VOS: Notes On the Play

About the Play

This historical investigation of a horrific accident and the aftermath it caused appealed to Director Ruth Engel for a variety of reasons, chief amongst them that positive change and enduring perspective can come out of the most terrible of events. Receiving its Regional Premiere in the Southwest, Audacity is pleased to present VOLUME OF SMOKE.

For more information about the event, here's an informative article. And here's another one.

About the Playwright

The NY Times says there's "...a new generation of theater artists reared on a diet of vampires, zombies and charming serial killers. Call this movement the Theater of Blood, after the Vincent Price movie about a Shakespearean actor who kills critics, after torturing them with a hammy monologue. (It still gives me chills.) At the forefront is Clay McLeod Chapman, whose “Pumpkin Pie Show” channels the spirit of H. P. Lovecraft." -- Jason Zinoman, "A Creepy Threesome," NY Times, (10/19/09)

Clay McLeod Chapman is the founder of the Pumpkin Pie Show, a dynamic story-telling caberat well known in New York City. "If Chapman keeps up with the oddball characters, well-crafted stories, and critical plaudits, that Faulkner guy better watch out," the Village Voice’s Alexis Soloski wrote in a review of Clay McLeod Chapman’s Pumpkin Pie Show. Author Tom Robbins said of Chapman’s work, “Like a demonic angel on a skateboard, like a resurrected Artaud on methadrine, like a tattletale psychiatrist turned rodeo clown, Clay McLeod Chapman races back and forth along the serrated edges of everyday American madness, objectively recording each whimper of anguish, each whisper of skewed desire. This is strong stuff, intense stuff, sometimes disturbing stuff, but I think the many who admire Chuck Palahniuk will admire Chapman as well.” Clay McLeod Chapman is the creator of the rigorous storytelling session the Pumpkin Pie Show. In its ten years of existence, the award-winning Pumpkin Pie Show has toured extensively throughout the world – traveling to the Romanian Theatre Festival of Sibiu, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the New York International Fringe Festival, the Winnipeg Fringe Festival, the Edmonton Fringe Festival, the Minnesota Fringe Festival, the Dublin-based thisisnotashop art space, IGNITE 06 Festival, the Women Center Stage Festival and the Impact Theatre Festival, just to name a few – as well as such various venues as colleges, theatres, and theme parks in and around the country. The Pumpkin Pie Show continues to perform in New York City—including PS 122, the DR2 theatre, the Ohio Theatre, La Mama, the Red Room, the Kraine theatre, UNDER St. Marks Theatre, the CSV Cultural Center, the Zipper theatre, the Belt theatre, Culture Project, Galapagos Art Space, Speigeltent NY, the Bowery Poetry Club, the Brick Theatre, and Coney Island, USA. 

For more information on Clay McLeod Chapman click here.