GOD OF CARNAGE Electronic Press Kit

PRESS KIT

God of Carnage Press Release ......................................................................................................................................................2 Useful Links........................................................................................................................................................................................ 6 Photo Library......................................................................................................................................................................................7 Boston Globe Feature: “Setup for a showdown” ................................................................................................................... 9 Selections from Spotlight and the program ........................................................................................................................... 15 Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom Press Release................................................................................................................................. 21

Contact: Rebecca Curtiss, Communication Manager 617 273 1537  rcurtiss@huntingtontheatre.bu.edu Next Opening Night: Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom Press Opening Wednesday, March 14, 7pm, Avenue of the Arts / BU Theatre

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Rebecca Curtiss, rcurtiss@huntingtontheatre.bu.edu / 617 273 1537 PHOTOS: huntingtontheatre.org/news/photolibrary.aspx (see instructions at the bottom of this release)

TONY AND OLIVIER AWARD-WINNING SCATHING HIT COMEDY GOD OF CARNAGE BEGINS AT THE HUNTINGTON THEATRE COMPANY JANUARY 6 WHAT The Huntington Theatre Company continues its 30th Anniversary Season with the Tony and Olivier Award-winning scathing hit comedy God of Carnage by Yasmina Reza. Daniel Goldstein directs.

WHEN January 6 – February 5, 2011 Evenings: Tues. – Thurs. at 7:30pm; Fri. – Sat. at 8pm; Select Sun. at 7pm Matinees: Select Wed., Sat., and Sun. at 2pm Days and times vary; see complete schedule at end of release.

Press Opening: Wednesday, January 11, 7pm. RSVP online at huntingtontheatre.org/news.

WHERE BU Theatre, 264 Huntington Avenue, Boston – Avenue of the Arts

TICKETS Single tickets start at $25 and subscriptions are on sale:  online at huntingtontheatre.org;  by phone at 617 266 0800, or  in person at the BU Theatre Box Office, 264 Huntington Ave. and the Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA Box Office, 527 Tremont St. in Boston’s South End. $5 off: seniors $10 off: subscribers and BU community (faculty/staff/alumni) $25 “35 Below” tickets for patrons 35 years old and younger (valid ID required) $15 student and military tickets (valid ID required) (BOSTON) – The new year begins with a bang at Huntington Theatre Company, next presenting acclaimed French playwright Yasmina Reza’s scathing hit comedy of bad manners God of Carnage. Reza (Art, Conversations After a

Burial), known for skillfully turning social tragedies into riotous comedies, rips through the most basic social settings and into the heart and soul of two couples dealing with the mayhem of matrimony and parenthood in this “savagely entertaining” (Variety) Tony and Olivier Award winner. Daniel Goldstein (Falsettos, Godspell) directs Christopher Hampton’s translation of the searing comic dissection of parenting.

In the Broadway and international sensation God of Carnage, two sets of seemingly disparate parents meet for the first time. When Annette and Alan Raleigh’s son hits Michael and Veronica Novak’s with a stick in a nasty schoolyard tangle, the two couples meet to discuss the problem. But all attempts at civilized discussion quickly devolve into childlike behavior in this fast, furious, and very funny comedy of bad manners that The New Yorker calls, “ninety minutes of sustained mayhem.”

“Yasmina Reza’s play is witty, biting, ferocious, and unbelievably funny,” says Huntington Artistic Director Peter DuBois. “It’s for smart audiences to laugh with their neighbors – just right for a cold winter night in Boston.”

This month, filmmaker Roman Polanski’s translation/direction of God of Carnage is released. Entitled Carnage, the film stars Academy Award winners Jodie Foster, Kate Winslet, Christopher Waltz and Oscar nominee John C. Reilly.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS In God of Carnage, “highly skilled stage performers take on roles that allow them to rip the stuffing out of one another, tear up the scenery, stomp on their own vanity and have the time of their lives.” (The New York Times) Brooks Ashmanskas (Alan Raleigh) previously appeared at the Huntington in She Loves Me, Present Laughter (IRNE Award), and Amphitryon. He appeared on Broadway in Promises, Promises; Present Laughter; The Ritz; Martin Short: Fame Becomes Me; The Producers; Gypsy; Little Me; Dream; How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying; and On the Twentieth Century.

Johanna Day (Veronica Novak) previously appeared in the Huntington’s production of Carol Mulroney. Her Broadway credits include August: Osage County, Proof (Tony and Lucille Lortel Award nominations), and Lombardi.

Christy Pusz (Annette Raleigh) appeared in the Broadway productions of Talk Radio, The Odd Couple, Dinner at Eight, and Baz Luhrmann’s La Boheme. Off Broadway credits in The New Century (Lincoln Center Theater) and Homefront (La Mama ETC).

