The Asolo Theatre Festival Season

America's only winter destination
theater festival - 2003 to 2004 Season

Two Theatres, Two Acting Companies, One Great Season!

• The Asolo Theatre Company is a resident, professional company of Equity actors performing in both the Cook and the Mertz Theatres

• The FSU/Asolo Conservatory training the next generation of theatre artists performing in the Cook Theatre

November 29, 2003 – January 11, 2004

Murder by Misadventure
by Edward Taylor

Is it possible to commit the perfect murder? Who better to know the answer than a good crime writer?

Harold Kent and Paul Riggs are successful television crime writers. Despite their success, Harold has tired of his liquor-loving partner and wishes to dissolve the association. But Riggs, the acknowledged “brains” of the operation, doesn’t exactly share Kent’s enthusiasm at the prospect of striking out on his own. The lines between victim and killer soon become blurred as both men scheme to protect their livelihoods – and their lives – in this hilarious and ingenious thriller.

About the play and the playwright, excerpts from BREAKING UP IS HARD TO DO by Bruce E. Rodgers:

"MURDER BY MISADVENTURE was first produced at the Theatre Clwyd in Mold (Wales) on February 4, 1992. The play then went on to tour England before settling in for a run in London. Since then it has seen numerous productions all over the world. Playwright Edward Taylor wrote for the BBC for over 32 years and over that time was involved in more than 2,300 productions many of which have been aired globally. In addition he has been involved with numerous film and theatre projects.

MURDER BY MISADVENTURE is the story of two writers, Harold and Riggs who work as partners writing for television, film and the theatre. (Sound familiar?) Riggs comes up with the ideas, and Harold crafts them into salable work. Or, looking at it another way Riggs is the right brain of the partnership, and Harold is the left. However, as the story opens, the team isn’t working so well anymore. And when one partner wants to split up, well, this is where the trouble begins. . .

Murder mysteries are so fascinating to a broad audience, I think, because they have a very high ratio of drama to information, and what information is presented in a well-written mystery is usually highly germane to the drama. We experience murder mysteries as a dramatic game, trying to guess “who done it?” so we pay very close attention, trying to catch the author’s clues and get to the end ahead of everyone else.

This intense level of audience attention to the play in good murder mysteries is the stuff that playwrights dream of. These plays are all about the questions, and one of the great and fun strengths of MURDER BY MISADVENTURE is its ability to keep new questions coming, right up to the very end."

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The Asolo Theatre Company presents a full season In the Mertz Theatre:

November 7, 2003 - February 22, 2004

The Road to Ruin
by Thomas Holcroft, adapted by Eberle Thomas

Having disgraced his father with his reckless extravagances, what’s young Harry Dornton, a kind-hearted yet weak-minded gambler, to do? Marry the rich yet repugnant Widow Warren, of course! Never mind that Harry is far more enamored of the Widow’s virtuous daughter, Sophia, than he is with her generous income. Or that the elder Dornton, upon learning of his son’s scheme, conspires to pay off Harry’s debts himself, determined to spare his son an odious fate. Written in 1792, this sentimental comedy about fathers and sons raucously reminds us that familial duty is never without its just rewards.

About the play and the playwright, excerpts from MAKING THE PAST PRESENT by Bruce E. Rodgers:

"Eberle Thomas, adaptor and director of The Road to Ruin, is also a literary archeologist of sorts. He finds plays that have been buried and lost, sometimes trapped beneath subsequent century-old layers of literature, and he brings them back to life. The Road to Ruin is one of his discoveries.

Although little known today, Thomas Holcroft was quite well known in his time. In the manuscript of this adaptation, Eberle includes an extensive biography of Holcroft ... Thomas Holcroft was born on December 10, 1745, in the Leicester Fields section of London. His father was originally a shoemaker who also kept riding horses for hire, but, after financial difficulties, was reduced to the status of a hawker, or street peddler. Young Thomas then became a stable boy for the racecourse at Newmarket; he spent his evenings, however, studying music and poring over books, by which means he learned to read and speak Italian, German, and French. After his marriage in 1765, he became a teacher in a small school in Liverpool. His attempt, two years later, to set up his own private school ended in failure, but he somehow managed to find employment as a prompter in a Dublin theatre. He began to act in various touring companies and did so until 1778, when his first play, The Crisis, or, Love and Famine, was produced in London at the Drury Lane Theatre.

