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a new translation/adaptation
by Patrick Baliani
PRODUCTION
SPONSOR: CAPECCI COMMUNICATIONS
Directed by David
Morden
Musical direction by Harlan Hokin
September 18–October
5, 2008
Thursday–Saturday 7:30 PM, Sunday
2:00 PM
A post-show discussion will follow all performances
Preview Night Thursday September 18, 7:30 PM
Pay-What-You-Will Nights Thursdays September 25 & October
2, 7:30 PM
Zuzi’s Dance Theatre in the Historic
YWCA,
738 North Fifth Avenue at University Boulevard
See
Map
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Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Italian
playwright Luigi Pirandello wrote his most famous play Six Characters
in Search of an Author in 1921. Pirandello’s mysterious
characters arrive in an empty theatre and entreat a group of actors
to perform their story. Reality blurs as actors and characters bring
to light the truth about a tragic event.
Featuring a new adaptation/translation of the play
by national award-winning Tucson playwright Patrick Baliani, a native
of Rome.
Laine Peterson as The Stepdaughter, Joseph McGrath as
The Father, Todd
Fitzpatrick as The Leading Man, and Chris Farishon as The Leading Lady
Photo by Tim Fuller
About the
poster
View production photos
Introducing Rogue
After Curfew, a late night show in association
with The Now Theatre
Anthony
Minghella’s
Cigarettes and Chocolate,
directed by Matt Bowdren
Thursdays–Saturdays, 10:00 P.M., September
18–October 4, 2008 at the Zuzi Theatre
$10 Tickets available at the door
($5 with purchase of a ticket to Six Characters)
Full
information about Cigarettes and Chocolate
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Press
Apt challenge for audience:
Rogue Theatre, Six Characters mesh
Review of Six Characters in Search of an Author
by Kathleen Allen in the September 26 Arizona Daily Star
Characters in Abundance
Review of Six Characters in Search of an Author
by James Reel in the September 25 Tucson Weekly
Six Characters, One Chance to
Live
Preview of Six Characters in Search of an Author
by Kathleen Allen in the September 19 Arizona Daily Star
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David
Morden (Director, Madame Pace) has appeared with
The Rogue Theatre as 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 also directed The Rogue Theatre’s production of The
Goat. As a singer, he has played Constable Smith in Arizona
Opera’s production of The Threepenny Opera and has
sung in the chorus of Die Fledermaus, The Flying Dutchman,
Susannah, and The Mikado (upcoming). 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. 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). |
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Baliani (Playwright/Translator) received the 2005
Arizona Commission on the Arts Artist’s Project Grant for
his play, Lie More Mountains. He was awarded the 1999 Arizona
Commission on the Arts Playwriting Fellowship and he received the
1998 National Play Award by the Los Angeles National Repertory Theatre
Foundation for his play, A Namib Spring. He received a
Collaborative Artists Grant from the Arizona Commission on the Arts
in 1997 and was awarded the Tucson Pima Arts Council Playwriting
Fellowship in 1996. He was selected by New York’s Young Playwrights,
Inc. to be their 1993 Southwest Resident Playwright. He received
the 1991 Arizona Theatre Company Genesis New Play Award, for his
play, Figs and Red Wine. Patrick’s plays—Figs
and Red Wine, Two from Tanagra, Reckless Grace,
Tortilla Curtain, Verba Non Facta, Sabunana,
Monologue of a Muted Man, A Namib Spring, and
Lie More Mountains—have been performed in New York,
Los Angeles, Seattle, Phoenix, Prescott, and Tucson, where he has
collaborated with Arizona Theatre Company, Tucson Art Theatre, Third
Street Kids, Actor’s Gymnasium, Old Pueblo Playwrights, and
Ubi Sunt. His one-act plays have been anthologized in Play
It Again: One-Act Plays for Acting Students, Meriwether Publishing,
and Twenty-Three Plays from the New Play Development Series,
Mississippi State University. Patrick is on the faculties of English
and the Honors College at the University of Arizona. |
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Director’s Notes
I offer my deepest gratitude to Patrick Baliani for a contemporary,
creative and exhilarating new translation of this play. His gifted ear
and inquisitive nature have been a solid foundation that has allowed us
to bring this classic piece of theatre to life in the 21st century. It
has been a privilege collaborating on this production under his guidance
and insight.
