360° SERIES V I E W F I N D E R : FA C T S A N D P E R S P E C T I V E S O N T H E P L AY, P L AY W R I G H T, A N D P R O D U C T I O N
W W W . T FA N A . O R G
TAB L E OF CONTEN T S The Playwright 4
Adaptor’s Note by Colin Teevan
The Play 6 Perspectives 9
Bio: Ryszard Kapuściński
10 Dialogues: Kapuściński and the Polish School of Reportage by Sean Gasper Bye
The Production 14
Creative Team Bios
About Theatre For a New Audience 18
Mission and Programs
19
Major Supporters
Notes Front Cover: Photograph by Simon Annand, graphic design by Milton Glaser, Inc. This viewfinder will be periodically updated with additional information. Last updated September 2018.
Credits “Perspectives” & Biography of Ryszard Kapuściński by Jonathan Kalb. The Emperor 360° | Edited by Soriya K. Chum | Layout by Luis Gutierrez | Literary Advisor: Jonathan Kalb | Council of Scholars Chair: Ayanna Thompson | Designed by: Milton Glaser, Inc. | Copyright 2018 by Theatre for a New Audience. All rights reserved. With the exception of classroom use by teachers and individual personal use, no part of this Viewfinder may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by any information or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Some materials herein are written especially for our guide. Others are reprinted with permission of their authors or publishers.
2
T HEAT RE F O R A N E W A UD I E N C E 3 6 0 ° S E RIE S
3 6 0 ° V IE W F IND E R THE EMPEROR
Kathryn Hunter in Theatre for a New Audience’s production of THE EMPEROR by Ryszard Kapuściński, adapted by Colin Teevan and directed by Walter Meierjohann. Photo by Gerry Goodstein.
TH E E M P ERO R
3
A DAP TOR’ S NOT E COLIN T EEVAN projection of Kapuściński himself, and the Emperor at its heart remains unknowable. It also involves itself in many exaggerated satirical excursions into the follies of statecraft, development programs, court politics, etc. At times it betrays its origins as a series of monthly articles or exotic vignettes published in the late Seventies to entertain a Polish audience cut off from much of the world. And it does feel like a book from another era, written by a card carrying Communist, a once true believer in the socialist ideal, from the perspective of what was once called the ‘second world’ about an almost feudal ‘third world’ society imploding through its collision with modernity and the ‘first’ world. In today’s more sensitive times it can be viewed at best as a curiosity, at worst a piece of orientalism or downright exploitative misrepresentation.
Kathryn Hunter in Theatre for a New Audience’s production of THE EMPEROR by Ryszard Kapuściński, adapted by Colin Teevan and directed by Walter Meierjohann. Photo by Gerry Goodstein.
R
yszard Kapuściński’s The Emperor does not appear at first glance as an obvious candidate for theatrical adaptation for today’s stage or indeed for today’s increasingly feverish world. A work of extended reportage it takes the form of a series of interviews with former servants of a once revered but now failing autocrat, Haile Selassie, of the now distant, in both time and space, Ethiopian Empire that charts the downfall of both him and his world. It’s hardly news. Nor in terms of its literary form is it particularly theatrical. Constructed out of long, detailed, often scurrilous, sometimes meandering monologue/interviews, it lacks three dimensional characters, the very many servants all sound like the narrator whom we take to be a literary 4
T HEAT RE F O R A N E W A UD I E N C E 3 60 ° S E RIE S
Finally there is the author’s own reputation which, since his death in 2007, has been greatly tarnished both in his home country by revelations of complicity and spying for the Polish regimes he latterly claimed to oppose; and in the Anglo-Saxon world by the discovery that this master of reportage, the ‘reporter of the twentieth century’ quite simply, made a lot of it up. Fake news. Fake reportage. Does The Emperor have no clothes? Many of these contentions miss the point. Kapuściński’s subject is not Ethiopia or Haile Selassie or Africa, which he loved and reported on for two decades. Frustrated by the limitations put on him as a wire reporter for an oppressive and failing regime about which he was unable or too fearful to write, he transferred his disillusionment with the failure of the ‘true’ socialism he once believed in, and the grotesque stagnation of Poland and the brutalities and absurdities of Stalinism, to the impossibly distant – to Poles at the time - almost mystical
ADAPTOR ’ S NO T E CO LI N T EEVA N Ethiopian court. This is why it proved an instant hit in Poland on its first serialized appearance. Everyone knew it was about Poland. Well nearly all. It is reported that even the Polish ministers it satirized unwittingly quoted it in parliament. But this would not in itself be enough to justify a revisiting of this work. Kapuściński’s true subject is not Haile Selassie, nor Africa, nor simply to satirize Polish apparatchiks. His true subject is the nature of power. The Emperor is a parable about power. A fairy tale even. His insight – understood now by some all too contemporary demagogues – is that power requires the suspension of disbelief. It exists only so long as it is believed in. Kapuściński’s Emperor is a Wizard of Oz, frantically pulling and pushing all his levers to keep the grand illusion aloft. And this is what makes his work eminently theatrical, the form of theatre itself is the subject, the creation of illusions, and this conception of power is eminently relevant today.
By having a Western woman play all, or most of, the roles, the production states from the outset that this is not the thing itself. The illusion of this distant world must be created by the actress and the production, we are invited to suspend our disbelief. Then, as the power is stripped away, so too must the theatrical form of the piece, the intrusion of the ‘real’ world in the form of an all too true documentary destroys both the illusion and the world. But it is also equally important that the African reality from which the story is derived be not only acknowledged, but also present as a mirror to both Haile Selassie’s illusory court but also to this Western representation, in both book and play, of Africa. This presence, in the form of Ethiopian musician Temesgen Zeleke, is sometimes there in the music of the krar, is sometimes there as a mute rebuke to the excesses of the court, and sometimes he is an angry, dispossessed revolutionary Amharic voice bursting into our comfortable English language world.
