WHY I GIVE

My husband and I first came to Dramaworks when the company was performing at a hole-in-the-wall theatre on Clematis. We were so impressed with the quality of the plays and the performers that we quickly became subscribers. Because I liked what they were doing, and I liked the people involved, I also began volunteering. That was 20 years ago, and I’m so delighted by the company’s continued growth and evolution. The move to the Don & Ann Brown theatre gave Dramaworks the opportunity to enhance its production values; the set, costume, lighting, and sound design enrich the entire experience.

If I had the financial resources, I would give enormous sums to Dramaworks, because Dramaworks has given so much to me. But I have to be realistic. So, when they started the monthly giving campaign, I was the first person to sign up. It’s easy to pay a fixed amount each month, and by the end of the year, the money adds up. I know how much it’s appreciated, and it’s very gratifying to help out. And I still volunteer!

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Palm Beach Dramaworks presents

William Hayes

Producing Artistic Director

Sue Ellen Beryl

Managing Director

by Suzan-Lori Parks

Topdog/Underdog is presented by special arrangement with Dramatists Play Service, Inc., New York.

Produced on Broadway by Carole Shorenstein Hays, Waxman/Williams

Entertainment, Bob Boyett, Freddy De Mann, Susan Dietz, Ina Meibach, Scott Nederlander, Ira Pittelman Hits Magazine, Kelpine Arts, Rick Steiner/Frederic H. Mayerson, The Public Theater/New York Shakespeare Festival.

Original New York production by The Joseph Papp Public Theater/New York Shakespeare Festival, George C. Wolfe, Producer.

Theatre To Think About

by Suzan-Lori Parks

Director

Belinda "Be" Boyd

Executive Producer

Penny Bank

Stage Manager

Suzanne Clement Jones*

Scenic Design

Seth Howard

Costume Design

Brian O’Keefe

Lighting Design

Kirk Bookman

Sound Design

Roger Arnold

Fight Choreographer

David A. Hyland

Topdog/Underdog: A Conversation with Director

Belinda “Be” Boyd

by Sheryl Flatow

In Suzan-Lori Parks’ funny and tragic Pulitzer Prize winning Topdog/Underdog, African American brothers Lincoln (Link) and Booth are ensnared in an endless loop of poverty, hustling, and violence. They’ve been fending for themselves since their parents abandoned them when they were teenagers, and live together in Booth’s seedy boarding house room. Lincoln, a master of the con game three-card monte, threw in his cards for a “legitimate” job as an Abraham Lincoln impersonator in whiteface and stovepipe hat, making $314 a week at an arcade where customers pretend to shoot the president. Booth, who has an aversion to work and desires only to learn how to become the best three-card monte hustler on the street, wants his brother to teach him the art of the con. Meanwhile, he spends his time shoplifting. The brothers alternately support and disparage each other – often quite hilariously – as they look back at their troubled past and look ahead to an uncertain future.

Topdog/Underdog is a play about sibling rivalry, about a modern-day Cain and Abel, about one more dysfunctional family. But it is about so much more: Parks didn’t name her characters Lincoln and Booth for nothing. “The play is about the failure of the American Dream,” says director Belinda “Be” Boyd, “and specifically how the failure of the American Dream affects this African American family. The parents gave their sons $500 apiece when they left, which indicates to me that they weren’t poverty stricken. So, I think that at one time the parents were building something and bought into the American Dream. And then whatever they were building fell through, and the family fractured. Imagine that abandonment. What do you do with your pain? How do you navigate what life has to offer you?”

Lincoln and Booth had no safety net and fell through the cracks. Lacking adult guidance when they were coming of age, they never had the opportunity to nurture the skills they needed to make something of themselves. Lincoln is smart, and under different circumstances might very well have led the successful life he craves. But he can’t get there. Booth has an outsized personality but is insecure, impulsive, aggressive, and angry, and has no tools to help him get out of his own way.

