What are People Saying About it?

Key Quotes

"...creeps up on the audience like a cat about to pounce, and then enlists the audience's imagination to dramatize the kill."

"...keeps the audience guessing -- and flinching -- until the final cathartic scene."

--Michael Grossberg, The Columbus Dispatch

"A taut 75-minutes of intergenerational suspense."

--George Heymont, My Cultural Landscape

"Lewis displays the complexities of American life... buffeted by the competing influences of 'Romeo & Juliet,' pop-culture and (Johann) Strauss. Any parent who's experienced guilt and doubt will identify."

--Rob Hurwitt, SF Chronicle

"A tense frightening thriller... a taut fraught examination of guns, teens and detonation of the nuclear family."

--Chad Jones, SF Examiner

Read full reviews:

Who's the Playwright?

Carter W. Lewis

In 1989 CATCO produced the world premiere of Carter W. Lewis's The Women of My Father's House and his work has also been featured in CATCO's Shorts Festival 2000. Currently Playwright-in Residence and Lecturer at Washington University, St. Louis, he is an Otterbein College graduate and the College has produced many of his plays. Lewis has received several national playwrighting awards and his works have been produced and commissioned by theatres across the United States. He is a two-time nominee for the American Theatre Critics Award. Published works include, Art Control, A Geometric Digression of the Species, Soft Click Of A Switch, An Asian Jockey In Our Midst and The One-Eyed Man Is King.

Play Notes

Evie’s Waltz, playwright Carter W. Lewis says, is not a play about a school shooting. Although this topic has tragically made frequent headlines over the past ten years in the U.S., Lewis’ play addresses the topic sideways, and instead takes a look at the issue of school violence from the perspective of the parents. The play is really about the modern American family, and about how this family holds together in the face of tragedy or – perhaps more terrifying – potential tragedy.

In November 2009 Susan Klebold, mother of Dylan Klebold, one of the Columbine shooters, published an essay in O Magazine telling her story and the utter shock, sorrow, and disbelief she experienced on April 20, 1999. It was the first time she had spoken publicly and in detail about the events of that day and their aftermath, and shifted the focus of the event to Dylan’s home and his parents’ reaction to his actions. She wrote about the grief over not only her son’s death, but the deaths he caused, and how no parent could begin to fathom their child doing such a thing.

In the play, Clay and Gloria must face some stunning realizations about their son, ones they have trouble believing and yet must believe, and they learn these things all through Evie, the precocious newcomer to their home. Between the three of them, they waltz around the issue and several surrounding issues. Notice how the interaction between the three moves from comic to menacing, from power plays to concession, and how all three struggle on to communicate with each other.

What does the title suggest? What is Evie doing? How is she waltzing? You’ll hear her mention in the play how her waltz was an act of heroism, an act of sacrifice for someone she truly loves. How is she continuing to waltz throughout the play? He does she – like Clay and Gloria – cope with events that are sometimes beyond comprehension? And as she asks in the play, what happens next in the face of such events?

Nicholas Dekker, Dramaturge

Selected Production History:

• The Geva Theatre Center, Rochester, NY - April-May 2009
• The Magic Theatre, San Francisco - November-December 2008
• St. Louis Rep - October-November 2008 (world premiere)