Recipient of the
2012 American Theatre Wing
National Theatre Company Award

PRODUCTION SPONSOR: NORMA DAVENPORT Southwest premiere! Directed by Cynthia Meier Musical direction by Harlan Hokin September 10–27, 2009 Thursday–Saturday 7:30 P.M., Sunday 2:00 P.M. Preshow entertainment begins 15 minutes before curtain Discussion with the cast and director follows all performances Preview Night Thursday September 10, 7:30 P.M. Grand Opening Celebration Friday September 11 6:00 PM; 7:30 P.M. Showtime Pay-What-You-Will Nights Thursdays September 17 & 24, 7:30 P.M. Performance Schedule The Rogue Theatre at The Historic Y 300 East University Boulevard See Map and Parking Information

An exciting new adaptation gives us a fresh look at the classic story of rebellion and assimilation. When the animals decide that they can run the farm better than the farmers who keep them, they set out to create a utopian world in which everyone is equal. Except that some are more equal than others. In a world where the political pendulum is constantly swinging, this is a fascinating cautionary tale about ambition, power and the importance of skepticism.

Make way for piglets!

Hard work. For the good of all. I’ll work harder.

Photos by Tim Fuller

About the poster

View production photos

Press

Animal Farm at Rogue Theatre designed to make audience think

Review of Animal Farm by Kathleen Allen in the September 18 Arizona Daily Star

Little Piggies: The challenging Animal Farm opens Rogue’s season in the troupe’s new space

Review of Animal Farm by Sherilyn Forrester in the September 17 Tucson Weekly

Rogue’s Animal Farm a chaotic barnyard of ambitious theater

Review of Animal Farm by Anna Swenson in the September 16 Arizona Daily Wildcat

Rogue’s new theatre is a hit! So is its Animal Farm!

Review of Animal Farm and our new theatre by Chuck Graham on September 12 in Let The Show Begin! at TucsonStage.com

Animal Farm shows an all--too-human face

Preview of Animal Farm by Kathleen Allen in the September 4 Arizona Daily Star

	Andrew Periale (Author) has been working in theatre since the 1970s. With his wife, Bonnie, he founded the Emmy-nominated Perry Alley Theatre in 1986. They have toured all over the US and Europe and have also been producing Puppetry International Magazine for nearly 25 years. Andrew wrote Animal Farm thanks to two years funding from PTI (Pew Charitable Trust) to work with Philadelphia’s Mum Puppet Theatre (much mooing and clucking as tools for deconstructing text and building ensemble). Among his scripts: Beo/Wulf (Beowulf meets Ubu Roi), Share And Share Alike (conjoined twins have a clandestine affair with the same woman), Chinese Take-Out Theatre and a translation of Duerrenmatt’s The Visit. Andrew has produced a CD of humorous cowboy songs for his alter ego, Woody-Boy Johnson. He is currently the poet laureate of Rochester, New Hampshire, and his poetry has appeared in numerous journals and collections. He is thrilled to be working with The Rogue!
Cynthia Meier (Director) is the Managing and Associate Artistic Director for The Rogue Theatre for which she has adapted and directed James Joyce’s The Dead, directed Orlando, Happy Days, The Good Woman of Setzuan, The Fever and The Cherry Orchard, and performed in Immortal Longings, Six Characters in Search of an Author, Red Noses, The Goat (Best Actress, Arizona Daily Star 2008 Mac Award), The Maids, Endymion and The Balcony. She also directed The Seagull (featuring Ken Ruta) for Tucson Art Theatre. For Chamber Music Plus Southwest, she has directed Talia Shire in Sister Mendelssohn and Edward Herrmann in Beloved Brahms. A co-founder of Bloodhut Productions, Cynthia has also performed in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Arizona Repertory Theatre), A Streetcar Named Desire (Arizona Theatre Company), Blithe Spirit and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Michigan Repertory Theatre), Romeo & Juliet and Chicago Milagro (Borderlands Theatre), A Namib Spring (1999 National Play Award winner), and Smirnova’s Birthday, The Midnight Caller, and The Ballad of the Sad Cafe (Tucson Art Theatre). Cynthia is a Faculty member in Speech at Pima Community College and holds a Ph.D. in Performance Studies from the University of Arizona. In 2000, Cynthia was awarded the Tucson YWCA Woman on the Move Award.

