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stage: CODED THE LITTLE FOXES OUR TBA MUSICAL! MARCH 12-APRIL 11 MAY 14-JUNE 14 JULY 16-AUGUST 23 HIGHLIGHTS

A companion guide to “Stage Kiss” by Sarah Ruhl directed by Jeffrey Bracco January 16-February 16 supported by Producers Sandra Moll & Rick Holden Synopsis

What happens when life and art get too cozy? Part backstage comedy and part offbeat love story, Stage Kiss follows two actors with a history. After they’re cast opposite each other again, the lines start to blur.

“When I kissed you just now, did it feel like an actor kissing an actor or a person kissing a person?” the leading lady asks. Either way, the show must go on — consequences be damned.

Characters

Nearly everyone plays more than one role in Stage Kiss, which (as one would expect from a comedy-love story about the theater) contains a play within a play.

She (April Green): An actress in her mid-40s. Plays the role of Ada Wilcox opposite He, her former lover.

He (Asher Krohn): An actor in his mid-40s. Plays the role of Johnny Lowell opposite She. In Act Two, after the play closes, they take on altogether different roles, in more ways than one.

The Director (Tom Gough): A director Adrian Schwalbach, who helms the play in Act One and then heads to a new artistic project. In Detroit.

Kevin (Matthew Regan): The reader and awkward understudy. Also plays the doctor, the butler and the pimp.

The Husband (Damian Vega): The husband, or Harrison. Is he clueless, long- suffering or smarter than you think?

Angela / Maid / Millie (Alexandra Velazquez): Millie and the maid in Act One; Angela in Act Two. An actress in her early 20s who keeps getting cast as a teen.

Millicent / Laurie (April Culver): Millicent in Act One; Laurie in Act Two. An Top: Tom Gough as The Director. Above: Matthew actress in her late 20s or early 30s. Regan as Kevin. Previous page: Asher Krohn as He and April Green as She. All “Stage Kiss” photos are by Taylor Sanders. What people are saying about “Stage Kiss”

“It manages to be both wholly original and instantly recognizable to the audience. As a satire of theater and theatricals, it’s right up there with Neil Simon’s The Sunshine Boys.” -the New Yorker

“Part parody, part inside-baseball valentine to theater, part falling-down silly physical comedy about love.” -Newsday

“Sarah Ruhl’s affection for the confused bustle of backstage life suffuses the play with warmth and genial humor.” -the New York Times About the play and playwright Sarah Ruhl

If you saw City Lights’ bilingual production of Eurydice last season, you already know what a stunning writer Sarah Ruhl is. One of the reasons that director Lisa Mallette chose Eurydice for the innovative English/American Sign Language show was the beauty and warmth of Ruhl’s words. With Stage Kiss, Ruhl also shows she has smart, fresh comedy down cold.

Stage Kiss had its world premiere at The Goodman Theatre in Chicago in 2011. Three years later, it debuted in at Playwrights Horizons. The critics loved it. (See previous “What people are saying” section.) The New York production, directed by Rebecca Taichman, featured Jessica Hecht (The Price, Fiddler on the Roof and many others on Broadway; , Breaking Bad and others on TV) as She. Dominic Fumusa (He) made his Broadway debut in 1998 in a revival of Wait Until Dark, but is best known as Edie Falco’s TV husband in Nurse Jackie.

Besides authoring Eurydice, Sarah Ruhl has written many other acclaimed plays, including The Clean House and In the Next Room, or the vibrator play, both finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. (City Lights Playwright Sarah Ruhl. presented In the Next Room, which was also a Tony Award nominee for Best New Play, in 2012.)

Other works include the plays Dead Man’s Cell Phone, Passion Play, For Peter Pan on Her 70th Birthday, How to Transcend a Happy Marriage and The Oldest Boy; and the book of essays 100 Essays I Don’t Have Time to Write. Her new play Becky Nurse of Salem just had its world premiere at Berkeley Rep.

Ruhl is known for her unusual voice that can make even everyday mundanities sound lyrical; as the New York Times puts it, her works have “a poetic sensibility and often cross over into the surreal.” A resident of Brooklyn, she teaches at the Yale School of Drama.

