FLORIDA REPERTORY THEATRE 2016-2017 SEASON

ARTSTAGE STUDIO THEATRE • FORT MYERS RIVER DISTRICT ROBERT CACIOPPO, PRODUCING ARTISTIC DIRECTOR PRESENTS

SPONSORED BY FINEMARK NATIONAL BANK AND TRUST STARRING ensemble member SARA MORSEY* and DANNY BERNARDY* • JENNIFER BYRNE* • TIMOTHY C. GOODWIN* BRADY WEASE • JONATHAN WIENER*

DIRECTED BY BRUCE JORDAN** SET DESIGNER COSTUME DESIGNER LIGHTING DESIGNER JORDAN MOORE DINA PEREZ*** KATE SMITH SOUND DESIGNER PRODUCTION STAGE MANAGERS JOHN KISELICA BREE SHERRY* JOSHUA QUINN* ASST. STAGE MANAGER ASST. COSTUME DESIGNER ASST. SOUND DESIGNER AARON MARTIN KIM GRIFFIN RHIAN FRANCHEBOIS

Wardrobe Supervisor: Alisha Lawrence • Lighting/Sound Board Operator: Chris Patterson Understudies: Nate Ritsema • Brady Wease Shear Madness is presented by Special Arrangement with CRANBERRY PRODUCTIONS, INC. 2016-17 GRAND SEASON SPONSORS

The Fred & Jean Allegretti Foundation • Naomi Bloom & Ron Wallace • Dinah Bloomhall • Alexandra Bremner Bruce & Janet Bunch • Gholi & Georgia Darehshori • Mary & Hugh Denison • Ellie Fox • David Fritz/Cruise Everything Dr. & Mrs. Mark & Lynne Gorovoy • John Madden • Sue & Jack Rogers • Arthur Zupko This entire season sponsored in part by the State of Florida, Department of State, Division of Cultural Affairs, and the Florida Council on Arts and Culture. Florida Repertory Theatre is a fully professional non-profit LOA/LORT Theatre company on contract with the Actors’ Equity Association that proudly employs members of the national theatrical labor unions. *Member of Actors’ Equity Association. **Member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society. ***Member of United Scenic Artists. CAST (in order of appearance) Barbara Demarco...... JENNIFER BYRNE*† Mikey Thomas...... BRADY WEASE*† Tony Whitcomb...... DANNY BERNARDY*† Eddie Lawrence...... JONATHAN WIENER*† Nick O’Brien...... TIMOTHY C. GOODWIN*† Mrs. Shubert...... SARA MORSEY*†

TIME Today at 3:50pm. PLACE The Shear Madness Hair Styling Salon on the corner of 1st and Jackson. SHEAR MADNESS will be performed with one 15-minute intermission.

The video and/or audio recording of this performance by any means whatsoever is strictly prohibited.

ABOUT THE WRITERS

PAUL PÖRTNER (Author) was an avant garde German playwright and director who fell under the charm of the commedia dell’arte. This led to his creating Scherenschnitte in 1963, the play on which Shear Madness is based. His other work included novels, short stories, and radio plays. Mr. Portner died in 1984.

MARILYN ABRAMS (Co-Creator) grew up in New York City attending The Bronx High School of Science and later Cornell University, an unlikely beginning for a career that included, among others, leading roles in Mame, Gypsy, The Sound of Music, Broadway Bound, and Private Lives plus countless television commercials. She and Bruce Jordan formed Cranberry Productions when they recognized the comic potential of interactive theatre while acting in Shear Madness. Abrams originated the role of Barbara Demarco and played it in the first four productions before taking on the role of Mrs. Shubert at the Kennedy Center. She now heads the marketing division of the company.

