Signature Theatre Company

ANGELS IN AMERICA Thoughts -- Actress Zoe Kazan

2010-12-09T08:58:00.000-08:00

Photo by Joan Marcus

"It is a great honor to be part of the revival of Angels in America. I can't describe the energy in the room the first day of rehearsal, but it was remarkable to feel that every person there was equally excited about the undertaking and equally eager to get in and start rooting around--as the Angel says, "The Great Work begins." I was also struck by how personal the plays felt for almost everyone I talked to about them. So many of us have some story, some personal attachment, which cuts through the size of what the plays have become. The personal is in the universal, and visa versa: as much as Angels deals with huge themes, it is also (I think) fundamentally concerned with and rooted in the body in all its mess and sex and mutability and mortality--and what could be more personal than that? I think this is what keeps Angels completely rooted in the here and now, even as the "virus of time" has moved the events of the play away from the present tense. I was two years old in 1985, when Millennium Approaches begins, and was only seven when Angels was first produced in New York. I remember my parents coming home from the theater, telling me about it the next morning. I didn't know what AIDS was; I didn't even know the meaning of the word "gay." Three years later, one of my elementary school teachers had died from AIDS; a second one would pass a few years after. I don't remember the first time I read Angels, but I know the impact it had on me--my dog eared copy will attest to the many times I have returned to it. I always find something new. It is a blessing--more life--to have the opportunity to return to it again, in this new way, with these people, in this theater."

–Zoe Kazan

Zoe Kazan plays Harper Pitt in Signature Theatre Company's production of Angels in America

Angels is a hit! See what the critics had to say!

2010-11-01T09:58:00.000-07:00

See what the critics had to say about the Signature Theatre Company production of Tony Kushner's Angels in America!

“Five Stars! Perfect Revival! The Signature Theatre Company has done it again. Although it seemed unlikely that they could match last year's Horton Foote trilogy The Orphans' Home Cycle, they've accomplished that with a dazzling revival of Angels in America. It's great to see Angels fly so high and so potently again. "The great work begins" is said by a couple of characters. It's happening now at the Signature.”
Joe Dziemianowicz, New York Daily News

“In seven hours, Angels can change your world!”
Scott Brown, New York Magazine

“The Angel has landed again, at long last, and all's right with the world. Amend that. All's deliriously right in a theater world where Tony Kushner's monumental, subversive, altogether remarkable masterwork, "Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes," can be seen - in all its gargantuan seven-hour, two-part, big-brain glory - at the tiny Signature Theatre Company.”
Linda Winer, Newsday

“Glowingly acted! Bill Heck is superb as Joe. Robin Bartlett’s tough-minded, laconic Hannah is good enough to eclipse memories of Kathleen Chalfant and Meryl Streep in the same role. In Zoe Kazan’s sharply graded, passionately felt performance, [Harper] becomes the production’s nerve center. The received wisdom about Mr. Kushner is that he is a great playwright. This production reminds us that he is also a good one, which as far as satisfying nights at the theater are concerned, may be more important.”
Ben Brantley, New York Times

“The awe inspiring Angels stands the test of time! Kushner’s great work still has the power to shock, enlighten and delight.”
David Cote, Time Out New York

“Shimmers with newfound intimacy and unspeakable beauty!”
Melissa Rose Bernardo, Entertainment Weekly

“Christian Borle is instantly believable and never less than heartbreaking. Billy Porter is wonderful in every way.”
Marilyn Stasio, Variety

“Michael Greif's staging is fierce and exact. Mark Wendland's compact double-turntable set is a miraculously efficient piece of design, and Wendall K. Harrington's digital projections add immeasurably to the set's spatial richness.”
Terry Teachout, Wall Street Journal

“Frank Wood is a revelation as Roy Cohn, exhibiting a fierce intensity."
Frank Scheck, Hollywood Reporter

“Will absorb you utterly and make you think! The superb Zachary Quinto imbues Louis, the lover who abandons Prior in his illness, with a ferocious intelligence and a vivid sensuality. Robin Weigert underscores, with tenderness and wit, the sobering questions posed by Prior's condition, from the nature of mortality to the existence of God.”
Elysa Gardner, USA Today

“Signature Theatre Company offered the theatrical event of last season with its extraordinary production of Horton Foote's The Orphans' Home Cycle. The company may have pulled off that feat again, thanks to director Michael Greif's equally extraordinary production of Angels in America. This production makes it clear that Kushner's seven-hour, two-part epic belongs in the first rank of great American dramas, alongside such masterworks as "Our Town," "Death of a Salesman," "A Streetcar Named Desire," and "Long Day's Journey Into Night." What's more, it's proof that…the only way to experience the work's full impact is in its original home: the theater.”
Erik Haagensen, Backstage

ANGELS IN AMERICA Thoughts -- Actor Zachary Quinto

2010-10-14T07:18:00.002-07:00

Photo by Joan Marcus

"...Angels in America.

brazen.
brave.
unapologetic.
vital.
fierce.
intelligent.
compassionate.
graceful.

Tony Kushner gave voice to a movement. a movement of human beings who were unwilling to let themselves - or each other - off the hook. who - in the face of tremendous adversity and horrific decimation - asked questions of courage and took action that elevated them - and all of us who came after them - to another experience of life. a deeper level of acceptance and understanding.

humanity is honored by these plays. he has both captured and created a momentum in these works that is unmistakable and timelessly provocative. he manages to weave the quiet grace of an intimate moment into the terrific power of celestial movement. technically and creatively the plays demand profound momentum and stamina. it is nothing short of an epic journey.

and now here we are - twenty years after the creation of these plays - bringing them back to the city where it all began. in a world more advanced - but no less fractured - we once again turn to ourselves and to each other with the same questions. maybe now they are framed in a different context. but at their core they ask us to - "look up, look up, prepare the way..." because i believe there are forces much larger than all of us at work in these plays. intangible forces that are occasionally harnessed at times of great need. Tony wrote these plays at such a time. he has taken that need and given it inspired and graceful language. and i am deeply humbled to be a part of this ensemble - bringing his language to life at this specific moment.

surrender..."

–Zachary Quinto

Zachary Quinto plays Louis Ironson in Signature Theatre Company's production of Angels in America

ANGELS IN AMERICA Thoughts -- Director Michael Greif

2010-10-14T07:18:00.001-07:00

Angels in America at 20 Years: Michael Greif from Signature Theatre Company on Vimeo.

Michael Greif is the director of the Signature Theatre Company production of Angels in America

Video: Zachary Quinto Tells Gay Youth "It Gets Better"

2010-10-06T15:06:00.001-07:00

Zachary Quinto, who plays Louis Ironson in the Signature production of Angels in America, reaches out to struggling gay youth with an "It Gets Better" video.

For futher information and more "It Gets Better" videos please visit http://www.youtube.com/user/itgetsbetterproject.

ANGELS IN AMERICA Thoughts -- Professor Claire Gleitman

2010-10-05T07:37:00.000-07:00

ANGELS IN AMERICA Thoughts -- Actor Christian Borle

2010-09-30T10:00:00.000-07:00

Photo by Joan Marcus

"When asked to share my thoughts on Angels in America, one of the most iconic, acclaimed and… dare I say it… heralded pieces of writing of the last 50 years, I found courage in the words of Tony Kushner himself. Though, I think, not in the way you’d expect.

In one of an ongoing parade of 'pinch me' moments, I was given Tony’s email address after hearing the news that I had been cast as Prior. I wanted to say thanks, how excited I was. He replied, and in his sign-off he wrote… Tony Kushner wrote… 'back atcha.'

'Atcha.'

Something clicked for me when I read that. He’s a human being. Who wrote a play (or two). It’s easy to imagine that the series of words he strung together over a decade ago came to him in some sort of fever dream, channeled or bestowed. How momentous, how inspiring to discover that it’s so much more… accessible than that.

We get to have Tony in the room sometimes. He ARRIVES with new pages (Pinch Me Moments #34-52), hot off the inkjet. These are mostly tweaks to Part Two, him refining, still finding, clarifying. We sit at a table and watch him watch us as we speak this new assemblage of words, stutters, italics, dashes and ellipses. When it’s his turn to speak… to illuminate… he’s profound, intellectually intimidating, learned, funny, basically everything you’d hope for. But still, he’s just a person.

We’re five weeks into rehearsal now, and the room is full of people, just trying to figure it all out. It’s acting, writing, directing, designing, scheduling, maneuvering, lunching, caffeinating, crunching lines, going home at the end of the day. Human stuff.

What seemed, before the whole thing started, insurmountable and daunting is now what the most pretentious among us (read: me) call “the work.” And I hope that you all, uni-genitalled, male, female, or somewhere in between… you who come to see the play that will be barreling atcha… Well, I hope you like it. I hope you don’t notice the work that went into it. I hope you see something timeless in this story of humanity, by humans, for humans.

Because we are not going away."

–Christian Borle

Christian Borle plays Prior Walter in the Signature Theatre Company production of Angels in America

ANGELS IN AMERICA Thoughts -- Book Editor Jonathan Evans

2010-09-27T12:22:00.000-07:00

We continue our series of posts featuring people's thoughts on the power and impact of Tony Kushner’s Angels in America. Click here and continue checking back for more words from Broadway cast members, our current cast and creative team, Signature’s past Playwrights-in-Residence, and others in the theatre community. We also want to hear from YOU -- click here to find out how you can contribute.

"I first encountered Angels in America during the fall semester of my senior year at Ithaca College, when it was suggested by my Drama Lit professor that I read the play ahead of the class assignment; she thought it would make a good project for me to direct as a workshop production (which was our glorified way of saying “staged reading with props”). I went home and consumed the entire seven-hour, three-hundred-page leviathan in one sitting. For as long as I live I will never forget that afternoon: laughing with Belize and Louis, weeping for Prior and Harper, gasping at Roy and Joe, and marveling and the jaw-dropping audacity of the thing: to write a socialist-American history of the age of AIDS and Reagan through the eyes of the marginalized and the dying, and to do so in a way that is both utterly harrowing and wildly entertaining, that is both high- and low-brow, that is both empathetic and empowering, is one of the most fabulous declarations of “I am” I have ever encountered. And yet when I think back to that afternoon/evening, it is with a fair amount of sorrow. The first reason for this was that I remember feeling, not even ten minutes after finishing the play, that I would never be again feel the exhilaration of reading it for the first time. I sat on my sofa for several minutes almost in a state of paralysis (full disclosure: I may have had a few drinks while reading the play), then dragged myself to bed, eager to find my professor the next day and tell her how much I was looking forward to staging a reading. I climbed into bed and checked the alarm on my cell phone, the screen of which revealed what I would only know twenty-four hours later to be the second reason for looking back in sorrow:

“11:35 PM MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2001”

It wasn’t until much later that I was able to think back with even a sliver of clarity on the days and weeks that followed. I was in shock. We all were. It was like we were asleep to the world around us and were only awoken by the pain of our own hearts breaking. I wasn’t naïve to the negative consequences of America’s role as lone global superpower, and I believe to describe the pre-9/11 world as “more innocent” would require one to cover himself in a thick shroud of ignorance. However, to this day I find myself thinking over and over, “If I knew then what I know now.” But there was no way of knowing. You could have read the entire works of Noam Chomsky (which I pretty much had) and still not had any idea of what direction the world would head in. When those planes hit their targets, they blew a giant hole in history itself, out of which spewed pure uncertainty. (People make a habit of looking back to the days after 9/11 and wistfully noting that Bush had the world’s sympathy and affection, and squandered it. I guess this testifies to the ubiquity of uncertainty, the idea that reasonably intelligent people thought Bush would actually do the right thing.) The old paradigms would no longer hold. A membrane had broken. All around us was the rubble of the past, and as the world kept spinning uncontrollably into the future, I was straining to understand the present.

To make matters worse, 9/11 was the day I lost my faith in images. The myriad ways in which images were being manipulated to whip us into some kind of jingoistic nationalist froth convinced me that images were not to be trusted, as they were almost inherently prone to lie (this is quite a devastating revelation for a film student). As a result of this, while my friends and classmates were reaching for their cameras to make sense of it all, I had no textuality with which to, if not comprehend, than at least recognize what Aeschylus called “the awful grace of God.” I had no vocabulary with which to interpret the tensions that seemed to be ripping apart the fabric of Western civilization. I had no language with which to express (in a way that didn’t make me sound like a militant) that the thing I feared most was my own nation and the torrent of hatred it was likely to unleash on the world. It felt like this was the moment when the xenophobic, apocalyptic undertones of the American right-wing would come raging to the surface and usher in the end of days. Everything swirling around us at that point was patently, maliciously Manichean, and while such absolutes comforted some, they terrified me: reducing the geopolitical rabbit hole to a two-sided prism of good-versus-evil was utter insanity. Like everyone, I felt terribly afraid and utterly alone; nothing I knew well enough to draw upon for strength could address the overwhelming feeling of abandonment that hung over me, the anger I felt toward those asked that ridiculous question, “Why do they hate us?”, or the guilt I felt at so selfishly wanting some kind of resolution visited upon me for having undertaken the debilitating task of simply living through the day. Emotional crutches felt hollow and simplistic; intellectual confrontation with history left me feeling like an idiot for being an innate optimist. I looked up at the brilliant blue sky that day and felt that gone was the time when angels fell to wreak havoc on the world; now it was only airplanes and ballistic missiles. I saw an empty heaven, and I had no way of confronting that.

So there we all were, violently jerked into a new world with no time to truly comprehend what had been lost and no real plan for how to deal with our initiation into the murderous reality we had managed to elude for so long. I went home some time later that day, and still sitting on my living room sofa was my copy of Angels. I picked it up and started rereading different parts. The scene that stopped me cold was a conversation between Harper and the Mormon mother. Harper asks, “In your experience of the world, how do people change?” Rereading this scene, I began to understand that, as is necessary when the world changes, we were on our own to do the stitching and then get up and walk around. We were just mangled guts pretending. The idea that a positivist change could only come as the result of unbearable agony resonated; at the time, surviving the horror of 9/11 required enduring unimaginable suffering. In the weeks that followed I poured over the play again and again. It became for me a framing mechanism with which I was able to comprehend that moment of history. And like the most thrilling works of art, it gave color and shape to what had been, for me, abstract notions of tragedy, fidelity, justice, compassion, wisdom, and love. It simultaneously expanded and honed my comprehension of the devastation wrought by the gale-force winds of progress (as Walter Benjamin put it), and helped train my ears to the birth cry (which all too often comes in the form of a dying scream) of new life at its term (hat tip: Seamus Heaney). It cannot possibly be understated how important Kushner’s words became to me:

—“Before the world becomes finally merely uninhabitable, it will for a long time before have become completely unbearable.”

—“It isn't easy, it doesn't count if it's easy, it's the hardest thing. Forgiveness. Which is maybe where love and justice finally meet. Peace, at least.”

—“I hate America. I hate this country. It’s just big ideas and stories and people dying and people like you. The white cracker who wrote the national anthem knew what he was doing. He set the word 'free' to a note so high nobody can reach it. That was deliberate. Nothing on earth sounds less like freedom to me. You come to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean.”

—“Maybe I am a prophet. Not just me, all of us who are dying now. Maybe we've caught the virus of prophecy. Be still, toil no more. Maybe the world has driven God from heaven and incurred the angel's wrath. I believe I've seen the end of things, and having seen I'm going blind as prophets do; it makes a certain sense to me. And if I hate heaven, my only resistance is to run.”

—“You are a battered heart bleeding life into the universe of wounds.”

—“In this world there is a kind of painful progress: longing for what we’ve left behind, and dreaming ahead.”

And, of course:

—"I've lived through such terrible times and there are people who live through much worse. But you see them living anyway. When they're more spirit than body, more sores than skin, when they're burned and in agony, when flies lay eggs in the corners of the eyes of their children—they live. Death usually has to take life away. I don't know if that's just the animal. I don't know if it's not braver to die, but I recognize the habit; the addiction to being alive. We live past hope. If I can find hope anywhere, that's it, that's the best I can do. It's so much not enough. It's so inadequate. But still bless me anyway. I want more life."

The enduring legacy of Angels in America in my life is the manner in which it instilled in me—through its magnanimity of intelligence and spirit, and abundance of outrage and empathy—the notion that it is a moral and ethical obligation to not abandon the struggle for justice, even though the struggle very often seems impossible; that it is imperative we stare into the deepest black until we find that needlepoint glimmer of light; that it is not impossible or irresponsible to imagine that there is a place where love and justice finally meet; that it is necessary to live past hope. (Had I been given a more Judaic upbringing, I’m sure this would have occurred to me sooner; as it was, I had such a sheltered WASPish upbringing that I got all the way to college before I learned that Hebrew and Yiddish are two different languages; not a proud moment for me.) In the decade since I first read the play, we have come through such terrible times, and it looks like we will have to endure further madness—just turn on the television and let the images tell you all about the decline and fall of the Republic—but I believe that true progress has been made, progress that doesn’t seem to move the needle when cast against the backdrop of the 24-hour American freak show, but is nonetheless real. Six years after homophobic legislation was used as a state-by-state wedge issue to swing an election, I am truly confident that my generation will be the last one to see laws passed banning gay marriage. Two disastrous military campaigns have turned public opinion against neo-conservative warmongering in ways that I thought only reinstating the draft could. The economic meltdown has galvanized opposition to economic inequality in ways that seemed unimaginable at any other time in the last thirty years. And even amid race relations that are still tense and combustible, no one can dispute that the color of the president’s skin is an irrefutable sign of progress. I am certain that, were it not for Angels in America, I would not be able to see this progress as anything other than blips along the way to inexorable decline. It wouldn’t have been too terribly hard to fathom a decade ago. But every once in a while, when we find ourselves at the utter midnight of hopelessness, a voice rises from the darkness and leads us to a place of knowing. A voice that reverberates through you so profoundly that you feel altered on an almost biological level, as if your heart will never beat the same way again. A voice so powerful and overwhelming that I can only think of it as the voice of God. Sometimes this voice comes from a person or group of people. Sometimes it comes from a work of art. Angels in America is one of those voices. It spoke, I listened, and nothing has ever been the same.

Very Steven Spielberg."

–Jonathan Evans

Jonathan Evans is a Senior Production Editor at Simon & Schuster

ANGELS IN AMERICA Thoughts -- Playwright Sarah Ruhl

2010-09-23T09:22:00.000-07:00

ANGELS IN AMERICA Thoughts -- Actress Ellen McLaughlin

2010-09-23T08:38:00.000-07:00

Angels In America at 20 Years: Ellen McLaughlin from Signature Theatre Company on Vimeo.

Ellen McLaughlin played The Angel in the San Francisco, Los Angeles and Broadway productions of Angels in America

ANGELS IN AMERICA Thoughts -- Playwright Tony Kushner

2010-09-23T08:35:00.000-07:00

Angels In America at 20 Years: Tony Kushner from Signature Theatre Company on Vimeo.

Tony Kushner is the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning playwright of Angels in America

ANGELS IN AMERICA Thoughts -- Graduate Student Harris

2010-09-14T07:31:00.000-07:00

ANGELS IN AMERICA Thoughts -- Actor Frank Wood

2010-09-07T09:38:00.000-07:00

Photo by Gregory Costanzo

"I remember reading Angels in America in American Theater Magazine. I was living in one of four apartments I ended up subletting in my first year back in New York after a two year stint in Malvern, Pa. at People's Light and Theater Company. I was lonely and unsure of myself, certainly of my future. I had chosen this place (sort of). Why? And this career. Why? In my little apartment that had roaches coming out of the telephone (my fault as much as the building's) and access to every drunken conversation that passed by my basement window (magnified by the air conditioner vent) I felt overwhelmed by the city, my unemployment and the idea of being an actor. I read Angels in America as a duty almost, and then before I knew it, it had taken me out of my New York apartment and put me in all these others. It put me back in New York in the middle of a crisis that was going on outside my window but that I never touched. It read like Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw and Caryl Churchill. It made me proud to be an actor and proud to think that the most important work anyone I knew could think of that dealt with today's politics and culture and represented America most truthfully was a play. I had landed back in New York when my profession and the only corner of it that I had practiced in, theater, was at the center of American life.

So. Now. To be in this play is to revisit not only the mid eighties but also the early nineties and a time in my life when I got a second wind. When I started to notice what was going on and what mattered. It is perhaps the only play that came into being during my adulthood that is now being performed, while I am still...almost... in my prime, as one of the Greats.

