16.17 Constellations program

november 8 - 27, 2016 Bluma appel Theatre

constellations Written by

Nick Payne

Great theatre lives here.

Directed by

Peter Hinton

A CANADIAN STAGE AND CENTAUR THEATRE COMPANY PRODUCTION

production sponsor

#csConstellations

CAST

creative

ROL AN D

PL AY WRIG HT

GRAHAM CUTHBERTSON

NICK PAYNE

MARIAN N E

DIRECTOR

CARA RICKETTS

PETER HINTON

CE LLIST

SET & COSTU M E DESIG N

JANE CHAN

MICHAEL GIANFRancESCO LIG HTING DESIG N

ANDREA LUNDY SOU N D DESIG N

PETER CERONE FIG HT DIRECTOR

JEAN-FRANÇOIS GAGNON STAG E MANAG ER

MICHAEL HART ASSISTANT STAG E MANAG ER

ANDREA BAGGS ASSISTANT to th e DIRECTOR

STEPHANIE COSTA This production runs approximately 75 minutes with no intermission media sponsors

BMO is proud to sponsor Canadian Stage and this production of Constellations.

Special thanks to Catherine MacKinnon, Tara Everett, Jacynthe Lalonde, Nicola Pantin, Dr. Amanda Peet, Frank Donato, Susanna Oppedisano, Liz Scully, Jordan M. Goldman, Andrew Cumming.

Constellations is presented by special arrangement with Dramatists Play Services Inc., New York.

@canadianstage

Originally produced on Broadway by the Manhattan Theatre Club, Lynne Meadow, Artistic Director, Barry Grove, Executive Producer, and The Royal Court Theatre by special arrangement with Ambassador Theatre Group and Dodgers on December 16, 2014.

artistic director’s note

PERSPECTIVES

In Constellations, Nick Payne has crafted an intricate voyage through the infinite and seemingly imponderable possibilities which constitute our lives. Are these possibilities part of a single universe, ours, or simply fragments of an infinitely more complex multiverse? Or perhaps we should think in terms of the “...verse...”, the place of poetry in which we reside and act out the cascade of micro-consequences that flow from each beat of the heart or wag of the finger.

A conversation with Constellations creator, the very busy and prolific British playwright, Nick Payne. He is not only a gifted writer who never picked up a pen before attending university a little more than a decade ago, but is also, despite the awards and accolades, refreshingly down-to-earth with a charming self-effacing sense of humour.

As we witness a series of encounters which punctuate some of the possible unfoldings of a love relationship (or not) between Marianne and Roland, we come to realize that what we are watching is no mere enumeration of various “what if” scenarios. Rather, we are being invited, smartly, slyly, engagingly, to recognize the absolute fragility of our own sense of self. Who is the “I” that has committed those acts that have produced the results upon which I hang my very sense of identity, if a different act, a lick of the elbow as it were, might have made for a different “me”?

Peter Hinton and his team have crafted a theatrical experience as intricate, as elegantly complex and as humanly rich as the text itself - a rare opportunity to witness the virtuosic generosity of two great actors. If the unfolding of the myriad choices you have made every moment of your waking life has led you to this theatre, at this moment, for this production, you are a very lucky person indeed.

Matthew Jocelyn , Artistic & General Director

director’s note Constellations is a personal play. Nick Payne wrote it in the aftermath of his father’s death.

It was at that time he stumbled across Brian Greene’s documentary The Elegant Universe: an exploration of the incompatibility between general relativity and quantum mechanics, (the two cornerstones of modern physics), and the emergence of string theory. String theory asks us to accept that our universe is comprised of, up-to and including 11 space-time dimensions. Most of us struggle with a mere four; three of space, one of time. Consequently, the theory of the Multiverse began. Uncertainty is the cornerstone of quantum theory. In its simplest form, the Quantum Multiverse is a theory in which endless copies of every single one of us are living out in parallel universes wildly different and slightly similar lives without ever knowing if we are better or worse off as a result.

We can only imagine what a theory like this meant to a young man in light of his father’s death. He had been struggling with the inevitable finality of his absence, and at the same time trying to forget. Forgetting can feel cruel -yet is also an essential part of grief. Payne describes his play as his attempt to dramatize this dilemma: “the urge to remember versus the need to forget.”

Constellations is a play in which this science is explored through the varied possible lives of a single couple. As we follow Roland and Marianne through breaking up and staying together, moving in and going their separate ways, having affairs and monogamy, we also see romance interrupted and tested by death; it is a love story both celebrated and mourned.

