PlayNotes - Season 50, Issue 3 - The Play That Goes Wrong

PlayNotes

Discussion Series Join us for a Book Club-style Page to Stage with the Portland Public Library. Check out your copy of the script and join us two weeks before previews of each Mainstage Production. Scripts are available at the reference desk at the Main Branch of the Portland Public Library. This year discussions will be held in the Rines Room at 5pm two weeks before a show opens. Feel free to come and chat about the plays with Literary Manager, Todd Brian Backus; his Directing and Dramaturgy Apprentices, and special guests. Visit portlandlibrary.com/programs-events/ for more information.

The Artistic Perspective, hosted by Artistic Director Anita Stewart, is an opportunity for audience members to delve deeper into the themes of the show through conversation with special guests. A different scholar, visiting artist, playwright, or other expert will join the discussion each time. The Artistic Perspective discussions are held after the first Sunday matinee performance.

Curtain Call discussions offer a rare opportunity for audience members to talk about the production with the performers. Through this forum, the audience and cast explore topics that range from the process of rehearsing and producing the text to character development to issues raised by the work Curtain Call discussions are held after the second Sunday matinee performance.

All discussions are free and open to the public. Show attendance is not required.

To subscribe to a discussion series performance, please call the Box Office at 207.774.0465.

Hannah Cordes, Paula Vogel, Anita Stewart, and Todd Brian Backus in a talkback, Portland Stage Company.

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PlayNotes

The Play That Goes Wrong

by Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer & Henry Shields PlayNotes Season 50 Editorial Staff Editor in Chief Todd Brian Backus Contributors Ellis Collier, Julia Jennings, Ellery Kenyon, Alex Oleksy, Jessi Stier Copy Editor Adam Thibodeau Cover Illustration James A. Hadley Portland Stage Company Educational Programs, like PlayNotes, are generously supported through the annual donations of hundreds of individuals and businesses, as well as special funding from:

The Simmons Foundation Susie Konkel Harry Konkel Harold & Betty Cottel Family Fund PlayNotes

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Table of Contents

Table of Contents Letter from the Editors

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Portland Stage's The Play That Goes Wrong About the Play

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Pre-Show Activites & Post-Show Activites

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About the Characters

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An Interview with Director Kevin R. Free

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Community Connections: An Interview with Michael Trautman

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How'd They Do That? Set tricks in The Play That Goes Wrong

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The World of The Play That Goes Wrong Murder, Mysteries, and Mayhem!

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British Panto and Audience Interaction

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Glossary

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Digging Deeper The History of Mischief

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The Play's the Thing

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Extras

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Recommended Resources

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Education and Outreach at PSC

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Letter from the Editors

Letter from the Editors Dear PlayNotes Readers, Welcome to a new year and new edition of Playnotes!

In this issue, we explore the world of The Play That Goes Wrong, a whodunit comedy from Mischief Theatre in which the ficticious Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society attempts to hold fast to the motto "the show must go on" while presenting The Murder At Haversham Manor with increasingly disasterous results.

Want to learn about this production of The Play That Goes Wrong? Head over to our "Interview with Director Kevin R. Free” (pg. 12), and our interview with movement coordinator Michael Trautman (pg. 14).

Curious about the inspiration for this play? Check out the article "Murder, Mysteries, and Mayhem!" (pg. 18) or find out about the history of British Pantomime with "British Panto and Audience Interaction" (pg. 20).

When compiling each issue of PlayNotes, we strive to provide articles and interviews that give you insight into what the process has been like behind the scenes (see articles in Portland Stage's The Play That Goes Wrong), contain pertinent information about the play’s setting and major themes (“The World of The Play That Goes Wrong”), and provide deeper dives into specific subjects that compelled our literary department (“Digging Deeper”). We include a list of books, plays, and other media that we hope audiences will access for more cultural content that relates to the play (“Recommended Resources”).

We are so excited to have you join us in welcoming our 50th season, and we hope you enjoy seeing The Play That Goes Wrong.

Sincerely yours, The Portland Stage Literary Department Todd Brian Backus Julia Jennings Alex Oleksy Jessi Stier

PlayNotes

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Portland Stage’s The Play That Goes Wrong

About the Play

by Jessi Stier

The Play That Goes Wrong (originally titled The Murder Before Christmas) is a 2012 play

by Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer, and Henry Shields of Mischief Theatre Company, a UKbased comedic theater troupe. The play was devised with the goal of creating a piece that depicts real-life mishaps that can occur in theatrical productions. It has been running on the West End in London since 2012, has gone on five tours of the UK, ran on Broadway from 2017 to 2019, and is currently running OffBroadway at New World Stages.

The show is written as a play-within-a-play, following the adventurous opening night of the fictitious Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society’s production of the 1920s whodunit mystery The Murder at Haversham Manor. The playwithin-a-play takes place in winter of 1922, on the evening of the engagement party for the wealthy Charles Haversham and Florence Colleymore. A few hours into the celebration, Thomas Colleymore (Florence's brother) and Perkins (the butler) head to the lounge to check on the groom-to-be, only to find him dead. Horrified, the two summon Inspector

Carter to put the clues together and track down the murderer by the end of the second act. However, as the play unfolds, a more dire mystery emerges—will the performance make it that far in one piece?

The troupe's director, Chris, welcomes the audience to the performance as the crew is still making last-minute adjustments to the set. The first actor to enter trips on his way through the door, and the other actors can’t open the door at all. These first blips are only the beginning of a series of ever-increasing mishaps, including missed lines, breaking character, props out of place, and more. The cast wants so badly for everything to go right, but it seems like the play might just…go wrong.

Through a series of chaos in both plot and performance, this endearing and hysterical playwithin-a-play invites viewers to embrace uproar, hilarity, and heart. We are thrilled to welcome audiences to a piece that reminds viewers of both the beauty and the insanity of live theater—and why it’s so important to support it.

Erica Murphy, Elizabeth Sarsfield, and Dean Linnard (AEA) in rehearsal for The Play That Goes Wrong. Photo by: James A. Hadley.

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Portland Stage’s The Play That Goes Wrong

Pre-Show Questions

by Ellis Collier & Ellery Kenyon 1. This show is a type of comedy called farce, which is closely related to pantomime. Read the article about Pantomime (pg. 20) and do your own research on these two styles of comedy. What are their differences? What is similar about them?