“At the very beginning of the play, Parks tells us who Link and Booth are,” Boyd says. “She doesn’t apologize for their challenges and flaws, the things that keep them from functioning in the world in a way that is healthy. We think we know them right off the bat, but we find out so much more about them as she continues to peel back the layers. What she does so beautifully is she lets us see their hearts, what they think, how they feel, and what could be. They have this familial relationship that is both incredibly tight and incredibly fragile, and she makes us love them and bond with them, while making us angry and frustrated and at times disgusted with them. She takes us on this incredible journey with these two young men, and we see them and treat them as human beings.”

Boyd directed Topdog/Underdog once before, in 2010, and her view of the play has shifted over time. “When I first directed it, I thought we were on the cusp of understanding the plight of the young, urban African American man,” she says. “I thought this play was educational, and would help enlighten audiences. Today, I still think of it is an educational piece, but I also think of it as historical. I thought things would be very different by now for African American men. And in many ways, they are. But then again, in many ways they aren’t. One example: the Black teenager in Kansas City who went to pick up his brother, went to the wrong house, rang the doorbell, and was shot by a White man. Too many people still don’t get it. I think that the people who come to see this play really want to educate themselves and try to have more insight into how to navigate humanity.”

Boyd is delighted to be back at PBD following her debut last season with Intimate Apparel. “That was such a beautiful experience,” she says. “I was blessed with an incredible cast. I laughed a lot and enjoyed crafting the piece. I loved the energy of the theatre and the people and the audience – I was so impressed by the audience. They’re so engaged, so hungry, and so appreciative. I feel like I’ve found kindred spirits here, a theatrical family.”

by Suzan-Lori Parks

Palm Beach Dramaworks presents CAST

Lincoln...........................George Anthony Richardson*

Booth......................................................Jovon Jacobs*

SETTING Here TIME Now

Production Crew

Stage Manager ..................................................................... Suzanne Clement Jones*

Assistant Stage Manager.................................................................... Tyler B. Osgood

Head Stagehand........................................................................... Caroline Castleman

Wardrobe Supervisor .............................................................................John Santillan

Head Electrician ...................................................................................... Addie Pawlick

The videotaping or making of electronic or other audio/visual recordings of this production and distributing recordings or streams in any medium, including the internet, is strictly prohibited, a violation of the authors(‘s) rights and actionable under United States copyright law. For more information visit https://www.concordtheatricals.com/resources/protectingartists.

George Anthony Richardson

(Lincoln) is an artist based in NYC. A 2021 graduate of Juilliard, his recent acting credits include Tanya Barfield’s Blue Door and Hansol Jung’s Cardboard Piano. He made his Broadway debut earlier this season in the acclaimed revival of Topdog/Underdog, and is honored to revisit this enthralling story of two brothers working desperately to transcend the tragic phenomenon of domination. He sends a huge Thank You to God, his family, his team (Dan, Colin, John), and the entire cast and crew of Topdog/Underdog at PBD.

JOVON JACOBS (Booth) is elated to be returning to PBD, where he was most recently seen in last season’s production of Intimate Apparel. He is a Silver Palm Award recipient (2019) for his performances in Fences (PBD), A Raisin in the Sun (New City Players), and Skeleton Crew (GableStage). Other regional credits include Last Night in Inwood and The Glass Piano (Theatre Lab), The Royale and It’s A Wonderful Life (Barter Theatre), Sweat and Ain’t Misbehavin’ (CCT Theatre), Summer Shorts (City Theatre/Adrienne Arsht Center, 2019 and 2022), Boesman and Lena (Mad Cow Theatre), All The Way (Actors’ Playhouse), Informed Consent (GableStage), One Night In Miami (Miami New Drama), and Five Guys Named Moe (M Ensemble Company). Film credits include No Vacancy (Prime Video), Love on the Reef, and Rap Sh!t (HBO). Jovon holds a BFA in acting and is a proud member of Actors’ Equity. @singaboi_jj.