Last fall, the Times reported that Ruhl will soon publish Smile, a memoir that explores her experiences with Bell’s palsy, a condition that paralyzed the left side of her face and made smiling nearly impossible. Ruhl promises that the book won’t be “a complete downer,” and says it will also talk about family, faith, art and her theatrical career.

The article also promised Ruhl’s first book of poetry, to be published Soprano Danielle de Niese, who will sing the role of Eurydice in in 2020, and mentioned that she is working on turning the 1957 the upcoming opera “Eurydice.” movie “A Face in the Crowd” into a musical, with music by Elvis Costello. An opera of her play Eurydice is scheduled to premiere in February at Opera, with music by Matthew Aucoin and Australian-American soprano Danielle de Niese singing the title role. It then heads to New York’s Metropolitan Opera.

“What a strange job to kiss strangers in front of people and make it look like you know each other. Or kiss someone you know in front of people and make it look like a stranger.”

-Kevin (Matthew Regan) in “Stage Kiss” About our di rector

Fittingly for a play about the theater, Stage Kiss director Jeffrey Bracco is a veteran theater-maker with experience on and off the stage and on the page, as well as in front of the camera. He has worked as a director, actor and playwright in the U.S. and Europe.

Most recently, City Lights audiences saw him portray Antonio in The Merchant of Venice last season, and in 2012 he worked on another Sarah Ruhl show here, playing Dr. Givings in In the Next Room, or the vibrator play.

Other City Lights roles have included Serge in Art and George in The Language Archive.

As a City Lights director, Jeff has helmed Mothers and Sons, In the Heights, Calendar Girls, Green Day’s American Idiot, M. Butterfly, ’s , Santaland Diaries, The Three Musketeers and Nine (for which he received a Best Jeffrey Bracco, above, and at left, in City Lights’ 2012 production of Director nomination from the Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle). “In the Next Room” (with Elissa Beth Stebbins). Jeff has written several produced plays, including ShakesPod, POE-Pourri and City Lights’ Truce: A Christmas Wish from the Great War, which he co-wrote with Kit Wilder. He appeared in the film From Paris With Love and the French TV series Hard, and is on the theater faculty at Santa Clara University.

Meet our Millie (and Angela)

In Act One of Stage Kiss, the actress She meets other cast members from their play-within-a-play. That includes Millie, a spirited performer. “I’m actually twenty-three. People always cast me as like teenagers,” Millie says. “It’s so annoying.”

In real life, the actress playing Millie, Alexandra Velazquez, doesn’t mind. She's also twenty-three and just played a teen last fall in The Wolves here at City Lights. “I am young, so I might as well play young for as long as I can,” Alexandra said affably.

After graduating from U.C. San Diego last June with a degree in theater arts, Alexandra couldn’t wait for her post-school theater life to begin. She’s been thrilled that this life has included her first two roles at City Lights, where she worked as a box-office intern when she was in school. It’s a place that feels like home.

First, Alexandra was cast in Sarah DeLappe’s soccer drama The Wolves, portraying midfield player #11, a smart, thoughtful and Alexandra Velazquez as Angela. rather morbid 17-year-old. The play rang remarkably true to Alexandra, who played competitive soccer for 12 years and saw herself and her teammates in the acclaimed script.

Now she’s enjoying a slice of something lighter, playing actress Millie in Stage Kiss’ Act One, and Angela (She’s daughter) in Act Two. While the play certainly has depth and raw emotion, it’s a comedy and an offbeat love story, and a nice change of pace from the oft-serious The Wolves.

“I thought Angela was a fun character. She’s angsty and another teen,” Alexandra said, laughing. “I love how assertive she is. She has these strong opinions. Everything she says, in her mind, is just right." Angela certainly has thoughts on her mother reuniting with an old flame in Stage Kiss. One of her lines: “Mom, come home, you’re being a total bitch.”

Alexandra has some history with two of her Stage Kiss castmates — nothing as scandalous as the backstory of He and She. She was in an unarmed stage combat class with April Culver, who plays Millicent and Laurie. And Tom Gough, who plays The Director, was Alexandra’s favorite professor at Foothill College, where she studied before attending U.C. San Diego and took the majority of her acting classes with him.

