F O R E W O R D
I’ve never met an artist like Kenn Adams. We worked together in several of his plays including Les Masquerades and Cunning Cappuccino, the first a brilliant pastiche of Molière and the second an equally brilliant takeoff on Commedia dell’Arte.
He’s funny. And he can instinctively look at a play genre, break the structure down into essential parts, and then reconstruct it into something that not only makes me laugh out loud but also, like Alan Ayckbourn’s work, delights me with its genius and understanding. I’d travel anywhere to see a production of his first play,Once Upon a Time There Was A Family . . . , written when he was in high school, a door-slamming farce about middle America where the characters narrate their own actions.
We worked together in the improvisation company Freestyle Repertory Theater. His understanding of what makes a play work was key in developing a variety of our improvised fulllength formats: comedies, dramas, mysteries, and musicals. The Next Big Broadway Musical, a one-act musical improv based on this work, is still running in New York City.
I’m thrilled that he has written it all down at last. This Play by Play structure has spread and is being used in companies around the world. And now, here it is. Enjoy, enjoy.