Directing Sam Shepard at Ohio Northern University

Diego Sandino and Derek Brookens in SUICIDE IN B FLAT

Geoffrey Nelson is currently the guest director for Sam Shepard’s Suicide in B Flat at Ohio Northern University in Ada, Ohio.

The play, written and first produced in the 1970’s, is a decidedly non-realistic look at the dangerous combination of creativity and celebrity. “It’s written in a sort of surrealistic film-noir style,” says Nelson, “and interweaves the story of two detectives investigating the murder or suicide of a famous jazz pianist with the story of the pianist himself.” Suicide is accompanied by a live jazz piano that underscores and counter-points the action throughout the play.

The cast is comprised of majors from ONU’s Department of Theatre as well as the accomplished student pianist James Park, a music major.

In addition to directing two of Shepard’s plays, True West and Fool for Love, Nelson has also produced his A Lie of the Mind.  While in the doctoral program at OSU, he researched the acting and directing theories that lay behind much of Shepard’s work for a possible dissertation.