A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams

PORTLANDCENTERSTAGE Presents A Streetcar Named Desire By Tennessee Williams Directed by Chris Coleman With Demetrius Grosse and Deidrie Henry May 14 – June 19, 2016 Artistic Director | Chris Coleman PORTLANDCENTERSTAGE Presents A Streetcar Named Desire By Tennessee Williams Directed by Chris Coleman With Demetrius Grosse and Deidrie Henry Scenic and Costume Lighting Designer Sound Designer Designer Ann G. Wrightson Casi Pacilio G.W. Mercier Dialect Coach Fight Director Production Mary McDonald- John Armour Dramaturg Lewis Barbara Hort, Ph.D. Stage Manager Production Assistant New York Casting Mark Tynan* Kristen Mun Harriet Bass Local Casting Rose Riordan and Brandon Woolley *Member of Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States. A Streetcar Named Desire is presented by special arrangement with Samuel French, Inc. on behalf of the University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee. The version of the text used in the production was originally edited by Emily Mann and kindly approved by the University of the South; it was first presented with an all-black cast on Broadway in April 2012. Performed with one intermission. The photo, video or audio recording of this performance by any means whatsoever is strictly prohibited. CAST LIST Dana Millican*.................................................................Eunice Anya Pearson....................................................................Creola Demetrius Grosse*..........................................................Stanley Keith Eric Chappelle*.......................................................Mitch Kristen Adele*....................................................................Stella Deidrie Henry*...............................................................Blanche Bobby Bermea*..................................................................Steve Gilberto Martin del Campo*............................................Pablo Blake Stone.......................A Young Man/A Vendor/Ensemble Sofia May-Cuxim.......A Mexican Woman/A Nurse/Ensemble David Bodin.................................................A Doctor/Ensemble *Member of Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States. A LETTER FROM THE ARTISTIC DIRECTOR By Chris Coleman The mind sees an object The mind desires the object The object is out of reach Anger arises This truth about the fundamental nature of the mind has been articulated by spiritual teachers from the East for a millennia. In Tennessee Williams’ world, desire is an elemental force that sweeps away everything in its path. Blanche and Stanley both contain enormous rivers of desire. Neither has an outlet large enough to fully or safely give expression to that force. Both were born to dominate. And they find themselves thrust together in a two-room apartment, in the sweaty, noisy, over-ripe and un-airconditioned world that is New Orleans in the summer. Maybe things will work out smoothly, but ... By the time Williams wrote Streetcar — sitting in his apartment in the French Quarter — his beloved sister, Rose, had been in a mental institution for over a decade. A girl of delicate sensibilities, she had begun having psychotic episodes of an overtly sexual nature in her late teens. For her mother, the severely puritanical and passive-aggressive Edwina, the episodes felt like a personal assault. For her combustible and deeply frustrated father, C. C., they were a source of complete bafflement. For Tennessee, Rose’s unraveling proved a source of sheer terror. Here, the one person (besides his beloved grandfather) he had most felt a connection to through his youth, the one person he felt actually understood him, had come completely unhinged. Surely that fate lay in store for him. This terror haunted Williams’ steps every moment of his life. Three years prior to sitting down to write Streetcar, after a particularly offensive and violent episode with Rose, Williams’ mother approved a frontal lobotomy for his sister. “A head operation,” she called it. Williams’ natural restlessness compounded. He drank too much, he couldn’t stay in one place for more than a few months, he slept with too many people. The only solace, the only outlet that allowed his demons to find some satisfaction, some form of quiet, was writing. Sitting at the typewriter he entered another world. No matter how late he’d been out the night before, no matter how much he’d had to drink, the fingers hit the keys of the typewriter, and another world emerged. He often didn’t exit that world until six or eight hours later. We revisit a play like Streetcar because there is something fundamental about the truth it excavates. Something thrilling about the power it continues to exert. CAST BIOGRAPHIES Kristen Adele Stella Kristen Adele is