dead metaphor SAN FRANCISCO’S THEATER COMPANY
AMERICAN CONSERVATORY THEATER, San Francisco’s Perloff’s 20-season tenure has been marked by Tony Award–winning nonprofit theater, nurtures the art of groundbreaking productions of classical works and new live theater through dynamic productions, intensive actor translations creatively colliding with exceptional contemporary training, and an ongoing engagement with our community. theater; crossdisciplinary performances and international Under the leadership of Artistic Director Carey Perloff collaborations; the reintroduction of a core acting company; and Executive Director Ellen Richard, we embrace our and “locavore” theater—theater made by, for, and about responsibility to conserve, renew, and reinvent our relationship the San Francisco area. Her fierce commitment to audience to the rich theatrical traditions and literatures that are our engagement ushered in a new era of InterACT events and collective legacy, while exploring new artistic forms and new dramaturgical publications, inviting everyone to explore what communities. A commitment to the highest standards informs goes on behind the scenes. every aspect of our creative work. Founded by pioneer of the Perloff also put A.C.T.’s conservatory and educational regional theater movement William Ball, A.C.T. opened its programs at the center of our work. A.C.T.’s 45-year-old first San Francisco season in 1967. Since then, we’ve performed conservatory, led by Conservatory Director Melissa Smith, more than 320 productions to a combined audience of more serves 3,000 students every year. Our three-year, fully accredited than seven million people. We reach more than 250,000 Master of Fine Arts Program has moved to the forefront of people through our productions and programs every year. America’s actor training programs. Our M.F.A. Program The beautiful, historic Geary Theater—rising from the students often grace our mainstage and perform around the rubble of the catastrophic earthquake and fires of 1906 and Bay Area as alumni. Other programs include the world-famous immediately hailed as the “perfect playhouse”—has been Young Conservatory for students ages 8 to 19; Studio A.C.T. our home since the beginning. When the 1989 Loma Prieta for adults; and the Summer Training Congress, an intensive earthquake ripped a gaping hole in the ceiling, destroying the program that attracts enthusiasts from around the world. proscenium arch and dumping tons of debris on the first six A.C.T. also brings the benefits of theater-based arts education rows of orchestra seats, the San Francisco community rallied to more than 8,000 Bay Area school students each year. Central together to raise a record-breaking $30 million to rebuild it. to our ACTsmart education programs, run by Director of The theater reopened in 1996 with a production of The Tempest Education Elizabeth Brodersen, is the longstanding Student directed by Perloff, who took over after A.C.T.’s second artistic Matinee (SMAT) program, which since 1968 has brought tens director, gentleman artist Ed Hastings, retired in 1992. of thousands of young people to A.C.T. performances. We also provide touring Will on Wheels Shakespeare productions, teaching artist residencies, in-school workshops, and in-depth study materials to Bay Area schools and after-school programs. With our increased presence in the Central Market DID YOU neighborhood marked by the opening of The Costume Shop theater and the current renovation of The Strand Theater across from UN Plaza, A.C.T. is poised to continue its leadership role in KNOW? securing the future of theater for San Francisco and the nation. q George F. Walker’s work was last seen at Our next world premiere, A.C.T.’s hip new second stage, The Strand A.C.T. when we did Nothing Sacred in 1989. Stuck Elevator, opens in April! Theater, will open in Central Market in 2014. WHAT’S INSIDE CALENDAR OF EVENTS Activities are FREE for ticket holders. For more about InterACT events, ABOUT THE PLAY visit act-sf.org/interact.
PROLOGUE | 5:30pm Go deeper with a fascinating preshow discussion. Dead Metaphor | Mar 5 Stuck Elevator | Apr 9
THEATER ON THE COUCH | 8pm Discuss the minds and motives of the characters with Dr. Mason Turner, chief of psychiatry at San Francisco’s Kaiser Permanente Medical Center. Dead Metaphor | Mar 8 12 Stuck Elevator | Apr 12 12 / Laugh Lest You Go Insane AUDIENCE EXCHANGES | 2pm & 7pm A Conversation with Playwright George F. Walker by Dan Rubin Join in a lively Q&A with the cast following the show. Dead Metaphor | Mar 12, 7pm INSIDE A.C.T. Mar 17, 2pm; Mar 20, 2pm Stuck Elevator | Apr 16, 7pm 7 / Letter from the Artistic Director Apr 21, 2pm; Apr 24, 2pm
OUT WITH A.C.T. | 8pm SPECIAL DONOR EVENTS The best LGBT party in town! Mingle with the cast and enjoy drinks and treats. DEAD METAPHOR STUCK ELEVATOR Dead Metaphor | Mar 13 OPENING NIGHT OPENING NIGHT DINNER Stuck Elevator | Apr 17 RECEPTION Celebrate with the creators of Enjoy cocktails and hors d’oeuvres this unique music-theater work. WINE SERIES | 8pm Apr 10, 5:30 p.m. with director Irene Lewis. Raise a glass before the show at this wine A.C.T.’s Geary Theater Mar 6, 6 p.m. tasting event featuring leading sommeliers Producers Circle, Directors Circle A.C.T.’s Geary Theater from the Bay Area’s hottest local wineries. Producers Circle, Directors Circle Dead Metaphor | Mar 19 Stuck Elevator | Apr 23 DEAD METAPHOR COSTUME SHOP TOUR SATURDAY SALON Take a tour behind the scenes PLAYTIME | 2pm Enjoy lunch and conversation of our costume shop. Get hands-on with theater at these with the artistic team. Apr 11, 5:30 p.m. interactive preshow workshops. Mar 16, 11:45 a.m. A.C.T.’s Costume Shop | Mar 23 A.C.T.’s Geary Theater Producers Circle, Directors Circle, Dead Metaphor Producers Circle, Directors Circle, Annual Members, Prospero Society Stuck Elevator | Apr 27 Prospero Society To support A.C.T. and receive invitations to donor events, please contact VOLUNTEER! Allison Day at [email protected] or 415.439.2482. A.C.T. volunteers provide an invaluable Dan Rubin, Editor; Amy Krivohlavek, Contributor service with their time, enthusiasm, and © 2013 American Conservatory Theater, a nonprofit organization. All rights reserved. love of theater. For more information, A.C.T.’s hip new second stage, The Strand visit act-sf.org/volunteer.
Theater, will open in Central Market in 2014. dead metaphor / 5 February 2013 A.C.T. YOUNG CONSERVATORY Volume 11, No. 6 ACT OUT AND DREAM BIG!
From acting and improv to Shakespeare and musical Paul Heppner theater, join us for fun and dynamic classes and Publisher Susan Peterson performance opportunities for students ages 8–19. Design & Production Director Go online to register today! Ana Alvira, Deb Choat, Robin Kessler, Kim Love, Jana Rekosh SPRING SESSION: MAR 19–MAY 11 Design and Production Artists Mike Hathaway Advertising Sales Director ACT-SF.ORG/YC | 415.439.2350 Gwendolyn Fairbanks, Marty Griswold, Ann Manning, Lenore Waldron Seattle Area Account Executives Staci Hyatt, Marilyn Kallins, Terri Reed San Francisco/Bay Area Account Executives Denise Wong Sales Assistant Jonathan Shipley Ad Services Coordinator www.encoreartsprograms.com
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Throughout the year Pacifi c’s Edge and Sunset Lounge will play host to an extraordinary calendar of events sure Paul Heppner President to delight the senses with food, wine and fun. 2013 starts Mike Hathaway out with our California Winemakers Dinners followed by Vice President Deborah Greer our Meet the Farmer Lunch Series, Shake, Rattle and Roll Executive Assistant and Hello Sunshine Thursdays. For more information visit Erin Johnston Communications Manager hyattcarmelhighlands.com or call 831 622 5445 and ask for April Morgan a calendar of events. Hyatt. You’re More Than Welcome. Accounting Jana Rekosh Project Manager/Graphic Design
Corporate Office HYATT CARMEL HIGHLANDS BIG SUR COAST 425 North 85th Street Seattle, WA 98103 120 Highlands Drive p 206.443.0445 f 206.443.1246 Carmel, California, USA 93923 [email protected] T + 1 831 620 1234 800.308.2898 x105 www.encoremediagroup.com hyattcarmelhighlands.com Encore Arts Programs is published monthly by Encore Media Group to serve musical and theatrical events in The trademark HYATT and related marks are trademarks of Hyatt Corporation. ©2012 Hyatt Corporation. All rights reserved. Western Washington and the San Francisco Bay Area. All rights reserved. ©2013 Encore Media Group. Reproduction without written permission is prohibited.