2. The Play That Goes Wrong also parodies live theater. What makes something a parody? What is the point of parody?

3. Because so much of The Play That Goes Wrong is about, well, things going wrong, a lot of focus is put on the physical set. In some ways, the stage and set is a character itself. What makes something or someone a character? How could an inanimate object be a character?

4. The Play in The Play that Goes Wrong is a Whodunit mystery. Why might the writers have chosen a Whodunit as their play to go wrong? Read the article about the history of murder mysteries (pg. 18) and discuss how it has evolved.

5. In most plays, the relationship between the performers and the audience is the same. How would you describe that relationship/dynamic? This show constantly “breaks the fourth wall” and acknowledges the audience. How does that change the relationship between the audience and the performers?

Post-Show Questions

by Ellis Collier & Ellery Kenyon

1. Many of the actors in this show play two roles at once: #1: The characters of The Murder at Haversham Manor as well as #2: The actors in the theater troupe putting on the play.

Even when most (or all) of their lines were “in character” as #1, how did they communicate or show their personalities as #2?

2. What role did The Murder at Haversham Manor have in your experience of The Play That Goes Wrong? Were you interested in learning who the killer was? Did you follow the story of the mystery?

3. Were there any mistakes you thought might be real? Were there any of the things that went wrong that you saw coming? Were there things that you expected to go wrong that didn’t?

4. Did anything happen in the show that you’re not sure how it was accomplished? If you were doing a version of this show yourself, are there any tricks/things-to-go-wrong that you would want to include? How might you pull it off?

5. There is a common saying in the theater that “the show must go on,” meaning that no matter what happens, or what mistakes get made, that things must continue. What do you think the playwright of The Play That Goes Wrong might be trying to say about the idea of “the show must go on?”

PlayNotes

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Portland Stage’s The Play That Goes Wrong

About the Characters

by Jessi Stier

In The Play That Goes Wrong, our cast plays members of the Cornley Drama Society (CDS), as well as their characters in The Murder at Haversham Manor (TMaHM). Below you'll find photos of the cast, their names, and a little about the characters they're playing.

Actor: Khalil LeSaldo CDS Member: Jonathan Role in TMaHM: Charles Haversham Jonathan’s primary career is as a model, and he is excited to learn transferable skills by appearing in The Murder at Haversham Manor.

He is one of the more level-headed members of the troupe.

Charles Haversham is engaged to Florence Colleymore and the owner of Haversham Manor.

Actor: Nicholas Mongiardo-Cooper CDS Member: Robert Role in TMaHM: Thomas Colleymore Robert has been a member of the Cornley Drama Society for three years, and uses the Stanislavsky acting method. He is very passionate about theater, and loves the spotlight.

He is sometimes in rivalry with Chris (as both are senior members of the company), but Robert sees himself as the lead actor of the troupe.

Thomas Colleymore is Charles’ old school friend.

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Portland Stage’s The Play That Goes Wrong

Actor Name: Max Samuels CDS Member: Dennis Role in TMaHM: Perkins Dennis joined the Cornley Drama Society due to being rejected by all other extracurricular groups. The Murder at Haversham Manor is his first show with the group. He is anxious and soft-spoken, but eager to connect with peers who are interested in theater.

Perkins is Charles’ butler.

Actor: Ross Cowan CDS Member: Chris Role in TMaHM: Inspector Carter Chris is the newly elected head of the Cornley Drama Society and the director of Murder at Haversham Manor. He is the longest-running member of the troupe, and considers himself a very serious actor. He is dedicated, but can lose his temper easily if things do not go as planned.

Inspector Carter is an esteemed local investigator.

PlayNotes

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Portland Stage’s The Play That Goes Wrong

Actor: Erica Murphy CDS Member: Annie Role in TMaHM: Stage Manager Annie is the stage manager, and runs all backstage activity of the production by herself. As the unsung hero of the troupe, she has also designed, built, painted, and costumed every single show for the group over the last three years. She is hardworking and deeply determined.

Actor: Dean Linnard CDS Member: Max Role in TMaHM: Cecil Haversham &

Arthur the Gardener The Murder at Haversham Manor is Max’s first production with the troupe. Max is very enthusiastic and goofy, and loves to vamp with the audience for a good laugh—often paying more attention to them than his scenework.

Cecil Haversham is Charles’ brother. Arthur the Gardener is the gardener at Haversham Manor.

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Portland Stage’s The Play That Goes Wrong

Actor: Laura Darrell CDS Member: Sandra Role in TMaHM: Florence Colleymore Sandra has been performing with the Cornley Drama Society for many seasons, and often gets leading roles in the troupe’s productions. She is ambitious, and has wanted to be an actress from a young age. Robert has said she flirts with everyone, which she is offended by—yet she greatly enjoys playing promiscuous roles.

Florence Colleymoore is Charles’ fiancée and Thomas’ sister.

Actor: J.Stephen Brantley CDS Member: Trevor Role in TMaHM: Light & Sound Operator Trevor works on the crew side of the Cornley Drama Society. As one of the few members trying to make everything function properly backstage, he is often frustrated and on edge.

PlayNotes

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Portland Stage’s The Play That Goes Wrong

An Interview with the Director Kevin R. Free

Edited for Length and Clarity by Assistant Director Jessi Stier Jessi Stier (JS): Can you tell us a little bit about your theatrical journey?

Kevin R. Free (KRF): I started my journey with a lot of things—singing, acting, writing plays, and directing. I’ve been doing them all at the same time, nearly since the start of my career.

Someone told me early on in my career to always get on the bus that’s moving, so that’s what I did. The acting bus was the bus that moved the fastest—people were hiring me to be an actor, so that was what I was doing, but in my spare time I was doing all of those other things. In 1999, I signed with my manager who asked if there were things I wanted to do besides acting. I said yes, and listed all of the things I had already been doing, and that I wanted to do, and his response was, okay, so I want you to do all of those things, and tell me that you’re doing them, because it’s my job to juggle all of those balls and help you make all of those things happen. So our relationship became about me doing all these things at one time. For my first job here in 2017, I directed the play Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill. When I left Portland, I went straight to Philadelphia to act in a play, and then in the middle of that rehearsal process, I went back to NY for opening night of a play I had written. So, when people ask me what I do now, I call myself an artist or a theatermaker. More specifically, a Black queer theatermaker. In my work, I focus on socially relevant world premieres, and I love doing anything off the beaten path. My journey has actually taught me that plays like The Play That Goes Wrong are also socially relevant in their own way, in the way they help us escape from all the bad news today.

