ART on Tour presents ART Magazine: Volume 37, Issue 3 by artistsrep

ART

Volume 37 Issue 3

FRESH EYES: Of Freedom and Folk Discourses pg. 30 WHEN YOU'RE IN LOVE WITH THE DEVIL, TIME IS ON YOUR SIDE pg. 15

IS THE DEVIL OVERWORKED? pg. 11 SCOTTISH BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS PG. 32

* Please use the insert as your placemat for the show!

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Our Mission is to produce intimate, provocative theatre and provide a home for a diverse community of artists and audiences to take creative risks ARTISTSREP.ORG 2

THE STRANGE UNDOING OF PRUDENCIA HART by DAVID GREIG

Dámaso Rodríguez, Artistic Director J.S. May, Managing Director

CAST Prudencia ...................................................................................................... Amy Newman^* Nick ................................................................................................................. Darius Pierce* Colin ................................................................................................................ Eric Little*& Chorus A ........................................................................................................ Susannah Mars^* Chorus B ........................................................................................................ Luisa Sermol* Katie Jane Band .......................................................................................... Katie Lubiens Katie Jane Band .......................................................................................... Adam Easley Ensemble ....................................................................................................... Rachel Bentzen> Ensemble ....................................................................................................... Kerie Darner> Ensemble ....................................................................................................... Corey Silver> Ensemble ....................................................................................................... Haley Novasio> Ensemble ....................................................................................................... Alicia Hueni>

CREATIVE TEAM AND CREW Co-Director & Dramturg ............................................................................ Luan Schooler Co-Director..................................................................................................... Dámaso Rodríguez~ Movement Choreographer ........................................................................ JoAnn Johnson^* Scenic & Lighting Designer ....................................................................... Kristeen Willis# Music Director, Sound Designer, & Composer ....................................... Rodolfo Ortega^# Music Composer .......................................................................................... Katie Jane Lubiens Music Composer .......................................................................................... Adam Easley Costume Designer ....................................................................................... Sarah Gahagan^ Properties Master ........................................................................................ Robert Amico Dramaturg ..................................................................................................... Pancho Savery Dialect Coach ................................................................................................ Luisa Sermol* Wig Designer ................................................................................................. Diane Trapp Intimacy Choreograpgher ......................................................................... Amanda K Cole Fight Choreographer .................................................................................. Jonathan Cole^~ Stage Manager ............................................................................................. Karen M Hill* Production Assistant .................................................................................. Megan Thorpe Board Op ........................................................................................................ Gavin Burgess Live Sound Op .............................................................................................. Dave Petersen Wardrobe ....................................................................................................... Alana Wight

TIME: MID WINTER THE 21ST OF DECEMBER RUN TIME: APPROXIMATELY 120 MINUTES PLUS A 15 MIN. INTERMISSION The video and/or audio recording of this performance by any means is strictly prohibited. * Member of Actors’ Equity Association, the union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States. Actors’ Equity Association, founded in 1913, represents mre than 49,000 actors and stage managers in the U.S. Equity negotiates wages and working conditions, providing a wide range of benefits, including health and pension plans. Equity seeks to foster the art of live theatre as an essential component of our society. www.actorsequity.org + Actors’ Equity Association Candidate ~ Stage Directors & Choreographers Society ^ Artists Repertory Theatre Resident Artist # The scenic, costume, lighting, projections, and sound designers are represented by United Scenic Artists. This theatre operates under an agreement between the League of Resident Theatre and Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States. & Indicates Dance Captain > Indicates Portland Actors Conservatory (PAC) actors

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D I R EC TO R ’S N o t e

“Maybe it had all been a [dream]; Caused

by anxiety and extreme - cold. She remembered hell, the devil’s place, and she couldn’t even recall his face.” - The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart by David Greig

first encountered The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart in 2013, when the National Theatre of Scotland brought the show to the PuSh Festival in Vancouver, Canada, and have wanted to do it ever since. I fell hard for this ever-prudent, somewhat prudish character, whose story of coming undone is shared through impish narration (told in rhyming couplets, no less!), rough and ready live music, and characters that are not at all what they first seem. We began pursuing the rights to produce the show several years ago, but they weren’t available as long as NTS was still touring it around the world. That tour ended last year, and now, ART is the first major American theatre company to produce the show. Prudencia Hart is part ballad, part ghost story, part myth, and part rom-com. The ballad is a narrative form obsessing on love, treachery, death, and supernatural encounters – and Scottish ballads particularly enjoy the dark and eerie side of things. (For terrific insights into balladry and historical context, I urge you to read Pancho Savery’s dramaturgical note, Who Knows Where the Time Goes on page 15, as well as Elizabeth Tavares’ thoughtful observations on page 30.) In some ways Prudencia Hart is like a Mobius strip, playfully turning reality and unreality into the other and back again. Is Prudencia a scholar of Scottish ballads? Or

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is she a character in a ballad? Does she fall into the devil’s trap? Or just into a hypothermic dream? Is it heaven to get every thing you’ve ever wanted? Or is it hell? One of our quests at Artists Rep is to find plays that change the relationship between actors and audience, that pop the membrane between the stage and auditorium. This is one such rabble-rousing play. Tonight, you are invited to help us create the world of the play — to be the snowstorm, the weird icy night, the bacchanalian party. We promise to never put you on the spot or embarrass you, but we hope you’ll join with us in this frisky, bighearted, slightly naughty world of Prudencia Hart. Come undone with us!

Founded in 1982, Artists Repertory Theatre is the longest-running professional theatre company in Portland. ART became the 72nd member of the League of Resident Theatres (LORT) in 2016 and is an Associate Member of the National New Play Network (NNPN).

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PLAYWRIGHT & DIRECTOR BIOS David Greig

David Greig’s award winning work includes The Strange Undoing Of Prudencia Hart (Tron Theatre and National Theatre of Scotland), Midsummer (Traverse Theatre and Soho Theatre/Tricycle Theatre), Dunisinane (RSC at Hampstead Theatre and National Theatre of Scotland tour), Damascus (Traverse Theatre and Scotland and the Tricycle Theatre), Miniskirts Of Kabul (Tricycle Theatre), Brewers Fayre, (Traverse Theatre), Outlying Islands (Traverse Theatre and Royal Court), The American Pilot (RSC, Soho, and MTC), Pyrenees (Paines Plough), The Cosmonaut’s Last Message To The Woman He Once Loved In The Former Soviet Union (Donmar Warehouse), The Architect and Europe (Traverse Theatre). Adaptations include The Creditors (Donmar Warehouse and BAM, NYC), The Bacchae (Edinburgh International Festival and Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith), Tintin In Tibet (Barbican, Playhouse Theatre, London and National Tour), When The Bulbul Stopped Singing (Traverse Theatre), Caligula (Donmar Warehouse), and Peter Pan (Traverse Theatre). David’s work for children and young people includes The Monster In The Hall (TAG Theatre Co. Glasgow and Traverse Theatre), Yellow Moon (TAG Theatre Co. Glasgow and Traverse Theatre), Gobbo (National Theatre of Scotland, Highlands tour), and Dr Korczak’s Example (TAG Theatre Co. Glasgow, Citizen’s Theatre and BAC, London). He has also written extensively for radio.

Luan Schooler

Luan Schooler (she/hers) was born in West Texas, where she trailed her big sister into dance classes and community theatre. When she was twelve, the family packed up and moved to Anchorage, Alaska, where play practice and recitals continued to consume her. After being kicked out of high school, she studied theatre at CalArts. Since then, she has worked with many theaters around the country, including Perseverance Theatre in Juneau, Alaska (where she met and married the marvelous Tim), Denver Center Theatre Company, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and Berkeley Rep. She once detoured from theatre to open a cheese shop, but then did a U-turn, and joined Artists Rep as the Director of New Play Development & Dramaturgy in 2015. In addition to overseeing the commissioning and development work, she also directed Artists Rep’s World Premiere of The Thanksgiving Play by Larissa FastHorse and A Doll’s House, Part 2 by Lucas Hnath.

