ACT Theatre Is on a Roll

Kurt Beattie Artistic Director Carlo Scandiuzzi Executive Director ACT – A Contemporary Theatre presents Opening Night September 16, 2010 Seasonal support provided by: A Contemporary Theatre Foundation Eulalie Bloedel Schneider Artists Fund The 2010 Mainstage Season is dedicated to the memory of our dear friend Buster Alvord. THE LADY WITH ALL THE ANSWERS By David Rambo Drawn from the life and letters of Ann Landers With the cooperation of Margo Howard Originally produced by The Old Globe, San Diego, California Jack O’Brien: Artistic Director Louis G. Spisto: Executive Director THE LADY WITH ALL THE ANSWERS is presented by arrangement with Dramatists Play Service, Inc. in New York. encoreartsprograms.comꢀ <ul style="display: flex;"><li style="flex:1">ꢀ</li><li style="flex:1">ꢀ</li><li style="flex:1">A-1 </li></ul>WELCOmE TO ACT I stumbled on Ann Landers’ column one day when I was an eleven-year-old kid on Long Island, leafing through our daily TABLE OF CONTENTS Newsday. Up until then I’d never cared much about anything in the paper other than Yankee box scores, but she hooked me <ul style="display: flex;"><li style="flex:1">A-1 </li><li style="flex:1">Title Page </li></ul>with a bizarre letter. A woman wrote in about how much she A-2 A-3 A-4 A-5 A-6 A-8 A-10 A-11 Welcome to ACT The Company Up Next loved her husband, but for one alarming habit of his: when he drank martinis, his preferred cocktail, he couldn’t help taking out the olives, shaking the booze off, then stuffing them up his nose. Dear Ann, what am I to do about this, the woman wanted to know. I remember laughing so hard I fell on the floor. I don’t remember Ann’s reply. I think, on occasion, she just printed a letter for her reader’s amusement. But from that moment on, I became a fan, in spite of myself. In the 1950s and early 1960, when Director’s Note Program Notes Who’s Who Now, in an age of doctoral newspapers were still numerous and distinct, Ann Landers was a cultural degrees, accredited gurus, Giving Message presence. She was the popular member and oceans of information, Ongoing Support, Special Thanks, Special Fund Donors of a group of middlebrow press personalities and columnists like her sister Abby and the longshoreman philosopher Eric Hoffer. They were Landers might seem quaint, and even under qualified. <ul style="display: flex;"><li style="flex:1">A-12 </li><li style="flex:1">Community Partners </li></ul>& Patrons the everyday psychologists and advisors sprung from the post-war populist heart of American society, ministering to an outwardly conformist and inwardly crazy America. Their wisdom had the ring of common sense, of intelligence tempered by life. Despite their commercial obligation to entertain, the tone of their ruinations had a democratic inclination, an unspecialized hard won decency, like a good country doctor who’s heard it all. Unlike showbiz and gossip columnists Louella Parsons and Walter Winchell, who were fundamentally contemptible, a coven of gleeful destroyers and liars in the political service of media thugs like William Randolph Hearst, Landers and her cohorts aimed to help people. A-13 A-16 ACT Circle of Donors Board of Trustees, ACT Staff Now, in an age of doctoral degrees, accredited gurus, and oceans of information, Landers might seem quaint, and even under qualified. But I think we should remember that she respected and took seriously the real pain and confusion of her readers in the letters they wrote. She considered her answers with the aid of experts and did her best with wit and care to help them. What I love most about David Rambo’s “The Lady With All The Answers” is its heart. It captures the struggle of a throaty, optimistic soul like Ann Landers trying to answer the difficult challenges of her life and ours with the truth. And, with a bit of humor when appropriate, how she somehow made us feel that we were capable of changing ourselves and the world for the better. Kurt Beattie Artistic Director A-2ꢀ <ul style="display: flex;"><li style="flex:1">ꢀ</li><li style="flex:1">ꢀ</li></ul>ACT