Emily Mann is a director and playwright whose work, Execution of Justice, was produced in the 1984 Humana Festival. She wrote the follow to commemorate the festival’s 10th anniversary.

Short Order

I was in the Theatre Communications Group offices in New York to show Jim Leverett the first draft of Execution of Justice. Jon Jory was there; I think he was casting Shorts.

He asked how I was doing and I said that I was doing very well. I had four fresh copies of my new play in my arms, the one he had seen me working on in between directing jobs at Actors Theatre over the past year.

"Give it to me," Jon ordered. I told him that he could see it as a friend but that it was a commission, as he knew, from the Eureka Theatre in San Francisco and they were planning the premiere in their new space. Jon assured me he just wanted to read it.

The next morning he called and said, "I love it, I want it, I have to do it." It turned out that the Eureka was not able to open their theatre in time, so Jon invited Tony Taccone and Oskar Eustis, who were going to do it there, to do it in Louisville. Nothing could have been better for Execution of Justice than to premiere in Louisville.

That is why Jon has built such a great theatre. When he asks a writer whom he respects to give him a new play, he reads it immediately, he knows what he thinks and what he wants to do with it. And he does it.