KNOW BEFORE YOU GO
Production Sponsors
Laurents/Hatcher Foundation Righteous Persons Foundation Ed and Martha Dennis Recipient of a 2015 Edgerton Foundation New American Play Award
NOVEMBER 13 – DECEMBER 10
BEFORE YOU GO
KNOW
We look forward to seeing you at La Jolla Playhouse at your upcoming performance of Indecent. Below is some additional information about the production and the venue to enhance your theater-going experience.
PARKING Parking is free for all subscribers. For all others parking is $2 (subject to change), Mon-Fri. Upon arrival to campus, please purchase your parking permit from one of the automated pay stations located next to the information kiosk. Simply park, note your space number, and pay $2 at the pay station. Pay stations accept Visa, MasterCard, American Express or cash ($1 and $5), and do not give change. You will not need to return to your car. Parking is free on the weekends.
AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT EVENTS The Playhouse offers unique opportunities for audience members to delve deeper into the play with these special performance series options: Foodie Friday: Buy a ticket to the performance and enjoy San Diego’s finest food trucks, plus a complimentary microbrew tasting from Stone Brewing Company. - Friday, December 4 starting at 6:00 pm Talkback Tuesdays: Participate in a lively discussion with actors and Playhouse staff members after the performance. - Tuesday, November 24 following the 7:30 pm performance - Tuesday, December 1 following the 7:30 pm performance Discovery Sunday: Special guest speakers engage audience members in a moderated discussion exploring the issues and themes in the play. - Sunday, December 6 following the 2:00 pm performance Insider Events: Join Playhouse staff for a special pre-performance presentation that gives an insider’s view of the play. - Saturday, December 5 at 1:15 pm - Wednesday, December 9 at 6:45 pm
ACCESSIBILITY A golf cart is available to assist patrons with accessibility issues to and from the parking lot. Please notify Patron Services prior to your performance if you are in need of this service; additionally, you may pull into the five minute parking in front of the theatre, and a friendly La Jolla Playhouse greeter will assist you.
ACCESS PERFORMANCES Open Captioned Performance: This performance has open captioning for patrons who are deaf or hard of hearing. - Sunday, November 22 at 2:00 pm ACCESS (ASL Interpreted & Audio Described) Performance: This performance has American Sign Language interpretation for patrons who are deaf or hard of hearing, and audio description for patrons who are blind or have low vision. - Saturday, November 28 at 2:00 pm DINING
James’ Place is the Theatre District’s on-site restaurant. Developed by renowned Sushi Master James Holder, the menu includes his signature sushi, as well as delectable dishes created with Prime and Angus cuts of beef, locally and sustainably harvested seafood, along with seasonal dishes. A lighter fare menu is also served at the newly-redesigned sushi/cocktail bar, featuring craft beer and California wines. James’ Place is open daily. Tuesday – Friday: Happy Hour: 4:00 pm – 6:00 pm | Dinner: 5:00 pm – Close Saturday – Sunday: Happy Hour: 3:00 pm – 6:00 pm | Dinner: 5:00 pm – Close For reservations, please call (858) 638-7778. We also recommend the following nearby restaurants: Adobe El Restaurante (breakfast and lunch) and Mustangs & Burros (dinner and weekend lunch) at Estancia La Jolla Hotel & Spa 9700 N. Torrey Pines Road La Jolla, CA 92037 estancialajolla.com Café la Rue and The Med at La Valencia Hotel 1132 Prospect Street La Jolla, CA 92037 lavalencia.com
Cusp Restaurant and Hiatus Poolside Lounge at Hotel La Jolla 7955 La Jolla Shores Drive La Jolla, CA 92037 cusprestaurant.com Dolce Pane e Vino 16081 San Dieguito Road Rancho Santa Fe, CA 92067 dolcepaneevino.com Fleming’s Prime Steakhouse & Wine Bar 8970 University Center Lane San Diego, CA 92122 flemingssteakhouse.com
Giuseppe Restaurants & Fine Catering 700 Prospect Street San Diego, CA 92037 giuseppecatering.com Pamplemousse Grille 514 Via de la Valle, Suite 100 Solana Beach, CA 92075 pgrille.com Rock Bottom Restaurant & Brewery Playhouse Patrons Get 20% Off 8980 Villa La Jolla Drive La Jolla, CA 92037 rockbottom.com
Children under the age of 6 are not permitted in the theatre during performances unless otherwise posted.
A MESSAGE FROM THE
ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
MISSION STATEMENT: La Jolla Playhouse advances theatre as an art form and as a vital social, moral and political platform by providing unfettered creative opportunities for the leading artists of today and tomorrow. With our youthful spirit and eclectic, artist-driven approach, we will continue to cultivate a local and national following with an insatiable appetite for audacious and diverse work. In the future, San Diego’s La Jolla Playhouse will be considered singularly indispensable to the worldwide theatre landscape, as we become a permanent safe harbor for the unsafe and surprising. The day will come when it will be essential to enter the La Jolla Playhouse village in order to get a glimpse of what is about to happen in American theatre.
“A blink in time” is a motif that appears several times throughout Indecent, a new play written by Paula Vogel and directed by Rebecca Taichman, having its world premiere at the Playhouse in a co-production with Yale Repertory Theatre. Indecent is deeply embedded in another play, God of Vengeance, written in 1906 by Yiddish playwright and novelist Sholem Asch, about a Jewish brothel owner who attempts to marry off his daughter to a rabbinic scholar; however, © Howard Lipin/U-T San Diego/ZUMA Wire she has fallen in love with one of her father’s prostitutes. Vogel’s play uses its blinks in time to take us on the journey of “a little Jewish play” through the turbulent decades between 1906 and the early 1950s. As its story unfolds, it reaches across the vicissitudes of memory to show art’s inherent power to pierce society’s sense of propriety and disrupt it. A kiss between two women is the jumping off point for the questions that Indecent raises. What is obscenity – where is the line that cannot be crossed? What is the proper role of art and storytelling? Should we only tell stories of beauty with positive messages and role models? Should we be exposing the seamy underbelly of our culture? Are religious symbols and images sacrosanct? What, if anything, is off limits? While Indecent presents us with provocative ideas, its true heart lies in its love stories – between men and women, women and women, a playwright and his play, a troupe of actors and musicians who bring the play to life, writers and their culture and people. Then there’s the soulful character of Lemml, not a man of letters but a stage manager, an everyman who sees the humanity that resides in God of Vengeance and keeps its flame alive. Two amazing women are at the helm of Indecent – director Rebecca Taichman and playwright Paula Vogel. Indecent is Rebecca’s third play at the Playhouse, having directed both Sleeping Beauty Wakes and Milk Like Sugar in our 2012 season. She has had a longstanding passion for the God of Vengeance story, having first encountered it as a student in the Sholem Asch Collection at Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, which includes the God of Vengeance obscenity trial transcript. Her theatrical style on the production is deceptively simple. With a bare stage and an abundance of theatrical elements – music, songs, choreography, projections, costume changes, scene shifts and blinks in time – she juggles all with a cohesive lyricism and honesty that transports us through time and space. Paula Vogel, one of the leading lights of American playwrights, has never stepped back from provocative and controversial subject matter in her plays, including her Pulitzer prize-winning How I Learned to Drive about familial sexual abuse and Hot ‘N Throbbing, which centered on domestic violence. With Indecent, Paula invokes a past that feels somehow contemporary, taking on weighty topics – assimilation, hypocrisy, immigration, lesbianism and censorship. Yet, the play’s spirit of love, liberation and belief in the transformational power of theatre prevails. Indecent is a play in love with making theatre. I invite you into its theatrical and thought-provoking world.