For Payne, the notion that there might be a universe in which his father had not died, he has described as both, “curiously unhelpful and quietly consoling.” This is what the theatre negotiates: the dangers and exuberance of possibility.

peter hinton 2

Do you have complete artistic freedom when working with theatre institutions in terms of what you want to write about?

NP: I have some artistic freedom in the theatre when it comes to the writing of a play. In production, any decision-making is then made collaboratively.

In film and television, I have much less input, editorially, but I don’t mind that.

Your daily writing routine consists of getting up, grinding coffee beans, popping them into your Aero Press and getting right down to business. Such a disciplined regime must eliminate last-minute deadlines? Do deadlines stimulate or inhibit your creativity?

NP: Yes, I have a routine each day from 8 am - 1 pm. I don’t mind deadlines; I try to stick to them, if not keep slightly ahead of them.

Links have been made between mathematical and musical aptitudes. You seem to be drawn to science and frequently incorporate various aspects of it into your work.

Do you think there is a similar correlation between science and language arts?

NP: I have no scientific background whatsoever. The sciences and the arts involve very different skill sets, but I think both are equally creative. The empirical method always reminds me of that Beckett quote: “Fail again, fail better.” In that sense, certain aspects of the sciences and the arts aren’t that different: they both explore what it means to be human ... what makes us human ... and so on.

A play like Constellations, exploring such vast topics as free will, fate, and quantum physics, requires a lot of research. Your original thoughts or opinions must sometimes alter from when you set out to write. What did you learn, or what changed, in writing Constellations?

NP: I suppose, pre-Constellations, I probably assumed I had (some kind of) free will. I don’t really believe that anymore, I don’t think. But it doesn’t really make any difference, because the illusion of free will is so great it’s pretty difficult to autonomously give up believing in it!

Your story ideas come from a wide range of sources. What seemingly “random” ideas are you thinking of exploring?

NP: I just finished reading two American novels: Zero K by Don DeLillo and Heroes of the Frontier by Dave Eggers; both were excellent. Recently I loved a film entitled Mustang and right now I’m reading a collection of Alice Munro short stories. I don’t read much online (I’m not on social media, etc.) but I try to read The Guardian, The Observer, New Statesman, Little White Lies, and The Believer on a regular basis. Occasionally I read The New Yorker, New York Review of Books, New Scientist, and Scientific American Mind.

Interview conducted and edited by Centaur Theatre Company as part of the “Centaur Stage” feature series.

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nick payne

PETER HINTON

GRAHAM CUTHBERTSON

CARA RICKETTS

JANE CHAN

MICHAEL GIANFRancESCO

ANDREA LUNDY

MICHAEL HART

ANDREA BAGGS

STEPHANIE COSTA

GRAHAM CUTHBERTSON

JANE CHAN

Roland Graham is a founding member of SideMart Theatrical Grocery with whom he has helped create The Haunted Hillbilly, Dick Powell’s In the Mood for Jazz and The Whiteman’s Whiskey Comedy Revue. Graham has performed at Centaur Theatre (The Madonna Painter, August, An Afternoon in the Country, Trad, and The Goodnight Bird), at the Segal Centre (Sherlock Holmes and Glengarry Glen Ross) as well as for Crow’s Theatre, The Great Canadian Theatre Company, Talisman Theatre, The National Theatre School of Canada, PS 122 in New York City, The Wilma Theatre in Philadelphia and the Project Theatre in Dublin.

Cellist Jane is a freelance performer, recording artist, and teacher, currently based in Montreal. Though trained in classical interpretation, she seeks opportunities to explore practices beyond. She regularly engages with improvisation, open scores, and experimental approaches.

Jane can be heard at a plethora of venues and impromptu performance spaces in collaboration with musicians of diverse backgrounds. She plays with the Chris McCann Project, has been a member of Chronicle Quartet, Erik Hove Large Ensemble, Isis Giraldo Poetry Project, and the Birds on a Wire String Quartet. She is also a board member of the communitybuilding non-profit Les Sympathiques based at Café Résonance, and enjoys creating opportunities for other artists as a way of giving back.

