Recipient of the
2012 American Theatre Wing
National Theatre Company Award

PRODUCTION SPONSOR: NORMA AND DAVID LEWIS Directed by David Morden February 25–March 14, 2010 Thursday–Saturday 7:30 P.M., Sunday 2:00 P.M. Musical Preshow directed by Harlan Hokin begins 15 minutes before curtain Discussion with the cast and director follows all performances Preview Night Thursday February 25, 7:30 P.M. Pay-What-You-Will Nights Thursdays March 4 & 11, 7:30 P.M. Half-price Student Rush 15 minutes before curtain Performance Schedule The Rogue Theatre at The Historic Y 300 East University Boulevard Free Off-Street Parking See Map and Parking Information Produced by special arrangement with Samuel French, Inc.

Holding his mirror up to the most minute and mundane of situations, Samuel Beckett allows a whole world of possibility to spring to life. From the seed of a moment comes deep insight and understanding. This evening of one-acts offers three unique journeys into the poetic and ironic world of one of Ireland’s greatest writers.

Joseph McGrath (Krapp/Krapp’s Last Tape)

Photo by Tim Fuller

About the poster

 

Press

Beckett á trois at Rogue Theatre
A trio of thought-provoking plays from the master of the absurd

Review of Krapp’s Last Tape, Not I and Act Without Words by Dave Irwin posted March 4 on TucsonSentinel.com

Futility oozes from Rogue's powerful set
3 short plays deliver bleak Beckett

Review of Krapp’s Last Tape, Not I and Act Without Words by Kathleen Allen in the March 5 Arizona Daily Star

Hard-Core Art: Rogue tackles three challenging one-acts by Irish playwright Beckett

Review of Krapp’s Last Tape, Not I and Act Without Words by Nathan Christensen in the March 4 Tucson Weekly

Evening with Beckett beautiful but baffling

Review of Krapp’s Last Tape, Not I and Act Without Words by Heather Price-Wright in the March 3 Arizona Daily Wildcat

Fans of Beckett get a thoughtful meal at Rogue Theatre

Review of Krapp’s Last Tape, Not I and Act Without Words by Chuck Graham on February 28 in Let The Show Begin! at TucsonStage.com

Works of Irish playwright 'are in a class of their own'
3 short plays by Samuel Beckett due at the Rogue

Preview of Krapp’s Last Tape, Not I and Act Without Words by Kathleen Allen in the February 26 Arizona Daily Star

Patty Gallagher (Player/Act Without Words)

Photo by Tim Fuller

Direction

	David Morden (Director) has directed The Rogue Theatre’s productions of A Delicate Balance, The Goat (2008 Arizona Daily Star Mac Award) and Six Characters in Search of an Author. David has appeared with The Rogue Theatre as Editor Webb in Our Town, in the ensembles of Animal Farm and 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. He has acted locally with Arizona Onstage Productions (Assassins), Arizona Opera (The Threepenny Opera), 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).

Director’s Notes

Why Beckett?

A couple of times in this production process, I was asked “Why Beckett?”

The question, which I have often asked myself, is a great one. Why present plays by Beckett, who is notoriously challenging and obtuse, when one could dive into the rich stories of Tennessee Williams or the comic melancholy of Anton Chekhov or the rich intensity of Henrik Ibsen? All brilliant playwrights waiting to be produced, so why Beckett? I quickly discovered the answer to the question shortly after starting rehearsals for this show.

Beckett’s work, and his words, can be challenging—but not because they’re particularly complex or difficult. Instead, Beckett challenges us by refusing to write in a way that is familiar to us. He expresses ideas and outlooks not with reason and order, but with feeling and chaos. His rhythms, his situations, his refusal to write in complete sentences—all these things create a sound that hits our ears in a new and unfamiliar way. Sometimes, this makes us uncomfortable or puzzled, but it can also make us feel exhilarated or intrigued. It can transport us into another world where it is not unusual to see clowns caught in a stark, post-apocalyptic wasteland or effervescent housewives stuck up their waist (or neck) in the earth. The “residents” of these landscapes are often caught in the most excruciatingly mundane situations, usually having to do with immobility—spiritual, emotional or actual. They are myopic and dense, and often look a little bizarre. Yet within their helplessness, we recognize something in ourselves. As we watch their struggles, we find parallels in our own lives. By catching us off guard, Beckett is able to hold up a very warped mirror to us and ask some very probing questions about some very large life issues. And that, to me, is profundity at the highest level.

