Play Adaptation
The play adaptation of Third and Indiana was produced by the Arden Theatre Company in Philadelphia. The play ran from March 20 to May 4, 1997, at the Arcadia Stage, an Arden-operated theater in Old City, Philadelphia. The writer of the play, Aaron Posner, was the artistic director of the company. A teenager, Bernard Gray, assisted Posner with the street slang.
The play had 12 actors, original music, panel discussions of the issues discussed by the play and original novel, and video footage. Posner characterized the production as expensive and large. Posner said "It's been a huge project that's really consumed me. While it's Steve's situations, Steve's characters, and it's wholly recognizable as Third and Indiana, the writing in the play is very much more original and different from the novel. It's much more like writing a new play than an adaptation." Steve Lopez said "I think something the play does that the book didn't do was to focus on kids" and that "Aaron has taken it down to a kid's perspective. As a result, there is more street language and street action, and I think that's probably a good thing."
Posner said that he decided to write the play after he heard a radio interview with Lopez and the responses; Posner recalled that "ne caller would say it was brilliant, and another would say he didn't understand anything at all." After having read the novel, he decided that it would become his next project. Posner traveled to North Philadelphia to to talk to community leaders and residents on several occasions while he was writing the play. In 1997 he said "I don't pretend to be anything but a total outsider in that neighborhood. I'm a somewhat more comfortable and somewhat more informed outsider now." Steve Lopez had no part in the play's production. According to Posner, he and Lopez met on several occasions while Posner was adapting the play. Posner offered for Lopez to be a consultant, but Lopez said that he had too many commitments at the time. Posner said that Lopez had a "supportive attitude" and told him "I wrote the novel; you write the play." Lopez said that Posner told him that the play would probably have a different focus on the novel. Posner did not restrict casting of Gabriel and Ofelia Santoro according to their races in the novel. He said "I concluded the story was universal enough that it wasn't hooked into the Latino experience. I looked for the best combination of actors I could find to play the kid and the mother." Ultimately two African-Americans were cast as those two characters.
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