Tesla’s Letters Now on Kindle

The cool kids in the programming department at amazon.com have come up with a unique way for authors whose works are available on the Kindle to share their opening pages, so here’s an excerpt from Tesla’s Letters.  You don’t need to own a Kindle to view it.  This new app for reading Kindle-formatted books right in your browser without owning a Kindle is, understandably, a marketing

The cool kids in the programming department at amazon.com have come up with a unique way for authors whose works are available on the Kindle to share their opening pages, so here’s an excerpt from Tesla’s Letters.  You don’t need to own a Kindle to view it.  This new app for reading Kindle-formatted books right in your browser without owning a Kindle is, understandably, a marketing tool to get you to want to buy a real Kindle and download the whole book. And that’s okay.  It’s only a Kindle, and they’re cool.

A word to the wise — *do not* buy a hard copy of Tesla’s Letters from one of the resellers on amazon.com or barnesandnoble.com listing it for exhorbitant amounts like $43.00, $100, etc.  There are some unscrupulous jackasses operating through those websites trying to rip you off.  You can buy this script directly from Samuel French or download the Kindle version from amazon.com for just $7.50, and at a similar price in Euros from amazon.co.uk.  Enjoy.

If you’re not familiar with the play, it’s a semiautobiographical wartime drama set in the late 1990s Balkans with unfortunately timeless themes. Here is all I have to say on that subject.  It world premiered Off Broadway at the Ensemble Studio Theatre in 1999 and was the first First Light play, a now-annual festival sponsored by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.  The production got what were, I daresay, rave reviews in the New York Times, Time Out New York, the Village Voice, Backstage, et al, thanks to director Curt Dempster and the magnificent cast including Judith Roberts, Grant James Varjas, Keira Naughton and Victor Slezak. Samuel French published the play in 2000, naming it one of the best new dramas of the new millennium.  The play went on to a UK premiere at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival produced by the University of Southern California’s theatre at Edinburgh called USC-USA, followed by the US regional premiere in my hometown of Roanoke, Virginia at the venerable Mill Mountain Theatre.  This was followed by numerous readings and productions around the US.  To my knowledge the most recent production was the Chicago premiere in 2007 by the Timeline Theatre Company. Their production was nominated for 3 Joseph Jefferson Awards.

Thank you.