BeginS june 21 2010|2011 SeASOn Table of Contents Feature William Shakespeare's Letter from Michael Kahn 5 The Memory of All That by Akiva Fox 6 Program About the Playwright 11 Title Page 13 Cast 15 Cast Biographies 16 Direction and Design Biographies 17 Shakespeare Theatre Company Board of Trustees 8 Creative Conversations 18 Shakespeare Theatre Company 19 Individual Support 21 Special Thanks 31 Corporate Support 32 Foundation and Government Support 33 For the Shakespeare Theatre Company 34 directed by Ethan McSweeny Staff 36 Academy for Classical Acting 39 Affiliated Artists 42 Audience Services 46 Whether contemplating the contents of gilded chests or the darkest corners of human nature, The Merchant of Venice challenges audiences to look beyond misleading appearances to find the true measure of things. An intriguing story of power and revenge, justice and mercy, true love and duplicity, features some of Shakespeare’s most complex and memorable characters. Staged at STC for the first time in over a decade, The Merchant of Venice is directed by ethan McSweeny, whose “posh production” of Major Barbara was hailed by The Washington Post as “dandy…light itself.” Call 202.547.1122 or visit ShakespeareTheatre.org Cover photo of Tracy Lynn Middendorf, Holly Twyford and Steven Culp. Groups of 10+, call 202.547.1122, option 6 Photo at right of Holly Twyford by Raphael Davison. Dear Friend, Welcome to Harold Pinter’s Old Times, the fifth play of the 2010-2011 Season. It is very important to me that the Shakespeare Theatre Company produce plays that we consider modern classics in addition to well- known plays that have endured for centuries. This will be the first time that STC has produced a Pinter play, though I have loved Old Times for many years. We continue to look ahead to our 25th Anniversary Season, which will begin with Free For All. Our generous Friends of Free For All make this much-loved Washington tradition of free Shakespeare possible. Please consider joining them to show your support and to enjoy special benefits like premium reserved seating for Julius Caesar. As I hope you have heard, we recently announced several special anniversary shows as well. This fall we will host the award-winning Broadway musical FELA! before its U.S. tour. We will also welcome Oscar-nominated actor John Hurt for a limited number of performances of Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape from the Gate Theatre in Dublin. Basil Twist’s extraordinary reimagining of Petrushka will take the stage in March, and we continue to plan the two previously announced performances that will be performed in concert- style staging as part of The Bard’s Broadway. Thank you for joining us. I hope to see you in our theatres for many more performances, both this season and next. Best, Michael Kahn Artistic Director, Shakespeare Theatre Company #4 5 This study implied that memory was with the unreliability of memory, and not an act of calling up something in particular with how our memory already in existence, but rather of can fool us. “So much is imagined,” reassembling it anew each time. Instead he told an interviewer shortly before The of resembling photographs in an album, Old Times opened in New York, “and memories are more like drawings that that imagining is as true as real.” are erased and redrawn over and over. In short, remembering is a creative act; Once the certainty of memory is called we unconsciously reshape details of into question, the past becomes an our memories each time we remember arena where competitors clash over memory them. “A memory is only as real as the whose memory of an event is true. last time you remembered it,” writes the Who owns the past—Deeley, or the of All That journalist Jonah Lehrer. And like copying interloper Anna? If Deeley’s version is a copy, “the more you remember only imagined, what does that mean for by Akiva Fox something, the less accurate the memory his idea of himself and his wife? Pinter becomes.” Worst of all, he continues, said that Deeley’s story of meeting Kate our memories are “designed by the “only seems to be funny—the man in brain to always feel true, regardless of question is actually fighting a battle for whether or not they actually occurred.” his life.” The conflict in Old Times is the direct result of the revelation that the idway through the first act assertion that memories can be false, nature of memory makes the person of Harold Pinter’s play Old and that the very act of remembering who remembers more vulnerable. Times, a man named Deeley makes them seem true, flies in the face Instead of resemblIng M And as the characters engage in a tells the story of how he met his wife of this idea of memory. Who