SC 38th Season • 366th Production SECOND STAGE / SEPTEMBER 18 THROUGH OCTOBER 21, 2001 So u h o t eper o David Emmes Martin Benson Producing Artistic Director Artistic Director

presents the World Premiere of

by ANNIE WEISMAN

Scenic Design Costume Design Lighting Design Sound Design CHRISTOPHER ACEBO JOYCE KIM LEE GEOFF KORF ARAM ARSLANIAN Dramaturg Stage Manager Production Manager JEFF GIFFORD *EDWARD TIGHE JERRY PATCH

Directed by MARK RUCKER

SUE AND RALPH STERN, Honorary Producers

Hold Please was commissioned and developed by South Coast Repertory

PERFORMING ARTS NETWORK / SOUTH COAST REPERTORY P -1 CAST OF CHARACTERS (in order of speaking)

Erika ...... *Tessa Auberjonois Agatha ...... *Kimberly K. King Jessica ...... *Jillian Bach Grace ...... *Linda Gehringer

SETTING: An office.

LENGTH: Approximately 2 hours, including one 15-minute intermission

PRODUCTION STAFF Casting Director ...... Joanne DeNaut Production Assistant ...... Christi Vadovic Assistant to the Set Designer ...... Celeste Thompson Stage Management Intern ...... Emily Caster

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: Sonny Whang and the Secretaries at Phillips Nizer, LLP

Cellular phones, beepers and watch alarms should be turned off or set to non-audible mode during the performance. Please refrain from unwrapping candy or making other noises that may disturb surrounding patrons. The use of cameras and recorders in the theatre is prohibited. Smoking is not permitted anywhere in the theatre.

* Member of Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers.

Official Airline Media Partner

P - 2 SOUTH COAST REPERTORY / PERFORMING ARTS NETWORK Women at Work ost of us don’t have mothers who blazed a trail for us transformed offices and provided new opportunities for M— at least, not all the way. Coming of age before or women. In 1879, Mary Foot Seymour opened the first typing during the inception of the women’s movement, whether as school for women, who learned a skill that gave them access working parents or homemakers, whether married or di- to male-dominated clerical jobs. Women moved rapidly into vorced, our mothers faced conundrums — what should they office positions until by 1900 more than 75 percent of all be? how should they act? – that became our uncertainties. clerical workers were female—up from just three percent in — Anne Roiphe, Raising Daughters 1870. Both the typist and her machine were called “typewrit- en must work, and women must weep.” ers,” and because this was something quite new, M — Charles Kingsley, The Three Fishers women with typing skills could not be accused of displacing men from their desks. Since offices were omen’s art, though created in solitude, perceived as clean, safe working environments, Wwells up out of community. There is, middle-class high school graduates saw the roles of clearly, both enormous hunger for the work thus being typewriter, bookkeeper, and clerk as preferable to diffused, and an explosion of creative energy, bursting being a factory girl. through the coercive choicelessness of the system on –Juliet H. Mofford, “Women in the whose boundaries we are working.” Workplace,” Women’s History — Adrienne Rich ow deep is our desire to do he invention of the first practical “mechanical writ- Hbetter than our mothers— Ting machine” in 1867, which was put on the market to bring daughters into adult- in 1874 by E. Remington & Sons as a “Type Writer,” hood strong and fierce yet loving and gen- tle, adventurous 29. Working Girls and competitive but still nurturing The working girls in the morning are going to work—long and friendly, sweet lines of them afoot amid the downtown stores and yet sharp. We know as working factories, thousands with little brick-shaped lunches women that we can’t quite have it wrapped in newspapers under their arms. all, but that hasn’t stopped us from Each morning as I move through this river of young-woman wanting it all for them.” life I feel a wonder about where it is all going, so — Roiphe, Raising Daughters many with a peach bloom of young years on them and laughter of red lips and memories in their eyes of come home in the morning dances the night before and plays and walks. Ilight Green and gray streams run side by side in a river and so here My mother says when you are always the others, those who have been over the way, gonna the women who know each one the end of life’s gamble live your life right for her, the meaning and the clew, the how and the way Oh mother dear we’re not the of the dances and the arms that passed around their waists fortunate ones and the fingers that played in their hair. And girls just want to have fun. . . Faces go by written over: “I know it all, I know where the bloom When the working day is done and the laughter go and I have memories,” and the feet Girls – they just want to have of these move slower and they have wisdom where fun. the others have beauty. —from “Girls Just Want So the green and the gray move in the early morning on the to Have Fun” by Robert Hazard; downtown streets. performed by Cyndi Lauper —Carl Sandburg, Chicago Poems

