Mr. Burns, A Post-Electric Play

Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play is an American black comedy play written by Anne Washburn and featuring music by Michael Friedman. It tells the story of a group of survivors recalling and retelling "Cape Feare", an episode of The Simpsons, shortly after a global catastrophe, then examines the way the story has changed seven years after that, and finally, 75 years later. It received polarized reviews and was nominated for a 2014 Drama League Award for Outstanding Production of a Broadway or Off-Broadway Play.
== Plot ==
Shortly after an unspecified apocalyptic event, a group of survivors gather together and begin to attempt to recount the episode "Cape Feare" of The Simpsons. The second act picks up with the same group seven years later, who have now formed a theatrical troupe that specializes in performing Simpsons episodes, with commercials and all. The final act is set an additional 75 years in the future. The same episode of The Simpsons, now a familiar myth, has been reworked into a musical pageant, with the story, characters, and morals repurposed to fit the artistic and dramatic needs of a culture still reeling from destruction of civilization and the near extinction of humanity decades earlier.
== Cast ==
* Sam Breslin Wright - Sam, Bart, Mr. Burns
* Quincy Tyler Bernstine - Quincy, Businesswoman, Bart 2
* Susannah Flood - Susannah, Lisa, Second FBI Agent, Itchy
* Matthew Maher - Matt, Homer, Scratchy
* Nedra McClyde - Nedra, Edna Krabappel
* Jennifer R. Morris - Jenny, Marge
* Gibson Frazier - Gibson, Loving Husband, Sideshow Bob, Homer 2
* Colleen Werthman - Colleen, First FBI Agent, Lisa 2
== History ==
Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play was written by Anne Washburn with a score composed by Michael Friedman. For a long time, Washburn had been exploring what it would be like "to take a TV show and push it past the apocalypse and see what happened to it" and while she originally considered Friends, Cheers, and M*A*S*H, she ultimately settled on The Simpsons. Working with The Civilians theater company who had commissioned the play, Washburn held a workshop for a week in a bank vault beneath Wall Street which was being used as a shared rehearsal space in 2008 to see how much of any episode of The Simpsons the actors she had assembled, including Matthew Maher, Maria Dizzia, and Jennifer R. Morris, could remember. Maher knew The Simpsons well and the group decided on the 1993 episode "Cape Feare", based on the 1991 film Cape Fear, itself a remake of an eponymous 1962 film which is based on the 1957 novel The Executioners. He helped Dizzia and Morris remember the episode, then the two of them went on to perform it for an audience without his help; Washburn subsequently utilized recordings of this process in writing her play's first act.
The play, a dark comedy, was premiered in May 2012 at Washington, D.C.'s Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company. It was commissioned by The Civilians and developed in partnership with them, Seattle Repertory Theatre, and Playwrights Horizons. It was directed by Steve Cosson who got confirmation from several lawyers that the play fell under the umbrella of fair use. Cosson also directed the New York City production at Playwrights Horizons that premiered on September 15, 2013. Maher and Morris, who had not appeared in the Woolly Mammoth production, returned for the New York staging. At Playwrights, the show ran until October 20, 2013. Samuel French, Inc. published the show's script and licenses productions of the show.
== Gallery ==
File:Mr.BurnsAPost-ElectricPlay.webp|The Simpsons
File:Burns5.jpg 960x480 q85 crop upscale.jpg|Mr. Burns with Itchy and Scratchy
File:1 mgGCz1qFHjz7o9CypokSXg.jpeg|The group of survivors
Category:Stage Shows