FEEL THE MOMENT 2015/2016 SEASON IN THIS ISSUE SEPTEMBER – OCTOBER 2015 Hershey Felder as Irving Berlin Title Page 3 Cast 4 About the Play 5 The Cast 8 The Creative Team 9 Acknowledgements 12 Sex with Strangers Title Page 13 Cast 14 The Cast 15 The Creative Team 16 In Memoriam 19 ATC Board of Trustees 20 ATC Artistic Director 21 ATC Interim Managing Director 22 Corporate and Foundation Donors 23 Individual Donors 24 ATC Staff 30 Theatre Information 32 Hershey Felder in ATC’s production of Hershey Felder as Irving Heather Lee Harper and Tyler Eglen in ATC’s Sex with Strangers. Berlin. Photo by Eighty-Eight, LLC Photo by John Groseclose 1 FEEL THE MOMENT 2015/2016 SEASON LOOKING FORWARD WELCOME TO THE OPENING OF ARIZONA THEATRE COMPANY’S 49TH SEASON! Think of theatre as a sort of time machine. Not only does it offer us a means to travel to other times and places, but it has unlimited power to enable us to experience worlds imagined by artists, with the ability to glean insights, appreciate perspectives and impart experiences from the most amazing of journeys. (And sometimes, with a marvelous musical score!) This season, we hope you’ll join ATC for an astonishing range of such remarkable experiences. If you’re already a season subscriber, our special THANK YOU for your support and for your ongoing commitment to the variety and scope of theatre we produce. If you’re not a season subscriber, we invite you to visit or call the ATC Box Office for information on the great savings and benefits that await. You, the audience, are the entire reason Arizona Theatre Company exists. Every time you tell us that you were moved, that you learned, that you remembered, that you were impressed, that you laughed, that you were held in suspense, that you were affected, that you enjoyed – every time it happens we have done our job. Crafting for you perfect moments of theatre is our highest ambition. That’s why we proudly share the ATC mission statement: The mission of Arizona Theatre Company is to inspire, engage and entertain – one moment, one production and one audience at a time. Thank you for the ongoing privilege to serve you as Arizona’s first and only fully professional theatre company. We look forward to creating and joining you on a wondrous journey this season. David Ira Goldstein Matt Lehrman Artistic Director Interim Managing Director 2 DAVID IRA GOLDSTEIN MATT LEHRMAN ARTISTIC DIRECTOR INTERIM MANAGING DIRECTOR PRESENTS THE EIGHTY-EIGHT ENTERTAINMENT, EVA PRICE, SAMANTHA F. VOXAKIS AND KAREN RACANELLI PRODUCTION OF HERSHEY FELDER AS IRVING BERLIN A NEW MUSICAL PLAY LYRICS & MUSIC BY IRVING BERLIN BOOK BY HERSHEY FELDER Hershey Felder & Trevor Hay. Scenic Design Richard Norwood Lighting Design Andrew Wilder Projection Design Erik Carstensen Sound Design/Production Manager Meghan Maiya Dramaturg/Research Meghan Maiya, Jordan Hay, Emma Hay Scenic Decoration DIRECTED BY TREVOR HAY Presented by permission of Rodgers & Hammerstein: an Imagem Company, on behalf of the Estate of Irving Berlin, www.irvingberlin.com. All rights reserved. COVER ART BY: Esser Design OPENING NIGHT SPONSOR: ATC 2015/2016 SEASON SPONSORS: I. MICHAEL AND BETH KASSER 3 FEEL THE MOMENT 2015/2016 SEASON CAST Hershey Felder ..........................................Irving Berlin/Playwright Hershey Felder as Irving Berlin will be performed without an intermission To learn more about Hershey Felder as Irving Berlin, please visit the Learning & Education page on our website at arizonatheatre org for a comprehensive free Play Guide The Play Guide contains a biography of Irving Berlin, cultural context for his life and music, and more Play Guides are also available in The Temple Lounge for a nominal charge to cover printing Arizona Theatre Company operates under agreements between the League of Resident Theatres (LORT) and Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States; Stage Directors and Choreographers, an independent national labor union; and United Scenic Artists Local USA-829, IATSE Cell phones and other devices that make a noise can greatly disturb your fellow audience members and the performer. PLEASE TURN THEM OFF before the performance. Hershey Felder in ATC’s production of Hershey Felder as Irving Berlin. Photo by Eighty-Eight, LLC 4 FEEL THE MOMENT 2015/2016 SEASON ABOUT THE PLAY Tsar Alexander III with his wife, Empress Maria Fyodorovna, 1893 Immigrants arriving at Ellis Island, visible in the background, 1892 By Katherine Monberg, Literary Associate TSARIST RUSSIA AND JEWISH PERSECUTION The assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881 by members of the Narodnaya Volya, a Russian left-wing revolutionary organization, sparked a massive wave of anti-Jewish riots in the southwest region of Imperial Russia, resulting