For my time, it is the great play.

And now I take a breath and bring my thoughts down a notch and think about Roy Cohn and a Bronx accent and... hope for some revelation."

–Frank Wood

Frank Wood is playing Roy Cohn in the Signature Theatre Company production of Angels in America

ANGELS IN AMERICA Thoughts -- Press Agent Chris Boneau

2010-08-31T08:36:00.000-07:00

ANGELS IN AMERICA Thoughts -- Student Alexander Cavaluzzo

2010-08-26T08:42:00.000-07:00

ANGELS IN AMERICA Thoughts -- Playwright Christopher Shinn

2010-08-23T12:16:00.001-07:00

ANGELS IN AMERICA Thoughts -- Graduate Student Elsa Sjunneson

2010-08-19T11:50:00.000-07:00

ANGELS IN AMERICA Thoughts -- Designer Wendall Harrington

2010-08-16T13:38:00.000-07:00

ANGELS IN AMERICA Thoughts -- Student Blake Pruitt

2010-08-12T12:00:00.000-07:00

ANGELS IN AMERICA Thoughts -- Director Leigh Silverman

2010-08-09T17:39:00.000-07:00

ANGELS IN AMERICA Thoughts -- Actor Billy Porter

2010-08-05T08:31:00.000-07:00

ANGELS IN AMERICA Thoughts -- Playwright Romulus Linney

2010-08-02T08:26:00.000-07:00

This is the first in a series of posts featuring people's thoughts on the power and impact of Tony Kushner’s Angels in America. Continue checking back for words from Broadway cast members, our current cast and creative team, more of Signature’s past Playwrights-in-Residence, and others in the theatre community. We also want to hear from YOU -- click here to find out how you can contribute.

"The soaring theatricality of Angels in America is justly celebrated. What I celebrate most is its sane good humor as it hits its targets with devastating force, targets that until Tony Kushner showed them to us, we did not know existed."
-Playwright Romulus Linney

Romulus Linney was the founding Playwright-in-Residence at Signature Theatre Company during the 1991-92 season.

Love ANGELS IN AMERICA? We Want to Hear From You!

2010-07-29T09:58:00.000-07:00

Starting next week we will begin to share thoughts people have on the power and impact of Tony Kushner’s Angels in America – words from Broadway cast members, our current cast and creative team, Signature’s past Playwrights-in-Residence, and others in the theatre community.

But that’s not all – we want to hear from you!

Were you in a college production of the show? Did seeing the national tour or a regional production deeply affect you? Was the HBO miniseries your first exposure to Tony Kushner’s landmark work? Let us know! We would love for you to send in your thoughts, be they in text form, photos, videos, artwork, or however else you would like to express them. We’ll be posting some of the material we receive on the blog, alongside the folks discussed above. We will also randomly select 3 individuals who submit to receive a special prize!

Please send all submissions to angelsinamerica@signaturetheatre.org.

We look forward to hearing from you!

Revealing the Artwork for Signature's Production of ANGELS IN AMERICA

2010-07-22T09:07:00.000-07:00

We are proud to reveal the show art for the Signature Theatre Company production of Angels in America, which begins performances on September 14. The art for our production was created by noted designer Milton Glaser, who also designed the art for the original Broadway production!

Be sure to check back next week when we launch our Angels in America microsite. And don't forget -- single tickets go onsale August 3 at 10AM!

Announcing the Cast of ANGELS IN AMERICA

2010-06-22T16:34:00.000-07:00

We are very pleased to formally announce the cast and design team for the Signature Theatre Company production of Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes:

Robin Bartlett as Hannah Pitt
Christian Borle as Prior Walter
Bill Heck as Joe Pitt
Zoe Kazan as Harper Pitt
Billy Porter as Belize
Zachary Quinto as Louis Ironson
Robin Weigert as The Angel
Frank Wood as Roy Cohn

Angels in America will feature scenic design by Mark Wendland, costume design by Clint Ramos, lighting design by Ben Stanton, sound design by Ken Travis, projection design by Wendall K. Harrington, original music by Michael Friedman and fight direction by Rick Sordelet. Production Stage Manager is Monica Cuoco and Stage Manager is Joshua Pilote.

Performances begin September 14, 2010 at The Peter Norton Space. Part 1: Millennium Approaches and Part 2: Perestroika will be presented in repertory.

Tickets will be on sale starting August 3 at 10AM.

Let the fun begin!

Getting Ready for Portraits of the Orphans'

2010-05-04T08:43:00.000-07:00

We'll post the actual portraits in a few days, but here's a sneak peak (in fast-forward) of the photo shoot our institutional photographer Gregory Costanzo did last week with the cast of The Orphans' Home Cycle.

Enjoy!

2010.0430 Signature Theatre | Orphans Portrait Sesh2 from Gregory Costanzo on Vimeo.

The Wig's The Thing

2010-04-07T12:39:00.001-07:00

Signature's photographer Gregory Costanzo set up a time-lapse camera backstage at The Orphans' Home Cycle to capture Wig Supervisor Karine Ivey getting Hallie Foote's wig ready for the performance. Check it out! (Warning -- it moves very fast!)

Signature Theatre Backstage | Orphans' Cycle Wig-o-rama from Gregory Costanzo on Vimeo.

New York Premiere of Tony Kushner's Newest Play Will Be Part of Signature's 2010-11 Season

2010-03-25T11:52:00.000-07:00

NEW YORK PREMIERE OF
TONY KUSHNER’S
THE INTELLIGENT HOMOSEXUAL’S GUIDE TO
CAPITALISM AND SOCIALISM WITH A KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES
TO BE PRESENTED IN THE 2010-2011 SEASON BY
THE PUBLIC THEATER AND SIGNATURE THEATRE COMPANY
IN ASSOCIATION WITH THE GUTHRIE THEATER

PRODUCTION TO BE DIRECTED BY MICHAEL GREIF
MARCH 22-JUNE 12, 2011 AT THE PUBLIC THEATER

The Public Theater (Artistic Director Oskar Eustis; Executive Director Andrew D. Hamingson) and Signature Theatre Company (Founding Artistic Director James Houghton; Executive Director Erika Mallin) announced today that the New York premiere of Tony Kushner’s THE INTELLIGENT HOMOSEXUAL’S GUIDE TO CAPITALISM AND SOCIALISM WITH A KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES will be presented in the 2010-2011 season in a co-production between The Public Theater and Signature Theatre Company, in association with the Guthrie Theater. Michael Greif, who directed the world premiere at the Guthrie in April, 2009, will direct the New York premiere, which will play March 22-June 12, 2011 at The Public Theater. Casting will be announced at a later date.

The Public Theater and Artistic Director Oskar Eustis have a long history with Tony Kushner, dating back to 1986 when Eustis, then Artistic Director of the Eureka Theater in San Francisco, directed Kushner's first professional production, A Bright Room Called Day (later seen at the Public Theater), and commissioned Angels in America, which he then directed in its world premier at the Mark Taper Forum. The Public Theater also developed Kushner’s musical Caroline, or Change and then transferred it to Broadway in 2004. In 2006, Kushner’s translation of Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children was presented at Shakespeare in the Park.

Signature Theatre Company is the first theatre company to devote an entire season to the work of a single playwright, including re-examinations of past writings as well as New York and world premieres. By championing in-depth explorations of a living playwright’s body of work, the Company delivers an intimate and immersive journey into the playwright’s singular vision. Signature’s 20th Anniversary Season, devoted to Tony Kushner, also includes the first New York revival of Angels in America and another production to be announced.

Signature was in residence at The Public Theatre for two seasons in 1995-1997, but THE INTELLIGENT HOMOSEXUAL’S GUIDE marks the first time the two theatres have partnered to present a co-production.

In the summer of 2007, Gus Marcantonio, a retired longshoreman, summons his children to the family’s Brooklyn brownstone for a series of shocking announcements. THE INTELLIGENT HOMOSEXUAL’S GUIDE TO CAPITALISM AND SOCIALISM WITH A KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES explores revolution, radicalism, marriage, sex, prostitution, politics, real estate, unions of all kinds and debts both repaid and unpayable.

Tony Kushner commented, "I have a long relationship to The Public Theater, beginning of course as an audience member when I first arrived in New York and then as a playwright, through A Bright Room Called Day, produced by Joe Papp and directed by Michael Greif; The Dybbuk, produced by George C. Wolfe; Caroline, or Change, which George produced and directed; and Mother Courage and Her Children, produced by Oskar Eustis. Oskar and I have been working together closely since the start of my career. The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide, or as I’ve been abbreviating it, iHo, has deep roots in an ongoing conversation with Oskar about life, politics and art that’s essential to my thinking and writing. Since I began working on it, this play has felt to me like it belonged at The Public.”

“There’s no theater on earth I admire more than the Signature, both for its faith in American playwrights and for its magnificent productions of our plays. Jim Houghton has enormous talent and daring, a man of marvelous collegiality and seriousness of purpose. I’m thrilled and honored to have been offered a Signature season. Now that it’s almost here, I’m also terrified, but in the nicest way. Since I began working on this play, I felt it would make a perfect choice for the new play slot in my Signature season. iHo opening in New York as part of both The Public’s and Signature’s season, co-produced by Oskar and Jim, feels so much like having my cake and eating it too that I’m embarrassed by my good fortune, and very happy."

“Tony Kushner has been a crucial part of the Public Theater family for 20 years,” said The Public Theater’s Artistic Director Oskar Eustis. “Tony's work is fiercely intelligent, deeply moral and wildly entertaining. THE INTELLIGENT HOMOSEXUAL'S GUIDE is a classic American family play, but his canvas is as large as America itself. The Public is proud to join with Signature Theater Company to produce this essential work.”

“Tony Kushner is an essential voice in the American theatre and I’ve long hoped for the opportunity to do a season together,” commented Signature Founding Artistic Director James Houghton. “We’re thrilled that Signature’s 20th season will mark the 20th anniversary of Tony’s seminal work, Angels In America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes and the New York premiere of his crushing and thrilling new play, THE INTELLIGENT HOMOSEXUAL’S GUIDE TO CAPITALISM AND SOCIALISM WITH A KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES. We look forward to partnering with Oskar Eustis and our friends at the Public on this production and it is especially exciting to have Michael Greif, who has a history with both companies, at the helm of this important work.”

"We are enormously proud of THE INTELLIGENT HOMOSEXUAL'S GUIDE, having commissioned it for the Guthrie Theater's three-month long Kushner Celebration in 2009,” said Guthrie Director Joe Dowling. “Michael Greif's original production was the centerpiece of our highly successful Celebration and I'm thrilled that its journey continues. I wish Tony, Michael, Jim and Oskar much success in the New York production."

TONY KUSHNER (Playwright). His plays include A Bright Room Called Day; Angels In America, Parts One and Two; Slavs!; Homebody/Kabul; Caroline, or Change, a musical with composer Jeanine Tesori (Public Theater/Broadway); and The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures. His adaptations include Corneille's The Illusion, S.Y. Ansky's The Dybbuk, and Brecht's The Good Person of Sezuan and Mother Courage and Her Children (Public Theater). Kushner’s films include “Angels In America,” and Munich. His books include Brundibar, illustrations by Maurice Sendak; The Art of Maurice Sendak, 1980 to the Present; and Wrestling With Zion: Progressive Jewish-American Responses to the Palestinian/Israeli Conflict (co-edited with Alisa Solomon). Kushner has received the Pulitzer Prize, an Emmy Award, an Oscar nomination, two Tony Awards, three Obie Awards, an Olivier Award, two Evening Standard Awards, and is the first recipient of the Steinberg Distinguished Playwright Award.

MICHAEL GREIF (Director) directed the world premiere of The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures at The Guthrie Theater last April. He will be directing The Winter’s Tale for The Public Theater’s Shakespeare in the Park this summer as well as Angels in America for Signature Theatre. His other Public Theater credits include the 2007 Shakespeare in the Park revival of Romeo and Juliet, Diana Son’s Satellites, the launch performance of Suzan-Lori Parks’s 365 Days / 365 Plays, Fucking A, Dogeaters (Obie), Marisol, Pericles, Casanova, A Bright Room Called Day, and Machinal (Obie). For Signature Theatre Company, he directed John Guare’s A Few Stout Individuals and Landscape of the Body. Greif’s Broadway credits include Jonathan Larson’s Rent (Obie Award, Tony nom.), Grey Gardens (Tony nomination) and Next to Normal (Tony nomination). He is an Artistic Associate at New York Theatre Workshop, where his credits include Cavedweller, Bright Lights, Big City, and Rent. His other Off-Broadway credits include Boy’s Life (Second Stage), Neil LaBute’s The Distance from Here and A Very Common Procedure (MCC), Neal Bell’s Spatter Pattern (Playwrights Horizons), Beauty of the Father (MTC), Mr. Marmalade (Roundabout), Betty Rules (Zipper), and Bell’s Monster (CSC). Greif has a longstanding association with the Williamstown Theatre Festival where his credits include Cherry Orchard, Three Sisters, The Seagull, Street Scene, Tonight At 8:30 and Once in a Lifetime. He was Artistic Director of La Jolla Playhouse from 1995-1999 where he directed Our Town, Sweet Bird of Youth, Diana Son’s Boy, Randy Newman’s Faust (also Goodman), Kushner’s Slavs (also Taper), and Thérèse Raquin.

THE PUBLIC THEATER (Oskar Eustis, Artistic Director; Andrew D. Hamingson, Executive Director) was founded by Joseph Papp in 1954 and is now one of the nation’s preeminent cultural institutions, producing new plays, musicals, and productions of classics at its downtown and at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park. The Public’s mandate to create a theater for all New Yorkers continues to this day onstage and through extensive outreach and education programs. Each year, over 250,000 people attend Public Theater-related productions and events at six downtown stages, including Joe’s Pub, and Shakespeare in the Park. The Public has won 42 Tony Awards, 149 Obies, 40 Drama Desk Awards and four Pulitzer Prizes. The Public has brought 52 shows to Broadway, including Sticks and Bones; That Championship Season; A Chorus Line; The Pirates of Penzance; The Tempest; Bring In ‘Da Noise, Bring In ‘Da Funk; On the Town; The Ride Down Mt. Morgan; Topdog/Underdog; Elaine Stritch at Liberty; Take Me Out; Caroline, or Change; Well; Passing Strange; and, most recently, the current Tony Award-winning revival of Hair. www.publictheater.org.

SIGNATURE THEATRE COMPANY (James Houghton, Founding Artistic Director; Erika Mallin, Executive Director) was founded in 1991 by James Houghton and is the first theatre company to devote a season to the work of a single playwright. Signature has presented entire seasons of Edward Albee, Lee Blessing, Horton Foote, Maria Irene Fornes, John Guare, Bill Irwin, Adrienne Kennedy, Romulus Linney, Charles Mee, Arthur Miller, Sam Shepard, Paula Vogel, August Wilson, Lanford Wilson and the historic Negro Ensemble Company. The twentieth season features the work of Tony Kushner. Since 2005, Signature has presented world-class theatre at an affordable price through The Signature Ticket Initiative, offering subsidized $20 tickets through 2011. This program is made possible by the lead sponsorship of Time Warner Inc. Signature, its productions, and its resident writers have been recognized with a Pulitzer Prize, Lucille Lortel Awards, Obie Awards, Drama Desk Awards, and AUDELCO Awards, among many other distinctions. Signature Theatre Company recently announced a new, permanent home beginning in 2012. The Frank Gehry-designed Signature Center on W. 42nd Street will feature three programs: the Master Playwright s Residency, which explores major bodies of work; the Legacy Program, which celebrates previous Signature artists, and the Emerging Playwrights Residency, which features early and mid-career playwrights. www.signaturetheatre.org.

GUTHRIE THEATER (Joe Dowling, Director) was founded by Sir Tyrone Guthrie in 1963 and is an American center for theater performance, production, education and professional training. The Tony Award-winning Guthrie Theater is dedicated to producing the great works of dramatic literature, developing the work of contemporary playwrights and cultivating the next generation of theater artists. With annual attendance of nearly 500,000 people, the Guthrie Theater presents a mix of classic plays and contemporary work on its three stages. Under the artistic leadership of Joe Dowling since 1995, the Guthrie continues to set a national standard for excellence in theatrical production and performance. In 2009 the Guthrie devoted all three of its stages to the work of Tony Kushner for simultaneous productions of Caroline, or Change, Tiny Kushner and the world premiere of The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures drawing more than 90,000 visitors for an unprecedented three-month celebration. In 2006, the Guthrie opened its new home on the banks of the Mississippi River in Minneapolis. Designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Jean Nouvel, the Guthrie Theater houses three state-of-the-art stages, shops, classrooms and dramatic public lobbies. www.guthrietheater.org.

Dramaturg's Diary: Catching up with Alumni

2010-03-24T12:48:00.000-07:00

I have been feeling immersed in Signature alumni playwrights lately, having had the honor and pleasure connecting and re-connecting with many of them at Signature’s Annual Gala on March 1st. Or, maybe they have also been on my mind because they have been positively ubiquitous these past couple of seasons, with new and past works being produced all over the country, as well as New York and abroad. Therefore, as we wrap up the 2009-2010 Season, I thought that a suitable subject for the revival of “Dramaturg’s Diary,” would be highlighting some of the recent work of our prolific past Playwrights-in-Residence.

This season saw a wealth of brand new work from our playwrights. In January 2010, Charles Mee (2007-2008) collaborated with the SITI Company and Martha Graham Dance Company on American Document, inspired by Graham’s 1938 piece of the same name. A workshop of American Document was presented in the Under the Radar Festival at The Public Theater and will be seen in June at The Joyce Theatre.

Lee Blessing’s (1992-1993) new play, When We Go Upon the Sea, opens at Philadelphia’s InterAct Theatre Company on April 19th. Signature’s bookstore is now stocking Romulus Linney: Maverick of the American Theatre by John Fleming, a new study of Signature’s Founding Playwright-in-Residence’s (1991-1992) life and work. New York’s Abingdon Theatre Company presented the world premiere of Mr. Linney’s Love Drunk in April 2009. Next season Lincoln Center Theater will present the world premiere of John Guare’s A Free Man of Color, beginning in October in the Vivian Beaumont Theater.

And of course, Horton Foote’s (1994-1995) The Orphans’ Home Cycle continues to run at Signature’s The Peter Norton Space, in a co-production with Hartford Stage.

Many plays by our playwrights found their way to New York for the first time this season, or can be anticipated soon. Sam Shepard’s Ages of the Moon recently closed at Atlantic Theatre Company. Mr. Mee’s Fetes de la Nuit was presented at The Ohio Theatre in February, and Limonade Tous Les Jours will arrive in April. Next season, Edward Albee’s Me, Myself, and I will open Playwrights Horizons' 2010-2011 Season. Further afield, Paula Vogel’s (2004-2005) A Civil War Christmas was seen at Boston’s Huntington Theatre Company in November of 2009.

Revisits to our writers’ past work have been rampant all over the country (and abroad!) this season and next season. The California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) School of Theater celebrated Adrienne Kennedy (1995-1996) with examinations of her plays Funnyhouse of a Negro, June and Jean in Concert, and Sun: A Poem for Malcolm X Inspired by His Murder. Signature is also selling limited edition autographed hard copies of Ms. Kennedy’s People Who Led to My Plays in our lobby bookstore at The Peter Norton Space. The New Group gave another look to Sam Shepard’s A Lie of the Mind, which closed this past weekend.

This week INTAR Theatre, in association with NYU’s Department of English, will begin the 2010 New York Fornes Festival, in honor of the upcoming 80th birthday of Maria Irene Fornes (1999-2000), with presentations of Ms. Fornes’s work all over Manhattan. Plays include Fefu and Her Friends, Successful Life of 3, What of the Night?, and a screening of the film, "The Rest I Make Up": Documenting Irene.

Currently running in New York is Arthur Miller’s (1997-1998) A View from the Bridge, which can be seen on Broadway at the Cort Theatre until April 4th. After that it will make room for August Wilson’s (2006-2007) Fences, which begins on April 14th. Also in April, Charles Mee’s collage ode to collage artist Robert Raushenberg, bobrauschenbergamerica, arrives at Dance Theatre Workshop.

