By COLMAN DOMINGO Directed by E. G. BAILEY DEC 8 – JAN 7 Midwest Premiere / Proscenium Stage made possible with support from: JOHN SULLIVAN WILLIAM & SUSAN SANDS 2017–2018 SEASON Dear Park Square Patron: When you see an iceberg, no matter how large, only one-fifth is seen above the surface. That which is unseen constitutes the bulk of its true mass. That is true of what my fellow spousal caregivers and I go through living with and loving someone with Alzheimer’s. Today’s play reveals a few unseen chunks of the Alzheimer’s iceberg – including how African American families like mine deal with the disease within our unique cultural and social context. As a spousal caregiver, I can attest to what these characters reveal: some days are worse than others. Hearing, “I hate your guts!” from your spouse pierces your very being. Yes, I know it’s not her, it’s the disease, but I’m still human and still feel it. Like these characters, I still find joy. I often choose to laugh instead of cry. And I work hard to stop this from happening to other families in the future as a Board Member of the American Brain Foundation, today’s sponsor. We are working to identify and eradicate the causes of Alzheimer’s, as well as the whole spectrum of brain-related injuries, illnesses, and diseases. Please consider supporting our work at www.AmericanBrainFoundation.org and the work of partner agencies The Alzheimer’s Association and HealthPartners Center for Memory & Aging. Thank you to Park Square for choosing to produce this bold, sassy new play that brings us all into the very human story of Alzheimer’s. Park Square’s commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion and to stories that reveal and celebrate the whole human family is more important than ever. Thank you for being with us today on this journey and may your holidays and families be blessed. Dan Gasby Board Member, American Brain Foundation OUR MISSION is to enrich our community by producing and presenting exceptional live theatre that touches the heart, engages the mind and delights the spirit. 3 By COLMAN DOMINGO photos by Petronella J. Ytsma Dot The holidays are always a wild family affair at the Shealy house. But this year, as Dot struggles to hold on to her memory, her adult children grapple with how to balance care for their mother and care for themselves. Filled with laughter and heartbreak, uproariously funny yet emotionally tender, Dot is a testament to the enduring bonds of family. “It’s part of our tradition – to confront tragedy with comedy, to laugh to keep from crying. I love the characters, their humanity, their candor, and sense of humor… there’s obviously a lot of love between them.” – E.G. Bailey, Director THANKS FOR JOINING US THIS HOLIDAY SEASON! Special Thanks to our Premiere Producer’s Club: Jeffrey Bores & Michael Hawkins Pat & Paul Sackett Mary Ann Ebert & Paul Stembler William & Susan Sands Barbara Forster & Lawrence Hendrickson Joe & Christie Schmitt Bruce Jones & Joann Nordin John Sullivan Jeanne & Jack Matlock The Park Square Theatre Premiere Producer’s Club brings new works and new writers to our stages – from the latest successes at national new play festivals to world premieres by local artists. Contact Mackenzie Pitterle at 651.767.1440 for more details on how you can become involved with the Premiere Producer’s Club and bring new works to Park Square Theatre’s stages. AARP members and those 62+ enjoy complimentary coffee and cookies before Park Square matinees courtesy of: 4 on the PROSCENIUM STAGE By COLMAN DOMINGO ARTISTIC STAFF CAST Director .......................... E.G. Bailey Dotty...........Cynthia Jones-Taylor* Scenic Designer ............. Andrea Heilman Shelly ..........Yvette Ganier* Costume Designer ......... Rebecca Karstad Jackie ..........Anna Letts Lakin Lighting Designer .......... Michael P. Kittel Donnie .......Ricardo Beaird Sound Designer ............. Christy Johnson Adam ..........Michael Hanna* Properties Designer ....... Connor McEvoy Averie .........Dame-Jasmine Hughes* Dialect Coach ................. Foster Johns Fidel............Maxwell Collyard Choreographer ............... Vie Boheme Stage Manager ............... Megan Fae Dougherty* Asst. Stage Manager...... Elizabeth Efteland TIME / SETTING Two days before Christmas and Christmas Eve. