Georges Seurat’s A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grand Jatte, the inspiration for Sunday in the Park with George.

Huntington on Huntington p.3 Sunday in the Park with George p.4 Tiger Style! p.10 Bedroom Farce p.14 Spotlight Spectacular p.20 Education p.22 UPCOMING EVENTS p.26 Performance Calendars p.27 FALL 2016-2017 SPOTLIGHT GREAT THEATRE — PRODUCED BY YOU WELCOME TO OUR 35TH ANNIVERSARY SEASON— YOUR TICKET IS WAITING! SUBLIME PULITZER EXPERIENCE THE BEST THEATRE PRIZE-WINNING MUSICAL SUNDAY IN THE BOSTON HAS TO OFFER. JOIN US PARK WITH GEORGE SEPT. 9 – OCT. 16 FOR THE 2016-2017 SEASON! Only Huntington subscribers get the best plays, the best seats & WILD GLOBETROTTING COMEDY the best prices. 7-play packages start at just $154. Subscribe now and guarantee yourself a great year of theatre, no matter how busy TIGER STYLE! the rest of your schedule becomes.

OCT. 14 – NOV. 13 Join us for all 7 shows (our best deal!) or select a smaller package — either way you get access to the best seats at the best prices and lock-in your seats for a WICKEDLY FUNNY ROMP can’t-miss season, including masterpieces from both Sondheim and Ibsen, three hot new plays, and much more. Plus, you’ll get all our other exclusive subscriber BEDROOM FARCE benefits: free & easy ticket exchanges, missed performance insurance, and special NOV. 11 – DEC. 11 discounts on local restaurants and parking. WE’RE SAVING GREAT SEATS JUST FOR SUBSCRIBERS — SUBSCRIBE TODAY! ICONIC CLASSIC DRAMA A DOLL’S HOUSE HUNTINGTONTHEATRE.ORG/SUBSCRIBE JAN. 6 – FEB. 5 617 266 0800

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2 BOX OFFICE 617 266 0800 THE HUNTINGTON WILL STAY IN ITS HOME ON HUNTINGTON AVENUE nile

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Mayor Martin J. Walsh onstage with Carol G. Deane, Julie Burros, David Epstein, and Peter DuBois

We are delighted to share the news that the Huntington Theatre Company’s place on Huntington Avenue is secure, and that we have successfully negotiated an agreement-in-principle to remain in the BU Theatre, our mainstage home for over three decades, on a long-term basis. As Mayor Martin J. Walsh announced from the BU Theatre stage at a June 9 press conference,

paul “The Huntington Theatre Company is here to stay, on Huntington Avenue, where it belongs. This

marotta announcement sets the stage for the theatre to grow and to gain control of this historic venue where it’s been for over three decades. This is an exciting day for the entire city of Boston.”

As you may recall, in October 2015 Boston University and the Huntington announced that they “The Huntington would dissolve our partnership, and BU put the BU Theatre complex up for sale on the open market. Theatre Company A local development company, QMG Huntington LLC, purchased the building in May. Thanks to the direct support of Mayor Walsh and his administration, the Huntington and QMG have is here to stay, on reached an agreement that will give the Huntington exclusive, long-term control of the historic theatre Huntington Avenue, and the service wing to its west, which we will fully renovate at our own expense. We will also be able to expand our lobbies and other public spaces to better serve our audience and our community. where it belongs.... We welcome this opportunity to revitalize our beautiful theatre, expand our public space, and This is an exciting continue to produce ambitious, large-scale works at this location in a way that enhances our services to audience members, young people, our neighbors, and the theatre community of Boston. Having day for the entire exclusive, long-term control of our mainstage space allows us to grow and puts us in a position of city of Boston.” strength, guaranteeing that we will continue to produce world-class theatre and serve the city of Boston for generations to come.

There is still much work to do and many details to come as we move through the design and review process of this development, and in order to succeed the Huntington will embark on a major new capital fundraising campaign.

This critical moment would not have been possible without our deep and loyal community of supporters, and we promise to keep you informed as future plans develop. We are excited about the opportunity that awaits, and look forward to taking this next leg of our collective journey with you.

For the latest news and up-to-date information, visit the frequently asked questions page of our website at huntingtontheatre.org/FAQ.

HUNTINGTONTHEATRE.ORG 3 Stephen Sondheim’s BOOK BY JAMES stunning masterpiece centers LAPINE on enigmatic painter Georges YRICS BY Seurat and his search for love, inspiration, and “the art of MUSIC & L making art.” One of the most STEPHEN acclaimed musicals ever, this SONDHEIM DIRECTED BY Pulitzer Prize winner features PETER DUBOIS a glorious score, with the songs “Finishing the Hat,” “Putting it Together,” and SUBLIME PULITZER “Move On,” and is directed by PRIZE-WINNING MUSICAL Artistic Director Peter DuBois (A Little Night Music), and features rising stars Adam Chanler-Berat (Broadway’s Peter and the Starcatcher and Next to Normal) and Jenni Barber (Wicked). SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE

“An audacious and touching work with AVENUE OFa lovely, THE wildly ARTS BU THEATRE inventive score” – THE NEW YORK TIMES SEPT.9-Braille OCT.l6 “Sunday in the Park with George is a Sondheim masterpiece. And personally, working on a musical about artistic creation is dizzying and profound. Introducing Boston audiences to rising stars Adam Chanler-Berat and Jenni Barber is a thrill for me, as well as reuniting the world-class team of designers — and much of the fabulous Boston talent — from A Little Night Music.” – ARTISTIC DIRECTOR PETER DuBOIS Composer and lyricist Director Peter DuBois Stephen Sondheim EVERY LITTLE DETAIL: SONDHEIM ON MAKING ART IN SUNDAY “Just when we think we know what Stephen Sondheim does, he As an organizing principle, instead of an overarching musical does something else,” writes critic Sandor Goodhart. “Stephen pattern, Sondheim and the bookwriter James Lapine created a Sondheim has continually eschewed repetition, continually mirrored structure between the first and second acts. The acts sought to remake himself, to reinvent his style.” Each musical that take place 100 years apart — the first follows Seurat as he paints Sondheim has written across his six-decade career breaks new A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grand Jatte, the second ground, not only for the artist himself but for the musical theatre follows his great-grandson as he tries to find inspiration for his form. He brings a constant sense of surprise and reinvention to his next contemporary art creation — and the acts share only a single work through two twin principles: artistic rigor and ingenuity. These character between them. “In Into the Woods, which has a similar key traits can be seen deep in the fabric of his most acclaimed structure, there’s a story, a real plot, which is a result of the first work, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Sunday in the Park with George. act,” Sondheim writes. “But in Sunday, the second act is an entirely separate entity — it’s another ship — so the way to link them When Sondheim began work on the musical in the early 1980s, he together, it seemed to me, was to make it a parallel structure.” In considered making it into an aural representation of pointillism. an impressive trick, the two best known songs from the musical The art technique, in which tiny dots of pure color are arranged in — “Finishing the Hat” and “Putting it Together” — share the same patterns to create a larger image, made the central character of tune. (Original star Mandy Patinkin did not realize Sondheim’s Sunday, the French artist Georges Seurat, into a legend. Sondheim sleight of hand until more than a year into performing the show.) often begins musicals with this kind of strong concept; for A Little Night Music, seen at the Huntington last season, he based all the Structural underpinnings of the intricacy that Sondheim creates may songs off the same time signature — the triple beat of a waltz. be barely perceptible to an audience, especially on the first viewing; however, the rigor and ingenuity of all those small choices, when For Sunday, Sondheim had the notion to mirror Seurat’s work by seen together, take on their own sense of movement and life. As drawing on the artist’s strict reliance on pure colors. “I thought, Sondheim says of Seurat’s original painting, “Of course, this is the isn’t it interesting that Seurat had, on his palate, eleven colors and perfect painting for someone like me to musicalize, because it is all white,” Sondheim said in an interview with scholar Mark Horowitz. about design. It’s all about echo. It’s all about the effect of this next “Eleven and one make twelve. And how many notes are there in a to that, or this apart from that. The more I got to know the painting, scale? Twelve. I thought I would utilize that […] the way he never the more musical I felt.” mixed a color with a color that wasn’t next to it on the color wheel. Like Seurat’s painting, Sunday’s breathtaking beauty comes from He would mix yellow and yellow-orange, or blue with blue-violet; stepping back and looking at the whole effect of the piece. “Look but he would never mix yellow and blue.” Early sketches for Sunday closely at that canvas — or at Sunday in the Park itself — and grew into a complicated notion of coordinating keys for the songs you’ll get lost in a sea of floating dots,” New York Times critic and in a similar pattern. Ultimately, Sondheim discarded these ideas as Sondheim aficionado Frank Rich wrote in his original review. “Stand too restrictive, but their essence still forms and influences the music back and you’ll see that Mr. Sondheim and Mr. Lapine have woven and gives it a distinctive flavor; songs flip back and forth between all those imaginative possibilities into a finished picture with a major and minor keys sometimes in the span of a few measures; startling new glow.” staccato notes dart through deconstructed scales, like dabs of paint on a canvas. – Charles Haugland