La Jolla Playhouse has received La Jolla Playhouse has received the the highest rating from Charity highest rating from Charity Navigator, Navigator, the nation’s premier the nation’s premier charity evaluator. charity evaluator. P4 PERFORMANCES MAGAZINE
CHRISTOPHER ASHLEY
LA JOLLA PLAYHOUSE PRESENTS Michael S. Rosenberg Managing Director
Christopher Ashley Artistic Director IN ASSOCIATION WITH
YALE REPERTORY THEATRE
WRITTEN BY
OPENING NIGHT NOVEMBER 18, 2015
PAULA VOGEL CREATED BY
PAULA VOGEL AND REBECCA TAICHMAN DIRECTED BY
REBECCA TAICHMAN FEATURING
MACGREGOR J. ARNEY , LISA GUTKIN, AARON HALVA, TRAVIS W. HENDRIX, KATRINA LENK*, MIMI LIEBER*, MAX GORDON MOORE*, TOM NELIS*, STEVEN RATTAZZI*, EMILY SHAIN‡, RICHARD TOPOL*, ADINA VERSON* ‡
CHOREOGRAPHER COMPOSERS MUSIC DIRECTOR SCENIC DESIGNER COSTUME DESIGNER LIGHTING DESIGNER SOUND DESIGNER PROJECTION DESIGNER DIALECT COACH FIGHT DIRECTOR YIDDISH CONSULTANT PRODUCTION DRAMATURG LA JOLLA PLAYHOUSE DRAMATURG CASTING DIRECTOR STAGE MANAGER ASSISTANT STAGE MANAGER LA JOLLA PLAYHOUSE ASSOCIATE PRODUCTION MANAGER
DAVID DORFMAN LISA GUTKIN, AARON HALVA AARON HALVA RICCARDO HERNANDEZ EMILY REBHOLZ CHRISTOPHER AKERLIND MATT HUBBS TAL YARDEN STEPHEN GABIS RICK SORDELET JOEL BERKOWITZ AMY BORATKO SHIRLEY FISHMAN TARA RUBIN CASTING AMANDA SPOONER* JESS SLOCUM* BENJAMIN SEIBERT
Indecent was commissioned by Yale Rep and American Revolutions: The United States History Cycle at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Development and production support are provided by Yale's Binger Center for New Theatre and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Indecent was developed, in part, at the 2013 Sundance Institute Theatre Lab at the Sundance Resort. Inspired by The People vs. ‘The God of Vengeance,’ conceived by Rebecca Rugg and Rebecca Taichman.
MEMBERS OF THE TROUPE LEMML, THE STAGE MANAGER
RICHARD TOPOL THE ACTORS
KATRINA LENK MIMI LIEBER MAX GORDON MOORE TOM NELIS STEVEN RATTAZZI ADINA VERSON THE MUSICIANS
LISA GUTKIN AARON HALVA TRAVIS W. HENDRIX Understudies: MacGregor J. Arney, Emily Shain Indecent is performed without an intermission.
ADDITIONAL PRODUCTION STAFF Yale Rep Assistant Director............................. Elizabeth Dinkova La Jolla Playhouse Assistant Director...................Stephanie Prugh Associate Projection Designer................................. Keith Skretch Assistant Scenic Designer.................................Kristen Robinson Assistant Costume Designer.........................Steven M. Rotramel Assistant Lighting Designer.....................Caitlin Smith Rapoport Assistant Sound Designer...................................Stephanie Smith
Assistant Projection Designer..................................Yana Biryukova Fight Captain..................................................Max Gordon Moore Dance Captain............................................................Katrina Lenk Additional Music Arranger................................Travis W. Hendrix La Jolla Playhouse Production Assistant................. Cheyenne Splinter-Newlander Script Assistant............................................................ Julia Greer
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Rick Banks; David Chambers; Keith Davis; Rob Devaney; Jill Dolan; Harley Erdman; Morris Granite; Blair Gulledge; Hartford Stage Company; Christopher Hibma; Philip Himberg; Lael Logan; Lou and Frances; Emilio Magnotta, Emilio Accordions, White Plains, NY; Jerry Meyer; Rabbi James Ponet; George Rattner; Mary Readinger, Long Wharf Theatre; Joe Roach; Alicia Roper; David Savran; Jan Seele; Joe Sexton; Ronn Smith; Alisa Solomon; Nanette Stahl; Anne Sterling; Ettie, Lorne and Laura Taichman; Lenny Wolpe
* Members of Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage
Managers in the United States. The theatre operates under an agreement between the League of Resident Theatres and Actors’ Equity Association. This theatre operates under an agreement between the League of Resident Theatres and the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society, an independent national labor union.
This theatre operates under an agreement between the League of Resident Theatres and United Scenic Artists, Local USA-829 of the IATSE. La Jolla Playhouse is a member of the League of Resident Theatres (LORT) and a constituent of Theatre Communications Group (TCG), the national service organization for the nonprofit professional theatre. ‡ UC San Diego M.F.A. Candidates in residence at La Jolla Playhouse.
THE COMPANY KATRINA LENK, Actor La Jolla Playhouse: Debut. Broadway credits: Once (Reza), Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark (Arachne) and The Miracle Worker. Regional theatre work includes Margaret in iWitness (Mark Taper Forum), Anna in Lost Land (Steppenwolf Theater) and Linda Lovelace in Lovelace: A Rock Opera, for which she won LA Weekly, LADCC and Garland Awards. Film and television work includes Evol: The Theory of Love, Look Away, FracKtured, Elementary and The Blacklist. She is a co-creator of the web series Miss Teri and is a member of several bands including her own, moxy phinx. katrinalenk.com MIMI LIEBER, Actor La Jolla Playhouse: Figaro Gets a Divorce. Broadway: Act One (Lincoln Center Theater), Brooklyn Boy and I’m Not Rappaport (revival). Off-Broadway: Distracted (Roundabout). Other theatre includes: Two Things You Don’t Talk About at Dinner (Denver Center Theatre); Persephone, The Sisters Rosensweig (Huntington Theatre Company); We Won’t Pay! We Won’t Pay! (Long Wharf); Taking Sides, The Greeks, Love Council, Five Women Wearing the Same Dress (Odyssey); Leon & Lena (and lenz) (Guthrie Theater); Sirens (Humana Festival of New American Plays); Potestad (Stages); Much Ado About Nothing, Othello (L.A. Shakespeare Festival); U.S. Comedy Arts Festival w/E.S.T. (winner, Best of Fest); Los Angeles Theatre Center; Taper, Too; Ford’s Theatre and The Kennedy Center. National tour: The Heidi Chronicles. Film and television includes The Thing About My Folks; Arranged; Cold Souls; Permanent Midnight; Bulworth; Corrina, Corrina; Wilder Napalm; Just Another Story; The Sopranos; Law & Order (rec.); Medium; Friends; The Practice; Seinfeld; ER; The X-Files; NYPD Blue; Judging Amy (rec.); Early Edition (rec.) and L.A. Law. Her choreography credits include the Broadway productions Act One, The Snow Geese (Manhattan Theatre Club); Cymbeline (Callaway nomination), The Comedy of Errors, As You Like It (Callaway nomination), The Merchant of Venice, All’s Well That Ends Well, Twelfth Night (The Public Theater/Shakespeare in the Park); choreographer of 26 national commercials. MAX GORDON MOORE, Actor La Jolla Playhouse: Debut. Mr. Moore appeared at Yale Rep in last season’s productions of Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia and Bertolt Brecht’s The Caucasian Chalk Circle. Other recent credits include Time and the Conways (The Old Globe), also directed by Rebecca Taichman; Don Juan in Hell (Project Shaw); The Master Builder with John Turturro (Brooklyn Academy of Music); Relatively Speaking on Broadway; Man and Superman, It’s A Wonderful Life (Irish Repertory Theatre) and The American Song Project (Flea Theater). Regional theatre includes Tragedy: A Tragedy (Berkeley Rep); The Seagull (Cleveland Play House); Richard III, As You Like It, The Merry Wives of Windsor, The Merchant of Venice (California Shakespeare Theater); Bach at Leipzig (A Contemporary Theatre); John Bull’s Other Island (Geva Theatre); Pleasure and Pain (Magic Theatre); Private Jokes, Public Places (Aurora Theatre); Learned Ladies, The Two Gentlemen of Verona (Texas Shakespeare Festival) and Family Alchemy (Traveling Jewish Theatre). Film and television: Gods Behaving Badly, The Terrors of Basket-Weaving, Madam Secretary and The Good Wife. M.F.A., Yale School of Drama, Herschel Williams Prize in Acting.
