Tonight, Second Stage will present a staged reading of “Mark David Chapman: Live in Concert,” a play written and directed by Ben Firke ’12 at the ’92 Theatre. The play, which Firke began in a summer program and finished in the fall of 2006, centers on the rise and fall of a boy-band producer, and his morbid musical muse, Mark David Chapman — otherwise known as John Lennon’s assassin. Despite its somewhat twisted-sounding premise, “Mark David Chapman” has already garnered its fair share of accolades; in June 2007, the play debuted with a professional performance in Hollywood’s Matrix Theater, having won a spot in the Blank Theatre Company’s 15th Annual Nationwide Young Playwrights Festival. Now, Firke brings a more polished (read: moderately to heavily edited) version of the play to Wesleyan, in this whirlwind production that he put together in less than a week.

We caught up with Firke between rehearsals for a few words about time management, the Wesleyan theater scene and why writing a play about Mark David Chapman is not (repeat, NOT) an endorsement of murder.

Liz Tung: How did this opportunity come about?

Ben Firke: I was offered the chance to do a reading by Second Stage, and I didn’t want to pass it up. So I decided that this piece would be sort of a good way to introduce myself to the theater community as a playwright. Because of our time constraints, it’s not actually a full production of the play; it’s just a staged reading, which is when you don’t have the resources or the time to do a full production of a play, so you do it more informally as a staged reading. That’s when the actors are usually seated with the script in hand and there’s no tech, no sound, no lights, no real blocking – it’s just character and the language of the play. So, it’s very exciting, just a lot of work. We’re still putting it together, since we’re working with such a short timeframe.

LT: How are the actors?

BF: They’re great actors, I’m really happy with how on such short notice they can come up with really great characters and they can interpret them in different ways, and taking the roles in really interesting directions, including ones that I hadn’t really thought of.

LT: It sounds like it’s a pretty unique concept for a play — could you tell us a little about the plot?

BF: It’s about a theater producer named Billy Weller who lives in Los Angeles and was for a long time this sort of really cool indie rock, underground, alternative rock producer, but he wasn’t really making any money. He never had a lot of fame, and after awhile he decided that he needed to start making money, so he started working as this producer for boy bands. And then what happens is that eventually he comes across some tapes from Mark David Chapman, the guy who killed John Lennon, and he’s been really unsatisfied with doing all this really shallow corporate music, so he decides to slide out and meet Chapman and try to make him a deal. This basically creates a lot of problems and wrecks his friendship with his mentor, ruins his career, and even begins to affect his health, he’s so stressed out about it — because he has to work with this really creepy killer in prison who has a lot of psychological issues, and he also just happens to be this really talented singer and songwriter.

LT: How did you come up with the idea for the play?

BF: People ask me that a lot, and it’s a hard question to answer because the idea just comes, you know? I was literally sitting at my desk and having this sort of stream-of-consciousness thought, with my notebook open and I was just writing down little ideas. Eventually the phrase “David Chapman: Live in Concert” just popped into my head. Originally I envisioned it as being this tasteless rock musical, kind of like a “South Park” movie kind of thing, and at this point, I had written plays before that — and I’m actually writing a play right now – and I had done the funny, filthy, irreverent, satirical thing a lot and I really wanted to try something different. So I did a fairly serious drama. And so it still has this element of absurdity — this situation is so bizarre, and it’s realist to the point where in Los Angeles someone would walk up to me afterwards and say, ’Is this a true story?’ And I really got a kick out of that, because it’s one of the highest compliments you can attain — ’Did this really happen?’ And I was just like, ’They could ask if this clearly ridiculous story that I just made up at my desk is true? That’s pretty cool.’

But I’m interested to see what the reaction here will be. Some people get offended — just by the title of the show, but when you see it, you realize that it’s not advocating murder in any way. It’s very much against that. But I don’t want to give anything away.

The reading of “Mark David Chapman: Live in Concert” will be on Friday, Oct. 3 at 8 p.m. at the ’92 Theatre. It features five actors in six roles: Anthony Smith ’11, Mike Savard ’12, Ally Cuervo ’12, Sarah Ellis ’12 and Michael Inkles ’12 playing two roles. Carla Suarez ’12 is stage editor and production manager, and Ben Firke ’12 is writer and director.