Young Jean Lee's Theater Company
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wexner center for the arts THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY PRESENTS world premiere Wexner Center Artist Residency Award Project Young Jean Lee’s Theater Company STRAIGHT WHITE MEN THU–SAT, APR 10–12 | 8 pm SUN, APR 13 | 2 pm Performance Space 2013–14 PERFORMING ARTS SEASON world premiere Thank you for Wexner Center Artist Residency Award Project Young Jean Lee’s Theater Company joining us at tonight’s STRAIGHT WHITE MEN THU–SAT, APR 10–12 | 8 pm performance. SUN, APR 13 | 2 pm Performance Space STRAIGHT WHITE MEN is a production by a nonprofit real estate organization Special thanks to all Wexner Center Young Jean Lee’s Theater Company. It dedicated to expanding the supply of long- was commissioned by the Wexner Center term, affordable rehearsal and studio space members and sponsors. Your support makes for the Arts at The Ohio State University; for NYC artists. Center Theatre Group, Los Angeles; This presentation of Young Jean Lee’s this event possible. steirischer herbst festival, Graz; Les Theater Company’s STRAIGHT WHITE MEN spectacles vivants—Centre Pompidou, is made possible with funding by the Paris; Festival d’Automne à Paris; and The The Wexner Center for the Arts is your one-stop New England Foundation for the Arts’ Public Theater, New York. National Theater Project, with lead source for everything in the contemporary arts. Funding support for the creative funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Come back and check out our groundbreaking development of STRAIGHT WHITE Foundation. Additional support is provided MEN was provided by the Doris Duke by the National Endowment for the Arts. exhibitions, films, theater, dance, music, and Performing Artists Awards program; Major support for the Wexner Center’s the New England Foundation for the 2013–14 performing arts season is programs for all ages. Visit the acclaimed Arts’ National Theater Project, with generously provided by the Doris Duke lead funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Wexner Center Store and try treats from Charitable Foundation. Foundation; the MAP Fund, supported by Heirloom in our café. the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and Accommodations are provided by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; the The Blackwell Inn. National Endowment for the Arts; and The Wexner Center receives FOLLOW US ON FACEBOOK, TWITTER, AND the New York State Council on the Arts, a general operating support from the INSTAGRAM. FIND MORE AT WEXARTS.ORG. state agency. Greater Columbus Arts Council, STRAIGHT WHITE MEN was developed The Columbus Foundation, Nationwide at Brown University’s Department of Foundation, and the Ohio Arts Council. Theatre Arts and Performance Studies, Generous support is also provided by the POLICIES Providence, RI. Residency support was Corporate Annual Fund of the Wexner Late seating and reentry after the program has begun are generally not permitted at provided by the Park Avenue Armory, Center Foundation and Wexner Center dance and theater presentations. When late seating is permitted, latecomers will be SPACE on Ryder Farm, Columbia members. seated during a break so as not to disturb other patrons. University, and Spaceworks NYC, Taking photographs, filming, or operating recording devices during the performance is strictly prohibited. Please turn off mobile phones and other electronic devices during the major season support event support accommodations performance. for performing arts All programs are subject to change. Sorry, no refunds or exchanges unless an event is canceled. general operating support for the wexner center COVER PHOTO COURTESY OF BLAINE DAVIS PROGRAM PROGRAM NOTES Young Jean Lee’s Theater Company Young Jean Lee’s latest experiment, STRAIGHT WHITE MEN, uses the form of the conventional play to examine what happens when people STRAIGHT WHITE MEN lose their greatest privilege: not having to think about their privilege. Written and DIRECTED by ..............Young Jean Lee Young Jean Lee’s Theater Company produced by .............Aaron Rosenblum artistic director .........Young Jean Lee CAST (in order of appearance) producer. Aaron Rosenblum associate producer .......Matthew Kagen jake ......................Scott Shepherd associate director .......Emilyn Kowaleski drew .....................Pete Simpson ed ........................Austin Pendleton* matt .....................James Stanley Find out more about our upcoming projects associate director .......Emilyn Kowaleski and tours at youngjeanlee.org scenic design .............David Evans Morris The company wishes to individually thank Chuck Helm, Morgan Gould, Costume design ...........Enver Chakartash Antje Oegel, Colleen Jennings-Roggensack, Oskar Eustis, lighting design ...........Chris Kuhl