Produced by special arrangement with Samuel French, Inc.
The Four of Us traces the fraught relationship
between a young playwright named David and a young novelist named
Benjamin. They meet at Musicians’ Camp when they’re 17,
spend a few months together in Prague in their early 20s, and end
up pursuing divergent destinies back in New York. What appears to
be a simple “buddy story” turns into an Escher-like exploration
of the relative value of fame and friendship.
John Shartzer (David) and Matt Bowdren (Benjamin)
Photo by Tim Fuller
Press
Two Characters Times Two: Rogue’s
The Four of Us plays with the lives of two real-life literary figures
Review of The Four of Us by Nathan
Christensen in the June 24 Tucson Weekly
The Four of Us comes straight from today’s generation
Review of The Four of Us by Chuck Graham
on June 21 in Let The Show Begin! at TucsonStage.com
Two actors add up to lovely
Four
Review of The Four of Us by Kathleen
Allen in the June 18 Arizona Daily Star
New AC lets Rogue raise audience’s temperature
Preview of The Four of Us by Kathleen
Allen in the June 11 Arizona Daily Star
From The Rogue’s
new YouTube channel:
We sat down with John Shartzer and Matt Bowdren to get their thoughts
on performing Itamar Moses’ The Four Of Us.
Direction
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 Othello, Animal Farm, Orlando,
Happy Days, The Good Woman of Setzuan, The
Fever and The Cherry Orchard, and performed in Not
I, Our Town, A Delicate Balance, 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.
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
Last night after rehearsal, Matt and John and Nic and
I were sitting around joking. Mostly, I was listening to the boys’
adventures, laughing at their baiting of one another. Then Matt said
he wanted to hear stories from my “mysterious” past. Prompted
by the question “What was the worst drug I ever used?” I
told about the time a friend sent me a plane ticket to New York City
for New Year’s when I was 21 and heartbroken. The boys listened
patiently as I described discovering Edward Hopper at the Whitney, lunching
at the Algonquin Hotel, seeing the original cast of A Chorus Line,
dining at Sardi’s, drinking at all hours of the day—an adventure
I knew, even at the time, I would never forget. For a moment I was swept
away by this glamorous vision of myself. Then we turned off the lights,
left the theatre, and the boys went out to their nightly revels while
I came home to ponder the path of that 21-year-old girl leading to this
53-year-old woman.
Through these rehearsals, I’ve watched these beautiful young
men, wondering what place this play, this soon-to-be memory will hold
in their future. Will they, thirty years from now, remember this precipice
before the rest of their lives? The Four of Us sits as a kind
of Möbius strip that we can’t help but turn over and over
in our hands. It is a memory of a friendship, partly created, partly
lived (as all memories are), loosely based on the friendship of playwright
Itamar Moses and Jonathan Safran Foer (author of Everything is Illuminated).
But even lodged in these specifics, the play prompts a reflection on
who we are and what we were and how we perceive each other. I hope you,
too, have the chance to see your past or imagine your future through
Benjamin and David and Matt and John. And now: the adventure begins…
Itamar
Moses (Playwright) grew up in Berkeley,
Califormia, and earned his bachelor’s degree at Yale University
and his MFA in Dramatic Writing from New York University. He has
taught playwriting at both Yale and New York University. In addition
to The Four of Us, he is author of Bach at Leipzig,
Back Back Back, Outrage, Celebrity Row,
and Yellowjackets. He was born in 1977.
Read more about Itamar Moses and his plays in the
March 2010 issue of the Yale
Alumni Magazine.
John Shartzer (David) and Matt Bowdren (Benjamin)
Photo by Tim Fuller
Cast
Benjamin
Matt Bowdren
David
John Shartzer
Cast Biographies
Matt Bowdren
(Benjamin) played the Director in Six Characters in Search
of an Author and Billy in The Goat at The Rogue.
Matt graduated with his BFA in Acting from the University of Arizona,
and is pursuing his MFA in Acting at the University of Georgia.
His credits include Hamlet (Live Theatre Workshop), Betrayal,
The Shape of Things (University of Georgia), Titus
Andronicus, Romeo and Juliet, and Biloxi Blues
(Arizona Repertory Theatre). Matt understudied Twelfth Night
and Molly’s Delicious at Arizona Theatre Company.
In New York City, he toured in Midsummer Night's Dream
with Hudson Shakespeare Co., and Somewhere in Between
with Collaborative Stages.
