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BENGAL TIGER AT THE BAGHDAD ZOO BY RAJIV JOSEPH
Cast – (in order of appearance) Kev Tom Musa Hadia/ Iraqi Girl/ Iraqi Woman/ Iraqi Leper Tiger Uday/ Iraqi Man Creative Team Director Set Designer Costume and Lighting Designer Composer and Sound Designer
Brett Dahl Daniel Frederick Kent Fernandes Ben Gorodetsky Marina Mair-Sanchez Angelique Panther Matthew Yipchuck Sandra M. Nicholls Jamie Plummer Guido Tondino Matt Skopyk
Voice, Speech, Text Coach Movement Coach Cultural Consultants
Betty Moulton Marie Nychka Maitham Salam Haysam Kadri Rose Joudri Dana Abdulrahim
Assistant to the Set Designer Assistant to the Costume Designer Assistant to the Lighting Designer
Travis Metzger Megan Koshka Josee Chartrand
Stage Management Stage Manager Assistant Stage Manager
JoAnna Black Kiidra Duhault
There will be one 15 minute intermission. Rights for this production are courtesy of Dramatists Play Service Inc.
Contents
4 Director’s Notes • 6 Production Team • 8 Drama News 12 Photos • 14 Interview • 20 Staff / Front of House 22 Donors
Director’s Notes By Sandra M. Nicholls Excerpt from Babylon’s Ark: The Incredible Wartime Rescue of the Baghdad Zoo, by Lawrence Anthony (South African Conservationist and founder of the Earth Organization) “They’ve killed the tiger. Malooh is dead,” Brendan said, his voice echoing in the receiver. “What?” “Yeah some American soldiers got drunk at the zoo and a couple wandered around the cages. Then one brain-dead moron stuck his hand in the tiger’s cage, obviously freaking it out. …His friend pulled out a nine-millimeter and shot the tiger. Malooh slowly bled to death overnight without us even knowing. We only found out in the morning.” Then Brendan, who seldom raises his voice, suddenly shouted over the phone. “That beautiful cat was in a cage! It couldn’t have gone anywhere! It couldn’t have run off ! And those fucking drunk bastards killed it!” A picture of the majestic Bengal tiger flashed through my mind. He was my favorite animal. When I mused alone on the futility of everything I often found him looking at me and I took comfort from his presence. He was our most stressed animal, just fur and rib cage when we arrived and we fought long and hard for his life… …I put the phone down.
Baghdad is the ‘God given city of peace.’ It lies in Mesopotamia, ‘the cradle of civilization,’ a land believed to hold the Garden of Eden and the Tower of Babel, the site of Noah’s flood and G.W. Bush’s weapons of mass destruction. “For bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction because it was the one reason everyone could agree on.” Paul Wolfowitz, U.S. Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, May 28, 2003. This was the city that held host to the games of shock and awe, and was central to a war soon to be named Operation Iraqi Freedom. This play spins some of that story. It asks what it means to be alive and free on this planet. And what constitutes the alien, the Other. Primal fear around difference in all of its aspects keeps us from knowing one another, including members of the other species. War is just a bad translation, a confusion of tongues and body language. “The CIA gave us bad intelligence.” George W. Bush, July 11, 2003.
