Welcome to the official website for the award-winning dramatic writer Robert Cole.
NEWS
November 17, 2011
Robert Cole is back on twitter.
September 21, 2011
Eldridge Plays and Musicals announces the publication of the Robert Cole translation of A Doll's House. Purchase your copy today at $7.95 per script.
July 31,2011
Robert Cole's translation of Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House is being published by Eldridge Plays and Musicals, a national company and leading play publsiher since 1906! The play will be available in their Spring 2012 catalogue. An article about the publishing offer appeared in the July 31st edition of the Daily Mountain Eagle. In Nicole Smith's article, she writes,"[A]fter training to be an actor for eight years, he found he enjoyed playwriting, and desperately wanted to be published. He said he felt humbled when Eldridge Plays and Musicals published his adaptation after years of submitting his work...'There’s no feeling like it. It’s indescribable,” [Cole] said. The news also reached the Pinson News/Clay Times, who wrote "Eldridge Plays and Musicals [is] a leading publisher since 1906 of such playwrights as Jonathan Dorf and Lee Eric Shackleford, the Playwright-in-Residence for UAB."
July 10, 2011
Recently,on July 6, 2011, new works from Robert Cole were given a reading at the PVHS Fine Arts Center Auditorium in Pinson, Alabama. This private reading featured the new full-length work Wars and Rumors of Wars and the new short piece Stilldeath as well as the first performances of The Brotherhood Cycle and Minding the Storm. The reading was directed by R. Daniel Walker, with performances by Mr. Walker, Katherine Burcham, Ray Cole, Eric E. Marable, Jr., and Mary Claire Owen. The event was filmed by Adam Hunnicut of Skypark Video. Excerpts will be uploaded soon.
June 14, 2011
The Robert Cole Facebook page has been updated. Log on now and like us!
January 27, 2011
Make your plans now to see Robert Cole's Cry of the Native Children in its World Premiere production at the PVHS Fine Arts Center Auditorum in Pinson, Alabama. Call 205 379 5100 x 639 to reserve your seats! The performances are February 10-12, 2011 at 7pm.
October 24, 2010
Birmingham Theatre Website has published R. Daniel Walker's review of Robert Cole's translation of A Doll's House. "The first question one would ask would be, 'Why would anyone do A Doll's House, much less a high school?!” The answer could be any number of reasons, the most obvious being 'it’s educational for the students to learn the classics.' This was the first and foremost reason why [Robert Cole], Theatre Teacher for Pinson Valley High School, decided to do this play. But he took this educational instruction a step further…he decided to also translate the play from the original 19th Century Norwegian text. Note, I said Translate not Adapt. This gave the students a chance to not only study the classic play but also learn what it is like to work on a piece that changed from day to day as if it were a new play. This is the mark of a fine teacher, one that challenges his students and in the end produces a very good production with the limited means of public school finances...I think Pinson should be very proud of what their students are creating and doing for this art form and I think [Robert Cole] should be commended for his guts to trust his kids enough to throw them into the fire and have them walk out stronger and more learned than when they went in...Kudos!"
September 22, 2010
Cole's Cry of the Native Children has been selected as one of three mainstage shows at next year's Alabama Thespians Festival at Randolph High School. The Festival will be February 25-27, 2011. More info will come soon. The play will have its World Premiere as part of PVHS Theatre February 10-12, 2011.
July 13, 2010
Change of dates: Cole's new translation of Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House will play three performances-- 7:00 p. m. on September 18, 2010 and 2:00 p. m. and 7:00 p. m. on September 19, 2010.
July 6, 2010
The 2010-2011 season of PVHS Theatre has announced two world premiere projects by Robert Cole. Cole's new translation of Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House will play September 16-18, 2010 and the world premiere of Cry of the Native Children, an adaptation of George Washington Parke Custis' Pocahontas, or The Settlers of Virginia, will play February 10-12, 2011.
June 28, 2010
Holly Grove Press proudly presents a paperback edition of Songs of the Valley: Selected Plays of Robert Cole. Half the cost of the Hardcover edition, this is a perfect addition to your library that won't break the bank.
WELCOME
We encourage you to stop by often for updates on new plays and upcoming productions & staged readings from this prolific and exciting playwright.
While here, browse the Plays section for synopses and information on all his current work. Also, check out his non-fiction work. Film criticism, theatre survey, and other essays will be added regularly. Take a look at the Biography and Reviews sections to read more about the creator of the world of Walstone County and Walbridge County, Alabama and their stories of love, youth & age, hope & despair, life & death.
If you are a literary manager for a theatre company, please take a look at the Script Request section to find out how to obtain a copy of any script for perusal.
Write to us at robertcole@walstonecounty.com to let us know what you think of this site. Thanks for visiting!
Profile: David Henry Hwang
Something was happening in California in the late 1970's that was similar to the Civil Rights Movement of the late sixties. Budding Asian American consciousness had hit college campuses. Groups formed to begin examining the meaning of being from Asian descent in the melting pot of America where Caucasians were becoming a plurality rather than a majority. At Stanford University, a young Chinese-American student named David Henry Hwang was beginning to discover the power of the theatre while playing in pit orchestras for musicals and studying with novelist John L'Hereux. These two events collided at just the perfect time for Hwang to complete a play called FOB (from the term "Fresh Off the Boat") that took elements of Chinese folk tales and opera and clashed them with a story of young ABC ("American Born Chinese") in L. A. The play, in metaphor and spirit, dramatized the pros and cons of being a hyphenated American...