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania PERFORMANCE TIME Approximately 2 hours, 15 minutes with a 20-minute intermission. Special Thanks to our Premiere Producer’s Club: This show contains adult themes and strong language. DOT is presented by special arrangement with Sam French, Inc. World premiere in the 2015 Humana Festival of New American Plays at Actors Theatre of Louisville. DOT was produced by the Vineyard Theatre, Douglas Aibel, Artistic Director; Sarah Stern, Co-Artistic Director; Jennifer Garvey-Blackwell, Executive Director, New York City, Winter, 2016. The videotaping or making of electronic or other audio and/or visual recordings of this production or distributing recordings on any medium, including the internet, is strictly prohibited, a violation of the author’s rights and actionable under united states copyright law. For more information, please visit: www.samuelfrench.com/whitepaper As a courtesy to our actors and those around you, please DEACTIVATE all PHONES and ELECTRONIC DEVICES. *Member of Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States Park Square Theatre is a member of Theatre Communications Group (TCG), the national organization for the American theatre. 5 PERSPECTIVE there’s an Idiot’s Guide.) As Dot suggests, caring for prior generations is a nearly inescapable experience, and some who do escape it may incite resentment and anxiety in other family members – hence Shelly’s exasperation. Just as in the play, families debate whether to care for aging loved ones in-home (and whose home) or to pursue other accommodations (“the home”). The stress of these conversations (or negotiations, or outright conflict) is compounded because most families make these decisions with highly constrained finances. Tina Howe’s play is a moving portrait of a family bonding. Domingo’s play is an unnerving mirror. Shelly feels that “every day is an emergency,” and In 2010, Park Square produced Painting for so many of us who have been in the Churches, Tina Howe’s play about a woman position of the Shealy children, we may who returns home to paint and help her feel that way, too. As we care for the aging parents. The father’s memory has begun and ailing, every second risks a trauma, to fail, and in its place are snatches of and every day offers an emergency. We Irish and American poems. In the program may judge Shelly for the measures she for that production, I wrote about Mary takes to give herself a break, but we can Pipher’s book Another Country: Navigating understand her. the Emotional Terrain of Our Elders, in which the author describes how we have no frame From Oedipus to King Lear, from A of reference for dealing with those who Streetcar Named Desire to August: Osage are growing old. She writes, “We have few County, the family reunion has been road maps to help us navigate the new a major impetus in Western drama, lands [of aging].” In Howe’s play, the couple as far-flung family are forced home to are relocating to Cape Cod from Boston’s confront crises. And crises, according Beacon Hill (current home to John Kerry, to Pipher, “make everyone more who former home to Carly Simon, Ted Kennedy, they really are.” At least Blanche DuBois and Uma Thurman). The Churches had the knew not to head to the Kowalskis’ just privilege to confront aging with substantial in time for Christmas: holiday traditions resources, and that’s what makes Colman and expectations – not to mention sheer Domingo’s play feel so vital. numbers of people – can trouble even the most delicately balanced families. But Dot In 2010, I did not note that I knew of is not a tragedy, and neither is aging, and Pipher’s book because it was on my family’s it’s no surprise the Shealys’ emergency bookshelf, alongside Eldercare for Dummies. ebbs when the family tries to understand As Pipher points out, and as anyone one another. knows who has experienced that traumatic – by Matt DiCintio instant when a loved one turns to you and Matt DiCintio holds a PhD in Drama from asks, “Who are you?”, we’re all dummies Tufts. He works at Boston University and when it comes to eldercare. (If you prefer, is a freelance dramaturg. 6 651.291.7005 | parksquaretheatre.org CAST RICARDO BEAIRD (Rattlesticks Playwrights Theatre), Breath, Donnie Boom (Playwrights Horizons, 2002 OBIE Park Square Sons of the Ward); Jitney (Second Stage/Union Square); Prophet Representative Aqua in For Colored Girls (Henry St./Tribeca Theatre Yellow Tree Arts, Audelco Award); The Quadroon Ball Theatre: Clybourne Park; (La MAMA) Regional Theatre Project Pangea World Theater; Dawn (People’s Light and Theatre Co.), Conference of the Birds; Stage of Fools Between Riverside and Crazy (The Cleveland Theatre: The Last Days of Judas Iscariot; Playhouse), Don Juan Comes Back From Public Theatre of MN: Much Ado About Iraq (Wilma Theatre), Romeo and Juliet Nothing, I and You; Nebraska Shakespeare (Actors Theatre of Louisville), Richard III Festival: The Tempest Training B.A., Theatre (Temple Repertory Theatre), Tartuffe (Temple and Marketing, Middle Tennessee State Repertory Theatre), Three Sisters (Temple University; additional training with the Repertory Theatre), Measure for Measure Nashville Shakespeare Festival (Temple Repertory Theatre), The Piano