Jason Hall Writes

It's spring quarter of graduate school, a season of academic and creative busyness that rivals the tasks of any bird or bee in nature. I will be continuing to work this month on rewriting a draft of my current full-length play, The Tulip Brothers. Set in 17th century Holland and using the events of the Dutch tulipomania as inspiration, the story of three brothers ultimately tests the theory that you don't need love to get by in this world. Middle son Pieter crafts a shell of emotional armor, refusing to be vulnerable to or reliant on others for his happiness or success. Pieter watches his older brother Nils try repeatedly to win their mother's approval, and makes a dangerous final bid to buy her love. Meanwhile Caspar the dreamer has married his childhood girlfriend, but contentment proves elusive for this pair too, despite a seemingly perfect match.

The Tulip Brothers is a meditation on the value of family and the price of happiness, with love denied at a cost. The play will have a reading at Ohio University's Seabury Quinn, Jr., Playwrights' Festival on Saturday, June 29. Admission is two tulip bulbs or three stuiver.