Spotlight Magazine, Fall 2016 by Huntington Theatre Company

Georges Seurat’s A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grand Jatte, the inspiration for Sunday in the Park with George.

Huntington on Huntington Sunday in the Park with George Tiger Style! Bedroom Farce Spotlight Spectacular Education UPCOMING EVENTS Performance Calendars

FALL 2016-2017

SPOTLIGHT

GREAT THEATRE — PRODUCED BY YOU

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WELCOME TO OUR 35TH ANNIVERSARY SEASON— YOUR TICKET IS WAITING! SUBLIME PULITZER PRIZE-WINNING MUSICAL

SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE SEPT. 9 – OCT. 16

WILD GLOBETROTTING COMEDY

TIGER STYLE! OCT. 14 – NOV. 13

WICKEDLY FUNNY ROMP

BEDROOM FARCE NOV. 11 – DEC. 11

ICONIC CLASSIC DRAMA

A DOLL’S HOUSE JAN. 6 – FEB. 5 EXPLOSIVE PULITZER PRIZE WINNER

TOPDOG/UNDERDOG MAR. 10 – APR. 9 PROVOCATIVE & MOVING DRAMA

THE WHO & THE WHAT MAR. 31 – APR. 30

UPROARIOUS COMEDY

RIPCORD MAY 26 – JUN. 25 2

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EXPERIENCE THE BEST THEATRE BOSTON HAS TO OFFER. JOIN US FOR THE 2016-2017 SEASON! Only Huntington subscribers get the best plays, the best seats & the best prices. 7-play packages start at just $154. Subscribe now and guarantee yourself a great year of theatre, no matter how busy the rest of your schedule becomes. Join us for all 7 shows (our best deal!) or select a smaller package — either way you get access to the best seats at the best prices and lock-in your seats for a can’t-miss season, including masterpieces from both Sondheim and Ibsen, three hot new plays, and much more. Plus, you’ll get all our other exclusive subscriber benefits: free & easy ticket exchanges, missed performance insurance, and special discounts on local restaurants and parking. WE’RE SAVING GREAT SEATS JUST FOR SUBSCRIBERS — SUBSCRIBE TODAY!

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THE HUNTINGTON WILL STAY IN ITS HOME ON HUNTINGTON AVENUE nile hawver

Mayor Martin J. Walsh onstage with Carol G. Deane, Julie Burros, David Epstein, and Peter DuBois

We are delighted to share the news that the Huntington Theatre Company’s place on Huntington Avenue is secure, and that we have successfully negotiated an agreement-in-principle to remain in the BU Theatre, our mainstage home for over three decades, on a long-term basis. paul marotta

“The Huntington Theatre Company is here to stay, on Huntington Avenue, where it belongs.... This is an exciting day for the entire city of Boston.”

As Mayor Martin J. Walsh announced from the BU Theatre stage at a June 9 press conference, “The Huntington Theatre Company is here to stay, on Huntington Avenue, where it belongs. This announcement sets the stage for the theatre to grow and to gain control of this historic venue where it’s been for over three decades. This is an exciting day for the entire city of Boston.” As you may recall, in October 2015 Boston University and the Huntington announced that they would dissolve our partnership, and BU put the BU Theatre complex up for sale on the open market. A local development company, QMG Huntington LLC, purchased the building in May. Thanks to the direct support of Mayor Walsh and his administration, the Huntington and QMG have reached an agreement that will give the Huntington exclusive, long-term control of the historic theatre and the service wing to its west, which we will fully renovate at our own expense. We will also be able to expand our lobbies and other public spaces to better serve our audience and our community. We welcome this opportunity to revitalize our beautiful theatre, expand our public space, and continue to produce ambitious, large-scale works at this location in a way that enhances our services to audience members, young people, our neighbors, and the theatre community of Boston. Having exclusive, long-term control of our mainstage space allows us to grow and puts us in a position of strength, guaranteeing that we will continue to produce world-class theatre and serve the city of Boston for generations to come.

There is still much work to do and many details to come as we move through the design and review process of this development, and in order to succeed the Huntington will embark on a major new capital fundraising campaign. This critical moment would not have been possible without our deep and loyal community of supporters, and we promise to keep you informed as future plans develop. We are excited about the opportunity that awaits, and look forward to taking this next leg of our collective journey with you. For the latest news and up-to-date information, visit the frequently asked questions page of our website at huntingtontheatre.org/FAQ. HUNTINGTONTHEATRE.ORG

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“An audacious and touching work with a lovely, wildly inventive score” – THE NEW YORK TIMES

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Stephen Sondheim’s stunning masterpiece centers on enigmatic painter Georges Seurat and his search for love, inspiration, and “the art of making art.” One of the most acclaimed musicals ever, this Pulitzer Prize winner features a glorious score, with the songs “Finishing the Hat,” “Putting it Together,” and “Move On,” and is directed by Artistic Director Peter DuBois (A Little Night Music), and features rising stars Adam Chanler-Berat (Broadway’s Peter and the Starcatcher and Next to Normal) and Jenni Barber (Wicked).

“Sunday in the Park with George is a Sondheim masterpiece. And personally, working on a musical about artistic creation is dizzying and profound. Introducing Boston audiences to rising stars Adam Chanler-Berat and Jenni Barber is a thrill for me, as well as reuniting the world-class team of designers — and much of the fabulous Boston talent — from A Little Night Music.” – ARTISTIC DIRECTOR PETER DuBOIS Composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim

Director Peter DuBois

EVERY LITTLE DETAIL:

SONDHEIM ON MAKING ART IN SUNDAY “Just when we think we know what Stephen Sondheim does, he does something else,” writes critic Sandor Goodhart. “Stephen Sondheim has continually eschewed repetition, continually sought to remake himself, to reinvent his style.” Each musical that Sondheim has written across his six-decade career breaks new ground, not only for the artist himself but for the musical theatre form. He brings a constant sense of surprise and reinvention to his work through two twin principles: artistic rigor and ingenuity. These key traits can be seen deep in the fabric of his most acclaimed work, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Sunday in the Park with George. When Sondheim began work on the musical in the early 1980s, he considered making it into an aural representation of pointillism. The art technique, in which tiny dots of pure color are arranged in patterns to create a larger image, made the central character of Sunday, the French artist Georges Seurat, into a legend. Sondheim often begins musicals with this kind of strong concept; for A Little Night Music, seen at the Huntington last season, he based all the songs off the same time signature — the triple beat of a waltz. For Sunday, Sondheim had the notion to mirror Seurat’s work by drawing on the artist’s strict reliance on pure colors. “I thought, isn’t it interesting that Seurat had, on his palate, eleven colors and white,” Sondheim said in an interview with scholar Mark Horowitz. “Eleven and one make twelve. And how many notes are there in a scale? Twelve. I thought I would utilize that […] the way he never mixed a color with a color that wasn’t next to it on the color wheel. He would mix yellow and yellow-orange, or blue with blue-violet; but he would never mix yellow and blue.” Early sketches for Sunday grew into a complicated notion of coordinating keys for the songs in a similar pattern. Ultimately, Sondheim discarded these ideas as too restrictive, but their essence still forms and influences the music and gives it a distinctive flavor; songs flip back and forth between major and minor keys sometimes in the span of a few measures; staccato notes dart through deconstructed scales, like dabs of paint on a canvas.

