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GREAT PLAYS BEGIN WITH GREAT STORIES
GOOD PEOPLE NOW OR LATER BETRAYAL OUR TOWN THE CHAIRMAN’S CHALLENGE: WE DID IT! HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE HUNTINGTON PERFORMANCE CALENDARS
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COMPELLING SOUTHIE STORY
GOOD PEOPLE SEPT. 14 – OCT. 14 EDGY POLITICAL DRAMA
NOW OR LATER OCT. 12 – NOV. 10
RAZOR-SHARP DRAMA
BETRAYAL NOV. 9 – DEC. 9 POWERFUL AMERICAN CLASSIC
INVISIBLE MAN JAN. 4 – FEB. 3 TIMELESS FAMILY STORY
A RAISIN IN THE SUN MAR. 8 – APR. 7
NIGHTMARISH GOOD TIME
“M” MAR. 29 – APR. 27 BITING NEW COMEDY
RAPTURE, BLISTER, BURN MAY 24 – JUNE 22 PLUS, A LANDMARK THEATRICAL EXPERIENCE ONCE-IN-A-LIFETIME EVENT
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OUR TOWN DEC. 7 – JAN. 13
JOIN US FOR OUR 2012 - 2013 SEASON GREAT PLAYS BEGIN WITH GREAT STORIES For the past 30 years, Huntington audiences have enjoyed a dynamic collection of exciting new work and classics made current, the best Boston and national talent, and world-class production values — our 2012-2013 Season promises all of this and more.
“ We have assembled an incredible team of artists for our 2012-2013 Season. We will feature radically different approaches to adaptation, fresh investigations of classics by world-class directors, and important plays that spring from our own backyard. In conversation with each other, the plays will create dynamic collisions of ideas, stories, and perspectives.” – PETER DuBOIS, ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
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“Enthralling and utterly gripping!” – LOS ANGELES TIMES
Braille
In South Boston, this month’s paycheck covers last month’s bills, bingo is a night on the town, and sharp-tongued singlemom Margie Walsh has just been let go from yet another job. Scrambling to make ends meet, she looks up an old flame, hoping he’ll help her make a fresh start in this humor-filled drama from Pulitzer Prize winner and Boston native David Lindsay-Abaire about how twists of fate determine our path.
“David’s play explores complex social questions about class, luck, and escaping our roots with electric energy and sharp humor. Our production marks a homecoming for him, Director Kate Whoriskey, and this local story.” – PETER DuBOIS
David Lindsay-Abaire
THE GOOD PERSON OF SOUTHIE: DAVID LINDSAY-ABAIRE’S NEW PLAY COMES HOME
“No, I know. You’re a good guy, Mikey. I’m just bustin’ balls. You’re good people. I always said that about you. You are good people, right?” – MARGIE, GOOD PEOPLE When sharp-tongued single mother Margie loses her minimum wage job at the Dollar General in South Boston, she has to find a new one quick. Rent is due at the end of the month, and she has been living paycheck-topaycheck. She can’t go to the Gillette plant, and none of her friends can help her — except maybe one, her high school summer fling who got out of the neighborhood and is now a fertility doctor out in Chestnut Hill. Their interaction creates the central spark for playwright David Lindsay-Abaire’s newest play Good People. South Boston native David Lindsay-Abaire’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play Rabbit Hole was staged at the Huntington in 2006. He explains that he had avoided writing about his own neighborhood, but the idea came back when he started thinking about a play about class. “I kept hearing over and over again about British playwrights writing about class in their country, and people were asking, ‘Where are the new American plays about class?’” he recalls. “I asked myself if I were to write a play on the subject, what would that be? I knew I wasn’t interested in writing any didactic, message-laden play, so I put it aside for a while [but then] thought, ‘Wait a minute, if I write about Southie in any way, class will inevitably bubble up to the surface.’” In exploring this serious subject, Lindsay-Abaire created a nuanced and incredibly funny exploration of getting by in America. “I thought I had written another naturalistic drama,” he says. “On Broadway, [Good People] got wallto-wall laughs, more laughs than any of my comedies. It was surprising.” Lindsay-Abaire’s fresh perspective on class springs from a personal history that breaks down any binary concept of the haves and have-nots. “I grew up in Boston and spent many-a-summer with my dad selling fruit out of the
back of his truck on a corner of Huntington Avenue right across the street from the BU Theatre wondering what kinds of plays were performed inside,” says Lindsay-Abaire. “Needless to say, it was both thrilling and surreal to be inside that very theatre in 2006 watching the Huntington’s wonderful production of my play Rabbit Hole. I’m excited to be back with Good People, which is very much about and inspired by my hometown. It’s about choices and luck, and lack of both. It’s about the good people sitting inside that building in plush theatre seats, and the equally good people selling fruit out on the corner.” Good People is not autobiographical, but Lindsay-Abaire shares a biographical detail with the Chestnut Hill doctor, Mike Dillon. Both got out of the neighborhood on a scholarship from the Boys and Girls Clubs of America. Lindsay-Abaire has remarked on the luck involved in a scholarship. His, which enabled him to attend Milton Academy, was awarded only every six years, and he happened to be the right age at the right time. The scholarship was also given mainly to athletes, but a concerned and impassioned teacher campaigned on his behalf. This incident illuminated for Lindsay-Abaire the intersection of chance and opportunity. “We have this myth that if you work hard, you can accomplish anything,” he says. “It’s not a very American thing to say, but I don’t think that’s true. It’s true for a lot of people, but you need other things to succeed. You need luck, you need opportunity, and you need the life skills to recognize what an opportunity is.” - CHARLES HAUGLAND
LEARN MORE ONLINE Visit huntingtontheatre.org/goodpeople to watch a video about how David Lindsay-Abaire took the threads of his working-class South Boston roots and spun them into Good People.
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Rooftops of Southie.
A PORTRAIT OF A NEIGHBORHOOD: SOUTH BOSTON IN POP CULTURE
To create a picture of his hometown onstage, playwright David LindsayAbaire eschewed Southie’s recent pop culture myths. In the past fifteen years since Good Will Hunting, South Boston has become a frequent presence onscreen through movies like The Departed, Gone Baby Gone, Mystic River, and others. Lindsay-Abaire wanted to tell the story of its people at a deeper, and perhaps more ordinary, level. “I wanted to write about the people that I knew,” he says in a 2011 interview with The Boston Globe. “I didn’t know many criminals. I didn’t know many drug addicts. But, I knew people who were just struggling to get by.” For one cast member, local actress Karen MacDonald who plays a brash neighbor Jean in the upcoming Huntington production, research for the role began when she lived in the neighborhood as a child, near the M Street Beach. “My dad passed away when I was three, and my mother and I moved back in with her parents,” MacDonald recalls. “So I lived with my Polish and Russian grandparents in Southie until my mother got married to my stepfather, also from South Boston. Certainly, there’s a strong connection in my family to that place.” Lindsay-Abaire grew up in the well-known Lower End, and his parents were both working class, as much of the neighborhood was at the time. South Boston is seen in the play as largely blue-collar and fiercely protective of its own. “It was a tight knit neighborhood, but I don’t think that’s unique in Boston,” MacDonald tells, and emphasizes that even the neighborhood isn’t a monolith. “Even in Southie, there was a difference whether you grew up by the beach or over by Columbia Point, which was technically Dorchester, or in the projects. Everyone stuck to their own.”
