Why Include The Play Everyman?
Toy theaters always came with at least one play and I’d hate The American Miniature Theater to break with that tradition. Plus, Everyman has an adaptability most other works do not possess: • No one is going to scream bloody murder because I abridged Everyman. It predates copyright laws. No one has rights to it… which means everyone is free to use it. It is in the public domain. Since there are hundreds of translations of Everyman already in existence, no purists are to get upset at my little version. If I had tried to condense a work of William Shakespeare, however, I would have received hate mail from high school drama teachers to British royalty. • The characters lack subtlety. God, Death, Good Deeds and the rest are highly identifiable personas. This goes back to old toy theater traditions where knights in shining armor were always good and pirates were always bad. Plus, Everyman has a host of allegorical characters to play with, not just one or two like some plays. • Everyman is
