The Scarlet Letter
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SC 56th Season • 535th Production SEGERSTROM STAGE / MARCH 28 - APRIL 25, 2020 David Ivers Paula Tomei ARTISTIC DIRECTOR MANAGING DIRECTOR David Emmes & Martin Benson FOUNDING ARTISTIC DIRECTORS presents the world premiere of THE SCARLET LETTER by Kate Hamill Christopher Acebo Danae Iris McQueen Keith Parham John Zalewski SCENIC DESIGN COSTUME DESIGN LIGHTING DESIGN SOUND DESIGN John Glore Joanne DeNaut, CSa Kathryn Davies* DRAMATRUG CASTING STAGE MANAGER Directed by Marti Lyons Sandy Segerstrom Daniels Joan & Andy Fimiano Honorary Producer Honorary Producer THE SCARLET LETTER received a reading as part of The Other Season at Seattle Repertory Theatre (2018-19) and developmental support at the Hedgebrook Women Playwrights Festival, Whidbey Island. The Scarlet Letter • South CoaSt RepeRtoRy • P1 CAST OF CHARACTERS Reverend Dimmesdale .............................................................................................. Lea Coco Roger Chillingworth ....................................................................................... Tim Cummings Governor Hibbins ........................................................................................................ Joe Holt Goody Hibbins .................................................................................................. Rebecca Mozo Hester Prynne .................................................................................................. Melisa Pereyra Pearl ............................................................................................................. Amy Kim Waschke SETTING Massachusetts Bay Colony, 1642-46. LENGTH Approximately 90 minutes, with no intermission. PRODUCTION STAFF Associate Dramaturg ................................................................................ Molly FitzMaurice Assistant Stage Manager ............................................................................ Natalie Figaredo Assistant Director ............................................................................ Charlie Marie McGrath Hymn Music Director ............................................................................... Diane King Vann Fight Consultant .............................................................................................. Bobby C. King Intimacy Coordinator ...................................................................................... Zev Steinrock Assistant Scenic Designer .............................................................................. Rick Anderson Costume Design Assistant ........................................................................ Kaitlyn Kaufman Stage Management Interns ................................... Hope Binfeng Ding, Emperatriz Mejia Light Board Operator ................................................................................ Keannak Parvaz Sound Board Operator ..................................................................................... Jim Lupercio Automation Operator/Deck Crew .................................................................... Alex Johnson Wardrobe Supervisor/Dresser ....................................................................... Jyll Christolini Wig and Makeup Technician ...................................................................... Gillian Woodson Additional Costume Staff ........................ Whitney Claytor, Maria Huber, Lalena Hutton, Kaler Navazo, Tessa Oberle, Sarah Timm The Actors and Stage Managers employed in this production are members of Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States. Please refrain from unwrapping candy or making other noises that may disturb surrounding patrons and the actors. Videotaping and/or recording of this performance by any means whatsoever are strictly prohibited. Electronic devices should be turned off or set to non-audible mode during the performance. Smoking is not permitted anywhere in the theatre. Photos may be taken before and after the show, and during intermission, but not during the performance. Show your appreciation for the play by using the hashtag #ScarletLetterSCR and tagging the designers listed on P1. Media Partner P2 • South CoaSt RepeRtoRy • The Scarlet Letter Kate Hamill Colors Outside the Lines by John Glore she tends to play truth-tellers, oddballs, and misfits: complicated people who color outside the lines.” ack in 2013, when Kate Hamill was an actor in Hamill’s inclination to “color outside the lines” can the company of New York’s Bedlam Theatre, also be seen in her approach to adaptation. Her Austen she told Bedlam co-founder Andrus Nichols plays have a certain winking sense of humor and theat- that she intended to write her first play, an ad- ricality that both honors and refreshes