Edition 4 | 2019-2020

2 WESTPORT COUNTRY PLAYHOUSE | 2019 SEASON FROM THE ARTISTIC DIRECTOR Dear Friends, Playwright Lynn Nottage had the inspired idea I hope it gets to you. Arthur Miller used to speak to structure Mlima’s Tale, her play about the of how Waiting for Lefty, Clifford Odet’s 1935 play African ivory trade, along the lines of another, about the unionization of taxi drivers, ended older script, Arthur Schnitzler’s turn-of-the- with a shout—“Strike! Strike! Strike!”—that so twentieth-century sex play called La Ronde. gripped the audience that people actually In that play we are presented with a series streamed out of the theater and onto the of scenes where couples meet and make streets of New York yelling it too. love; each scene a different coupling, each When Mlima’s Tale is over, I hope you realize featuring only two characters, a man and a there are things each one of us can do, and do woman. Schnitzler’s device to interlock the immediately, to inhibit this illegal trade which stories is clever: one character from each scene is destroying the world’s elephant population. reappears in the following, making love to Go online and look. I urge you to support the another person. Early critics and readers felt causes that can help bring these murderers that the play might be an indictment of the kind and traders to their knees and save some of of behavior that causes venereal disease, as it the most sentient animals on this increasingly passed from one hapless, aroused character ravaged planet. to another in a sort of roundelay of sex and seduction in fin de siècle Vienna. What Nottage’s characters show as they MARK LAMOS travel from Africa to Asia in a series of deft Artistic Director short scenes is as sickening as a disease. It’s the disease of illegal capitalism. Each two- character transaction places the soul of the slaughtered elephant Mlima at greater risk. Through backroom deals between poachers, venal customs agents, illegal ivory carvers in Vietnam, and high-end shoppers in Beijing, the soul of this magnificent Kenyan elephant is reduced to the immense tusks that have been hacked from his face in death. Then those tusks are reduced to trinkets. This is the tragedy of Mlima’s Tale. Photo by Bruce Plotkin MLIMA’S TALE 6 WESTPORT COUNTRY PLAYHOUSE | 2019 SEASON PRESENTS Mlima’s Tale BY lynn nottage DIRECTED BY mark lamos SCENIC DESIGN COSTUME DESIGN LIGHTING DESIGN Claire DeLiso Fabian Fidel Aguilar Isabella Byrd COMPOSER PROJECTION CHOREOGRAPHER Michael Keck Yana Birykova Jeffrey Page FIGHT DIRECTOR/INTIMACY COACH PROPS SUPERVISOR DIALECT COACH Michael Rossmy Samantha Shoffner Julie Foh DRAMATURG CASTING PRODUCTION STAGE MANAGER Liam Lonegan Tara Rubin Casting Chris De Camillis Claire Burke, CSA Based on the article “The Ivory Highway” by Damon Tabor Originally developed and produced by The Public Theater (Oskar Eustis, Artistic Director; Patrick Willingham, Executive Director) Mlima’s Tale is presented by special arrangement with Dramatists Play Service, Inc., New York. PRODUCTION SPONSORS EDUCATION SPONSOR CZEKAJ ARTISTIC PRODUCTIONS THE GRAHAM FOUNDATION OF CONNECTICUT BARBARA AND JOHN SAMUELSON THIS PROJECT IS SUPPORTED IN PART BY OCTOBER 1–19, 2019 THE CAST MLIMA Jermaine Rowe PLAYER 1 Jennean Farmer PLAYER 2 Adit Dileep PLAYER 3 Carl Hendrick Louis MLIMA’S TALE will be performed without an intermission. This Theatre operates under an agreement between the League of Resident Theatres and Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States. The Director is a member of the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers, Inc., an independent national labor union. Westport Country Playhouse employs members of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, Local 74. The scenic, costume, lighting and sound designers in LORT Theatres are represented by United Scenic Artists, Local USA-829 of the IATSE. MLIMA'S TALE 11 12 WESTPORT COUNTRY PLAYHOUSE | 2019 SEASON MLIMA'S TALE 13 THE IVORY TRADE A HISTORY 750 BCE 800 CE 1400 Under the Roman Empire, the ivory The trade in ivory from African European navigators arrived on the exported from Africa largely came elephants was on the rise, as traders West African coastline and entered into from North African elephants. By the transported ivory from West Africa, the lucrative ivory trade. fourth century C.E., these elephants through market-cities, and on to were hunted to extinction. Europe or Central and East Asia. 1863 1862 1850 The various Pratt relatives merged In West Centrebrook, Trader George Cheney made his first into a single company — Pratt, Read later renamed Ivoryton, voyage to Africa, setting up an ivory and Co. — becoming the largest George Cheney went into trading firm in Zanzibar that became the employer in Deep River. business with Samuel main ivory supplier for the Deep River Valley. Along with Comstock, Cheney and Comstock, forming The ivory trade remained inseparably Co., they would dominate the world Comstock, Cheney, and Co. linked with slavery, and Connecticut men ivory market for decades. like George Read supported abolition at home while profiting from the slave labor on which their trade depended. 