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Winner of the 2002 Tony Award
for Best Play
Directed by David
Morden
Musical preshow by Harlan
Hokin
Produced by special arrangement with
Dramatists Play Service, Inc.
FOR
MATURE AUDIENCES
January 3–January
20, 2008
Thursday–Saturday 7:30 PM,
Sunday 2:00 PM
Extra performance Wednesday January
16, 7:30 PM
Musical Preshow begins 15 minutes before curtain
Discussion following all performances
Preview Night Thursday January 3,
7:30 PM
Pay-What-You-Will Nights Thursdays January 10 & 17, 7:30
PM
Performance Schedule
Cabaret Theatre, Temple of Music and Art
330 S. Scott Ave., Tucson
New comfortable seating!
See
map
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Edward Albee’s The Goat, or Who is Sylvia?
(2001) centers on Martin, who leads an ostensibly ideal life with
his loving wife and gay teenage son, until he confides to his best
friend that is he also in love with a goat. Albee describes the play
this way: “Every civilization sets quite arbitrary limits to
its tolerances. The play is about a family that is deeply rocked by
an unimaginable event and how they solve that problem. It is my hope
that people will think afresh about whether or not all the values
they hold are valid.”
About the
poster
Martin and Billie
(Joseph McGrath and Matt Bowdren)
Photo by Tim Fuller
Press
January 2009
The Goat A Mac
Award Favorite!
Rogue continues its brave
choice to bring us plays that provoke us, perhaps offend
us, and often move us.
—Kathleen Allen, Arizona
Daily Star
The January 2008 Rogue Theatre production of
Edward Albee’s The Goat has garnered three prestigious
Macs and one nomination in the Arizona Daily Star’s
2008 Mac Awards.
- Winner of Best Drama (2nd year running!):
The Goat
- Winner of Best Director of a Comedy
or Drama: David
Morden
- Winner of Best Actress in a Comedy
or Drama: Cynthia
Meier
- Nomination for Best Actor in a Comedy
or Drama: Joseph
McGrath
Read more on our News
page or visit the Arizona Daily Star for the full
article by theater reviewer Kathleen Allen. Follow the links
above to learn more about the winners.
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Winner of the Tucson Weekly’s
Best of Tucson 2008
The January 2008 Rogue Theatre production of Albee’s The
Goat was selected by the Tucson Weekly in the category of Best
Theatrical Bestiality: “Loud, intense and emotionally realistic,
Rogue’s production of Edward Albee’s play about a married
man who has sex with a goat gradually twisted its initial whimsy into
an evening throbbing with loneliness and rage, thanks to director David
Morden and lead actors J. Andrew McGrath and Cynthia Meier. What began
with witty sophistication descended into brutal primitivism by play’s
end, in an overwhelming production by a courageous little company.”
Destruction of Innocence
Review of The Goat by James Reel in the
January 10 Tucson Weekly
Albee’s Goat tackles
taboos left and right
Review of The Goat by Kathleen Allen in
the January 11 Arizona Daily Star
Play uncovers the struggles
behind unconventional love
Review of The Goat by Chuck Graham in the
January 10 Tucson Citizen — Grade: A+
Add Tony-winning play to your
2008 to-do list
Preview of The Goat by Sherilyn Forrester
in the December 28 Arizona Daily Star
Preview Article
by Iris J. Arnesen, from the November, 2007 The
Opera Glass
In any given human culture, certain behaviors
will be considered proper and admirable while others will be considered
improper and disgusting. Travel some distance away, however, and the
people of the second area will likely hold very different opinions.
Which group is right, and which is wrong? Are there any absolutes? Or
is it as one of Shakespeare’s characters put it: “There’s
nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so”?
Read the full Preview
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David
Morden, Director has directed productions locally
with Green Thursday (Shakespeare’s R&J, White
Garden), Oasis Chamber Opera (Sing to Love), DreamerGirl
Productions (The Dreamer Examines His Pillow) and Arts
For All (The Apple Tree). As an actor, he has appeared
most recently with The Rogue Theatre as Yephikhov in The Cherry
Orchard, The Man in the Silver Dress in the preshow to The
Maids and Glaucus in Endymion. As a singer, he has
played Constable Smith in the Arizona Opera’s production of
The Threepenny Opera and has sung in the chorus of Die
Fledermaus, The Flying Dutchman and Susannah.
