PLAY GUIDE ★FIVE★ PRESIDENTS About ATC 1 Introduction to the Play 2 Meet the Characters 2 Meet the Playwright 3 Behind the Scenes 3 Meet the Presidents 6 Six Presidents: A Timeline 13 Political References 18 People, Places and Vocabulary 31 Nixon’s Obituary 41 Five Presidents Play Guide written and compiled by Katherine Monberg, ATC Literary Associate, with assistance from April Jackson, Education Manager; Bryanna Patrick and Luke Young, Education Associates; and Natasha Smith, Artistic and Playwriting Intern SUPPORT FOR ATC’S EDUCATION AND COMMUNITY PROGRAMMING HAS BEEN PROVIDED BY: APS Rosemont Copper Arizona Commission on the Arts Stonewall Foundation Bank of America Foundation Target Blue Cross Blue Shield Arizona The Boeing Company City Of Glendale The Donald Pitt Family Foundation Community Foundation for Southern Arizona The Johnson Family Foundation, Inc Cox Charities The Lovell Foundation Downtown Tucson Partnership The Marshall Foundation Enterprise Holdings Foundation The Maurice and Meta Gross Foundation Ford Motor Company Fund The Max and Victoria Dreyfus Foundation Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Foundation The Stocker Foundation JPMorgan Chase The William L and Ruth T Pendleton Memorial Fund John and Helen Murphy Foundation Tucson Medical Center National Endowment for the Arts Tucson Pima Arts Council Phoenix Office of Arts and Culture Wells Fargo PICOR Charitable Foundation ABOUT ATC Arizona Theatre Company is a professional, not-for-profit theatre company This means all of our artists, administrators and production staff are paid professionals, and the income we receive from ticket sales and contributions goes right back into our budget to create our work, rather than to any particular person as a profit Each season, ATC employs hundreds of actors, directors and designers from all over the country to create the work you see on stage In addition, ATC currently employs about 100 staff members in our production shops and administrative offices in Tucson and Phoenix during our season Among these people are carpenters, painters, marketing professionals, fundraisers, stage directors, sound and light board operators, tailors, costume designers, box office agents, stage crew – the list is endless – representing an amazing range of talents and skills We are also supported by a Board of Trustees, a group of business and community leaders who volunteer their time and expertise to assist the theatre in financial and legal matters, advise in marketing and fundraising, and help represent the theatre in our community Roughly 150,000 people attend our shows every year, and several thousand of those people support us with charitable contributions in addition to purchasing their tickets Businesses large and small, private foundations and the city and state governments also support our work financially All of this is in support of our vision and mission: OUR VISION IS TO TOUCH LIVES THROUGH THE POWER OF THEATRE. Our mission is to create professional theatre that continually strives to reach new levels of artistic excellence and that resonates locally, in the state of Arizona and throughout the nation In order to fulfill our mission, the theatre produces a broad repertoire ranging from classics to new works, engages artists of the highest caliber, and is committed to assuring access to the broadest spectrum of citizens The Temple of Music and Art, the home of ATC shows in downtown Tucson The Herberger Theater Center, ATC’s performance venue in downtown Phoenix 1 INTRODUCTION TO THE PLAY Five Presidents By Rick Cleveland Directed by Mark Clements WORLD PREMIERE The eagerly-anticipated world premiere by the Emmy Award-winning writer of The West Wing, Six Feet Under, Mad Men and House of Cards. On April 27, 1994, the five living Presidents – Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, George H W Bush, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton – gather in a conference room at the Nixon Library in Yorba Linda, California, to await the start of Richard Nixon’s funeral A loving, witty and touching speculation on what may have happened at this true-life event, Five Presidents gives us a humanizing and unfor- gettable look at five great men trying to find relevance after their tenure as one of the most powerful people in the world Contains mature language. Caption? MEET THE CHARACTERS Gerald R. Ford: 38th President of the United States Jimmy Carter: 39th President of the United States Ronald Reagan: 40th President of the United States Actor John Bolger, who Actor Martin L’Herault, Actor Steve Sheridan, plays President Gerald R who plays President Jimmy who plays President Ronald Ford in ATC’s production of Carter in ATC’s production of Reagan in ATC’s production Five Presidents. Five Presidents. of Five Presidents. George H. W. Bush: 41st President of the United States Bill Clinton: 42nd President of the United States Special Agent Michael Kirby: An agent of the Presidential Secret Service Detail Actor Mark Jacoby, who plays Actor Brit Whittle, who Actor Reese Madigan, who President George H W Bush plays President Bill Clinton in plays Special Agent Michael in ATC’s production of Five ATC’s production of Kirby in ATC’s production of Presidents. Five Presidents. Five Presidents. 