John
Shartzer (David) was last seen as Roderigo in
Othello at The Rogue, and played Guy in the Now Theatre’s
Some Girls last fall. Other Rogue Theatre credits include
Animal Farm, Orlando and Six Characters
in Search of an Author. You may also have seen John as the
Powerball in the Arizona Lottery’s latest ad campaign. His
most recent film, Queens of Country, will be released
next March. He is a proud member of the U of A’s only all-improv
comedy troupe, The Charles Darwin Experience.
Notes on the Preshow music
Improvisation has been a key tool in the rehearsal process
for many Rogue productions. The Four Of Us is no exception.
Much of the staging you see tonight can be credited to improvisation
by John and Matt. Early in the process, we asked our actors to improvise
a band-practice based on the few details provided in one scene. The
only clue to the band’s sound is in a line from David: “We
both play keyboards.” Matt and John dusted off the Casio, set
up some speakers, plugged in, and played.
Part of what makes The Four Of Us such a wonderfully puzzling
play is the blurred line between fact and fiction. Both characters frequently
fictionalize events—they’re writers. Because the historical
legitimacy of each scene is questionable, Cindy and I decided it might
be fun to imagine “the band that wasn’t,” the band
that our heroes Benjamin and David imagined at Young Musicians Camp,
the band whose hits you’ve never heard and whose album cover art
you’ve never seen. MegaCläp, the band you see in our pre-show,
is the product of this experimentation.
And if you come back for more than one performance, you’ll see
and hear another MegaCläp hit-in-the-making. The pre-show is completely
improvised each night!
—Nic Adams, Assistant Director
From The Rogue’s
new YouTube channel:
MegaCläp—the keyboard duo comprised of Young Musicians’
Camp graduates David and Benjamin—coming to The Rogue!
Production
Staff
Stage Manager
Ashley Simon
Assistant Director
Nic Adams
House Manager
Susan Collinet
Assistant House Manager
JoAn Forehand
Box Office Manager
Thomas Wentzel
Poster and Program
Thomas Wentzel
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,
Immortal Longings, Animal Farm, A Delicate Balance,
Our Town, Krapp’s Last Tape, Not I,
Act Without Words and Othello. 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.
Ashley Simon (Stage
Manager) was the Stage Manager for The Rogue Theatre’s Othello
and Immortal Longings, and Assistant to the Stage Manager
for Arizona Theatre Company’s The Glass Menagerie,
Ain’t Misbehavin’, The Kite Runner,
A Raisin in the Sun, Hair and The Lady with
All the Answers. She stage managed The Mousetrap,
Same Time Next Year and Forever Plaid at The Theater
Barn in the Berkshires. At Florida Stage, she was Assistant to the
Stage Manager for the world premieres of Deborah Zoe Laufer’s
End Days, Roger Heddon’s The Count and Jessica
Goldberg’s Ward 57. Ms. Simon is a graduate of the
BFA Theatre program at Sam Houston State University.
Nic Adams
(Assistant Director) has appeared
with The Rogue Theatre in Othello, Orlando and
Six Characters in Search of an Author and with the Now
Theatre in This Property is Condemned and The Zoo
Story , both “Rogue After Curfew” productions.
A theatre student at the University of Arizona, Nic performed
in the Arizona Repertory Theatre’s productions of Titus
Andronicus and Candide.
Our Thanks
Tim Fuller
Shawn Burke
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Arizona Daily Star
Delectables Restaurant
& Catering
John Shartzer (David) and Matt Bowdren (Benjamin)
Photo by Tim Fuller
Performance
Schedule for The Four of Us
Location: The Rogue Theatre at The Historic Y, 300 East University
Boulevard
Free off-street parking! Click here
to see map and parking information.
Performance run time is approximately 1 hour 35 minutes with no intermission,
not including musical preshow or post-show discussion.
Wednesday June 16, 2010, 7:30 pm PREVIEW,
PAY-WHAT-YOU-WILL
Thursday June 17, 2010, 7:30 pm PREVIEW,
PAY-WHAT-YOU-WILL
Friday June 18, 2010, 7:30 pm OPENING
NIGHT
Saturday June 19, 2010, 7:30 pm
Sunday June 20, 2010, 2:00 pm matinee
Thursday June 24, 2010, 7:30 pm, PAY-WHAT-YOU-WILL
Friday June 25, 2010, 7:30 pm
Saturday June 26, 2010, 7:30 pm
Sunday June 27, 2010, 2:00 pm matinee
World Premiere at the Old Globe, San
Diego, California,
Louis G. Spisto, CEO/Executive Producer, Jerry Patch, Co-Artistic Director,
Daarko Tresnjak, Co-Artistic Director.
Originally produced in New York by the
Manhattan Theatre Club,
Lynne Meadow, Artistic Director, Barry Grove, Executive Producer
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}