BRUCE JORDAN (Director/Co-Creator) has directed over 30 productions of Shear Madness over the years as well as a host of other plays and musicals including Private Lives, Spamalot, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, Perfect Wedding, Little Mary Sunshine, The Unsinkable Molly Brown, The Underpants, and The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-In-The-Moon Marigolds. Also an actor, Jordan has appeared in over 40 roles across the country. He made his film debut opposite Barbra Striesand in The Way We Were, acted in three commercials made for the Super Bowl, and has appeared on the front pages of both New York Magazine and The Wall Street Journal. He is the director of the three longest-running plays in the history of the United States: Shear Madness Boston is now in it’s 37th year at the Charles Playhouse, Shear Madness DC now in its 29th year at the Kennedy Center, and Shear Madness Chicago ran for 17 years at the Mayfair Theatre. Most recently he directed the New York production of Shear Madness at New World Stages and then again when it moved to the Davenport. Born in Pittsfield, MA, and raised on the south shore of Long Island, Jordan in a graduate of SUNY Geneseo and currently resides in Manhattan.

†Member of Florida Repertory Theatre’s Ensemble of Theatre Artists. See page 23 for the entire ensemble.

* The Actors & Stage Manager ** employed in this production are members of Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States. CREATIVE TEAM DANNY BERNARDY* Playhouse), Measure for Measure (Duke Vincentio, (Tony Whitcomb) is ABTC), As You Like It (Silvius, Snorks and thrilled to be making his Pins), the short film Birthday Burglar (Mickey, Florida Rep debut after Dreamtime Productions), and nine productions a rousing run of Shear of Shear Madness, most recently in New York City. Madness at the Kennedy www.timothycgoodwin.com Center! NY: Cougar The Musical, Sex Tips…, Please SARA MORSEY*† (Mrs. Excuse My Dear Aunt Shubert) A long-time Sally, NY Classical Theatre, Cherry Lane, The associate artist with The York, SoHo Playhouse, NY Theater Workshop. Hippodrome Theatre Regional Highlights: Principal roles at American in Gainesville, FL, Sara Conservatory Theatre, Florida Studio Theatre has worked in regional (Nominee, Best Actor in a Supporting Role for theaters across the Alabama Story), North Carolina Theatre, Cape country. Recently at the Playhouse, Virginia Stage Co. TV: ABC’s One Life to Hippodrome: Whatever Live, CBS’ As the World Turns. Danny is a member Happened to Baby Jane?, All Girl Frankenstein, of OYL Theater Company and originally hails from Good People, Carrie, Other Desert Cities, End San Diego. Carnegie Mellon, BFA Days, Boeing Boeing, Shear Madness, Eurydice, Mindgame, Dead Man’s Cell Phone, and The Glass JENNIFER BYRNE* Menagerie. Other Tennessee Williams plays (Barbara Demarco) Florida include Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, A Streetcar Named Rep debut! Off Broadway: Desire, and Suddenly Last Summer. Also Three Nevermore (Original Tall Women, The Play About The Baby, and The OB Cast), Evil Dead the Goat by Edward Albee. Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Musical (Original OB cast/ A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Winter’s Tale, recording), It’s Karate, Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It, Macbeth, Kid! the Musical (NYIT Romeo and Juliet. Also The Sleeper, Indiscretions, Nomination), Pirates of The Underpants, Master Class, Anton in Show Penzance (Lortel), Fairy Tale Christmas (World Business, Closer, Misery, All in the Timing, Private Premiere, NYC Fringe). Regional: Light in the Eyes, The Illusion (lots more). Sara recently enjoyed Piazza (freeFall, Theatre Tampa Bay Award; Best successful runs of Becky’s New Car, Dividing the Featured Actress in a Musical), On The Town Estate, Collected Stories, The Little Foxes, The Year (FLMTF), Open Road (Powerhouse), A Chorus of Magical Thinking, and August: Osage County at Line (Maltz Jupiter), Closer Than Ever (Riverside), Florida Repertory Theatre where she is a member Lombardi (OSTC), Legally Blonde (MGR), Bernarda of the Ensemble of Artists. Other affiliations Alba (freeFall), Cabaret (freeFall), The 39 Steps include Actors’ Theatre of Louisville, American (TBTS), The Drowsy Chaperone (Gateway), The Stage, Banyan Theater, New Harmony Theatre, Rocky Horror Show (Lyric Theatre), Smokey Joe’s Horse Cave Theatre, Playhouse on the Square, Café (Bethesda), Seven Brides… (Carousel). Proud The Kentucky and Indiana Shakespeare Festivals. member: AEA, SAG/AFTRA, CAEA. Squeezes to International: Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Black family and friends. www.jennifer-byrne.com C Productions Sex:Female at the National Palace of Culture in Sofia, Bulgaria. Independent Film: TIMOTHY C. GOODWIN* The First of May with Julie Harris, Borderlines, (Nick O’Brien) comes from The Votive Pit. American Premieres: Mrs. Klein Rochester NY, where (American Stage), Autumn Sonata (Pegasus Rising), he worked with Geva In the Attic (Dance Alive), War of the Words Theatre Center’s Education (Hippodrome). Professional Narrator, Library of Department and was Congress Talking Books, Audible, Master of Fine Administrator of Geva Arts in Acting, University of Louisville. Comedy Improv for its first four seasons. Most BRADY WEASE (Mikey recently, he appeared as Dr. Watson