P L A P Finks by Joe Gilford featuring DANIEL DORR, THOMAS FISCELLA, MATT GOTTLIEB, STEPHEN TYLER HOWELL, ADAM LEBOWITZ-LOCKARD, RICHARD LEVINSON, BRUCE NOZICK, VANESSA CLAIRE STEWART AND FRENCH STEWART S D C D STEPHANIE KERLEY SCHWARTZ HALEI PARKER L D S D MATT RICHTER CHRISTOPHER MOSCATIELLO P D C NICHOLAS E. SANTIAGO MARWA BERNSTEIN M D A D RICHARD LEVINSON CECILIA FAIRCHILD A C D S M TAYLOR DECKER RAMóN VALDEZ P M T D AMANDA BIERBAUER DAVID A. MAUER C VICTORIA HOFFMAN P JOHN PERRIN FLYNN D M P FINKS is presented by special arrangement with Dramatists Play Service, Inc., New York. FINKS received its New York premiere at e Ensemble Studio eatre on March 28, 2013. Originally presented by New York Stage and Film Company and e Powerhouse eater at Vassar on July 23, 2008. Special thanks to Bob Breech and Arvin Brown for sponsoring the opening night of this production at Rogue Machine. Rogue Machine at the Electric Lodge, 1416 Electric Avenue, Venice, CA 90291 A Letter From the Artistic Director I was telling Michael Pressman, my friend, colleague and the director of Joe Gilford’s Finks, just after I watched the first run-through, how disturbing I found Finks to be and how relevant it was. Michael reminded me that Joe wrote the play and it was first performed in New York during the years Obama was in office. Michael said: “It’s a different play.” This caused me to think. Theatre is a fascinating and often frustrating art form because it seeks to imitate life, the multiplicity of experience. The academic word for this is mimesis, which Plato defined not as narrative but as a correspondence to the world understood as a model for beauty, truth and the good. I am always saying art, theatre as art, should create an internal dialogue with the audience. The playwright and then the collaborating artists seek to find the intention of the work. What human experience, what truths, do we seek to illuminate so we can, with the audience, explore and consider who we are and how we should live. If the work is truly good, there is a multiplicity of meaning, intended or not. We are, of course, significantly influenced by the world in which we live. The way art corresponds to the world changes as the world changes. The art changes. The art becomes. Because the world has changed Finks is both the play it was and something utterly new. It was perhaps a celebration of human courage in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. Now, the past the play portrays echoes in our everyday world. Once again, leaders around the world and here in the United States trumpet nationalism and homogeneity as a virtue. Finks, which is the same play it always was, is now no long just that play. It has become an urgent cautionary tale. Finks plays in repertory with Tom Morton-Smith’s Oppenheimer. These two plays about America in the ‘40s and ‘50s were chosen to play together because we think they speak to one another and very much to the time in which we live. See them both. Explore with us. You will be glad you did. Morton-Smith’s Oppenheimer says: “Life is nothing if not a constant re- evaluation of what we believe to be correct, and a constant reassessment of the ways we gauge that correctness. What was true yesterday can be less true today, because we have learnt... and will learn... better.” Here’s hoping we all can still learn. Here’s hoping we all can find beauty, truth and the good. — John Flynn T S C’ G O W Y Dear eatre Patrons, Welcome to Rogue Machine eatre at the Electric Lodge! is is our second production at our new location, and we are thrilled to be a part of the Venice community and the greater westside community... and we are crossing our ngers that those of you who followed us from Pico to Western and now to Electric Avenue will nd your way back to us here, time and time again. is has been an exceptional year for RMT: we were awarded LA Stage Alliance’s Ovation Award for Best Season of 2017 among ALL Los Angeles theatres, followed by Stage Raw’s recognition of Les Blancs as the best production of the 2017 LA season, and the extraordinary invitation by Electric Lodge for us to become their resident theatre company. For those of you who are new to our work, we pride ourselves on the presentation of meaningful and challenging theatre, carefully selected original writing, stellar acting, and evenings that leave you asking questions that matter. We continue to pick dicult plays, focusing on family function and dysfunction (Pocatello, El Niño), on racism national and local (Les Blancs, Mexican Day), on histories told and hidden (100 Aprils, Gunshot Medley). We focus on writers who tackle the complex questions that need the kind of platform that live theatre can provide. Our 2018 season continues here at