BOOK BY JOSEPH STEIN MUSIC AND LYRICS BY MARC BLITZSTEIN based on the play Juno and the Paycock by Sean O’Casey directed by Nick Bowling music direction by Doug Peck and Elizabeth Doran BACKSTORY YOUR GUIDE TO TIMELINE PRODUCTIONS YESTERDAY’S STORIES. TODAY’S TOPICS. From Artistic Director PJ Powers Juno and the Paycock and Juno TIMELINE OF CONFLICT a message the play IN IRELAND 1845-1855 A potato blight stronger actors than singers. the perilous line between “Comedy of Irish character and tragedy of Irish causes The Irish Famine; an And many feel that the piece’s comedy and tragedy, often political life in fairly equal parts compose the estimated one million Irish die darker themes made it too within the same line, phrase of starvation or disease. substance of Sean O’Casey’s Juno and the Paycock.” grim an affair, despite the or gesture. That ability is what 1855-1860 More than two — Brooks Atkinson, The New York Times, March 16, 1926 inherent humor laced throughout. makes this story—in play or million Irish migrate to other TimeLine’s Company Members musical format—so fiendishly uno and the Paycock was first O’Casey agreed to a musical countries, including the United Dear Friends, States, Canada and Australia. have talked of producing Juno tricky, yet so gloriously effective. Jproduced at Ireland’s Abbey adaptation after seeing the suc- We’re thrilled to bring the dating back to our last (also For anyone who has had the Theatre in 1924, focusing on cess of his friend George Bernard 1858 The Irish Republican musical Juno to Chicago our first) musical, Fiorello!— pleasure of spending time in the problems of the Boyle family. Shaw’s play Pygmalion as the Brotherhood (IRB) and the Fenian Brotherhood are audiences for the first time. another under-appreciated Ireland, you’ll recognize in this It is the second play in Sean musical My Fair Lady. His play show a quintessential trait of O’Casey’s Dublin Trilogy, which was adapted as the musical Juno founded. Fenian becomes the Based on the 1924 Sean 1959 gem that found a huge the culture—the lyrical balance also includes The Shadow of a with music and lyrics by Mark blanket term used for supporters O’Casey classic Juno and audience during sold-out runs of pain and laughter. Gunman (1923) and The Plough Blitzstein and book by Joseph of an Irish Republic. the Paycock, this musical in 2006 and 2008. Many of and the Stars (1926). O’Casey’s Stein, opening on Broadway at 1867 The poorly coordinated was originally produced on you have asked frequently The Juno design team has plays made twice as much the Winter Garden Theater on Fenian Rising fails. British spies Broadway in 1959. It closed when TimeLine would mount crafted an immersive setting money as those of his contempo- March 9, 1959. Directed by José ensure that most Fenian leaders after just 16 performances, another musical, and while it’s that surrounds you with 1920s raries and were revived so often Ferrer, choreographed by Agnes are arrested before the rebellion never approaching the acclaim taken longer than we’d hoped, Dublin, and the intimacy of at the Abbey that early director DeMille and starring Shirley takes place. enjoyed by two other classic there was never a question TimeLine’s home is a key Lennox Robinson said they saved Booth and Melvyn Douglas, it 1879 The Irish Land League plays turned into musicals dur- that it would be Juno. element helping us bring the the theatre from bankruptcy. played a total of 16 performances. is formed; its aim is to abolish ing that era, My Fair Lady and One of this Irish boy’s greatest humor and heartache of the landlords and allow farmers to West Side Story. theatre-going memories is Boyle family to life. Juno and the Paycock was subse- While the musical Juno was a own their own land. flop, Blitzstein’s score is con- Since then, the show has lived the 1994 production of Juno It’s a story and a staging that quently produced at The Royalty 1880 Charles Stewart Parnell sidered one of his best. It was mostly in obscurity, although and the Paycock by Dublin’s we hope is the perfect cap Theatre in London in 1925 and at becomes chairman of the Irish produced off-Broadway in 1992 music theater aficionados Gate Theatre, brought to the to a 2013-14 season you the Mayfair Theatre in New York Parliamentary Party (IPP). at the Vineyard Theatre, featur- have long loved the recording Merle Reskin Theatre through have helped make one of in 1926. It was adapted for televi- April 1881 British Prime ing Anita Gillette and Malcolm of Marc Blitzstein’s score and the late, great International TimeLine’s most memorable. I sion in 1938, 1960 and 1980 Minister William Ewart Gladstone Gets. In 2008, City Center’s long desired to hear it live. The Theatre