thrilled to make her Portland Center Stage debut. Off-Broadway and regional credits include Desire (59E59 Theaters); In the Red and Brown Water (Curious Theatre Company); A Raisin in the Sun (Clarence Brown Theatre); A Christmas Carol (Hartford Stage); Jackie and Me (Denver Center for the Performing Arts); Myrna in Transit (Ensemble Studio Theatre); Clybourne Park (Geva Theatre Center and Cleveland Play House); and Joe Turner’s Come and Gone (Shadow Theatre Company). Her most recent television credits include Orange is the New Black, Blue Bloods, The Good Wife and The Mysteries of Laura. She is the program director of ArtChangeUS.com and earned her M.F.A. from the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University. She would like to thank her beautiful family, Terrance, Roberta, Kitchens-Tritto and the Nicolosi & Co. team for their tireless support, and many thanks to Chris for this once in a lifetime opportunity! KristenAdele.net Bobby Bermea Steve Bobby Bermea is the artistic director of Beirut Wedding World Theatre Project and BaseRoots Theatre Company, a founding member of Badass Theatre Company and a member of Sojourn Theatre. He received a Drammy Award for Outstanding Actor in a Lead Role for Ogun in The Brother/Sister Plays (Portland Playhouse) and another Drammy, for Supporting Actor, for his work as Asagai in A Raisin in the Sun at Artists Repertory Theatre. Bermea has appeared at La MaMa in New York, Center Stage in Baltimore, VORTEX Repertory Company in Austin, Kansas City Repertory Theatre, and in Seattle at Intiman Theatre, ACT, The Group Theatre, Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center, AHA! Theatre, The Empty Space Theatre and The New Mercury Theatre. In Portland, Bermea has performed with BaseRoots Theatre, Teatro Milagro, Jewish Theatre Collaborative, Cygnet Productions and Tygres Heart Shakespeare Company. Bermea is excited to be making his return to the PCS stage. David Bodin A Doctor/ Ensemble This is Dave's Portland Center Stage debut, and he's very grateful to be here. He has been involved in a number of Portland productions in recent years. Favorites include: The Road to Mecca at Profile Theatre (Supporting Actor Drammy Award), One Flea Spare at Shaking the Tree Theatre, Eurydice at Artists Repertory Theatre, The Uneasy Chair at CoHo Productions, Twelfth Night at Portland Shakespeare Project, Noises Off at Third Rail Repertory Theatre, and many others. He has appeared on Grimm, Leverage, Nowhere Man and several independent films, as well as in many commercials years ago, where he usually played a bland, confused consumer with a smart and beautiful wife. It is a role he now plays in real life. He received his training at Illinois State University. Gilberto Martin del Campo Pablo Gilberto Martin del Campo, born in Mexico, is a federally certified court interpreter and graduate of The Portland Actors Conservatory. He has been part of the Portland theater scene for the past 10 years, appearing in productions with Miracle Theatre, Northwest Classical Theatre Collaborative and Artists Repertory Theatre, where he is a resident artist. He adapted, directed and co-produced Lee, Adam & Sam, based on John Steinbeck's East of Eden, for Cerimon House, and co-wrote and directed the play That Was The River, This Is the Sea with Claire Willett. He participated in the successful inaugural production of Badass Theatre Company’s staging of INVASION!. Film and television projects include Not Dead Yet, Management, Duende: Suit of Lights, Leverage, and The Recordkeeper for Bigpuddlefilms.com. Gilberto is proud to have his last performance in Portland at PCS, as he is moving to New Mexico to start a staff interpreter position with the Federal Courts. Keith Eric Chappelle Mitch Keith Eric Chappelle is based in New York City, and has most recently been seen at The Public Theater as Banquo in Macbeth. Other recent New York credits include Balthasar in The Comedy of Errors, Hastings in Richard III and Lord Longaville in Love’s Labor’s Lost. His Broadway credits include Moving Man in the recent production of A Raisin in the Sun at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre and Poet/Soldier in Cyrano de Bergerac at the Richard Rogers Theater. His regional theater credits include the title role in Ion for Washington D.C.’s Shakespeare Theatre Company, the role of Elegba in Abbey Theatre’s production of The Brothers Size, and as Oshoosi in McCarter Theatre Center’s production of The Brothers Size. He has appeared on the television series Madame Secretary, Blue Bloods, Law and Order, Person of Interest and The Good Wife. This production marks his Portland Center Stage debut. Demetrius Grosse Stanley Portland Center Stage debut. Off-Broadway/Regional: Black Angels Over Tuskegee

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