the Electric Lodge with two provocative plays that highlight some of the darkest chapters in 20th century American history: Oppenheimer, laying bare the struggles of the Father of the Atomic Bomb; and Finks, examining the fallout of the House Un-American Activities Committee. We hope you will see both of these powerful productions, as each speaks to some of the basic questions raised today about who we are as a nation, what our history really tells us. If this is your rst experience at Rogue Machine, we invite you to become part of a family that is committed to seasons of great plays. If you’re already a member of the Rogue Machine family, as an artist, a patron, a donor, an audience member, you’re the reason we make this work... and we can’t do it without you. Welcome to e Rogue! ank you and welcome, Paula Holt Chair, Rogue Machine eatre Board of Directors A Note From the Playwright THE BLACKLIST From 1948-1951, Senator Joseph McCarthy’s “Red Scare” and senate hearings on Communist subversion in the U.S. government had spawned more action to investigate U.S. citizens’ political affiliation through the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) under Chairman Congressman Parnell Thomas. The committee passed through Hollywood and jailed a group of progressive screenwriters for contempt of congress, the “Hollywood 10,” including Dalton Trumbo and Ring Lardner, Jr. All spent at least one year in jail. The committee continued to victimize scores of other actors, directors and writers in Hollywood. In 1952, the committee moved to New York under Hon. Francis Walter intent on exposing progressive and subversive influence in radio and TV. HUAC found virulent support from the three major television networks and their sponsors, including Proctor & Gamble, Ford Motor Co., Kellogg’s, Goodyear, and Laurence Johnson, a supermarket magnate in Syracuse, NY. It was through Red Channels, an independent publication from Aware, inc., which listed these artists and their progressive affiliations. Once a name surfaced in Red Channels, it was published by newspaper columnists like Dorothy Killgallen, Ed Sullivan, Jack O’Brien and Walter Winchell. This usually resulted in a subpoena from the committee. As actors, directors, writers and others were paraded before the committee, their testimony was divided into two categories. A “Friendly” witness would name the names of those they knew to be politically progressive. Among the most famous friendly witnesses who named names was director Elia Kazan, screenwriter Budd Schulberg and actor Lee J. Cobb. They were considered informers by those that were named and branded “finks.” Their actual testimony or published statements are used in this play. “Unfriendly” witnesses maintained their right to silence and would not name names under the Fifth Amendment. But they were effectively “blacklisted” — barred from working in their profession. In fact an actual “blacklist” never really existed. Although there were secret lists maintained by advertisers and broadcasters in which actors were “cleared” to work, an actual blacklist would have been illegal. These conditions continued until the early 1960s when the industry gave way to a kind of political fatigue. A victorious lawsuit in 1962 by TV and radio host John Henry Falk against Red Channels and Laurence Johnson finally exposed the witch hunt methods of these self-proclaimed “investigators” and brought the dark power of blacklisting to a close. — Joe Gilford A N F D e Red Scare of the 1950’s was a terrifying time for artists in America. Under the leadership of Senator Joe McCarthy e House Un-American Activities Committee systematically destroyed the careers and lives of countless writers, actors and directors, accusing them of the “crime” of their left-leaning political beliefs. If they were willing to “name names” — implicate others — they might be spared. If not, they were blacklisted. ose who named names were called FINKS. Joe Gilford’s parents Jack and Madeline Gilford were among those who were blacklisted. My father, the director David Pressman, was also blacklisted. Joe and I have been friends since childhood, sharing the legacy of our parents’ struggles to rebuild their lives and careers against those odds. My father was a decorated WWII veteran who believed in socialized medicine, equal voting rights for all, civil rights and a social safety net. For those beliefs, he and so many of his colleagues were persecuted. Finks has great resonance for me, of course, because it shines a light on this period and brings to life the struggles of young artists everywhere. But in today’s highly charged political environment, it’s hard not to see the parallels and wonder if this is a cautionary tale for our times.