MSUM Professor’s radio drama, HERETIC, to be broadcast Oct. 9
HERETIC, a radio drama by Minnesota playwright and Minnesota State University Moorhead professor Richard Zinober, will be broadcast by Sundog Theater on Tuesday, October 9 at 7 p.m. central time. Sundog Theatre is a Staten Island-based performing arts company that performs original, contemporary, and thought-provoking theatre. The play can be heard online at https://sundogtheatre.org/production/the-originals-fall-radio-plays-2018/
A winner of the Theatre du Mississippi New Play Competition, the stage version of HERETIC was presented in a pair of staged readings by the company in Winona. The play premiered as a full stage production last year at the Owl and Cat Theatre in Melbourne, Australia.
The play is about a young woman who is a member of a new religious group. Her mother hires two deprogrammers to try to get the daughter to reveal the secrets of the group and to persuade her to leave it. It demonstrates the psychological battle that ensues between the daughter and head deprogrammer.
Reviews from the Australia performance include:
“One of the strengths of the writing by American playwright Professor Richard Zinober and direction from Manoela Amaral, namely that for large tracts the play felt “real”. The ending is up to us to interpret … to a point.” – Alex First, The Blurb Magazine
“The play, which is emotional and confronting at times, is performed in the perfect space…(that) allows for the audience to become wrapped up in the story, waiting on edge for the secrets of what happens inside the cult to come out. These secrets will leave you thinking and questioning long after the play has finished.” – Lauralee Evans, Weekend Notes
The script is available at The Playwrights Publishing Company website www.playwrightspublishing.com
Zinober has taught playwriting and screenwriting at MSUM for more than 30 years.