As an organizing principle, instead of an overarching musical pattern, Sondheim and the bookwriter James Lapine created a mirrored structure between the first and second acts. The acts take place 100 years apart — the first follows Seurat as he paints A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grand Jatte, the second follows his great-grandson as he tries to find inspiration for his next contemporary art creation — and the acts share only a single character between them. “In Into the Woods, which has a similar structure, there’s a story, a real plot, which is a result of the first act,” Sondheim writes. “But in Sunday, the second act is an entirely separate entity — it’s another ship — so the way to link them together, it seemed to me, was to make it a parallel structure.” In an impressive trick, the two best known songs from the musical — “Finishing the Hat” and “Putting it Together” — share the same tune. (Original star Mandy Patinkin did not realize Sondheim’s sleight of hand until more than a year into performing the show.) Structural underpinnings of the intricacy that Sondheim creates may be barely perceptible to an audience, especially on the first viewing; however, the rigor and ingenuity of all those small choices, when seen together, take on their own sense of movement and life. As Sondheim says of Seurat’s original painting, “Of course, this is the perfect painting for someone like me to musicalize, because it is all about design. It’s all about echo. It’s all about the effect of this next to that, or this apart from that. The more I got to know the painting, the more musical I felt.” Like Seurat’s painting, Sunday’s breathtaking beauty comes from stepping back and looking at the whole effect of the piece. “Look closely at that canvas — or at Sunday in the Park itself — and you’ll get lost in a sea of floating dots,” New York Times critic and Sondheim aficionado Frank Rich wrote in his original review. “Stand back and you’ll see that Mr. Sondheim and Mr. Lapine have woven all those imaginative possibilities into a finished picture with a startling new glow.” – Charles Haugland

LEARN MORE ONLINE Listen to “Fresh Air’s” Terry Gross interview Stephen Sondheim about the stories behind his songs and learn more about Georges Seurat’s life and work. HUNTINGTONTHEATRE.ORG

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Director Peter DuBois and Adam Chanler-Berat visit Seurat’s A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte at the Art Institute of Chicago

Art a Century Apart: Sondheim’s inspirations for SUNDAY “I care a lot about art and the artist,” says composer Stephen Sondheim, exploring why he chose to base a musical off a famous work of visual art. “The major thing I wanted to do [with Sunday in the Park with George] was to enable anyone who is not an artist to understand what hard work it is.” After the closing of Merrily We Roll Along, Sondheim almost gave up writing musicals, until he was introduced to writer-director James Lapine. The two began exploring ideas for a musical to create together, and while they considered a short story, they knew they had their inspiration when they came across Georges Seurat’s painting A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. “We realized that that painting was the setting of a play,” explained Sondheim. “All the people in that painting, when you start speculating on why none of them are looking at each other, maybe there’s a reason for that. Maybe someone was having an affair with

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another one, or was related to someone else.” The final question Sondheim and Lapine asked themselves before they started work: Who was missing from the painting? Sondheim and Lapine both agreed — it was the artist.

1884 Seurat was a leader of the Neo-Impressionist movement that was radical for its time, known for being the pioneer in the pointillism technique. His painting A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte was started in 1884. Seurat lived a short and mysterious life, dying in 1891 at the age of 31 from a strange illness. Sondheim was intrigued by Seurat’s double life: “Almost every night he’d stroll over to his mother’s house for dinner, yet only a few weeks before he died, she discovered he’d kept a mistress and had had a baby by her.”

Seurat’s progressive work as an artist parallels Sondheim’s use of music, as seen in last season’s A Little Night Music. Sondheim changed musical theatre from hummable tunes to songs that expressed the intricate inner-monologues of his characters. Both the portrait of a man and the creative process, Sondheim’s classic features one of his most autobiographical songs “Finishing the Hat.” In Ethan Mordden’s On Sondheim: An Opinionated Guide he explains, “‘Finishing the Hat’ offers a massive credo for the artist who has, in effect, two souls: one for the physical specimen living in the world and another for the out-of-body creator living in the canvases where he re-fashions the world.” How you have to finish the hat How you watch the rest of the world From a window while you finish the hat - “Finishing the Hat,” Sunday in the Park with George

1984 In the second act, Sondheim introduces us to George, the greatgrandson of Georges Seurat. Like his namesake, George’s work is radical for his time. The inventor-sculptor George enters with his Chromolume #7, a contemporary art piece created to commemorate Georges Seurat’s original Sunday painting. George is experiencing a creative drought as he begins to lose funding for his art. Should he make something that sells, or make something that speaks to himself? Sondheim explored the same connection. “Mr. Sondheim has written a lovely, wildly inventive score that sometimes remakes the modern French composers whose revolution in music paralleled the post-Impressionists’ in art,” wrote critic Frank Rich in The New York Times. Sunday in the Park with George is a musical experiment in its storytelling form. The bridge between both acts lies within the work of the artist. “It’s part of the reason [Sondheim] did the piece,” said Bernard Jacobs of the Shubert Organization, a producer of the original musical, “My guess is that it’s his reflection of his own place in the world.” Sunday in the Park with George surrounds itself in a visual painting. As Sondheim says, “Musicals are, by nature, theatrical — meaning poetic, meaning having to move the audience’s imagination and create a suspension of disbelief, by which I mean there’s no fourth wall.” Sunday invites artists, creators, and audience members of all forms to experience the art of making art. – Phaedra Scott

Twinkle, and shimmer, and buzz: The chromolume in process Georges Seurat, the painter whose work inspired Sunday in the Park with George, is most often associated with the movement of Pointillism, but Seurat did not use that word himself. Neither a follower of Impressionism or Expressionism, Seurat called his theory “chromoluminarism” (“color-light-ism”). Impressionists wanted to capture a fleeting moment. Seurat wanted to break down the composition of an image to its tiniest elements, and then recombine them. He wanted to change the way we perceived the world around us. In the musical, his legacy carries on in act two through his greatgrandson George, a postmodern 1980s artist who is creating light sculptures he calls “chromolumes.” As director Peter DuBois began working with the designers, he knew that he wanted to take George’s art in a different direction for this production. “Sometimes, in productions of Sunday, the chromolume is a send-up of 1980s art that looks like a Studio 54 disco ball or something that came out of ‘Dr. Who,’” says DuBois. “But George is showing it at the Art Institute of Chicago, one of the great museums in the world, and he has been commissioned to create a piece that is a call-and-response with Seurat’s painting. That’s not a person who is a joke or a hack.” For inspiration, DuBois went back to the original theory of chromoluminarism. “Seurat was trying to find a science to color,” DuBois says. “How does the eye put color and image together? Why do we respond to certain things differently than others?” DuBois drew the designers back to Seurat’s original theories, while staying mindful of the plot of the musical. “Early on, I knew that I wanted the designers to understand that George’s art drew on Seurat,” DuBois says. “I didn’t want to step on the comedy of the fact that when we meet George in the second act, he is stuck in a rut. The nature of the story is that he has been doing the same thing over and over — but I still wanted it to be impressive.” To that end, DuBois and music director Eric Stern commissioned Michael Starobin, the orchestrator for the original Broadway production, to compose new music for the chromolume. “It was important to me that the Chromolume was not an object, so much as an experience,” DuBois says. “Michael, Eric, [projection designer] Zachary Borovay, and [lighting designer] Christopher Akerlind — we are all working together to create a piece of lighting and video that has its own twists and turns. Michael has created music, that while still grounded in the realities of 1980s composition, has more heart-stopping moments and then still carries us right back into the world of the play.”