But how does one convey the complexity of the origins and layers of the piece? How does one convey that this is both Ethiopia and not Ethiopia? That this is also about us? Emperor Haile Selassie I (center) and members of the royal court. Source: public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
TH E E M P ERO R
5
PERSPECTIVES
Kathryn Hunter in Theatre for a New Audience’s production of THE EMPEROR by Ryszard Kapuściński, adapted by Colin Teevan and directed by Walter Meierjohann. Photo by Gerry Goodstein.
The following are selected perspectives on the play from notable scholars and artists. “Two lusts breed in the soul of man: the lust for aggression, and the lust for telling lies. If one will not allow himself to wrong others, he will wrong himself. If he doesn’t come across anyone to lie to, he will lie to himself in his own thoughts. Sweet to man is the bread of untruths, says the Book of Proverbs, and then with sand his mouth is filled up.
Ryszard Kapuściński, The Emperor
“What brilliance, what brilliance was there. And what a strong and profoundly seeing and antic imagination.” Salman Rushdie, “Symposium on the Life and Work of Ryszard Kapuściński,”The Virginia Quarterly Review (2008)
“The Emperor reads as the nightmare prospect eternally dogging Machiavelli’s Prince, a spell-binding anatomization of every sort of court-life and of the way that authority, no matter how brilliantly accrued, over time relentlessly bleeds away.”
6
Lawrence Weschler, The Virginia Quarterly Review (2008)
T HEAT RE F O R A N E W A UD I E N C E 3 60 ° S E RIE S
PERSPECTIVES
Kathryn Hunter in Theatre for a New Audience’s production of THE EMPEROR by Ryszard Kapuściński, adapted by Colin Teevan and directed by Walter Meierjohann. Photo by Gerry Goodstein.
“[Kapuściński’s work] meant, first of all, getting to know in depth the world of those who matter the least on the globe and then, second, making the rest of the world come to appreciate their tragedy. . . . He travelled to be with those poor people, lived with them, contracted their diseases. In the process, he ruthlessly abused his own body, and it was a strong body. Risking his life, he was getting to know the conflicts; he wrote, he told stories, he was making the world aware of them. There was something mystical in his work, something almost Franciscan, since in doing all this, he himself led an exceedingly modest life, a life of self-denial.” Jerzy M. Nowak, The Virginia Quarterly Review (2008)
“I’m not a fiction writer because I have no imagination. If I had imagination I would not go to those remote places and risk my life to write about it. I would sit here and write a book.”
Ryszard Kapuściński, from a 1991 interview in New York City
Temesgen Zeleke and Kathryn Hunter in Theatre for a New Audience’s production of THE EMPEROR by Ryszard Kapuściński, adapted by Colin Teevan and directed by Walter Meierjohann. Photo by Gerry Goodstein.
“[Kapuściński’s] method of telling the story is deceptively simple: he allows people to speak, and the result is a collage of often unattributed voices. It is a kind of verbal post-mortem. He makes no pretense that this is legitimate ‘straight’ journalism built from ‘attributable sources’, and he has admitted many times that his practices would be unacceptable to The New York Times and most other serious newspapers.” Carl Tighe, “Ryszard Kapuściński and The Emperor,” Modern Language Review (1996)
“You have to make choices and you have to take sides . . . Objective journalism in the full sense doesn’t exist, because each writing is a choice. Each writing is a choice among many facts . . . and each choice is taking sides.”
Ryszard Kapuściński, from a 1991 interview
TH E E M P ERO R
7
PERSPECTIVES “With the reappearance of Stephen Glass and the dismissal of Jayson Blair, a certain kind of rule-bending literary journalism has taken it on the chin. [Joseph] Mitchell and other respected sometime-‘fabulists’—including A.J. Liebling and Ryszard Kapuściński—have been lightly tarred and feathered along with the black-listed young journalists. After all, the argument goes, the realms of Fact and Fiction are diametrically opposed. There is no truth but the plain truth. . . . This line of reasoning is entirely logical. And yet too rigid an adherence to such standards would mean an impoverishment of American journalism—one that seems unthinkable. There’d be no Old Mr. Flood [by Mitchell], no The Honest Rainmaker, by A.J. Liebling; some work by New Journalists like Tom Wolfe, Gay Talese, and Norman Mailer would go in the trash.”
Meghan O’Rourke, Slate (2003)
“Kapuściński crossed the globe in search of oppressed people demanding a better way to live. He sought new ways to make revolution intelligible, to explain to those of us who might not have seen it ourselves how the future opens up when the oppressed reach a point when they can submit no longer. . . .Newcomers should appreciate the asterisk that’s now attached: Warning! Contents may be embellished! But then, I hope, they’ll read Kapuściński anyway.”
Ted Conover, Columbia Journalism Review (2012)
“[Kapuściński] was . . . a peculiar genius with no modern equivalent, except possibly Kafka.”
Jonathan Miller, quoted in The Guardian (2007)
Kathryn Hunter in Theatre for a New Audience’s production of THE EMPEROR by Ryszard Kapuściński, adapted by Colin Teevan and directed by Walter Meierjohann. Photo by Gerry Goodstein.
