Max McLean, Founder & Artistic Director a Man for all easons Sby Robert Bolt Max McLean, Founder & Artistic Director Presents a for Man all easons Sby Robert Bolt With John Ahlin Harry Bouvy Todd Cerveris Michael Countryman Trent Dawson Sean Dugan Carolyn McCormick David McElwee Kevyn Morrow Kim Wong Scenic Design Costume Design Lighting Design Composer/Sound Design Steven C. Kemp Theresa Squire Aaron Porter John Gromada Dialect Coach Casting Director Claudia Hill-Sparks McCorkle Casting Ltd Marketing & Advertising Press Relations The Pekoe Group Matt Ross Public Relations Production Manager General Management Stage Manager Lew Mead Aruba Productions Kelly Burns Executive Producer Ken Denison Directed by Christa Scott-Reed CAST OF CHARACTERS (in order of appearance) The Common Man .................................................................... Harry Bouvy Sir Thomas More ......................................................... Michael Countryman Richard Rich ......................................................................... David McElwee The Duke of Norfolk .............................................................. Kevyn Morrow Lady Alice More/Woman ................................................Carolyn McCormick Margaret More ..............................................................................Kim Wong Cardinal Wolsey/Sigñor Chapuys ................................................. John Ahlin Thomas Cromwell .................................................................. Todd Cerveris William Roper/Archbishop Cranmer ..........................................Sean Dugan King Henry VIII ....................................................................... Trent Dawson The action takes place in England, 1526 -1535, during the reign of King Henry VIII. Stage Manager ........................................................................... Kelly Burns Assistant Stage Manager .......................................................Alayna Graziani The performance will run 2 hours and 30 minutes with a 15 minute intermission.. Please turn off all electronic devices before the performance begins. Thank you. 3 am not a Catholic nor even in the Robert Bolt’s meaningful sense of the word a Chris- Itian. So by what right do I appropriate a preface to Christian Saint to my purposes? What first attracted me [to Thomas More] A Man for was a person who could not be accused of any incapacity for life, who indeed seized life in great…quantities. Nevertheless, All Seasons found something in himself without which life was valueless and when that was de- nied him was able to grasp his death. Thomas More was respectably not nobly born, in the merchant class, the progres- sive class of the epoch, distinguished himself first as a scholar, then as a lawyer, was made an Ambassador, finally Lord Chancellor. A visitors’ book at his house in Chelsea would have looked like a Six- teenth Century Who’s Who: Holbein, Eras- mus, Colet, everybody. He corresponded with the greatest minds in Europe. He was a friend of the King, who would send for More when his social appetites took a turn in that direction. Another thing that attracted me to this amazing man was his splendid social ad- justment. So far from being one of society’s sore teeth he was almost indecently suc- cessful…He parted with more than most men when he parted with his life, for he accepted and enjoyed his social context. Why do I take as my hero a man who brings about his own death because he can’t put his hand on an old black book and tell an ordinary lie? For this reason: A man takes an oath only when he wants to commit himself quite exceptionally to the statement, when he wants to make an identity between the truth of it and his own virtue; he offers himself as a guaran- tee. And it works. There is a special kind of shrug for a perjurer; we feel that the 4 man has no self to commit, no guaran- There are still some for whom that is tee to offer. We would prefer most men perfectly simple, but for most it can to guarantee their statements with, only be a metaphor. I took it as a met- say, cash rather than with themselves. aphor for that larger context which we We feel—we know—the self to be an all inhabit, the terrifying cosmos. Terrify- equivocal commodity. There are fewer ing because no laws, no sanctions, no and fewer things which, as they say, we mores obtain there; it is either empty ‘cannot bring ourselves’ to do. or occupied by God and Devil nakedly at war. The sensible man will seek to Thomas More became for me a man with live his life without dealings with this an adamantine sense of his own self. He larger environment, treating it as a fine knew where he began and where he left spectacle on a clear night, or a subject off, what area of himself he could yield to for innocent curiosity. At the most he the encroachments of his enemies, and will allow himself an agreeable frisson what to the encroachments of those he when he contemplates his own relation loved…at length he was asked to retreat to the cosmos, but he will not try to live from that final area where