Karen MacDonald
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The flipside of the compassion between neighbors is an insularity that can be hard to escape, even in the face of limited opportunities for a middle-
LUCKY CARD: PLAYING THE ODDS IN BINGO “I think the Irish woman was freed from slavery by bingo. They can go out now, dressed up, with their handbags and have a drink and play bingo. And they deserve it.” - IRISH PLAYWRIGHT JOHN B. KEANE
“I-17...I-17.” In a church basement in South Boston, the characters of Good People listen as a priest calls number after number. For all who play, the simplicity of bingo makes the game seem easy: twenty-five squares in a five-square grid, and you only have to get five in a row. One space even starts as “free,” so you only have to get four more. Model of the Good People set by designer Alexander Dodge.
class life for those who stay. (The economic profile of Southie has recently changed somewhat as waterfront real estate values have skyrocketed due to waves of gentrification and the lower crime levels.) MacDonald echoes the tension between staying with your circle or moving out to the suburbs. “There was always a question of are you going to be loyal to your neighborhood or are you going to follow an opportunity and go elsewhere? My mother’s parents had passed away when we moved, but my stepfather’s parents were both still there. There was an attitude from them of, ‘Oh, I see. You hit the number. Now, you’re gonna get out of Southie.’” In a coincidence, MacDonald’s family moved to Milton, subtly mirroring Lindsay-Abaire’s own journey from South Boston to the Milton Academy prep school. Lindsay-Abaire’s family remained in Southie, though, even as he attended school elsewhere, the people of Southie were part of his blood. “I know so many women like the ones in this play,” he notes. “Margie’s best friend [Jean, played by MacDonald] — that lady walked into my mother’s kitchen every morning to have coffee. She’s my mother’s friend from across the street; she’s the lady that works up at the nursing home. She was a combination of different women, with a brashness, honesty, and loyalty that is so part of the community.” Though residents of Southie are unlikely to see a more deeply-felt depiction of their neighborhood, the pop culture-prominence of South Boston isn’t going anywhere. Two reality series (rumored to be named “Southie Rules” and “Southie Pride”) are currently shooting in the area, and may premiere in the next year.
Bingo started in America in 1929 after a businessman picked up the game in Germany. (Bingo has its roots in first the Italian lottery and then a French game “Le Lotto.”) The game came first to county fairs, but within a year or two, churches and local service organizations realized the fundraising capacity of the game. If you have players purchase unique bingo cards, and set a prize for the winner that is lower than the total of all the entry fees, you take the profit. There are an astronomical number of unique bingo cards. On a traditional bingo card, the first column is five different numbers between 1 and 15, the second column is five different numbers between 16 and 30, and so on. Bingo probability expert Bill Butler tells that simple format leads to more than a billion billion (yes, a billion billion) possible unique combinations. If boards are truly produced randomly, few players may get the same board twice, even in years of playing. The math takes a turn for the worse when you consider how many other players there are. For example, imagine a game where there are just fifty boards in play (a low-ball figure when many players have six or more boards at once and the number of boards may climb into the thousands). If there are fifty boards, Butler suggests that the odds are 1 in 50 that you will have a bingo by the time the 20th ball is pulled. But the odds that someone else will win by that point: 3 out of 5. Bingo is a losing game, and you have to pay to play. - CHARLES HAUGLAND
- CHARLES HAUGLAND
SEE PAGE 27 FOR SHOW PERFORMANCE CALENDAR AND EVENT LISTINGS HUNTINGTONTHEATRE.ORG 7
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“Riveting, thrillingly paced, and effervescent with wit and intelligence. Urgent & unmissable!”
On election night, the son of a presidential candidate sends his father’s political team into crisis mode when controversial photos of him at a college party spread over the internet, potentially sparking an international incident. Smart and timely, Christopher Shinn’s searching new play examines religion, freedom of expression, and personal responsibility.
– THE TIMES OF LONDON
“Experiencing Now or Later at the height of election season adds an extra twist to this provocative tale of political fiction. I’m proud we are producing the US debut of this play that was such a success at London’s Royal Court, and that we’re introducing Huntington audiences to the fine work of Christopher Shinn and Michael Wilson.” – PETER DuBOIS First Children: Chelsea Clinton, Robert T. Lincoln, Barbara and Jenna Bush, and Alice Roosevelt.
FIRST CHILDREN: GROWING UP IN THE HALLS OF POWER “Children of men in public life, somewhat like the children of preachers, learn early in life that people expect them to be adults before they are even adolescents.” – LYNDA BIRD JOHNSON Freedom of expression, privacy, gay marriage, and religious fundamentalism all get a workout in Christopher Shinn’s play Now or Later. What holds all of these strands together in a dramatically riveting way is Shinn’s acute, human, and recognizable conflict between a politically ascendant father and his deeply ambivalent college-aged son. The candidate, John, Sr., is a fictional Democrat who is about to win the 2008 election for President of the United States. His son, John, Jr., has done something that may mar the success of the presidentelect, and this sets in motion not only a rigorous debate of competing political and moral ideals but a psychological drama that deftly illustrates the dilemma faced by the children of powerful, successful men and women. John, Jr. shares his contentious relationship with his father and his father’s career with his historical counterparts dating back to the country’s founding, the main causes being long absences and feelings of abandonment. John Adams’ two younger sons led troubled lives, struggling with alcoholism and debt. Although his eldest son, John Quincy, became president, his sons struggled, too — one was a likely suicide and another was a Harvard dropout. Robert Todd Lincoln failed the Harvard entrance exam 15 times before finally passing. Alice Roosevelt so vexed her father, Theodore, that he complained, “I can manage Alice or I can manage the country, but I cannot do both.” Alice for her part famously quipped: “My father wants to be the corpse at every funeral, the bride at every wedding, and the baby at every christening.” More seriously, her brother Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. explained his own dilemma: “Don’t you think that it handicaps a boy to be the son of a man like my father, and especially to have the same name? Don’t you know there can never be another Theodore Roosevelt?” Eleanor Wilson, who was 23 years old when her father became president once said, “He was no longer my father. These people,
strangers, who had chosen him to be their leader, had claimed him. He belonged to them. I had no part in it. I felt deserted and alone.” Until the modern era, the children of presidents were in a new kind of class. Growing up in the halls of power, they were the closest things to princes in American society, yet they usually could not and would not inherit their fathers’ power. Presidential children in more recent times face different kinds of challenges, living in an age when their every action can be recorded and commented on ad nauseum. As John, Jr. explains in the play, his predecessors had “...no viral spread of this whole kind of insubstantial, like — amorphous, gossipy personal stuff that can disproportionately impact the discourse — some stupid thing that starts on a blog and a week later is on the front pages.” Presidential families have always lived in a fishbowl, but now the fishbowl is visible to the whole world. In the case of John, Jr. in Now or Later, a rash action could derail his father’s presidency before it begins. While he argues eloquently for his right to self-expression, he ultimately has to try to consider his father’s point of view as legitimate. And then, just like that, we are back at the beginning because as John Quincy Adams once said, “The first and deepest of all my wishes is to give satisfaction to my parents.” Shinn offers an epigraph in his script: “be bloody, or be nothing.” It’s from Hamlet. The Prince of Denmark, of course, is the quintessential son struggling with a successful, now-absent father whose power and status he does not inherit. He is, in a way, a prototype for the ambivalent state in which many presidential children find themselves. Power and parenting, through the ages, change only on the surface. - LISA TIMMEL
LEARN MORE ONLINE Learn about Christopher Shinn’s other plays, read about and watch him talk about madness in theatre, explore a top ten list of presidential scandals, and more.
