SkelETON CrEW BY DOMINIQUE MORISSEAU DIRECTED BY NICOLE A. WATSON PART OF THE WOMEN’S VOICES THEATER FESTIVAL 2017–2018 SEASON CATALYST A person who causes action | An agent of change | A stimulus, spark, or incitement YOU & UMB For over 200 years, UMB has been working to improve the human condition and serve the public good. Your support of our capital campaign will allow us to: Design new and powerful solutions to our greatest challenges of health and wellness Create leaders and problem solvers who promote a more just society Drive innovation, nurture ingenuity, and advance understanding Encourage people to dream, discover, and dare in our never-ending quest to enrich humanity Develop Big Ideas for Big Change — in areas such as chronic pain management, addiction prevention and treatment, chronic disease research and care, entrepreneurship, and community engagement Be a catalyst. Give today! catalyst.umaryland.edu CONTENTS 3 WelCOME This program is published by: 4 TITLE PAGE BALTIMORE CENTER STAGE 700 North Calvert Street 7 SETTING Baltimore, MD 21202 EDITOR Maggie Beetz 8 DRAMATURGY DESIGN Bill Geenen 14 WOMEN'S VOICES ADVERTISING [email protected] TheATer FesTival BOX OFFICE 410.332.0033 16 CAST ADMINISTRATION 410.986.4000 18 ARTISTIC TEAM CENTERSTAGE.ORG [email protected] 22 LEADERSHIP 24 ANNUAL FUND SKELETON CREW IS MADE POSSIBLE BY 32 CAPITAL CAMPAIGN 37 Up NEXT 39 jUST ANNOUNCED SEASON SPONSOR 40 NEIGHBORHOOD PARTNERS 2017/18 SEASON IS ALSO MADE POSSIBLE BY 42 STAFF 44 AUDIENCE SERVICES Material in this program is made available for educational and research purposes only. Selective use has been made of previously published information and images whose inclusion here does not constitute license for any further re-use. All other material is the property of Baltimore Center Stage. BALTIMORE CENTER STAGE 1 BOARD ABOuT US Terry H. Morgenthaler John McCardell Baltimore Center Stage is a PResiDeNt professional, nonprofit institution Hugh W. Mohler, Jr. committed to entertaining, Edward C. Bernard Charles J. Morton, Jr. ViCe PResiDeNt engaging, and enriching audiences J. William Murray through bold, innovative, and August J. Chiasera Charles E. Noell III ViCe PResiDeNt thought-provoking classical and Judy M. Phares contemporary theater. Beth W. Falcone Jill Pratt Named the State Theater of ViCe PResiDeNt Philip J. Rauch Maryland in 1978, Baltimore Brian M. Eakes E. Hutchinson Center Stage has steadily grown TReAsUrer Robbins, Jr. Jordan D. Rosenfeld as a leader in the national Scot T. Spencer regional theater scene. Under the SeCRetAry Todd Schubert leadership of Artistic Director Charles Schwabe Stephanie L. Baker Kwame Kwei-Armah OBE and Robert W. Smith, Jr. Penny Bank Managing Director Michael Ross, Scott Somerville Baltimore Center Stage is Taunya Banks Michele Speaks committed to creating and Bradie Barr Michael B. Styer presenting a diverse array of Meredith Borden Harry Thomasian world premieres and exhilarating James T. Brady Donald Thoms interpretations of established works. Stephanie Carter Krissie Verbic Baltimore Center Stage Lynn Deering believes in access for all—creating Jed Dietz tRUSTeeS eMeRItI Walter B. Doggett III a welcoming environment for Katharine C. everyone who enters its doors Jane W.I. Droppa Blakeslee and, at the same time, striving to Amy Elias C. Sylvia Brown meet audiences where they are. Juliet A. Eurich Martha Head In addition to Mainstage and Off Daniel Gahagan Sue Hess Center productions in the historic C. Richard Gamper, Jr. Murray M. Mount Vernon neighborhood, Suzan Garabedian Kappelman, MD Baltimore Center Stage ignites Megan Gillick E. Robert Kent, Jr. conversations among a global Adam Gross Joseph M. Langmead audience through digital Cheryl O'Donnell initiatives, which explore how Guth Kenneth C. Lundeen technology and the arts intersect. Elizabeth J. Himelfarb Marilyn Meyerhoff The theater also nurtures the Hurwitz Esther Pearlstone next generation of artists and Kathleen W. Hyle Monica Sagner theatergoers through the Young Ted E. Imes George M. Sherman Playwrights Festival, Student Wendy Jachman Matinee Series, and many other Joe Jennings educational programs for students, John J. Keenan families, and educators. Sandra Liotta 2 BALTIMORE CENTER STAGE WELCOME Dear Friends, When I arrived in America to begin my time at Baltimore Center Stage, Dominique Morisseau was the first US playwright I had the honor of collaborating with. I directed the original production of Skeleton Crew at the Lark Play Development Center, as well as the world premiere of Detroit ’67 for the Public Theater in New York. As my time here comes to a close, it seems fitting to circle back to Dominique’s words and work. Some of you may remember our 2015/16 production of KWAME KWEI-ARMAH Dominique’s Detroit ’67, the second play (chronologically) in her Detroit Project trilogy and a story that spotlights the importance of family against the social unrest of the Detroit riots. Skeleton Crew connects us with a different kind of family, working in the long shadow of Detroit’s more recent