Secondly, I offer my thanks to you, our audience and theatrical family.
Without your participation in this performance, we would not have had
the opportunity to explore and re-discover this intriguing, mysterious
and moving work of art. I look forward to your feedback, not only during
the performance, but also at our post-show discussions and beyond. During
our production of The Goat, I invited you to tell us what you
thought that play was about—what caught your attention, what created
an emotional response, how to make sense of it all. With Six Characters
in Search of an Author, I renew that call to talk to us and tell
us what you make of this enigmatic masterpiece. I’m in the throes
of discovering new layers of this story every night at rehearsal in partnership
with a wonderful cast and company. You are the final piece of the puzzle
and I look forward to learning from you and understanding how this play
resonates in your mind and your life after the curtain comes down.
—David Morden, Director of Six Characters in
Search of an Author
director@theroguetheatre.org
Notes from a Character and an Author
This seminal play byPirandello, Six Characters in Search of an Author,
presented at the beginning of the last century, marked a movement, along
with the works of other artists of the time, from a more formal and collective
sensibility in the theatre—moral issues within the broader society—to
concerns of a more personal nature.
Pirandello’s brilliant theatrical construct is the Character—unfinished—unrealized—a
wandering poltergeist with the bare bones of a narrative, seeking the
fulfillment of an ultimate rendering. Six of these Characters are locked
in a torrid family drama. When they entreat a company of actors to realize
their plight on stage, we see two kinds of creatures: People—the
theatre company (and, by the way, us)—and Characters. The contrast
between these forms of existence lies at the core of the human dilemma.
The Characters are what they are. Perpetual and unchanging. They appear
to have no life beyond the line of their narrative, their moment. The
people, of course, are like us: ongoing and adaptive, learning and forgetting,
in and out of love. We are hardly the same from one moment to the next,
much less anything like the creatures we were twenty years ago.
Yet with Pirandello there is always paradox. If we empathize with the
Characters it is because we see ourselves in them. We have all laughed
and cried, been proud, vengeful, nurturing, and remorseful, as they are.
We have at times yearned for, at times clung to, at times let go of, hopes
and dreams, and each other. We know and we feel, as the Characters
do, that our lives are not ours to keep and that works of art do
live on, do change from moment to moment, era to era, given differing
interpretations, retellings, recreations. Theatre is the embodiment of
these many metamorphoses.
The most far-reaching question posed by the play is “what is reality?”—a
phrase almost comic to our modern ear because of its repeated refrain
in the movements of the fifties and sixties. But the question, as posed
by Pirandello, is remarkably current and difficult—no less a puzzle
now than when it was first posited. As actors, as characters, as audience—as
people—we attempt and attempt again to realize the paradoxical nature
of existence in order to live our lives to the fullest, an endeavor which
seems always at hand, and always beyond our reach.
—Joseph McGrath, Artistic Director of The Rogue Theatre,
and Patrick Baliani, Translator/Adapter
Leilani McAllister as The Girl, Cynthia Meier as The Mother,
Laine Peterson as The Stepdaughter, and Connor Foster as The Boy (background)
Photo by Tim Fuller
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Cast |
The Assistant Stage Manager
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Nic Adams |
The Director
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Matt Bowdren |
The Leading Lady
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Chris Farishon |
The Leading Man
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Todd Fitzpatrick |
The Boy
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Connor Foster |
The Girl
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Leilani McAllister/
Madeline Pellicer |
The Father
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Joseph McGrath* |
The Mother
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Cynthia Meier |
Madame Pace
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David Morden* |
The Actor
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Nick Padilla |
The Stepdaughter
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Laine Peterson |
The Son
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John Shartzer |
The Actress
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Kristina Sloan |
The Stage Manager
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Martie van der Voort |
*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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Nic Adams
(The Assistant Stage Manager) is delighted to be
making his debut with The Rogue Theatre. A theatre student at the
University of Arizona, Nic performed in the Arizona Repertory Theatre’s
productions of Urinetown (Robbie the Stockfish), Titus
Andronicus (Martius), and Candide (Ensemble). Nic
will also be seen later this season in The Rogue Theatre’s
production of Orlando. |
Matt Bowdren
(The Director) played Billy in the Rogue production of The Goat
last season and is the director of the late night production of
Cigarettes and Chocolate. Matt graduated this year with
his BFA in Acting from the University of Arizona, and is a member
of the Actors’ Equity Candidacy program. His credits at Arizona
Repertory Theatre include Titus Andronicus, Bus Stop,
Scenes from an Execution, Tartuffe, Epstein in
Biloxi Blues, and Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet.