8
T HEAT RE F O R A N E W A UD I E N C E 3 60 ° S E RIE S
´ ´ BIOGRAPHY RYSZARD KAPUSCINSKI Ryszard Kapuściński (1932-2007)
T
he son of an unemployed schoolmaster, Kapuściński rose from a wandering, impoverished childhood plagued by war and famine to become an internationally renowned author and the most prominent Polish journalist of the 20th century. He graduated from Warsaw University in 1955 with a degree in History, began working as an investigative journalist, and eventually became the sole foreign correspondent for the hard-currency-starved Polish Press Agency (PAP). Kapuściński traveled the world for PAP, reading extensively about his destinations and often risking violence and disease to report his stories. He kept two notebooks: one for facts used in his wire dispatches, the other for personal impressions used in the probing and imaginative books he wrote later, which he called “literary reportage.” He spent most of his career in Africa, covering 27 revolutions and coups in the 1960s and 70s and bearing witness to the end of European colonialism and the birth of the Third World. Among his more than three dozen books are: Shah of Shahs (1982) about the fall of Pahlevi in Iran, The Soccer War (1978) about an armed conflict between Honduras and El Salvador triggered by a soccer game, Imperium (1993) about the collapse of the Soviet Union, and six albums of photography.
Ryszard Kapuściński, 1960s Warsaw. Photo by Maciej Billewicz. Courtesy of East News.
The Emperor (1978, English trans. 1983) made him an international literary star. Translated into more than 30 languages, it generated a groundswell of discerning enthusiasm in Poland before its serial publication was complete, outwitting the Communist censor by exploiting the Edward Gierek regime’s political rhetoric. Selassie’s Western-backed government had been toppled by insurgents friendly to the Warsaw Pact, so the censor couldn’t condemn the book without acknowledging a resemblance between Selassie and Gierek. The Emperor was adapted for the Polish stage 17 times before appearing in English. Jonathan Miller staged it in London in 1987.
TH E E M P ERO R
9
´ ´ DIALOGUES KAPUSCINSKI AND THE POLISH SCHOOL OF REPORTAGE SEAN GASPER BYE
Ryszard Kapuściński, 1989 Warsaw. Photo by Czeslaw Czaplinski/FOTONOVA. Courtesy of East News.
T
here are only a few Polish authors you are guaranteed to find in an American bookstore. Any poetry section will include the country’s two most recent Nobel Prize laureates: Czesław Miłosz and Wisława Szymborska. But there is a third author, harder to notice because his works are so often scattered through multiple sections: Ryszard Kapuściński. Everyone agrees Kapuściński was a giant, but Americans often have difficulty categorizing him. He was a journalist, but he told his stories with the creativity of a novelist. He wrote about many countries and many subjects, and was an accomplished poet too. His most famous books are true stories of social upheaval, revolution—and tyranny. He was popular for pushing the boundaries of journalism and fiction, but this also raised questions of accuracy and journalistic ethics. Yet even as we debate his technique, Kapuściński’s legacy is 10
undeniable: he helped shape a genre of literature that continues to reverberate around the world today. Ryszard Kapuściński was the product of a long tradition of literary journalism known as reportage. As a genre, it has its origins in the 19th century, drawing on travel literature and taking the form of “sketches,” “miniatures,” or “novellas”—at the time, all types of creative writing which took fact as their starting-point. Reportage came into its own in Central Europe after World War I, pioneered by the Czechoslovak author Egon Erwin Kisch, and proved particularly popular and influential in Poland. Today, it is defined as factual writing that consciously uses literary tools and conventions of storytelling, character development, and so on to convey the lesstangible aspects of a story. Kapuściński himself defined reportage as: “a description of events, of their mood and atmosphere, using literary means of expression.”1
T HEAT RE F O R A N E W A UD I E N C E 36 0 ° S E RIE S
KAPUSCINSKI AND THE POLISH SCHOOL OF REPORTAGE SEAN GASPER BYE Ryszard Kapuściński came of age at a time when reportage was returning to the fore in Poland. Following the tribulations of World War II and then the restrictions of Stalinism, the late 1950s saw a period of political opening, creating space for a more critical, inquisitive form of journalism. Kapuściński was one of a generation of influential Polish reportage authors that includes Hanna Krall—who has documented the lives of Holocaust survivors—and Małgorzata Szejnert—who in addition to her writing, has mentored an entire generation of Polish journalists. Like Krall and Szejnert (and unlike émigrés such as Miłosz) Kapuściński was publishing in the official press, where his work was subject to censorship. In part to cope with these restrictions, journalists of his generation adopted a technique called little realism—a tight focus on individuals, presenting their personal stories with a minimum of analysis and a very plain prose style. These stories often reflected broader social or political issues, but that was left for readers to decide—giving authors plausible deniability in the event of questioning by government censors.
joined the Party in 1951 and remained an enthusiastic communist for most of his adult life, inspired by the revolutionary struggles he witnessed in Africa and Latin America. Meanwhile in Poland in the 1970s, the country’s technocratic leader Edward Gierek introduced a new economic model meant to create a prosperous, consumerist middle class. Kapuściński was disgusted by this turn away from revolutionary ideals and the sycophancy toward Gierek among the Party élite. Gierek’s reforms were funded by massive loans from Western countries, and when creditors started calling in their debts in the mid-1970s, Gierek was forced to introduce a grinding austerity program, prompting massive worker protests and strikes. It was during this time Kapuściński started publishing testimonies from former courtiers of the deposed Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie. These articles, eventually published together as The Emperor, were widely interpreted as satires of fawning and absurdity in Gierek’s regime.
