Wake
by Vince Gatton
Dan and Eric have a new marriage license, a new baby, and a new house in the country. As they settle into this new life, Dan is having what seem to be sleepwalking episodes. A ghost story told by a young visitor leads Eric to suspect that Dan’s sleepwalking incidents are actually something far more sinister — but are they what he thinks they are? Or are there other forces at work? WAKE is a ghost story for the post-AIDS generation, a play about marriage, expectations, and the power of narrative to both heal and harm.
- Cast Size: 4M 1W
- Running Tine: 90+ minutes
- Royalty Rate: $75 per performance
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About the Playwright
Vince Gatton is a New York-based playwright and Drama Desk-nominated actor. His full-length play ALEXANDRIA won Sanguine Theatre Company’s Project Playwright Festival, and his short play BETTER was one of the winners of the Samuel French OOB Festival. Other shorts have had readings in mtp’s annual CHERRY PICKING at the Wild Project in NYC; IN THE WHOLE HISTORY OF HI-Q, BETTER, and HEY were all finalists for the National Playwriting Award at City Theatre in Miami; and another short, JAM, won Best Play in the 2015 LIC Short Play Festival at the Secret Theatre in Long Island City. WAKE, his first full-length play, was a semifinalist for PlayPenn, and a finalist with readings at Dayton Playhouse’s FutureFest, Boomerang Theatre’s First Flight Festival, and Vintage Theatre Productions’ Mystery/Thriller New Works Festival. He received a Drama Desk nomination for Outstanding Actor in a Play for David Johnston’s Candy and Dorothy. Other notable acting credits include Leigh Fondakowski’s SPILL at Ensemble Studio Theatre; I Am My Own Wife and Fully Committed at Barrington Stage Company; I Am My Own Wife again at Coachella Valley Rep (Desert Star Award Nomination) and Two Turns Theatre Company; and The Temperamentals at New World Stages, standing by for Michael Urie. He’s appeared on TV in BLUE BLOODS and LAW & ORDER: ORGANIZED CRIME, and you can also catch him being himself on a certain rerun of Jeopardy, in the documentary Married & Counting, and in the Pippin episode of Encore! on Disney+.
Is it a ghost story or is it the past returning to haunt Dan and Eric? They have a life together, a new baby, good friends who support them… and then moments of darkness creep in. Where are they coming from? The lost love, the pain of remembrance, or could it be something even deeper? Vince Gatton weaves a tale that is worthy of the best suspense tales in that he never lets us get ahead of the tale: we hang on every moment.
Stories, especially our personal histories, are powerful. What we choose to reveal or conceal can heal or hurt—ourselves and our relationships. Vince Gatton illustrates that power forcefully in this excellent examination of two people dealing with life-changing events—marriage, baby, removal to a totally different environment. I highly recommend this beautiful, haunting play.
This play is fabulous. It revolves around the idea of hauntings, whether actual, physical hauntings, or things we carry inside us that haunt us and just won’t let us be. Like all Vince Gatton plays, it sucks you in from the start, and you spend the whole play trying to puzzle out what is going on, right alongside Eric. I really enjoyed Esme’s podcast stories sprinkled throughout as well. With a small cast and simple set requirements, this would be an easy play to produce, and it should be produced often.
Review Wake.