PERFORMING ARTS NETWORK / SOUTH COAST REPERTORY P - 3 Dispatches From the Front (Office) eela Banerjee, writing in the Business Day section “Many of the things these women do would not be as inap- of the August 10, 2001, New York Times, reports on propriate in a man,” the program’s director, Jean Hol- Na Mountain View, California, women’s support lands, said. “We want these women to be more powerful group which meets the first Thursday of and not feel more victimized, thinking ‘We don’t get the every month. They sit in a circle and same consideration men do.’ We don’t. So what? We’ve confess: only been in the work force as leaders for 50 years. Men “I’m Suzann, and I’m a re- have a 600-year head start on us.” covering bully broad…or maybe a relapsing one.” ❏ ❏ ❏ “I came here—excuse me, I was sent here—because n “Big Brother’s Corporate Cousin,” an essay in the Au- of my intolerance for incom- Igust 6-13, 2001, issue of The Nation, writer Christian petence, and for having a Parenti describes the ways in which technology has al- passion for my job that lowed corporate America greater surveillance over its em- scared people to death.” ployees that has in turn raised expectations, productivity, Sounds like an AA and employee oppression. meeting. But these The American Management Association reports that women are raging suc- 80 percent of US corporations keep their employees under cesses, with six figure regular surveillance: bag and body searches of retail em- incomes earned in key ployees; computerized ordering in restaurants, and moni- executive positions. toring of e-mail and phone traffic. Their tough, no- Employees have been pitched the idea that technol- nonsense ways ogy is freeing workers and flattening supervisorial hierar- have intimidated chies, but electronic surveillance also allows supervisors their subordi- to harass or fire employees they believe are under-achiev- nates, col- ing. Employees involved in workplace reform are at even leagues, and greater peril. bosses, and One software program, the market leader, allows brought managers to listen in on calls, archive all e-mail and voice them to Bul- traffic, and oversee all communications according to key ly Broads, words. It might point up hints of theft or drug use, preg- an executive coaching nancy or union organizing. program. The system also allows managers to measure and It advises them rank their staff, thereby putting competitive pressure on to achieve even more those ranked lower in the hierarchy. Telephonic support by going back to being personnel are ranked by calls handled per hour, and mini- ladies. No more ’80s mum levels raised as a result; nurses have had their activist stances. caseloads increased by one-third. Learn to pause, be Not that there isn’t some need for reform. One thoughtful — stam- study found that 30-40 percent of all workplace web surf- mer even — cry, but talk ing isn’t job-related. seventy percent of all online pornog- calmly through the tears. raphy traffic takes place between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. A 45- Nearly all the group’s minute lingerie show held on a Victoria’s Secret website 17 members were sent be- cost American firms an estimated $120 million in lost em- cause of their intimidating ployee work time. management styles. —Jerry Patch

P - 4 SOUTH COAST REPERTORY / PERFORMING ARTS NETWORK TESSA AUBERJONOIS JILLIAN BACH LINDA GEHRINGER Erika Jessica Grace Artist Biographies

