The Wilma Theater to Continue 2014-15 Season with THE BODY OF AN AMERICAN in January

In a time when the risks of being a war journalist are making headline news The Wilma Theater continues to explore the complexities of contemporary life with Dan O'Brien's The Body of an American directed by Michael John Garcés. In 1993, Canadian photojournalist Paul Watson took a Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of a dead American soldier being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu. As he shot the picture, Watson believes he heard the soldier say to him: "If you do this, I will own you forever." Playwright Dan O'Brien was finishing a residency in Princeton when he heard Paul Watson tell this story on Fresh Air in 2007. Also obsessed by the idea of hauntings, Dan reached out to Paul and the two formed an unusual relationship spanning time and continents. The Body of an American is the story of their friendship, one conducted primarily by e-mail but eventually leading them to a meeting inside the Arctic Circle. The roles of Dan and Paul are shared by two actors, who also play over twenty other characters that the men encounter. A contemporary war story encompassing personal and global histories that's told in strikingly theatrical fashion, The Body of an American breaks boundaries of convention in both content and form.

The Body of an American begins on Wednesday, January 7, 2015; opens on Wednesday, January 14, 2015; and closes on Sunday, February 1, 2015.

Critics and members of the press are invited to attend Press Night on Wednesday, January 14, at 7:30pm. For ticket arrangements, contact Sara Madden at smadden@wilmatheater.org or 215.893.9456 x102.

When asked how his friendship with Paul Watson changed his life, Dan O'Brien noted, "When I first started writing, as a kid and as a young man, writing was an escape from reality, a way to act out emotional problems on the page and then on the stage; now I want my work to change the way I live, to bring me back from fantasy and towards a greater engagement with reality, towards connection, to bring me into contact with people like Paul, whose stories I find fascinating and/or disturbing and/or inspiring, and then to do what I can to help tell those stories." When Paul Watson was asked the same question he replied, "Dan has led me over important ground, and to me, his art is in expressing painful truths that pure journalism can't capture. So, more and more, I prefer to avoid war and related subjects unless I can face them with Dan. It's less painful, and I trust him to tell hard truths in ways that touch people's hearts."

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