The Rules by VIA MEDIA / BAYSTAGES

FROM THE ARTISTIC DIRECTOR 450 Post Street San Francisco, CA 94102 415.677.9596 info@sfplayhouse.org sfplayhouse.org Bill English

artistic director

Susi Damilano

producing director

BOARD OF DIRECTORS Andrew Teufel, president William Adler Susan Atherton Morgan Muir Callahan Andre Glenn Chenoweth Susi Damilano Bill English Geoffrey Jue John Kalin Helen E. Land Steven Mayer William O’Keeffe Louis Parnell Sandra Robbins Dana Shapiro Christian Chadd Taylor John Trout Scott Walecka Rowland Weinstein

SFPlayhouse

When we look back at the last century, since women achieved the right to the vote in 1920, we believe that huge progress has been made. In the 1960s, so much attention was placed on Women’s Liberation. Legislation has been enacted in decades since that protects women from discrimination and guarantees their rights to property and many other areas of life where men traditionally held all the power. Women have risen to the top of corporate ladders and universities, and it seems likely we shall soon have the first ever major-party female nominee for President. We have good reason to be positive about the progress of women in our time. And yet, our society’s multigenerational conditioning that women are somehow inferior to men can still have a powerful effect on women today. This effect can afflict even well-educated women who otherwise know the fallacy of such subversive sexism. These conditionings are often unconscious and can manifest in small invisible ways, such as the unwritten rules of how women should behave, the rules of courtship, the rules of relating to other women. Like many of the ways racism expresses itself subtly, women can often find it difficult to counter the programming that has been passed down from their mothers, grandmothers, and great-grandmothers. We often can’t feel the impact of this deep conditioning until a moment of crisis. Then the cultivated virtues of ‘niceness’ are pushed aside, and a more ancient archetypal wildness can emerge. Best-selling author and psychologist Dr. Clarissa Estes describes this wildness as a “savage creativity,” or the instinctual ability to know what tool to use and when to use it. Without it, she argues, women are spiritually and often physically dead. Ms. Guha, in order to spark an intense debate on these and other compelling issues of our time, throws three friends into the petri dish with the seemingly perfect man. He appears to be exactly what each of them respectively want from their ideal mate. How will these three friends be impacted by their simultaneous romance with the same man? What rules will govern the courtships and the friends’ reactions? The playwright offers no clear answers, just an opportunity for us to wade into the complexities of modern courtship and the lives of these three female friends. Will we see ourselves reflected in the characters on the stage? Can we observe how the “rules” of engagement still trap women and men into ancient games of inequality and misogyny? In what ways does our complicity with the existing power structure intertwine with our resistance to it? What will it take to move forward as the curtain closes on this world and we leave the theatre to return to ours?

@SFPlayhouse

Bill English SFPlayhouse

Artistic Director

PRODUCTION SPONSORHIP ROBERT + JAN GINSBERG

and executive producer ROWLAND WEINSTEIN present the world premiere of

season producers

HELEN A. LAND PHYLLIS + JERRY ROSENBERGR producers

by Dipika Guha

THE CASTILIAN FUND SUE KUBLY MEG ZWEIBECK + ZACK WASSERMAN

WHERE: A city in the First World. English is a first language. In a recession. Peacetime at home. WHEN: Today. Now. Always?

associate producers

CAST

[ IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE ]

Valmont....................................................................Johnny Moreno ● Ana.............................................................................. Sarah Moser ● Julia..........................................................................Karen Offereins Mehr.............................................................................Amy Lizardo ●

CREATIVE TEAM Director................................................................... Susannah Martin Costume Designer......................................................Ashley Holvick Lighting Designer........................... Wolfgang Lancelot Wachalovsky Props Designer........................................................... Devon LaBelle Set Designer......................................................Angrette McCloskey Sound Designer............................................................... Matt Stines ●

Member of Actors' Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers.

