The Call Is Places

Welcome from Artistic Director Joseph Haj 2016–2017 SEASON Dear Friends,

Sense and Sensibility To make a life in the theater is a bold choice, as the path to the stage is September 10 – October 29, 2016 hardly a direct one. It comes with insecurity, both financial and personal, Wurtele Thrust Stage instability and public critique. How many of us actors and artists, as teenagers, had that brave conversation with our parents when we swore The Parchman Hour allegiance to a dream in the footlights and they did all they could to dissuade October 1 – November 6, 2016 us? Looking back, it’s hard to fault them. Guaranteed work this is not. McGuire Proscenium Stage What theater is though, is a calling – to hone a craft, to entertain, to find A Christmas Carol meaning in the act of storytelling. And as depicted in George S. Kaufman November 16 – December 30, 2016 and Edna Ferber’s The Royal Family, theater is the connective tissue Wurtele Thrust Stage between generations. Sure, there are moments in the play when Kaufman and Ferber seem to be satirizing the Cavendish family of thespians – lest any The Lion in Winter actor ever take him or herself too seriously. But there are also extraordinarily November 19 – December 31, 2016 poignant moments when relationships must be considered and hard McGuire Proscenium Stage decisions made by the Cavendish women, all of whom find themselves at a crossroads between their vocation and a The Royal Family decidedly different way of life. January 28 – March 19, 2017 McGuire Proscenium Stage There’s broad comedy, and there’s also beautiful nuance to be found in this nearly century-old King Lear story in terms of what’s uplifting and what can February 11 – April 2, 2017 be heartbreaking about a theatrical pursuit. I Wurtele Thrust Stage can’t think of a more perfect director to pursue that artful balance than Rachel Chavkin. As The Bluest Eye artistic director of the Brooklyn-based theater April 15 – May 21, 2017 ensemble The TEAM, Rachel is pushing the Wurtele Thrust Stage boundaries of creativity and new work for the stage, and all in service to brilliantly human Refugia stories about the American experience. That May 13 – June 11, 2017 she helmed The Royal Family with that same McGuire Proscenium Stage depth of curiosity and passion is a gift that I am extremely grateful for. Sunday in the Park with George On behalf of a wonderful cast and creative June 17 – August 20, 2017 team, thank you for being with us for The Wurtele Thrust Stage Royal Family. Enjoy the show!

Native Gardens Yours, July 15 – August 20, 2017 McGuire Proscenium Stage

Visit guthrietheater.org for additional

PHOTO: JOSEPH HAJ (HEIDI BOHNENKAMP) JOSEPH PHOTO: productions and play descriptions.

1 \ GUTHRIE THEATER The Royal Family by George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber

Cast in alphabetical order

GILBERT MARSHALL Robert O. Berdahl* HALLBOY Bear Brummel PERRY STEWART David Darrow* The Guthrie gratefully recognizes FANNY CAVENDISH Elizabeth Franz* John & Maureen Knapp, Jennifer Melin Miller & David Miller and Steven & CHAUFFEUR Stuart Gates* Catherine R. Webster as Producers, and David & Stacey Hurrell, Anne Paape and OSCAR WOLFE Shawn Hamilton* Frances & Frank Wilkinson as Associate JO Charles Hubbell* Producers of The Royal Family. GWEN CAVENDISH Victoria Janicki* HERBERT DEAN Bill McCallum* Setting New York, 1927. The duplex apartment JULIE CAVENDISH Michelle O’Neill* of the Cavendish family. DELLA Mo Perry* ACT ONE: Early afternoon on a Friday TONY CAVENDISH Matthew Saldívar* in November ACT TWO: The next day, between KITTY LeMOYNE DEAN Angela Timberman* matinee and night McDERMOTT Ricardo Vázquez* Intermission MISS PEAKE ACT THREE: A year later Tatiana Williams*

Run Time Approximately 2 hours, 45 minutes Creative Team with one intermission DIRECTOR Rachel Chavkin