Director’s Notes

Many of us read Animal Farm in our 7th grade classroom. It is a simple parable, a cautionary tale about animals taking over the farm, eventually coming to resemble their original captors. The book is a great history lesson and a good literary study of allegory and satire. Orwell wrote the novella as a critique of Stalinist Russia, complete with parallels to prominent figures and each class of society. The pigs Napolean and Snowball represent Stalin and Trotsky; Old Major is a blend of Lenin and Marx; Boxer, the proletariat; Mollie, the bourgeoisie; the chickens, the kulaks; and so on. When Orwell first tried to publish Animal Farm in 1944, he had difficulty because Russia was an important British ally. Eventually, Orwell found a publisher and the book’s success was immediate and long-lasting. Even those of us who have not read the book, know the final rule of Animalism: “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”

Andrew Periale has translated this well-known tale into something wonderfully theatrical. He has retained the characters and arguments of the original story, interspersed his own rich poetry, added some puppetry, and brought the book’s questions about freedom and equality into 21st-century America. The play is a challenging one as the actors swing from animal to human to puppeteer to storyteller. There were many hot nights over the summer, when covered with sweat, the actors sat down at the end of rehearsal to discuss how to bring this “simple” parable to life.

It was Periale’s theatricality along with Orwell’s story that initially interested us at the Rogue. As we developed our staging of the play, we became more and more interested in the questions posed by Orwell and expanded by Periale: What constitutes freedom? Does human greed have any bounds? What privileges do we expect in this country? We don’t seek to present the answers to these questions at The Rogue, but rather, as always, we look forward to exploring the questions with you.

—Cynthia Meier, Director of Animal Farm
director@theroguetheatre.org

Beasts of England, beasts of Ireland,
Beasts of every land and clime,
Harken well and spread my tidings
Of the golden future time.

Photo by Tim Fuller

Welcome to the new Rogue Theatre

We couldn’t be more excited to welcome you to the new Rogue Theatre. For four years we have been a theatre of artists without a home. Now there is a place for the Rogue to hang his hat. This is critical to our growth into a thriving arts organization. So many of you have been instrumental in making this happen. We are deeply grateful to our sources of support—the most important of which is you, the theatregoer. This is your theatre.

You see the theatre today in a curious and rare configuration. When next you come to us, it will be laid out differently. Why? Because Orwell by way of Periale is a different voice than Albee, or Wilder, or Beckett. We are particularly excited that we will be able to give these authors the staging and perspective that will best suit their individual and singular voices. Thanks for being with us today, and in days to come.

—Joseph McGrath, Artistic Director
director@theroguetheatre.org

Comrade Napoleon is our top dog.
Whether stuffing apples in his ample snout,
Chugging milk until it all runs out,
He is living there can be no doubt,
High off the hog!

Photo by Tim Fuller

 

Cast
Clover & others		Jill Baker
Mollie& others		Avis Judd
Snowball & others		Joseph McGrath*
Napoleon & others		David Morden*
Moses & others		John Shartzer
Boxer & others		Daved Wilkins
*Member of Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States, appearing under a Special Appearance Contract

