Recipient of the
2012 American Theatre Wing
National Theatre Company Award

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Press

A Odyssey of Sorts
The Rogue lifts Enda Walsh’s mythology of male

Review of Penelope by Sherilyn Forrester in the March 9 Tucson Weekly

Rogue’s Penelope won’t leave you alone

Review of Penelope by Kathleen Allen to appear in the March 9 Arizona Daily Star

Daring theatre, ancient truth fills Penelope

Review of Penelope by Chuck Graham on March 6 in Let The Show Begin! at TucsonStage.com

Rogue Theatre goes dark and quirky with Penelope

Preview of Penelope by Kathleen Allen in the March 2 Arizona Daily Star

Read others’ reviews of The Rogue Theatre, or write your own review on TripAdvisor!

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Direction

	Christopher Johnson (Director) is The Rogue’s General Manager, additionally serving as an Artistic Associate and Ensemble Member. Directing credits include his adaptation of The Picture of Dorian Gray for The Rogue; boom (Mac Award Nomination, Best Director), Cabaret (Mac Award Nomination, Best Musical, Best Director), The Year Of Magical Thinking, The Altruists and Speech & Debate for Winding Road Theater Ensemble; Hedwig and The Angry Inch (Mac Award Nomination, Best Musical) for The Bastard Theatre; Wit, Persephone Or Slow Time, The Book Of Liz, My Name Is Rachel Corrie, Say You Love Satan, Robots Vs. Fake Robots (Mac Award Nomination, Best Director), Killer Joe (Mac Award Nomination, Best Director), The Rocky Horror Show (Mac Award Nomination, Best Musical, Best Director), Danny And The Deep Blue Sea, The Importance Of Being Earnest, The Penis Monologues, Savage In Limbo, Bug, Titus Andronicus and A Midsummer Night's Dream for Etcetera at Live Theatre Workshop where he served as Artistic Director from 2007-2012. Christopher helps coordinate and produce The John & Joyce Ambruster Play-Reading Series for The Rogue, where he has directed readings of Elizabeth Rex and most recently A House of Pomegranates, which he adapted from Oscar Wilde’s short stories. Christopher Johnson’s direction of Penelope is supported in part by a generous gift from Ward & Judy Wallingford.

Notes from the Director

Actor Gary Oldman has a great quote about reality television, “it’s a museum of social decay.” He’s not wrong. Reality television’s popularity can be largely attributed to the fact that it makes us feel immune to the ugliness of humanity while we’re watching. As a pastime, it’s about on par with standing around and gawking at the scene of a car accident while paramedics pull victims from the wreckage. The safety and superiority we feel when watching ‘real housewives’ throw insults and cocktails at each other is a neat trick, but it’s a trick of sitting still––and only works as long as you don’t get up from your couch.  Sitting in the audience of Enda Walsh’s Penelope and watching these violent, isolated competitors for the hand of Odysseus’ wife climb over one another towards the top, it’s easy to feel temporarily immune from and superior to the realities of toxic masculinity. And while masculinity might be a handy tool with which to defeat a Cyclops, shoot an arrow through the head of an axe or even win an episode of Survivor, our competitors are about to learn the hard way that it’s patently useless in matters of the heart. Love requires gentleness and vulnerability and selflessness, qualities that would be humiliating and repugnant to any narcissist worth his salt. Love is a purely feminine art form, it is inherently un-masculine and therefore an enormous threat to the skittish and insecure male identity. Masculinity loses all virtue when it serves only as a rejection and fear of the feminine. Without the feminine ability to give, receive and cultivate love, life is ultimately meaningless. Without love, we’re all just meat for worms at the end of the day, or in the case of the suitors at the bottom of Penelope’s swimming pool––racks of ribs for Odysseus’ barbecue. There is no act of bravery more heroic than to abandon one’s own armor and stand naked, cold and humiliated in love. Love is not to be conquered, but surrendered to. It’s our only path to redemption, and to compassion for our own lives. The rest is noise, and the world we live in 2,800 years after Homer’s Odyssey is louder than ever. But like the most compelling episodes of reality television, an unlikely hero is certain to emerge at the bottom of Penelope’s swimming pool. This hero wields not love as a weapon, but hope––hope we can all have for man’s ability to love. Christopher Johnson, Director director@theroguetheatre.org

