44th Season • 427th Production SEGERSTROM STAGE / MAY 16 - JUNE 15, 2008 David Emmes Martin Benson PRODUCING ARTISTIC DIRECTOR ARTISTIC DIRECTOR presents TAKING STEPS by Alan Ayckbourn Ralph Funicello Angela Balogh Calin Geoff Korf Steven Cahill SCENIC DESIGN COSTUME DESIGN LIGHTING DESIGN SOUND AND MUSIC David Nevell Darin Anthony Jeff Gifford Julie Haber* VOICE & DIALECT COACH ASSISTANT DIRECTOR PRODUCTION MANAGER STAGE MANAGER DIRECTED BY Art Manke Tom and Marilyn Sutton HONORARY PRODUCERS CORPORATE PRODUCER Presented by special arrangement with Samuel French, Inc. Taking Steps • SOUTH COAST REPERTORY P1 THE CAST (in order of appearance) Mark ............................................................................................. Bill Brochtrup* Elizabeth ....................................................................................... Kirsten Potter* Tristram ....................................................................................... Kasey Mahaffy* Roland ................................................................................................. Rob Nagle* Leslie Bainbridge ........................................................................... Louis Lotorto* Kitty ................................................................................................. Emily Eiden* SETTING The action takes place in The Pines; the attic, the bedroom, the lounge and the linking stairs and passageways. LENGTH Approximately two hours and 20 minutes including one 15-minute intermission. PRODUCTION STAFF Dramaturg ........................................................................... Linda Sullivan Baity Casting .......................................................................................... Joanne DeNaut Assistant Stage Manager ............................................................. Chrissy Church* Stage Management Intern ............................................................. Ashley Boehne Assistants to the Lighting Designer ......................................... Chia-Huei Seetoo Costume Design Assistant ................................................................ Merilee Ford Additional Costume Staff ............................... Heather Bassett, Catherine Esera Cecelia McClelland, Swantje Tuohino Cellular phones, beepers and watch alarms should be turned off or set to non-audible mode during the performance. Please refrain from unwrapping candy or making other noises that may disturb surrounding patrons. The use of cameras and recorders in the theatre is prohibited. Smoking is not permitted anywhere in the theatre. * Member of Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers. P2 SOUTH COAST REPERTORY •Taking Steps The cast of Taking Steps: (clockwise from top) Emily Eiden, Kasey Mahaffy, Bill Brochtrup, Rob Nagle, Louis Lotorto and Kirsten Potter. Media Partner Official Airline Media Partner Taking Steps • SOUTH COAST REPERTORY P3 The Way We Were Charles Joe Frazier Queen Elizabeth opens new London Bridge Manson defeats found Muhammed Ali guilty of for Heavyweight murders Championship Tom Bradley elected LA’s first 26th Amendment black mayor lowers voting age to 18 VP Spiro US ends fighting in Viet- UK switches to Agnew resigns Nam IRA bombs British decimal currency VCRs introduced Parliament 1st UK divorce granted on grounds of “irretrievable breakdown” Million UK London stage pre- Jim Morrison strikers protest Streaker at Oscars, Marlon Roe vs. Wade legalizes miere of The Rocky and Louis Armstrong die anti-union bill Brando refuses his award abortion in US Horror Picture Show 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 Atari introduces Pong Watergate hearings con- clude, Nixon resigns Kent State shootings Timothy Leary sentenced to 10 years in prison for Pocket calculators smoking pot introduced Equal Rights Amendment to Apollo 16 & 17 land on moon Congress Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix die Patty Hearst kidnapped Edward UK industrial unrest deepens, Harold Wilson Heath new new PM British PM Beatles break up Burt Reynolds centerfold in 1st heart Harrod’s 100,000 demonstrate in Munich Olympics Cosmopolitan transplant, Dr. bombed Washington against the Vietnam Floppy discs are Christian War introduced 100th British soldier dies in Northern Ireland Bernard P4 SOUTH COAST REPERTORY • Taking Steps IRA bombs West End NYC black-out Microsoft founded Elvis Presley & Charlie Chaplin die Students seize US Embassy in Iran, hostage crisis will last until 1981 Saturday Night Fever sets off disco craze Elizabeth Taylor & Richard Burton IRA bombs Piccadilly remarry Square & London Hilton Star Wars premieres Equal Pay & Sony Mother Teresa Sex Discrim- introduces wins Nobel Three Mile Island ination Acts Walkman Peace Prize nuclear accident become law in UK Margaret