Classic Stage Company JOHN DOYLE, Artistic Director TONI MARIE DAVIS, Chief Operating Officer/GM presents THE RESISTIBLE RISE OF ARTURO UI BY BERTOLT BRECHT TRANSLATED BY GEORGE TABORI with GEORGE ABUD, EDDIE COOPER, ELIZABETH A. DAVIS, RAÚL ESPARZA, CHRISTOPHER GURR, OMOZÉ IDEHENRE, MAHIRA KAKKAR, THOM SESMA Costume Design Lighting Design Sound Design ANN HOULD-WARD JANE COX MATT STINE TESS JAMES Associate Scenic Design Associate Costume Design Associate Sound Design DAVID L. ARSENAULT AMY PRICE AJ SURASKY-YSASI Casting Press Representative Production Stage Manager TELSEY + COMPANY BLAKE ZIDELL AND ASSOCIATES BERNITA ROBINSON ADAM CALDWELL, CSA WILLIAM CANTLER, CSA Assistant Stage Manager KARYN CASL, CSA JESSICA FLEISCHMAN DIRECTED AND DESIGNED BY JOHN DOYLE Cast in alphabetical order Clark / Ragg.............................................................................GEORGE ABUD Roma..........................................................................................EDDIE COOPER Giri......................................................................................ELIZABETH A. DAVIS Arturo Ui....................................................................................RAÚL ESPARZA Dogsborough / Dullfeet..........................................CHRISTOPHER GURR O’Casey / Betty Dullfeet.............................................OMOZÉ IDEHENRE Flake / Dockdaisy...............................................................MAHIRA KAKKAR Givola............................................................................................THOM SESMA All other roles are played by members of the company. There will be one 10-minute intermission. All performers in this production are members of Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States. The use of any recording device, either audio or video, and the taking of photographs, either with or without flash, is strictly prohibited. Please turn off all electronic devices such as cellular phones, beepers, and watches. The use of cell phones in the theater is prohibited by New York City law. Whos Who GEORGE ABUD (Clark / Ragg) Joe (Book, Music, Lyrics; Director Don is a proud Arab-American Scardino), King Lear, Zorba! (City Center actor. CSC: Nathan The Encores), Four Last Things (American Wise (opposite F. Murray Globe Theatre), Dust Can’t Kill Me (NYMF Abraham), Peer Gynt (opposite Award; Dir. Srda Vasiljevic), 39 Steps (New Gabriel Ebert), Allegro (dir. John Doyle). World Stages). Select Regional: Rain (The Broadway: The Band’s Visit starring Katrina Old Globe), The Devil’s Disciple, The Lenk & Tony Shalhoub (OBC Recording), The Misanthrope (STNJ), Once (American Visit starring Chita Rivera & Roger Rees Repertory Theatre), A Streetcar Named (OBC Recording). Off-Broadway: The Band’s Desire (The Cleveland Playhouse). Visit (Atlantic Theater Company, dir. David Film: Wisdom Tooth, Trauma Is A Time Machine, Cromer). International: The New Prince with Blur Circle. TV: “L&O SVU,” “Blue Bloods,” Barbara Walsh, Marc Kudisch & Paulo “Jim Gaffigan Show,” “Fringe.” BFA, MFA. Szot (Dutch National Opera, Amsterdam). Regional: Puck in A Midsummer Night’s RAÚL ESPARZA (Arturo Ui) Dream (Geva Theatre Center), Fiddler on the is a Cuban-American Roof (Human Race Theatre). Please consider actor, who has received joining George in supporting these Tony nominations for his incredible organizations: anera.org, performances in Broadway sams-usa.net, maketheroadny.org. productions of Taboo, Company, Harold Pinter’s The Homecoming, and David EDDIE COOPER (Roma) Mamet’s Speed The Plow. Other Broadway Atlantic Theater Company: credits include the revival of The Rocky This Ain’t No Disco (The D.A.). Horror Show and the musical Chitty Chitty Bucks County Playhouse: The Bang Bang. He recently served as an actor New World (Miles Standish). and creative consultant for Vassar and New Encores! Off Center: Assassins; God Bless York Stage and Film’s second Main Stage You, Mr. Rosewater (Jerome); and Little Shop Powerhouse production of The Waves, a of Horrors (Audrey II). Two Rivers: All-male A musical adaptation of the novel by Virginia Funny Thing Happened… (Domina). TV: “Delco Woolf. He is known for his roles in TV series Proper,” “Forever,” “Mozart In The Jungle,” such as “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” recurring on Cinemax’s “Banshee” as Fat “Hannibal,” “Bojack Horseman,” and “The Au and HBO’s Emmy nominated “The Night Path,” and in film as a voice artist in the Of.” Proud graduate of LaGuardia High Oscar-nominated Twentieth Century Fox School & Ithaca College. Big thanks to my animated feature Ferdinand, as well as the family, and the team at Boals, Winnett & 2010 horror thriller, My Soul to Take. Associates, and Ivy Rock Management. @MrEddieCooper