Acknowledgments SCENIC DESIGNER Marte Johanne Ekhougen The Royal Family is presented by special COSTUME DESIGNER Brenda Abbandandolo arrangement with Samuel French, Inc. LIGHTING DESIGNER Bradley King The Guthrie extends a very special thanks to: SOUND DESIGNER Scott W. Edwards • Movement consultant Aaron Preusse DRAMATURG Carla Steen • Neslihan Arslan for her invaluable collaboration with Scenic Designer VOCAL COACH Lucinda Holshue Marte Johanne Ekhougen • Piano coach Victor Zupanc STAGE MANAGER Chris A. Code* • The TDF Costume Collection for its ASSISTANT STAGE MANAGER Michele Hossle* assistance on this production ASSISTANT DIRECTOR Taous Claire Khazem The Guthrie’s rush line is made possible with support from Target. DESIGN ASSISTANTS Polly Bilski (costumes) Kurt Jung (lighting) Delta Air Lines is the Reid Rejsa (sound associate) Official Airline of the Guthrie Theater. FIGHT CAPTAIN Stuart Gates* INTERNS Stephanie Engel (literary) Jenna Hyde (stage management)

*Member of Actors’ Equity Association

2 \ GUTHRIE THEATER THE PLAY

Synopsis

SETTING Three generations of actors in the famed Cavendish family New York, 1927. slog through their daily routine of matinees, new play The duplex apartment of the readings, rehearsals, revivals and tabloid gossip. Julie is the Cavendish family. current family star, and prima donna in the New York theater world. Her career has always come first, a sacrifice abetted by her mother, Fanny, who dissuaded her from marrying a CHARACTERS businessman named Gilbert Marshall 19 years ago so that Fanny Cavendish, age 72, the family she would stay in the industry and realize the fame and matriarch, “rather magnificent” fortune due her. Julie Cavendish, 39, Fanny’s daughter, Fanny is a widow in her 70s, recently recovered from a the star of Broadway lingering illness, gamely planning to resume her career and recapture the years spent touring with her husband, Aubrey. Gwen Cavendish, 19, Julie’s daughter

Tony is Julie’s brother, a handsome and talented actor with Tony Cavendish, late 30s, Fanny’s son, the energy of a lunatic – perfect for Hollywood – until he late of Hollywood shows up at the Cavendish house after breaking his film contract and punching his director. Herbert Dean, 57, Fanny’s brother, “an excellent actor beginning to show Julie’s independent 19-year-old daughter, Gwen, is his age” beginning her own acting career, but she is troubled by an argument with her boyfriend, Perry Stewart, over the time Kitty Lemoyne Dean, 48, Herbert’s commitments required by her career. Faced with giving up wife, a mediocre actress a life with Perry to continue acting, Gwen shocks the entire family by declaring she is quitting theater altogether. This Oscar Wolfe, the Cavendishes’ long- outburst – combined with a visit from the now-wealthy time theater manager, “a figure of Gilbert Marshall – makes Julie realize that her daughter is at authority” the same crossroads she was 19 years ago, and prompts her to question her own decision all those years ago. Perry Stewart, 28, Gwen’s love interest and a “personable young fellow”

Gilbert Marshall, 47, a successful business man and former suitor to Julie

Della, the Cavendishes’ maid

Jo, the Cavendishes’ houseman

McDermott, a boxer who trains with Julie

Miss Peake, a nurse Hallboy Chauffeur Model of The Royal Family set PHOTO: LAUREN MUELLER LAUREN PHOTO:

3 \ GUTHRIE THEATER THE PLAYWRIGHTS

When Edna met George … and by Carla Steen wrote some plays Production Dramaturg

In 1924, Edna Ferber was among the most successful writers in America. She had published three novels, several collections of short stories, and had co-written a play featuring her popular character Emma McChesney, in which Ethel Barrymore starred. Her most recent novel, So Big, had just received the Pulitzer Prize. While she had only a passing acquaintance with playwright/critic George S. Kaufman, when he suggested they turn her short story “Old Man Minick” into a play, one of the great collaborations in American theater was launched.