6 / AMERICAN CONSERVATORY THEATER ACT-SF.ORG | 415.749.2228
HCH 112012 SFJ023 1_2v.pdf FROM THE ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
Dear Friends,
Many of you know how happily we have collaborated with our need the theater more than ever when it deals with tough issues. Canadian counterparts over the years: from Morris Panych’s Dead Metaphor is the first of two world premieres happening Vigil and The Overcoat to the Electric Company Theatre’s No here this winter. It will be followed by Stuck Elevator, the Exit to Michel Tremblay’s For the Pleasure of Seeing Her Again, remarkable new Chinese American musical about a deliveryman Canadian drama has brought us rich new perspectives on the trapped in an elevator for 81 hours, who relives his life in China world. So it was with great pleasure that I received an email and fantasizes about his life in America while he hopes to get from one of my favorite Canadian agents containing a new play rescued without being arrested. These two works—so different by George F. Walker. Walker was already a legendary writer one from the other and so incredibly brave—showcase the when I first moved to New York in the early 1980s; outrageous extraordinary ways in which major new and returning voices are comedies like Escape from Happiness and beautiful adaptations wrestling with the messy, complicated world in which we find like Nothing Sacred (performed at A.C.T. in 1989) seemed ourselves. We couldn’t be more proud to introduce them to you. to spring from his pen on an annual basis. Then, in 2001, he This is also the moment when we are putting the final disappeared for a decade to write successful television and film touches on next season, a season filled with big, epic, muscular work. So I was delighted to discover Walker-the-playwright work and a few smaller gems. We will open with master director again when Dead Metaphor arrived. Frank Galati’s brilliant production of 1776, a musical about Dead Metaphor begins with Walker’s signature dry wit and the wild backstage shenanigans that went on as our Congress hilarious comic setting, and becomes darker and deeper as it fought for independence. The season will also include the proceeds. Walker is constantly trying to skewer the hypocrisy sexy, surprising, and sophisticated new comedy Venus in Fur, of contemporary political culture and the callous way in which directed by Jonathan Moscone, as well as a lush and trenchant we treat the most vulnerable people in our communities. But his new production of Shaw’s Major Barbara, one of the greatest sense of outrage never falls into the polemical or the predictable, plays ever written about war and money, in collaboration in part because his characters are full-blooded, three-dimensional with Canada’s Theatre Calgary (who hosted our Tosca Cafe so people with plenty of passion, humor, and flaws. beautifully in 2011). And I am in the midst of developing a new This play is about sniper Dean Trusk, who comes home production of the great Chinese epic about fathers and sons from the Middle East and can’t get a job—a familiar situation The Orphan of Zhao, which will star Bay Area native BD Wong in America today, as we rely on young men and women to as a humble doctor who becomes an extraordinary hero. More wage war for us, but often fail to reintegrate them into the on these and the other shows of our 2013–14 season soon. culture when they return. Walker asks what our responsibility Thank you for being here today, and enjoy Dead Metaphor! is, or should be, to those whom we expect to do our dirty work. Dean is a remarkable creation, and his encounter with Yours, the fanatic politician Helen Denny is both hilarious and uncomfortable. What is even more uncomfortable is the presence of guns in the world of Dead Metaphor, at a time when gun control has leapt to the forefront of our national consciousness in the wake of the Newtown tragedy. Walker has Carey Perloff been a remarkably open and flexible collaborator, and in the Artistic Director aftermath of Newtown he wrote me about why he thinks we
CONNECT WITH US dead metaphor / 7 by George F. Walker Directed by Irene Lewis
Scenery by Christopher Barreca Costumes by Lydia Tanji Lighting by Alexander V. Nichols Sound Design by Cliff Caruthers Dramaturg Michael Paller Casting by Janet Foster, CSA
the cast Helen Denny René Augesen* Hank Trusk Tom Bloom* Jenny Trusk Rebekah Brockman† Oliver Denny Anthony Fusco* Dean Trusk George Hampe* Frannie Trusk Sharon Lockwood*
understudies Helen Denny, Frannie Trusk—Delia MacDougall*; Hank Trusk, Oliver Denny—Warren David Keith* Jenny Trusk—Omozé Idehenre*; Dean Trusk—Nick Gabriel*
stage management staff Kimberly Mark Webb*, Stage Manager Megan Q. Sada*, Assistant Stage Manager Amy Beckwith, Stage Management Fellow
*Member of Actors’ Equity Association, the union of professional actors and stage managers in the United States †Member of the A.C.T. Master of Fine Arts Program class of 2013 and an Equity Professional Theatre Intern
Dead Metaphor is performed with one 15-minute intermission.
this production is made possible by
executive producers Olympia Dukakis; Paul and Barbara Weiss
producers Lloyd and Janet Cluff; Marilee K. Gardner; Gene and Abby Schnair
associate producers Betty Hoener; Drs. Michael and Jane Marmor; John and Paula Murphy; Barbara and Jon Phillips; Roselyne Chroman Swig
sponsored by additional support by
special thanks to Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Mitchel S. Berger, M.D., Nob Hill Suites, Olivier Lavigne-Ortiz, Personality Hotels, Rem Myers, San Francisco Opera, Veritas Investments Inc. dead metaphor / 9 COMING SOON AT A.C.T. AMERICAN CONSERVATORY THEATER The Carey Perloff Creative Venture Fund BOARD OF TRUSTEES Total raised to date: $1,725,000 Nancy Livingston Jeff Ubben Chair Vice Chair In honor of Artistic Director Carey Perloff’s legacy at A.C.T. Rusty Rueff Lawrence P. Varellas and her leadership within the Bay Area performing arts President Treasurer community, A.C.T.’s board of trustees has launched an Celeste Ford Lesley Ann Clement ambitious fundraising campaign to raise $2.5 million Vice Chair Secretary to support important initiatives that are part of Perloff’s th Priscilla Geeslin Alan L. Stein 20 Anniversary Season. Vice Chair Chair Emeritus Supporters as of January 31, 2012
Judy Anderson Heather Stallings Little emeritus Underwriters ($200,000+) Daniel E. Cohn Antonio Lucio advisory board Keith and Priscilla Geeslin Nancy Livingston and Fred M. Levin, The Shenson Foundation William Criss, Jr. Carey Perloff Barbara Bass Bakar Richard T. Davis Jennifer Povlitz Rena Bransten Sponsors ($100,000+) Michael G. Dovey Ellen Richard Joan Danforth Mr. and Mrs. Gordon P. Getty Olympia Dukakis Dagmar Dolby John and Marcia Goldman David Riemer Ambassador James C. Hormel and Michael P. Nguyen Robert F. Ferguson Dan Rosenbaum Bill Draper Burt and Deedee McMurtry Frannie Fleishhacker Sally Rosenblatt John Goldman The Kenneth Rainin Foundation Marilee K. Gardner James Haire Toni Rembe and Arthur Rock Abby Sadin Schnair Kathleen Scutchfield Kaatri B. Grigg Edward C. Schultz III Sue Yung Li Mary and Steven Swig Kent M. Harvey Jeff Spears Christine Mattison Kirke M. Hasson Joan McGrath Contributors ($50,000+) Diana L. Starcher Joan Danforth Dianne Hoge Steven L. Swig Deedee McMurtry Mr. and Mrs. William Draper III Jo S. Hurley Laila Tarraf Mary S. Metz Nion T. McEvoy David ibnAle Toni Rembe The Bernard Osher Foundation Patrick S. Thompson John and Lisa Pritzker Jeri Lynn Johnson Carlie Wilmans Joan Sadler by The Rev. Alan Jones Nola Yee Cheryl Sorokin Supporters ($25,000+) tom stoppard Gerson and Barbara Bakar James H. Levy Alan L. Stein Ray and Dagmar Dolby Barry Lawson Williams Sakurako and William Fisher directed by carey perloff Byron Meyer American Conservatory Theater was founded in 1965 by William Ball. Doug Tilden and Teresa Keller Edward Hastings, Artistic Director 1986–92 Jack and Susy Wadsworth Mr. and Mrs. Paul L. Wattis, III
