by Theresa Rebeck directed by David Kennedy August 14 – September 1 THE HOWARD J. AIBEL THEATER CENTER WHAT’S INSIDE FROM ARTISTIC DIRECTOR MARK LAMOS 7 TITLE PAGE 11 THE CAST 13 PROGRAM NOTES 15 WHO’S WHO 21 ANNUAL CONTRIBUTORS 28 MAN OF LA MANCHA BOARD OF TRUSTEES AND STAFF 39 SEPTEMBER 25 – OCTOBER 13 ABOUT THE PLAYHOUSE 44 WRITTEN BY DALE WASSERMAN MUSIC BY MITCH LEIGH LYRICS BY JOE DARION DIRECTED BY MARK LAMOS WINNER OF 5 TONY AWARDS, INCLUDING BEST MUSICAL! The use of photographic or recording THOUSAND PINES devices is strictly prohibited. OCTOBER 30 – NOVEMBER 17 BY MATTHEW GREENE For the enjoyment of all patrons, DIRECTED BY AUSTIN PENDLETON WORLD PREMIERE FROM OUR NEW WORKS CIRCLE INITIATIVE please silence mobile phones, tablets, and other electronic devices. HERSHEY FELDER PRESENTS JOIN THE CONVERSATION WestportCountryPlayhouse DECEMBER 5–22, 2018 adapted and directed by HERSHEY FELDER based on the book @WCPlayhouse THE CHILDREN OF WILLESDEN LANE by Mona Golabek and Lee Cohen wcplayhouse WestportPlayhouse THE UNDERSTUDY 3 WCP | FROM THE ARTISTIC DIRECTOR Dear Friends, Welcome to the third production of our 88th season, There is superb work being done by actors in all The Understudy, Theresa Rebeck’s comedy of life back- fields right now: television, film, and in the hun- stage and onstage, of the overlap of drama and reality, dreds of non-profit regional theaters across our and the one’s infringement on the other, something country. The Understudy celebrates, analyzes and that often becomes the norm in our profession. explores the comedy and drama in the clash of acting “cultures” that can occasionally result in a Casting any production is always a challenge, and certain kind of casting. I hope you will enjoy this often the process goes on for months. Lists of names deservedly much-produced play by a writer whose are generated by the New York casting office (in our gifts in the mediums of television and live theater case, the redoubtable Tara Rubin) and discussed at lend it a special verisimilitude. length. Artistic directors are often pressured to find “names,” stars of television and film, whose pres- ence on the stage might boost ticket sales above and beyond the subscriber base. This is the central MARK LAMOS conflict of Theresa’s play: a bona fide and recogniz- Artistic Director able movie star — who has deigned to appear in a (very) serious play on Broadway — in rehearsal with an actor who primarily works in live theater. I’m not the only artistic director whose mind gets boggled by an audience’s mad desire to be in the presence of a well-known TV or film personality. And it’s difficult to make clear to them, when I’m asked about it, that these types of performers are not always interested in working very hard for a couple months of rehearsal and performance for salaries far below what they normally earn. When you can make the same amount of money for a three-minute appearance in a film as you would for two months of mentally and often physically challenging work, you can see why. Besides, those three minutes will be seen by millions of people, whereas work on a stage in Minneapolis, Dallas or Westport, or even Manhattan, will be seen by a mere fraction of those numbers. Photo by Bruce Plotkin THE UNDERSTUDY 10 WESTPORT COUNTRY PLAYHOUSE | 2018 SEASON PRESENTS BY THERESA REBECK DIRECTED BY DAVID KENNEDY SCENIC DESIGN COSTUME DESIGN LIGHTING DESIGN Andrew Boyce Maiko Matsushima Matthew Richards SOUND DESIGN CHOREOGRAPHER FIGHT DIRECTOR Fitz Patton Noah Racey Michael Rossmy PROPS MASTER CASTING PRODUCTION STAGE MANAGER Alison Mantilla Tara Rubin Casting Megan Schwarz Dickert Laura Schutzel, CSA The world premiere of THE UNDERSTUDY was produced by The Williamstown Theatre Festival. (Nicholas Martin, Artistic Director, July 23, 2008) THE UNDERSTUDY was commissioned by Playwrights Horizons with funds provided by The Leading National Theatres Program, a joint initiative of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. THE UNDERSTUDY is presented by special arrangement with Dramatists Play Service, Inc., New York. PRODUCTION SPONSORS CORPORATE PRODUCTION PARTNER EUNICE AND DAVID BIGELOW FOUNDATION AUGUST 14 – SEPTEMBER 1 12 WESTPORT COUNTRY PLAYHOUSE | 2018 SEASON THE CAST IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER HARRY Eric Bryant JAKE Brett Dalton ROXANNE Andrea Syglowski THE UNDERSTUDY WILL BE PERFORMED WITHOUT AN INTERMISSION This theatre operates under an agreement between The League of Regional Theatres and ACTORS’ EQUITY ASSOCIATION, the union of professional actors and stage managers in the United States. The Director is a member of the STAGE DIRECTORS AND CHOREOGRAPHERS SOCIETY, a national theatrical labor union. Westport Country Playhouse employs members of the INTERNATIONAL ALLIANCE OF THEATRICAL