SEE PAGE 26 FOR SHOW PERFORMANCE CALENDAR & EVENT LISTINGS

– Charles Haugland

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The cast of the Huntington’s A Little Night Music (2015)

THE SONDHEIM CYCLE: ARTISTIC DIRECTOR PETER

DuBOIS ON THE HUNTINGTON’S COMMITMENT TO THE WORK OF STEPHEN SONDHEIM Before Peter DuBois directed A Little Night Music last season, he had started on the planning stages for a longterm artistic exploration of composer Stephen Sondheim’s work — a project that will bring the Huntington and its audience on a decades-long journey. In an interview, DuBois shares what drives his enthusiasm for Sondheim’s work and a bit more about what audiences can expect.

Charles Haugland (Artistic Programs and Dramaturgy): If people have not heard yet, what is the Huntington’s Sondheim Cycle? Peter DuBois (Artistic Director, director of A Little Night Music and Sunday in the Park with George): We will explore and produce all of the musicals where Stephen Sondheim wrote both music and lyrics. We may add some that he may have just written the lyrics; we are still exploring what kind of limitations we want to put on ourselves. And who wants to rule out Gypsy or West Side Story? The notion is to combine original productions that we create here at the Huntington alongside landmark productions from elsewhere that I find really exciting; we are talking to Maria Friedman about her production of Merrily We Roll Along which I saw at the Menier Chocolate Factory in London, and was the definitive production of that musical. John Doyle’s Passion — which started at Classic Stage Company in New York — was an incredible rendition of a challenging musical that I would love to bring here. CH: Where did the idea come from? PD: I was in London watching the production of Merrily at the Menier. I had been seeing a lot of Sondheim in London in remarkably different kinds of venues. I thought, “What would it mean to do all of Sondheim’s work as an artistic and intellectual exploration of the artist?” Before the Huntington, I came from The Public Theater in New York where [founding artistic director] Joe Papp made a commitment to do all of Shakespeare’s 37 plays. When Joe passed, George Wolfe continued the legacy, and completed the cycle. At the Huntington, we explored August Wilson for 20 years, and I felt like there was something profound about having an anchor artist that we are committed to over a period of time. We are in a town where people like to geek out over certain things, and Sondheim is amazing to geek out on. Over any other musical theatre writer and composer, Sondheim is an artist who connects with Boston, because we have both a rich sense of intellectual inquiry here and also a sophisticated musical palette. Sondheim’s

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of vulnerability that we want.” The ability to direct those songs moment to moment is — and I don’t use this word lightly — an absolute honor. CH: The first two productions are both at our large mainstage space — and they are both directed by you with a fair amount of overlap in terms of the artistic team. Should audiences expect those trends to continue?

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Stephen Bogardus and Haydn Gwynne in A Little Night Music (2015)

music — and the drama it conveys — is richly complicated, full of contradiction, and surprising when a new melody comes flying in and sweeps you off your feet. CH: How far does it go back for you with Sondheim? PD: I was in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum in high school. I just was so turned on to him as an artist by that production. I became a Sondheim fanatic, and I started to listen to all of his music. CH: What is it about Sondheim’s work? PD: The songs are so integrated into the story and even into the scenes themselves — especially emotionally. When I was working with actress Haydn Gwynne on “Send in the Clowns” in A Little Night Music, we discovered you cannot take that song out of the context of the scene that precedes it between her and Fredrik. The song is a continuation emotionally of Desiree being rejected by Fredrik, and only through the song does she acknowledge that both are aware of the mistakes that they made and that they cannot be together. Immediately following our production here, Haydn was actually performing the song for a celebration of Sondheim’s work on the West End in London. She requested that they bring an actor to play Fredrik, so that they could play the scene before she sang the song. That is something that I think Sondheim does better than any one composer I have encountered. CH: Can you talk about the music itself, too? PD: The music also tells the story; it is not just the lyrics. The melody, the rhythm, the tone are each a representation of the story he is unfolding before the audience. Sometimes the music creates a sense of irony between what is being sung and what is being felt. A lot of people talk about how Sondheim will create darker melodies for lighter thoughts, and that’s not arbitrary — that is embedded in the character’s emotional relationship to what they are singing. Because of that depth of storytelling, it is incredible to get in the room with an actor for one of his musicals and direct the songs beat by beat. We get to share revelations: “if you attack this note this way, it has a level of irony that it wants, or if you go another way, it gets a level

PD: One of the things that was really appealing when I started exploring this idea a couple of years ago was that I felt like Sondheim was the artist that could unify our campuses: the 890seat theatre we have on the Avenue of the Arts, as well as the two theatres we built in the South End at the Calderwood Pavilion. Having been exposed to Sondheim’s work at the Menier — which is a small space — I discovered that you can experience Sondheim in so many different-sized venues. There are musicals like Sunday in the Park with George that you want to see on a giant canvas, and there are musicals like Passion that pop and come alive on a smaller canvas. This is part of what differentiates an exploration of Sondheim’s work from an artist like August Wilson; with Sondheim we are using our venues to shape the artistic approach to the material and trying to choose the venue that seems most appropriate to the material. After these two, I know some of what I want to do down the road, but I think that in the short term, we will start to explore celebrated productions from elsewhere. There are also directors in the immediate Huntington circle — Billy Porter or Joanna Gleason — who are acclaimed Sondheim interpreters already as actors and who have really compelling ideas for productions. CH: Finally, we have heard a lot from audience members who love Sondheim and are thrilled about this long-term commitment, and then we also heard from people who had never responded to Sondheim before but loved A Little Night Music. Do you think about how to convert more people to be Sondheim geeks? PD: By and large, people love Sondheim in this city. We won’t bore people with this exploration; we will find ways to explore the work that will keep people interested. My hope is that we will win over converts, too. Sometimes people have just never experienced Sondheim with the benefit of the story unfolding at the same time. I have been to concerts celebrating Sondheim where it is clear that the singer does not understand the context of the song in the musical, so they just create their own approach and interpretation. Sometimes it works. But you don’t have to look further than Frank Sinatra’s “Send in the Clowns,” where, God bless his heart, the intention of the song is not conveyed in his jaunty version. Mostly I hope that people will be interested in the opportunity to take a deep dive and go on the journey with us. In contemporary time, we are so hooked on “what is the hot single off the album,” “what episodes of the series are ‘must-watch,’” and there is very little — outside heavily serialized television — where you get to a greater level of depth over a period of years. Producing Sondheim in this way insists that you slow down and experience a body of work over several seasons. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that he is one of the great geniuses of the 20th century. We are exploring the Bach or Mozart of our time — fearless as a composer and a perfectionist. HUNTINGTONTHEATRE.ORG

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“Wild comedic ride! Smart urban comedy!” – ATLANTA JOURNAL CONSTITUTION

Squabbling siblings Albert and Jennifer Chen reached the pinnacle of academic achievement. But as adults, they’re epic failures: he’s just been passed up for promotion and she’s been dumped by her loser boyfriend. So, naturally, they confront their parents and launch an Asian Freedom Tour! From California to China, this hilarious new comedy examines race, parenting, and success with wit and sharp humor.

“A spirited, fast-paced, colorful, funny & entertaining romp that’s as energetic as it is easy to like.” – ARTSATL

“Tiger Style! will hit the sweet spot — it is both sidesplittingly funny and intellectually rich. I became a major fan of the play after our Breaking Ground reading in 2014 and knew we had to produce it. Mike Lew has written a sharp and original comedy about generational differences, cultural heritage, and race in America today, and I can’t wait to bring Boston audiences along for the ride.” – ARTISTIC DIRECTOR PETER DuBOIS Playwright Mike Lew

Director Moritz von Stuelpnagel

THE ART OF COLLABORATION: INTRODUCING MIKE LEW & MORITZ VON STUELPNAGEL Huntington Director of New Work Lisa Timmel interviews playwright Mike Lew and director Moritz von Stuelpnagel about Tiger Style!, a new American comedy about the contradictions of identity.