Stephen Bogardus (Michael Novak) appeared on Broadway in West Side Story, Les Miserables, Safe Sex, The Grapes of Wrath, King David, and White Christmas, and Off Broadway in the Falsettos trilogy. Regional credits include M. Butterfly (Arena Stage), Elegies (Canon Theatre), and James Joyce’s The Dead (Ahmanson Theatre and The Kennedy Center).

Yasmina Reza (playwright) is a multi-award-winning French playwright, novelist, and memoirist. Her work has been translated into more than 30 languages and produced worldwide, earning critical praise and popular international success. She is the author of seven plays including Conversations After a Burial (Molière Award), Winter Crossing (Molière Award), Art (Molière, Olivier and Tony Awards), The Unexpected Man, Life x 3, A Spanish Play, and God of Carnage; the novels Desolation, Adam Haberberg, and On Arthur Schopenhauer's Sledge; the memoirs Hammerklavier and Nulle part; and Dawn, Dusk, or Night, a nonfiction account of a year she spent trailing former French President (then-candidate) Nicolas Sarkozy on the campaign trail. Her film credits include Le Pique-Nique de

Lulu Kreutz directed by Didier Martiny, a translation of Kafka’s Metamorphosis for Roman Polanski, and Chicas, which she directed. Reza resides in Paris.

Daniel Goldstein (director) directed Falsettos (IRNE Award), Les Liaisons Dangereuses, and The Cry of the Reed for the Huntington. His revival of Godspell is currently running on Broadway. Recent credits include The Unauthorized Autobiography of Samantha Brown (Goodspeed/Broadway Across America) and Artificial Fellow Traveler with Ethan Sandler, as well as an upcoming production of Anna Christie at the Old Globe. As a writer, his musical Unknown Soldier (written with Michael Friedman for a Huntington Theatre Company Calderwood Commission) was at the O'Neill National Musical Theater Conference this past summer. Other projects include The Ride (NYC commercial), Golden Boy (Juilliard), True West (Williamstown Theater Festival), Miss Margarida's Way (Bay Street Theater, with Julie Halston), Lower Ninth (the Flea and SPF), and the Off Broadway commercial production of the hit Fringe Festival musical Walmartopia. He served as the associate director for All Shook Up! and Fully Committed and the Resident director for the First National Tour of Mamma Mia! He is a graduate of Northwestern University.

PRODUCTION ARTISTS Scenic design by Dane Laffrey (The Talls, The Other Place), costume design by Charles “Chip” Schoonmaker (A Long and Winding Road, Nine); lighting design by Tyler Micoleau (The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow, Dublin Carol); and sound design by Brett R. Jarvis (Two Trains Running). Production Stage Manager is Kevin Robert Fitzpatrick. Stage Manager is Amy Louise Weissenstein.

SPONSORS  Grand Patron: Boston University  30th Anniversary Sponsor: Carol G. Deane  Season Sponsor: J. David Wimberly  Production Co-Sponsors: Bill and Linda McQuillan

ABOUT THE HUNTINGTON Since its founding in 1982, the Huntington Theatre Company has developed into Boston’s leading theatre company.

Bringing together superb local and national talent, the Huntington produces a mix of groundbreaking new works and classics made current. Led by Artistic Director Peter DuBois and Managing Director Michael Maso, the Huntington creates award-winning productions, runs nationally renowned programs in education and new play development, and serves the local theatre community through its operation of the Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA. The Huntington is in residence at Boston University. For more information, visit huntingtontheatre.org. #

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MEDIA NOTES For interviews and more information, contact Communications Manager Rebecca Curtiss at rcurtiss@huntingtontheatre.bu.edu or 617 273 1537.

PHOTO DOWNLOAD INSTRUCTIONS To download high-resolution (or smaller) photos of God of Carnage : 1. Visit huntingtontheatre.org/news/photolibrary.aspx 2. Click on a thumbnail, and let the image load in your browser on the Flickr site. Note caption information is displayed below the image.

3. Click the Action button, located above the image on the Flickr site, and select View All Sizes.

4. Select the size you wish to download from the choices listed across the top of the image.

5. Let the image load in your browser, then right-click on it to save to your computer.

PRODUCTION CALENDAR AND RELATED EVENTS

Post-Show Audience Conversations

Humanities Forum

Ongoing

Sun. 1/29, following the 2pm performance

Led by members of the Huntington staff. After most

A post-performance talk exploring the context and

Tuesday - Friday, Saturday matinee, and Sunday matinee

significance of God of Carnage.

performances throughout the season. Free with a ticket to the performance.

Actors Forum Wed., 1/26 following the 7:30pm performance

35 Below Wrap Party

Wed., 2/1, following the 2pm performance

Fri. 1/6, following the 8pm performance

Participating cast members answer questions from the

A post-show wrap party with free drinks, live music, and

audience.

exclusive backstage access. $25 ticket includes admission to both performance and party. Learn more at

Audio-Described Performance

huntingtontheatre.org/35Below.

