The Violet Hour

The Violet Richard Hour Greenberg by

September 18-27 | 7:30 p.m.

Matinee Sept 25, 2014 at 12:30 p.m.

Timms Centre for the Arts University of Alberta

Tickets $11 - $22

Available at the Timms Centre box office and TIX on the Square

www.uab.ca/shows

The Violet Hour

By Richard Greenberg

CAST – IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE JOHN PACE SEAVERING GIDGER JESSIE BREWSTER DENIS MCCLEARY ROSAMUND PLINTH

OSCAR DERKX JULIEN ARNOLD * NIMET KANJI * NEIL KUEFLER LIANNA MAKUCH

* APPEAR WITH THE PERMISSION OF CANADIAN ACTORS’ EQUITY ASSOCIATION

CREATIVE TEAM DIRECTOR SET DESIGNERS

COSTUME DESIGNERS

LIGHTING DESIGNER SOUND DESIGNER

LUCY COLLINGWOOD ZSOFIA MOCSAR GUIDO TONDINO SABRINA EVERTT JOANNA JOHNSTON GUIDO TONDINO JULIANA LABOTS

VOICE/SPEECH/TEXT COACH

BOBBI GODDARD

THIS PRODUCTION OF THE VIOLET HOUR IS IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF LUCY COLLINGWOOD’S MFA DIRECTING THESIS.

STAGE MANAGEMENT STAGE MANAGER ASSISTANT STAGE MANAGER

JESSICA PARR EDEN UNGER

DIRECTING ADVISOR DESIGN ADVISOR STAGE MANAGEMENT ADVISOR

KATHLEEN WEISS GUIDO TONDINO JOHN RAYMOND

AMATEUR RIGHTS TO PRODUCE THE VIOLET HOUR ARE COURTESY OF DRAMATISTS PLAY SERVICE.

Contents

• 3 Production Team • 4 The Season • 5 Director’s Notes • 6, 7 Dramaturgical Notes • 10 Mandate • 13 Staff • 14 Wisdom 2

Production Team Production Manager: Technical Director: Assistant Technical Director:

Wardrobe Manager: Milliner:

Gerry van Hezewyk Larry Clark Allison Robinson

Head Scenic/Stage Carpenter: Scenic Carpenters:

Darrell Cooksey Barbara Hagensen Rhys Martin

Lead Scenic Painter: Scenic Painters:

Projected Content Generated by: Properties Master: Lead Props Builder: Props Builders:

Alison Yanota Cheyenne Sykes Camille Maltais Stephanie Bahniuk Mattia Poulin

Lighting Supervisor: Head of Lighting: Lighting Technicians:

Jeff Osterlin Mattia Poulin JC Maxwell Matt Koyata

Sound Supervisor:

Matthew Skopyk

Joanna Johnston Karen Kucher

Cheyenne Sykes Jane Kline Chris Chelich Laura Campbell

RUNNING CREW: Lighting Operator: Stagehand:

Mattia Poulin Andrea Murphy

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2014 / 2015 Season W

elcome to Drama’s 2014/2015 season.

The Timms Centre is Drama’s laboratory.

It is a focus for faculty research, an important teaching tool, and an avenue of connection to the university and the city.

The Studio Theatre season fulfills many needs. We strive to create a program that will entertain, educate, engage and explore the very nature of theatre as an art form.

The 2014/2015 season brings together an ensemble of talented artists interacting to create six unique live theatre experiences.

This season celebrates in particular the work of women playwrights, directors and designers. I often recall an article Not There Yet: What will it take to achieve equality for women in the theatre, written by Marsha Norman, published in American Theatre in November 2009, when she reported 83% of plays produced professionally in the United States and Canada are written by men. Today in 2014, working towards achieving equality for women in theatre remains at the forefront for me as U of A Studio Theatre’s artistic director and this aim underlines our choice to program four of the seasons’ six plays with work by female playwrights.

Two plays programmed for this season are works by Moira Buffini, a contemporary UK writer who specializes in big, imaginative, metaphysical pieces.

A Dream Play is of course by August Strindberg, but director David Kennedy has chosen to work with an adaptation by Caryl Churchill. The final play of the season, Tribes, is the work of Nina Raine, a ground breaking English director and playwright.

Women directors and designers also face concomitant inequality in the theatre.

According to Norman’s 2009 article, less than 25% of directing and designer positions are filled by women, classifying 4

playwriting, directing, set design, lighting design and sound design as “untraditional occupations for women.”