Lisa Timmel: The three of us go way back, but how did you guys actually first meet? Mike Lew: Probably in your office at Playwrights Horizons. That was the likeliest location. Moritz von Stuelpnagel: Mike and I were directing interns together at Playwrights Horizons. But we also had a love of new plays and dramaturgy and therefore seemed to gravitate to your office and to the lively conversation that seemed to be spewing forth around every cubicle wall. ML: I had been a literary intern before being a directing resident so I was thinking, “Oh, I’m lost, I’m gonna go back to the place that I know.” MVS: Like when you get lost in the mall! That’s what they tell you to do — or maybe it’s stay put — I’m not sure, but I’m glad it worked out because that’s where I found you. Because I feel like my job as a director is to support the writer as much as anything else and because the literary office is the hub for that, it seemed to me the most valuable place to be. ML: We met there and then we both were in the Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab but we didn’t actually start working together as writer and director until I was in Youngblood at Ensemble Studio Theater [EST]. That dates back to 2005-2006, so that’s how long we’ve been working together. LT: Moritz, do you remember the first play of Mike’s you directed? MVS: Yes, it was a ten-minute play called The Roosevelt Cousins Thoroughly Sauced which is about a young FDR and Eleanor grappling with the life changes of polio, and written in classic absurdist Mike style. It did really well at EST and went on to win a Samuel French short play competition. And since then we have done I don’t know how many projects together ...

LEARN MORE ONLINE Read an interview with playwright Mike Lew and learn more about his history with director Moritz von Stuelpnagel. HUNTINGTONTHEATRE.ORG

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Ruibo Qian and Jon Norman Schneider; Francis Jue and Emily Kuroda in Tiger Style! at Atlanta’s Alliance Theatre (2015)

ML: I’ve lost count. You’ve become the premier interpreter of my work! MVS: It feels really good to be in a collaborative relationship with someone I’m also close friends with. I think we have a great shorthand that doesn’t require excess courtesy to manage each other’s egos. We can really dig in without needing to be polite with each other about the work. It creates an energy in the room that I don’t always feel I have in some of my other productions. When Mike and I collaborate, something sparks. ML: Really early when I started theatre, I remember seeing a panel with Daniel Sullivan and Donald Margulies talking about their longstanding collaboration, and I was really skeptical of it. I don’t know why. I think it’s the nature of being a young artist and being skeptical of anything that’s become established. I guess it felt like, seeing that relationship, there was a complacency built into it. What I’m finding now is that a good, longstanding relationship is not born of complacency but of mutual challenge. So not only is there a shorthand, but I think that we continue to push each other and rely on each other in new ways. The most recent show that we worked on together was a workshop production of Teenage Dick during which my son was born, so I had to physically leave that process. Moritz was giving me impressions from the performances and making suggestions. I had to trust that he understood my vision for the piece enough that he could tell me about my own script without me necessarily being there. When I came back to catch the final couple of shows it was really as if I hadn’t been gone. I had this play ripped out of my prying grip, and yet I found that I could trust him with that. That was a huge lesson: when you work with people you really trust and are really good, you don’t have to be the boot on the neck of the play the whole time. LT: Tell me a little bit about the origins and development of Tiger Style! ML: I started this play in my last year at Juilliard. It remains a very personal work that wrestles with my upbringing, my cultural upbringing, and increasingly the push-pull of not just what it means that I’m Asian American in the US, but also how outside perceptions affect being Asian American in the US. What started as a very

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personal exploration is now a more political exploration about, “What is our place as Asian Americans in this country?” Moritz read the first draft of the play, and our first crack at it was in the Huntington’s Breaking Ground reading series. LT: Much of the comedy in Tiger Style! trades lovingly on generational differences and it’s told from the point of view of the children. Now that you are a parent yourself, do you feel differently? ML: Growing up, I always knew my parents were pretty strict compared to other parents, and even though I went along with it, I often found myself, if not outwardly resentful, at the very least I was very agitated. But with this play I actually tried to be sympathetic towards my parents and really think about where they were coming from. This play is also trying to provide a counternarrative to prevailing stereotypes about “Asian tiger parenting” — this completely racist notion that Asian families only care about achievement and don’t even love each other. Now that I’m a parent myself, I actually called up my dad and apologized for thinking that parenting was so easy, and this was only upon having an infant who can’t even talk back to me yet! (My dad was actually very gracious about all this and said that it’s not about who was right or wrong, but about trying to do the best for your kids.) LT: Even though it’s a comedy, Tiger Style! is similar to many classic American dramas. Like Awake and Sing!, The Glass Menagerie, Fences, and Curse of the Starving Class, it tells a story of young people trapped by and/or breaking with their origins. Moritz, how does this heritage inform your direction? MVS: You’re right. The play, like many American plays, asks what ingredients our heritage provides in the makeup of who we are. But I think our heroes, brother and sister Albert and Jennifer — who are really more a pair of hapless, foolhardy anti-heroes — fall into the trap of letting labels reduce their understanding of themselves. As two Asian Americans, they feel they’re on the receiving end of racial judgment, and that fills them with an indignation and possibly even self-loathing. So they buck that perception by leaning into a fully American stereotype, and when that fails, a fully Chinese stereotype. The fact that they are really putting on an act is incredibly fun, comedically. They get to be raucously politically incorrect.

LT: The Huntington production of Tiger Style! is the second time the two of you will be mounting this play together. How is it to return to a project almost a year later? ML: It’s interesting, not every writer-director relationship survives through multiple productions of the same play, whether it’s because the opportunity never arises or because they choose not to work together again. For this production specifically, we are revamping a lot from the world premiere at the Alliance Theatre. In sort of play-testing the play with that audience we discovered things in the directing concept and the script and how the audience received it. We realized there were things that could be clarified. I think that in a lot of relationships you might just say, “Well, let’s just kind of do it again. Let’s preserve the thing that we had from the last one.” But both of us have been working really hard at it from reconceiving the design to going scene by scene and thinking about my intentions as opposed to how the audience was receiving it. We’ve really been working hard for this new production. I think that sort of speaks to our shared work ethic.

“What started as a very personal exploration is now a more political exploration about, ‘What is our place as Asian Americans in this country?’” – Mike lew

Curtain Calls NAME Bryan T. Donovan ROLE Russ the Bus HOMETOWN Sterling Heights, Michigan What is the best advice your parents ever gave you? ALWAYS look a gift horse in the mouth — vet bills are pricey. NAME Francis Jue ROLE Dad HOMETOWN San Francisco, California How did audiences in Atlanta respond to Tiger Style!? They fell out of their seats at this hysterical, political, poignant play! I think it surprised a lot of audience members that they identified so much with the family in this play. NAME Emily Kuroda ROLE Mom HOMETOWN 20-acre vegetable farm in Fresno, California What do you admire about your parents? After WWII my parents were busy making a living — my father farmed and my mother worked in a sewing factory and did farm labor at night and on weekends. They worked 7 days a week and never complained. With gratitude, I aspire to have a fraction of their strength.

LT: How does it feel to be bringing the show to Boston?