*TESSA AUBERJONOIS (Erika) *JILLIAN BACH (Jessica) made her and as Helen Gahagan Douglas in But made her SCR debut in last season’s SCR debut this summer in the Pacific Not for Me. She was recently seen in opener Everett Beekin. She has ap- Playwrights Festival reading of Hold the world premiere of Annie Weisman’s peared Off-Broadway in Trainspotting Please. Regional theatre credits in- first play, Be Aggressive, at La Jolla at the Players Theatre, Killers and clude The Seagull at Victory Gardens, Playhouse where she also performed in Other Family at the Rattlestick and The Miser at Trinity Repertory, Speed Light Up the Sky. Ms. Gehringer has Uncommon Women & Others at the Lu- of Darkness at Alias Stage, The Mer- worked at the Mark Taper Forum, The cille Lortel. Her regional theatre cred- chant of Venice at Shakespeare & Com- Area, Boston’s Huntington Theatre, its include The Country Wife and pany, Hot N’ Throbbing for Paula Vogel The Guthrie Theater, the Berkshire Camino Real at the Shakespeare The- and The Misanthrope and The Country Theatre Festival, New York Stage and atre in Washington D.C., Hay Fever Wife at American Players Theatre. She Film and spent seven seasons as a com- and A Midsummer Night’s Dream at was a series regular on “Two Guys and pany member at the Dallas Theatre Yale Repertory Theatre, The Cripple of a Girl” and has starred on “Party of Center. Roles include Blanche in A Inishmaan at The Wilma Theatre and Five,” “The X-Files,” “Felicity” and Streetcar Named Desire, Regina in The Twelfth Night and Pericles at the Utah “Newsradio.” She holds a BA from Little Foxes, Wanda in The Waiting Shakespearean Festival. Ms. Auber- Brown University. Room, Merteuil in Les Liasons Dan- jonois’ film and television roles include gereuses, Bette in The Marriage of I’m Not Rappaport, “Law and Order” *LINDA GEHRINGER (Grace) ap- Bette and Boo, Olga in The Three Sis- and “Another World.” She is a gradu- peared at SCR in A Delicate Balance, ters, Catherine in The Heiress, Ed- ate of the Yale School of Drama. All My Sons, Arcadia, Good As New ward/Betty in Cloud 9 and Ann Stanton

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PERFORMING ARTS NETWORK / SOUTH COAST REPERTORY P - 5 sure for Measure, U.S.A., Fallen Angels, MARK RUCKER (Director) directed The Norman Conquests and Awake this summer’s Pacific Playwrights Fes- and Sing at Berkeley Repertory; tival reading of Hold Please. He direct- Woman in Mind, Tartuffe, Sarcopha- ed last season’s Much Ado about Noth- gus and Dividing the Estate at the Mc- ing and Art and The Summer Moon Carter Theatre; and A Flea in Her Ear, and Amy’s View the previous season. Dancing at Lughnasa and Keeley and Other SCR directing credits include Du at the Alley Theatre, among others. On the Jump, Dimly Perceived Threats Her musical theatre credits include On to the System, Our Town, The Birds, the Town; Guys & Dolls; Dracula, a The Triumph of Love, The Taming of Musical; Happy End; and Tonight at the Shrew, Later Life, Loot, Intimate Eight-Thirty. She has received Exchanges and the world premiere of Drama-Logue Awards for her portray- So Many Words by Roger Rueff. Mr. als of Annie in The Norman Conquests, Rucker directed the premiere of Anna

