Joe Doran

Lying Fallow and Permanent Things Joe Doran

These two 1990's plays by Joe Doran offer intense dramatic entertainment.

Lying Fallow tells the tale of Jack Willow, an ex-convict whose plans to work a old family farm get upended when his deranged cousin Stu shows up. Out to settle old scores, Stu sets his sights not just on the family inheritance, but Jack's pregnant wife Lainey.

Doran sends eerily familiar characters careening along melodramatic twists to an almost inexplicable climax--at which point, the audience is left wondering whether it was all a perverse joyride, an unsettling fable, or just maybe, a sobering meditation on an entire theatrical form.

In Permanent Things, the long estranged daughter of a movie icon convinces him to take on a project with a promising but unambitious young stage actor. A promising script by a blackballed playwright acts as the catalyst in an ensuing test of wills, artistic pretensions, and moral conscience.

Via an escalating struggle, Doran poses a series of questions about the motivations of artists and the limits of their creations.

Joe Doran's plays have been performed by theatre groups around the world. As an actor, director and producer, Joe worked with many regional theatre companies, and founded two of his own.