At the University of Alberta, we are doing our best to counter this reality featuring four gifted female directors; MFA students Lucy Collingwood and Amanda Bergen bookending the season with The Violet Hour and Tribes and faculty members Jan Selman and Sandra Nicholls handling the spirited Buffini plays. Three talented MFA designers, Zsofia Opra-Szabo, Hannah Matlachuk and Robyn Ayles will contribute varied designs throughout the season with each taking on all three elements for one of the winter shows. It seems appropriate to celebrate all of these talented women as well as our stage management teams, all women, and the five fine female actors in the BFA class of 2015.

In addition to the artists above, we welcome back the effervescent Brian Deedrick to animate The Threepenny Opera and introduce a talented new faculty member, David Kennedy, to the community with A Dream Play. Faculty members Robert Shannon and Guido Tondino are also involved in many of the season’s designs. The season also features the work of five gifted male actors from the BFA program.

This unique mix of professionals, faculty, and students are part of what makes any season at Studio Theatre special. This year, we have six beguiling plays in the hands of a myriad of accomplished women and men creating the delightful mystery of live theatre.

Kathleen Weiss Artistic Director To read Marsha Norman’s American Theatre article, see http://www.tcg.org/ publications/at/nov09/women.cfm

Director’s Notes

By Lucy Callingwood

T

he Violet Hour was a puzzle to read and a puzzle to direct.

Not only is it a play that dances between moments of ver y different styles and genres, it also contrasts comedy with drama, truth with lies, and histor y with fiction. Reading The Violet Hour is like being pulled, ver y suddenly, between worlds and struggling to find your feet. It is a play that sits on the borders between opposing ideas, never quite landing on a conclusion.

Reconciling these moments has been no easy task.

At the hear t of these overlapping ideas lies the question of truth.

As much as we may choose to believe it is something solid and dependable, the truth is a tricky creature, coloured always by what we want to believe, what we fear to admit, and who has the power to tell the stor y.

The Violet Hour is in part inspired by the lives of some of the most famous figures of literary history in the early 20th century. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald’s tragic and turbulent love story has remained iconic in our imaginations almost a hundred years later. Somewhat less well understood was the role of their editor, Maxwell Perkins,

a steadfast workaholic who not only published but also greatly contributed to some of the most important classics of the era, from The Great Gatsby to The Sun Also Rises. Josephine Baker was another fascinating figure of the age; the singer, dancer, comedian and, later, civil rights activist had one of the most full and storied lives I’ve ever had the privilege to study. There are even moments of Thomas Wolfe and Ernest Hemmingway peppered into the mix.

The characters in The Violet Hour are not these people, but they draw from them, details and images and hints – a trail of breadcrumbs between our time and a misremembered past. I hope you enjoy following that trail as much as I have.

On a personal note, I’d like to give a massive thank you to ever y actor, technician, designer, professor, and advisor that has worked with me throughout a challenging two years in the MFA program. They’ve talked, comfor ted, and at times dragged my sorr y self to where I am today, and I will be forever grateful.

And, of course, thank you for joining us tonight, and enjoy the show.

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The Violet Hour: Dramaturgical Notes “There is no time!” says Jessie in the first act of The Violet Hour. “There is no such thing as time!’

The line is ironic, of course, as this is a play absolutely overwhelmed by the awesome power of time, and our small roles in history as individuals. Richard Greenberg’s play is, in many ways, a love poem to the 20th century, and a fascinating examination of the creation of history, and our understanding of it.

The play was published in 2004, and would have been written over the first years of a fresh century. Since the play is set at the beginning of the 20th century, it’s an interesting challenge to compare Greenberg’s vision of the culture of 1919 with that of 2014, almost one hundred years later. The play provides us with a window into the past that allows us to look into our own future.

F. Scott Fitzgerald, who serves as an inspiration for the character Denny in the play, is sometimes thought of as the voice of the generation of young men who survived World War I and looked to rebuild the world afterwards. In his first novel, This Side of Paradise, published in 1919, right on the cusp of the roaring ‘20s, Fitzgerald wrote about that period: “Here was a new generation, shouting the old cries, learning the old creeds, through

This Playbillis Published By

By Lucy Callingwood

a revery of long days and nights; destined finally to go out into that dirty gray turmoil to follow love and pride; a new generation dedicated more than the last to the fear of poverty and the worship of success; frown up to find all Gods dead, all wars fought, all faiths in man shaken...”