in Lake Dillon Thomas) Florida Rep: Theatre Company’s production of Sherlock Holmes: Miss Nelson is Missing, A The Final Adventure. Other credits include Drop Dream Within a Dream; Dead Perfect (Phineas Fenn, Penguin Rep), As Bees The Spirit of Poe. Triad In Honey Drown (Mike, J City Theatre), Pericles, Stage: A Christmas Carol, Prince of Tyre (Pericles, American Bard Theatre Snow Queen, All’s Well That Company), A Man’s World (Wells, Metropolitan Ends Well. Educational: CREATIVE TEAM Hairspray, Cabaret, A Year with Frog and Toad, Jack the Resident Sound and Lighting Designer for and the Jelly Beanstalk, Twelfth Night, Spamalot, Endstation Theatre Company in Central VA and Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson. Education: BFA acts as the Lighting and Sound Supervisor for year Acting, UNCG 2016. round consultation and project specific work. He has worked on a national tour, Buddy: the Buddy JONATHAN WIENER* Holly Musical, as the master electrician after a (Eddie Lawrence) Florida Rep contract with Royal Caribbean International as debut. A New York native, a stage technician. Commercial theatrical work Jonathan was last seen includes installing Prodigy Hoists, an automated in Orlando Shakespeare rigging system from Electronic Theatre Controls. In Theatre’s production of addition to his seasonal position with Florida Rep, Spamalot as Sir Lancelot/ John continues to freelance in the professional, French Taunter/Tim the academic, and community theatre circles. Enchanter etc. Off-Broadway: My Big Gay Italian Wedding (Gregorio), My Big Gay Italian Funeral AARON MARTIN (Asst. Stage Manager) is a recent (Rabbi Howie). Regional: Shakespeare Theatre Co. graduate of Jacksonville State University. He is very in DC, Macbeth, Lorenzaccio, Pericles (Dir. Mary excited to be a stage management intern for Florida Zimmerman), CT Rep’s Violet (Monty), Candide Repertory Theatre. Aaron will be working on the (Maximilian), Loose Knit (Bob), The Laramie following shows for the 2016-2017 season: Over the Project (Dennis Shepard, etc.), Surflight Theatre’s River and Through the Woods, The Mousetrap, Shear Female Odd Couple (opposite JoAnne Worley and Madness, and Doublewide. He would like to thank Cindy Williams), and Damn Yankees (Colonial his family and friends for all their support, because Theatre). International: soloist for Disney Cruise without them he would not be where he is today. Line (Dr. Greenaway, Hades, Shang, Prince Phillip), Jihad;The Musical (Edinburgh Fringe Festival) TV: JORDAN MOORE (Set Designer) is thrilled to return Momsters, Guiding Light, Celebrity Ghost Stories, to Florida Rep as a Resident Designer this season. Pan AM. This one’s for Aunt Sha! Florida Rep set designs include: Erma Bombeck: At Wit’s End and The Seafarer. He is a graduate of RHIAN FRANCHEBOIS (Asst. Sound Designer) is Florida State University, where he received a dual a first-time intern at Florida Repertory Theatre. degree in Theatre and Media Productions. Having She recently graduated from Flagler College with a primary focus in Scenic Design/Scenic Art, he a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Theatre Arts. This is her has designed a variety of shows at FSU including first job after college, and she hopes she pleases Bat Boy, Company, and The Trestle at Pope Lick your ears. Creek. Additionally, Jordan has designed over 18 musicals and plays for the Stagedoor Manor KIM GRIFFIN (Asst. Costume Designer) graduated Camp of Performing Arts including Godspell, The from Baylor University with a BFA in Theatre Secret Garden, and The Sound of Music. In the last Design and Technology with an emphasis in two years, Jordan has designed several shows for Costume Design and a Music Minor. She began Florida Repertory’s Theatre for Young Audiences her career designing costumes for the Baylor series including A Year With Frog and Toad, The Opera Theatre as the resident costume designer Red Badge of Courage, Journey to Oz, The True Story for four years. She has worked as a designer and of the Three Little Pigs, and the current seasons assistant designer for Baylor Theatre, Waco Civic touring shows, Miss Nelson is Missing and A Dream Theatre, Performing Arts Supply Company, Theatre Within A Dream: The Spirit of Poe. Under The Stars, Houston Family Arts Center, and Ohio Light Opera. She was on tour with Ringling KATE SMITH (Lighting Designer) is happy to return Brothers and Barnum and Bailey as the Head for her seventh season at Florida Rep. She is a Seamstress and traveled the country by train. She native of Pennsylvania and a graduate from Indiana is currently the Assistant Costume Supervisor University of Pennsylvania (IUP). Kate has worked and Resident Assistant Costume Designer here in many aspects of theatre. She most recently at Florida Rep where she has designed Romeo & designed lights for last season’s The Cocktail Hour. Juliet, Miss Nelson Is Missing, and the upcoming Lighting design credits include Murder at the production of Big River. Howard Johnson’s, Tribes, Educating Rita, Time Stands Still, Black Tie, It’s a Wonderful Life, King o’ JOHN KISELICA (Sound Designer) is a graduate of the Moon, The Santaland Diaries (2009-2011), and West Virginia University with a Bachelor of Fine The Year of Magical Thinking. Kate has also worked Arts degree in lighting and sound design. He is for Brevard Music Center, Flat Rock Playhouse, CREATIVE TEAM