JS: Tell us a little bit about your process as a director. How did you approach this script?

KRF: When a script is assigned to me, I read it to see if I feel I can bring anything to it. A lot of times I can visualize staging when I read it—if I can visualize it, it’s pretty clear to me that I can direct it. After that, I start thinking about the frame of the play—I think every play needs

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Director Kevin R. Free.

one. To me, the frame is a metaphor for the show itself, so that when people are watching it, they’re getting the experience of what is happening on the stage. For example, there’s a play called Dot that I did as an actor about a senior citizen experiencing dementia. There’s a lot of overlapping text that is difficult to understand, serving as a tool for the audience to also experience the disorientation that the main character is experiencing.

I often think about how I create a metaphor in rehearsal for actors to make the play make even more sense, and how I can translate that metaphor to the audience. In this play, I wanted to be able to really call out the things that are funny and going wrong in our process, and be transparent about that in a way that puts the actors in a mindset of the joy of the play going wrong—which I hope the audience will experience too.

JS: Can you describe your vision for this play?

KRF: The vision for me was to create a piece that allows people to most importantly experience joy. In casting the play, we wanted to make sure that the people we cast seemed like they were willing, and that they were fun. In general, I like to cast people who seem game— and I love when people are willing to engage me in conversation. When we engage each other in conversation, if I make a joke and they laugh about it even through their nerves, that’s great.

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Portland Stage’s The Play That Goes Wrong JS: This play has a lot of physical comedy.

What has it been like to stage a piece with so many moving parts?

That Goes Wrong has been different from your previous productions—and, what about Portland Stage keeps bringing you back?

KRF: In general, theater has more moving parts than people think. For this play, I’ve had to study a bit more before rehearsal—for every ten things that I remember, I forget two! The part that has been really lovely and refreshing is the level of collaboration. I love when people have offers, I love when people want to try out different things, I love when everybody has an opinion about what a moment should look like or feel like. What’s clear to me about this play is that it was made by a group of collaborators who trusted each other, which I think is a great idea. So, leading this process has been really great because I was transparent—I said yes, I want all the offers—but I also understand that actors want someone to make a final decision, and I can do that, too. Overall, this has been an illustration of a process that I’ve always wanted to have. I think when you're Black and queer, and you make a lot of work about how that marginalization affects yourself, people who are marginalized, and people who are not marginalized, the release of doing a show like this is really exciting. The catharsis comes from the idea that even if we’re marginalized, we’re still able to have fun and tell a story about having fun.

KRF: My last production here was Sherlock Holmes, which also had eight cast members.

That was really great. When we got the eight people in the room, I realized that I preferred a larger crowd. I’ve directed a lot of two-handers and a lot of solo pieces, and I love those things.

But, if you’re directing smaller cast things, you need to know that you really want to be in the same room with those people all the time. In directing a larger-cast piece, it really becomes more about the group. As in, what is the group dynamic, and what are you trying to teach them about how to be in this play? It becomes less about personalities. Additionally, when I first got here, I knew the play but I also wasn’t sure exactly where the focus was going to be in all of the scenes. So I’m learning that as we’re doing it, which makes it different than my previous productions.

JS: What has it been like to collaborate with a movement coordinator Michael Trautman?

KRF: It’s been really great! I think we figured out our system two or three days in. For me, it has been about having a background in musical theater, noting what action has to happen, and then saying to Michael, “Okay, now you go make it look like this.” Like, this is how they enter and this is how they exit, and they need to do these actions by a certain point. I think it has been very helpful. I also think it’s a testament to the actors’ experience that they are able to work with more than one leader. I don’t think all of them are performers who are used to having a larger team, with people like a choreographer or musical director. They’ve been really great with it.

JS: This is your fifth time at Portland Stage.

What about your time working on The Play

PlayNotes

I keep coming back for several reasons. First, because I keep being asked back! I also keep coming back because I like working here.

I like the people that I’ve met, the ones I return to, and the new people every time I come in. I also really like working in a place that has resources—a big rehearsal room, a thriving local arts community. And the food in Portland? I just like working here!

JS: What are you most excited for audiences to see in this production?

KRF: I think I’m most excited for audiences to experience a company of actors who lose control. I’m super excited for all the things that break and go wrong in this play, and for people to see that. We’re rehearsing it so that it’s controlled, we’re being safe, but I think one of the beautiful things about this play is that it is about things not going as planned, but people being joyful as that happens, and that is delightful to see. So, the joy and the love of making theater is at the heart of this. I’m really excited for an audience to experience these eight people who love what they do, doing what they do in front of them.

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Portland Stage’s The Play That Goes Wrong

Community Connections: An Interview with Michael Trautman Edited for length and clarity by Alex Oleksy

Warning: This article contains some spoilers for the set tricks in The Play That Goes Wrong. We recommend reading after you have seen the play.

Farces like The Play That Goes Wrong are physically demanding, as the cast of characters navigate countless entrances and exits, falling set pieces, and their agitated counterparts. To ensure the show runs smoothly, movement coordinators such as Michael Trautman (also known as his clown persona, “King Pong”) aid in every step of the rehearsal process. We sat down with Trautman to learn how he helped make sure the play goes wrong the right way every night.

Alex Oleksy (AO): To start us off, could you tell us a bit about your experience with clowning?

Michael Trautman (MT): I started in the ’70s. I'd gone to college unsuccessfully—I was going to be a lawyer and realized I wouldn't enjoy it that much. I started taking a mime class because a friend encouraged me and thought I'd be good at it. This was 1976 and mime was at its peak in popularity, [Marcel] Marceau was on Johnny Carson almost every week. We started a company in Kansas City and had a couple of actors, a dancer, a Tai Chi teacher, some jugglers, and even a magician.

So I started picking up these other peripheral skills just being in that company, working with [these performers] and learning. In those first couple of years, I took a trip to Las Vegas with my mentor and on the way back we stopped in Lawrence, Kansas, and went to see a solo clown theater performance by Demetri, who was the founder of Circus Knie in Switzerland and a very famous clown. We saw that and I said, “Oh, that's what I want to do.” All the things I'd already learned, the mime and the magic and the juggling, those were all physical skills that lend themselves to clowning.

