I decided to publish LAST RITES after meeting Joe Paprzycki at the 2009 Provincetown Tennessee Williams Festival. The story about his grandparent’s bar, and its resurrection as a theatre struck a chord with me. We were a perfect match: Joe’s was a Jersey playwright; I was a Jersey publisher. Plus LAST RITES takes place in Camden, New Jersey. This was meant to be!
LAST RITES takes place in Camden, New Jersey in 1967. It is a time of dramatic change for a city whose prosperity relied on its industry. LAST RITES begins with rumors that its shipyard is about to close. This shipyard during the World War II years employed thousands of workers, many of them raised their families within earshot of the shipyard’s whistle.
LAST RITES is a play about misplaced faith. It’s about the shipyard workers, their wives and their parish priests as they struggle with their faith in the American economic system, in their city and in themselves. The uncertainties that the characters in LAST RITES face remind me of the same uncertainties that Americans face today, and this makes the play even more poignant to me.
