The Skin Game

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SURROUND EVENTS: THE SKIN GAME Discussions last approximately 50 minutes and can be attended by all Mint patrons to any performance of The Skin Game free of charge.

Saturday, June 25 (following the matinee) Nouveau Riche—Galsworthy and Chekhov Explore the Struggle for Progress.

ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

JONATHAN BANK

Join Christian Parker, Dramaturg of Atlantic Theatre Co.’s current production of Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard and Mint Artistic Director Jonathan Bank as they contrast and compare the characters of Lopakhin (The Cherry Orchard) and Hornblower (The Skin Game). Both characters are newly rich, both want to develop land owned for centuries by rich ruling families, both are despised for it—what makes these characters ‘tick’ and why is their struggle a compelling one for two master dramatists?

Saturday, July 9 (following the matinee) Playing Galsworthy Join cast members and Mint Artistic Director Jonathan Bank for a discussion on the making of The Skin Game.

Saturday, July 16 (following the matinee) John Galsworthy, His Life and Work

By

Mildred Kuner, Professor Emerita of English and Comparative Drama at Hunter College will speak on Glasworthy and his work.

Professor Kuner received her MFA from Yale and her PhD from Columbia and taught at the New School and NYU. She was a Fulbright Scholar, winner of the Maxwell Anderson and Charles Sergel Awards for Playwrighting. Her plays have been produced in university theaters, off-Broadway and at the Bristol Young Vic. She has written a monograph on W. Somerset Maugham, a critical biography of Thornton Wilder, a dramatic adaptation of Victoria Holt’s The Mistress of Mellyn and is a lecturer on theater for WNYC Television.

JOHN GALSWORTHY Directed By

ELEANOR REISSA Set Design

Vicki R. Davis Lighting Design

Traci Klainer Costume Design

Tracy Christensen Sound Design

Bruce Ellman

Saturday, July 23 (following the matinee) Place Matters Struggles over land use have been common throughout history in urban, suburban and rural settings? How does the use of land affect its residents? Do places hold memory for individuals and for communities? Why does place matter so much to us? Join guest speakers from the Municipal Arts Society and Place Matters for a discussion stimulated by the struggles over land in The Skin Game.

-PLEASE KEEP FOR YOUR RECORDSI ordered tickets for THE SKIN GAME for_______ 2005 @ ___pm.

Paid By: ❏ Visa/MC/Amex ❏ Check #_______ This Mint performance will be held on the 3rd floor at 311 West 43rd Street.

All tickets are HELD at the Box Office - available for pick-up starting ONE HOUR prior to curtain. NO LATE SEATING!

Props Specialist

JUNE 21st through AUGUST 14th Tues., Wed., Thurs. at 7:00; Fri. & Sat. at 8:00, Sat. & Sun at 2:00

(212) 315-0231

To order tickets call Or visit our on-line Box Office: www.minttheater.org Performances at 311 W. 43rd St. 3rd floor

with: Nick Berg Barnes Denis Butkus Monique Fowler James Gale Leo Kittay Diana LaMar Nicole Lowrance Pat Nesbit Carl Palmer Stephen Rowe John C. Vennema Richard Waddingham

Judi Guralnick Assistant Costume Designer

Colleen Kesterson Casting

Stuart Howard, Amy Schecter & Paul Hardt Production Stage Manager

Amber Wedin

How to purchase your tickets for THE SKIN GAME

Date 1st Choice 2nd Choice

David Gersten & Associates

3rd Choice

Jude Dvorak

BOX OFFICE HOURS

• By Mail (or) In-Person: Mint Theater Company (No Service Charges) 311 West 43rd Street, 5th floor Mon thru Fri 12-6pm New York, NY 10036 • By Phone: (212) 315-0231 ($2.50 per ticket service charge will apply) Box Office hours will expand • On-line: www.minttheater.org (No Service Charges) June 21st • Special rates available for groups of 15 or more

Press Representative

Graphic Design

Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday at 7pm Friday-Saturday at 8pm & Saturday-Sunday at 2pm

*No performance July 3rd

Dialect Coach

Amy Stoller

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$35 for performances June 21st – July 10th $45 for performances July 12th – August 14th

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MTC-SKINGAMEflyer

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brilliance of the play’s craftsmanship. This battle between an old family and a new, between the Hillcrists and the Hornblowers, this poisoned feud between tradition and usurpation that grows beyond any man’s intention, bringing with it uncontrollable consequences of suffering and dishonor, is one of Mr. Galsworthy’s most successful treatments of a theme very near his heart.

At the end of each act we are grateful for that strangely rare thing in the theatre—a straight and full story told with austerity and judgment.”