As an actor, he has performed locally with Arizona Onstage Productions
(Assassins), Actors Theatre (The Bible: The Complete
Word of God (Abridged)) and Green Thursday Theatre Project
(Anger Box, Rain), of which he was a co-founder. |
Director’s Notes
For a long time now I have pondered what bits and pieces of profundity
I could write that would elucidate Edward Albee’s The Goat and enhance
your experience as you watch it. Having explored this play through several
weeks of rehearsal, however, I realize that the play needs no help and
that it is sufficiently profound in its complexity, intensity and sincerity
without my help.
I had never worked on an Edward Albee script as director until this production.
Having done so, I can now state my firm belief in his unique brilliance—not
only for the exactitude of his craft (ask the actors about this one),
but for the depth to which he will explore a theme and a moral question.
Not that Edward Albee is one to preach at his audience. Rather, he is
a superb provocateur—asking questions, painting pictures, creating
puzzles.
When one directs a play, the journey (for me) starts with the question:
what is this play about? With The Goat, I no longer feel that I can answer
that question in a few paragraphs. If I were forced to boil it down to
a short answer, it would be something like, “It’s about life”
or “It’s about life in the 21st Century.” Even that,
however, is ironic since for each of us watching this story, it will call
up questions and dilemmas that are personal to each of our lives and perspectives.
That said, I propose an experiment: I encourage each of you, in the hours
and days you spend with this play after watching The Rogue Theatre’s
rendition, to communicate with us and tell us what it touched in you (positive
and negative). Let’s turn the usual communication around so that
you share your experience with the actors and the company. We very much
want to share this play with you beyond the final curtain call at this
particular performance.
I will give you one hint about the meaning of this play, just to get
the discussion rolling: it’s not about a goat.
—David Morden, Director of The Goat
director@theroguetheatre.org
Martin and Ross
(Joseph McGrath and Rick Shipman)
Photo by Tim Fuller
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Cast |
Billy
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Matt Bowdren |
Stevie
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Cynthia Meier |
Martin
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Joseph McGrath* |
Ross
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Rick Shipman |
*Member of
Actors’ Equity Association,
the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United
States,
appearing under a Special Appearance Contract
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Cast Biographies
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Matt Bowdren
(Billy) is graduating this year with his BFA in
acting from the University of Arizona, and is a member of the Actors’
Equity Candidacy program. Matthew has done countless shows with
the Arizona Repertory Theatre. Previous credits at ART include Scenes
from an Execution, Tartuffe, Epstein in Biloxi
Blues, and Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet. He has been
an understudy for Twelfth Night and Molly’s Delicious
at Arizona Theatre Company. Matthew recently had the opportunity
to play Hamlet at Live Theatre Workshop. Last summer he worked with
Southwest Shakespeare Sedona as Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet.
Matthew is also a proud member of The Charles Darwin Experience,
a short form improv troupe that performs on the UA campus and around
Tucson. |
| Cynthia
Meier (Stevie) has performed in The Maids,
Endymion and The Balcony (The Rogue Theatre),
A Streetcar Named Desire (Arizona Theatre Company),
Blithe Spirit, A Midsummer Night’s Dream
(Michigan Repertory Theatre), Romeo & Juliet, Chicago
Milagro (Borderlands Theatre), Top Girls (Damesrocket
Theatre), A Namib Spring (by Patrick Baliani, winner of
the 1999 National Play Award), A Nightingale, Smirnova’s
Birthday, The Midnight Caller, The Ballad of the
Sad Cafe (Tucson Art Theatre), and A Maid’s Tragedy
(directed by Domini Blythe of the Royal Shakespeare Company). Cynthia
adapted and directed James Joyce’s The Dead and directed
Wallace Shawn’s The Fever, Bertolt Brecht’s
The Good Woman of Setzuan and Anton Chekhov’s The
Cherry Orchard for The Rogue Theatre, and directed Chekhov’s
The Seagull (featuring Ken Ruta) for Tucson Art Theatre.
