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PLAY GUIDE 2015 2016 About ATC .................................................................................................................................................. 1 Introduction to the Play ............................................................................................................................. 2 Meet the Playwright ................................................................................................................................... 2 Meet the Characters .................................................................................................................................. 6 Historical Context ...................................................................................................................................... 19 Reason, Rationality, and the Age of Enlightenment ...................................................................................28 Theology of the Play ................................................................................................................................... 30 The Gospels ............................................................................................................................................... 35 Common Biblical Misconceptions .............................................................................................................. 39 The Psychology of Introspection ................................................................................................................. 42 Epistemology: Knowledge, Ethics, and Truth ..............................................................................................43 Glossary .....................................................................................................................................................47 Crossword Puzzle ....................................................................................................................................... 51 …Discord Play Guide edited and designed by Katherine Monberg, ATC Literary Manager, with assistance from Luke Young, Learning & Education Manager; Shelby Athouguia and Bryanna Patrick, Learning & Education Associates. Contributing writers: Kacie Claudel, Chloe Loos, Gabriel Oladipo, and Angelina Valencia. SUPPORT FOR ATC’S LEARNING & EDUCATION PROGRAMMING HAS BEEN PROVIDED BY: APS Rosemont Copper Arizona Commission on the Arts Stonewall Foundation Bank of America Foundation Target Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona The Boeing Company City of Glendale The Donald Pitt Family Foundation Community Foundation for Southern Arizona The Johnson Family Foundation, Inc. Cox Charities The Lovell Foundation Downtown Tucson Partnership The Marshall Foundation Enterprise Holdings Foundation The Maurice and Meta Gross Foundation Ford Motor Company Fund The Max and Victoria Dreyfus Foundation Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Foundation The Stocker Foundation JPMorgan Chase The WIlliam L. and Ruth T. Pendleton Memorial Fund John and Helen Murphy Foundation Tucson Medical Center National Endowment for the Arts Tucson Pima Arts Council Phoenix Office of Arts and Culture Wells Fargo PICOR Charitable Foundation ABOUT ATC Arizona Theatre Company is a professional, not-for-profit theatre company. This means that all of our artists, administrators and production staff are paid professionals, and the income we receive from ticket sales and contributions goes right back into our budget to create our work, rather than to any particular person as a profit. Eash season, ATC employs hundreds of actors, directors and designers from all over the country to create the work you see on stage. In addition, ATC currently employs approximately 50 staff members in our production shops and administrative offices in Tucson and Phoenix during our season. Among these people are carpenters, painters, marketing professionals, fundraisers, stage directors, sound and light board operators, tailors, costume designers, box office agents, stage crew - the list is endless - representing am amazing range of talents and skills. We are also supported by a Board of Trustees, a group of business and community leaders who volunteer their time and expertise to assist the theatre in financial and legal matters, advise in marketing and fundraising, and help represent the theatre in our community. Roughly 150,000 people attend our shows every year, and several thousand of those people support us with charitable contributions in addition to purchasing their tickets. Businesses large and small, private foundations and the city and state governments also support our work financially. All of this is in support of our vision and mission: The mission of Arizona Theatre Company is to inspire, engage and entertain - one moment, one production and one audience at a time. Our mission is to create professional theatre that continually strives to reach new levels of artistic excellence that resonates locally, in the state of Arizona and throughout the nation. In order to fulfill our mission, the theatre produces a broad repertoire ranging from classics to new works, engages artists of the highest caliber, and is committed to assuring access to the broadest spectrum of citizens. The Temple of Music and Art, the home of ATC shows in downtown The Herberger Theater Center, ATC’s performance venue in downtown Tucson. Phoenix. 1 INTRODUCTION TO THE PLAY The Gospel According to Thomas Jefferson, Charles Dickens, and Count Leo Tolstoy: Discord By Scott Carter Directed by Matt August A Founding Father, a Victorian novelist and a Russian revolutionary walk into a…stop me if you’ve heard this one. Join us for a laugh-out-loud, whip-smart new comedy from Scott Carter, Executive Producer of HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher. … Discord takes the third U.S. President, the author of War and Peace, and the writer of A Christmas Carol, locks them in a room with “no exit,” and has them hash out their views of scripture and the true meaning of existence in a cage match for the Show art by Esser Design. ages. MEET THE PLAYWRIGHT Scott Carter (Playwright) has been the Executive Producer for Real time with Bill Maher since the show’s HBO debut in 2003, and served as producer for the first 1,100 episodes of Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher on Comedy Central from 1993 until its move to ABC in 1997. While at P.I., Carter received eight Emmy Award nominations and three consecutive CableAce Awards for Best Talk Series. He has served as creator, producer and/or writer for Curb the Discussion with Susie Essman (TV Guide, 2010), Root of All Evil with Lewis Black (Comedy Central, 2008), Earth to America (TBS, 2005), The Conspiracy Zone with Kevin Nealon (Spike, 2002-3), and Exhale with Candice Bergen (Oxygen, 2000-1), among others. In 1997, Variety named him one of the “50 Creatives to Watch”, Playwright Scott Carter. and he was named a 2007 co-recipient of the Producer’s Guild of America’s Johnny Carson Award for Real Time. A former standup comedian, Carter has written and performed two full-length monologues at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, The Aspen Community Arts Festival, the Cleveland Performance Festival, 2 …Discord is the work of 21 years of research and writing, honoring three historical giants of different eras and their conceptions about the life and impact of Jesus Christ. Mr. Carter is the former Producing Director and a founding member of The Invisible Theatre in Tucson, Arizona. He currently lives in Los Angeles with his wife, interior designer Bebe Johnson, and their two daughters, Calla and Colette. Discordant & Harmonious Notes By Scott Carter The writing of this play began, really, in June 1986 as I awoke choking on a Sunday morning. As a lifelong asthmatic, this was not unexpected, but the attack was to be the most severe of my life and I spent nearly a week in the hospital. At that time, I was a struggling standup comic and, like many colleagues, I was either indifferent or hostile to God; Jesus was the ghost who came into my bedroom when I was a child and tried to choke me to death on a nightly basis. I was released from Bellevue that Saturday afternoon. At the intersection of 26th and First Avenue, I had an epiphany like Saul on the road to Damascus when a thunderbolt knocked him to the ground, scales fell from his eyes and he knew that Jesus Christ was his Lord and Savior. My metanoia was less specific and more non-denominational; I went from cynical comic to non-affiliated deist. I received the unshakable realization of God’s existence and that of grace – for which I thought myself unworthy but grateful. I guess that’s why it’s called grace. I entered into a bliss state – loving all whom I met and forgiving previous transgressions done to me. It lasted about a week. Then it faded and I felt a return to the petty life I’d always led. I didn’t want this to happen. I wanted to make this event into the B.C./A.D. of my existence. But I had no strong religious affiliation to which to turn. My parents were devout believers in whatever Protestant community was closest and nicest. I grew up Episcopalian, Methodist, Presbyterian and Lutheran. Post-service coffee and donuts were sacraments as sacred as any wafers or wine. So I made a pact with the universe in the summer of 1986: I would remain open to signs and direction from anyone offering religious literature, conversation or ritual. On October 5, 1988, I watched an episode of A World of Ideas on PBS. Host Bill Moyers was interviewing Reverend Forrester Church of All Souls Unitarian in New York.

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