IUP’s Keystone Rep and Footlight Players. And can Merrimack Repertory Theatre: The Reduced History most likely be found hanging lights at Indiana Rep of Comedy Abridged, Talley’s Folly, Equally Divided, in Indianapolis or cuddling with her dog Lucy. Stella & Lou, Devil’s Music, Mrs. Mannerly, The Washington Ballet: Nutcracker (2012), The Sun Also DINA PEREZ*† (Costume Designer) is a freelance Rises, Studio Theatre: Bad Jews, Motherf*cker with costume designer in the San Diego area, as well the Hat, Triad Stage: A Christmas Carol (2011), as regionally throughout the United States. She A Doll House, Dial “M” for Murder, Masquerade, is very excited to return for her fourth design at Steel Magnolias, The Sunset Limited. Yale Florida Rep! Recently, she received the Robert Repertory Theatre: The Servant of Two Masters, L.B. Tobin Director-Designer Showcase grant Rough Crossing. Bree has been the Operations sponsored by OPERA America, for her team’s Manager for the International Festival of Arts and project proposal for The Cradle Will Rock. Credits Ideas, Touring Stage Manager with the Reduced include Becky’s New Car, Too Marvelous for Words, Shakespeare Company, and the Production and Around the World in 80 Days (Florida Rep), Manager for UCSB’s Theater & Dance Department. Triassic Parq: The Musical (Off-Broadway), The She has worked on the Latin Grammy Awards Glass Menagerie (Bartlett Theater), Deathtrap and the Drama Desk Awards. BA in Technical (Triad Stage), The Foreigner and The Comedy of Production and Design from Elon University, MFA Errors (Texas Shakespeare Festival), Hairspray in Stage Management from Yale University, School (McLeod Summer Playhouse), and Così fan tutte of Drama. (A.J. Fletcher Opera Institute). Special thank you to Murdock, as always! Education: MFA Costume JOSHUA QUINN* (Production Stage Manager) Design, University of North Carolina School of the Florida Rep: Best of Enemies. Off-Broadway: Sistas, Arts. Proud member of United Scenic Arts, Local Toyt Fun a Seylsman, A Loss of Roses, Buyer & USA 829. www.dinaperezdesigns.com Cellar, F#%ing Up Everything. Tour: The Lightning Thief, Fly Guy. New York: Children of Salt, Manuel BREE SHERRY* (Production Stage Manager) Off- v. the Statue of Liberty, The Travels, The Tenth Floor, Broadway: The Atlantic Theater Company These POPart, The Farm, Thicker than Water, Helicopters, Paper Bullets! Regional: South Coast Rep: Destiny A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Yorktown, Sister Myotis’s of Desire, The Geffen Playhouse: These Paper Bible Camp, Engaging Shaw, Dreyfus in Rehearsal. Bullets!, Pasadena Playhouse: Kiss Me Kate, Kirk Proud member of AEA. Douglas Theatre: Princess & Pirates, A Sing-a-long Concert, Florida Repertory Theatre: 12 Angry Men,