BELINDA

"BE"

BOYD (Director) is excited to return to PBD after directing Intimate Apparel last season. As a show director for the Walt Disney Company, she directed theme park shows as well as productions for Disney Event Group and the Disney Institute. Additional professional directing includes productions in New York, Texas, Toronto, Tennessee, North Carolina, Kentucky, Vermont, and Florida. A member of Actors’ Equity, Be has performed for several Shakespeare companies. Her voice-over and commercial credits include KFC, Wycliffe, Disney, Thrifty Car Rental, Belk, Zora’s Roots (Zora Neale Hurston documentary), Food Lion, and The Gallery series. A member of the Dramatists Guild, she was commissioned by Orlando Repertory Theatre to create a script about the Ocoee massacre. She will also be seen in the title role in an upcoming documentary about Mary McLeod Bethune. Be has been a consultant for corporations/ companies including Tourism for South Africa, FARO (3D technology, engineering, and computer simulation), and Mursion (virtual training).

performingarts.cah.ucf.edu/faculty-staff/ profile/334

SUZAN-LORI PARKS (Playwright) is the first African-American woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Other awards include a MacArthur “Genius” Grant and the prestigious Gish Prize. Theatre includes Topdog/Underdog (Pulitzer), adaptation of Porgy and Bess (Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical), 365 Days/365 Plays, Father Comes Home from the Wars (Part 1, 2 and 3), The Book of Grace, The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World, Imperceptible Mutabilities in the Third Kingdom, Venus, Unchain My Heart: The Ray Charles Musical, The America Play,

Watch Me Work, In the Blood, White Noise, Sally & Tom, Plays for the Plague Years, and The Harder They Come. Film: Girl 6, The United States vs. Billie Holiday. TV: Genius: Aretha (creator/writer/showrunner). Novel: Getting Mother’s Body. Parks writes songs and fronts her band Sula & The Noise. She credits James Baldwin, her writing teacher and mentor, for starting her on the path of playwriting.

SUZANNE CLEMENT

JONES (Stage Manager) has been stage managing at PBD since All My Sons in 2011, the company’s first production at the Don & Ann Brown Theatre. Recent shows for PBD include 4000 Miles, The Belle of Amherst, Intimate Apparel, The People Downstairs, Ordinary Americans, The House of Blue Leaves, and House on Fire. At Maltz Jupiter Theatre: Oliver!, Sweet Charity, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, An Inspector Calls, Brighton Beach Memoirs, and I Hate Hamlet. As a lighting designer, productions include The Subject was Roses, The Price, and That Championship Season at PBD; Cane and The Cha-Cha of a Camel Spider at Florida Stage; Death and the Maiden and The Birds at Mosaic Theatre; and Ring of Fire at Arts Garage. She earned a Carbonell Award for her lighting design of Dark Rapture in 1995. Suzanne has an MFA in design from Northwestern University, is proud to be a member of Actors’ Equity Association, and is presently leading the South Florida Equity Community.

SETH HOWARD (Scenic Designer) is a freelance scenic designer based out of Orlando. He has designed many regional productions and themed experiences across the country, and is excited to be joining PBD for this production of Topdog/Underdog. Some of his recent design credits include The Mountaintop and Deathtrap (Constellation Stage & Screen), Jersey Boys (Theatre Aspen), Once on This Island (Charleston Stage), and Princess & Frog and The Wiz Jr. (The Children’s Theatre of Cincinnati). He received his BFA in stage design, props, and scenic art from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM).

@sethhowarddesign / sethhowarddesigns.com

BRIAN O’KEEFE (Costume Design) began designing for PBD in 2009, became costume shop manager and resident designer in 2015, and has designed over 60 shows here. He has received 11 Carbonell Award nominations, winning for Les Liaisons Dangereuses, The Lion in Winter, and A Doll's House, and was a Silver Palm Award recipient in 2022. A graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill, he spent his earlier career as a patternmaker for the Shakespeare Theatre in Washington, DC and major costume houses in New York, including Barbara Matera, Ltd., Parsons-Meares, Michael-Jon Costumes, and Eaves-Brooks. He was later resident designer, principal patternmaker, and shop manager for Seaside Music Theatre in Daytona Beach, spending 16 years designing over 75 productions and supervising 90 more. Other regional design credits: Playmakers Repertory Theatre, Orlando Repertory Theatre, Winter Park Playhouse, St. Augustine's Limelight Theatre, University of Central Florida. Other regional patterning credits: Alabama and Utah Shakespeare Festivals, and Stages St. Louis.