in the destruction of thousands of Jewish homes and livelihoods from 1881-1884. The next successor to the Russian throne, Tsar Alexander III, further persecuted the Jewish population with the issue of the May Laws in 1882, a series of harsh restrictions on Jewish civil and workers rights. The tacit governmental support of Jewish persecution initiated large-scale emigration from the region, with many Jews choosing to build new lives in the United States. Berlin’s family left Russia for the U.S. in 1893, a mere decade before a more brutal wave of pogroms swept the region under Tsar Nicholas II from 1903-1906. ELLIS ISLAND AND THE IMMIGRANT EXPERIENCE Ellis Island in the Upper New York Bay served as the landing point and gateway to the United States for over 12 million immigrants as America’s first federal immigration inspection station from 1892-1954; approximately one-third of the current U.S. population can trace their roots to the immigrants who passed through Ellis Island during its operation. New arrivals at the immigration station were asked a total of 29 questions, primarily regarding their name, occupation, 5 FEEL THE MOMENT 2015/2016 SEASON ABOUT THE PLAY family status, and the amount of money they carried, followed by a physical examination by the army surgeons who staffed the Ellis Island Immigrant Hospital. Entrance to the U.S. could be denied to those with observable diseases or health problems, or those deemed likely to become a public burden such as unskilled workers, those with a criminal record, or those who demonstrated symptoms of mental New arrivals awaiting inspection at Ellis Island illness or insanity. The medical inspection in particular came to be regarded as an intimidating admission exam: unusual techniques were employed, such as the use of a buttonhook to flip up the eyelid to examine immigrants for symptoms of eye diseases, and a chalk mark code placed on clothing to identify potential physical ailments observed by examiners while the applicants candidly climbed the stairs from the baggage area to the rest of the facility. Once through Ellis Island, new immigrants found themselves in the midst of New York City, a major metropolitan melting pot rife with burgeoning industry and large communities of immigrants striving toward the American dream. Many found themselves working long hours in dangerous work environments for wages that couldn’t stretch far enough to feed a family, and crowded into dingy tenements in which sanitation was low and poverty was high. The early 1900s brought Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Era to the country, largely in response to the economic and social hardships endured by the lower and middle classes as modernization encroached, and the political and economic infrastructure struggled to keep pace with the capitalism and corruption induced by the previous Gilded Age. 6 FEEL THE MOMENT 2015/2016 SEASON ABOUT THE PLAY THE STATUE OF LIBERTY An icon of the “land of opportunity” and the American dream, the Statue of Liberty was dedicated on October 28, 1886, a gift from the people of France to the United States. The neoclassical “Lady Liberty” stands on Liberty Island in New York Harbor, serving as the visual confirmation of arrival to the New World for the more than 12 million immigrants that passed through Ellis Island. Designed in copper by French sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi and built by Gustave Eiffel, the statue depicts a robed effigy of Libertas, the Roman goddess of liberty, bearing a torch and a tabula ansata inscribed with the date of the American Declaration of Independence: July 4, 1776. Inside the The Statue of Liberty, dedicated in 1886 lower level of Lady Liberty’s pedestal is a plaque engraved with the sonnet “A New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus, written and donated to raise money for the construction of the pedestal: “THE NEW COLOSSUS,” BY EMMA LAZARUS Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from land to land; Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame. Plaque of “The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus, inside the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty “Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” 7 FEEL THE MOMENT 2015/2016 SEASON THE CAST Hershey Felder (Irving Berlin/Playwright) created and performed George Gershwin Alone, which played on Broadway at the Helen Hayes Theatre, in the West End at the Duchess Theatre, and in theatres around the country. His Composers Sonata – George Gershwin Alone; Monsieur Chopin; Beethoven, As I Knew Him; Maestro Bernstein; Hershey Felder as Franz Liszt in Musik; Hershey Felder as Irving Berlin – has been presented at dozens of theatres across the U.S.