Having come out of the first industrialized war in history, the most brutal and dehumanizing conflict at that time, a generation of young men found themselves paradoxically full of hope for the future. The worst was behind them, the most terrible fate imaginable had struck them, and many had not survived.

But those that were living had a future, and had come through horrors that they believed they would never see again. When all else was stripped away, what was left to them but hope?

To compare the state of mind of the early 20th centur y with our own at the top of the 21st centur y is tricky, considering how you can’t quite see the forest for the trees – you can’t quite get perspective on a time you are in. But this sense of hope and promise that Fitzgerald describes is notably missing from the attitudes of the early 21st centur y.

Our culture prefers irony to sincerity, cynicism to hope. In our media, our comedy, even our politics, disinterest and derision seem to take precedence over the promise of the future. With the looming threat of climate change hanging over our heads, © 2014 Postvue Publishing All Rights Reserved, Reproduction in whole or in part is prohibited without the written consent of the publisher.

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Publisher, Sales & Marketing Manager Rob Lightfoot rob@postvuepublishing.com Art Directors & Design Shawna Iwaniuk 6 shawna@postvuepublishing.com

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The Violet Hour: Dramaturgical Notes as well as the vague sense of threat from “terrorism,” the predominant gestalt of the 21st centur y to date is far more fatalistic than hopeful.

Compared to the young generation of 1919, what do we have to feel so cynical about?

World War I affected the Western world in such an overwhelming and direct way, it is difficult to imagine it from our perspective now. Many of the allied countries employed conscription to draft a huge percentage of the young men of the time into mandatory service, and the death toll on that generation was immense. The battles themselves were fought in close proximity, through trench war fare. Meanwhile, back on the homefront, civilians bought war bonds and banded together against what seemed to be a very real threat to their whole way of life.

With the exception of those in voluntary service, Iraq and Afghanistan reached us

Fall Hours:

Mon - Fri: 7 PM - 12:30 AM Sundays: 7 PM - 11 PM

780-4-WALK-ME

su.ualberta.ca/safewalk

(continued)

relatively remotely, through the news. The toll of these conflicts, while terrible, have not shaken us as a society on the scale of World Wars I and II. The September 11th attacks, perhaps, had a touch of that immediacy, but were not comparable to the First World War in terms of the direct involvement of a whole generation of young people. And yet, between terrorism, global warming, and any number of social and environmental threats, there seems to be so much less future to go around these days. It is somewhat ironic that the time period which has seen the least direct involvement in conflict has the most anxiety about its possibility.

Perhaps it is the “Sword of Damocles” effect. We are so privileged, and have so much, that on some level we know we have so much to lose. We are too comfortable, and that comfort has made us anxious, prematurely, of the loss of that comfort. It is only when you have survived the loss of everything, and managed to go on, that you realize there is nowhere to go but up.

The characters in The Violet Hour, all variously pulled from historical and literary figures off the top of the century, are caught up in the heady post-war days, while unaware of their own futures. From our vantage point in the audience of a presentday theatre, their journeys are all the more sad and poignant because of our knowledge of the history that is to come.

Tragically, as we know, Fitzgerald and his contemporaries’ futures did not end as bright or full of promise as they had hoped.

The extravagance of the roaring 20s led to the Great Depression, after which World War II followed quickly. F. Scott Fitzgerald, and many of his peers, felt these blows all the more keenly for their earlier sense of promise.

For us in the 21st century, our own futures are yet to be written.

WE’LL WALK YOU HOME.

7

The Art of Giving Walking into the home of Alex and Joan Hawkins, it’s clear the arts have played a central role in their lives. Paintings cover the walls, intricate sculptures stand on the floor, and shelves are lined with delicate pottery.

Alex recently retired as a professor in the Department of Drama at the University of Alberta, after 30-plus years.

When asked why drama first attracted him, Joan lightheartedly chimes in: “The real story is that the drama people always had better parties than the music people.”

Alex smiles back. “I was always a music guy,” he says.

After graduating, community productions led to his first non-musical production, and by closing night, he was hooked on drama.

Joan is a drama girl, but that was an evolution for her, too. An interest in art led to university in Ohio, where she would take in evening drama shows. “I noticed their sets were painted poorly. So I went to the drama department to learn about building a flat.

By the third show they offered

me a master’s in Scene Design and Technical Theatre, which I turned down three times before agreeing to it.”