About the Playwright

Enda Walsh (Playwright) was born in Dublin in 1967. For several years, he worked with the Cork theatre company, Corcadorca. His breakthrough play was Disco Pigs in 1996, for which he won several awards. He has been prolific over the last several years, writing many plays and screenplays. Productions of his plays at the Edinburgh Festival have won four Fringe First Awards. The Scotsman newspaper described him as “the most explosively brilliant of modern Irish stage poets.” When asked “if someone saw one of your plays in a thousand years’ time, what would it tell them about the year 2007?”, Walsh replied: “That it was no different from 3007. My plays don't exist in a specific time; they’re about the small mystery of getting up in the morning and living a life.”

Ryan Parker Knox as Dunne, Matt Bowdren as Quinn and Joseph McGrath as Fitz

 

Matt Bowdren as Quinn, Eric Du as Burns and Ryan Parker Knox as Dunne

Photo by Tim Fuller

Cast
Quinn		Matt Bowdren*
Burns		Eric Du
Penelope		Grace Kirkpatrick
Dunne		Ryan Parker Knox*
Fitz		Joseph McGrath*
*Member of Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States

 

	Matt Bowdren (Quinn) is an Artistic Associate and Education Director for The Rogue Theatre. At the Rogue he has appeared in Uncle Vanya, Tales of the Jazz Age, The Bridge of San Luis Rey, Miss Julie, By the Bog of Cats, Hamlet (2015 Mac Award for Best Actor), Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Merchant of Venice, Waiting for Godot, Awake and Sing, Betrayal, Arcadia, Measure for Measure, Mistake of the Goddess, after the quake (2013 Mac Award for Best Actor), Richard III, Metamorphosis, Mother Courage and Her Children, The Night Heron, Journey to the West, As I Lay Dying, Major Barbara, The Real Inspector Hound, New-Found-Land, The Four of Us, Six Characters in Search of an Author and The Goat. For the Rogue Theatre Matt has directed Angels in America Part One and a reading of The War Boys and assistant directed Richard III, The Merchant of Venice, and By the Bog of Cats. Other Arizona credits include The Pillowman with the Now Theatre and Romeo and Juliet with Southwest Shakespeare. Recently Matt was seen as a Faculty Fellow and teaching artist with The Arizona Repertory Theatre in Frankenstein and Othello. Regionally Matt has performed in Georgia and New York City with The Rose of Athens, Hudson Shakespeare Company, and Collaborative Stages. Matt holds an M.F.A in Performance from the University of Georgia. Matt Bowdren’s performance is supported in part by a generous gift from Maura Brackett.
Eric Du (Burns) a native Ohioan, earned his minor in theatre at Millikin University in Decatur, Illinois. He has previously appeared at The Rogue in Hamlet and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. He recently performed in Arizona Theatre Company’s production of Fiddler on the Roof as one of the boys and understudied for Perchik, Sasha, Yussel, and other villagers. He also performed at The Gaslight Theatre for two years. Eric Du’s performance is supported in part by a generous gift from Norma Davenport.
