The Importance of Being Earnest

a comedy by Oscar Wilde

March 27 to April 6, 2008

Directed by Melanie Y.C. Pepe

Cast Biographies

KEITH FOSTER (John Worthing, J.P.) is a tenth-grader at Stow-Munroe Falls High School who last appeared on Weathervane’s stage as Count Paris in 2007’s Romeo and Juliet. His other theatrical credits include roles in The Outsiders, The Three Musketeers and The Crucible, all at ANTIC (Actors–N–Theatre) in Cuyahoga Falls. At his high school, he appeared in a production of Les Miserables.

JASON DAVIS (Algernon Moncrieff) is a freshman at Kent State University who most recently appeared as Potiphar and Isaachar in Weathervane’s 2007 production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. In August of 2007, he won an Erin Dillon Youth Achievement Award for his spring 2007 performance as Mercutio in Weathervane’s Romeo and Juliet. Also on his list of Weathervane credits is the role of Mr. Francis in 2004’s The Crucible. This graduate of Firestone High School’s Visual and Performing Arts Program appeared in the school’s productions of A Servant of Two Masters, Grease, Twelfth Night and The Diary of Anne Frank.

JAMES GURNEY (Rev. Canon Chasuble, D.D.) is a senior at Green High School, where he is a member of the Green High School Ensemble and has appeared in productions of Seussical: The Musical, A Christmas Carol: The Musical and Beauty and the Beast. He appeared as Gad in Weathervane’s 2004 production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. For the past three summers he was enrolled in Weathervane’s Summer Stock class, appearing on stage in this program’s productions of The Seagull, Spoon River Anthology and Cyrano de Bergerac.

DANIEL RYLANDER is a tenth-grade, home-schooled student who lives in Stow. Weathervane audiences have seen him in both Main Stage and Young Actors Series productions: Over the Tavern (2006), Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (2006 and 2007) and Romeo and Juliet (2007). In August of 2007, he won an Erin Dillon Youth Achievement Award for his volunteerism and a Chanticleer Award for his performance as Georgie in Over the Tavern. Off the stage, Daniel is a Star Scout in the Boy Scouts of America. He has played drums for nine years and is in a band (Trademark Mistake) that hopes to produce a demo recording in the next few months.

RICHARD CRAFTON (Lane, Manservant and Gribsby) is tenth-grade, home-schooled student who lives in Akron. He was in both the 2006 and 2007 productions of Weathervane’s Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and played Lord Montague in 2007’s Romeo and Juliet. His off-stage hobbies include playing the guitar and singing, and he is the recipient of a silver medal from the Royal School of Church Music.

AMANDA DAVIS (Lady Bracknell) will be familiar to Weathervane audiences who saw her on our stage as the Narrator in 2007’s Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and, just a month before that, as Alais in The Lion in Winter. Last spring, she was the Nurse in the Playhouse’s Romeo and Juliet. In her 10-year involvement with Weathervane, she has appeared on stage in Lend Me a Tenor, Much Ado About Nothing, The Wiz and Stuart Little: The Musical. She is a senior at Kent State University.

AMANDA MORROW (Hon. Gwendolen Fairfax) is a senior at Manchester High School, where she most recently played the title roles in Cinderella and Our Miss Brooks. Her previous Weathervane roles include the title role in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (2005), an ensemble member of the cast of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, (2005) and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in 2003. Other shows on her resume include North Canton Playhouse productions of Who’s Dying to Be a Millionaire? and Cry Havoc. She has earned superior ratings at solo and ensemble vocal performances, has lettered in drama and academics and has served as president of Tri-M, her school’s music-honor club.

SARAH BRAZIER (Cecily Cardew) is a tenth-grader at Wadsworth High School who last appeared at Weathervane as Juliet in 2007’s Romeo and Juliet. She has also appeared on the stages of her middle school and high school in productions of That’s Entertainment!, The Lady Pirates of Captain Bree, Twinderella, Westward, Whoa! and Bulldog Saves the Day. Her achievements in the dramatic arts include her titles of 2007 Akron District Champion in Humorous Interpretation, 2008 Akron District Champion in Dramatic Interpretation, a two-time state qualifier in speech and debate and one-time national qualifier in speech and debate. She says that she hopes to travel to Europe after she graduates from high school, and in the future she aspires to be a deaconess.

