Vandergrift! published in Great Britain

New Theatre Publications is proud to announce the release of an exciting new play, Vandergrift!, a two-act historically based dramedy by American playwright, Anthony E. Gallo.

The play is about the actual town the playwright grew up in, but is the story of any town that sees the rise and fall of the industrial revolution. The play about an especially created workers paradise has been staged at twelve distinguished venues in the United States including the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, The National Press Club, the Cosmos Theatre, the New Kensington Civic Theatre, the Seventh Street Playhouse, the St. John’s Stage, and the Playwrights Forum.In the early 1890’s, steel tycoon George McMurtry, tries to produce a unique marriage between architecture and industrialism to build a workingman's paradise in southwestern Pennsylvania. But his goal is also to destroy strikers and keep compliant workers happy. He hires Frederick Law Olmsted, the Nation's preeminent architect, to design the town of Vandergrift, named after his partner, Captain Jacob J. Vandergrift. The Vandergrift plant becomes the largest steel mill in the world Ida Tarbell, who will someday expose J. D. Rockefeller, is intrigued by the idea and visits the town. She and McMurtry clash over his flawed idealism and her subconscious biases. She revisits the town four times over the next half a century, each time reexamining her own and McMurtry’s ideals as the Nation goes through wars, depressions, the New Deal, the Union movement, and the final collapse of the steel industry. McMurtry’s dream and Olmsted’s design live on despite the collapse of both the steel industry and almost all large American corporations existing at the time of Vandergrift’s inception.

Washington theatre critic Rosalind Lacey praised the play as “the passionate writing in Anthony E. Gallo’s Vandergrift” and “ this balanced slice of overlooked American history .” She continues “ Perhaps the most riveting scenes occur in the dialectic duels which show the mutual respect between Tarbell and McMurtry. As decades pass and Tarbell continues her crusades, McMurtry dies but his ghost whispers in her ear. Peaceful assembly for labor protest and profit making for incentive are American ideals, both argue. Once powerful mills decline and close, Vandergrift changes and exemplifies how America adapts.” Virginia critic, Carolyn Wells, says “If you’re not given to traveling to U. S. cities to check out their history, offerings and atmosphere, one that might attract you is Vandergrift in southwestern Pennsylvania if you had the good fortune to see Vandergrift, a play written by Anthony E. Gallo…. Vandergrift is a lively, fast-moving account of the origin of the city as complement to a profitable steel mill operation. …. Of especial interest is the way, without benefit of seeing any representation of the city beginning with its concept, construction and development over a 50-year period, the audience has a sense of even the intangibles of Vandergrift. … The playwright has a talent for finding the frequently subtly amusing notes in works of historical significance. One leaves the theatre—in the case of this performance