BOSTON UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF THEATRE PRESENTS
written by GEORGE BRANT directed by TERRI MCMAHON
FEBRUARY 25-28, 2023
JEWELS 1
JULIANE ETHEL LEILANI MILLER STUDIO THEATRE
CFA352
855 COMMONWEALTH AVE.
BOSTON, MA
BOSTON UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF FINE ARTS
Runtime: 1 hour, 10 minutes
Caution: This production contains explicit language and discussion of acts of cruelty toward animals and humans; loud noises.
“Elephant’s Graveyard (Full Length Version)” is presented by arrangement with Concord Theatricals on behalf of Samuel French, Inc. www. concordtheatricals.com
CORE COLLABORATORS
PRODUCER
RIVER HAYES
GRADUATE COLLABORATORS
MAGGIE SHIVERS
TESSA BARRY
MARGARET GARRITY
JACKLYN CINNAMON
GREGG WIGGANS
YOUYOU HUANG
CONOR THIELE
YAO KUANG LEE
STAGE MANAGER
GABBY CADDENJAMES
ASSOCIATE COLLABORATORS
ASSISTANT DIRECTOR
PRODUCTION ASSISTANT
Brandon Zang
Cameron Carcasson
PRODUCTION CREW
PRODUCTION INSTALLATION
PHOTOGRAPHER
RUN CREW
Graduate Collaborators
Katie Nelson
Yiling Lu
Jiani Lin
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Special Thanks:
Professor Gareth Smith
The team at Goodwill Comm Ave
Music by Brandon Zang for George Brant’s lyrics: “You Gotta Lift It”
THE COMPANY OF ELEPHANT’S GRAVEYARD ACKNOWLEDGES AND AFFIRMS THAT THE TERRITORY ON WHICH BOSTON UNIVERSITY STANDS IS THAT OF THE WAMPANOAG AND THE MASSACHUSETT PEOPLE. WE ALSO ACKNOWLEDGE THAT THE PEOPLE OF ERWIN,TENNESSEE STAND ON THE TERRITORIES OF THE TSALAGUWETIYI AND S’ATSOYAHA (YUCHI) PEOPLE. THIS STATEMENT IS ONE SMALL STEP IN ACKNOWLEDGING THE HISTORY THAT BROUGHT US TO RESIDE ON THE LAND, AND TO HELP US SEEK UNDERSTANDING OF OUR PLACE WITHIN THAT HISTORY.
OWNERSHIP OF LAND IS ITSELF A COLONIAL CONCEPT; MANY TRIBES HAD SEASONAL RELATIONSHIPS WITH THE LAND WE CURRENTLY INHABIT. TODAY, BOSTON IS STILL HOME TO INDIGENOUS PEOPLES, INCLUDING THE MASHPEE WAMPANOAG AND WAMPANOAG TRIBE OF GAY HEAD (AQUINNAH). FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE VISIT THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN CENTER OF BOSTON AND THE COMMISSION ON INDIAN AFFAIRS OF THE STATE OF MASSACHUSETTS.
Hungry Townsperson
DRU BERRIAN
Ballet Girl
LILA ENGLISH
Ringmaster
KENDALL MCSHANE
Young Townsperson
CAMERON
CARCASSON
CAST
Engineer
ALEXANDRA DAGEN
Tour Manager
AARON LAMM
Preacher
JACK ESSNER
Strongman
LUCAS CONNOR
Marshal
ZACK MALLGRAVE
Steam Shovel Operator
CHLOE KOLBENHEYER
Trainer
JESSE KODAMA
Clown SAV SCOTT
Muddy Townsperson
GABBY CADDENJAMES
DIRECTOR’S NOTE
Augustus Boal says, “theater should help us learn about ourselves and our times. We should know the world we live in, the better to change it”. George Brant’s Elephant’s Graveyard is a memory piece. It is based on an experience a southern American town and a traveling circus lived through. Thirteen different people hold in memory divergent scrutiny of their particular emotions, the facts as they remember them and the reason why they so passionately needed the outcome to be one way or another. Memory is a tricky beast. Someone once said, the clearer your conscience, the more likely your memory is bad.
Masterclass ‘23, a group of first year Graduate theater students in design, production and directing, along with 13 incredibly brave and gifted actors from BU and Boston Conservatory explored through Brant’s Elephant’s Graveyard play what it means to remember the past and hold fervently onto what we need it to be. Memory hides things from the recaller, has a will of its own and brings us to a cycle of forever reliving potent experiences we continue to fight our amnesia and silence to break. Look at our current politics in the US and how differently the January 6th Capitol Building events are described: violent insurrection or peaceful expression of passion? Coup or protest? If we can use memory to be truly honest with ourselves we thus risk questioning our decisions in this life and obtain freedom for all. If we can learn from our memories as we grow up in them, discover why and how we treated one another because we needed to hold fast to our way the story went, I’ll bet we can change our world for the better. We look to the past to be better in the present.
I am not of indigenous American heritage and can only say I hold in honor as part of the oppressing white American public what Chief Seattle said about the memory of the elimination of his people: “When the last red man shall have perished from the earth and his memory among the white men shall have become a myth, these shores will swarm with the invisible dead of my tribe. The white man will never be alone. Let him be just and deal kindly with my people, for the dead are not powerless.”
Terri McMahon, Director
Terri McMahon (DIRECTOR) holds a BFA from the University of Southern California in LA in Theatre Performance. She is pursuing her MFA Directing degree currently at Boston University as a first year grad student. Terri’s directing credits include: Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Santa Cruz Shakespeare Festival), Macbeth (Arabian Shakespeare Festival), Love’s Labor’s Lost (ATP University of Utah) and Othello (Island Shakespeare Festival). She will direct The Merry Wives of Windsor at American Players Theatre this summer (‘23). A veteran actor of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Terri has directed as well as adapted OSF School Visit Program touring performances; has both acted and directed multiple times in OSF’s The Black Swan Lab for new play development and directed OSF’s Daedalus Project AIDS Benefit multiple times. Favorite projects include: “Sweetly Writ”, at the Hult Center in Eugene, OR, a collaboration between OSF and the University of Oregon to celebrate UofO’s Shakespeare First Folio Exhibition; and a collaboration Terri devised and directed for Eugene Symphony’s 50 piece orchestra with a company of three actors combining Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet and Sergei Prokofiev’s music of the same name. Visit her website at: www.terrimcmahon.com
George Brant (PLAYWRIGHT) has written plays including Grounded, Marie and Rosetta, Into the Breeches!, The Prince of Providence, Elephant’s Graveyard, Tender Age, The Mourners’ Bench, Any Other Name, Salvage and Grizzly Mama. An Affiliate Writer at the Playwrights’ Center, his scripts have been produced internationally by such companies as the Public Theater, the Atlantic Theater Company, Cleveland Play House, Trinity Repertory Company, the Studio Theatre, Alley Theatre, Asolo Repertory, London’s Gate Theatre, Page 73 and the Traverse Theatre.
His plays have received a Lucille Lortel Award, an Edgerton Foundation New Play Award, the Smith Prize, a Fringe First Award, an Off-West End Theatre Award, an NNPN Rolling World Premiere, four OAC Individual Excellence Awards and the Keene Prize for Literature. George received his MFA in Writing from the Michener Center at UT-Austin and is a member of the Dramatists Guild.