The class that made the biggest impact was a classical Shakespeare and movement course. “That was the first time that I felt very exposed as an actor, really putting myself out there and using my body as a tool,” she recalled. “It helped me feel comfortable in my body on stage, and really pushed me because it was different from anything I had done in high school.”

These days, Alexandra is looking ahead and hoping to build a professional career in the theater. She’d love to become an Equity actor, and also aspires to be on stage with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Another option might be going back to school to earn her master’s degree so that she can have the option of teaching theater.

“I would love to teach high school drama or in college,” she said. “As long as I can be in the theater world.”

A fine showmance: Some of our favorite real-life theater couples

Even if acting is your day job, the professional can easily become personal. That's why "showmances" are a thing in theaters everywhere. Share the stage in a show, and you may find yourself sharing confidences, smooches and even a home. Here are some of our favorite real-life Broadway couples.

Audra McDonald & Will Swenson "Is it possible for a performance to be too good?" the New York Times' Ben Brantley marveled in 2007. "Audra McDonald brings such breadth of skill and depth of feeling to the Roundabout Theater revival of that she threatens to burst the seams of this small, homey musical."

He should have seen her with the understudy. On the night the critic attended, McDonald was playing the lonely, unmarried Lizzie opposite as the wanderer Starbuck. But the real fireworks happened between the leading lady and Will Swenson, who was cast as Starbuck's understudy. After meeting in the show, McDonald and Swenson got involved and then were married in their New York home in 2012. They now have a daughter, Sally.

Meanwhile, McDonald was nominated for a Tony for her performance as Lizzie. She Two musical-theater notables performing at the didn't win that one, but she has six other White House: Audra McDonald in 2013 (above) and Tonys as consolation. For his part, Swenson Leslie Odom Jr. in 2015 (below left). earned a Tony nomination in 2009 for playing Berger in .

Leslie Odom Jr. & Nicolette Robinson She didn't get the part -- at least not at first -- but Nicolette Robinson did get the guy. This was in Los Angeles in 2008, when she was a UCLA student auditioning for the musical on This Island. Director declined to cast her, disappointing assistant director Leslie Odom Jr.

"I just thought that she had an ineffable quality that is very rare and not really something you can teach," Odom said in an interview with . As it happened, a cast member later had to drop, and the director decided to have Robinson step in. She and Odom became fast friends and started spending tons of time together. "We would take naps on the Equity cot," she told Playbill. "And we had our little thing backstage during 'Waiting for Life.' We would always meet up in the same spot, and we would dance with each other. Every time we'd just get closer and closer."

After the show closed, the friendship didn't end. Instead, the two started dating. They were married in 2012 and welcomed daughter Lucille Ruby in 2017. In between, Odom originated the role of Aaron Burr in a little show called Hamilton. In 2018, Robinson debuted on Broadway as Jenna in .

Neil Patrick Harris & So they didn't actually get acquainted on stage together. ("15 years ago and I met on the street. From that day he has made my world a better place," David Burtka wrote on Instagram last year.) But Burtka guested seven times on , NPH's hit TV show, so there's that.

The pair also appeared together in a scene in the movie A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas.

The two happily marrieds, who have twins Gideon and Harper, both boast lengthy theater resumes. NPH, of course, has hosted the Tony and along with winning the 2014 Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical, for playing the title role in Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Other lead roles have included Bobby in Company with the in concert, the Emcee in , and the Balladeer and in . David Burtka (top left) and Neil Patrick Harris in photos taken last year and In 2015, Burtka was directed by in when they met 15 years earlier, from Burtka’s Instagram feed. the Broadway comedy It Shoulda Been You. He also originated the role of Matt in the musical The Opposite of Sex, and debuted on Broadway as Tulsa in the 2003 revival of .

Orfeh & Oh, how we wish we could say that actors and Andy Karl fell in love when she played Paulette and he was the sexy UPS guy in on Broadway. Truth is, they were already married by that point.