Signature playwrights have been active overseas as well: if you happen to be in London, John Guare’s (1998-1999) Six Degrees of Separation can currently be seen at The Old Vic and Lanford Wilson’s (2002-2003) Serenading Louie is running at The Donmar Warehouse. Mr. Wilson’s Fifth of July will be seen at Williamstown Theatre Festival this summer, The Hot L Baltimore at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre Company in March of 2011, and a revival of Talley’s Folly will hit Broadway next season as well.

Mr. Albee will also be honored at Washington D.C.’s Arena Stage, who will celebrate Mr. Albee over the course of three months with readings of all thirty of his plays and productions of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and At Home at the Zoo. Finally, Chicago’s Court Theatre will present Samm-Art Williams’s (NEC Season, 2008-2009) Home in November 2010.

In addition to their thriving writing careers, many of our playwrights give of themselves as teachers, mentors, producers, directors, even performers. Leslie Lee (NEC Season, 2008-2009), when he has not been attending every Signature alumni event and opening night this season, has been managing director of The Negro Ensemble Company, who presented his Sundown Names and Night Gone Things at the Castillo Theatre in May 2009. Bill Irwin (2003-2004) was featured in Roundabout Theatre Company’s revival of the musical Bye Bye Birdie, which ran from September 2009 until January 2010 at the Henry Miller Theatre on Broadway. Charles Fuller (NEC Season, 2008-2009) has been supporting new work and the rising generation of playwrights, mentoring The Belle of Belfast by Nate Rufus Edelman as part of The Cherry Lane Mentor Project.

I’m afraid this list does not even scratch the surface of our playwright’s activity this season and next. Suffice to say that it seems to have been a banner year for our writers. Congratulations to all of our past Playwrights-in-Residence on their current and future projects, and looking forward to seeing you at the theatre.

The Reviews Are In for ORPHANS' HOME CYCLE Part 3: The Story of a Family

2010-01-28T13:45:00.000-08:00

The Orphans' Home Cycle, Part 2: The Story of a Marriage opened at Signature Theatre on January 26, 2010, and the critics loved it just as much as they did the first two installments!

Life, Death and Family in Foote’s Texas
Ben Brantley, THE NEW YORK TIMES

“Nobody in Harrison, Tex., needs to ask for whom the bell tolls. Not, at least, in 1918, the year that gives the title to the opening work in the reverberant final installment of Horton Foote’s “Orphans’ Home Cycle” at the Peter Norton Space on West 42nd Street.

Again and again, the iron tongue clangs from the church steeple, and people in town realize that the flu has taken another victim, most likely someone they’re acquainted with. Odds are they’ll know the name of the deceased — and the time and place of death — before the tolling stops.

The three short dramas that make up “The Story of a Family,” which opened on Tuesday night, are both the starkest and most sentimental of this lovingly painted life-and-times portrait, directed by Michael Wilson in a co-production of the Hartford Stage and the Signature Theater Company.

More than its predecessors, “Family” brings home the sense of how tenuous existence was in western America in the early 20th century, and how desperate it could become. Small wonder that people clung to the notions of their extended families as if they were the very tree of life.

One of the pleasures of repertory is watching how actors become different characters. Here, under Mr. Wilson’s gliding direction, this is usually achieved with a simple, restrained grace, acknowledging that the canvas matters more than the figures within it.”

Click here to read full review

Foote’s Fine ‘Family’ Goes the Whole Nine Yards
Elisabeth Vincentelli, NEW YORK POST

With a total running time now up to nine hours, Horton Foote’s "The Orphans' Home Cycle" finally draws to an end with the opening of its third and last three-act installment, "The Story of a Family." It's been a long, steady ride since the first one opened in November, and reaching the destination brings a fulfilling sense of completion.

Foote doesn't neatly tie up loose ends, but it doesn't matter because what he does do is provide an ending that feels as natural and satisfying as a river reaching the sea.

The playwright gave himself a big challenge by making Horace a "good man" -- the kind of stoic, reliable citizen you don't necessarily associate with pulse-quickening drama. But "The Orphans' Home Cycle" is unrelenting in its own gentle way, and we easily become hooked to its succession of seemingly mundane events, quarrels and small pleasures.

Click here to read full review

‘Orphans’ Home Cycle’ offers pleasures worth the wait
Joe Dziemianowicz, DAILY NEWS

Superior acting, direction and design work — hallmarks of the first two segments of "The Orphans' Home Cycle" — are front and center in this final installment.

The show is filled with riches. To his credit, Foote, who died last March, doesn't tie things up with a pretty bow — rather with something more uncertain. The line that lingers near the end is a simple one: "A family is a remarkable thing, isn't it?"

It is. So is this theatrical event."

Click here to read the full review

‘The Orphans’ Home Cycle’ reaches a satisfying end
Mike Kuchwara, ASSOCIATED PRESS

The story of Horace Robedaux comes to an emotionally and theatrically satisfying conclusion in Part 3 of "The Orphans' Home Cycle," Horton Foote's monumental, nine-hour saga of one man's journey to adulthood.

After already having spent six hours with the man, Horace has, by this third collection of one acts, become an old friend. He anchors Foote's intricately woven tapestry of life in fictional Harrison, Texas, during the first three decades of the 20th century.

Part 3, which opened Tuesday at off-Broadway's Signature Theatre Company, is called "The Story of a Family," and is directed — like Parts 1 and 2 — by Michael Wilson with stunning clarity. Its themes are pretty much summed up by one of the characters in the evening's second act: "A family is a remarkable thing, isn't it? You belong. And then you don't. It passes you by, unless you start a family of your own."

Click here to read full review

‘The Orphans’ Home Cycle, Part 3 – The Story of a Family’
Melissa Rose Bernardo, ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY

A cloud of sadness looms over The Story of a Family, the third and final installment in The Orphans' Home Cycle — and it's palpable even before the play's funereal beginning. It signals that Horton Foote's sublime trilogy is coming to a close; these are

After nine hours of The Orphans' Home Cycle, it seems ungrateful to want more: There are, after all, nine plays and three productions on display at Off Broadway's Signature Theatre; director Michael Wilson and his 22-member cast have done remarkable work, imbuing Foote's epic piece with a delicate intimacy.

Grade: A.

Click here to read full review

‘The Orphans’ Home Cycle: Part 3’
Horace Robedaux’s journey ends
David Cote, TIME OUT NEW YORK

Five Stars! (out of five)

Before his death last year, Horton Foote finished condensing nine full-length, sequential dramas (written in the ’70s) into the nine-hour epic that we now know as the Orphans’ Home Cycle. But as the plays were boiled down to their essences, a rich and strange mutation occurred: Time became radically shortened. Events that should take about an hour of real stage time (a trip into town, a funeral, getting sick from influenza) now unfold in five or ten minutes, which ramps up drama and forces you to suspend disbelief.

So fine-tuned is the ensemble’s acting, and so precise is Michael Wilson’s direction, this temporal strangeness only heightens the complex pleasures of Foote’s melancholy masterpiece.

Click here to read the full review

‘The Orphans’ Home Cycle: Part 3 – The Story of a Marriage’
Erik Haagensen, BACKSTAGE

"Don't be too sure. Don't be too sure about anything, Big Horace. Not anything in this world." Horton Foote's extraordinary nine-play saga, "The Orphans' Home Cycle," ends with this plainspoken warning from one brother-in-law to another as a family sits down to dinner. Simple, perhaps even obvious words, and yet in Foote's hands they are quietly shattering, taking on mythic dimension. Now that the end of the cycle has been reached, I'm happy to say that what I hoped for after seeing Part One is true: Foote's final gift to the stage is glorious, an essential American masterwork."

Click here to read the full review

Catching Up on Part 2 of The Orphans' Home Cycle

2010-01-26T12:54:00.000-08:00

Missed The Orphans' Home Cycle, Part 2: The Story of a Marriage, or want to catch up on what happened before you see Part 3: The Story of a Family? Check out the video montage below, created by our friends (and co-producers) at Hartford Stage or or click here for a text summary.

See you at the theatre!

Text Summary of The Orphans' Home Cycle, Part 2: The Story of a Marriage

2010-01-22T12:51:00.000-08:00

Missed The Orphans' Home Cycle, Part 2: The Story of a Marriage, or want to catch up on what happened before you see Part 3: The Story of a Family? Here's a summary of what happened:

In 1912, Horace is living in Harrison in a boarding house with three other young men who are prone to gambling and drinking. On the night before he leaves for business school in Houston, Horace calls on the widow Claire Ratliff. Throughout the evening, Horace becomes further entangled in the lives of Claire and her young children as she fends off a violent suitor and decides between two marriage proposals. Claire decides to marry Ned, an older traveling salesman whom her children adore, and Horace departs for Houston. In 1916, Horace is courting Elizabeth Vaughn, but Elizabeth’s parents believe Horace to be wild and refuse to allow the relationship. The two elope on Valentine’s Day, 1917.

By Christmas Eve, Horace and Elizabeth are expecting their first child and living in Mrs. Pate’s boarding house. The couple is visited by a motley assortment of friends and neighbors, including the mentally deteriorating George Tyler, an old friend of Horace’s father. The Vaughns, who have not spoken to their daughter since her marriage, end their estrangement by visiting the couple on Christmas Day. With them is their son, Brother Vaughn, whose drinking, gambling, and poor college grades cause the family to worry. Although Mr. Vaughn initially dismisses Horace and Elizabeth’s home as a rented room, he finds himself repeatedly drawn back to it and its “peace and contentment." George Tyler takes his own life, and the Vaughns offer to buy Horace and Elizabeth a house.

Signature Marks Progress on the Signature Center at Ceremony with Mayor Bloomberg

2009-12-22T13:56:00.000-08:00

For more information on the Signature Center, please visit www.signaturecenter.org

MAYOR BLOOMBERG, SPEAKER QUINN, SIGNATURE THEATRE COMPANY AND RELATED COMPANIES ANNOUNCE $60 MILLION PARTNERSHIP TO CREATE GEHRY-DESIGNED PERFORMING ARTS CENTER IN THEATER DISTRICT

City Announces $25 Million Contribution to New Home for Signature Theatre within $800 Million, 1.2 Million-Square-Foot LEED-Silver Complex with More than 800 Housing Units and Hotel

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn, Signature Theatre Company Founding Artistic Director James Houghton and Related Companies Executive Vice President Bruce A .Beal Jr. today announced a $60 million partnership to create a new home for the theater company. The Frank Gehry-designed Signature Center will be part of Related Companies’ $800 million, 59-story, residential building and hotel on 42nd Street and 10th Avenue in the heart of the theater district. The building will provide more than 800 new housing units, including more than 160 that will be targeted to low-income families. The performing arts center will feature three intimate and distinct theatres, rehearsal studios, a café, bookstore and administrative offices, and will allow Signature to more than double its audience, with anticipated attendance of more than 80,000. The LEED-Silver building will create 700 construction jobs and is expected to be completed in 2011, with the Signature Center expected to be completed in 2012. Joining Mayor Bloomberg at the announcement, which took place on the construction site of the new complex, were New York City Department of Cultural Affairs Commissioner Kate D. Levin, and Signature Theatre Company Playwright-in-Residence in 2010-11 Tony Kushner, Executive Director Erika Mallin and artists-in-residence Bill Irwin, Ruben Santiago-Hudson, Hallie Foote, John Guare and Edward Albee.

“Signature Theatre Company is one of New York City’s most successful and fastest growing cultural groups, and its spectacular new home will allow it to continue to expand,” said Mayor Bloomberg. “The $25 million commitment, combined with a $35 million private investment, will result in a new, world-class performance venue in the heart of the City’s theater district. The fact that Related Companies is moving forward with the major development project now is great news and will have a profound impact, not only on the cultural industry and the City’s skyline, but also on the local economy. There was a period when the future of the project was in question – as were its 700 construction jobs and hundreds of units of much-needed housing. But the construction unions, contractors, architects and engineers worked together to reduce costs, and today it’s serving as a prime example that – despite the national economic downturn – large-scale projects are still happening.”

“The Council has a long standing commitment to the visual and performing arts of this City,” said Speaker Quinn. “We recognize that in order for the city’s theatres to thrive we need to invest in them. I am very happy the city was able to participate in this public private partnership. With the incredible new space that the Signature Theatre Company is acquiring, I look forward to not only the many exciting projects that are sure to come, but the jobs it is creating for our city particularly during this difficult time.”

“It is thrilling to watch our future home materialize in front of us, and we are honored to have Mayor Bloomberg, Speaker Christine Quinn, our Board of Trustees and so many of Signature’s artists here to celebrate the progress we have made,” said Signature Theatre Company Founding Artistic Director James Houghton. “Since its founding, Signature Theatre Company has been making an extended commitment to a playwrights’ body of work, championing the playwright’s singular vision, and involving the playwright in every aspect of the creative process. The Signature Center will be a home for many diverse writers to create work that engages even more artists and audiences. The collision and interaction of multiple distinct voices reveals the greater power of our collective stories. We are honored to have the extraordinary support of the City of New York and the Related Companies as we bring Signature’s artistic vision to life on an even larger scale.”

“The American playwriting community has never been more thriving with talent and interest, and no theater serves our community better than Signature does,” said Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tony Kushner, who will be Signature’s Playwright-in-Residence in 2010-11. “It’s one of the very few essential institutions in the American theater.”

“Related has a long-standing commitment to supporting the arts from our partnership with Jazz at Lincoln Center to Symphony Space and we are incredibly proud of the public-private partnership we have formed with the Signature Theatre Company, a great New York arts institution, to create a world-class theatre complex on 42nd Street in the heart of the theatre district,” said Related Companies Executive Vice President Bruce A. Beal Jr. “We are also grateful to our entire development team, contractors, architects, consultants and members of the Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York who are working hard to ensure that this large scale development project can continue to move forward in challenging economic times and as many other development projects remain stalled.”

“We are happy to be part of creating a new home in the New York City theatre district for the Signature Theatre Company,” said Architect Frank Gehry. “I believe in Jim Houghton’s mission of creating innovative theater and our goal was to design the spaces to support that mission. We’re all very excited about the direction we’ve taken and are looking forward to watching the first performance.”

“This new home for Signature will build on the company’s success, expands its commitment to public accessibility, and serves both the local neighborhood and the city’s entire cultural community,” said Commissioner Levin. “By bringing together artists and audiences in a wonderful new space, Signature will enhance its contribution to the city’s identity, economy and quality of life.”

“I don’t expect in my lifetime to run into too many opportunities where I have the ability to participate in something that will be a lasting legacy for my community,” said Signature Theatre Trustee and Co-Chair of Capital Campaign Edward Norton. “I strongly believe that the Signature Center is one such opportunity where we can make a significant contribution to the future landscape of the arts in New York City.”

The City is contributing $25 million to the Signature Center. The theater company has raised $16 million for the project and plans to raise an additional $19 million. The Signature Center will feature three unique programs: the continuation of the Master Playwright Residency, which explores the works of playwrights with major bodies of work; the expansion of the Legacy Program, which celebrates the lifetime achievements of the artists who have previously worked at Signature, and the introduction of a new Emerging Playwrights Residency, which will feature early and mid-career playwrights, and guarantee them three full productions over the course of a four-year residency.

The entire 59-story complex will be built to LEED Silver standards. The building will incorporate smart design measures and premium efficiency systems that will save over $800,000 worth of energy each year, resulting in less of a draw on the City’s energy infrastructure and lower energy bills for each of its tenants and over 1,800 anticipated residents. The project also anticipates another $100,000 worth of electricity savings by using fluorescent lamps instead of incandescent bulbs for the building’s temporary lighting during construction. While Frank
Gehry is designing the theater center, Arquitectonica and Ismael Leyva are designing the rest of the building.

Founded in 1991 by James Houghton, Signature is the first theatre company to devote an entire season to the work of a single playwright, providing audiences with re-examinations of past writings, as well as New York and world premieres. Since 2005, Signature has been committed to presenting its world-class programming at an affordable price: the Signature Ticket Initiative, with major support form Time Warner, offers subsidized $20 tickets to all performances. Signature’s initiative has become a model in breaking down price barriers to theatre, helping to attract younger and more diverse audiences.

Signature is currently running the critically acclaimed, sold-out The Orphans’ Home Cycle by Horton Foote, a nine hour, three-part theatrical event and the company’s most ambitious programming to date (22 actors, multiple set locations). Signature will celebrate its 20th anniversary in the 2010-11 season by presenting a season of works by Pulitzer-Prize winner Tony Kushner, including the first New York revival of Angels in America. Signature, its productions and its resident writers have been recognized with a Pulitzer Prize, eleven Lucille Lortel Awards, fifteen Obie Awards, five Drama Desk Awards, and nineteen AUDELCO Awards, among many other distinctions. The National Theatre Conference recognized the company as the 2003 Outstanding National Theatre of the Year.

Photos: Celebrate Christmas with the Cast of Orphans'

2009-12-22T12:23:00.000-08:00

The cast and crew of The Orphans' Home Cycle is getting into the spirit this year, and Henry Hodges, who plays Horace Robedaux at age 14, captured some of that goodwill backstage and at a recent party for the cast at James Demarse's home. Enjoy the photos, and have a happy holiday!

Bill Heck's imitation of The Grinch

Hallie decides to go with a different hat for this show

Cole Bonenberger, our Production Stage Manager and fearless leader!

Henry Hodges steps out from behind the camera.

Crew members Maggie, Kara and Bridget in the house, wondering what gift they will get under the tree

Dylan and Emily sign in as elf #1 and elf #2

Gilbert Owuor hopes he is not on the "naughty" list

It's a jolly holiday with Maggie, Henry, Marisa, Christina, and Cole!

The ladies man has arrived! Here's Lucas Caleb Rooney and Maggie Swing

Look at that tree!

Bill Heck makes a friend

This kitten wants a Horace for Christmas

Thanks for being part of The Orphans' Home Cycle!

Actor's Diary: God's Country

2009-12-18T14:33:00.000-08:00

Bryce Pinkham plays the roles of Brother Vaughn, Pete Davenport and Felix Barclay in The Orphans' Home Cycle

Bryce Pinkham, Maggie Lacey and Bill Heck on the porch swing at the Vaughn (Brooks) family home (Courtship and The Death of Papa)

“Well son, how do ya’ll like God’s country?” The man addressing me is Harry Goudeau. He is a hay farmer from Hungerford, Texas. He wears a weathered khaki shirt, brown work pants, and carries a loaded 20-gauge shotgun. Down here, where people are ‘tough as boots,’ Harry is steel-toed. Secretly shaking in my city shoes, I reply “We like it… We like it real well.” Shortly after dispatching, with military precision, numerous clay pigeons to their maker, Harry concedes, “I’m glad y’all had a chance to come down here and see how the real people live.” Harry Goudeau is not a man to disagree with; luckily I concur- I’m glad we’ve come too.

It is our week off from the plays and alongside Bill Heck and Maggie Lacey, our Cycle’s leading duo, I have made a pilgrimage to Horton Foote’s hometown, the place that nurtured the real life versions of his characters from cradle to grave. We arrive well past midnight in Wharton on the nimble heels of a temperate breeze, a friendly ‘heads up’ from the Gulf. The town is quiet and dark as we search North Houston Street for the Foote family guesthouse. “It’s the one with the red door,” we’ve been told, probably built before the need for an address. As we settle in for the night I am confronted by the simple calm of this place, a far cry from the city atmosphere we have inhabited for the past four months. I am beckoned to sleep by the somnolent holler of the late night train whistle and the early patter of Texas-size rain drops slapping high fives with the Pecan trees in the yard. For the first time since we started rehearsals in June, I feel myself relax.

Our first stop the next morning is thirty steps away. Other than a modest plaque outside, Horton Foote’s childhood home is as simple and humble as any other on the street. I feel an odd sense of déjà vu entering the house whose onstage avatar we inhabit in the plays 1918 and The Death of Papa. Across the threshold, we are immediately drawn to the mantelpiece. Having recently toured the Connecticut home of another treasured American voice, Mark Twain, I can’t help but draw immediate parallels and note particular contrasts between the two houses. It is said that Mark Twain used to tell stories to his children every night, inventing characters and situations based on the various bric-a-brac and bagatelles that resided on his famously ornate mantle. Horton’s mantle, like the rest of his house, politely declines such Twainian ostentation, but indeed has stories of its own to tell. Home to more than precious curios, it shelves the very people who inspired so many of Horton’s plays, particularly his Orphans’ Home Cycle. Among pictures of Horton with Presidents, movie stars and grandchildren are family portraits of generations past. One of my favorite moments of the entire trip is watching Bill and Maggie discover and comprehend a framed picture of “themselves” (they play Horton’s parents.) As we explore the rest of the house in silent reverence, I can just imagine the sounds of children scampering down the hallway, around the sunlit kitchen and out through the backyard. It strikes me as the perfect family home: the living spaces are open and connected, and yet there remain plenty of places to disappear to, plenty of spots to curl up with a good book.