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keith pattison
Eddie Redmayne, Nancy Crane, and Domhnall Gleeson in the Royal Court’s production of Now or Later.
Eddie Redmayne in the Royal Court’s production of Now or Later.
AN INTERVIEW WITH
PLAYWRIGHT CHRISTOPHER SHINN
LISA TIMMEL, THE HUNTINGTON’S DIRECTOR OF NEW WORK, SAT DOWN WITH PLAYWRIGHT CHRISTOPHER SHINN TO DISCUSS HIS CAREER AS A PLAYWRIGHT AND THE CHALLENGES THAT COME WITH WRITING A POLITICAL PLAY. You’ve enjoyed sustained relationships with artistic institutions. Many of your plays, including this one, premiered at the Royal Court in London, and you’ve worked a lot with director Michael Wilson at Hartford Stage. How has your relationship with those theatres affected your growth as an artist?
Playwright Christopher Shinn and Director Michael Wilson together in the Wimberly Theatre.
I was born in Hartford and attended Hartford Stage from the time I was a little boy, but when Mark Lamos was the artistic director there, I did no better than form letter rejections when submitting my plays. When Michael Wilson took over, the theatre reached out and applied for a National Endowment for the Arts/Theatre Communication Group Residency Grant for me, which we received. It was incredibly meaningful to be embraced by my hometown theatre, and I spent a year there working (a difficult year as my father was being treated for leukemia in Hartford at the same time). It led to my building a relationship with Michael that’s lasted over a decade now. The embrace I felt from the Royal Court was profound, and it influenced the course of my writing in a deep way. They did my first play, and when they passed on the commission I wrote for them, they produced another play of mine. They commissioned me again before that second play opened; the same thing happened with my next play. To receive commissions before critics chimed in made me feel so valued as an artist. It signaled that I could risk following my own path as a writer and not worry about creating work others would praise. The fifteen years I was embraced by the Court allowed me to become the artist I am today.
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Now or Later touches on many complex and familiar political and personal issues in a mere 80 pages. What was your point of origin with this play? I started writing in 2007. At the time I was going to write about megachurches. As a part of my research, I interviewed a friend who worked for Barack Obama. He told me that an Obama strategy was to reach Christian voters by explicitly talking about Obama’s faith, to reach out to the religious right in particular. Fascinated, I began thinking more about political strategy. Of course when you start to think about the religious right, you think about issues like homophobia; and once you think start down that road, Islamic fundamentalism becomes a compelling subject, as well. So as I began rolling with the idea of political strategy, all these various issues began to come together in a very condensed play. But the most important thing for me to do was to find a personal story to tell, so once I settled on a college-age kid, recent scandals involving freedom of speech on campus started to fascinate me.
Did you find it challenging to weave together the personal and political? Not in any special way. As I researched recent presidential candidates, I was struck by reports of Al Gore’s difficult relationship with his son and John Edwards’ son who died in a car accident. I began to build up a story from what I imagined to be the immense pressure of being a politician’s child. As soon as I realized that at a certain age a child’s actions could easily have a political impact, the links between the political and the personal became very clear. All political issues have a personal component and vice versa. That some people don’t see this connection is one of the things that upsets John, Sr.
The play takes place in real time. Why did you choose that structure? What opportunities and/or challenges does the form give you as a dramatist? With every play, I try to give myself a formal challenge so I keep growing. I’d never written a real-time play and I thought, why not give it a try? There are very few of them because it’s not easy. You have to sustain tension without creating drama in a way that feels fake or melodramatic. It’s easy either to ramp up the drama in unrealistic ways or focus so much on how things actually happen in life that all the air gets let out. Luckily, the realities of an election night and the speed of the media in today’s world lent themselves to a realistic approach that still maintained tension and excitement.
There has been a four-year gap of time between the first production and this, its second. Has anything changed for you with regard to the play in that time? I think the biggest change is that this is now a “history play” more than it is a “current events” play. Looking back at 2008 from 2012 allows us to think about the then, the now, and the future — whereas I think four years ago the play was more about that unfolding moment. I’m excited to see what four years’ perspective opens up for audiences as they watch the play, having the opportunity to think about where we were and where we are going, rather than just where we are.
TROUBLESOME CHILDREN PATTI DAVIS (born Patricia Ann Reagan) was publicly at odds with numerous positions held by her father, President Ronald Reagan. During his presidency, Davis openly supported gay rights, was pro-choice, and lived with her boyfriend while unmarried. 16-year-old EUAN BLAIR, son of Prime Minister Tony Blair, was arrested in 2000 for being “drunk and incapable.” The younger Blair’s arrest came just days after his father suggested mandating on-the-spot fines for drunken and disorderly behavior. ASHLEY BIDEN, daughter of then-senator Joe Biden, was arrested in 2002 for obstructing a police officer outside of a Chicago bar. She was 21 at the time. In 2001, JENNA and BARBARA BUSH, twin daughters of the newly elected George W. Bush, were cited for underage drinking by Texas Police. Each was charged with a class C misdemeanor and endured extensive media coverage. NOELLE BUSH, daughter of former Florida governor Jeb Bush, was arrested in 2002 for trying to fill a false prescription at a Tallahassee pharmacy. In 2005, PRINCE HARRY wore an armband emblazoned with a swastika to a costume party. After the tabloids caught wind of the incident, Clarence House issued an apology, saying the Prince “realizes it was a poor choice of costume.” As this newsletter was going to press, naked photos of the Prince partying in Vegas had just hit the internet. - RACHEL CARPMAN
SEE PAGE 27 FOR SHOW PERFORMANCE CALENDAR AND EVENT LISTINGS HUNTINGTONTHEATRE.ORG 11
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“The greatest and most moving of all Pinter’s plays.”
For seven years, Emma and Jerry engage in a passionate love affair, deceiving their spouses, each other, and at times, even themselves. One of the 20th century’s most influential dramatists, Nobel Laureate Harold Pinter innovatively explores the complexities of love, guilt, and duplicity in this Olivier Award-winning classic.