THEATRE ThE COmpANy CAST <ul style="display: flex;"><li style="flex:1">Julie Briskman </li><li style="flex:1">Eppie Lederer ("Ann Landers") </li></ul>prOduCTiON TEAm <ul style="display: flex;"><li style="flex:1">Valerie Curtis-Newton </li><li style="flex:1">Director </li></ul>Martin Christoffel Melanie Taylor Burgess Robert Aguilar Scenic Designer Costume Designer Lighting Designer Sound Designer Assistant Lighting Designer Stage Manager Brendan Patrick Hogan To come/holding space JR Welden <ul style="display: flex;"><li style="flex:1">Verhanika Wood </li><li style="flex:1">Production Assistant </li></ul>Setting: The study of a luxurious high-rise apartment in Chicago, late June 1975 Running Time: Two hours. There will be one intermission. The Actors and Stage Managers in this production are members of Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States. Audience members are cordially reminded to silence all electronic devices such as cell phones, watch alarms, and pagers prior to the performance. All forms of photography and the use of recording devices are strictly prohibited. Please do not walk on the stage before, during or after the show. ACT operates under agreements with the following: encoreartsprograms.comꢀ <ul style="display: flex;"><li style="flex:1">ꢀ</li><li style="flex:1">ꢀ</li><li style="flex:1">A-3 </li></ul>Welcome to Our Home! (L to R) Anne Allgood in Das Barbecü, photo by Chris Bennion; Mark Siano & The Freedom Dancers, photo by Stephen Vest; Judd Hirsch in Below the Belt, photo by Chris Bennion; Cast of A Glimmer of Hope or Skin or Light, photo by Kevin Kauer; Nick Garrison in NEW VOICES, photo by Victoria Lahti. As we continue the 2010 season of Mainstage plays, we want to recognize, salute, and THANK the people that make this possible: YOU, our audience. Your attendance at ACT represents an important gesture of support, for which we are very grateful. 2010 at ACT is unique in that through our Central Heating Lab initiative, we have grown our mission beyond Mainstage plays, to also produce for our community a vibrant variety of live entertainment spanning theatre, music, film, dance, visual art, and more. Since early January, our stages have lit up with partner artists such as 14/48, Shadow & Light, Seattle Dance Project, Mark Siano & The Freedom Dancers, Young Playwrights Festival, Moisture Festival, New Century Theatre Company, KT Niehoff / Lingo Dance, Short Stories Live, Pinter Fortnightly, and RAWSTOCK to name just a few. Our vision of becoming Seattle's downtown center for the arts is certainly becoming a reality. And how is this all possible? Because of YOU, our dear audience. And for that, we are forever grateful. THANK YOU for supporting us and our vision for contemporary arts! Up next at ACT — A theatre of new ideas Oct 15 – Nov 14 A gleefully gruesome comedy from the Oscar-nominated author of In Bruges. tickets on sale now! (206) 292-7676 | www.acttheatre.org | 700 Union Street, Downtown Seattle A-4ꢀ <ul style="display: flex;"><li style="flex:1">ꢀ</li><li style="flex:1">ꢀ</li></ul>ACT THEATRE A Brief History of by Stephanie timm Advice columns Advice columns can be tracked as far back as 1693, when the first British women’s magazine, The Ladies’ Mercury, promised to answer questions relating to love with the “zeal and softness becoming to the sex.” According to Guardian reporter Kathryn Hughes, all the readers were instructed to send in details of baffling instances of male behavior like prospective fiancés taking too long to propose, to a coffee house near St. Paul’s and wait for “the Ladies Society” there to crack the code, or at least come up with some bracing advice about not bothering. He afterwards went to Eton, and he affirms that the whippings there were not half so severe as thos of his governess. —Yours obediently, M. Walker It was also popular for general magazines during the Victorian period to run competitions with prizes for the best letter. The grandmother of all advice columnists was Dorothy Dix, a pseudonym used by Elizabeth Meriwether