My boon discovery for the day is Horton’s study, the room where he would retire to read and write. The entire length of the room on one side is home to a collection of books and plays that would make any theatrical bookworm jealous. Kitty corner to Horton’s personal library, among a flotilla of awards, medals and memorabilia, I discover a pair of unassuming relics. The first is a bible that appears to have belonged to Albert Horton Foote, Horton’s grandfather and the patriarch whose death occurs in the first act of The Orphans’ Home Cycle. Right beside it is another bible that once belonged to Tom Brooks, my character’s father, and the patriarch whose death ends the cycle. It is easy to imagine Horton in his chair, cloaked in the afternoon sun, leafing through the worn pages of the two books and contemplating the next family story to resurrect for the stage. It won’t be the last time on the trip I am reminded that these people we have done our best to bring to life were not just characters to our playwright, they were his flesh and blood.

Our gracious hosts on this visit, the proud Whartonians Charles Davis and Betty Joyce, are friends of the Foote family and, thankfully, everybody else in town. It only takes a quick spin around the block for them to prove themselves vast repositories of knowledge for everything Wharton. Over the next few days we will be treated to a whirlwind tour of the town and the many landmarks that bear relevance to the plays and our playwright. We will see Horace Sr.’s dry goods store, The Vaughn family home, the courthouse square, the convict farm, the train station, and the boarding house. One of our first stops, in between diagonal blankets of cozy gulf rain, is the Wharton graveyard. Amid strong gusts of wind, rebel shafts of sunlight occasionally sneak past their storm cloud captors to warm a few lucky headstones. Sleuth-like in our search, we eventually find Albert Horton’s actual tombstone, the one that Horace spends the entire cycle saving money to buy. At its base it reads ‘erected by his son’. We visit everyone from Mrs. Cookenboo to Bobby Pate to the entire Vaughn (or rather Brooks) family lot. With the help of our erudite guides we discuss the various characters, the odd web that connects them all, and how each met his or her demise. Someone asks if it is odd to stand in front of our own character’s graves. Admittedly, the feeling is somewhere between macabre admiration and shuddersome pride. We can only hope that what we have been able to do with the plays is a fitting homage to the group of eternally reposed beings couched at our feet. Finally, we stop in front of the graves of Horton and Lillian Foote and are silent. It is in this moment that the whole experience becomes entirely real. Within minutes of us standing there, the wind resumes its previous bluster and the sky releases squadrons of grape-size pugilists, pelting us back to the cars.

It seems to me that the opportunity is rare for an actor in our country’s predominant theatrical model to conduct what I would call primary research. Our trip to Wharton is a chance for us to talk to real people, visit real places and tap the literal source of our playwright’s inspiration. It has added an entirely new dimension to our work, one that will make itself known in obvious ways (nothing helps dialect work like talking to a native), but also in ways that are untraceable, but nevertheless perceived. While our opportunity has indeed been unique, it has further convinced me that as actors we must take responsibility and ownership of our roles as creative detectives if we aspire to obtain the artistic agency that our current model sometimes seems to deny.

On our final day in Wharton we enjoy a picnic by the river, (I now know what Barbeque is supposed to taste like), a skeet shoot (I think my shoulder is still bruised from an exhilarating first experience with a firearm), and a Texas sized bonfire under the stars. In five short days we have been welcomed into this place in a way that feels like family. It’s true what they say, everything is bigger here, even the mosquito bites (which I have managed to limit to under one hundred). As our return flight circles New York, the city’s neurotic rush waiting for us below, I feel fuller, better equipped, dare I say- prepared for rehearsal the next day. I anticipate the return from Wharton’s profoundly spacious landscape to the cramped and crowded streets of the city may prove to be a bit of an adjustment. Nevertheless we are all looking forward to bringing a little Wharton to the Signature Theater Company, our hearts, minds and sleep schedules full of Texas.

Click here for more photos from Bryce, Bill and Maggie's Trip

Photos From ORPHANS' Actors trip to Horton Foote's Hometown of Wharton, Texas

2009-12-18T14:21:00.000-08:00

The Orphans' Home Cycle actors Bryce Pinkham (Brother Vaughn), Maggie Lacey (Elizabeth Vaughn Robedaux) and Bill Heck (Horace Robedaux) took a trip down to Wharton, Texas during their week off to visit Horton Foote's hometown, and the inspiration for Harrison, Texas, where Orphans' is set. Below are some photos of their trip.

Be sure to check out the latest entry of Bryce's Actor's Diary, "God's Country," where he talks about their amazing trip. Click here to read.

On the road to Wharton

Bryce's first firearm experience... enjoyment level: alarmingly high.

Bill Heck in front of Albert Horton's grave

Bill Heck and Maggie Lacey pay their respects to the real Horace and Elizabeth

The porch swing at the Vaughn (Brooks) family home (Courtship and The Death of Papa)

The porch swing at the 1918 house (Horace and Elizabeth's home in 1918 and The Death of Papa)

The reviews are in for ORPHANS' HOME CYCLE: Part 2: The Story of a Marriage!

2009-12-18T09:42:00.000-08:00

The Orphans' Home Cycle, Part 2: The Story of a Marriage opened at Signature Theatre on December 17, 2009, and the critics received it just as rapturously as they did Part 1!

An Insignificant Riddle and the Other Women in an Orphan’s Life
Ben Brantley, THE NEW YORK TIMES

“Roberta!” the drunken man calls out in his sleep, his voice as lonely as a train whistle on a prairie. A little boy who overhears him thinks it sounds as if somebody were being murdered. But the man’s roommates in a small-town boarding house in Harrison, Tex., are more perplexed than alarmed. “Who’s Roberta?” they ask one another.

The answer (to be revealed at the end of this review) is inconsequential to the central story of the exquisite “Widow Claire,” the first of three short plays in the second part of Horton Foote’s ever more engrossing “Orphans’ Home Cycle” at the Peter Norton Space on West 42nd Street. The restless dreamer is a minor character, and I suppose you could say that his nightmare — if that’s what it is — is an exceedingly minor event in the so-far splendid production of nine interconnected dramas by Foote, from the Signature Theater Company and Hartford Stage. (The third installment of three plays opens next month, and will continue in repertory with the other two.)

But minor events set off major ripples in the minds of those watching “The Orphans’ Home” plays, which follow the deracinated life of Horace Robedaux, a character based on Foote’s father. Seemingly unimportant moments acquire talismanic significance when you look back, the way small details from your own past loom large and revealingly in memory.

“Roberta,” that repeated cry in the night out of nowhere, comes to feel like a theme song for “The Story of a Marriage,” the collective title for this trilogy about the mystery, salvation and randomness of love, which opened on Thursday night. (Besides “The Widow Claire,” the others are “Courtship” and “Valentine’s Day.”)

Horace, who was introduced as a boy in “The Story of a Childhood,” the cycle’s first chapter, is now a man (affectingly played by Bill Heck), possessed of a hungry ambition and an undermining passivity in equal measures. He is looking to recreate the home he lost — if he ever had it — when he was 12, the year his father died, and his mother moved out of Harrison with Horace’s sister, leaving the boy behind. Finding a home means finding a mate, a pursuit that gives shape to the “Marriage” plays, which cover five years of Horace’s life in Harrison, from 1912 to 1917.

Though these works present what is, on some levels, a conventional love story with a happy ending — inspired by the elopement of Foote’s parents — they never shake off the haunted chill that runs through all his work. For the characters created by Foote, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “The Young Man From Atlanta,” permanence in relationships is a pipe dream. And the folks, young and old, who inhabit the “Marriage” trilogy are forever asking, “What if,” in a fretful litany:

What if the person you love dies tomorrow? What if love fades or turns sour? What if you were never really in love at all?

Directed by Michael Wilson with assured understatement, and acted by a consistently convincing and versatile repertory cast, these plays flow with a sense of everyday life accelerated, moving by us in a blur of dramatic happenings lodged in the fine grit of the ordinary. The stories swapped here include tales of madness, alcoholism, suicide and deaths in childbirth.

Click here to read the entire review:
http://theater.nytimes.com/2009/12/18/theater/reviews/18orphan.html

The Orphans’ Home Cycle, Part 2: The Story of a Marriage
Terry Teachout, WALL STREET JOURNAL

“The second part of "The Orphans' Home Cycle," Horton Foote's family album of plays about a turn-of-the-century Texas family and its struggles with the coming of modernity, has just opened at Signature Theatre Company. It upholds the immeasurably bright promise of the first installment. Not since Tom Stoppard's "The Coast of Utopia" has so self-evidently significant a large-scale theatrical endeavor come to New York.

Horton Foote died last March, immediately after putting the finishing touches on "The Orphans' Home Cycle." Could it be that he brought his long and illustrious career to a triumphant close by giving us the Great American Play? Come to Signature Theatre and see for yourself.”

Click here to read the entire review:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704869304574596302043091572.html

Give ‘Home Cycle’ a Spin
Elisabeth Vincentelli, NEW YORK POST

“Horton Foote's "Or phans' Home Cycle" is an oxymoron: an intimate, sprawling piece. It's made up of nine plays spread over 26 years, with a cast of characters hanging from extensive family trees, yet each show feels like the snug snapshot of a particular, small-scale moment.

It's not a fanfare Foote has written for the common man, but a series of chamber pieces.

The cycle is such a vast undertaking that the Signature company is unveiling Michael Wilson's production in successive installments of three plays each. The new one, "The Story of a Marriage," follows last month's "The Story of a Childhood," with "The Story of a Family" due in January.

Rarely has everyday life been so modestly inspiring as it is in Foote's hands. The worst part is that we have to wait another month to see how it all ends.”

Click here to read the entire review:
http://www.nypost.com/p/entertainment/theater/reviews/give_home_cycle_spin_0Zu1gExD0dUsF253S6CwhI

Horton Foote epic gets exquisite treatment
Joe Dziemianowicz, NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

“Five stars (out of five)

Based on size alone, "The Orphans' Home Cycle" would qualify as the year's big theater event.
This final work of Horton Foote, who died in March, is a three-part series whose running time adds up to a whopping nine hours.

But those are just numbers.

The real reason Foote's drama is so big and important is because it's so exquisitely realized — the writing, acting, direction and design.

So far, it's a home run for its presenters, the Signature Theatre Company and Hartford Stage.”

Click here to read the entire review:
http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/music/2009/12/18/2009-12-18_the_orphans_home_cycle_horton_footes_last_epic_gets_exquisite_treatment.html

Horace Robedaux journeys into adulthood, marriage
Mike Kuchwara, ASSOCIATED PRESS

“Horace Robedaux continues his journey into adulthood in Part 2 of "The Orphans' Home Cycle," Horton Foote's masterful examination of one man's life in small-town Texas in the first decades of the 20th century.

For those who are jumping in midstream, Horace has grown up. An unsettling childhood and the beginnings of maturity were the centerpiece of the cycle's opening trio of plays. Now, in the middle section of Foote's mammoth nine-play marathon, the man, portrayed with a touch of melancholy by Bill Heck, is searching for stability — and a wife.

Part 2, which the Signature Theatre Company opened Thursday at its Peter Norton Space, celebrates that quest, first with "The Widow Claire," the title of the evening's touching curtain-raiser. Heck projects a mournful rootlessness even as Horace courts this lonely young woman (Virginia Kull) who is faced with raising two children alone in rural Harrison, Texas.

Part 3, in which Horace moves into the role of family patriarch, opens Jan. 26. We can't wait.”

Click here to read the entire review:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/12/17/entertainment/e151322S85.DTL

The Orphans’ Home Cycle, Part 2: The saga continues
David Cote, TIME OUT NEW YORK

“Five stars (out of five).

In accordance with the Law of Trilogies (which I last invoked for The Coast of Utopia), the second part of Horton Foote’s immensely satisfying Orphans’ Home Cycle is fraught and full of darkness.

Director Michael Wilson works wonders with an adept 22-person ensemble. His actors achieve a fascinating blend of wistfulness and stoicism: Even the craziest and most inebriated characters in Harrison, Texas (the primary setting), avoid hammy excess in favor of poignant restraint and clarity. And while most of the tales’ ugliness and violence occurs offstage, there’s a palpable tension on the Signature’s intimate stage, as Horace and the others engage in a pitched moral battle between kindness and cruelty. We have to wait until the final chapter, in late January, to see who wins.”

Click here to read the entire review:
http://newyork.timeout.com/articles/theater/81559/the-orphans-home-cycle-part-2-theater-review

The Orphans’ Home Cycle, Part 2: The Story of a Marriage
Robert Feldberg, BERGEN RECORD

“The plays are superbly acted by a large cast, and have been directed by Michael Wilson with uncommon sensitivity.

The last part of the trilogy, "The Story of a Family," will pick up Horace's and Elizabeth's lives a year later, in 1918. It's something to be eagerly anticipated.”

Click here to read the entire review:
http://www.northjersey.com/arts_entertainment/79593487.html

The Orphans’ Home Cycle, Part 2: The Story of a Marriage
Erik Haagensen, BACKSTAGE

“As with Part One, three hours fly by as this utterly engaging and deeply compelling work unfolds. At the center is Bill Heck's superb Horace. Graceful, handsome, impeccably mannered—it's clear why the ladies take to him. But Heck never forgets Horace's inner core of self-doubt, fueled in part by the pain of his mother's neglect. Darkness is always simmering under the surface. Bring on Part Three."

Click here to read the entire review:
http://www.backstage.com/bso/reviews-ny-theatre/the-orphans-home-cycle-part-two-8212-the-1004054431.story

Text Summary of The Orphans' Home Cycle, Part 1: The Story of a Childhood

2009-12-01T10:01:00.000-08:00

Missed The Orphans' Home Cycle, Part 1: The Story of a Childhood, or want to catch up on what happened before you see Part 2: The Story of a Marriage? Here's a summary of what happened:

Act I, Roots in a Parched Ground, takes us to Harrison, Texas in 1902. Horace’s father, Paul Robedaux, a once prominent lawyer, has succumbed to alcoholism and is on his death bed. Horace’s mother, Corella Thornton, who separated from her husband before he died, has been working in Houston. Horace’s extended families, the Robedauxs and the Thorntons, once occupied a prosperous place in the antebellum Southern aristocracy, but have failed to recover from the devastation of the Civil War and are struggling to make ends meet. The Robedauxs, grief-stricken after Paul Horace’s death, sell their house and move out of Harrison. Corella returns to Houston with Horace’s younger sister Lily Dale and remarries Pete Davenport, a railroad man who “has no bad habits.” Mr. Davenport refuses to take Horace, believing that a boy his age should be put to work. Horace stays with his mother’s family, quits school, and sets off on his own to work full-time, with the hope of saving enough money to buy a tombstone for his father’s grave.

Act II, Convicts, takes place on Christmas Eve, 1904. Horace is working at a dry goods store on the Gautier plantation, which is worked by black convicts. The plantation owner, Soll Gautier, is an alcoholic and delusional confederate war veteran who continually defers paying Horace his salary. Instead, he enlists Horace in accompanying him throughout the night while he hunts convicts and painfully recalls his troubled past. Back at the house, Soll senses that his time has come, and asks Horace to stay with him until he dies. By the morning, Soll is dead, and Horace is out of a job. Asa Gautier Vaughn, Soll’s niece and the inheritor of his estate, refuses to pay Horace for his work.

Act III, Lily Dale, brings us to Houston in 1910 where Horace has come to pay a visit to his mother and sister. Lily Dale shows off her piano skills to Horace and secretly confides in him that she has a suitor named Will Kidder, whom she hopes to marry. The visit ends abruptly when Mr. Davenport, who believes more than ever that Horace should be fully supporting himself, comes home early. Corella asks Horace to leave, but a debilitating fever confines him to the Davenport home until he regains his health. Corella works to maintain an amiable environment as tension festers between Horace and Mr. Davenport. Horace had hoped to get a job working on the railroad with Mr. Davenport, but Mr. Davenport gives the job to Will instead. After hearing about them from Will, Horace decides to attend a business school in Houston, so that he will be able to advance beyond being a store clerk. Lily Dale is pleased by Mr. Davenport’s approval of Will, but she becomes frustrated with Horace’s curiosity about their late father. When Horace is finally healthy enough to leave, he sets off for Harrison, knowing that a home does not exist in Houston with his mother, sister, and step-father.

See you at the theatre!

Catching Up on Part 1 of The Orphans' Home Cycle

2009-12-01T09:58:00.000-08:00

Missed The Orphans' Home Cycle, Part 1: The Story of a Childhood, or want to catch up on what happened before you see Part 2: The Story of a Marriage? Check out the video montage below, created by our friends (and co-producers) at Hartford Stage, or click here for a text summary.

See you at the theatre!

The Orphans' Home Cycle, Part 1: The Story of a Childhood Production Photos

2009-11-23T14:46:00.001-08:00

Henry Hodges and Dylan Riley Snyder

Check out these beautiful production photos from The Orphans' Home Cycle, Part 1: The Story of a Childhood. All photos by Gregory Costanzo.

Jenny Dare Paulin and Bill Heck

Leon Addison Brown, Charles Turner, Henry Hodges and James DeMarse

Pat Bowie, Charles Turner, Henry Hodges, Leon Addison Brown and James DeMarse

Bill Heck and Pamela Payton-Wright

Bill Heck and Annalee Jefferies

Henry Hodges and Gilbert Owuor

The Critics Rave About ORPHANS' HOME CYCLE, PART 1!

2009-11-20T10:04:00.000-08:00

THE ORPHANS’ HOME CYCLE, PART 1: THE STORY OF A CHILDHOOD, the first part of the world premiere, three part theatrical event by the Pulitzer Prize and Academy Award-winning playwright Horton Foote, opened last night at Signature Theatre Company at the Peter Norton Space, 555 West 42nd Street, between 10th and 11th Avenues – and the critics are cheering!

Here’s a sample of what the critics had to say about THE ORPHANS’ HOME CYCLE, PART 1: THE STORY OF A CHILDHOOD:

Heart of a Small Town, Vast in its Loneliness
Ben Brantley, NEW YORK TIMES

“Two fresh-faced fishermen, wearing solemn expressions and suspenders, sit on a riverbank, looking as if they were waiting for Norman Rockwell to show up with his easel. “You’re on your own now,” one of them says.

“I’m on my own,” the other answers, staring straight ahead. He is 12, and his father has just died. He is not kidding. He is also absolutely right.

This sun-clouding moment of perception, in which an all-American idyll takes on a mortal chill, occurs in the opening chapter of what promises to be the great adventure of this theater season: the New York premiere of “The Orphans’ Home Cycle,” Horton Foote’s heart-piercing, nine-play family album about growing up lonely in Texas in the early 20th century. The boy who sees his future with so little mercy one afternoon in 1902 is named Horace Robedaux. And though he is hardly what you would call a happy lad, he is unusually honest, and I think you’re going to want to spend as much time in his company as you can.

That means sitting for roughly nine hours at the Peter Norton Space of the Signature Theater Company, where the three three-play installments of the cycle will be playing during the next four months. But on the basis of the first part, which opened on Thursday night under the umbrella title “The Story of a Childhood,” nine hours may not feel like enough.

Directed with cinematic fluidity and novelistic detail by Michael Wilson, “The Story of a Childhood” leaves you as eager as a kid who has just started his first fat work of fiction by Charles Dickens, say, or Mark Twain, when putting down the book, even for an hour, feels like punishment. Written in the 1970s by Foote, the theater’s great chronicler of existential sadness in small-town America, “The Orphans’ Home Cycle” has never before been produced as a whole, though most of its plays have been seen separately in stage or screen versions. Foote was editing and revising them for this production, which originated at the Hartford Stage, when he died in March at 92. And as interpreted by Mr. Wilson, the first part of this tale of a life based on that of Foote’s father isn’t a stately memorial to an eminent dramatist; it’s a thrilling demonstration of an artist long regarded only as a miniaturist soaring into the realm of the epic.”