SPECIAL THANKS FROM THE PLAYWRIGHT: SPACE on Ryder Farm, Old Vic New Voices, Playwrights Horizons/Clubbed Thumb, Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theatre, White Heron Theatre, Resonance Theatre Ensemble, One Coast Collaboration, Cherry Lane Theatre, Amy Mueller and to the wonderful people of Joust Theatre who helped me get the play to the current draft. To the directors who have previously worked on this play: Lila Neugebauer, Colette Roberts, Cynthia Silver, Caitlin Sullivan, Jesse Jou, Michelle Tattenbaum, Aaron Rossini and the many actors who have given their time and talent in workshops. To the generous people at San Francisco Playhouse for putting their trust in me and this play: Bill English, Jordan Puckett and Lauren English. To this beautiful cast: Sarah Moser, Amy Lizardo, Karen Offereins and Johnny Moreno (who forfeited his sabbatical to do this play!). To all our designers, our stage manager Katie Sumi, Bre Mack, Sarah Rose Leonard and to the brilliant and tireless Susannah Martin. Lastly, my gratitude to my partner, Matthew Akamatsu, whose tea making gets me through every draft of every play.

2016.06 • BAYSTAGES.COM

Our mission is to share stories that uplift our spirits, deepen self-awareness and nurture compassionate community.

PRODUCTION TEAM Stage Manager.......................................................................... Katie Sumi Production Manager - Mainstage................................... Maggie Koch Production Manager - Sandbox.................................. Jordan Puckett Technical Theatre Manager - Mainstage..........................Zach Sigman Technical Director - Sandbox.............................................Tish Leung Scenic Painter.................................................................Tish Leung Angrette McCloskey Photographer....................................................................Ken Levin Electricians............................... Will Poulin, Ericka Sokolower-Shain Production Assistant................................................... Breanna Mack Technical Theatre Intern...................................................... Tony Jue

graphic design + publishing

[

providing outstanding graphic design + publishing solutions including what you are holding right now to the lgbt, arts, business and hospitality communities since 1998

STAFF

]

clients include

san francisco playhouse broadway by the bay custom made theatre co. san francisco pride castro street fair sonoma county pride s.f. gay men’s chorus golden gate business association silicon valley shakespeare

Artistic Director................................................................Bill English Producing Director......................................................Susi Damilano Associate Artistic Director.......................................... Jordan Puckett Production Manager.................................................... Maggie Koch Resident Playwright........................................................Aaron Loeb Casting Director.........................................................Lauren English Casting Associate..................................................... Monique Hafen Education Director....................................................... Kathleen Lee Marketing Director.................................................... Donny Gilliland Administrative Manager......................................Charlotte Brockman General Accountant..............................................Antoinette Catalla Individual Gifts Manager.....................................................Ken Levin Development Manager............................................... Daniel Kessler Stewardship Coordinator.................................................Hillary Bray Patron Services Manager..........................................Tiiu Eva Rebane Box Office Associate................................................ Noelle Harrison Concessions Manager.......................................... Natalia Hermosilla Lead Front of House Manager....................................... Rebecca Hodges Front of House Team.......................................................Hillary Bray Graphics................................................................. Tatjana Genser ● Key Art................................ Chad Vaughan, bluejeanblack designs Publicist ..................................................................... Anne Abrams Development Assistant............................................Amanda Geraldo Education Assistant.............................Alexandra May, Jose Sanchez Literary Assistant.............................................................Caity Cook Marketing Assistant........................................................ Alex Scoolis ●

Member of Actors' Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers

and the merchants associations of San Francisco’s

mission, noe valley, castro, bayview, potrero/dogpatch, north beach, soma/ south beach-mission bay and inner sunset

Performances:

June 22 to July 16, 2016

neighborhoods

Creativity Theater, 221 Fourth Street, San Francisco, CA 94103

415.552.8040

The performance runs approximately 90 minutes. There will be no intermission.

advertise@via.media a division of Caselli Partners LLC

Please note the location of all exits. Please turn off your cell phones and other electronic devices. Photography, videotaping or other recording of this production is strictly prohibited. 2

BAYSTAGES.COM • 2016.06

ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES AMY LIZARDO (Mehr) is a Bay ●

Area actor, singer and teaching artist. Her recent credits include The Unfortunates (American Conservatory Theater), Party People (Berkeley Repertory Theatre), The Tempest (California Shakespeare Theater), Hundred Days (Z Space), Dogfight (San Francisco Playhouse) and Hedwig and the Angry Inch (Boxcar Theatre, SFBATCC Award nominee). Amy graduated from San José State University in 2010 with a master's degree in theatre.