LILY ROMESTANT (Miss Prism) is a ninth-grader at St.Vincent-St. Mary High School in Akron whose last Weathervane role was Roxanne in the 2007 Summer Stock production of Cyrano de Bergerac. Her other Weathervane credits include roles in Madeline’s Rescue (2006), Antigone (2005) and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (2005). At Miller-South School for the Visual and Performing Arts, she appeared in The Prince and the Pauper and The Kingdom That Forgot How to Read. Her academic achievements include a spot on the Honor Roll since 2006 and a superior rating for duet acting at the 2007 Junior Thespian Conference. Her hobbies include writing, singing, reading and an “obsession” with Tudor-era England.

MELANIE PEPE (Director) last flexed her directorial muscle with Weathervane’s 2007 Young Actors Series production of Romeo and Juliet. Melanie serves on Weathervane’s staff as the Director of Education. She has been affiliated with Weathervane's education program since 1998. For the Playhouse, she has taught Saturday classes as well as "theater-badge" classes for Brownie and Girl Scout troops. She has supervised Weathervane's City of Akron-sponsored Neighborhood Playhouse program, which offers theater-education programs for Akron children right in their own neighborhoods. She has also designed make-up for a couple of Weathervane productions. She earned a bachelor's of fine arts in theater from Kent State University, with an emphasis on management. She is married with three children and resides in Akron.

JOHN C. DAVIS (Movement and Dialect Coach) holds a bachelor of arts degree in architecture from the University of Deleware and is a certified member of the Society of American Fight Directors. A member of the International Order of the Sword & Pen, he has given live comic and fight performances on NBC, Fox, CBS and on Maryland Public Television as well as on three United Service Organizatons world tours (most recently in the Middle East). Since his arrival on the Northeast Ohio scene one year ago, he has served as a fight director for numerous local theater companies, including Firestone High School, the Great Lakes Medieval Faire, Kent State University, Magical Theatre Company, Rabbit Run Theater, Baldwin-Wallace College and University School. Most recently, he became an adjunct-faculty member at Oberlin College.

MICHAEL PISTRUI (Stage Manager) is a senior enrolled in the Firestone High School Visual and Performing Arts Program in Akron, in which he has both acted on stage and served behind the scenes in stage-management roles. As an actor with the program, he appeared in S.P.A.R., Twelfth Night and Macbeth; as a stage manager, he served productions of Crowns, Urinetown and The Colored Museum. Also at Firestone, he earned a spot on the Merit Roll, chaired the stage-managers committee and served as president of the Committee of 7. For Weathervane, he served as assistant stage manager for the 2006 production of Wait Until Dark. He plans to attend Ohio University this coming fall.

BEN FORTIN (Assistant Stage Manager) is a tenth-grader at Stow-Munroe Falls High School. He played Nathan Lukowski in last season's Weathervane production of The Full Monty and was a recipient of the Erin Dillon Youth Recognition Award. This is his fifth year of involvement with the Playhouse.

ERIN BENNETT (Co-Properties Designer) moves backstage to handle props with this production, although Weathervane audiences saw her on-stage efforts in the summer 2007 Young Actors Series production of The Frog Prince, which she directed. From 2001 to 2005, she was the drama teacher and play director at Cuyahoga Falls High School. At present, she teaches language arts at Roberts Middle School in Cuyahoga Falls. She has shared her theatrical talents (acting, costuming, set design and stage management) with a number of Northeast Ohio community theaters, including ANTIC (Actors–N–Theatre) in Cuyahoga Falls, where she most recently directed Arsenic and Old Lace. She and her husband live in Barberton.

KRISTINE HAGENBUSH (Lighting Designer) is a student at Kent State University and designs lighting for national tours in her job with AA Sound and Lighting in Barberton. She is a graduate of Cuyahoga Falls High School.

DAN “D.J” JANKURA (Sound Designer) started volunteering at Weathervane with the 2003 production of My Way: A Tribute to Frank Sinatra. Since then, he has designed sound for more than 10 productions, including Ain’t Misbehavin’ and The Rocky Horror Show. He designed the lighting for the 2007 production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and chairs the Playhouse’s sound division on its Production Board. Outside of Weathervane, he studies for a bachelor’s degree in technical theater at Kent State University, works for AA Sound and Lighting in Barberton and enjoys recording music with his band, The Newport News.