Cast Biographies

	Jill Baker (Clover) has previously performed with The Rogue Theatre in The Good Woman of Setzuan, The Cherry Orchard and Red Noses. Other favorite roles include Catherine in Proof at Beowulf Alley Theatre and Bertha in The Father at the Berkshire Theatre Festival. She has recently spent time acting in film in Mattie and D.I.Y., which she is also directing with Director’s Seat Productions. She enjoys teaching theatre to young people and has directed numerous children’s productions, including CYT’s Narnia. She graduated with her BFA in Theatre Performance from Missouri State University.
Avis Judd (Mollie) is pleased to be performing with The Rogue this season after having appeared in The Good Woman of Setzuan, The Cherry Orchard, Orlando and Immortal Longings. Other favorite roles include Olga in The Three Sisters, Fury in the English language premier of Héléne Cixious’ The Perjured City, or the Awakening of the Furies; Faith in Invisible Theatre’s production of Kindertransport, Emilia in Othello; and the title role in a one woman show, which she adapted and directed, about Bahá’í heroine Martha Root. Avis received her theatre degree from Northwestern University and her Masters in love and happiness from her husband, Michael, and daughters, Sophia and Isabel, whom she thanks for putting up with her constant dialect practice!
	Joseph McGrath (Snowball) is the Artistic Director for The Rogue Theatre for which he has performed in many of the productions. He wrote and directed Immortal Longings for The Rogue and has also directed The Balcony, Endymion, The Maids (winner of the Arizona Daily Star 2007 Mac Award for Best Play) and Red Noses. Joe is a graduate of the Juilliard School of Drama. He has toured with John Houseman’s Acting Company and performed with the Utah Shakespearean Festival. In Tucson, he is a frequent performer with Ballet Tucson appearing in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Cinderella, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Dracula and perennially 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 plays as The Seagull, Assassins, Oleanna, Threepenny Opera, and Anger Box. Joe is also a scenic designer and owns Sonora Theatre Works with his wife Regina Gagliano, producing theatrical scenery and draperies.
David Morden (Napoleon) has appeared with The Rogue Theatre in the ensemble of Orlando, as Madame Pace in Six Characters in Search of an Author, The Pope in Red Noses, Yephikhov in The Cherry Orchard, The Man in the Silver Dress in the preshow to The Maids and Glaucus in Endymion. David has directed The Rogue Theatre’s production of The Goat (2008 Arizona Daily Star Mac Award) and Six Characters in Search of an Author. As a singer, he has performed in the chorus of Arizona Opera’s production of The Threepenny Opera, Die Fledermaus, The Flying Dutchman, Susannah, and The Mikado. He has acted 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. David has directed productions 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).
	John Shartzer (Moses) has performed with The Rogue Theatre in Six Characters in Search of an Author and Orlando, and with Rogue After Curfew productions with the Now Theatre in Cigarettes & Chocolate and The Zoo Story. John has performed with the Arizona Repertory Theatre in Titus Andronicus and Candide, S.O.S. Productions in Lucky Stiff, Arizona Broadway Theatre in Grease, Arizona Opera in Semele, and in the UA Review ’S Wonderful. John is a member of the improv troupe The Charles Darwin Experience.
Daved Wilkins (Boxer) is happy to be a part of Animal Farm in his first performance with The Rogue in the first production in their first permanent location. Daved began his acting career (arguably at birth) doing community theatre in Austin, Texas and, after an ill-advised stint in the corporate world (complete with a B.S. in Business from ASU), Daved is now devoted full time to acting, thanks to the loving support of his perfect wife Melissa. Daved has spent the last year working with The Gaslight Theatre and even managed to film a couple of commercials you can see if you live in Phoenix… or Canada. Daved loves to sing, dance and do just about anything to entertain anyone.

 

Give me twenty-two puppies and I will give you the world.

Photo by Tim Fuller

 

Music in Animal Farm

All compositions arranged by Harlan Hokin

Preshow Music
Volga Boatmen		Russian Folk Melody
Orchie Chornie		Russian Folk Melody
When My Dear Mother Was Seeing Me Off to the Army		Russian Folk Melody
Green Green		Barry McGuire and Randy Sparks of The New Christy Minstrels
The Pine Trees Are Rustling		Vano Il’ich Muradeli [1908–1970], granted the title of the “People’s Artist of the USSR” in 1968
Russian National Anthem (1833–1917)		Alexi Lvov

 