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ARTISTIC DIRECTOR’S NOTE “It’s difficult to know where to start with the strange undoing of Prudencia Hart.”

by Dámaso Rodríguez, Co-Director

elcome to Artists Repertory Theatre (ART) and David Greig’s one-ofa-kind theatre experience, The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart. It’s been a thrill co-directing with Luan Schooler, our director ARTISTSREP.ORG 6

of New Play Development and Dramaturgy, and collaborating with an innovative design team and this tireless, multi-talented ensemble of twelve performers. On the page, Greig’s play takes the form of endlessly

Photo by Kathleen Kelly

ARTISTIC DIRECTOR’S NOTE

BIO Seven seasons as Artistic Director of Artists Repertory Theatre (ART) Dámaso Rodríguez

Cristi Miles and Director, Dámaso Rodríguez on set of La Ruta by Isaac Gomez

clever verse in mostly rhyming couplets. There’s no punctuation, no casting breakdown (i.e., How many actors are required and who says what line?). While there are several vital stage directions (including places for audience participation) and a few songs specified in the text, nearly every production choice from cast size, to the score, and the assignment of dialogue is left to the team telling the story. It’s rare for a playwright to so generously trust a company to make the play their own in this way, yet this is exactly what Greig advised us to do in an early conversation by phone when he agreed to grant us the rights to one of, if not the first, productions to follow the National Theatre of Scotland’s longrunning international tour of the show. In that spirit, we began the unique journey of bringing the tale to life. We’re excited to share Portland’s own version of this supernatural Scottish ballad with you! Prudencia Hart is the third production of our twoyear journey as ART on Tour while we raise funds to transform our long-time home at 15th and Morrison into a space intentionally designed to serve our mission to produce intimate, provocative theatre and provide a home for a diverse community of artists and audiences to take creative risks. I think of this transition as designing more than a building; we’re designing and securing a future for ART and the ArtsHub* to thrive. I want to thank our long-time audience members for following us across town, this time to the Tiffany Center, just down the block from our home space, which is under construction. If this is your first time seeing an ART production, thanks for taking a chance

Dámaso (he/his) is Co-Founder of L.A.’s Furious Theatre, where he served as Co-Artistic Director from 2001-2012. From 20072010 he served as Associate Artistic Director of the Pasadena Playhouse. His directing credits include 20 Artists Rep productions, along with work at Oregon Shakespeare Festival, American Conservatory Theater, Pasadena Playhouse, Intiman Theatre, South Coast Repertory, Actors Theatre of Louisville, A Noise Within, The Playwrights’ Center, The Theatre@Boston Court, Odyssey Theatre, The New Harmony Project, New Dramatists, and Furious Theatre. Dámaso is a recipient of the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award, the Back Stage Garland Award, the NAACP Theatre Award, and the Pasadena Arts Council’s Gold Crown Award. His productions have been recognized by the Portland Area Musical Theatre Awards, LA Weekly, Stage Scene LA, and the Los Angeles Stage Alliance. In 2010, Furious Theatre Company was named to LA Weekly’s list of “Best Theatres of the Decade.” In 2012, he was honored as a Finalist for the Zelda Fichandler Award by the Stage Directors & Choreographers Foundation. In 2014 he was named a Knowledge Universe Rising Star by Portland Monthly. Dámaso is a proud member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society (SDC). ARTISTSREP.ORG 7

ARTISTIC DIRECTOR’S NOTE on us. I hope you have a wonderful time and are inspired to tell a friend about the show, and that you’ll join us again for another play this season. While producing ART on Tour no doubt has its challenges, it has also been a rewarding artistic adventure for our company. The season features several co-productions and first-time collaborations as we stage a mix of diverse and timely stories, with many of the plays featuring large casts, live music, and expanded creative teams to design video and projection, puppetry, masks, choreography, and stylized movement. No matter the staging complexity or heightened theatricality, our goal—as it has been for nearly 40 years—is to produce memorable, provocative work that stirs audiences to feel something and then have a conversation. Thank you for being a part of it!

Romy Klopper

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ART’s Resource Sharing and CommunityBuilding Initiative supporting Portland theatre makers, arts and education nonprofits, and community groups. The mission of the ArtsHub is to create a cultural center by supporting Portland’s rich artistic ecosystem. Programs and services include: below market rates for rehearsal, performance, and meeting space; shared administrative work space for individuals and organizations; and production services such as set construction, scenic painting, and professional technical support from design through performance. Our goal is to help a diverse range of arts and community organizations thrive. We prioritize artists and organizations that support ART’s values of equity, diversity and inclusion, and seek to provide a home for artists and audiences to take creative risks. While the program’s origin six years ago was in response to an opportunity to share underutilized performance space, we have found that the most vital and lasting impact of the ArtsHub is the bustling community that has been

SEASON SPONSORS

J.S. & Robin May

SEASON SPONSORS

SHOW SPONSORS

On behalf of all of us at Artists Rep, I wish you and your family a happy holiday season. I hope tonight you’ll grab a bite, raise a glass, sing along, and maybe dance? Or, just relax and let our ensemble tell you a tale you won’t soon forget. I look forward to welcoming you back to the theatre in the New Year. Cheers!

*Continued from page 7

OTHER MAJOR CORPORATE AND FOUNDATION SPONSORS

BIO formed, and the myriad ways it has led to the empowerment of local artists and the accelerated growth of participating organizations. On any given day, staff members and dozens of artists from multiple arts and community organizations are rehearsing, utilizing administrative support and meeting spaces, with chance encounters in shared spaces leading to increased communication and unanticipated future collaborations between organizations. In the 2018/19 season alone, over 1,500 events were held in our building by 42 local nonprofits, including 11 resident companies — 380 ArtsHub public events, 462 rehearsals, 422 classes, and 306 ART events. Our new facility is being designed so that the ArtsHub can include even more organizations than it currently serves.

Seasonal Food for all occasions

Two seasons as the Managing Director of Artists Repertory Theatre J.S. May

J.S. (he/his) is a seasoned fundraising and communications professional and has worked with a wide range of local, regional, National, and international nonprofit organizations. He and his teams have raised more than $500 million. For eleven years prior to ART, he was the chief Fundraising, Marketing & Communications Officer, and strategist for the Portland Art Museum — Oregon’s premier visual arts institution. Before the Art Museum, for seven years, J.S. led the fundraising practice for Metropolitan Group, a Portlandbased social marketing firm that works to create a more just and sustainable world. For the six years prior to MG, he supported the growth of the region’s leading pediatric teaching and research hospital as Executive Director for the Doernbecher Children’s Hospital Foundation at OHSU. Before Doernbecher, J.S. spent six years supporting the expansion and growth of the region’s most trusted media source as the Director of Corporate Support for Oregon Public Broadcasting. J.S. currently serves as President of Cycle Oregon board and is a board member for the Cultural Advocacy Coalition. J.S. is an avid yogi, cyclist, and reader.

The Tale of

Tam Lin nce upon a time, Fair Janet, a lassie from the borderlands, was wandering in the deep, forbidden forest called Carterhaugh. There she met a mysterious, unworldly fellow named Tam Lin, with whom she shared an assignation amongst the moss and leaves. When time passed and she found herself pregnant, Fair Janet returned to Carterhaugh, searching for her strange lover. When she found him, he revealed that he is a mortal man who was taken prisoner by the Queen of Fairies when he fell from his horse years before. Every year, the fairies made a sacrifice to Hell, and Tam Lin feared that he was to be offered up to the devil on that very night. Only his true love could save him. That midnight, as Fair Janet waited by the path at Miles Crossing, Tam Lin rode by on a white horse, surrounded by the Fairy Queen and her Knights. Leaping from the shadows, Fair Janet pulled Tam Lin down from his steed, and held him tight. The Fairy Queen, irate, transformed Tam Lin first into an eel, then a lion, then a wolf, a bear, a toad, and finally into burning coal. Throughout each horrible transformation, Fair Janet held tight to her true love, and finally the Fairy Queen relented. As Fair Janet and Tam Lin walk away, the Fairy Queen screamed that she wished she’d turned his eyes to wood or his heart to stone, and prevented him knowing his true love, Fair Janet. The story of Tam Lin has been told in many variations in Scottish ballads and tales for centuries. According to Sir Walter Scott’s “Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border” (1802) the story of Tam Lin was first recorded in the 1549 book “The Complaynt of Scotland.” ARTISTSREP.ORG 10

Is the Devil Overworked? by Vonessa Martin General Manager at Artists Rep

he devil to pay or the devil to pay a viable wage to his overworked staff? What the hell, right? Let’s say, as some believe, we are supernaturally surrounded by demons and angels, the minions of Satan and God respectively, vying for human actions reflecting their influence. There are famous paintings and not as famous books that reflect the ongoing battles complete with angel conversations and prayer warriors turning the tides. The demons are not very loquacious in these instances and I imagine, sound basically like orcs. --- Just a devil made me do it aside here -Speaking of orcs, Tolkien was an atheist and didn’t believe in the Devil even though he was besties with C.S. Lewis who was all about Biblical allegory but what’s strange is that Tolkien’s bad guys were a shit-ton scarier --White Witch vs. Sauron anyone? Anyway, whatever dude (and statistically it was a dude) revealed this invisible demon/angel idea didn’t do society any favors. A person can be frozen in action trying to figure out who wants what choice (and yes, maybe that’s its own evil outcome). I have different anxieties. What if I wasn’t worth their time? What if, in a rare moment of agreement, both angels and demons looked at me, looked at each other, and then were like “meh?” It’s the work force’s choice, right? Unlike God, the Devil can’t be everywhere. His employees are going to have to make their own decisions regarding their work load. Because their biggest problem is that we’ve had quite a population increase since the world began. You have to think about that. In the beginning there was Adam and Eve. If I know math, that’s two people, right?