Sat., 1/28 at 2pm

USEFUL LINKS: GOD OF CARNAGE 

Dramaturgical articles on playwright Yasmina Reza, New York parenting, and more: huntingtontheatre.org/season/1112/carnage/multimedia.aspx#ARTICLES

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Video of an interview between director Daniel Goldstein and Peter DuBois, a teaser trailer, and more: huntingtontheatre.org/season/1112/carnage/multimedia.aspx#VIDEO

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Biographical information about the artists who created and perform in this production: huntingtontheatre.org/season/1112/carnage/whos-who.aspx



High-resolution production photos – available for download: huntingtontheatre.org/news/photo/1112/carnage.aspx



The spring issue of Spotlight, the Huntington’s magazine: huntingtontheatre.org/season/1112/spotlight/index.aspx

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Huntington Theatre Company website: huntingtontheatre.org

PHOTO LIBRARY God of Carnage

by Yasmina Reza Translated by Christopher Hampton Directed by Daniel Goldstein January 5 – February 5, 2012 Avenue of Arts / BU Theatre Available at huntingtontheatre.org/news/photo/1112/carnage.aspx

GodofCarnage_Huntington_112 Johanna Day, Brooks Ashmanskas, Stephen Bogardus, and Christy Pusz in Yasmina Reza’s GOD OF CARNAGE. January 5 – February 6 at the BU Theatre. huntingtontheatre.org. Photo: T. Charles Erickson

GodofCarnage_Huntington_167 Christy Pusz and Brooks Ashmanskas in Yasmina Reza’s GOD OF CARNAGE. January 5 – February 6 at the BU Theatre. huntingtontheatre.org. Photo: T. Charles Erickson

GodofCarnage_Huntington_174 Johanna Day and Christy Pusz in Yasmina Reza’s GOD OF CARNAGE. January 5 – February 6 at the BU Theatre. huntingtontheatre.org. Photo: T. Charles Erickson

GodofCarnage_Huntington_047 Stephen Bogardus, Brooks Ashmanskas, Christy Pusz, and Johanna Day in Yasmina Reza’s GOD OF CARNAGE. January 5 – February 6 at the BU Theatre. huntingtontheatre.org. Photo: T. Charles Erickson

GodofCarnage_Huntington_020 Brooks Ashmanskas and Christy Pusz in Yasmina Reza’s GOD OF CARNAGE. January 5 – February 6 at the BU Theatre. huntingtontheatre.org. Photo: T. Charles Erickson

GodofCarnage_Huntington_155 Christy Pusz in Yasmina Reza’s GOD OF CARNAGE. January 5 – February 6 at the BU Theatre. huntingtontheatre.org. Photo: T. Charles Erickson

GodofCarnage_Huntington_035 Johanna Day in Yasmina Reza’s GOD OF CARNAGE. January 5 – February 6 at the BU Theatre. huntingtontheatre.org. Photo: T. Charles Erickson

GodofCarnage_Huntington_045 Stephen Bogardus in Yasmina Reza’s GOD OF CARNAGE. January 5 – February 6 at the BU Theatre. huntingtontheatre.org. Photo: T. Charles Erickson

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“Hilarious!”

— ASSOCIATED PRESS

“Gleefully nasty fun!”

— NEW YORK POST

“90 minutes of laughter that comes from the gut.”

— THE NEW YORK TIMES

The Tony and Olivier Award-winning international sensation by the author of Art comes to the Huntington! Two sets of parents meet for the first time to settle their sons’ nasty schoolyard tangle. But all attempts at civilized discussion quickly devolve into childlike behavior in this fast, furious, and very funny comedy of bad manners.

Yasmina Reza

GOD OF CARNAGE:

THE REFLECTIVE CANVAS

“Yasmina Reza’s play is witty, biting, ferocious, and unbelievably funny. It’s for smart audiences to laugh with their neighbors — just right for a cold winter night in Boston.” – PETER DUBOIS Sometimes the best comedy comes from a place that is uncomfortably close. As Yasmina Reza dives headfirst into the lives of two families, we see four practical parents. A playground altercation between their two children sets the stage for a levelheaded mediation — or so we think. What starts as a civilized meeting over coffee and clafouti, ends in a barbaric eruption of anxiety and accusations.

Annette and Alan, parents of the alleged culprit, leave neither their outside lives nor their resentment at the door to Michael and Veronica’s. Annette, a posh “wealth manager,” and Alan, a preoccupied lawyer, want to keep the confrontation short and sweet. Michael, an overworked hardware salesman, and his humanitarian wife, Veronica, instead demand the four compose an extensive peace treaty. Both parties begin by standing behind their own child’s actions, but enemy lines quickly muddle, and slinging criticisms turn personal between partners. Allies become enemies and a cluster of pointed assaults, pent-up aggression, and spewing bodily functions leave a literal and metaphorical mess for the audience to mop up.

