BAM 2003 Next Wave Festival Roy Kortlck, ear arch with fountain, 2003 BAM 2003 Next Wave Festival ENCORE Is sponsored by: Altria 2003 ~ext Wave EesfuLaJL.....---- Brooklyn Academy of Music Alan H. Fishman William I. Campbell Chairman of the Board Vice Chairman of the Board Karen Brooks Hopkins Joseph V. Melillo President Executive Producer presents The Hanging Man Improbable Theatre Approximate BAM Harvey Theater running time: Nov 4-8, 2003 at 7:30pm; Nov 9 at 3pm 1 hour and 30 minutes with Directed, designed, and scripted by no intermission Phelim McDermott, Lee Simpson, and Julian Crouch Co-designed by Phil Eddolls Lighting designed by Colin Grenfell , Choreographed by Steve Kirkham Soundscape by Darron L West Costumes designed by Stephen Snell Performed by Lisa Hammond Rachael Spence Nick Haverson Ed Woodall Richard Katz Tim Preece Catherine Marmier (Careful Assistance) A co-production with The West Yorkshire Playhouse, Wexner Center for the Arts at The Ohio State University with support from Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the Walker Art Center through a grant from The Rockefeller Foundation's Multi-Arts Production Fund with additional support provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, The Lyric Hammersmith, Wiener Festwochen. Presented and produced in association with Pomegranate Arts. These performances are supported by the BritiSh Council. BAM 2003 Next Wave Festival is sponsored by Altria Group, Inc. The opening night reception for The Hanging Man is sponsored by Suba Restaurant. Next Wave Theater support is provided by The Peter Jay Sharp Foundation, The SHS Foundation, The Shubert Foundation, and Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust. For The Hanging Man: Company Stage Manager Helen Maguire Deputy Stage Manager Robin Longley Sound Technician and Operator Adrian Parker Rigger and Flyman Bruce Luckhurst For The Hanging Man U.S. Tour: Production Consultant Marc Warren Tour Manager Griselda Yorke For Improbable Theatre: Producer Nick Sweeting Administrator (Finance) Ghislaine Granger Development and Training Coordinator Gill Roughley Assistant Administrator Ginnie Stephens Press Representative Sharon Kean Special thanks to our Battersea Arts Centre development company: Pauline Lockhart, Shaun Powell, Rick Bland, Rocio Galan, Alan Cox, and Richard Katz. The People Show, Andrew Dye, Kevin Cassidy, and Master Beader. Improbable Theatre is funded by Arts Council England and receives project support from the British Council . •• BRITISH ••COUNCIL Improbable Theatre 43 Aldwych, 4th Floor London WC2B 4DN Tel: 44.207.240.4556 Email: [email protected]; Web: www.improbable.co.uk For Pomegranate Arts: Director Linda Brumbach Associate Di rector Alisa E. Regas Business Manager Kaleb Kilkenny Company Manager Jim Woodard Administrative Assistant Kelly Kivland Exclusive U.S. Representation for The Hanging Man: Pomegranate Arts, Inc. 632 Broadway, Suite 901 New York, NY 10012 Tel: 212.228.2221, fax: 212.475.0004 Email: pomarts.com; Web: www.pomegranatearts.com The History of Edward Braff This being the true and honestly related history of the notorious marvel known as The Hanging Man. It has been my self-given and God blessed task throughout my years to journey to those parts as would furnish me with the many histories of man. My purpose and intent has not been to collect and lend credence to such stories, fables, tales, and myths as well lodge themselves in the minds of the remoter peoples of civilization. I sought and seek only the verifiable and documented history of men, in the humble proposition that such learning might help us know ourselves better and thereby bring us to a greater understanding of purpose our creator would urge us to, were he not beneficent enough to endow us with the freedom to do ourselves ill as well as good ... This then, drawn from honest sources and provenanced documents is the history of one Edward Braff, commonly known as The Hanging Man. He had made himself as self sufficient as the world. But now all he could feel was the dancing glee of every man and woman at his downfall. His skull echoed to the sound of their triumph over him and most acutely he felt the satisfaction of his friends that they could now rest secure that they were better than him and always had been. The thing he had tried to avoid all his life, the thing above all others he had striven to never encounter-over reaching followed by failure-had now happened. There was never any possibility of redemption, of struggling free from this thing. Until he died this ugly empty vain self-glorifying nothing would be him. It was unbearable. It would begin the moment the building was finished. And it would be like this until he died. Braff took a rope from the store shed. Tied it to a beam. Tied it around his neck as he stood on a chair and kicked the chair away. YJfuo's Wb~o _ Improbable Theatre