There are two things that actor-playwright Will Stutts is best known for: a host of smartly, self-written one-person shows and a history of performing them at the Walnut Street Theatre. In his time as a thespian (“this is my 50thanniversary,” says Stutts, a former Philly resident), Stutts created “Journey Through the Mind … Edgar Allan Poe,” “Walt Whitman: Liberal and Lusty as Nature” and “Noel Coward at the Cafe de Paris,” along with many others. What brings him to the Walnut next has nothing to do with acting or one-man shows. Instead, it is Stutts the playwright’s “The Gift” — a somewhat fictionalized version of the life of Truman Capote and Harper Lee — that he’ll deliver to his favorite theater space.
As you’re so equated with one-person shows, is it ever annoying or weird having another actor on stage with you?
Not bad or weird at all. I absolutely appreciate it, especially when I don’t have to create everything. It’s nice to know that in Act 2, the dancing girls will come on to take some of the burden. There’s nothing more joyous than having good actors to work alongside — and nothing worse when they’re bad.
Bernard Havard commissioned “The Gift.” Why did he want you to write about another writer?
I had been kicking around this idea for years — the unanswered questions about what role Truman Capote had in the life and work of his best friend Harper Lee. There were never any answers. She helped him research books such as “In Cold Blood,” but never authored anything. How did she come up with a Pulitzer Prize winner such as “To Kill a Mockingbird”? Did he write it and give it to her? That was the relationship I wanted to write about. I wanted to know where his impulses … and hers … came from. It is about tormented genius and co-dependency. It is also about friends helping each other — basically friends with benefits, but just notthosebenefits.
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