At first glance, Yasmina Reza’s plays seem simple: one set, a handful of characters, one conversation. Her award-winning play Art follows four friends discussing a white canvas, The Unexpected Man illustrates an internal monologue between a pair in a train car, and God of Carnage follows a conversation between two families. On the surface, her stories are spare.

However, the meat of the work is within her characters. She populates her stories with extreme characters, surprising in their likeability, that are polar

opposites. Leaving the design elements relatively simple, she has created a canvas where her characters can explode.

Like any good satirist, Reza tricks us into laughing. In God of Carnage, Annette gets so exasperated with her husband’s incessant interrupting phone calls that she becomes physically ill. Not only is the bile outlandish on multiple fronts, it allows us to laugh at the absurdity to follow. As we find comfort in the laughter, Reza reveals a harsher criticism of ourselves. Annette lashes out, “That cell phone makes mincemeat of our lives!” Unearthing the truth, Reza notes, “My plays have always been described as comedy but I think they’re tragedy. They are funny tragedy, but they are tragedy. Maybe it’s a new genre.” Reza uses farce to accomplish the goal of comedy — getting us to laugh at ourselves. She emphasizes her characters’ shadows to paint a portrait as grotesque as it is enthralling.

Seeing four grownups scuffle with the same behavior akin to their children is cathartic. John Lahr of The New Yorker points out, “As Freud tells us in ‘Civilization and Its Discontents,’ we have to repress our infantile aggression in order for civilization to survive. But it’s worth paying top dollar to see those feelings acted out.” As audience members, we can sit back and point out the flaws in the people being portrayed. However with Reza there is a twist. She hands us a red pen for one hand, but a mirror for the other.

- REBECCA BRADSHAW

LEARN MORE ONLINE Visit the Learn & Explore section of huntingtontheatre.org/carnage to read an article on playwright Yasmina Reza and translator Christopher Hampton, see images of the set model, and more.

HUNTINGTONTHEATRE.ORG

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T. CHARLES ERICKSON

T. CHARLES ERICKSON

God of Carnage Director Daniel Goldstein previously directed the Huntington’s productions of Falsettos (left, 2005) and The Cry of the Reed with Darren Pettie and Lisa Birnbaum (2008).

ONE MANHATTAN PARENT AN INTERVIEW WITH DIRECTOR DANIEL GOLDSTEIN When we hired you to direct God of Carnage you were single and childless. Now you’re a married man with a six-week old child, not to mention you’ve directed Godspell, which opened on Broadway in November. So, what’s that been like for you?

It’s crazy circumstances. We had a baby a week away from tech for my first Broadway show. I left work on a Saturday and I came back on a Tuesday and I had a kid. All of a sudden I was a different person. It is funny, who plans these things?

Part of the comedy of this play rests on the kind of competition and judgment parents are subject to. Have you felt any of that yet?

Daniel Goldstein

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BOX OFFICE 617 266 0800

Oh, completely. Even before you have a kid, you have to decide what kind of birth experience you want to have and that is fraught with judgment. Then you think you’re going to be a parent who, say, believes in public education. But once the baby is born, you’re worrying about filing an application to get her into the right preschool that will get her into the right private school that will get her into the right college.

It’s easy to get sucked in.

CURTAIN CALLS NAME ROLE HOMETOWN

BROOKS ASHMANSKAS ALAN RALEIGH PORTLAND, OREGON

HOW DID YOU SPEND YOUR DAYS ON THE PLAYGROUND? Weeping.

WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE HUNTINGTON MEMORY? I have very fond memories of playing Georg Nowak in She Loves Me there years ago, but I always have a great time working in Boston.

Set model of the God of Carnage by set designer Dana Laffrey.

NAME ROLE HOMETOWN

STEPHEN BOGARDUS MICHAEL NOVAK RIVERSIDE, CONNECTICUT

IF I COULD ACT LIKE A CHILD FOR A DAY I WOULD... flirt with the prettiest girl in the classroom.

TO ANOTHER: HUNTINGTON DIRECTOR OF NEW WORK LISA TIMMEL,

WHO SPLITS HER TIME BETWEEN BOSTON AND NEW YORK CITY, RECENTLY CHATTED WITH DANIEL GOLDSTEIN, THE DIRECTOR

HOW ARE YOU LIKE OR NOT LIKE YOUR CHARACTER? My character owns a wholesale company and sells household goods. My hobby is carpentry and construction. I renovated my own apartment and built my kitchen from scratch. To me, spending an entire day in Home Depot is bliss.

NAME ROLE HOMETOWN

OF GOD OF CARNAGE, ABOUT LIFE AS A NEW PARENT.