Afterwards, for the remainder of his life, Holcroft continued to write plays, novels, and miscellanea—such as his translations from German and French. An example of the latter was his version of Beaumarchais’ The Marriage of Figaro, which he had attended numerous times in Paris (while serving as correspondent for the Morning Herald) until he had learned the entire play by memory, later translating and adapting it into a highly successful English version called The Follies of a Day. In all, Holcroft wrote more than a dozen plays, including what is generally acknowledged to be the first “melodrama,” A Tale of Mystery. The most popular of all his theatrical works was undoubtedly The Road to Ruin written in 1792. The author died on March 29 1809.

Holcroft was a true child of the radical enlightenment of the late 18th century—a friend of Godwin, Lamb, and Coleridge, an avowed atheist, and a vocal supporter of both the American and French revolutions. He was even tried for treason, along with other freethinkers, but was quickly acquitted. Imagine some day in the future, Neil Simon as an unknown, forgotten writer. This is perhaps the closest analogy we can make. Thomas Holcroft was famous as a playwright and novelist and The Road to Ruin was popular and often produced for about 100 years. And then he and his plays went out of fashion. Eventually they went out of sight. But Eberle Thomas has brought him back. In making this adaptation ... his intention has been to remain faithful to Holcroft’s intentions.

What makes this play so interesting is that the society of this play, with its myopic focus on money – getting it, keeping it, spending it, losing it, inheriting it, borrowing it, and so forth, is just eerily contemporary. It may be 300 years old, but what has changed? The fun of producing it is seeing that the issues we face daily are not necessarily issues of our time, but issues common to all time."

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October 31, 2003-February 21, 2004

The Crucible
by Arthur Miller

Spurned by a married farmer, young Abigail Williams retaliates with false accusations of witchcraft, plunging their devout Puritan community into the devastating mass hysteria of the Salem witch trials. As relevant today as when it was first produced at the height of McCarthyism in 1953, this insightful social drama examines the destructive power of suspicion, deceit and panic.

About the play and the playwright, excerpts from THE BREAKING OF CHARITY by Bruce E. Rodgers:

"In 1952, the day before driving to Salem, Massachusetts to research the play that was to become The Crucible, Arthur Miller stopped at the Connecticut home of Elia Kazan. Kazan was the brilliant and celebrated director of Miller’s ALL MY SOBS and DEATH OF A SALESMAN, and a man Miller had come to love as a brother.

Kazan had already been called before the House on Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) to testify about his brief time in the Communist Party many years before. According to Miller in his autobiography TIMEBENDS, 'I drove into a dun and rainy Connecticut morning in early April 1952 cursing the time. For I all but knew that my friend would tell me he had decided to cooperate with the Committee …. He had been subpoenaed and had refused to cooperate but had changed his mind and returned to testify fully in executive session, confirming some dozen names of people he had known in his months in the Party so long ago…. He spoke as factually as he could, and it was a quiet calamity opening before me…, because I felt my sympathy going toward him and at the same time I was afraid of him. Had I been of his generation, he would have had to sacrifice me as well. And finally that was all I could think of. I could not get past it…. In a sense I went naked to Salem, still unable to accept the most common experience of humanity, the shifts of interests that turned loving husbands and wives into stony enemies, loving parents into indifferent supervisors or even exploiters of their children, and so forth. As I already knew from my reading, that was the real story of ancient Salem Village, what they called then the breaking of charity with one another'.

In the book NAMING NAMESby Victor S. Navosky, the author relates a story of Miller, in 1955, sending the finished manuscript of A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE to Kazan. 'I have read your play and would be honored to direct it,' Kazan is supposed to have wired back.

'You don't understand,' Miller replied, 'I didn't send it to you because I wanted you to direct it. I sent it to you because I wanted you to know what I think of stool pigeons.'

In the end, what set Arthur Miller off on the journey of THE CRUCIBLE was a government that through fear and terror, prays (sic) on the weaknesses of its citizens and in doing so, breaks the bonds of its own community. 'The playwriting part of me was drawn to what I felt was a tragic process underlying the political manifestation.... When irrational terror takes to itself the fiat of moral goodness somebody has to die.... No man lives who has not got a panic button and when it is pressed by the clean white hand of moral duty, a certain murderous train is set in motion.' .....