JOHNNY MORENO (Valmont) ●

has appeared throughout the region and has had the pleasure of working with some of the best actors in the Bay Area including No Mercy with Lisa Steindler, Pentecost with Delia MacDougal, Mary Stuart with Marco Barricelli, El Otro with Sean San Jose, Displaced with Jarion Monroe, Stupid Fucking Bird with Carrie Paff, Threepenny Opera with Will Springhorn Jr., My Fair Lady with Charles Dean, On the Waterfront with Summer Serafin, Juan Gelion Dances for the Sun with Nick Sholley, Period of Adjustment with Patrick Alparone, Gibraltar with Dena Martinez and Joan Mankin, Venus in Fur with Elena Wright, Camelot with Monique Hafen, Promises, Promises with Jeffrey Brian Adams, The Rainmaker with Randall King and Joe Estlack, The Addams Family with Allison F. Rich, Blade to the Heat with L. Peter Callender, and his personal favorite: Picasso at the Lapin Agile with Jessa Brie Moreno. He is a graduate of the MFA program at American Conservatory Theater.

SARAH MOSER (Ana) is thrilled

to make her San Francisco Playhouse debut. Recent credits include One Man, Two Guvnors (Berkeley Repertory Theater and South Coast Rep), The Great Pretender and Time Stands Still (TheatreWorks), The Coast of Utopia and Edward Gant’s Amazing Feats of Loneliness (Shotgun Players), A Maze and In From the Cold (Just Theater),

Eurydice (Palo Alto Players), StoryWorks (Tides Theatre) and In the Next Room, or the vibrator play and Hamlet (City Lights Theater Company). She is a proud company member at Just Theater and a grateful recipient of the RHE Artistic Fellowship for acting (2015).

KAREN OFFEREINS (Julia) is

very excited to be making her San Francisco Playhouse debut. She was last seen in Dark Porch Theatre's The Diplomats and in Shotgun Players’ The Mousetrap. She has previously performed with Shotgun Players, Word for Word, At Last Productions, Wily West Productions, Custom Made Theatre Co., San Francisco Olympians Festival, Thunderbird Theatre, San Francisco Theater Pub, Bay One Acts Festival, No Nude Men, AtmosTheatre, Theatre Q and TheatreWorks. She will next appear in a staged reading of brownsville song (b-side for tray) with Shotgun Players in August.

LIZARDO

MORENO

DIPIKA GUHA (Playwright) was

born in Calcutta and raised in India, Russia and the United Kingdom. She is the inaugural recipient of the Shakespeare’s Sister Playwriting Award with the Lark Play Development Center, A Room of Her Own and the Hedgebrook Women Playwrights Festival. Her plays include I Enter the Valley (Upcoming: Theatreworks New Play Festival ’16, Southern Rep New Play Festival‘16), Mechanics of Love (Crowded Fire Theatre, Upcoming Two by For, NYC), Blown Youth (Upcoming: Wallflower Theatricals, UK) and The Art of Gaman (Upcoming: Berkeley Rep Ground Floor ‘16). She is currently writing commissions for South Coast Repertory Theatre, Oregon Shakespeare Festival and Playwrights Horizons Theatre School. Most recently her work has been developed at Playwrights Horizons, Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre, Roundabout Underground, the McCarter Theatre’s Sallie B. Goodman Artists' Retreat, New Georges, Shotgun Players, the 2016.06 • BAYSTAGES.COM

MOSER

OFFEREINS

R E C O M M E N D S

Samuel French Off Off Broadway Short Play Festival, Southern Rep, 24 Hour Plays on Broadway and the Atlantic Theatre Company amongst others. Dipika is currently a visiting artist at the Schell Center for International Human Rights at Yale Law School and a resident playwright at the Playwrights Foundation. MFA: Yale School of Drama under Paula Vogel. dipikaguha.com

SUSANNAH MARTIN (Director) CLOSE TO YOU | ORIGINAL LONDON CAST

Burt Bacharach’s classics are re-imagined by Kyle Riabko and a cast of exciting young performers in the UK hit. ( sh-k-boom.com )