Gilmer, the daughter of a well-connected Southern family who had come to Tennessee from Virginia who was largely Eppie Lederer visiting wounded soldiers in Viet Nam. While most of the topics contained in advice columns were about women’s issues, they were popular in men’s periodicals as well. The Athenian Mercury targeted ordinary people from middle and lower classes. Complaints in the magazine about a “Knot of Apprentices misbehaving with a servant maid of no good reputation” were frequent. The magazine warned apprentices that such behavior risked “scandal and danger” to their reputations, and the termination of indenture could be ruinous to a young man prospects, and were a threat to his “Fame, Estate, Body and ‘tis to be fear’d Soul and all.” One out of four people in this country is mentally unbalanced. think of your three closest friends; if they seem ok, then you're the one. Sir, —On this subject, and in reply to the mother who complains of her untoward boy, I would advise her to read the remarks of a young gentleman in the supplemental conversazione of the Englishwoman’s self-educated. Gilmer’s first columns were amusing, literate social satire, many geared to early women’s issues. They were an instant success, and readers began writing to Dorothy Dix for advice. In 1917 a national syndicate picked up Dorothy Dix. By the 1930s she was receiving 400 to 500 letters a day. Even after achieving wealth and fame, she answered each of her letters personally. Beatrice Fairfax, another name Domestic Magazine for April last, and then she will find a cure for her troublesome son. After innumerable whippings had failed, the governess took it into her head to dress him in his sister’s clothes, which, though the feat was accomplished after much kicking and plunging, had the desired effect; and he tells us that whenever he transgressed or failed in his lesson, if his governess rang the bell, and desired the housemaid to bring some petticoats, &c,, he either begged pardon for his offences or set to diligently to learn his lesson. In the Victorian period, some magazines printed entire letters that offered opinion rather than advice, though for the most part, the practice was to print only the answers to readers’ letters, leaving out the question, or only referencing it in the letter. This letter from 1870 was taken from The Lady’s Own Paper: inextricably linked to the lovelorn genre, was Marie Manning who originated her column in 1898. Both Dix and Fairfax initially responded to traditional romantic/social problems of the times, but soon dealt with more essential A-6ꢀ <ul style="display: flex;"><li style="flex:1">ꢀ</li><li style="flex:1">ꢀ</li></ul>ACT THEATRE One of the secrets of a long and fruitful life is to forgive everybody everything before you go to bed. One of the last pictures taken of Eppie Lederer, 2001 Chicago Tribune photo by Chris Walker. Some Landers Lore No. of years Esther Lederer wrote the Ann Landers column: 47 ---------------------------------------------- quandaries as well. Dix and Fairfax provided practical, often progressive advice— Date of Esther’s first Ann Landers column: counseling women to seek education, and to independently prepare to fend for themselves in a man’s world. Gilmer often spoke of her personal difficulties as the basis for her empathy for the problems of others. Both the Dix and Fairfax columns quickly became national institutions, their mutual success also due to their appearance October 16, 1955 ---------------------------------------------- Date of Esther’s last Ann Landers column: July 27, 2002 (posthumous publication) ---------------------------------------------- No. of newspapers running Ann Landers’ column at the height of its popularity: T o p: Eppie staying in shape to deal with the daily mail. Above: in an era when the depersonalization of Chicago Sun-Times file photo by Gene Pesek. urban life was weakening the handling of 1200 personal and emotional problems within the domestic environment. Help was now being sought outside the family via the printed word, and the