KIMBERLY K. KING the Female characters in Intimate Ex- Deavere Smith’s play House Arrest at Agatha changes and Hesione in Heartbreak Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. For House for which she also won a Bay Yale Repertory Theatre he directed Area Critics Circle Award. Other Crit- productions of Twelfth Night, Measure in All the King’s Men. She holds an ics Circle Awards include Titania in A for Measure, The Cryptogram by David MFA from the University of Minnesota Midsummer Night’s Dream, Isadora Mamet, John Guare’s Landscape of the and has received numerous critical Duncan in U.S.A. and Lady Croom in Body, and most recently, a new trans- awards. Her television roles include Arcadia. lation by James Magruder of Molière’s four seasons as Fontana on “Evening Imaginary Invalid. Other recent pro- Shade” and guest appearances on “The PLAYWRIGHT, ductions include How I Learned to West Wing,” “The Practice,” “Ally DIRECTOR Drive and The Taming of the Shrew at McBeal,” “Providence,” “Touched by An & DESIGNERS the Intiman Theatre, The Model Apart- Angel” and “The Larry Sanders Show” ment by Donald Margulies at La Jolla among others. She also appeared in ANNIE WEISMAN (Playwright) is Playhouse and Steven Dietz’s adapta- the film As Good as It Gets and will be an LA-based playwright. Her play Be tion of Dracula at the Old Globe The- seen this fall on “Law and Order: Crim- Aggressive premiered at La Jolla Play- atres. His other credits include Shaw’s inal Intent.” house in July. Her work has been de- Arms and the Man for The Acting veloped by the Mark Taper Forum, Company, On the Razzle by Tom Stop- *KIMBERLY K. KING (Agatha) ap- A.S.K. Theatre Projects, Sundance pard at Indiana Repertory, Much Ado peared in the Broadway production of Theater Lab, Printer’s Devil Theatre in about Nothing and A Flea in Her Ear James Joyce’s The Dead and the New Seattle, Austin Script Works, Soho Rep at the Utah Shakespearean Festival York production and national tour of and the GeVa Theater. Hold Please and ten productions for Shakespeare Picasso at the Lapin Agile. Her region- was commissioned by South Coast Santa Cruz. He is a graduate of UCLA al theatre credits include Night Sky at Repertory. She is currently working on and the Yale School of Drama. the Odyssey Theatre; Camino Real commissions for A.S.K. Theatre Pro- with Rip Torn at Hartford Stage; Arca- jects, SCR, and the Mark Taper Forum, CHRISTOPHER ACEBO (Scenic De- dia, The Play’s the Thing and The Mis- and developing a musical with Trinity signer) is pleased to return to SCR anthrope at the American Conservato- Repertory. She was born in San Diego where he designed The Beard of Avon, ry Theatre; Heartbreak House, Mea- and graduated from Williams College. The Countess and California Scenarios

