15 16 August – December
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american repertory theater | expanding the boundaries of theater
Sara Bareilles
And the Music of Waitress Surrounded by Theater
Jessie Mueller Missions in Music
OBERON’s New Works Staging a Migraine
With Ayn Rand & Beethoven
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A.R.T. BOARDS
BOARD OF TRUSTEES Steve Johnson, Chair Amy Brakeman Laurie Burt Paul Buttenwieser RoAnn Costin Mike Dreese Zita Ezpeleta Michael Feinstein Provost Alan M. Garber Rebecca Grafstein Lori Gross Ann Gund Sarah Hancock Jonathan Hulbert Alan K. Jones Thomas B. McGrath Rebecca Milikowsky Ward Mooney Robert Murchison Andrew Ory Diane Paulus Mike Sheehan Diana Sorensen Sid Yog BOARD OF ADVISORS Rachael Goldfarb, Co-Chair Ann Gund, Co-Chair Karen Mueller, Co-Chair Paolo Abelli Frances Shtull Adams Yuriko Jane Anton Robert Bowie, Jr. Philip Burling* Greg Carr Antonia Handler Chayes* Lizabeth Cohen Kathleen Connor Rohit Deshpande Susan Edgman-Levitan Jill Fopiano Erin Gilligan Candy Kosow Gold Barbara Wallace Grossman Peggy Hanratty Marcia Head James Higgins Horace H. Irvine II Emma Johnson Dean Huntington Lambert Travis McCready Irv Plotkin Martin Puchner Ellen Gordon Reeves Pat Romeo-Gilbert Linda U. Sanger Maggie Seelig Dina Selkoe John A. Shane Michael Shinagel Lisbeth Tarlow Sarasina Tuchen Stephen H. Zinner, M.D. *Emeriti
Artistic Director’s Welcome DIANE PAULUS The Terrie and Bradley Bloom Artistic Director American Repertory Theater
It is my pleasure to welcome you to Waitress, the first show in our 2015/16 season. This production, based on the 2007 film written and directed by Adrienne Shelly, kicks off A.R.T.’s season of adaptations. Over the coming year, our productions will transform films, novels, memoirs, and poetry into live experiences, showing the power of theater to tell these stories in provocative new ways. Waitress marks Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Sara Bareilles’s first work for the stage. Sara has captivated the world of pop music with her extraordinary voice and her heartfelt songs. She now brings her immense talent to this world premiere musical, with a score written for a host of characters that delightfully captures their humor and their humanity. This production brings the outstanding Broadway design team from Finding Neverland back to A.R.T.: set designer Scott Pask, costume designer Suttirat Larlarb, lighting designer Kenneth Posner, and sound designer Jonathan Deans. We also welcome writer Jessie Nelson and choreographer Chase Brock to A.R.T. for the first time, as well as an incredibly talented cast led by Tony Award-winning actress Jessie Mueller. Read on in this Guide to learn more about these artists’ work on Waitress, including Sara Bareilles’s thoughts on writing for the stage and Jessie Mueller’s reflections on pie and a life in theater. You will also find articles about the boundary-breaking new work at OBERON, A.R.T.’s second stage. This season at A.R.T. offers an exhilarating roster of artists and experiences. I look forward to seeing you in the audience!
@americanrep
FOUNDING DIRECTOR Robert Brustein
SEASON SUPPORT
The Shubert Foundation
MASTHEAD Managing Editor Ryan McKittrick
Graphic Designer Tak Toyoshima
Senior Editors Robert Duffley Grace Geller Brendan Shea Joel Zayac
Editors Brenna Nicely Amanda Faye Martin Karlie Fitzgerald
THE A.R.T. GUIDE Custom Publishing by Dig Publishing LLC 242 East Berkeley St. 5th Fl. Boston, MA 02118 For advertising inquiries: sales@digpublishing.com SEASON PUBLICATION PARTNER
COVER PHOTO: DANNY CLINCH
americanrepertorytheater.org 2015/16 Season 3
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americanrepertorytheater.org 2015/16 Season 5
A SEASON OF ADAPTATIONS
This season, all six of the A.R.T.’s Loeb productions are theatrical adaptations that bring prose, poetry, and film to life on stage. The season opens with Waitress, a world premiere adaptation of Adrienne Shelly’s movie, with music by singer-songwriter Sara Bareilles. Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812 transforms a section of Tolstoy’s epic War and Peace into a glamorous electropop opera. Nice Fish, a play set on a frozen lake in Minnesota, is adapted from the poetry of Louis Jenkins. 1984 turns George Orwell’s dystopian masterpiece into a chilling reflection on our own era of surveillance. And In the Body of the World features Eve Ensler in an adaptation of her critically acclaimed memoir that connects the health of the planet to her own battle with cancer. The A.R.T.’s holiday show, The Pirate Princess, reimagines Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night as a high seas adventure for children and families. Adaptation has played a central role in the theater for thousands of years. Almost all of the extant Greek tragedies are adaptations of ancient myths. The great Roman comedies are inspired by Greek sources. Medieval theater transformed biblical stories into spectacular live events in churches and town
Sleep No More, an immersive adaptation fusing Shakespeare's Macbeth and Hitchcock's thrillers.
