Rough and Tumble is excited to announce their first play commission! After the runaway success of 43 Plays for 43 Presidents, the company has commissioned  43 presidents co-writer (and founding father) Andy Bayiates to write a play for R&T entitled A History of Human Stupidity. Look for the world premiere in 2009!  Here are some of Andy’s thoughts about the play:

“The Roman Empire believed that the lack of evolution in its culture is what made it strong, that you could build a culture to last, the way you’d build a coliseum. Being a socially stagnant culture, they believed, was a form of greatness. History reveals how stupid this belief is. And it destroyed them. Now that’s real stupidity.

Fast forward.

George W. Bush’s father, wrote in his autobiography “trying to eliminate Saddam…would have incurred incalculable human and political costs…We would have been forced to…rule Iraq…there was no viable exit strategy. Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying force in a bitterly hostile land.” Yet his son, fully aware that this had been an established opinion, chose to invade Iraq anyway. In retrospect (and to many of us at the time of the invasion), that was very, very stupid.

History is littered with decisions like these. A History of Human Stupidity will examine the whoppers. But will we simply list and poke fun of these idiotic choices? I think that would be stupid. Stupidity carries with it implications that can be surprisingly profound. If you believe that human beings are in a state of evolution, then you have to believe that our ability to have beliefs has much to do with our success. Law for example. Not dumb. Political systems. Religious faith as an emotional salve for the gaping wound of existence. Science. Philosophy. Red Sox Nation. We evolved the ability to have beliefs in order to better ourselves.The vision for this production is a four- to five- person history geek-out, like an amazing history class if you had five really energetic teachers who would act things out as they talked about them.”

Bio for Andy Bayiates:
Andy Bayiates was an ensemble member of the Chicago theater company, The Neo-Futurists from 1999-2005. He wrote and performed in their ever-changing Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind through 2004 and was writer and director for A 60-Minute History of Humankind. He also appeared in seven other Neo-Futurist productions including the successful 43 Plays for 43 Presidents, for which he was founding father and co-writer. His plays have been produced by Geva Theater in Rochester, New York; The O’Neill National Theatre Institute; the 25th Annual Humana Festival at the Actor’s Theatre of Louisville; and in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Atlanta, and Edinburgh, Scotland. 43 Plays for 43 Presidents has been published by Playscripts, Inc., and Bayiates’ work has also been published in Humana Festival 2001: The Complete Plays (Smith and Kraus, 2002) and 200 More Neo-Futurist Plays (Hope and Nonthings Publishing, 2004).