Additional Support Judith and David Anderson “Stoppard’s richest, Robert Mailer Anderson and Nicola Miner David and Susan Coulter most ravishing comedy” Bill and Cerina Criss THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS Joanne C. Dunn Frannie Fleishhacker The New York Times OF THE M.F.A. PROGRAM Celeste and Kevin Ford Barbara Grasseschi Jack Cortis Kirke Hasson and Nancy Sawyer Hasson Chair Adrienne Hirt Jo S. Hurley “Profound, mercilessly funny, Jeri L. and Jeffrey W. Johnson Bill Criss Cricket and Alan Jones Christopher Hollenbeck Marcia and Jim Levy and moving ” Jennifer Lindsay Mary S. and F. Eugene Metz Andrew McClain Marjorie and Joseph Perloff San Francisco Chronicle Ellen Richard Dileep Rao David and Carla Riemer Toni Rembe Toby and Sally Rosenblatt Sally Rosenblatt Abby and Gene Schnair Melissa Smith Dr. Gideon and Cheryl Sorokin Alan L. and Ruth Stein Alan Stein Roselyne C. Swig SPONSORED BY ADDITIONAL SUPPORT EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS Priscilla and Keith Geeslin; Christopher and Leslie Johnson; Amelia Stewart Laila Tarraf John Little and Heather Stallings Little; Burt and Deedee McMurtry Tara J. Sullivan Patrick S. Thompson PRODUCERS Judy and Dave Anderson; Anonymous; Marcia and Geoffrey Green; Rose Hagan BEGINS MAY 16 and Mark Lemley; Kent and Jeanne Harvey; Kirke Hasson and Nancy Sawyer Hasson; Jo S. Hurley; Patrick S. Thompson Barry Williams and Lalita Tademy Jeri Lynn and Jeffrey Johnson; Marcia and Jim Levy; Byron R. Meyer; Mr. and Mrs. George Miller; ACT-SF.ORG / 415.749.2228 Terry and Jan Opdendyk; Alan and Ruth Stein; Laila Tarraf Laurie H. Ubben SEASON PARTNERS COMPANY SPONSORS The Bernard Osher Foundation; Ms. Joan Danforth; Ray and To find out more about The Carey Perloff Creative Venture Fund, Dagmar Dolby; Frannie Fleishhacker; Mr. and Mrs. Gordon P. Getty; Marcia and John Goldman; Carlie Wilmans contact Matt Henry, Director of Development, at 415.439.2436 GROUPS OF 15+, call 415.439.2473. Ambassador James C. Hormel and Michael P. Nguyen; Koret Foundation; Fred M. Levin and Nancy Livingston, The Shenson Foundation; Arthur and Toni Rembe Rock; Patti and Rusty Rueff; or [email protected]. Ms. Kathleen Scutchfield; Mary and Steven Swig; Doug Tilden and Teresa Keller; Jeff and Laurie Ubben dead metaphor / 11 ABOUT THE PLAY
Laugh Lest You Go Insane A Conversation with Playwright George F. Walker
by Dan Rubin
In 1971, George F. Walker was a 23-year-old taxi driver from creating hilarious and off-putting collages. He produced six Toronto’s working-class East End. While carting fares around works during this time, all of which received their premieres at the city, he saw a Factory Theatre Lab poster calling for play the Factory. submissions by Canadian playwrights—part of founding A lot of what he put onstage, he acknowledges, made him artistic director Ken Gass’s visionary “Canadian Only” policy, look foolish and naïve. After the 1974 premiere of his jungle- one of the sparks of Toronto’s theater movement in the 1970s. movie spoof Beyond Mozambique, an unhappy Arts Council Walker had been scribbling poems and short stories since froze the Factory’s grants. As the critical failures piled on, high school. Friends from the neighborhood had always Walker became “removed and introspective,” according to Gass, said he would become a writer. Local writing groups were and disheartened to the point of giving up. Perhaps he should closed to a working-class kid, however. They were reserved try a novel, Walker thought, something that didn’t expose him for University of Toronto graduates. And Walker had no idea so nakedly to public ridicule. how to approach publishers. Theater in Toronto, on the other He instead decided to create plays that would be more hand, “was just getting started,” he remembers, “and they’d appealing and accessible to the masses—to become, as he puts take anyone.” it, “more generous” with his writing. In 1977, he wrote the So Walker wrote his first play, The Prince of Naples, and detective play Gossip, the first to feature the slovenly, nihilistic, submitted it. A week later, he learned that it would receive a and ironically named journalist-turned-private-eye Tyrone production. On the first day of rehearsal, Walker saw director Power. The wild investigation into the comic foibles of upper- Paul Bettis’s copy of the script. On it, dramaturg John Palmer crust society was his first popular success. It received numerous had written a note: “This guy is a genuine subversive. We’ve productions, not only in Canada, but also at important got to produce him.” theaters in the United States. Whether or not Walker was a subversive is hard to say as the Zastrozzi, The Master of Discipline, an entertaining and inexperienced playwright was unaware that Canadian theater existential gothic revenge story featuring the titular master had any traditions to subvert. (He had only seen one play criminal, followed later that year and was also well received, in his life, “a Shakespeare.”) But he was certainly something as was a revival of Beyond Mozambique, this time directed by new. At the time, English Canada’s national identity was still Walker himself. Walker wrote two more Power detective plays, in its teething stage. The country’s small theatrical canon Filthy Rich (1979) and The Art of War (1983), which proved his consisted almost entirely of nationalistic and naturalistic rural first critical success. dramas. Rural plays were simply not in Walker, the urban son By 1980, scholar Denis W. Johnston writes, “Walker had of a municipal laborer. “I had been surrounded by things like earned the ironic grand prize of Canadian arts and letters: fame movies, television—you know, The World at Six, that sort of abroad and obscurity at home.” But even in Canada, critics thing—theater and literature of all kinds all my life,” Walker were starting to wake up. Johnson wrote in a 1980 essay, “The told interviewer Myron Galloway in 1979. “What did I know man who appears to be among Canada’s most abstruse and about the farmer and his wife?” esoteric playwrights has, in fact, a thorough grasp of populist Walker became the Factory’s resident playwright, and from techniques, and can use the forms of popular theater as both 1971 to 1977 he experimented with theatricality, moving from popular vehicle and as a means of sharing with a broader what scholar Chris Johnson calls his “apprentice work, literary audience a more demanding dramatic view.” rather than theatrical,” into a period of “cerebral farce,” in In 1982, as his work was receiving productions as far away which Walker satirically wove together high and low comedy as Australia, Walker turned his attentions homeward, aiming and elements of pop culture, like B-movies and cartoons his lens at the East End struggles of his adolescence. Over the (genres with which he was more comfortable than drama), next decade, Walker’s identity would be linked to the six plays