Both were disciplined writers, and famous Barrymore-Drew family, Eight and Stage Door. The Royal they moved quickly, completing but even Ferber admitted, “we Family wasn’t done with Ferber, the adaptation within three weeks succeeded in convincing no one, however. In 1940, she realized her of starting. Winthrop Ames agreed including possibly ourselves.” childhood dream of being an actor, to produce, and the play, now The work wasn’t quite so swift when she performed the role of called Minick, opened to moderate this time, taking eight months to Fanny Cavendish in a weeklong success in September 1924. write, which Ferber thought an run in Maplewood, N.J. Alas, she While the play itself may not be embarrassingly long time for “just discovered she did not enjoy acting remarkable or even remembered, it a comedy,” but they didn’t need as much as she thought she would, did lead to the musical Show Boat to do any rewrites, so polished finding herself bored with the (a passing comment by producer was the rehearsal draft. After repetition the craft required. Ames about the floating theaters some difficulty with casting – they caught Ferber’s attention) and to offered the lead role to Ethel Kaufman wrote more than 40 The Royal Family. Barrymore, who emphatically plays in total, and his best-known turned it down and held a grudge, collaborations may be those with Before work on the latter while other actresses didn’t Moss Hart in the 1930s. Like Ferber, commenced, Ferber learned all want to either cross or promote Kaufman received the Pulitzer she could about river theatricals Barrymore by appearing in the Prize, twice in fact, for Of Thee I and two years later published play – The Royal Family opened on Sing and You Can’t Take It With her novel, Show Boat, which December 28, 1927. It was a busy You. He died in 1961 at age 71. composer Jerome Kern wanted to month for Ferber, as the musical turn into a musical play. Kaufman, Show Boat opened the day before. Ferber’s body of writing captured meanwhile, had a dalliance with the surprising variety of American the Marx Brothers and Irving Berlin The Royal Family played for 10 life – from the land rush in that resulted in the stage musical months, became a film and was Oklahoma to the gold rush in The Cocoanuts. staged in London in 1935 as Alaska – and explored challenging Theatre Royal (the British have topics and themes including single In 1926, Ferber and Kaufman their own royal family, after all), motherhood, miscegenation laws started on their second project, directed by Noël Coward. Over and struggling farms as well as about a theatrical family. They the next 20 years, Ferber and examining American values and claimed from the beginning that Kaufman collaborated on four the American Dream. Ferber died the play was not based on the more plays, including Dinner at at age 82 in 1968.

4 \ GUTHRIE THEATER PLAY FEATURE

Who’s behind The Royal Family’s The Royal Family invites us in to the lives of the Cavendish clan? Cavendishes, three generations of theater women searching for balance between their work and their personal lives, all by Stephanie Engel while upholding the expectations of family legacy. Beneath Literary Intern the story’s surface lie the Barrymores, a legendary family of actors who provided inspiration for playwrights George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber.

John Drew 1827–1862 Louisa Lane Drew 1820–1897 World-renowned actor, also Onetime child acting prodigy, on her manages the Arch Street third marriage; prolific stage presence Theater in Philadelphia. who takes over the Arch after John’s Marries English-born Louisa death. Louisa’s life is arguably the Lane. A theatrical power basis for The Royal Family matriarch, couple is born. Fanny Cavendish.

Sidney Louisa John Drew Jr. 1853–1927 Georgiana Maurice Drew Drew A dramatic actor and lifetime Drew Barrymore president of the Players, a New York City theatrical society. He’s a jumping-off point for the character of Herbert Dean.

Russell Ethel Barrymore John Barrymore Lionel Grisswold 1879–1959 1882–1942 Barrymore Colt “First lady of the Dramatic Shakespeare American stage,” actor, nicknamed “The whose performances Great Profile” for his are said to have made dashing good looks. His critics weep from flamboyant, alcohol- start to finish. She fueled personal life inspires the dynamic leads to restless career qualities of Royal’s choices and much Julie Cavendish tabloid gossip. Kaufman and Ferber tap into his life to shape Royal’s Tony Cavendish.

Ethel Barrymore Colt 1912–1977 Samuel John Drew Debuts onstage alongside her mother at age 18, Peabody Colt later marries petroleum and mining executive Colt John Romeo Miglietta. They have one son. Her journey parallels Gwen Cavendish’s storyline.

5 \ GUTHRIE THEATER PLAY FEATURE

A daring voice in the field

It would be too late to say that The Royal Family director Rachel Chavkin’s star is on the rise. As artistic director of New York’s groundbreaking theater ensemble the TEAM, and with her smash Broadway hit The Great Comet currently lighting up the boards, Chavkin has already unequivocally arrived. Six days into her stint at the Guthrie, she sat down with Associate Artistic Director Jeff Meanza over brunch to talk Hamlet skulls, dinner theater and the benefits of actor gossip.