Festival of Chicago. thank you for making this year and was adapted for film in 1930, proposes the Land Act to set Encores! offered a semi-staged estate for book writer Joseph Still a student at The Theatre so special and for joining us to directed by Alfred Hitchcock. It fixed rates and leases for production, which played for five Stein confirmed that it has School at DePaul University, I unveil the beauty of Juno. has been a theater staple both tenant farmers. performances with Victoria Clark never had a production in was an usher for that produc- in Ireland and abroad. The script October 13, 1881 Parnell is All the best, and John Schuck. Chicago, until now. tion, savoring each moment of has never been out of print. arrested after his newspaper, every performance. I marveled United Ireland, attacks the Land Why didn’t it work and why Album cover for the original cast recording of Juno. at the depth of the Irish actors Act. He will be released in May has it taken so long to be seen 1882. who could seamlessly walk in Chicago? I honestly can’t May 6, 1882 The newly say. Some have argued that appointed Chief Secretary for Blitzstein’s musicality was You’ll recognize in this show a Ireland, Lord Frederick Cavendish, ahead of its time for 1950s and Thomas Henry Burke are Broadway fare. Others quintessential trait of the Irish stabbed to death by a radical wondered why O’Casey’s great culture—the lyrical balance of splinter group of the IRB, the play needed music at all—an Irish National Invincibles. The argument exacerbated by pain and laughter. assassination, known as the two original leads who were Phoenix Park Murders, sets Sean O’Casey, Marc Blitzstein and Joseph Stein back Gladstone’s attempts the artists to get a favorable vote from Parliament on Irish Home Rule, Soon after the Rising, O’Casey Marcus Samuel Blitzstein’s an intellectual rather than a or self-governance. began writing plays. He musical talents were apparent sexual relationship. The two 1886 Gladstone’s Home Rule submitted eight plays to the from an early age. His first shared a genuine emotional bill is defeated. While the bill Abbey Theatre before they performance was at age seven. bond and Blitzstein valued would not have established Irish agreed to produce The Shadow Eva’s input and unrelenting independence, it does propose an Blitzstein studied with both Irish governing body, which Parnell of a Gunman in 1923—the honesty. However, their Nadia Boulanger and Arnold and the IPP have been seeking. first of his Dublin Trilogy. The marriage was not free of Schoenberg, although trilogy does not follow the troubles. Blitzstein feared Eva 1890 Parnell is named as a Boulanger was unhappy same characters but does might leave him for someone co-respondent when his mistress, when he left her to study with Kitty O’Shea, is divorced use Dublin and the events with whom she could have Schoenberg. In truth, Blitzstein The IPP splits and Parnell is between 1916 and 1924 as a physical relationship, they Playwright Sean O’Casey. was more sympathetic to the Joseph Stein. removed as leader because of background. His ambivalence were both prone to depression, musical philosophy of Bou- the divorce scandal. toward nationalism led him to and she was anorexic. When radio personalities, including Sean O’Casey langer than Schoenberg, with 1891 Parnell dies. lampoon IRB leader Patrick Eva died of breast cancer on Henry Morgan, Tallulah Bank- whom he was frequently at orn John Casey on Pearse in The Plough and the May 26, 1936, he was devastated. head, Phil Silvers and Jackie 1893 Gladstone’s second odds. Blitzstein’s own musical March 30, 1880 in Dublin, Stars, causing riots inside and He wrote The Cradle Will Rock Gleason. He later started Home Rule bill is defeated. B theories shifted, as his political Ireland, to a lower middle outside the theatre. in a mere five weeks as a working in television for Sid 1903 The Wyndham Land Act is theories changed, from more class Protestant family, Casey tribute to Eva. Caesar, joining the writing passed, giving landlords incentive In 1926 O’Casey abandoned would remake himself in many elitist music to populist music. team of Your Show of Shows to sell land. The Act is designed Ireland for England and never Blitzstein died in Martinique ways—from Gaelicizing his He even authored an English that also included Woody Allen, by conservatives in Parliament returned. He married an Irish on January 22, 1964. He had to kill the Home Rule movement name to Seán Ó’Cathasaigh, translation of Bertolt Brecht’s Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner and actress, befriended George been drinking with three sailors through kindness, by extending to exaggerating the level The Threepenny Opera.