By Yasmina Reza Translated by Christopher Hampton Directed by Michael Malek Najjar 2
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LIVE And In Person, June 4 - 12 Streaming On Demand, June 7 - 12 by Yasmina Reza Translated by Christopher Hampton Directed by Michael Malek Najjar 2 OREGON CONTEMPORARY THEATRE Presents Art by Yasmina Reza Translated by Christopher Hampton Director Scenic Designer Michael Malek Najjar Amy Dunn Lighting Designer Costume Designer Janet Rose Erin Wills Sound Designer Stage Manager Madison Fung Colleen Rooney Video & Streaming Production Eric Hadley ART is presented by special arrangement with Dramatists Play Service, Inc., New York. Produced on Broadway by David Pugh, Sean Connery and Joan Cullman, March 1, 1998. This project is made possible in part by a grant from Lane Arts Council with support from the City of Eugene Cultural Services Division. Oregon Contemporary Theatre receives support from the Oregon Arts Commission, a state agency funded by the State of Oregon. Oregon Contemporary Theatre gratefully acknowledges that we live, work and play on the traditional and unceded lands of the Kalapuya people and the many tribes who made their homes along the Willamette and McKenzie Rivers. We acknowledge and honor the traditional stewards of this land. Cast & Production Team 3 CAST (in order of appearance) Marc .......................................................Rich Brown Serge .................................................Brian Haimbach Yvan ....................................................Kelly Oristano The performance lasts approximately 90 minutes with no intermission. PRODUCTION TEAM Director ...........................................Michael Malek Najjar Scenic Designer .............................................Amy Dunn Assistant Scenic Designer............................. Amanda Henney Lighting Designer ...........................................Janet Rose Sound Designer .........................................Madison Fung Assistant Sound Designer.............................. Bradley Branam Costume Designer............................................Erin Wills Video & Streaming Production ..............................Eric Hadley Stage Manager . .Colleen Rooney SPECIAL THANKS Billie Moser, Smudges Window Cleaning Co., Ashley Newport at American Traditional Barber Shop Thank you to our sponsors and supporting foundations: Operations Staff & Board 4 OPERATIONS STAFF Producing Artistic Director..................................Craig Willis Associate Producer ........................................Tara Wibrew Box Office Manager/Volunteer Coordinator............ Mary Wetherbee Production Manager/Master Carpenter......................Amy Dunn Carpenter ...........................................Benjamin Sanders Education Coordinator..................................... Inga Wilson Master Electrician .......................................Tyler Anthony Sound Engineer .........................................Madison Fung Production Stage Manager/Venue Assistant ............ Colleen Rooney House Manager ........................................Jorney Baldwin Production & Administrative Volunteers ..........Karen Case, Barry Girt Website Design...............................................HeroWeb Payroll Accounting ..................................... Emge & Whyte OCT BOARD OF DIRECTORS 2020/2021 President............................................Alexander Holmes Vice President ..............................................Frank Koch Secretary................................................ Ruth Erickson Treasurer ..............................................Jordan Burcham Trustees.......................Emily Dale, Esack Grueskin, Kurt Katsura, Chelsey Megli, Jaylynn Kao Milstein, Aaron Shonk, Kristen Taylor, Jeff Wright Oregon Contemporary Theatre is a Constituent Member of Theatre Communications Group (TCG), the national organization for the professional non-profit American theatre. Director’s Note 5 Getting Back to Creating ART “I would rather see great dreams in small places, than small dreams in great places.” —Robert Edmond Jones, Theatre Designer I first encountered Yasmina Reza’s play Art as an undergraduate theatre student in the mid-1990s. I remember being struck by its complex characters, witty dialogue, and dramatic structure. The play premiered in French in 1994 at Comédie des Champs- Élysées in Paris, and the English-language translation premiered in London in 1996 starring Albert Finney, Tom Courtenay, and Ken Stott. The Broadway production opened in 1998 starring Alan Alda as Marc, Victor Garber as Serge and Alfred Molina as Yvan. Art was awarded the Tony Award for Best Play. Following a long hiatus due to this pandemic, we are all overjoyed to return to Oregon Contemporary Theatre to present this production of Art to you. Despite