A Tender Thing playbill

PL AYBILL A TENDER THING

A TENDER THING BEN POWER }{

approximate running time: 1 hour & 20 minutes. there will be no intermission

TIDBITS

ARTIST NOTE: NANCY PALK We’ve been having such a wonderful time here working on A Tender Thing. Michael and Joe have known each other since their Stratford days, in the 1980s, and Joe and I have been married for... oh I can’t remember. We met in first year at the National Theatre School, and fell in love while doing the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet!

(The balcony I stood on was a table!). How wonderful and strange that now, some 35 years later, we’re saying those words again, telling a different story, but still the same words, buried deep inside us. And come on! The two of us dancing and singing?

We couldn’t be happier! The story of A Tender Thing is different from the story of Romeo and Juliet, but what they have in common is the profound love the characters feel for each other.

We feel lucky that we get to do this play together, and that we can share it with you.

Cheers!

NANCY PALK, Juliet in A Tender Thing

• B en

Power isn't finished with his explorations of Romeo and Juliet. He is reported to be hard at work on a version of the play designed for elementary school children.

• A

Tender Thing has been produced in theatres across England, and in Australia and Ireland.

Its Canadian premiere was at the Belfry Theatre in Victoria last fall, directed by Peter Hinton featuring Claire Coulter and Peter Anderson.

CREATIVE TEAM

A TENDER THING

CAS T Nancy Palk

Juliet

Joseph Ziegler

Romeo

Production Michael Shamata

Director

Shawn Kerwin

Set & Costume Designer

Michael Walton

Lighting Designer

Richard Lam

Sound Designer

Mike Ross

Composer

Monica Dotter

Choreographer

Arwen MacDonell Stage Manager

Emily Mewett

Assistant Stage Manager

Kelly McEvenue

Alexander Coach

Maria Costa

Stage Manager

SOULPEPPER PRODUC T ION Jacqueline Robertson Cull

Natalie Swiercz

Tracy Taylor

Wigs Running, Head of Hair & Makeup

Wardrobe Coordinator

Erika Connor

Dresser

Props Builder

Joanne Lamberton

Lisa Summers Paul Boddum

Wardrobe Intern

Lead Wardrobe Coordinator

Emma Zulkoskey

Cutter

Scenic Painters

Barbara Nowakowski

Will Sutton

First Hand

s p e c i a l t h a n k s: F i n a M ac D on e l l .

i l l u s t r at ion : t h e h e a ds of s tat e

Carpenter

Props Buyer

Greg Chambers

Ellie Furtney

BACKGROUND NOTES

“ P

arting is such sweet sorrow,” says teenaged Juliet Capulet to her lover, teenaged Romeo Montague. This famous line comes after they’ve met and fallen passionately in love, when they must tear themselves away from each other at the end of their explosive first meeting. She won’t see him until the next day and already she cannot bear the thought of their being separated even for 24 hours. We know their fateful coming together is destined to end in tragedy. But what if they somehow escaped their fate? What if they lived into adulthood, had a family, celebrated an unbroken string of wedding anniversaries and were only forced to part when they had arrived at full old age?

That idea inspired writer Ben Power to create A Tender Thing, a work he calls a remix of Shakespeare. He had a novel writing method: he threw all of Shakespeare’s lines from Romeo and Juliet – as well as a few other bits and pieces from the canon – into the air and rearranged them to portray two lovers in a radically diff-erent situation. Where Romeo and Juliet grappled with their newly discovered feelings and defied their parents’ constraints, the couple here grapple with the constraints of old age and try to defy its indignities with the strength of their affection and will to continue. The parting these two must confront will not be sweetened by the hope of reunion.

It’s a fascinating feat of literary alchemy: the words that created one of the most vivid and timeless portraits of young love ever written are equally powerful and poignant in this examination of what remains of the initial passion – or how it transforms – in a long relationship. Vows that were only broken by death in the original are now strained by adult disappointments, long familiarity and the implacability of age. A completely different but no less haunting poetry is revealed.

And underneath, we always feel the original pulsing, like subtext, like an old familiar melody, a song we can almost recall.

What makes the experience of this production even more extraordinary is the presence of Nancy Palk and Joseph Ziegler. They met at theatre school, married, raised three sons, and have performed – together and apart – at all the major theatres in

this country. They co-founded, and have graced the Soulpepper stage – as both actors and directors – many times. Their rich personal history brings an added depth, complexity and pleasure to the play and to us, who in our turn have had a long and intimate theatrical relationship with them. If anyone can prove Juliet right and make parting a sweet sorrow, it is surely these two greatly loved long time lovers.

Playwright Biography

“The more we can get the barriers down between different types of theatre and different types of audiences, the richer theatre will become for everybody” Ben Power was born in 1986. He studied English at Cambridge University, and dreamed of becoming a dramaturge. He’s worked with some of the most innovative theatre makers in Great Britain.

Preferring to adapt rather than invent, Power is interested in finding new forms for old tales and revamping classic plays by inserting modern debate into them. He began his rewriting career at Headlong Theatre, where he was Literary Associate from 2006 to 2010. His adaptations there included Milton’s Paradise Lost, Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, and Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author (which he set in a reality TV studio). In 2009 the Royal Shakespeare Company commissioned him to re-imagine Romeo and Juliet.

The result, called A Tender Thing, has played around the world. In 2010 he was made an Associate Director at the National Theatre, put in charge specifically of “making things more exciting.”

He programs their smallest space, The Shed, where he stages genre-bending immersive theatre experiences that experiment often – but not exclusively – with sound. His most recent remix of a classic is a 45-minute version of Medea that is onstage at the National until the end of September.

Tidbits & Background Notes by 2014 Soulpepper Resident Artist Paula Wing

THANK YOU FOR AT TENDING!

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Soulpepper is an active member of the Professional Association of Canadian Theatres (pact), the Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts (tapa) and Theatre Ontario, and engages, under the terms of the Canadian Theatre Agreement, professional artists who are members of Canadian Actors’ Equity Association. Scenic Artists and Set Decorators employed by Soulpepper are represented by Local 828 of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees. 

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