Later Joan accepted a summer job at Tufts University in Massachusetts, and was annoyed to find the room promised to her was still occupied.

Alex hadn’t yet moved out and the “scheduling conflict” led to a lifetime together.

The couple, soon married, ended up in Alberta. Within the Department of Drama, Alex took on a number of roles from professor to student advisor; Joan worked with students on set and costume design for

campus’ Abbedam Productions.

Creating the Alex and Joan Hawkins Bursary in Drama and the Alex and Joan Hawkins Scholarship in Drama with a gift in their estate seemed like a natural way to give back to a community that had given them so much.

“Having a scholarship at the University of Alberta made sense. It’s where I feel the most belonging, especially with the BA and BA Honours Programs. After teaching for 30 years, I already have a sense of who these people are. I want to keep them going,” says Alex.

The couple fashioned the scholarship terms with Alex’s students in mind, since as Joan says, they have always felt like family. “We did not have any kids of our own. Part of what you do with your money and your estate is to leave some type of legacy, to go toward something.

I couldn’t walk into the university without so many students telling me how Alex had guided them.

This is part of that Alex and Joan legacy of guidance.”

This story was originally published in What Will Your Legacy Be? by the Office of Advancement, November, 2013.

ALEX AND JOAN HAWKINS

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Amy Shostak (‘07 BA Drama) Rapid Fire Community Connector 2014 Alumni Horizon Award Winner An actor, writer, comedian, teacher, engager, and improviser, Amy Shostak’s many talents have taken her around the world. But it is in Edmonton where she was born and raised that she’s made her greatest impact. Shostak is a leader that inspires people across generations, artistic disciplines, and volunteer organizations to come together, to build on each other’s ideas, and to make something that was at first only imagined into reality.

Shostak began performing with Rapid Fire Theatre in 2002 as an undergraduate drama student. With the troupe, she’s performed across Canada and internationally at The Lost in Translation Festival in Milan, The Wurzburger Improv Festival, The Berlin Improv Festival, and The Dad’s Garage World Domination Theatresports Tournament in Atlanta.

After graduating from the U of A in 2007, Shostak rose to the helm of Rapid Fire Theatre in 2010, leading a team of 35 creatives as artistic director. By 2011, Rapid Fire’s audiences and activities had far outgrown the capacity of their longtime venue at the Varscona Theatre in Old Strathcona. Shostak initiated persuasive talks with the Citadel Theatre, and

By Salena Kitteringham

successfully moved Rapid Fire into a dedicated space at Edmonton’s flagship professional theatre in September 2012.

In 2012, then-Mayor Mandel was so taken by Shostak’s bold “say yes” approach that he asked her to assemble and co-chair a volunteer task force to find a uniting Edmonton story as the cornerstone of a re-branding initiative. Soon the “Make Something Edmonton” campaign took shape with Shostak at the heart of the movement’s success, provoking Edmontonians with ideas for community projects, business startups, festivals and events.

She continues to be a prolific performer with weekly stints at Theatresports, and at CHiMPROV, and regular appearances on Super Channel’s Tiny Plastic Men, and as a contributor to CBC Radio’s This is That, and The Irrelevant Show.

Shostak’s impact on Edmonton has garnered her much acclaim. She was named as one of Avenue Magazine’s Top 40 under 40 in 2012, as one of Alberta Venture’s Next 10 in 2013, and by The Wanderer as one of Edmonton’s top 100 Women in Business.

WHAT’S ON AT UALBERTA? Agnieszka Koziarz

Emilie St. Hilaire

Nora Myers (painting)

November 4 - 29

(sculpture)

(drawing / intermedia)

FAB Gallery

September 30 - October 25 FAB Gallery

Violinissimo

Saint-Saëns, Debussy and MacDowell.

Guillaume Tardif (violin) and Roger Admiral (piano).

Saturday, October 4 at 8 p.m.

Prism

Ensembles. Vocalists. Bands. Strings.

Thursday, October 23 at 8 p.m.

Winspear Centre

Convocation Hall

Moira Buffini Festival Loveplay Oct 30 - Nov8 at 7:30 p.m.

U of A Studio Theatre

uab.ca/shows

Blavatsky’s Tower Nov 27 - Dec 6 at 7:30 p.m.