LEARN MORE ONLINE Listen to “Fresh Air’s” Terry Gross interview Stephen Sondheim about the stories behind his songs and learn more about Georges Seurat’s life and work.

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Director Peter DuBois and Adam Chanler-Berat visit Seurat’s A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte at the Art Institute of Chicago

Art a Century Apart: Sondheim’s inspirations for SUNDAY “I care a lot about art and the artist,” says composer Stephen another one, or was related to someone else.” The final question Sondheim, exploring why he chose to base a musical off a famous Sondheim and Lapine asked themselves before they started work: work of visual art. “The major thing I wanted to do [with Sunday in Who was missing from the painting? Sondheim and Lapine both the Park with George] was to enable anyone who is not an artist to agreed — it was the artist. understand what hard work it is.” 1884 After the closing of Merrily We Roll Along, Sondheim almost gave Seurat was a leader of the Neo-Impressionist movement that was up writing musicals, until he was introduced to writer-director radical for its time, known for being the pioneer in the pointillism James Lapine. The two began exploring ideas for a musical to technique. His painting A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of create together, and while they considered a short story, they knew they had their inspiration when they came across Georges La Grande Jatte was started in 1884. Seurat lived a short and Seurat’s painting A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande mysterious life, dying in 1891 at the age of 31 from a strange illness. Jatte. “We realized that that painting was the setting of a play,” Sondheim was intrigued by Seurat’s double life: “Almost every night explained Sondheim. “All the people in that painting, when you start he’d stroll over to his mother’s house for dinner, yet only a few speculating on why none of them are looking at each other, maybe weeks before he died, she discovered he’d kept a mistress and had there’s a reason for that. Maybe someone was having an affair with had a baby by her.”

6 BOX OFFICE 617 266 0800 Seurat’s progressive work as an artist parallels Sondheim’s use of music, as seen in last season’s A Little Night Music. Sondheim Twinkle, and shimmer, changed musical theatre from hummable tunes to songs that expressed the intricate inner-monologues of his characters. Both and buzz: The chromolume the portrait of a man and the creative process, Sondheim’s classic features one of his most autobiographical songs “Finishing the Hat.” In Ethan Mordden’s On Sondheim: An Opinionated Guide he in process explains, “‘Finishing the Hat’ offers a massive credo for the artist Georges Seurat, the painter whose work inspired Sunday in the who has, in effect, two souls: one for the physical specimen living Park with George, is most often associated with the movement in the world and another for the out-of-body creator living in the of Pointillism, but Seurat did not use that word himself. Neither canvases where he re-fashions the world.” a follower of Impressionism or Expressionism, Seurat called his theory “chromoluminarism” (“color-light-ism”). Impressionists How you have to finish the hat wanted to capture a fleeting moment. Seurat wanted to break How you watch the rest of the world down the composition of an image to its tiniest elements, and From a window while you finish the hat then recombine them. He wanted to change the way we - “Finishing the Hat,” Sunday in the Park with George perceived the world around us. In the musical, his legacy carries on in act two through his great- 1984 grandson George, a postmodern 1980s artist who is creating light In the second act, Sondheim introduces us to George, the great- sculptures he calls “chromolumes.” As director Peter DuBois began grandson of Georges Seurat. Like his namesake, George’s work working with the designers, is radical for his time. The inventor-sculptor George enters he knew that he wanted to with his Chromolume #7, a contemporary art piece created to take George’s art in a different commemorate Georges Seurat’s original Sunday painting. George direction for this production. is experiencing a creative drought as he begins to lose funding for “Sometimes, in productions his art. Should he make something that sells, or make something of Sunday, the chromolume that speaks to himself? is a send-up of 1980s art that looks like a Studio 54 disco Sondheim explored the same connection. “Mr. Sondheim has ball or something that came written a lovely, wildly inventive score that sometimes remakes the out of ‘Dr. Who,’” says DuBois. modern French composers whose revolution in music paralleled “But George is showing it at the Art Institute of Chicago, one of the post-Impressionists’ in art,” wrote critic Frank Rich in The New the great museums in the world, and he has been commissioned York Times. Sunday in the Park with George is a musical experiment to create a piece that is a call-and-response with Seurat’s painting. in its storytelling form. The bridge between both acts lies within That’s not a person who is a joke or a hack.” the work of the artist. “It’s part of the reason [Sondheim] did the piece,” said Bernard Jacobs of the Shubert Organization, a For inspiration, DuBois went back to the original theory of producer of the original musical, “My guess is that it’s his reflection chromoluminarism. “Seurat was trying to find a science to color,” of his own place in the world.” DuBois says. “How does the eye put color and image together? Why do we respond to certain things differently than others?” Sunday in the Park with George surrounds itself in a visual painting. DuBois drew the designers back to Seurat’s original theories, As Sondheim says, “Musicals are, by nature, theatrical — meaning while staying mindful of the plot of the musical. “Early on, I knew poetic, meaning having to move the audience’s imagination and that I wanted the designers to understand that George’s art drew create a suspension of disbelief, by which I mean there’s no fourth on Seurat,” DuBois says. “I didn’t want to step on the comedy of wall.” Sunday invites artists, creators, and audience members of all the fact that when we meet George in the second act, he is stuck forms to experience the art of making art. in a rut. The nature of the story is that he has been doing the same thing over and over — but I still wanted it to be impressive.” – Phaedra Scott To that end, DuBois and music director Eric Stern commissioned Michael Starobin, the orchestrator for the original Broadway production, to compose new music for the chromolume. “It was important to me that the Chromolume was not an object, so much as an experience,” DuBois says. “Michael, Eric, [projection designer] Zachary Borovay, and [lighting designer] Christopher Akerlind — we are all working together to create a piece of lighting and video that has its own twists and turns. Michael has created music, that while still grounded in the realities of 1980s composition, has more heart-stopping moments and then still carries us right back into the world of the play.”

