Streaming a Note from the Artistic Director
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OLNEY THEATRE CENTER STREAMING A NOTE FROM THE ARTISTIC DIRECTOR Dear friend of Olney Theatre Center, It’s been more than six months since I’ve written one of these program notes, and in that time our country has changed in unimaginable ways. Ravaged by twin pandemics – COVID and racism – we are reeling from the earthquakes that shattered our complacency, showing us just how tenuous our hold on security was as recently as February. “By ‘we’ I mean us non-one-percenters, most of whom are peering around anxiously at the uncertain future and the unsteady world, even as we fight through each day trying to keep optimism afloat in our hearts.” That’s a direct, and surely apt, quote from the New York Times’ sterling review of The Humans… back when it opened in 2015. Now, it finally arrives to DMV audiences in its resident professional premiere. 2015? That feels like another century, doesn’t it? And yet, there are moments in Stephen Karam’s play that feel so utterly of the moment it’s hard to believe he didn’t write it at the start of the pandemic. Financial insecurity and financial inequity? Check. Nightmares and the terrifying unknown lurking just beyond the walls of our homes? Sounds awfully familiar. Families clinging together to combat near-inescapable anxiety? You bet. If the “drama” parts of Karam’s comedy-drama resonate more forcefully today, who should be surprised? It’s 2020, and The Humans is a play about a middle-class family navigating our fearful world. When Momo, the family’s dementia-addled grandmother, suddenly blurts out, “You can never come back you can never come back you can never come back...”, I used to think it was just a colorful playwright’s flourish. Six months into the pandemic, I’m shattered by it. The last day I saw the company of The Humans in person was at a rehearsal in early March. We weren’t wearing masks then, but we were keeping distant, only touching elbows, and looking warily at each other wondering if one of us was carrying a deadly virus. Thankfully none of us were, but that didn’t stop us from halting rehearsals and postponing the production. The set, 75% built on our 429-seat stage, was left unfinished, appropriately kept company by only a ghost light. When in June it became clear we wouldn’t be able to mount the live production, we tore the scenery down and threw it in the dumpster. But we decided to use some of the Paycheck Protection Funds we received to pay the team to rehearse for two more weeks to create this unique virtual production of the play. I’m grateful to the company – in particular, to director Aaron Posner – for embracing this desperate attempt to keep our industry alive and relevant. I’m also grateful to Senior Associate Artistic Director Jason King Jones and Digital Brand Journalist Emily Jerison, who leapt in to figure out how to do something we’d never done before. To Actors’ Equity Association and the Society for Directors and Choreographers, we owe a debt of thanks for their partnership. And finally, I extend my humble gratitude to playwright Stephen Karam, who has allowed this production to go forward virtually. Playwrights are rightfully protective of letting their work appear in the unguarded, often-un-ticketed wilds of the internet. I hope our efforts here reward his trust in us. I think what convinced Stephen to grant his permission, finally, was what we offered the actors’ union.For every week we stream The Humans, Olney Theatre Center is contributing to the health fund for the actors you’re about to watch. I talk about this in my video intro to the play but it’s worth repeating here. The live entertainment industry has been decimated by this pandemic. Everyone’s hurting, sure, but almost every other industry in this country has been given a path forward. Restaurants, casinos, offices, transportation, houses of worship, manufacturing, hair salons, professional sports teams – they’re all dealing with severe hardship, but at least they’re operating. In our case, the 51,000 members of Actors’ Equity Association are virtually all unemployed. Their 301-924-3400 OlneyTheatre.org 2 health plan, funded by employer contributions, has all but evaporated, and since they need those weeks to qualify for insurance every six months, well… you can do the math. Right now, artists you and I know are making choices about whether they can afford to pay for medical care. I won’t get into my political views about this – email me at [email protected] and I’ll happily share them with you. But I’ll say this: We cannot let this happen, not in an advanced society, not when our stock market hit yet another all-time high the day I wrote this note. When you finish watchingThe Humans, I certainly