SPECIAL THANKS: Florida Studio Theatre • Kellie Burns & NBC2 Robert Cacioppo • Jason Parrish

ACTORS’ EQUITY ASSOCIATION (AEA) was FLORIDA PROFESSIONAL THEATRES founded in 1913 as the first of the American ASSOCIATION (FPTA) is a statewide Actor unions. Equity’s mission is to advance, organization of professional theatre promote and foster the art of theatre as companies and theatre professionals an essential component of our society. Today, Equity interested in the development and promotion of professional theatre throughout Florida. Florida represents more than 40,000 actors, singers, dancers Repertory Theatre is a proud FPTA member theatre. and stage managers working in hundreds of theatres across the United States. Equity members are dedicated THE NATIONAL NEW PLAY to working in the theatre as a profession, upholding NETWORK is the country’s alliance the highest artistic standards. Equity negotiates wages of nonprofit theaters that champions and working conditions and provides a wide range the development, production, and continued life of of benefits including health and pension plans for its new plays. The NNPN strives to pioneer, implement, members. Through its agreement with Equity, this and disseminate ideas and programs that revolutionize theatre has committed to the fair treatment of the actors the way theaters collaborate to support new plays and and stage managers employed in this production. AEA playwrights. Florida Repertory Theatre is proud to be an Associate Member of the National New Play Network. is a member of the AFL-CIO and is affiliated with FIA, an international organization of performing arts unions. Florida Repertory Theatre is a member TICKETSFor more information, visit www.actorsequity.org. of THEATRE COMMUNICATIONS GROUP (TCG), the national organization for the American Theatre. DRAMATURGY The History of SHEAR MADNESS Bruce Jordan was working at a theatre in act. When they first opened the show, Jordan Rochester, New York when he came across and Abrams were in the leads as well as at the a play entilted Scherenschnitt, which had helm of the production. Because they were on been written in 1963 by German writer Paul stage each night, Abrams says they experienced PÖrtner. The playwright had written the script the “magical” chemistry between the actors and to use as a study of how people perceive or the audience. They were acutely aware of the misperceive reality. The brief play was set in audience’s response to Shear Madness. a uni-sex hair salon and revolved around the The original Kennedy Center cast of SHEAR MADNESS in 1987. off-stage murder of a concert pianist. Subjects From left: Bruce Jordan, Marilyn Abrams, Matt Callahan, Steve O’Connor, were asked to solve the murder based on their Robin Baxter, and Michael Gabel. individual perceptions of the events and the six stereotypical characters surrounding the murder.