On September 11, 2001 nineteen terrorists on four airplanes murdered 3000 people in America. On that unforgettable morning, those terrorists pressed America’s panic button and plunged us into our generation’s “crucible.” On that September morning, terror pierced the American heart as coldly at it pierced the hearts of Salem Village citizens in 1692.

Fear is the enemy of civilization. It deflects our moral compass from true north with leaden certainty and begs us to either compensate or risk ethical oblivion. Terror is among the most difficult of human tests – pitting our fundamental survival instincts against our fundamental principles.... We are producing THE CRUCIBLE not only because it is a great American play, but for the guidance it offers at this time. It reminds us of our opportunity to consciously choose a path that acknowledges our reasonable fears and honors our fundamental principles. .."

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November 14, 2003-April 3, 2004

The Millionairess
by George Bernard Shaw

Well-heeled heiress Epifania Fitzfassenden is an electrifying and self-absorbed woman who ruthlessly uses her fortune to inflict her will on others. Led by her father’s ideology of money, she married the first man who could turn her small allowance into 50,000 pounds in a mere six months.

When the marriage ends in disaster, she falls for a mysterious Egyptian doctor who runs a clinic for London’s poorest and appears immune to her affluence. Can Epifania’s intriguing pulse compensate for her money-hungry ways or will her profit-minded personality prove too daunting for the principled doctor?

About the play and the playwright, excerpts from THE GOLDEN RULE: HE WHO OWNS THE GOLD, RULES by Bruce E. Rodgers:

"George Bernard Shaw was 79 years old when he wrote THE MILLIONAIRESS (1935) . . . this fact is nevertheless a statement about a man who lived to work and who only stopped working when he stopped living (in 1950). Born in Dublin in 1856, he was the son of a drunken father and a strong but heartless mother who offered what love she had to her two daughters and saved none for her only son.

THE MILLIONAIRESS is, not surprisingly, a play about a wealthy woman, Epifania Fitzfassenden, whose staggering wealth is for better or for worse the central organizing fact of her life. The play opens as she visits her attorney (Mr. Sagamore) to draw up her will before her suicide (which she soon abandons). Her husband Alistair eventually joins her along with his mistress Patricia Smith (nicknamed “Seedystockings”) and her lover Adrian Blenderbland. The play tells the story of Epifania and her search for happiness in spite of such Shavian handicaps as wealth, intelligence, strength, and competence. . . .

A lifelong socialist and a co-founder of the Fabian society, Shaw often wrote with fascination about the role of money and capitalism in society. In the preface to THE MILLIONAIRESS titled “Preface on Bosses” Shaw writes: '. . . The law is equal before all of us; but we are not all equal before the law. Virtually there is one law for the rich and another for the poor, one law for the cunning and another for the simple, one law for the forceful and another for the feeble, one law for the ignorant and another for the learned, one law for the brave and another for the timid, and within family limits one law for the parent and no law at all for the child.'...

Throughout his life and his work, Shaw wrestles with the paradox of civic equality in a world of natural disparity. How do we account for individual talent and intellect as we strive for social fairness and equality? What do we do with people like Epifania whose talent is for making money? Everything she touches turns to gold. Since Capitalism rewards individualism it is, according to Shaw, to be feared by those pursuing a great society.

The issues of this play are issues we find every day in the newspaper. Is it true that “he who has the gold, rules?” Aren’t these the issues of campaign finance reform, tax reform, Medicare drug plans, corporate accounting fraud, the “trickle-down economy,” ... among many others? Doesn’t money buy access? Doesn’t money talk and b.s. walk? Isn’t it the (over) simplified version of Republican versus Democrat?

The timeliness of The Millionairess written 68 years ago is no surprise. Biographer Sheridan Morley has said, 'Almost all of Shaw’s plays are at almost all times timely.' The social issues generated by the disparity between the “haves” and the “have-nots” remain unresolved even as the gulf between them widens. So we present this witty play to you for your enjoyment but please excuse Mr. Shaw if you leave with something important to think about and discuss. He just can’t help it."

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January 23-May 22, 2004

I’m Not Rappaport
by Herb Gardner

A lifetime radical and world-class kibitzer, retiree Nat Moyer spends his afternoons spinning outrageous yarns that both intrigue and infuriate fellow octogenarian Midge Carter, the half-blind building superintendent with whom Nat shares his Central Park bench.