AO: What drew you to clowning?

MT: There was a strong feeling in the mime world to have mime be a very pure art form.

You had to have the white face, the striped shirt, you had to do only illusionary work, you had to be silent. I loved the movement, but I didn't care about any of the rest of it. The clown nose was great to me because I had some great movement I could use, but I also wanted to talk if I needed to or say a word or make noise. Clown, as I learned in training and taking workshops, reaches back to our very beginnings as social beings. Every culture has a clown of some sort. The Hopi Indians had this “backwards clown” character who would wash off in sand and get dirty in the water. There were religious clowns in the Renaissance and all through that period. They were there to remind us that you're still human and our follies and failures are what we have in common.

Michael Trautman demonstrating stunts on the set of The Play That Goes Wrong.

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Portland Stage’s The Play That Goes Wrong AO: How did clowning help you find your way to becoming a movement coordinator?

AO: How do you develop trust and relationships with the performers you work with?

MT: I moved out to the East Coast in the early ’80s specifically to be close to Maine because a guy named Tony Montanaro had founded the Celebration Barn Theater up in South Paris. So in the summer of ’83, I went up to Celebration and took a five-week workshop with Tony, and it just opened my mind and soul. I went back and did another one that summer, and then the third one that summer, and then over the years I probably took a dozen or 15 different workshops with Tony. He taught me how to work with a director and also helped me with clarifying the creative process. How do you write and how do you create ideas and how do you work with a director? So all of that gave me something of value to “regular theater.”

MT: The first day in rehearsal, they gave me three hours to do a workshop with the actors.

I assumed they didn't know anything, and said, “Here's what we're going to do.” When I teach a fall, for example, there are steps to go through: first we do this, this leg goes here, that leg goes there. You can break all of that down to individual movements. I lead a very detailed progression through some movement work, and then you speed that up a little.

Not everybody is capable of the same exact movements, but everybody is using the same gestures. The vocabulary is there and we have to find it for each actor.

AO: How would you describe the role of movement coordinator?

MT: Clowning is a language. Gesture is, for me, the only really universal language we have. You can travel around the world and get by with five spoken words and your body. When we don’t know the word for the telephone, we turn into mimes immediately. So my real job is to help performers increase their movement vocabulary.

AO: What aspects of clowning and mime do you bring into your direction for this piece?

MT: Well, slapstick work is a bit different from fight choreography because, with fight choreography, there's more conflict and the comedy’s generally more accidental, right?

Then there's the idea of how the body reacts at any moment, which goes back to the mime training. The idea is that if I'm pushed or poked or hit or punched in the movement, my body reacts by moving the part that's impacted first, so that if I'm slapped, it's the head that turns and the rest of the body is going to follow where the head goes, right? I know that this is what's going to happen, how the rest of the body is going to react.

PlayNotes

AO: The script of The Play That Goes Wrong talks about how everything that the actors do to keep the show going should be genuine. How do you keep that in mind during movement rehearsals?

MT: It's all part and parcel. For example, one of the characters in the play is kind of a newbie, and he's very excited. He's in front of an audience and all of a sudden he's getting a positive response to doing something. He's not an experienced actor, so his slaps and hits are not necessarily a good illusion, but he's enjoying himself. He plays so much with the audience that he's discovered, “Oh, I can do this. Oh, I hit my head. Oh, and they liked it and I can hit it again.” That character drives the vocabulary of what it looks like. It all meshes together and informs everything.

AO: What most excites you about this show?

MT: It's a challenge. I mean, there's a lot of great things. One is working with professional actors.

The vast majority of my teaching is with people who are not yet professionals, or students, or kids, which I love doing. It's a treat to work with professional actors and have an ensemble to collaborate with. It's exciting to come in and say, “Okay, how are we going to do this?” Figuring that out and working through that and finding moments for the actors to help.

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Portland Stage’s The Play That Goes Wrong

How'd They Do That? Set tricks in The Play That Goes Wrong

by Julia Jennings

Warning: This article contains some spoilers for the set tricks in The Play That Goes Wrong. We recommend reading after you have seen the play.

How do you build a set that needs to fall apart the same way every night, and then be put back together again once the show is over?

The technical direction and design team had their work cut out for them with The Play That Goes Wrong. I got to sit down with our experts as the set was being constructed, and they gave me a behind-the-scenes look at the method behind the magic.

Anita Stewart, Artistic Director of Portland Stage, is the Scenic Designer for The Play That Goes Wrong. The experience of designing this show was very different from a typical process. Rather than beginning with an idea of what the play feels like and designing from there, this play required extensive research into how the original company, Mischief Theatre, constructed their set, and what other theater companies have done since then, as each of the set tricks are very carefully prescribed by the script. The design process also required close collaboration with Michael Trautman, the show’s Movement Coordinator, who choreographed the physical stunts performed by the actors.

The chaise longue on the set model of the play that goes wrong, built by scenic design apprentice Isee Martine.

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Because so many of the tricks in The Play That Goes Wrong rely on the actors interacting with the set in a very carefully designed manner, many of the set pieces had to be measured to fit the actors’ bodies. Pieces such as the grandfather clock, which must open up to hold actor Laura Darrell, or the secondstory platform, under which the cast’s taller members must be able to walk, had to be designed with these specific actors in mind.

Technical Director Ted Gallant also explained that the platform is very specifically weighted so that the actors must hit the exact same place in their blocking each time, or else the platform will be thrown out of balance.

With this in mind, the actors began rehearsing on the set as it was still being finished, during the second week of rehearsal, which is considerably earlier in the process than would be typical. Anita commented that this had been an essential element of the process, as it allows the design team to modify and adjust the set pieces as they’re still being built. For example, while the actors were rehearsing on stage, they realized that the chaise longue needed to be significantly narrower than they had originally realized for a moment in the show when the grandfather clock is placed over the chaise longue. Because the team was still constructing the piece when this discovery was made in rehearsal, they had time to build the chaise to be narrower, rather than scrapping the piece and rebuilding it from scratch during previews.