TOM NELIS, Actor La Jolla Playhouse: Wintertime, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and Macbeth. Broadway credits include The Visit, Enron, The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial and Aida. Off-Broadway: Road Show, Richard III, Henry VI (title role), ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore, Henry IV parts 1 and 2, American Document with The Martha Graham Dance Company (The Public Theater); The Seven, Score, The Medium (New York Theatre Workshop); Doris to Darlene (Playwrights Horizons); Iphigenia 2.0, Hot ’N’ Throbbing (Signature Theatre); Passion, Orlando (Classic Stage Company); Septimus and Clarissa (Ripe Time); The Merchant of Venice (Theatre for a New Audience/The Royal Shakespeare Company); The Trojan Women/A Love Story, Marathon Dancing, Another Person Is a Foreign Country (En Garde Arts); Ahab in Laurie Anderson’s Songs and Stories from Moby Dick (BAM/World Tour); Oscar Wilde in Gross Indecencies (Minetta Lane); Hot Mouth (Manhattan Theater Club); Antigone (Dance Theater Workshop); Pearls for Pigs (Richard Foreman/ World Tour); 20-plus years with SITI Company. Awards: Eliot Norton Outstanding Performer Award for Prospero in The Tempest, OBIE Award for The Medium, San Diego Critics Ensemble Award for Wintertime, Drama League nomination for Score and Barrymore nomination for Candide. Education: M.F.A., University of California, San Diego. In memory of Arthur Wagner. STEVEN RATTAZZI, Actor La Jolla Playhouse: Debut. Mr. Rattazzi previously appeared at Yale Rep in David Adjmi’s Marie Antoinette directed by Rebecca Taichman. New York: City Of (Playwrights Realm); Adjmi’s Stunning (Lincoln Center’s LCT3); Galileo with F. Murray Abraham, The Tempest with Mandy Patinkin, Age of Iron directed by Brian Kulick (Classic Stage Company); The Tempest, Dinner Party directed by David Herskovits (Target Margin); Spy Garbo (3LD); Taylor Mac’s Walk Across America for Mother Earth (La MaMa E.T.C.); Henry V with Liev Schreiber (The Public Theater); Painted Snake on a Painted Chair (OBIE Award, Talking Band); McGurk (Elevator Repair Service); The Fourth Sister directed by Lisa Peterson (Vineyard Theatre) and Richard Foreman’s Samuel’s Major Problems (Ontological Theater at St. Mark’s). Regional: The School for Wives (Two River Theater, NJ); The Lovesong of J. Robert Oppenheimer directed by Mark Wing-Davey (Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park). Film and television: The Family (Luc Besson) and Dr. Orpheus on The Venture Brothers. RICHARD TOPOL, Lemml La Jolla Playhouse: Debut. Broadway: Larry David’s Fish in the Dark, the Tony Award-winning revivals of The Normal Heart and Awake and Sing!, The Merchant of Venice with Al Pacino, Cymbeline, The Country Girl, The School for Scandal and Julius Caesar with Denzel Washington. Off-Broadway he has appeared in Regrets (Manhattan Theatre Club); Bronx Bombers, Opus (Primary Stages); When the Rain Stops Falling (Lincoln Center Theater); King Lear, Twelfth Night, The Winter’s Tale (The Public Theater); Hamlet (Theatre for a New Audience); The Wayside Motor Inn (Signature Theatre); as well as new plays at The New Group, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Soho Rep., Naked Angels and Playwrights Horizons. His film and television credits include Lincoln, Mickey Blue Eyes, Party Girl, Path to Paradise, Indignation (upcoming), The Great Gilly Hopkins (upcoming), James White (upcoming), The Good Wife, Elementary, Person of Interest, all of the Law & Order series, Ed, Gilmore Girls, The Drew Carey Show and recurring roles on The Practice, Covert Affairs and Perception. He holds an M.F.A. from NYU and is a two-time Drama Desk Award winner, a New York Theatre Workshop Usual Suspect, a Fox Fellowship recipient and a proud member of Actors' Equity. For Morris Topol.
THE COMPANY ADINA VERSON, Actor La Jolla Playhouse: Debut. Recent credits include As You Like It (Shakespeare Theatre Company), The Servant of Two Masters directed by Christopher Bayes (Guthrie Theatre, Seattle Rep, ArtsEmerson), 4000 Miles (Cincinnati Playhouse), The Winter's Tale (Yale Rep), HIM (Primary Stages) and Machine Makes Man, which she co-created with Michael McQuilken (Amsterdam Fringe, Best International Performance; National Arts Festival of South Africa). Television: Miriam Setrakian on The Strain (FX) and Deadbeat (Hulu). M.F.A., Yale School of Drama. LISA GUTKIN, Composer, Musician La Jolla Playhouse: Debut. Grammy-winning Lisa Gutkin is best known as violinist, vocalist and composer for the Klezmatics, and recently for her work in Sting’s Broadway production The Last Ship. As an actress/musician/composer she has appeared in Sex and the City, Hava Nagila (The Movie), The Klezmatics: On Holy Ground and Seeing Is Believing by Dutch choreographer Maggie Boogaart. Lisa’s compositions include the score for Mabou Mines’ Song for New York: What Women Do While Men Sit Knitting, a multi-ethnic folk opera directed by Ruth Maleczech, and songs with lyrics by Woody Guthrie, Maggie Dubris and Anne Sexton. She records and performs with an immense array of artists and has appeared on The Conan O’Brien Show, A Prairie Home Companion, World Cafe, Mountain Stage, etc. Ms. Gutkin is a MacDowell Artist Fellow, has released an instructional DVD called Play Klezmer Fiddle! on Homespun Tapes and is soon to release the first of three collections of newly composed songs and compositions. AARON HALVA, Composer, Music Director, Musician La Jolla Playhouse: Debut. Raised amongst polkas and hymns in Iowa, Mr. Halva has since studied music in Cuba, Puerto Rico, Argentina, Greece and Spain. His previous work at Yale Rep includes Dario Fo’s Accidental Death of an Anarchist, Molière’s A Doctor in Spite of Himself and Goldoni’s The Servant of Two Masters, all directed by Christopher Bayes. New York theatre credits include Red Noses by Peter Barnes, Four by Feydeau, The Bourgeois Gentleman, The Molière One Acts, Monsieur de Pourceaugnac, The Love of Three Oranges by Carlo Gozzi (The Juilliard School); The Imaginary Invalid by Molière, The New Place by Carlo Goldoni, We Won’t Pay! We Won’t Pay! by Dario Fo, and a new adaptation of Molière’s The Reluctant Doctor of Love (New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts Graduate Acting Program). Regional credits include The Servant of Two Masters (Guthrie Theater, ArtsEmerson, The Shakespeare Theatre Company, and Seattle Rep), A Doctor in Spite of Himself (Intiman Theatre, Berkeley Rep) and The Molière Impromptu (Trinity Rep). International: Ballywoonde (Edinburgh Fringe Festival). Film: Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, as leader and arranger for Cuban music group Nu D’Lux. TRAVIS W. HENDRIX, Musician La Jolla Playhouse: Debut. Mr. Hendrix is a multiinstrumentalist and composer based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Although not traditionally educated, Travis has been taught by a host of great musicians, and most recently studied under clarinetist and composer Ben Goldberg. Mr. Hendrix’s versatility has found him playing intimate clubs with jazz combos, music festivals with indie rock bands, Jewish delis with klezmer groups, street performances with brass bands and on stage in theatre productions. He will be releasing an album of his own compositions in 2016.