NAME Ruibo Qian

MVS: Well, as you know, I went to Boston University so for me to come back to the Huntington to direct a show there feels, to me sentimentally, like a real benchmark of success in my career. To be in Boston, to spend time with the wonderful community and the restaurants, there’s a lot I’m looking forward to.

ROLE Jennifer

ML: I’ve been hearing about plays that originated at the Huntington throughout my writing career, and so it’s become a huge goal to have a play go there, especially one that I’m actively working on. I think that it’s really brave in the theatre to be producing plays that are either world premieres or that, like our show, are not known commodities already. Not every theatre that does new plays takes that risk. So, I’m really excited to be in a theatre that is giving this play a shot. I know that your audience is really savvy about the kind of political and cultural commentary that I’m doing. Just from the reading that we did I felt like I was really being understood. I know that it’s going to push me to do my best work. To know that there’s an audience that gets what I’m wrestling with, which is not always a given.

HOMETOWN Houston, Texas Favorite moment performing Tiger Style!? My favorite moments are those backstage with Jon gearing up for Act II. Being only children, we both really learned to channel our inner sibling. Maybe too well? NAME Jon Norman Schneider ROLE Albert HOMETOWN I grew up around Arthur Avenue in the Bronx How are you like your character? I was an overachiever in school and I can overthink and over-analyze like he does. Certainly, many of his identity politics around growing up Asian American in this country resonate with me. Although I wish I was as hyper-articulate as he is when laying out his frustrations and discontents.

SEE PAGE 26 FOR SHOW PERFORMANCE CALENDAR & EVENT LISTINGS HUNTINGTONTHEATRE.ORG

a masterclass in comedy at its finest.”

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– THE WASHINGTON POST

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“Bedroom Farce is

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4 couples. 3 bedrooms. One hilarious night. Trevor and Susannah, with their marriage on the rocks, invade 3 bedrooms of their family and friends over the course of an evening, spreading chaos in their wake. Director Maria Aitken (The 39 Steps, Private Lives) returns for this rollicking comedy of marital misunderstandings.

“Having Maria Aitken at the helm of a Huntington show is always a dream. She struck gold with the Olivier and Tony Award-winning The 39 Steps and directed amazing productions of masterworks The Seagull and Private Lives. In my eyes Maria will always have an artistic home here at the Huntington. Also, Maria starred as Susannah in the National Theatre’s premiere of Bedroom Farce, so she knows what she’s talking about. Quick-witted, moving, and entertaining, this production is one to anticipate.” – ARTISTIC DIRECTOR PETER DuBOIS

Playwright Alan Ayckbourn

Director Maria Aitken

It’s Complicated:

Alan Ayckbourn’s Bedroom Farce As long as human beings have had relationships, they have had a need to define them with the phrase “it’s complicated” — an expression that has taken on new life in the 21st century. The term is now everywhere, from a Facebook status to a Nancy Meyers movie title. But is the modern ubiquity of “it’s complicated” a sign that our relationships have become more messy — or have we just embraced the language to describe what was always there? English playwright Alan Ayckbourn, known as “the Molière of the Middle Class,” has made a decades-long career out of examining the complex conflicts at the heart of relationships, and lays out the highs and lows of married life in his acclaimed early comedy Bedroom Farce. Bedroom Farce circles around the lives of four intertwining couples in different stages of a relationship: Delia and Ernest, an older couple, are fully comfortable in their nighttime routine; Malcolm and Kate, a fresh young couple, play clever pranks on each other; Jan and Nick settle for co-existing. But drama ensues when Ayckbourn’s final couple, Susannah and Trevor, split up and the chaos they create threatens all of the other relationships in the play. For the revival at the Huntington, this symphony of dysfunctional relationships will be orchestrated by director Maria Aitken, a longtime Huntington collaborator who in a fitting twist played Susannah in the London premiere of the play at the National Theatre. Written in 1975, Ayckbourn created Bedroom Farce in response to superficial sex farces that emphasized who is in bed with whom at the expense of the complications and tribulations of how they got there. Ayckbourn creates a world with real consequences, even though the circumstances are out of the ordinary. “What I tried to do was avoid the obvious,” says Ayckbourn, “and write a play about the British in bed without emphasizing anything much

in the way of sex. Actually, of course, it’s full of sex, but sex of a different sort. It covers a whole wide range of sexual troubles, sexual problems.” Ayckbourn’s sideways perspective into the married milieu offers a fresh and deeply funny lens to those who have been in relationships. Aykbourn can “believably effuse charms sure to infect a willing audience with giggles, guffaws, and the occasional insight that, yes, that’s what it’s like,” wrote David DeWitt of The New York Times in his review of the play. For Ayckbourn, an audience’s laughter is more than pleasure; it’s a sign that his message is landing: “It’s more important to me to make people laugh, provided they come. If a house is full of people, you know you’re doing something right.” While veiled in comedy, Bedroom Farce is an intricate exploration that asks the questions: How do we treat our loved ones? How do we treat ourselves? What do we deserve in a partner? Our modern culture is overrun by think pieces on the “Secrets of Successful, Long-Lasting Relationships” or “Ten Ways to Meet the Guy (or Girl) of your Dreams.” Ayckbourn’s play takes on the deeper themes at the heart of relationships: what do we expect? What do we get? He takes notions of an ideal relationship, and rearranges them through three bedrooms — the most intimate space for couples. For Ayckbourn, the bedroom is more than an intimate and idyllic haven; it is a place where convention and morality fall away, and we see the depth of our truer selves. “I feel society has to live by certain guidelines, and in the end, I suppose I believe in respect for other people,” explains Ayckbourn on his writing. “But I’m in an awful position as a writer, because I love it when things break up.” – Phaedra Scott

LEARN MORE ONLINE Watch an interview with Alan Ayckbourn at the National Theatre and discover Maria Aitken’s history with the stage in an interview with The Telegraph. HUNTINGTONTHEATRE.ORG

Curtain Calls

the rivals

NAME Malcolm Stuart Ingram ROLE Ernest HOMETOWN Syracuse, New York How are you like your character? I am like Ernest in that I get great satisfaction from seeing everything in its place, and I share his naive enthusiasm about things I like. However, I don’t share his sense of certainty about everything, and I have more of a sense of humor than him. What does Bedroom Farce tell us about relationships? I think we learn that we should think more about other people than ourselves. NAME Karl Miller ROLE Trevor HOMETOWN I grew up all over the Midwest. What does Bedroom Farce tell us about relationships? There’s a Yiddish proverb and my recollection of it is: “If you don’t live under the bed, you can’t judge the relationship.” I think that’s wise, and I think some couples are as doomed as they appear to be, and Bedroom Farce revels in both truths. My perfect 24 hours: Goethe said, “A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful.” To that I would add: Sweat. Create. Dine. Drink. Friends. Family. Play. Travel. Nature. Some harmonic dose of those things makes a day.

CREATING EXTRAORDINARY WORLDS FOR HUNTINGTON AUDIENCES: Alexander Dodge is an award-winning international set and costume designer for musicals, plays, opera, and dance. He has designed productions in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and London, AS WELL AS 14 PRODUCTIONS for the Huntington Theatre Company. We asked Alexander to share his recollections about some of his most memorable designs for the Huntington’s stages.