“THANK HEAVEN FOR A MAN WHO CAN STILL TELL A STORY!” (The Times)

Mint Theater is proud to bring you a gripping drama from one of the world’s greatest storytellers: John Galsworthy, winner of the Nobel Prize for literature in 1932 and author of The Forsyte Saga.

The Skin Game tells the story of a bare-knuckled brawl between neighbors: One treasures the view that his family has enjoyed from their windows for generations, and the other would block that view in the name of progress and his own social advancement.

The award-winning Mint

By By

JOHN GALSWORTHY

“Thank heaven for a man who can still tell a story!”

JOHN GALSWORTHY

Theater Company brings you

The Greatest Plays You’ve Never Seen such as The Daughter-in-Law, Echoes of the War, Far and Wide and The Voysey Inheritance.

In 1967 nearly all of England was held in thrall by the BBC’s adaptation of John Galsworthy’s prose trilogy, The Forsyte Saga.

Broadcast every Sunday night for six months, the power of Galsworthy’s story gripped the nation like nothing ever before.

When Forsyte was on the air, the streets were deserted, pubs were closed, even the Church of England rescheduled evening services so that people could be home in time to watch the epic creation of one of the world’s master storytellers: John Galsworthy.

Who?

ELEANOR REISSA

By JOHN GALSWORTHY Directed By

John Galsworthy, author of twenty novels, over one-hundred and fifty stories and twentyseven plays. Recipient of the Order of Merit, England’s highest distinction for an artist, First President of International PEN, and winner of the Nobel Prize for literature in 1932.

Now Mint Theater brings you Galsworthy’s gripping drama, The Skin Game, in the flesh for eight weeks only. The Skin Game is the ever-timely story of a bare-knuckled brawl between neighbors. One man treasures the precious view that his family has enjoyed from their windows for generations, and the other would block that view in the name of economic development, progress and his own social advancement. They fight a noholds barred battle that will keep you enthralled to the very end.

Permit No. 7528

“Thank heaven for a man who can still tell a story!” wrote The Times of London. “The long deep silences of the audience, unbroken by any flutter of inattention, bear witness to the

The Skin Game came to New York in the fall of 1920 where it ran for 176 performances in spite of the play being “thrown hopelessly out of focus,” according to Alexander Woollcott of The New York Times, “by the injudiciousness with which its company has been chosen.” In 1931 the play was made into a movie directed by Alfred Hitchcock who was also responsible for the adapted screenplay. “Mr. Hitchcock…cannot be said to have accomplished either task in a fashion the subject deserves,” said The Times, “Galsworthy’s estimable play…has been sapped of its persuasive drama.”

Galsworthy was the author of twenty-seven plays, most of which were produced on Broadway and in London. Strife, Loyalties and Justice were among his most successful works. Justice is credited with having inspired Winston Churchill, then England’s Home Secretary, to institute prison reform in England in 1910. “The seeds of reform were sowed in his mind,” a report to The New York Times said, “through witnessing recently a performance of John Galsworthy’s stirring prison drama Justice. Mr. Churchill, who was present at the second performance, sat through the play in a most absorbed manner, his friends noticing that he was deeply affected by it.”

A wonderful testament to the power of a good story, well told. Please make plans to join us this summer, when Mint brings New York audiences the compelling power of a gripping story: John Galsworthy’s The Skin Game.

John Galsworthy (1867-1933) (excerpted from The New York Times obituary, February 1st, 1933)

In 1893, while on a cruise in the South Seas, John Galsworthy, then a young lawyer with a decided distaste for his profession, became acquainted with the first officer of the ship and the two became close friends.

The mate was Joseph Conrad. He had written “Almayer’s Folly” and showed the manuscript to Mr. Galsworthy.

It is probable that Mr. Galsworthy had also written a good deal at that time, and he revealed this to some extent many years later, when he said: “I was writing fiction for five years before I could master even its primary technique.”

At the time of his meeting with Mr. Conrad, Mr. Galsworthy was traveling about the world. He was a member of a very old Devonshire family, and his father had amassed considerable wealth in successful legal practice in London. The man who was later to create The Forsyte Saga was thus born with a silver spoon in his mouth.

The traditional characteristics of his own people, their conservatism and cult of property were to be recorded later in the Forsyte books, but to begin with, Mr. Galsworthy wrote sketchy stories under the nom de plume “John Sinjohn.”

Mr. Galsworthy’s mature works, both novels and plays, are of unusual penetrative powers.

What he did for the English drama was to lift it from the stilted and the artificial to the natural…They have neither the whimsicalities of Sir James Barrie nor the eccentricities of dialogue that distinguish George Bernard Shaw’s plays, but this very baring of the human soul which Galsworthy so well achieved was a distinct addition to the English drama.

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