A very warm welcome to Iowa Review readers.  23 pages of “Telling, Eugene” are available in the Winter, 2008 issue of the Iowa Review.  You can read the excerpt (PDF 502kb), though we encourage you to purchase the magazine.  It’s one of the finest publications for contemporary literature in the country, and we are very excited to be a part of it.

We are publishing video clips of the play here on the website – a new one each week.  These clips are from a performance of the play that was subsequent to the excerpt in the Iowa Review, and in some instances, there are differences that are worth explanation.

The Telling Project is, fundamentally, not a product but a process – by which we mean to say that purpose is to provide not a play (though this is the medium), but a formalized space in which discussion of what has become a difficult subject – military service – can be addressed in as direct a fashion as possible.  Because this is a discussion, understanding, opinions, emotions and by association, their expression, evolve.  For some of the players in Telling, this evolution is quite evident, resulting in revisions, re-phrasing and amendment to what they originally put forth in the interviews that comprise the base of the play.  For others, it’s a matter of performance – how they deliver their stories, a growing ownership or comfort that reveals further layers of emotions and insight.

To this end, I have linked the passages in the PDF that have clips to the clips themselves.  (Please keep checking back for more clips – or send your e-mail to Tellingproject@gmail.com to be included in our mailing list.)  For some, the difference will not be perceptible as it is a matter of presentational rather than textual development.  For others, the difference will be obvious and quite striking.  Your comments are encouraged, and many thanks for your interest.

Copies of the Iowa Review can be ordered on the Iowa Review website or can be found at many local bookstores. Subscriptions can be purchased on the Iowa Review website or on Amazon.com.