Backstage Callboard |
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October 29 to November 14, 2009 About the Cast RICHARD WORSWICK (Martin) -- The Goat or, Who is Sylvia? is Richard’s third show in the Dietz Theatre, preceded by Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me and Love! Valour! Compassion! He says he loves the intimate space and the amazing interaction it creates with the audience and actors. The other productions Richard has performed in at Weathervane are The Chosen, The Laramie Project, The Mystery of Irma Vep, The Dinner Party, Noises Off, The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife and The Sisters Rosensweig. Richard has also performed at Coach House Theatre, The Bang and Clatter Theatre Company (where he just finished a production of Craig Wright’s Lady), Dobama Theatre, Charenton Theatre Company, the Cleveland Play House and PlayhouseSquare Center. Richard lives in Bath Township with his partner, John, and their two Great Danes, Thor and Apollo (a.k.a. Paulo). DEDE KLEIN (Stevie) thanks Weathervane audiences for the Chanticleer Award she won for portraying the Countess in Bloody Murder last season. She has also won Chanticleer Awards for playing Eleanor in The Lion In Winter, Elvira in Blithe Spirit and Birdie in The Little Foxes. Dede has also worked at Coach House Theatre, Ohio Shakespeare Festival, the Beck Center for the Arts, Chagrin Valley Little Theatre and Aurora Community Theatre.
Some of her other favorite roles include Charlotte Hay in Moon Over Buffalo, Judith Bliss in Hay Fever, Hannah Pitt in Angels in America, Amanda in The Glass Menagerie and “B” in Three Tall Women (another Edward Albee play). Dede retired from American Airlines after 31 yearrs of service and now builds and sells miniature dollhouses. VINCENT RICHARDS (Ross), who is still new enough to community theater that he can fit all of his experience into a 100-word bio, made his on-stage debut playing Noah Curry in the Weathervane's 2008 production of The Rainmaker, which won the Chanticleer for Best Production of the Mainstage season. ("Yay, team!!") Next, he had the privilege of appearing in Coach House Theater's production of Agatha Christie's Appointment with Death. He would like to thank Derek Davidson for casting him in The Goat or, Who is Sylvia? and he is extremely excited to be working with Richard, Dede and Keith! KEITH FOSTER (Billy) is a senior at Stow-Munroe Falls High School and is the president of its speech and debate team, as well as parliamentarian of the school's drama club. This is his fifth show at Weathervane; his last show here was The Importance of Being Earnest, in which he played John Worthing. Keith's other recent roles include Ronnie in The House of Blue Leaves at Stow Players, Friar Lawrence in Romeo and Juliet at his high school and the Rev. Hale in The Crucible at ANTIC, Inc. Keith is ecstatic to be returning to Weathervane in this excellent production. About the Creative Team DEREK DAVIDSON (Director) makes his Weathervane Playhouse directorial debut with The Goat or, Who is Sylvia? He is a playwright, director and filmmaker who is currently teaching at Marietta College and at Carnegie Mellon University. Before he recently relocated to Northeast Ohio, he taught at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina, and was an associate artistic director at the Barter Theatre in Abingdon, Virginia, where he also coordinated the Appalachian Festival of Plays and Playwrights. He has directed his own adaptations of Mother Courage and Her Children and As You Like It. He wrote the award-winning play The Road Where It Curves Away. His film, This is Not the South, has played at numerous festivals and recently won Best Feature at the SkyFest in Asheville, North Carolina. At present, Mr. Davidson lives in New Philadelphia with his wife, Karen Sabo. J.T. BUCK (Stage Manager) is Arts Director for First Grace United Church of Christ in Akron. He holds BA in Theatre from the University of Akron and is completing an MFA in Directing from the University of Houston. Buck produced the 2005 Albee New Plays Festival under Pulitzer-winner Lanford Wilson, interned on the 2005 Tony Awards and the revival of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? under producer Elizabeth McCann. He was a student of Tony-winning Broadway producer Stuart Ostrow and has directed productions of Corpus Christi, The Laramie Project, Jacob Marley's Christmas Carol, Book of Days and Godspell, among others. His musical, The Gospel According to Tammy Faye, recently received a reading in NYC starring Tony-nominee Sally Mayes and veteran Broadway actor William Youmans (the original Dr. Dillamond in Wicked.) and is currently prepping for future productions. MIKE EMERSON (Assistant Stage Manager) is pelased to be working on his first production at Weathervane. He holds a bachelor's degree in business administration from Kaplan University. In his spare time, he enjoys reading and spending time with his family and friends. He would like to thank his wife, Amanda, and his two lovely daughters for this support in allowing him to pursue this new endeavor/interest. By day, Mike is a communication specialist with Copley Township. CHERYL STADLER (Sound Desginer) served as the sound designer for Perfect Wedding last season and for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory several seasons back. Michelle also worked on the sound crew for our productions of A Doll's House and Blithe Spirit. She is a graduate of St. Vincent-St. Mary High School in Akron, where she served as stage manager for several productions. A graduate of the University of Akron, she is employed with Alcon Tool Company in Akron. JILL SUTTON FILO (Costume Designer) -- After graduating from Kent