hope you’ll make a donation to Olney Theatre Center because we need it. But I also hope you’ll make a donation to the Taking Care Fund administered by theatreWashington, which pays emergency medical expenses for DMV theatermakers. Please consider, strongly, making a donation in honor of The Humans company. Before I finish this note, I want to address the decision to release this video in the midst of the racial reckoning we face in our America, and the need for OTC and every cultural institution in the country to commit to change in the fight for social justice. We thought long and hard about whether releasing a video with a majority white creative team, that tells a story of yet another white family, was the right thing to do. Releasing it would certainly not reflect the anti-racist work we’ve embraced as a corrective to our institution’s entrenched racism. In the end, though, I made the decision to release THE HUMANS. I did so because the story, though based on a white family, speaks to this moment with urgency and truth. I did so to honor the commitment we made to these artists long before the pandemic took hold. And I did so to support them financially, though OTC stands to gain little in terms of dollars from its release. But my decision takes away nothing from the admission of our failures in becoming a theater that truly reflects the diverse community around us. I urge you to visit our website to read a statement about where we’ve failed, our commitment to change, and the steps we’re taking to make our theater and our world a more equitable and just place. I leave you with the epigraphs to the play Karam provided. They should be of comfort to us, because they demonstrate that artists and philosophers have long faced what we now face. And they have used their powers, as this play does, to help us see a way forward and make our world a better, and more just, place. I usually sign off with the word, “Onward!”, and I seriously considered just changing it to “Sincerely” for this note. After all, what is “onward” for theaters at this moment? But Momo reminds me that you can never come back… which must mean we can only go forward. And we will. So… Onward! Jason Loewith Artistic Director Managing Editor: JJ Kaczynski OLNEY THEATRE CENTER Ad Sales: 301-924-4485 x121 Copyright by Olney Theatre Center. All editorial and advertising material is fully protected and must not be reproduced in any manner without written permission. Olney Theatre Center is a non-profit arts organization with a mission to create professional theater productions and other programs that nurture artists, students, technicians, administrators, and audience members; to develop each individual’s creative potential using the skill and imaginative possibilities of theater and the performing arts. 301-924-3400 OlneyTheatre.org 3 EPIGRAPHS “There are six basic fears, with some combination of which every human suffers at one time or another ... The fear of POVERTY The fear of CRITICISM The fear of ILL HEALTH The fear of LOSS OF LOVE OF SOMEONE The fear of OLD AGE The fear of DEATH” --Napoleon Hill, Think and Grow Rich •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• “The subject of the “uncanny”...belongs to all that is terrible -- to all that arouses dread and creeping horror... The German word [for “uncanny”], unheimlich, is obviously the opposite of heimlich, meaning “familiar,” “native,” “belonging to the home”; and we are tempted to conclude that what is “uncanny” is frightening precisely because it is not known and familiar... [But] among its different shades of meaning the word heimlich exhibits one which is identical with its opposite, unheimlich... on the one hand, it means that which is familiar and congenial, and on the other, that which is concealed and kept out of sight.” --Sigmund Freud, The Uncanny •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• “The mask. Look at the mask! Sand, crocodile, and fear above New York.” --Federico Garcia Lorca, Dance of Death 301-924-3400 OlneyTheatre.org 4 OLNEY THEATRE CENTER Jason Loewith, Debbie Ellinghaus, Artistic Director Managing Director presents THE HUMANS By Stephen Karam featuring Sherri L. Edelen Catie Flye Kimberly Gilbert Mitchell Hébert Jonathan Raviv Dani Stoller Scenic Designer Costume Designer Lighting Designer Sound Designer Paige Hathaway Kelsey Hunt Max Doolittle Sarah O’Halloran New York Casting Video Editor Pat McCorkle, CSA and Katja Zarolinski, CSA Emily Jerison McCorkle Casting Ltd. Production Stage Manager Director of Production Senior Associate Artistic Director Tashiana Quiñones Josiane M. Jones Jason King Jones Director Aaron Posner The Original Broadway Production of THE HUMANS was produced by Scott Rudin, Barry Diller, Roundabout Theatre Company, Fox Theatricals, James L.