2 MEET THE PLAYWRIGHT Rick Cleveland (Playwright) is an Emmy Award-winning writer/producer whose television credits include The West Wing, Six Feet Under, Mad Men, Nurse Jackie, and House of Cards. Mr Cleveland’s stage play Jerry and Tom was adapted into a feature film and was an official selection at both the Sundance and Toronto Film Festivals, and he co-wrote the screenplay for the motion picture adaptation of John Grisham’s Runaway Jury, which starred John Cusack, Rachel Weisz, Gene Hackman and Dustin Hoffman Mr Cleveland performed his one-man show My Buddy Bill at the Berkshire Theatre Festival, the Goodman Theatre in Chicago, Victory Gardens Theatre in Chicago, the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles, and won the Best Solo Performance Award at the HBO Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen in 2006 He also performed the piece at the 92nd Street Y in New York City for a one hour Comedy Central special in 2007 As a playwright, Mr Cleveland has earned playwriting grants and Playwright and screenwriter, Rick Cleveland. fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Kennedy Center’s Fund for New American Plays He was invited to the National Playwrights’ Conference at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center twice, in 1991 and 1993, and is a Founding Member of American Blues Theatre, Chicago’s second oldest ensemble-based theatre company, as well as a Founding Member of the Ojai Playwrights Conference He received his MFA from the University of Iowa’s Playwrights’ Workshop in 1995 Several of his plays have been published by Samuel French and Dramatists Play Service, and have been produced around the country, as well as in the U K , Germany, Scotland, Moscow, Mexico City and Istanbul Mr Cleveland has been a freelance commentator for NPR’s All Things Considered as well as a contributor to Huffingtonpost com, and as a freelance journalist his writing has appeared in the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times and Outside Magazine. BEHIND THE SCENES Playwright Rick Cleveland and Makeup and Prosthetics Designer Lauren Wilde found a few moments in their busy pre-production schedules to answer some questions from ATC Literary Associate Katherine Monberg about the play, their crafts, and the Five Presidents journey from script to stage (and everything in between) FROM PAGE TO STAGE: FIVE PRESIDENTS | An Interview with Playwright Rick Cleveland KM: What sparked the idea to write a play about the meeting of the five living U.S. Presidents at Richard Nixon’s funeral? RC: I first got this idea during the first season ofThe West Wing. Someone showed me the iconic photo of those five presidents, four exes and one current, together at Nixon’s funeral, and it struck a chord Because of Watergate, Nixon’s presidency changed the office for everyone that came after I started wondering what these guys might have talked about when they were together on that memorable day, behind closed doors KM: The U.S. presidents are some of the most iconic figures in the collective American consciousness. What are the challenges or opportunities that come with writing about such well-known figures? RC: Oddly enough, Five Presidents is my fourth play about presidents When I was writing my first,My Buddy Bill, I realized that I needed to allow myself enough poetic license to be able to treat these real-life men as characters, while at the same time keeping the words I put in their mouths completely and utterly credible 3 KM: One of the many brilliant facets of Five Presidents is the subtlety that weaves decades of American political history into the immediate, natural conversation of the men together in the room. How much research went into crafting the political side of their conversation? RC: In short, a ton I probably did as much research on these five presidents as I would have if I were writing a biography about them I was especially keen on finding descriptions and quotes from private, off-the-cuff moments in their lives KM: You have an impressive resume as a screenwriter as well as a playwright – The West Wing, Six Feet Under, Mad Men, Nurse Jackie, and House of Cards. What is different about writing for the screen and writing for the stage? RC: Writing for a television series requires you to be fast Especially if you’re writing a script for an episode while the show is in production From a first draft to a finished episode might happen in three months or less Writing a play is a luxury I’ve written four or five drafts of Five Presidents over the course of two years, and we haven’t even started rehearsals yet KM: The past few years seem to have inspired a wave of interest in the political drama as a genre – I’m thinking of television’s The West Wing, House of Cards and Scandal, and recent stage plays like Mario Correa’s Commander and, of course, Five Presidents.