would photographs In an Kate. His memory of their first meeting falsify the photographs in their album, battle over the past, that past swirls is detailed, funny and affectionate. It or create new photographs just by album, memorIes around them like a fog, to be reshaped as they see fit. Pinter believed in “a seems indisputably true. But in the opening the album? “It’s the truth,” are more lIke next moment, Kate’s friend Anna calls Deeley asserts. “I remember clearly.” kind of ever-present quality in life… everything Deeley thinks he knows drawIngs that are that the past is not past, that it never was past. It’s present.” In this play, into question. “There are some things In just the last decade, however, a erased and redrawn one remembers even though they may shocking new theory of memory has the past is continually being created never have happened,” says Anna. emerged. Researchers at New York over and over. and used by the characters for their “There are things I remember which University knew that they could present aims. At the same time, clearly may never have happened, but as I prevent a memory from being formed remembered moments unexpectedly recall them, so they take place.” by administering a particular drug, but loom out of the fog to join the present. they assumed that memories could What scientists discovered in 2000, For Kate, Deeley and Anna, truth and That astonishing statement runs not be affected once they were already Harold Pinter knew when he wrote Old lies, past and present, and certain and counter to the way most of us think imprinted on the mind. So they were Times 30 years before. It turns out that uncertain all occupy the same room. about our memories of the past. astonished to discover that if they there are many things we remember They seem like photographs in an administered that same drug while the which may never have happened, but as album—distinct moments that sit subject was in the act of remembering, we recall them, so they take place. Or, in storage until we open the book the memory in question could be at the very least, that there are many and look at them. A photograph may diminished, or erased entirely. “When things we remember which did not wear down here and there, and some we recall a memory, that memory happen as we remember them, but that may even fall out of the album, but becomes unstable,” said Karim Nader, the act of recalling them makes them they remain solid objects even when one of the scientists. “When a memory seem as though they took place that we aren’t looking at them. Anna’s becomes unstable, it can be modified.” way. Pinter spoke often of his fascination 6 7 Board of Trustees The Shakespeare Theatre Company Michael R. Klein, Chairman Robert E. Falb, Vice Chairman is pleased to acknowledge its Pauline Schneider, Secretary John Hill, Treasurer Artistic Leadership Fund Members Michael Kahn, Artistic Director whose generosity provides sponsorship support Trustees Ex-Officio for this production of Ken Adelman Stephen A. Hopkins Chris Jennings, Old Times James B. Adler Lawrence A. Hough Managing Director Nicholas W. Allard W. Mike House Ashley Allen Jeffrey M. Kaplan Emeritus Trustees Thank You Stephen E. Allis Scott Kaufmann R. Robert Linowes*, Anne and Ronald Abramson Anita M. Antenucci Abbe D. Lowell Founding Chairman Kathy Bailey Kathleen Matthews Heidi L. Berry* nick and Marla Allard David A. Brody* Jeffrey D. Bauman Eleanor Merrill Stephen e. Allis Landon Butler Howard P. Milstein Melvin S. Cohen Ralph P. Davidson Melissa A. Moss James F. Fitzpatrick Adrienne Arsht Lady Manning Dr. Mark Epstein Dr. Harris Pastides Peter A. Bieger Steven B. Epstein Walter Pincus William F. McSweeny James A. Feldman Stephen M. Ryan V. Sue Molina Mr. and Mrs. Landon Butler Eden Rafshoon Andrew C. Florance Lady Sheinwald Dr. Mark epstein and Amoretta Hoeber Miles Gilburne Chris Simmons Emily Malino Scheuer* Michael Glosserman George P. Stamas Mrs. Louis Sullivan john and Meg Hauge Kingdon Gould III Suzanne S. Youngkin Daniel W. Toohey Dr. Sidney Harman* Sarah Valente jeffrey M. Kaplan John R. Hauge Lady Wright Lt. Col. and Mrs. William K. Konze * Deceased Abbe David Lowell and Molly A. Meegan jacqueline B. Mars Kristine Morris Melissa Moss Alan and Marsha Paller Robert and Susan Pence Vicki and Roger Sant Fredda Sparks and Kent Montavon Trial Consulting and Research Tom and Cathie Woteki Strategic Graphics Services The Artistic Leadership Fund is an initiative by the Presentation Technology Services Shakespeare Theatre Company that acknowledges and • Pre-Trial, War Room and In-Trial • thanks our generous supporters of $25,000 or more Social Media Analysis for the vital role they play in our artistic program.