Maria Goyanes, Kristy Edmunds, Diane Rodriguez, Marie Collin, sound design. Chris Giarmo Veronica Kaup-Hasler, Annemie Vanackere, Rebecca Schneider, . .Jamie McElhinney Barbara Reo, Emily Bruce, Zachery Rufa, and David Milch. blocking .................Faye Driscoll . .Emilyn Kowaleski . .Young Jean Lee choreography, Fight choreography, and Movement ............Faye Driscoll dramaturgy ..............Mike Farry associate producer .......Matthew Kagen production and stage manager ...........Chloë Z. Brown technical director .......Nathan Lemoine assistant Stage Manager ...........Stephanie Byrnes Harrell propsmaster .............Elizabeth Sargent associate dramaturg .....Eric Shethar assistant directors ......Braulio Cruz . .Kaela Garvin . .Julia Mounsey . .Zachary Segel assistant scenic design ...Cate McCrea assistant Costume design ...........Christine Stevenson understudies. Zachary Segel . .Gerrit Thurston *The actor appears through the courtesy of Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States. WEXNER CENTER BIOGRAPHIES ARTIST RESIDENCY AWARD Each season key artists are selected by each of the Wexner Young Jean Lee (writer/director) has been called “the most Center’s program areas for support through the Wexner adventurous downtown playwright of her generation” (New Center Artist Residency program, which enables artists to York Times) and “one of the best experimental playwrights in have the opportunity for research and the realization of their America” (Time Out New York). She has written and directed artistic ambitions with the resources provided by the Wexner nine shows in New York with Young Jean Lee’s Theater Center or other partners on The Ohio State University’s Company and toured her work to over thirty cities around campus and in the community. In 2013–14 Young Jean Lee’s the world. She is a resident filmmaker at the Wooster Group; Theater Company is the recipient of the Wexner Center Artist made an album, WE’RE GONNA DIE, with her band Future Residency Award in performing arts. This is the second time Wife; and directed the short film Here Come the Girls (Locarno Young Jean Lee has been invited for this opportunity. In 2008 International Film Festival, Sundance Film Festival). Her plays she finalized and premiered her work THE SHIPMENT at the have been published by Theatre Communications Group (Songs Wexner Center as part of this program. THE SHIPMENT went of the Dragons Flying to Heaven and Other Plays, THE SHIPMENT, on to be acclaimed as one of her finest and most provocative and Lear) and by Samuel French (Three Plays by Young Jean productions and was seen worldwide with its extensive Lee). Young Jean Lee is currently under commission from touring. This season, we first presented Young Jean Lee with Lincoln Center Theater, Playwrights Horizons, and the Oregon her indie rock band Future Wife in two performances of her Shakespeare Festival, and recently completed a screenplay cabaret-style concert production WE’RE GONNA DIE, which commission for Plan B/Paramount Pictures. She has received takes on topics of aging, loss, and mortality through a series grants from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Creative of monologues and songs sung by Young Jean Lee. While Capital, New York Film Academy, National Endowment for at the Wexner Center performing WE’RE GONNA DIE with the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, the Jerome Future Wife, Young Jean Lee met informally with students Foundation, the Greenwall Foundation, and the Rockefeller from Ohio State’s Department of Theatre involved in studying MAP Foundation. She is also the recipient of two Obie awards, devised work as well as members of our GenWex organization, the Festival Prize of the Zürcher Theater Spektakel, a 2010 a group of young professionals (or semi-professionals) and Prize in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and art fans, who selected WE’RE GONNA DIE as one of their key events to attend at the center to attend this season. Letters, a 2011 Guggenheim Fellowship, a 2012 Doris Duke Artist Award, and a 2013 Doris Duke Artist Residency. She is currently In conjunction with the creative residency to finalize and working on her second short film, A Meaning Full Life, starring premiere STRAIGHT WHITE MEN, Young Jean Lee had Paul Lazar, Wallace Shawn, and Kate Valk. a discussion with students in a playwriting class at the Department of Theatre that touched on her past approaches to writing, as well as her choice to take on the challenge of writing in a “straight play” form for STRAIGHT WHITE MEN with an emphasis on a linear narrative and more conventional scenic and design concepts. These students also had the opportunity to sit in on a rehearsal for STRAIGHT WHITE MEN and to participate in the postperformance discussion with Young Jean Lee, the cast, and the audience to gain further