KIRK BOOKMAN (Lighting Design) For PBD, he has designed August: Osage County, The Science of Leaving Omaha, Twelve Angry Men, 4000 Miles, The Belle of Amherst, Intimate Apparel, The Duration, Almost, Maine, The People Downstairs, A Streetcar Named Desire, The House of Blue Leaves, Equus, Satchmo at the Waldorf, Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill, and Buried Child. Maltz Jupiter Theatre: Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Thoroughly Modern Millie, and Glengarry Glen Ross. NYC: American Dance Machine at the Joyce Theater; Closer Than Ever at The York Theatre Company; Company with the New York Philharmonic starring Neil Patrick Harris and Patti LuPone (subsequently broadcast in movie theatres nationwide); Charles Busch’s The Divine Sister, Shanghai Moon, and The Tribute Artist Broadway: The Sunshine Boys (with Jack Klugman and Tony Randall), The Gin Game (with Julie Harris and Charles Durning), and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. San Francisco Symphony and PBS: The Thomashefskys with Michael Tilson Thomas. Many productions for Pittsburgh Public Theater and Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park.

ROGER ARNOLD (Sound Design) has been a freelance sound engineer and designer for over 35 years. He is a voting member of both NARAS (the Grammys) and the Audio Engineering Society (AES.org). Roger became an educator of music technology in 2006 and was the senior music technology professor at the University of New Haven. During his tenure there, he designed and provided sound for The Rocky Horror Show, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, and Spring Awakening. In 2018, he relocated to South Florida, and in 2019 he became sound engineer and resident sound designer for PBD, where his credits include August: Osage County, The Science of Leaving Omaha, Twelve Angry Men, 4000 Miles, The Belle of Amherst, Intimate Apparel, The Duration, Almost, Maine, The People Downstairs, and Skylight. BA in music and sound recording, University of New Haven. MA in music technology, University of Newcastle.

DAVID A. HYLAND (Fight Choreographer) is the Chair of the Theatre Department at Palm Beach State College. He was previously seen at PBD as Sheriff Deon Gilbeau in August: Osage County (he was also the fight choreographer), The Visitor in The Spitfire Grill, Herr Fahrenkopf in The Night of the Iguana, Sam Craig in Our Town, Karl Lindner in A Raisin in the Sun, and Frank in All My Sons. Additionally, David was recently the fight choreographer for Twelve Angry Men and Almost, Maine, understudying the male roles in the latter. He has also been seen in South Florida at Theatre Lab, playing Roger in Tar Beach. Other notable credits include Edward in Someone Who'll Watch Over Me, Eddie in Fool for Love, and Benedick and Dogberry in a six-actor version of Much Ado About Nothing. David also performs regularly with an improv theatre group called Mod 27 and holds an MFA in acting from The Ohio State University.

TYLER B. OSGOOD (Assistant Stage Manager) is excited to be spending his second season with PBD. Regional credits include the Young Playwrights 10-Minute and 1-Minute Play Contests (2023), the One Humanity Tour (2022), August: Osage County, The Science of Leaving Omaha, Twelve Angry Men, 4000 Miles, The Belle of Amherst, Intimate Apparel, The Duration, Almost, Maine, and The People Downstairs at PBD; The Sound of Music, Songs Under the Stars, The Very Hungry Caterpillar Show, Holiday Heroes 2019, A Christmas Carol 2019, and Sunday in the Park with George at ZACH Theatre; A Wrinkle in Time, A Christmas Carol 2018, Detroit ’67, and The Age of Innocence at McCarter Theatre. Tyler is a proud graduate of Texas State University, where he earned his BFA in theatre technology and production.

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT

Actors’ Equity Association (AEA) was founded in 1913 as the first of the American actor unions. Equity’s mission is to advance, promote and foster the art of live theatre as an essential component of our society. Today, Equity represents more than 40,000 actors, singers, dancers and stage managers working in hundreds of theatres across the United States. Equity members are dedicated to working in the theatre as a profession, upholding the highest artistic standards.

Equity negotiates wages and working conditions and provides a wide range of benefits including health and pension plans for its members. Through its agreement with Equity, this theatre has committed to the fair treatment of the actors and state managers employed in this production.

AEA is a member of the AFL-CIO and is affiliated with FIA, an international organization of performing arts unions. For more information,visit www.actorsequity.org.