PL AYBILL SPOON RIVER
SPOON RIVER Adapted by Mike Ross & Albert Schultz Composed by Mike Ross Based on Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters }{
approximate running time: 90 minutes. there will be no intermission
ARTIST NOTE: MIKE ROSS
Getting another crack at doing this show is thrilling. It came and went so fast last year and there was so much great, positive, life-full energy around it and then * poof * just like that it was gone. I was so moved at how people, young and old, responded to the show. The energy of different communities coming together was infectious. Bringing the community of Masters’ vibrant characters to life with the Soulpepper community of gifted actors and musicians was unforgettable. As was having all of that energy connect with you, the audience - the most important people in this building at any given moment. In this production everyone plays a part: you are cast in the role of “passerby.” And we can’t put on a show until all of the roles are cast. So thank you for being here because we can’t do a thing without you.
TIDBITS • S poon River Antholog y was first
submitted as a few poems to Reedy’s Mirror, a St. Louis magazine, under the pseudonym Webster Ford. Masters did not claim authorship of the book until 1916, after it had become a big hit.
• E dgar Lee Masters liked
pseudonyms. He published newspaper articles and essays under the name Dexter Wallace.
• S poon River has had many
incarnations in different media. In 1956 it was set as a song cycle in German by composer Wolfgang Jacobi.
• I n 1985 British composer
Andrew Downes set five of the poems as a song cycle.
We’re all eternally grateful.
MIKE ROSS, Slaight Family Director of Music, 2015 Resident Artist A n t hon y M ac M a hon , G or d on H e c h t, m i k e ros s & F r a n k C ox- O’C on n e l l p hoto: c y l l a von t i e de m a n n
CREATIVE TEAM
SPOON RIVER
CAS T
Anna Atkinson
Hailey Gillis
Colin Palangio
Frank Cox-O'Connell
Gordon Hecht
Gregory Prest
Mikaela Davies
Stuart Hughes
Mike Ross
Oliver Dennis
Richard Lam
Eliza-Jane Scott
Raquel Duffy
Anthony MacMahon
Brendan Wall
Peter Fernandes
Diego Matamoros
Katherine Gauthier
Oyin Oladejo
Produc t ion
Albert Schultz Adaptor, Director
Jason Browning Sound Designer
Robert Harding Stage Manager
Mike Ross Adaptor, Composer, Arranger, Music Director
Kelly McEvenue Alexander Coach
Laurie Merredew Assistant Stage Manager
Andrea Nann Movement Coach
Erin Brandenburg Assistant Director
Ken MacKenzie Set & Lighting Designer Erika Connor Costume Designer
Diane Pitblado Dialect Coach
SOULPEPPER PRODUCT ION
Jacqueline Robertson-Cull Head of Hair & Makeup
Barbara Nowakowski First Hand
Mike Keays Carpenter
Geoff Hughes Stefan Dean Joanne Lamberton Cutters
Natalie Swiercz Emma Zulkoskey Dressers
Greg Chambers Props Builder
s p e c i a l t h a n k s: d on f i n l ay son , t h e s h aw f e s t i va l .
BACKGROUND NOTES
W
hen Spoon River Anthology was originally published in 1915 it was a sensation for many reasons: its range of personalities, their sometimes shocking honesty and the innovative free verse the poet made his own. Critics called Edgar Lee Masters “the natural child of Walt Whitman.” Based on “the faithful and tender-hearted souls” he had known in his youth and grounded in the Midwestern values Masters grew up with, Spoon River sings small town life in all its diversity, richness and idiosyncrasy. More than 200 so-called ordinary people speak from the heart about their loves and losses, regrets and triumphs. Masters’ miniatures illuminate individual souls but come together to evoke the emotional landscape of a whole town.
Author Biography Edgar Lee Masters was born in 1868 in Kansas. He had a “scrappy and unmanageable” childhood in western Illinois, which included the untimely deaths of his brother and one of his best friends. He was called to the bar in 1892 and opened his own law firm in Chicago the following year. There he met and married Helen Jenkins in 1898. They had a long, miserable marriage, a bitterly contested divorce, and three children. All of his adult life he maintained dual careers as a lawyer and writer, an effort that sometimes overwhelmed him, though he had success at both. His years spent defending the poor and downtrodden at the law firm of famous attorney Clarence Darrow were a legal high point. Masters produced a steady stream of forgettable poems, plays, and journalism until 1915, when Spoon River Antholog y was published, to huge critical and popular acclaim. He continued to write poetry, plays, novels, and biographies (notably of Abraham Lincoln and Mark Twain) but nothing ever equalled his Spoon River success. In the ‘20s he moved to New York City, and had a late life second marriage and son. He received the Poetry Society of American Award in 1941. When he died in 1950, he was buried where he grew up, in Petersburg, Illinois, among some of the people he’d immortalized in Spoon River.
Tidbits & Background Notes by 2015 Soulpepper Resident Artist Paula Wing
THANK YOU FOR ATTENDING!
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