Kapuściński’s book The Emperor presents a good instance of this plausible deniability in action. Kapuściński
Edward Gierek, first secretary of the Polish communist party (Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza, Polish United Workers’ Party) pictured center visiting PGR (national farm) in Rząśnik, Poland. Source: public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
Emperor Haile Selassie I in full dress, 1970. Source: public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
TH E E M PE RO R
11
KAPUSCINSKI AND THE POLISH SCHOOL OF REPORTAGE SEAN GASPER BYE
Ryszard Kapuściński, 1989 Warsaw. Photo by Filip Cwik/Newsweek Polska/REPORTER. Courtesy of East News.
Yet Kapuściński had no problem from the censors: for them, to admit the ridiculous figures in his book were actually stand-ins for Polish officials would be to acknowledge something deeply embarrassing about the communist regime. It’s unclear whether Kapuściński meant The Emperor to be read as satire. He always maintained that his writing was factual, though he emphasized he crafted his stories to give them greater impact. Yet many have raised doubts of accuracy in The Emperor and other books. The Polish journalist Artur Domosławski caused controversy in Poland and abroad when he confirmed several occasions of distortion or confabulation in Kapuściński’s work. There are other questions about Kapuściński’s ethics, too. After his death, it was revealed that he collaborated for a period with the communist intelligence services. Some American critics have also accused Kapuściński of orientalism in his portrayal of Africa.
made no claim of objectivity. He wrote:
I do not believe in impartial journalism. I do not believe in formal objectivity. A journalist cannot be an impartial witness, he should have the capacity for what in psychology is called empathy. . . Socalled objective journalism is impossible in conflict situations. Attempts at objectivity in such situations lead to disinformation.2
He tied this belief to a difference between journalism in the English-speaking countries and in Europe:
These accusations raise legitimate concerns and have cast a shadow over Kapuściński’s work. But he emphasized he 12
T HEAT RE F O R A N E W A UD I E N C E 36 0 ° S E RIE S
Anglo-Saxon journalism comes from a liberal tradition, from the conviction that the press is a public institution and that it expresses the interests and opinions of all citizens equally, and therefore it must be independent, impartial, and objective. . .
KAPUSCINSKI AND THE POLISH SCHOOL OF REPORTAGE SEAN GASPER BYE The roots of the continental European press are different. The press here comes from political movements: it was a tool for the Party struggle. And so by contrast to the Anglo-Saxon Press it was characterized by partiality, commitment, the fighting spirit, and a party bias. Here information and commentary were not separated. . .3 Kapuściński viewed his work as not just reporting facts, but a mission to “restore dignity to the man from the Third World, disdained and humiliated for centuries.”4 He also made no secret of his desire to be taken seriously as a literary writer. It is possible that, at times, these drives overwhelmed his journalistic good sense, leading him to
and more of their books are being translated into English. Here too in America, Kapuściński’s approach can be seen reflected in creative radio and podcast journalism like This American Life, Radiolab, Serial, and others. Above all, his books continue to be popular and widely-read. His personal, openly subjective approach to non-fiction still appeals to readers because above all it is a compelling way to tell stories. Today, as we go through a time of unprecedented challenges for journalism, Kapuściński’s unique voice and perspective seem likely to stay with us.
Haile Selassie I arriving in Geneva to ask help from the League of Nations against Mussolini’s Fascist invasion of Ethiopia, 1935. Photo by Lucien Aigner. Source: Flickr/Creative Commons, Creative Commons Public License.
The deposition of Haile Selassie I from the Jubilee Palace on September 12, 1974 marking the the coup d’etat’s action on that day and the assumption of power by the military junta known as the Derg. Source: public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
SEAN GASPER BYE is a translator of Polish literature and Literature
make small changes, additions, or even distortions that he felt would make his stories more compelling. Among Polish journalists, the controversy around Kapuściński has prompted soul-searching and efforts to implement rigorous fact-checking procedures. But in America today—where the journalistic cult of “two sides to every story” has arguably helped legitimize extremist views— perhaps we should heed Kapuściński’s warnings about pretensions to objectivity. For all his flaws, Kapuściński’s legacy lives on. Thanks in part to his success, literary reportage is experiencing an unprecedented boom in Poland. There, two generations of reportage authors have followed in his footsteps, and more
and Humanities Curator at the Polish Cultural Institute New York. His translations of Watercolours by Lidia Ostałowska (Zubaan Books) and History of a Disappearance by Filip Springer (Restless Books) were published in 2017. His translations of fiction, literary reportage, and drama have appeared in The Guardian, Words Without Borders, Catapult, and elsewhere, and he is a winner of the 2016 Asymptote Close Approximations Prize. He is a founding member of Cedilla & Co., a literary translator’s collective based in New York City.