the necessity for Zoom plays during the height of the pandemic, it became utterly clear to all of us that theatre is not theatre unless it is happening in person before a live audience. Zoom plays are a necessary measure, and they may well become their own artistic genre, but there is absolutely nothing that compares with being together, creating theatre, and presenting it to an eager audience willing to be in person when the lights come up and the actors speak. Our rehearsals began in masks, then, as we were all fully vaccinated, the actors rehearsed maskless. Being together again rehearsing a play, after overcoming the difficulties we have all faced over the past year, was a truly astonishing experience. We are so grateful to all of you who have joined us for this live event because it tells us that the theatre, which has faced many pandemics, closures, and calamities in its long history, remains a vital and necessary part of our lives. We often talk about how theatre cannot survive in the age of mass media, on-demand streaming, and blockbuster Hollywood entertainment. However, all of you gathered here this evening know there is nothing like live performances—and there never will be. All the streaming and virtual technology in the world cannot replace the visceral thrill of being in a theatre watching actors perform with an audience sharing the experience. This is what we live for as theatre artists, and I would bet it is the same thing that you, as theatre lovers, revel in as well. Tonight, as we gather to experience Art, let us celebrate the difficult year we have been though and look forward to many more exciting nights of live theatre to come. - Michael Malek Najjar, Director Artist Profiles 6 YASMINA REZA (Playwright) is an award-winning French playwright, novelist and memoirist. Her work has been translated into more than 30 languages and produced worldwide, achieving both critical praise and popular international success. Her work includes the plays Conversations After a Burial, Winter Crossing, The Unexpected Man, Life x3, A Spanish Play and God of Carnage; the novels Desolation, Adam Haberberg and On Arthur Schopenhauer’s Sledge; the memoirs Hammerklavier and Nulle part; Dawn, Dusk or Night, a nonfiction account of a year she spent trailing French president (then-candidate) Nicolas Sarkozy on the campaign trail; and a dramatic translation of Kafka’s Metamorphosis. CHRISTOPHER HAMPTON (Translator) is a Portuguese-born British playwright, screenwriter, translator and film director. He is best known for his play Les Liaisons Dangereuses, based on the novel of the same name. He has twice received the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, for Dangerous Liaisons and The Father, and was also nominated for Atonement. Hampton’s additional theatre work includes The Philanthropist, book and lyrics for Sunset Boulevard, and translations of the plays The Seagull, God of Carnage, The Father and The Height of the Storm. ANTRIOS (Artist) was born on the island of Sardinia in 1945. He studied art at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where he was awarded the Prix Fénéon at the tender age of fifteen. He then went on to study with Ecole du Louvre and Ateliers Beaux Arts. His abstract expressionist style has been called “visionary”, “transcendent” and “a leap into the void of imagination” by experts the world over. Renowned art critic Clement Greenberg called his 1970s white-on-white painting titled Serge “a masterwork of the highest order which, in its monochromatic magnificence, evokes a spectrum of colors that may not be visible to the eye, but unexpectedly flood the viewer’s consciousness from the moment of contact, leaving an impression of the entirety of existence within one abstract plane.” Cast Profiles 7 RICH BROWN (Marc) is thrilled to perform at Oregon Contemporary Theatre for the first time. Recent favorite productions include Lying and The Snow Queen with Blessed Unrest Theatre (NYC), Circle Mirror Transformation with Idaho Repertory Theatre and The Glass Menagerie with Western Summer Theatre. Rich teaches physical acting and devising at Western Washington University. He earned his PhD in theatre from the University of Oregon in 2003. Special thanks to Kendall for supporting this time away from home and to Craig and the OCT cast and crew for bringing live (and streamed) theatre back into our lives! BRIAN HAIMBACH (Serge) is thrilled to be back LIVE on stage at Oregon Contemporary Theatre. His OCT performance credits include Dan in Next to Normal and Bruce in Fun Home. Other select performance credits include Harvey Milk in the oratorio I Am Harvey Milk with the Portland Gay Men’s Chorus and his solo show How to be a Sissy, which he has toured around the West and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe thanks to a generous grant from the Oregon