Devil). Obviously, the Devil can easily handle two people (I mean, to me, it seemed easy for him to get them thrown out of the Garden of Eden). But now, the world has a population of 7.7 billion people! Add to that the fact that it took over 200,000 years of human history to reach 1 billion and only 200 years to reach 7 billion (please note: this is a scientific fact and not a Biblical one. Wink, wink)! In the extensive research I did for this article (Google, Wikipedia) there were no explanations as to how the Devil dealt with this population surge. God, of course, is all powerful, so he can create his angels faster and better than Chrissy Teigen’s tweets. But the Devil? He can’t. And therefore, he can’t possibly have the staff to meet the demand. Not to mention we know he sends on occasion two or more demons to mess with one human (i.e. The Exorcist, The Haunting, The Apprentice). How can he keep up? My theory is the following: He, like many individuals in the influencing/ marketing field, has to focus his efforts on a target group. He sends his crew to the celebrities, the politicians, the leaders. Let’s call his plan “Trickle Down Evil.” He and his demons work on these people and then, if effective, these people, acting like their demon influencers, will affect those in the realm of THEIR influence. It’s a little too possible, isn’t it? Frightening and daunting as these invisible evil-doing workers can be, can we not counteract it with its opposite? Gush Up Good? Ignore the demon/angel to send the positive supportive don’t-be-a-stranger-to-virtue energy up the chain-of-command instead? There has to be more of us than of them after all. And by them I mean the influencers AND the demons. ARTISTSREP.ORG 11

ART MAGAZINE sat down with Sound Designer and Music Director Rodolfo “Rody” Ortega and Katie Jane Band members Katie Lubiens and Adam Easley for a Q&A session.

AM: What are some music choices you made in regards to the show? RO: I was drawn to an a'capella opening, because I had this vision of the opening in which the audience is engulfed by a group of unaccompanied voices telling a great story. After all, isn’t that what theatre is all about? KJB: Theatre is a really amazing art form. Being part of a larger cast and crew with many different talents and ideas, collaborating with everyone and creating something that is bigger than the sum of its parts has been a great experience for us. We added a section where the traditional Scottish tune Tam Lin is played. Prudencia makes a reference to it in her address, and also during the climax of the play her story mirrors Tam Lin’s when she’s trying to escape from the devil. ART MAGAZINE (AM): What draws you to The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart? Rodolfo “Rody” Ortega (RO): Who doesn’t like a devil story? Katie Jane Band (KJB): How amazing to write a play about a Scottish music scholar? It even takes place in a pub and the themes in this piece feel like they’re right out of our lives. It really ticked all of our boxes! AM: Which character do you most identify with in Prudencia Hart? RO: The devil. KJB: As scholars of traditional Celtic music we really relate to Prudencia.

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AM: Rody, as a sound designer how do you approach a show so unique as Prudencia? RO: Steep myself in the music, admit what I don’t know, then hire people that know more about it than I do....thank you Katie Jane and Adam! KJB: This is our first production on this scale, so we didn’t know what to expect. It has been a really great experience working with this amazing cast and crew. Rody has taken us under his wing and shown us how to navigate this complicated process. From idea to rehearsal and finally to performance, we were caught. We would love to be involved in something like this again.

AM: Where do you draw your musical inspiration? KJB: Liz Carroll and John Doyle

AM: What’s it like performing as a Celtic musician? KJB: We get to share the joy of Celtic music with audiences of all ages. Our favorite shows are performing at the Scottish Highland Games. AM: So what do you do when you’re not performing on the theatre stage? KJB: We are both private music teachers and huge proponents of Celtic music and culture. When we aren’t teaching we host a monthly Irish session, we teach a traditional Irish fiddle group class, we put on a music festival called NW Quartet Fest that benefits local school music programs, and we travel with our music outreach program called Hands On Music.

AM: Live music plays a large role in Prudencia, do you design a show based on the space or does the space dictate the design? RO: Both. Each informs the other on where and when you should speak musically and when you should stay silent and let others speak. The room is really, really live. For the opening, at least, that will be great. AM: What is your favorite song? RO: Mozart’s Requiem. Nothing we do or ever will do will ever come close to that...because for us “there is only the trying.” I think I said that before? KJB: Katie Jane - Dvorak, Calvin Harris, Obscurra, Osborne Brothers. Adam Mahavishnu Orchestra, Led Zeppelin, Grateful Dead. AM: If you were to die and come back as a person or animal, what would it be? RO: Well, it changes daily, but today Winston Churchill, because I love his wit. KJB: Twa corbies! AM: What is your motto? RO: “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.” KJB: “Music is the sound feelings make.”

To learn more about The Katie Jane Band and upcoming shows and events, visit katiejaneband.com Also, heck out thire outreach program at www.handsonmusicevents.com

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The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart Glossary of Terms Ceilidh: a social event at which

Su Bo: Susan Boyle, runner-up of

Corbies: crows

Lady of the Estates: here, ‘estates’ means ‘low-income housing projects’

there is Scottish or Irish folk music and singing, traditional dancing, and storytelling

Robert Burns: (1759-1796) national poet of Scotland who collected ballads

Ka: car, much like a Ford Fiesta

Britain’s Got Talent in 2009

Siolagha: (pronounced Shil-lay) Gaelic for the name Sheila Asda: a market, much like Fred Meyer

TO WHISKY OR WHISKEY, THAT IS THE QUESTION The Scots spell whisky while the Irish spell whiskey. What’s up with that pesky ‘e’? We’re glad you asked. Uisge beatha or Scottish Gaelic for ‘water of life,’ is the origin of what is referred to as whisky or whiskey. The origin of the spelling variation is still a debate. During the 1800s, most Scottish whisky was considered of such low quality that Irish (and then quickly following suit, American) distillers added the ‘e’ in order to show distinction between the two to buying customers that the quality of their whiskey was higher. Quality has long since gone up for Scottish whisky and ARTISTSREP.ORG 14

countries outside of Scotland (Japan, Canada, Australia, England, Finland, Germany, and India); all now use the whisky spelling along with some U.S. companies like Maker’s Mark and Old Forester. Countries that use the whiskey spelling include Ireland and the United States.

SPOILER ALERT “Who Knows Where the Time Goes”

David Greig’s The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart by Pancho Savery For most readers of poetry, Scotland’s national poet Robert Burns (1759-1796) is best known for a series of poems and songs including To a Mouse, Address to

a Haggis, To a Louse, Tam o’ Shanter, John Barleycorn: A Ballad, Auld Lang Syne, John Anderson, My Jo, The Cotter’s Saturday Night, and My Luve is Like a Red, Red Rose. Just as important to Burns as his own poems, was his collection and

preservation of Scotland’s vernacular oral culture. To that end, he travelled throughout the country collecting fragments of stanzas and music that he would then piece together to create something new. On one trip to Edinburgh, Burns met for the one and only time the sixteen-year-old Walter Scott, and made a decided impression. Readers know of Scott’s fiction, including Waverly (1814), Rob Roy (1817), and Ivanhoe (1819). Less well known are his Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft (1830). But prior to these, following in the footsteps

of Burns, Scott published three volumes of Border Minstrelsy in 1803, a collection of ballads that, like the work of Burns,