squares. Most of Shakespeare’s plays are adaptations of previously existing poems, stories, or historical chronicles. And many American musicals were inspired by novels, short stories, or plays. The A.R.T. itself has a long history of staging new adaptations. Diane Paulus launched her first season as Artistic Director with “Shakespeare Exploded,” a festival that featured a disco adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream
PROCLAMATION Proclamation is back for a third year, bringing together high school students for an eightweek theater-making program. Youth from across Greater Boston gather at A.R.T. to collaborate with their peers, professional A.R.T. artists, and Harvard scholars on a close examination of a pressing social issue. The ensemble adapts their learning into an immersive theater piece designed for the A.R.T.’s second stage, OBERON. Proclamation 3: WORLD SICK will explore themes of climate change and beyond. Weeknight rehearsals kick-off on September 21, 2015, culminating in a performance at OBERON on November 14 and a special touring performance at the Harvard Allston Education Portal on November 15. For any questions about Proclamation, including application and performance information, contact education@amrep.org or visit americanrepertorytheater.org/proclamation.
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(The Donkey Show), a gospel and R&B take on The Winter’s Tale (Best of Both Worlds), and an immersive experience that fused Macbeth with Hitchcock’s thrillers (Sleep No More). Later that season, the A.R.T. presented Gatz, a seven-hour staging of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby that brought every single word of the original novel to life on the stage. Going back further in the theater’s history, the A.R.T. pre-
SLEEP NO MORE PHOTO: YANIV SCHULMAN | PROCLAMATION PHOTO: GRETJEN HELENE
By Ryan McKittrick
miered a music theater piece rooted in Homer’s Odyssey (Highway Ulysses), an opera inspired by the Orpheus myth (Orphée), and a musical adaptation of Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Big River). Last season, the A.R.T. staged the world premiere of Finding Neverland, a new musical based on the 2004 film, which was itself based on the play The Man Who Was Peter Pan, which had its premiere at the A.R.T in 1990 under the title The Lost Boys. Any adaptation is an act of artistic transformation. While deeply inspired by their sources, playwrights and composers bring stories, films, novels, paintings, poems, historical documents, interviews, memoirs, journals, and letters to life on the stage by creating a new work of art and taking full advantage of theater as an event that unfolds in time and space. Adaptations give us a new lens on texts and films, allowing us to experience other dimensions of stories and characters in the company of a live audience that changes every night. Ryan McKittrick is the A.R.T. Director of Artistic Programs/Dramaturg.
A.R.T. COVER TO COVER & SCREEN TO STAGE
Get a closer look at A.R.T.’s season of adaptations by watching the films and reading the books and poetry that inspired each production.