Dix/Fairfax columns were an impartial source of advice for many women of the period. In the 1890s, readers questioned the propriety of receiving gentlemen callers without a chaperone. In the 1930s it had become women’s primary concern. By the 1940s girls were wondering if it was acceptable to take a vacation with their boyfriends. Picking up the rapidly changing thread of public morality in the 1950s were a pair of advice columnists who together cornered a national market that they still dominated into the 1990s, Ann Landers and Abigail Van Buren, pseudonyms used by twin sisters Esther and Pauline Lederer respectively. ---------------------------------------------- No. of readers at the height of its popularity: 90 million ---------------------------------------------- No. of letters received per day by Ann Landers: (on average) 2,000 Advice columns now are increasingly online. While printed advice columns are still widely read, modern readers can click on Dear Mrs. Web, which sits online. ---------------------------------------------- No. of letters read by Esther Lederer personally: 200 to 500 per day encoreartsprograms.comꢀ <ul style="display: flex;"><li style="flex:1">ꢀ</li><li style="flex:1">ꢀ</li><li style="flex:1">A-7 </li></ul>Invest today in Seattle’s most innovative arts organization! ACT Theatre is on a roll. First, we started The Central Heating Lab, and now ACT is a year round destination for the arts with theatre, music, film, dance, literature, lectures and more. Next, ACT donors responded by giving more than ever to our Spring Campaign. ACT is hopping. Join the party. <a href="/goto?url=http://www.acttheatre.org" target="_blank">Go to www.acttheatre.org </a>and invest today in Seattle’s most <ul style="display: flex;"><li style="flex:1">innovative arts organization! </li><li style="flex:1">Now, we have a $150,000 </li></ul>matching gift for every current donor who moves up in our listings in the program, and for every new donor to ACT. It’s a perfect reason to give more, give again, or give for the first time, and make your gift go further. Then, we launched a gamechanging, first-of-its-kind membership—the ACTPass— that lets you see it all for only $25 a month! From left to right, top to bottom: A-10ꢀ <ul style="display: flex;"><li style="flex:1">ꢀ</li><li style="flex:1">ꢀ</li></ul>ACT THEATRE ONGOiNG SuppOrT SpECiAL FuNd dONOrS ACT ENdOWmENT FuNd dONOrS AC T ’ s endowment is administered by A Contemporary Theatre Foundation. Buster & Nancy Alvord Joan & Larry Barokas A Contemporary Theatre Foundation Michael Corliss-Investco Katharyn Alvord Gerlich Becky & Jack Benaroya Charles Blumenfeld & Karla Axell The Ewert Family Bruce & Dawn Goto William Randolph Hearst Endowed Fund for Education & Outreach Programs Kreielsheimer Remainder Fund Doug & Nancy Norberg Sally Pence Katherine & Douglass Raff Brooks & Suzanne Ragen Herman & Faye Sarkowsky David E. & Catherine E. Skinner Kayla Skinner Estate of Stuart Smailes David & Joyce Veterane The Peg & Rick Young Foundation NEW WOrKS FOr ThE AmEriCAN STAGE – A Special Thanks to ACT’s Commissioners AC T ’ s New Works for the American Stage commissioning program attracts commissioners who want to come in direct contact with the creative process. Donors get to know leading playwrights and hear their earliest drafts, watching as ideas become scripts. Our commissioners are venture capitalists of new ideas, and we commend their bravery and commitment to new work. SpECiAL ThANKS Becky’s New Car by Steven Dietz Commissioned by Charlie Staadecker in honor of Benita Staadecker ACT gratefully acknowledges the following for their contributions to this production and season: Desert Birds by Julie Marie Myatt Commissioned by Art Wahl in honor of Eva Wahl How to Remove Blood from a Carpet by Laura Schellhardt AJ Epstein Alaskan Copper and Brass Company Keith Johnsen, Daqopa Brands LLC Moby’s Restaurant Commissioned by Paul and Paula Butzi TITLE TBA by Jason Grote Commissioned by Gian-Carlo and Eulalie Scandiuzzi Dan Savage Maggie Cassidy by Chris Jeffries Commissioned