PAULA VOGEL, Co-Creator/Playwright is Playwright in Residence at Yale Repertory Theatre. Her play How I Learned to Drive received the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the Lortel Prize, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle and New York Drama Critics Awards for Best Play, as well as her second OBIE Award. Other plays include Don Juan Comes Home from Iraq, The Long Christmas Ride Home, The Mineola Twins, The Baltimore Waltz, Hot ’N’ Throbbing, Desdemona, And Baby Makes Seven, The Oldest Profession and A Civil War Christmas. TCG has published four books of her work. Most recent awards include the Theatre Hall of Fame, Lifetime Achievement Award from the Dramatists Guild and the 2015 Thornton Wilder Award. She is honored to have two awards for emerging playwrights named after her: the Paula Vogel Award, created by the American College Theatre Festival in 2003, and the Paula Vogel Award in Playwriting, given annually by the Vineyard Theatre since 2007. She has been a fellow at the MacDowell Colony, the Double UCross Colony as well as Yaddo. She has taught for 24 years at Brown University and for five years at Yale School of Drama where she was the Eugene O’Neill Professor of Playwriting. She is honored by Philadelphia Young Playwrights and Quiara Hudes, who is curating the Paula Vogel Mentors Project. REBECCA TAICHMAN, Co-Creator/Director La Jolla Playhouse: Sleeping Beauty Wakes, Milk Like Sugar. Her OffBroadway credits include Familiar (upcoming, Playwrights Horizons); The Oldest Boy by Sarah Ruhl (Lincoln Center Theater); The Luck of the Irish (LCT3); Stage Kiss, Milk Like Sugar (Playwrights Horizons); Orlando (Classic Stage Company); Orpheus (New York City Opera); Dark Sisters (Music Theater Group, Gotham Chamber Opera); Rappaccini’s Daughter (Gotham Chamber Opera); Marie Antoinette (Soho Rep.); The Scene (Second Stage, Humana Festival of New Plays) and Menopausal Gentleman (Ohio Theatre). Regional credits include the world premieres of Familiar by Danai Gurira, David Adjmi’s The Evildoers and Marie Antoinette (Yale Rep); Twelfth Night, Time and the Conways (The Old Globe); Marie Antoinette (A.R.T.); She Loves Me (Oregon Shakespeare Festival); The Winter’s Tale (McCarter Theatre Center, Shakespeare Theatre Company); Cymbeline, Twelfth Night, The Taming of the Shrew (Shakespeare Theatre Company); Twelfth Night, Sleeping Beauty Wakes (McCarter); Dead Man’s Cell Phone and The Clean House (Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company). She received her M.F.A. from Yale School of Drama. She is a Henry Crown Fellow at the Aspen Institute. DAVID DORFMAN, Choreographer La Jolla Playhouse: Debut. Mr. Dorfman has been artistic director of his vainly named dance company since 1987, and also has been Professor of Dance and Chair at Connecticut College since 2004. He has received a Guggenheim fellowship, four NEA fellowships, a New York Dance and Performance Bessie Award and a Barrymore Award in Philadelphia for Best Choreography on Green Violin, his first collaboration with Rebecca Taichman. 2014–15 brought David Dorfman Dance to Armenia, Tajikistan and Turkey via the State Department, DanceMotion USA and Brooklyn Academy of Music, where DDD has appeared in three Next Wave Festivals. David also tours a serio-comic evening, Live Sax Acts, with longtime collaborator, Dan Froot. daviddorfmandance.org
THE COMPANY RICCARDO HERNANDEZ, Scenic Designer La Jolla Playhouse: Sleeping Beauty Wakes, Honey Bo and the Gold Mine, The Miser, Beauty, Cloud Tectonics. Previous Yale Rep productions include the world premieres of David Adjmi’s Marie Antoinette and The Evildoers, both directed by Rebecca Taichman, and Robert Woodruff’s productions of Autumn Sonata and Battle of Black and Dogs. Broadway: The Gin Game; The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess; The People in the Picture; Caroline, or Change (also Royal National Theatre, London); Elaine Stritch at Liberty (also National Tour, Old Vic London); Topdog/Underdog (Royal Court); Bells Are Ringing; Parade (directed by Hal Prince; Tony and Drama Desk nominations); Bring in ’Da Noise, Bring in ’Da Funk (also National Tour, Japan) and The Tempest. Recent: Grounded directed by Julie Taymor, The Library directed by Steven Soderbergh (The Public Theater); La Mouette (Cour d’Honneur, Palais des Papes, Avignon Festival); Abigail’s Party (Oslo National Theatre, Norway); The Dead (The Abbey Theatre, Dublin); King Lear (Theatre for a New Audience). He has designed over 200 productions in the U.S. and internationally at The Public Theater, Brooklyn Academy of Music, American Repertory Theater, Lincoln Center Theater, New York Theatre Workshop, Goodman Theatre, Guthrie Theater, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Houston Grand Opera, San Francisco Opera, New York City Opera, OTSL, Los Angeles Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Canadian Opera Company, Théâtre du Châtelet Paris, Theater an der Wien (Vienna), Teatro Real Madrid, English National Opera/Young Vic, among others. Upcoming: The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (Ljubljana, Slovenia), Genet’s Splendid’s (La Colline-Theatre National Paris), Othello (Shakespeare Theatre Company, Washington, D.C.), Don Giovanni (Santa Fe Opera). Faculty: SUNY Purchase; lecturer, Princeton. EMILY REBHOLZ, Costume Designer La Jolla Playhouse: Debut. Broadway credits include If/Then, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike and Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson. Recent Off-Broadway: The Tempest, Into the Woods (The Public Theater/ Shakespeare in the Park); Nice Girl (Labyrinth Theater Company); Pretty Filthy (The Civilians); Our Lady of Kibeho (Signature Theatre); The Who & The What, Stop Hitting Yourself (Lincoln Center Theater); Your Mother’s Copy of the Kama Sutra, Mr. Burns (Playwrights Horizons); The Way We Get By, The Substance of Fire and The Last Five Years (Second Stage). Recent regional theatre work: Dear Evan Hansen (Arena Stage), Morning Star (Cincinnati Opera) and Yardbird (Opera Philadelphia). In addition, she has designed costumes at Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Lincoln Center, Manhattan Theatre Club, Second Stage Theatre, Roundabout Theatre, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, Ars Nova, Atlantic Theater Company, The Old Globe, A.R.T., Williamstown Theatre Festival and The Goodman Theatre. Upcoming: Another Word for Beauty (The Goodman), Don Giovanni (Santa Fe Opera) and La Bohème (Opera Theatre of St. Louis). M.F.A., Yale School of Drama. emilyrebholz.com CHRISTOPHER AKERLIND, Lighting Designer La Jolla Playhouse: Sleeping Beauty Wakes, Herringbone, Tobacco Road, The Third Story, Carmen the Musical, The Country, Randy Newman's Faust, A Midsummer Night's Dream. Broadway: The Last Ship, Rocky (Tony nom.), Porgy and Bess (Tony nom.), Superior Donuts, 110 in the Shade (Tony nom.), Talk Radio, Awake and Sing (Tony nom.), Well, Rabbit hole, In My Life, The Light in the Piazza (Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle Awards), The Tale of the Allergist's Wife, Seven Guitars (Tony nom.) and The Piano Lesson, among others. Recent credits include: Julie Taymor’s production of Grounded with Anne Hathaway at the Public Theater, and Martha Clarke’s Cheri for the Royal Opera House. Awards: OBIE for Sustained Excellence; Michael Merritt Award for Design & Collaboration.
