Presented by Round The Bend Theater, with The CENTER for Performing Arts at Rhinebeck.
THE LAST SUPPER: A GRAND GUIGNOL LOVE STORY
by David Simpatico
Saturday, November 7, 2026 · 7:30 PM
$15 Fundraiser - Proceeds support efforts to mount The Last Supper as a full production in the Hudson Valley.
Join Round The Bend Theater for this second staged reading at The CENTER for Performing Arts at Rhinebeck.
As civilization collapses, seven wildly different survivors gather for one impossible dinner.
Edgar has decided to die on his own terms, and a death doula has been brought in to help him make that final passage. But the evening takes an unexpected turn when the dead begin rising outside.
Political zealots, believers, skeptics, lovers, old gods, new machines and zombies all demand a seat at the table. Some want to eat. Some want to preach. Some want to survive.
Love, democracy and zombies collide in David Simpatico’s darkly comic Grand Guignol play about individual choice, collective survival, and what we owe one another when everything falls apart.
About The Playwright
David Simpatico’s career highlights include: the book/stage adaptation of Disney’s High School Musical; The Screams of Kitty Genovese (Jonathan Larson Award; music by Will Todd); Garden of Light, libretto for choral symphony, withcomposer Aaron Jay Kernis. His musical adaptation of Twelve Angry Men, music and lyrics by Michael Holland, received its world premiere production in June, 2022 at Theater Latte Da in Minneapolis, directed by Peter Rothstein, and a subsequent production at Asolo Rep in Sarasota, Florida. His grand opera, The Life and Death(s) of Alan Turing, with music by Justine F. Chen, received its world premiere at Chicago Opera Theater in March, 2023, also directed by Peter Rothstein. He is currently adapting Wally Lamb’s She’s Come Undone, with co-bookwriter Darrah Cloud, and composer/lyricist, Michael Holland. He is also working on That Hellbound Train, a new jazz opera with composer Lisa DeSpain, based on the short story by Robert Bloch. His play, Ex-Gay Bar, was named Honorable Mention in the Carlo Annoni International Playwriting Award, as well as receiving the inaugural Voices For Change Action Grant by ArtsWestchester. Most recently, his oratorio adaptation of Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, with score by Will Todd, received its first production with Opera Holland Park at Sinfonia Smith Square in London, Dec, 2024, 2025 and 2026.
David is an alumnus of the Composer Librettist Development Program at American Lyric Theater. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Southern New Hampshire University, and an undergraduate from Northwestern University, where he studied playwriting under Linda Jenkins. He has received support from Edward Albee Foundation, Millay Colony, NY Theatre Workshop, Eugene O’Neill Foundation and Rhinebeck Writer’s Retreat. David is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild, and with playwright Darrah Cloud, is co-founder of Howl Playwrights in Rhinebeck, NY, where he lives with his husband and muse, Robert C. Strickstein.
About Round The Bend Theatre
Since 2021 Round the Bend Theatre has been presenting the new work of Hudson Valley Playwrights. Now in their 6th season they have presenting over 100 plays in many venues and are looking forward to moving into full productions of plays they have presented in the their 2027 season. https://www.roundthebendtheatre.org/
Howl Playwrights is a Hudson Valley community of playwrights dedicated to developing new work through readings, workshops and regular meetings. Founded and co-curated by playwrights David Simpatico and Darrah Cloud, Howl has presented the work of local writers for more than a decade.
In 2020, Dramatist magazine described Howl as “a bright spot in the Hudson Valley Region” and noted its “robust and active” community of playwrights.
Simpatico’s The Last Supper grows out of that larger Hudson Valley theater community and is now being developed toward a full production with Round The Bend Theater.