Why Beckett? Because he’s provoking and strange and lyrical and grating and just plain wonderful.

—David Morden, Director of Krapp’s Last Tape, Not I and Act Without Words
director@theroguetheatre.org

Cynthia Meier (Mouth/Not I)

Photo by Tim Fuller

 

Cast
Act Without Words
Player		Patty Gallagher*
Not I
Mouth		Cynthia Meier
Auditor		Patty Gallagher*
Krapp’s Last Tape
Krapp		Joseph McGrath*
*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

	Patty Gallagher (Player/Act Without Words, Auditor/Not I) is Associate Professor of Theatre Arts at University of California Santa Cruz where she teaches movement, mask, Balinese dance, and clown traditions. With The Rogue Theatre she performed the roles of Shen Te in The Good Woman of Setzuan, Ranevskaya in The Cherry Orchard, Winnie in Happy Days (most recently for Rogue’s tour to Bangalore, India), Sonnerie and Scarron in Red Noses, and Orlando in Orlando. She has worked with Shakespeare Santa Cruz, The Folger Shakespeare Theatre, California Shakespeare Theater, The New Pickle Circus, Ripe Time Theatre, Two River Theatre, Teatro Cronopio and Grupo Malayerba. She has performed, choreographed and directed workshops in Asia, South America, Europe, and the U.S.. In 2006 she was Fulbright Scholar in Quito, Ecuador. She holds a doctorate in Theatre from University of Wisconsin–Madison. She is Director in Residence for the Clown Conservatory, San Francisco Circus Center.
Joseph McGrath (Krapp/Krapp’s Last Tape) is a graduate of the Juilliard School of Drama and the Artistic Director for The Rogue Theatre. For The Rogue, he has performed in The Fever, The Dead, Endymion, The Good Woman of Setzuan, The Cherry Orchard, The Goat, Happy Days, Red Noses, Six Characters in Search of an Author, Orlando, Animal Farm and A Delicate Balance (winner of the Arizona Daily Star 2009 Mac Award for Best Actor) and has directed The Balcony, Endymion, The Maids, Red Noses, Immortal Longings (which he also authored) and Our Town. Joe 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.
	Cynthia Meier (Mouth/Not I) is the Managing and Associate Artistic Director for The Rogue Theatre for which she has performed in 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. For The Rogue, she adapted and directed James Joyce’s The Dead, directed Animal Farm, Orlando, Happy Days, The Good Woman of Setzuan, The Fever and The Cherry Orchard. 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.

Joseph McGrath (Krapp/Krapp’s Last Tape)

Photo by Tim Fuller

 

Music Director’s Notes

Samuel Beckett was a great fan of the music of Béla Bartók (1881–1945). Bartók’s music sets up a series of effects that resonate with the textual effects produced by Beckett’s words and scenarios. The texts (and non-texts) evoke and portray insight and irony, beauty, confusion, repetition and abandonment. These same elements can easily be perceived as integral to Bartók’s music. The light may shine on bits and pieces, suggesting a logic and directionality that may or may not be perceptible. Sometimes the bits and pieces recur, sometimes they are presented only to exert their influence momentarily and disappear immediately. For Beckett, the actual sound of the words had at least as much significance as the meaning of the phrases he formed. We also see this characteristic in Bartók’s music.

Not all of Bartók’s works were small, but many of the better-known ones were. His volumes of short, increasingly difficult piano pieces entitled Mikrokosmos have been learned by many a young pianist. Bartók had an interest as well in folk music. He based many of his compositions on songs and dances he collected from throughout central and eastern Europe. His use of folk idioms was not to be an exotic accent, but rather a chosen language in which he could directly express himself as a composer. He spoke of his relationship with folk music thus: “It is a matter of absorbing the means of musical expression hidden in them [the folk melodies], just as the most subtle possibilities of any language may be assimilated. It is necessary for the composer to command this musical language so completely that it becomes the natural expression of his musical ideas.”