“Harold Pinter has been on the short list of playwrights I’ve wanted to include in a season since I arrived at the Huntington. Director Maria Aitken will bring sharp honesty to the play’s simple, spare beauty and a singular perspective as an interpreter of his writing.” – PETER DuBOIS
Harold Pinter
THE INJURED BONE:
HAROLD PINTER’S BETRAYAL Harold Pinter had an odd sort of memory. “Harold’s memory is not linear at all,” recalled his wife Antonia Fraser. “He’s got a memory like a camera as if he’s taking shots. Occasionally they are moving photographs: extraordinarily sharp and vivid, but not necessarily connected.” Watching Betrayal, a very thinly-veiled portrait of one of Pinter’s affairs, is like remembering a relationship through Pinter’s eyes. The play presents snapshot-like images — a tablecloth, a trip to Torcello, a child thrown in the air — as it moves slowly backward in time, arriving at last not at the end, but the beginning. Betrayal tells the story of a love triangle between Emma, her husband Robert, and Robert’s best friend Jerry. As time moves backward and we watch Emma’s and Jerry’s affair die, then wilt, then bloom, it gradually becomes less and less clear who is betraying whom. As critic Walter Kerr wrote, “the play isn’t designed for comfort, it’s designed for the excitement of the chase, for the fear that truth may elude us if we aren’t quick enough to snare it, for the almost surgical satisfaction of seeing life honed to the injured bone.” Sir Peter Hall, who directed the first productions of Betrayal in the West End and on Broadway, suggested, “the sleight of hand that Harold has performed is that, while dealing with a triangular relationship, he’s talking about something else… If you start with self-betrayal, it gradually infects everything like a dreadful, destructive virus.” This mastery of nuance and theme made Pinter “the most influential and imitated dramatist of his generation,” according to The New York Times. Not only was he a playwright, actor, and director, Pinter was also an essayist, poet,
political activist, and Nobel Laureate. Born in 1930 just outside of London’s East End, Pinter wrote over 30 plays between 1957 and his death in 2008. Elliptical speech patterns mark Pinter’s early work such as in The Birthday Party and The Homecoming. Pinter observed repetitive, at times tautological, designs in everyday conversation. His later plays moved past tumbling configurations of words and examined the silences between them. Pinter is a master of the pregnant pause and was adamant that actors observe the pauses written into his scripts. In a note to actor Michael Holdern, who was rehearsing Pinter’s The Collection, Pinter wrote, “Michael, I wrote ‘dot, dot, dot’ and you’re giving me ‘dot, dot.’” In Betrayal, the silences are as important as the words. Critic Enoch Barter suggests that in the play, “time is allowed to speak for itself between the scenes and through the costumes…and actors communicate to us in gestures, silence, and pause, all those characteristic Pinter ‘words’ they never get to recite onstage.” Each moment of the play is so carefully tuned that any slight alteration in the landscape throws the whole off balance. In an interview about Betrayal with longtime New York Times theatre critic Mel Gussow, Pinter admitted to making three changes to his original script: “I cut one word, ‘please.’ I took out a pause and inserted a pause.” “And that made all the difference?,” Gussow asked. Pinter’s reply: “That made all the damn difference.”
- RACHEL CARPMAN
LEARN MORE ONLINE Hear Pinter perform an excerpt from a BBC radio play performance of Betrayal, watch his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, read more about the inspiration for the play, and more.
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Compare Nancy Brennan’s Educating Rita costume renderings (left) to their final incarnations (right). Jane Pfitsch and Andrew Long in Educating Rita (2011).
AN INTERVIEW WITH
COSTUME DIRECTOR NANCY BRENNAN NANCY BRENNAN HAS BEEN THE COSTUME DIRECTOR AT THE HUNTINGTON SINCE 2005. IN RECENT YEARS, SHE’S DONE DOUBLE DUTY, ALSO SERVING AS MARIA AITKEN’S COSTUME DESIGNER ON EDUCATING RITA IN 2011 AND THE UPCOMING BETRAYAL. EARLY IN THE DESIGN PROCESS, SHE SAT DOWN WITH THE HUNTINGTON’S CHARLES HAUGLAND (ARTISTIC PROGRAMS AND DRAMATURGY) TO DISCUSS HER PROCESS AND HISTORY AS A DESIGNER. Tell me about working with Maria Aitken as a director. Betrayal is the fourth show I’ve done with Maria. I designed the costumes for Educating Rita, and the costume shop and I worked with her on Private Lives and Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps. Maria is great to work with because she is smart, clever, and decisive. She knows what she wants and is very good at communicating with her designers. Because Maria has also been an actor, she always has the actors’ needs in mind, as well.
What are some of the questions you were considering when approaching Betrayal?
Nancy Brennan
One of Maria’s strengths as a director is the way she keeps the action of the play moving forward. For costumes, this means that we need to start thinking about the transitions and the costume changes right from the beginning of the design process, because all of the elements are involved — scenery, lights, and sound. We also looked at how costumes would help show the passage of time; the play is a series of scenes set between 1968 and 1977. How do we see the changes in the seasons? The evolution of the characters?
From where do you draw inspiration? Everything starts with the script. Because Maria lived in London during the period of this play, she had a lot of useful information from her own experience. In our first design meeting, Maria suggested names of people who were living in London at the time, such as Peter O’Toole and Sian Phillips, whose look would be appropriate for our characters. I’m reading
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AFFAIRS TO REMEMBER It was little surprise to the British public that Harold Pinter had written a play about an affair. Three years before Betrayal’s premiere, Pinter’s marriage to his first wife, actress Vivian Merchant, ended in a firestorm of tabloid coverage as he ran off with the wife of a member of Parliament, the author Lady Antonia Fraser. The two married in 1980 and remained together until his death in 2008, but the affair on which Pinter based Betrayal was actually much, much older, and much less public. t. charles erickson
Andrew Long and Jane Pfitsch in Educating Rita (2011).
books about them, which gives me some insight into what it was like to be an artist at that time and in that place. Then I started poring over magazines, photos, films, and other books from that period.
What’s next? I’ll start with hundreds of images, which I will edit down to a collection of a few dozen for each character. In photos, I’m looking for pattern and color, a particular silhouette, a particular cut or fit that I think suits each character. 1970 may not seem like a “period piece” to many people, but it is, and you really need to go back and look at it all again. Maria will go through the research with me and respond to my choices, tell me what she likes and what she doesn’t. Then I’ll do a set of sketches for her approval.
What is it like to be both costume director and the designer on a particular show? Is your technical skill and knowledge an advantage? I always find it helpful when designers understand something about costume construction, but I don’t think every designer needs to be able to make the dress or know how to sew. A costume designer has to be able to speak the language: to know what fabric does and how to tell the drapers what you need. I find it helpful to me that I know where the zipper should go or how the grain of the fabric should be placed.
What led you to costume design? It was a bit of an accident. I took a Theatre Appreciation class at Purdue University, where I was a textiles major. As a course requirement, I needed to volunteer in the theatre department, so I chose the costume shop. Right away, I felt that I belonged there, and on my second day, they offered me a job! I thought, “This is great, now I can stop working in the cafeteria!” Costuming combines my love of textiles, clothing and historical dress, and I love the variety, the pace, and the collaborative nature of theatre work. It’s the perfect medium for me.
