THE GIN GAME by D.L. Coburn
Schedule
Sat Jan 31 2026 at 02:00 pm to 05:00 pm
UTC-05:00Location
817 E Strawbridge Ave, Melbourne, FL, United States, Florida 32901 | Melbourne, FL
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With the passing of playwright D.L. Coburn in December, Melbourne Civic Theatre will present his Pulitzer Prize winning play THE GIN GAME as the first in our series of readings for 2026.The reading will be on Saturday, January 31 at 2 p.m. at the Melbourne Civic Theatre in downtown Melbourne.
Bringing to life this two-character play (or two-hander, in theater parlance) will be Jack Maloney and Pam Mankowski, veteran performers with a vast wealth of stage experience between them.
They follow the footsteps of such notable theatrical couples as Jessica Tandy and Hugh Cronyn, who headlined the original Broadway production directed by Mike Nichols in 1978; they were succeeded by Maureen Stapleton and E.G. Marshall. A first Broadway revival occurred in 1997 with stars Julie Harris and Charles Durning, and the most recent revival on the Great White Way, in 2015, starred James Earl Jones and Cicely Tyson. Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore starred in a 2003 PBS television adaptation
THE GIN GAME, Donald L. Coburn's first play, uses a card game as a metaphor for life. In it, Weller Martin and Fonsia Dorsey, two residents at a nursing home for senior citizens, strike up an acquaintance. Neither seems to have any other friends, and they start to enjoy each other's company. Weller offers to teach Fonsia how to play gin rummy, and they begin playing a series of games that Fonsia always wins. Weller's inability to win a single hand becomes increasingly frustrating to him, while Fonsia becomes increasingly confident. While playing their games of gin, they engage in conversations about their families and their lives in the outside world. Gradually, each conversation becomes a battle, much like the ongoing gin games, as each player tries to expose the other's weaknesses, to belittle the other's life, and to humiliate the other thoroughly. Weller longs for a victory to counter a lifetime of defeats, but it doesn’t happen.
The Gin Game won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for 1978. Coburn would go on to write several other plays, but none achieved the wide success of this, his first.
Tickets for the play reading are $15, and will go on sale Tuesday, January 20, on the MCT website: mymct.org. We’ll update this event with a direct link to tickets at that time.
“Perfect... A vibrant study on loneliness, disillusion, old age and death – yet fiercely funny.” – The Boston Globe
“A thoroughly entertaining lesson in the fine art of theatrical finesse. The closest thing the theatre offers to a duel at 10 paces.” – The New York Times
”Extremely intelligent... fine bittersweet comedy... Funny, sad, profane, eloquent, touching, beautiful.” – WABC-TV
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Where is it happening?
817 E Strawbridge Ave, Melbourne, FL, United States, Florida 32901Event Location & Nearby Stays:
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