Cynthia is a Division Dean at Pima Community College and holds a
Ph.D. in Performance Studies from the University of Arizona. |
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Joseph McGrath
(Martin) is a graduate of the Juilliard School of Drama. He has
toured with John Houseman’s Acting Company, appearing in Pericles,
Tartuffe, Twelfth Night, and The Country Wife.
At the Utah Shakespearean Festival, Joe appeared in Hamlet,
Henry IV: Part I, and Much Ado About Nothing.
In New York City, he directed Rough Magic: A Shakespeare Quartet.
In Tucson, he is a frequent performer with Ballet Tucson appearing
as Quasimodo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, a Stepsister
in Cinderella, Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s
Dream, VanHelsing in Dracula and, perennially, as
Drosselmeyer in The Nutcracker. He has also performed with
Arizona Theatre Company, Arizona Opera, Tucson Art Theatre, Arizona
OnStage, Green Thursday, Damesrocket Theatre, and Old Pueblo Playwrights
in such roles as Trigorin in The Seagull, Sam Byck in Assassins,
John in Oleanna, Weeping Willow Walter in Threepenny
Opera, and This Rock in Anger Box. Joe is the Artistic
Director for The Rogue Theatre, for which he directed The Balcony,
Endymion, and The Maids, performed The Fever,
and performed in The Dead, Endymion, The Good
Woman of Setzuan, and The Cherry Orchard. Joe is also
a scenic designer and owns Sonora
Theatre Works with his wife Regina Gagliano, producing theatrical
scenery and draperies. |
Rick Shipman
(Ross) is happy and excited to be performing with The Rogue. He
recently moved to Tucson from Phoenix where he has acted for the
last 9 years and has performed for most of the theatre companies
there. Some of Rick’s favorite roles include, Stephano in
Southwest Shakespeare’s production of The Tempest;
Robert in Proof and Pozzo in Waiting for Godot,
both for Is What It Is Theatre; Sgt. King in No Time for Sergeants
and Murray in The Odd Couple for Hale Centre Theatre; and
Dalton in Equus and GW in Sordid Lives, both for
Nearly Naked Theatre Company. He has also appeared in a few TV commercials
and some Indie films. Rick is also an acting coach and is getting
his degree in education. |
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Billy and Martin
(Matt Bowdren and Joseph McGrath)
Photo by Tim Fuller
Musical
Preshow to The Goat
The Rogue Theatre presents a musical preshow before each
play. Our audiences have responded enthusiastically to this bit of tradition.
Let’s see. Music for a play about a man who is in love with a goat?
Hmmmm… songs about goats. “Bill Grogan’s Goat,”
anyone?
No, it’s “modern music,” with a nod in the direction
of invoking feelings from the ancient Greek world. The idea is to echo
Albee’s stated intention to move “toward a definition of tragedy.”
Combined styles, the synthesis of classic and modern, serious and whimsical,
symbols of the Natural World amid the unnatural environment that constitutes
a great city, a world created by our protagonist, the prize-winning architect
at the height of his career.
We use the preshow to enter obliquely into the world our characters inhabit,
to evoke a parallel universe, in harmony with feelings related to The
Goat as a play, and the idea of Greek tragedy in general. Included are
an ancient Greek-style lament, a Hymn to Helios at the Dawn by Mesomedes,
1st C. AD, a fusion of Mongolian, Brazilian and modern American music
styles and some new pieces.
—Harlan Hokin, Musical Director
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Musicians |
| vocals |
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Carolyn Hokin |
| guitar |
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Chris Hokin |
| lyre |
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Harlan Hokin |
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Harlan Hokin
(Musical Director) has performed extensively as a singer in Europe
and the United States, including a stint with the Oregon Shakespeare
Festival. He earned a doctorate in historical performance practice
from Stanford, and has taught at Stanford and UC Santa Cruz. Harlan
is an active workshop teacher and writer on topics of interest to
singers and early music performers. Recent theatrical involvement
has been with The Rogue Theatre as Musical Director for The Cherry
Orchard, The Good Woman of Setzuan, The Maids,
Endymion, The Dead and The Balcony, and Arizona
Onstage Productions as Vocal Director for their production of Assassins.