With sly verbal sparring and indomitable spirits, these cantankerous heroes square off against drug dealers, enlightened children, posh tenants and, ultimately, time itself.

 

About the play and the playwright, excerpts from COMMON NOBILITY by Bruce E. Rodgers:

".... I'M NOT RAPPAPORT . . . is the story of a kinship between two men, Nat and Midge. An Arfican-American and a Jew sit on a bench in New York’s Central Park and like Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, fight impossible fights against injustice, indignity, and ultimately against time. What I love so much about this play is the homage it pays to our human potential for nobility. Gardner doesn’t place this nobility in great people, in people of great accomplishment. He shows it to us in two 'invisible people' – the night Super of an Upper West Side apartment building and a waiter at Dietz’s Dairy Restaurant. The fundamental tension of the play flows from the conflict between Nat and Midge’s bodies, and their spirits. Although half-blind and frail, life still matters desperately to them and their nobility grows from their willingness to fight against impossible odds—for the honor of a beautiful young woman, or to maintain their own dignity and independence.

In this play Gardner deals with issues central to all of us at one time or another . . . How do we keep living as long as possible? Not how do we keep a heart beating and lungs breathing, but how do we, as we age, keep living and caring? How do we stay engaged with the world? How do we remain relevant? And for those of us caring for aging loved ones, how do we honor their lives and their independence while fulfilling a loving responsibility to care for them as their declining physical and mental resources make them increasingly vulnerable? As the roles of parent and child ultimately tip upside down, how do we take responsibility without stealing dignity?

Beyond the rich thematic world of this play, we must also admire the skill with which it is written. Here we have a relationship play, about two people who desperately need each other, yet neither character articulates his feelings. That is our job. We understand just how much Nat and Midge care for each other, perhaps better than they do. This role for the audience draws us into the play. We care for them. Does it matter that one character is African-American and the other is Jewish? You bet! Do they talk about it? It is mentioned only once, and then with the lightest of touches. Gardner leaves that too for us to deal with. This is just plain good writing."

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March 12-May 22, 2004

The Diary of Anne Frank

by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett

With the Holocaust raging, Anne Frank and her family take refuge in a “secret annex” to avoid persecution. Forced into hiding for more than two years, Anne takes comfort in her daily journal in which she candidly describes the joys and torments of a typical teenager. Her poignant account of everyday life in Nazi-occupied Holland is a true testament to the strength and perseverance of the human spirit.

About the play and the playwright, excerpts from IN SPITE OF EVERYTHING . . . by Bruce E. Rodgers

"Anne Frank, 15, was arrested by the Nazis in Amsterdam on August 4, 1944 because she was Jewish. She was taken by force, imprisoned in Westerbork, transported to Auschwitz in September 1944 where she was separated from her parents, then transported to Bergen-Belsen in October where, with her head shaved and covered with lice, she died of typhus in March 1945. One month later, Bergen-Belsen was liberated. In all, over a million children under the age of 16 were arrested and murdered in the Holocaust because, and only because, they were Jewish. While this is the part of the story you will not see in our production of THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK, it is the part of the story you must not forget.

Otto Frank gave his youngest daughter a diary for her 13th birthday and it quickly became her best and most trusted friend. The first entry, on the day of her birthday, reads:

'June 12, 1942
I hope I will be able to confide everything to you, as I have never been able to confide in anyone, and I hope you will be a great source of comfort and support.'

When Otto Frank returned to Amsterdam after the war, the only one of the eight Jews living in the secret Annex to survive, he was presented with the diaries by his two Dutch secretaries. They found the pages strewn about the floor just hours after the SS left and saved them for Anne. They gave them, unread, to her father instead. Otto Frank came across the following entry:
' …you've known for a long time that my greatest wish is to be a journalist, and later on a famous writer . . . In any case, after the war I'd like to publish a book called ‘The Secret Annex.’ It remains to be seen whether I succeed, but my diary can serve as a basis.' In an effort to bring her wish to life, Otto Frank edited the diary and found a Dutch publisher for it in 1947. Published under the title of THE DIARY OF A YOUNG GIRL the first edition was 1500 copies. The diary was translated into English in 1951, and eventually into 67 languages. It has sold more than 31 million copies – second only to the bible as the most read book. The play . . . was adapted from the diaries by the husband/wife team of Francis Goodrich and Albert Hackett with Otto Frank’s cooperation. Directed by Garson Kanin, it opened on Broadway in October 1955 and ran for two years, winning both a Tony Award and a Pulitzer Prize.

