his old play was like seeing an old friend who has improved with age. He made some changes to his original work, but he also left some things the way they were. He found his inspiration for the play in an article about Shakespeare.
“I had been doing a lot of work on Shakespeare, and I remembered reading this article about how people at the time thought that what he was writing was evil and that he’d be sent to hell because of it,” Panitch said. “It sort of reminded me of the fact that everybody said Galileo was going to go to hell, and it seemed to me that there were a lot of interesting people, who whenever they did something that was different from the established norm, instead of saying we disagree, we tend to call them heretics.”
“Hell: Paradise Found” will star graduating and recently-graduated students from the department of theatre and dance.
Panitch said he was going to use this play as a bridge program.
“Our showcase is very successful for students, but it is very difficult for them to make the transition to the professional world,” he said. “If there was a project I could do for myself and also do for the students and help them have a great showcase in a full length play Off-Broadway in New York at a very reputable theatre, I thought what a great experience for the kids.”
Projects like this will give students a structured opportunity to be in front of the kinds of agents and casting directors — and even professional audiences — that they are going to have to act in front of.
“A lot of their friends come see them act [on campus], and that is what I call a cheap date,” Panitch said. “They are going to like them and laugh with them anyways.”
Peyton Conley, a graduate student, will be playing several roles in the play, and he said this opportunity will be the perfect stepping stone for him.
“We have a wide variety of people in the company, and it has been a great experience all around,” Conley said. “I am moving to New York in the fall with some friends, and it will be good to be seen and build some credit in New York.”
“It is my greatest joy, if it is a successful project, to have those kids out there in front of that audience and to look back and remember this as their first New York show,” Panitch said. “When you are in New York, and you are performing, it really does feel like you are near the heart of where theater lives.”
