The Day They Shot John Lennon
THE STORY: The action of the play takes place in the street in front of the Manhattan apartment house where John Lennon was shot to death. Deeply moved and shocked by this awful event, many New Yorkers spontaneously assembled there to pay tribute to their slain idol, and it is from the interwoven stories of a cross section of these people that the author builds his play. Included are a young advertising executive and a “women’s libber,” a group of high school students, a pair of Vietnam vets, an elderly Jewish man from a neighboring building, and a hip young black would-be comic. Through the interaction of these people, sometimes humorous, sometimes moving, sometimes menacing, the author points up the larger significance of the event which has brought them together—the shock wave which was felt across the nation by this further evidence of the violence and ugliness lurking in our communal soul.
Comprised of a deftly blended series of encounters between a group of strangers who assemble at the site of John Lennon’s assassination, the play captures the sense of shock and uncomprehending loss which followed that awful event.
“…we’re transported right back to that December 1980 day of mourning when the songs of an era took on sad, new ironies, and when no one could think of the right words to express an inexplicable loss.” —The New York Times.