Quoted in Kazimierz Wolny-Zmorzyński’s Afterword to 100/XX: An Anthology of 20th Century Polish Reportage, ed. Mariusz Szczygieł, Wydawnictwo Czarne, 2014. Translation mine. 2 Quoted in Domosławski, Artur, Ryszard Kapuściński: A Life, trans. Antonia Lloyd-Jones, Verso, 2012. 3 Ibid. 4 Ibid. 1
TH E E M PE RO R
13
THE PRODUCTION CAST AND CREATIVE TEAM KATHRYN HUNTER (Actor) is an internationally renowned award-winning
actress and director. Her many leading appearances include title roles in Richard III, King Lear, Antony & Cleopatra, Yerma, The House of Bernarda Alba, Spoonface Steinberg, The Skriker (Time Out Best Actress Award), Mother Courage, and The Visit (Olivier Award for Best Actress), Cards (created by Robert Lepage), A Tender Thing, and The Bee. Previous work at TFANA: Kafka’s Monkey (Young Vic), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Julie Taymor), The Valley of Astonishment, and Fragments (Peter Brook). Directing credits include: The Birds (National Theatre), Comedy of Errors, Pericles (both for Shakespeare’s Globe), and Mr Puntilla (Almeida). Film and television credits include: Flowers, Les Miserables, Tale of Tales, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Harry Potter and the Order the Phoenix, Mike Leigh’s All or Nothing, and Rome. TEMESGEN ZELEKE (Musician) Born in Addis Ababa, Temesgen Zeleke took
up playing the Ethiopian krar lyre against the wishes of his mother, who wanted him to pursue a more traditional education. After performing as a musician and composer in Addis Ababa’s National Theatre, he settled in the UK, where he founded the band Krar Collective and toured internationally. He performs regularly with Ethiojazz legend Mulatu Astatke. WALTER MEIERJOHANN (Director) is the Artistic Director of HOME in
Manchester, UK. At HOME, Walter directed the inaugural production of The Funfair (Simon Stephens/Odon von Horvath), the first Christmas show Inkheart (Cornelia Funke), The Emperor (Young Vic, HOME, Theatre de la Ville, Luxembourg), Uncle Vanya and the site-specific Romeo and Juliet in The Victoria Baths. Before joining HOME in 2013, Meierjohann was International Associate Director at the Young Vic in London. Productions included the European premiere of In the Red and Brown Water (Tarell Alvin McCraney), and Kafka’s Monkey (starring Kathryn Hunter), which toured worldwide. Extensive work in Germany and the UK including Young Vic; Barbican; Liverpool Playhouse; The Curve, Residenztheater Munich; Staatsschauspiel, Dresden; Schauspiel Graz; Theater Freiburg, and Arena, Berlin, for Peter Stein’s Faust Ensemble and the renowned Impulse Theatre Festival. In opera, he has assisted the late Klaus-Michael Grueber in his productions of Aida (Nederlands Opera, Amsterdam) and Don Giovanni (Ruhrfestspiele). COLIN TEEVAN (Adaptation) is a playwright, screenwriter and translator.
Stageworks include: The Kingdom, There Was A Man, The Lion of Kabul, How Many Miles to Basra? The Bee, The Diver, Missing Persons, Four Tragedies and Roy Keane, Monkey!; The Walls, and Alcmaeon in Corinth. Adaptations include: Dr Faustus (West End) starring Kit Harrington, Peer Gynt, Don Quixote; Kafka’s Monkey and Svejk (both also produced in New York by TFANA). Translations include: Euripides’ Bacchai and Manfridi’s Cuckoos, both directed by the late Sir Peter Hall. Amongst screenwriting work, Colin wrote and created the TV dramas Charlie (RTE), starring Aidan Gillen and Rebellion (a Netflix Original) the Pictured above: Kathryn Hunter and Temesgen Zeleke in Theatre for a New Audience’s production of THE EMPEROR by Ryszard Kapuściński, adapted by Colin Teevan and directed by Walter Meierjohann. Photos by Gerry Goodstein.
14
T HEAT RE F O R A N E W A UD I E N C E 36 0 ° S E RIE S
T H E PRODUCT I O N CA ST A N D CR EAT I VE T EA M second series premieres early in 2019. He is currently Professor of Playwriting and Screenwriting at Birkbeck College, University of London where he founded and is program director of the BA in Creative Writing. All his stagework is published by Oberon Books. TI GREEN (Scenic and Costume Design) is a British stage designer. Work in 2018
includes: Touching the Void (Bristol Old Vic); Rebus: Long Shadows (Birmingham Rep); and Cinderella (Shanghai Culture Square). Previous productions with Walter Meierjohann: The Funfair and Romeo and Juliet (HOME Manchester); Unleashed (Barbican); The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (Liverpool Everyman). For the RSC: Dido, Queen of Carthage; Richard III; Little Eagles; Coriolanus; Julius Caesar. For the National Theatre: Revenger’s Tragedy; The Five Wives of Maurice Pinder; The UN Inspector; Coram Boy. MIKE GUNNING (Lighting Design) is a lighting designer for theatre, film, and
TV. Recent productions include The Brothers Size (The Young Vic); Uncle Vanya (HOME, Manchester); I Capture the Castle (Watford Palace Theatre); La Vie Parisienne (Royal Northern College of Music); King Lear (Old Vic); Double Points:K/Motel (Rosie Kay Dance Company); Sherlock Holmes: The Experience, The Game’s Afoot (Emma Brünjes Productions/Madame Tussaud’s); Crime and Punishment (Moscow Musical Theatre); and The Emperor (The Young Vic/ HOME UK tour). PAUL ARDITTI (Sound Design). Recent sound designs include Pericles, Amadeus
(Olivier nomination, National Theatre, London); The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (Donmar); The Jungle, The Inheritance (Young Vic / West End); Julius Caesar (Bridge); Caroline Or Change, Mary Stuart (West End). Awards include Tony, Drama Desk and Olivier awards for Billy Elliot The Musical; Drama Desk Award for The Pillowman; Olivier Award for Saint Joan. Paul Arditti is an Associate at the NT. paularditti.com. LOUIS PRICE (Video Design). What Shadows (Birmingham Rep, Lyceum
Edinburgh), 5 Soldiers (RKDC, Sadler’s Wells); MK Ultra (RKDC, Southbank); The Emperor (Young Vic); The Rotters’ Club (Birmingham Rep); To Sir,With Love (Birmingham Rep); Mavra/Renard/Les Noces (Royal Festival Hall); The Etienne Sisters (Theatre Royal Stratford East); The Funfair (HOME); L’enfant et les sortileges (Royal Festival Hall/Philarmonia); Bright Phoenix (Liverpool Everyman); Orango (toured internationally); Unleashed (Barbican); Sluts Of Possession (Edinburgh Festival Fringe/Film Fabriek Belgium); There Is Hope (UK Tour); Amphytrion (Schauspielhaus Graz); Wings Of Desire (Circa/IDFB); The Resistible Rise Of Arturo Ui (Liverpool Playhouse); Beside The Sea with Lisa Dwan (WOW Festival/Purcell Room, Southbank). IMOGEN KNIGHT (Movement) is a Director, Choreographer and Movement
Director working across Stage, Film and TV. Theatre: Macbeth, Our Ladies Of Perpetual Succour, The Birthday Party, Knives In Hens, The Lady From The Sea, Pictured above: Kathryn Hunter in Theatre for a New Audience’s production of THE EMPEROR by Ryszard Kapuściński, adapted by Colin Teevan and directed by Walter Meierjohann. Photos by Gerry Goodstein.
