The first production of our first full season was nothing if not ambitious. The Living had been premiered by the Denver Center Theatre Company a few years earlier. It was an AIDS allegory set at the time of the great plague in London in the 1680s. The allusions were obvious - a population hit by a disease for which there was no apparent cure and no explanation. The result, then as now, was the attribution of the cause to anything and everything up to and including an Act of God.

The story is told by John Graunt, a mathematician, who worked out the epidemiology of the plague. In fact, his work on plotting and predicting the course of the plague is recogniped as the first application of statistics to the study of disease. It is a powerful play chronicling the fears and hopes of a cross-section of the population from the Mayor to the Church leaders to the common poor. And it showed people at their best and their worst.

The set was massive (and expensive) - a construction of levels and steps that took weeks to build. It had a wonderful rough-hewn look with interesting angles and was backed with hessian drapes.

The show was a co-production with Logodaedaly, Albi Gorns own company and after we finished the first run at Paramount East, we took the show to the Schoolhouse Theater at Croton Falls. The show was a great success with the audiences and was a stiking opening to our first season.