The construction of the set is further complicated by the fact that each piece must be able to perform several different functions for tricks throughout the show. This sentiment was echoed by Jacob Coombs, Portland Stage’s Associate Technical Director, who has been hard at work constructing the set alongside Ted and Scenic Design Apprentice Isee Martine.

Jacob noted that a unit set of this size—the interior of a house—would typically not be this big of a build. But the fact that each element

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Portland Stage’s The Play That Goes Wrong

Scenic design apprentice Isee Martine holding her set model for The Play That Goes Wrong, designed by Anita Stewart.

of the set must accomplish multiple, very specific tricks requires an incredible amount of imagination and attention to detail.

to be altered, as the theater cannot, of course, tear down and rebuild an element of the set after every performance.

Ted, who has been working at Portland Stage since 1987, explained that this show calls for several set tricks that he has never before encountered, setting it apart from many shows which repeat a similar repertoire of known tricks. For example, Ted had to custom-build door hinges from scratch because the door has to be slammed in one scene, not be able to close in another, and eventually also be lifted off its hinges. Another trick calls for a painting to repeatedly fall off the wall that holds it, until it magically is able to stick; a feat that (at the time that I spoke with him) Ted was attempting to accomplish with magnets extending through the wall.

Another added complication of this particular set is the fact that The Play That Goes Wrong is, indeed, a play-within-a-play. Isee pointed out that the set is designed to be the Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society’s set of The Murder at Haversham Manor. Of course, the set must balance the quality of this fictitious amateur theater group with the professional quality of a Portland Stage set. She said that Anita has been using the term “painterly” to describe how they want the set to look—using visible brushstrokes rather than creating a more realistically disguised set. Of course, that’s the great irony of this project: this is the play in which most things “go wrong,” but in order to accomplish that, the scenic design must be carefully tested and properly executed.

Not only must each set piece perform multiple tricks, but they also must fulfill the basic requirement of being able to be reassembled at the end of each performance. As noted by Anita, the build has been somewhat a process of trial and error—trying to make a trick work until it eventually does, or until it becomes clear that it will not be able to be safely executed, in which case, the team will pivot and only perform a piece of that particular trick.

For example, if a trick ends up breaking a piece of scenery during each show, the trick needs

PlayNotes

The entire team has been working hard to get this project on its feet, with the hope that audiences will have a lot of fun, and be delighted by the unexpected tricks brought to life. While so many characters in The Play That Goes Wrong are vying to be the star, Jacob noted “[the set] the biggest prima donna in this show.”

It requires incredibly specific and attentive care, but is also very likely to steal the show.

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The World of The Play That Goes Wrong

Murder, Mysteries & Mayhem!

by Julia Jennings

As the Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society attempts to stage The Murder at Haversham Manor, they are participating in the timehonored tradition of presenting a “whodunit” play, adored by audiences since the mid– 1800s. While The Play That Goes Wrong is anything but traditional, it exists within an extensive tradition of murder mystery plays, operating by establishing familiar character types and plot devices before ultimately surprising the audience with unexpected twists, a feature of the genre going back to its earliest iterations.

Murder has been a staple of the theater since the very first play on record, Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound (479 BC). It continued to be a popular element in Greek and Roman tragedies. Sophocles’ Oedipus the King (430 BC) was the first play to present the investigation of a murder onstage. This concept continued to grow and develop for centuries until British theater saw the first dramatizations of real-life crimes in the 1820s, and stage adaptations of bestselling suspenseful novels in the 1840s.

With the 1863 stage premiere of the 1862

novel Lady Audley’s Secret, crime investigation plays were popularized for an early modern audience. The turn of the century saw both the 1899 stage debut of Sherlock Holmes, as well as the rise of blood-and-thunder melodramas in the early 1900s.

A new wave of murder investigation dramas took hold in the 1910s with playwrights such as Henry Bernstein, David Belasco, and Bayard Veiller, who were increasingly interested in the motives and the mind of the criminal, turning the heightened melodrama into a more subtle and calculated style. The 1920s saw the golden age of detective literature, which lasted well into the 1940s, and popularized the whodunit stage drama. British playwright Edgar Wallace (wellestablished author of crime novels) was the first to coin such a series of detective dramas, followed soon by Dorothy L. Sayers with her famed detective character, Lord Peter Wimsey.

Much-lauded crime novelist Dame Agatha Christie was displeased with several early stage adaptations of her novels, and began adapting her own work, starting with And Then There

The St. Martin's Theatre in London, where The Mousetrap has been playing since March 1974.

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The World of The Play That Goes Wrong Were None. Christie’s plays have been adored

by American and British audiences alike in the decades since, continually revisited by regional and community theaters. Christie’s The Mousetrap is considered the longest-running play in theater history—still playing on the West End in London where it first premiered in 1952. In fact, the play was also supposed to transfer to Broadway in 2023, though this plan never came to fruition.

Like The Mousetrap, The Play That Goes Wrong originated on the West End in 2014 before also opening on Broadway in 2017. The longevity and box office success of these two plays points to the enduring nature of the murder mystery genre. In fact, the United States and Britain are currently experiencing something of a whodunit resurgence, with the popularity of film and TV mysteries like the Knives Out franchise, Only Murders in the Building, and Kenneth Branagh’s recent Agatha Christie adaptations, as well as books like The Thursday Murder Club, which has sold over 500,000 copies in the US alone.

What is it about the murder mystery that has kept us hooked for so many decades? Critic

Judy Berman for Time ponders that, with a murder mystery, “the underlying fantasy is of living in a safe, closed system where it’s possible to uncover each person’s true nature and all that stands in the way of justice and civic harmony is one little murder that’s sure to be solved.” In his 1944 New Yorker essay titled “Why Do People Read Detective Stories?,” Edmund Wilson begrudgingly posits that the whodunit reached such popularity during the World Wars because it simplified the “allpervasive feeling of guilt and…impending disaster” of the age by creating a conundrum in which it would be possible to precisely pin down and punish the guilty party. Indeed, the murder mystery seems to offer a type of escapism in which the action is intriguing and yet the emotional stakes remain relatively minimal, and the story culminates—more often than not—with the villain vanquished and the murder resolved.

Similarly, The Play That Goes Wrong offers its own brand of escapism: the familiar world of a murder mystery within the familiar world of a theater company. The action of the play is intriguing—the gags are designed to keep the audience on their toes. Yet though it all seems to “go wrong,” the structure of the comedy and the frame of attending a play that purposefully “goes wrong” allows us to maintain confidence that the chaos and calamities onstage will all be resolved safely, and the emotional stakes indeed remain minimal.