ARTISTS REP gratefully acknowledges our theatre rests on the traditional lands of the Multnomah, Wasco, Cowlitz, Kathlamet, Clackamas, Bands of Chinook, Tualatin Kalapuya, Molalla and many other tribes who made their homes along the Columbia River. ARTISTSREP.ORG 15

celebrated the Scottish vernacular. David Greig’s The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart is the story of a 28-yearold Ph.D. and former Girl Gide whose dissertation is on the topography of hell, whose matricular thesis is on the Scottish ballads collected by Scott, and who teaches folk art at the Edinburgh School of Scottish Studies. Following in the footsteps of her father, she is a collector, and has been invited to attend a conference in the small town of Kelso, part of the Scottish Border area visited by Scott, “on the Linguistics and Transmission of Oral Narratives and Balladry [Border Ballads, Neither Border Nor Ballad?]” and to give a paper on her new theory concerning “hell’s/inherent interiority in folk discourses.” Her hope is that a publisher will attend who will be interested in publishing “her work on the border ballads.” Also attending is her not so favorite colleague Colin Syme, whom she calls “the leather clad lizard.” The conference takes place on 21 December, midwinter night. Folk tradition has said that at midnight on this night, the world opens up for the Devil’s Ceilidh (pronounced kay-lee). The Devil appears and he can capture anyone and transport them to hell, although his usual desired prey is maidens. Once captured, the only escape is to leave at the same time on the same date in another year. Prudencia has recently published an essay on Tam Lin, a character in Scottish ballads who is rescued by his true love from the Queen of Fairies, in which there is a motif of capturing a person by holding him or her through a series of horrible transformations. Colin considers Prudencia’s work to be an example of “naïve nostalgia.” His position is that folk studies should concentrate on contemporary celebrity, such as Susan Boyle, Lady Gaga, rappers, reality ARTISTSREP.ORG 16

television, and singers of karaoke; he has even received “actual grants/ for the recording and analysis of football chants.” To his mind, Prudencia is a romantic “librarian” whose “time has passed.” At the conference, in contrast to Prudencia’s practical view of the universe and the way language works, she encounters Professor Macintosh from the University of Aberdeen, whose “negative reading technique” claims that The Border Widow’s Lament, a text collected by Scott, is “neither / a ballad nor about a widow nor a lament either.” Also present at the conference is Siolagha Smith, “an MA student from Perth” who wants to read borders as “a female space” and ballads as being “born from the Vaginal Tweed.” Cultural studies, post-structuralism, and a supposed version of feminist criticism are being ridiculed here in favor of the practical criticism of Prudencia, whose talk on “Hell’s place in the collective psyche” and the different ways the devil is represented causes the audience to drift away, yawn, or smile smugly, followed by “desultory applause” after Prudencia has accused them of not believing in “BEAUTY ANYMORE.” Disappointed by the reception to her talk, Prudencia is ready to immediately return to Edinburgh, but is forced to stay in town by a massive snowstorm, and goes to a pub with Colin for a ceilidh, a community celebration that includes talk and lots to drink. Colin is bored; but Prudencia, whose work involves “attending some or other ceilidh,” convinces Colin to stay

in hope of his getting “a real insight/into the authentic folk expression of a borders town on a winter’s night.”

After retreating to the bathroom when there is pressure for her to sing, she leaves, determined to find a bed-andbreakfast; gets lost, encounters a strange woman who invites her to watch I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here, and finally gets “rescued” by Nick from the B & B. Nick takes her to his bungalow, and turns out to be the devil with a library “forty feet tall and an acre wide/ books lining the walls on every side.” He convinces her to stay by arguing that they have similar roles, “It’s just - / you’re a collector of songs and I’m a collector of souls.” Prudencia’s life, despite her resistance, then literally becomes the ballad The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart, and the play becomes an example of meta-theatre, theatre about theatre. Here, the world of myth and the world of reality have become one. Earlier, she

SPOILER ALERT

As the night goes on, we are told of a Dionysian bacchanal that includes flaming Sambucca, cigars, Geoff the sex slave, scotch pie suppers, the “explicit strip,” lines of cocaine, the singing of calm psalms, the boy from the country clothing store and what happened to him in the ladies’ room, and the gulling [tricking] of the lassie, none of which the uptight Prudencia wants to participate in. We are also told at various points that the night “was like something out of Breughel,” “like something out of Pasolini,” “like something out of the Marquis De Sade,” and “like something out of Keats.”

had expressed her frustration with those who viewed the ballads as “discourses” (the kind of distanced post-structuralist language Colin Syme would use) rather than “art,” and agreed with Nick that this means the ballads contain “something beyond the words themselves… something eternal… something you want to capture.” Her experience with Nick proves that her theory is true, and that ballads/myths have a direct effect on our lives.

Following her “welcome to Hell,” Prudencia goes through a most interesting evolution. Over the course of years, which eventually turns out to be four thousand, she goes from “rejection,” to “curiosity,” into “a routine of work” in Nick’s library, which contains “every book there’s ever been…and every book there’s never been as well,” including a supposed recording in Burns’s own voice from 1829 singing My Luve is Like a Red, Red Rose. (The problem, however, is that Burns died in 1796.) Her feelings gradually change from “awkward formality” to being “totally completely unselfconsciously at home,” especially when she discovers proof that The Border Widow’s Lament is, in fact, a ballad about a widow and a lament, thus proving the inaccuracy of Professor Macintosh’s theory, espoused at the conference, that it was none of the above. But as the years pass, Prudencia “falls away from work into boredom,” to “stillness,” to eventual “despair,” and she decides she wants to leave, despite Nick’s singing Burns’s My Luve to her. She does research on how to get Nick to fall asleep, since he never

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does, so she can escape. In the meantime, “they fall into domesticity” and watch I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here together, and then into “intimacy.”

SPOILER ALERT

Prudencia discovers that of all the books in the world, her Ph.D. dissertation on “The Topography of Hell in Scottish Balladry” is apparently the one text missing from Nick’s library. Fortunately, however, it is quoted from extensively in the published proceedings of the conference she had attended, which is dedicated “to the Memory of Our Dear Friend and Colleague, Prudencia Hart.” So to the conference goers, Prudencia has presumably died, having disappeared and never been found, and sometime after the fact they have dedicated their book to her. Interestingly, the book contains an essay by Colin Syme in which he quotes from Prudencia’s dissertation to the effect that “the only complete representations of Hell we have are in those rare ballads where the protagonist returns from the underworld to tell the tale,” and that often, these tales include the devil’s falling in love with his captive; and thus, “the topography of hell is also the topography of unrequited love.” Once again, this is an example of metatheatre. We have a play about the study of ballads, in which the ballad story is literally enacted on the stage. Prudencia writes about ballads in which the Devil captures people on 21 December. She herself is captured on that day, lives with the Devil for millennia as he falls in love with her (although he doesn’t want to admit it), and eventually escapes from him, leaving him with unrequited love. On a third level of meta-theatre, the actual play itself functions in this way.

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The actual play is staged as a ceilidh. It is not only in a pub-like setting with food and drink, but the text itself is in the form of a rhyming ballad, and there is a constant chorus to inform us of what’s going on; and so the audience experiences the play on both an intellectual and emotional level. You are watching it happen while it is simultaneously happening to you. Another interesting point is that the verbal interactions between Nick and Prudencia are, for the most part, not in rhyme, which Prudencia complains about. For Prudencia, the language of love needs to be in rhyme. She pleads with Nick to give up his “authorial intent” of showing love’s impossibility, declare his love for her, and give up his “satanic loneliness” that prevents him from being able to sleep. For Nick, his capturing of people on 21 December has always been somewhat random. As he notes, “I never know who I’m going to get on these midwinter’s nights. Usually it’s an idiot. Some drunk lad stumbling home from the pub,” and so love for him seems to remain an impossibility. His inability to love is what makes

The first is read by Prudencia at the beginning of the play and concerns The Twa Corbies Song. We are not told what text this is the third edition of, but its academic tone suggests that it comes from some research project on Scottish folk songs, and is presumably written by Prudencia. The footnote mentions a text by a scholar named Peffermill, but gives no date. The second footnote occurs forty-five pages later when Prudencia asks what the Devil’s Ceilidh is. Given the nature of her scholarly work, it seems strange

Prudencia wouldn’t know what this is, especially since the footnote traces the idea back at least as far as the 17th Century. The footnote references three other scholarly texts from 1976, 1978, and 2009, the second of which is written by Peffermill, so we know the play is taking place post 2009. The final footnote begins, again forty-five pages later, by identifying the text as The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart, and refers to two missing stanzas. The footnote tells us that the earliest version of the text, the Kelso manuscript (Kelso being the town where the conference takes place), is missing two stanzas that are covered by a “black stain” that has been variously identified as “probably vomit,” “probably Guinness vomit,” “or conceivably ‘Maybe Cider and Blackcurrant.’” These three scholarly citations come from 1986, 1992, and 2000, the last one again being by Peffermill. The original text, The Keb Pub manuscript, a) therefore has to have been written prior to 1986 and b) the nature of the stain suggests the text was written in the pub at the time of the strange undoing.

SPOILER ALERT

Prudencia decide she must leave; so on the next 21 December, she waits for the world to crack open at midnight, “and she just – just – fucking – ran.” Colin, meanwhile, leaves his karaoke and holds on to Prudencia to prevent the shapeshifting Nick from taking her back to hell. Interestingly, this story mirrors that of Tam Lin, a topic Prudencia has recently published on, giving us another level of the metatheatrical. Prudencia essentially becomes one of the characters she studies. At three different points in the play, the narrative action is interrupted by a “footnote to the 3rd Edition.”