history. Detroit and Baltimore have a shared history of postindustrial struggle. What Skeleton Crew portrays about the city and people behind this struggle I think rings true for our city—and our audiences—as well. As usual, Dominique’s portrayal of ordinary people leading their lives while major historical events unfold around them shows us just how powerful theater, and storytelling, can be. While I may be stepping away as the Artistic Director of this theater, it is not yet goodbye. I will be back to direct the last play of this season, SOUL The Stax Musical. And I will always carry this city, and this theater, with me in my heart back across the pond. Kwame Kwei-Armah ARTISTIC DIRECTOR BALTIMORE CENTER STAGE 3 SkelE CrEW TON BY DOMINIQUE MORISSEAU DIRECTED BY NICOLE A. WATSON PART OF THE WOMEN’S VOICES THEATER FESTIVAL JAN 25– MAR 4, 2018 THE CAST THE ARTISTIC TEAM in alphabetical order Nicole A. Watson Brittany Bellizeare Director Shanita Mariana Sanchez Stephanie Berry Scenic Designer Faye Karen Perry Sekou Laidlow Costume Designer Reggie Burke Brown Gabriel Lawrence Lighting Designer Dez Darron L. West Sound Designer Lori M. Doyle Mari Andrea Travis Stage Manager Assistant Director Lindsay Eberly Faedra Chatard Carpenter Assistant Stage Manager Production Dramaturg Pat McCorkle Katja Zarolinski McCorkle Casting, Ltd. Casting There will be one intermission. 4 BALTIMORE CENTER STAGE SkelE CrEW TON Please turn off electronic devices. The Actors and Stage Managers employed in this production are Members of Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States. Skeleton Crew is presented by special arrangement with Samuel French, Inc. Skeleton Crew was developed at the Lark Play Development Center, New York City and the 2014 Sundance Institute Theatre Lab at the Sundance Resort. Winner of the 2014 Sky Cooper New American Play Prize at Marin Theatre Company, Mill Valley, CA, Artistic Director, Jasson Minadakis; Managing Director, Michael Barker. Director Nicole A. Watson is the Season 2017/18 recipient of the Lord Baltimore Capital Corporation Visiting Artist Fund. BALTIMORE CENTER STAGE 5 Make it a party! The cast of Shakespeare in Love DID YOU KNOW MEMBERS GET $10 OFF EXTRA TICKETS? Every additional ticket our Members purchase for their friends will automatically be discounted $10. So buy tickets for all of your friends and save big every time. There is no limit and no service fees! IT PAYS TO BE A MEMBER! OTHER MEMBER BENEFITS Save 15–25% compared Unlimited ticket exchanges to individual tickets Access to pre-paid Own your seats year-to-year parking passes Never pay service fees Get first access to special events Get 20% off all drinks at our bars and announcements! THERE ARE MANY WAYS TO BECOME A MEMBER. Learn about all of our Membership options at centerstage.org/memberships. SETTING A STAMPING PLANT, DETROIT, MICHIGAN. WINTER. SOMEWHERE AROUND 2008. “Should you ever find yourself near an active press line, you’ll no doubt know it. Like the liftoff of an airliner, the stamping of auto body parts requires inhuman force, producing decibels registered by your internal organs. The presses sound, unmistakably, as if they could kill you, which they could, without much interrupting their normal functioning. You’d notice the collision more than they would.” —Paul Clemens, Punching Out: One Year in a Closing Auto Plant BALTIMORE CENTER STAGE 7 MORISSEAU’S MUSICAL NOTATIONS FAEDRA CHATARD CARPENTER Production Dramaturg Many years ago, when penning his as Duke Ellington, Billy Eckstine, Pearl 1963 book Blues People, the provocateur Bailey, Ella Fitzgerald, and Count Basie. In poet and playwright Amiri Baraka (a.k.a. making Blackbottom the setting for her play, LeRoi Jones) reflected on the indivisible Morisseau concurrently acknowledges the nature of African American music and history of her native city’s ever-changing history. Musing that you could ostensibly landscape while also paying homage to “go from one to the other, actually from the Detroit’s rich musical heritage. inside to the outside, or reverse, and be talking about the same things” Baraka was Whereas the backdrop of Blackbottom struck by the revelation that “the music was reminds us of Detroit’s musical roots, Detroit explaining the history as the history was ’67, the next play in the sequence, reignites explaining the music.” the more popular knowledge that the “Motor City” is also the “Motown City.” At Many dramatists, past and present, can the same time, as the title suggests, Detroit boast of work that breathes vibrant truth ’67 also uses its narrative focus to address into Baraka’s musical maxim (August Wilson the racial tensions that indelibly mark our readily comes to mind). However, no one of public memories of July 1967. All of this is late has refreshed this notion or bestowed strategically supported by the sounds of it with quite the same distinctive fervor as Berry Gordy’s legendary musical empire, Dominique Morisseau does with her unique thereby paying tribute to a host of beloved triumvirate known as The Detroit Project.