MATT HUBBS, Sound Designer La Jolla Playhouse: Debut. Mr. Hubbs has recently designed Preludes (LCT3); The Royale, Time and the Conways (The Old Globe); Stage Kiss (Playwrights Horizons); Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 (Kazino, Ars Nova); Marie Antoinette (Soho Rep., A.R.T., and Yale Rep); Three Pianos (New York Theatre Workshop, A.R.T.); How We Got On, Death Tax and A Devil at Noon (Humana Festival of New American Plays); Futura (NAATCO); The Human Scale (The Public Theater); Telephone (Foundry Theatre); Hammock, The Matter of Origins: Tea, Blueprints of Relentless Nature and 613 Radical Acts of Prayer (Liz Lerman Dance Exchange) and the National Playwrights Conference at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center. A company member of the TEAM, he has designed The Holler Sessions, RoosevElvis, Mission Drift, Architecting, Particularly in the Heartland and A Thousand Natural Shocks. He received his B.A. in philosophy as a University Scholar at Xavier University. TAL YARDEN, Projection Designer La Jolla Playhouse: Debut. Mr. Yarden has designed video for Swimming in March (Market Theater) directed by Rebecca Taichman; POP! (Yale Rep); Between Worlds (ENO); King Lear (The Public Theater); Distracted (Roundabout Theatre Company); Little Foxes, Liberty City, Kaos, Beast, The Misanthrope (New York Theatre Workshop); Lush Valley, Sounding (HERE Arts Center); Futura (NAATCO); The King Is Dead, Not Garden (Stephen Petronio); Reza Abdoh’s Tight Right White and Quotations from a Ruined City. His international designs for director Ivo van Hove include Antigone, Kings of War, The Fountainhead, Cries and Whispers, Antonioni Project, Angels in America, Husbands, Roman Tragedies (Toneelgroep Amsterdam); La Clemenza de Tito, Idomeneo (La Monnaie); Brokeback Mountain (Teatro Real); Der Schatzgräber (De Nederlandse Opera); Macbeth (Opéra de Lyon) and Wagner’s Ring Cycle (Vlaamseopera). Upcoming projects include Lazarus by Enda Walsh and David Bowie (New York Theatre Workshop) and The Crucible on Broadway. He is a technology consultant for the Performing Arts Center at the World Trade Center. STEPHEN GABIS, Dialect Coach La Jolla Playhouse: Debut. Previous Yale Rep productions include Arcadia, These Paper Bullets!, Stones in His Pockets, A Woman of No Importance, Safe in Hell, The People Next Door, The Clean House, The Ladies of the Camellias and The Way of the World. His Broadway and Off-Broadway credits include Hedwig and the Angry Inch; Outside Mullingar; The Winslow Boy; Transport; Loot; Juno and the Paycock; Once; The Book of Mormon; Tribes; Man and Boy; The 39 Steps; Lombardi; Lend Me a Tenor; A View from the Bridge; Becoming Dr. Ruth; Look Back in Anger; The Weir; The Freedom of the City; Memphis; Jersey Boys; A Day in the Death of Joe Egg; Bluebird; Through a Glass Darkly; The Shaggs; Kin; By the Way, Meet Vera Stark; The Lieutenant of Inishmore; Brighton Beach Memoirs; When the Rain Stops Falling; The Emperor Jones; Doubt; Frozen; Port Authority; Dublin Carol and Stuff Happens. Selected film and TV credits include Spotlight, Stonewall, Boardwalk Empire, Prime Suspect, Million Dollar Baby, Bernard and Doris, Salt, Across the Universe, Mildred Pierce, The Notorious Bettie Page and Confessions of a Dangerous Mind.
THE COMPANY RICK SORDELET, Fight Director La Jolla Playhouse: Debut. Theatre credits include 65 Broadway productions and 60 productions on five continents in hundreds of cities around the world, including Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King, Waiting for Godot, No Man’s Land, Ben Hur Live (Rome, European Tour) and currently Big Love for Signature Theatre. Opera: Cyrano starring Placido Domingo (Metropolitan Opera, The Royal Opera House, La Scala), and Don Carlo and Cold Mountain (Santa Fe Opera). Film: The Game Plan, Dan in Real Life and Hamlet. Rick was Chief Stunt Coordinator for Guiding Light for 12 years and One Life to Live, representing over 1,000 episodes of daytime television. Recently: Misery on Broadway starring Bruce Willis and Cymbeline for The Public Theater’s Shakespeare in the Park. Rick sits on the board of the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey and teaches at Yale School of Drama and HB Studio. He is a recipient of an Edith Oliver Award for Sustained Excellence from the Lucille Lortel Foundation and a Jeff Award for Best Fight Direction for Romeo and Juliet (Chicago Shakespeare Theater). Rick has created the new stage combat company, Sordelet INK, with his son Christian Kelly-Sordelet. They have over thirty years of action movement experience for film, television and stage. sordeletINK.com JOEL BERKOWITZ, Yiddish Consultant La Jolla Playhouse: Debut. Mr. Berkowitz is Director of the Sam and Helen Stahl Center for Jewish Studies and Professor of Foreign Languages and Literature at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. A historian of the Yiddish theatre and translator of Yiddish drama, he is the author of Shakespeare on the American Yiddish Stage, editor of Yiddish Theatre: New Approaches and co-editor of Landmark Yiddish Plays and Inventing the Modern Yiddish Stage. He is the co-founder of the Digital Yiddish Theatre Project (yiddishstage.org), a research group applying Digital Humanities methods and tools to the study and preservation of Yiddish theatre, and is currently researching a book on Yiddish drama and the Holocaust. AMY BORATKO, Production Dramaturg La Jolla Playhouse: Debut. Ms. Boratko is the Literary Manager at Yale Rep and has previously served as dramaturg on the Yale Rep productions of War, The Fairytale Lives of Russian Girls, Dear Elizabeth, The Realistic Joneses, Good Goods, Belleville, Autumn Sonata, We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Battle of Black and Dogs, Compulsion, Notes from Underground, A Woman of No Importance, Eurydice and The Cherry Orchard. Other dramaturgy credits include The Time of Your Life, The Summer People, Romeo and Juliet, The War Is Over (Yale School of Drama) as well as Voice and Vision’s ENVISION Retreat at Bard College. She has been a teaching fellow at Yale College and Yale School of Drama and was a managing editor of Theater magazine. A graduate of Rice University, she received her M.F.A. in dramaturgy and dramatic criticism from Yale School of Drama. SHIRLEY FISHMAN, Dramaturg Now in her 14th season, she is the Playhouse’s Resident Dramaturg and has worked on such plays and musicals as Healing Wars, Come From Away, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Chasing the Song, Ether Dome, Side Show, Sideways, Glengarry Glen Ross, An Iliad, Hands on a Hardbody, American Night, 2015 POP Tour The Astronaut Farmworker and other projects in development. During her five years at the Joseph Papp Public Theater she dramaturged such projects as Jessica Hagedorn’s Dogeaters, Two Sisters and a Piano by Nilo Cruz and Tina Landau’s Space, among others, and was co-curator of the New Work Now! annual new play festival. She serves as a Playwright’s Dramaturg for UC San Diego’s Wagner New Play Festival and has been a dramaturg at Sundance Theatre Lab, Magic Theatre, Native Voices at the Autry and Playwrights Project, among others. She is an M.F.A. graduate of Columbia University’s Theatre Theory/Criticism/Dramaturgy program.
TARA RUBIN CASTING, Casting Director Selected La Jolla Playhouse: The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Sideways, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, The Nightingale, Peter and the Starcatchers, Most Wanted, The Farnsworth Invention, Fraulein Else, Zhivago. Selected Broadway: School of Rock, Dr Zhivago, It Shoulda Been You, Gigi, Bullets Over Broadway, Aladdin, Mothers and Sons, Les Misérables, Big Fish, How to Succeed..., A Little Night Music, Billy Elliot, Shrek, Guys and Dolls, Young Frankenstein, Mary Poppins, Spamalot, ...Spelling Bee, Jersey Boys, The Producers, Mamma Mia!. Off-Broadway: Here Lies Love; Old Jews Telling Jokes; Love, Loss, and What I Wore. Regional: Yale Repertory, Paper Mill Playhouse, The Old Globe. AMANDA SPOONER, Stage Manager La Jolla Playhouse: Debut. Yale Rep: Marie Antoinette, Death of a Salesman and Happy Now?. Recent credits include An Octoroon at Theatre for a New Audience; 10 Out of 12, Marie Antoinette and An Octoroon at Soho Rep.; Luck of the Irish and Mr. Joy at LCT3; While I Yet Live at Primary Stages and Sing for Your Shakespeare at Westport Country Playhouse. Amanda is a graduate of Yale School of Drama and also serves as the Development and Producing Associate at Transport Group Theatre Company. She would like to thank Rebecca and Paula for their friendship, Mary Hunter and James Mountcastle for their guidance, and her family for their perfection. JESS SLOCUM, Assistant Stage Manager La Jolla Playhouse: Side Show, Ruined, The Third Story, Memphis, Most Wanted. Regional: In Your Arms, Twelfth Night, Buyer & Cellar, Bright Star, Othello, Water by the Spoonful, The Winter’s Tale, A Doll’s House, Pygmalion, A Room with a View, Richard O’Brien’s The Rocky Horror Show, 2011-2013 Shakespeare Festivals, Rafta, Rafta…, Robin and the 7 Hoods, Alive and Well, Sammy, Cornelia, Since Africa, Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, The Glass Menagerie (The Old Globe); Post Office (Center Theatre Group). Education: Vanderbilt University. YALE REPERTORY THEATRE The internationally celebrated professional theatre in residence at Yale School of Drama has championed new work since 1966, producing well over 100 premieres – including two Pulitzer Prize winners and four other nominated finalists. Twelve Yale Rep productions have advanced to Broadway, garnering more than 40 Tony Award nominations and eight Tony Awards. Yale Rep is also the recipient of the Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre. Established in 2008, Yale’s Binger Center for New Theatre has distinguished itself as one of the nation’s most robust and innovative new play programs. To date, the Binger Center has supported the work of more than 50 commissioned artists and underwritten the world premieres and subsequent productions of 21 new American plays and musicals at Yale Rep and theatres across the country – including this season’s Indecent created by Paula Vogel and Rebecca Taichman, peerless by Jiehae Park, and The Moors by Jen Silverman.