12 / AMERICAN CONSERVATORY THEATER ACT-SF.ORG | 415.749.2228 p PLAYWRIGHT GEORGE F. WALKER sits outside Toronto’s famous Factory Theatre in 2005 (photo by Lucas Oleniuk) of his East End cycle. While retaining the same comedic explained. The Factory Theatre produced the world premiere extremism and resistance to naturalism that defines his early as part of its 40th-anniversary season, and since then Walker has work, the East End plays present a more direct social commentary written six new plays. One of his most recent is Dead Metaphor, from a writer who has always fought the institutionalized about which he spoke to A.C.T. earlier this year. inequity and abuse of out-of-control capitalism. In 1982, Walker told Robert Wallace, “I am alert and concerned and Explain where the title of Dead Metaphor came from. angry—and the work is getting angrier—never defeatist, I feel, There used to be a time when we didn’t send soldiers off to but angry. Yeah, I want to change everything.” fight wars and then forget entirely about them, like they As Walker shifted his focus he also shifted his tone. The weren’t even part of our society. Less than one percent of both East End plays are not as unforgiving as his earlier plays, in our populations has anything to do with them. So something which dark humor pushes narratives deeper and deeper into that used to mean something—soldiers fighting for their country— blackness, until everything is eclipsed. Walker himself refers is now irrelevant. It is a dead thing. We don’t even know where to the East End cycle as the beginning of his “looking for they are. Off they go and then they come back into our world, the light” period: characters find comfort in each other and many of them in trouble, messed up and with nowhere to endings have, if not hope, at least possibility. go. They come back and they only get noticed when they’re in Despite this positive turn in his plays, following the trouble. And we’re in trouble too. completion of his final East End play, Tough! (1993), a disillusioned Walker gave up on theater, escaping into radio And yet, of the characters in Dead Metaphor, Dean is and the writer’s rooms of the television shows Due South perhaps the least “troubled”—mentally at least. and The Newsroom. He returned to theater in 1997 with his That’s right. I didn’t want Dean to be messed up. He came to Suburban Motel suite, a series of six one-acts all set in the same me as strong, compared to the world that he is coming back to. seedy motel room, and then again in 2000 with perhaps his The only thing that is messed up about him is that the skills he grimmest play, ironically titled Heaven. Then he gave up on learned over there are not applicable here—and because of that, theater again, and over the next decade he created and wrote he can’t get a job. So, he isn’t messed up: the world is messed three television shows: This Is Wonderland (2004–06), up. He comes back with his head on his shoulders. He has The Line (2008–09), and Living in Your Car (2010–12). dreams he doesn’t want to talk about, but he’s not that clichéd In 2010, while he was supposed to be working on a television tormented soldier. And yet, where has he been? He doesn’t fit script, he began writing dialogue for the play that would become in here. He’s not psychologically messed up, he’s sociologically And So It Goes. “I just felt it was something I had to get out,” he messed up.
CONNECT WITH US dead metaphor / 13 ABOUT THE PLAY
I think that Dean and Jenny are their own class within their weird out in the world, and we have to do something drastic to class. It is interesting to me how people on the edge of the protect ourselves.” middle class can have children who so quickly fall downward. Frannie and Hank are lower-middle class, but their children, Your plays can get pretty violent. I am trying to think of Dean and Jenny, are now working class. They’ve dropped one that doesn’t have a gun in it. down into a world where I know them. The soldier and the I don’t know where the violence comes from. I actually try wife of a solider: unemployed, pregnant. Those are my people! to forestall it, but I don’t have a lot of control over these I understand them. characters once they get going. I control it just enough to keep it from going off the rails. But I do believe that the violence is what needs to happen for some of these characters. It’s part “The comedy is not of the of what their world is, so it is part of what the play is. But the part nature of that violence is Beckett-like: it’s beyond cartoon and play, it is the play.” it’s surreal and wonderful. It’s metaphysical. It’s not real. It’s like dream violence.
As violent as your plays are, they are always hilarious. Your earlier work doesn’t look at downward mobility because you are dealing with characters who are already Because the violence is pushed that far. As far as it can go. And at the bottom. that’s dark comedy. Someone said to me, “Take the comedy out of your plays, and they are the darkest things you can Right, and my big fear was that that class of people was being imagine. If you take the comedy away, they are pretty bleak forgotten. People come to Toronto and say, “It’s such a pretty views of the world.” And I told him that you can’t take the city. Where’s the poverty?” And I say, “Oh, I’ll show you. Let’s comedy away, because it’s the motor. It’s what allows these take a drive. It’s not in the middle. They don’t want it there.” stories to live. The comedy is not part of the play, it is the play. As you said, Dean is pretty well adjusted, but Dean’s And, I’ve read, that pretty much sums up your world view: world—our world—is a mess. This is perhaps articulated it’s bleak, but comically so. best through the character of Helen. I think a lot of our audience members who aren’t familiar with your other work There’s the simple cliché, you either laugh or you cry. Well, I will think Helen is a new idea for you, inspired by the Sarah think you laugh or you go insane. I mean really insane. So Palins and Michele Bachmanns of our world, but you’ve little of the world makes emotional sense: how we govern been interested in political extremists for a long time. ourselves, how we keep going to war for no reason. It doesn’t That’s true. Palin is just the one we recognize now and will stop. You have to introduce humor into the procedure. be the audience’s reference point, but I’ve been seeing these characters in every aspect of life. They’re there. It’s hard to even Do you feel your plays are social commentaries that you hope will change society? think about attempting to write Sarah Palin, because anything you write is not going to be far out enough. Same with I just like to air things, just to talk about these preposterous Michele Bachmann. I was thinking I was making Helen more things that are said. I watch a lot of political news, and I’m like [South Carolina Governor] Nikki Haley—a person who always thinking, “Put a comedian into this—fast!” Put a comic appears to be reasonable until she says what she really believes. in the middle of these political conversations and let them say Extreme political views of all kinds have always been honestly what everyone else is talking around. there. I’ve always been aware of them and terrified by them So that’s what my plays are doing, talking about what I and fascinated by them. And for someone like Dean . . . He see. And that’s why they are comedies. They’re dark because is returning from this simple world of hiding behind a rock, I think that’s the world, and they’re comedies because I don’t shooting at people who are trying to kill him. At least that is want to go insane—or anyone else to go insane. Comedy something he can understand. That is a simple and declared gives you distance from reality. Even my characters want conflict: “You want to kill me, I want to kill you.” But what is distance from it. going on here at home? I love Jenny’s point of view. She walks the earth very solidly, To read Dan Rubin’s complete interview with playwright trying to hold her ground. In particular, the way she explains George F. Walker, purchase Words on Plays in our lobby, at things to Dean. This young woman says to Dean, “This the bars, or online. Words on Plays for Dead Metaphor also situation is messed up.” And, I think, Dean never thought includes interviews with director Irene Lewis and scenic designer that it was messed up until she says that. He thought he was Christopher Barreca, as well as articles about snipers and failing. When he came back, people made him feel like a veteran unemployment. For more information, visit act-sf.org/ failure because he couldn’t get a job. But Jenny says, “No, it’s wordsonplays.
