"JFK"

Starring Jeremiah Collins

Written, adapted and produced by
Mark Williams and Jeremiah Collins

Directed by Mark Williams

About the Play
JFK is a dramatic stage portrait of President John F. Kennedy...uniquely produced as a one-man show with stirring audio-visual effects. The show premiered to a standing-room-only audience at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., to critical acclaim, then culminated in its momentous debut at New York's famed Circle-In-the-Square Theater in 1971. To date, JFK has played to standing ovations at colleges, universities, and theaters throughout the United States...from Spokane to Tampa, from Phoenix to Long Island, and from Nob Hill to Slippery Rock. This show has been described as "great theatrical journalism" and, in addition to its dramatic entertainment value, the production provides a vital and invaluable footnote to history.

"The Collins performance was the most well-received program the Student Government Association has attempted to ever pull off. The audience gave him a standing ovation. Collins was not only a brilliant actor, but a very personable and intelligent man."
-Becky Fenning, Northeast Louisiana University

"A stirring performance. Collins captures every aspect of the President's personality-his charisma, wit, intelligence and mannerisms. The idealism of an era was reborn. It was truly a tribute to the President's memory."
-Kathy Bodycombe, University of Missouri-Columbia

"He evoked the whole spectrum of emotions from laughter to tears and the audience was caught up in a truly moving theatrical experience."
-Leona L. Hassen, North Idaho College

"The audience and I sat spellbound. Mr. Collins displayed true theatrical ability as he shared with us an evening that will not be forgotten here for quite a long time."
-Michael G. Sardinsky, Slippery Rock State College, Pa.

"Mr. Collins presented a very accurate portrayal. We here at Central highly recommend JFK to any other schools who are interested in a fine dramatic presentation that is very well received by college audiences."
-Gerald R. Hover, Central Washington State College

"Very impressive, well done and nostalgic. It will never be too soon to stage-portray John F. Kennedy...nor will it ever be too late."
-Senator Mike Mansfield

"The overall effect is a nice blend of the things that made JFK the unique man he was - his astuteness, his charm, his humor, his humanity. Collins was brilliant and his audience gave him a standing ovation."
-J.D. Huntley, Monroe Morning World (Louisiana)

"JFK shines most brightly in the press-conferences which are effectively staged and recreated very dramatically."
-Kevin Sanders, ABC

"...the audience expressed their feelings with great warmth and sincerity by giving the show a standing ovation."
-Charles Pott, Texas Tech University

"Jeremiah Collins performs with eerie precision. Never has a theatrical audience been so hushed, so attentive."
-George McEvoy, Orlando-Florida Sentinel

"We had two perfromances of "JFK". Rarely have we seen any event here greeted so warmly or enthusiastically. The production riveled any we've ever seen."
-Anthony Lucarelli, University of California

"The Collins "JFK" is a superb and intricately woven tapestry of the times. The audience was held spellbound."
-Jack Sheridan, Lubbock Avalanche Journal (Texas)

The real beauty of JFK is that this one-man "show" shares even more than it projects the image of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Without an iota of theater razzle-dazzle, last night's opening at the Circle in the Square made its point with quiet, uncommon persuasion. Reading the predominately on-the-record utterances of President Kennedy for the 90-minute program, a young actor named Jeremiah Collins has also visually slipped into his skin.

The image most of us knew from photographs, television and radio now traverses a rectangle of gray carpet holding two lecterns, an office desk and a rocker. Occasionally he steps before a skeletal White House facade at the rear.

This is not a cozy evening of homey memories, Kennedy-style. An easy pitfall has been avoided. Rather, we are generally alone with the man and his public utterances, starting with his first Presidential press conference, as a cluster of "reporters" fires questions from the audience. This device, used frequently, works surprisingly well.

And so it should for the technical device of the evening, a background of unstereotyped pictures flashed on a rear screen, a contemporary sound-track and even a ticking clock, is tastefully effective. Here is a man to remember, whether making his inaugural address, happily reading letters from children, confidently addressing Congress and the United Nations or wryly squelching a woman reporter. Except for one casual reference to his wife, no mention is made of the President's immediate family.

The evening slips off with a pistol shot and briefly, sounds of the funeral procession. We are spared "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," mercifully and tastefully.

JFK is not drama. Nor is it a show. But to see and hear it, with tightening throat, is to face what we had, what we lost and perhaps what we were.
-The New York Times

Among many other things, John F. Kennedy was always good theater. His admirers called that "style." Kennedy's critics argued that style was all he had, that and the charm and dash of Camelot were, at best, insubstantial qualifications for the Presidency. Now, as bizarre as it sounds, JFK offers a replay of some of Kennedy's most memorable performance during his 1000 days - and it is good theater. Actor Jeremiah Collins, 31, is the one-man show in 100 minutes of chronologically-arranged readings of excerpts from J.F.K.'s speeches and press conferences and he looks sufficiently like Kennedy to play the role to the hilt - and not as caricature. His voice and accent are near perfect and his mannerisms - the hands in the pockets or jabbing at the audience, the grin when he's slipped through the arms of a tackler at a press conference - are as close to the remembered reality as a re-enactment can be. At the beginning, it's impossible to avoid the suspicion that JFK will be, must be, in bad taste. It isn't. It's neither morbid nor maudlin, and it requires an appetite for neither to find enjoyment in watching and remembering what Kennedy said and the way he said it, from his inaugural address to his last press conference, shortly before the trip to Texas. The mimicry alone, which is brilliant, wouldn't be enough to sustain or justify the resurrection but, like reading an old newspaper, JFK offers a unique glimpse of a piece of history as it appeared at the time, matched against its appearance now. The close of the show - which we will not reveal - is as abrupt as the end of John Kennedy's Presidency. Incredibly, even though the script is irrevocable as history, the end comes as a horrifying surprise. Shocking the audience with a jolt of unanticipated brutality is in questionable taste, but the producers really had no choice: Any other ending would have been an inexcusable lie. At the National Press Club in Washington, DC, on the first leg of a projected national tour.
-Playboy

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