Matt also played Mercutio with Southwest Shakespeare Sedona and
Hamlet at Live Theatre Workshop, and he has been an understudy for
Twelfth Night and Molly’s Delicious at Arizona
Theatre Company. Matt is also a proud member of The Charles Darwin
Experience, a short form improv troupe that performs on the UA campus
and around Tucson.
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Chris Farishon
(The Leading Lady) most recently appeared as Hannah
Jarvis in Arcadia at Beowulf Alley and as Justice Shallow
in Shakespeare’s Merry Wives of Windsor with Tucson
Parks & Recreation. Other Tucson performances include Fifth
Planet and Other Plays and Maria in Shakespeare’s Twelfth
Night. Chris’ theatre background began in California
25 years ago, and she emerged onto the Tucson theatre scene last
year after a twelve-year hiatus from the stage. Chris is delighted
to be working with The Rogue and such a remarkably talented group
of artists. Furthermore, she would like to express special thanks
to her husband, Bryan, for his loving support. |
Todd Fitzpatrick
(The Leading Man) performed in The Rogue Theatre’s productions
of The Cherry Orchard and Red Noses. Other Arizona
credits include performances as Jesus in Godspell, Scarecrow
in The Wizard of Oz and Saul in Play On! (all
at The Poor Man’s Theater), Joe in Our Town (Northern
Arizona University) and Emile in New Moon (The Gilbert
and Sullivan Theater). His other roles include Linus in You’re
a Good Man, Charlie Brown and Teddy Prior in The Battle
of Corpus Christi. Todd appeared as Lon in the HBO film El
Diablo and has studied at American Conservatory Theater in
San Francisco. |
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Connor Foster
(The Boy) was most recently seen as Sebastian in
Twelfth Night at Arizona Theatre Company’s Summer
on Stage. He has also held lead roles with the Missoula Children’s
Theater in Robin Hood, Cinderella, Jungle
Book, and Robinson Crusoe. Connor is a Freshman at
Salpointe Catholic High School. |
Leilani
McAllister (The Girl) attends kindergarten at Borton
Elementary. She is an avid swimmer. She wishes to be an Animal Cop
or a make-up artist when she grows up. She is very excited to be
in her first play for The Rogue Theatre and has big plans to be
in many more. She thanks her mother and her cat, Persephone. |
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Joseph McGrath
(The Father) is the Artistic Director for The Rogue
Theatre for which he has performed in most of the productions, and
has directed The Balcony, Endymion, The Maids,
and Red Noses. Joe is a graduate of the Juilliard School
of Drama and 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, Arizona OnStage, Green Thursday, and Damesrocket
Theatre 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. |
Cynthia
Meier (The Mother) is the Managing and Associate
Artistic Director for The Rogue Theatre for which she has performed
in The Balcony, Endymion, The Maids,
The Goat, and Red Noses, adapted and directed
James Joyce’s The Dead, and directed The Fever,
The Good Woman of Setzuan, Happy Days,
and The Cherry Orchard. 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. |
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Nick Padilla
(The Actor) is happy to be making his first appearance
with The Rogue Theatre. A Theatre major at the University of Arizona,
Nick most recently played Percy in the Arizona Repertory Theatre’s
production of The Miracle Worker. He has also performed
with the American Conservatory Theatre in A Christmas Carol
and Broken Hallelujah and at Sacred Heart Prep in Guys
and Dolls and Big. |
Madeline
Pellicer (The Girl) is a first grader at Drachman
Elementary. She loves gymnastics, violin and roller derby. Madeline
skates as “Madeline Bootyfly” with the Tucson Derby
Brats/Skater Tots as their youngest skater. She would like to dedicate
her first theater performance to the memory of her dear friend Lynn
Robinson. Madeline would also like to thank her mom, her honorary
nana—Bertha Santa Cruz, and Maria “Ria” Lofton. |
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Laine Peterson
(The Stepdaughter) is a student at the University of Arizona where
she performed in Tartuffe, Brighton Beach Memoirs,
Romeo & Juliet, The Philadelphia Story, and
Henry IV, Parts I & II as part of the Arizona Repertory
Theatre. She was also an understudy for Arizona Theatre Company’s
Love, Janis and performed in One Naked Woman and a
Fully-Clothed Man at the UA. Laine is a member of the improv
group The Charles Darwin Experience. Thank you to all of her loved
ones! |
John Shartzer
(The Son) is pleased to be making his first appearance
with The Rogue Theatre. A senior at the University of Arizona, 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. He is also performing
in Cigarettes & Chocolate, the Rogue After Curfew production
in conjunction with the Now Theatre. |
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Kristina
Sloan (The Actress) was most recently seen in Arizona
Onstage’s production of Sunday in the Park with George.
