Mineola Residents Debut Play at SUNY New Paltz

Mineola can now lay claim to a new stage production duo in playwright Alex Eisen and composer John Watts, two longtime friends who collaborated on “The Dark I Know,” which debuted in October at SUNY New Paltz.

Eisen and Watts, lifelong Mineola residents began work on the play as a short story when they were students at Mineola High School and took 5 years in all to complete. Writer-director Eisen talks about the start of his work, with a sense of nostalgia and the completion, 5 years later, with both pride and joy.

The play was shown at the Parker Theatre at SUNY New Paltz in October in conjunction with the New Paltz Players and the SUNY New Paltz Department of Theatre. Eisen is currently a senior at New Paltz and Watts is studying composing at NYU.

The play “centers around a journalist and her son during the rise of socialism in Germany in the early 1930’s,” Eisen, a self-proclaimed history buff, says. The journalist Hannah’s husband, Max, is a pro-Nazi military officer. Hannah has already lost her first son and is now moving from Berlin to Frankfurt with Lukas, her adopted son. Things get interesting in Frankfurt though as she befriends the Freeman family and discovers they have an intertwined past with.

Eisen gives much of the credit to Watts, who is a friend as much as a colleague. The two have a long history together and met as performers at Mineola High School.

“My senior year we did a production of [Les Miserables],” Eisen said of Watts. “He played Valjean and I played Marius. Having those two roles we spent a lot of time together and really got to know each other.”

The two also played tennis and one day Eisen proposed the idea of the show to Watts who was immediately on board.

“The rest was history,” Eisen said.

Eisen overcame many challenges to put the show together besides it being his first time directing anything on such a large scale.

“It’s one thing to write it, it’s a whole other challenge to direct it,” he said. “It had its difficulties, I had never directed anything as big as the show…as far as the show goes, I had directed workshops and readings but nothing compared to the fully staged production of it. It had its challenges of course. The biggest challenge was trying not to be a playwright while directing it.”

Eisen gives most of the credit to the actors who both received a standing ovation on opening night and who helped him overcome his nerves.

“I’ll admit I was more excited than nervous,” Eisen said. “I felt very confident in the cast and the creative team.”

Though a small production, Eisen doesn’t shy away from the heavier topics of pre-Nazi-Germany.

“It’s a very character driven play and I like to call it a very micro play,” Eisen explained. “A lot of musicals are very big and you could use the word spectacle because everything is very big and animated and huge…this show is a lot more intimate, a lot more micro. Everything is small, small in terms of staging but still the messages it delivers are as big as the musicals you would still call a spectacle.”

Though the show ended its run in October, the Midtown International Theatre Festival selected it to be a part of their festival in Manhattan this summer.

“It’s a place I’ve grown up my whole life, to get a chance to present he show in Manhattan is cool,” Eisen said, though is unsure who they will select to direct it for that production, happy however that his show will continue on.

“Maybe it’s time to let someone else takes the reins,” he said.

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