the tone of the aptation of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, originals, while bringing the storytelling reso- and that it would be produced at Bedlam lutely into the 21st century. Her Bwith Hamill as Marianne and Nichols as her strategy is sometimes sister, Elinor. To make certain she’d follow characterized as “post- through, Hamill bet Nichols $100 —which modern.” She aims to re- she couldn’t afford to lose, being an im- main true to the essence poverished New York City-based actor. The of the source material wager served as a great motivator. from which she’s work- Hamill’s Sense and Sensibility proved ing, but she isn’t shy enormously successful for Bedlam—The New about altering genders, York Times’ lead critic, Ben Brantley, called it reinventing characters, “the greatest stage adaptation of this novel introducing anachro- in history.” The play has gone on to produc- nisms and other strate- tions at numerous theatres across the nation, gies that shake the dust launching Hamill on a new career trajectory off the original prose as an actor/playwright known especially for narratives. For exam- her female-centric adaptations of classic lit- ple, she describes her erary works. She adapted three more Aus- adaptation of Dracula ten novels: Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield as a “feminist revenge Park and, most recently, Emma, which will fantasy.” Her version premiere later this year at the Guthrie The- turns Dracula’s minion, atre. She also has written stage versions of Renfield, into a woman Homer’s Odyssey, William Makepeace Thac- (played earlier this year keray’s Vanity Fair, Louisa May Alcott’s Little by Hamill herself in the Women and Bram Stoker’s Dracula. More premiere production often than not, she acts in the original pro- at Classic Stage Com- ductions of her plays, although a particularly pany); the vampire- busy 2020 has made that impossible for SCR’s hunter Van Helsing also world premiere production of The Scarlet undergoes a sex-change Letter. from male to female; Largely on the strength of her literary adapta- and the title character himself tions (she has also written several original plays), Hamill serves as the living (undead?) embodiment has been recognized as one of the 10 most-produced of toxic masculinity. playwrights in the American theatre for three years run- Hamill has put her own spin on Nathaniel Haw- ning; and The Wall Street Journal named her Playwright thorne’s The Scarlet Letter, too, but in less obvious ways of the Year in 2017. that don’t evoke such adjectives as “winking” or “post- The bio on Hamill’s website tells us, “She is deeply modern.” Perhaps in response to the dark colorations of passionate about creating new feminist, female-centered Hawthorne’s world, she has reined in her most boister- classics: stories that center around complicated women. ous theatrical impulses and her impish sense of humor Her work as a playwright celebrates theatricality, often (although there’s plenty of imp in how she portrays Hes- features absurdity, and closely examines social and gen- ter Prynne’s little girl, Pearl). For more about how she der issues—as well as the timeless struggle to reconcile has reconfigured Hawthorne’s story, see the accompa- conscience/identity with social pressures. As an actor, nying article. The Scarlet Letter • South CoaSt RepeRtoRy • P3 Re-imagining Hester Prynne “I create radical feminist adaptations that speak to the present moment—which I think of as a collabo- ration between myself and the original author. I approach adapting the classics from a new play lens; I like to make highly theatrical, surprising, topical work. “My Scarlet Letter is an exploration of the deep roots of institutionalized misogyny, hypocrisy, and shame in American power structures. The Massachusetts Bay Colony proclaims itself the shining city on the hill, but harshly punishes any infractions or indications of the ‘other.’ Set four years after the Puri- tans massacred and enslaved the Pequots in the Pequot War and 50 years before the Salem Witch Trials, The Scarlet Letter follows Hester Prynne as she tries to find her moral compass in a society that harshly punishes women for independence, sexuality or defiance of mores. She and the other colonists—includ- ing her lover and estranged husband—struggle with their own deeply-ingrained guilt and shame, as they try to determine what Evil truly is... and how violence, superstition and repression may shape the land that will become America.” —Kate Hamill by John Glore Hamill has distilled the cast down to six characters—in a couple of cases creating characters who don’t appear in n “collaborating” with author Nathaniel Hawthorne the novel, at least not in a way that bears any resemblance on her stage adaptation of his 1850 novel, The