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A Tree Grows in Longmont by Philip Middleton Williams

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  • Morey Norkin:
    2 May. 2023
    “ A deeply personal and moving account of a relationship from its romantic beginning through highs and lows to an ending that still leaves the surviving partner with questions. Philip Middleton Williams creates a loving remembrance that doesn’t shy away from difficult truths. As with all of Williams’ plays, “A Tree Grows in Longmont” is expertly structured with multi-dimensional characters. A beautiful theatre experience. ”
  • Claudia Haas:
    30 Apr. 2023
    “ Unflinching, achingly honest, Williams has given the audience a gift. A gift of love - warts and all because that is a true relationship. And a gift of love that transcends the spiritual and the natural world. It’s a remembrance and a reality that memories can be fractured but they do not fade. They continue. And in Middleton’s case, the memory of love still shines. ”
  • Christopher Plumridge:
    16 Sep. 2022
    “ What a wonderful scene: an opportunity, if only in your own mind, to act out a play you've written with a lost lover. This play is touching, moving, desperate, yet full of hope. I do believe the character Philip will go back to this tree in Longmont year after year to act out this scene. 'You are never gone, just in the next room' Lovely. ”
  • Sam Heyman:
    20 Aug. 2022
    “ Writers are known to fictionalize, and dramatize, the pivotal experiences of their lives, and they do so for a variety of reasons. In "A Tree Grows In Longmont," Philip Middleton Williams uses the form of the memory play to search for answers to one of his life's unsolved mysteries. Williams takes great care to render the specificity of his experience in such a way that you feel drawn into this private, intimate conversation immediately. This is a lovely, transporting play, not one to miss! ”
  • Donald E. Baker:
    6 Nov. 2021
    “ Love can endure even after a relationship fails and even, maybe especially, after one partner dies. The tree in question is a memorial to the deceased partner; the play is a sometimes brutally honest examination of the love and the relationship as told through the memories of both men. The characters are so recognizable, the situation so relatable, that you can't help but be moved. Read it, and keep a hanky handy. ”
  • Robert Weibezahl:
    6 Sep. 2021
    “ Williams, admired for his realism, ventures into a slightly more conceptual realm with this heartfelt, autobiographical one-act. Tracing a long-term love relationship, with all of its attendant pleasures and pains, the play taps its two characters’ memories to assemble a truth. Of course, memory can never be relied upon for the truth, but as Tim O’Brien has written, sometimes “story truth” is truer than “happening truth.” Williams plays with these ideas, often injecting wit where rancor could have been just as legitimate a choice. The result is a thought-provoking piece of meta-theater that draws the audience in. ”
  • Steven G. Martin:
    25 Apr. 2021
    “ Philip Middleton Williams nicely balances a difficult path in this beautiful memory play. He details in his relationship with Allen Pfannenstiel, including several moments that had to have hurt very much, and he does so objectively so that he and Allen are seen as 3-dimensional people with flaws and strengths rather than types.

    The structure of this play is beautiful, the scope both broad yet focused, and the details highlighting the character of two men in love and ultimately as best friends are rich and plentiful.

    We may never fully know a person, but Williams creates a strong portrait here. ”
  • Matt Cogswell:
    18 Jan. 2021
    “ Having had the pleasure of directing Williams' "Last Exit," its incorporation in "A Tree Grows in Longmont" is all the more intriguing. The longer play deftly uses theatrical devices to extend the narrative of a relationship. The dialogue exchanges are realistic, and they bask in the awkward moments and the beautiful moments we too often try to hide, such as our happy dance. Williams' dry humor blends with too realistic statements such as "Hope is my greatest weakness." The epilogue to the play within the play is the perfect tribute we would all hope to give. ”
  • Jacquelyn Floyd-Priskorn:
    3 Oct. 2020
    “ I was constantly wiping tears away from the moment I read "WAIT" at the end of the play within a play, to the very end of this whole piece. It's a memory play, but it also is a love letter. To love. Love isn't always pretty and perfect. Love is costly, because it costs you your heart. Philip Middleton Williams has definitely given his heart to not only the characters in this play, but to the audience that witnesses it as well. And that is the bravest act of love of all. The love you give away. A beautiful play. ”
  • Toby Malone:
    27 Sep. 2020
    “ This is a gentle, beautiful chronicle of a life lived with love, laughter, and heartbreak, and feels like an intensely personal purgation even while being witty, joyful, and (somehow) light. Williams infuses his characters with such life that you quickly learn to know them and love them, and ache for the what-ifs that stand between Allen and Philip. Lovely work. ”

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