Click here to read the entire review:
http://theater.nytimes.com/2009/11/20/theater/reviews/20orphan.html?ref=theater

Horton Foote Chronicles a Man’s Search for Identity
Michael Kuchwara, ASSOCIATED PRESS

“Don't be fooled by the deceptively gentle way Part 1 of Horton Foote's extraordinary "Orphans' Home Cycle" initially unfolds.

Twenty-year-old Horace Robedaux is on a train heading to Houston from Harrison, Texas, the epicenter of many of the playwright's best works. Horace is traveling to visit his mother, sister and stepfather for what turns out to be a troubling reunion.

But make no mistake. Part 1, which the Signature Theatre Company has opened off-Broadway at its Peter Norton Space, is not standard family soap opera. It's an impressive introduction to Foote's three-part, nine-play marathon. The other parts will arrive later in the season, although all three already have had a critically acclaimed run at Connecticut's Hartford Stage, which is co-producing this mammoth project.

If Part 1 of "The Orphans' Home Cycle" is any indication, we are in for a remarkable journey. It appears Foote, who died earlier this year at the age of 92, couldn't have had a better legacy.”

Click here to read the entire review:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/11/19/entertainment/e154848S60.DTL

Horton Foote: ‘Home’ at Last
Terry Teachout, WALL STREET JOURNAL

“Horton Foote, who died in March at the age of 92, had to wait until the very end of his life to win general recognition as one of America's greatest playwrights. The tide was turned by a sterling pair of Off-Broadway revivals, the Signature Theatre Company's 2005 production of "The Trip to Bountiful" and Primary Stages' 2007 production of "Dividing the Estate," that opened the eyes of a new generation of theatergoers to Foote's low-key mastery. When "Dividing the Estate" transferred to Broadway the following year, he scored his first commercial success on the New York stage—just in time for him to revel in it. Would that Foote could have lived to attend the New York opening of the first part of "The Orphans' Home Cycle," co-produced by Signature and Connecticut's Hartford Stage, where all three installments were seen earlier this year. It will, I suspect, be remembered as the most significant theatrical event of the season, the kind of show you tell your grandchildren you saw.”

Click here to read the entire review:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704782304574541813891284086.html

Horton Foote, Tarell Alvin McCraney tell family stories
Linda Winer, NEWSDAY

“The first three of Horton Foote's last nine plays have his customary ease, elegance and deceptive simplicity. This is straightforward storytelling, inspired by the life of the playwright's father. It is mostly set in the playwright's favorite hometown surrogate, the fictional Harrison, Texas, and features, in a number of roles, his daughter and worthy flame keeper, Hallie Foote.

This part of the cycle begins in 1902, when Horace Robedaux, 12, (an astonishingly poised Dylan Riley Snyder) endures the death of his kind but alcoholic father and the realization that his mother's new husband will only support Horace's bratty sister Lily Dale. The evening ends in 1910, after Horace (the engaging Bill Heck) has endured a Dickensian series of picaresque affronts. Twenty-two actors play multiple roles under Michael Wilson's loving direction.”

Click here to read the entire review:
http://www.newsday.com/columnists/linda-winer/horton-foote-tarell-alvin-mccraney-tell-family-stories-1.1603151

The Orphans’ Home Cycle: Part 1
An American Classic Begins
David Cote, TIME OUT NEW YORK

“Five stars (out of five). Director Michael Wilson and his versatile, highly talented ensemble (including the radiant Hallie Foote, the late author’s daughter) wrestle their material into shape, delivering three hours of episodic narrative spanning 1902 to 1910 without a dull moment. Two more parts of this trilogy remain, and we shall see if Horace fnds his place in the world. Foote’s understated epic is an authentic American classic about the birth pangs of the 20th century. It’s told with humor, deep sadness and great writerly craft. I can’t wait to see what happens next.”

Click here to read the entire review:
http://newyork.timeout.com/articles/theater/80791/the-orphans-home-cycle-part-1-theater-review

The Orphans’ Home Cycle: Part 1 – The Story of a Childhood
Melissa Rose Bernardo, ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY

“Happiness is illusory and joy fleeting, but there's much melancholy beauty to be found in The Story of a Childhood, the first third of the late Horton Foote's nine-play Orphans Home Cycle at Off Broadway's Signature Theatre Company.

With its tales of harsh times, social and economic change, Reconstruction, education, and industry in small-town America, The Story of a Childhood heralds the beginning of something extraordinary. And you'll be waiting with baited breath for Foote's next chapter. Grade: A–“

Click here to read the entire review:
http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20321559,00.html

The Orphans’ Home Cycle: Part 1 – The Story of a Childhood
Erik Haagensen, BACKSTAGE

“From the moment the redoubtable Pamela Payton-Wright settles into her train seat and, as an enthusiastic elderly Southern Baptist, engages the young male stranger seated before her with ladylike aggression, you know you are in the best of hands. By the time director Michael Wilson's bone-deep production of the first part of Horton Foote's "The Orphans' Home Cycle" is over, nearly three hours have passed in the blink of an eye. I wanted the second part to begin immediately.

With two installments still to come, it's premature to characterize the complete work. But if they live up to the first part, what we are being served here is nothing less than an American masterwork.”

Click here to read the entire review:
http://www.backstage.com/bso/content_display/reviews/ny-theatre-reviews/e3ida2894bc190c143c17fec51e09994e30

The Orphans’ Home Cycle: Part 1
Dan Bacalzo, THEATERMANIA

“Before passing away earlier this year at the age of 92, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Horton Foote edited down and combined nine of his plays into a three-part opus, collectively called The Orphans' Home Cycle, and now being presented by the Signature Theatre Company in a co-production with Hartford Stage. And the overall fine quality of the two hour-and-fifty-minute first installment makes for an excellent start to this epic undertaking.”

Click here to read the entire review:
http://www.theatermania.com/off-broadway/reviews/11-2009/the-orphans-home-cycle-part-one_22871.html

Behind the Scenes Video -- The Road to New York

2009-11-12T09:39:00.000-08:00

Performances of The Orphans' Home Cycle, Part 1: The Story of Childhood began last week at Signature Theatre Company, but that hasn't stopped Bryce Pinkham from continuing to bring you a behind the scenes look at the world premiere of Horton Foote's trilogy! Check out the video below for footage of the cast and crew preparing for the first preview at Hartford Stage back in September, as well as celebrating their accomplishment after the show. And stay tuned for even more glimpses at what the backstage happenings of this massive theatrical event!

Dramaturg's Diary: Running the Orphans' Marathon

2009-11-12T09:38:00.000-08:00

Saturday, October 17th, marks the world premiere marathon of Horton Foote’s The Orphans’ Home Cycle at Hartford Stage. I have actually never participated in a theatre marathon of this magnitude and intensity before, though I do know the basics of marathon-watching. Eat protein. Hydrate. Stretch at the intermissions. And, according to Will Cantler, our Casting Director and an experienced marathon-watcher, “Don’t over-caffeinate.” Caffeine aside, there is a definite buzz of anticipation in the lobby of Hartford Stage, as HS staffers hand out marathon badges, pins, water bottles, peanuts, and other accoutrements to aide us on our epic Orphans’ journey.

At 11AM we take our seats for Part One of the cycle, The Story of a Childhood, which consists of the acts Roots in a Parched Ground, Convicts, and Lily Dale. Having seen this section performed a little over a month ago, it is exciting to see how it has progressed. Even though I have been reading, eating, breathing, sleeping these plays (as has everyone else involved in this project, both on and offstage) I still see new resonances every time I watch them. At one point in Roots in a Parched Ground, I catch my breath when one character says a – seemingly innocuous – line and the impact of what will happen to him five plays later hits me with full force.

After a boxed-lunch arranged by Hartford Stage at the Hilton Hotel, we resume with Part Two: The Story of a Marriage (consisting of The Widow Claire, Courtship, and Valentine’s Day) at 3PM. At this point in our journey, we firmly plant ourselves in Harrison, Texas and get to know a new generation of residents, as well as follow up with some already familiar from previous acts. Although Horace remains the central character, we meet some very strong, complicated women who drive the action, in the form of his two love interests, Claire Ratliff and Elizabeth Vaughn. I find this section unabashedly romantic and yet the more I see it, the more I recognize how Horton has woven bittersweet truths about family, adulthood, and sacrifice, amidst the joy and exhilaration of finding one’s soul mate.

We return to the Hilton for dinner after the close of Part Two and sit down to Elizabeth’s Crowd-Drawing Mac and Cheese, Miss Ruth’s Pecan-Crusted Tilapia, and Ed’s Ganado Barbequed Beef Brisket (all of the menu items for both lunch and dinner are named for characters in The Orphans’ Home Cycle). Everyone is dying to talk about Orphans’ with the first person they see. They have become quite attached to and invested in all of the characters, whom they have come to think of as friends or even family. After dessert, as we ready to return for Part Three: The Story of a Family (1918, Cousins, and The Death of Papa), someone says, “I hope no more bad things happen to Horace!” I just take a final gulp of my Admiration Coffee (“A cup of Southern Hospitality!”), knowing that Part Three is actually a particularly turbulent time for Horace and his family, as they face war, disease, and a harsh economy.

The breadth of this journey, both Horace’s and ours’, really hits home for me in this part. My head spins a bit when I see the matriarchal Corella Davenport and Inez Kirby (Annalee Jefferies and Pamela Payton-Wright) in their twilight years, sitting together on Horace’s porch in the final act, The Death of Papa. I recall them in Roots in a Parched Ground, which suddenly feels like a lifetime ago, when they were Corella Robedaux and Inez Thornton (Virgina Kull and Maggie Lacey) sitting on the Thornton porch, playing guitar and singing “Beautiful Dreamer,” with little idea of what the next twenty-six years would have in store for them.

Part Three also heralds the arrival of Horace, Jr., (Dylan Riley Snyder) the character Horton Foote modeled after himself. He appears only in The Death of Papa, but his birth is announced in 1918. When Mrs. Boone asks Mr. Vaughn, “Was it a boy or a girl?” and he replies, simply, “A boy,” I get chills, as even though we are nearly at the end of the cycle, one feels the beginning of something else. It is a boy, and he is going to tell all of your stories, I think.

And then it’s over. The giddy excitement of the occasion has transitioned into a sense of awe and profundity. I can’t help remembering the first reading of Parts One and Two at Lincoln Center Theater in January 2009, when Horton was still with us. I have been told that at that reading he knew for the first time that he had something, and that these nine adapted plays would work. Now we have proven him right. Yet although we feel this immense sense of accomplishment, we still have a long road ahead of us, as in two weeks the company arrives at Signature for their five month residency with us. But if Horton and The Orphans’ Home Cycle marathon have taught us anything, it’s that the journey can be as rewarding as the destination.

Orphans' Home Cycle in the News

2009-11-09T07:58:00.000-08:00

With performances starting last week, the buzz is growing on The Orphans' Home Cycle! Check out these press features:

Variety Review of The Orphans' Home Cycle, by Frank Rizzo:
“A tranformative work! A stunning achievement! The Orphans’ Home Cycle is an intimate American epic that’s at once personal and panoramic. In his final gift to the theater Foote has created a work of gentle existentialism…as quietly profound as a zen master’s prayer. Michael Wilson helms the staggering project with loving care and a sense of rich theatricality, humor and
history. The suberb design team also echoes the Foote ethic with grace and care.”

Read full review here

"Orphans' Home Cycle Actors Visit Foote's Home Turf of Wharton, Texas"
Photos of Orphans' actors Bill Heck, Maggie Lacey and Bryce Pinkham visitng Horton Foote's hometown of Wharton, Texas

Click here for article

"Horton Foote, An Appreciation: A Playwright for the Common Man," by Gregory M. Lamb
"As a playwright, Horton Foote grappled with the great themes of human existence: love, despair, home, family, identity, redemption. And he often found them all in the lives of people in the little town of Harrison, Texas, the fictional setting for many of his works..."

Click here for full article

Also check out John Lahr's critic-at-large piece on Horton Foote in the October 26 issue of The New Yorker.

Video Interviews with Bill Heck, Maggie Lacey and Hallie Foote

2009-11-04T09:08:00.000-08:00

Portraying characters in The Orphans' Home Cycle based on playwright Horton Foote's parents is no easy feat -- just ask actors Bill Heck and Maggie Lacey! Lacey is playing a part originated on stage and film by Hallie Foote, Horton's daughter, who herself is playing a character inspired by her own grandmother. What a complicated family tree!

Check out actors Bill Heck, Maggie Lacey and Hallie Foote talking about Horton and the mammoth Orphans' Home Cycle.

Bill Heck:

Maggie Lacey:

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Hallie Foote:

Behind the Scenes Video -- Welcome to Tech...

2009-10-20T12:55:00.000-07:00

As if Bryce Pinkham isn't busy enough acting onstage in the three-part The Orphans' Home Cycle, as well as writing the Actor's Diary for the Signature blog, he's also been capturing and editing backstage footage of the show. (If you haven't done so already, be sure to check out his first video in the series, One Week Until Tech.)

Below is Bryce's latest video in the series, documenting the always exciting (and sometimes chaotic) tech week experience. Watching this video you'll get a good idea of the sheer magnitude of the production -- there's a whole lot of people working on bringing this thing to life!

Enjoy the video!

Actor's Diary: Family Business

2009-10-02T11:37:00.000-07:00

Bryce Pinkham will be playing the roles of Brother Vaughn, Pete Davenport and Felix Barclay in The Orphans' Home Cycle

I’ve been thinking a lot about families lately. I guess it should come as no surprise considering our playwright and the content of these plays. I find a delightful irony in our situation here: twenty-two actors who, for the most part, have left their permanent homes and in many cases their own loved ones to bring to life this incredible story about family and the journey to find a home. Furthermore, the entire experience, onstage and off, is having the effect of bringing us all together as a theatrical family. This is not unique to our production of course, it’s part of what we get to do in the theater- form little families for a few months at a time. We eat and drink together, take trips to the movies, play poker, celebrate birthdays, talk politics, grocery shop, bake cookies, ride bikes, take yoga, and sometimes even talk about the plays. Our dressing areas become living rooms where we share stories of our own families, seek professional and personal advice, and build the companionship and camaraderie that we otherwise lack being away from home. For many of us, even pursuing a career in this profession has meant some amount of personal sacrifice to our own families. During one of the many hours of technical rehearsals, I listen as two of the men in our group discuss missing their sons’ recent tours of prospective colleges. I figure it must be hard being absent from family trips such as these and I ask what it’s like having to be away from home so much. “It’s hard,” one concedes, “especially when the kids are young. You want to be able to pull your weight and send money home, but it also hurts to miss things like family summer vacations.” Father number two chimes in “One thing working on these plays makes you realize is that family is the most important thing.” “Did you ever consider doing something else professionally once you had kids?” I inquire. “Yeah, I tried for a year, but I realized acting was the best chance I had to make money for my family.” Father number two is surprised when I tell him I hope to have a family some day. He says he doesn’t run into too many actors my age who are looking forward to that already. He surprises me by asking how many children I want. “It’s important to think about,” he rejoins in response to what must have been a wide-eyed expression of terror on my face, “especially if you are going to be an actor and do this.” His gentle interrogation strikes at the heart of what I find most terrifying about starting a professional stage career.

Considering the difference in earning potential, I find it no wonder that the theater loses many of its finest talents to its younger, more popular artistic siblings, film and television. To be sure, the financial allure of those media is hard to ignore, especially for the domestically inclined actors among us. However, it seems to me as well that what the process of doing a stage play may lack in fiscal incentives it makes up for in espirit de corps. It seems to me that there has always been something inherently familial about the theater. I am reminded of the Italian Commedia families who not only made their living traveling the countryside in search of their next stage, but who literally passed down the portrayal of certain characters to their children. Likewise, it surely must have felt like joining a family to be admitted into Shakespeare’s The Lord Chamberlain’s Men or Moliere’s Troupe du Roi. Be it literal or fostered, the bond forged between actors on the stage often has the strength one associates with family; out there under the lights, we depend entirely on one another, and I find this dependence usually makes its way offstage as well.

Unfortunately, (or fortunately depending on your take,) theater and the process that brings it about mirror life in many ways. Change, both expected and otherwise, is simply always part of the equation. Our families, both biological and artistic, are inevitably affected and transformed by that unapologetic plodder, time. Having recently been caught unawares by this unalterable truth, I have found comfort in the words of none other than our playwright. In the penultimate play of his cycle Horton writes, “A family is a remarkable thing, isn’t it? You belong. And then you don’t. It passes you by.” I believe Horton’s words certainly speak to the families we all come from, but also the ones we form in and around the theater. The transient nature of rehearsing and performing a play (or 9), each night a little different than the next, each moment passed in due time, is part of what appeals to me about the theater. It is this impermanence that television and film will never be able to offer. It is this mortality that calls for us to enjoy every fleeting moment with the plays and with those around us that in turn forms such lasting kinship among us. I am truly beginning to cherish our ad hoc family here and am constantly reminded why I have chosen to be a part of this crazy caste (pun intended). And yet, as Horton reminds me, like an actor’s work in a theater, this family will not always be. That’s just the way it goes. You belong. And then you don’t. I think there’s something beautiful in that.

Behind the Scenes Video -- One Week Until Tech

2009-09-18T10:53:00.000-07:00

In addition to our Actor's Diary with Bryce Pinkham, Dramaturg's Diary with Literary Associate Kirsten Bowen, and photos from the rehearsal room, we'd like to give you even more of a glimpse of what goes into putting together a mammoth production like The Orphans' Home Cycle! We gave actor Bryce Pinkham a flipcam, and the result is the video you see below, shot the week before tech rehearsals began at Hartford Stage. Enjoy!

Keep checking back for more ways to find out what's happening with The Orphans' Home Cycle!

Dramaturg's Diary: Catching Up With Orphans'

2009-09-16T13:15:00.001-07:00

Kirsten Bowen is Signature Theatre Company's Literary Associate, and the Signature dramaturg for The Orphans' Home Cycle

Well, when I last posted a “diary entry,” the crack dramaturgy teams of Signature and Hartford were hard at work researching the world of The Orphans’ Home Cycle. Since then, we table-worked and work-shopped all nine plays over the course of three weeks, leading up to a “marathon” reading of all nine plays that brought the entire staffs of Hartford and Signature together (a day which Orphans’ actor Bryce Pinkham reported on in his diary and which was also photographed). Following the marathon reading, which marked the official start date of rehearsals, director Michael Wilson began the complicated process of staging the plays, working sequentially from the first play, Roots in a Parched to Ground, to the last, The Death of Papa.

Meanwhile, back at Signature we’ve been supporting the process by researching questions from the rehearsal room (if Claire is sending a wire at four o’clock in the morning, would she send it from home or would she have to leave the house?) as well as preparing for when we take over hosting the cycle. For me, this includes assembling material for Signature’s elaborate dramaturgical lobby displays, writing and editing our quarterly newsletter, Signature Edition, and for the interns, crafting the three-part video that will honor Horton Foote and run on the television in the Peter Norton Space’s lobby throughout the season.

Periodically throughout the summer various members of the Signature staff and I have been leaving New York very early in the morning, either via train or ZipCar, to attend rehearsals in Hartford. I was most often in rehearsal during the first three weeks when the company was still reading the plays around the table and making initial investigations into the world and their characters. In addition to asking practical questions such as which neighborhood of Houston do Horace’s mother and sister live in, and how were lawyers educated in the late nineteenth century, Michael impressed into the actors the key themes Horton explored in all of his work, and which re-surface throughout The Orphans’ Home Cycle: the search for home and identity, how some people actively choose to remember while others choose to forget, and what makes some of us survivors and thrivers and others doomed to failure and disappointment?

Many of these characters are based on Horton Foote’s family – not only do his father and mother have alter-egos, but so do his grandparents, great-grandparents, and numerous aunts, uncles, and cousins, some of whom have morphed into a character representing a combination of several people (for example, Brother Vaughn, one of Bryce Pinkham’s characters, is a composite of three of Horton’s uncles). Although many events within the cycle did not happen in real life, and these characters were created to stand on their own, separate from their real-life counterparts, we do a lot of digging into Horton’s family history in order to find a model for these people’s histories. His memoir, Farewell, is an invaluable resource, but even more helpful is Horton’s daughter, actor Hallie Foote. Hallie has appeared in the majority of her father’s plays over the past thirty years and is known as the premiere interpreter of his work. Of everyone in the room Hallie’s involvement in The Orphans’ Home Cycle goes back the furthest – not only did she witness her father write them when she was a teenager (and help type the scripts), she created the key role of Elizabeth Vaughn when the plays were first produced on stage at New York’s HB Playwrights’ Foundation in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and in their film adaptations in the 1980s. Now Hallie will play Elizabeth’s mother, Mary Vaughn, among other roles. In addition, since Horton’s passing Hallie has taken on the stewardship of his work and continues to collaborate closely with Michael on bringing the cycle to life.