P - 6 SOUTH COAST REPERTORY / PERFORMING ARTS NETWORK at Noguchi Gardens last season. For & Cleopatra (Berkeley Repertory The- signs have appeared in productions at Cornerstone Theater Company in Los atre); Rice Boy, Circumference of a La Jolla Playhouse, Old Globe Theatre, Angeles, where he is an ensemble Squirrel, The Square, A Village Fable: Geffen Playhouse, Seattle Repertory member, he designed An Antigone In the Suicide Mountains (Mark Taper Theatre, Goodman Theatre, Trinity Story, For Here or To Go?, Zones, and Forum), Ikebana (Mark Taper Repertory, Yale Repertory Theatre, The AKA: A Beverly Hills Musical Morality Forum/East West Players); and Golden Kennedy Center, Huntington Theatre, Tale. Regional work includes Zoot Suit Child, The Theory of Everything, Big Actors Theatre of Louisville, The at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago; Hunk O' Burnin' Love, and Yohen Guthrie Lab, The Children’s Theatre Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, (EastWest Players). She has also de- Company of Minneapolis, Chicago Chil- No Good, Very Bad Day for the Chil- signed at Indiana Repertory Theatre, dren’s Theatre and Stage One in dren’s Theatre Company of Minneapo- Chicago's Court Theatre, Santa Fe Louisville. Mr. Korf is a member of the lis; Peter Pan at Great Lakes Theater Chamber Music Festival, Arena Stage ensemble of Cornerstone Theater, and Festival; Black Butterfly, Jaguar Girl, (PlayQuest Series), the Berkshire The- he is a graduate of California State Piñata Woman and Other Super Hero atre Festival Children's Theatre, the University, Chico and the Yale School Girls Like Me for the Mark Taper Latino Theatre Company and the Sin- of Drama. Forum and the Kennedy Center; The gapore Repertory Theatre. The proud Model Apartment at La Jolla Play- recipient of a grant from the 1999-2001 ARAM ARSLANIAN (Sound Design- house (directed by Mark Rucker); Cul- NEA/TCG Career Development Pro- er) is a founding member of the Re- ture Clash in Bordertown (also Mark gram for Designers, Ms. Lee was able lentless Theatre Company in Los Ange- Taper Forum), Culture Clash Antholo- to travel to New York and work with les where he composed and designed gy, Marriage is Forever for San Diego the Mark Morris Dance Group on the sound for And Baby Makes Seven, Rep; Zapata, Six Characters in Search world premiere of V, and then assist Skin, Hit and Run, The Crackwalker, a of an Author, And Now Miguel for The Isaac Mizrahi on The Women for the staged reading of Sonnets for an Old Western Stage; Eyes for Consuela at Roundabout Theatre Company. Century as well as the Open Fist The- the Magic Theatre in San Francisco. atre Company’s A Time Piece and Guer- Mr. Acebo received his MFA in design GEOFF KORF (Lighting Designer) nica, The Gascon Center Theatre’s The at the University of California, San has designed lighting for the SCR pro- Sun Dialogues and the Attic Theatre’s Diego. He is a recipient of the presti- ductions of Art, Entertaining Mr. Just Society. He composed original gious NEA/TCG fellowship for design- Sloane, Amy’s View, The Summer themes for ESPN’s “Century’s Greatest ers. Moon, References to Salvador Dali Athletes” series and has scored numer- Make Me Hot and Two Sisters and a ous independent films. Also a song- JOYCE KIM LEE (Costume Designer) Piano. Recently at the Mark Taper writer and recording artist, he has re- is pleased to be returning to SCR, Forum, he designed the lighting for the leased two CD’s on the Surprise Truck where she and director Mark Rucker The Body of Bourne directed by Lisa Records label (www.surprisetruck. have previously collaborated on Art Peterson. On Broadway, he designed com) and has performed extensively and The Summer Moon. Other SCR the lighting for August Wilson’s Two across the country. As a record pro- credits include Sidney Bechet Killed a Trains Running directed by Lloyd ducer his credits include jazz harpist Man directed by Juliette Carrillo and Richards. For Cornerstone Theater, he Stella Castellucci’s Lights and Shad- Entertaining Mr. Sloane directed by designed Shishir Kurup’s An Antigone ows, Volumes I, II & III, The Hyperions’ Martin Benson. Some of her West Story, Los Biombos/The Screens direct- Howl and The Ethers self titled debut. Coast design credits include On Gold ed by Peter Sellars, and Medea/Mac- Mountain (Los Angeles Opera); Won- beth/Cinderella directed by Bill Rauch JERRY PATCH (Dramaturg) has been derland (La Jolla Playhouse); Antony and Tracy Young. Regionally, his de- affiliated with South Coast Repertory