This summer Harlan served as music director for Arizona Theatre Company’s
Summer On Stage program. He is currently serving as Artistic
Director for the Arizona Early Music Society and is the father of
two nearly perfect children. |
| The Hokoi
have been playing music together since 1989. Chris Hokin (guitar)
has appeared with The Rogue Theatre as Adonis/Young Glaucus/Ensemble
in Endymion. Carolyn Hokin (vocals) has appeared with The
Rogue Theatre as Miss Daly in The Dead, Water Nymph/Scylla/Ensemble
in Endymion, and Niece in The Good Woman of Setzuan.
Harlan Hokin (lyre) is the Musical Director for The Rogue Theatre.
All pieces performed in the Musical Preshow are written and/or arranged
by The Hokoi. |
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Designers |
| Scenic Design |
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Joseph McGrath |
| Costume Design |
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Cynthia Meier |
| Lighting Design |
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Clint Bryson |
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Production
Staff |
| Stage Manager |
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Nicole Smith |
| Set and Prop Construction |
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Chris Hokin |
| Marketing
and Publicity |
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Thomas Wentzel |
| Poster and Program |
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Thomas Wentzel |
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Our Thanks |
Jesse Greenberg |
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Chuck Graham |
James Reel |
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Kathy Allen |
Laurie Kincman |
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Arizona Theatre Company |
Tim Janes |
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Steve Coulter |
A Contemporary Theatre, Seattle |
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Carol Elliott |
Shelby Brawley |
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Iris Arnesen |
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Patrick Baliani |
Our Advertisers
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Nicole Smith (Stage
Manager) is a senior in the BFA Design/Technology program with an
emphasis in Stage Management at the University of Arizona. The
Goat is her first project with The Rogue Theatre. Previously
at The Arizona Repertory Theatre she has stage managed Candide,
Betrayal, Biloxi Blues, Marcus is Walking,
and was assistant stage manager for ART’s How to Succeed...
and in the spring Nicole will be stage managing Titus Andronicus
as her Senior Capstone. Nicole has also stage managed for Borderland
Theatre on its production of Hippie Mexicana and this past
summer she had the opportunity to work at PCPA Theatrefest as an assistant
stage manager on Company: In Concert and Kiss Me Kate.
Nicole would like to thank Chris for always being there, Laurie for
her guidance, and of course her family. |
Stevie and Martin
(Cynthia Meier and Joseph McGrath)
Photo by Tim Fuller
Performance
Schedule for The Goat, or Who is Sylvia?
Location: Cabaret Theatre, Temple of Music and Art, 330 S. Scott Ave. See
map
DISCUSSION
FOLLOWING ALL PERFORMANCES
Thursday January 3, 2008, 7:30 pm PREVIEW
Friday January 4, 2008, 7:30 pm
Saturday January 5, 2008, 7:30 pm
Sunday January 6, 2008, 2:00 pm matinee
Thursday January 10, 2008, 7:30 pm PAY-WHAT-YOU-WILL
NIGHT
Friday January 11, 2008, 7:30 pm
Saturday January 12, 2008, 7:30 pm
Sunday January 13, 2008, 2:00 pm matinee
Wednesday January 16, 2008, 7:30 pm EXTRA
PERFORMANCE
Thursday January 17, 2008, 7:30 pm
PAY-WHAT-YOU-WILL
NIGHT
Friday January 18, 2008, 7:30 pm
Saturday January 19, 2008, 7:30 pm
Sunday January 20, 2008, 2:00 pm matinee
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T U C S O N A R I Z O N A![rogue, (rôg), n. [<16th-c. thieves' slang <L.rogare, to ask]](Assets/Roguescrolltextheader.gif){kind=small}