The party at Jay Gatsby's mansion is famously crowded — the champagne, the jazz orchestra, the guests who arrive uninvited and leave without ever meeting their host. On Oct. 8 at the WVU Canady Creative Arts Center, all of that will be summoned by exactly one person.
The University Arts Series presents "The Great Gatsby" as a one-man show, with the New York-based actor and visual artist Simon Rabatin performing every role in F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel. The performance begins at 6 p.m. in the Lyell B. Clay Concert Theatre, the house that serves as the home of the University Arts Series.
Rabatin does not simply read from the book or narrate it. In this adaptation, he embodies multiple characters in turn — Nick Carraway, Daisy Buchanan, her domineering husband Tom, and the mysterious neighbor whose dazzling parties conceal a story of obsession, betrayal and longing. The result is a version of the novel that keeps Fitzgerald's language intact while asking a single actor to carry the whole weight of Long Island and New York City in the Jazz Age.
That approach is not an accident of casting. It is the signature method of Literature to Life, the New York organization behind the production. LTL stages what it calls verbatim adaptations of American literary classics — professionally staged performances that use the author's exact words, one actor, a few props and simple costumes. The organization describes its mission as performing "great books that inspire young people to read and become authors of their own lives."
The roots of that method reach back more than six decades, to the American Place Theatre, founded in 1963 by the veteran director, acting teacher and producer Wynn Handman along with Sidney Lanier and Michael Tolan at St. Clement's Church in New York City. The theater built a reputation for fostering new work by American writers, and it cultivated what Literature to Life now describes as the multi-character genre associated with solo performance. Eric Bogosian's "Drinking in America," Bill Irwin's "The Regards of Flight," John Leguizamo's "Mambo Mouth" and Aasif Mandvi's "Sakina's Restaurant" all premiered there. Handman also taught and mentored actors including Denzel Washington, Christopher Walken, Michael Douglas and Alec Baldwin.
The literacy program that became Literature to Life grew out of a classroom exercise. In the early 1990s, one of Handman's acting students brought in excerpts from Toni Morrison's "The Bluest Eye" to work on, and Handman and the student realized the excerpts could become a full production aimed at young audiences. Elise Thoron, who had been developing an interactive educational program at the theater, co-founded Literature to Life with Handman. As she has described it, the aim shifted from developing new American plays to developing new American audiences — assembling artists and educators to figure out how theater could help students engage with books. The program later merged with Young Audiences New York when American Place Theatre closed its doors, and it now operates as an independent organization under Thoron's leadership as co-founding artistic director.
Literature to Life performs in classrooms, libraries, assembly halls, black box theaters, prisons, shelters and national theaters across the country. Its repertory has included adaptations of Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451" and Khaled Hosseini's "The Kite Runner," among other titles.
The Gatsby adaptation is one of the newest additions to that repertory, part of what LTL calls its Signature Performance series. It was adapted and directed by Kelvin Grullon and premiered on Jan. 29, 2024, at the United Palace in New York City, in a production performed by Bryce Foley. The role has since been taken up by other actors as the show tours; Rabatin is the performer on the current road version, and the WVU listing, the show's management page and other presenters all name him in the part.
The novel itself, published in 1925, is set at the height of the Jazz Age and the Prohibition Era, and it has proved durable precisely because its glittering surface keeps revealing harder questions underneath. The book touches on the treatment of different social classes, the divide between "old money" and "new money," gender, race, environmentalism and the price of the American Dream. The stage adaptation leans into those tensions, focusing on the lengths each character will go to in pursuit of what they want — and on both the allure and the emptiness of Gatsby's dream.
For an audience in Morgantown, the format offers something a conventional staging cannot. A full production of "The Great Gatsby" typically requires a large cast, period costumes and a set capable of suggesting a mansion, a valley of ashes and a city skyline. The one-actor version strips all of that away and puts the burden on performance: the shifts in voice, posture and bearing that let a single person move between characters without pause. It is a demanding form, and one with a long lineage in the American theater — the same tradition that produced the solo shows that premiered at American Place Theatre decades ago.
The show runs 90 minutes and, on other stops of its tour, has included a post-show talk back. It is recommended for middle school, high school, college and community audiences.
The University Arts Series, produced by the WVU College of Creative Arts and Media, brings nationally touring Broadway shows, musicians, family programming and dance companies to Morgantown each year. The 2026-27 season is the largest yet, with more than 15 events and expanded subscription options, including a Flex Package for attendees planning to see four or more shows and a Broadway Bundle for those attending all five touring Broadway productions. Dean Keith Jackson said the college is "thrilled to carry on WVU's long-standing tradition" of bringing touring productions and renowned acts to the community.
Gatsby's appearance comes early in that season. Later offerings include "Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock LIVE" and "The Wiz," with "Bluey's Big Play" and "Hadestown" scheduled for the spring.
Tickets for "The Great Gatsby" can be purchased online at go.wvu.edu/greatgatsby, by phone at 304-293-SHOW, or in person at the box office in the main lobby of the Canady Creative Arts Center, open Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The center is located at 1436 Evansdale Drive in Morgantown.