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PERFORMING ARTS NETWORK / SOUTH COAST REPERTORY P - 7 since 1967. He has served as dra- Richard Nelson; and Arcadia by Tom Wilderness!, A Streetcar Named Desire, maturg on more than 125 new plays Stoppard, Six Degrees of Separation by A Delicate Balance and All My Sons. seen here since 1980, including the John Guare, The Importance of Being Mr. Benson has been honored with the world premieres of Abundance, Free- Earnest by Oscar Wilde, Ayckbourn’s Drama-Logue Award for his direction domland, Golden Child, Search and Woman in Mind and You Never Can of 21 productions and received Destroy, Sight Unseen, Three Days of Tell by George Bernard Shaw, which he LADCC’s Distinguished Achievement in Rain and Wit. His dramatic writing restaged for the 1990 Singapore Festi- Directing awards an unparalleled six has been produced at SCR and other val of Arts. His producing responsibili- times for the two Shaw productions, theatres and on television. Most re- ties involve the overall coordination of John Millington Synge’s Playboy of the cently he co-conceived The Education SCR’s programs and projects. He has Western World, Arthur Miller’s The of Randy Newman with Michael Roth served as a consultant to the Orange Crucible, Sally Nemeth’s Holy Days and Mr. Newman (SCR, 2000). He is County Performing Arts Center and as and Wit. He also directed the film ver- the Project Director of SCR’s Pacific a theatre panelist and onsite evaluator sion of Holy Days using the original Playwrights Festival held annually in for the National Endowment for the SCR cast. Along with David Emmes, June. He served for seven years as Arts. He has served on the board of Mr. Benson accepted SCR’s 1988 Tony Artistic Director of the theatre pro- the California Theatre Council, the Ex- Award for Outstanding Resident Pro- gram of the Sundance Institute, and is ecutive Committee of the League of fessional Theatre and won the 1995 currently consulting dramaturg for the Resident Theatres, and as a panelist Theatre LA Ovation Award for Lifetime Roundabout Theatre Company in New for the California Arts Council. After Achievement. Mr. Benson received his York. attending Orange Coast College, he re- BA in Theatre from California State ceived his BA and MA from California University, San Francisco. *EDWARD TIGHE (Stage Manager) State University, San Francisco, and returns briefly to SCR where he was a his PhD in theatre and film from USC. PAULA TOMEI (Managing Director) longtime member of the Stage Manage- is responsible for the overall adminis- ment staff. He has worked at numer- MARTIN BENSON (Artistic Director) tration of the day-to-day operations of ous theatres on the West Coast as well shares co-founder credit and artistic South Coast Repertory. A member of as in New York and Vienna. leadership of SCR with his colleague the staff since 1979, she has served in David Emmes. As one of SCR’s chief a number of administrative capacities DAVID EMMES (Producing Artistic directors, Mr. Benson has directed including Subscriptions Manager, Director) is co-founder and Producing nearly one third of the plays produced Business Manager and, for six years, Artistic Director of SCR, one of the here in the last 37 years. He has dis- General Manager. She currently largest professional resident theatres tinguished himself in the staging of serves as President of Theatre Commu- in California. He has received numer- contemporary work, most notably Paul nications Group (TCG), the national ous awards for productions he has di- Osborn’s Morning’s at Seven, the criti- service organization for theatre where rected during SCR’s 37-year history, in- cally acclaimed California premiere of she just completed a two-year term as cluding a 1999 Los Angeles Drama Crit- William Nicholson’s Shadowlands, Treasurer, and has served as the Vice ics Circle Award for the direction of Athol Fugard’s Playland, Brian Friel’s President of the League of Resident George Bernard Shaw’s The Philander- Dancing at Lughnasa, David Mamet’s Theatres (LORT). In addition, she has er. He directed the world premieres of Oleanna, the West Coast premiere of been a member of the LORT Negotiat- Amy Freed’s The Beard of Avon and Peter Hedges’ Good As New and David ing Committee for industry-wide union Freedomland, Thomas Babe’s Great Hare’s Skylight. He has won accolades agreements and represents SCR at na- Day in the Morning, Keith Reddin’s for his direction of five major works by tional conferences of TCG and LORT; Rum and Coke and But Not for Me and George Bernard Shaw, including the is a theatre panelist for the National Neal Bell’s Cold Sweat; the American Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Endowment for the Arts and the Cali- premiere of Terry Johnson’s Unsuit- (LADCC) Award-winners Misalliance fornia Arts Council (CAC), and site vis- able for Adults; the West Coast pre- and Heartbreak House. Among the nu- itor for the CAC; served on the Adviso- mieres of C.P. Taylor’s Good and Harry merous world premieres he has direct- ry Committee for the Arts Administra- Kondoleon’s Christmas on Mars; and ed are Jon Bastian’s Noah Johnson tion Certificate Program at UC Irvine; the Southland premiere of Top Girls Had a Whore..., Tom Strelich’s BAFO, and has been a guest lecturer in the (at SCR and the Westwood Playhouse). and Margaret Edson’s Pulitzer Prize- graduate school of business at Stan- Recent productions include the West winning Wit, which he also directed at ford. She graduated from UC Irvine Coast premieres of Three Viewings by Seattle Repertory Theatre and the with a degree in Economics and pur- Jeffrey Hatcher, The Secret Rapture by Alley Theatre in Houston. He has di- sued an additional course of study in David Hare and New England by rected American classics including Ah, theatre and dance.

P - 8 SOUTH COAST REPERTORY / PERFORMING ARTS NETWORK