14 / AMERICAN CONSERVATORY THEATER ACT-SF.ORG | 415.749.2228 | CONNECT WITH US WHO’S WHO IN Dead Metaphor
RENÉ the Square Theatre, Arms and the Man at ANTHONY AUGESEN* (Helen Roundabout Theatre Company, All’s Well FUSCO* (Oliver Denny), an A.C.T. That Ends Well at Theatre for a New Denny), an A.C.T. associate artist and Audience, The Winter’s Tale at Classic associate artist and core acting company Stage Company, and productions with core acting company member, made her many other companies, including Lincoln member, has appeared A.C.T. debut in Center Theater, The Pearl Theatre at A.C.T. in Elektra, The Misanthrope; Company, and Manhattan Theatre Club. Play, Race, The she has since appeared in almost two Regionally, he has acted at Yale Repertory Homecoming, Clybourne Park, Round and dozen productions, most recently Play, Theatre, Shakespeare Theatre Company, Round the Garden, The Caucasian Chalk Once in a Lifetime, The Homecoming, Hartford Stage, the Williamstown Theatre Circle, November, Edward Albee’s At Home Clybourne Park, Round and Round the Festival, Guthrie Theater, Baltimore’s at the Zoo, War Music, Rock ’n’ Roll, Garden, The Caucasian Chalk Circle, centerstage, Oregon’s Portland Center ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore, The Government November, Edward Albee’s At Home at the Stage, Maine’s Portland Stage Company, Inspector, The Rainmaker, The Imaginary Zoo, The Three Sisters, The Rainmaker, the Huntington Theatre Company, Invalid, Hedda Gabler, Travesties, The A Doll’s House, ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore, and McCarter Theatre Center, and many Rivals, The Voysey Inheritance, The Gamester, Rock ’n’ Roll. New York credits include others. Film and TV credits include The A Mother, Les Liaisons Dangereuses, The Spinning into Butter (Lincoln Center Thomas Crown Affair, The Emperor’s Club, Three Sisters, Night and Day, The Roomand Theater), Macbeth (with Alec Baldwin Taking Chance, nine episodes of Law & Celebration, Enrico IV, The Misanthrope, and Angela Bassett, The Public Theater), Order, Joshua, Damages, The Jury, and Edward II, and A Christmas Carol. Other It’s My Party … (with F. Murray Abraham Max Bickford. Bloom is also a director and Bay Area credits include leading roles in and Joyce Van Patten, ArcLight Theatre), theater photographer in New York City. Blithe Spirit, Candida, King Lear, The and Overruled (Drama League). Regional Tempest, The Importance of Being Earnest, theater credits include Mary Stuart REBEKAH Arms and the Man, A Midsummer Night’s (dir. Carey Perloff, Huntington Theatre BROCKMAN† Dream, and The Skin of Our Teethfor Company); several productions, including (Jenny Trusk) recently California Shakespeare Theater; My Old the world premieres of The Beard of Avon appeared as The Lady at Marin Theatre Company; and and The Hollow Lands, at South Coast Ghost of Christmas Traveling Jewish Theatre’s production of Repertory; and productions at the Past in A Christmas The Chosen. On Broadway, he was in Tom Great Lakes Theater Festival, Baltimore’s Carol at A.C.T. and Stoppard’s The Real Thing and The Real centerstage, the Los Angeles Shakespeare understudied Elektra. Inspector Hound. Fusco’s many off- Festival, Yale Repertory Theatre, and Stage Her A.C.T. Master of Fine Arts Program Broadway credits include The Holy Terror, West. Film and television credits include production credits include Happy to Stand, Cantorial, Danton’s Death, and A Life in The Battle Studies, Law & Order, Guiding A Celebration of Tennessee Williams, the Theatre. He trained at Juilliard and Light, Another World, and Hallmark Hall Othello, Thieves, The Mandrake Root, The Barrow Group School. of Fame’s Saint Maybe. Augesen, a The American Clock, The Rover, Courtship, graduate of the Yale School of Drama, and Al Saiyid. Regionally Brockman has GEORGE was a 2011 Ten Chimneys Foundation performed with California Shakespeare HAMPE* (Dean Lunt-Fontanne Fellow. Theater as Edith in Blithe Spirit (dir. Trusk) is making his Mark Rucker), the Kingsmen Shakespeare A.C.T. debut. He was TOM BLOOM* Company, The Shakespeare Theatre of recently recognized at (Hank Trusk) most New Jersey, and the national tour of The Kennedy Center recently played Salieri Women of Ireland. She holds a B.F.A. as an Irene Ryan in Amadeus at Maltz from the American Musical and Dramatic Award National Jupiter Theatre. Academy and studied Irish dancing at Finalist. Off-Broadway credits include He has acted on Rince Na Tiarna School of Irish Dance. Regrets (Manhattan Theatre Club). Regional Broadway in Cyrano, She is the recipient of the 2012–13 Joan credits include Another Day, Another Henry IV, and Racing Sadler Award. Dream; Geography of a Horse Dreamer Demon. Off Broadway he was recently in (Pittsburgh Irish and Classical Theatre); The Big Meal at Playwrights Horizons, and Much Ado About Nothing (Pittsburgh Timon of Athens at The Public Theater Shakespeare in the Parks). TV credits LAB, The Widow’s Blind Dateat Circle in include Blue Bloods and One Tree Hill.
16 / AMERICAN CONSERVATORY THEATER ACT-SF.ORG | 415.749.2228 SHARON with The Old Globe, Seattle Repertory member of A.C.T.’s core acting company. LOCKWOOD* Theatre, Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, He received his B.F.A. in musical theater (Frannie Trusk) has Long Wharf Theatre, the Alley Theatre, from the University of Michigan. He has appeared in Missouri Repertory Theater, San Jose also played principal roles at South Coast numerous A.C.T. Repertory Theatre, Intiman Theatre, and Repertory, Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, productions, most California Shakespeare Theater. She was Shakespeare Santa Cruz, Capital recently Happy to also a longtime member of the San Repertory Theatre, Center REPertory Stand, Philistines, Francisco Mime Troupe. Film and Company, California Shakespeare Theater, ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore, The Government television work includes Mrs. Doubtfire, New York’s Saratoga Shakespeare Company, Inspector, and Hedda Gabler. She has Midnight Caller, Vonnegut Stories, and and elsewhere. He originated the role of appeared in A.C.T.’s A Christmas Carol The Long Road Home. Warren in the West Coast premiere of since 2005. She originated the role of the Ordinary Days and was a principal vocalist 200-year-old woman in the Berkeley NICK GABRIEL* with the San Francisco Symphony in A Repertory Theatre/La Jolla Playhouse (Understudy) was Celebration of Leonard Bernstein, coproduction of Culture Clash’s Zorro in most recently seen conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas. Hell, which she also performed in Los at A.C.T. as Clov in Gabriel is a Ten Chimneys Foundation Angeles (San Diego Theatre Critics Circle Endgame opposite Lunt-Fontanne Fellow and proudly serves Award). Lockwood appeared at the Mark Bill Irwin. He also on the faculties of the many educational Taper Forum in the world premiere played Nihad in programs offered by A.C.T. production of Nickel and Dimed as Scorched and Miss Barbara, directed by Barlett Sher. Leighton in Once in a Lifetime. Gabriel is *Member of Actors’ Equity Association, the union of professional a Sadler Award–winning graduate of the actors and stage managers in the United States Other theater credits include a 22-year †Member of the A.C.T. Master of Fine Arts Program class of association with Berkeley Rep and work A.C.T. Master of Fine Arts Program and a 2013 and an Equity Professional Theatre Intern