Saddam Thatcher Hussein Saigon sur- first becomes renders to “Saturday Night Live” premieres Queen Elizabeth’s Silver woman president Communists on NBC Jubilee PM of Iraq 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 Howard Hughes Proposition 13 & J. Paul Getty die Apple Computer founded 1st test tube baby passes in born in London California London swelters in Love Canal nuclear accident record heat wave Pope John Paul I dies after only one month in Britain office; John Paul II suffers succeeds him worst drought in American celebrates 250 years Jonestown massacre Blizzard engulfs Bi-Centennial southern England Princess Margaret Jimmy Bjorn Borg & Lord Snowden Carter and divorce elected Chrissie Sid Vicious dies from US Everett win overdose awaiting trial for Evita opens in President First flights of SST Wimbledon murdering his girlfriend London Taking Steps • SOUTH COAST REPERTORY P5 From the Playwright In this excerpt from a 1990 interview with Bernard F. Dukore for his book Alan Ayckbourn: A Casebook, the prolific playwright talks about the genesis of Taking Steps. was looking to write a farce, that was the first thing. I had a story which I thought was quite fun. And I had a situation, originally, that I also I thought was quite fun, about a man whose wife had left him a note and she’s the only one who can read it. That was the germ of it. Then out of that came Tristram and his little speech. I was also explor- ing the running gags, which go all the way through. It was one of the hardest plays ever to write. The flaws came reasonably late. I thought I still needed some- thing visual for this play, something that keeps the au- diences’ eyes open as well as their ears. I remember casting my mind back to How the Other Half Loves and saying, “I can’t use that.” But then I came to think of the three floors, which had great potential. I need- ed it, it came out of a demand. I needed a bedroom Alan Ayckbourn (left) dedicated Taking Steps to for Kitty. I needed a bedroom for Roland. I thought, legendary British farceur Ben Travers (right). “I can’t get all these damned things on this stage, there’s no room. I can’t build floors because this the- In his preface to Taking Steps, Ayckbourn divides atre [the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough] in plays into three categories: the round wouldn’t take them.” So then I said, “Good God!” And then I thought, “Oh, to hell with it, they irst, there is the drama or straight play which couldn’t follow this.” And then I thought of How the is usually rather short on humor but filled Other Half Loves, and about how audiences do follow with Insights and other Serious Things and is things provided you present them logically. So the F thus, when successful, regarded as a Very first ten minutes of Taking Steps has to do with telling Good Thing to See. Comedies, on the other hand, are people the geography of the house. I made sure a straight plays with a sense of humor, saying much the man went up to the attic with a suitcase and came same thing only more enjoyably and therefore to a down again, he talked, and then he went downstairs. wider audience. A very few comedies can occasionally The audience laughs although the whole thing is non- achieve the Very Good Thing category, but generally sense. This required the audience to be extremely in- only if (a) the director has removed all the humor from telligent, and what is encouraging is that they’re a bit it by playing it with funereal solemnity or (b) the au- like children. The less you insult their intelligence the thor is long dead, foreign, or preferably both. Thirdly, more intelligent audiences tend to become. They can there are farces which set out to be — and often are — take in quite boggling concepts occasionally. If you funnier than comedies, though to achieve this, the au- stood in the foyer and said, “Ladies and Gentlemen, I thor has necessarily had to jettison […] Serious Things. want to explain tonight that we’re going to be doing Good farce explores the extreme reaches of the credi- some three floors and you have to imagine,“ they ble and the likely by its own immaculate internal logic would probably turn around and put their tickets in and at best leaves its audience only at the end wonder- and say, “This is too much for me. I want to go some- ing how on earth they came to be where they are now. where quiet and drink.” But having got in there and […] For me, farce begins when I feel that I am now having been presented with it, they’re very happy to leading an audience into realms beyond the laws of play with the concept. human probability. P6 SOUTH COAST REPERTORY • Taking Steps Name that Play ow many of the eight previous SCR productions of plays by H Alan Ayckbourn can you iden- tify? (Hint: One play was produced twice—with the