Of space, time, and typewriters

For a playwright who specializes in adapting extant texts for the stage, there's no higher praise than when a living author calls to say, "Nice work."

And when the bearer of compliments happens to be Tom Hanks? (Yes, that one.) "That was very, very nice," says James Glossman, a longtime lecturer in the Theatre Arts & Studies program at Johns Hopkins.

Glossman got that call in early 2021, when the two-time Oscar winner told him: "No author has been better served" onstage then by Glossman's careful adaptation of a Hanks short story. That phone call would begin a partnership. Nearly five years later, he and Hanks are full blown co-writers on This World of Tomorrow, their long-gestating play running through Dec. 21 at The Shed, a humbly named but prestigious off-Broadway venue in New York City.

The shiny, five-story theater is a world away from the John Astin Stage at Merrick Barn, where Glossman has directed more than a dozen shows over the past two decades. He's also maintained an active professional career adapting and directing for theaters across the U.S. and is always looking for new texts that have onstage potential. That's why, back in 2017, he secured non-exclusive rights to three stories from Hanks' debut fiction collection Uncommon Type: Some Stories. Each tale in the New York Times bestseller references a typewriter—which Hanks rather famously collects—providing a connective thread.

"They're wonderful stories," Glossman says. His original idea was to develop a three-act play, "using the language of the stories, hewing very closely to the original text." Hanks' publisher would then have veto power over the scripts. The triptych was well underway when the COVID-19 pandemic shuttered theaters worldwide. Glossman's pivot was Christmas 1953, a moving narrative about World War II veterans who trade memories every year in the waning hours of Dec. 24. The show debuted via livestream in December 2020 and starred David Strathairn and Maryann Plunkett in the page-to-computer-screen production.

Plunkett provided another connection to Hanks, as she co-starred as Joanne Rogers in 2019's A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, a biographical drama about beloved PBS children's TV icon Fred Rogers. Sure enough, about a week after the Zoom performance, Hanks wanted to see the script. And a few days later came the call, "from someone who was clearly the very best Tom Hanks impressionist in the world," Glossman jokes.

Glossman stresses that star actor's feedback would be music his ears no matter who said it. "To hear from [someone] who's a living author whose work you're adapting [say] that you got it, and that they want to work [with] you is nothing short of the best day you can possibly have," he said.

For their collaboration, Hanks was keen on developing a single-story arc that he could star in himself, so they focused on two characters from Uncommon Type's "The Past is Important to Us," a story about a late 21st century scientist/inventor named Bert Allenberry (played by Hanks), and Carmen Perry (played by Tony-winner Kelli O'Hara), a mid-20th century bookkeeper. Thanks to the magic of time travel—which Hanks posits will be accessible for the billionaires in 2089 (similar to Blue Origin space junkets today)—Carmen and Bert meet-cute at the World's Fair on June 8, 1939. He's so smitten with the charming redhead wearing neat white gloves and a feather fascinator that he repeatedly pays $6 million to a company called Chronometric Adventures for additional trips to 1939. Each time he must report back to an Eighth Avenue hotel room by 7 p.m. to return to 2089, like Cinderella at the World's Fair ball. And each time he falls a little more in love with Carmen when he spots her sitting by the Lagoon of Nations, a Flushing Meadows landmark.

While it may sound like a Groundhog Day scenario, This World of Tomorrow is more like an unfolding dialogue between American innovation and American nostalgia, themes Hanks explores in many of his films. While the play ends happier than the original story, it's still a cautionary tale about technology and the human connections easily missed when life becomes overrun with artificial intelligence scrapers and Alexa-like devices. Glossman and his collaborator blunt the tragic edge with humorous nods to Hanks' love for baseball and filmography; references to Babe Ruth hitting home runs in Cleveland and Katharine Hepburn in The Philadelphia Story draw guffaws from an audience of in-the-know fans.

In preview performances leading up to the Nov. 18 opening, those laughs reassured the writers that after nearly five years of collaborating, their play is connecting with audiences. In an interview with Stephen Colbert, Hanks described the anxiety that comes with being responsible for both his performance and his character's words.

"It's a pleasure and a joy," he said on The Late Show. "But it is also as terrifying an experience as I have ever had."

Glossman's view was more positive.

"It has been such a gift to bounce stuff off each other," Glossman said. He and Hanks developed This World of Tomorrow through both analog and virtual modes. There were meetings at Hanks' office at the Chrysler Building, scripts drafted on typewriters and several workshop stagings. But there were also countless conversations via Zoom, FaceTime, and phone.

"I'm not sure this collaboration could have gone as quickly and smoothly as it has without the existence of, you know, these technologies," Glossman admitted. "We are constantly in touch to talk about these people we made up. It has truly been the best writing experience of my life."

Next up, Glossman will direct Shakespeare's late drama Pericles at Merrick Barn this spring.

5 questions with James Glossman

Favorite Tom Hanks movie: "Apollo 13, A League of Their Own, Castaway and his new film Here. ("It's impossible to pick one," Glossman says.)

Typewriters of choice: A 1946 Royal portable (a gift from his mother) and Remington Noiseless (a gift from Hanks.)

Worst commuting from New Jersey-to-Hopkins experience: Taking a 9:14 p.m. train after a Galileo rehearsal in 2024 and arriving in Montclair at 5 a.m.

Best Hopkins post-rehearsal treat: Ice cream from The Charmery

Best thing about teaching theater at Hopkins: Being able to do plays with people from the sciences and the humanities and the arts all together. "That's the kind of world you can build at a place like Hopkins," Glossman says.