Cold War Drama By Denville Playwright To Open This April

It was the darkest hour of the Cold War. The U.S. and Soviet Union were eyeball to eyeball over the Cuban Missile Crisis, and with the two sides refusing to budge, the world faced Armageddon. Churches were filled, supermarket shelves picked clean, fallout shelters were prepared and school children taught to “duck and cover.”

“I was 10 years old and convinced I was going to die,” said playwright Joseph Vitale of Denville, author of Murrow, which ran Off-Off Broadway in 2016. “This play focuses not on the names we know – Kennedy, Khrushchev, Castro – but on two obscure men who history may have forgotten, but who may have had more to do with saving the world than anyone knows. With today’s fears of a nuclear war between the U.S. and North Korea and alleged secret dealings of the Russians during the presidential campaign, the play seems eerily timely.”

Back Channel, which will open April 13 at Maplewood’s Burgdorff Center for the Performing Arts, recounts the meetings between ABC-TV newsman John Scali and KGB spy Alexander Feklisov in the old Occidental Grill on Pennsylvania Avenue during that fateful week in October 1962 when Kennedy announced he was blockading Cuba. The two men had known each other for a few months, but now their governments had sent them on a clandestine mission. Out of the glare of the media, Scali and Feklisov tried to work out a deal. But was each man who he said he was? With the fate of the world at stake and the clock ticking, could they learn to trust one another? And, most importantly, would they have enough time?

The play is a production of the Union-based Theater Project, and will run Friday, April 13 at 8 p.m.; Saturday, April 14 at 8 p.m. and Sunday, April 15 at 2 p.m. at the Burgdorff Center, 10 Durand Road, Maplewood.

“It’s easy to forget that, with so many nations still possessing nuclear weapons, we’re still just one crisis or miscalculation away from catastrophe,” said Vitale, who retired last year as president of the foundation at County College of Morris. “Back Channel reminds us of that, but also shows us, through the characters of Scali and Feklisov, that human beings still have the power to determine their destiny.”

The 90-minute play features Jack Coggins as Scali; Alexander Carney as Feklisov and Eli Ganias as George, the Occidental Grill waiter who serves the American and the Russian during their lunches and provides running commentary on what is happening in the news.

In addition to Back Channel and Murrow, Vitale has written a number of full-length and one-act plays that have been performed at The Theater Project and at theaters in New York, California, and Indiana. In 2012, he was a semi-finalist for the Eugene O’Neill Theater/National Playwrights Conference. He is a member of The Theater Project’s playwrights workshop and the Dramatists Guild of America.

Each performance of Back Channel will be followed by an audience discussion featuring the playwright, director, cast and a scholar or writer who will speak about U.S.-Soviet relations, the Cold War, nuclear policy, and how today’s geopolitical situation compares with the period of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Dr. David Foglesong of Rutgers University will be the guest panelist after the April 14 performance. Madelyn Hoffman executive director of NJ Peace Action, will be the facilitator for the discussions.

Tickets are available at the box office, by calling (908) 809-8865, or by visiting www.thetheaterproject.org.