TH E E M PE R O R
15
T HE PRODUCT I O N CA ST A N D CR EAT I VE T EA M Nuclear War, Bodies, The Low Road, Amadeus, The Threepenny Opera, Les Blancs, The Seagull, Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf, ‘Tis Pity She’s A Whore, The Emperor, Measure For Measure, Dirty Butterfly. TV/Film: The Innocents (Netflix); On Chesil Beach (Feature Film) DAVE PRICE (Music) studied contemporary classical percussion in Warsaw and
has a long-standing association with award-winning physical theatre company, Gecko, where he has worked as a composer on seven productions, which have toured internationally. Other recent theatre work includes productions at RSC, National Theatre & Bristol Old Vic. As a musician, he has recorded and performed extensively with numerous artists including the pop group Aqualung, singer songwriter Gwyneth Herbert and experimental music collective Noszferatu.
JAMIE BYRON (Company Stage Manager). The Emperor marks the second time
Jamie has worked in New York - previous being February 2000 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music with Shared Experience’s production of Jane Eyre. He is resident Company Stage Manager for the art centre HOME, in Manchester, Northern England. The Emperor is a personal journey as Jamie was born and raised in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and once shook the Emperor’s hand. His family left Ethiopia when the Emperor was dethroned in 1974. SHANE SCHNETZLER (Stage Manager). TFANA: He Brought Her Heart Back in
a Box, The Two Gentlemen of Verona (Fiasco), Tamburlaine, Cymbeline (Fiasco). Off-Broadway: This Flat Earth, The Profane, Rancho Viejo, Familiar (Playwrights Horizons); Napoli, Brooklyn, Look Back in Anger (Roundabout); The Taming of the Shrew, King Lear, The Comedy of Errors (NYSF); Detroit ’67 (Public); Night is a Room, The Liquid Plain, The Old Friends (Signature); Red Dog Howls (NYTW); Uncle Vanya (Soho Rep). NATALIE BRAID (Assistant Stage Manager) has been a professional stage manager
for over eight years. Originally from New Zealand, where she was DSM for the National Opera, she has spent the last two years working in London. Notable productions include the UK tour of the National Theatre’s People, Places & Things, The Brothers Size at the Young Vic, and The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie at the Donmar Warehouse. Natalie is a proud Equity member. JAMIE McINTYRE (Associate Sound Designer). Jamie worked on the original
production of The Emperor at the Young Vic Theatre and the tour to Manchester Home and Grand Théâtre de la Ville Luxembourg as Audio 1 and Production Sound Engineer. He is delighted to take time out of his work at the Royal National Theatre in London to associate sound design this production of the show at TFANA. ADAM J. THOMPSON (Projection Design) is a designer working with video in
live performance. Recent credits: design for Pato, Pato, Maricón (Ars Nova), the Pictured above: Kathryn Hunter in Theatre for a New Audience’s production of THE EMPEROR by Ryszard Kapuściński, adapted by Colin Teevan and directed by Walter Meierjohann. Photos by Gerry Goodstein.
