A Web of Secrets Unfold at 'Vineland Place'

Anne-Marie Cusson and Ross Cowan in "Vineland Place"
(Jason Nuttle Photography)

By GERRY BARKER
North Palm Beach Life

Who doesn't love a live-on-stage whodunit?

In the rich tradition of Agatha Christie's "The Mousetrap" and Ira Levin's "Deathtrap," prolific playwright Steven Dietz offers up "Vineland Place," which had its world premiere May 15 at Palm Beach Dramaworks. It had its first reading as one of five plays selected for PBD's "Perlberg Festival of New Plays" in 2025.

In this two-person play, set on the ninth floor of an urban high-rise apartment, we meet Victoria Brody (played by Anne-Marie Cusson), the widow of a late novelist, who hires Henry Sanders (played by Ross Cowan), to finish her husband's -- a hero to Sanders -- final book. Like all good mystery thrillers, we soon learn all is not as it seems, and like peeling back the layers of an onion, secrets are revealed that raise the danger level for both of them.

Under the direction of J. Barry Lewis, Cowan and Cusson are outstanding navigating the complex plotline filled with twists and turns that demand the audience's full attention. In a video interview posted by PBD, Dietz, who has 40-plus plays and adaptations to his credit, talked about the thriller genre.

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Steven Dietz
(Palm Beach Dramaworks)

"There's a resurgence of thrillers in the American theater now," said Dietz, "and I think Palm Beach Dramaworks is at the forefront of that by doing this play. Why is there a resurgence of thrillers? I think audiences love to solve things in a time when a lot of the world seems unsolvable. Thriller puts you in a confined space with some confined characters and you get to figure it out and things will be different 80 minutes later than they were when you started the play."

Dietz also noted he pays close attention to how audiences react to his work. "I will listen," he said. "I will see when the audience moves in their seat. I'll see what they respond to. I will also try to write for myself what I think the audience thinks at the top of every page in my script. What are they thinking right now? I'm guessing. But what have I told them and what have I not told them? And over time, try to use that as a guide."

His initial inspiration for writing "Vineland Place" was from taking a walk in New York City. "I was looking up at these tall windows in these brownstones," he said. "And you know, I don't think writers are alone in this, is that you look into people's windows and you imagine what are the lives? What are the lives in those rooms? The gift of being a writer is your job is imagining the lives in those rooms. And I imagined I saw a man standing on a ledge at the top of one of those windows."

Even though he didn't actually see that, he imagined that man's story and the events that followed, which eventually became "Vineland Place."

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Scene from "Vineland Place" (Jason Nuttle Photography)

​What else could happen on that ledge? To find out, you'll have to see the play for yourself. It's playing at Palm Beach Dramaworks in West Palm Beach through May 31. More information is available at their website, palmbeachdramaworks.org.