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2014|2015 SEASON Issue 3 TABLE OF Dear Friend, CONTENTS A great classical company cannot live on Shakespeare alone. During my first season ® 1 Title page as Artistic Director of the Recipient of the 2012 Regional Theatre Tony Award 3 Cast Shakespeare Theatre Company, Artistic Director Michael Kahn we presented three plays from Managing Director Chris Jennings 5 About the Playwrights our namesake playwright. For our fourth production, however, we commissioned a new translation 8 Metromania Mania and adaptation of The Mandrake, the 1518 play by by David Ives Niccolò Machiavelli. Now, 28 years later, I am proud to say that this was just the first of many revivals 10 Lost Inside a Dream of neglected works. Through the launch of our by Drew Lichtenberg ReDiscovery Series, and our staging of plays such as Schiller’s Don Carlos, Lorenzaccio by Alfred de 14 Classics in Musset, and Lope de Vega’s The Dog in the Manger, Conversation: Michael the Shakespeare Theatre Company has developed a BY DAVID IVES Kahn and David Ives reputation for artistic risk-taking. ADAPTED FROM LA MÉTROMANIE BY ALEXIS PIRON by Drew Lichtenberg But staging neglected plays is one thing. Reinventing Performances begin February 3, 2015 the canon is another. There are perhaps few 18 Piron’s La Métromanie Opening Night February 9, 2015 collaborations that have meant as much to me—or Lansburgh Theatre by Derek Connon plainly been so much fun—as my work with David Ives. In our 2009-2010 Season, thanks to a path- 25 Play in Process breaking grant from the Beech Street Foundation, we 26 Cast Biographies commissioned David to translate and adapt Pierre Director Voice & Text Coach Corneille’s The Liar. The results were sensational. Michael Kahn Ellen O’Brien 29 Direction and Design Less than two years later, Ives followed that feat Biographies with his translation of The Heir Apparent by Jean- Scenic Designer Casting Director François Regnard, and here we are now, with The James Noone Laura Stanczyk, CSA 36 For STC Metromaniacs, by Alexis Piron. Costume Designer Resident Casting Director 40 Faces and Voices: David’s translations have swiftly become the industry Murell Horton Carter C. Wooddell Poets are Present standard, produced by theatres across the country, by Laura Henry Buda and his ability to unearth and revitalize works that haven’t seen the stage in centuries is uncanny. David Lighting Designer Literary Manager/Dramaturg 42 Mapping the Play: doesn’t just translate these plays. He brings them Mark McCullough Drew Lichtenberg Metromaniacs to life. He makes us realize that history is not just something you read in a book, but something that Sound Designer Assistant Director by Garrett Anderson you can actively shape, rediscover, and reimagine. Matt Tierney Craig Baldwin 44 About STC Our 2014–2015 Season concludes this spring with Composer Production Stage Manager About ACA Alan Paul’s production of Man of La Mancha, a classic reimagining of Cervantes’ Don Quixote, and Helen Adam Wernick Bret Torbeck* 46 Support Hayes Award-winning Steven Epp returns to STC to star in Molière’s Tartuffe. We look forward to sharing Period Movement Consultant Assistant Stage Manager 54 Preview: Man of these stories with you. Frank Ventura Elizabeth Clewley* La Mancha 56 STC Staff Warm Regards, 57 Audience Services The Metromaniacs is presented as a part of Comedy Française—The Clarice Smith Series. The ReDiscovery Commission series is sponsored by the Beech Street Foundation. The Clarice Smith Series is sponsored by the Robert H. Smith Family Foundation. Michael Kahn Restaurant Partner: Social Reform Artistic Director Shakespeare Theatre Company *Members of Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers. 1 CAST THE METROMANIACS Damis, a young poet .......................................................................................................Christian Conn* Dorante, a young man in love with Lucille ..........................................................Anthony Roach* Lucille, a young woman in love with poetry ....................................................... Amelia Pedlow* Lisette, Lucille’s maid ........................................................................................................ Dina Thomas* Mondor, Damis’s valet ........................................................................................... Michael Goldstrom* Francalou, Lucille’s father .............................................................................................Adam LeFevre* Balvieau, Damis’s uncle .....................................................................................................P e t e r K y b a r t * Servants .............................................................................................. Danny