CARA RICKETTS

NICK PAYNE

PETER HINTON

Playwright Nick Payne’s plays include If There is I Haven’t Found It Yet (Bush Theatre and Roundabout Theatre Company, New York), Wanderlust (Royal Court Theatre), Sophocles’ Electra (Gate Theatre), One Day When We’re Young (Paines Plough/Sheffield Theatres and Shoreditch Town Hall), Lay Down Your Cross (Hampstead Theatre), Constellations (Royal Court Theatre and Duke of York’s), and The Same Deep Water as Me (Donmar Warehouse). He is the recipient of the 2009 George Devine Award for Most Promising Playwright, 2012 Harold Pinter Playwright’s Award, and the 2012 London Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Play for Constellations.

Director Recent credits include; Bombay Black (Factory Theatre); Alice in Wonderland (Shaw Festival); Funny Girl (Segal Centre). From 200512, Peter was Artistic Director of English Theatre at Canada’s National Arts Centre. Previously he was Associate Artist at The Stratford Festival, Dramaturg in Residence at Playwrights’ Workshop Montreal, and Associate Artistic Director at Canadian Stage. Peter has taught at the National Theatre School, Ryerson University and currently is the lead mentor for the York University/ Canadian Stage MFA Program in Directing. Upcoming projects include: Millennial Malcontent (Tarragon): All’s Well That Ends Well (The Shakespeare Company), and Louis Riel (Canadian Opera Company). In 2009, Peter was made an Officer of the Order of Canada.

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Marianne Cara Ricketts jumped onto the Toronto scene in Obsidian Theatre’s Born Ready, to great acclaim. She then spent several seasons at The Stratford Festival, and was nominated for a Dora Award for Outstanding Performance for her role in The Wild Party (Acting Up Stage). Other credits include Cyrano de Bergerac and Clybourne Park (Pacific Coast Rep Theatre), Race and Cruel and Tender (Canadian Stage), Eternal Hydra (Crow’s Theatre), A Raisin in the Sun (Soulpepper), The Last Days of Judas Iscariot (Birdland), and Antigone: Insurgency (One Little Goat). Most recently Cara starred as the restless, gun-loving title character in Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler at Canadian Stage. For film and television Cara is best known for portraying the role of “Bertilda” in the eOne miniseries The Book of Negroes, as well as appearing in the feature films Cole Harbour and The Anniversary, and the television shows Saving Hope, Murdoch Mysteries and Satisfaction.

MICHAEL GIANFRancESCO Set & Costume Design Michael has designed for theatre, opera and dance companies across Canada. For the Stratford Festival he has designed 13 productions at the Studio, Avon and Festival theatres. His designs have been seen at the Shaw Festival on the Courthouse, Royal George and Festival stages. Michael has created productions for Canadian Stage, Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre, Citadel Theatre, Theatre Calgary, Canadian Opera Company, National Ballet of Canada, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, Segal Centre, The Grand Theatre, Opera Philadelphia, Opera Ontario, Tarragon Theatre, Queen of Puddings Music Theatre, Studio 180, Acting Up Stage, Obsidian Theatre and Ross Petty Productions. He is a recipient of the Virginia and Myrtle Cooper Award for Costume Design from the Ontario Arts Foundation.

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ANDREA LUNDY

MICHAEL HART

JEAN-FRANÇOIS GAGNON

STEPHANIE COSTA

Lighting Design Andrea has been a Lighting Designer and Production Manager for the past 28 years across Canada and internationally. She is the recipient of 9 Dora Mavor Moore Awards and has been nominated a total of 22 times for outstanding lighting design. Career highlights include four seasons at the Shaw Festival, 28 productions at Tarragon Theatre, four seasons with Necessary Angel Theatre Company and Theatrefront’s 4-play cycle The Mill. Recent designs include Pig Girl for Imago Theatre, The December Man at the National Arts Centre, Hana’s Suitcase for YPT/ Geordie Productions and Chloe’s Choice, The Iliad and The Odyssey for Geordie Productions. Andrea is currently the Director of the Production Program for the English Section at the National Theatre School of Canada.

Stage Manager Michael has spent 20 seasons at the Stratford Festival where he worked on The Adventures of Pericles, Hay Fever, Blithe Spirit, The Tempest, starring Christopher Plummer, The Importance of Being Earnest & King Lear, both starring Brian Bedford, The Taming of the Shrew, A Delicate Balance, The Duchess of Malfi, Peter Hinton’s The Swanne Trilogy. Other credits include: Manon, Sandra and the Virgin Mary (Pleiades/Buddies), Saint Carmen of The Main (NAC/Canadian Stage), Romeo and Juliet (NAC), Mother Courage and Her Children (NAC/MTC); Wit (Centaur); Real Live Girl (MTC Warehouse); Einstein’s Gift (Grand); Hamlet (Neptune Theatre); Bombay Black (Factory Theatre); The Winter’s Tale (Groundling Theatre); The Death Of The King (Modern Times); Body Politic (Lemontree/Buddies in Bad Times).