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Production Team
Production Manager: Technical Director: Assistant Technical Director: Production Administrative Assistant: Wardrobe Manager: Cutter: Stitchers: Head Scenic/Stage Carpenter: Scenic Carpenters: Scenic Paint Advisor: Head Scenic Painter: Scenic Painters:
Properties Master: Head of Props: Prosthetic Arm Builder: Lighting/Video Supervisors: Head of Lighting: Lighting Technicians:
Joel Adria Laura Campbell Lore Green Audra Stevenson Matthew Skopyk Melissa Wilson
Sound Supervisor: Sound Technician:
Running Crew:
Lighting Operator: Video Operator: Sound Operator: Stage Carpenter:
Finn McConnell Rosalyn Barr Melissa Wilson Jonathan Reid
Advisors:
Design Advisor: Stage Management Advisor:
Guido Tondino John Raymond
Thanks:
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Gerry van Hezewyk Larry Clark Gil Miciak Jonathan Durynek Joanna Johnston Ann Salmonson Feng Yi Jiang Avishta Lena Seeras Darrell Cooksey Jonathan Reid Andre Lavoie George Griffiths Laura Campbell Kimberly Creller JosĂŠe Chartrand Megan Koshka Travis Metzger Tanya Schwaerzle Jane Kline Joel Adria Tanya Schwaerzle Mel Geary Jeff Osterlin Finn McConnell
Rob Paterson and Garry Swartz at Supply Sergeant Star Mechanical Proline Shooters
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Drama News Samantha Hill (’11 BFA, Acting) is now performing on Broadway! This November, the 25 year old soprano took over as the alternate Christine in The Phantom of the Opera, performing at least twice a week until February. Phantom is the longest running production in the history of the Great White Way, and will celebrate its 25th anniversary in 2013. The Stratford Festival made its casting announcements for the 2013 season with two BFA Acting grads featuring prominently in the roster. Recent graduate Robert Markus (’10 BFA, Acting) will make his Strat Fest debut playing the lead in Tommy! , and Dion Johnstone (’97 BFA, Acting) returns to play the title role in Othello. Alberta Ballet’s stage managers, Deb Howard and Oliver Armstrong visited John Raymond’s senior stage management class this fall to explore the differences and similarities of ballet stage management and theatre stage management. Our BFA Stage Management students were also invited backstage as the ballet company’s special guests for the dress rehearsal and performances of Great Masterpieces of the 20th Century and Othello. Former University of Alberta Lee Playwright-in-Residence, Don Hannah, won the Playwright Guild of Canada’s Carol Bolt Award for The Cave Painter, which recognizes the play as the best work premiered by a PGC member over the past year. The one woman play deals with grief and where we put it in order to continue with our lives. It premiered at the Canadian Centre for Theatre Creation’s Working Title 3 at the Timms Centre in 2011, directed by UofA Professor and dramatur Kim McCaw, featuring designs by drama graduates Nick Blais (’11 BFA, Theatre Design), Daniela Masellis (’10 BFA, Theatre Design) and Clinton Carew (’12 MFA, Directing, ’95 BFA, Acting). Congratulations to drama graduates Amy Shostak (’07 BA, Drama) and Trevor Duplessis (’00 BFA, Acting), who were both profiled in Edmonton’s Avenue Magazine’s Top 40 under 40 issue. Shostak is the artistic director of Rapid Fire Theatre and was instrumental in moving the successful improv company downtown to the Citadel Theatre this season. Métis actor Duplessis was recognized for his inspiring performances on the Gemini-award winning television series Blackstone as well as his drama teaching duties at Yellowhead Tribal College. MFA Theatre Practice candidate, Michelle Rios, is about to go and shoot a movie with Ed Harris. She will play a role that is bilingual (Spanish/English) in the film that explores issues around the Mexican-US border.
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The Gateway said The Memorandum had “energetic dialogue,” “impressive physical comedy,” and, described it as “a wild ride through a maze of sexuality and office intrigue.”
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4 1. Edmund Stapleton & Lianna Makuch 2. Mat Simpson 3. Perry Gratton, Edmund Stapleton & Lianna Makuch 4. Patricia Cerda 5. Samantha Jeffery & Edmund Stapleton All photos by Ed Ellis