JOHANNA DAY VERONICA NOVAK SPERRYVILLE, VIRGINIA, IN THE BLUE RIDGE MOUNTAINS

IF I COULD ACT LIKE A CHILD FOR A DAY I WOULD... be the oldest, as I am the youngest of 9 children.

The parents in God of Carnage are awfully infantile. Michael whines that “Children consume our lives and then destroy them ...

When you see those laughing couples casting off into the sea of matrimony, you say to yourself, they have no idea, poor things.”

Do you feel you were sufficiently warned by your friends on the other side of the parenting divide?

The one thing that annoyed me was the jerks that would smugly say “Just you wait. Get your sleep now. It’s gonna change your life for ever.

Just you wait. You don’t even know.” I hate those people. I hate them with a vengeance. We all know the kids are going to change our lives.

That’s why you have a kid — to change your life. It’s hard, but Michael’s looking at it the wrong way. I was getting four hours of sleep a night in the middle of the craziness with Godspell. I could say that it’s a problem, or I could say I get to go do a Broadway show and now I get to go home to my daughter, to the person I’m doing it all for. It’s a matter of perspective.

HOW ARE YOU LIKE OR NOT LIKE YOUR CHARACTER? I have been to Africa. I have never written a book. I do attempt to keep the peace. My character is probably much smarter than I am, although I fake it pretty well!

NAME ROLE HOMETOWN

CHRISTY PUSZ ANNETTE RALEIGH SHEEPSHEAD BAY, BROOKLYN, NY

HOW DID YOU SPEND YOUR DAYS ON THE PLAYGROUND? I was a big playground kid. My friends and I rode our bikes in a pack through the streets and would play for hours. There were a lot of daring and dangerous games involving tire swings and monkey bars.

WHAT IS YOUR MOST MEMORABLE ACTING ROLE? I loved working on the independent film Almost in Love.

The director, Sam Neave, wrote an outline of the script and had the actors improv it in their own words. We filmed the movie in two continuous 45-minute takes — so it was almost like being in a play.

LEARN MORE ONLINE Visit huntingtontheatre.org/carnage for expanded interviews with the cast.

SEE PAGE 27 FOR SHOW PERFORMANCE CALENDAR AND EVENT LISTINGS HUNTINGTONTHEATRE.ORG

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THEATRE OF NERVES

Yasmina Reza 10 God of Carnage

“Laughter is always a problem and is very dangerous,” says Parisian playwright Yasmina Reza, who is often surprised when English-speaking audiences laugh through her plays. Her translator, renowned British dramatist Christopher Hampton, doesn’t believe “it compromises the seriousness of the play in the least to have the audience laughing.” Reza explains, “The way people laugh changes the way you see a play.

My plays have always been described as comedy but I think they’re tragedy. They are funny tragedy, but they are tragedy. Maybe it’s a new genre.”

Reza’s approach to theatre—she occasionally directs and acts in her own work—is deeply influenced by her training at the International Theater Jacques Lecoq in Paris, which concentrated on physical and spatial awareness. As Reza says, “I think, write, and direct with my body.” The highly flawed nature of her characters has its roots in her relationship with her father, a Russian Jew of Iranian nationality. Recalling him, she says he “didn’t know how to be a father. Yet his brutality wasn’t malicious. He was violent but loving. And I understood from our relations that human beings can’t be reduced.

Without that revelation, I couldn’t have become a writer.”

As her relationship with her father suggests, Reza has pulled some of her best ideas from real life. The idea for God of Carnage, for example, came to her in the street, while walking her son home from school. “I was talking to the mother of one of his classmates,” she recalls. “Her son had suffered a broken tooth following a fight on the playground, and she said to me, ‘Do you realize: the parents haven’t even called to apologize!’ I immediately thought that there was an interesting theme here.”

The idea of four parents in a room after a playground fight is exactly the kind of scenario Reza finds appealing. She specializes in situations in which the veneer of social niceties is slowly stripped away, exposing an underbelly of raw impulse. As one critic puts it, Reza “dissects the bourgeoisie with the playfulness and insouciance of a child discovering life by dismembering insects.” Reza herself explains, “My work is visceral and subjective. I’m interested in the banal, unguarded moments and the hairline fractures in a character that let the light through.” Collectively, she calls her eight plays “theatre of nerves.”

These moments of bared human emotion balance on the knife-edge between deadly serious and deadly funny. The Independent columnist Agnes Poirier finds that critics have variously called Reza’s humor “incisive, cruel, bitter, furious, narcissistic, compact, vicious, and stinging.” She herself calls it a “typically Jewish distancing device that laughs at catastrophe.” While French audiences meet Reza’s wit with dry chuckles (especially when Reza is directing), English-speaking audiences find her plays uproarious, even farcical. After the West End premiere of Reza’s highly successful play Art left the audience in stitches, she turned to Hampton, bemused, and asked, “What have you done?”