SEE PAGE 26 – Charles Haugland FOR SHOW PERFORMANCE CALENDAR & EVENT LISTINGS

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The cast of the Huntington’s A Little Night Music (2015)

Charles Haugland (Artistic Programs and Dramaturgy): If people have not heard yet, what is the Huntington’s Sondheim Cycle? Peter DuBois (Artistic Director, director of A Little Night Music and Sunday in the Park with George): We will explore and produce THE all of the musicals where Stephen Sondheim wrote both music and lyrics. We may add some that he may have just written the lyrics; we are still exploring what kind of limitations we want to put on ourselves. And who wants to rule out Gypsy or West SONDHEIM Side Story? The notion is to combine original productions that we create here at the Huntington alongside landmark productions from elsewhere that I find really exciting; we are talking to Maria Friedman about CYCLE: her production of Merrily We Roll Along which I saw at the Menier Chocolate Factory in London, and was the definitive production of ARTISTIC DIRECTOR PETER that musical. John Doyle’s Passion — which started at Classic Stage Company in New York — was an incredible rendition of a challenging DuBOIS ON THE HUNTINGTON’S musical that I would love to bring here. CH: Where did the idea come from? COMMITMENT TO THE WORK PD: I was in London watching the production of Merrily at the Menier. I had been seeing a lot of Sondheim in London in remarkably different kinds of venues. I thought, “What would it OF STEPHEN SONDHEIM mean to do all of Sondheim’s work as an artistic and intellectual Before Peter DuBois directed A Little Night Music last exploration of the artist?” Before the Huntington, I came from The Public Theater in New York where [founding artistic director] season, he had started on the planning stages for a long- Joe Papp made a commitment to do all of Shakespeare’s 37 term artistic exploration of composer Stephen Sondheim’s plays. When Joe passed, George Wolfe continued the legacy, work — a project that will bring the Huntington and and completed the cycle. its audience on a decades-long journey. In an interview, At the Huntington, we explored August Wilson for 20 years, and I DuBois shares what drives his enthusiasm for Sondheim’s felt like there was something profound about having an anchor artist work and a bit more about what audiences can expect. that we are committed to over a period of time. We are in a town where people like to geek out over certain things, and Sondheim is amazing to geek out on. Over any other musical theatre writer and composer, Sondheim is an artist who connects with Boston, because we have both a rich sense of intellectual inquiry here and also a sophisticated musical palette. Sondheim’s

8 BOX OFFICE 617 266 0800 of vulnerability that we want.” The ability to direct those songs moment to moment is — and I don’t use this word lightly — an absolute honor.

CH: The first two productions are both at our large mainstage space — and they are both directed by you with a fair amount of overlap in terms of the artistic team. Should audiences expect those trends to continue? PD: One of the things that was really appealing when I started exploring this idea a couple of years ago was that I felt like Sondheim was the artist that could unify our campuses: the 890-

t seat theatre we have on the Avenue of the Arts, as well as the two . charles theatres we built in the South End at the Calderwood Pavilion.

Having been exposed to Sondheim’s work at the Menier — which erickson is a small space — I discovered that you can experience Sondheim in so many different-sized venues. There are musicals like Sunday Stephen Bogardus and Haydn Gwynne in A Little Night Music (2015) in the Park with George that you want to see on a giant canvas, and there are musicals like Passion that pop and come alive on a smaller canvas. This is part of what differentiates an exploration of Sondheim’s work from an artist like August Wilson; with Sondheim we are using our venues to shape the artistic approach music — and the drama it conveys — is richly complicated, full of to the material and trying to choose the venue that seems most contradiction, and surprising when a new melody comes flying in appropriate to the material. and sweeps you off your feet. After these two, I know some of what I want to do down the CH: How far does it go back for you with Sondheim? road, but I think that in the short term, we will start to explore PD: I was in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum celebrated productions from elsewhere. There are also directors in in high school. I just was so turned on to him as an artist by that the immediate Huntington circle — Billy Porter or Joanna Gleason — production. I became a Sondheim fanatic, and I started to listen who are acclaimed Sondheim interpreters already as actors and who to all of his music. have really compelling ideas for productions.

CH: What is it about Sondheim’s work? CH: Finally, we have heard a lot from audience members who love Sondheim and are thrilled about this long-term commitment, PD: The songs are so integrated into the story and even into the scenes themselves — especially emotionally. When I was working and then we also heard from people who had never responded with actress Haydn Gwynne on “Send in the Clowns” in A Little Night to Sondheim before but loved A Little Night Music. Do you think Music, we discovered you cannot take that song out of the context about how to convert more people to be Sondheim geeks? of the scene that precedes it between her and Fredrik. The song is a PD: By and large, people love Sondheim in this city. We won’t bore continuation emotionally of Desiree being rejected by Fredrik, and people with this exploration; we will find ways to explore the work only through the song does she acknowledge that both are aware that will keep people interested. of the mistakes that they made and that they cannot be together. My hope is that we will win over converts, too. Sometimes people Immediately following our production here, Haydn was actually have just never experienced Sondheim with the benefit of the story performing the song for a celebration of Sondheim’s work on the unfolding at the same time. I have been to concerts celebrating West End in London. She requested that they bring an actor to play Sondheim where it is clear that the singer does not understand the Fredrik, so that they could play the scene before she sang the song. context of the song in the musical, so they just create their own That is something that I think Sondheim does better than any one approach and interpretation. Sometimes it works. But you don’t composer I have encountered. have to look further than Frank Sinatra’s “Send in the Clowns,” CH: Can you talk about the music itself, too? where, God bless his heart, the intention of the song is not conveyed in his jaunty version. PD: The music also tells the story; it is not just the lyrics. The melody, the rhythm, the tone are each a representation of the story he is Mostly I hope that people will be interested in the opportunity to unfolding before the audience. Sometimes the music creates a sense take a deep dive and go on the journey with us. In contemporary of irony between what is being sung and what is being felt. A lot time, we are so hooked on “what is the hot single off the album,” of people talk about how Sondheim will create darker melodies for “what episodes of the series are ‘must-watch,’” and there is very lighter thoughts, and that’s not arbitrary — that is embedded in the little — outside heavily serialized television — where you get to a character’s emotional relationship to what they are singing. Because greater level of depth over a period of years. Producing Sondheim in of that depth of storytelling, it is incredible to get in the room with this way insists that you slow down and experience a body of work an actor for one of his musicals and direct the songs beat by beat. over several seasons. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that he is one of the We get to share revelations: “if you attack this note this way, it has great geniuses of the 20th century. We are exploring the Bach or a level of irony that it wants, or if you go another way, it gets a level Mozart of our time — fearless as a composer and a perfectionist.

HUNTINGTONTHEATRE.ORG 9 Squabbling siblings Albert and Jennifer Chen reached the pinnacle of academic achievement. But as adults, BY MIKE LEW they’re epic failures: he’s just DIRECTED BY been passed up for promotion MORITZ VON STUELPNAGEL and she’s been dumped by her loser boyfriend. So, naturally, they confront their parents and launch an Asian Freedom Tour! From WILD GLOBETROTTING COMEDY California to China, this hilarious new comedy examines race, parenting, and success with wit and sharp humor.