When Prudencia asks Colin what year it is after he rescues her, he tells her it is 2010. This make sense, as earlier, the text mentions both iPhones and iPads, which were introduced in 2007 and 2010, respectively. This means that in fact, time has passed while Prudencia was in hell, just not 4,000 years, but presumably at least twenty-five. That makes the end of the play even stranger. Twenty-five years have passed, but the conference goers have not moved and are in the same pub in the same town, doing the same thing. This time, however, Prudencia is willing to sing, and sings Can’t Get You Out of My Head, a 2001 song by Kylie Minogue

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(Minogue’s music was Colin Syme’s ringtone). She sings it to the devil as he appears at the window. Earlier, Prudencia had said, “the devil falling in love/ that’s something that could only happen in a ballad.” Once again, the play asserts that the line between imaginary ballad and real life is a false one, or at least very porous, as we have also seen that the concept of time is fluid. When Nick realizes that Prudencia has escaped, we are told “the devil’s eyes go red/ blood falls from his fingertips. Smoke comes from his mouth.” The play ends as “smoke comes from Prudencia’s mouth. Her eyes go red/ blood drips from her fingers.”

She and the devil have become one, and time as a logical construct has disappeared. In the original pub scene, Geoff sang a song, and we are told, “his voice less Sandy Denny more Les Dawson-esque.” Les Dawson (1931-1993) was a deadpan English comedian, and this comment is not meant as a compliment on the quality of his voice as compared to that of Sandy Denny (19471978), the wonderful lead singer of Fairport Convention. Her most noted composition, most famously covered by Judy Collins, was Who Knows Where the Time Goes. When you’re in love with the devil, time is on your side, yes it is.

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WHATEVER IT IS YOU WANT THE OPPOSITE IS ALWAYS THE ANSWER. WHATEVER IT IS YOU WANT THE OPPOSITE IS ALWAYS THE ANSWER. WHATEVER IT IS YOU WANT THE OPPOSITE IS ALWAYS THE ANSWER. WHATEVER IT IS YOU WANT

AMY NEWMAN Prudencia

Amy was last on stage with Artists Rep playing Marie Antoinette in The Revolutionists. Prior to that, she spent three seasons at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Favorite roles there include Calypso in Mary Zimmerman’s The Odyssey, Ronda in the World Premiere of Roe, and Lady Capulet directed by our own Dámaso Rodríguez. She has worked in many other regions including Philadelphia, DC, and Berkeley. Locally, she has collaborated with Theatre Vertigo, Portland Center Stage, defunkt theatre, Oregon Children’s Theatre, Profile Theatre, Liminal, and Third Rail Repertory Theatre. Amy is grateful to be a Resident Artist where The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart marks her twelfth production. In the spring, she will be back at Third Rail Rep alongside some great artists in Mary Jane. Amy is a proud member of Actors’ Equity Association and considers it a great privilege to be a working artist. www.amygnewman.com

DARIUS PIERCE Nick

Darius (he/him) is happy to be back at Artists Rep after Feathers and Teeth and Small Mouth Sounds. Favorite other productions include Bedlam’s Sense and Sensibility, The Santaland Diaries, Beard of Avon, Twelfth Night, 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, The 39 Steps, Frost/Nixon, Misalliance, A Christmas Story, and the JAW Festival (Portland Center Stage); the World Premiere of Stupid F***ing Bird (Woolly Mammoth Theatre); The Gaming Table, Comedy of Errors (Folger Theatre); Lungs, Kiss (Third Rail Repertory Theatre); Les Misérables (Broadway Rose); 1776 (Lakewood Theatre); The Long Christmas Ride Home (Theatre Vertigo). Darius was awarded a Drammy for Outstanding Actor in Beard of Avon and ARTISTSREP.ORG 22

a PAMTA for Best Supporting Actor in Les Misérables. He is a proud Company Member at Third Rail Repertory Theatre, co-founder of the Anonymous Theatre Company, member of SAG-AFTRA and AEA, and collector of turtles. Hi, Julian!

ERIC LITTLE Colin

Eric Michael Little is an artist living in Portland, Oregon. Instagram: @e_little

SUSANNAH MARS Chorus A Susannah is a Resident Artist at Artists Rep, where she was Joan in Small Mouth Sounds. At Portland Opera she was Mrs. Lovett in Sweeny Todd, among others, and was Margaret at Portland Playhouse in The Light In The Piazza. At Portland Center Stage favorite roles include Mama Rose in Gypsy and Mother in Ragtime. Her show Mars On Life ran three seasons at ART, where she was also Diana in Next To Normal, for which she won her seventh Portland Drama Critics Award. In Seattle, she has appeared at The 5th Avenue Theatre, ACT, and The Group. She was Drew Wu’s psychiatrist, Dr. Richet, on NBC’s Grimm. Susannah’s CD; Susannah Mars, Call It Home; The Music of Richard Gray is available, along with her MAC-nominated Take Me To The World, on LML Music. She hosts Artslandia’s podcast, Adventures in Artslandia. Subscribe at artslandia.com www.susannanhmars.com

LUISA SERMOL Chorus B & Dialect Coach Luisa is delighted to return to Artists Rep after being “undone” by her now husband and moving to the Bay Area. Previous Artists Rep shows include The Humans, Cuba Libre, The

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Goat, Sideman, Three Sisters, Master Class, Lost Boy, Xmas Unplugged, and Night of the Iguana. Many Portland credits include: Portland Center Stage, Profile, Shaking the Tree, Miracle, Broadway Rose, Coho, and Cygnet. She is a five-time Drammy recipient for Outstanding Actress. Regional work includes The Roundabout, Lincoln Center, Classic Stage Company, Williamstown Theater Festival, numerous off-off Broadway productions, Archduke and the upcoming They Promised Her the Moon (Theatreworks Silicon Valley), It’s Only a Play and Noises Off (Hillbarn Theatre), The Siegel and upcoming Little Foxes (City Lights). Film/ television: Grimm, Leverage, Zero Effect, and Insect Poetry. Ms. Sermol is a graduate of The Juilliard School, a teaching artist, and a proud member of Actors’ Equity Association.

KATIE LUBIENS Katie Jane Band Katie Jane is Portland’s preeminent Celtic fiddler known for her fiery on-stage presence and energetic spirit. Alongside her talented partner, Adam Easley, the two perform their dynamic show of high-energy Celtic fiddle tunes and spirited songs at venues worldwide as the Katie Jane Band. Together they have recorded three albums of original and traditional Celtic compositions (available to purchase in the lobby). When not performing, Katie Jane is a passionate violin/ fiddle teacher, and a proponent of Celtic culture and music in her community. She hosts an Irish fiddle group class taught in the Celtic aural tradition, a monthly Irish session at Kennedy Violins, and she started two annual festivals, Irish Fest and The NW Quartet Fest, which are both instrumental in promoting community, music, and joy in the Pacific Northwest. Learn more at www.katiejaneband.com

ADAM EASLEY Katie Jane Band Adam Easley is a multiinstrumentalist who plays guitar, violin, mandolin, and fiddle. He teaches at Mount Tabor Music School in Portland, OR. Adam studied violin performance at the Conservatory of Music at the University of Pacific, jazz studies at San Francisco State, and audio engineering at The Evergreen State College. He has played in various rock bands, orchestras, and jazz ensembles and is currently a member of the Katie Jane Band. He has played at Scottish festivals, highland games, and Irish pubs all across the West Coast. He is particularly focused on teaching and sharing his love of music with the next generation of musicians. In 2016 he formed Hands On Music Events with Katie Jane Lubiens, a music outreach program that brings musical instruments to schools, festivals, and other events for kids of all ages. Learn more at guitarlessonspdx.com RACHEL BENTZEN Ensemble Rachel worked most recently on a Tom McCarthy directed children’s film, Timmy Failure. She took a principal role of Pearl in an episode of TNT’s The Librarians and landed a small regional TV spot for Coates Kokes and Chapin Hemmingway. On stage, Rachel has appeared in Northwest Children’s Theater’s production of Robin Hood, The Tempest, Metamorphoses, Hairspray, and Chicago. She is so grateful to practice and grow her craft at Portland Actors Conservatory as a second year and is beyond excited to be in her second show at Artists Rep. KERIE DARNER Ensemble Kerie (she/her/hers) is thrilled to be a part of her second show with Artists Rep. Recently, ARTISTSREP.ORG 23