NAME Patricia Hodges ROLE Delia HOMETOWN Puyallup, Washington What does Bedroom Farce tell us about relationships? Bedroom Farce shows relationships are driven by many things: sexual attraction, a need for drama, and a willingness to form alliances and arrive at a balance, finally, with someone else. My perfect 24 hours: Trees, water, walking, movies, laughter, and a healthy mix of solitude and companionship. NAME Mahira Kakkar ROLE Jan HOMETOWN Kolkata, India How are you like your character? In some ways Jan is quite no-nonsense and practical and can’t deal with her husband’s perceived whining. I can be practical, but have been known to get lost in daydreams. I also feel guilty leaving my partner alone if he’s feeling the slightest bit unwell. My perfect 24 hours: Lots of sleep, a rejuvenating yoga class, a massage, rehearsal, dinner with my partner and friends, and a poetry show.

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SEE PAGE 26 FOR SHOW PERFORMANCE CALENDAR & EVENT LISTINGS

the miracle at naples

Love’s Labour’s Lost

Present Laughter

boleros for the disenchanted

SET DESIGNER ALEXANDER DODGE 2005: The Rivals “The set as drawers in a chest I really

2009: The Miracle at Naples

“I was actually looking at the overhead views of the winding streets and numerous little squares of Naples on Google Satellite. When I zoomed in on a courtyard it had a forced perspective look which felt appropriate in its compact beauty.”

thought of more like books on a shelf that could be pulled out. Each one could hold its own little story that would unfold and spill out as it was opened.”

2006: Love’s Labour’s Lost “I find designing for

Shakespeare is often terrifying, but sometimes also very freeing. Director Nicholas Martin loved the idea about climbing on a tree for one scene and we ended up setting most of the play around and inside of this tree.”

2007: Present Laughter “The most important part of

making a set for a comedy is just staying out of its way. I’ve known Brooks Ashmanskas for years, so I knew if I gave him a big bannister to slide down he probably would.”

2008: Boleros for the Disenchanted “I liked the

idea of contrasting the leafy, lush atmosphere of the first act in Puerto Rico with the stark man-made tract home development in Alabama of the second act. I sought to make it feel natural and a bit romantic.”

good people

2012: Good People

“The director Kate Whoriskey and I were driving around South Boston taking pictures for research and we came across stacks of these shipping containers at the harbor. They were so weathered and beautiful but also seemed to be a compelling metaphor when used in an abstract way as the envelope for the play.”

2016: Bedroom Farce

“Though we are always inside three interiors, I thought it would be interesting to see a bit of the exteriors of these places as well. I liked the idea of getting to tell a little more of the story of the class and social structure of all of the characters we meet with the structure of the environment itself.”

production photos by t. charles erickson

bedroom farce

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HUNTINGTON COMMUNITY MEMBERSHIP INITIATIVE SET TO EXPAND THANKS TO NEW PARTNERSHIPS

The Huntington Community Membership Initiative is also embarking on an exciting expansion this year. We are delighted to be included as an inaugural recipient of the Theatre Communications Group (TCG)’s Audience (R)Evolution Cohort Grant. Through this program more than $1.18 million was awarded to teams of three or more not-for-profit organizations across the nation to design and implement audience engagement and community development projects. As part of this grant, the Huntington will partner with the Lyric Stage Company and SpeakEasy Stage Company to expand and further develop the initiative to reach more members and organizations in underserved communities, and offer more shows and opportunities to our community members. Audience (R)Evolution is funded by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation to study, promote, and support successful audience engagement and community development strategies for the US not-for-profit theatre field.

nile hawver

The Huntington is thrilled to announce that Bank of America is our season sponsor of the Huntington Community Membership Initiative, which aims to reduce economic impediments to theatre and to build audiences more reflective of Boston’s diverse demographics. With Bank of America’s support, we will continue to work with over 180 Greater Boston neighborhood organizations to offer Community Members $20 tickets to any available seat at every performance.

Huntington Board President Sharon Malt and Board Chairman David Epstein

WELCOME TO OUR NEW BOARD LEADERS We are thrilled to announce the election of Trustee David Epstein, who will serve as Chairman, and Trustee Sharon Malt, who will become President of the Huntington’s Board of Trustees. Sharon and David each have served in vital capacities within the Huntington community over the years, as well as clearly sharing a passion for our work onstage and off. But in these new roles they have big shoes to fill, as their election signals the end of the terms for our outgoing Chairman Carol G. Deane and President Mitchell Roberts. If you cross paths with Carol or Mitch, please thank them for their jobs well-done. And if you see Sharon and David, please welcome them and thank them for taking on their roles. The Huntington is incredibly fortunate to have had such strong leadership under the aegis of Carol and Mitch, and we look forward to welcoming David and Sharon into their new Board positions this fall.

LEARN MORE: huntingtontheatre.org/community SEASON SPONSOR:

MADE POSSIBLE BY A GRANT FROM:

WELCOME NEW OVERSEERS

We are pleased to announce the election of three new members to the Huntington’s Council of Overseers: Maria Farley Gerrity, Jim Burns, and Tracey A. West. Overseers play a vital role in the Huntington, giving their time and lending their expertise and judgement on a wide array of topics including finance, development, investment, and community building. We are grateful for their commitment and welcome them to the Huntington Board family.

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Scenic Artist Liv Joyce paints an elaborate curtain backdrop for A Little Night Music

HELP HUNTINGTON ARTISANS FIND THE SPACE TO CREATE

Now is a time of great opportunity for the Huntington and the Boston arts community. As you may know, the Huntington gained exclusive, long-term control of our historic mainstage theatre on Huntington Avenue in June. We have exciting and ambitious plans to fully renovate the building and to expand our lobbies and other public spaces to better serve you â&#x20AC;&#x201D; our audience and our community. And we cannot wait to involve you in bringing these plans to life! While we are ecstatic to be retaining our theatre, we will need to relocate our scene shop, paint shop, and prop shop from Huntington Avenue to another site in our region before June 2017. This unanticipated need to secure a new home for our entire production team will significantly increase our current annual operating expenses. And yet what could be more important to the Huntington and our loyal patrons than finding a new home for our brilliant production staff to create the scenery that has dazzled audiences for decades? Your gift to support the relocation of our production facilities will ensure that the designers, carpenters, welders, painters, and other artisans who bring the Huntingtonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s physical productions to life have a long-term home to continue to create. To give to the production relocation initiative and to discover other ways you can support the Huntington, visit huntingtontheatre.org/waystogive. Thank you for your generosity!

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SPOTLIGHT SPECTACULAR RAISES MORE THAN $1 MILLION On April 25, 2016 more than 400 guests honored Huntington Board Chairman Carol G. Deane and celebrated the brilliant cast of the Huntington’s production of A Little Night Music. During the evening the Huntington raised over $1 million to support its renowned education and community programs for the third consecutive year, thanks to the generosity of Spotlight Spectacular attendees and supporters.

The all-star cast from the Huntington’s hit production of A Little Night Music reunited throughout the evening to bring Sondheim’s most romantic musical to life once more. The evening also featured the presentation of the Gerard and Sherryl Cohen Awards for Excellence to Costume Design Assistant Mary Lauve and Calderwood Pavilion Rental Coordinator Katie Most. The 2016 Spotlight Spectacular was co-chaired by Neal Balkowitsch, Donald Nelson, and Jill Roberts.

Watch a video about the Huntington’s student matinees and education programs supported by proceeds from the Spotlight Spectacular at huntingtontheatre.org/education.