State University with a B.F.A. in art education, Jill was a textile artist featured in galleries and museums. Later, she worked as graphic artist, then became a mom and discovered quilt history. Jill wrote magazine articles, self-published books and quilt patterns. She appeared on HGTV’s Simply Quilts, lectured, conducted workshops and displayed her quilts at international events. When her daughter, Charlotte, performed in Copley-Fairlawn High School productions, Jill sewed costumes for Cinderella and Grease, then costumed and worked on the set of To Kill a Mockingbird. At the school, she was also costume designer for Anything Goes and The Boyfriend. SCOTT CRIM (Lighting Designer) takes on his first Weathervane technical-designer position with this production. As an actor, audiences have seen him on our Deitz Theater stage in And the Winner Is, Angels in America: Millenium Approaches and Angels in America: Perestroika. On our Mainstage, he played a Protean in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and Nicodemus/Lady Enid in The Mystery of Irma Vep. Scott holds a bachelor's degree in theater from Mount Union College and has also been seen on stage at Coach House Theatre in The Mousetrap and with the Theatre Ninjas in Aphrodisiac. JOHN GRAFTON (Properties Designer) is a retired marketing manager from the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. and is happy to be a member of the backstage team of volunteers at Weathervane. He most recently was props designer for Love! Valour! Compassion! and assisted with props for Man of La Mancha and The Rainmaker. John was also a dresser for The Mystery of Irma Vep. He has assisted with set construction at The Bang and Clatter Theatre Company as well as at Weathervane. John’s forte is as a household handyman and chef, but securing the varied props to make a successful theatrical production is a fun challenge, he says. He has served on Weathervane’s Building and Grounds committee and its Gala committee and has enjoyed volunteering as bartender at several Weathervane events. John and his partner, Richard, live in Bath Township with their two Great Danes, Thor and Apollo. ALAN SCOTT FERRALL (Scenic Designer)
began his association with Weathervane as a backstage volunteer under the tutelage of the late John R. Thomas. This is Scott's tenth season as a Weathervane staff member, serving as the Resident Technical Director and Scenic Designer. Before Weathervane, he worked at Cuyahoga Falls High School. He has designed sets for many local high schools as well as for the Players Guild of Canton, Cleveland Signstage Theatre and PBS-TV Channels 45/49. At Weathervane, Scott has earned four Chanticleer Awards -- one as stage manager for Fences, and the others for his lighting designs for The Laramie Project and A Lesson before Dying and co-lighting design for A Man for All Seasons. Scott also takes great pleasure in writing the end-of-the-season revue for the Not-Ready-for-Mainstage Players, who appear at Weathervane's annual Chanticleer Awards banquet. He lives in Cuyahoga Falls. About the Play Playwright Edward Albee is a theater artist not afraid to challenge the conventions of both art and society at large. In The Goat or, Who is Sylvia?, the outrageous object of Martin’s affection serves as a litmus test of sorts for both the play’s characters as well as the audience’s sympathies. With its savage humor, Albee’s play can provoke simultaneous reactions of shock, disgust and even humor. The noted theater critic and educator Robert Brustein, in his book Millennial Stages: Essays and Reviews 2001-2005, declared that he “found it possible to have a number of quite contradictory responses to this play…all of them cunningly machined by the playwright in his most mischievous mood.” Summing up Albee’s artistic roguishness on display in the play, Brustein adds, “The Goat may be the first Albee play in which the very structure of the work is an act of prestidigitation. With the dramatist pulling one theatrical trick after the other out of his conjuring hat, you leave the theatre uncertain whether you’ve seen a conventional Broadway adultery drama, a sex comedy on the subject of bestiality, or a Nietzschean attempt to transvaluate our values about what constitutes ‘normal’ behavior.” The Goat or, Who is Sylvia? received its world premiere in New York City, where it opened on Broadway at the John Golden Theatre on March 10, 2002. The production played for a total of 309 performances before closing on December 15, 2002. The original cast featured Bill Pullman as Martin and Mercedes Ruehl as Stevie; Bill Irwin and Sally Field later replaced the show’s two original lead actors. The play won the 2002 Tony Award for Best Play as well as the 2002 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding New Play. The play also was nominated for the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Drama (but lost to Anna in the Tropics by Nilo Cruz). A 2004 production in London’s West End theater district starred Jonathan Pryce as Martin and his real-life wife, Kate Fahy, as Stevie. About the Playwright