From 1962 to 1969, Pinter was deeply involved with Joan Bakewell, wife of director Michael Bakewell. While Pinter’s relationship with Michael differs from the one shared by Robert and Jerry in Betrayal (Bakewell and Pinter were merely acquaintances), the rest of the play is almost a literal transcription of Pinter’s Harold Pinter and Lady Antonia Fraser. affair. Joan admitted that Betrayal was, “accurate in its chronology and in its events. Often quite tiny events like that in which Jerry talks about picking up this little girl — called Charlotte in the play — and throwing her in the air. Harold actually did that with my three-year-old daughter at a party for [Pinter’s son] Daniel’s birthday…The story about the poste restante at the American Express office in Venice is also literally true.” Pinter edited a few moments when the actual truth seemed too contrived onstage. Joan did indeed take a trip to Venice, but instead of bringing back a tablecloth, she said, “I brought back something much wittier: an hour-glass. So sometimes the detail of life is better.” Though Bakewell and Pinter remained friends after their relationship ended, seeing the intimate details of their affair made public was difficult. “It’s like a diary,” she recalled to Pinter biographer Michael Billington, “and so I was upset when I first read it. Harold kept saying, ‘It’s a play — it’s a play.’ I was upset, however, because it was called Betrayal. It’s such a judgmental word. But we go on betraying, don’t we? Here I am telling you about it. The irony is that the process never ends.” - RACHEL CARPMAN
What’s the best part of working at the Huntington? It’s very important that I acknowledge that I could not do this without our costume shop. We have an exceptional group of highly skilled and artistic craftspeople here at the Huntington. This is a great place to design because the shop can produce anything I can dream up. And it’s really a lot of fun for me to get to work with them in a different capacity.
SEE PAGE 27 FOR SHOW PERFORMANCE CALENDAR AND EVENT LISTINGS
Harold Pinter and Joan Bakewell.
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“RIVETING, RELEVANT, ENDURING AND EXCEPTIONAL! It stirs the imagination and senses and sends you out deeply touched.”
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Visionary director and MacArthur “Genius” David Cromer bring his groundbreaking and critically acclaimed new version of Our Town to the Huntington. George and Emily fall in love in Grover’s Corners, a New England town that offers a universal glimpse of everyday life. An Off Broadway smash playing for more than 600 performances, this intimate staging marks the Huntington’s first production in the Roberts Studio Theatre.
“Wilder’s play mines the depths of our relationship to home and community, and so I find it fitting and deeply satisfying that David will be engaging a company of actors comprised of Boston’s best talent to bring Our Town home to New England for its 75th Anniversary.” carol rosegg
– PETER DuBOIS
David Cromer as the Stage Manager.
THE MAN BEHIND THE “GENIUS”: DAVID CROMER’S OUR TOWN Our Town is a staple of the American theatre, if not the staple. In 1938, playwright Thornton Wilder crafted what has become the most produced play of the 20th century. Now, in an age where theatrical technology can make just about anything in your imagination come to life, why is a simple story about a simple town still in such high demand? In this particular production, it is David Cromer’s unique vision. Starting out on the Chicago theatre scene, Cromer has worked his way to the top receiving numerous awards as an actor and director, including the prestigious MacArthur Foundation “Genius” grant. He has a knack for adapting classic plays to the surroundings of our contemporary time. Instead of overpowering the text with a hard-hitting concept, he enlivens generally dusty scripts with fresh approaches. Above all, he creates an environment for actors to inhabit the text as their own while guiding the audience on a similarly intimate journey. If a theatregoer has not previously experienced any renditions of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, they are invited to imagine it. Thornton Wilder has purposefully left his characters propless and the stage bare. Stripping down any possibility for a caricatured set of a stuffy time period, the quaint New England town becomes our own. Cromer’s production takes this idea one step further. The actors don’t wear period clothing, but rather are relatively costumeless in what seem like their own street clothes. The audience is bathed in light and serves as the backdrop or scenery while actors travel in and out of the aisles. The audience becomes the town and the actors could be their neighbors. Being so close to the action, Cromer has thrown away the sometimes-alienating feeling of the proscenium stage. With such intimacy,
the audience is close enough to read the headlines in the newspaper of the actor sitting next to them. In addition to stripping away theatrical elements, Cromer has also stripped the dated New England dialect. Cromer encourages his actors to use their own voice. In an interview, Cromer noted, “The second you hear a New England accent it’s like a period costume. You think that person is warm. You think that person is folksy. You think they’re charming. [...] Just talk in your own voice.” By eschewing this final bit of sentimentality, Cromer creates a real town with real people. In 1938, exposing a bare stage seemed radical to the contemporaries of Thornton Wilder. 74 years later, Cromer is doing the same thing. He is forcing you the audience to create this town on your own, just as Wilder did. Hilton Als from The New Yorker wrote upon seeing the production, “By doing away with the effects, along with the self-important sentimentality that has marked so many productions of Our Town, Cromer provides us with a master class in the fundamental art of make-believe, of transporting the body and the voice and becoming something other than one self.” Each night, the audience experiences its own intimate story while sitting in what could be the middle of Main Street. The strangers on stage become reminiscent of aunts and uncles, sons and daughters, doctors and school teachers. The theatre becomes a different town to every audience member. In stripping the theatricality from the theatre, Cromer has created his own bit of genius: the power of imagination. - REBECCA BRADSHAW
LEARN MORE ONLINE Read about the history of the play, watch a “Theatre Talk” discussion of Our Town that includes David Cromer, read an interview with Cromer about the conception and development of this production, and more.
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CHRONOLOGY OF THORNTON WILDER’S LIFE & WORKS
1897: Thornton Wilder is born in Madison, Wisconsin on April 17
1938: Our Town opens on Broadway, wins Pulitzer Prize; Wilder performs role of the Stage Manager for two weeks
1906: Moves to Hong Kong (May) and to Berkeley, California (October)
1906-11: Attends Emerson Public School in Berkeley and China Inland Mission School in China
1940: Our Town film adaptation, starring William Holden
1942: The Skin of Our Teeth opens on Broadway, wins Pulitzer Prize
1912-13: Attends Thacher School, Ojai, California
Wilder writes screenplay for Alfred Hitchcock’s The Shadow of a Doubt
The Russian Princess, Wilder’s first play known to be produced, is performed by Thacher students 1915: Graduates from Berkeley High School; active in school dramatics
1942-45: Military service with Army Air Force Intelligence in North Africa and Italy
1915-17: Attends Oberlin College; publishes regularly
1951-52: Charles Eliot Norton Professor of Poetry at Harvard
1920: Receives BA from Yale College (with brief service in 1918 with US Army)
1920-21: Attends American Academy in Rome as special student
1920s: Teaches at Lawrenceville School in New Jersey (1921-25 and 1927-28) 1926: Receives MA degree in French from Princeton University
The Trumpet Shall Sound produced Off Broadway in New York by Laboratory Theatre First novel is published, The Cabala
1927: Second novel, The Bridge of San Luis Rey, wins Pulitzer Prize
1928: T he Angel That Troubled the Waters (first published collection of drama playlets)
1930s: Part-time teacher at the University of Chicago; lectures across the country; first visit to Hollywood (1934); extensive foreign travel
1930: The Woman of Andros (novel)
1932: Lucrece (translation of André Obey’s Le Viol de Lucrèce) opens on Broadway
1937: Wilder adapts Ibsen’s A Doll’s House for Broadway (Broadway record until 1999)
1948: The Ides of March (novel)
1952: Gold Medal for Fiction, American Academy of Arts and Letters
1953: Wilder appears on the cover of Time Magazine
1955: The Matchmaker opens on Broadway (revision of his 1938 play, The Merchant of Yonkers and the basis for Hello, Dolly!)