In 1997, a new harder-edged, less sentimental, 'more Jewish' adaptation of the diary by Wendy Kesselman premiered on Broadway. The play . . . contained some of the content that had been suppressed by Mr. Frank in the original diary. Earlier that year, The New Yorker magazine published a now-famous article by Cynthia Ozick critical of the way Anne Frank and her diaries have been treated over the years. According to Ozick, Anne Frank's journals had been 'infantilized, Americanized, homogenized, sentimentalized,' especially in their translation to the stage. 'In celebrating Anne Frank's years in the secret annex the nature and meaning of her death has been, in effect, forestalled.' And Ozick is not the only person critical of the handling of Anne Frank’s story for exploiting clichéd sentimentality, diluting its anti-Semitism, and denying the Holocaust’s brutal realities.

Yet who can deny the effect of this story? Thirty-one million copies. The secret annex in Amsterdam, preserved now as a museum, receives over 600,000 visitors a year. What is it about this young girl’s story that has made it the second most read book in history? What do 31 million copies tell us about ourselves?

Perhaps they tell us that we have more to gain from the inspiration of her life than from our outrage at her death. . . . Otto Frank said more than once that Anne’s story is not a Jewish story; it’s a universal story. He believed his daughter’s diary could 'inspire the next generation to build a world based on compassion, mutual respect, and social justice' as expressed in the mission statement of the Anne Frank Center USA.

Just 20 days before she was betrayed Anne wrote:
'It’s utterly impossible for me to build my life on a foundation of chaos, suffering and death. I see the world being slowly transformed into a wilderness, I hear the approaching thunder that, one day, will destroy us too, I feel the suffering of millions. And yet, when I look up at the sky, I somehow feel that everything will change for the better, that this cruelty too shall end, that peace and tranquility will return once more…I must uphold my ideals, for perhaps the time will come when I shall be able to carry them out.'

Anne hoped her diary would bring her 'comfort and support.' It did so for her, but far more than she could ever imagine, it did and continues to do so for millions around the world. While the critics may be right that such comfort is built on false sentiment, it doesn’t matter. The positive gift of this story is what we need to get from sunrise to sunrise, and the hope it takes to work for a better world. Peace."

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March 19-May 23, 2004

Hay Fever
by Noel Coward

What happens when Bohemian theatrics rendezvous with British propriety? Meet the Blisses: Judith, a retired stage actress; her husband David, a romance novelist; and their two grown children, Simon and Sorel. Unbeknownst to each other, each has invited a guest to their country home for the weekend. When the unsuspecting, and unprepared, guests arrive, they find themselves immersed in a game of romantic musical chairs in this wickedly witty and delightfully madcap comedy of bad manners.

About the play and the playwright, excerpts from A WEEKEND WITH THE BLISSES by Bruce E. Rodgers:

"If ever anyone was born to perform, it was Noel Coward. While his first public performance was for a community talent show at age seven, he demonstrated his “artistic temperament” even before, throwing tantrums when he was not allowed to perform for company at his family home in Teddington, a modest London suburb. Born in 1899, the eldest of two brothers, Coward saw his first professional performance at 12 and he never looked back.

Throughout his life Coward was associated with the style and class of the British elite—quite an accomplishment for someone born in a lower class at a time of heightened class-consciousness in England. But his immense charm and wit made him the life of the party . . . planted him firmly in London society at a very young age. When a brief stint of military service in 1918 stalled his acting career, he turned to writing. He wrote quickly and with great self-confidence, seeing his first play, I LEAVE IT TO YOU produced in the West End in 1920. Coward, of course, played the leading role.

At the tender age of 21 Coward struck out for America, convinced that he would find Broadway success. While such success was still a few years off, he did experience the American acting style for the first time, a style which was much more animated and energetic than that of British actors in the 20s. More significantly to audiences of HAY FEVER, he met and spent many weekends with actress Laurette Taylor, her husband writer Hartley Manners, and their two rather free and precocious children, Dwight and Marguerite. As Coward wrote in his biography, PRESENT LAUGHTER,

'On Sunday evenings... we had cold supper and played games, often rather acrimonious games, owing to Laurette's abrupt disapproval of any guest (whether invited by Hartley, Dwight, Marguerite, or herself) who turned out to be self-conscious, or unable to act an adverb or a historical personage with proper abandon. There were also, very often, shrill arguments concerning rules. These were waged entirely among the family, and frequently ended in all four of them leaving the room and retiring upstairs, where, later on, they might be discovered, by any guest bold enough to go in search of them, amicably drinking tea in the kitchen. It was inevitable that someone should eventually utilize portions of this eccentricity in a play, and I am only grateful that no guest of the Hartley Manners thought of writing HAY FEVER before I did.'

