Director Discusses Staging Show in Balkans

John Blondell, Westmont theater arts professor, reveals how he developed and directed a world premiere play last summer in Macedonia at a free lecture, “Another Fool in the Balkans,” Friday, Sept. 18, in Westmont’s Porter Theatre at 3:30 p.m.

Blondell will discuss how he co-wrote “An American Tune” with Jeton Neziraj, artistic director of the National Theatre of Kosovo in Prishtina, and staged at the Bitola National Theatre in August. The play is based on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s famous novel, “The Great Gatsby.”

“When the rights to the novel proved too difficult to obtain,” Blondell says, “Jeton and I wrote a show inspired by the novel. The talk will discuss this labyrinthine past, how I came to write most of the show, and some of the cross-cultural and aesthetic challenges of its staging in Macedonia this past summer.”