No Strings closes season with Cold War drama

The No Strings Theatre Company, located in downtown Las Cruces, is closing its 2023-24 season with a 1987 drama dramatizing diplomatic relations between the United States and the Soviet Union in the Reagan-Gorbachev era.

Lee Blessing’s play, “A Walk in the Woods,” centers on two nuclear arms negotiators, loosely based on real-life diplomats Paul Nitze and Yuri Kvitsinsky, who took a break from the table and took a walk together outdoors, achieving a proposed agreement their respective governments rejected.

Setting the scene in a news release, the theatre wrote: “Inspired by the beauty and peace of the forests near Geneva, the two diplomats explore a range of personal topics and attempt to bridge their differences through a series of personal, revealing conversations.”

The play has often served as a showcase for actors. Sam Waterston played the American diplomat, John Honeyman, in the 1988 Broadway production, while his costar, Robert Prosky, won the Outer Critics Circle Award for portraying the Russian counterpart, Andrey Botvinnik. In later revivals, as women rose to prominence in diplomatic leadership and headed the U.S. Department of State, women have more frequently been cast in the main roles, which the playwright approved.

Blessing’s script was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1987, and nominated for the Tony Award.

No Strings’ production is directed by the theatre’s artistic director, Ceil Herman, and features actors Ed Montes and Karen Buerdsell.

It opens Friday for a three-weekend run at the Black Box Theatre, 430 N. Main Street. Performances are Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m., with 2:30 p.m. Sunday matinees on June 23 and 30. There is also a 7 p.m. performance on Thursday, June 27.

Ticketing and further information are available online at No-Strings.org or by calling 575-523-1223.