Cackley, Ross Destiche+ UNDERSTUDIES Danny Cackley (Mondor/Damis), Ross Destiche+ (Dorante), Kay Kerimian (Lucille/Lisette/Servant), Stephen Patrick Martin* (Baliveau/Francalou). THE SETTING: The ballroom of Francalou’s house in Paris. Spring, 1738. Metromaniac. Noun. A person addicted to poetry, or to writing verses. (From Latin metrum, poetic meter + Greek mania, madness.) PRODUCTION TEAM Directorial Observer: Katherine Burris Production Assistant: Maria Tejada THERE WILL BE ONE 15-MINUTE INTERMISSION. The Shakespeare Theatre Company operates under an agreement between the League of Resident Theatres and Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States, and employs members of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society and United Scenic Artists. The Company is also a constituent of Theatre Communications Group (TCG), the national organization for not-for-profit professional theatre, and is a member of the Performing Arts Alliance, the D.C. Chamber of Commerce, Association of Performing Arts Presenters (APAP), American Alliance for Theatre and Education and DC Arts and Humanities Education Collaborative. Copyright laws prohibit the use of cameras and recording equipment in the theatre. *Member of Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers. + Acting Fellow of the Shakespeare Theatre Company 3 STC BOARD OF TRUSTEES ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHTS Michael R. Klein, Chair Bernard F. McKay Robert E. Falb, Vice Chair Eleanor Merrill John Hill, Treasurer Melissa A. Moss DAVID IVES Pauline Schneider, Secretary Stephen M. Ryan Michael Kahn, Artistic Director George P. Stamas There are few playwrights who love language as much as David Ives. “I think everything Lady Westmacott should be in verse,” Ives has said. “The New York Times and cookbooks should be in verse. Trustees Rob Wilder Verse raises the level.” Nicholas W. Allard Suzanne S. Youngkin Ashley M. Allen Born in Chicago in 1950, Ives entered Yale School of Drama in 1981, where he began bending the Stephen E. Allis Ex-Officio Anita M. Antenucci Chris Jennings, Managing Director world to his inimitable rhythms. New York magazine once named him one of the 100 smartest Jeffrey D. Bauman New Yorkers, a distinction he has called the greatest tragedy of his life. Afsaneh Beschloss Emeritus Trustees William C. Bodie R. Robert Linowes*, Founding Chairman All in the Timing (1993), a breakneck evening of pitter-patter patois, ran for over 600 performances Landon Butler James B. Adler off-Broadway. In 1995-1996, it was the most-performed play in the country. In 2013-2014, Ives Dr. Paul Carter Heidi L. Berry* ® Peter Cherukuri David A. Brody* repeated this coup with Venus in Fur, his Tony Award -Nominated play, which Roman Polanski Gloria Dittus Melvin S. Cohen* turned into a film. He is currently collaborating with Stephen Sondheim on a much-anticipated Dr. Mark Epstein Ralph P. Davidson* musical based on two films of Luis Buñuel. Stefanie Erkiletian James F. Fitzpatrick Andrew C. Florance Dr. Sidney Harman* All of which makes his comfort in the classical theatre—and his facility with verse—even more Dr. Natwar Gandhi Lady Manning impressive. The Liar and The Heir Apparent, Ives’s rhymed-verse translations of French comedy Miles Gilburne Kathleen Matthews Barbara Harman William F. McSweeny for STC, have quickly become industry standards, and he credits working in this form with John R. Hauge V. Sue Molina transforming his experience of reality. “Once I started working in verse,” Ives says, “I would Stephen A. Hopkins Walter Pincus walk down the streets and translate bus ads into verse, just to see how they’d sound. Know Lawrence A. Hough Eden Rafshoon W. Mike House Emily Malino Scheuer* what? Bus ads are always better in iambic pentameter.” One could say the same of French Jerry J. Jasinowski Lady Sheinwald comedies. They always sound better in Ives. Norman D. Jemal Mrs. Louis Sullivan Scott Kaufmann Daniel W. Toohey Kevin Kolevar Sarah Valente Abbe D. Lowell Lady Wright ALEXIS PIRON Gail MacKinnon *Deceased One of the most widely produced comic writers of the 18th century, Alexis Piron (1689-1773) lived a life dogged by controversy. He had an uncanny ability to make powerful enemies and as a result, he is all but forgotten today. Born in Burgundy in 1689, Piron moved to Paris in the early 1720s, eager to be a poet. But instead ASIDES of garnering glory at the Comédie Française—the theatre of King Louis XV—Piron worked at published by SHAKESPEARE THEATRE COMPANY Paris’ unofficial fairground theatres. At thesethéâtres de la foire, Parisians came to have a naughty good time, classical decorum be damned. Arlequin Deucalion (1722), an ingenious dramatic Managing Editor Publisher monologue