“A spirited, fast-paced, colorful, funny & TIGER entertaining romp that’s as energetic as it is easy to like.” STYLE! – ARTSATL

OCT.14- NOV.l3 “Wild comedic ride! SOUTH ENDSmart urban comedy!” CALDERWOOD– PAVILIONATLANTA JOURNAL AT THE CON BCASTITUTION “Tiger Style! will hit the sweet spot — it is both side- splittingly funny and intellectually rich. I became a major fan of the play after our Breaking Ground reading in 2014 and knew we had to produce it. Mike Lew has written a sharp and original comedy about generational differences, cultural heritage, and race in America today, and I can’t wait to bring Boston audiences along for the ride.” – ARTISTIC DIRECTOR PETER DuBOIS

Playwright Mike Lew Director Moritz von Stuelpnagel THE ART OF COLLABORATION: INTRODUCING MIKE LEW & MORITZ VON STUELPNAGEL

Huntington Director of New Work Lisa Timmel Lisa Timmel: The three of us go way back, but how did you guys interviews playwright Mike Lew and director Moritz actually first meet? von Stuelpnagel about Tiger Style!, a new American Mike Lew: Probably in your office at Playwrights Horizons. That was comedy about the contradictions of identity. the likeliest location. Moritz von Stuelpnagel: Mike and I were directing interns together at Playwrights Horizons. But we also had a love of new plays and dramaturgy and therefore seemed to gravitate to your office and to the lively conversation that seemed to be spewing forth around every cubicle wall. ML: I had been a literary intern before being a directing resident so I was thinking, “Oh, I’m lost, I’m gonna go back to the place that I know.” MVS: Like when you get lost in the mall! That’s what they tell you to do — or maybe it’s stay put — I’m not sure, but I’m glad it worked out because that’s where I found you. Because I feel like my job as a director is to support the writer as much as anything else and because the literary office is the hub for that, it seemed to me the most valuable place to be. ML: We met there and then we both were in the Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab but we didn’t actually start working together as writer and director until I was in Youngblood at Ensemble Studio Theater [EST]. That dates back to 2005-2006, so that’s how long we’ve been working together.

LT: Moritz, do you remember the first play of Mike’s you directed? MVS: Yes, it was a ten-minute play called The Roosevelt Cousins Thoroughly Sauced which is about a young FDR and Eleanor grappling with the life changes of polio, and written in classic absurdist Mike style. It did really well at EST and went on to win a Samuel French short play competition. And since then we have done I don’t know how many projects together ...

LEARN MORE ONLINE Read an interview with playwright Mike Lew and learn more about his history with director Moritz von Stuelpnagel.

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Ruibo Qian and Jon Norman Schneider; Francis Jue and Emily Kuroda in Tiger Style! at Atlanta’s Alliance Theatre (2015)

ML: I’ve lost count. You’ve become the premier interpreter of my personal exploration is now a more political exploration about, work! “What is our place as Asian Americans in this country?” Moritz read the first draft of the play, and our first crack at it was in the MVS: It feels really good to be in a collaborative relationship with someone I’m also close friends with. I think we have a great Huntington’s Breaking Ground reading series. shorthand that doesn’t require excess courtesy to manage each LT: Much of the comedy in Tiger Style! trades lovingly on other’s egos. We can really dig in without needing to be polite with generational differences and it’s told from the point of view of the each other about the work. It creates an energy in the room that I children. Now that you are a parent yourself, do you feel differently? don’t always feel I have in some of my other productions. When Mike ML: Growing up, I always knew my parents were pretty strict and I collaborate, something sparks. compared to other parents, and even though I went along with it, ML: Really early when I started theatre, I remember seeing a panel I often found myself, if not outwardly resentful, at the very least I with Daniel Sullivan and Donald Margulies talking about their was very agitated. But with this play I actually tried to be longstanding collaboration, and I was really skeptical of it. I don’t sympathetic towards my parents and really think about where they know why. I think it’s the nature of being a young artist and being were coming from. This play is also trying to provide a counter- skeptical of anything that’s become established. I guess it felt like, narrative to prevailing stereotypes about “Asian tiger parenting” seeing that relationship, there was a complacency built into it. What — this completely racist notion that Asian families only care about I’m finding now is that a good, longstanding relationship is not achievement and don’t even love each other. Now that I’m a parent born of complacency but of mutual challenge. So not only is there a myself, I actually called up my dad and apologized for thinking that shorthand, but I think that we continue to push each other and rely parenting was so easy, and this was only upon having an infant who on each other in new ways. The most recent show that we worked can’t even talk back to me yet! (My dad was actually very gracious on together was a workshop production of Teenage Dick during about all this and said that it’s not about who was right or wrong, which my son was born, so I had to physically leave that process. but about trying to do the best for your kids.) Moritz was giving me impressions from the performances and LT: Even though it’s a comedy, Tiger Style! is similar to many classic making suggestions. I had to trust that he understood my vision for American dramas. Like Awake and Sing!, The Glass Menagerie, the piece enough that he could tell me about my own script without Fences, and Curse of the Starving Class, it tells a story of young me necessarily being there. When I came back to catch the final people trapped by and/or breaking with their origins. Moritz, how couple of shows it was really as if I hadn’t been gone. I had this play does this heritage inform your direction? ripped out of my prying grip, and yet I found that I could trust him with that. That was a huge lesson: when you work with people you MVS: You’re right. The play, like many American plays, asks what really trust and are really good, you don’t have to be the boot on the ingredients our heritage provides in the makeup of who we are. But neck of the play the whole time. I think our heroes, brother and sister Albert and Jennifer — who are really more a pair of hapless, foolhardy anti-heroes — fall into the LT: Tell me a little bit about the origins and development of trap of letting labels reduce their understanding of themselves. As Tiger Style! two Asian Americans, they feel they’re on the receiving end of racial ML: I started this play in my last year at Juilliard. It remains a judgment, and that fills them with an indignation and possibly even very personal work that wrestles with my upbringing, my cultural self-loathing. So they buck that perception by leaning into a fully upbringing, and increasingly the push-pull of not just what it means American stereotype, and when that fails, a fully Chinese stereotype. that I’m Asian American in the US, but also how outside perceptions The fact that they are really putting on an act is incredibly fun, affect being Asian American in the US. What started as a very comedically. They get to be raucously politically incorrect.

12 BOX OFFICE 617 266 0800 LT: The Huntington production of Tiger Style! is the second time the two of you will be mounting this play together. How is it to Curtain Calls return to a project almost a year later? NAME Bryan T. Donovan ML: It’s interesting, not every writer-director relationship survives through multiple productions of the same play, whether it’s ROLE Russ the Bus because the opportunity never arises or because they choose not HOMETOWN Sterling Heights, Michigan to work together again. For this production specifically, we are revamping a lot from the world premiere at the Alliance Theatre. What is the best advice your parents ALWAYS look a gift horse in In sort of play-testing the play with that audience we discovered ever gave you? the mouth — vet bills are pricey. things in the directing concept and the script and how the audience received it. We realized there were things that could be clarified. I think that in a lot of relationships you might just say, “Well, let’s NAME Francis Jue just kind of do it again. Let’s preserve the thing that we had from ROLE Dad the last one.” But both of us have been working really hard at it HOMETOWN San Francisco, California from reconceiving the design to going scene by scene and thinking about my intentions as opposed to how the audience was receiving How did audiences in Atlanta respond it. We’ve really been working hard for this new production. I think to Tiger Style!? They fell out of their seats at that sort of speaks to our shared work ethic. this hysterical, political, poignant play! I think it surprised a lot of audience members that they identified so much with the family in this play.

“What started as a very NAME Emily Kuroda personal exploration is now a ROLE Mom HOMETOWN 20-acre vegetable farm in more political exploration about, Fresno, California What do you admire about your ‘What is our place as Asian parents? After WWII my parents were busy making a living — my father farmed and my mother worked in a Americans in this country?’” sewing factory and did farm labor at night and on weekends. They – Mike lew worked 7 days a week and never complained. With gratitude, I aspire to have a fraction of their strength.

