Mass Appeal has been performed by: Milo O'Shea Brian Keith Eric Roberts Michael O'Keefe Tim Daly Charles Durning Jean Piat (France) Rupert Everett (England) Joachim Fuchsberger (Germany) Ralf Bauer - Pascal Breuer (Germany) John Travolta Bill C. Davis Published by: Dramatists Play Service Agent: Buddy Thomas

I wrote Mass Appeal two years after I graduated from college. The first night the play was performed was in Poughkeepsie New York at a wine and cheese restaurant called The Old Coat on a postage stamp of a stage in front of an audience of 75 people.

From that encouraging and inauspicious beginning the journey to New York began. I learned a great deal about playwriting and people during the four years separating The Old Coat and Broadway.

It took awhile for me to believe that the play is the thing. The play is the mother lode and the target. The playwright is the father figure. I was never comfortable with the position of authority. Mass Appeal itself dramatizes the polarity of rebelliousness born of natural authority and the urge to accommodate born out of the need to be loved and liked. These simultaneous and conflicting impulses exist in me as a writer.

In Mass Appeal these forces are personified and dramatized in separate human beings. Geraldine Fitzgerald understood this dichotomy and knew how to forge and encourage mythic and specific interpretations of the characters I created. When she directed me she told me that in the first scene when I raise my hand to challenge Fr. Farley, what I was really doing was letting him know that I was here. I was letting him know that I had found my father.

This direction seemed at the same time mad and inspired but it took the edge off of the angry-young-man trap that many actors could fall into. Lynne Meadow of Manhattan Theatre Club, as producer and artistic director also gave the brilliant direction for Mark which was - he wants to know. He doesn�t ask a question to be rude or mean � he wants to know � like a scientist. I was extremely fortunate to have these two different but equally brilliant women launch this play and ultimately be in my life.

I performed the play with Charles Durning, Brian Keith and Milo O�Shea. I played opposite Milo at Manhattan Theatre Club and in Boston after Eric Roberts quit and the understudy, Charly Lang, got sick. The producers called me at 10:00 in the morning and I was on stage that night. Unlike the very first night I did the play in Poughkeepsie, the actor playing Fr. Farley knew his lines and I was free to do the play. It was great to reclaim it for a brief period of four performances.

I also directed the play at the Irish Arts Center under the auspices of Jim Sheridan with Malachy McCourt playing Fr. Farley and Tony Carlin playing Mark Dolson.

Mass Appeal has been done throughout America and in many other countries and it was produced in Rome, Italy in the 2004-2005 season at Teatro della Cometa, and just completed a run in Munich - (November - 2006)

It was also made into a movie for which I wrote the screenplay.

I recently (2000) revised the play, deleting many stage directions and updating certain references which contribute to the story's present day relevance.

(Note to theatres: Once you've made arrangements with Dramatist Play Service contact this web site and a slightly revised edition of the play will be sent to you in a pdf file.)

New York Times - Frank Rich: "There are few more invigorating theatrical experiences than hearing the voice of a gifted writer for the first time...(Bill C.) Davis is a natural: He writes with wit, passion and a sure sense of stagecraft."