1957: Awarded German Booksellers Peace Prize, first American to receive award
1961: Opera version of The Long Christmas Dinner (music by Paul Hindemith, libretto by Wilder) premieres in Mannheim
1962: P lays for Bleeker Street (Someone from Assisi, Infancy, and Childhood) performed at Circle in the Square Theatre in New York City
1963: Awarded Presidential Medal of Freedom
1964: Hello, Dolly! (based on his play The Matchmaker) opens on Broadway
1965: Awarded National Book Committee’s Medal for Literature
1967: The Eighth Day (novel) receives National Book Award for Fiction
1973: Theophilus North (novel)
1975: Dies in sleep in Hamden, Connecticut on December 7 - EXCERPTED FROM THORNTON WILDER ESTATE / THORNTONWILDER.COM
Thornton Wilder
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The 1940 movie poster of Our Town
Wilder on the cover of Time Magazine
BECOME HONORARY MAYOR OF GROVER’S CORNERS FOR A DAY AND MAKE OUR TOWN YOUR TOWN! Douglas and Judi Krupp
Help the Huntington bring this extraordinary, once-in-a-lifetime production home to Boston for its 75th Anniversary. Our Town Production Sponsors Judi and Douglas Krupp are generously matching all new or increased gifts to the Huntington’s annual fund, up to a total of $50,000.
Make a new or increased gift of $5,000 or more and you’ll become an Our Town performance sponsor! As thanks, we’ll swear you in as Honorary Mayor of Grover’s Corners for the night. You’ll enjoy the best seats in the house at your chosen performance, up to 10 additional complimentary tickets, recognition in our program and lobby, a copy of the script, and an exclusive post-performance toast with cast members.
LIMITED OPPORTUNITY! Gifts must be received by October 25. Contact Meg White at mwhite@huntingtontheatre.bu.edu or 617 273 1596. Learn more at huntingtontheatre.org/ourtownyourtown.
CURTAIN CALLS
THE CAST OF OUR TOWN INCLUDES 29 LOCAL ACTORS WHO’LL PLAY THE RESIDENTS OF GROVER’S CORNERS. MEET A FEW WHO WILL MAKE UP OUR TOWN DURING ITS BOSTON RUN.
NAME Marianna Bassham ROLE Mrs. Soames MOST RECENT HUNTINGTON ROLE Patty Ann Donovan, The Luck of the Irish HOMETOWN Kent, OH CURRENT TOWN Cambridge, MA WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE THING ABOUT THE BOSTON AREA? The drive from downtown to my house along the Charles River at sunset. HAVE YOUR EVER BEEN IN OR SEEN OUR TOWN? WHAT DO YOU REMEMBER ABOUT THE EXPERIENCE? A few years ago I saw Mr. Cromer’s production at The Barrow Street Theatre. At the curtain call, a fella in the audience brought his girlfriend onstage and proposed to her (she said yes). ARE YOU A CITY PERSON OR A SMALL TOWN PERSON? I’m a small town person. I like to hear the birds in the morning and the bugs at night. NAME Stacy Fischer ROLE Mrs. Webb MOST RECENT HUNTINGTON ROLE Katya, A Month in the Country HOMETOWN Air Force Brat/Spencetown, NY CURRENT TOWN Cambridge, MA WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE PLACE/THING IN YOUR TOWN? The tree-lined streets in my neighborhood, the activity of Harvard Square, and the beauty of the Charles River. HAVE YOUR EVER BEEN IN OR SEEN OUR TOWN? WHAT DO YOU REMEMBER ABOUT THE EXPERIENCE? Amazingly, I have never seen a production of Our Town. I’ve only done scenes from the show for various scene study classes and showcases. I remember the innocence of it — pure and sweet.
NAME Melinda Lopez ROLE Mrs. Gibbs MOST RECENT HUNTINGTON ROLE Demeter, Persephone HOMETOWN Bedford, MA CURRENT TOWN Bedford, MA WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE PLACE/THING IN YOUR TOWN? The bike path, my mother’s kitchen, and my garden. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE THING ABOUT THE BOSTON AREA? I love being near world-class theatre, museums, and food. I also love Storrow Drive — it’s like the driving Olympics! I can do it blindfolded. Yeah, that was me. ARE YOU A CITY PERSON OR A SMALL TOWN PERSON? Hmm… Aren’t cities just big small towns? NAME Dale Place ROLE Joe Stoddard MOST RECENT HUNTINGTON ROLE Salesman, Ah, Wilderness! HOMETOWN Cheboygan, MI CURRENT TOWN Davis Square/Somerville, MA HAVE YOUR EVER BEEN IN OR SEEN OUR TOWN? WHAT DO YOU REMEMBER ABOUT THE EXPERIENCE? This past summer I was the Stage Manager in The Barnstormers Theatre’s production of Our Town. I’ve also played Mr. Webb three times. I’m a sucker for this play — it always hits me hard. This time I find myself thinking about the enormous impact of simple human moments. ARE YOU A CITY PERSON OR A SMALL TOWN PERSON? I grew up in a small town, but I’m a city guy now!
LEARN MORE ONLINE Visit huntingtontheatre.org/ourtown for expanded interviews with the cast.
SEE PAGE 27 FOR SHOW PERFORMANCE CALENDAR AND EVENT LISTINGS HUNTINGTONTHEATRE.ORG 19
HE’S JUST A BROADWAY BABY THE SPOTLIGHT SPECTACULAR CELEBRATES
MANAGING DIRECTOR MICHAEL MASO’S 30 SEASONS AT THE HUNTINGTON
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In recognition of his 30 years of spectacular service, Michael Maso received the Huntington’s highest honor, the Wimberly Award, at last April’s annual Spotlight Spectacular. As Managing Director, Michael has led the Huntington’s administrative and financial operations since 1982, producing more than 180 plays in partnership with three artistic directors, growing the budget from $750,000 to $13.2 million, and leading the Huntington’s campaign to build the Stanford Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts. The evening was filled with tributes from long-time Huntington friends, community leaders, and Michael’s theatrical colleagues from around the country. The evening’s grand finale was Michael’s heartfelt acceptance remarks, capped off with a surprise, show-stopping rendition of “Broadway Baby.” (See his remarks and performance online at huntingtontheatre.org/MasoWimberlyAcceptance.) Chaired by Overseers Fancy Zilberfarb and Marsha Feinberg, the Spotlight Spectacular raised over $730,000 in support of the Huntington’s education and community programs including funding for 2,800 students to attend our Student Matinee series through the “Sponsor-a-Class” program. Guests also participated in silent and live auctions and enjoyed dinner, entertainment, and a photo booth with a life size cutout of the honoree himself!