WAITRESS: Aug.-Sep. 2015 Book by Jessie Nelson Music & Lyrics by Sara Bareilles Based upon the motion picture written by Adrienne Shelly Directed by Diane Paulus This world premiere musical celebrates friendship, motherhood, and the courage it takes to pluck a long abandoned dream off the shelf. FILM: Waitress NATASHA, PIERRE & THE GREAT COMET OF 1812 Dec. 2015-Jan. 2016 Music & Libretto by Dave Malloy Directed by Rachel Chavkin Based on a scandalous slice of Tolstoy’s epic, this electropop opera ushers audiences into the decadence and drama of nineteenth-century Moscow. NOVEL: War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy THE PIRATE PRINCESS: Dec. 2015-Jan. 2016 Book by Lila Rose Kaplan Music & Lyrics by Mike Pettry Directed by Allegra Libonati Adapted from Shakespeare’s classic comedy, this family musical follows seafaring twins Violet and Victor. Separated in a world of rowdy pirates and lovesick royals, the siblings must be crafty and brave to reunite. PLAY: Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare NICE FISH: Jan.-Feb. 2016 Conceived, Written, & Adapted by Mark Rylance and Louis Jenkins Directed by Claire van Kampen Woven from the prose poems of Louis Jenkins, this play follows two ice fishermen angling for the answers to life’s larger questions. POETRY: Nice Fish: New and Selected Prose Poems by Louis Jenkins 1984: Feb.-Mar. 2016 A New Adaptation Created by Robert Icke and Duncan Macmillan Presented in association with Headlong, Almeida Theatre, and Nottingham Playhouse The twentieth-century classic exploring surveillance and identity comes to life in this radical, award-winning adaptation. NOVEL: 1984 by George Orwell ROOSEVELVIS: May 2016 Created by Rachel Chavkin, Jake Margolin, Libby King, Kristen Sieh with Matt Hubbs, Nick Vaughan, and Andrew Schneider On a hallucinatory road trip from the Badlands to Graceland, the spirits of Elvis Presley and Theodore Roosevelt battle over the soul of the painfully shy meat processing plant worker, Ann, and over what kind of man or woman Ann should become. FILM: Thelma & Louise IN THE BODY OF THE WORLD: May 2016 Written and Performed by Eve Ensler Directed by Diane Paulus In this world-premiere adaptation of her critically acclaimed memoir, Ensler celebrates the strength and joy that connect a single body to the planet. MEMOIR: In The Body of The World by Eve Ensler americanrepertorytheater.org 2015/16 Season 7
STORIES IN SONG
An Interview with Waitress Composer Sara Bareilles
SARA BAREILLES: Diane Paulus first told me about the project over lunch a little over two years ago. I was certainly interested, but nervous because it felt like a huge undertaking. I had no experience writing in this format, but my first love was musical theater. Growing up, I devoured shows like The Secret Garden, Little Shop of Horrors, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Phantom of the Opera, Les Misérables, Chess, Oklahoma!, and Miss Saigon. They informed how I listened to music, and I think my being a storyteller was also influenced by that kind of writing. I watched the Adrienne Shelly film after I met with Diane, and the material spoke to me. I thought it was charming and heartfelt, and that there was a beautiful foundation to develop into a musical. I made a pact that I would do it with the condition that if it wasn’t going well, Diane would tap me on the shoulder and let me know. And nobody has tapped me on the shoulder yet! AFM: Many of the songs on your last album, The Blessed Unrest, deal with the themes of Waitress: asking for strength (“Hercules”), moving forward (“Chasing the Sun”), and you’ve said “Islands” is about having “to be your own island to exist. You have to be ok being alone.” What has it been like to explore these themes differently, writing for a musical rather than another solo album? SB: I write autobiographically, so it has been challenging but so exciting to embrace this. I really connected to the lead character, Jenna. She is deeply flawed, pained, and broken, but also has so much strength and soul. When I first watched the movie, I was compelled by the lowest point in her character arc,
and that was what made me want to go to the piano. The first song I wrote was “She Used To Be Mine,” which is about that phenomenon of waking up and looking at yourself and realizing there’s a part of you that doesn’t recognize who you are anymore. I also fell in love with all the other characters and their quirks. The character Ogie, who is the oddball love interest of one of Jenna’s waitressing buddies, is so funny, so warm, so delightful. I had a great time playing with humor in the writing and capturing this really quirky character with sound. I found likenesses between myself and each character, and that’s how I’ve been able to tell their stories. Writing the score has also liberated my process, because I had gotten used to writing in a specific format with a particular goal in mind. It’s not about “will this song make sense on the radio?” It’s more, “am I helping the audience understand the heart and soul of this character?” AFM: You’ve said you consider yourself a feminist. Why do you think Jenna’s story is important to tell now in this country? SB: We’re dealing with a woman in an abusive relationship who has to find strength within herself and within her community. One of the things I love about this story is that it highlights sisterhood amongst friends. I also think there is so much happening right now that celebrates what it means to embody a female spirit, and how that is evolving and changing for each new generation. The story deals with traditional value systems, but we’re challenging them within the world of the musical. AFM: Did your upbringing in a small town in California help you capture that world?