We will play some of Bartók’s short pieces that we hope reflect the Beckettian Weltanschauung.

—Harlan Hokin, Musical Director

 

Preshow Music

by Béla Bartók, arranged by Harlan Hokin

In Lydian Mode

In Myxolydian Mode

Melodie with Accompaniment

Jarhmarkt

Four Roumanian Folk Dances

Rogue’s Song

Romance (Bird on a branch)

In Oriental Style

Ruten Kolomejka

 

Entr’acte Music
Sonata for Solo Violin, Op. 27, No. 2, 2nd movement (“Malinconia”)		Eugène Ysaÿe (1858–1931)

 

Musicians
Paul Amiel		harp, flute
Harlan Hokin		piano
Robert Villa		violin

 

	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 Our Town, A Delicate Balance, Animal Farm, 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.
Paul Amiel is a multi-instrumentalist who has extensively studied and performed Medieval, Turkish, Arabic, Chinese, Celtic and Japanese music both here and abroad. He founded and performs with the Summer Thunder Chinese Music Ensemble, the traditional Japanese music duo Musou, and Zambuka (Middle Eastern, Turkish, and Mediterranean music and dance). Paul has performed music for The Rogue Theatre’s productions of The Dead, Endymion, The Good Woman of Setzuan, Orlando, Immortal Longings and Our Town.
			Robert Villa has been playing violin for about eight years and his love of music and violin encompasses more than “classical” music, as he plays in Zambuka, an Anatolian-Middle Eastern music ensemble and may occasionally be seen at the local Irish pub on Sundays trying to learn Irish fiddle. He has performed music for The Rogue Theatre’s productions of The Dead, Endymion, and Our Town. Apart from his love of music, he is a passionate naturalist in love with the cultural and natural history of Mesoamerica and the Sonoran region. He is a laboratory technician at the Human Origins Genotyping Laboratory at University of Arizona and the vice president of Tucson Herpetological Society which is dedicated to the conservation, education and research of amphibians and reptiles of Arizona and Mexico.

Patty Gallagher (Player/Act Without Words)

Photo by Tim Fuller

 

Production Staff
Stage Manager		Nic Adams
House Manager		Susan Collinet
Assistant House Manager		JoAn Forehand
Box Office Manager		Thomas Wentzel
Electrician		Peter Bleasby
Scenic Painting		Amy Novelli
Additional Costume Construction		Karen DeLay
Stage Assistants		Todd Fitzpatrick, Robert Villa
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, and Our Town. 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.
Nic Adams (Stage Manager) has appeared with The Rogue Theatre in Orlando and Six Characters in Search of an Author and with the Now Theatre in This Property is Condemned and Cigarettes & Chocolate, both “Rogue After Curfew” productions. 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).

 

Our Thanks
Kathy Allen		Jesse Greenberg
Barbara Freischlad		Tim Fuller
Joe Schwanz		Chris Babbie
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Joseph McGrath (Krapp/Krapp’s Last Tape)

Photo by Tim Fuller

 

Performance Schedule for Krapp’s Last Tape, Not I and Act Without Words

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 40 minutes, not including musical preshow or post-show discussion. There will be one 10-minute intermission.

Thursday February 25, 2010, 7:30 pm PREVIEW
Friday February 26, 2010
Saturday February 27, 2010, 7:30 pm
Sunday February 28, 2010, 2:00 pm matinee

Thursday March 4, 2010, 7:30 pm PAY-WHAT-YOU-WILL
Friday March 5, 2010, 7:30 pm
Saturday March 6, 2010, 7:30 pm
Sunday March 7, 2010, 2:00 pm matinee

Thursday March 11, 2010, 7:30 pm PAY-WHAT-YOU-WILL
Friday March 12, 2010, 7:30 pm
Saturday March 13, 2010, 7:30 pm
Sunday March 14, 2010, 2:00 pm matinee