By Carrie Chapter, Philadelphia Theatre Company

On Wednesday, May 7th at 7pm, Philadelphia Theatre Company presented a staged reading of the Terrence McNally Award-winning play, AMERICAN CANVAS, by Bill Cain.

With a cast comprised of some of Philadelphia’s finest intermingled with a few PTC faves from New York, AMERICAN CANVAS sets out to tell the enigmatic story of Philadelphian painter, Thomas Eakins, through a series of his own canvases and in those subjects he so carefully studied and rendered – all taking place in a country fresh from war, at the cusp of a new age of industry, and in the middle of a shift in social attitudes. To quote the playwright, “Thomas Eakins – 19th century Philadelphia artist -made a painting that he had to sell for less than the cost of the materials. In 2008, Philadelphia spent $68,000,000 for The Gross Clinic – the painting Tom couldn’t give away. In his day, this visionary painter, photographer and teacher was called a provocateur, sexual outlaw and a very dangerous man. Eakins said of his life – it’s all in the paintings. His art – a mix of 19th century restraint and total naked abandon – provocative, without precedent and even now shocking – changed American art forever.”

Playwright Bill Cain was the first recipient of the Terrence McNally New Play Award, and the development of AMERICAN CANVAS has been additionally supported by the National Endowment for the Arts.

At last year’s PTC@Play Festival, we presented an excerpt of Bill’s work-in-progress, which was then called UNVARNISHED. Our conversation with the audience proved to be highly engaging and informative as the play continued on in its process. Last June, Bill and I embarked on a tour of Philadelphia with an itinerary highlighting both the culture of city following the Civil War at the brink of the Industrial Revolution, as well as the life and work of the American Realist painter, Thomas Eakins. Our stops included visits at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Philadelphia History Museum, as well as the old Eakins stomping ground, the Pennsylvania Academy of Art – where he taught, as the play reveals, with great infamous consequence – and his former Philadelphia residence, which now houses the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program. As for Bill’s time for the duration of the staged reading process, we had two rehearsals with this draft and with this cast, in which we continued to probe and unearth the life of the man behind the rampant controversy, and why he evokes so many inflammatory feelings even to this day as someone who opposed the social model in pursuit of artistic truth and beauty.

Immediately before the staged reading, PTC also publicly announced the 2014 Terrence McNally New Play Award- winning play and playwright: Martín Zimmerman’s LET ME COUNT THE WAYS. In this new work, we revisit 16th century Rome, when the Vatican is beset by scandal and turmoil of the Protestant Reformation clashing with imperial rule. In the midst of political upheaval, a cat-and-mouse game begins between the Roman Catholic Church and a swarthy libertine looking to unleash a new commodity: prints of erotic art. Stay tuned for more news on the development of this exciting new work!

Rufus Collins, Leonard C. Haas, and Jamison Foreman rehearse AMERICAN CANVAS. Photo credit: Carrie Chapter.