ALAN SCOTT FERRALL (Scenic Designer) -- see staff bios.

KATHY KOHL (Assistant Technical Director) -- see staff bios.

ABOUT THE PLAY

The Importance of Being Earnest is Oscar Wilde's deliciously satiric masterpiece. A witty and bouyant comedy of manners, the play is brilliantly plotted from its effervescent first act to its hilarious denouement and is filled with some of English literature's most famous epigrams. Considered by many to be the funniest play in the English language, it boasts memorable characters and sparkling wit in a romantic farce that turns on misktaken identity, Victorian manners and the sheer brilliance of this late-19th Century Irish playwright.

Billed as "a trivial comedy for serious people," The Importance of Being Earnest opened at the St. James Theatre in London on February 14, 1895. The play was an instant hit and ran for 86 performances. The New York premiere took place soon thereafter (April 22, 1895) at the Empire Theatre. Set in England during the late Victorian era, its primary source of humor is based upon the main character of Jack's fictitious younger brother, Ernest, and all of the comic complications that ensue from this fabricaton. In addition, the play pierced the pompous pretenses of Wilde's Victorian contemporaries. The play has remained popular with audiences ever since, vying with Wilde's 1890 novel, The Portrait of Dorian Gray, as his most-recognized work.

The Importance of Being Earnest has spawned dozens of stage revivals and film adaptations. Beyond the original 1895 New York production, Broadway revivals of the play number seven (the most recent being the 1977 production at Circle in the Square Theatre). Off-Broadway productions of the play total four. In 1927, Oh, Ernest!, a musical comedy based on the play, was produced in New York and ran for 56 performances; this production expanded the relatively small original cast of characters to 25 people. Another musicalized version, Ernest in Love, played for 103 performances in 1960 at the Gramercy Arts Theatre, an off-Broadway house. The first film adaptation came from England in 1952; it featured Michael Redgrave as Jack and Dame Edith Evans as Lady Bracknell. More recently, a 2002 British-American co-production starred Rupert Everett as Algernon, Colin Firth as Jack and Dame Judi Dench as Lady Bracknell.

ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT

He attended Magdalene College at Oxford, and it was here that he emerged as one of the 19th Century's most expressive proponents of the Aaesthetic movement, adopting the credo of "art for art's sake." His career and social profile soon became well known throughout Europe and America, where in 1881 he embarked on a nationwide tour lecturing on his impressions of the United States and reading from his works. In 1884, he married Constance Lloyd, with whom he had two sons, Cyril and Vyvyan. His literary career began to take off and -- from the first performance of Lady Windermere's Fan in 1892 (which brought him the fame and attention in which he he so enthusiastically lavished) to the successes he enjoyed in 1895 with An Ideal Husband and The Importance of Being Earnest -- Wilde thus secured his position as the darling of London society.

His height of fame and popularity proved to be brief, however. Fourteen days after the opening-night success of The Importance of Being Earnest, he received a calling card at his club from the Marquess of Queensbury (the father of his lover, Lord Alfred Douglas), on which he assailed Wilde's character by enscribing it to "Oscar Wilde...posing Sodomite." Queensbury blamed Wilde for "corrupting" his son into a homosexual relationship. Douglas concvinced Wilde to sue his father for libel, a suit that Wilde lost. (The events preceding and surrounding Wilde's infamous court trials were dramatized in the 1997 play, Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde by Moises Kaufman, which Weathervane staged in 2000.)

Two subsequent court trials (following Wilde's failed libel suit) led to his conviction of gross indecency. He was sentenced to two years in prison with hard labor, the hardest two years of his brief life. Freed from prison in 1897, he spent his last three years in a penniless, self-imposed exile, removed from all social and artistic circles. Inspired by his prison experiences, he published an epic poem, The Ballad of Reading Gaol, in 1897; it concerns the death penalty. He died from cerebral meningitis on November 30, 1900, in Paris, where to this day his tomb at Père Lachaise Cemetery remains a popular tourist destination.

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