Another challenge we faced during those early weeks was working on the plays out of sequence. We began with Lily Dale, the third play of the cycle, and for the most part jumped around, working our way towards the larger cast plays as more actors joined us throughout the three-week workshop period. While it was incredibly beneficial to be able to focus in-depth on one play at a time, it was tricky exploring these characters whose journeys had begun several plays ago. We couldn’t help but reference plays that we had not discussed yet, with characters (and actors) whom we hadn’t met.

What’s interesting however, is that although Horton wrote the basis for the first play, Roots in a Parched Ground, in the early 1960s, a decade later when he set out to write The Orphans’ Home Cycle as a whole he also wrote them out of sequence, beginning with 1918 (which is the seventh play and will begin Part Three of our cycle) and ending with The Widow Claire, the fourth play in the sequence (which is the first play of our Part Two: The Story of a Marriage). But despite the fact that Horton didn’t write them in order, all nine plays still follow a very lucid and consistent journey as events and themes of one play reverberate in another, sometimes three plays later. Recently, on a trip to Hartford to watch a run-through of Parts One and Two, I interviewed Michael for Signature Edition, and he commented on the cycle’s seemingly seamless ebb and flow, “Now that we’re at the point in the process when we’re beginning to put the plays together, we’re seeing characters an hour later in another act referring to an event that happened a couple of years ago. Those echoes, both thematically and emotionally, are very, very moving. It’s mind boggling how he created that, especially the way he wrote them out of order. It’s almost like he was a vessel, like he was channeling some kind of divine epic story that was coming though him onto the page.”

Actor's Diary: Passion and Patience

2009-09-08T13:39:00.000-07:00

Bryce Pinkham will be playing the roles of Brother Vaughn, Pete Davenport and Felix Barclay in The Orphans' Home Cycle

Constantly abandoning his chair to cavort around the rehearsal hall and joke with the company, Michael Wilson has an infectious energy that helps to drain any inherent tension out of the room. With seemingly unending patience he fields all questions and conducts rehearsal with a balance of tender admiration and boyish irreverence. Throughout each day, Michael somehow manages a ‘hey darlin’ or ‘hello sweetheart’ for everyone and succeeds in making every last one of us feel important to this project. In an effort to further understand Michael’s skillful métier as a director, I stir up a discussion among my peers about the inherently delicate relationship between actors and directors. In turn I am treated to several horror stories about directors who failed to win the admiration of their respective casts: “I had this one director tell me I was speaking like a movie extra, and then he asked me if I wouldn’t mind talking like a human being... ”

Pause.

At our best, we actors are empathetic, generous and emotionally sensitive; at our worst we are temperamental, irascible and, well, emotionally sensitive. Direction like that provided in the above anecdote is sure to affect even the steeliest of our kind.

Play.

“…I took the note and walked away because you never questioned this guy. Your goal was just to get onstage and off without getting caught.” It seems to me that a successful director’s efficacy is closely related to his ability to set his or her actors at ease to fearlessly explore ideas and choices. To be sure, a certain amount of actors’ creative forays in our rehearsal room turn out to be dead ends, but an equal number of interpretive risks reward our director, and in turn our company, with a greater illumination of character and story. Recently, one actor is searching for a definitive sound for his character. By his own admission, his first attempt in rehearsal comes off as a bad Colonel Sanders imitation. But Michael is patient. He allows everyone to laugh about it, but then rather than immediately place the kibosh on this actor’s bold interpretation, he encourages further exploration of the idea about the character that lead to this particular vocal choice. Sure enough, within a few rehearsals this actor has honed and specified his vocal proposal and in doing so has opened up a whole new interpretation of his character that is delightfully revelatory. This instance is just one example of Michael’s ability to disarm the tentative actor in all of us for the benefit of our entire endeavor.

Fast Forward.

It is two days before we enter the theater to begin technical rehearsals for our first three acts and we are about to begin our final run-through of Part One in the rehearsal room. Naturally, we are all a bit anxious about moving to the theater in two days; the previously distant specter of a paying audience is suddenly beginning to take shape and loom on the horizon. Anticipating this swell of nerves that inevitably runs through any company at this point in the rehearsal process, Michael gathers us together.

Pause.

A good director knows when to give a good speech.

Play.

“I love marathons. I think they are thrilling events in our theater that remind us what the theater does differently than television and film. They represent the pinnacle of the communal experience between artist and audience. I am deeply proud, honored and thrilled to make this distinctly American marathon happen with you all.” Michael’s rehearsal room valedictory is the perfect example of emotional and practical leadership. He reminds us that we are literally building our strength and endurance for a marathon and that individually we must remain focused, determined and supportive of each other. He also succeeds in unifying us as a company: “We are a family now, and there is not one day I regret being in this room or regret sharing this journey with you all.”

Pause.

I believe we are all extremely excited to get into the theater, though we know not what challenges lie in wait. Regardless, we are comforted in knowing that our leader could not be more committed to us and our endeavor and at the very least, there is one thing he will always allow…

Play.

"Angels in America" Coming to Signature in 2010-2011!

2009-09-02T09:26:00.000-07:00

SIGNATURE THEATRE COMPANY’S 2010-2011 SEASON TO FEATURE FIRST NEW YORK REVIVAL OF TONY KUSHNER’S PULITZER AND TONY AWARD-WINNING
ANGELS IN AMERICA
DIRECTED BY MICHAEL GREIF

PRODUCTION MADE POSSIBLE BY MAJOR GRANT
FROM THE ANDREW W. MELLON FOUNDATION

ALL SEATS AVAILABLE FOR $20 THROUGH SIGNATURE TICKET INITIATIVE

Signature Theatre Company (James Houghton, Founding Artistic Director; Erika Mallin, Executive Director) is pleased to announce that the theatre’s 20th Anniversary season in 2010-2011, celebrating author Tony Kushner, will feature the first New York revival of Kushner’s Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning epic work, ANGELS IN AMERICA: A GAY FANTASIA ON NATIONAL THEMES. The production will be directed by Michael Greif with Part One: MILLENNIUM APPROACHES and Part Two: PERESTROIKA presented in repertory. Signature’s Tony Kushner season will also include two more works to be announced.

The production of ANGELS IN AMERICA is made possible by a $750,000 grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, as part of a $1.25 Million grant to Signature Theatre Company.

“I'm very excited about my Signature season and of course I'm very honored to have been chosen,” Tony Kushner said. “I've spent some of my best nights watching the work Jim Houghton and Signature Theatre Company has produced. It seemed to Jim and me that this is a good moment to bring ANGELS back to New York, and I'm delighted that Michael Greif has agreed to direct it. Michael and I have worked together and known each other for most of our careers. He's a serious, generous, incredibly smart and superbly talented artist; I love his passionate commitment to actors, to plays, to the theater. I think the Signature's the perfect space for the demands of ANGELS, which is both epic and intimate. I can't wait to see how it all turns out!”

Michael Greif commented, “Mounting Tony’s exquisite play in the intimate Signature Theatre will be an extraordinary challenge but will offer even more extraordinary rewards. I know I’ll be aided by an astonishing group of actors and designers anxious to wrestle with this masterpiece. I cherish my continued collaboration with Tony and the Signature.”

“I still remember the thrill of encountering Tony Kushner’s ANGELS IN AMERICA for the first time nearly 20 years ago and being astounded by the sweep and theatricality of this brave and impassioned piece,” said Jim Houghton. “We are privileged to be celebrating Tony’s work in our milestone 20th Anniversary Season and we’re exceedingly grateful to The Mellon Foundation for its unparalleled support and for making this first New York revival of ANGELS IN AMERICA possible.”

ANGELS IN AMERICA was one of the most critically acclaimed and heralded plays of the 1990s and established Tony Kushner as a major new voice in world theatre. Frank Rich, The New York Times, praised it as “the most thrilling American play in years”. The plays were developed in productions in Los Angeles, San Francisco and London, before opening on Broadway in 1993. Part One, Millennium Approaches, opened May 4, 1993 at the Walter Kerr Theatre and Part Two, Perestroika, opened November 23, 1993, also at the Walter Kerr, with the two parts playing in repertory. Both parts of ANGELS IN AMERICA won Tony Awards in 1993 and 1994 for Best Play and Millennium Approaches won the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Kushner adapted the plays for an HBO mini-series, directed by Mike Nichols, which premiered in 2003 and won Golden Globe and Emmy Awards for Best Miniseries.

ANGELS IN AMERICA, A GAY FANTASIA ON NATIONAL THEMES is set in late 1985 and early 1986, as the first wave of the AIDS epidemic in America is escalating and Ronald Reagan has been elected to a second term in the White House. The play’s two parts, MILLENNIUM APROACHES and PERESTROIKA, bring together a young gay man with AIDS and his frightened, unfaithful lover; a closeted Mormon lawyer and his valium-addicted wife; the infamous New York lawyer Roy Cohn; an African-American male nurse; a Mormon housewife from Utah; and a steel-winged, prophecy-bearing angel; as well as the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg, an ancient rabbi, the world’s oldest living Bolshevik and a Reagan administration functionary, among many others – all played by a company of eight actors. The lives of these disparate characters intersect, intertwine, collide and are blown apart during a time of heartbreak, reaction and transformation. Ranging from earth to heaven, from the political to the intimate to the visionary and supernatural, ANGELS IN AMERICA is an epic exploration of love, justice, identity and theology, of the difficulty, terror and necessity of change.

Through The Signature Ticket Initiative, which seeks to make great theatre accessible to the broadest possible audience, all regularly-priced single tickets ($65) during the initial announced run are underwritten and will be available for $20. The Signature Ticket Initiative continues through Signature’s 20th Anniversary Season (2010-2011).

The Signature Ticket Initiative is made possible by the lead sponsorship of Time Warner Inc. Generous support for The Signature Ticket Initiative is provided by Margot Adams, in memory of Mason Adams.

Actor's Diary: Off the Page

2009-08-21T10:32:00.000-07:00

Bryce Pinkham will be playing the roles of Brother Vaughn, Pete Davenport and Felix Barclay in The Orphans' Home Cycle

“Well that was a cluster$^@&!” quips Michael Wilson, our director, after an initial pass at a particular scene in the first play. So far, we have more questions than answers. The first two of our nine plays have never been given a stage production. As a result we have been spending the majority of rehearsals helping these plays take their first steps off the page. For Michael Wilson and many others in our company, this rehearsal process sadly marks the first time that Horton Foote has not been in the room to lend his insight and clarity to the work. We halt often to interpret and clarify the subtleties in his writing. The majority of this interpretive responsibility lands on our director as well as Horton’s daughter, Hallie. Every few minutes in rehearsal these two huddle to discuss what Horton’s intentions were with a particular scene or storyline. They often consult the book containing Horton’s full-length plays, which we have affectionately begun to refer to as “the Bible,” as well as the Foote family photo albums and scrapbooks that now live in our rehearsal room.

Michael Wilson and Hallie Foote consult the script in rehearsals for Orphans' Home Cycle

As an actor, it is easy to feel intimidated at this point in the process. Respect and reverence for our playwright’s words can easily turn into a fear of “getting it wrong.” It is easy to forget that at this early stage there is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’, and that any choice is better than none at all. I am told that when Horton was in the room he was always encouraged by what each particular actor brought to his plays. “It felt like he was in the trenches with us,” one actress tells me, “and he loved nothing better than watching a group of actors take a scene above and beyond where he ever imagined it in his head.” Originally an actor himself, Horton surely would have enjoyed, as I have, watching the veteran actors in our present company begin to take responsibility for more than just their parts.

In a recent rehearsal, one actor stops a scene to raise a question about a particular line: “Our best friend is dying, why am I talking about the weather?” Twenty minutes later, the entire room is engaged in a heated discussion about the subtext of a particular scene that involves two feuding families. As actors begin to side with their characters, the feuding Thornton and Robedaux families of Roots in a Parched Ground suddenly come to life: “Everything is going to shit for us! We’re talking about a quaint veneer over total chaos and panic!” I am fascinated as actors not even involved in this particular scene begin to chime in as well: “There is nothing more boring than general bullshit- the stakes are so high in these people’s lives!” Soon, the discussion of our trilogy’s first act has given way to an even greater examination of human truths: “How many people get to the end of their lives and are happy with the way things went?” Audible exhales escape from several around me. I think we all realize we’ve tapped into something essential about Horton’s plays- and all from an initial question about the weather.

Upon reflection, I am reminded of the importance of “speaking up.” Too often I think actors, especially of my generation, are afraid of what one of my teachers would call “disturbing the air” in the room. Yes, our playwright’s words are sacred, but as I learned from watching my more experienced peers today, we as a company must take ownership of what we are saying and not be fearful of disagreement. At the end of our lengthy deliberation, Michael Wilson assures us that we have not wasted our precious rehearsal time: “These are the discussions we must have- they make the play get to the center of your soul.” It’s nice to be reminded that we are not just here to say the words, but that our agency as actors is not only real, but in fact necessary.

Photos: In Rehearsal with Orphans' Home Cycle

2009-08-17T12:33:00.000-07:00

The Rehearsal Room

Rehearsing three plays at once is no easy feat, so the cast and crew of Orphans' Home Cycle are hard at work in Hartford getting ready for performances at Hartford Stage beginning September 3rd and Signature Theatre beginning November 5th. Below are some pictures of the team at work.

All photos by Gregory Costanzo.

Maggie Lacey (Elizabeth Robedaux, Inez Thornton) and Director Michael Wilson

Bill Heck (Horace Robedaux)

Michael Wilson and Hallie Foote (Mrs. Vaughn, Mrs. Robedaux, Asa Vaughn, Lola Reeves)

Stephen Plunkett (Terrance Robedaux, Will Kidder, Archie Hall, Steve Tyler)

Pamela Payton-Wright (Ruth Amos, Sarah Vaughn, Aunt Inez, Mrs. Coons)

Stage Manager Cole Bonenberger

Devon Abner (John Howard, Pete Davenport, Roger Culpepper, Bobby Pate)

Bill Heck and Stephen Plunkett

Michael Wilson, Hallie Foote and Hartford Stage Dramaturg Chris Baker

Pamela Payton-Wright and Virgina Kull (Corella Robedaux, Claire Ratliff, Bessie Stillman, Minnie Curtis)

Michael Wilson and Bill Heck

Bryce Pinkham (Pete Davenport, Felix Barclay, Brother Vaughn)

Jasmine Harrison (Gertrude)

Maggie Lacey, Bill Heck, Pamela Payton-Wright and Virginia Kull

Stephen Plunkett, Bryce Pinkham, James DeMarse (Saul Gautier, Mr. Vaughn) and Justin Fuller (Albert Thornton, Ed Corday, Dr. Green, Gordon Kirby)

Bill Heck

Dramaturg's Diary: Preparing for the Big Day and Beyond

2009-08-10T11:41:00.000-07:00

Kirsten Bowen is Signature Theatre Company's Literary Associate, and the Signature dramaturg for The Orphans' Home Cycle

As Signature’s Literary Associate, one major aspect of my job is functioning as our resident dramaturg. Now a dramaturg can perform a variety of functions in the production and development of a play. We can be sounding boards for playwrights and directors, helping to track how the story is being told and acting as a sort of “in-house audience” during rehearsals. We also facilitate other lines of communication between the production and audience by creating lobby displays, newsletters, or writing program notes and blogs (like the one you’re reading now). Lastly, another large part of a dramaturg’s job is researching the world of the play and disseminating those findings to the playwright, director, actors, and you, the audience. This research will help the actors flesh out and more fully embody their characters, provide factual or inspirational references for the director and playwright as they create this world, as well as context for the audience member watching it.

Researching the world of The Orphans’ Home Cycle is at times overwhelming, but mostly fascinating and even fun. We also have quite a team assembled to get the job done: me, Signature’s Artistic Interns Elizabeth Carlson and Farrell Parker, and Hartford’s Senior Dramaturg, Chris Baker. I mentioned that there are nine plays, right?

Despite the two memoirs and many personal essays Horton left behind, as well as the first-hand stories about his family and childhood he passed on to the friends and family involved in this production, we dramaturgs still have our work cut for us. The Orphans’ Home Cycle spans the years 1902 to 1928. In addition to a detailed glossary of each play citing every obscure reference from the value of $11.50 in 1904 to the history of the Romany population in Texas, we created actor packets that include American history timelines, post-Reconstruction Texas timelines, information on the economics, music, education, political and social trends of the period, and other key topics like Texas’s convict lease system (one play takes place on a plantation that employs convicts as labor, a popular practice in the post-Civil War South), the 1918 Flu Epidemic, and copious sections from Horton’s memoir, Farewell: A Memoir of a Texas Childhood. Liz and Farrell also spent two days conducting visual research at The New York Public Library Picture Collection, combing through photographs and advertisements from the 1900s through the 1920s. Many of these images will be plastered to the walls of the rehearsal room in Hartford.

So we’ve done a lot of work to be as prepared as possible on the first day, but questions always come up in rehearsal that you never expect. For example, in the glossary we provided a thorough and rather graphic description of the symptoms of malaria (made all the more so by Chris’ dramatic reading of it during tablework), but director Michael Wilson wanted to know what time of year malaria is most prevalent in East Texas. This was not mere idle curiosity on his part – he needed to know in order to help determine in what season Lily Dale takes place, which is crucial information for costume designer David Woolard. These seemingly minute questions are just one ingredient to telling this story, as Michael, the actors, and designers build this world both in and out of the rehearsal room.

Now, I leave you with a sampling of some of our findings, selected by Liz and Farrell: etiquette tips from the 1905 handbook, Everyday Etiquette: A Practical Manual of Social Uses by Marion Harland and Virginia Van de Water.

“Expressions such as ‘God bless you!’ or ‘I love you,’ or ‘Love to the dear ones,’ are in shockingly bad taste except under cover of an envelope. Postcards are a solecism.”

“It takes very little to set tongues wagging. The married women should exercise extreme care in her relations with other men in public places such as a summer hotel or boarding house, while it may do no harm for a married man to flirt with other men’s wives. Promiscuous intimacies at summer resorts are a great mistake. A woman may be pleasant toward all, and intimate with none.”

“A proper young woman will never be proactive in the courting process. The girl who waits for the young man to ask if he may call her, and who waits for the young man to ask permission to write to her will be considered a prize that was difficult to win, and therefore more worthy of his true love and devotion. The apple that drops, over-ripe, at one’s feet is never quite so tempting as that which hangs just beyond reach.”

“In the home, the proper husband will always offer his wife the easy chair in which he sits when she enters the room, but “knowing that he is weary after a hard day at the office, [she] will not take the chair, but she will appreciate the little attention, and love him better for it.”

Orphans' Home Cycle Marathon Reading Day

2009-08-10T09:36:00.000-07:00

Check out these photos from the Marathon reading of all three parts of Horton Foote's Orphans' Home Cycle, which took place at Hartford Stage on July 20, 2009.

The room hums with excitement before the

beginning of the Orphans' Home Cycle reading.

The actors gather around the reading table

Director Michael Wilson says a few words before the design presentations

Set designers Jeff Cowie and David Barber talk about their team effort

Projection designer Jan Hartley explains her role in bringing the set alive

Gathered around the designers

After a short break, back to the plays

Leading man and lady Bill Heck and Maggie Lacey

keeping their spirits up through a long, full day

Actor's Diary: A Marathon Reading...And Yogurt

2009-08-03T13:54:00.000-07:00

Bryce Pinkham will be playing the roles of Brother Vaughn, Pete Davenport and Felix Barclay in The Orphans' Home Cycle

Of all things...yogurt. I can’t help but feel at the center of some cosmic joke as I extract my script from my bag, covered in peaches and cream. Meanwhile, a cadre of theater folk are filing into the room and taking their seats. As I desperately mop the edges of my script, I watch the collective administrative and creative strengths of Signature Theater Company and Hartford Stage file into the room, and my heart suddenly shifts into a new gear. I don’t think anyone in our twenty-two-person cast is ready for what is about to happen. We are gathered to read a preliminary version of Horton Foote’s massive Orphans’ Home Cycle, a three-part behemoth that is nearly airborne after months of preparation, auditions and planning. It was the late playwright’s dream to have his epic cycle fully realized and our director, Michael Wilson, assures everyone in the room that “Horton is with us today as we prepare to hear all nine plays read out loud, in succession, for the first time, ever.” Yes, my nerves are also in attendance.