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Thank You! To learn more about the education and community programs made possible by wonderful supporters like you and the generous contributors at this yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Spotlight Spectacular, turn to page 22. Please consider deepening your impact by making a gift at huntingtontheatre.org/support.

photos: paul marotta

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STUDENT MATINEE SERIES

34 4,500+ 140,000+ Years

students attended a student matinee last season nile hawver

Learn more: huntingtontheatre.org/studentmatinee

students have attended a production at the Huntington!

“ I thank August Wilson for his work; it allowed me to express emotions I’ve never let out before. This experience not only made me a better actor, but helped me take steps toward being more open and willing to speak my mind. Participating in this program has helped make me a better person.” — Victoria Omoregie, 2016 Boston National Finalist student from Snowden International School at Copley

EDUCATION & COMMUNITY PROGRAMS

BY THE NUMBERS

Over the past 34 years, 560,000 students and underserved audience members have benefited from the Huntington’s nationally recognized education and community programs.

12 156,000 3,000,000

POETRY OUT LOUD

Years

students from 700 schools have participated in Massachusetts

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david marshall

students have participated from all 50 states, plus Washington, DC; Puerto Rico; and the US Virgin Islands

2017 registration opens September 6: huntingtontheatre.org/pol

AUGUST WILSON MONOLOGUE COMPETITION

2,300+ 1 11

BOSTON PUBLIC SCHOOL STUDENTS involved since 2011

national champion: 2014 Boston finalist Ashley Herbert david marshall

2017 registration opens September 6: huntingtontheatre.org/awmc

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Boston Public School residencies (7 additional schools joined when competition expanded last season)

SUMMER THEATRE INSTITUTE

SUMMERS

students participate each summer paul marotta

year partnership with Codman Academy Charter Public Schools

NOT WAITING on THE WORLD TO CHANGE

2015 20 2

LAUNCH DATE new anti-bullying initiative

participaNTS

new plays created: The View from Here and S.T.O.P.

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ANNOUNCING THE 2016-2017 STUDENT MATINEE SEASON! STUDENT MATINEE TICKETS ARE JUST $15! Performances start at 10am and are followed by lively Actors Forums with members of the cast. Student groups are also welcome at regularly scheduled performances. Our online curriculum guides are available for use in the classroom and include historical information, interesting facts about the production, lesson plans, and more.

Sunday in the Park with George September 29, 10am

Tiger Style! October 28, 10am November 3, 10am

A Doll’s House January 19, 10am

Topdog/Underdog March 30, 10am

The Who & the What April 15, 10am

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March 17, 10am Director of Education Donna Glick at the student matinee performance of A Little Night Music

SEATS FILL QUICKLY, RESERVE TODAY! FOR MORE INFORMATION AND TO RESERVE TICKETS: Meg O’Brien, Manager of Education Operations, at 617 273 1558 or mobrien@huntingtontheatre.org

ACCESSIBLE PROGRAMMING EXPANSION CONTINUES nile hawver

An ASL interpreter at a performance of A Little Night Music

The Huntington has long been committed to providing accessible programming for our patrons who are Deaf/deaf, hard-of-hearing, blind, and/or low-vision. We are delighted to be part of a national movement in arts organizations directed specifically towards improving accessibility and inclusivity in programming.

American Sign LanguageInterpreted Performances Sunday in the Park with George • September 23, 8pm / September 29, 10am Tiger Style! • November 3, 10am / November 4, 8pm A Doll’s House • January 19, 10am / January 27, 8pm Topdog/Underdog • March 17, 10am / March 24, 8pm

Audio-Described Performances Sunday in the Park with George • September 29, 10am / October 1, 2pm

We are proud to announce that for the first time, our 2016-2017 season will include ASL interpretation and audio description for 4 of our 7 productions. This is another positive step forward in a 5-year plan to provide accessible programming for every show in our season.

Bedroom Farce • November 19, 2pm / December 3, 2pm

Tickets are $20 for each patron and one additional guest. To reserve tickets, contact Meg O’Brien at mobrien@huntingtontheatre.org or 617 273 1558.

Topdog/Underdog • March 30, 10am / April 1, 2pm

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A Doll’s House • January 19, 10am / January 28, 2pm

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Amelia Alvarez, Will LeBow, and Carmen Roman in Melinda Lopez’ Sonia Flew the inaugural production of the Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA (2004)

Christina Pumariega and Marianna Bassham in Melinda Lopez’ Becoming Cuba (2014)

PLAYWRIGHT-IN-RESIDENCE MELINDA LOPEZ MAKES HER MARK ON THE HUNTINGTON Melinda Lopez has played a number of roles at the Huntington, from being an actor in productions such as Persephone and Our Town, to the playwright of Huntington productions of Sonia Flew and Becoming Cuba. But her current role as Playwright-in-Residence has brought her into the core of the Huntington’s artistic department and the everyday workings of the institution. In 2012, the prestigious Andrew W. Mellon Foundation selected Lopez for a grant to become the playwright-in-residence at the Huntington, one of 18 playwright/theatre pairings across the country. The foundation, in partnership with the arts innovators at HowlRound, created the National Playwright Residence Program to give playwrights the time and space needed to write without distraction, provide them with regular access to theatre resources and artistic leaders, and encourage institutional practices at theatres that are more inclusive of artists’ ideas and needs. The original residency provided three years of full-time salary and benefits as well as funds for artistic development, and this past April Lopez and the Huntington successfully applied to extend Lopez’ residence for another three years. As Playwright-in-Residence, Lopez regularly participates in Huntington artistic department meetings and planning sessions, attends performances and events, and has a permanent office within the Huntington’s administrative offices. She has hosted our Breaking Ground reading series, and leads a playwriting class for local theatre artists called Actors Write Plays. Being exposed to the ins and outs of the Huntington has been somewhat of a revelation to Lopez: I’ve gotten a crash course in how hard it is to run a theatre. How hard everyone works to keep the doors open, and how hard the staff works to maintain the level of excellence that I see every day at the Huntington. Sitting in season planning meetings, and understanding how much goes into picking the 7 plays that will represent an artistic vision, and also fit in the budget, and also represent our community, our artists, and also challenge our audiences… it’s been overwhelming — but in a critical way.

The daughter of Cuban immigrants, Lopez attracted national attention last spring when President Obama mentioned her by name in his historic speech in Havana. She had relayed the story of visiting Cuba and searching for her family’s old home — instead finding a woman who knew her family personally and retrieved a baby photo of Lopez from her home — to the state department through a friend. She had no idea that the story had made its way to the President until he said her name in his address to the Cuban people. It was a powerful reminder that “we must tell our stories — they may matter to someone and move someone.” She recently returned from a trip to Cuba, where she took her 15 year-old daughter for the first time. “I think there’s a play in there,” she says. This fall at ArtsEmerson, she will perform her newest play, Mala, an autobiographical, one-woman show about caring for her dying mother. “All of my plays are personal,” she says, “but this play has the deepest kind of truth for me. And there’s a complexity and an intense responsibility when you are both playwright and actor.” She is also working on a new translation of Yerma by Federico Garcia Lorca, making the classic play accessible to contemporary American audiences while remaining faithful to the original. “Lorca’s gorgeous poetry, when it erupts, is a necessary element,” she explains. Translating and adapting “stretches my craft in a different way.” “The experience being on staff at the Huntington has made me so humble to be a playwright,” Lopez exclaims. “It hasn’t made it easier to write, but it has made it more important that I continue to write.” The Huntington is proud to call Melinda Lopez our Playwright-in-Residence, and we look forward to more of her stories in the years to come.