Playwrights use different techniques to provide “drive” and energy to a play to move it ahead (and to keep you awake). For example, sometimes the storyline moves the play . . . One event leads to the next event, which leads to the next event and so on until the play reaches its eventual conclusion. While there are characters in the story-driven play, of course, the events of the story provide the tension and the drive. Others, such as HAY FEVER are 'character-driven' plays. The compelling drive comes from the nature of the people in it.

'HAY FEVER is the 1925 predecessor to Seinfeld,' says director Gil Lazier referring to the ABC Television comedy that ran so successfully. 'It's a play where not much really happens, but it's very funny all the same because of the people involved.' Indeed HAY FEVER is a play about the eccentric characters in it, all of whom are individually and collectively as a family, self-obsessed. The tension moving things along comes from the fact that we never really know what they are going to say or do next. It’s a theatrical family that never stops acting so we never know if they really mean what they say or if they’re just playing a role.

In this play where four relatively “normal” people are brought together for a weekend with the Bliss family, none of them have any idea what they are in for when they ring the doorbell. Nor do we as the audience. In fact a large part of the play’s success is based on the fact that we are learning and experiencing this family right along with their unsuspecting guests; Richard, Myra, Jackie, and Sandy. What begins as a delightful weekend in the country ends up being a weekend with the Seinfeld crew or worse, with the Ozzy Osborn family.

HAY FEVER opened in London on June 8, 1925. When word got back to Laurette Taylor that the enormously successful play was based on her family, she was distressed, her daughter Margurite reports in her mother’s biography. And after Laurette saw the play herself on Broadway, her relationship with Coward was strained. 'None of us,' she declared emphatically, 'is ever unintentionally rude'."

 

 

In the Cook Theatre, the Asolo Theatre Company presents:

Noel Coward at the Cafe de Paris
by Will Stutts
January 28 – February 22, 2004

The legendary Noel Coward was the epitome of style, grace and wit for the Roaring 20s, with plays that conjured up the lifestyle of the sophisticated "smart set." Regale in his cosmopolitan brand of English repartee, as this show pays tribute to Coward's elegant banter and musical genius through anecdotes chronicling his childhood, early career and theatrical successes.

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The Smell of the Kill
by Michele Lowe
May 7 - 30, 2004

I've never considered divorce, but I've thought seriously about murder, the old saying goes. Meet three suburban housewives who realize they are trapped in loveless marriages at the same time their husbands realize they are locked in a basement meat freezer. Its Neil Simon meets Stephen King in this deliciously naughty and hysterically funny look at feminism, relationships and just desserts.

About the play and the playwright, excerpts from GIRL TALK by Bruce E. Rodgers:

"It’s tempting to make a lot of THE SMELL OF THE KILL. And I still might. But before I get carried away, let’s cover first things first. This play is a satirical black comedy. In black comedy the subject is usually most serious, such as murder, death, mental illness, but the writer stylizes the work in such a way that we laugh in situations that might otherwise be inappropriate. The most obvious example is ARSENIC AND OLD LACE, about two grandmotherly women who commit a string of murders. It’s a very funny play about cold-blooded murder. This is the style of THE SMELL OF THE KILL. But SMELL uses its black humor to make a point. So while you shouldn’t take this play literally, after you’re done laughing you might want to take it seriously. This is the part where I might get carried away.

THE SMELL OF THE KILL tells the story of Nicky, Molly, and Debra, all of whom have lovely houses with seemingly lovely lives in the suburbs. They have gathered monthly for dinner with their spouses (and with an absent fourth couple) for 18 years. Even though the three women have been “friends” for so long, conversation rarely, if ever, penetrated very deeply — until tonight. But beneath the humor, playwright Michele Lowe has something to say about women—especially today’s well-educated women, balancing their professional lives with their roles as wife and mother.