	Grace Kirkpatrick (Penelope) has a BFA in Acting and minor in Psychology from the University of Arizona. She has appeared with The Rogue Theatre in The White Snake, Uncle Vanya, Angels in America Part One and Miss Julie. Previous credits include Rachel (Reckless), Puck (A Midsummer Night’s Dream), and Madame Armfeldt (A Little Night Music) at the Arizona Repertory Theatre. Grace Kirkpatrick’s performance is supported in part by a generous gift from Joan Cook.
Ryan Parker Knox (Dunne)   The Rogue’s 12th Anniversary Season marks Ryan’s fifth as a member of the Resident Acting Company. He is constantly humbled and inspired by the fierce intellect and thrilling passion of both his fellow Artists and The Rogue’s loyal patrons. Ryan has previously appeared in The White Snake, Uncle Vanya (2016 Arizona Daily Star Mac Award for Best Actor, Comedy), Angels in America Part One, The Bridge of San Luis Rey, By the Bog of Cats, Hamlet, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Merchant of Venice, The Lady in the Looking Glass, Jerusalem, Awake and Sing, Dante’s Purgatorio, Betrayal, Arcadia (2014 Mac Award for Best Actor), Measure for Measure, Mistake of the Goddess (Hayavadana), Richard III, Kafka’s Metamorphosis, Mother Courage and Her Children, The Night Heron, and Journey to the West. He is a BFA Graduate of the University of South Dakota, lived in Minnesota’s Twin Cities for over a decade, and came to Tucson in 2011. Ryan wishes to extend a most sincere and humble thanks to those friends and family members whom have stuck by him throughout everything. He wouldn’t be who or where he is without them. Ryan Parker Knox’s performance is supported in part by a generous gift from John & Joyce Ambruster.
	Joseph McGrath (Fitz) is Co-Founder and Artistic Director for The Rogue Theatre and has appeared in The White Snake, Angels in America Part One, Tales of the Jazz Age, Miss Julie, Hamlet, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Merchant of Venice, Waiting for Godot, Jerusalem, Awake and Sing, Arcadia, Measure for Measure, Richard III, The Night Heron, Journey to the West, The Winter’s Tale, The New Electric Ballroom, Shipwrecked!, Major Barbara, New-Found-Land, Old Times, The Tempest, Ghosts, Naga Mandala, Othello, Krapp’s Last Tape, A Delicate Balance (2009 Mac Award for Best Actor), Animal Farm, Orlando, Happy Days, Six Characters in Search of an Author, Red Noses, The Goat, The Cherry Orchard, The Good Woman of Setzuan, Endymion, The Dead, and The Fever. Joe is a graduate of the Juilliard School of Drama and has toured with John Houseman’s Acting Company. He has performed with the Utah Shakespearean Festival and has been a frequent performer with Ballet Tucson appearing in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and for seventeen years as Herr Drosselmeyer in The Nutcracker. He has also performed with Arizona Theatre Company, Arizona Opera, and Arizona Onstage. Joe owns, with his wife Regina Gagliano, Sonora Theatre Works, which produces theatrical scenery and draperies. Joseph McGrath’s performance is supported in part by a generous gift from Kate Phillips & Sheldon Trubatch.