JEFF MEANZA: Welcome to the sense of a Shakespeare, but this apartment is unusual because Minnesota. there are a huge number of stylistic they’re artists and they might have questions for me and the cast. the detritus of their lives as actors RACHEL CHAVKIN: Thank you. It’s all around them. And so Marte and I cold here. JM: I’ve seen that Marte (scenic took that idea and ran with it. I think designer Marte Johanne I said, “What if there are like 30 JM: You’re in week two of Ekhougen) has been around different skulls on stage from every rehearsals? rehearsal quite a little bit. Is that time someone’s played Hamlet?” how you normally work? Do you RC: End of week one, but we’re normally have designers along for JM: [laughs] halfway through staging Act 2. the ride with you? RC: It’s just beautiful, and the space JM: How are you doing that so fast RC: With this play, because it’s very has begun to sing. So back to the – are you magic? object-based and Marte has done a initial question – is this always lot of props design, there is already the way I work? I think it depends RC: Well, I’m not magic. Every this incredible spirituality that’s on the show. For me, space, both show wants to be worked on begun to emerge from the objects the architecture and the details differently. WithThe Royal Family, she’s been putting into the space. of the space, is inextricable from

the language is not mysterious in So the implication in the text is that dramaturgy. MUELLER LAUREN PHOTO:

6 \ GUTHRIE THEATER JM: There’s this deep family history JM: Whereas here you have three and healthcare for people living in the play and relationships that weeks to put up a three-act show. in poverty. have to live so deeply and richly. Are you doing anything special RC: I’m an entirely different artist JM: Did you start developing an with this cast to build that history? in a TEAM rehearsal room than I interest in theater in middle school am in a non-TEAM room. And for or high school? RC: I’m not. I’m a big believer in a couple of years as my freelance the actors’ sedimentary layers career began taking off, that was RC: Sort of late high school. I was process, maybe because I run this very disorienting. The TEAM’s at a school that didn’t really have collaborative company, the TEAM, process is completely collaborative any theater program to speak of. where I work with performers who and nonhierarchical. It’s 100 There was a little club of 10 kids are building character, and world percent different than when I’m and a really sweet teacher. But I and backstory over a period of in the freelance directing world grew up getting taken to theater years. With this cast, we have three where my job is to be the boss and nonstop because my dad just loved weeks, so I just sort of trust that have the answers because we only it, and we saw everything from my actors are going to do that have three weeks. dinner theater to the big touring job and get to know each other. productions. We saw a lot of dinner I never interfere if two actors are JM: So, what’s it like to be a star? theater, actually. gossiping with each other, for example, because that to me is a RC: [laughs] I’m only famous if JM: You have to go to Chanhassen really healthy sign in the rehearsal you mean that when I walk into a Dinner Theatres while you’re here. room. If they’re working something room of twelve young directors out, I let that roll. they all get really excited. No, I’m RC: Oh my god, yes, I want to do acutely aware that I now have that. JM: You mentioned the TEAM, your more heft and responsibility company in Brooklyn, and I’m in terms of the industry. I feel JM: Growing up in in D.C., what were fascinated by that process where that most especially in that I’m some theater highlights for you? you build theater pieces over on SDC’s (Stage Directors and the course of years. How did you Choreographers Society) executive RC: The first Broadway show I discover as an ensemble that you council now, which is a big honor. ever got taken to was A Chorus wanted to work that way? I was raised in a deeply pro-union Line when I was 4, so it was very family, so the highest honor is to adult work I was seeing right off RC: I started the TEAM when I was be a representative of the field and the bat. I also vividly remember 24, a few years out of school. I had a voice in the field, and that’s a Sting playing as Mack the Knife. I taken this underground class at wonderful thing. remember seeing that production, NYU that this experimental dancer and an actor dropped his watch and choreographer taught. It was JM: You were born in D.C.? and another actor scrambled to held on Sunday nights; you didn’t pick it up and hand it to him, and get graded for the class; you didn’t RC: I was. my dad leaning over to me and get evaluated. The only assignment saying that wasn’t supposed to was to be interesting alone on JM: And your parents’ careers were happen. I can still remember that stage for 10 minutes, and you had in public service? moment of chaos and how things the entirety of the semester to do can go wrong. And I thought that that. So you had a deadline, but RC: Civil rights. They had come to was the greatest thing I’d ever seen. how you’re governing your sense D.C. because my dad worked for We must have been sitting close to of time within the approach to the Carter administration, and was the stage because I also remember that deadline is completely up to one of the lawyers who worked the organ-grinder’s opening song you. And that’s how the TEAM on the Americans with Disabilities and his spittle flying off into the has basically functioned. We set Act. My mom worked with Hillary audience. I was just captivated by a deadline for a year off, like the at the Children’s Defense Fund as that and how grotesque it was and Edinburgh Fringe, and begin a lawyer, and she’s now one of the how amazing, how amazing live jamming together. country’s legal experts on Medicaid theater can be.

7 \ GUTHRIE THEATER