CHRISTOPHER GURR (Dogsborough / Dullfeet) ELIZABETH A. DAVIS (Giri) Broadway: Cats (dir. CSC: The Caucasian Chalk Trevor Nunn, chor. Andy Circle, Allegro (Drama Desk Blankenbuehler), Tuck nom.; dir. John Doyle). Everlasting, Kinky Boots, Amazing Broadway: Once (Tony Grace, and All The Way with Bryan Award nom.; dir. John Tiffany). Select Cranston. National Tours: Memphis (dir. Off-Broadway: My Name’s Not Indian Christopher Ashley), Monty Python’s Whos Who Spamalot (dir. Mike Nichols). Regional: The Hechki, Bite Me, “Friends From College,” Sting (Paper Mill), Titanic (Pittsburgh CLO), “Law and Order,” “Louie,” “Odd Mom Out,” Copenhagen, 1776, Twelve Angry Men (Geva), “Blacklist,” “Blue Bloods,” “The Big C.” Tommy, Oklahoma! (Berkshire Theatre Training: Juilliard. Website: mahirakakkar.com Festival), The Lion in Winter (Indiana Rep), The Drowsy Chaperone (Human THOM SESMA (Givola) Race). Television: “Madame Secretary.” CSC: Pacific Overtures (Lortel Guest Artist/Educator at the Oregon nom., Featured Actor, Shakespeare Festival, Webster University, Musical). Broadway/ St. Louis, and Geva Theatre, Rochester, National Tours: The Times NY. Proud union member: Actors’ Equity, They Are-A Changin’, The Lion King, Miss SAG/AFTRA, and Stage Directors & Saigon, Titanic, Man of La Mancha (2002 Choreographers Society. revival), Face Value, Search and Destroy, Nick ChristopherGurr.com & Nora. Off-Broadway: Sweeney Todd (Barrow Street Theatre), Discord (Primary OMOZÉ IDEHENRE (O’Casey Stages), Awake and Sing! (NAATCO/Public / Betty Dullfeet) Her Theatre), Othello (Public Theatre/NYSF), Portmanteau (Boston Court Cymbeline (NYSF). Regional: McCarter Theater), Good Grief (Kirk Theatre, Yale Rep, Arena Stage, Centre Douglas), Runboyrun (Magic Stage, Old Globe, Cincinnati Playhouse, Theatre), Gem of the Ocean, The Convert, Signature Theatre, Pasadena Playhouse Seven Guitars (Marin Theatre Company), and more. Recent television: “Instinct,” The Comedy of Errors and Richard III “The Good Wife,” “Madam Secretary,” (Oregon Shakespeare Festival), The “Person of Interest,” “Jessica Jones,” Winter’s Tale, Spunk, Macbeth (California “Gotham.” thomsesma.com Shakespeare Company), Clybourne BERTOLT BRECHT. Park, Marcus; or the Secret of Sweet, The (Playwright) Caucasian Chalk Circle, Scorched, A Born in Bavaria, 1898. At 24, his Doll’s House, and A Midsummer Night’s cutting-edge Drums in the Night won him Dream (American Conservatory Theater). Expressionist recognition. His quickly Film: On the Road. Education: MFA, The written Threepenny Opera was Germany’s American Conservatory Theater and greatest hit of the 1920s. Revolutionary in The Groundlings. form for 1928 Berlin – non-operatic, anti- highbrow musical theater - and cynically MAHIRA KAKKAR (Flake satirical, it irritated the Nazis; Brecht / Dockdaisy) was born in left Germany with his family in 1933. He Kolkata, India. Selected continued to write in Scandinavia (e.g. theater: Henry VI, The Mother Courage) until the Nazi invasion. Winter’s Tale (TFANA), In California, along with some work for The Importance of Being Earnest (Two Hollywood he wrote The Caucasian Chalk River), Monsoon Wedding with Mira Nair, Miss Circle and Galileo, produced in L.A. in Witherspoon, and Vanya, Sonia... with 1947. The House Un-American Activities Christopher Durang, Clive with Ethan Committee interrogated him that same Hawke. Film/TV: Hank and Asha (Slamdance year; he left the U.S. the following day. He favorite, Best Actress Napa Film Festival, established the Berliner Ensemble in 1949 Best Actress Wild Rose Film Festival), in East Berlin, opening Mother Courage with Whos Who his wife Helene Weigel; its 1954 tour to (Regent’s Park); Oklahoma! (Chichester); Paris brought him recognition as Europe’s Amadeus (Wilton’s Musical Hall). Opera most important director, a year before his includes: Madama Butterfly (Grange Park), untimely illness and death. Lucia di Lammermoor (Houston/La Fenice/ Sydney Opera House), Peter Grimes GEORGE TABORI, Gyorgy Tabori, (Translator) (Metropolitan Opera), The Rise and Fall of Hungarian-born writer and theatre director the City of Mahogany (LA Opera). Film: “Main (born May 24, 1914 - died July 23, 2007), Street.” John Doyle is Artistic Director of CSC. crafted plays, novels, and screenplays, many of which explored Germany’s ANN HOULD-WARD (Costume Designer) relationship with the Jewish people. Tabori CSC: Passion, Allegro, Peer Gynt, Dead Poets left Hungary in the mid-1930s and settled Society, Pacific Overtures, As You Like It, Fire and in London. He relocated to the U.S. in 1947, Air, Carmen Jones. Select Broadway: The Color wrote screenplays, notably for I Confess Purple, The Visit, The People in the Picture, A (1953), and became acquainted with Free Man