N.B. I am posting this message on behalf of R. Kent Rasmussen. --Kevin B.
~~~

A quick note to report that Thursday night I attended IS HE DEAD? at New
York's Lyceum Theatre with my son and stepdaughter. We all enjoyed the play
immensely. As one who had read Mark Twain's original script with some care,
I was skeptical that the play could be as good as many reviews claimed it
was. Well, the reviews are right--the play is very entertaining and often
hysterically funny. Credit goes to David Ives's brilliant adaptation of Mark
Twain's script (which leaves much more of Mark Twain's original structure
and scenes intact than I had expected) and to the uniformly superb cast,
especially Norbert Leo Butz in the lead role. If you can enjoy melodramatic
farce, I'm confident you would find it worth going out of your way to see to
play while its original cast is in place.

Special thanks must also go to Shelley Fisher Fishkin for saving this play
from oblivion, for taking the initiative to get it produced on Broadway (who
would have thought that possible?), and for helping to bring to the
attention of the world another dimension of Mark Twain.

Kent Rasmussen