PITTSBURGH IRISH & CLASSICAL PITTSBURGH THEATRE by Martin McDonagh directed by Martin Giles September 12-28 The Charity Randall Theatre By Paul Giovanni By Paul Pittsburgh Irish & Classical Theatre presents A Skull in Connemara by Martin McDonagh Directed by Martin Giles Based on Sir Arthur Four" Sir of Based on "The Conan Sign Doyle's story, James Keegan* Mick Dowd Jason McCune* Thomas Hanlon Sharon Brady* Maryjohnny Rafferty Alec Silberblatt* Mairtin Hanlon Scenic Designer Lighting Designer Costume Designer Gianni Downs Christopher Popowich Rachel S. Parent Sound Designer Production Manager Technical Director Joe Pino George DeShetler Aaron Bollinger Props Master Stage Manager Scenic Charge Artist Johnmichael Bohach Cory F. Goddard* Jennifer Kirkpatrick Assistant Stage Manager Master Electrician Assistant Director Rebecca Leone Scott Conklin Patrick Zakem Producing Artistic Director Voice & Dialects Alan Stanford Natalie Baker Shirer A Skull in Connemara is produced by special arrangement with Dramatists Play Service, A Pittsburgh Premiere Directed by Matt Torney Inc., 440 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10016 Featuring the return of David Whalen as A Skull in Connemara was first presented as a Druid Theatre Company and Royal Court Holmes and Martin Giles as Watson Theatre co-production in Galway, Ireland, and then in London in the summer of 1997. December 4- 21 PLEASE NOTE: The video and/or audio recording of any of the performances of A Skull The Charity Randall Theatre in the in Connemara by any means whatsoever is strictly prohibited. Stephen Foster Memorial, Oakland This play runs approximately 2 hours including a fifteen minute intermission. Professional *Member of Actors’ Equity Association, Theatre in the Union of Professional Actors and Residence at the University Stage Managers in the United States. of Pittsburgh The Setting of the Play This play takes place in Connemara, a district in County Galway. A Skull in Connemara Production Staff/Crew Asst. Technical Director .....................................Luke Foco Asst. Master Electrician .....................................Duncan Lynch Light Board Operator ........................................Regina Tvaruzek Sound Engineer ..................................................Stephen Tipton would like to thank Sound Board Operator .......................................Stephen Tipton Electricians .........................................................Andrew Schmedake, Louis Costanzo Apprentice in Electrics .......................................Regina Tvaruzek our 2013 Media Sponsors! Intern in Painting ...............................................Natalie Flango Intern in Properties ............................................Pia Marchetti Box Office...........................................................Helen Radkoff Volunteers in Production ....................................Peter Landwehr Dramaturgy ........................................................Kellie Mecleary, Sara Steelman Special Thanks Sara Steelman, Peter Landwehr, C. Todd Brown, Holly Koenig, Tony Ferrieri, Jon Ward, Nick Wright, Gavin Witt, Bill Geenen, Kellie Mecleary, Kathy Quirin, Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama, Point Park Playhouse, Prime Stage Theatre, Pitt Repertory Theatre, The Pittsburgh Playhouse, CENTERSTAGE (Maryland). Save the Date! PICT'S Annual Fall Celebration J. Verno Studio, South Side. Visit our website for info. We appreciate your support! About the Playwright - Martin McDonagh About the Playwright - Martin McDonagh “I think that anything done well standing Play (The Beauty Queen of Leenane, 1998), the Laurence Olivier improves the world. No matter Award for Best New Comedy (The Lieutenant of Inishmore, 2003), and the how dark that piece of art is, a Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play (The Pillowman, 2004). Four world with one more piece of art of his plays were also nominated for Tony awards (The Beauty Queen of is still a better place.” Leenane, 1998; The Lonesome West, 1999; The Pillowman, 2005; and The Lieutenant of Inishmore, 2006). His first play set in the United States, A -- Martin McDonagh Behanding in Spokane, opened in New York in 2010 and garnered Chris- In his career as a playwright topher Walken a Tony nomination for his performance as Carmichael, and filmmaker, Martin Mc- the main character. Donagh has been prolific, In 2004, McDonagh entered a new artistic arena – filmmaking - writing shocking, and successful both and directing a short film called Six Shooter, which won a 2006 Oscar for artistically and commercially. best live action short film. Since then he wrote and directed In Bruges, Considered one of Ireland’s which received a variety of awards including the 2008 BAFTA award for most important