CHEYENNE JACKSON | RENAISSANCE

The Broadway and American Horror Story star is “Feeling Good” and “Americano” in his cabaret concert on CD. ( psclassics.com )

is an award-winning director, theatre educator, and theatre maker, Susannah is extremely proud to direct this world-premiere production by the incredible and incredibly talented - Ms. Guha. Previous projects with San Francisco Playhouse’s Sandbox Series include the world premiere of George Brant’s Grounded. She has also directed for Shotgun Players (company member), Mugwumpin (company member), 2by4, American Conservatory Theater, Aurora Theatre Company, Boxcar Theatre, Marin Theatre Company, Playwright’s Foundation, Porchlight Theatre Company, the San Francisco International Arts Festival, Sonoma County Rep, TheatreFIRST, TheatreWorks, Town Hall Theatre Company and Z Space. Susannah received her BFA in theatre from NYU and her MFA in directing from UC Davis. susannahmartin.net

ASHLEY HOLVICK (Costume

THEORY OF RELATIVITY | STUDIO CAST Song cycle by Bartram & Hill, authors of The Story of My Life, about the awkward dance from youth to adulthood. ( psclassics.com )

Designer) has been designing costumes for theaters and institutions in the Bay Area for the last ten years. Recent credits include Anne Boleyn at Marin Theatre Company and Romeo and Juliet at the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival. Upcoming projects include Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? at Shotgun Players and August: Osage County at Marin Theatre Company, where she is the costume shop manager. ashleyholvick.com

MAGGIE KOCH (Production

ARLINGTON | OFF-BROADWAY CAST

Grammy nominee Alexandra Silber as a young Army wife trying to keep herself from a nervous breakdown. ( broadwayrecords.com )

Manager - Mainstage) is thrilled to have worked for San Francisco Playhouse for ten years, starting as an intern, moving to production assistant then resident stage 4

BAYSTAGES.COM • 2016.06

manager and into her new title of production manager. She would like to thank Bill and Susi for giving her this great opportunity, her husband Ed for his love and always making her laugh, and her friends and family for their constant support. Go, Steelers!

DEVON LABELLE (Properties

Master) is a multidisciplinary artist with an emphasis on vivid visual and special effects components. In eight short seasons, she has fueled over eighty Bay Area productions with the physical artifacts that make them work. Devon is a resident artist with Crowded Fire Theater. Love to Sam, Jo and Roscoe. giveherprops. wordpress.com

TISH LEUNG (Technical Director

- Sandbox) has fifteen years of experience working with many Bay Area theatre companies including San Jose Repertory Theatre, TheatreWorks, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, American Musical Theatre of San Jose, Shakespeare Santa Cruz and Theater Arts at UC Santa Cruz. She is excited to be building a second season with San Francisco Playhouse's mainstage shows and also as technical manager for the Sandbox.

BREANNA MACK (Production

Assistant) this is Bre’s first time working with San Fransisco Playhouse, and she is so grateful to be working with such a passionate and talented group of people. A huge thank you to the Playhouse for this opportunity!

ANGRETTE MCCLOSKEY (Set

Designer) is a San Franciscobased scenographer, scholar and performance maker. She has collaborated on over 100 theatre, multi-media performance, and film productions in the Bay Area and New York City since 2006. Her design credits include off-Broadway and regional productions, as well assistant credits on Broadway and at the Metropolitan Opera and the English National Opera. Designs include Swimming to Spalding directed by Richard Schechner at the HERE Arts Center, as well as The Bacchae directed by Kevin Kulhke

at the Warsaw International Theatre Festival. Angrette is a PhD candidate in Stanford’s Department of Theatre and Performance Studies where she researches the intersections between architecture and labor in performance. angrette.com

JORDAN PUCKET (Production

Manager - Sandbox) has worked in a variety of capacities at San Francisco Playhouse since 2011. She is proud to now be the associate artistic director and production manager of the Sandbox Series. As a playwright, her work has been seen in California, Illinois and New York. Inevitable, her first full-length work, premiered in the Sandbox Series in 2013 and her latest play, Pajarita, received a workshop production as part of the 2016 Acting Out INK Fest in Los Angeles.