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OMOZÉ Theatre Company; Olive Kitteridge IDEHENRE* with Word for Word Performing (Understudy), a Arts Company; and productions at graduate of the TheatreWorks, San Jose Stage Company, A.C.T. Master of and California Shakespeare Theater. Fine Arts Program He recently completed an extended run and a member of of a solo show at The Marsh, Acid Test: A.C.T.’s core acting The Many Incarnations of Ram Dass. company, has appeared on the A.C.T. His film credits include Raising Arizona, mainstage in Elektra, Scorched, Clybourne Fargo, The Big Lebowski, A Serious Man, Park, Marcus; or The Secret of Sweet, Haiku Tunnel, and Moonlight Sonata. Scapin, The Caucasian Chalk Circle, and He is a graduate of Wesleyan University A Christmas Carol (The Ghost of and Yale School of Drama. Christmas Present). She was recently seen in Spunk! at California Shakespeare DELIA Theater and Seven Guitars at Marin MacDOUGALL* Theatre Company. Other credits include (Understudy) has California Shakespeare Theater’s Macbeth been seen at A.C.T. (Lady MacDuff ), A.C.T. M.F.A. Program in Round and Round productions of A Doll’s House, Her Naked the Garden, Rock ’n’ Skin, Sweet Charity, The Critic, or a Roll, The Government Tragedy Rehearsed, The Increased Difficulty Inspector, the world FA M I LYLAW G R OUP, P. C . of Concentration, Macbeth, The Mutilated, premiere of Philip Kan Gotanda’s After the and Blues for an Alabama Sky. Idehenre War, A Christmas Carol, and The Learned earned her B.F.A. from The University Ladies. She has appeared with California of North Carolina at Greensboro, where Shakespeare Theater in Macbeth, Pericles, SFLG 090612 SFACT 1_6v.pdf she appeared in such productions as Man and Superman, King Lear, As You Like Our Lady of 121st Street, Macbeth, Death It, The Merchant of Venice, The Merry Wives and the King’s Horseman, and Home. of Windsor, The Life and Adventures of She received the Polly McKibben Award, Nicholas Nickleby, and Arms and the Man, an A.C.T. scholarship fund supported by among others. Local credits include shows Maureen McKibben. at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Magic Theatre, Marin Theatre Company, Aurora WARWICK WARREN DAVID Theatre Company, and San Jose Repertory SAN FRANCISCO HOTEL KEITH* Theatre. Other credits include productions & LA SCENE CAFÉ AND BAR (Understudy) has at Intiman Theatre, Pittsburgh Public previously appeared Theater, the Alley Theatre, San Diego Bring your ticket stub to enjoy at A.C.T. in War Repertory Theatre, and La MaMa E.T.C. 15% off your dinner entrée price, WARWICKMusic ’Tis Pity She’s a MacDougall is an actor, director, and and a complimentary , glass of champagne with dinner. SAN FRANCISCOWhore, MachinalHOTEL , company member with Word for Word & LA SCENE CAFÉMary Stuart AND, andBAR Performing Arts Company and an actor Or mention this ad Arcadia. At Magic Theatre, Keith was in and director with Campo Santo. to receive a 10% discount on your hotel room rate when available. the world premiere of Theresa Rebeck’s What We’re Up Against and also An GEORGE F. WALKER (Playwright) is Uncommon Vision, The Rules of Charity, one of Canada’s most prolific and widely and Mauritius. He appeared in Death produced playwrights. He has received Bring your ticket stub Defying Acts, A Life in the Theatre, Hysteria, nine Chalmers Awards, five Dora Awards, The Devil’s Discipleto enjoy, and 15% The offFirst Grade at and three Governor General’s Awards. Located across the street from the A.C.T. Aurora Theatreyour dinner Company; entrée Rhinoceros price, and He is also the recipient of the Order of and Curran Theaters at 490 Geary Street. Heartbreak House at Berkeley Repertory Canada. His plays have met with critical and a complimentary Theatre; Infidelities, Life X ,3 The Good and popular success in hundreds of 415.928.7900 www.warwicksf.com German, andglass God ofof Carnagechampagne at Marin productions worldwide; they have been with dinner. 18WH / AMERICAN100609 mention CONSERVATORY 1_6v.pdf THEATER ACT-SF.ORG | 415.749.2228
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415.928.7900 www.warwicksf.com SAN DIEGO’S OLD GLOBE translated into German, French, Hebrew, at many of the major theaters around the Turkish, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, country as well as Glimmerglass Opera, Hungarian, Mandarin, and Japanese. In the New York Shakespeare Festival, and 1997, Suburban Motel—six plays located the national theater of Yugoslavia in in the same motel room—premiered Macedonia. She has taught and directed at in Canada under Walker’s direction at New York University, Cornell University, Toronto’s Factory Theatre and with New and The Juilliard School and was awarded York’s Rattlestick Productions. Suburban an honorary doctorate from McDaniel Motel was presented at the Schaubühne College in 2011. in Berlin in October 2004 and in Munich at the Bavarian State Theatre in October CHRISTOPHER BARRECA 2005. Most of Walker’s plays have been (Set Designer) has designed more than UNDER THE STARS IN OUR published, including Heaven, Suburban 200 productions for theater, opera, and BEAUTIFUL OUTDOOR THEATRE Motel, Nothing Sacred, Criminals in Love, dance nationally and internationally, IN REPERTORY Zastrozzi, Love and Anger, Better Living, including Race and Edward II with and Escape from Happiness. In addition A.C.T. His Broadway credits include JUNE 2 – SEPTEMBER 29 to his playwriting, Walker has written Marie Christine and Chronicle of a extensively for television and radio. Death Foretold (American Theatre Wing Included in his list of credits is acting Award)—both for Lincoln Center as the creative consultant on CBS’s Due Theater; The Violet Hour; Our Country’s South and to Ken Finkleman’s Newsroom Good (Prague Quadrennial Selection); (also for CBC). Along with writing and Search and Destroy (Drama-Logue partner Dani Romain, Walker was also Award). Off-Broadway credits include the writer and creator of Living in Your Everett Beekin, Three Days of Rain (Drama Car for TMN, This is Wonderland for CBC Desk nomination), the musical Bernarda TV, The Weight on the Movie Network, Alba, Roberto Zucco, Burning Patience, and the feature film Niagara Motel, based and In Perpetuity Throughout the Universe. on three of the plays from his Suburban Regionally he has designed In a Garden, Motel cycle. What They Have, The Studio, Vesuvius, The Birds, L’universe, Dark Rapture, The IRENE LEWIS (Director) returns to Heliotrope Bouquet, Hedda Gabler, Wolf at A.C.T. after directing Race last season. the Door, the new musicals Herringbone Lewis was artistic director of Baltimore’s and Captains Courageous, and Anna centerstage for 20 seasons. While there, Deavere Smith’s tour of Twilight: Los she directed a wide range of musicals, Angeles. In 1990 Barreca was awarded an classics, and contemporary dramas: NEA visiting artist grant to work with from Sweeney Todd to H.M.S. Pinafore; artists in Calcutta, India. He is currently from Shakespeare to Schiller; from The the head of scenic design at California Investigation to Trouble in Mind. She Institute of the Arts in Los Angeles. premiered, produced, or commissioned many plays, including Miss Evers’ Boys, LYDIA TANJI (Costume Designer) Intimate Apparel, Police Boys, Elmina’s has designed costumes for Marcus: or Kitchen, and Thunder Knocking at the The Secret of Sweet, Round and Round Door, and earned a number of Best the Garden, The Quality of Life, Curse of Baltimore awards. Her proudest of the Starving Class, Brainpeople, The achievement at centerstage was the Rainmaker, After the War, and Woman in racial diversification of her board, Mind for A.C.T. For Berkeley Repertory staff, repertory, and audience. Before Theatre, she has designed costumes for centerstage, she was associate artistic many productions, including Crime director of Hartford Stage. Her film, Ives!, (619) 23-GLOBE (234-5623) commissioned by the Hartford Symphony, * Member of Actors’ Equity Association, the union of professional won an award from PBS. She has directed actors and stage managers in the United States www.TheOldGlobe.org OG 012813 festival 1_3v.pdf