STAGE EMPLOYEES, Local 74. The Scenic, Costume, Lighting, and Sound Designers in LORT theatres are represented by United Scenic Artists Local USA-829, IATSE. THE UNDERSTUDY 13 14 WESTPORT COUNTRY PLAYHOUSE | 2018 SEASON In her Own Words theresa rebeck on day I walked into the theater and I was watching the understudy the tech come together, and the set designer had painted a little castle on the window of the interrogation room, and the lighting designer was creating lightning, and the sound designer had a monstrous storm going full throttle. It’s always a little strange when you write a play, and then somebody does it; you don’t have anything at all, a few thoughts in your head, and then you have some typing, and words on a page, and then it seems like suddenly there are people in a theater and a whole play, and they’re actually doing something that you just made up moments ago. This time, they were doing this play that I had made up, and they Sometimes when people say to me “Do you have were also doing a Kafka play, which I had made up. a favorite, among all the plays you’ve written?” It was so funny and joyful to watch these wonderful I stutter and look over my shoulder and evade, designers kind of lose their minds. because you’re not supposed to have a favorite amongst your own plays; they’re like children, it’s just not done, to play favorites. And then every our world has gotten too now and then I look over my shoulder and mutter strange and we are not in the truth, under my breath: The Understudy. control of its strangeness. I worked on the first draft of the play at the New Harmony Project, a new play development I also enjoy the strangeness of Harry, who seems to program in the middle of nowhere, Indiana. I wrote know that the audience is there, while Jake and a lot of that draft quickly, and finally stopped Roxanne do not. So the audience is there and not there. about halfway through, which seemed to be a good place to pause and think. Then I bumped into one We are in a Kafka play, and we are of it. Our world of the other writers there, at a coffee shop, and we has gotten too strange and we are not in control of talked about where we were in the process, and he its strangeness. And yet we can make art, and we said, “You have four more days here; why don’t you especially can make comedy. just finish it?” So of course I had to take the dare. I believe in the joy of comedy. And I love my little Then I did some more work on it and eventually understudy. I hope you do as well. it got a production at Williamstown Theatre Festival, where again you just don’t have enough time. So we were working really fast, and then one THE UNDERSTUDY 15 was Franz PROGRAM NOTES BY DAVID KENNEDY, ASSOCIATE ARTISTIC DIRECTOR; AND LIAM LONEGAN, 2018 DIRECTING FELLOW “In the fight between you and the world, back the world.” FRANZ KAFKA Born in Prague, the capital of what is transformed into a large insect. In now the Czech Republic, Franz Kafka The Castle, an official is erroneously (1883–1924) ranks among the most summoned for a non-existent job and influential writers of the 20th century. cannot gain access to the prevailing His work chronicles the feelings authorities to clear up the situation. of disorientation, alienation, and Against the backdrop of the last helplessness that afflict people who century’s totalitarian bureaucracies, come into contact with powerful and these stories could easily be read as impersonal forces. Kafka authored political metaphors, but Kafka’s work vivid, nightmarish worlds populated by sprang just as much from his personal anxious people living through absurd struggles with an authoritarian and situations. His most celebrated novel, distant father, as well as his own sense The Trial, tells the story of Josef K., of self-loathing. And though they do who, though he cannot recall having function as windows into the prevailing done anything wrong, is arrested feeling of existential dread that has and prosecuted for a crime that is come to define much of modern life, never identified. In his most famous it is important to note that Kafka short story, “Metamorphosis,” Kafka considered his stories comic, and recounts the tale of Gregor Samsa, sometimes, while reading his work an average man who wakes one aloud, would laugh so hard he could morning to discover that he has been not continue. Kaf·ka·esque /käfkə'esk/ adjective Of, relating to, or suggestive of Franz Kafka or his writings; especially: having a nightmarishly complex, bizarre, or illogical quality. Kafka and other artists While Theresa Rebeck makes singular use of the imaginative universe of Franz Kafka as a metaphor for the absurdities and indignities of a life in show business, she is far from the first artist to find inspiration in the pages of his stories and novels.