Betty Friedan, feminist writer and founder of NOW published “The Feminine Mystique” in 1963. In that work Friedan writes of suburban women 'the problem that has no name.' . . . THE FEMININE MYSTIQUE ignited the modern feminist movement, which has done so much for women since 1963. However, in spite of all that’s been accomplished by women over the past 40 years, much of the conflicting feelings of roles and responsibilities have yet to be resolved … or so says Lowe in this play.

Because the dice are so loaded against the men in this play, it would be easy to say the Lowe is male-bashing, but as she’s quick to point out in an interview with the Cincinnati Enquirer, 'I love men! I have the greatest husband! This isn't about the men! If women come together, they can effect change. I believe that wholeheartedly.' It’s in the nature of black comedy to be somewhat over the top. As Lowe said in the same interview, 'Sometimes you have to stretch an issue to make a point.'

In 1955, Adeli Stevenson was the Smith College commencement speaker, and he spoke of the role these highly educated women could expect to play as future housewives helping their poor husband: 'The point is that whether we talk of Africa, Islam or Asia, women 'never had it so good' as you do. And in spite of the difficulties of domesticity, you have a way to participate actively in the crisis in addition to keeping yourself and those about you straight on the difference between means and ends, mind and spirit, reason and emotion not to mention keeping your man straight on the differences between Botticelli and Chianti . . . . ' Over the years since Stevenson’s speech the pendulum of feminism has swung back and forth. But it could be argued that Adeli Stevenson actually initiated the modern feminist movement since in his audience that afternoon was Smith graduating senior, Betty Friedan. This play is simply the latest installment of the discussion yet to be resolved."

 

The Competition
by Alexander Galin
November 26 -December 14, 2003
A huge hit in Moscow, THE COMPETITION will have its first-ever English premiere at the Conservatory. The production will be a unique opportunity for students to work beside a gifted Olivier Award-winning playwright-in-residence. The story centers on a Japanese talent contest in the provinces of the new Russia, but first prize isn’t what the contestants bargained for. Internationally renowned, Alexander Galin is best known for his plays STARS IN THE MORNING STAR and THE ROOF. For mature audiences.

 

 

The Shape of Things
by Neil LaBute
January 7-25, 2004
A West End hit that rose to recent Off-Broadway critical acclaim. Playwright Neil LaBute, whose film credits include IN THE COMPANY OF MEN and NURSE BETTY, has been described as “an original voice…the best new playwright in a decade” by The New Yorker and “a smart, ambitious writer...” by Newsday. Meet Adam, an awkward and naïve gallery guard enraptured with Evelyn, an eccentric art student. Follow his transformation from washout to work of art and discover what people will do for truth, beauty and love. For mature audiences.

 

 

The Taming of the Shrew
by William Shakespeare
March 3-21, 2004
Beautiful Bianca is in a bind. She has many suitors, but her father won't let her marry until her older sister Kate does. Trouble is, Kate is a handful with a legendary temper. Petruchio, a fortune hunter, learns of Bianca's dilemma and sets out both to win Kate's dowry and her heart. In this much-loved farce about fidelity, deception, and the dance of courtship, Kate marries Petruchio and discovers his canny intellect and sharp intensity for life is a perfect match for her own.

 

Arms and the Man
by George Bernard Shaw
April 14-May 2, 2004
Shaw “remains hugely entertaining” confirmed the New York Times, and ARMS AND THE MAN is one of his most popular plays. Set in 1885 battle-ridden Bulgaria, the story takes a satirical look at the folly of war and the romantic notions of the participants, including Raina, the devoted fiancée; Sergius, the heroic officer; and Captain Bluntschli, the cynical mercenary. Ahead of its time, the play invites us to laugh at ourselves as well as the players.

 

Link to other live performances -

in Florida:

The Broward Stage Door Theatre, Coral Springs, Florida

The Caldwell Theatre Company, North Boca Raton, Florida

The Actors' Playhouse at the Miracle Theatre, Coral Gables, Florida

GableStage at the Biltmore, Coral Gables, Florida

and in other states:

Theater in New Orleans, Louisiana

and in metropolitan Atlanta, Georgia

Flat Rock Playhouse, North Carolina's State Theater

The St. Louis Opera Theatre, Missouri

or explore:

Orlando or Pensacola, Florida and treats for the tastebuds

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