She has also performed with the Da Vinci Players (Tick, Tick…Boom!),
Redondo Music Theatre (South Pacific, West Side Story),
Red Barn Theatre (George M, The Fantasticks),
Pima Community College (42nd Street, Pippi Longstocking,
Kiss Me Kate, and Twelfth Night), Live Theatre
Workshop (The Secret Garden), and numerous roles with The
Gaslight Theatre. She would like to thank her family and friends
for all their support and love. |
Martie
van der Voort (The Stage Manager) has performed
previously with The Rogue in The Balcony, The Dead,
The Good Woman of Setzuan, and The Cherry Orchard,
and is honored to be working again with such a gifted cast and crew.
A psychotherapist by day and performing artist by night, Martie
has acted locally with Itch Productions, Wilde Playhouse, Old Pueblo
Playwrights, Not Burnt Out Just Unscrewed Comedy Improv, Bloodhut
Productions, V-Day, Borderlands Theatre, and Arizona Onstage, to
name a few. She has recently written a one actor show, Transformations,
based on transgender stories and characters, and hopes to produce
it in the spring. She thanks her (newly-wedded!) spouse Lauren for
25 years of inspiration.
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Laine Peterson as The Stepdaughter
Photo by Tim Fuller
Music in Six
Characters
The Stepdaughter’s song Chu Chin Chow was
included in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1917. The song is based on a popular
musical revue, also entitled Chu Chin Chow, that ran in London
in 1916. Chu Chin Chow is the name of the lead character in the revue,
a bad-guy hero, sort of like Ali Baba. The song did not appear in the
London revue, but was composed separately by American songwriters for
the Follies, probably as a nod to the international success and popularity
of the London show. Its inclusion seems to be Pirandello’s obeisance
to the significance of the musical revue as a theatrical genre. One assumes
he was aware of the London show and later of the significance of Ziegfeld’s
nod to its popularity across the pond. This exotic song provides an opportunity
for the character of The Stepdaughter to demonstrate her position among
the other “characters.”
—Harlan Hokin, Musical Director
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Musician |
| piano |
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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 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. |
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Production
Staff |
| Stage Manager |
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Martie van der Voort |
| Light Board |
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Harlan Hokin |
| Marketing
and Publicity |
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Thomas Wentzel |
| Poster and Program |
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Thomas Wentzel |
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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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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, and Red
Noses. Other lighting design credits include As Bees in Honey
Drown and Golf Game for Borderlands, Woman in Black
for Beowolf 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. |
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Our Thanks |
Jesse
Greenberg |
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Chuck Graham |
James Reel |
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Kathy Allen |
Tim Fuller |
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Tim Janes |
Dan Gilmore |
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David Shack |
| Our Advertisers |
Laine Peterson as The Stepdaughter
Photo by Tim Fuller
Performance Schedule for Six Characters in Search of an Author
Location: Zuzi’s Dance Theater, Historic Y, 738 N. 5th Avenue at
University See
map
Thursday September 18, 2008, 7:30 pm PREVIEW
Friday September 19, 2008, 7:30 pm
Saturday September 20, 2008, 7:30 pm
Sunday September 21, 2008, 2:00 pm matinee
Thursday September 25, 2008, 7:30 pm PAY-WHAT-YOU-WILL
Friday September 26, 2008, 7:30 pm
Saturday September 27, 2008, 7:30 pm
Sunday September 28, 2008, 2:00 pm matinee
Thursday October 2, 2008, 7:30 pm PAY-WHAT-YOU-WILL
Friday October 3, 2008, 7:30 pm
Saturday October 4, 2008, 7:30 pm
Sunday October 5, 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}