Upcoming: Liv Stein (Canadian Stage).

Fight Director Jean-François has been directing fight scenes on stage and screen for 25 years.

A recognized Fight Master and member of Fight Directors Canada, he runs the Instructor Training Program for that organization, teaching at many national and international workshops/conferences.

As a sword master for TV and film he has consulted for such organizations as UBISOFT and Cirque du Soleil. He won the 2007 Masque Award for Special Contributions to Scaramouche (Théâtre Denise-Pelletier). Recently he was co-Fight Director for Les Trois Mousquetaires directed by Serge Denoncourt (JFL/TNM) and MacBeth (Trident Theatre). He is currently working with DynamO Théâtre and with the Théâtre DenisePelletier/Advienne que Pourra tour of D’Artagnan and The Three Musketeers.

Assistant to the Director Stephanie has been working as a director and actress in Montreal for six years. Previous assistant directing credits include On This Day (Centaur Theatre) and Blue/Orange (Third Eye Ensemble). Favourite acting credits include Den of Thieves, No One Like Hugh, In Memoriam, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Waiting For Lefty, As You Like It, Twelfth Night, Three Sisters, Tartuffe, Danny and the Deep Blue Sea, The Seagull, The Heidi Chronicles, Richard III, and Lysistrata, as well as a stint on Bravo’s 19-2 and an appearance in Kim Nguyen’s Eye On Juliet. She is a graduate of the Professional Theatre Program at Dawson College, the Stella Adler Studio of Acting in New York City, and The Art of Acting Studio in Los Angeles.

PETER CERONE

ANDREA BAGGS

Sound Design Peter has been designing/engineering sound for theatre, dance, performance and art installations since 1980. He began his career in Italy, working for ten years at the National Theatre of Rome (Teatro Argentina) and collaborating with Robert Wilson on such theatrical works as Persephone, Wings on Rock, Lady From the Sea, Krapp’s Last Tape, amongst others.

Since returning to Montreal in 2000, Peter has collaborated with many Canadian artists and has continued working internationally, notably with Peter Greenaway in collaboration with AGON ArsMagnetica of Milan.

He has worked at the Centaur Theatre since 2002 as Head of Sound and at Concordia University since 2009 for the Theatre, Music and Dance departments.

Assistant Stage Manager Andrea is a Toronto based Stage Manager, who hails from London, Ontario. Baggs came to Toronto seven years ago to get her start in theatre by attending the Ryerson Theatre School Production Program (BFA, 2013). She is thrilled to be working alongside such a fantastic team on this brilliantly interesting piece. For Canadian Stage: ASM; Hamlet + All’s Well That Ends Well, Botticelli in the Fire & Sunday in Sodom, Domesticated, Julius Caesar + Comedy of Errors, Titus Andronicus + As You Like It. Other theatre credits: ASM: 2 Pianos 4 Hands (Marquis Entertainment), Apprentice SM: Dream a Little Dream (The Grand Theatre London); Same Same But Different (Theatre Passe Muraille); Land of Smiles (Toronto Operetta Theatre); Night of the Living Dead (Nictophobia Films).

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ENGAGE YOUR CURIOSIT Y

NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE

liv stein

PRE-SHOW CHATs

By

Bluma Appel Theatre

Translated from German by

November 11 – 6:15 pm Guests: Peter Hinton and Dr. Amanda Peet (University of Toronto, Physics)

Nino Haratischwili

Birgit Schreyer Duarte Directed by Matthew Jocelyn

November 18 – 6:15 pm An interactive event exploring quantum theory and the themes of Constellations

POST-SHOW TALKBACKS November 17 & 24 Q&A with the cast & creative team of Constellations

INTERMISSION VOL. IIX Berkeley St. Theatre November 26 – 10 pm Scientists for Love (Montreal)

BLUMA APPEL THEATRE

JAN 24 – FEB 12 7

Great theatre lives here.

BMO is proud to sponsor Canadian Stage and this production of Constellations.