ORSON WELLES AN 80TH ANNIVERSARY COMMEMORATION ORSON WELLES FRIDAY EVENING, MAY 16, 2014 Stage Left Café Orson Welles, a 20th century cultural 7:00 pm to 10:00 pm giant of international renown, viewed Woodstock as his hometown. Welles Todd Tarbox Opens the Welles Festival attended Todd School for Boys in 7:00 pm to 7:45 pm Woodstock and had as his mentor The author of Orson Welles and Roger Hill: A Friendship in Three Acts, Tarbox attended the Todd School for Todd teacher and headmaster Roger Boys until it closed in 1954. He is the grandson of Roger Hill, Hill, an extraordinary educator who Welles’s teacher and mentor. understood how to nourish creativity and foster love of learning. Asked as Members of the Welles Experts Panel Respond a middle-aged man to name the most 7:45 pm to 8:45 pm important influence on his creativity, Welles replied, “Roger Hill. I think Jonathan Rosenbaum, Joseph McBride, about him every day.” Michael Dawson, Jeff Wilson, Josh Karp, Robert K. Elder This 16-17 May 2014 event commemorates the 80th anniversary of the Petra Van Nuis and Andy Brown Play Todd Theatre Festival at the Woodstock Opera House orchestrated by the Twenties and Thirties Music 19-year-old Welles and paid for by Hill. With the production of Trilby in 9:00 pm to 10:00 pm which Welles played Svengali, Welles made his debut as an American Petra van Nuis is a Chicago-based jazz vocalist. Germany’s theatre director. Also in Woodstock in 1934, Welles directed his first Jazzpodium Magazine hails Petra’s collaboration with her husband, guitarist Andy Brown, as “a magical musical dialogue.” film, The Hearts of Age, and he published with Roger Hill the 3-volume Everybody’s Shakespeare. Our speakers, internationally known experts on Welles, will address the early life and career of Orson Welles in Wisconsin, Illinois, Ireland, Spain, and New York City in the Twenties and Thirties. Musicians will offer period music on Friday night, and, on Saturday night, a radio theatre group will perform selections from Welles’s radio dramas. - 2 - SATURDAY MORNING, MAY 17, 2014 SATURDAY AFTERNOON, MAY 17, 2014 Woodstock Opera House Woodstock Opera House 9:30 pm to 12 Noon 2:30 pm to 5:00 pm This session focuses on Todd School (1926-31), Welles’s 1931 debut as This session follows Welles before and after his 1934 debut in a professional actor at the Gate Theatre in Dublin, the 1934 Todd Theatre Woodstock as a director of live theatre. In 1931, Welles visited Spain, festival, The Hearts of Age, Everybody’s Shakespeare, and the later a trip of great personal significance. After 1934, he achieved success in appearance by the Gate Theatre actor-managers in Welles’s Othello. New York City as a director of radio dramas and stage shows. Welles would soon cap his fame as an actor and director by joining RKO in Moderator / Introducer Robert K. Elder Hollywood and creating the filmCitizen Kane (1941) at age 25. Chicago Review Press has published film critic Robert K. Elder’s The Best Film You’ve Never Seen and The Film that Changed My Life. Moderator / Introducer Robert K. Elder Welles films are at the core of both books. Chicago Review Press has published film critic Robert K. Elder’s The Best Film You’ve Never Seen and The Film that Changed My Life. Jonathan Rosenbaum Welles films are at the core of both books. Jonathan Rosenbaum, former film critic forChicago Reader, has written many books on film, includingDiscovering Orson Welles, as well as Jeff Wilson edited This is Orson Welles. Writer and editor Jeff Wilson founded Wellesnet.com in 2001, and he has studied Welles’s radio work extensively since then. Wilson Joseph McBride presented a seminar on Welles’s radio career at the Locarno Film Film writer for Daily Variety for many years, Joseph McBride is the Festival’s Welles series in Switzerland in 2006. author of many books on film, includingOrson Welles, Orson Welles: Actor and Director, and What Ever Happened to Orson Welles? McBride Josh Karp played a film critic in Welles’s The Other Side of the Wind. Josh Karp, a Chicago-based author, is writing