16
T HEAT RE F O R A N E W A UD I E N C E 3 6 0 ° S E RIE S
T H E PRODUCT I O N CA ST A N D CR EAT I VE T EA M 68th Obie Awards (Terminal 5), I’m Very Into You (OutFest Austin), and associate design for This Ain’t No Disco (Atlantic) and He Brought Her Heart Back in a Box (TFANA). Upcoming design: Emma & Max (The Flea), I’m Very Into You (LAX Festival), Pipeline (City Theatre). adamjacobthompson.com. JONATHAN KALB (TFANA Resident Dramaturg) is Professor of Theatre at
Hunter College, CUNY, and Resident Dramaturg at TFANA. He has published five books on theater and his writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Nation, salon.com and many other publications. A two-time winner of the George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism, he writes about theater on his blog, Something the Dust Said, at www.jonathankalb.com. BLAKE ZIDELL & ASSOCIATES (Press Representative) is a Brooklyn-based public
relations firm representing artists, companies and institutions spanning a variety of disciplines. Clients include St. Ann’s Warehouse, Soho Rep, The Kitchen, Ars Nova, BRIC, P.S.122, Abrons Arts Center, Taylor Mac, LAByrinth Theater Company, StoryCorps, Irish Arts Center, Café Carlyle, Peak Performances, Batsheva Dance Company, The Playwrights Realm, Stephen Petronio Company, The Play Company, and FIAF’s Crossing the Line Festival. JEFFREY HOROWITZ (Founding Artistic Director) began his career in theatre as
an actor and appeared on Broadway, Off Broadway, and in regional theatre. In 1979, he founded Theatre for a New Audience. Horowitz has served on the Panel of the New York State Council on the Arts and on the Board of Directors of Theatre Communications Group. He is currently on the Advisory Board of The Shakespeare Society and the Artistic Directorate of London’s Globe Theatre. He received the John Houseman Award in 2003 and The Breukelein Institute’s 2004 Gaudium Award. DOROTHY RYAN (Managing Director) joined Theatre for a New Audience in
2003. She spent the previous ten years devoted to fundraising for the 92nd Street Y and the Brooklyn Museum. Ryan began her career in classical music artist management and has also served as company manager for Chautauqua Opera, managing director for the Opera Ensemble of New York, and general manager of Eugene Opera. She is a 2014 Brooklyn Women of Distinction honoree from Community Newspaper Group. MICHAEL PAGE (General Manager) joined TFANA in 2013, where he has
managed over 20 productions at the Polonsky Shakespeare Center. Prior to TFANA, Michael was the general manager of the Tony Award-winning Vineyard Theatre and the managing director of Off-Broadway’s Barrow Street Theatre where he managed the U.S. premiere of Nina Raine’s Tribes and David Cromer’s landmark production of Our Town, among many others. Michael sits on the Board of Directors for the League of Resident Theatres (LORT), is active with the Off-Broadway League, and is on the adjunct faculty at CUNY/Brooklyn College’s Department of Theater. Pictured above: Kathryn Hunter in Theatre for a New Audience’s production of THE EMPEROR by Ryszard Kapuściński, adapted by Colin Teevan and directed by Walter Meierjohann. Photos by Gerry Goodstein.
TH E E M PE RO R
17
ABOUT THEATRE FOR A NEW AUDIENCE About Theatre for a New Audience Founded in 1979 by Jeffrey Horowitz, the mission of Theatre for a New Audience is to develop and vitalize the performance and study of Shakespeare and classic drama. Theatre for a New Audience produces for audiences Off-Broadway and has also toured nationally, internationally and to Broadway. We are guided in our work by five core values: a reverence for language, a spirit of adventure, a commitment to diversity, a dedication to learning, and a spirit of service. These values inform what we do with artists, how we interact with audiences, and how we manage our organization. Theatre for a New Audience Education Programs
STAFF
Founding Artistic Director Jeffrey Horowitz Managing Director Dorothy Ryan General Manager Michael Page Director of Institutional Advancement James J. Lynes Education Director Kathleen Dorman Director of Marketing & Communications Jennifer Lam Finance Director Mary Sormeley Associate Producer/Director of the Studio Nidia Medina Associate General Manager Kiana Carrington General Management Assistant Sarah Weinflash Theatre Manager Steven Gaultney Production Manager Joshua Kohler Box Office & Subscriptions Allison Byrum Facilities Manager Jordan Asinofsky Development Manager Jena Yarley Literary & Humanities Manager/ Assistant to Artistic Director Soriya K. Chum Development Associate Richard Brighi Finance Associate Michelle Esposito Facilities Associate Rashawn Caldwell House Manager Coral Cohen Press Representative Blake Zidell & Associates Resident Literary Advisor Jonathan Kalb Resident Casting Director Jack Doulin Resident Director of Voice Andrew Wade
18
Theatre for a New Audience is an award-winning company recognized for artistic excellence. Our education programs introduce students to Shakespeare and other classics with the same artistic integrity that we apply to our productions. Through our unique and exciting methodology, students engage in hands-on learning that involves all aspects of literacy set in the context of theatre education. Our residencies are structured to address City and State Learning Standards both in English language Arts and the Arts, the New York City DOE’s Curriculum Blueprint for Teaching and Learning in Theater, and the Common Core Learning Standards for English Language Arts. Begun in 1984, our programs have served more than 130,000 students, ages 9 through 18, in New York City Public Schools city-wide. A Home in Brooklyn: Theatre for a New Audience’s Polonsky Shakespeare Center Theatre for a New Audience’s home, Polonsky Shakespeare Center, is a centerpiece of the Brooklyn Cultural District. Designed by celebrated architect Hugh Hardy, Polonsky Shakespeare Center is the first theatre in New York designed and built expressly for classic drama since Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont in the 1960s. The 27,500 square-foot facility is a unique performance space in New York. The 299-seat Samuel H. Scripps Mainstage, inspired by the Cottesloe at London’s National Theatre, combines an Elizabethan courtyard theatre with modern theatre technology that allows the stage and seating to be arranged in seven configurations. The new facility also includes the Theodore C. Rogers Studio (a 50-seat rehearsal/ performance studio), and theatrical support spaces. The City of New York-developed Arts Plaza, designed by landscape architect Ken Smith, creates a natural gathering place around the building. In addition, Polonsky Shakespeare Center is also one of the few sustainable (green) theatres in the country, with an anticipated LEED-NC Silver rating from the United States Green Building Council. Now with a home of its own, Theatre for a New Audience is contributing to the continued renaissance of Downtown Brooklyn. In addition to its season of plays, the Theatre has expanded its Humanities offerings to include lectures, seminars, workshops, and other activities for artists, scholars, and the general public. When not in use by the Theatre, its new facility is available for rental, bringing much needed affordable performing and rehearsal space to the community.