LT: How does it feel to be bringing the show to Boston? NAME Ruibo Qian MVS: Well, as you know, I went to Boston University so for me to ROLE Jennifer come back to the Huntington to direct a show there feels, to me HOMETOWN Houston, Texas sentimentally, like a real benchmark of success in my career. To be in Boston, to spend time with the wonderful community and the Favorite moment performing Tiger My favorite moments are those restaurants, there’s a lot I’m looking forward to. Style!? backstage with Jon gearing up for Act II. Being ML: I’ve been hearing about plays that originated at the Huntington only children, we both really learned to channel our inner sibling. throughout my writing career, and so it’s become a huge goal to Maybe too well? have a play go there, especially one that I’m actively working on. I think that it’s really brave in the theatre to be producing plays that are either world premieres or that, like our show, are not known NAME Jon Norman Schneider commodities already. Not every theatre that does new plays takes ROLE Albert that risk. So, I’m really excited to be in a theatre that is giving this HOMETOWN I grew up around Arthur Avenue play a shot. I know that your audience is really savvy about the in the Bronx kind of political and cultural commentary that I’m doing. Just from the reading that we did I felt like I was really being understood. I How are you like your character? know that it’s going to push me to do my best work. To know that I was an overachiever in school and I can there’s an audience that gets what I’m wrestling with, which is overthink and over-analyze like he does. Certainly, many of his not always a given. identity politics around growing up Asian American in this country resonate with me. Although I wish I was as hyper-articulate as he is when laying out his frustrations and discontents.

SEE PAGE 26 FOR SHOW PERFORMANCE CALENDAR & EVENT LISTINGS

HUNTINGTONTHEATRE.ORG 13 “Bedroom Farce is a masterclass in comedy at its finest.” – THE WASHINGTON POST

BY

ALAN AYCKBOURN 4 couples. 3 bedrooms. DIRECTED BY WICKEDLY FUNNY ROMP MARIA AITKEN One hilarious night. Trevor and Susannah, with their marriage on the rocks, invade 3 bedrooms of their family and friends over the course of an evening, spreading chaos in their wake. Director Maria Aitken (The 39 Steps, Private Lives) returns for this BEDROOM rollicking comedy of marital FARCE misunderstandings.

AVENUE OF THE ARTS NOV . 11BU THEATRE - DEC .11

Braille “Having Maria Aitken at the helm of a Huntington show is always a dream. She struck gold with the Olivier and Tony Award-winning The 39 Steps and directed amazing productions of masterworks The Seagull and Private Lives. In my eyes Maria will always have an artistic home here at the Huntington. Also, Maria starred as Susannah in the National Theatre’s premiere of Bedroom Farce, so she knows what she’s talking about. Quick-witted, moving, and entertaining, this production is one to anticipate.” – ARTISTIC DIRECTOR PETER DuBOIS Playwright Alan Ayckbourn Director Maria Aitken It’s Complicated: Alan Ayckbourn’s Bedroom Farce As long as human beings have had relationships, they have had in the way of sex. Actually, of course, it’s full of sex, but sex of a need to define them with the phrase “it’s complicated” — an a different sort. It covers a whole wide range of sexual troubles, expression that has taken on new life in the 21st century. The term sexual problems.” is now everywhere, from a Facebook status to a Nancy Meyers movie title. But is the modern ubiquity of “it’s complicated” a sign Ayckbourn’s sideways perspective into the married milieu that our relationships have become more messy — or have we offers a fresh and deeply funny lens to those who have been in just embraced the language to describe what was always there? relationships. Aykbourn can “believably effuse charms sure to infect English playwright Alan Ayckbourn, known as “the Molière of the a willing audience with giggles, guffaws, and the occasional insight Middle Class,” has made a decades-long career out of examining that, yes, that’s what it’s like,” wrote David DeWitt of The New York Times in his review of the play. the complex conflicts at the heart of relationships, and lays out the highs and lows of married life in his acclaimed early comedy For Ayckbourn, an audience’s laughter is more than pleasure; it’s Bedroom Farce. a sign that his message is landing: “It’s more important to me to make people laugh, provided they come. If a house is full of people, Bedroom Farce circles around the lives of four intertwining couples you know you’re doing something right.” While veiled in comedy, in different stages of a relationship: Delia and Ernest, an older Bedroom Farce is an intricate exploration that asks the questions: couple, are fully comfortable in their nighttime routine; Malcolm and How do we treat our loved ones? How do we treat ourselves? What Kate, a fresh young couple, play clever pranks on each other; Jan do we deserve in a partner? and Nick settle for co-existing. But drama ensues when Ayckbourn’s final couple, Susannah and Trevor, split up and the chaos they create Our modern culture is overrun by think pieces on the “Secrets of threatens all of the other relationships in the play. For the revival at Successful, Long-Lasting Relationships” or “Ten Ways to Meet the the Huntington, this symphony of dysfunctional relationships will Guy (or Girl) of your Dreams.” Ayckbourn’s play takes on the deeper be orchestrated by director Maria Aitken, a longtime Huntington themes at the heart of relationships: what do we expect? What do collaborator who in a fitting twist played Susannah in the London we get? He takes notions of an ideal relationship, and rearranges premiere of the play at the National Theatre. them through three bedrooms — the most intimate space for couples. For Ayckbourn, the bedroom is more than an intimate and Written in 1975, Ayckbourn created Bedroom Farce in response to idyllic haven; it is a place where convention and morality fall away, superficial sex farces that emphasized who is in bed with whom and we see the depth of our truer selves. “I feel society has to live at the expense of the complications and tribulations of how they by certain guidelines, and in the end, I suppose I believe in respect got there. Ayckbourn creates a world with real consequences, for other people,” explains Ayckbourn on his writing. “But I’m in an even though the circumstances are out of the ordinary. “What I awful position as a writer, because I love it when things break up.” tried to do was avoid the obvious,” says Ayckbourn, “and write a play about the British in bed without emphasizing anything much – Phaedra Scott

LEARN MORE ONLINE Watch an interview with Alan Ayckbourn at the National Theatre and discover Maria Aitken’s history with the stage in an interview with The Telegraph.

HUNTINGTONTHEATRE.ORG 15 Curtain Calls the rivals NAME Malcolm Stuart Ingram ROLE Ernest HOMETOWN Syracuse, New York How are you like your character? I am like Ernest in that I get great satisfaction from seeing everything in its place, and I share his naive enthusiasm about things I like. However, I don’t share his sense of certainty about everything, and I have more of a sense of humor than him. What does Bedroom Farce tell us about relationships? I think we learn that we should think more about other people than ourselves.

NAME Karl Miller ROLE Trevor CREATING EXTRAORDINARY HOMETOWN I grew up all over the Midwest. What does Bedroom Farce tell us about WORLDS FOR HUNTINGTON relationships? There’s a Yiddish proverb and my recollection of it is: “If you don’t live under AUDIENCES: the bed, you can’t judge the relationship.” I think that’s wise, and I think some couples are as doomed as they appear to be, and Bedroom Farce revels in both truths. Alexander Dodge is an award-winning international set and costume designer for musicals, plays, opera, and My perfect 24 hours: Goethe said, “A man should hear a little dance. He has designed productions in New York, Chicago, music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the Los Angeles, and London, AS WELL AS 14 PRODUCTIONS for beautiful.” To that I would add: Sweat. Create. Dine. Drink. Friends. the Huntington Theatre Company. We asked Alexander to Family. Play. Travel. Nature. Some harmonic dose of those things share his recollections about some of his most makes a day. memorable designs for the Huntington’s stages. NAME Patricia Hodges ROLE Delia HOMETOWN Puyallup, Washington What does Bedroom Farce tell us about relationships? Bedroom Farce shows relationships are driven by many things: sexual SEE PAGE 26 attraction, a need for drama, and a willingness to form alliances FOR SHOW PERFORMANCE CALENDAR & EVENT LISTINGS and arrive at a balance, finally, with someone else. My perfect 24 hours: Trees, water, walking, movies, laughter, and a healthy mix of solitude and companionship. the miracle at naples NAME Mahira Kakkar ROLE Jan HOMETOWN Kolkata, India How are you like your character? In some ways Jan is quite no-nonsense and practical and can’t deal with her husband’s perceived whining. I can be practical, but have been known to get lost in daydreams. I also feel guilty leaving my partner alone if he’s feeling the slightest bit unwell. My perfect 24 hours: Lots of sleep, a rejuvenating yoga class, a massage, rehearsal, dinner with my partner and friends, and a poetry show.