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Kerie was in the ensemble for 1984. Recent roles include Janie in Wildcat for Lakewood Theatre Company’s Lost Treasures Series and Agnes in I Do! I Do! with New Century Players. A transplant to the Portland area (don’t hate me), some of Kerie’s favorite past roles include Anna in The King and I with Palo Alto Players, Sharon in Finian’s Rainbow with South Bay Musical Theatre, and Marian in The Music Man with Broadway By the Bay. Kerie is currently a second year student with Portland Actors Conservatory and is soaking up everything she can from this experience. COREY SILVER Ensemble Corey is very proud to be in The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart, his second ART production. A Portland native, he is currently a student at Portland Actors Conservatory. Past credits include 1984 at Artists Repertory Theatre, Pride and Prejudice, Love and Information, and Almost, Maine at Portland Community College. HALEY STONE Ensemble Haley (she/her/hers) is a second year student at Portland Actors Conservatory. This is her second show at Artists Repertory Theatre and she is so honored to be among this talented group of actors and crew. ALICIA HUENI Ensemble Alicia Hueni is currently a second year student at Portland Actors Conservatory, and has been acting for the last seven years. The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart is Alicia’s first play in a professional theatre, and couldn’t be more honored. She started small: acting ARTISTSREP.ORG 24

in web series, school films, commercials, feature films, and a couple of music videos before she came around to theatre. She was Hero in Twilight Theater’s Much Ado About Nothing, and then in Portland Actors Ensemble’s Coriolanus, both shows were a very insightful experience in her acting career. Working on stage has redefined what it is to be a professional actor, and ever since Alicia has been pursuing her education in the craft. JOANN JOHNSON Movement Choreograher JoAnn is a professional actor and director. She has appeared onstage in many memorable roles, including Vivian Bearing in Wit, Sister Aloysius in Doubt, Madam Arcati in Blithe Spirit, Big Mama in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Kate Keller in All My Sons, Sally in The Fifth of July and most recently, Mother in The Undertaking with Many Hats Collaboration and Vi in Escaped Alone with Shaking the Tree. She is a Resident Artist at Artists Rep, where she most recently played Katherine Gerard in Mothers and Sons and directed I and You. Among many other directing credits are King Lear, Blackbird, boom, The School for Lies, Big Love, Grand Concourse, Macbeth, Eurydice, Richard II, and The Turn of the Screw. JoAnn has also worked regionally and internationally, touring with Artists Rep to Asia, Africa, and the Middle East and teaching in Bangladesh. KRISTEEN WILLIS Scenic & Lighting Designer Kristeen received her BA from Centre College in Danville, KY and received her MFA in Lighting Design from Wayne State University, Hilberry Company in Detroit, MI. Previously, she designed lights for several Artists Rep productions, including 1984, Wolf Play,

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Everybody, I and You, Feathers and Teeth, American Hero, The Skin of Our Teeth, The Miracle Worker, The Understudy, Foxfinder, The Cherry Orchard and Eurydice. She designed the set for Between Riverside and Crazy, Marjorie Prime, We Are Proud To Present…, Broomstick, 4000 Miles and Foxfinder. She has designed scenery and/or lighting for several area theatres including Northwest Children Theatre’s Shrek, The Musical; Profile Theatre’s True West and Master Harold And The Boys (2013 Drammy) and Thief River; Coho Productions’ Frankie and Johnny in the Clair De Lune and The Outgoing Tide; Miracle Theatre’s Oedipus El Rey (2012 Drammy). RODOLFO ORTEGA Music Director, Composer & Sound Designer Rodolfo is an award-winning composer for film, television, and theatre. Rodolfo received his Bachelor’s Degree in Music from the University of Arizona and his Master’s of Music degree from Manhattan School of Music where he studied piano and composition. He has sound designed and composed for some of the most prestigious theatre companies in the United States including The Oregon Shakespeare Festival (Romeo & Juliet, The Tenth Muse) and Denver Center Theatre Company (The Three Musketeers and Romeo & Juliet). Rodolfo is an Associate Artist with Santa Cruz Shakespeare (Hamlet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Much Ado About Nothing, Macbeth, Julius Caesar, Man in the Iron Mask, and Winter’s Tale). For Artists Rep, he has designed and composed music for La Ruta, 1984, Small Mouth Sounds, Caught, Trevor, Feathers and Teeth, The Talented Ones, and The Liar. Rodolfo recently won the Prague Quadrennial Competition in Music for his composition for ART’s Magellanica. www. rodyortega.com

SARAH GAHAGAN Costume Designer Sarah is a multimedia artist and costume designer for theatre and dance, as well as being a design instructor and resident costume designer at Portland Community College. Sarah has collaborated with many of Oregon’s beloved arts organizations including: Artists Repertory Theatre, Oregon Children’s Theatre, Profile Theatre, Miracle Theatre Group, Oregon Contemporary Theatre, Oregon Ballet Theatre, and Michael Curry Design. Sarah has received five Drammy Awards, Portland’s annual recognition of excellence by a consortium of theatre critics, for her costume design work on Eurydice, James and the Giant Peach, Trojan Women, El Quijote, and A Year With Frog and Toad. She has also received national grants and awards such as the Tobin Theatre Arts Travel Award. Her design work was featured internationally at the 2007 Prague Quadrennial’s Scenofest Exhibit. Her costume design work has been seen in issues of both American Theatre and Theatre for Young Audiences Today. Sarah attended The University of Oregon, where she received a BS in Theatrical Production Design and a BFA in Textiles. ROBERT AMICO Properties Master Robert is a Props Master, Puppet Artist, and a performer and is excited to be returning to Artists Rep for his 3rd season. He was recently the Puppet Wrangler for Artists Rep’s production of Wolf Play and did the Puppet Design and Fabrication for Everybody. He was previously the Props Master for Artists Rep’s productions of The Revolutionists, Everybody, Small Mouth Sounds, Skeleton Crew, An Octoroon, Caught, and Magellanica and Oregon Children’s Theatre’s productions of The Legend of Rock Paper Scissors and Me... Jane. He was the Puppet Wrangler ARTISTSREP.ORG 25

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for OCT’s production of The Very Hungry Caterpillar Show, where he also performed as a puppeteer and received a Drammy for Outstanding Achievement in Puppetry. He has also worked as a Props Artisan and Puppet Fabricator for Michael Curry Design and for several Portland Center Stage productions including The Little Shop of Horrors, Oregon Trail, and Fun Home. robertamicoart.com PANCHO SAVERY Dramaturg Pancho is a professor of English, Humanities, and American Studies at Reed College, where he teaches courses in American literature post-1850, African American literature, and modern and contemporary American and European drama. He also teaches in Reed’s freshman humanities program that covers the ancient Mediterranean world (Mesopotamia, Greece, Egypt, Persia, and Palestine) as well as Mexico City and Harlem. He has given theatre talks at Coho Theatre, Profile Theatre, Portland Center Stage, Artists Rep, and Portland Playhouse; directed Delve Reading Seminars through Literary Arts in Portland; and has published essays on Robert Creeley, Ezra Pound, Saunders Redding, Ralph Ellison, Cecil Brown, Tennessee Williams, James Baldwin, Robert Farris Thompson, Albert Murray, and others. He currently also serves on the Artists Rep Board of Directors. DIANE TRAPP Wig Designer Diane has been doing hair and makeup for theatre since 1972, learning her craft from work with Theater 21, Civic Theatre, and Theatre Workshop. She was the makeup and hair designer for Musical Theater Co. for 18 years, Eugene Opera for 16 years, and Tygres Heart Shakespeare Co. for 6 years. She has worked for many other companies, including Tacoma Opera, Little Rock Opera, New Rose Theatre, Oregon Ballet Theatre, ARTISTSREP.ORG 26

Columbia Dance, Oregon Children’s Theatre, and triangle productions!. Diane has been the stage makeup instructor for Portland Community College for 30 years and has designed many shows for them, including Amadeus, Little Shop of Horrors, Hairspray, and Usagi Yojimbo. In 1984, Diane established Illusionary Designs, a business dedicated to creating makeup and mask designs for the stage. It now creates masks for many occasions including the New Orleans Mask Market during Mardi Gras, and “Maskarade,” a New Orleans mask gallery. AMANDA K COLE Intimacy Choreographer Amanda (she/they) is delighted to be choreographing intimacy for this show, after consulting on La Ruta and choreographing intimacy for 1984. Previously at Artists Rep, they were Intimacy Consultant on Everybody, Skeleton Crew, Small Mouth Sounds, Wolf Play and Intimacy Choreographer on Between Riverside and Crazy. Most recently, Amanda did Movement and Intimacy Direction for Macbeth at Portland Center Stage. Amanda is a movement director, intimacy and violence choreographer whose work has been seen throughout the LA area and the Pacific Northwest. She is a fierce advocate for safe, sustainable, and respectful practice around the staging of intimacy and violence in the industry. Amanda is recommended by the Society of American Fight Directors (SAFD) as an Advanced Actor/Combatant. They are also an intimacy director with local movement consortium, elemental movement, and an apprentice with Intimacy Directors International. Amanda holds an MFA in Acting from California Institute of the Arts.