- Rachel Carpman

HUNTINGTON THEATRE COMPANY 11

Christy Pusz (Annete Raleigh) and Brooks Ashmanskas (Alan Raleigh).

On the Art of Coexistence On Philosophy "There is nothing useless about philosophy. On the contrary, I would like philosophy to recover its original function: as an art of living.”

– Yasmina Reza “If [Reza’s] work had a house philosopher, it would probably be Thomas Hobbes.”

– Judith Thurman, The New Yorker

On the nature of aggression “So that in the nature of man, we find three principal causes of quarrel. First competition, secondly diffidence, thirdly glory. The first maketh men invade for gain; the second, for safety; and the third for reputation. The first use violence, to make themselves masters of other men’s persons, wives, children, and cattle; the second, to defend them; the third, for trifles, as a word, a smile, a different opinion, and any other sign of undervalue, either direct in their persons or by reflection in their kindred, their friends, their nation, their profession, or their name.”

– Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan

12 God of Carnage

PAUL MAROTTA

Stephen Bogardus (Michael Novak) and Johanna Day (Veronica Novak).

On the commonwealth “The final cause, end, or design of men (who naturally love liberty, and dominion over others) in the introduction of that restraint upon themselves…is the foresight of their own preservation, and of a more contented life thereby; that is to say, of getting themselves out from that miserable condition of war which is necessarily consequent, as hath been shown, to the natural passions of men when there is no visible power to keep them in awe, and tie them by fear of punishment to the performance of their covenants…”

– Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan

On repression and self-control “It is impossible to overlook the extent to which civilization has been built upon a renunciation of instincts.”

– Sigmund Freud, Civilization and its Discontents “Civilization, therefore, obtains the mastery over the dangerous love of aggression in individuals by enfeebling and disarming it and setting up an institution within their minds to keep watch over it, like a garrison in a conquered city.”

– Sigmund Freud, Civilization and its Discontents

On civilization “[German Sociologist Norbert] Elias’s theory…attributes the decline in European violence to a larger psychological change. He proposed that over a span of several centuries…Europeans increasingly inhibited their impulses, anticipated the long-term consequences of their actions, and took other people’s thoughts and feelings into consideration. A culture of honor—the readiness to take revenge—gave way to a culture of dignity — the readiness to control one’s emotions.”

– Steven Pinker, the Better Angels of our Nature

HUNTINGTON THEATRE COMPANY 13

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Rebecca Curtiss, rcurtiss@huntingtontheatre.bu.edu / 617 273 1537 PHOTOS: huntingtontheatre.org/news/photolibrary.aspx (see instructions at the bottom of this release)

HUNTINGTON COMPLETES PULITZER PRIZE AND TONY AWARD WINNER AUGUST WILSON’S CENTURY CYCLE WITH MA RAINEY’S BLACK BOTTOM –BEGINS MARCH 9 WHAT The Huntington Theatre Company continues its 30th Anniversary Season with the powerful and moving drama Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, completing August Wilson’s Century Cycle. Liesl Tommy (Ruined) directs the production that stars Yvette Freeman (NBC’s “ER”) as blues singer Ma Rainey.

WHEN March 9 – April 8, 2012 Evenings: Tues. – Thurs. at 7:30pm; Fri. – Sat. at 8pm; Select Sun. at 7pm Matinees: Select Wed., Sat., and Sun. at 2pm Days and times vary; see complete schedule at end of release.

Press Opening: Wednesday, March 14, 7pm. RSVP online at huntingtontheatre.org/news.

WHERE BU Theatre, 264 Huntington Avenue, Boston – Avenue of the Arts

TICKETS Single tickets start at $25. FlexPass subscriptions are also on sale:  online at huntingtontheatre.org;  by phone at 617 266 0800, or  in person at the BU Theatre Box Office, 264 Huntington Ave. and the Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA Box Office, 527 Tremont St. in Boston’s South End. $5 off: seniors $10 off: subscribers and BU community (faculty/staff/alumni) $25 “35 Below” tickets for patrons 35 years old and younger (valid ID required) $15 student and military tickets (valid ID required)

(BOSTON) – The Huntington Theatre Company presents Tony and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright August Wilson’s first Broadway hit, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, completing the Huntington’s mounting of Wilson’s Century Cycle. Liesl Tommy, director of the Huntington’s acclaimed 2011 production of Ruined, returns. The ensemble stars “ER” cast member Yvette Freeman as the legendary blues singer Ma Rainey and features local rising star Jason Bowen (Ruined, A Civil War Christmas at the Huntington) as Levee and favorites Thomas Derrah (Red) and Will LeBow (The Cherry Orchard).