who have big dreams that never came to life because they never got out of town, and people who are perfectly content, who made a wonderful life in a tight-knit community. You were never more than a couple degrees of separation from anybody else, so I really relate to that. I also worked as a waitress for a long time—all through my college years, and post-college when I first formed a band. I actually loved being a waitress. It’s hard work, but it’s also really gratifying and social. And that experience has definitely informed some of the Waitress lyrics. I worked at a little beer bar in Santa Monica after I graduated from UCLA. We had regular patrons who came in every single day. It was a unique experience because I knew them, and at the same time didn’t know everything about them. But the bar provided a sense of familiarity and a sense of home. AFM: You’ve worked with other artists before, but how has this project for the theater been different? SB: This is by far the most collaborative thing I’ve ever done, and that is both super challenging and exhilarating. I think the reason people collaborate is because the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Diane is visionary, brave, and bold, and I love that she has very high expectations. She is deeply collaborative, and so good at finding the gems and knowing when things need to be deepened and pushed further. I feel like I’ve hit the jackpot getting to learn from someone like her during my first professional experience in the theater. Amanda Faye Martin is a second-year dramaturgy student at the A.R.T. Institute for Advanced Theater Training at Harvard University.
SB: I encountered a lot of these characters growing up in Eureka—people
WAITRESS A World Premiere Musical August 2 – September 27, 2015 Book by Jessie Nelson • Music & Lyrics by Sara Bareilles • Based upon the motion picture written by Adrienne Shelly Directed by Diane Paulus • Choreography by Chase Brock Jenna, a waitress and expert pie maker, is stuck in a small town and a loveless marriage. When a baking contest in a nearby county offers her a chance at escape, Jenna must choose between her commitments and her dreams. Her customers, co-workers, and the town’s handsome new doctor all offer her conflicting recipes for happiness—but Jenna ultimately has to decide for herself. This poignant and uplifting new musical celebrates friendship, motherhood, and the courage it takes to pluck a long abandoned dream off the shelf. 8 2015/16 Season americanrepertorytheater.org
PHOTO: JIMMY RYAN
AMANDA FAYE MARTIN: How did your involvement with Waitress begin? What attracted you to the project?
Sara Bareilles in a rehearsal for Waitress.
americanrepertorytheater.org 2015/16 Season 9
HIDDEN STRENGTHS
Waitress Star Jessie Mueller Gives Voice to Vulnerability by Amanda Faye Martin
Tony Award-winning actress Jessie Mueller plays Jenna, the conflicted waitress at the heart of A.R.T.’s new musical.
Broadway debut playing the romantic lead in On a Clear Day You Can See Forever. Since then, she has performed in Into the Woods at the Public Theater and Broadway productions of The
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Mystery of Edwin Drood and Nice Work If You Can Get It. Her poignant performance in Beautiful inspired Carole King to join Mueller onstage after a curtain call for an impromptu duet of “You’ve
PHOTO: NATHAN JOHNSON
“Life is like a pie,” reflects actress Jessie Mueller. “You have to have a sturdy, flaky, buttery crust in order to hold your filling.” As she explains where to find the best banana cream pie in New York City (Joe Allen), why fruit pies are only good homemade, and the secret to her mother’s strawberry rhubarb, it’s easy to see how Mueller’s down-to-earth charm has made her one of the most celebrated musical theater performers in the country. In 2014, she won the Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical for her heartfelt portrayal of Carole King in Beautiful, an original biographical musical about the iconic singer. In rehearsals for the A.R.T.’s world premiere production of the musical Waitress, Mueller brings that same extraordinary voice to the character Jenna, an expert pie-maker stuck in a small town and a loveless marriage. Whether she’s singing one of Sara Bareilles’s moving ballads or chatting about her favorite Midwestern pie chain, Mueller exudes sincerity and warmth. The daughter of two actors and sister of three siblings who are also all performers, Mueller grew up in suburban Chicago surrounded by theater. She never felt pressured by her family to perform, but was attracted to the process and culture of theater. “It was my parents’ job, and I understood there was a lot of work involved from an early age,” she remembers. “But I also saw the camaraderie. I saw my parents’ friends with them after a show. I saw that world—it’s unlike anything else.” Mueller began acting in high school, and later studied theater as an undergraduate at Syracuse University. Returning to Chicago after graduation, she was quickly recognized for her remarkable voice and captivating stage presence. Within a year, Mueller landed a role at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater, and then continued to perform at many of Chicago’s leading theaters, winning her first Joseph Jefferson Award in 2008 in Carousel and another in 2011 in She Loves Me. In 2011, Mueller made her
DESIGNER SPOTLIGHT
Jeannette Hawley and Suttirat Larlarb (L-R) in the A.R.T. costume shop.