However, while The Play That Goes Wrong stands firmly within this well-established structure, it simultaneously challenges the genre, dissolving the structure itself. The play (literally) lifts the curtain, allowing us to scrutinize the somewhatflimsy mechanics of the whodunit—we can see and name the actors playing these familiar tropes, and we can see the prop liquid that passes as poison. The Play That Goes Wrong and its whodunit play-within-a-play peers (such as Tom Stoppard’s The Real Inspector Hound and even the 2022 film See How They Run) are perhaps the most recent and contemporary frontier of the murder mystery: a reexamining of the genre from within.

Tom Stoppard, playwright of The Real Inspector Hound.

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The World of The Play That Goes Wrong

British Panto and Audience Interaction

by Alex Oleksy

Many of the goofs and gags in The Play That Goes Wrong not only feed off the momentum between performers, but also rely on the relationship between actor and audience.

Built to elicit verbal reactions or physical engagement with the story itself, these gutbusters disrupt the American understanding of farce by eliminating the “fourth wall” of the theater and centering improvisation in every performance. This technique, found in all of Mischief Theatre’s work, finds its roots in the history of British pantomime, or “panto.”

Pantomime, which literally translates to “all kinds” of mime, is a performance form that evolved from the 14th century tradition of masque, a genre of entertainment for British nobility that included music, choreographed dances, and dialogue to honor royal courts. As masques grew in popularity, the performances grew to welcome courtiers onto the dance floor earlier into the show, blurring the lines between spectator and performer. In both celebrating the courts and subverting its own praise through teasing jokes and physical comedy, masques laid the groundwork for the British pantomime tradition and its constant interactive nature.

Slowly shifting away from audiences of nobility, panto emerged from the masque tradition in the early 17th century, exchanging choreographed dances for comical performances based around classic stories such as Peter Pan and Cinderella.

Performers combined these fables with masque’s pageantry and the archetypes of commedia dell'arte, an Italian theatrical genre known for its comic improvisations utilizing a set of stock characters. Mixing slapstick comedy and well-known literary figures, pantos welcomed groups overwhelmingly consisting of working-class Brits. They became so popular in the 17th century that theaters had to limit the production of such pageants to the winter months, transforming the genre into a cherished Christmas tradition that still prospers today. Modern panto productions

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An 1890 adveristement for a christmas pantomine show.

have drawn national and international celebrities like Pamela Anderson, David Hasselhoff, and Priscilla Presley to its raucous stages, garnering some attention from theatergoers in the United States.

A major appeal of the annual festivity, which has been lauded as the “one art form that has been invented in England” by essayist Max Beerbohm, is the encouragement of group participation. Booing, cheering, and heckling are all part of this fun, and Mischief Theatre draws on this tradition by encouraging interruption throughout The Play That Goes Wrong. Through misplaced props and fourth-wall breaks, the actors of the Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society thrive on a rambunctious audience that’s as eager to keep the show going as they are. Even in the production’s pre-curtain staging, spectators are pulled onto the stage, setting a precedent for the collaboration it hopes will flourish as the night spins further and further out of control.

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The World of The Play That Goes Wrong Audience interaction also serves as an opportunity to subvert social norms in a uniquely theatrical way and examine what we cheer for and why. For more than a century, pantos have included “dames” (men in drag) and “principal boys” (women in drag), adding to the flamboyant comedy and reassessing what we understand as “man” and “woman” on stage. While some argue that this structured use of drag has become its own reinforcement of the gender binary, The Play That Goes Wrong takes its roots to engage the audience in a short celebration of queerness. When Trevor dons Sandra’s role after she is knocked out, he denies a kiss that he argues “no one wants to see.” Max probes the audience if they really want to see the two kiss, inviting cheers and

more cheers until it's clear that the show can’t go on in any other way. Inviting celebration to propel the narrative forward, Mischief recontextualizes gendered performance for a modern panto and offers a small moment of queer celebration in the play.

Even as set pieces collapse and lines get lost, the players of The Play That Goes Wrong never lose sight of their most important scene partner: the audience. Drawing on centuries of tradition to both poke fun and entertain, Mischief Theatre utilizes and reframes theatrical tools embedded in the British tradition, showcasing an exciting comedic form for Portland Stage audiences.

An 1881 Advertisement for the American pantomine company, "Humpty Dumpty."

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The World of The Play That Goes Wrong

Glossary

by Jessi Stier

Banknote: A negotiable promissory note which one party can use to pay another party a specific amount of money.

Beneficiary: A person who derives advantage from something, especially a trust, will, or life insurance policy.

Chaise longue: A chair having a lengthened seat that forms a leg rest for reclining, first popularized during the 16th century in France. They were created by French furniture craftsmen to enable the rich to rest without the need to retire to the bedroom.

Ledger: A book or other collection of financial accounts.

Mantelpiece: A structure of wood, marble, or stone above and around a fireplace. They first appeared in England in the 1800s.

Scotch: A dark, alcoholic drink made from malt and/or grain, produced in Scotland.

Service quarters: Parts of a building, traditionally in a private house, which contain domestic offices and staff accommodation.

From the late 17th century to the early 20th century, they were a common feature in many large houses.

Telegram: A message that is sent by telegraph (any device or system that allows the transmission of information by coded signal over distance). The message is printed and delivered to someone's home or office. They originated toward the end of the 18th century.

A chaise Longue.

Coal scuttle: A bucket-like container for holding a small, intermediate supply of coal for an indoor coal-fired stove or heater. They originated in the 18th century, and are also called coal buckets or coal pails.

Cyanide: A rapidly acting, potentially deadly chemical that interferes with the body's ability to use oxygen.

Duran Duran: An electronic pop rock band founded in Birmingham, West Midlands, England, UK. The group was part of the New Wave music movement (a subgenre of rock 'n' roll) of the 1980s and ’90s. They have sold over 100 million records.

Fingerprint powder and brush: A fine substance and brush tool used by forensic experts and other law enforcement personnel to search for and enhance latent or invisible fingerprints.

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Voice pipe: A device composed of two cones connected by an air pipe through which speech can be transmitted over an extended distance.

