PACIFIC RESIDENT THEATRE Business Manager Artistic Director Managing Director JENNIFER LONSWAY MARILYN FOX BRUCE WHITNEY The Homecoming by Harold Pinter Sponsored in part by a gift from Harold and Jeanne Katzman Producer ELSPETH A. WEINGARTEN Associate Producers VALERIE HAVEY SARA NEWMAN-MARTINS Scenic Design & Light Design Sound Design NORMAN SCOTT KEITH STEVENSON Property Design & Special Effects Costume Design DAN COLE CHRISTINE COVER-FERRO Violence Design Stage Manager NED MOCHEL JULIANNE FIGUEROA Directed by GUILLERMO CIENFUEGOS CAST Max . Jude Ciccolella* Sam . Anthony Foux Lenny . Jason Downs* Teddy . Trent Dawson* Ruth . Lesley Fera* Joey . Steve Spiro Ruth Understudy . .Marwa Bernstein* Teddy Understudy . .Phillip Giannikas The Homecoming takes place in a working-class neighborhood in North London, August 1965. There will be one intermission between Act I & Act II. The Homecoming is presented by special arrangement with Samuel French, Inc. The videotaping or making of electronic or other audio and/or visual recordings of this pro- duction is a violation of United States Copyright Law and an actionable federal offense. *Members of the Actors Equity Association, the professional union for actors and stage managers in the United States. HAROLD PINTER’S BIO Harold Pinter, 2005 Nobel Laureate for Literature (October 10, 1930 - December 24, 2008), was born in London’s working-class Hackney district to Hyman and Frances Pinter, Jewish Eastern Europeans who had immigrated to the United Kingdom from Portugal. Pinter has said that his encounter with anti-Semitism while growing up in England was the fuse that ignited the organic process leading him to becoming a playwright. As his Nobel Prize citation attests, Pinter developed into the greatest En- glish dramatist of the post-World War II era. In 1957, Bristol Uni- versity staged Pinter’s fi rst play The Room. The Room had all the hallmarks of what would become known as “Pinteresque” in that it set up a commonplace situation that gradually became fi lled with menace and mystery through the author’s deliberate examination of the characters and their starker hidden id-like drives. “Your writing absolutely fascinates me,” Noel Coward wrote to Pinter in 1965 after seeing his third full-length play, The Homecoming. “You cheerfully break every rule of theatre that I was brought up to believe in. I love your choice of words, your resolute refusal to explain anything and the triumphant demands you make on the audience’s imagination.” Along with the 1967 Tony Award for Best Play for The Homecoming and several other American awards and award nominations, he and his plays received many awards in the UK and elsewhere throughout the world, including the 2007 French Legion d’honneur. DirectorsDIRECTOR Notes AND ARTISTIC DIRECTOR’S NOTE This play has been challenging audiences and scholars ever since its premiere in 1965. It has inspired dozens of books and essays analyzing the play and its characters, attempting to decipher their meaning. Its blend of realism and surrealism, the mercurial switches from the savage to the polite and the characters’ seemingly incomprehensible behavior are just a few of the things that drew me to want to direct it in the fi rst place. Now after spending a great deal of time working on it with a splendid production team and a terrifi c cast, I do know this: The Homecoming is about a family that can only communicate through their long-established ritual of war. They are at war and every scene is a battle. And every- one is always trying to win. That’s what makes this play as potent and surprising today as it was when Pinter fi rst unleashed it onto audiences. It’s also what makes it funny. I hope you enjoy watching the bloodshed as much as we enjoyed staging it. -Guillermo Cienfuegos, Director As we approach our 30th anniversary, we are honored to present Harold Pinter’s The Homecoming. Pinter was one of the greatest playwrights of the 20th century, and in many ways changed the way we look at theater. What I fi nd beautiful about the play is that Pinter writes from an unbridled, poetic, emotional honesty. He writes impulse- and through the impulse, his words become vessels of strong human need. The characters needs provide the play with a truth that defi es realism. To quote literary critic John Lahr, “The territorial battle being waged in The Homecoming is ultimately not about the house or the people in it, but about who’s perception of reality will prevail.” --Marilyn Fox, Artistic Director ACTOR BIOGRAPHIES Jude Ciccolella (Max) has been seen recently on fi lm inSin City: A Dame To Kill For; and on TV in Matador, Perception, Major Crimes and Beautiful And Twisted. He recently performed in Gena Acos- ta’s That Sullivan Girl at The Actors Studio and he is Co-Artistic Director of – and performs in – the Eumenides Group, which has staged The Speed Of Darkness, Drift and The Pursuit Of Happiness in LA. Ciccolella played Mike Novick on 24 and the Secnav on NCIS. Films