CONNECT WITH US dead metaphor / 19 WHO’S WHO and Punishment, The Glass Menagerie, presented in Stockholm, and video and Theatre, Dallas Theater Center, Pittsburgh Our Town, Master Class, Homebody/ visual design for LIFE: A Journey Through Public Theater, Yale Repertory Theatre, Kabul, and Slavs! Other regional theaters Time, presented at the Concertgebouw, Goodman Theatre, Steppenwolf Theatre with which she has worked include the Amsterdam. Company, The Old Globe, centerstage, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, The Public Westport Country Playhouse, Two River Theater, Manhattan Theatre Club, Seattle CLIFF CARUTHERS (Sound Designer) Theater Company, and the American Repertory Theatre, the Mark Taper has created soundscapes and original Repertory Theater. Film, television, and Forum, South Coast Repertory, Arena music for more than 200 theatrical radio credits include Cosby (CBS), Tracey Stage, the Children’s Theatre Company, productions, including Elektra, The Takes on New York (HBO), The Deal, by East/West Players, California Shakespeare Homecoming, Race, The Caucasian Chalk Lewis Black, Advice from a Caterpillar, Theater, Shakespeare Santa Cruz, San Circle, November, and Brainpeople for “The Day That Lehman Died” (BBC Jose Repertory Theatre, Aurora Theatre A.C.T.; Troilus and Cressida for the World Service and Blackhawk Productions; Company, Indiana Repertory Theatre, Oregon Shakespeare Festival; The Tempest Peabody, SONY, and Wincott awards), the Huntington Theatre Company, Geva and The Seagull for California Shakespeare and “‘T’ is for Tom” (Tom Stoppard radio Theatre Center, Portland Center Stage, Theater; Circle Mirror Transformation and plays, WNYC and WQXR). Pan Asian Repertory Theatre, Syracuse 9 Circles for Marin Theatre Company; Stage, Magic Theatre, and Marin Theatre Crime and Punishment and TRAGEDY: MICHAEL PALLER (Dramaturg) Company. She has received six Bay Area a tragedy for Berkeley Repertory Theatre; joined A.C.T. as resident dramaturg Theatre Critics Circle Awards and two The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity for and director of humanities in August Drama-Logue Awards. Film credits Aurora Theatre; Happy Days for Guthrie 2005. He began his professional career include The Joy Luck Club, Hot Summer Theater; Julius Caesar for The Acting as literary manager at Center Repertory Winds, Dim Sum, The Wash, Thousand Company; On the Waterfront and Buried Theatre (Cleveland), then worked as Pieces of Gold, and Life Tastes Good. Child for San Jose Stage Company; a play reader and script consultant for Bug and Dead Man’s Cell Phone for San Manhattan Theatre Club, and has since ALEXANDER V. NICHOLS Francisco Playhouse; and Pelleas and been a dramaturg for George Street (Lighting Designer) returns to A.C.T. Mélisande and The Strindberg Cycle for Playhouse, the Berkshire Theatre Festival, for his 13th production. Theater credits The Cutting Ball Theater. Future projects Barrington Stage Company, Long Wharf include the Broadway productions of include The Happy Onesfor Magic Theatre, Roundabout Theatre Company, Wishful Drinking, Hugh Jackman Back Theatre, Krispy Kritters in the Scarlett and others. He dramaturged the Russian on Broadway, and Nice Work If You Can Night for The Cutting Ball Theater, and premiere of Tennessee Williams’s Small Get It, and off-Broadway productions American Night: The Ballad of Juan José Craft Warnings at the Sovremennik of Los Big Names, Horizon, Bridge and for California Shakespeare Theater. Theater in Moscow. Paller is the author Tunnel, Taking Over, Through the Night, of Gentlemen Callers: Tennessee Williams, and In the Wake. Regional theater credits JANET FOSTER, CSA, (Casting Homosexuality, and Mid-Twentieth- include designs for Berkeley Repertory Director) has cast Elektra, The Scottsboro Century Drama (Palgrave Macmillan, Theatre, the Mark Taper Forum, the Boys, Endgame and Play, Scorched, and 2005) and Williams in an Hour (Smith Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Arena Stage, Maple and Vine for A.C.T. On Broadway & Kraus 2010); he has also written the Huntington Theatre Company, La she cast The Light in the Piazza(Artios theater and book reviews for the Jolla Playhouse, and Seattle Repertory Award nomination), Lennon, Ma Rainey’s Washington Post, Village Voice, Newsday, Theatre. Dance credits include resident Black Bottom, and Taking Sides (co-cast). and Mirabella magazine. He adapted the designer for Pennsylvania Ballet, Hartford Off-Broadway credits include Lucky text for the San Francisco Symphony’s Ballet, and American Repertory Ballet. Guy, Lucy, Close Ties, Brundibar, True multimedia presentation of Peer Gynt. He was the lighting supervisor for Love, Endpapers, The Dying Gaul, The Before his arrival at A.C.T., he taught American Ballet Theatre and has been Maiden’s Prayer, Dream True: My Life at Columbia University and the State the resident visual designer for the with Vernon Dixon, The Trojan Women: A University of New York at Purchase. Margaret Jenkins Dance Company. His Love Story, and, at Playwrights Horizons, designs are in the permanent repertory Floyd Collins, The Monogamist, A Cheever of San Francisco Ballet, Boston Ballet, Evening, Later Life, and many more. Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Regionally, she has worked at Intiman and Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, Theatre, Seattle Repertory Theatre, among others. Recent projects include the A Contemporary Theatre, California * Member of Actors’ Equity Association, the union of professional museum installation Circle of Memory, Shakespeare Theater, Berkeley Repertory actors and stage managers in the United States
20 / AMERICAN CONSERVATORY THEATER ACT-SF.ORG | 415.749.2228 2
KIMBERLY MARK WEBB* (Stage Supporting Actress. She has appeared in Manager) is in his 19th season at A.C.T., more than 60 feature and short films, 221 Powell Street San Francisco 415-397-7720 www.KULETOS.com where his recent credits include Humor including Cloudburst (most recent), Abuse, Race, Scapin, Rock ’n’ Roll, and Mr. Holland’s Opus, Steel Magnolias, and Sweeney Todd. In addition to a long Dad, among many others. Television association with Berkeley Repertory credits include Bored to Death (most Theatre, where he just concluded runs of recent), Sinatra (Golden Globe Award An Iliad and White Snake, his other work nomination), Joan of Arc (Emmy Award includes productions for Center Theatre nomination), Tales of the City, More Tales Group in Los Angeles, New York’s Joyce of the City (Emmy Award nomination), Festival, Boston’s Huntington Theatre and Further Tales of the City, among Company, San Jose Repertory Theatre, many others. She has performed in more La Jolla Playhouse, Williamstown Theatre than 130 productions off Broadway and Festival, and Kansas City Repertory Theatre. regionally. She received the Lifetime He served as production stage manager at Achievement Award from the Greek Theatre Three in Dallas for six years. America Foundation and the National Arts Club Medal of Honor and is set to MEGAN Q. SADA’s * (Assistant receive her star on the Hollywood Walk Stage Manager) most recent credits of Fame later this year. include A.C.T.’s Elektra, Endgame Present your A.C.T. ticket to receive a complimentary Chef’s choice appetizer with and Play, Scorched, Once in a Lifetime, the purchase of two entrées per couple Clybourne Park, Round and Round additional credits the Garden, and A Christmas Carol; Danielle O’Dea, Fight Choreographer Magic Theatre’s The Other Place, Bruja, Matthew Hutchinson, Sniper Consultant