 

Eric Du as Burns, Matt Bowdren as Quinn, Ryan Parker Knox as Dunne and Joseph McGrath as Fitz

 

Ryan Parker Knox as Dunne, Joseph McGrath as Fitz and Matt Bowdren as Quinn

Photo by Tim Fuller

 

Music
Jake Sorgen

 

	Jake Sorgen (Music Direction and Original Composition) was music director for The White Snake, Uncle Vanya, Angels in America Part One, The Bridge of San Luis Rey, Miss Julie, By the Bog of Cats, Hamlet, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, The Merchant of Venice, The Lady in the Looking Glass, Waiting for Godot, Jerusalem and Awake and Sing at The Rogue Theatre, and has performed as a musician at The Rogue in Purgatorio and Betrayal. Jake is an improviser/composer/musician originally from Woodstock, New York, and has composed for and performed with musicians, actors, and dancers in Amsterdam, Austin, Boston, New York, and Tucson. Most recently Jake studied improvised music with violist Mary Oliver and movement with dancer Katie Duck and performed and studied with members of the Instant Composers Pool and the Creative Music Studio in the Netherlands and New York. Jake Sorgen’s music direction is supported in part by a generous gift from an anonymous donor.

Music Director’s Notes

Enda Walsh’s writing is chaotic, irreverent, endlessly funny, and deeply poetic. He changes pace and tone on a dime and gives his characters little room to breathe and internalize their situation. Given these parameters it felt early on that incorporating live music to Walsh’s brilliantly written additions of “Morning Mood” and Herb Alpert classics would be a fool’s errand. As Christopher and I kept talking, however, and the actors began to give flesh and blood to the language, we decided to take the cue from Walsh’s warped vision of epic poetry. The use of electric guitar and various electronic effects, delays, and loops (all created live on stage) is meant to take on a world-building function. The sounds are strange, sometimes distant, often dissonant, and a sensory view into the world beyond the pool that lures and taunts these four men. For the preshow, I’ll be playing a continuous medley of ambient soundscapes with some recognizable and beguiling melodies interwoven to set the tone for a fun and wild—if not a bit twisted—exploration of these characters. The Beach Boys, The Beatles, Rogers and Hart, Manfred Mann, Schwartz and Dietz, and even a little Sorgen make appearances throughout. Enjoy! My thanks to Christopher Johnson who took on this challenge with me with full force, enthusiasm, and support and the cast whose boldness and fearlessness inspired much of what you’ll hear today! —Jake Sorgen, Music Director and Composer

 

 

Eric Du as Burns and Matt Bowdren as Quinn

 

Ryan Parker Knox as Dunne and Joseph McGrath as Fitz

Photo by Tim Fuller

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Designers
Costume Design		Cynthia Meier
Costume design is supported in part by a generous gift from Bev & Bob Bechtel
Scenic Design		Joseph McGrath
Lighting Design		Deanna Fitzgerald*
Lighting design is supported in part by a generous gift from Bryan & Lizzie Falcón.
Production Staff
Stage Manager		Shannon Wallace
Scenic Artist		Amy Novelli
Set Construction		Joseph McGrath & Christopher Johnson
Costume Construction		Cynthia Meier
Sound Engineer		Chris Babbie
Master Electrician		Peter Bleasby
Associate Lighting Designer		Shannon Wallace
Lighting Programmers		Ken Phillips & Connor Greene
Lighting Crew		Tori Mays, Brie Gonzalez, Connor Greene, Ken Phillips, Sam Schwartz & Shannon Wallace
House Manager		Susan Collinet
Assistant House Manager		Lizzie Schloss
Box Office Manager		Thomas Wentzel
Box Office Assistants		Kara Clauser, Holly Griffith, Allie Knuth & Rebekah Thimlar
Program Advertising		Paul Winick
Poster, Program & Website		Thomas Wentzel
*Represented by United Scenic Artists Local USA 829 of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees

 