he located his in it; he will gratefully accept the shelter self. And there this supple, humorous, of his society. unassuming and sophisticated person set like metal, was overtaken by an abso- We no longer have any picture of indi- lutely primitive rigor, and could no more vidual Man by which…to measure our- be budged than a cliff. selves; we are anything. But if anything, then nothing, and it is not everyone But why did a man so utterly absorbed who can live with that, though it is our in his society, at one particular point di- true present position. Hence our willing- sastrously part company from it? ...For ness to locate ourselves into something More the answer to this question would that is certainly larger than ourselves, be perfectly simple (though not easy); the society that contains us…But our the English Kingdom, his immediate so- society finds no fixed points…the only ciety, was subservient to the larger soci- positive is ‘get and spend’ (‘get and ety of the Church of Christ, founded by spend - if you can’ from the right and Christ, extending over Past and Future, ‘get and spend – you deserve it’ from ruled from Heaven. More was a very the left)…We are thrown back by our orthodox Catholic and for him an oath society at our lowest, that is at our least was something perfectly specific; it was satisfactory to ourselves. an invitation to God, an invitation God would not refuse, to act as a witness, Robert Bolt, and to judge; the consequence of per- September, 1960 jury was damnation. (Excerpted for length) Producer’s Note: The playwright created a character called ‘The Common Man,’ who speaks directly to the audience. The word ‘common’ was intended to mean ‘that which is common to us all’; someone with whom the audience could identify with as a kind of a mirror as we watch the interaction of these great men of court. To my mind, this character lifts this 58-year-old play out of the tumultuous 16th century and gives contemporary 21st century audiences something to ponder on our way home. – Max McLean 5 WHO’S WHO JOHN AHLIN (Wolsey/ Cha- MICHAEL COUNTRYMAN puys) Broadway: Waiting for (Thomas More): Broadway: Godot, Journey’s End (Tony M. Butterfly, Six Degrees of Award for Best Revival), The Separation, Wit, Mary Stuart, Lieutenant of Inishmore, Night Must Fall, Holiday, Voices in the Dark, One Mo’ Laughter on the 23rd Floor, Time, Macbeth, Whoopee! A Few Good Men and Face Off Broadway: Orson’s Shadow, Gray Area, Value. Recent Off Broadway: Privacy, The ChipandGus. Regional: Denver Center, Pio- Open House (Drama Desk Award), Bluebird, neer, La Jolla, Old Globe, Humana, Goodman, Equivocation, Shipwrecked! Film: Spotlight, Guthrie, Goodspeed, Kennedy Center, Cincin- True Story, Burn After Reading, P.S. I Love nati Playhouse, St. Louis Rep, Baltimore Cen- You, Che, The Namesake, among others. ter Stage, Pittsburgh Public, McCarter, DC Television includes: The Marvelous Mrs. Mai- Shakespeare. TV/Film: Law & Order: SVU, sel, The Path, Boardwalk Empire (SAG Nom- Third Watch, As the World Turns, Late Night ination), The Americans, The Girlfriend Expe- with David Letterman, Inside Llewyn Davis. rience, Elementary, Billions, The Sopranos. TRENT DAWSON (Henry) HARRY BOUVY (Common Broadway: The Herbal Man) most recently played Bed. Off Broadway: Maple & God in An Act of God at the Vine (Playwrights Horizons). Bucks County Playhouse. In Theatre Row: The Memoran- NYC, Harry played Dr. Chil- dum, The Reviv- ton in the Off-Broadway al. Regional: The Homecom- smash, Silence! The Musical ing, Lady Windermere’s Fan, (original cast recording). National tours: Dr. Misalliance (Baltimore Center Stage), The Dillamond in Wicked and Carmen Ghia in Miser (GEVA), School for Scandal (McCarter The Producers. Regional: Yale Rep, St. Louis Theatre), Beyond Therapy (Westport), Dead Rep, Cincinnati Playhouse, Actors Theatre of Man’s Cell Phone (ICT), Pal Joey (Prince Mu- Louisville, Pittsburgh Public, TheaterWorks sic Theatre), The Pain and the Itch (Zephyr). Hartford, Syracuse Stage. TV: The Good Film/TV: Men in Black III, Homeland, The Wife, Law & Order, Sex & The City. harrybou- Good Wife, NCIS, NCIS LA, Castle, General vy.com Hospital, As the World Turns (3 Emmy Nom- inations). trentdawson.com TODD CERVERIS (Crom- well) Broadway: South Pa- SEAN DUGAN (Roper/Cran- cific, Twentieth Century. Off mer): Broadway: Next Broadway: Let Me Spell It Fall (Drama Desk Out For You (author); Yours nomination). Off Broadway: Unfaithfully; Southern Com- Cloud 9, Tail! Spin!, The Illu- fort; Almost, Maine; The sion, Next Fall, English Chan- Booth Variations (co-author); The Butcher- nel, BFF, Nerds, Valhalla, house Chronicles. Tours: War Horse, Spring Flesh and Blood, Corpus Christi, Shake- Awakening, Twelve Angry Men. Regional: speare’s R&J. Regional: Old Globe, Actors Arena Stage, La Jolla Playhouse, Old Globe, Theatre of Louisville, Alley, Chautauqua, ACT, Actors Theater of Louisville, Cleveland Play Roundhouse, Yale Rep, Huntington, Cal House, Cincinnati Playhouse. International: Shakes, ART. Film: Dinner@40, A Good Mar- Edinburgh Fringe, Actor’s Touring Company.