by Dennis Forsyth in honor of Elaine Spencer TITLE TBA by Keith Joseph Adkins Commissioned by Gian-Carlo and Eulalie Scandiuzzi encoreartsprograms.comꢀ <ul style="display: flex;"><li style="flex:1">ꢀ</li><li style="flex:1">ꢀ</li></ul>A-11 COmmuNiTy pArTNErS ACT gratefully recognizes the following corporate, foundation, and government agencies for their generous support of our 2010 programs. Without such tremendous community support, ACT would not be able to offer outstanding contemporary theatre, in-school educational programming, or community based outreach. This list reflects community partners as of June 1st, 2010. ArtsFund/Mary Helen Moore Diversity Fund Ballinger Family Foundation Columbia Crest Winery* Continental Airlines* Elizabeth George Foundation Harvest Foundation Emerald City Shoe Repairs & Northgate Cobblers* Epicenter Fitness* Fales Foundation Trust Horizons Foundation Market Place Salon & Day Spa* Marquis Jet Partners Executive Underwriters ($100,000+) ArtsFund Season Sponsors ($50,000 - $99,999) National Endowment for the Arts The Seattle Foundation Washington Athletic Club* The Peg & Rick Young Foundation MCSB Inc. Moby’s Restaurant* Pacific Place Pike Brewing Company* Wyman Youth Trust A Contemporary Theatre Foundation Eulalie Bloedel Schneider Artists Fund Nesholm Family Foundation Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs, City of Seattle The Shubert Foundation, Inc. Taproot Foundation* Stage Partners <ul style="display: flex;"><li style="flex:1">($5,000 - $9,999) </li><li style="flex:1">Media Partners </li></ul>Apulent Catering and Special Events Company* Norman Archibald Charitable Foundation The Daily Grill* KING-FM Producing Partners ($25,000 - $49,999) 4Culture <ul style="display: flex;"><li style="flex:1">Joanie’s Catering* </li><li style="flex:1">*Support provided through in-kind contributions </li><li style="flex:1">Amazon.Com Inc. </li></ul>Responza* Tony’s Events & Catering* Tuxedos & Tennis Shoes* The Boeing Company Getty Images* John Graham Foundation JPMorgan Chase Foundation The Paul G. Allen Family Foundation PONCHO Benefactors ($1,000 - $4,999) AC/R Services, LLC* Beim Foundation Washington State Arts Commission Bill Speidel Enterprises City Hardware* Performance Partners ($10,000 - $24,999) <ul style="display: flex;"><li style="flex:1">Consolidated Restaurants, Inc.* </li><li style="flex:1">Alaskan Copper & Brass Company </li></ul>ACT – A Contemporary Theatre Kreielsheimer Place 700 Union St. Seattle, WA 98101 Administrative Office: (206) 292-7660 The ACT Legacy Society honors those who remember ACT in their wills or Development: (206) 292-7660 x1321 other estate plans. Legacy Ticket Office Society members ensure ACT’s ongoing tradition of presenting the best of contemporary theatre for future generations. Even persons of modest means can make significant future gifts by using tax-advantaged estate and financial planning techniques. Notify ACT of your arrangements by calling (206) 292-7660 ext. 1321. In person: on performance days, the ticket office is open from noon until show time. Closed Mondays and major holidays. Phone: (206) 292-7676, Tue.-Sun., noon – 7:00 p.m. E-mail: <a href="mailto:[email protected]" target="_blank">[email protected] </a>Online: <a href="/goto?url=http://www.acttheatre.org" target="_blank">www.acttheatre.org </a>A-12ꢀ <ul style="display: flex;"><li style="flex:1">ꢀ</li><li style="flex:1">ꢀ</li></ul>ACT THEATRE ACT CirCLE OF dONOrS ACT would like to recognize and thank all of the individuals who have made contributions to A Contemporary Theatre. The Circle of Donors is invaluable to the success of our mission, ensuring a nurturing environment for the celebration and development of contemporary theatre. Without the generous support of the individuals in the ACT Circle, none of this would be possible. The following list reflects the sum of pledges and gifts made to the Annual Producing Fund by Donors in the ACT Circle between June 01, 2009 and Aug 09, 2010.

ACT Theatre Is on a Roll

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