Richard Maxwell The New York City Players Drummer Wanted

"One of the most innovative and essential artists to emerge from American experimental theater in the past decade."--New York Times

From young writer-director Richard Maxwell, one of America's freshest theatrical minds, comes Drummer Wanted, a personal injury lawsuit musical punctated with power ballads. "No American theater artist working today manages to elicit such complex responses from such seemingly simple material."--New York Times


If you've enjoyed the dark humor and starkly poignant scenes of House and Boxing 2000 in past seasons, you have a fair notion of what to expect from Maxwell in Drummer Wanted, his latest Wexner Center-commissioned production. But naturally, he's got some new twists in store.

This two-actor show draws you into the claustrophobic, Freudian world of an adult metalhead drummer who still lives at home with mom. Pete Simpson of The Blue Man Group plays the role to perfection, and Ellen LeCompte brings brittle comic understatement to the long-suffering mother who counters her son's arrested adolescence with vague support for his floundering nest-leaving schemes.

Punctuated with hilarious power ballads, this is an American musical more attuned to our landscape of failing strip malls than to the romance of Broadway's bright lights. In Drummer Wanted, you'll see new dimensions in Maxwell's signature style and witness the artistic evolution of one of America's freshest theatrical minds.