Haruki Murakami's
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Brooklyn Academy of Music Adam E. Max, Chairman of the Board Haruki Murakami’s William I. Campbell, Vice Chairman of the Board Katy Clark, President Joseph V. Melillo, Sleep Executive Producer Adapted by Naomi Iizuka Directed and devised by Rachel Dickstein and Ripe Time DATES: NOV 29—DEC 2 at 7:30pm DEC 2 at 2:30pm Season Sponsor: LOCATION: BAM Fisher (Fishman Space) RUN TIME: Approx 70min Leadership support for Diverse Voices no intermission programming at BAM provided by the Ford Foundation This production is made possible with support from the Joseph V. Melillo Fund for Artistic Innovation. Support provided by The Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission. Major support for theater at BAM provided by: The Achelis and Bodman Foundation The Francena T. Harrison Foundation Trust The SHS Foundation BAM Fisher #BAMNextWave The Shubert Foundation, Inc. Production stage manager Sleep Lisa McGinn Rehearsal stage manager Adapted for the stage by Dee Dee Katchen Naomi Iizuka Production manager Devised and directed by Meg Kelly Rachel Dickstein and Ripe Time Assistant director Set and object design Sebastian Pray Susan Zeeman Rogers Dramaturg Costume design Joy Meads Ilona Somogyi Assistant sound design Lighting design AJ Surasky Jiyoun Chang Set construction Projection design Joseph Silovsky Hannah Wasileski Costume construction Original score created and performed by John Cowles NewBorn Trio Katie Down Mask construction Miguel Frasconi Erik Sanko Jeffrey Lependorf Technical director Sound design David Foley Matt Stine Video supervisor Choreography Jesse Garrison Rachel Dickstein in collaboration with the ensemble Production assistant Sam Schanwald Produced in association with Octopus Theatricals Set intern Lacey Ballard ENSEMBLE Wardrobe intern Woman: Jiehae Park Kiyo Kamisawa Shadow: Saori Tsukada Woman’s Husband, Policeman, Ensemble: For Octopus Theatricals Brad Culver Founder and Executive/Creative Producer Child and Ensemble: Takemi Kitamura Mara Isaacs Stranger, Old Man, Ensemble: Akiko Aizawa Associate Producer Anna and Ensemble: Paula McGonagle Ronee Penoi Place: A Stage Time: Now Production Coordinator Bryan Hunt Director’s Note Like few other writers, Haruki Murakami The location where the action takes place straddles the real and the surreal, the is literally a box. It evokes both a domestic everyday and the extraordinary, inside space and a psychic space. It is at times of a quotidian moment in time. In our a prison. It is at times a hall of mirrors. It multidisciplinary approach to staging is at times a portal offering escape. As the Sleep, we have aimed to dive deep within woman breaks free of conventions, the the dark underbelly of his work to find space fractures and eventually shatters, what is raw, violent, and disruptive. leaving her in uncharted terrain that is both a battlefield and the precipice of a Sleep’s housewife is an unlikely new world filled with possibility. heroine, but one who challenges social constrictions in radical ways. One day, In an era where difference is under siege, she wakes to find herself caught in limbo we hope Sleep’s vision of an ordinary between night and day and chooses to woman tearing down the prison walls stay “awake,” defying what is normal or of her life as a wife and mother offers a expected. This act of defiance releases a necessary rally cry for us all. universe of spirits, doubled selves, and hidden passions beneath the floorboards —Rachel Dickstein of her very own home. In a fusion of imagery inspired by Murakami, Iizuka, Tolstoy, and Japanese Hannya myths, we Ripe Time dedicates this production tell a story that catapults an everywoman to Henry Christensen III. We celebrate from the threshold of a surreal dream his and his wife Constance’s decade of through a radical remastering of her life. generous support for Ripe Time’s work. Sleep is a co-commission from the Joseph V. This production is supported, in part, by Melillo Fund for Artistic Innovation at BAM public funds from the New York City for the 2017 Next Wave Festival and the Department of Cultural Affairs. The project Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts at has been supported by the Japan Foundation the University of Pennsylvania. through the Performing Arts JAPAN program. Made possible from a generous grant from Sleep was originally developed for the stage the Leo Shull Foundation for the Arts. by Ripe Time, Rachel Dickstein (Artistic Production design support provided by A.R.T/ Director), and The Play Company, Kate New York’s Edith Lutyens and Norman Bel Loewald (Founding Producer), Lauren Weigel GeddesFoundation. Generous support also (Executive Producer.) Sleep was developed provided by The Jerome Robbins with support from The Ground Floor at Foundation, New York State Council on the Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Berkeley, CA. Arts—a State Agency, the Alex and Rita Sleep was developed in association with Hillman Foundation, the Dramatists Guild, Center Theatre Group with support from the Off-Broadway Angels, NET/TEN Travel Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. A