include Glengarry Glen Ross, Shawshank Redemption, The Manchurian Candidate, World Trade Center, Terminal, Beloved, Premonition and Sin City. Trent Dawson (Teddy) Broadway: The Herbal Bed, Off Broad- way: Maple and Vine (Playwrights Horizons), The Memorandum (Beckett Theatre), Macbeth (SOHO Rep.) Also in NYC: The Re- vival (Lion Theatre/IT Nomination), Love’s Labour’s Lost, As You Like It, Much Ado About Nothing (American Globe) Region- al: The Homecoming, Lady Windermere’s Fan, Misalliance (Center Stage), The School for Scandal (McCarter Theatre), Beyond Ther- apy (Westport), The Miser (Geva), Pal Joey (Prince Music Theatre), Dead Man’s Cell Phone (ICT), The Pain and the Itch (Zephyr) Film/Television: Men in Black III, Home- land, The Good Wife, NCIS, Castle, NCIS: Los Angeles, Guiding Light, As the World Turns (Emmy Nominated) Jason Downs (Lenny) graduated from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, and has performed on stage and screen for over 30 years. He was also signed as a recording artist with Jive Records where he enjoyed a top 20 hit overseas and a European Tour. (He’s huge in Belgium.) He currently produces and narrates rather saucy audiobooks under the alias Tristan Hunt. He’s just recently moved to LA from NY and is grateful to Pacifi c Resident Theatre, Guillermo and this amazing cast for giving him the opportunity to do what he loves most with such an inspiring & creative communion of professionals. Lesley Fera (Ruth) A longtime member of PRT, Lesley has ap- peared in: The Hasty Heart (Sister Margaret), Happy End (Lillian), Big Love (Olympia), Anna Christie (Anna), and Lady Chatterley’s Lover (Lady Chatterley), which earned her an LADCC Award for Lead Performance. Other theatre credits include: Noises Off (Asolo Rep); Misalliance (PA Centre Stage); The Children’s Hour (Provincetown Rep); Communicating Doors (San Jose Rep). On television, Lesley currently plays Veronica Hastings on ABC Family’s Pretty Little Liars. Other TV credits include: Southland; Stalker; C.S.I.: Miami; 24. Lesley thanks Guillermo and Marilyn for this wonderful experience, as well as “The Pack” for their love and support. Anthony Foux (Sam) came to acting later in life and has since trained at UCLA, the Elizabeth Mestnik Acting Studio and with Marilyn Fox at Pacific Resident Theatre. Prior to acting, Antho- ny worked in the financial fields as an investment banker and a bond trader for some of the nation’s top firms, including Gold- man Sachs and First Interstate Bank. He owns and operates a series of small inns in Monterey and has carried out a number of other entrepreneurial enterprises throughout his life. He is happy to now be pursuing his lifelong aspiration by performing in a mainstage production at PRT. Steve Spiro (Joey) is happy to be working with such a talented cast on this wonderful play. Other theatre credits include, The Caretaker, The Blue Dahlia, The Misanthrope, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Breaking The Code, to name a few. Steve has written several screenplays and is also the Co-founder of START RESCUE which funds Spay/Neuters for low-income families and trans- ports animals from high kill shelters in California to rescue part- ners in the Pacific Northwest. www.STARTrescue.org. Thank you to Marilyn and Guillermo and much love to Chopsy, Chunky, Ruby and Marble. Marwa Bernstein (Ruth Understudy) Marwa is very excited to be part of The Homecoming cast in her first mainstage production at PRT, and proud to be a member of such an amazing company. She has been a professional performer for most of her life, first as a ballet dancer and second as an actor. She moved to LA from New York, has performed around the world as a dancer, and has many stage and screen credits which you can look up if you are interested at www.marwabernstein.com. Many thanks to the cast and crew, and to her husband David and daughter Lucy for everything. Phillip Giannikas (Teddy Understudy) Phillip grew up in Los Angeles and discovered theater at Occidental College. He trained at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts and act- ed at PRT before becoming a lawyer and leaving California for exactly twenty years… when he returned as a federal adminis- trative law judge. Throughout this odyssey, he sang and played blues guitar and harmonica. He appeared “Burn Notice” and “Magic City” in Miami and is now blessed to act at PRT in his favorite play. Have a sweet tooth? -- At some of our performances, we have an assortment of delectable Italian Specialty Cookies, compliments of Celestino Drago’s DOLCE FORNO BAKERY Purchase some in our lobby: 2 cookies for $1, or a small bag of cookies for $3 All proceeds go directly to benefit Pacific Resident Theatre! PRODUCTION BIOGRAPHIES Guillermo Cienfuegos (Director) is best known for his 2014 production of Henry V, for which he won Ovation and LA Dra- ma Critics Circle awards for Best Director and received Ova- tion and Stage Raw nominations for Best Production.