Dallas producer finds parallels to today in the words of Edward Murrow

Bren Rapp decided to produce a one-man show about legendary news broadcaster Edward R. Murrow because she thought his words of warning about politics and the media were so prescient.

“If I were to hand you the script with the names and dates redacted, you would think I was talking about now, which is kind of shocking and terrifying,” says Rapp, a Southern Methodist University theater graduate who co-founded the now-defunct children’s company Fun House Theatre and Film in Dallas and has produced plays in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.

Written by Joseph Vitale about a decade ago, Murrow is receiving its second professional production as part of the AT&T Performing Arts Center’s Elevator Project series of locally made work.

It stars Nicolas Greco and is being directed by Montgomery Sutton, a Dallas native who has performed and directed extensively around here. In two acts, Greco directly addresses the audience, mainly using Murrow’s own words.

The first act deals with his radio career, when he famously broadcast from London rooftops during the German blitz and from the Buchenwald concentration camp during its liberation.

The second act focuses on his confrontation with Sen. Joseph S. McCarthy, who was leading Congress’ hunt for American Communists. George Clooney covered the same period in the 2005 film Good Night, and Good Luck.

Beyond what’s in the public record, Vitale gained access to other material, including love letters Murrow wrote to his wife.

“The reason why Murrow ended up being Murrow is because of what he witnessed during World War II, what happens when you take away that free flow of information and it gets replaced with propaganda,” Rapp says. “He was beholden only to fact. Ten years ago, I would’ve thought, ‘That goes without saying. We should have factual journalism. It’s part of democracy.’ But now, well, maybe it’s gone without saying for too long.”

She thought of Murrow on June 1, 2020, when President Donald Trump walked across the street from the White House and held up a Bible in front of a church for a photo op after police had used riot tactics to clear out racial justice protesters from the area.

“I remember going through all the channels, watching the coverage,” Rapp recalls. “What I saw was a politician completely manipulate the media, and the media completely manipulate us. This was right in the middle of lockdown, and I remember feeling very defeated. I was like, ‘If I ever started producing theater again in front of a live audience, what would I even want to say?’ And it was Murrow’s voice that came to mind. … He clearly saw where it was all headed.”

Where it was all headed was a divided country in which many people only seek information that supports what they already believe, Rapp says. To eliminate any perception of bias, she has not taken on any sponsors for the show.

“People ask, ‘What side is it for?’ The low-hanging fruit of filling seats would be to speak out against one side or the other,” she says. “That’s where people’s mentality is. I didn’t want to do that. But can you even sell unbiased fact to people nowadays? I’ve been very careful in my marketing not to invoke any type of us versus them, left versus right, because this message is for everyone. We’re all media consumers. We’re all a part of this.”

She thinks the one-man format has a chance of breaking through. To provide context, Murrow includes historical projections on a screen behind Greco.

“There’s something very personal about it,” Rapp says. “If done correctly, it’s a guy having a conversation with a roomful of people, somebody who’s commanding your attention for 80 minutes, talking with you, not at you.”

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Details

April 11-21 in Hamon Hall at Winspear Opera House, 2403 Flora St. $29.50. attpac.org. murrowtheplay.com.

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