Timms Centre for the Arts

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U OF A Studio Theatre Mandate •

To provide sterling training and educational opportunities for BFA acting, technical theatre and stage management students, and MFA design, directing and MA dramaturgy students

•

To provide research / creative activity opportunities for the Department of Drama’s faculty directors and designers

•

To provide opportunities for connections with departments across campus through the choice of plays which have cultural, through the choice of plays and their cultural, literary and historical significance

•

To provide opportunities for the community at large to engage with the Department of Drama through guest artist collaboration and attendance as audience members

Kathleen Weiss, Artistic Director U of A Studio Theatre and Chair Department of Drama

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fresh • inspired • committed

Proud to support U of A Studio Theatre's opening night receptions for the 2014-15 season.

E n j oy t h e s h ow !

(780) 425-0173 i n f o @ b r i d g e s c a t e r i n g. c a w w w. b r i d g e s c a t e r i n g. c a

Administrative Staff Kathleen Weiss: Chair, Department of Drama Julie Brown: Assistant Chair Administration David Prestley: Theatre Administrator / Events Coordinator Ruth Vander Woude: Graduate Advisor / Chair’s EA Connie Golden: Undergraduate Advisor Helen Baggaley: Office Coordinator With assistance from Faculty of Arts staff: Salena Kitteringham: Fine Arts Communications Lead Terah Jans: Fine Arts Marketing Specialist Kyle Ireland: 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 Jeff Osterlin: Lighting Supervisor Joanna Johnston: Costume Manager Jane Kline: Property Master Karen Kucher: Costumer, Fine Arts Building Don MacKenzie: Technical Director, Fine Arts Building Matthew Skopyk: Second Playing Space Coordinator / Sound Supervisor

Front of House Staff: Bonita Akai, Angela Cotton, Danielle Dugan, Alisdair Gadowsky, Bob Gaudet, Tasreen Hudson, Laura Norton, Candice Stollery, Faye Stollery, Cheryl Vandergraaf, Catherine Vielguth Volunteers: Debbie Beaver, Oleg Bogatryrevich, Susan Box, Franco Correa, Sarah Culkin, Joan Damkjar, Alana De Melo, Jonathan Durynek, Mary and Gene Ewanyshyn, Tom Friesen, Ron Gleason, Darcy Hoover-Correa, MarieAndrĂŠe Lachapelle, Don Lavigne, Sareeta Lopez, Tom and Gillian McGovern, Marlene Marlj, Conner Meeker, Jennifer Morely, Joe Perry, Alice Petruk, David Prestley, Leila Raye-Crofton, and Jane Voloboeva 12

For discerning readers AvenueEdmonton.com

Donors H

eartfelt thanks to the individuals, foundations and organizations listed below for recognizing the importance of the arts by directly investing in the Department of Drama’s innovation and leadership in theatre training and performance.

A round of applause to our supporters!

Baha R. Abu-Laban Janv­et Allcock Giovanna Anselmo Vera Apletree Doug Armstrong Annalisa C. Baer Barbara Baer Pillay Roderick E. Banks James T. Barmby PHD Marg Barrie William Barton Carole Barton Joan Bensted William Betteridge Richard Bowes David Brindley Julie Brown Dr Adolf Buse Rachel Christopher Brent Christopherson Penny Coates Faye Cohen Dr Lesley B. Cormack Brian Crummy Brian J. Deedrick Robert Desmarais W Gifford Edmonds Jacqueline Evenson John & Bunny Ferguson Mike Giles Ron & Sheila Gooding

Melvina M. Gowda Bohdan Harasymiw P Ruth Harle Dr Murray Hawkins Christopher Head Bonnie Irwin Jeanne Irwin Drs Pavel and Sylvia Jelen Dr Joan M Johnston Gerry Kendal Michelle Kennedy Matthew Kloster Karen Kucher Patricia Langan Bill Lauder Peggy M Marko Gordon McIntosh Rod McLeod Mary Ellen Meszaros Betty Moulton Dr Audrey O’Brien Dale Olausen Esther Ondrack Mary-Ellen M. Perley-Waugh Tom A. Richards Dr Owen Ricker Judith Robinson Kenneth L. Roy Valerie Sarty R Brenda Devlin Schmidt Dr Alison Scott-Prelorentzos

Albin Shanley Phillip Silver Betty Lou Sloan Dr & Mrs Brian Sproule Cori Stent Gilda L.F. Valli Henriette van Hees Sonia Varela Deborah Yee Edmonton Community Foundation Various Anonymous Donors

This list includes those who donated to various Drama funds from August 2013 - July 2014.

Apologies for inadvertent omissions or errors. Contact 780-492-2271 for corrections.

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