Beyond The Courtroom Drama

Actor Judd Nelson stars in "He She Them" – a new romantic play by Tufts graduate and Trustee Irwin Heller that recently premiered at Boston’s Shubert Theater.

Boston [10.6.03] Though attorney Irwin Heller is a veteran of courtroom drama, the Tufts graduate ventured into unfamiliar territory when he began writing the script to He She Them a couple years ago. Based on a conversation he had about relationships with one of his clients, Heller’s play has steadily grown from a budding idea into an impressive production with an all-star cast. With actor Judd Nelson starring as the lead, the show opened this weekend at Boston’s Schubert Theater.

“In order to be successful at anything, you need both skill and luck,” Heller told The Boston Globe. The Tufts graduate and Trustee had both on his side as he brought He She Them to life.

Billed as “a new play about falling on love,” He She Them follows the budding affair between “He,” Alec, a single real estate developer, and “She,” Lyla, the married architect designing one of his buildings. As they fall deep into love, the play raises the inevitable question of “Them” and whether or not Lyla should leave her husband and child to continue her relationship with Alec. At the play’s end, she makes her decision.

“As He and She decide on what’s to become of Them, they are forced to examine the sometimes uncomfortable realities of their true feelings,” according to the Wang Center’s description of the play. “The audience takes an intimate emotional ride with the two lovers, leaving them with their own questions about love and relationships.”

Heller told the Globe that the story was inspired by an interaction with a client at his law firm, Mintz Levin Cohn Ferris Glovsky and Popeo PC. A married man came in asking his advice about whether he should leave his family for the young woman he was seeing. Heller jotted down aspects of his discussion with the man, which formed the backbone of the play.

“I sat there and said, ‘Wow, I just gave some pretty significant advice pretty quickly’,” the Tufts graduate told the Globe. “I wrote down what I told this person and why. Then I wrote down the opposite advice and why that would have been relevant.”

He then switched the genders to avoid the stereotypical idea that only men have affairs, and began crafting the script.

When Heller finished the play a year later, he asked the Wang Center president, Josiah Spaulding Jr., to read it and see if it was worth staging. Spaulding thought it was, and passed the script along to Commonwealth Shakespeare Company’s founding artistic director, Steven Maler, who agreed to direct the piece at the Shubert.

“Steve read it because Joe asked him to,” the playwright told the Globe. “But he also thought there was something there worth considering.”

A public reading of He She Them last spring drew a large crowd, and the response was positive enough for the creative team to continue moving forward with the project.

The Tufts graduate’s play now features an all-star cast, including Judd Nelson – best known for his work in movies such as The Breakfast Club – and noted actress Tasha Lawrence.

“I’m an unknown playwright,” Heller told the Globe, “And the thought was that if we could get a name star in it, it would attract more attention, which has turned out to be true.”

He She Them isn't Heller's first brush with Boston's professional theatrical scene. In 1995, the Globe reported, the Tufts graduate appeared in a special production of the long-running whodunit Shear Madness, which featured local attorneys defending the suspects onstage