Until the Flood

WRITTEN AND PERFORMED BY DAEL ORLANDERSMITH

Artistic Team

Writer/Performer Dael Orlandersmith Director Neel Keller Scenic Designer Takeshi Kata Costume Designer Kaye Voyce Lighting Designer Mary Louise Geiger Sound Designer and Original Music Justin Ellington Video Designer Nicholas Hussong

FESTIVAL HALL

June 3, 8:00pm; June 4, 2:00pm and 8:00pm; June 5, 2:00pm; June 6, 7:00pm

1 hour, 15 minutes Performed without an intermission

This production contains adult themes, language, and references to violence.

Program Note

On August 9, 2014, Michael Brown was shot and killed by Darren Wilson on Canfield Drive in Ferguson, Missouri.

In the spring of 2015 Dael was invited by the Repertory Theater of St. Louis to create a piece that responded, in some way, to the killing and civic upheaval that was engulfing the area.

She chose to meet with residents and ask them how the killing and social unraveling had affected them. Their responses were emotional and deeply personal. Their words revealed the family histories, life experiences, and cultural consciousnesses that led people, all living within a few miles of each other, to strongly held and wildly divergent beliefs about what caused the tragic events of that day.

We have had the great fortune to revisit Until The Flood many times over the last seven years. Working on the piece over such an extended period has allowed us to reflect on the origins of our own histories. It is especially meaningful to us to perform the show here in South Carolina, which is the home of many generations of both our families, the ground which holds our ancestors, and the history which has shaped, in ways we understand and ways we don’t, our understanding of the world.

Thank you for being here.

- Dael Orlandersmith and Neel Keller

Originally commissioned and produced by THE REPERTORY THEATRE OF ST. LOUIS; Steven Woolf, Artistic Director; Mark Bernstein, Managing Director

New York Off-Broadway premiere produced by Rattlestick Playwrights Theater

These performances are made possible in part through funds from the Spoleto Festival USA Endowment, generously supported by BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America.

CBS News correspondent Martha Teichner interviews Dael Orlandersmith at 5:00 pm on Sunday, June 5, at Randolph Hall at the College of Charleston, 66 George St.

DAEL ORLANDERSMITH (writer/performer) plays include Stoop Stories, Black n’ Blue Boys/Broken Men, Horsedreams, Bones, The Blue Album, Yellowman, The Gimmick, Monster, and Forever. Orlandersmith was a Pulitzer Prize finalist and the winner of the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize for The Gimmick. Until the Flood has been performed at several theaters and festivals internationally. Orlandersmith is working on a commission for Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre called Watching the Watcher and has two plays opening at Milwaukee Repertory Theatre in 2022. Additionally, she is working on two pieces called, You don’t know the lonely one and SPIRITAS.

NEEL KELLER (director) has enjoyed a long and happy collaboration with Dael Orlandersmith. They met almost 30 years ago, on a production of Romeo and Juliet. Over the last several years they have worked closely on creating and producing Orlandersmith’s acclaimed plays Until The Flood and Forever. Keller’s other recent productions include the world premieres of Julia Cho’s Office Hour, Eliza Clark’s Quack, Jennifer Haley’s The Nether, Kimber Lee’s to the yellow house, and Lucy Alibar’s Throw Me On The Burnpile and Light Me Up. He has directed at many theaters, including, The Public Theater, New York Theatre Workshop, La Jolla Playhouse, Mark Taper Forum, Kirk Douglas Theater, Goodman Theatre, South Coast Repertory, and Williamstown Theatre Festival. Keller is an associate artistic director at Center Theatre Group in Los Angeles, and a member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society and the Directors Guild of America.

TAKESHI KATA (scenic design) Recent New York City credits include Clydes (Second Stage), Prayer For The French Republic (Manhattan Theatre Club), Until The Flood (Rattlestick Playwrights Theater), Office Hour (The Public Theater), Man From Nebraska (Second Stage), The Profane (Playwrights Horizons), Derren Brown: Secret (Atlantic Theater Company), and Forever (New York Theatre Workshop). Regionally, Kata has designed for American Players Theatre, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Dallas Theater Center, Ford’s Theatre, Geffen Playhouse, Goodman Theatre, and Yale Repertory Theatre. Kata has won an Obie award and has been nominated for Drama Desk, Barrymore, Connecticut Critics Circle, San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle, TBA, and Ovation awards. He is an associate professor at the University of Southern California School of Dramatic Arts.

KAYE VOYCE (costume design) Broadway credits include Sea Wall/A Life, Significant Other, The Real Thing, The Realistic Joneses, and Shining City. Voyce has worked with theaters and arts companies around the world including The Royal Shakespeare Company, The Public Theater, Lincoln Center Theater, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Festival d’Automne in Paris, Festival d’Aixen-Provence, Kunstenfestivaldesartes Brussels, Elevator Repair Service, Richard Maxwell/New York City Players, The Atlantic Theater, Stattheater Braunschweig, NCPA Beijing, The Esplanade in Singapore, Trisha Brown Dance Company, Manhattan Theater Club, Spoleto Festival USA, New York City Opera, Glimmerglass Opera, Signature Theater, Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires, and many more.

MARY LOUISE GEIGER (lighting design) has enjoyed a long collaborative relationship with Orlandersmith and Keller, beginning with Forever in Los Angeles and New York. Broadway credits include The Constant Wife. Off Broadway credits include Halfway Bitches Go Straight to Heaven (Atlantic Theatre); Proof of Love, Sakina’s Restaurant (Audible/Minetta Lane); Conflict (Mint); Until the Flood (Rattlestick); Nat Turner in Jerusalem, Forever (NYTW). Regional collaborations include ACT Theatre, Cleveland Playhouse, Studio Theatre DC, Center Theatre Group, Goodman Theatre, Huntington Theatre, Guthrie Theatre, and Fifth Avenue Theatre among others. She is on the faculty at NYU Tisch School of the Arts and completed her MFA at the Yale School of Drama.

JUSTIN ELLINGTON (sound design and original music) New York City credits include: Other Desert Cities, Pass Over, Pipeline (Lincoln Center Theater); The House That Will Not Stand, The Seven (New York Theatre Workshop); The Winter’s Tale (Theatre for a New Audience). Regional credits include: Life of Galileo (PlayMakers Repertory Company); Kill Move Paradise (Wilma Theater); Until The Flood, Father Comes Home from the Wars (Parts 1, 2 & 3), How to Catch Creation (Goodman Theatre); Familiar (Steppenwolf Theatre); ink (Kennedy Center);and The Comedy of Errors (Oregon Shakespeare Festival). International credits include: The American Clock (The Old Vic, London). Ellington is the recipient of Grammy, American Society of Composers and Publishers, and Obie awards.

NICHOLAS HUSSONG (video design) Broadway credits include: Skeleton Crew. Off-Broadway credits include: Until The Flood (Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, Goodman Theatre, Milwaukee Repertory Theater, The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, ACT Seattle); These Paper Bullets! (Atlantic Theater Company, Drama Desk nomination; Geffen Playhouse, Yale Repertory Theatre); White Guy on the Bus (59E59 Theaters, Delaware Theatre Company); Skeleton Crew (Atlantic Theater Company), and Chix 6 (La Mama). Regional credits include: to the yellow house (LaJolla Playhouse); Kleptocracy (Arena Stage); Grounded (Alley Theatre); A Streetcar Named Desire (Le Petit Theatre du Vieux Carre); Ella: First Lady of Song (Delaware Theatre Company), and many others. Nicholas was an artistic associate at Triad Stage in Greensboro, North Carolina, where he continues to design new works based on Appalachian life written by Preston Lane.