American Theater | The Velocity of Eric Coble

The prolific Cleveland-based writer’s career is packed with impulsive twists and crises averted.

YOU’RE PLAYWRIGHT ERIC COBLE. YOU’VE SPENT two decades getting more than 40 original plays and adaptations produced on six out of seven continents and racking up numerous awards. Now, it’s April 2012, and Estelle Parsons is lined up to perform the lead role in a reading of your first Broadway-bound play. No worries, right?

Coble still shudders at the memory of the looming catastrophe. Larry Kaye, Broadway producer, had enlisted Molly Smith, artistic director of Washington, D.C.’s Arena Stage, to direct Academy Award winner Parsons and Tony Award winner Stephen Spinella in the reading of his high-intensity two-hander The Velocity of Autumn… The Velocity of Eric Coble