brings together the diverse years. His first work was for dereck dereck and acclaimed talents of some of Britain's most Productions which he co-founded with Julia highly imaginative theater practitioners includ­ Bardsley. He performed in Cupboard Man, a ing founders and Artistic Directors Phelim solo show for wh ich he won a Fri nge Fi rst. He McDermott, Lee Simpson, and Julian Crouch. then co-directed and performed in Gaudete for which he won a Time Out Director's Award, McDermott, Simpson, and Crouch had been going on to direct The Vinegar Works, The working in theater separately and together in Glass Hill, and The Sweet Shop Owner. He has various combinations for some years, and had directed a number of shows in repertory theater successfully resisted the urge to formalize their including The Ghost Downstairs (Leicester relationship into a "theater company." In the Haymarket); Dr. Faustus and Improbable Tales autumn of 1996 they gave in and formed (a totally improvised two hour play which ran Improbable with producer Nick Sweeting. for four weeks) at Nottingham Playhouse. At The West Yorkshire Playhouse he has directed Since then, the seven shows they have made The Servant of Two Masters, The Hunchback as Improbable-70 Hill Lane, Animo, of Notre Dame, and, most recently, The Lifegame, Cinderella, Coma, Spirit, and Government Inspector. During 1996/97 he Sticky-have established an international directed A Midsummer Night's Dream for the reputation for innovative, exciting, accessible English Shakespeare Company, which won a theater. In addition, Phelim McDermott and TMA Regional Theatre Award for Best Touring Julian Crouch paired up for the international Production. Other projects include Get off My music theater hit, Shockheaded Peter. Foot, a play he co-wrote and appeared in with Lee Simpson. Productions with Improbable Improbable's work has been seen in the U.K., Theatre include the multi-award winning 70 the U.S., Egypt, Malaysia, Australia, Belgium, Hill Lane, Lifegame, Animo, Coma, Spirit, Germany, Greece, Canada, Lebanon, Ireland, Sticky, and Angela Carter's Cinderella. He Holland, Austria, Portugal, and New Zealand. recently co-directed Shockheaded Peter with 70 Hill Lane has won several major awards Julian Crouch, a junk opera collaboration with including an OBIE for Outstanding Achievement The Tiger Lilies, for Cultural Industry (Olivier in Off-Broadway Theater, the 1997 Time Out Award, Best Entertainment, TMA Best Director Award for Best Off West End Production, Best Award, Critics Society Best Designer Award, Performa nce at The Ca iro InternationaI Theatre and a South Bank Show Theatre Award for Experimental Theatre, and The Manchester Nomination). Evening News Award for Best Fringe Prod uction. Julian Crouch (co-artistic director) is a director, designer, writer, maker, and teacher whose Improbable's shows have grown out of a way career has spanned theater, opera, film, and of working that mea ns bei ng prepa red to create television. Initially a mask and puppet maker, work by the seat of your pants and the skin of Crouch designed Charivari for Trickster Theatre your teeth, stepping onstage before you are Company, a company he toured the world with ready and allowing the audience to have an in 1985 and 186. In the following years Crouch integraI pa rt in the creation of a show. specialized in site-specific design including seventeen productions for Welfare State Phelim McDermott (co-artistic director) has International. In 1992 he began a successful been directing and performing for over twelve creative partnership with Phelim McDermott, for whom he designed Dr. Faustus, Improbable Lee Simpson (co-artistic director) grew up in Tales, The Servant of Two Masters, and The Gt Yarmouth by the sea, where he found gain­ Hunchback of Notre Dame (which earned him ful employment cooking burgers in a Wimpy, as a T.M.A nomination for Best Designer of the a croupier in a casino, and as a cinema projec­ Year). They also co-directed and designed The tionist. Unable to get a proper showbiz job, he Quest for Don Quixote, which received a Best became an improviser. The money was bad but Design Nomination in the London Fringe there was precious little hard work involved Awards and A Midsummer Night's Dream and the people seemed nice. Since then, apart (TMA Best Touring Production Award) for the from his work with Improbable, he's become a English Shakespeare Company. Along with Lee member of the Comedy Store Players; he's writ- Simpson, McDermott and Crouch formed their ;ten plays; appeared in some sit-coms; acted in own company, Improbable Theatre in 1996. some proper television drama and some films; Their productions of Animo, 70 Hill Lane, performed a very poor poodle act at the London Lifegame, Coma, Spirit, Sticky, and Angela Palladium, and spent six months as a Breakfast Carter's Cinderella have gained far-reaching Show OJ.