written by Tim Crouch
directed by Tim Crouch, Karl James and a smith
sound score created by Peter Gill

starring Tim Crouch with one other actor

presented by Martin Platt & David Elliott, Rosalie Beer, A.J. Epstein and Richard Jordan with Barrow Street Theatre
at the Barrow Street Theatre

The play centers around the Father, a man named Andy who has lost his daughter; killed in an accident when she was hit by a car. Andy’s life is fractured and broken. Nothing is what it is. The man who was driving the car is a stage hypnotist. Since the accident, he’s lost his power of suggestion. His act is a disaster. For him, everything now is exactly what it is. For the first time since the accident, these two men meet when the Father volunteers for the Hypnotist’s act.

An Oak Tree is a two-hander, with the Hypnotist being played by the play’s author, Tim Crouch. The Father, however, is played by a different guest actor at each performance. The second actor walks on stage having neither seen nor read a word of the play. This brave task was taken up by over 80 different actors, all stepping in front of a live audience with little idea of what to expect. Each one was introduced to the audience by Tim, laying out for all the wild conceit of the piece. The results were often exhilarating.

This show was first done by Tim at the Edinburgh Festival (where it received the highest honor of The Herald Angel Winner). My partner, Martin, saw it and insisted we bring it to New York. We hired Stephanie Klapper to cast the show, a challenge as the show demanded a different actor for every performance. Stephanie did brilliantly, casting 87 different actors, including F. Murray Abraham, Joan Allen, Frances McDormand, Jim Dale, Mike Meyers, David Hyde Pierce, Austin Pendleton and Maura Tierney, to name a few. Stephanie would be awarded the Artios Award for her casting achievement.

The show would be awarded the OBIE Award, which I proudly accepted on Tim’s behalf as he had returned to England. I thanked each actor that played in the show with him… the entire list read in under two minutes!

This is a link to piece in The Guardian about the experience of being ‘the second actor.’