But it did all start as a showmance: the pair met in 2000 when they were both in Saturday Night Fever on Broadway: Orfeh playing Annette and Karl coming in as a replacement for Tony's friend Joey. Six months later, they were wed. It all happened fast, Orfeh told Parade: "It was the classic 'love at first sight' moment. There were halos and auras, and everything went dark with Andy in tunnel vision."

Their careers continue to thrive. In 2018, they had their own cabaret show, "Orfeh and Andy Karl: Legally Bound," which later became an album. Karl's other productions have included and the Ahrens & Flaherty musical Rocky, both of which earned him Tony nominations; and Orfeh's shows include : The Musical (Kit), which, by the way, has also starred Karl as Edward.

Andy Karl playing the title role in “Rocky.”

As if being cast opposite her ex weren’t bad enough, an actress (April Green) must pucker up with an understudy (Matthew Regan) whose kissing technique is, shall we say, creative. The Director (Tom Gough) looks worried, too.

Why do we kiss, anyway?

In 2015, an anthropology study of cultures around the world reported shocking results: Most people don’t think kissing is romantic. To be precise, only 46% of Earth’s cultures smooch on the lips in the lovey-dovey sense, according to the study published in the journal American Anthropologist.

Romantic kissing seems more common in Western cultures. In other places, it’s not a thing. When the Mehinka of Amazonia saw Europeans kissing, for example, “their first reaction was one of disgust at such ‘gross’ behavior,” the study reported. “For quite a few (cultures), kissing is seen as unpleasant, unclean, or simply unusual.”

It’s true that touching lips or tongues can transmit millions of bacteria, but that might be a mood-killer for Stage Kiss audiences, so let’s move on to something nicer. Why do humans kiss on the lips at all? It’s not because birds do it and bees do it. In fact, the only other animals known to do it are chimpanzees and bonobos. And scientists say that chimps kiss on the mouth only as a way of reconciliation. (Bonobos are all about the sexy stuff.)

According to an article in Psychology Today, kissing with lips and tongues makes perfect sense for expressing romance, because those body parts have an inordinately large amount of tactile (somatosensory) brain tissue. That means they can sense a whole lot of sensory stimuli. Making out with someone’s arm isn’t quite up there.

“Viewed from the brain’s perspective, then, kissing (especially when the tongue is involved) is a very efficient way to provide a rich sensory experience and to maximize brain-to-brain intimacy,” neuroscientist Eric Haseltine wrote.

From an evolutionary angle, kissing also makes sense because it brings you close enough to smell your partner, according to a BBC article. There’s evidence that you can sniff out a good mate in a lot of ways. Studies have shown, for instance, that women prefer the scent of men who are genetically different from them (which makes for healthier offspring), and that during a woman’s fertile times, people tend to place more importance on how a potential kissing partner smells.

Maybe that’s why most animals don’t kiss. They tend to have better senses of smell than humans, so they don’t need to get that close to gather the data. Very efficient, Fido. Stage Kiss by Sarah Ruhl

directed by Jeffrey Bracco

supported by Producers Sandra Moll & Rick Holden

City Lights presents Stage Kiss from Jan. 16-Feb. 16, 2020. Performances are Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. (no show Jan. 19). The Feb. 9 matinee will have American Sign Language interpreters. Need an interpreter on a different date? Email us at [email protected], and we will do our best to accommodate you. More about Stage Kiss: cltc.org.

Director: Jeffrey Bracco

Assistant Director: Ivette Deltoro

Production Manager/Technical Director/Scenic Designer: Ron Gasparinetti

Stage Manager: Joseph Hidde Assistant Stage Manager: Charnneé Young

Intimacy Director: Carla Pantoja Lighting Designer: Mary Baronitis

Costume Designer: Anna Chase Props Designer: Miranda Whipple

Sound Designer: George Psarras Master Electrician: Joseph Hidde Master Carpenter/Scenic Artist: Paulino Deleal

Featuring: April Green, Asher Krohn, Tom Gough, April Culver, Matthew Regan, Damian Vega and Alexandra Velazquez.

This issue of Highlights was researched and written by City Lights marketing director Rebecca Wallace. Read past issues, and a digital version of this publication, at cltc.org/highlights.