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Tiger, Tiger, Burning Bright A Conversation with Rajiv Joseph By: Lucy Collingwood, MFA Directing candidate Rajiv Joseph, playwright, screenwriter and teacher, seems quiet and unassuming for a man whose work explores the dark and twisted cultural territory of war and the nature of death. At 38, Joseph has an impressive list of artistic accomplishments under his belt. He has written for Broadway and Off-Broadway venues and won numerous awards, including the Paula Vogel award for emerging playwrights, the Whiting Writers’ Award and the 2009 Kesselring Fellowship. Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, perhaps his most famous work, was a Pulitzer Prize Finalist in 2010. The play took around five years to complete, first making its way to the Broadway stage in 2009, a very different animal from where it began. Here at the Timms Centre for its Canadian premiere, the play takes place in a bizarre intersection of worlds, an ambiguous space where the living and the dead clash in a dreamlike mess of confusion and miscommunication. Speaking from New York in the midst of hurricane Sandy, Joseph’s commentary is punctuated with the sounds of helicopters pounding overhead. When asked about the earliest genesis of the script, Joseph thinks carefully before he speaks. “This is based on a real story. What first sparked me to this idea was an actual article in the newspaper, it was an article about these two soldiers guarding the zoo, and one tried to feed the tiger and the tiger bit his hand off and the other soldier shot and killed the tiger. A tiny little article in the New York Times back page that struck me as so surreal and bizarre and sad and that’s what launched the whole piece.” The original incarnation of the Tiger script, a ten minute play Joseph wrote in graduate school, was awarded a New Play Development Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Through an in-rehearsal work-shopping process, Joseph adapted the short piece into a full-length, surrealist exploration of life, death and the search for God. Lead by the eponymous Tiger, the play takes place in war-torn Iraq, focusing on the fundamental cultural clash between the American soldiers and Iraqi citizens. As we move through the dreamlike landscape, the Tiger begins to obsess over the violence and the cruelty of the war. Joseph sets up the Tiger 14
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Tiger, Tiger, Burning Bright Continued as theatrically human, walking on two feet, but at the same time he personifies the animal world. The Tiger is a lens through which we can observe and examine the inhuman effects of war. “I was interested in the Tiger’s voice and I was interested in the perspective of an animal, of like a caged animal, in a war setting. So the Iraq war [was] something that I was curious and disturbed about and wanting to think about and contemplate through writing a play... [I knew] I would be limited in it because I’ve never been to Iraq, I’m not Iraqi, I’m not a soldier, so I found it useful and interesting to take the perspective of an animal, because the animal of course is going to have no knowledge of anything and can serve as an apolitical narrator.” This type of commentary calls for a certain level of accuracy and truth in its representation of Iraq and Iraqi culture, even considering the dreamlike, surrealist quality of the play. Joseph conducted exhaustive research to bring honesty and candor to the more realistic segments of the piece. Much of the play is delivered in Iraqi Arabic, for which purpose Joseph worked alongside translators Ammar Ramzi and Raida Fahmi to produce accurate, specific language that captures the dialect of Iraq. Fall Hours: Mon - Fri: 7 PM - 12:30 AM Sundays: 7 PM - 11 PM
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“I worked with some Iraqis to do the translation and then I had the opportunity to actually have a bunch of Iraqi nationals that were at one of the performances in Los Angeles and on Broadway and to talk to them afterwards and they all responded very positively to it, which I was very happy about. It was very important to me that people from Iraq who saw it did appreciate it.”
Layering the Iraqi dialect with the English has provided a very difficult and unique challenge for the fourth year bachelor of fine arts acting students, who learned the text with no prior training or experience with the language. The language barrier is an important hurdle however, as communication (or the lack thereof) is a prevalent issue in the play. In fact, the script specifically requests that there should be no subtitles for the Arabic, so that the communication barrier will be manifest for most of the audience as well. The characters’ names are likewise miscommunicated and obscured by both soldiers and Iraqi nationals alike. “It seems like no one in this play actually calls anybody by their real names, except for Tom and Kev, they call Musa ‘Habib’, he calls them ‘Johnny,’ Uday calls [Musa] ‘Mansour,’ and it kind of underscores this lack of communication and understanding and the willingness to engage with others,” Joseph said. Indeed, when the world is split between Iraqi and American, animal and human, the living and the dead, how can one find reconciliation and peace? This Playbill is Published By © 2012 Postvue Publishing All Rights Reserved, Reproduction in whole or in part is prohibited without the written consent of the publisher.