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THE OPPOSITE IS ALWAYS THE ANSWER. WHATEVER IT IS YOU WANT THE OPPOSITE IS ALWAYS THE ANSWER. WHATEVER IT IS YOU WANT THE OPPOSITE IS ALWAYS THE ANSWER. WHATEVER IT IS YOU WANT THE OPPOSITE IS ALWAYS

JONATHAN COLE Fight Choreographer Jonathan (he/his) is delighted to be a newly-minted member of the Resident Artist Company at Artists Rep! He is a Society of American Fight Directors Certified Teacher of stage combat, and co-owns elemental movement, a movement, stage combat, and intimacy choreography consortium. His choreography is most often seen on Artists Rep’s stage, where he is the Resident Fight Choreographer. His choreography has also been seen at Third Rail Repertory Theatre, Portland Shakespeare Project, Portland Center Stage, and Profile Theatre. Jonathan has worked throughout the northwest as a director, actor, and fight director, and is chair of the Theatre Department at Willamette University. He is proud to be a Full Director/ Choreographer with the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society. KAREN M HILL Stage Manager Karen is happy to be at Artists Rep for her sixth season. She has worked on Wolf Play, Teenage Dick, Skeleton Crew, Magellanica, The Humans, An Octoroon, The Importance of Being Earnest, Marjorie Prime, A Civil War Christmas, American Hero, Grand Concourse, Miracle Worker, Cuba Libre, and Exiles. She also works at Portland Shakespeare Project, Profile Theatre, and the Portland Opera as a Stage Manager and Production Manager. She is grateful every day that she gets to create beautiful art, and would like to thank her husband, Mike, for his continued support of this crazy lifestyle. Artists Rep’s education program is dedicated to developing theatre artists, students, business and arts professionals, and life- long learners at every ability, interest, and level of expertise.

MEGAN THORPE Production Assistant Megan (she/hers), formerly Megan Moll, is returning to Artists Rep for her fourth season, after working on Teenage Dick, Small Mouth Sounds, Between Riverside and Crazy, and others. Megan recently stage managed for Chamber Music Northwest’s summer festival, where she can enjoy her love of music as well as theatre. She also works for various other companies in town, such as Portland Center Stage, CoHo, and Third Rail. Megan is thrilled to be back at Artists Rep this fall, and is looking forward to working “on tour” with the other amazing artists this season. DAVE PETERSEN Sound Op This is Dave’s 14th season with Artists Rep. He moved to Portland mid-summer of 2005 after receiving an Associates of Applied Science Degree in Audio and Recording Technologies. Dave’s first job for the theatre was installing the sound system for the then newly-acquired Morrison Stage. Since then Dave has been a Board Op for over 30 productions beginning with BUG. A few of his favorite (and most challenging) shows would have to be Cuba Libre and Tribes. ALANA WIGHT-YEDINAK Wardrobe Alana (she/hers), a native Montanan, is in her first season with Artists Rep. Since arriving in Portland in 2012, she has worked across many visual mediums and has been fortunate to be a part of a number of exciting theatrical projects — from devised pieces to musicals. She teaches Introduction to Costuming at Wilson High School and is gratified to be able to share the love of theatre with the next ARTISTSREP.ORG 27

THE UNDONE generation of artists. She has been nominated twice for Best Costume Design by Broadway World Portland (Much Ado About Nothing, Post5 Theatre; Troilus and Cressida, Portland Actors Ensemble). Her recent design credits include An Iliad (Northwest Classical Theatre Collaborative), King Lear (Portland Actors Ensemble), Adroit Maneuvers (Lighthouse Arts), and She is Fierce (Enso Theatre). She is grateful for her husband and daughter, without whom it would be slightly more odd to be playing in the mud.

ogue?

e Min i l y K a ’s What

Kylie Minogue is a Grammy Awardwinning Australian singer, songwriter actress, fashion designer, and children’s book writer. As the highest-selling female Australian artist of all time, Minogue has been described as a style icon and is known for reinventing herself. She was appointed a Chevalier by the French government, an Officer of the Order of the British Empire, and inducted into the Australian Music Hall of Fame. ARTISTSREP.ORG 28

25 YEARS THE CHRISTMAS REVELS

AN ENGLISH CELEBRATION OF THE WINTER SOLSTICE

DECEMBER 13-22, 2019 MATINEES & EVENINGS NEWMARK THEATRE 1111 SW BROADWAY WWW.PORTLANDREVELS.ORG OR CALL 503.274.4654

3 4 5 6 7 8 12

Across

Down

1. Dinnae _______ yirsel : Scottish Expression 6. Related to contra dancing in a Scottish social setting 12. Bard of Ayrshire or the Ploughman Poet 13. Scottish Gaelic for ‘water of life’ 14. Stewart, Scottish singer 15. What is the capital of Scotland 16. A character in a legendary ballad originating from the Scottish Borders 17. Wishful name for Glasgow street

2. Ham for soup 3. Rough worsted cloth 4. Beauty of Troy’s home town 5. Type of dumpling 7. A raven, crow, or rook 8. A dastardly lout 9. Song that tells a story passed down from generation to generation 10. Red or black feather in a Scotsman’s cap 11. Eastside town in the middle of May Ring

The Resident Artist title is offered by the Artistic Director in appreciation of each artist’s achievements with ART and in the spirit of continued collaboration. These multidisciplinary theatre makers are deeply committed to ART’s success, share organizational values, and participate in decisionmaking processes that impact the theatre’s mission and its future. Across 1. Fash 6. Ceilidh 12. Burns 13. Uisge beatha 14. Andy 15. Edinburgh 16. Tam Lin 17. Hope Down 2. Hough 3. Tweed 4. Helensburgh 5. Clootie 7. Corbie 8. Devil 9. Ballad 10. Hackle 11. Ayr

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Fresh eyes Artists Rep’s Fresh Eyes program brings ‘civilians’ into the rehearsal process. On selected productions each season, we invite writers from diverse backgrounds to join us for a few rehearsals, and then share their observations of the process and the play on the website. We hope the distinctive perspectives of our guests will illuminate the inner workings of a production, and enrich the experience for our audiences and community at large. Our Fresh Eyes for The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart is Elizabeth E. Tavares, Ph.D. (@ElizETavares) an Assistant Professor of English at Pacific University. Elizabeth specializes in play companies, theatre history, and Shakespeare in performance. As a scholar-practitioner having worked with a variety of companies in Chicago and the Pacific Northwest, she is currently completing a book, Playing the Stock Market: The Elizabethan Repertory System before Shakespeare. Elizabeth has previously been an observer on Feathers & Teeth, Magellanica, and Teenage Dick.

Of Freedom and Folk Discourses by Elizabeth E. Tavares, Ph.D.

Listening at the table, The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart pops and fizzes with cultural specificity. The play opens with two dueling folk ballads—narrative poems meant to be read aloud to maximize their oral-formulaic techniques and evinced in pre-modern cultures the world over—that capture the different stakes attached to nature and death between the English and the Scots. In the former, a recently deceased knight is guarded over by a hawk and a hound, those animals central to defining courtly status and genteel skill. Eventually, a fair maid finds his body and buries it in order to stave off ravenous “corbies,” the Scotch word for crows. In this vision, “nature is essentially benign” and “the knight’s death does not change his place at the center of a world of love, loyalty, and human kindness.” Or so the ARTISTSREP.ORG 30

footnote, narrated by Prudencia, goes. The Scottish interpretation is much darker, colliding the dynamics of patriarchal power with a fundamentally disinterested environment. Fallen in a dike, that recessed area just within castle walls for all manner of fluid to drain, “lies a new-slain knight,” a medieval symbol typical of Scotland, France, and England to imply post-coital exhaustion. (Knights suffering thigh wounds in battle were, likewise, well-worn euphemisms for infertility.) No one knows of the knight newslain and still in the mire of his excretions except for “his hawk, his hound, and his lady.” Instead of tending to him, the three symbols of gendered status pursue instead their intended tasks of hunting in all its guises, including the lady, who “takes another mate.” While “many a one for him” inquires, he is never found. Time simply moves on; “we make our dinner sweet” and the wind continues to “blow forever more.” The Scottish version is highly ambivalent, providing us many footholds to enter into its critique of the knight’s relationship with the natural world. One thing it offers is a key to Prudencia’s surname, Hart, the epitome of love imagery in Renaissance poetry. The hunt by the mature male deer, or hart, for the newly mature female deer, or hind, was the central image of unrequited love for the Italian inventor of the sonnet, Petrarch. Sir Thomas Wyatt adapted many of Petrarch’s poems to his own ends (not unlike the English conscription of the Scottish corbies), most famously in Whoso List to Hunt? (1577): Whoso list to hunt, I know where is a hind, But as for me, alas, I may no more. The vain travail hath wearied me so sore, I am of them that farthest cometh behind. Yet may I by no means my wearied mind Draw from the deer, but as she fleeth afore Fainting I follow. I leave off therefore, Since in a net I seek to hold the wind.

