Ivey stars as "Clarence Darrow," Loughlin directs

James Ivey as Clarence Darrow. "Clarence Darrow was performed for the first time by Ivey at the 1891 Fredonia Opera House and at the Robert Jackson Justice Center in October of 2011.

Tom Loughlin, director

For the fifth show in its ten-year-anniversary season, Subversive Theatre of Buffalo, N.Y., is presenting David W. Rintels’ passionate one-man docudrama, "Clarence Darrow," directed by Tom Loughlin (chair of Theatre and Dance) and starring Theatre Professor James Ivey as America’s first and greatest civil rights attorney.

The production plays March 8 through 30 on Fridays at 8 p.m. and Saturdays at 3 and 8 p.m. All performances are at The Manny Fried Playhouse at 255 Great Arrow Avenue on the third floor of North Buffalo’s historic Great Arrow Building.

Tickets are $20 general admission or $15 for students, seniors, and Subversive Theatre members. Admission for all Saturday matinee performances is pay-what-you-can. For more information, visit the website at www.subversivetheatre.org or call 716-408-0499.

Rintels’ extremely historically accurate play show us the incredible life of Clarence Darrow with a first-hand account of many of the most significant trials in U.S. history as the wily attorney defends controversial figures from radicals like Eugene V. Debs and “Big” Bill Haywood to savage killers Leopold and Loeb, and even mild-mannered high school science teacher John Scopes in the infamous “Monkey Trial.” Rintels utilizes Irving Stone’s biography “Clarence Darrow for the Defense” and actual court transcripts to develop the play.

The production stars James Ivey in the title role. Ivey is a talented actor, director, and theatre professor whose theatre career spans over four decades with an endless list of stage credits that include the Goodman Theatre, the Kennedy Center, and the Dallas Reparatory Theatre to name only a few. A full professor at SUNY Fredonia, he is happy to appear under the direction of Fredonia faculty colleague Tom Loughlin.

An awe-inspiring orator, a founding member of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a tireless critic of power and privilege, an outspoken agnostic, an irrepressible gadfly, and – above all – an unsurpassable defender of the underdog, Clarence Darrow defiantly earned his reputation as “The Attorney for the Damned.”