PLAYHOUSE LEADERSHIP CHRISTOPHER ASHLEY, Artistic Director has served as Artistic Director at La Jolla Playhouse since 2007. During his tenure, he helmed the world premieres of Come From Away, The Darrell Hammond Project, Claudia Shear’s Restoration and Arthur Kopit and Anton Dudley’s A Dram of Drummhicit, as well as John Guare’s adaptation of His Girl Friday, Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross, Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and the musicals Xanadu and Memphis, which went on to Broadway, winning four 2010 Tony Awards including Best Musical. In addition, he spearheaded the Playhouse’s Without Walls site-specific theatre series, the Resident Theatre program and the DNA New Work Series. Prior to joining the Playhouse, Mr. Ashley directed the Broadway productions of Xanadu (Drama Desk nomination), All Shook Up and The Rocky Horror Show (Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Award nominations), as well as The Kennedy Center Sondheim Celebration productions of Merrily We Roll Along and Sweeney Todd (Helen Hayes Award for Direction). Other New York credits include: Leap of Faith, Blown Sideways Through Life, Jeffrey (Lucille Lortel and OBIE Awards), The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told, Valhalla, Regrets Only, Wonder of the World, Bunny Bunny, Communicating Doors, The Night Hank Williams Died and Fires in the Mirror (Lucille Lortel Award). He also directed the feature films Jeffrey, Blown Sideways Through Life for PBS, and Lucky Stiff, released July 2015. Mr. Ashley is the recipient of the Princess Grace Award, the Drama League Director Fellowship and an NEA/TCG Director Fellowship. DEBBY BUCHHOLZ, General Manager has served as general manager of La Jolla Playhouse since 2002. She is the Secretary of the League of Resident Theaters (LORT) and a member of its Executive Committee. In 2009, she received a San Diego Women Who Mean Business Award from The San Diego Business Journal. Previously she served as Counsel to The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C. She was a faculty member of the Smithsonian Institution’s program on Legal Problems of Museum Administration. Prior to The Kennedy Center, she served as a corporate attorney in New York City and Washington, D.C. She is a graduate of UC San Diego and Harvard Law School. Ms. Buchholz and her husband, noted author and White House economic policy advisor Todd Buchholz, live in Solana Beach and are the proud parents of Victoria, Katherine and Alexia.
MICHAEL S. ROSENBERG, Managing Director has served as the Managing Director of La Jolla Playhouse since April, 2009. Working in partnership with Artistic Director Christopher Ashley, he has developed and produced new work by Ayad Akhtar, Trey Anastasio, Amanda Green, John Leguizamo, Carey Perloff, Jay Scheib, Herbert Siguenza, Basil Twist, Michael Benjamin Washington, Sheri Wilner, Doug Wright and The Flaming Lips. Playhouse collaborations have included projects with UC San Diego, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, The New Children’s Museum, San Diego Museum of Man, San Diego Rep, Tectonic Theatre Project, the I.D.E.A. District and the cities of Escondido and Chula Vista. Additionally, he fostered the growth of the Playhouse’s award-winning Performance Outreach Program (POP) Tour, achieving the most performances at local schools in Playhouse history. Previously, Mr. Rosenberg was Co-Founder and Executive Director of Drama Dept., a New York non-profit theatre company, where he produced new works by the likes of Douglas Carter Beane, Warren Leight, Isaac Mizrahi, Paul Rudnick and David & Amy Sedaris. His early work included stints at The Kennedy Center, Kaiser Permanente, National Dance Institute and an Atlantic City casino. As a Theatre Communications Group Board member, he is proud to be on the Global and Diversity & Inclusion Committees. DES McANUFF, Director Emeritus served as La Jolla Playhouse’s Artistic Director from 1983 through 1994, and from 2001 through April, 2007. Under his leadership, the Playhouse garnered more than 300 awards, including the Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre. Playhouse to Broadway credits: Jersey Boys (four Tony Awards); Billy Crystal’s 700 Sundays (Tony Award); How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (five Tony nominations); director and co-author with Pete Townshend on The Who’s Tommy (Tony and Olivier Awards for Best Director) and Big River (seven Tony Awards), among others. Film credits: Quills, The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle, The Iron Giant (9 Animation Society awards) and Cousin Bette. Recipient of the Drama League’s 2006 Julia Hansen Award, Mr. McAnuff served as Artistic Director at Canada’s Stratford Festival from 2007 through 2012. He recently directed the hit productions of Sideways, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots and Jesus Christ Superstar at the Playhouse.
UP NEXT SPECIAL HOLIDAY ENGAGEMENT of the Eighty Eight Entertainment, Eva Price, Samantha F. Voxakis and Karen Racanelli production of
DECEMBER 16, 2015 – JANUARY 3, 2016 Written and performed by Hershey Felder Lyrics and music by Irving Berlin Directed by TrevorPERFORMANCES MAGAZINE P11 Hay
THE JOURNEY OF GOD OF VENGEANCE In Indecent, we see how Sholem Asch’s play God of Vengeance, a three-act drama written in Yiddish, was as itinerant as its author, travelling from a Polish literary salon to the American Broadway stage. This map tracks the play’s travels in the first half of the twentieth century.
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1907, I.L. Peretz’s Salon, Warsaw
Sholem Asch presents his play God of Vengeance at the literary salon of I.L. Peretz, a prominent figure in the Jewish Enlightenment. Peretz promoted literature by Jews and written in Yiddish – nurturing young talent that one day might shape Yiddish literature – but he also wished to carefully curate a positive portrayal of his people. Because Asch’s play naturalistically depicts the seedy underbelly of Jewish society, Peretz warns the young writer to “burn” the play. ABOVE: FIVE LITERATI: ABRAHAM REISEN, I.L. PERETZ, SHOLEM ASCH, CHAIM ZHITLOWSKY, H.D. NOMBERG. OPPOSITE: SHOLEM ASCH, 1957. PHOTO COURTESY OF CORBIS/BETTMAN.
1907,Yiddish Theatre, New York City
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David Kessler’s production of God of Vengeance premieres downtown in 1907 in Yiddish. For over fifteen years, the play is produced by Yiddish companies and enjoys successful runs – for predominantly Yiddish-speaking immigrant audiences fresh from Ellis Island. The play’s scandalous content – the Jewish brothel owner, the love affair between Rifkele and Manke, and the treatment of the Torah scroll – triggers some outrage and protest, but the uproar doesn’t seem to deter audiences.