Music in the Play
Beasts of England		Words by George Orwell, music by Harlan Hokin
Sugarcandy Mountain		Words by Andrew Periale, music by Harlan Hokin
Incidental music and soundscapes		Harlan Hokin

 

Instrumentalists
Harlan Hokin
Roger Thomas

 

	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 Immortal Longings, Orlando, Six Characters in Search of an Author, Red Noses, The Goat, 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. Harlan has also 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.
Roger Thomas is thrilled to be performing his first show with The Rogue! Roger is a native to Tucson, and has studied music at New Mexico State University, University of Arizona, and Pima Community College. He is an accomplished chef and recently adopted a hell-hound to train as a therapy dog.

 

But if one group takes everything, then the rebellion will have failed,
and I tremble for the future of Animal Farm.

Photo by Tim Fuller

 

Production Staff
Stage Manager		Barbara Freischlad
Assistant Stage Manager		David Shack
Dialect Coach		David Morden
Squealer Puppets		Matt Cotten
House Manager		Susan Collinet
Box Office Manager		Thomas Wentzel
Electrician		Peter Bleasby
Additional Costume Construction		Karen DeLay
Scenic Intern		Cori DiSimone
Sign Painting		Amy Novelli
Poster and Program		Thomas Wentzel
Marketing and Publicity: Adam Hostetter, Norma Davenport, Carol Elliott, Sylvia Feldman, David Morden, Patricia Harmon, Pam Shack, Ward Wallingford, Thomas Wentzel and Jim Wilson
Designers
Scenic Design		Joseph McGrath
Costume Design		Cynthia Meier
Lighting Design		Clint Bryson

 

	Clint Bryson (Lighting Designer) has designed lights for The Rogue Theatre’s productions of The Balcony, The Dead, Endymion, The Cherry Orchard, Happy Days, The Goat, Red Noses, Six Characters in Search of an Author, Orlando and Immortal Longings. Other lighting design credits include As Bees in Honey Drown and Golf Game for Borderlands, Woman in Black for Beowulf Alley, and The Seagull for Tucson Art Theatre. Clint is currently the Shop Foreman, Production Technical Director and Marketing Director for Catalina Foothills Theatre Department where he designs and coordinates the construction of all scenery. He is also a member of Rhino Staging Services, and a regular participant in Arizona Theatre Company’s Summer on Stage program where he designs and builds the scenery as well as teaches production classes. Clint thoroughly enjoys the passion and integrity that The Rogue brings to their productions and looks forward to playing his part in their creative journeys.

 

Our Thanks
Karen DeLay		Dawn Sellers
Shawn Burke		Kathy Allen
Anthony Allen Taylor		Jim Periale
Peter Bleasby		David Shack
Joe Schwanz		Donna DiFiore
Bob Waskowich		Tim Fuller
Our Advertisers		Jesse Greenberg
Judy Wallingford		Norma Davenport
The Rogue Theatre Board of Directors

 

I confess!

Photo by Tim Fuller

 

Performance Schedule for Animal Farm

Location: The Rogue Theatre at The Historic Y, 300 East University Boulevard
See Map and Parking Information
Preshow entertainment begins 15 minutes before curtain
Discussion with the cast and director follows all performances

Thursday September 10, 2009, 7:30 pm PREVIEW
Friday September 11, 2009, 7:30 pm curtain GRAND OPENING CELEBRATION begins 6:00 pm
Saturday September 12, 2009, 7:30 pm
Sunday September 13, 2009, 2:00 pm matinee

Thursday September 17, 2009, 7:30 pm PAY-WHAT-YOU-WILL
Friday September 18, 2009, 7:30 pm
Saturday September 19, 2009, 7:30 pm
Sunday September 20, 2009, 2:00 pm matinee

Thursday September 24, 2009, 7:30 pm PAY-WHAT-YOU-WILL
Friday September 25, 2009, 7:30 pm
Saturday September 26, 2009, 7:30 pm
Sunday September 27, 2009, 2:00 pm matinee