ZACH SIGMAN (Technical Theatre

Manager - Mainstage) is thrilled to be working his second season at San Francisco Playhouse. He has been working in theatre in the San Francisco Bay Area for the last twenty years for companies like San Jose Repertory Theatre, American Musical Theatre of San Jose, TheatreWorks, Opera San Jose and Berkeley Repertory Theatre.

MATT STINES (Sound Designer)

makes sounds for plays. He was most recently heard in Hamlet, The Mousetrap and Eurydice at Shotgun Players, where he is a stoked company member. He has also designed for Aurora Theatre Company, Center REPertory Company, Cutting Ball Theater and Marin Theatre Company. He is a three-time SFBATCC award winner. He makes sound art and strange music as a part of Klanghaus and full grownmin. mattstines. wordpress.com

KATIE SUMI (Stage Manager) is excited be working with the Sandbox

Series again this summer. She was last in San Francisco to stage manage 77%. Her home base is Boston where she works with the Huntington Theatre Company. Recent credits include Milk Like Sugar and A Confederacy of Dunces. Katie graduated from Mount Holyoke College with a degree in theatre arts. Many thanks to Marnie for all of her support!

WOLFGANG LANCELOT WACHALOVSK Y (Lighting

Designer) is a freelance directorcollaborator and designer. He has worked in a broad range of scripted works including Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Bremen Freedom and Sartre’s No Exit as well as adapting and directing Wolfgang Borchert’s Draussen vor der Tür and Christopher Marlowe’s Faustus. Wolfgang has developed and directed the world premieres of Killer Queen (Burning Monk Collective), a hand in Desire (EmSpace Dance) and Owners of Nothing (Transient Theatre). For the past year and a half, he has been developing – in collaboration with directors in London and in New York – a completely online performance event. Wolfgang’s lighting design is focused on site-specific creations like Mugwumpin’s Future Motive Power at the Old Mint in San Francisco and Killer Queen in a warehouse in West Hollywood in Los Angeles. His video design was seen in Mugwumpin's Blockbuster Season and Aurora Theater Company's Little Erik.

SAN FRANCISCO PLAYHOUSE was

founded by Bill English and Susi Damilano in 2003. It was described by the New York Times as “a company that stages some of the most consistently high-quality work around" and deemed “ever adventurous” by the Bay Area News Group. Located right in the heart of the Union Square theater district, San Francisco Playhouse

is the city’s premier Off-Broadway company, an intimate alternative to the larger more traditional Union Square theatre fare. San Francisco Playhouse provides audiences the opportunity to experience professional theatre with top-notch actors and world-class design in a setting where they are close to the action. The company has received multiple awards for overall productions, acting and design including the SF Weekly Best Theatre Award and the Bay Guardian’s Best Off-Broadway Theatre Award. KQED/ NPR recently praised the company: “San Francisco Playhouse is one of the few theaters in the Bay Area that has a mission that actually shows up on stage. Artistic director Bill English’s commitment to empathy as a guiding philosophical and aesthetic force is admirable and by living that mission, fascinating things happen onstage.” Presenting a diverse range of plays and musicals, San Francisco Playhouse produces new works as well as re-imagining classics, “making the edgy accessible and the traditional edgy.” The company’s 2012-2013 season marked its tenth anniversary and, as it moved to a newly renovated venue, the San Francisco Chronicle raved: “On the verge of opening its 10th season, the company that lived a hand-tomouth existence for its first few years has become the little playhouse that could. It quickly established a reputation for attracting some of the Bay Area's best acting and directing talent, as well as for its exciting play choices. And with its bold Sandbox Series, it's become a player in developing new works as well.” San Francisco Playhouse is committed to providing a creative home and inspiring environment where actors, directors, writers, designers, and theatre lovers converge to create works that celebrate the human spirit.

● Members of Actors’ Equity Association. This theater operates under an agreement with Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States.

All images and/or content provided by San Francisco Playhouse staff, contractors and/or creative artists unless otherwise credited. Opinions expressed by contractors, contributors and/or creative artists do not necessarily reflect the views of San Francisco Playhouse or VIA MEDIA. Photo credits are included as provided.