The speaker or beloved, the hart, chases a hind he knowns he cannot capture. The homonym of “hart” and “heart” is intentional here, both activated for any listening

audience. The speaker knows he cannot capture his love, but also cannot leave the hunt, captured as he is by the desire for her. Like Paolo Uccello’s best-known painting, The Hunt in the Forest (1470), the thrust here is not in the particular desires or persona of the pursued beloved, the hind, but rather in the gendered, specifically male competition the chase of her makes possible. Wyatt’s speaker both warns off other men from the unsatisfying hunt, and indicates to them a certain covert knowledge. With the completist vigor of any good academic, Prudencia is obsessed with such conscriptions of the artifacts of national heritage and, by extension, the appropriation of Scotland’s “collective psyche.” She embraces in the folk ballad that which unsettles our assumptions about the Scottish landscape—the highlands seemingly as

the play by granular acts of comparison, accreting over time like snow piling so that

If you surrender your thought to metre You surrender yourself to the poem’s beat, or Rhyme or formula or words or sounds The author is lost and creation found [...] The tighter the form, the less control We have over meaning or, you might say, soul.

Like the lais (the French interpretation of the ballad tradition) of the earliest female poets on record, Marie de France, the fairy world of King Arthur and his knights echo the political problems of the human realm. We require an imaginative space, full of poetry and rhythm, in order to ask necessary conceptional questions. Such questions are separate from practical ones, too often mire in a need for immediate application; for example, asking what motivates the devil to keep human company is really the first step in sorting out how to escape his landscape.

“ Time simply moves on; “we

Prudencia Hart first premiered with the National Theatre of Scotland—a company notably, intentionally without a physical home—in the wake of a general election with the largest swing vote in Scottish history. It cut a path through the snow to the 2014 Scottish independence referendum where, to the shock of many, only fifty-five percent believed that Britain and Scotland were “Better Together,” to use the Labor campaign slogan. At the end of 2019, the United Kingdom remains entrenched in a twoyear debate whether to withdraw from the European Union, itself formed as an antidote to nationalist extremisms that facilitated World War II. In this context of climate change, anti-intellectualism, and political conflict where UK coherence is yet again threatened as Scotland wishes to remain with the EU, the play resonates prescient conceptual questions, including how does knowing a tradition set us free?

make our dinner sweet” and the wind continues to “blow forever more.” inextricable from tourism adverts as the kilt. The snow in which she is enveloped seems almost plucked out of James Joyce’s seminal short story, The Dead (1914) about a similar scene in an Irish household, including the sacrifice of the depth and complexity of a woman’s memory and emotional life to male ego. The snow there is anything but “banal,” throwing up a stark contrast to the more nefarious aspects of nationalism and hospitality, where poverty and social stricture masquerade as drink and conviviality. Dismissal of the footnotes in which Prudencia speaks, the apparatus for tracing intellectual bread crumbs, serves as a metonym for the dismissal of Prudencia’s values: that how we talk to one another, the stories we use to make sense of love and what happens after, matter. Couplets and alliteration build relationships throughout

To read more of Elizabeth’s observations visit our show page.

ARTISTSREP.ORG 31

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Rasher of bacon "more like CanadianBacon" • Tattie "potato" scone • Banger "sausage link" • Egg over easy • Black Pudding • Half a tomato, broiled • Baked Beans • Marmalade Toast • "cut diagnolly in a toast rack" • Tea • Sautéed mushrooms ARTISTSREP.ORG 32

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STAFF Artistic Director: Dámaso Rodríguez Managing Director: J.S. May ARTISTIC Producing Director: Shawn Lee Associate Producer: Kristeen Willis Director of New Play Devleopment & Dramaturgy: Luan Schooler Dramaturgy Scholar: Pancho Savery Casting Director: Vonessa Martin Lacroute Playwright-in-Residence: Andrea Stolowitz Resident Fight Choreographer: Jonathan Cole Resident Artists: Linda Alper, Adriana Baer, Ayanna Berkshire, Bobby Brewer-Wallin, Jonathan Cole, Chris Harder, Sarah Gahagan, Sara Hennessy, Michelle Jazuk, JoAnn Johnson, Kevin Jones, Val Landrum, E.M. Lewis, Sarah Lucht, Susannah Mars, Michael Mendelson, Allen Nause, Amy Newman, Vana O’Brien, Rodolfo Ortega, Sharath Patel, Gregory Pulver, John San Nicolas, Josie Seid, Vin Shambry, Andrea Stolowitz, Andrea Vernae, Joshua J. Weinstein, Megan Wilkerson, Carol Ann Wohlmut, Barbie Wu ADMINISTRATIVE General Manager: Vonessa Martin Associate Managing Director: Allison Delaney MARKETING & BOX OFFICE Audience Development & Marketing Director: Kisha Jarrett Audience Development & Marketing Manager: Leslie Crandell Dawes Media Specialist: Kathleen Kelly Patron Services Manager: Christina DeYoung Data Analyst & Ticketing Sales Manager: Jon Younkin Box Office Associate: Zak Westfall EDUCATION & ARTSHUB/ AUDIENCE SERVICES Education & Audience Services Director: Karen Rathje Education Associate: Sarah Lucht Education Associate: John San Nicolas Music Events Specialist: Susannah Mars House Managers: Deborah Gangwer, Valerie Liptak, Shelley Matthews, Tara McMahon, Andrea Vernae, Kayla Kelly, Nel Taylor Concessions: Paul Jacobs, Geraldine Sandberg, Jennifer Zubernick, Kayla Kelly DEVELOPMENT Grants & Events Manager: Maya Bourgeois Annual Fund Manager: Nel Taylor

Technical Director: Nathan Crone Scene Shop Foreman: Eddie Rivera Master Carpenter: Charlie Capps Scenic Charge: Sarah Kindler Master Electrician: Gavin Burgess Resident Stage Manager: Carol Ann Wohlmut Properties Manager: Karen Hill Costume Shop Manager/Wardrobe Head: Alana Wight-Yedinak Sound Technician: David Petersen Facility & Operations Specialist: Sean Roberts BOARD OF DIRECTORS Jeffrey Condit, Chair Pancho Savery, Vice-Chair Cyrus Vafi, Treasurer Patricia Garner, Secretary Mike Barr, Past Chair Julia Ball

Michael Davidson Norma Dulin Tom Gifford Erik Opsahl Justin Peters Andrea Schmidt Marcia Darm, MD, Trustee Emeritus

FOR THIS PRODUCTION Costume Design & Crafts Intern: Amanda Cobb Costume Design & Crafts Volunteers: Janey Dutton, Jeff Edwards, Michelle Kiyoi Carpenters: Lauren Williams Scene Shop Intern: Frey Soares

Table | Room | Stage (T|R|S) is Artists Rep’s new play program whose mission is to develop and produce new work that vividly expresses Artists Rep’s aesthetic values. We focus on work by writers of color, women, LGBTQIA+ and gender nonconforming writers, and offer an environment where these playwrights can create provocative, intimate new theatre pieces that challenge, illuminate, and inspire.

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UP NEXT @ ARTISTS REP

JAN. 18 - FEB. 16 PORTLAND CENTER STAGE

A Co-production with Portland Center Stage Paulina, the reigning Queen Bee at Ghana’s most exclusive boarding school, has her sights set on the Miss Universe pageant. But the mid-year arrival of Ericka (a new student with undeniable talent, beauty, and light skin) captures the attention of the pageant recruiter—and nearly topples the social order of Paulina’s hive-minded friends. Jocelyn Bioh’s biting comedy explores the challenges facing teenage girls across the globe and cautions that while beauty may be only skin deep, its pursuit can cut much deeper.

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