JOHN KUNTZ and CHRIS THORN in scenes from HOW I GOT THAT STORY

Photos by CAROLLE Photography

2005-2006 Season

How I Got That Story

A Nightmare Comedy

by Amlin Gray

Directed by Daniel Gidron

Performances Friday, March 3 through Sunday, March 19 2006

John Kuntz plays 20 roles as "The Historical Event" and Chris Thorn is the innocent "Reporter" from Dubuque!

"Ambo Land?" Why is the madame despot so UPSET at being named Time's "Woman of the Year" only ONCE?  Did that LUNATIC photographer really get an incredible shot of his own arm FLYING OFF?  Is it true they sent a NAIVE Reporter to "get that story?"  How could his editor tell him to ENJOY himself?

In Amlin Gray's "nightmare comedy," the Obie-award winning, How I Got That Story, our wet-behind-the-ears Reporter goes from village to village, jungle battlefield to bombing mission, coming face to face with the ironic, surreal world of a pseudo Vietnam. A phantasmagoria of wild humor and chilling horrors, How I Got That Story, vividly illuminates the death and destruction of warfare.  Is the play a crushing indictment of current events, continuing a seemingly never-ending story?

Wednesdays & Thursdays at 7:30 PM
Fridays & Saturdays at 8:00 PM
Sundays at 3:00 PM

*Special Saturday Matinee March 4 at 3:00 PM

Fringe Elements

Small theater companies, big ambitions: five productions that make a good argument for why small is better

By Liza Weisstuch, Globe Correspondent | March 2, 2006

The Nora Theatre Company ........

In 1987, it was ''Virginia," a play by Irish novelist Edna O'Brien based on the writings of Virginia Woolf, that inspired Mary C. Huntington, fresh from grad school at Brandeis, to round up fellow theater enthusiasts to stage a production of the play. Among her allies in the fledgling Nora Theatre Company was Eric Engel, who would go on to win an Eliot Norton award in 1994 for a Nora production and is now producing director at Gloucester Stage Company. The Nora -- named for the character in Ibsen's ''A Doll's House" -- is in the process of building its own theater in Central Square in Cambridge, and Huntington hopes it will be ready next year.

Past Nora seasons have consisted of heavy dramas, musicals, and contemporary adaptations of classics. But it's the humor in the shows that drives home the message -- and humor, Huntington believes, is better than moralizing. In its current production, Amlin Gray's Obie Award-winning ''How I Got That Story," the message is timely. The dark comedy strips away the commercialization of war to expose its absurd core.

''We're living in a dangerous, polarized time," Huntington says. ''We want to [create theater] that speaks to the world we live in. I'm hoping people will respond in a big way."

Written in 1979 as a reaction to Vietnam, the play involves a cub reporter in a fictional country grappling with a historically entrenched event, which encompasses 20 characters portrayed by a single actor -- in this case John Kuntz, an Equity actor well-known for his work on Boston's bigger stages, such as the Huntington Theatre and Commonwealth Shakespeare. This is a chance to get a comparatively intimate, up-close viewing of his character-morphing skills.

C Copyright 2006 Globe Newspaper Company.

Questions? Email info@thenora.org