The 2012 Spotlight Spectacular was hosted by Tony Award-winning Broadway star Joanna Gleason (Sons of the Prophet at the Huntington and off Broadway, Into the Woods, “The West Wing”). Musical performances included Stephen Bogardus from the Huntington’s God of Carnage and Yvette Freeman, who played the title role in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. The evening also featured special presentations by students from the Huntington’s Education programs: Amose Pierre, a Shakespeare Competition finalist, and Tyrel Joseph, the regional winner of the August Wilson Monologue Competition.
SAVE THE DATE: 2013 SPOTLIGHT SPECTACULAR MONDAY, APRIL 22, 2013 THE CASTLE AT BOSTON PARK PLAZA This years Spotlight Spectacular will honor Judi and Douglas Krupp as well as Our Town director David Cromer. For more information contact Alli Engelsma-Mosser, 617 273 1522 or aemoser@huntingtontheatre.bu.edu.
On April 2, 2012, the Huntington’s Spotlight Spectacular celebrated the 30th Season of the Huntington Theatre Company and the 30 years of leadership of Managing Director Michael Maso; photos: Paul Marotta.
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THE CHAIRMAN’S MILLION DOLLAR CHALLENGE: WE DID IT!
Thanks to the generous support of the Huntington community, we exceeded Board Chairman Carol Deane’s challenge in new and increased annual fund donations. Combined with Carol’s matching gift of $1 million, we surpassed our $1.5 million goal necessary to help underwrite last season’s remarkably expanded artistic programming. Thank you to Carol for her incredible leadership and generosity, and our deepest thanks to all of you who made new or increased gifts so that our 30th Anniversary was truly the best of all possible seasons!
HELP RAISE THE CURTAIN ON THE NEXT 30 YEARS Carol Deane, Board Chairman
Huntington supporters often ask how they can do more to secure the future of our work on our stages and in the community. Even if you are on a fixed income or currently have other financial priorities, there is a simple way you can help to sustain all the work we do: name the Huntington Theatre Company as a beneficiary in your will or living trust. When you make a planned gift to the Huntington, you make an enduring commitment to artists and audiences, and to the future of the American theatre. As you consider a planned gift, please note that the Huntington does not give financial or estate planning advice, and we recommend that you contact your attorney or personal financial advisor. If you have already included the Huntington in your estate plans, please let us know so that we may thank you.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
or to let us know about your planned gift, please contact: Meg White, Director of Major Gifts mwhite@huntingtontheatre.bu.edu 617 273 1596
WELCOME NEW BOARD MEMBERS On May 23, the Huntington’s Board of Trustees elected five new members to the Council of Overseers: George Bennett, Loren Kovalcik, Ann Merrifield, Gail Roberts, and Wendell Taylor. We are delighted to welcome them to the Huntington Board family and look forward to their leadership and deepening involvement in the Huntington community.
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manuel harlan
Carol’s favorite Huntington plays include Propeller’s The Comedy of Errors and Richard III from the 2010-2011 Season. “It was how Shakespeare meant his plays to be,” she says. “It was raucous, it was bawdy, and it was just so much fun!”
WHY CAROL LANGER SUPPORTS THE HUNTINGTON How did you become involved with the Huntington Theatre Company?
Carol Langer
It was love at first play. My husband and I subscribed from the second season and soon became donors as well. We had children and were both working, so we subscribed to make plans in advance. For most of our children, the Huntington was their first experience with theatre. It was fun for them, and they felt very grown up doing it.
Over the years, we invited both friends and neighbors to attend performances with us. Then we began going regularly with another couple that also loves the theatre as a chance to get together. My husband became handicapped a few years ago, and the Huntington worked with us so we could continue to come. He’s since died so I now come with these same friends, and each visit is also a conversation about my husband.
What about the Huntington keeps you coming back? The obvious answer is the quality of the work, and the quality of the plays and the new playwrights, which I wouldn’t be exposed to anywhere else. I love both of the Huntington’s theatres. The Huntington just keeps getting better. The spirit you see between Michael Maso and Peter DuBois — they just keep bringing each other to new heights.
How has your involvement with the Huntington enriched your life? The Huntington brings new artistic vision to me that I don’t get from other sources. One of the reasons we chose to subscribe was to see productions that we knew we would adore, even if occasionally they weren’t immediately appealing to us. I don’t have the energy to root around and find these different offerings, but the Huntington delivers them me in these beautiful packages, and it’s just wonderful. I am also now a board member, serving as Trustee, which has enriched my life even more.
YOU CAN HELP SUPPORT THE HUNTINGTON WITH A CONTRIBUTION TO THE 2013 ANNUAL FUND: 1. DONATE ONLINE: huntingtontheatre.org/support 2. SEND A CHECK TO: Huntington Theatre Company 264 Huntington Avenue Boston, MA 02115 Attn: Development Department 3. CONTRIBUTE VIA PHONE: Call the Development Office at 617 273 1546
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ANNOUNCING OUR 2012-2013 STUDENT MATINEE SEASON
ALL STUDENT MATINEE TICKETS ARE JUST $15! Performances start at 10am and include a lively post show Actors Forum with members of the cast. Student groups are also welcome at regularly scheduled performances. For more information and to reserve tickets, please contact Meg O’Brien at mobrien@huntingtontheatre.bu.edu or 617 273 1558. Seats fill quickly, reserve today!
GOOD PEOPLE THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 27
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NOW OR LATER FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 9
OUR TOWN WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 19 WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 9 THURSDAY, JANUARY 10
INVISIBLE MAN WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 23 frederick and will jamieson
THURSDAY, JANUARY 31
A RAISIN IN THE SUN THURSDAY, MARCH 21
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RAPTURE, BLISTER, BURN WEDNESDAY, JUNE 5
Our online Curriculum Guide is available for use in the classroom and includes historical information, interesting facts about the production, and lesson plans, at no extra cost.
LEARN MORE ONLINE Visit huntingtontheatre.org/studentmatinee 24
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The Huntington’s nationally recognized Department of Education and Community Programs serves over 25,000 young people and underserved audience members each year. Below is a brief update on just a few of these programs For more information about our education and community programs, visit us at huntingtontheatre.org/education.
POETRY OUT LOUD: 2013 REGISTER YOUR SCHOOL TODAY! A record-breaking 20,300 students from more than 80 schools participated in the 2012 Poetry Out Loud competition, making Massachusetts third in the country for number of students participating (behind California and Washington State) and fourth in the country for number of schools participating (behind California, New York, and New Jersey). This past April, our 2012 Massachusetts State Champion, Stephanie Igharosa (Randolph High School) traveled to Washington, DC to compete in the Poetry Out Loud National Finals. Stephanie performed brilliantly and represented Massachusetts well in the East Regional Semi-Finals. Registration for the 8th annual Poetry Out Loud National Recitation Contest is now open! This FREE program is open to all high schools (grades 9-12) in Massachusetts. Visit huntingtontheatre.org/pol for more information and to register your school today. Supported by The National Endowment for the Arts and the Massachusetts Cultural Council.