Jordan was intrigued by the concept of the script and suggested that he and friend, Marilyn Abrams stage the play together. Abrams read PÖrtner’s original script, and looked forward to the challenge of revising and staging a production of such a work. They opened the newly titled Shear Madness at a dinner theatre in Lake George in 1978 with nothing more than a basic outline of a script.

The first year that Shear Madness played in Lake George it was truly a work in progress with the majority of the show improvised each night. As an ensemble, the cast maintained the action and the characterizations that received a good After receiving rave reviews and frequent response from the audience night after night. suggestions from tourists from the Boston area, They also incorporated the actual audience they decided that Shear Madness may work well responses into the play. Jordan says that he in Boston. After more than two years honing continues to instruct the actors to “let the the comedy, Jordan and Abrams moved their audience win.” He explains, “if the audience has show to Boston. They scheduled a brief run something funnier to say or do than the actors, at the historic Charles Playhouse in Boston’s let them. That is the basic magic of the play.” Theatre District to begin January 29, 1980.

Soon Shear Madness developed into a show A second production, at the John F. Kennedy that changed every time it was performed. The Center for the Performing Arts’s Theater Lab actors followed a basic format and changed in Washington D.C., opened in August 1987. the specific lines along the way. Now, decades A third production opened in November, later, Shear Madness incorporates not only the 2015 at the New World Stages Off-Broadway contributions of the audience, but also frequent theater in New York City. A Turkish adaptation references to the latest media scandals and local by director Nedim Saban opened in Istanbul news items. in 1998. In 2003 Saban adapted the play for a second time; he introduced SMS messages Thus PÖrtner’s serious psychodrama became and online chatting as means of interaction. an interactive comedy whodunit. The show A French adaptation by director Sébastien evolved, in the presence of an audience, into a Azzopardi, written by Azzopardi and Sacha raucous comedy that let the audience into the Danino, opened in Paris in 2011. Sources: Shearmadness.com, Wikipedia.com DRAMATURGY 37 Years Running! Listed in the Guiness Book of World Over 11.5 million people worldwide have Records as the longest running play in the joined in the fun, and while no one history of the USA, Shear Madness has has actually died laughing, some are still been playing in Boston for 37 years and at rolling in the aisles. The Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. for 29 years. Voted “Best Comedy of the Year” seven times by the Boston Globe and recipient of The flagship Boston company has given the title “Best Play of the Year” by both the birth to 50 productions in the US and Chicago Sun-Times and the Philadelphia Shear Madness has been translated into 23 Enquirer, Shear Madness has also received foreign languages, playing worldwide in a the Raven Award from the Mystery host of cities including Barcelona, Buenos Writers of America and has been inducted Aires, Madrid, Paris, Rejkavik, Rome, Tel into the Comedy Hall of Fame, the first Aviv, Melbourne, Johannesburg, play ever to receive and Seoul. that accolade.

Featuring Florida Rep Cast Member TIMOTHY C. GOODWIN Jordan Ahnquist and Patrick Noonan • 2016, NYC with Michael Kevin Baldwin • 2012, Seattle Featuring Florida Rep Cast Member DANNY BERNARDY with Brigid Cleary • 2016, Washington D.C. Mary Ann Conk and Bob Arnold • 1981, Boston $10 STUDENT TICKETS