Despite the lavish environment in which he grew up in affluent Westchester, New York, he was, by most accounts, unhappy. He attended Trinity College, a small liberal arts school in Hartford, Connecticut for a year. After failing to show up for the school’s chapel services, as well as certain classes, Albee was dismissed by the school. At the age of 20, Albee left home and settled in Greenwich Village in New York City. He took on various jobs, including the roles of “office boy,” record salesman, and Western Union messenger. During his early years in Manhattan, he also began to meet other writers, including Thornton Wilder and W.H. Auden. It was Wilder who suggested that he try his hand at plays. At the age of 30, Albee wrote his first play, The Zoo Story, in a quick, three-week period. Albee's first full-length, three-act play was Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, and its 1962 Broadway production won the Tony Award for Best Play. Centered on fractured family relationships, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf won him international fame and opened new doors of artistic opportunities. Albee’s other plays include The American Dream, Tiny Alice, A Delicate Balance (which won both the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Tony Award for Best Play), All Over, Seascape (Pulitzer Prize-winner), The Lady From Dubuque, The Man Who Had Three Arms, Finding the Sun, Three Tall Women (Pulitzer Prize-winner), Fragments, The Play About the Baby and Occupant. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild Council and president of the Edward F. Albee Foundation. He was awarded the Gold Medal in Drama from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters in 1980 and in 1996 received the Kennedy Center Honors and the National Medal of Arts. Ever the iconoclast, Albee himself once summed up his career for an interviewer by declaring, "I have been both overpraised and underpraised. I assume by the time I finish writing – and I plan to go on writing until I'm 90 or gaga – it will all equal itself out. You can't involve yourself with the vicissitudes of fashion or critical response." Director's Notes by Derek Davidson I wonder if Mr. Albee was pulling our legs with this one. The Goat is not an easy play to like. Those who say they love it unreservedly are either not paying attention or are sick in the head and in need of medication (if not leather restraints). There are times—in the third scene, for instance, when Martin relates a story about a certain baby—when one thinks that he can’t get any more perverse, that doubtless—doubtless? Yes, that’s right—Albee is seeing just how far he can go before authorities shut down the theatre and haul everyone into the slammer for indecency. Indeed, perhaps to our own embarrassment, the awards and myriad productions all across the country (including this one) indicate that he can go pretty far....What I mean, dear audience, is that I am like you: I experience moments of this play with discomfort and revulsion. Yes, I think: Albee must surely be putting us on. Then I read the play’s subtitle: “(notes toward a definition of tragedy).” Aristotle started this whole ball rolling with his first descriptions of tragedy, which he kindly set down for us in his Poetics; they have endured longer than, say, the New Testament teachings, and contain the following relevant points (in no particular order): A tragedy, according to Aristotle, features a hero who rises to a great height, only to fall, fall, fall, to spatter on the sidewalk of public disgrace and humiliation, and eventually to suffer exile or death or both. You may note already a close parallel here, in the trajectory of Martin, highly respected family man, winner of the Pritzker Prize—“more extraordinary” than the rest of us, as Ross points out in the play’s early breaths. We all know from tenth grade English class that this man crashes and burns because of his “tragic flaw,” a thing in the case of Martin much more difficult to pin down, a thing nastily absent, as absent as Martin’s apparent remorse or understanding that he has done—is doing—anything wrong. This is a sticking point you may wish to consider as you walk to your cars after our little entertainment. But I am unable to find a clear instance of what Aristotle called the recognition, the Eureka moment when—as Oedipus did when he realized he was the murderer he sought, he was indeed the key figure in those dread oracles predicting an incestuous and murderous future—our hero recognizes some great, horrific truth about himself, about the world, about the gods. Oh, Martin has epiphanies here and there, but fascinating as they are to watch, their connection to Aristotle remains for me terribly muddy: I am not convinced Martin learns anything. I need hardly mention that the word tragedy, from the Ancient Greek tragedoi, or “goat song,” hearkens back to an even earlier tradition wherein all members of a community gathered round a goat, yes, an actual goat, placed on this goat symbolically their own sins, then sent the goat, innocent as it was of the human transgressions with which it had been burdened, out of the community and into the wilderness, to die of exposure or the ravages of wild beasts. Now we’re getting somewhere, maybe not intellectually, but deeper, there in the subconscious tensions where desire and violence wrestle with self-control and rational, good behavior. Maybe this is what the play is really forcing on us, stripping us of our knee-jerk conceptions of normalcy, reason, of our effete and unquestioning obeisance to hoary notions of what is acceptable and what is not. This is a cruel theatre then, exposing us to taboo impulses, oneiric desires, dragging us back to tragedy’s provenance in sacrifice and ritual terror (face it: Martin’s acts don’t hold a candle to those of Tragic Hero Oedipus, who murdered his own father (and four other innocents) and had sex with his own mother at least four times. I mean, Martin isn’t that bad). Here, in the blooded core of Albee’s play may pulse the closest resemblance to tragedy, may move us all toward a catharsis, a purging of pity for this man, and of fear that such impulses may reside—however dormantly—in all of us. Or maybe Mr. Albee was just pulling our legs. Our Production Team Alan Scott Ferrall, Technical Director SET-CONSTRUCTION CREW COSTUME-CONSTRUCTION CREW LIGHTING CREW Acknowledgements |
