Voodoo Macbeth (1936), Lennox

The American Century Theater presents The American Century Theater presents About The American Century Theater The American Century Theater was founded in 1994. We are a professional nonprofit theater company dedicated to presenting great, important, and worthy American plays of the twentieth century—what Henry Luce called “the American Century.” March 22–April 13, 2013 The company’s mission is one of rediscovery, enlightenment, and perspective, Gunston Theatre Two, 2700 South Lang Street, Arlington not nostalgia or preservation. Americans must not lose the extraordinary vision and wisdom of past playwrights, nor can we afford to surrender the moorings to our shared cultural heritage. Director Assistant Directors Stage Manager Kathleen Akerley Tyler Herman and Lindsey E. Moore Our mission is also driven by a conviction that communities need theater, Annalisa Dias-Mandoly and theater needs audiences. To those ends, this company is committed to producing plays that challenge and move all Americans, of all ages, origins, Set and Costume Design Lighting Design Sound Design and points of view. In particular, we strive to create theatrical experiences Kathleen Akerley Jason Aufdem-Brinke Frank DiSalvo, Jr. that entire families can watch, enjoy, and discuss long afterward. Costumer Assistant Set Designer Technical Consultant Laura Aspen Dean Leong Michael P. deBlois Board of Directors Chair Louis George Scene Synopsis Vice-Chair Wes MacAdam 1 Dunsinane/Duncan’s command tent on the other side of the valley/ Secretary Ann Marie Plubell The battlefield Treasurer Wendy Kenney 2 The center of the valley, no time later Board Paige Gold, Gabe Goldberg, Vivian Kallen, 3 Dunsinane, the next day Jack Marshall, Kevin McIntyre 4 Dunsinane, after the moon has gone down Staff 5 Dunsinane, the next morning Jack Marshall Artistic Director 6 On watch in the valley on the road east to Scone and Fife, two days later Paige Gold Managing Director 7 War council in Dunsinane, two days later Rip Claassen Steven Scott Mazzola 8 The road south from Banquo’s camp to Macbeth’s, that night Brian Crane Lindsey E. Moore 9 Dunsinane, an hour later Ellen Dempsey Emily Morrison Kate Dorrell Ed Moser 10 The center of the valley, the next day Tom Fuller Joli Provost 11 Fife, two days later Rhonda Hill Ginny Tarris 12 England, two weeks later 13 Dunsinane, two weeks after that This program is supported in part by Arlington County through 14 Southwest of the valley near Birnam Wood, the next morning the Arlington Commission for the Arts and Arlington Cultural Affairs, a division of Arlington Economic Development; the Virginia Commission for the Arts; 15 Dunsinane, two days later the National Endowment for the Arts; and many generous donors. 16 Birnam Wood, the same day 17 Dunsinane There will be a fifteen-minute intermission between Scenes 6 and 7. Please—Turn off cell phones and other distracting devices. The use of recording equipment and taking of photographs Cover photo by City Eyes Photography (Kyle Telechan Photography) during the performance are strictly prohibited. Cast Banquo. Frank Britton Macbeth .............................................. Joseph Carlson The Voodoo Macbeth (1936), Lennox .............................................. Keegan Cassady Siward ...................................................Evan Crump by William Shakespeare, adaptation by Orson Welles Gruoch ...............................................Matt Dewberry Few American theatrical productions are as famous or important as Porter ................................................... Cyle Durkee The Voodoo Macbeth, which premiered in Harlem (not on Broadway but Macduff .......................................... Christopher Dwyer at the Lafayette Theatre on Seventh Avenue near 131st Street) on April Fleance ................................................. James Finley 14, 1936. A showcase production of John Houseman’s Negro Unit of the Mondor .................................................... Nick Hagy Federal Theater Project, the 19-year-old Orson Welles’ creation (which Hecate ................................................. William Hayes was formally titled just Macbeth) electrified audiences with its heavily Ross .....................................................James Miller edited version of the Shakespeare classic painted in cultural tones that Malcolm ................................................. Ryan Sellers couldn’t have seemed more alien to the already venerable Shakespeare Duncan. Theodore M. Snead classic. The young, audacious genius had not only adapted the play but designed its every feature, reimagining it as a dark story of death, spells, blood, and zombies performed by a cast and crew of over one hundred, Production staff with an entirely black cast. (Light-skinned performers were required to Director ............................................ Kathleen Akerley wear darker makeup.) Assistant Directors ...........Tyler Herman and Annalisa Dias-Mandoly The production is now legendary and, like all legendary productions, Stage Manager ...................................... Lindsey E. Moore impossible to reproduce. Thus a theatrical work that fits The American Set and Costume Design ............................ Kathleen Akerley Century Theater’s mission perfectly comes with a momentous problem. Lighting Design. Jason Aufdem-Brinke Though the company is dedicated to allowing present-day audiences to Sound Design ........................................Frank DiSalvo, Jr. experience great 20th century American stage works that seldom are Assistant Set Designer ....................................Dean Leong allowed to grace a stage anymore, what those thrilled audiences Costumer ................................................Laura Aspen experienced in 1936 wouldn’t thrill anyone 77 years after Welles’ play has Gruoch’s Ritual Cloak Design . Laura Aspen and Annalisa Dias-Mandoly worked its magic on the cultural scene. In 1936, Haiti and voodoo Technical Consultant ................................Michael P. deBlois established a new framework for drama, black productions of stage Master Carpenter .......................................... Nick Hagy classics were rare, and radical re-imaginings of Macbeth were revolutionary. Assistant Stage Manager ..............................Mollie Welborn In 2013, zombies roam our TV dramas, the stage is so thoroughly integrated Sound Board Operator ..................................Jorge A. Silva that even the all-black Hello, Dolly! would seem anachronistic, and a Fight Choreography, Makeup/Gore Effects ............... Casey Kaleba traditional Macbeth would be shocking, with re-edits and re-imaginings Wardrobe Assistant ...................................Mollie Welborn of Shakespeare—in great part thanks to Welles’ Voodoo Macbeth and his Publicist .............................................. Emily Morrison later Brown Shirt Julius Caesar—now almost too commonplace. Production Photography ............................Johannes Markus Anyone who has followed this company knows that Orson Welles’ too Program Design .....................................Michael Sherman short theatrical career lies close to our heart. Our successful revival of his Moby Dick Rehearsed put the company on the map. TACT’s recreation of the antic opening night of The Cradle Will Rock garnered its first Helen Special thanks to— Hayes nomination for best musical production, and reviving Welles’ The Catholic University of America Irakli Kavsadze production of Native Son was one of the company’s most ambitious Jared Davis Lindsey E. Moore undertakings. As Artistic Director, I felt that it was critical to present the Matt Dewberry Synetic Theater show that began Welles’ amazing attack on theatrical complacency. But how to do so without misrepresenting his work by allowing what was has been forced into the sometimes-constraining clothing of a cultural- surprising, exciting, and original seem to be what Orson Welles hated temporal conceit (Nazis! Pirates! Pirate Nazis from Space! who happen to most—predictable? call each other “Thane!”). But my job with this project was to find a way My solution was to take Welles’ script—his copy of Macbeth with cuts, to make Welles’ play “work,” the same way it’s my job to solve any other scribbles, and notations—and to entrust it to the local director who I play I’m lucky enough to get hired to direct (and if you’re looking for a knew shared his love of Macbeth, his horror of audiences that know what frame-by-frame re-creation of the Federal Theatre Project as the best and is coming, and most of all, his fearlessness. What would Orson Welles most humble way I might have achieved that: a. No, and b. I point you to like to see you do with his script, I queried, now that everyone knows 1. his 104-person cast of largely untrained actors who represented a 2. The Voodoo Macbeth’s tricks? He would want to see you make a Macbeth subset of the population that far too many people considered to be less that was his in spirit, a roller coaster ride telling Shakespeare’s too familiar than fully human enacting 3. a form of magic meant to genuinely shock story in a new, gripping, and terrifying way. To Orson, theater was never an audience inured to the sing-song impotence of witches presumably about the text or even the playwright’s intent: It was about making much more menacing to King James than to Franklin Roosevelt and that theater that would race your heartbeat and stick in your mind. would scare us now only if I actually put snakes

Load more