Got a Friend” that raised money for the 2014 Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS initiative. An inquisitive actress who is deeply inspired by the developmental process, Mueller’s exploration of her character’s psychology and voice in rehearsal is invaluable. She explains that the relationship among Waitress director Diane Paulus, book writer Jessie Nelson, and composer Sara Bareilles has influenced her own collaborative approach to new work. “I like the way those ladies all work together,” she says. “They’re very open to feedback from actors, and they’re great collaborators and communicators.” The music written by Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Sara Bareilles has played a critical role in helping Mueller develop her character, and she’s found an artistic kinship with the pop star. “It’s beautiful what artists like Sara do, because they’re working through their stuff and letting us into it,” she observes. “Sara’s music makes you feel like, ‘Oh, you wrote that about me, didn’t you?’ And of course she didn’t, but that’s what a good song can do.” Mueller’s characters in both Beautiful and Waitress have been admired for their strength and resilience. In Beautiful, Carole King rises to stardom and reclaims independence after a failed marriage; in Waitress, Jenna aspires to get more out of life after years stuck in an abusive relationship. Both characters confront romantic and professional challenges, and persevere by pursuing their dreams and working through something in themselves. “People say they relate to the strength in the characters I play,” says Mueller. “But I think what they’re really relating to is my characters’ vulnerability. I think that’s where most of the connection comes from— that’s where the empathy comes from. The strength of a character doesn’t really exist without the vulnerability.” Amanda Faye Martin is a second-year dramaturgy student at the A.R.T. Institute for Advanced Theater Training at Harvard University.
SUTTIRAT LARLARB
and the Costumes of Waitress Suttirat Larlarb designed the costumes for last season's production of Finding Neverland, as well as the costumes for the film Slumdog Millionaire and the London 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony. Her work can also be seen in the upcoming films The Walk and Steve Jobs. Returning to A.R.T. for Waitress, she spoke with A.R.T. Costume Shop Manager Jeannette Hawley and Publications & Artistic Programs Associate Robert Duffley about her plans for the new musical.
ROBERT DUFFLEY: What is the relationship between the characters in Waitress and their clothes? SUTTIRAT LARLARB: This musical is very character-driven, so I would prefer that it felt like there was no design. This show becomes so much richer if we can be somewhat restrained with the choices. It teeters on a very tentative line: it’s finding the right degree of the quirky in reality. JEANNETTE HAWLEY: On contemporary shows, there also tends to be an assumption that the actors just show up in those clothes. SL: I get that a lot in film, too. People ask, “what did you do?” And that’s sort of a backhanded compliment. There’s something about this story and Jenna’s journey that wants to feel restrained. There’s more power here in whispering rather than screaming. JH: These are very real people who are dealing with very serious life situations. RD: As a costume designer, how do you help establish distinct identities for different characters? SL: We do a lot of process of elimination. I can identify exactly why it might not be one fabric or one style of dress or one collar over another collar, because it all exists on a continuum, as it does in
the music. Sometimes a costume can actually confuse things, if it’s not well thought out. So I’m very mindful of anthropological factors: location, class, emotional circumstances. A very close friend of mine who is a writer said to me that, having worked with me, he felt that costume is an extension of character behavior, rather than something style-oriented. Style comes into it, and I’ve done many projects where style is vital, but only if it makes sense for the character and the tale that is unfolding. RD: It seems like so much of your design process adapts to the story at hand. Jeannette, would you say that there is any unique or constant factor in Suttirat’s designs? JH: I must say that one of the qualities Suttirat has as a designer is a very precise ability to communicate an absolutely intangible concept. She has a way, either through her drawing, or through a story or a description, to allow me, as the person who has to make it happen technically, to know almost exactly what she wants. I think it’s also her devotion to the process of creation and evolution. Suttirat was saying earlier how much she loves music, and it’s something that moves you, but you can’t understand what it is about the music that’s making that happen; that’s the way I feel working with her. Her clothes, and her designs, and her process all have that musical quality.
FOR THE FULL INTERVIEW, VISIT: americanrepertorytheater.org/waitress
americanrepertorytheater.org 2015/16 Season 11
A.R.T. Board of Advisors member and Neighborhood Cooking host Candy Gold gives Waitress team members Sara Bareilles, Keala Settle, Jeanna de Waal, Jessie Mueller, and Diane Paulus (L-R) a pie-baking lesson.
FROM DINERS TO FINE DINING
JESSIE NELSON Book I was a waitress for nine years. That period when I carried the tray was one of the most unexpectedly meaningful times of my life because of the camaraderie I felt with the women I worked with—women I normally would never have known. I saw them five nights a week, eight hours a night, and in many ways they became closer to me than my closest friends. When I got my first break, and left the restaurant in California, two of the older waitresses flew to New York on opening night to surprise me. We had never seen each other without a name tag or uniform.