work-in- Grant, a LMCC Process Space residency, progress presentation of Sleep was presented an A.R.T. / New York Creative Space Grant, with The Play Company at Japan Society in the Purchase College Foundation, and New York City in Winter 2016. Alliance Bernstein. RACHEL DICKSTEIN Devisor/Director Who’s Rachel Dickstein is the founder and artistic director of Ripe Time. She de- vised, choreographed, and directed the world premiere of Sleep at the Annen- Who berg Center for the Performing Arts in October 2017. She created the critically HARUKI MURAKAMI acclaimed The World Is Round (BAM Author Fisher 2014, Obie award—Special Citation for Heather Christian (music), Haruki Murakami was born in Kyoto, Jiyoun Chang (lighting), and Hannah Japan in 1949. He grew up in Kobe Wasileski (projections), finalist for 2014 and then moved to Tokyo, where he Richard Rodgers Award); Septimus and attended Waseda University. After Clarissa (Baruch Performing Arts Center, college, Murakami opened a small Joe A. Calloway, Drama Desk, Drama jazz bar, which he and his wife ran for League nominations); Fire Throws (3LD seven years. His first novel, Hear the ART & Technology Center); Innocents Wind Sing, won the Gunzou Literature and Betrothed (Ohio Theatre); and Prize for budding writers in 1979. The Secret of Steep Ravines (PS 122). He followed this success with two Other recent projects include Sankaram/ sequels, Pinball, 1973 and A Wild Yankowitz’s Thumbprint (LA Opera, Sheep Chase, which together form The Prototype), and Vijay Iyer/Mike Ladd’s Trilogy of the Rat. Murakami is also In What Language? (Asia Society, RED- the author of the novels Hard-Boiled CAT, PICA TBA Festival). Her awards Wonderland and the End of the World, include the 2015 LPTW Lucille Lortel Norwegian Wood, Dance Dance Dance, Award for her work with Ripe Time. South of the Border, West of the Sun, She was nominated for the 2014 Alan The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Sputnik Schneider Award and the 2014 and Sweetheart, Kafka on the Shore, After 2015 Doris Duke Impact Award. She Dark, 1Q84, and Colorless Tsukuru has received commissions from BAM, Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage. Annenberg Center, CTG, NYSCA, MAP, He has written three short story col- and PS 122, along with NEA/TCG and lections, The Elephant Vanishes, After Drama League Director’s Fellowships. the Quake, and Blind Willow, Sleeping She holds a BA from Yale College, has Woman, an illustrated novella, The been a Usual Suspect at NYTW since Strange Library, and several works of 1995, and is currently on faculty at nonfiction. The most recent of his Purchase College, SUNY. many international literary honors is the Jerusalem Prize, whose previous recipients include J. M. Coetzee, Milan Kundera, and V. S. Naipaul. Murakami’s work has been translated into more than 50 languages. Next Wave). Other SITI credits include NAOMI IIZUKA the theater is a blank page (with Ann Playwright/Adaptation Hamilton, Wexner Center), Persians (Getty Villa, LA), Radio Macbeth (The Naomi Iizuka’s plays include 36 Public Theater), La Dispute (ART), and Views, Polaroid Stories, Anon(ymous), American Document (Martha Graham Language of Angels, Aloha, Say the Dance Company, Joyce Theater), all Pretty Girls, Tattoo Girl, Skin, and At directed by Anne Bogart. the Vanishing Point. Her plays have been produced at theaters across the BRAD CULVER country including Berkeley Rep, the Woman’s Husband/Policeman/ Goodman, the Guthrie, Cornerstone, Ensemble Children’s Theater Company, Kennedy Center, Actors’ Theatre of Louisville, Brad Culver’s performances include and the Public Theatre. Iizuka is an Gertrude Stein’s Brewsie and Willie alumna of New Dramatists and the (REDCAT/The Public Theater’s Radar recipient of a PEN/Laura Pels Award, LA); One Man, Two Guvnors (Berkeley an Alpert Award, a Joyce Foundation Repertory Theatre, Bay Area Critic’s Award, a Whiting Writer’s Award, and a Circle Award nomination—best featured Stavis Award from the National Theatre actor); Thirty.Three. (by Bill Cain, Ojai Conference. Her play Good Kids was the Playwright’s Conference); Edward Tu- first play commissioned by the Big Ten lane (South Coast Repertory); The Black Consortium’s New Play Initiative. Iizuka Glass (Ballhaus Ost, Berlin); Satyr Atlas was named a Berlind playwright-in-resi- (Getty Villa, LA); and The Internation- dence at Princeton University earlier this alists (International Theater Festival, year. She heads the MFA playwriting Serbia). Culver has collaborated with program at the University of California, notable artists to develop new work at San Diego. institutions such as CAP@UCLA, Center Theatre Group (with Rajiv Joseph), EM- Ensemble PAC, University of Zagreb, and Berkeley Rep’s Ground Floor. In film and televi- AKIKO AIZAWA sion, recent credits include Extracted Stranger/Old Man/Ensemble (Official Selection, SXSW Film Festival), The Next Big Thing, Cartoon Network’s Akiko Aizawa’s previous BAM perfor- Regular Show, and Dead in the Room mances with SITI Company include (produced by Slamdance Film Festi- Steel Hammer (Julia Wolfe, Bang on a val).