In the play, a quartet of blues musicians gather in a run-down 1920s Chicago studio waiting for legendary blues singer Ma Rainey to arrive to record new sides of her old favorites. Young, hotheaded trumpeter Levee aspires to a better life for himself and sees the emerging form of the blues as his ticket to fame and fortune. When he clashes with veteran musicians Toledo and Cutler and Ma Rainey spars with her white music producers, generational and racial tensions explode in the powerful and moving drama Newsweek calls, “Extraordinary.”

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is the first of ten plays August Wilson wrote that became his Century Cycle, one chronicling the African-American experience of each decade of the 20th century. Wilson wrote Fences and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom before establishing his relationship with the Huntington, but beginning in 1986 with Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, the Huntington and Boston audiences enjoyed a special relationship with Wilson who came to consider the Huntington an artistic home. Here, he mounted early productions of seven of his Cycles plays before their New York productions.

“August would spend six weeks here working on each play,” recalls Huntington Managing Director Michael Maso. “At times, I would see the next play come to life in front of me as he started to talk about the characters that were still in his head and what he was discovering about them. Here at the Huntington, we had the privilege of seeing some of these stories come to life in his head before he ever wrote a word down.”

“I have a long and valued relationship with the Huntington. They have contributed enormously to my development as a playwright, and I guard that relationship jealously,” Wilson remarked in 2004.

The Huntington staged Radio Golf, the final play of his Cycle, in 2006, shortly after his untimely death at 62 from liver cancer. In 2009, the Huntington produced Wilson’s second play, Fences. The production, helmed by Kenny Leon (Fences and Stick Fly, both on Broadway) received the 2010 Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding Production (large theatre).

“When I first arrived at the Huntington, one of the questions I was asked most frequently by members of our audience was when would we complete August Wilson’s magnificent Century Cycle,” says Artistic Director Peter DuBois. “This production closes such a meaningful chapter in the Huntington’s history. Ma Rainey’s exemplifies Wilson’s true jazz-poet genius.”

ABOUT THE ARTISTS The cast includes:  Joniece Abbott-Pratt (Dussie Mae): Gem of the Ocean (Hartford Stage), The Piano Lesson (Yale Rep);  Corey Allen (Sylvester): A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Great River Shakespeare Festival), The Fall of Heaven (The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis);  Jason Bowen (Levee): Ruined, Prelude to a Kiss, and A Civil War Christmas (Huntington Theatre Company), The Merry Wives of Windsor and Twelfth Night (Actors’ Shakespeare Project),

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Thomas Derrah (Sturdyvant): Red (SpeakEasy Stage Company), End Game (American Repertory Theater); Yvette Freeman (Ma Rainey): NBC’s “ER” for all fifteen seasons (Nurse Haleh Adams); Dinah Was (Long Beach International Theatre), Ain’t Misbehavin’ (first national tour); Will LeBow (Irvin): Bus Stop, The Cherry Orchard, and Sonia Flew (Huntington Theatre Company), Full Circle and The Merchant of Venice (American Repertory Theater); Timothy J. Smith (Policeman): Candide and Prelude to a Kiss (Huntington Theatre Company), Nine (SpeakEasy Stage Company); G. Valmont Thomas (Cutler): Radio Golf (Syracuse Stage), She Loves Me (Angus Bowmer Theatre); Glenn Turner (Slow Drag): A Chorus Line (Broadway), Langston in Harlem (Urban Stages); and Charles Weldon (Toledo): To Kill a Mockingbird (Denver Center Theatre Company), The Picture Box (The Negro Ensemble Company).

August Wilson (playwright) authored Gem of the Ocean, Joe Turner's Come and Gone, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, The Piano Lesson, Seven Guitars, Fences, Two Trains Running, Jitney, King Hedley II, and Radio Golf. These works explore the heritage and experience of African-Americans decade-by-decade over the course of the 20th century.

Mr. Wilson's plays have been produced at regional theatres across the country and all over the world, as well as on Broadway. In 2003, Mr. Wilson made his professional stage debut in his one-man show, How I Learned What I Learned. Mr. Wilson's works garnered many awards, including Pulitzer Prizes for Fences (1987) and for The Piano Lesson (1990); a Tony Award for Fences; Great Britain's Olivier Award for Jitney; as well as eight New York Drama Critics Circle Awards for Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, Fences, Joe Turner's Come and Gone, The Piano Lesson, Two Trains Running, Seven Guitars, Jitney, and Radio Golf. The cast recording of Ma Rainey's Black Bottom received a 1985 Grammy Award. Mr. Wilson received a 1995 Emmy Award nomination for his screenplay adaptation of The Piano Lesson. His early works included the one-act plays The Janitor, Recycle, The Coldest Day of the Year, Malcolm X, The Homecoming, and the musical satire Black Bart and the Sacred Hills. Mr. Wilson received many fellowships and awards, including Rockefeller and Guggenheim Fellowships in Playwriting, the Whiting Writers Award, 2003 Heinz Award, a 1999 National Humanities Medal awarded by the President of the United States, and received numerous honorary degrees from colleges and universities, as well as the only high school diploma ever issued by the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh. He was an alumnus of New Dramatists, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a 1995 inductee into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and on October 16, 2005, Broadway named the theatre located at 245 West 52nd Street The August Wilson Theatre. Additionally, Mr. Wilson was posthumously inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame in 2007. Mr. Wilson was born and raised in the Hill District of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and lived in Seattle, Washington at the time of his death.

