World Premiere of VINELAND PLACE by Steven Dietz Will Come to Palm Beach Dramaworks
The cat-and-mouse thriller closes out PBD's season, directed by producing artistic director William Hayes
Palm Beach Dramaworks will present the world premiere of Steven Dietz's Vineland Place, a cat-and-mouse thriller, which will open at PBD on May 15 (7:30pm) and continue through May 31, with specially priced previews on May 13 and 14 (7:30pm). J. Barry Lewis directs.
For young writer Henry Sanders, it seemed like the perfect job: finishing the long-awaited final book of the novelist who was his hero. Hired by the novelist's widow, Henry finds himself instead in the midst of a rapidly developing mystery, filled with dangerous surprises to the final page.
Diane Perlberg is the 2025-26 season sponsor. Elaine and Larry Rothenberg are the executive producers of Vineland Place, and BillBone Law Group is the associate producer.
Dietz, who has been sharpening and honing his script since the festival, has been at PBD through much of the rehearsal period, continuing to rewrite. “The gift of writing is rewriting,” he said. “I believe there are those who think that if you're rewriting, there must be something wrong with the play. But I'm not rewriting it because it doesn't work. I'm rewriting it because it's young. It needs to be nurtured, it needs to grow, and I need to sort it out.”
Vineland Place features Ross Cowan (PBD debut) as Henry Sanders and Anne-Marie Cusson as Victoria Brody, the woman who hires him. Anne Mundell is the scenic designer, sponsored by Susan Schwartz; Brian O'Keefe is the Costume Designer, sponsored by Tony and Martin Sosnoff; Paul Black is the lighting designer; Robertson Witmer (PBD debut) is the sound designer and composer; Adam J. Thompson is the projection designer; and casting is by McCorkle Casting Ltd.
Dietz's writing career began in the 1980s, but it was just 15 years ago that he became interested in the possibilities of the thriller genre. It has now become one of his passions, and he believes adamantly that the best showcase for any thriller is the theatre. “It's a communicative loop between the actors and the audience that does not exist anywhere else,” he said. “We're in the same room and we are privy to secrets and we are trying to solve a mystery or a series of questions. It's uninterrupted and its one sitting. The proximity of the actors makes a thriller come alive in the theatre in a way that it just can't anywhere else.”
Steven Dietz has authored 40-plus plays which have been widely produced in regional theatres, as well as Off-Broadway and in 25 countries. For the 2024-25 season, Dietz was once again named one of the “Twenty Most Produced Playwrights in America” by American Theatre Magazine. He was awarded the Steinberg New Play Citation for Bloomsday, the Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays Award for both Fiction and Still Life with Iris, the PEN USA-West Award in Drama for Lonely Planet, and an Edgar Award for Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure. Dietz coadapted his play Shooting Star into the Meg Ryan film What Happens Later. Recent premieres include Gaslight (from Patrick Hamilton), Murder on the Links and Peril in the Alps (from Agatha Christie), and the intimate thriller Mirror Lake.
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