AUGUST WILSON MONOLOGUE COMPETITION Last year, the Huntington again participated in the national August Wilson Monologue Competition, run by Kenny Leon’s True Colors Theatre Company in Atlanta, Georgia. Tyrel Joseph (Codman Academy Charter Public School), Halima Ibrahim (Snowden International School at Copley), and Reeana Johnson (Dorchester Academy) took the top three awards from a group of more than 400 Boston Public School students. The three students traveled to New York City to represent Boston in the finals at the August Wilson Theatre on Broadway this past February. Our third year of participation begins this October, when we’ll introduce students from eleven schools in Boston to the life and works of August Wilson. Classroom instruction will include introductions to monologues and coaching of the students’ performances in preparation for in-school competition. Each school winner will compete at the Boston Regional Finals in February 2013. Check huntingtontheatre.org/AWMC for the date and time. Supported by BPS Arts Expansion Initiative at EdVestors.
HUNTINGTON-CODMAN SUMMER THEATRE INSTITUTE For the seventh summer, students and alumni from the Codman Academy Charter Public School participated in the Summer Theatre Institute, a four-week intensive theatre arts program. This extension of our school-year collaboration with the Dorchester school engaged an incredible cast of 25 in mounting a production of William Shakespeare’s classic comedy A Midsummer Night’s Dream, co-directed by Huntington staff members Meg O’Brien and Daniel Morris. Many of the cast members had not been exposed to the work and language of Shakespeare before, and it was a magical transformation from the first day of rehearsal on July 2, to our final performance on July 27.
KNOW THE LAW!
This program is supported in part by Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP.
david marshal
Know the Law!, a collaboration with Roxbury’s Youth & Police in Partnership (YPP), performed last June at the Salvation Army’s Ray & Joan Kroc Corps Community Center in Dorchester. With a cast comprised of YPP Peer Leaders and MBTA Transit Police Officers, this play explores the strained relationship between youth and authority. By highlighting the laws surrounding each case, Know The Law! helps foster better communication and decision-making among teens. Education Associate Naheem Garcia directed the piece, utilizing real-life stories of peer leaders and other teens who share their experiences.
From top: 2012 Massachusetts Poetry Out Loud winner Stephanie Igharosa, August Wilson Monologue Competition winner Tyrel Joseph, and Kyle Depina and Shawntell Usher-Thames in Huntington-Codman Summer Theatre Institute’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
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HUNTINGTON NEWS HAPPY 30TH BIRTHDAY TO US! DID YOU KNOW? On October 23, 2012 the Huntington Theatre Company officially turns 30 years old. Over the past 30 years, the Huntington has established itself as a major force on the Boston cultural scene. Known for our productions of groundbreaking new works and classics made current, the Huntington has brought together the most talented theatre artists from the Boston area and throughout the United States. Thank you to everyone who has been a part of our 30 year history! To see a slideshow of all 187 Huntington productions to date, visit huntingtontheatre.org/30.
A COLLECTION OF FACTS & FIGURES FROM OUR 30-YEAR HISTORY. • 1 06 world, national, and regional premieres debuted at the Huntington. •6 7 Tony Award-winning artists and 14 Pulitzer Prize-winning authors have graced the Huntington’s stages. • There have been more than 3,000 performances of more than 230 productions produced by more than 70 organizations, and more than 530,000 patrons at the Calderwood Pavilion since we opened it in 2004. • 1 6 shows moved to Broadway and Off Broadway including Stick Fly and Sons of the Prophet. • 22 local playwrights have been nurtured by the Huntington Playwriting Fellows program. •8 of their plays have been produced by the Huntington. • Our nationally recognized education and community programs have reached over 300,000 with live theatre and educational experiences. • Over the past 30 years, over 3.5 million patrons have seen a show at the Huntington!
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PERFORMANCE CALENDARS SEPTEMBER 2012 – JANUARY 2013 GOOD PEOPLE S
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professionals aged 21 – 35 complete with a post-show party. Visit huntingtontheatre.org/35below for more information.
(d) ACTORS FORUM Participating members of the cast answer your questions following the performance.
(h) HUMANITIES FORUM A post-performance talk on the historical and literary context of the show featuring a leading local scholar.
(~) AUDIO-DESCRIBED For blind and low-visioned audience members.
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conversations with fellow audience members and Huntington staff after most every performance.
members. Call 617 273 1558 for more information.
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(•) POST-SHOW CONVERSATIONS Join us for dynamic post-show
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31 2PM
6
2PM 7PM
12
1
2PM
7
NEW YEARS DAY
8
13 *7:30PM
7:30PM
19 @ds10AM 20 7:30PM
26
d2PM 7:30PM
2
22 8PM
28 7:30PM
2PM 8PM
4 d7:30PM
10 ds10AM
ds10AM 7:30PM
8PM
15
21
3
HANUKAH BEGINS
8PM
7:30PM
27
7:30PM
9 7:30PM
S 8 8PM
7:30PM
29 5
@8PM
11
12 8PM
2PM 8PM 2PM 8PM 2PM 8PM 2PM 8PM 2PM 8PM
SOUTH END
13 2PM
(@) ASL-INTERPRETED For Deaf and hard-of-hearing audience
•7:30PM
14
10 7PM
8PM
Call 617 273 1558 for more information.
2
9
BU THEATRE
•8PM
d7:30PM
•2PM
AVENUE OF THE ARTS
•8PM
26
DECEMBER 2012 - JANUARY 2013
•p8PM
8PM
8
•7:30PM
•p8PM
19
7
8PM
•2PM 24 •8PM
•7:30PM
S
CALDERWOOD PAVILION AT THE BCA
OUR TOWN
S 10
F 12
OCTOBER - NOVEMBER 2012
8PM
•8PM
M
BU THEATRE
2PM
•p7PM
•p8PM
22
•8PM
S
AVENUE OF THE ARTS
14
VETERANS DAY
15 •p8PM
27 ~ds10AM 28
•2PM 4 •7:30PM
S
NOW OR LATER
CALDERWOOD PAVILION AT THE BCA
(s) STUDENT MATINEE For groups of students in grades 6-12. Call 617 273 1558 for more information.
(p) PREVIEW (*) PRESS OPENING NIGHT TICKETS Start at $25 35 BELOW $25 for those 35 and under at every performance STUDENTS (25 AND UNDER) & MILITARY $15 GROUPS (10+) Save 20%! Behind-the-scenes access and on-site reception space available. Contact 617 273 1665 or GroupSales@huntingtontheatre.org. Subscribers receive $10 off any additional tickets purchased. Prices include a $2 per ticket Capital Enhancement fee.
CALL 617 266 0800 OR VISIT HUNTINGTONTHEATRE.ORG HUNTINGTONTHEATRE.ORG 27
26
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NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION US POSTAGE PAID BOSTON, MA PERMIT # 52499
YOU’RE INVITED TO OUR OPEN HOUSE MONDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2012 AVENUE OF THE ARTS / BU THEATRE 11am - 12pm: exclusive access for subscribers 12pm - 3pm: open to the general public Celebrate our official 30th Birthday with cake, special performances, backstage tours, interactive technical demonstrations, discussions with artists, giveaways, and more — families welcome! Part of the Fenway Alliance’s Opening Our Doors Day. Please RSVP by Sept. 30 at huntingtontheatre.org/openhouse. Huntington staff at the 2011 Open House