The front page of The Boston Globe

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UPCOMING EVENTS Stage & Screen at the Coolidge Corner Theatre Stage & Screen is a collaboration between the Coolidge Corner Theatre and the Huntington and explores the depictions of shared themes in Huntington productions and acclaimed films. Our season lineup is:

BASQUIAT

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 12 AT 7PM IN CONJUNCTION WITH SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE In 1981, neo-Expressionist Jean-Michel Basquiat was a 19-year-old graffiti artist living on the streets of New York City. Eight years later, he was a world-renowned painter — and the victim of his own addiction. This film chronicles his meteoric rise in New York’s art world, his anguish over his family, and his hatred of a society that both courted and exploited him. With an all-star cast led by Jeffrey Wright and David Bowie, Basquiat is a stylish, powerful tribute to one of the art world’s brightest stars.

BOB & CAROL & TED & ALICE

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 14 AT 7PM IN CONJUNCTION WITH BEDROOM FARCE After returning to Los Angeles from a group therapy session, documentary filmmaker Bob Sanders (Robert Culp) and his wife Carol (Natalie Wood), find themselves becoming vigilante couples counselors, offering unsolicited advice to their best friends Ted (Elliott Gould) and Alice Henderson (Dyan Cannon). Not wanting to be rude, the Hendersons play along, but some latent sexual tension among the four soon comes bubbling to the surface, and long-buried desires don’t stay buried for long.

SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE

MONDAY, JANUARY 9 AT 7PM IN CONJUNCTION WITH A DOLL’S HOUSE Scenes from a Marriage chronicles the many years of love and turmoil that bind Marianne (Liv Ullmann) and Johan (Erland Josephson) through matrimony, infidelity, divorce, and subsequent partners. Shot in intense, intimate close-ups by master cinematographer Sven Nykvist and featuring flawless performances, Ingmar Bergman’s emotional x-ray reveals the intense joys and pains of a complex relationship.

MENACE II SOCIETY

MONDAY, MARCH 13 AT 7PM IN CONJUNCTION WITH TOPDOG/UNDERDOG After growing up turmoil and violence of the Los Angeles projects, 18-year-old Caine Lawson (Tyrin Turner) wants a way out. Everyone around him, including his unpredictable friend O-Dog (Larenz Tate), is trapped in their lives of crime and violence. With the help of his caring teacher (Charles Dutton) and supportive girlfriend (Jada Pinkett Smith), Caine plans to leave the city for good. But in a series of tragic events, Caine realizes that escape will not be easy.

Tickets are $13 ($10 for Huntington subscribers) and may be purchased online at coolidge.org or at the Coolidge box office, located at 290 Harvard Street, Brookline.

2016 Breaking Ground FESTIVAL OF NEW PLAY READINGS December 1 – 4, 2016

South End / Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA

LEARN MORE: huntingtontheatre.org/breakingground

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mike ritter

Join us for Breaking Ground, the Huntington’s festival of new play readings, a vital part of our new play development program. Breaking Ground plays have gone on to appear at the Huntington as well as theatres in Boston, across the country, and internationally. Readings are free and open to the public.

PERFORMANCE CALENDARS SEPTEMBER – December 2016

SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE S

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COLUMBUS DAY

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•2PM 7:30PM

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d2PM 7:30PM YOM KIPPUR

2PM 7:30PM

F •f8PM

c7:30PM

23 @ds10AM

24 @8PM

8PM

•2PM

people aged 21-35 complete with a post-show party. Visit huntingtontheatre.org/35below for more information.

•2PM

(@) ASL-INTERPRETED For Deaf and hard-of-hearing audience

~ •2PM

•2PM

8PM

( o) 35 BELOW WRAP PARTY A special evening for young

8PM

7:30PM

•f8PM

8PM

7:30PM

CALENDAR KEY 8PM

8PM

d7:30PM

29~

7:30PM

2PM 8PM

8PM

SEPTEMBER - OCTOBER 2016 TIGER STYLE! 16

2PM

SOUTH END / CALDERWOOD PAVILION AT THE BCA 16

•f7PM

19 f7:30PM

23 •2PM 24

7PM

26 2

h2PM

•2PM

ELECTION day

7:30PM

*7PM •2PM 7:30PM d2PM 7:30PM

14 21

8PM

28 7:30PM

•f8PM

c7:30PM

7:30PM

@ds10AM

8PM

29 •2PM

8PM

@8PM

Veteran’s day

d7:30PM

8PM

•f8PM

22 •2PM

7:30PM

ds10AM 8PM

•2PM

8PM

12 •2PM

8PM

OCTOBER - NOVEMBER 2016 BEDROOM FARCE 13

2PM

Braille

AVENUE OF THE ARTS / BU THEATRE 13 20 27 4

•f7PM h2PM 7PM

•2PM

11 2PM

16 f7:30PM

23 7:30PM

7:30PM

•2PM 5 7PM

*7PM •2PM

30 7:30PM

17 24

•f8PM

25 8PM

2 d7:30PM

~ •2PM

26 •2PM

8PM

~ •2PM

8PM

10 8PM

•f8PM 8PM

8PM

9 7:30PM

8PM

Thanksgiving Day

1 d2PM 7:30PM

18 7:30PM

7:30PM

7 7:30PM

Veteran’s day

•2PM

8PM

NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2016

members. See page 24 for more information.

(~) AUDIO-DESCRIBED For blind and low-visioned audience members. See page 24 for more information.

(d) ACTORS FORUM Participating members of the cast answer your questions following the performance.

(f ) FIRST LOOK (h) HUMANITIES FORUM A post-performance talk on the

historical and literary context of the show featuring a leading local scholar.

(•) POST-SHOW CONVERSATIONS Dynamic post-show

conversation with fellow audience members and Huntington staff. Please note this schedule has changed from years past. If you’d like to change your tickets to a performance with a post-show conversation please contact the Huntington Box Office to exchange your tickets.

( * ) PRESS OPENING NIGHT ( s ) STUDENT MATINEE For groups of students in grades 6-12. Call 617 273 1558 for more information.

TICKETS PRICES Start at $25 35 Below $30 for those 35 and under at every performance Students (25 and under) & Military $20 GROUPS (10+) Discounts are available for groups of 10 or more, plus groups have access to backstage tours, talks with artists, and space for receptions. Contact 617 273 1657 or groupsales@huntingtontheatre.org.

SUBSCRIBERS Receive $10 off any additional tickets purchased. Prices include a $3 per ticket Capital Enhancement fee.

HUNTINGTONTHEATRE.ORG 617 266 0800 HUNTINGTONTHEATRE.ORG

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NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION US POSTAGE PAID BOSTON, MA PERMIT # 52499

YOU’RE INVITED TO OUR 35TH ANNIVERSARY OPEN HOUSE! MONDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2016

Avenue of the Arts / BU Theatre Part of the Fenway Alliance’s Opening Our Doors Day celebration 10AM – 11AM exclusive access for subscribers only 11AM – 2PM open to the general public This is your last chance to go behind the scenes of the BU Theatre as it currently exists! Activities will include special performances, backstage tours, technical demonstrations, giveaways, and more — families welcome!

mike ritter

Master Electrician Katherine Herzig leads a backstage tour at the BU Theatre

• Enjoy the view of the audience from center stage

• Interact with our world-class staff and artists

• Explore the production shops where our awardwinning designs are brought to life

• Decorate a hat to take home in our “Finishing the Hat” crafting corner

• Learn more about the plans to revitalize our beautiful mainstage theatre

RSVP at huntingtontheatre.org/openhouse