My name is Bryce Pinkham. I am a fledgling actor recently released into the world of professional theater and thrilled to be a part of this historic production. What you are reading is the first installment of an actor diary, the goal of which will be to provide a unique perspective, to report from the inside the everyday happenings of rehearsal and performance from a young actor’s point of view. I submit these entries as nothing more than my observations. However, my goal will be to use this extended rehearsal and performance process as a backdrop to highlight the creative agency of the actor in our American theater.

Though it is only the first day of rehearsal, it is hard not to feel like we are giving a performance. As I watch my fellow actors read, it becomes clear that everyone has already done his or her fair share of homework. Every three acts we stop to feed and mingle and the discussion begins: “People are really bringing it today!” a fellow actor opines. That does it. I decide today is the day they’re going to find out they made a big mistake casting me. Second-guessing and self-doubt sort of come with the territory I am finding, and I suspect I am not the only actor in the room experiencing some version of this imposter complex.

Miraculously though, as we continue to read, the story itself seems to take over and the feelings of awe and humility that come with speaking the words of a master far eclipse any self-indulgent actor worries. The plays clock in a little over nine hours and after our official release the appropriate number or brow raises take place as we all realize that we have some serious work ahead of us. We are tired, but overall, the mood is positive. I think every actor here feels incredibly lucky to be a part of this project, but that does not preclude anyone from expressing his or her concerns. “How in the HELL are we going to do this?” one actor says to me once we exit the building. “I’m not really sure,” I respond, “but it’s going to be one hell of a ride.”

Dramaturg’s Diary: Countdown to The Orphans' Home Cycle

2009-07-27T07:43:00.000-07:00

Kirsten Bowen is Signature Theatre Company's Literary Associate, and the Signature dramaturg for The Orphans' Home Cycle

I have been Signature’s Literary Associate for three years now and throughout that time have managed to always delegate the writing for Signature’s blog to a series of willing interns, whom I reasoned were more digitally in touch than I was anyway. So it seems fitting that I come out of hiding and make my blog debut by chronicling the world premiere of Horton Foote’s nine-play The Orphans’ Home Cycle, an epic event that will encompass Signature’s entire 2009-2010 Season beginning in November.

Grand events like this– a world premiere of nine plays spanning nearly thirty years with a cast of 22 actors playing over sixty roles – are rare, and everyone who will be involved in the undertaking, from the actors in the rehearsal room to the staffs in the administrative and box offices, will have the opportunity to be a part of something quite special and unusual. What’s more, Horton Foote was a beloved friend and colleague of Signature Theatre Company and our producing partner, Hartford Stage, and these plays tell the deeply personal story of the founding of his family. It’s extremely gratifying to not only be presenting works that tell a rich and compelling story, but also celebrate Horton’s history and legacy.

Horton Foote began writing The Orphans’ Home Cycle in the 1970s as nine separate plays to honor his late parents, Albert Horton Foote and Hallie Brooks Foote, basing the central character of the cycle, Horace Robedaux, on his father. The cycle begins in 1902 and takes us from Horace’s childhood in and around the fictional town of Harrison, Texas (Harrison, where many of his plays are set, is based on Horton’s hometown of Wharton, Texas), into his adulthood when he has established his own family and had his first son, a character based on Horton himself.

Many of the Orphans’ plays have been fully produced at other theatres, and almost half, Convicts, Lily Dale, Courtship, Valentine’s Day, and 1918, have been produced on television or as feature films. Two, Roots in a Parched Ground and Cousins, have never been produced in any medium. Horton had always wanted to see all nine plays presented together as a complete cycle. Two years ago that dream came to fruition when Michael Wilson, Artistic Director of Connecticut’s Hartford Stage and a frequent collaborator of Horton’s, approached him about paring them down into nine one-acts which would be presented together in three parts. Signature officially joined the project as co-producer in January 2009.

Over the course of the season, I and several others will be bringing you behind-the-scenes updates on the journey of bringing this monumental work to the stage. Right now casting is underway, design meetings are happening, and much reading and research on Horton and turn of the century Eastern Texas has been happening in Signature’s artistic office. This point in the process has been a long time coming for all of us – some have waited six months to get started, some two and a half years, and Horton waited for over thirty. We still have a long way to go until first preview but we’re well on our way.

Welcome to The Orphans’ Home Cycle…

ADDENDUM: I have recently been reminded that Roots in a Parched Ground, the first play of the cycle, was originally a teleplay entitled The Night of the Storm, and was produced by the “Du Pont Show of the Month” in 1961. Horton’s original title for it was A Golden String (from a William Blake poem), which the producers rejected as too ambiguous. They did like the second title, Roots in a Parched Ground (from a William Carlos Williams poem), but the advertising agency disliked it, and so they all compromised on The Night of the Storm, which, according to Horton, “None of us liked very much.” The play was subsequently published as Roots in a Parched Ground. Apologies for the oversight and no offense intended towards “Du Pont Show of the Month” producer David Susskind, Night of the Storm director Daniel Petrie, and actors Julie Harris, E.G. Marshall, Mildred Dunnock, Mark Connelly, Fritz Weaver, and Jo Van Fleet.

Subscriptions for Signature’s 2009-2010 Horton Foote Legacy Season Now On Sale!

2009-05-28T14:25:00.000-07:00

THE ORPHAN’S HOME CYCLE
A World Premiere Event Presented in Three Parts
written by Horton Foote
directed by Michael Wilson

Part 1 - “The Story of a Childhood”
November 5, 2009 – March 6, 2010

Part 2 - “The Story of a Marriage”
December 3, 2009 – March 6, 2010

Part 3 - “The Story of a Family”
January 7, 2010 – March 6, 2010

Subscriptions are available here!
Just click the Subscribe button!

More information about subscriptions can be found here:
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Backstage with the Cast and Crew of ZOOMAN AND THE SIGN

2009-04-13T08:56:00.000-07:00

Signature's institutional photographer Gregory Costanzo was at it again this past weekend, snapping shots of the Zooman and the Sign cast and crew as they got ready for the show. Check out the rest of the photos below!

Amari Cheatom ("Zooman")

Peter Jay Fernandez ("Donald Jackson")

Ron Canada ("Uncle Emmett")

Rosalyn Coleman ("Rachel Tate")

Evan Parke ("Reuben Tate") warms up onstage

Portia ("Grace Georges")

Rosalyn Coleman vamps it up, making deck carpenter Derek Loehr laugh

Tre Davis ("Russell Adams"), Assistant Stage Manager Kara Aghabekian and Jamal Mallory-McCree ("Victor Tate") hang out before the show

Lynda Gravatt ("Ash Boswell")

Evan Parke, Peter Jay Fernandez, W. Tre Davis, Jamal Mallory-McCree and Amari Cheatom take a moment to check in with each other before the show

ZOOMAN AND THE SIGN: Links and Articles

2009-03-04T10:59:00.000-08:00

Each season at Signature Theatre Company, the members of the Artistic staff contextualize the season plays for the creative team and actors. With materials from the personal collection of the season playwright and the New York Public Library, among other archival resources, we compile comprehensive facts and figures about events and ways of life specific to the plays. For example, we create a glossary of references for use by directors and actors, as well as supplement the glossary with additional suggested reading.

For Charles Fuller’s Zooman and the Sign – which is set in Philadelphia in 1979 but could take place at any time and in any city – much of the research has been drawn from newspaper and magazine articles spanning the 1970s through today about teenage gang violence and the communities it impacts. Also included is information on the music of the time that influenced our production. Please find below a sampling of the research compiled that we hope will enrich your theatre-going experience.

The Return of the Gang
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,878590-1,00.html

A View from the Inside
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/special/violence/

Hope Seen for Curbing Youth Violence
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CE4D8133CF932A2575BC0A965958260

A Little Girl Shot, and a Crowd That Didn’t See
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/09/nyregion/09taj.html?ex=1185768000&en=1df6bd50153b38c7&ei=5070

A Brief History of Jazz
http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=19:T691

Old School Rap
http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=19:T2167

For an exclusive interview with Playeright-in-Residence Charles Fuller and information on the original NEC production of Zooman and the Sign, go to http://www.signaturetheatre.org/newsletter.htm and check out the online version of Signature Edition, the official newsletter of Signature Theatre Company. Or pick up a copy when you’re at the theatre!

ZOOMAN AND THE SIGN: First Rehearsal Photos

2009-02-10T13:55:00.000-08:00

It's hard to believe, but it's already time for the first rehearsal of Signature Theatre Company's final show of the 2008-09 season celebrating the historic Negro Ensemble Company. The cast and crew of Zooman and the Sign, which begins performances March 3, 2009, along with Signature's staff, met and greeted each other before the cast began a powerful read-thru of Charles Fuller's classic drama. Check out the photos below!

Director Stephen McKinley Henderson

Signature's Artistic Director James Houghton and Amari Cheatom ("Zooman")

NEC Founder Douglas Turner Ward and Signature's Associate Artist Ruben Santiago-Hudson (who also directed The First Breeze of Summer earlier this season)

Sound designer Robert Kaplowitz

Costume designer Katherine Roth

Set designer Shaun Motley

Zooman and the Sign's set

Evan Parke ("Reuben Tate")

Rosalyn Coleman ("Rachel Tate")

Lynda Gravatt ("Ash Boswell")

Peter Jay Fernandez ("Donald Jackson")

Jamal Mallory-McCree ("Victor Tate") and Rosalyn Coleman ("Rachel Tate")

Ron Canada ("Emmett Tate")

Amari Cheatom ("Zooman")

W Tre Davis ("Russell Adams") and Portia ("Grace Georges")

All photos by Gregory Costanzo

Behind the Scenes: DAY OF ABSENCE Staged Reading

2009-02-09T13:23:00.000-08:00

On February 1-2, 2009 Signature Theatre Company presented a staged reading of Douglas Turner Ward's Day of Absence, the landmark play that inspired the founding of the Negro Ensemble Company. Ward directed a cast of 17 for the reading, among them several original cast members. The cast included Peggy Alston, Norman Bush, Yaya DaCosta, Keith David, Brandon Dirden, Jason Dirden, Arthur French, January LaVoy, William Jay Marshall, Kathryn Meisle, Erica Peeples, Terrence Riggins, Heather Alicia Simms, Joyce Sylvester, Raphael Nash Thompson and Allie Woods.

The show, performed in white face, featured make-up design by Erin Kennedy Lunsford. Jessica Pabst provided the costumes, with Michael Jarrett on lights and Graham Johnson on sound.

Check out these pictures of the cast getting ready backstage before the staged reading.

Arthur French

Arthur French

Keith David with make-up designer Erin Kennedy Lunsford

Brandon Dirden

Jason Dirden

Raphael Nash Thompson

Heather Alicia Simms

Yaya DaCosta

Joyce Sylvester

Peggy Alston

January LaVoy

Norman Bush

All photos by Gregory Costanzo

Backstage with the Cast and Crew of HOME

2008-12-18T07:44:00.000-08:00

We spent some time backstage with the cast and crew of Home before a recent performance -- here's what we saw!

Kevin T. Carroll (Cephus Miles) shaves before the show...

...with a straight razor!

January LaVoy (Woman 1/Pattie May Wells) gets her hair just right

Tracey Bonner (Woman 2) puts on the finishing touches

Assistant Stage Manager Kara Aghabekian is focused on the task at hand

Deck carpenter Derek Loehr and Stage Manager Chandra LaViolette hang out before it's time to do their thing

The cast warms up their voices before the show -- break a leg everyone!

All photos by Gregory Costanzo

The Cast of HOME Talks Back to the Students

2008-11-25T12:50:00.001-08:00

On November 20, a group of student playwrights came to see Home, and the cast stuck around after the show to participate in a talkback with the aspiring artists, moderated by Signature's Associate Artistic Director Beth Whitaker. Check out the photos below of Tracey Bonner, Kevin T. Carroll, January LaVoy.

All photos by Gregory Costanzo

Coming HOME: Photos From First Rehearsal

2008-10-21T09:02:00.000-07:00

The first rehearsal for Home, the second show of our 2008/09 season celebrating the historic Negro Ensemble Company season, was last week, and we were there to take photos!

Stage Manager Chandra LaViolette, Director Ron OJ Parson and Assistant Director Lileana Blain-Cruz discuss what topics to go over before the reading begins

Old friends January LaVoy (Woman 1) and Kevin T. Carroll (Cephus Miles) embrace

The cast and Ron OJ Parson check out the plans for the set

The set, as imagined by designer Shaun Motley

Ron OJ Parson and his assistant Lileana Blain-Cruz share a laugh

Signature Artistic Director James Houghton welcomes back Signature alum January LaVoy

Tracey Bonner (Woman 2) and Kevin T. Carroll already hard at work!

Ron OJ Parson talks to the cast and crew about his vision for Home

Home playwrightSamm-Art Williams and NEC founder Douglas Turner Ward in deep discussion

Douglas Turner Ward listening to the first read-thru

Kevin T. Carroll getting into his role of Cephus Miles

Tracey Bonner during the read-thru

January LaVoy flashes a smile at one of her co-stars

Go Backstage With the Cast of THE FIRST BREEZE OF SUMMER

2008-09-24T11:45:00.001-07:00

Signature Theatre photographer Gregory Costanzo snuck backstage at a recent performance of The First Breeze of Summer to take some photos of the cast getting ready for the show...and here they are!

Sandra Daley

Yaya DaCosta

Keith Randolph Smith

Leslie Uggams

Marva Hicks

Quincy Dunn-Baker

Quincy Dunn-Baker and Gilbert Owuor

Brandon Dirden

Brenda Pressley

Crystal Anne Dickinson

Harvy Blanks

Photo Feature: "Signature After Hours"

2008-09-16T07:24:00.000-07:00

On September 12th, Signature Theatre Company launched "Signature After Hours," a post-show cocktail party (hosted by 10 Cane Rum) that allowed the audience to mingle with the cast and crew of The First Breeze of Summer. The event was a big success -- most of the audience stuck around to enjoy delicious Passion Fruit Daquiris and discuss the show with their fellow theatregoers. Check out the photos below, and make sure to attend our next "Signature After Hours" event, scheduled for December 12th following Home.

10 Cane Rum provided the delicious Passion Fruit Daquiris

The audience enjoys the drinks and the company

Cast members John Jelks and Brandon Dirden mingle with the audience

Yaya DaCosta chats about the show...and the drinks!

Leslie Uggams shares a laugh with cast member Quincy Dunn-Baker

Video Montage of THE FIRST BREEZE OF SUMMER

2008-09-02T07:33:00.000-07:00

In the Rehearsal Room: Inspiring the Cast of THE FIRST BREEZE OF SUMMER

2008-08-20T07:48:00.000-07:00

"Any form of art is a form of power; it has impact, it can affect change -
it can not only move us, it makes us move."
-- Ossie Davis

At the start of each day of work, the cast and team would assemble, and each person in the room would read a quotation aloud to prepare for the task ahead. These words came from prominent black leaders, artists, scientists, and thinkers and were used to inspire the team throughout the rehearsal process. Cast members were encouraged to bring in quotations found on their own that inspired them, which were then added to the collection.

The following quotations represent a selection of those adorning the rehearsal space chosen by The First Breeze of Summer director, Ruben Santiago-Hudson.

"The man who has no imagination has no wings."
-- Muhammad Ali

"Prayer begins where human capacity ends."
-- Marian Anderson

"If we lose love and self respect for each other, this is how we finally die."
-- Maya Angelou

"From what we get, we can make a living; what we give, however, makes a life."
-- Arthur Ashe

"Sometimes I would almost rather have people take away years of my life than take away a moment."
-- Pearl Bailey

"Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced."
-- James Baldwin

"Education is the key to unlock the golden door of freedom."
-- George Washington Carver

"I find, in being black, a thing of beauty: a joy; a strength; a secret cup of gladness."
-- Ossie Davis

"It is not light that we need, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake."
-- Frederick Douglass

"As you live, believe in life! Always human beings will live and progress to greater, broader and fuller life. The only possible death is to lose belief in this truth simply because the great end comes slowly, because time is long."
-- W. E. B. DuBois

"I am not tragically colored. There is no great sorrow dammed up in my soul, nor lurking behind my eyes. I do not mind at all. . . . I do not weep at the world -- I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife."
-- Zora Neale Hurston

"In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."
-- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

"I'm not concerned with your liking or disliking me... All I ask is that you respect me as a human being."
-- Jackie Robinson

"Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome."
-- Booker T. Washington

"The future belongs to those who prepare for it today."
-- Malcolm X

Podcast Kickoff: A Chat with First Breeze of Summer Cast Members Jason Dirden, Brandon Dirden and Crystal Anne Dickinson

2008-08-14T06:51:00.000-07:00

We're thrilled to present the Signature Podcast Series, which will bring you the latest news and insights into our current historic Negro Ensemble Company Season.

The inaugural podcast features The First Breeze of Summer cast members Jason Dirden (Lou Edwards), Brandon Dirden (Nate Edwards), and Crystal Anne Dickinson (Hope), who, in addition to portraying members of the family in the show, are also related in real life! Jason and Brandon are brothers from Houston, Texas who grew up doing theatre together; Brandon then met his future wife Crystal while attending graduate school in Illinois, and the three have been continuously working together since.

In this three-part interview Brandon and Jason discuss their childhood, Crystal and Brandon take us through their first time meeting, and all three actors talk about their rehearsal process.

Listen below to hear their stories:

Spirituality and Theatre: What I've Learned in My New York Theatre Debut

2008-07-28T13:02:00.000-07:00

This blog entry was written by Crystal Anne Dickinson, who plays Hope in Signature Theatre's The First Breeze of Summer.

Spirituality is a tremendous aspect of Leslie Lee’s The First Breeze of Summer, and our director, Ruben Santiago-Hudson, made it a big part of our rehearsal process. Inspirational quotes and images dominated the walls of our rehearsal room and at the beginning and end of each rehearsal day everyone in the room was invited to gather in a circle to say a word of prayer, reflection, or thanksgiving. It is an experience I have never had in a rehearsal room, but one I would love to have again. In my opinion, art and religion rarely meet. Perhaps it has something to do with the theatre’s commitment to individuality and free thought, or the fact that many adopt the theatre as their religion. Nevertheless, here in our rehearsal room, these ideas seem to lovingly coexist.

The difference between some of the stage work I have done in the past and the work I am doing in my New York debut with First Breeze is the willingness of each and every individual to do whatever is asked of them, from the interns, production crew and designers, to the actors of whom I am a part. During this process, Ruben has asked us to “explore the meaning of what God is” and tell a story about “love, spirituality and family”. Thus, we are all met with the challenge to connect with something spiritual, and, as I said, and all were up for the task.

Today was our last day in the rehearsal space and on Tuesday we will all meet in the theatre for the first time. My hope is that all who come to see our work will have the privilege of feeling the “spirit” we created in the rehearsal room, because it is something that I will take with me when the curtains close.

Ruben Santiago-Hudson in Action!

2008-07-24T12:43:00.000-07:00

As most theatregoers know, the director is a key player in constructing a successful production, leading all those involved towards a singular creative vision. At a recent rehearsal, The First Breeze of Summer director Ruben Santiago-Hudson illustrates this vision to the actors.

For exclusive photos of the cast and crew, click on the links below to see:

The First Rehearsal

A Family Portrait of the Cast

All Photos by Gregory Costanzo

Signature Podcast: Interview with Signature Interns

2008-07-02T12:33:00.002-07:00

We're excited to post our inaugural Signature Theatre Podcast!

As the NEC season progresses we hope to include interviews with those involved, bringing you a behind the scenes understanding of how our creative and administrative forces work together in creating the performances you see on our stage.

Our first podcast features four of our summer interns (Tess Howsam, Yi-Chen Lai, McKenzie Murphy, and Liza Witmer) talking about their experiences so far in working with Signature.

Stay Tuned!

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*This podcast was recorded and edited by Chris Bannow, Marketing Intern

Learn More About Louise Nevelson

2008-06-13T08:44:00.000-07:00

Seen Edward Albee's Occupant and want to learn more about Louise Nevelson? Check out these links for information on her life and work:

Guggenheim Museum's Artist Bio: Louise Nevelson

Museum of Modern Art Bio and Selected Louise Nevelson Works

Artcyclopedia's Listing of Louise Nevelson Works

The Reviews Are In!

