KING is inspired by the play Ubu Roi, a pioneering work of absurdist literature.
Woody Allen’s early films and the Muppet Show have been strong influences.
TV shows like TMZ, which use celebrity as their bread and butter, as well as channels like CNN, which display breaking news as entertainment, are vital muses.
Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death is always by our side.
The first act of KING takes its structure from the wedding scene of Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather.
The seed for the piece came when Michael Jackson, the King of Pop, died. The country mourned the man who inspired what we call pop music today. That seemed absurd. Not the mourning of a man, or a man who was a great musician and entertainer, but a man who had a royal crown placed on his head by America. A man who was regalized for paving the way to the likes of Brittney Spears, Justin Bieber, Lil Wayne, The Black Eyed Peas, Limp Bizkit and countless other marketing tools of the music industry.
The heralds of “The King of Pop is dead” actually sounded good! Maybe the industry he inspired will die too!
Probably not…
So, let’s write a play in an effort expose this absurdity…