Publisher, Sales & Marketing Manager Rob Lightfoot Art Directors & Design Charlie Biddiscombe Mike Siek Sales Representatives Andy Cookson Bridget Grady James Jarvis
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Administrative Staff
Kathleen Weiss: Chair, Department of Drama Julie Brown: Assistant Chair Administration David Prestley: Theatre Administrator / Events Coordinator Jonathan Durynek: Box Office Coordinator / Events Assistant Ruth Vander Woude: Graduate Advisor / Administrator Connie Golden: Undergraduate Advisor Helen Baggaley: Administrative Assistant / Office Coordinator With assistance from Faculty of Arts staff: Salena Kitteringham: Fine Arts Communications Associate Terah Jans: Fine Arts Communications Assistant Joanna Manchur: Fine Arts Recruitment Coordinator
Production Staff
Gerry van Hezewyk: Production Manager / Administrative Professional Officer Larry Clark: Technical Director, Timms Centre for the Arts Darrell Cooksey: Head Carpenter Jonathan Durynek: Production Administrative Assistant Mel Geary: Lighting Supervisor Joanna Johnston: Costume Manager Jane Kline: Property Master Don MacKenzie: Technical Director, Fine Arts Building Ann Salmonson: Cutter Matthew Skopyk: Second Playing Space Technician / Sound Supervisor Karen Swiderski: Costumer, Fine Arts Building
Front of House
Staff: Bonita Akai, Kristy Condon, Danielle Dugan, Peter Fernandes, Al Gadowsky, Becky Gormley, Caitlin Gormley, Tasreen Hudson, Marie-AndrĂŠe Lachapelle, Laura Norton, Emily Paulsen, Andrew Shum, Faye Stollery, Jane Toogood. Volunteers: Cristian Badiu, Debbie Beaver, Susan Box, Patricia Cerda, Franco Correa, Alana De Melo, Jonathan Durynek, Mary and Gene Ewanyshyn, Terri Gingras, Ron Gleason, Sydney Gross, Darcy Hoover-Correa, Paula Humby, Marie-AndrĂŠe Lachapelle, Don Lavigne, Sareeta Lopez, Tom and Gillian McGovern, Marlene Marlj, Conner Meeker, Laura Metcalf, Jennifer Morely, Alice Petruk, David Prestley, Joyanne Rudiak, Clio Unger, Catherine Vielguth, Jane Voloboeva, Diane Wright, Anisa Youssefi, Danoush Youssefi 20
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Donors
Heartfelt thanks to the individuals, foundations and organizations listed below for recognizing the importance of the arts and directly investing in the Department of Drama’s innovation and leadership within theatre training and performance. A round of applause to our supporters. Sharon M. & Baha R. Abu-Laban Ella May & Leonard Apedaile Dorothy Ayer Bacon Family Fund Douglas & Annalisa Baer Joan Baird Roderick E Banks David Barnet & Edith Mitchell William & Carole Barton Karin Basaraba Jim & Barb Beck Lindsay Bell Carl & Doreen Betke Kathleen & William Betteridge Alan Bleviss Julia M Boberg Donna Bornhuse Richard Bowes Edward Brado Angela Breadner Julie Brown & Joseph Piccolo Linda Bumstead Kathleen & Adolf Buse Campbell Family Foundation Rachel Christopher Brent Christopherson Classique Decor Ltd Penny Coates Faye Cohen Lesley B. Cormack & Andrew Ede Daniel Cunningham Brian J. Deedrick Michelle L. Dias † Dyer Financial Strategies Ltd. W Gifford Edmonds Larry Ethier John T. & Bunny Ferguson Shirley Gifford Sheila Gooding Melvina M. Gowda Derek J. & Mary Griffiths
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Kelly Handerek Bohdan & Elaine Harasymiw Alex & Joan Hawkins Murray & Pauline Hawkins Christopher Head Steven Hilton I A T S E Local 210 Pavel & Sylvia Jelen Shenaz & Azim Jeraj Jim & Sheila Edwards Family Fund Marco Katz M A Keene Jane King Patricia Langan Hou Li Nicole E. Mallet Peggy M & John Marko Robert W. McColl Sandra McFadyen Gordon & Norma McIntosh Rod & Heleen McLeod Rod & F June Morgan Betty Moulton Kathleen & Philip Mulder Les Myhr Audrey O’Brien Dale Olausen Jack & Esther Ondrack V Porteous Bente Roed Helen J Rosta Kenneth L. & Joan Roy Valerie Sarty Ramona & Alan Sather Peter and Olga Savaryn Alison Scott-Prelorentzos Jan Selman & Curtis Palmer Albin Shanley Shirley & Sol Sigurdson Phillip Silver
O. Francis Sitwell Daryl Springer Marion & Brian J. Sproule St. Peter’s Anglican Church ACW Allan Stichbury Richard & Rita Taylor Isobel Thomas Thomas Usher Gilda L.F. Valli Henriette van Hees Alan and Lorraine Welch Deborah & Jerry Yee John R. Young Various Anonymous Donors In Kind David Adam & Rose Liu-Adam Erica Boetcher Jill Concannon Pamela Constable Campbell Davies Estate of Pro Rhey Mond Depro Ester Fraga Mel Geary Ron Lavoie Larry MacInnis Don Mackenzie Ann Malyj Joanna & Travis Manchur David Plach David Prestley Ella Reidt Karen M. Swiderski Michelle Warren Donna R. Zuk Various Anonymous Donors
This list includes those who donated to various Drama funds from October 31, 2011 to October, 31, 2012. List compiled November 9, 2012. Apologies for inadvertent omissions or errors. Contact 780-492-2271 for changes.
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