2008-06-09T12:52:00.000-07:00

The critics have spoken...Edward Albee's Occupant is a hit! Here's a sampling of what they had to say about the show, which has now been extended through July 13th:

"A touchingly modest tribute to one of the most important American sculptors of the 20th century. Occupant bows its head in awe and gratitude before the mysterious force of will that allows great artists to be. Louise Nevelson is reincarnated with disarming casualness and unimpeachable conviction by Mercedes Ruehl. ‘The Man’ is played by Mr. Bryggman with a fine mix of academic fatuity and true insight."
– Ben Brantley, The New York Times

"It's riveting. Put it on your must-see list immediately..”
– Jacques le Sourd, The Journal News

“A fanciful, fascinating meditation on not only Nevelson, but on the cult of celebrity and the impossibility of ever really knowing if you are getting the truth about a famous person or not.”
– Michael Kuchwara, Associated Press

“A fascinating addition to the playwright's body of work that climaxes in a moment of vivid self-revelation. Mercedes Ruehl is transfixing. She loses herself in a full-immersion inhabitation of the flamboyant Nevelson”
– David Rooney, Variety

"MERCEDES RULES. She commands the stage and delivers Nevelson’s stories with humor and gusto."
– Malcolm Johnson, Hartford Courant

To purchase tickets to Edward Albee's Occupant click here or call 212-244-PLAY.

Opening Albee

2008-06-09T12:50:00.000-07:00

Posted by Liza Witmer, Company Management Intern

As I clutched my handful of opening night presents to my chest and watched our small lobby quickly fill to capacity with smiling faces, I couldn’t help grinning myself at the exciting situation for which I was privileged enough to be present. Yes, folks…opening night finally arrived for Edward Albee’s Occupant, our legacy (and final) production in Signature’s 2007-2008s Mee season.

Members of our staff rushed around, making sure everything looked beautiful and that everyone would feel welcome and comfortable. My fellow intern Louisa and I tracked down designers and other people affiliated with the show to congratulate them and give them their mighty cute gifts of Louise Nevelson note cards. It was simply amazing to see my fellow coworkers come together and produce the well-oiled machine that our opening night became.

Our audience was star studded to the max. A quick sweep of the house revealed the man-of-the-hour Edward Albee; Signature alumni Lois Smith, Dallas Roberts, Lanford Wilson, and Charles Mee; a few cast members from our upcoming production The First Breeze of Summer; and Louise Nevelson’s granddaughter Maria. We were able to start fairly close to the intended curtain time (well-oiled machine, I tell ya) and Jim Houghton gave a beautiful speech to thank all of our supporters and guests.

The show was, as always, both funny and moving. Both Mercedes Ruehl and Larry Bryggman were incredibly perceptive and masterful at their craft, as per usual, but carried with them a certain extra spark which pleased the audience greatly. As Louise Nevelson’s facsimile retold the highs and lows of her life, the audience reacted with heartfelt compassion and empathy. It was truly an incredible piece of theatre and I am so glad I was able to see it on this special occasion.

The performance was followed by a fun filled after-party at West Bank Café, just a few blocks from the theatre. When I walked in, pictures were being taken of the actors, director, playwright and everyone in between. I thought I’d stumbled upon an unseen red carpet! Everyone was rewarded for their hard work with some serious R & R in the form good food, good drinks and good company. My personal favorites were the little chocolate mousse cake cubes for dessert!

I looked around the restaurant and realized what an amazing family I’ve recently joined. Signature has not only made me feel at home in my brand new internship but also produced such a glorious work of art that brought everyone together in a triumphant opening night celebration!

Talking Back With Edward Albee

2008-06-03T13:33:00.000-07:00

Posted by Chris Bannow, Marketing Intern, 3 June 2008

At age 80, Edward Albee retorts and spars with the tenacious spunk of a collegiate know-it-all, showing no signs of ever appeasing his relentless attack on tomorrow’s theatre. How do I know this after only one day as the new Marketing intern at Signature Theatre Company? Well…

Signature’s mission of producing fully staged works by playwrights-in-residence requires a devout relationship between artist and host, and to this end the company has created the means by which intimate and productive relationships are formed between the writer and the theatre for which he writes. Our code name for this event: Staff Talkback. 14 Staff Members, 1 Playwright, only about 10 chairs, and an even playing field with room for questions one could only ask in such an environment.

May 19th was Signature’s Staff Talkback with Edward Albee on his current play Occupant, and what we learned could have never been attained from the run-of-the-mill New York newspaper interview.

As we filed into the room, notepads and questions in hand and mind, we were met with Mr. Albee, sitting rather casually, eased back in his chair as if getting ready to watch his play rather than talk about it.

My fantasized construction of the Pulitzer/Tony/Drama Desk-Award Winning Playwright was shattered with the comfortably dressed, white-haired man sitting before me. Is this really the guy who wrote Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Yes. Yes it is.

For the next 40 minutes we sat, leaning on ledges, as Artistic Director Jim Houghton and his Associate Beth Whitaker led us through a plethora of questions and points of interest on Occupant. Whether it was plot, Pam MacKinnon, Mercedes Ruehl, and Larry Bryggman (the director and company of actors), a career in theatre, an artists’ inspiration, or the real-life relationship between himself and Louise Nevelson, Edward was quick to divulge stories and fearless in his blunt depiction of all the nitty gritty details. He ushered us through his fascinating history, and painted Occupant both as a furnished play and as a clockwork composed of quotes, conversations, and fabrications all deriving from the actual Louise Nevelson.

Before I knew it time was up, and we said our thank you’s and goodbyes as we departed from the entity that is Edward Albee to head back to our desks and computers. My first day at an award-winning Off-Broadway theatre, already an exciting event, was made all the more exciting by meeting with an award-winning, nationally renowned playwright. Signature cares as much about its staff as it does its audience, and I am excited to be a part of this family.

2008-2009 Signature Subscriptions On Sale Now!

2008-05-14T13:54:00.000-07:00

If you enjoyed Signature's record-breaking August Wilson Series or the electrifying Charles Mee Series, then you have to check out the 2008-2009 season, celebrating the historic Negro Ensemble Company. Subscriptions are on sale now (for just $20 per show, thanks to The Signature Ticket Initiative). To purchase your subscription, click here or call (212)244-PLAY (7529).

The NEC has been awarded with a Pulitzer Prize, Tony Awards, Drama Desk Awards and more than a dozen Obie Awards, and their productions have featured such boldfaced names as Angela Bassett, Laurence Fishburne, Samuel L. Jackson, Phylicia Rashad and Denzel Washington. The 2008-2009 Signature season will feature some of the NEC's most acclaimed shows: Leslie Lee's The First Breeze of Summer, Samm-Art Williams' Home, and Charles Fuller's Zooman and the Sign, as well as a staged reading of Douglas Turner Ward's Day of Absence. With Ruben Santiago Hudson serving as Artistic Associate, this season is not to be missed!

For more information on the 2008-2009 Signature season, please click here.

And don't forget -- Edward Albee's Occupant has been extended through July 6th, so if you haven't yet gotten your tickets, there's still time to see this world premiere production by one of America's leading playwrights. Click here to purchase tickets.

Edward Albee's Occupant: The Final, Final Dress Rehearsal

2008-05-09T09:38:00.000-07:00

Posted by Siobhan Lockhart, Artistic Intern, 9 May 2008

Final dress rehearsals are always significant, as they mark the end of one stage of the theatrical process (rehearsals) and signify the beginning of another (performing in front of an audience). However, Sunday night’s final dress rehearsal for Edward Albee’s Occupant was especially sentimental for me, as it was not only the final, final dress rehearsal of the 2007-2008 Signature Theatre Company season, but also the final, final dress rehearsal of my internship here at Signature.

The final dress rehearsal is one of many events in the great tradition of Signature camaraderie, as the entire Signature Theatre staff is in attendance. I have really appreciated the conscious efforts Signature makes to ensure its entire staff and the members of the show’s creative staff, production team, and actors are all a part of the process together. The result is an incredibly inviting and positive environment -- no one is toiling away in a bubble, and everyone is aware of the work everyone else is doing.

My final, final dress rehearsal not only exemplified what I value about the collective aspect of working at Signature, but was also a satisfying culmination of some of the more individual and departmental work I have done here as well. My primary responsibility since I have been at Signature has been to assist with the dramaturgical research for the productions. I really didn’t know what to expect when beginning the research for Edward Albee’s Occupant. I was an art history novice, and admittedly knew nothing about Louise Nevelson, though I’ve since found out that I used to pass by one of her sculptures nearly every day on the way to high school!

Thanks to the research that I’ve done for this production, however, I now have a greater appreciation for sculpture and art. First of all, I cannot wait to see a Nevelson exhibit in the future. I have now seen countless images of her sculptures, and just from these photos it is easy to see why many consider her work to be so unique and compelling. It’s not just her art that I have a deeper appreciation of, however – the research I’ve done has also helped me to understand her complex life and personality. As I watched the final dress rehearsal on Sunday, knowing it was in many ways the culmination of my work here at Signature, I found it truly thrilling to have the opportunity to see this artist who I had read so much about brought to life on stage.

Yes, it was a significant final, final dress rehearsal indeed.

Edward Albee's Occupant: First Rehearsal

2008-04-17T13:23:00.000-07:00

Posted by Evan T. Cummings, Artistic Intern, 17 April 2008

Maybe I’m biased, but it seems to me that the theatre is the only place where a wildly diverse and eclectic grouping of people – all with their own specialties, skills, and singular roles – can come together in service to a common goal, a specific event: that is, a story being told on a stage – presented with affection and fierce commitment to anyone, everyone, who is willing to listen. Especially unique to the theatre is that the first step towards achieving this goal happens in one room, at one time, with all collaborators present – and usually with a mood of anticipation, apprehension, excitement, and possibility in the air.

At least this is how it happens at Signature Theatre.

Case in point, the recent first rehearsal for Edward Albee’s Occupant – the fourth, and final, production of Signature’s 2007-2008 season.

A part of Signature’s Legacy series, this play is an intimate, funny and fascinating portrait of the artist Louise Nevelson, written by a playwright whose own legacy to the form is, now, after a decades-long career, well established – with, hopefully, many more plays to come from his ever-working 80-year-old imagination. I speak of course of Mr. Albee, in attendance at these opening festivities, where he, like the rest of us, got stuck in a strange dance for the half-hour before the work began: To meet, or not to meet. To greet, or not to greet.

As always on first rehearsal days, all Signature staff, members of the production team, designers and their assistants, the cast and any other participants-to-be are asked to gather in the cavernous (…by New York standards) rehearsal room on 43rd street and mix and mingle over frosted pastries and cups of coffee. We were, truly, no better than junior high-schoolers at a chaperoned dance, though. Some, it seemed, (and here I can’t let myself off the hook) were branded to wallflower status, stalled by our “talent-crushes” – the high degree of respect and admiration we had for some members involved in the production. This included Mr. Albee to be sure, but also Larry Bryggman, a long-time veteran of the New York stage and, of course, the incomparable Mercedes Ruehl, a force to be reckoned with any time she graces a stage or screen. For those of us in the room who felt lower on the totem pole it was hard to reconcile these personalities with the true people behind them.

Yet, ironically, when the rehearsal formally began, any fake hierarchies or false divisions seemed to break down. We were all sharing in this process together. When the play’s set and costume designers presented their vision for the look of the play, most of us – intern and actor alike – were seeing and hearing these ideas for the first time. More importantly, for a play with a cast of two who have only each other and the audience to play off of, the rest of us had the distinguished honor of being that very first audience to hear these actors read this play. In the moments where “Louise” talks directly to the audience, we were there – agreeing, or not; laughing, or not; but following every word, the first of many audiences to come.

And amidst all this, with each of us playing our roles, big or small, the playwright himself was there to play his. Looking distinguished, but also weathered from a life of telling challenging stories, he settled in quietly for a time, taking in the remarks presented by the director, designers, actors and Signature’s Artistic Director Jim Houghton. When the floor fell to Edward, though, he gathered himself and stood with a gravitas that hadn’t been apparent previously. He spoke very briefly of his friendship with Louise Nevelson and her influence on the play, then took his seat again. It was clear, in his opinion, his part had been completed when he got the words on the page right. He was now ready to watch the play along with the rest of us, ready to follow along with the process, ready to see what would, what could, happen next.

Paradise Park: Closing Night

2008-04-14T12:53:00.000-07:00

Posted by Elaine Wong, Production Intern, 14 April 2008

Hello everyone, this is Elaine Wong, part-time Production Management intern for
Signature. A little about me, I am an undergraduate of the University of Reading
in the UK, currently in my 3rd year studying BA Fine Art and Theatre Studies.
 Signature is my first taster of Off-Broadway theatre and my oh my,
it’s been one hell of an experience. I get to intern in New York City –
it really doesn't get much better than this. This is my first blog for the
website, and sadly my last! My internship is almost over
... but not just yet ;) Right, enough babble about myself.

This past Sunday was the last ever performance of Paradise Park.
So this is it for resident playwright Chuck Mee this season.
I for one can honestly say I am sad to see the end of Paradise Park!
My first day as an intern was the first rehearsal of the play so I have\
been there right from the start. I have witnessed all the drama (and
I am talking about what goes on BEHIND the scenes and not
onstage!), the FIRST and LAST ever Superman drop /
fruitcake toss / inflating of the bouncy castle, all the problems
that come with staging such a prop heavy show and other issues
we won’t even get into. Let’s just say it was not a smooth ride. 
So I arrive at the theatre just before 2pm on the day of the final
performance just in time to see our Founding Artistic Director
Jim slip into the Peter Norton space. I decided not to sit in on
the last performance as I have lost count of the times I have
seen the show. That and I was a little tired, irritable and hungry.

Anyways, I watched the play from the screen in the lobby instead
and it was weird thinking that this was it forever. So the play
finally wrapped up at 4pm, the cast got a great applause at the
end and many of the audience members got to take home
Superman dolls. There was a catch with that, the dolls have
been made fire retardant. It makes them especially unsuitable
for children so Signature staff had to ensure the patrons took
home miniature ones that hadn't been treated... The result of
touching the dolls? Rather tingly hands, like a burning sensation.
Where was I? 

Pizza time! With the final performance out of the way it was time
for everyone involved with the production to see it out with a bang.
We had a lobby full of pizzas and beer. Good times. At the closing
party I spotted Chuck Mee and his lovely wife, Daniel Fish
(director), Kaye Voyce (costume designer), Peter Pucci
(choreographer) and Joshua Thorson (video designer)
to name a few as well as some old faces from Queens
Boulevard. I got into a conversation with actor Alan Semok
(who played Edgar) over a bottle of beer to ask about the
fate of dear Mortimer (the dummy for those of you who
weren't paying attention during the show). Just so that we
are clear, the dummy lives in Alan's front room with his cat
who likes to sleep in Mortimer's lap apparently. So now we
know. Oh and the head comes off the body. Yes kiddies,
the dummy is not real and he can be decapitated. I also
found out at this point that Alan is alumni of the college
that I am studying at currently and his house is only down
the road from mine, only after say three months of working
together. A small world indeed. Moving on, with the pizza
and beer gone Paradise Park was officially over.

Everyone said all the goodbyes that needed to be said and before
 I knew it, time had come for us to clear out. I noticed cast
member Satya had managed to take away a number of
rollerskates that were show props – damnit, I wanted to
take a pair home too! So for all the hours I have spent
at the theatre working on the show, for all the broken
window blinds, all the unused fluffy toys hiding backstage
and the entirety of Manhattan I have scoured on the search
for the many props used in the show... Paradise Park really
has been a very rewarding show to work on for me and a
real learning curve. Everyone involved in the show has
been so dedicated and worked so bloody hard and I
really admire how much effort everyone has put it,
Paradise Park could not have turned out any better.
With that I say adieu. Thanks for reading this.

Manhattan Boulevard

2008-03-31T12:12:00.000-07:00

Posted by Edward Freeman, Development Intern, 31 March 2008

The Island of Manhattan is so small, yet can seem so big. My journey through the streets of the City, in search of the perfect gifts for Charles Mee, proved long and arduous as I wove in and out of sleek Upper East Side pumps and cell phones, looking for an exceptional pair of red suspenders; zoomed by the strolling dog walkers and nannies of Gramercy Park, scouting out Chuck’s favorite teas; and pushed through the cascade of tired briefcases descending down the SoHo Subway steps at the end of their workdays, as I ran up them, in pursuit of Dean and Deluca, Jacques Torres and some chocolate covered cherries. All this in a torrential down-pour, mind you.

I came back to Signature’s office in Hell’s Kitchen, soaked, worried that the Thomas Pink suspenders had gotten wet, and ready to go home to Brooklyn Heights, yet completely satisfied and proud of my accomplishments. Mr. Mee may not have requested that we find these gifts for him, or that we hold a party in his honor, for that matter. But the look of sheer joy and appreciation on his face when we gave him a bagful of his favorite things; or when his favorite marching band paraded around the dining hall; or when his friends, colleagues and admirers read love letters to him; or when there was an explosion of confetti at the end of the festivities; was priceless and let me know that my journey and the effort was worth it.

Remember, it’s what you do for others and what you give of yourself that counts the most sometimes. Mr. Mee is an amazing playwright, role model and person, and the entire season of his art that he gave to Signature and its audience has been invaluable. He has left an indelible impression on us and so many others…it is only fitting that this year’s Gala was titled “A Love Letter to Charles Mee.”

NY TIMES: PHOTO SLIDESHOW

2008-03-06T14:22:00.000-08:00

Posted by Mike Trerotola, Marketing Intern, 6 March 2008

Hey all you fine Signature fans reading this blog! Check out this cool NY Times photo slideshow, entitled "Moving a Carnival," which features Paradise Park! Our choreographer, Peter Pucci, who also choreographed Queen's Boulevard (the musical), is featured in the slideshow. Hope you enjoy!

Paradise Park: Opening Night!

2008-03-05T13:38:00.000-08:00

Posted by Sofiya Akilova, Executive Assistant, 5 March 2008

This past Sunday Paradise Park, the third show of Signature’s Charles Mee Series, enjoyed a brilliant and very special opening. The house was filled with the likes of Romulus Linney, Tina Landau, Dylan Baker and Peter Norton, to name a few. Jim Houghton kicked off the evening with a warm welcome to all our guests, and paid tribute to the courageous collagist we were all there to celebrate, Charles Mee!

This happens to be my favorite play of the Charles Mee Series, and it was my fifth time watching the show and I kind of expected to sit back and kick it rerun style, ya know? But to my glorious surprise, I never enjoyed the show more. Maybe it was the couple of glasses of champagne I had during the lobby reception before the show–I’m completely serious about that. When you watch a Charles Mee play I think your inhibition can really stand in the way of fully experiencing it. You kind of can’t come in expecting anything, even if you’ve seen other Charles Mee plays. The barrage of sensational distractions combined with sudden plunges into characters’ painfully personal journeys oscillates so feverishly in PARADISE PARK that I think the less inhibition the more you allow the beautiful chaos to just have its effect on you, without judgment. And then at the end you just sit back and feel the aftershock.

The beauty of the opening night show could’ve also been due to the theatre being filled with people who have worked on, admired, championed, understood, explored, and connected to Chuck’s work. There was just an amazing sense of communion in the audience – yes, we understand this depiction of reality and life, it makes sense to us! At the end there were two boisterous curtain calls. It was a wonderful moment of simple and genuine appreciation for Chuck and all who unfurled the wonders of Chuck’s mind on that stage.

The crowd then proceeded to the after-party over at 44 ½, replete with cosmos, bite-size spoonfuls of risotto and other delectable hour devours, servers in tight pink t-shirts labeled with things like “naughty,” “heaven,” “tasty;” in other words, Paradise.

Paradise Park: Video Montage

2008-02-27T09:12:00.000-08:00

Posted by Mike Trerotola, Marketing Intern, 27 February 2008

Hey all! Check out this really awesome video montage of Paradise Park that our own Marketing Associate, Jen Taylor, put together!

Both Paradise Park and the video montage were mentioned in the "Pencil This In" section of Gothamist. John Del Signore writes "If this far out video montage is any indication, you'd do well to buy the ticket, take the ride."