16 BOX OFFICE 617 266 0800 Love’s Labour’s Lost Present Laughter boleros for the disenchanted

SET DESIGNER ALEXANDER DODGE 2005: The Rivals “The set as drawers in a chest I really 2009: The Miracle at Naples “I was actually looking thought of more like books on a shelf that could be pulled out. at the overhead views of the winding streets and numerous little Each one could hold its own little story that would unfold and squares of Naples on Google Satellite. When I zoomed in on a spill out as it was opened.” courtyard it had a forced perspective look which felt appropriate in its compact beauty.” 2006: Love’s Labour’s Lost “I find designing for Shakespeare is often terrifying, but sometimes also very freeing. 2012: Good People “The director Kate Whoriskey and I Director Nicholas Martin loved the idea about climbing on a tree for were driving around South Boston taking pictures for research one scene and we ended up setting most of the play around and and we came across stacks of these shipping containers at the inside of this tree.” harbor. They were so weathered and beautiful but also seemed to be a compelling metaphor when used in an abstract way as the 2007: Present Laughter “The most important part of envelope for the play.” making a set for a comedy is just staying out of its way. I’ve known Brooks Ashmanskas for years, so I knew if I gave him a big bannister 2016: Bedroom Farce “Though we are always inside three to slide down he probably would.” interiors, I thought it would be interesting to see a bit of the exteriors of these places as well. I liked the idea of getting to tell a little more 2008: Boleros for the Disenchanted “I liked the of the story of the class and social structure of all of the characters idea of contrasting the leafy, lush atmosphere of the first act in we meet with the structure of the environment itself.” Puerto Rico with the stark man-made tract home development in Alabama of the second act. I sought to make it feel natural and a bit romantic.” production photos by t. charles erickson good people bedroom farce

HUNTINGTONTHEATRE.ORG 17 HUNTINGTON COMMUNITY MEMBERSHIP INITIATIVE SET TO EXPAND THANKS TO NEW PARTNERSHIPS The Huntington is thrilled to announce that Bank of America is our season sponsor of the Huntington Community Membership Initiative, nile

which aims to reduce economic hawver impediments to theatre and to build

audiences more reflective of Boston’s Huntington Board President Sharon Malt and Board Chairman David Epstein diverse demographics. With Bank of America’s support, we will continue to work with over 180 Greater Boston neighborhood organizations to offer Community Members $20 tickets to any available seat at every performance. WELCOME TO OUR

The Huntington Community Membership Initiative is also NEW BOARD LEADERS embarking on an exciting expansion this year. We are delighted to be We are thrilled to announce the election of Trustee David Epstein, included as an inaugural recipient of the Theatre Communications who will serve as Chairman, and Trustee Sharon Malt, who will Group (TCG)’s Audience (R)Evolution Cohort Grant. Through this become President of the Huntington’s Board of Trustees. program more than $1.18 million was awarded to teams of three or Sharon and David each have served in vital capacities within the more not-for-profit organizations across the nation to design and Huntington community over the years, as well as clearly sharing implement audience engagement and community development a passion for our work onstage and off. But in these new roles they projects. have big shoes to fill, as their election signals the end of the terms for our outgoing Chairman Carol G. Deane and President Mitchell As part of this grant, the Huntington will partner with the Lyric Roberts. If you cross paths with Carol or Mitch, please thank them Stage Company and SpeakEasy Stage Company to expand for their jobs well-done. And if you see Sharon and David, please and further develop the initiative to reach more members and welcome them and thank them for taking on their roles. The organizations in underserved communities, and offer more shows Huntington is incredibly fortunate to have had such strong and opportunities to our community members. leadership under the aegis of Carol and Mitch, and we Audience (R)Evolution is funded by the Doris Duke Charitable look forward to welcoming David and Sharon into their new Foundation to study, promote, and support successful audience Board positions this fall. engagement and community development strategies for the US not-for-profit theatre field.

LEARN MORE: huntingtontheatre.org/community SEASON SPONSOR: MADE POSSIBLE BY A GRANT FROM: WELCOME NEW OVERSEERS We are pleased to announce the election of three new members to the Huntington’s Council of Overseers: Maria Farley Gerrity, Jim Burns, and Tracey A. West. Overseers play a vital role in the Huntington, giving their time and lending their expertise and judgement on a wide array of topics including finance, development, investment, and community building. We are grateful for their commitment and welcome them to the Huntington Board family.

18 BOX OFFICE 617 266 0800 Scenic Artist Liv Joyce paints an elaborate curtain backdrop for A Little Night Music

Now is a time of great opportunity for the Huntington and the Boston arts community. HELP As you may know, the Huntington gained exclusive, long-term control of our historic mainstage theatre on Huntington Avenue in June. We have exciting and ambitious plans to fully renovate the building and to expand our lobbies and other public spaces to better serve you — our audience and our community. And we HUNTINGTON cannot wait to involve you in bringing these plans to life! While we are ecstatic to be retaining our theatre, we will need to relocate our scene shop, paint shop, and prop shop from ARTISANS FIND Huntington Avenue to another site in our region before June 2017. This unanticipated need to secure a new home for our entire production team will significantly increase our current annual operating expenses. And yet what could be more important to THE SPACE TO the Huntington and our loyal patrons than finding a new home for our brilliant production staff to create the scenery that has dazzled audiences for decades? CREATE Your gift to support the relocation of our production facilities will ensure that the designers, carpenters, welders, painters, and other artisans who bring the Huntington’s physical productions to life have a long-term home to continue to create.

To give to the production relocation initiative and to discover other ways you can support the Huntington, visit huntingtontheatre.org/waystogive.

Thank you for your generosity!

HUNTINGTONTHEATRE.ORG 19 SPOTLIGHT SPECTACULAR RAISES MORE THAN $1 MILLION

On April 25, 2016 more than 400 guests honored Huntington Board Chairman Carol G. Deane and celebrated the brilliant cast of the Huntington’s production of A Little Night Music. During the evening the Huntington raised over $1 million to support its renowned education and community programs for the third consecutive year, thanks to the generosity of Spotlight Spectacular attendees and supporters.

The all-star cast from the Huntington’s hit production of A Little Night Music reunited throughout the evening to bring Sondheim’s most romantic musical to life once more.

The evening also featured the presentation of the Gerard and Sherryl Cohen Awards for Excellence to Costume Design Assistant Mary Lauve and Calderwood Pavilion Rental Coordinator Katie Most.

The 2016 Spotlight Spectacular was co-chaired by Neal Balkowitsch, Donald Nelson, and Jill Roberts.

Watch a video about the Huntington’s student matinees and education programs supported by proceeds from the Spotlight Spectacular at huntingtontheatre.org/education.

20 BOX OFFICE 617 266 0800 Thank You! To learn more about the education and community programs made possible by wonderful supporters like you and the generous contributors at this year’s Spotlight Spectacular, turn to page 22.