1922, Provincetown Playhouse, NYC
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God of Vengeance, translated into English by Isaac Goldberg in 1918, plays for English-speaking audiences. Lawyer Harry Weinberger serves as the producer, and Rudolph Schildkraut joins the company to perform the role of Yekel in English for the first time. The Provincetown Players, which started in Massachusetts, set up this Greenwich Village theatre space in 1916 to become a “playwrights’ theatre.” Plays by Eugene O’Neill, e.e. cummings, and Edna St. Vincent Millay find a home on this stage. P12 PERFORMANCES MAGAZINE
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1923, Greenwich Village Theatre, NYC
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After a short run at the Provincetown Playhouse, the company moves a few blocks away to the Greenwich Village Theatre.
3 4 2 1907, Deutsches Theatre, Berlin
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God of Vengeance has its world premiere at Berlin’s Deustches Theatre, directed by the acclaimed Max Reinhardt and starring Rudolph Schildkraut. The German theatre is producing canonical works – Greek dramas, Shakespeare, and the German Romantics, among others – but it also showcases much newer plays by the likes of Chekhov, Gorky, Ibsen, and Zola. Both Reinhardt and Schildkraut later find success in Hollywood: the director for his 1935 film A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and the actor for his work with the legendary Cecil B. DeMille.
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1907, St. Petersburg and Moscow
Legendary actress Vera Komissarzhevskaya brings a Russian translation of the play to the St. Petersburg stage. God of Vengeance debuts in Moscow a few months later. Meanwhile, Yiddish theatre gains popularity in New York City (see opposite page)...
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Early 1940s, An Attic in the Ghetto, Łódź
Despite the inhumane conditions and extreme hardship, theatrical activity persists in Jewish ghettos during Nazi rule. Plays and musical performances take place in official clubs—such as the “Police Revue” in the Łódź ghetto, exclusively for the Gestapo—and in attics and basements. Fearing any large congregation that might attract the attention of the police, smaller performances spring up in hidden corners. Sometimes they are held to raise funds for a particular person or family. At the same time, theatre has become a way to express, most often through satire, the harsh realities of ghetto life.
1923, Apollo Theatre on Broadway
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God of Vengeance premieres on Broadway, but the run is short-lived. The Goldberg translation is cut to make the play more palatable for uptown audiences. In the original, Manke and Rifkele’s love scene in the rain is often compared to Romeo and Juliet’s balcony scene, but now, Manke seduces Rifkele to trap her into a life of prostitution.
1923, The Trial An obscenity complaint is filed by Rabbi Joseph Silverman, and the actors, producer, and theatre owner are arrested and, after a long trial, convicted for their indecent acts onstage. Later, the conviction is overturned, but not before the show is forced to end its run. – AMY BORATKO, YALE REP PRODUCTION DRAMATURG PERFORMANCES MAGAZINE P13
SHOLEM ASCH
FROM THE JEWISH PALE INTO THE MODERN WORLD
B
y the late 19th century, five million of world’s Jews lived in Eastern Europe under the rule of Russian law, in a geographically restricted area known as the Pale of Settlement. It extended from the eastern pale, or demarcation line, to the western Russian border with the Kingdom of Prussia (later the German Empire) and with Austria-Hungary. Sholem Asch, photo by Rene Saint Paul
Over the course of 900 years, small towns and villages (shtetls), sprang up throughout the Pale in which poverty-stricken Jews overcame harsh conditions by forming community organizations and charities, establishing yeshivas as well as secular schools, libraries, burial societies and cemeteries, synagogues, theatres, publishing houses and the like, to overcome harsh conditions imposed by the majority population and meet the needs of the Jewish people. Despite pogroms and anti-Jewish riots, which caused considerable property damage and deaths in the thousands, Jewish culture flourished. Sholem Asch was born in Kutno, a shtetl in the Polish sector of the Pale on November 1, 1880. The youngest of 10 children of Hasidic parents and traditionally educated, he was an eager student with an interest in secular subjects, including the German language, of which his parents did not approve. He moved in with relatives and became a Torah instructor, then moved to a nearby shtetl where he earned a living writing letters for its illiterate townspeople. Asch traveled to Warsaw in 1900 and began writing his own work in Hebrew. He soon became part of the literary salon of the Yiddish author and playwright, I. L. Peretz, which was considered the center of the city’s literary and cultural life. The Jewish literary establishment had dictated that literature, which consisted mainly of folk tales, mystical stories, popular rhymes and religious tracts, be written in Hebrew. The young writers in the salon wanted to create a modern Yiddish literature, and Peretz was one of the few who encouraged them. Asch began to write stories and poems, in Yiddish as well as Hebrew, that reflected life in the surrounding impoverished Jewish community. In 1903, he married Mathilde (Madzhe) Shapiro, the daughter of a wealthy Hebrew teacher and poet, was able to dedicate himself solely to his writing, and was soon placed in the vanguard of new Yiddish writers. Political, social and cultural change was in the air and new ideologies were developing in the region – the socialist Jewish Labor Bund, Zionism, the Russian Revolution of 1905 and Polish nationalism which increased anti-semitism, resulting in even harsher restrictions for the Jewish population. The Jewish literary world was also moving into new territory, eschewing old forms and embracing naturalism, following the path of such playwrights as Henrik Ibsen, Maxim Gorky, August Strindberg and Anton Chekhov. With realistic stories that exposed the harsh realities of poverty, prejudice, violence and corruption, the plays’ characters displayed psychological motivations and behavior that were influenced by the mores and values of their heredity and environment.
The cast of
God of Ve ngeance, arrested
in 1923 on
P14 PERFORMANCES MAGAZINE
grounds of "impu rity."
In 1906, in the midst of this time of change, Sholem Asch’s God of Vengeance came into the world.
Y
iddish Theatre existed in Eastern Europe prior to the 18th century in the form of dialogues of poetry and Purim plays, masquerades and plays emanating from religious scripture and practice, featuring music, song and dance. By the 1870s, itinerant Yiddish theatre companies were performing skits in cafés and wine cellars. By the end of the century, there were some nineteen amateur troupes performing in Eastern Europe. The first professional Yiddish Theatre troupe was founded in Romania in 1876 by poet Abraham Goldfaden, considered to be the father of Yiddish theatre. His all-male company performed musical vaudeville, light comedy, and quasi-serious operettas based on biblical and historical subjects. Jewish audiences reveled in hearing their own language spoken on the stage and Yiddish theatres began to proliferate to communities in Warsaw, Vilna and other towns in the Pale of Settlement. Goldfaden’s plays continued to be performed for more than 50 years, and his canon became a resource for aspiring playwrights. Russia banned Yiddish Theatre after the assassination of Alexander II in 1883, which pushed the boundaries of Yiddish theatrical performance to Western Europe and then to America.
: E R T A THE
H O T S I D D L D R YI HE OLD WO T M O R F
Grand Theatre, circa1905. The theatre was opened by famed actor Jacob P. Adler in 1903 and was located on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.
Y T I C K R O Y W NE
Audience at the Grand Theatre in 1905. During the early twentieth century, a visitor to the Lower East Side could come across a multitude of theatres that mainly staged performances in Yiddish.
Amateur theatrical performances in New York City had already begun by 1882 at theatres such as the Bowery Garden and Thalia on the city’s Lower East Side. With such star performers as Boris Thomashefsky, Jacob Adler and his wife Sara, Jacob Gordin and later Molly Picon, who were skilled at fiery temperaments and extreme emotions, the size of the audience grew. Original plays, musicals, adaptations and translations of Shakespeare’s plays were performed alongside those of Yiddish writers S. Ansky (The Dybbuk), H. Leivick (The Golem), Sholem Aleichem, Sholem Asch and I. L. Peretz, among others. By the early twentieth century, the largest Jewish population in the world resided on the Lower East Side. They flocked to the 22 theatres in the Yiddish Theatre District on Second Avenue, sometimes referred to as the “Jewish Rialto.” Ticket prices were affordable to all, ranging from 25 cents to a dollar. Two million patrons, from the poorest immigrants to Jewish intellectuals, attended plays and musicals that ran the gamut from low comedy to adaptations of Strindberg and Ibsen. Audiences, eating and drinking as they watched the shows, became fervently involved in the events of the plays – crying, laughing, cheering, hissing and shouting advice to the characters. The Holocaust devastated Yiddish language culture. In Europe, many of the world’s Yiddish speakers were killed and many theatres were destroyed. After World War II, Yiddish Theatre in New York began to wane. Although the golden age of Yiddish Theatre has passed, Yiddish theatre companies continue to perform at Folksbeine and New Yiddish Rep in New York City, and in various cities in the U.S. and abroad.