Liesl Tommy (director) previously directed Ruined for the Huntington Theatre Company/Berkeley Repertory Theatre/ La Jolla Playhouse. Other credits include Peggy Pickett Sees the Face of God by Roland Schimmelpfennig (world premiere, Luminato Festival/Volcano Theatre); Ruined by Lynn Nottage (Oregon Shakespeare Festival); Eclipsed by Danai Gurira (world premiere, Yale Repertory Theatre, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, McCarter Theatre); Angela’s Mixtape by Eisa Davis (world premiere, Synchronicity Performance Group, New Georges); The Good Negro by Tracey Scott Wilson (world premiere, The Public Theater/NYSF, Sundance Theatre Institute, Dallas Theater Center); A History of Light by Eisa Davis (world premiere, Contemporary American Theatre Festival); Yankee Tavern and Stick Fly (CATF); A Christmas Carol (Trinity Repertory Company); In the Continuum (Playmakers Repertory Company); Flight (City Theatre); A Stone’s Throw by Lynn Nottage (world premiere, Women’s Project); and Bus and Family Ties (Cristian Panaite Play Company) for the Romania Kiss Me! Festival. Ms. Tommy was awarded the NEA/TCG Directors Grant and the New York Theatre Workshop Casting/Directing Fellowship and is a New York Theatre Workshop Usual Suspect. She has also been a guest director and teacher at The Juilliard School, Trinity

Rep/Brown University’s MFA Directing and Acting Program, and NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. She is a graduate of Newton North High School and a native of Cape Town, South Africa.

PRODUCTION ARTISTS Scenic design and costume design by Clint Ramos (Ruined, A Raisin in the Sun); lighting design by Marcus Doshi (La Voix Humaine, 21st Century Liederabend); sound design and music direction by Broken Chord Collective (Ruined, The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow).

SPONSORS  Grand Patron: Boston University  30th Anniversary Sponsor: Carol G. Deane  Season Sponsor: J. David Wimberly

ABOUT THE HUNTINGTON Since its founding in 1982, the Huntington Theatre Company has developed into Boston’s leading theatre company.

Bringing together superb local and national talent, the Huntington produces a mix of groundbreaking new works and classics made current. Led by Artistic Director Peter DuBois and Managing Director Michael Maso, the Huntington creates award-winning productions, runs nationally renowned programs in education and new play development, and serves the local theatre community through its operation of the Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA. The Huntington is in residence at Boston University. For more information, visit huntingtontheatre.org. #

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MEDIA NOTES For interviews and more information, contact Communications Manager Rebecca Curtiss at rcurtiss@huntingtontheatre.bu.edu or 617 273 1537.

PHOTO DOWNLOAD INSTRUCTIONS To download high-resolution (or smaller) photos of Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom : 1. Visit huntingtontheatre.org/news/photolibrary.aspx 2. Click on a thumbnail, and let the image load in your browser on the Flickr site. Note caption information is displayed below the image.

3. Click the Action button, located above the image on the Flickr site, and select View All Sizes.

4. Select the size you wish to download from the choices listed across the top of the image.

5. Let the image load in your browser, then right-click on it to save to your computer.

PRODUCTION CALENDAR AND RELATED EVENTS

Post-Show Audience Conversations

ASL-Interpreted Performance

Ongoing

Thurs., 3/29 at 10am, Friday, 3/30 at 8pm

Led by members of the Huntington staff. After most Tuesday - Friday, Saturday matinee, and Sunday matinee

Humanities Forum

performances throughout the season. Free with a ticket

Sun. 3/25, following the 2pm performance

to the performance.

A post-performance talk exploring the context and significance of Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.

35 Below Wrap Party Fri. 3/9, following the 8pm performance

Actors Forum

A post-show wrap party with drinks, live music, and

Thurs., 3/29 following the 10am student matinee

exclusive backstage access. $25 ticket includes admission

Wed., 4/4, following the 2pm performance

to both performance and party. Learn more at

Thurs., 4/5 following the 10am student matinee

huntingtontheatre.org/35Below.

Participating cast members answer questions from the audience.

Student Matinee Performances Thurs. 3/29 and 4/5 at 10am