Please consider deepening your impact by making a gift at huntingtontheatre.org/support. photos : paul

marotta

HUNTINGTONTHEATRE.ORG 21 STUDENT MATINEE SERIES 34 Years 4,500+ students attended a student matinee last season nile

hawver 140,000+ students have attended a production at the Huntington! Learn more: huntingtontheatre.org/studentmatinee

“I thank August Wilson for his work; it allowed me to express emotions I’ve never let out before. This experience not only made me a better actor, but helped me take steps toward being more open and willing to speak my mind. Participating in this program has helped make me a better person.” — Victoria Omoregie, 2016 Boston National Finalist student from Snowden International School at Copley EDUCATION & COMMUNITY PROGRAMS BY THE NUMBERS Over the past 34 years, 560,000 students and underserved audience members have benefited from the Huntington’s nationally recognized education and community programs. 12 POETRY OUT LOUD Years 156,000 students from 700 schools have participated in Massachusetts david

3,000,000 marshall students have participated from all 50 states, plus Washington, DC; Puerto Rico; and the US Virgin Islands 2017 registration opens September 6: huntingtontheatre.org/pol

22 BOX OFFICE 617 266 0800 AUGUST WILSON MONOLOGUE COMPETITION 2,300+ BOSTON PUBLIC SCHOOL STUDENTS involved since 2011 1 national champion: 2014 Boston finalist Ashley Herbert david

marshall 11 Boston Public School residencies (7 additional schools joined when 2017 registration opens September 6: huntingtontheatre.org/awmc competition expanded last season) 11 SUMMER THEATRE INSTITUTE SUMMERS 20-30 students participate each summer paul

16 marotta year partnership with Codman Academy Charter Public Schools NOT WAITING on THE WORLD TO CHANGE 2015 LAUNCH DATE new anti-bullying initiative 20 participaNTS 2 new plays created: The View from Here and S.T.O.P.

HUNTINGTONTHEATRE.ORG 23 ANNOUNCING THE 2016-2017 STUDENT MATINEE SEASON! STUDENT MATINEE TICKETS ARE JUST $15! Performances start at 10am and are followed by lively Actors Forums with members of the cast. Student groups are also welcome at regularly scheduled performances. Our online curriculum guides are available for use in the classroom and include historical information, interesting facts about the production, lesson plans, and more. Sunday in the Park with George September 29, 10am Tiger Style! October 28, 10am November 3, 10am A Doll’s House January 19, 10am Topdog/Underdog nile

March 17, 10am hawver Director of Education Donna Glick at the student March 30, 10am matinee performance of A Little Night Music

SEATS FILL QUICKLY, RESERVE TODAY! FOR MORE INFORMATION AND TO The Who & the What RESERVE TICKETS: Meg O’Brien, Manager of Education Operations, at 617 273 1558 April 15, 10am or [email protected]

American Sign Language- ACCESSIBLE PROGRAMMING Interpreted Performances Sunday in the Park with George EXPANSION CONTINUES • September 23, 8pm / September 29, 10am Tiger Style! The Huntington has long been • November 3, 10am / November 4, 8pm committed to providing accessible programming for our patrons who A Doll’s House are Deaf/deaf, hard-of-hearing, • January 19, 10am / January 27, 8pm blind, and/or low-vision. We are Topdog/Underdog

nile delighted to be part of a national • March 17, 10am / March 24, 8pm

hawver movement in arts organizations directed specifically towards Audio-Described Performances improving accessibility and Sunday in the Park with George An ASL interpreter at a performance of A Little Night Music inclusivity in programming. • September 29, 10am / October 1, 2pm We are proud to announce that for the first time, our 2016-2017 season will include Bedroom Farce ASL interpretation and audio description for 4 of our 7 productions. This is another • November 19, 2pm / December 3, 2pm positive step forward in a 5-year plan to provide accessible programming for every A Doll’s House show in our season. • January 19, 10am / January 28, 2pm Tickets are $20 for each patron and one additional guest. To reserve tickets, Topdog/Underdog contact Meg O’Brien at [email protected] or 617 273 1558. • March 30, 10am / April 1, 2pm

24 BOX OFFICE 617 266 0800 t t . . charles charles

Amelia Alvarez, Will LeBow, and Carmen Roman in erickson erickson Melinda Lopez’ Sonia Flew the inaugural production Christina Pumariega and Marianna Bassham in of the Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA (2004) Melinda Lopez’ Becoming Cuba (2014) PLAYWRIGHT-IN-RESIDENCE MELINDA LOPEZ MAKES HER MARK ON THE HUNTINGTON Melinda Lopez has played a number of The daughter of Cuban immigrants, Lopez attracted national roles at the Huntington, from being an attention last spring when President Obama mentioned her by name actor in productions such as Persephone in his historic speech in Havana. She had relayed the story of visiting and Our Town, to the playwright of Cuba and searching for her family’s old home — instead finding a Huntington productions of Sonia Flew and woman who knew her family personally and retrieved a baby photo Becoming Cuba. But her current role as of Lopez from her home — to the state department through a friend. Playwright-in-Residence has brought her She had no idea that the story had made its way to the President into the core of the Huntington’s artistic until he said her name in his address to the Cuban people. It was a department and the everyday workings of powerful reminder that “we must tell our stories — they may matter the institution. to someone and move someone.” She recently returned from a trip to Cuba, where she took her 15 year-old daughter for the first time. In 2012, the prestigious Andrew W. Mellon Foundation selected “I think there’s a play in there,” she says. Lopez for a grant to become the playwright-in-residence at the Huntington, one of 18 playwright/theatre pairings across the This fall at ArtsEmerson, she will perform her newest play, Mala, country. The foundation, in partnership with the arts innovators at an autobiographical, one-woman show about caring for her dying HowlRound, created the National Playwright Residence Program mother. “All of my plays are personal,” she says, “but this play has to give playwrights the time and space needed to write without the deepest kind of truth for me. And there’s a complexity and an distraction, provide them with regular access to theatre resources intense responsibility when you are both playwright and actor.” She and artistic leaders, and encourage institutional practices at theatres is also working on a new translation of Yerma by Federico Garcia that are more inclusive of artists’ ideas and needs. The original Lorca, making the classic play accessible to contemporary American residency provided three years of full-time salary and benefits as audiences while remaining faithful to the original. “Lorca’s gorgeous well as funds for artistic development, and this past April Lopez and poetry, when it erupts, is a necessary element,” she explains. the Huntington successfully applied to extend Lopez’ residence for Translating and adapting “stretches my craft in a different way.” another three years. “The experience being on staff at the Huntington has made me so As Playwright-in-Residence, Lopez regularly participates in humble to be a playwright,” Lopez exclaims. “It hasn’t made it easier to Huntington artistic department meetings and planning sessions, write, but it has made it more important that I continue to write.” The attends performances and events, and has a permanent office within Huntington is proud to call Melinda Lopez our Playwright-in-Residence, the Huntington’s administrative offices. She has hosted our Breaking and we look forward to more of her stories in the years to come. Ground reading series, and leads a playwriting class for local theatre artists called Actors Write Plays. Being exposed to the ins and outs of the Huntington has been somewhat of a revelation to Lopez:

I’ve gotten a crash course in how hard it is to run a theatre. How hard everyone works to keep the doors open, and how hard the staff works to maintain the level of excellence that I see every day at the Huntington. Sitting in season planning meetings, and understanding how much goes into picking the 7 plays that will represent an artistic vision, and also fit in the budget, and also represent our community, our artists, and also challenge our audiences… it’s been overwhelming — but in a critical way. The front page of The Boston Globe