SARA BAREILLES Music & Lyrics I worked as a waitress for a long time —all through my college years, and post-college when I first formed a band. I actually loved being a waitress. It’s hard work, but it’s also really gratifying and social. And that experience has definitely informed some of the Waitress lyrics. I worked at a little beer bar in Santa Monica after I graduated from UCLA. We had regular patrons who came in every single day. It was a unique experience because I knew them, and at the same time didn’t know everything about them. But the bar provided a sense of familiarity and a sense of home.
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DIANE PAULUS Director When I was in high school, I worked as the “dessert girl” in a restaurant during the summer. I stood behind a counter and was in charge of preparing all the desserts—mostly putting out slices of cake, pie, and fancy cookies. I remember one day my boyfriend at the time (now my husband!) came in and passed me a little piece of paper with “I love you” written on it. I was holding a large platter of cookies. When I saw what he had written, I dropped the entire platter. I was in such a daze, I didn’t know what to do. I just remember a co-worker at the restaurant leaning over and telling me to pick up the cookies and put them back on the plate.
PHOTO: MARK MAURIELLO
Waitresses work across the entire American landscape. We asked members of the Waitress team to share some of their own experiences as, or with, waitresses and waiters.
JESSIE MUELLER Cast (Jenna) I’ve never been a waitress. I almost can’t believe it. I’ve catered, but catering is faceless, which is sometimes a nice thing. You’re not really serving. You talk to lifelong waitresses, and that’s their profession: to serve. I remember some of the waitresses from when my family would travel from Chicago to New Mexico—in Oklahoma and Texas. I think there’s a pride in it. For the waitresses in the musical, there is certainly a pride in it. For my character, Jenna, it’s the one place she feels proud; she feels useful. I think it’s the only place she feels like herself, or whatever version of herself she remembers as being good.
Hey, Waitress!
In 2002, Alison Owings published Hey, Waitress!, a comprehensive examination of waitressing in America. Transcripts, recordings, and correspondence from Alison Owings’s research are available to researchers at the Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University. The prologue to her book, excerpted here, offers a reflection on the iconic role waitresses play in American life:
AMANDA FAYE MARTIN A.R.T. Production Dramaturg I started waitressing my senior year of high school, serving Italian food and singing jazz standards at a “Singing Servers!” restaurant in Los Angeles. Before my junior year of college, I worked days in the dining room at a retirement home, and nights at an upscale hookah lounge. Last year, I was “Front of House” at a 9-course prix-fixe tasting menu restaurant, where I learned what Hon Shimeji mushrooms are, and momentarily became a snob about wines from the Loire Valley. Though diverse, my days waitressing have taught me one fundamental thing that carries over to my theater career: if somebody’s toast is burnt, it’s everybody’s fault.
SAM HAGEN Harvard College Dramaturgy Intern I grew up in Gainesville, Florida and worked as a waiter at a local breakfast and lunch place on the weekends. I appreciated the theatrical nature of the restaurant: the collective working towards a common goal, the high stress and fast pace, the cast of characters that made up the regulars. I felt like I acted in a different role at each table: for the college kids, I was their friend and would speak casually, recommending my favorite dishes. With the local or older folks, I would speak politely with a slight southern accent and make sure to bring extra lemons with the water.
By my calculations, at least 1,566,832 waitresses are working in the United States today. Granted, a woman in Maryland may have thrown down her apron in mid-shift this morning and walked out, dropping the total to 1,566,831; or a woman in Iowa may have walked in, put on an apron, and raised the total to 1,566,833. The number is elusive. The women are not. ... Why, I lately have been asked, did I start ruminating about waitresses? ... It is waitresses, en masse and alone, I realized, who signify upward and downward mobility within American democracy and capitalism. They are warning or hope. Some, as they wished, do become famous on stages wider than dining rooms, as actresses, as singers of opera or ballads or rock. Some raise children who become famous. Dan Rather’s mother was a waitress. ... Al Gore’s mother waitressed her way through nursing school. Writer Dorothy Allison’s mother was a waitress, as was she. ... Apart from national or familial claims to fame, though, most waitresses are so anonymous that not even their customers always recognize them, in or out of uniform. ... I did not need to think hard to realize that waitresses were overlooked, underheard, underappreciated, and, unlike any other similarly large group of workers, understudied. They stand alone, I thought, even in rare moments when they sit down. … Many do fit into at least one of the predominant three stereotypes—college girl, would-be performer, or wise-cracking greasy-spooner—but many have little more in common with each other than an ability to serve food for money (or, that is, in the hope of money). ... I realized, as I began chewing a bit faster, that waitresses, stereotyped comically but ignored seriously, are the virgin chroniclers and commentators of our time. They know the U.S.A. from the other side of the tray. I knew they had a lot to say. From Alison Owings, Hey, Waitress!: The USA from the Other Side of the Tray, 2002, University of California Press.
