It’s official: Sutton now a published playwright


Congratulations to Associate Prof. of Humanistic Studies Brian Sutton, whose original musical comedy Searching for Romeo is now officially published by Stage Rights Press and available at the Createspace Store and other online portals including Amazon. Sutton received a contract for his play after its five-show run at the New York Musical Theatre Festival in 2014. He has continued to tinker with the material since he premiered the piece in July 2012 at the Jean Weidner Theatre at the Weidner Center on campus. The comedy re-imagines Shakespeare’s story of Romeo and Juliet from the perspective of the “losers,” Paris and Rosaline, who achieve what eternally eludes the more famous couple: a happy ending. Although Sutton’s academic specialty is neither creative writing, theatre nor music, colleagues praised his early drafts of both script and music, and encouraged him to produce the show. New York City critics who saw Romeo at the festival predicted it could do well as a high school, college or community theatre production. (Sutton notes that the script offered for purchase does not include audio of the show’s music; if potential buyers at UWGB or elsewhere want to hear the songs as performed, he’ll email mp3 recordings as attachments.)