Show And Tell

“All school kids—and their parents—know about ‘Show and Tell.’ Bringing objects from home is not only a lesson in history, but also an experience in contact, of one person reaching for another and the other reaching back. Playwright Anthony Clarvoe understands it too, and his drama is a powerful tale of contact, and of discovery, and of what it takes to survive. Corey teaches fourth grade, and her classroom literally explodes one morning during show-and-tell. The entire class of twenty-four children dies, but she had left the room for a moment, and survives. A team of government forensics experts arrives to re-assemble the bodies for identification and to seek the cause of the explosion… They are tough and experienced, with the sardonic wit that they, and others who work constantly with death, need to survive. SHOW AND TELL is a strong, well-written drama that is both entertaining and thought-provoking.”

Joe Pollack, St Louis Post-Dispatch

   “Engrossing drama … more than an investigation into a tragic explosion, SHOW AND TELL explores its effects on the investigators and survivors … the question of what caused the tragedy pales beside the finely detailed depictions of its personal impacts. “

Robert Hurwitt, San Francisco Chronicle

   “A rare bird—a new play that wraps intellectual complexity, emotional depth and theatrical derring-do into one tight and memorable package.”

F Kathleen Foley, Los Angeles Times

   “PICK OF THE WEEK. Gripping drama…particularly compelling.”

Martin Hernandez, L A Weekly

   “CRITIC’S PICK. Anthony Clarvoe’s cracklingly intelligent, cinematic play almost cuts a little too close to recent headlines for comfort… It’s unusual and eerie to see the human reaction to disaster portrayed this authentically. Clarvoe is unusually adept at portraying the psychological and sociological responses to grief and disaster. All the drama’s emotions ring piercingly true.”

Paul Birchall, BackStage West

   “Like OEDIPUS, SHOW AND TELL combines a crackerjack detective yarn with an exploration of the mystery of the meaning of the individual self…. Sex and death serve to heighten the white-hot blaze of life live at its most intense that this play shares with all good theater.”

Bob Wilcox, Riverfront Times (St Louis)