Douglas Whaley

One of the things I do for fun is to gather friends together for a playreading, which means we sit around and read a play aloud, typically with no one but me having seen it before. This is not high art, and alcohol is frequently involved so that some people get noticeably freer with their reading of the text as the evening progresses. These gatherings, which have been going on since I was in high school, have come to be known as the “Whaley Players.” Some of my friends, and particularly those in my chosen family, have done dozens (hundreds?) of these readings (and are fine actors to boot). In the 1980s at the University of Texas, my good friend Jay Westbrook (see “How I Became a Law Professor” Jan. 27) teamed up with Professor Elizabeth Warren, also on the Texas faculty, for a series of projects, including a number of books about bankruptcy law, including their collaboration on the leading casebook used in this country to teach that subject. They also sponsored a yearly conference in...

Since I was in high school I’ve always used playreadings as my primary social event when gathering friends together.   Many people would love to try their hands at acting, and if they can easily read out loud and have a sense of fun, then I suggest you invite them over for a playreading in your house at a scheduled time and date. Here are the steps I go through when I invite you for one of my playreadings: 1. Choose a Play.   The first time you do this, and for most of the subsequent times, choose a light comedy.   These playreadings are for fun only, and no one pretends that high art is expected to occur.   Instead the goal is lots of laughter.   After all, at my playreadings alcohol is served.   Years ago there was a great older woman named Kitty who was one of the regulars at what came to be called performances by “The Whaley Players.”   She was very good at playing her various parts even though she drank quite a bit.   As the re...

Art, Barbara, Ann, Jerry, Mary, and Me In my life I've thrown some strange parties, a few of which have been described previously on this blog, but surely one of the oddest was the April 20, 1985 Puppet Party. Jerry and I had begun our twelve year relationship that previous January, so this was probably our first social event with my closest friends: Art and Lorri Greenbaum-Latek, Mary Bush, Ann Matheson, Barbara Shipek, Lynn Brown, and a few others. The conceit of the party was this: everyone was to furnish his/her own puppet, and only the puppets were invited to the party. The puppet owners had to come, of course, but were not allowed to talk as real people; only the puppets could speak to one another. This was a party for puppets only.  The Art and Lorri Puppets Amazingly, this nuttiness worked very well, and everyone entered into the spirit of the event with great brio. There was good food, lots of drinking, and (I suspect, but don't specifically remember) proba...