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XIX, NO.4 (Marin Theatre Company), Culture Clash’s WANT TO KNOW MORE 25th Anniversary Show (Brava Theater ABOUT DEAD METAPHOR? Center), and Fiddler on the Roof (Jewish Words on Plays series, offers insight into the plays, playwrights, and productio , American Conservatory Theater’s in-depth performance g subscription season. Each entertaining and informative issue contai Ensemble Theatre). Sada graduated with GRAB WORDSviews and dramaturgical ON articles about the historicalPLAYS and cultu ! play. Proceeds from theater arts education programs, which serve more than 8,000 stude Words on Plays directly support A.C.T.’s growingns of ACTsm the A.C.T.uide a B.F.A. in theater from Wayne State To subscribe to the full season 415.749.2250 or visit act-sf.org/wordsonplays. ns artist inter ral context of the- Words on Plays, A.C.T.’s performanceor to order individual issues of $35 waived “Words on Plays is a terrific resource for the theatergoer who want University in Detroit, Michigan. art background of the production. The original essays are usually as e nts every year. Words on Plays well written as they are informative. The selection of topics and s guide series, offers insight into the , call creative and thought provoking. . . . I almost always find some new intriguing point of view.” s some context or plays, playwrights, and productionsntertaining and ource materials is Olympia Dukakis (Executive Robert Hurwitt, information or of the subscription season. TheSan Francisco Chronicle Theater Critic Producer) has been seen in Elektra, Vigil, issue for Dead Metaphor contains Hecuba, A Mother, For the Pleasure of interviews with playwright George Seeing Her Again, and Singer’s Boy at F. Walker, director Irene Lewis, and A.C.T. Broadway credits include Rose scenic designer Erik Flatmo. It also includes (Drama Desk nomination) and Social essays examining the careers, personalities, and lives Security. London credits include Rose and of U.S. snipers and the current fate of returning veterans reentering Credible Witness . Off-Broadway credits the civilian workforce. And more! Copies are available in our lobby, include Singing Forest, The Marriage of at the bars, and online. Bette and Boo (OBIE Award), A Man’s Each purchase of Words on Plays supports our ACTsmart a Man (OBIE Award), Electra, and education programs, serving teachers and students throughout Peer Gynt at The Public Theater. She the Bay Area. Extend the love of theater to future generations, while is an Academy Award winner for her learning about Dead Metaphor. performance in Moonstruck, a role that also earned her a Golden Globe Award, an American Comedy Award, and the act-sf.org/wordsonplays | 415.749.2250 Los Angeles Film Critics Award for Best
CONNECT WITH US dead metaphor / 21 A.C.T. PROFILES
CAREY PERLOFF in 2010; it won the 2011 Blanche and From 1983 to 2005, Richard enjoyed (Artistic Director) is Irving Laurie Foundation Theatre Visions a rich and varied career with Roundabout celebrating her 20th Fund Award and received its world premiere Theatre Company. By the time she departed year as artistic director in February 2012 in San Francisco. Her as managing director, Roundabout had of A.C.T., where she one-act The Morning Afterwas a finalist been transformed from a small nonprofit most recently directed for the Heideman Award at Actors Theatre on the verge of bankruptcy into one of Elektra, Endgame of Louisville. Perloff has collaborated as the country’s largest and most successful and Play, Scorched, a director on new plays by many notable theater companies of its kind. Richard The Homecoming, Tosca Cafe (cocreated writers, including Gotanda, Nilo Cruz, and is the recipient of six Tony Awards as with choreographer Val Caniparoli and Robert O’Hara. She also directed Elektra for producer, for Roundabout productions recently toured Canada), and Racine’s the Getty Villa in Los Angeles. of Cabaret (1998), A View from the Bridge Phèdre. Known for directing innovative Before joining A.C.T., Perloff was (1998), Side Man (1999), Nine (2003), productions of classics and championing artistic director of Classic Stage Company Assassins (2004), and Glengarry Glen Ross new writing for the theater, Perloff has also in New York, where she directed the world (2005). Producer of more than 125 shows directed for A.C.T. José Rivera’s Boleros for premiere of Ezra Pound’s Elektra, the at Roundabout, she had direct supervision the Disenchanted; the world premieres of American premiere of Pinter’s Mountain of all general and production management, Philip Kan Gotanda’s After the War (A.C.T. Language, and many classic works. Under marketing, and financial aspects of the commission) and her own adaptation (with Perloff’s leadership, CSC won numerous theater’s operations. She conceptualized Paul Walsh) of A Christmas Carol; the OBIE Awards, including the 1988 OBIE and oversaw the redesign of the three American premieres of Tom Stoppard’s for artistic excellence. In 1993, she directed permanent Roundabout stages—Studio The Invention of Loveand Indian Ink the world premiere of Steve Reich and 54, the American Airlines Theatre, and the and Harold Pinter’s Celebration; A.C.T.– Beryl Korot’s opera The Caveat the Vienna Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for commissioned translations/adaptations Festival and Brooklyn Academy of Music. Theatre. She directed the location search for of Hecuba, The Misanthrope, Enrico IV, A recipient of France’s Chevalier de Cabaret and supervised the creation of that Mary Stuart, Uncle Vanya, A Mother, and l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and the production’s environmental Kit Kat Klub. The Voysey Inheritance (adapted by David National Corporate Theatre Fund’s 2007 Prior to her tenure at Roundabout, Mamet); the world premiere of Leslie Artistic Achievement Award, Perloff Richard served as business manager of Ayvazian’s Singer’s Boy; and major revivals received a B.A. Phi Beta Kappa in classics Westport Country Playhouse, theater of ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore, The Government and comparative literature from Stanford manager for Stamford Center for the Arts, Inspector, Happy End (including a critically University and was a Fulbright Fellow at and business manager for Atlas Scenic acclaimed cast album recording), A Doll’s Oxford. She was on the faculty of the Studio. She began her career working as House, Waiting for Godot, The Three Sisters, Tisch School of the Arts at New York a stagehand, sound designer, and scenic The Threepenny Opera, Old Times, The Rose University for seven years and teaches and artist assistant. Tattoo, Antigone, Creditors, The Room, Home, directs in the A.C.T. Master of Fine Arts The Tempest, and Stoppard’s Rock ’n’ Roll, Program. She is the proud mother of Lexie MELISSA SMITH (Conservatory Director) Travesties, The Real Thing, Night and Day, and Nicholas. oversees the administration of the A.C.T. and Arcadia. Perloff’s work for A.C.T. also Master of Fine Arts Program, Young includes Marie Ndiaye’s Hilda, the world ELLEN RICHARD Conservatory, Summer Training Congress, premieres of Marc Blitzstein’s No for an (Executive Director) and Studio A.C.T., in addition to serving Answer and David Lang/Mac Wellman’s joined A.C.T. as as the master acting teacher of the M.F.A. The Difficulty of Crossing a Field, and the executive director in Program. Before joining A.C.T. in 1995, West Coast premiere of her own play The August 2010. She Smith served as director of the program in Colossus of Rhodes (Susan Smith Blackburn served previously as theater and dance at Princeton University, Award finalist). executive director where she taught acting for six years. She Her play Luminescence Dating premiered of off Broadway’s has worked with people of all ages in venues in New York at The Ensemble Studio nonprofit Second Stage Theatre in New around the country, including teaching Theatre, was coproduced by A.C.T. York City. During her tenure at Second in Hawaii and in Florence, Italy. Also a and Magic Theatre, and is published by Stage, she was responsible for the purchase professional actor, she has performed in Dramatists Play Service. Her play Waiting contract of the Helen Hayes Theatre and numerous off-off Broadway plays and at for the Flood has received workshops at substantial growth in subscription income regional theaters, including A.C.T. In 2004 A.C.T., New York Stage & Film, and and growth in individual giving. Under she toured London and Birmingham (U.K.) Roundabout Theatre Company. Her Richard’s leadership, Second Stage provided in Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s production latest play, Higher, was developed at New the initial home for the Broadway of Continental Divide. Smith holds a B.A. in York Stage and Film and presented at San productions Everyday Rapture, Next to English and theater from Yale College and an Francisco’s Contemporary Jewish Museum Normal, and The Little Dog Laughed. M.F.A. in acting from Yale School of Drama.
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