The Last Movie: The Unmaking of Orson Welles’s “The Other Side of the Wind” Michael Dawson (published in 2014 by St. Martin’s Press). Karp tracks the making of President of Intermission Productions, Michael Dawson has produced this partially autobiographical film that some consider to be Welles’s and directed hundreds of promotional documentaries, commercials, final artistic statement and a bookend toCitizen Kane. Karp will show music videos, and industrials. In 1991, the company found and restored a new short documentary about Welles in Spain, El Americano, and tie Orson Welles’s Othello. Dawson’s current Welles projects include together the themes of our Welles presentations. restoring Chimes at Midnight and producing Citizen Welles from 15 hours of filmed material. - 4 - - 5 - SATURDAY EVENING, 17 MAY 2014 The Woodstock Opera House is owned and proudly maintained Woodstock Opera House by the City of Woodstock as a 8:00 pm to 10:00 pm service to the public. RG Productions will perform a number of Welles’s radio theatre scripts Mayor Event Sponsor on the Woodstock Opera House Orson Welles Stage. Vignettes from Dr. Brian Sager Woodstock Celebrates, Inc., is a Welles’s versions of Dracula, The Shadow, and Sherlock Holmes precede City Council Members 501(c)(3) organization recognized a full re-creation of the radio broadcast that unexpectedly made Welles Julie Dillon by the IRS, incorporated in Illinois as internationally notorious in 1938; his radio production of H.G. Wells’s Maureen Larson a nonprofit, and registered with the Mark Saladin Illinois Attorney General as a charity. * science fiction fantasy, The War of the Worlds . Joseph Starzynski Donations are tax deductible. RB Thompson An award-winning group based in Kenosha, Wisconsin - Welles’s Michael Turner Send Donations to: Woodstock Celebrates, Inc. birthplace in 1915, RG Productions performs on stages and at historical City Manager Post Office Box 342 and modern venues throughout Southeast Wisconsin and Northern Roscoe Stelford III Woodstock, Illinois 60098 Illinois. Its mission is to present old-time radio classics Opera House Staff Contact Us Via Email: to a contemporary audience. [email protected] Managing Director * War of the Worlds author, Howard E. Koch. Produced by special arrangement with Playscripts, Inc. www.playscripts.com John H. Scharres Woodstock Celebrates, Inc. Board of Directors Production Assistant Gunnar Gitlin, President ASSOCIATED EVENTS Scott Creighton John Daab, Vice President Peter Gill, Secretary Woodstock Classic Cinema Woodstock Historic Peter F. Carroll, Treasurer Orson Welles Film Festival Preservation Commission Building Manager Kathleen Spaltro, Event Manager May 16 - 18 Walking Tour Mark Greenleaf 815.338.8555 May 17, 1:00 - 2:00 815.338.4305 Box Office Manager Steve Aavang Daniel Campbell Beth Davis Woodstock Public Library Michael Dawson Todd School Exhibit Read Between the Lynes Gregory Gantner May 15 - June 1 Book Signings Box Office Assistant Joanne Gitlin Reception: May 15 May 17, 1:00 - 2:00 Gerri Granzetto Caryl Lemanski 815.338.0542 815.206.5967 Office Manager Rodney Paglialong Lorraine Steinkamp Susan Stelford Woodstock Bars & Restaurants Old Court House Arts Center RB Thompson Pub Crawl / Period Drinks Photo and Multimedia April 4 - May 18 Tribute to Orson Welles House Managers 815.893.6280 Month of May Tish Lyons and Nancy Canty www.welleswoodstock.com 815.338.4525 - 6 - - 7 - Admission Stage Left Café A $15.00 donation is suggested. The Opera House Adult Single Event: $15.00 Adult full day passes: $40.00 Student Single Event: $10.00 Student full day passes: $25.00 Tickets and passes are available at The Opera House box office, which charges a small additional fee. Stage Left Café 125 West Van Buren Street Woodstock, IL 60098 815.337.1395 Woodstock Opera House 121 Van Buren Street Woodstock IL 60098 815.338.5300 Post Office Box 342 Brochure and Woodstock Celebrates Trademark designed by: Celebrates Trademark and Woodstock Brochure onezerocharlie.com / Michael Stanard James Westwood Woodstock, Illinois 60098.