HUNTINGTONTHEATRE.ORG 25 UPCOMING EVENTS Stage & Screen at the Coolidge Corner Theatre Stage & Screen is a collaboration between the Coolidge Corner Theatre and the Huntington and explores the depictions of shared themes in Huntington productions and acclaimed films. Our season lineup is: BASQUIAT SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 12 AT 7PM MONDAY, JANUARY 9 AT 7PM IN CONJUNCTION WITH SUNDAY IN THE PARK IN CONJUNCTION WITH A DOLL’S HOUSE WITH GEORGE Scenes from a Marriage chronicles the many In 1981, neo-Expressionist Jean-Michel Basquiat years of love and turmoil that bind Marianne (Liv was a 19-year-old graffiti artist living on the Ullmann) and Johan (Erland Josephson) through streets of New York City. Eight years later, he matrimony, infidelity, divorce, and subsequent was a world-renowned painter — and the victim partners. Shot in intense, intimate close-ups of his own addiction. This film chronicles his meteoric rise in New by master cinematographer Sven Nykvist and featuring flawless York’s art world, his anguish over his family, and his hatred of performances, Ingmar Bergman’s emotional x-ray reveals the a society that both courted and exploited him. With an all-star intense joys and pains of a complex relationship. cast led by Jeffrey Wright and David Bowie, Basquiat is a stylish, powerful tribute to one of the art world’s brightest stars. MENACE II SOCIETY MONDAY, MARCH 13 AT 7PM BOB & CAROL & TED & ALICE IN CONJUNCTION WITH TOPDOG/UNDERDOG MONDAY, NOVEMBER 14 AT 7PM After growing up turmoil and violence of the IN CONJUNCTION WITH BEDROOM FARCE Los Angeles projects, 18-year-old Caine Lawson After returning to Los Angeles from a group (Tyrin Turner) wants a way out. Everyone around therapy session, documentary filmmaker Bob him, including his unpredictable friend O-Dog Sanders (Robert Culp) and his wife Carol (Larenz Tate), is trapped in their lives of crime (Natalie Wood), find themselves becoming and violence. With the help of his caring teacher (Charles Dutton) vigilante couples counselors, offering and supportive girlfriend (Jada Pinkett Smith), Caine plans to unsolicited advice to their best friends Ted (Elliott Gould) and leave the city for good. But in a series of tragic events, Caine Alice Henderson (Dyan Cannon). Not wanting to be rude, the realizes that escape will not be easy. Hendersons play along, but some latent sexual tension among the four soon comes bubbling to the surface, and long-buried desires don’t stay buried for long.

Tickets are $13 ($10 for Huntington subscribers) and may be purchased online at coolidge.org or at the Coolidge box office, located at 290 Harvard Street, Brookline.

2016 Breaking Ground FESTIVAL OF NEW PLAY READINGS December 1 – 4, 2016 South End / Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA Join us for Breaking Ground, the Huntington’s festival of new play readings, a vital part of our new play development program. Breaking Ground plays have gone on to appear at the Huntington as well as theatres in Boston, across the country, and internationally. Readings are free and open to the public. mike

ritter

LEARN MORE: huntingtontheatre.org/breakingground

26 BOX OFFICE 617 266 0800 PERFORMANCE CALENDARS SEPTEMBER – December 2016 SUNDAY IN THE PARK

WITH GEORGE Braille S M T W T F S CALENDAR KEY 9 10 AVENUE OF THE ARTS / BU THEATRE •f8PM •f8PM (o) 35 BELOW WRAP PARTY A special evening for young people aged 21-35 complete with a post-show party. 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 •2PM •f7PM f7:30PM *7PM c7:30PM 8PM 8PM Visit huntingtontheatre.org/35below for more information. 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 •2PM •2PM •2PM 7PM 7:30PM 7:30PM d7:30PM @8PM 8PM (@) ASL-INTERPRETED For Deaf and hard-of-hearing audience members. See page 24 for more information. 25 26 27 28 29 30 1 ~@ds10AM ~•2PM h2PM 7:30PM 7:30PM 7:30PM 8PM 8PM ROSH ROSH (~) AUDIO-DESCRIBED For blind and low-visioned audience 2 HASHANAH 3 4 HASHANAH 5 d2PM 6 7 8 2PM members. See page 24 for more information. ROSH • •2PM HASHANAH 7:30PM 7:30PM 7:30PM 8PM 8PM YOM KIPPUR YOM KIPPUR 9 10 11 12 2PM 13 14 15 2PM (d) ACTORS FORUM Participating members of the cast answer COLUMBUS 2PM DAY 7:30PM 7:30PM 7:30PM 8PM 8PM your questions following the performance. 16 2PM SEPTEMBER - OCTOBER 2016 (c) COMMUNITY MEMBERSHIP A special reception for members of the Huntington Community Membership Initiative. TIGER STYLE! (f) FIRST LOOK S M T W T F S (h) HUMANITIES FORUM A post-performance talk on the 14 15 historical and literary context of the show featuring a leading SOUTH END / CALDERWOOD PAVILION AT THE BCA •f8PM •f8PM local scholar. 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 •2PM Dynamic post-show •f7PM f7:30PM 7:30PM c7:30PM 8PM 8PM (•) POST-SHOW CONVERSATIONS conversation with fellow audience members and Huntington staff. 23 •2PM 24 25 26 27 28 ds10AM 29 •2PM Please note this schedule has changed from years past. If you’d like to 7PM 7:30PM *7PM 7:30PM 8PM 8PM change your tickets to a performance with a post-show conversation please contact the Huntington Box Office to exchange your tickets. 30 31 1 2 •2PM 3 @ds10AM 4 5 •2PM h2PM 7:30PM 7:30PM @8PM 8PM ELECTION day Veteran’s day ( ) PRESS OPENING NIGHT 6 7 8 9 d2PM 10 11 12 •2PM * •2PM 7:30PM 7:30PM d7:30PM 8PM 8PM s 13 ( ) STUDENT MATINEE For groups of students in grades 6-12. Call 617 273 1558 for more information. 2PM OCTOBER - NOVEMBER 2016

BEDROOM FARCE Braille TICKETS S M T W T F S PRICES Start at $25 11Veteran’s day 12 AVENUE OF THE ARTS / BU THEATRE •f8PM •f8PM 35 Below $30 for those 35 and under at every performance 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 ~•2PM •f7PM f7:30PM *7PM 7:30PM 8PM 8PM Students (25 and under) & Military $20 20 h2PM 21 22 23 24 25 26 •2PM 2PM Thanksgiving 7PM 7:30PM 7:30PM • Day 8PM 8PM GROUPS (10+) Discounts are available for groups of 10 or more, plus 27 28 29 30 1 2 3 groups have access to backstage tours, talks with artists, and space for ~•2PM receptions. Contact 617 273 1657 or [email protected]. •2PM 7:30PM 7:30PM d7:30PM 8PM 8PM 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 •2PM d2PM •2PM Receive $10 off any additional tickets purchased. 7PM 7:30PM 7:30PM 7:30PM 8PM 8PM SUBSCRIBERS

11 Prices include a $3 per ticket Capital Enhancement fee. 2PM NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2016 HUNTINGTONTHEATRE.ORG 617 266 0800

HUNTINGTONTHEATRE.ORG 27 NON-PROFIT N ORGANIZATION US POSTAGE PAID TRE ENUE E AV BOSTON, MA N N PERMIT # 52499 MAI BOX OFFIC CTOR GTO N TI , MA 02115-4606 N

THEAANY MICHAEL MASO 264 HBOSTOUN 617 266617 7900 266 0800huntingtontheatre.org MANAGING DI RE HUNTINGTO AVENUE OF THE ARTS SOUTH ENDWOOD & COMP CTOR IN RESIDENCE AT BOSTON UNIVERSITY Peter DuBois NORMATISTIC JEA NDI CALDRE ER AR

YOU’RE INVITED TO OUR 35TH ANNIVERSARY OPEN HOUSE! MONDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2016 Avenue of the Arts / BU Theatre Part of the Fenway Alliance’s Opening Our Doors Day celebration 10AM – 11AM exclusive access for subscribers only 11AM – 2PM open to the general public

This is your last chance to go behind the scenes of the BU Theatre as it currently exists! Activities will include special performances, backstage tours, technical demonstrations, giveaways, and more — families welcome! • Enjoy the view of the audience from center stage • Interact with our world-class staff and artists • Explore the production shops where our award- winning designs are brought to life • Decorate a hat to take home in our “Finishing the Hat” crafting corner • Learn more about the plans to revitalize our mike beautiful mainstage theatre

Master Electrician Katherine Herzig leads ritter a backstage tour at the BU Theatre RSVP at huntingtontheatre.org/openhouse