	Deanna Fitzgerald (Lighting Design) is a professional Lighting Designer and member of United Scenic Artists, as well as an Associate Professor and head of lighting design and technology at the University of Arizona, where she also serves as the Associate Director of the theatre program and the Director of Graduate Studies. Her lighting design credits include theatre, dance, opera, circus-themed, puppets, architectural lighting and more. She is also a registered yoga and meditation teacher and conducts classes and workshops focused on using these and other "quietive" practices to enrich creative processes. Some of Deanna’s career highlights include the lighting designs of Cirque Mechanics: Boom Town, which toured for 2 years with a off-Broadway appearance at The New Victory Theatre, and Erth’s Dinosaur Zoo US Tour. She designed the lighting for the world premiere STOMP OUT LOUD, the Las Vegas version of the internationally acclaimed STOMP. Other design credits include the San Francisco Opera’s Merola and Coconut Grove Playhouse’s Young Artist programs, as well as numerous original dance designs for choreographers such as Deborah Hay, Ben Levy and Andy Vaca. Other credits include 6 years as the Lighting Director on the International Tour of STOMP; Production Director of the Opera Theater Music Festival in Lucca, Italy; Lighting Supervisor/Assistant Lighting Designer at the Santa Fe Opera; Lighting and Tour Consultant for the Original Broadway Cast tours of the Greater Tuna trilogy and Assistant Lighting Designer at the Cincinnati Ballet.
Shannon Wallace (Stage Manager, Associate Lighting Designer) has served as stage manager for The Rogue Theatre productions of Uncle Vanya, Angels in America Part One, The Bridge of San Luis Rey and The Picture of Dorian Gray, and as assistant director for The White Snake. She graduated from the University of Arizona with a Bachelor of Fine Arts, focusing on both stage management and lighting design. During her time in school she worked on over 25 productions with Arizona Repertory Theatre, including: Bat Boy: The Musical, Avenue Q, Love Song, Cymbeline, Nine, Boeing Boeing, The Man Who Came to Dinner, Oklahoma!, Lend Me A Tenor, The Full Monty and Othello. She also worked at Arizona Theatre Company on their Summer on Stage productions of Elephant’s Graveyard and Legally Blonde: The Musical. Additionally, she had the opportunity to work as assistant stage manager for Oklahoma City Philharmonic’s The Christmas Show 2014. And she enjoyed a summer with the Contemporary American Theatre Festival in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, working as part of the company and events management team.
	Peter Bleasby (Master Electrician) lit his first show at 13. Professionally, he was with BBC-TV for several years, and was an assistant to UK lighting designer Richard Pilbrow during the inaugural production of the National Theatre (Hamlet, directed by Olivier.) He transferred to architectural lighting, but maintained his theatre interests by lighting many shows on both sides of the Atlantic. When the Rogue established itself at the Historic “Y” in 2009, he volunteered for the initial season, returning in 2013 with  lighting designer Don Fox, and later working with Deanna Fitzgerald. He devised the installation of the permanent wiring system that enables lighting teams to devote more time to the creative process. For the Southern Arizona AIDS Foundation he directs the technical and logistical aspects of fundraisers, including the fashion show Moda Provocateur.
Susan Collinet (House Manager) earned her Bachelor of Arts Degree in Creative Writing and English Literature from the University of Arizona in 2008. Decades before returning to college as a non-traditional student, Susan spent twenty years in amateur theater, mostly on the East coast, as well as in Brussels, Belgium in the American Theater of Brussels, and the Theatre de Chenois in Waterloo. She has worked in such positions as a volunteer bi-lingual guide in the Children’s Museum of Brussels, the Bursar of a Naturopathic Medical school in Tempe, Arizona, an entrepreneur with two “Susan’s of Scottsdale” hotel gift shops in Scottsdale, Arizona, and as the volunteer assistant Director of Development of the Arizona Aids Project in Phoenix. Susan continues to work on collections of poetry and non-fiction. Her writing has won awards from Sandscript Magazine, the John Hearst Poetry Contest, the Salem College for Women’s Center for Writing, and was published in a Norton Anthology of Student’s Writing. In addition to being House Manager, Susan serves on the Board of Directors and acts as Volunteer Coordinator for the Rogue.

Our Thanks
Tim Fuller		Tucson Weekly
Chuck Graham		Patrick Baliani
Arizona Daily Star		Shawn Burke
Jerry James		Linda Kane
Chris Babbie and Location Sound
Our Advertisers

 

Joseph McGrath as Fitz, Ryan Parker Knox as Dunne, Matt Bowdren as Quinn and Grace Kirkpatrick as Penelope

Photo by Tim Fuller

Performance Schedule for Penelope

Location: The Rogue Theatre at The Historic Y, 300 East University Boulevard
Click here for information on free off-street parking

Performance run time of Penelope is one hour and thirty minutes. There is no intermission.
Run time does not include the music preshow beginning 15 minutes before curtiain, or post-show discussion.

Thursday, March 2, 2017, 7:30 pm DISCOUNT PREVIEW
Friday, March 3, 2017, 7:30 pm DISCOUNT PREVIEW
Saturday, March 4, 2017, 7:30pm OPENING NIGHT
Sunday, March 5, 2017, 2:00 pm matinee SOLD OUT

Thursday, March 9, 2017, 7:30 pm
Friday, March 10, 2017, 7:30 pm
Saturday, March 11, 2017, 2:00 pm
Saturday, March 11, 2017, 7:30 pm
Sunday, March 12, 2017, 2:00 pm matinee

Thursday, March 16, 2017, 7:30 pm
Friday, March 17, 2017, 7:30 pm
Saturday, March 18, 2017, 2:00 pm matinee
Saturday, March 18, 2017, 7:30 pm
Sunday, March 19, 2017, 2:00 pm matinee SOLD OUT

 

 

Grace Kirkpatrick as Penelope and Joseph McGrath as Fitz

 

Ryan Parker Knox as Dunne, Matt Bowdren as Quinn and Joseph McGrath as Fitz

 

Joseph McGrath as Fitz, Ryan Parker Knox as Dunne and Matt Bowdren as Quinn

Photos by Tim Fuller