americanrepertorytheater.org 2015/16 Season 13
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americanrepertorytheater.org 2015/16 Season 15
César Alvarez, Eric Farber, and Sammy Tunis in Futurity: A Musical by The Lisps.
EXPANDING THE BOUNDARIES OF MUSIC AND THEATER Innovative New Performance at OBERON
shows invite audiences to listen to new voices and to hear old stories in new ways. This exploration is a crucial contribution to A.R.T.’s mission to expand the boundaries of theater. In the following pages, we take a look back at some of OBERON’s defining performances from past seasons, and we also look forward to the new musical work arriving at OBERON this fall.
LOOKING BACK Prometheus Bound
The Lily’s Revenge
Script & Lyrics by Steven Sater Composed by Serj Tankian Directed by Diane Paulus A rock music outcry against tyranny, inspired by Aeschylus’s ancient Greek tragedy about the heroic struggle of Western civilization’s first prisoner of conscience.
Written & Conceived by Taylor Mac Composed by Rachelle Garniez Directed by Shira Milikowsky Featuring an ensemble of 30+ performers, The Lily’s Revenge fused dance, film, theater, and music into five unique acts, shattering cultural expectations and social norms.
2010/11 Season
Futurity: A Musical by The Lisps 2011/12 Season
Music by César Alvarez with The Lisps Book by Molly Rice & César Alvarez Directed by Sarah Benson In this Civil War sci-fi folk musical, the Union soldier Julian Munro and the brilliant mathematician Ada Lovelace transcended time to invent an omnipotent steam-powered brain to end war.
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2012/13 Season
Beowulf – A Thousand Years of Baggage 2012/13 Season
Text & Lyrics by Jason Craig Music by Dave Malloy Directed by Rod Hipskind & Mallory Catlett This passionate retelling of the Old English epic poem transformed OBERON into a 21st-century mead hall, where Beowulf sang, strutted, and slashed his way through a thousand years of literary scholarship.
FUTURITY PHOTO: EVGENIA ELISEEVA | KANSAS CITY CHOIR BOY PHOTO: CORY WEAVER
As the second stage of the A.R.T. and a unique club theater venue, OBERON challenges artists to explore new relationships with space, performance, and audience experience. Since its opening in 2009, OBERON has hosted a range of experimental musical work, including song cycles, disco adaptations, rock protests, burlesques, and nautical dance parties. These
UPCOMING Ghost Quartet Sep. 9-12, 2015
Music, Lyrics, & Text by Dave Malloy Developed & Arranged by Ghost Quartet Directed by Annie Tippe A song cycle about love, death, and whiskey. A camera breaks and four friends drink in an interwoven tale spanning seven centuries, with a murderous sister, a treehouse astronomer, a bear, a subway, and the ghost of Thelonious Monk.
Kansas City Choir Boy Oct. 1-10, 2015
Featuring Courtney Love & Todd Almond Directed by Kevin Newbury Choreography by Sam Pinkleton Musical Direction by David Bloom A theatricalized concept album about love altered by unexpected fate. A mystery told through flashbacks, the show tells the story of two lovers in small town America who separate when one goes in search of destiny and then disappears. Borrowing themes from ancient myth, Kansas City Choir Boy is a love song for the computer age and a product of the 24-hour news cycle that feeds on the stories of the anonymous “missing.”
One Child Born: The Music of Laura Nyro Dec. 2-4, 2015
By Louis Greenstein & Kate Ferber Directed by Adrienne Campbell-Holt Featuring Kate Ferber This acclaimed one-woman show celebrates the music and creative force of the late singer-songwriter and Rock and Roll Hall of Famer whose pop masterpieces—including “Eli’s Comin’,” “And When I Die,” “Save the Country,” and “Stoney End”—topped the charts in the ‘60s and ‘70s.