contemporary best original screenplay, and in 2012 produced, wrote, and directed Seven playwrights, with a unique Psychopaths, which received a People’s Choice Award as Best Midnight and darkly comic voice, he was also noted in 1997 as being the first play- Madness Film. wright since Shakespeare to have four of his plays on professional stages in London in one season. McDonagh was born in London in 1970 in London to Irish parents. Al- "I walk the line between comedy and cruelty because I think the one illuminates though he grew up in London, he attended Catholic schools where most the other...I tend to push things as far as I can because I think you can see things of the other students were also of Irish descent. Even more significantly, more clearly through exaggeration than through reality." he spent his summer vacations with his father’s family in Connemara on —Martin McDonagh the west coast of Ireland. In 1994, alone in London after his parents returned to Ireland and his brother moved to Los Angeles to study screenwriting at USC, McDonagh began writing drafts of seven plays. The first completed, The Beauty Queen of Leenane, was part of what became known as the Leenane trilogy comprising that play, A Skull in Connemara, and The Lonesome West. Garry Hynes, director of the Druid Theatre in Galway, was impressed by the plays and in 1996 produced The Beauty Queen of Leenane, for which McDonagh was awarded the Most Promising Playwright prize in both the London Evening Standard theatre awards and the London Critics’ Circle awards. Over the next decade, productions of McDonagh’s plays continued to garner recognition and awards including the Drama Desk Award for Out- A Skull in Connemara Acting Company Sharon Brady* (Maryjohnny Rafferty) Sharon is delighted to be in her first production at PICT under Martin Giles’ inspired tutelage. She was last seen at the Pittsburgh Playhouse as Mattie Fae in the acclaimed August: Osage County and, prior to that, at the Pittsburgh Public Theatre as Lady in Superior Donuts. Sharon is a twenty-year veteran of New York’s Off Broadway scene, most notably as a founding member of the OBIE Award- winning Cucaracha Theatre. In addition to her stage work here in Pittsburgh, she can be spotted in numerous commercials, films, and industrials. Sharon holds an MFA from the Yale School of Drama and serves as an adjunct associate professor on the faculty of Point Park University teaching theatre arts. She is mother to Oona (yes, really) and wife to Vidya. James Keegan* (Mick Dowd) has most recently played King Lear as a visiting artist at the University of South Carolina Department of Theater and Dance and Pistol in Henry V at The Folger Theater in Washington, D.C. As a member of the Resident Company at the American Shakespeare Center's Blackfriars Playhouse for 13 repertory seasons, James has played more than eighty-five roles in over sixty productions, including the title roles in Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus and King Lear and Christopher Marlowe's Tamburlaine the Great and The Jew of Malta. At ASC, James has played many of the great roles in Shakespeare's plays: Iago in Othello; Falstaff in Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2 and The Merry Wives of Windsor; Prospero in The Tempest; Fluellen in Henry V; and Claudius in Hamlet. Some favorite non-Shakespearean roles include Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest; Daniel de Bosala in The Duchess of Malfi; and King Henry II in The Lion in Winter. His work as Prospero in ASC's 2011 production of The Tempest was featured in the 2012 BBC documentary "Shakespeare Uncovered," which recently aired on PBS. James last appeared at PICT in 2007 in Julius Caesar and Stuff Happensand is delighted to be back for A Skull in Connemara. James is an associate professor of English and theater at the University of Delaware’s Georgetown campus. He has also taught master classes in the professional training program at ASC and graduate classes in verse and text for The Master of Letters/Master of Arts degrees in the Shakespeare and performance program at Mary Baldwin College. *Member of Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States. A Skull in Connemara Acting Company Jason McCune* (Thomas Hanlon) is in his fourth season at PICT. Previous PICT credits include Harvey Duff in The Shaughraun, James and Joey in The Lieutenant of Inishmore, and Shawn Keogh in The Playboy of the Western World, as well other roles in The Synge Cycle. Other Pittsburgh credits include 1776 LEVINFURNITURE and A Moon For the Misbegotten (Pittsburgh Public Theater); levinfurniture.com Glengarry Glen Ross (barebones productions); various episodes of Midnight Radio (Bricolage); The Howling Miller (Quantum); and The Real Thing (Pittsburgh Playhouse). In Los Angeles,