This poster advertises a production of King Solomon at the Thalia Theatre.
PERFORMANCES MAGAZINE P15
LA JOLLA PLAYHOUSE
STAFF
ARTISTIC Associate Artistic Director Jaime Castañeda Resident Dramaturg Shirley Fishman Director of New Play Development Gabriel Greene Without Walls Associate Producer Marike Fitzgerald Director Emeritus Des McAnuff Executive Assistant to Christopher Ashley Rick VanNoy Artistic Assistant Teresa Sapien Interns Julia Greer, Stephanie Prugh Commissioned Artists Daniel Beaty, Mark Bennett, Keith Bunin, Kirsten Greenidge, Quiara Alegría Hudes, Joe Iconis, Naomi Iizuka, Aditi Brennan Kapil, Jon Kern, Mike Lew, Mona Mansour, Erin McKeown, Rehana Lew Mirza, Gregory S. Moss, Alfred Uhry, Charlayne Woodard, Martín Zimmerman 2015/2016 Resident Artist BD Wong PRODUCTION Production Manager Audrey Hoo Associate Production Manager Benjamin Seibert Assistant Production Manager Becca Duhaime Production Office Manager Tarin Hurstell SCENE SHOP Technical Director Chris Borreson Assistant Technical Director Curtis Green Scene Shop Supervisor David Weiner Technical Designer Tyler Grady Staff Production Carpenters Kyle “Boo-Boo” Ahlquist, Jeremy Luce, Preston Spence Staff Carpenters Mihai Antonescu, William Bender, Jacob Bruce, Katelynn Cardon, Matt Clark, Danielle Dunne, Nick Jackson, Scott Kinney, Stephanie Lee, John Serbian, Don Dino Spezzini Shop Helper Doug Collind PAINT SHOP Charge Scenic Artist Joan Newhouse Assistant Charge Artists Vicki Erbe, Melissa Nalbach Scenic Artist Dwaine Best PROPERTIES SHOP Prop Shop Supervisor Deb Hatch Associate Prop Master Jeni Cheung Assistant Prop Master Jenny Fajerman Prop Shop Foreman Will Widick Props Artisan Tim Nottage COSTUME SHOP Costume Shop Manager Sue Makkoo Costume Shop Project Manager Mary Eggers Costume Shop Foreman/Tailor Lissa Skiles Draper Elena Ham Master Stitchers K-Joy Lehmann-Way, Yangchen Dolkar Craft Artisan Christy Jones Costume Shop Assistant Desiree Hatfield-Buckley ELECTRICS Lighting Supervisor Mike Doyle Assistant Lighting Supervisor Kathryn Sturch Staff Electricians Kristyn Kennedy, Mike Lowe, Andrea Ryan, Ramon Wenn, Matt Wilson SOUND/VIDEO Sound/Video Supervisor Joe Huppert Associate Sound Supervisor Chad Goss Sound Shop Foreman Steve Negrete Playhouse Sound Engineer Chris Luessmann Sound Technician Jim Zadai Sound Intern Dylan Nielsen
Christopher Ashley, Artistic Director
ADMINISTRATION General Manager Debby Buchholz Associate General Manager Jenny Case Assistant General Manager Katherine Stout Human Resources Specialist Nezam Etemadi Corporate/Legal Counsel Robert C. Wright, Wright & L’Estrange Theatre/Legal Counsel F. Richard Pappas, Esq. Executive Assistant to Managing Director David Barnathan COMPANY MANAGEMENT Company Manager Megan Alvord Assistant Company Manager Samantha De La Riva Company Management Assistant Cody Littlefield Intern Rachel Brawley FINANCE Director of Finance John O’Dea Comptroller Laura Killmer Payroll/AP Tamara Tipps Staff Accountant Vincent Ng Production Accountant Sharon Ratelle Network Specialist Mike Salapow DEVELOPMENT Director of Development David W. Hanses Sr. Associate Director of Development Erin Decker Associate Director of Development, Individual & Corporate Giving Bonnie Broberg Associate Director of Development, Special Events Rachel Terrones Grants Manager Alexandra Kritchevsky Development Manager Annie Shrinkle Corporate Relations Manager Carina Burns Donor Stewardship & Volunteer Coordinator Caitlin Finch Development Database & Research Analyst Tony Dixon Assistant to the Director of Development Naysan Mojgani Development Assistant Jessica Humphrey Intern Gabi D’Amico MARKETING Director of Communications Mary Cook Director of Public Relations Becky Biegelsen Associate Director of Sales & Marketing Mia Fiorella Communications Specialist Grace Madamba Multimedia Designer Nancy Showers Database Specialist Steven Jirjis Marketing Campaign Manager John Olchak Marketing Coordinator Tara Shoemaker Audience Activator Malesha Taylor Public Relations & Marketing Intern Amanda Benenson PATRON SERVICES Associate Director – Patron Services Nikki Cooper Patron Services Sales Manager Jordan Marrone Patron Services Assistant Manager Travis Guss Lead Patron Services Representative/Group Sales Specialist Pearl Hang Lead Patron Services Representatives Mike Brown, Renee Tolson Patron Services Representatives Deandre Clay, Makayla Hoppe, Bill Washington Patron Services Sales Specialist Paul Preston Sales Concierges Andrew Fink, William Guiney
Michael S. Rosenberg, Managing Director
EDUCATION & OUTREACH Director of Education & Outreach Steve McCormick Associate Director of Education & Outreach Alison Urban Education & Outreach Coordinator Paola Kubelis Audio Describers Mernie Aste, Brian Berlau, Joanne Brook, Tina Dyer, Shari Lyon, Kay O’Neil, Deborah Sanborn, Janet Schlesinger, Sylvia Southerland, Susan Weekes ASL Interpreters Lynn Ann Garrett, Anelia Glebocki, Alycen Haneyoworth, Suzanne Lightbourn, Billieanne McLellan, Geri Wu Artist Instructors Carolyn E. Agan, Catherine Hanna, Rachel Hoey, Blake McCarty, Erika Phillips, James Pillar, Cynthia Stokes, Skylar Sullivan Playhouse Teen Council Kayla Cruise, Carleigh Jensen, Tyler Moore, Natasha Partnoy, Emily Smedley, Nicole Sollazzo, Madeleine Williams, Brennen Winspear OPERATIONS Director of Operations Ned Collins Operations Manager Jen McClenahan FRONT OF HOUSE House Manager John Craft Assistant House Managers Gabi D'Amico, Avery Henderson, Sara Lucchini, Amy Marquez Janitorial Professional Maintenance Systems: Elena Hernandez, David Mares, Miriam Martinez, Ignacio Mena, Juan Mena, Luis Mena, Maria Mena, Ramón Mena INDECENT STAFF Production Carpenter Kyle "Boo Boo" Ahlquist Automation & Master Flyman Jeremy "Go Bolts" Luce Tech Automation Associate Will "Dragon Coaster" Bender Prop Runner Marilia Maschion Wardrobe Supervisor Debbie Callahan Wardrobe Crew Debbie Allen, Jeri Nicolas Light Board Op Mike Lowe Spot Ops Leighann Enos, Kristyn Kennedy Audio Engineer Jeremy Siebert Audio 2 Dana Pickop Projections Technician Jay Schenk
IN GRATITUDE: The La Jolla Playhouse Board of Trustees and staff wish to express their deepest appreciation and gratitude to Vivien and Jeffrey Ressler for establishing the Jordan Ressler Endowment Fund. With the creation of this endowment, the Playhouse will receive much-needed annual support for the express purpose of developing new work and sustaining key artistic projects throughout the creative process.