1900 1913 Several African colonies passed The mass production of combs, laws to limit hunting, although brush handles, piano keys, recreational hunting remained and billiard balls fueled an possible for those who could “ivory frenzy.” Africa’s elephant afford the expensive licenses. population declined to roughly 10 million. The USA was consuming 200 tons of ivory per year. 1999 1998 CITES allowed a special sale Elephant population rebounded of stockpiled ivory, sanctioning to approximately one million. a legal trade in tusks and unintentionally stimulating poaching and ivory smuggling. 2008 2014 A second sale to China and The European Parliament passed a Japan reinvigorated the Chinese resolution condemning the illegal government-approved ivory poaching of elephants and calling for carving industry, which had been a moratorium on all ivory sales by its waning since the 1989 trade ban. members. China announced its own planned ban in 2016. To read more about the themes and ideas explored in Mlima’s Tale, please visit westportplayhouse.org/MlimasTaleBlog. PROGRAM NOTES BY SOPHIE SIEGEL-WARREN AND BETHANY GUGLIEMINO. EDITED BY DAVID KENNEDY. 1700 1798 Ivory traders entered into the In Deep River, Connecticut, Phinneas international slave trade, purchasing Pratt invented a device for mechanically slaves to carry ivory from the inland cutting ivory combs. Several of Pratt’s family elephant herds to the coast where the members soon purchased their own machines traders would sell both the slave and and entered the comb-cutting business. the ivory for hefty profits. 1818 1800 George Read, Pratt’s son-in-law, 26 million elephants were partnered with a fellow comb-maker estimated to be roaming the Ezra Williams, and they began continent of Africa. European producing ivory piano keys. A single ivory hunters began hunting tusk from an adult African elephant elephants in greater numbers. could yield enough keys for 45 pianos. 1929 1954 1976 According to company records, The last shipment of ivory was The African elephant Comstock, Cheney & Co. had by delivered to Ivoryton, after years population fell to an this point milled an estimated of hunting had decimated elephant estimated 1.3 million. 100,000 tusks. populations. As ivory prices rose, cheaper plastic piano keys replaced those made of ivory. 1988–89 1980s 1977 African elephant population declined to Pratt, Read and Co. ceased its In 1973, the Convention on International 600,000. To alert the world to a poaching piano manufacturing in Deep Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) crisis, Kenyan President Daniel arap Moi River. Today, the former factory signed a treaty to protect threatened species and Executive Director of Kenya Wildlife is home to a condominium and regulate international trade. Four years Service Richard Leakey publicly burned complex called Piano Works. later, African elephants were added to the 12 tons of ivory stock. CITES then category of animals for which commercial trade banned all international commercial could continue but needed to be regulated. ivory trade. 2018 A World Wildlife Fund reported that elephant population was on the rise, but poaching persists and researchers warned that current levels are still unsustainable for maintaining an elephant population in Africa. GLOBAL IVORY TRADE CONNECTICUT IVORY TRADE 16 WESTPORT COUNTRY PLAYHOUSE | 2019 SEASON MLIMA'S TALE 17 18 WESTPORT COUNTRY PLAYHOUSE | 2019 SEASON MLIMA'S TALE 19 WHO’S WHO Adit Dileep Jermaine Rowe Player 2 Mlima Westport Country Westport Country Playhouse debut. Adit Playhouse: Man of La Dileep was born in India, Mancha. Jermaine is a grew up in Singapore, multi-faceted theatre artist. and is currently living in Broadway/West End: The New York City. Theatre: Lion King, Fela! Regional: Disgraced (Guthrie Theatre, Macbeth, Titus Andronicus, McCarter Theatre Center), Noon Day Sun, Batboy. Animals Out of Paper (Hudson Stage Company). Film: Bwoy, Freedom, and was an original cast TV: appearances on “Billions” (SHOWTIME), member in National Theatre Live Fela! Opera: “Succession” (HBO), “Law & Order SVU” (NBC). Il Barber de Seville, The Tales of Hoffman. Former Film: The Sound of Silence (Sundance 2019). He dancer with Dance Theatre of Harlem and holds a B.S. in Finance & Marketing from NYU. National Dance Theatre Company of Jamaica. Many thanks to his team at MKS&D and Artists He was a 2019 Semi-Finalist for the O’Neill's & Representatives. National Music Theatre Conference with his original work Storyteller/The Children from the Jennean Farmer Blue Mountain Player 1 . He holds an MFA in Theatre from Sarah Lawrence College, and is a CUNY Westport Country Adjunct Professor in Acting. Thanks to the Playhouse debut. NYC: entire team at Westport.

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