Ubu Sings Ubu Feb. 4-5, 2016
Adapted & Co-directed by Tony Torn Co-Directed & Choreographed by Dan Safer Produced by Presence Productions in association with The Solo Foundation & Verse Theatre Manhattan A theatrical mash up of Alfred Jarry’s absurdist satire Ubu Roi and the art punk songs of the cult experimental band Pere Ubu. Starring Tony Torn and Julie Atlas Muz as Pa and Ma Ubu.
Courtney Love in Kansas City Choir Boy. americanrepertorytheater.org 2015/16 Season 17
THEME AND VARIATION Staging a Migraine with Wolf 359
Director Michael Rau and playwright Michael Yates Crowley—who together comprise performance group Wolf 359— joined A.R.T. Publications & Artistic Programs Associate Robert Duffley to talk about Song of a Convalescent Ayn Rand Giving Thanks to the Godhead (In the Lydian Mode), playing at OBERON October 15-16 and 22-23, 2015.
ROBERT DUFFLEY: Could you tell me about the origins of your company? MICHAEL YATES CROWLEY: Michael Rau and I went to high school together in Chicago. We met doing Shakespeare. We then went to different colleges, but after we graduated, we started Wolf 359. We refer to ourselves as “narrative technologists.” Which is 40% a joke. But we very purposefully don’t call ourselves a theater company to remind ourselves not to get stuck in that way of thinking: “Audience sits here. Stage is here.” Instead, we now start from, “what is the story we want to tell?” or “what is the question we’re trying to answer? And what’s the best way of telling that story?” RD: And where did the story of Song of a Convalescent Ayn Rand… originate? MYC: When I was younger, I was diagnosed with migraines, and I kept “migraine diaries”: every time you have a headache, you record what you were doing that day, what you ate, and what color the air was, and a million other things, because you’re trying to figure out what causes them—no one knows. So we had the idea to stage these diaries. We started exploring the medical, as well as the artistic, history of migraines. A lot of historical figures had migraines: Nietzsche, Beethoven,
as well as Ayn Rand. And I became obsessed with Ayn Rand’s idea about pain: that it’s imaginary. I think the show is about this question: can you think your way out of pain? It’s about the struggle between trying to cure your migraines by letting Ayn Rand take over your life, versus facing the pain and learning to live with it. MICHAEL RAU: To connect the idea of narrative technology to that, I would add that this play is a very structured progression of themes and variation. There are themes of different experiments, and different ways of trying to answer these questions. We’ll do a dance, we’ll do a song, we’ll play with the projector to find another way to tell the story. MYC: Some of the sections are very historical, and in some cases we’re using actual text of Ayn Rand or Oliver Sachs, or Emily Dickinson. And some of it is more fantastical, because nobody really understands migraines. One of the recurring characters is a drag queen who sings songs about migraines. There’s actually a very bizarre genre of migraine art. People create paintings and other things based on the hallucinations they have. The subject opens itself to an experimental approach: how do you stage a migraine? It’s very difficult, because it’s entirely in your head.
RD: This season at A.R.T. is focused on adaptations—theater pieces created from movies, novels, poetry, and histories. How do you synthesize these different sources into a performance? MR: I think our approach to adaptation is that we’re always interested in giving audiences a different perspective on a conventional narrative. And we do that through humor. If I could say there’s one technique to our adaptations, it’s that we’ll set up a series of jokes that then pay off in something that’s really kind of sad, or something that will allow you to see a deeper, unexpected aspect of a character. RD: Where does the title of this piece come from? MYC: It’s based on a Beethoven String Quartet, one of the very last that he wrote. He was extremely ill—everyone thought he was going to die. But, in fact, he got better, and as he got better, he wrote an extremely long movement in this quartet—the longest movement of any of his string quartets—and it is exceedingly beautiful and strange. It uses an ancient tonality that isn’t major or minor: the “Lydian Mode.” The title is “Song of a Convalescent Giving Thanks to the Godhead (In the Lydian Mode).” So we took our inspiration from this quartet and tweaked it slightly with the addition of Ayn Rand.
Michael Yates Crowley in Song of a Convalescent Ayn Rand Giving Thanks to the Godhead (In the Lydian Mode).
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MYC: Think of it as if you’re going to a concert of words and ideas and characters. The piece has a structure of theme and variations. You hear something in the beginning, and then you will hear 24 different versions of that. They build on each other, and there are characters that you follow through the piece. And part of the fun of it is, you don’t know what will come next. We have a lot of fun doing the show, and I think that it is a lot of fun to see. Part of the fun is in that experimentation.
PHOTO: SARAH C. WALSH
RD: What would you say is the overall experience of the show?
americanrepertorytheater.org 2015/16 Season 19
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