T HEAT RE F O R A N E W A UD I E N C E 36 0 ° S E RIE S
BOARD OF DIRECTORS Chairman: Robert E. Buckholz Vice Chairman Kathleen C. Walsh President: Jeffrey Horowitz Founding Artistic Director Vice President and Secretary Dorothy Ryan Managing Director
Executive Committee Robert E. Buckholz Merle Debuskey* Jeffrey Horowitz John J. Kerr, Jr. Seymour H. Lesser Larry M. Loeb Audrey Heffernan Meyer Kathleen C. Walsh Monica Gerard-Sharp Wambold Members John Berendt* Cicely Berry, CBE, Hon. D. Lit* Sally Brody William H. Burgess, III Zoë Caldwell* Ben Campbell Robert A. Caro* Dr. Sharon Dunn* Dana Ivey* Catherine Maciariello* Caroline Niemczyk Rachel Polonsky Barbara Rifkind Theodore C. Rogers Philip R. Rotner Dorothy Ryan Mark Rylance* Daryl D. Smith Susan Stockel Michael Stranahan John Turturro* Josh Weisberg Frederick Wiseman* Emeritus Robert Arnow Francine Ballan Dr. Charlotte K. Frank Jane Wells *Artistic Council
THEATRE FOR A NEW AUDIENCE MAJOR SUPPORTERS Even with capacity audiences, ticket sales account for a small portion of our operating costs. The Theatre expresses its deepest thanks to the following Foundations, Corporations, Government Agencies and Individuals for their generous support of the Theatre’s Humanities, Education, and Outreach programs.
The 360° Series: Viewfinders has been made possible in part by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities: Exploring the Human Endeavor. Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Viewfinder do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
A Challenge Grant from the NEH established a Humanities endowment fund at Theatre for a New Audience to support these programs in perpetuity. Leading matching gifts to the NEH grant were provided by Joan and Robert Arnow, Norman and Elaine Brodsky, The Durst Organization, Perry and Marty Granoff, Stephanie and Tim Ingrassia, John J. Kerr & Nora Wren Kerr, Litowitz Foundation, Inc., Robert and Wendy MacDonald, Sandy and Stephen Perlbinder, The Prospect Hill Foundation, Inc., Theodore C. Rogers, and from purchasers in the Theatre’s Seat for Shakespeare Campaign. Theatre for a New Audience’s Humanities, Education, and Outreach programs are supported, in part, by The Elayne P. Bernstein Education Fund. For more information on naming a seat or making a gift to the Education or Humanities endowments, please contact James Lynes, Director of Insitutional Advancement, at 212-229-2819 x29, or by email at jlynes@tfana.org. Theatre for a New Audience’s productions and education programs receive support from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature; and from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.
Additional funding is provided by the generosity of the following Foundations and Corporations through either their general operating support or direct support of the Theatre’s arts in education programs: PRINCIPAL BENEFACTORS
New York City Department of Cultural Affairs National Endowment for the Humanities The SHS Foundation The Shubert Foundation, Inc. The Wintson Foundation LEADING BENEFACTORS
Bloomberg LP Deloitte The Harold and Mim Steinberg Charitable Trust The Thompson Family Foundation MAJOR BENEFACTORS
Sidney E. Frank Foundation Hearst Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP Latham & Watkins LLP National Endowment for the Arts New York State Council on the Arts The Fan Fox & leslie R. Samuels Foundation Troy Chemical Corporation SUSTAINING BENEFACTORS
A’lani Kailani Blue Lotus White Star Foundation The Howard Bayne Fund Consolidated Edison Company of New York, Inc. Coydog Foundation
Debevoise & Plimpton LLP Geen Family Foundation Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP Joseph and Sally Handleman Foundation Trust A The DuBose and Dorothy Heyward Memorial Fund The J.M. Kaplan Fund King & Spalding LLP Kirkland & Ellis LLP The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation Loeb & Loeb LLP Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison The Round Table of Cultural Seminars, Ltd. May and Samuel Rudin Foundation, Inc. Select Equity Group, Inc. Sidley Austin LLP Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP
Council Member Laurie A. Cumbo, NY City Council Discretionary Funding Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP The Starry Night Fund Michael Tuch Foundation, Inc. Wells Fargo Bank The White Cedar Fund PRODUCERS CIRCLE—EXECUTIVE
The Barbara Bell Cumming Charitable Trust DeWitt Stern Group, Inc. Marta Heflin Foundation Irving Harris Foundation Lucille Lortel Foundation The Bulova Stetson Fund PRODUCERS CIRCLE—ASSOCIATE
PRODUCERS CIRCLE— THE ARTISTIC DIRECTOR’S SOCIETY
Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, LLP Axe-Houghton Foundation The Ettinger Foundation The Claire Friedlander Family Foundation McDermott Will & Emery Hughes Hubbard & Reed LLP Ingram Yuzek Gainen Carroll & Bertolotti, LLP Litowitz Foundation, Inc. Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP
Actors’ Equity Association Bloomberg Philanthropies Bressler, Amery & Ross The Norman D., and Judith H. Cohen Foundation EMM Wealth Management Kinder Morgan Foundation Mannheim LLC The Grace R. and Alan D. Marcus Foundation The Randolph Foundation The Bernard and Anne Spitzer Charitable Trust
TH E E M PE RO R
19
W W W . T FA N A . O R G