They were used as a means of military telecommunication dating back to 1793.

While their most common use was via intership communication, they were also found in affluent homes and offices of the 19th century.

They are also known as speaking tubes.

White spirit: A flammable, petroleum-derived clear liquid used as a common organic solvent in painting—definitely not edible!

The label on a bottle of White Spirit.

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The History of Mischief

by Jessi Stier

Mischief Theatre is a British theater company that was founded in 2008 by Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer, and Henry Shields while the three were studying in a Foundations of Drama course at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. The founders also recruited fellow classmates, including Dave Hearn, Nancy Zamit, Bryony Corrigan, and Niall Ransome.

The company's inaugural production was titled Let's See What Happens and was presented in July 2008 at The Questors Studio Theatre; the troupe reprised the show at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival shortly afterwards. Their work originally included mostly improvised comedy shows, but eventually expanded into comedic theatrical performances that contain choreographed routines, jokes, and stunts.

Their mission statement declares, “At Mischief we are serious about silliness. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to break free from the shackles of everyday life and escape with us to a world of carefully choreographed chaos, merry mishaps, and timeless comedy. A place where you can escape reality and laugh until you cry. It is this belief that lies at the heart of our brand and underpins everything we do—we call it ridiculous escapism.”

Mischief Theatre is primarily known for their performances as the fictional theater company,

the Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society, creating amateur-style performances filled with theatrical mishaps and chaos. In 2012, founding members Lewis, Sayer, and Shields devised the script for The Play That Goes Wrong, with the goal of creating a piece that depicts real-life mishaps that can occur in onstage productions. The play premiered in London later that year, went on to multiple tours across the UK, and was featured within the 2015 Royal Variety Performance show, an annual televised benefit. Following a record-breaking, two-year run on Broadway, the show continues to play Off-Broadway at New World Stages, co-produced by Kevin McCollum and J.J. Abrams.

The members of Mischief Theatre continue to devise new shows, either based on improvised comedy or scripted text. These pieces include: Peter Pan Goes Wrong, The Comedy About a Bank Robbery, A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong, Lights!

Camera! Improvise!, Mischief Movie Night, and the BBC television series The Goes Wrong Show.

In September 2019, the company started a West End residency at the Vaudeville Theatre with a production called Groan Ups; it was followed by Magic Goes Wrong, which opened in January 2020. Most recently, Peter Pan Goes Wrong premiered on Broadway in 2023, and returned to the West End’s Lyric Theatre. Other Mischief productions continue on tour and in licensed performances in the UK, USA, and worldwide.

Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer, and Henry Shields of Mischief Theatre.

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The Play's the Thing

by Julia Jennings

The theater has always loved talking about itself. Since the Renaissance, the staging of a play-within-play has been a popular device to examine theatrical work and close the gap between appearance and reality. The Play That Goes Wrong is no exception, cleverly employing this structure to create multiple levels of theatricality and fictionality. We, the audience, watch the Play That Goes Wrong actors portray the Murder at Haversham Manor actors. The play-within-a-play is a form of mise en abyme, a French term for placing an image inside of itself, like looking into two mirrors facing each other and seeing yourself infinitely repeated.

The self-reflective nature of the play-within-a play has been embraced by the theater since The Spanish Tragedy by Thomas Kyd, in approximately 1587.

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lens through which to analyze and critique the genre themselves.

The play-within-a-play is a form of metatheatricality, an artistic tool in which a play draws attention to the fact that it is a play.

Like The Real Inspector Hound and Six Characters in Search of an Author, many works by Bertolt Brecht and Samuel Beckett are examples of metatheatrical plays. Brecht and Beckett’s use of metatheatricality was political in nature, and meant to allow the audience to reflect on themselves. Metatheatrical work has become a popular element of modern drama, often invoking experimentation and stretching audience expectations regarding what theater can look like.

There are several notable examples of the play-within-a-play throughout theater history, serving several different ends. One of the most famous is the play-within-a-play in Hamlet, which serves a similar function as the nested play in The Spanish Tragedy—that of verifying a crime. In the famous scene, Hamlet watches Claudius watch the presented drama, hoping to see him react in a manner betraying his guilt. A play-within-a-play has also historically been used as entertainment for a wedding or other festive event, as seen in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and through the wedding masque in The Tempest.

Contemporary examples of metatheatrical plays-within-plays have increasingly demonstrated an interest in drawing attention to the process of creating and staging theater itself. Plays like Anne Washburn’s 10 out of 12, Michael Frayn’s Noises Off, Branden JacobsJenkins’ An Octoroon and Jackie Sibblies Drury’s We Are Proud to Present a Presentation About the Herero of Namibia, Formerly Known as Southwest Africa, From the German Sudwestafrika, Between the Years 1884-1915 all expand the form of plays-within-plays. Rather than simply featuring the performance of a nested play, these plays actually stage the theater-making process itself.

More modern examples such as Luigi Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author and Tom Stoppard’s The Real Inspector Hound employ the play-within-a-play to draw comparisons between real life and the theater; to emphasize the theatrical nature of daily life and the sense of reality inherent in the theater. Stoppard’s The Real Inspector Hound is especially notable for its function of drawing awareness to (and mocking) the mechanics of its genre, the drawing-room whodunit. By watching characters watch and dissect a play that is very similar to Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap, Stoppard offers the audience a

10 out of 12 by Anne Washburn, which premiered at Soho Rep in 2015, takes place during the technical rehearsal process of an unnamed play. The audience gets to witness the actors, designers, and technicians rehearse the play and interact during breaks, as well as listen in over headset to backstage goingson (similar to the broadcasting of Trevor’s commentary from the tech booth in The Play That Goes Wrong). Michael Frayn’s Noises Off (performed by Portland Stage in 2007) similarly opens with a technical rehearsal as its first act, in which a woefully unprepared team of actors misses cues and botches entrances and exits.

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Portland Stage's 2007 Production of Noises Off , featuring AEA members JP Guimont, Tavia Gilbert, Evan Thompson, Scott Barrow, Kim Ders,Christine McMurdo-Wallis. Photo by: Darren Setlow.

The second act shows the behind-the-scenes and personal bickerings of the cast during a matinee performance of the same play. The third act brings to life a performance of the play at the end of its run, in which the set begins to collapse and the actors are forced to ad-lib—not unlike its spiritual successor, The Play That Goes Wrong.

Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ An Octoroon, which premiered at Soho Rep in 2014, and Jackie Sibblies Drury’s We Are Proud to Present a Presentation…, which premiered at Victory Gardens Theater in 2012, both employ playswithin-plays to interrogate racial dynamics within the theater, specifically within the practice of examining historic material onstage.

An Octoroon involves BJJ, a contemporary Black playwright donning whiteface, and, with the help of reincarnated 19th century Irish playwright Dion Boucicault (in blackface), performing Boucicault’s 1859 play, The Octoroon. In the fourth act, BJJ stops the play so that he and Boucicault may interject and examine the significance of the melodrama and its relationship to the real-life violence of American slavery.

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In We Are Proud to Present a Presentation…, a group of American actors gathers to create a performance about the Herero and Namaqua genocide in Namibia. As the conversation spirals and the discussed violence becomes a real threat, the play calls upon the audience to examine what goes into the theater we consume, and what toll art can take on the artists creating it. In this work, not unsimilar to the style of Bertolt Brecht, the audience becomes a type of Claudius, as we must examine our own guilt through the actions demonstrated to us onstage.

The Play That Goes Wrong, while a lighthearted farce, still demonstrates many classic elements of the play-within-a-play, drawing audience attention to the precarious nature inherent to creating theater, while blurring the lines between the theatrical and the real world. As we watch the two levels of fictionality battle for prominence onstage, the play also offers insight and mockery not only to the genre of the whodunit, but also to the dynamic of a working theater company more generally. And so, in the context of the theatrical tradition of staging a play-within-a-play, The Play That Goes Wrong gets a lot of things right.

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Recommended Resources

by Editors

Watch: Peter Pan Goes Wrong performed by Mischief Theater (on Youtube) A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong performed by Mischief Theater (also on YouTube) Noises Off by Michael Frayn The Real Inspector Hound by Tom Stoppard See How They Run (2022 Film) Only Murders In The Building Read: 10 out of 12 by Anne Washburn We Are Proud to Present a Presentation… by Jackie Sibblies Drury The Mousetrap by Agatha Christie An Octoroon by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman

Director Kevin R. Free in rehearsal for The Play That Goes Wrong with actors Nicholas Mongiardo-Cooper*, Dean Linnard*, Erica Murphy, Khalil LeSaldo*, and Max Samuels* . Photo by: James A. Hadley.

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Portland Stage Company Student Matinee Series

Education Programs

The Portland Stage Student Matinee Program provides students with discounted tickets for student matinees. Following the performance, students participate in a conversation with the cast and crew, which helps them gain awareness of the creative process and encourages them to think critically about the themes and messages of the play.

Play Me a Story Experience the fun and magic of theater on Saturday mornings with Play Me a Story! Ages 4 – 10 enjoy a performance of children’s stories followed by an interactive acting workshop with Portland Stage’s Education Artists for $15. Sign up for the month and save or pick individual days that work for you.

Build literacy, encourage creativity and spark dramatic dreams!

Shakespeare Teen Company In April and May of 2024, students will come together as an ensemble to create a fully-staged production of Shakespeare‘s Hamlet in Portland Stage’s studio theater. Participants in grades 7-12 take on a variety of roles including acting, costume design, marketing, and more!

Vacation and Summer Camps Dive into theater for five exciting days while on your school breaks! Our theater camps immerse participants in all aspects of theater, culminating in an open studio performance for friends and family at the end of the week! Camps are taught by professional actors, directors, and artisans. Students are invited to think imaginatively, critically, and creatively in an environment of inclusivity and safe play.

PLAY Program An interactive dramatic reading and acting workshop tour for elementary school students in grades pre-k through 5. Professional education artists perform children’s literature and poetry and then involve students directly in classroom workshops based on the stories. Artists actively engage students in in small group workshop using their bodies, voices, and imaginations to build understanding of the text while bringing the stories and characters to life. PLAY helps develop literacy and reading fluency, character recall, understanding of themes, social emotional skills, physical storytelling, and vocal characterization. The program also comes with a comprehensive Resource Guide filled with information and activities based on the books and poems.

Directors Lab Professional actors perform a 50-minute adaptation of a Shakespeare play, followed by a talkback. In 2024 we will be touring Much Ado About Nothing to middle and high schools. After the performance, students engage directly with the text in an interactive workshop with the actors and creative team.

In these workshops, students practice effective communication, creative collaboration, rhetoric, and critical analysis. The program also comes with a comprehensive Resource Guide filled with information and resources about the play we are focusing on. Directors Lab puts Shakespeare’s language into the hands and mouths of the students, empowering them to be the artists, directors, and ensemble with the power to interpret the text and produce meaning.

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Portland Stage Company Anita Stewart Artistic Director Martin Lodish Managing Director

Artistic & Production Staff Todd Brian Backus Literary Manager Jacob Coombs Associate Technical Director Ted Gallant Technical Director Myles C. Hatch Stage Manager Meg Lydon Stage Manager Mary Lana Rice Production Manager & Lighting Supervisor Seth Asa Sengel Asst. Production Manager & Sound Supervisor Emily St. John Props Master Susan Thomas Costume Shop Manager Administrative Staff Paul Ainsworth Business Manager Isabel Bates Education Assistant Beka Bryer Front of House Associate Covey Crolius Development Director Chris DeFilipp House Manager Erin Elizabeth Marketing Director Allison Fry Executive Assistant James A. Hadley Assistant Marketing Director Lindsey Higgins Development Associate Jennifer London Company Manager Renee Myhaver Assistant Box Office Manager Donald Smith Audience Services Manager Julianne Shea Education Administrator Madeleine St. Germain Front of House Associate Michael Dix Thomas Education Director Adam Thibodeau House Manager Apprentice Company Katie Barnes Stage Management Apprentice Ellis Collier Education Apprentice Lucie Green Company Management Apprentice Julia Jennings Directing & Dramaturgy Apprentice Ellery Kenyon Education Apprentice Isee Martine Scenic Design Apprentice Claire Lowe Electrics Apprentice Alex Oleksy Directing & Dramaturgy Apprentice Elizabeth Sarsfield Stage Management Apprentice Jessi Stier Directing & Dramaturgy Apprentice Crow Traphagen Costumes Apprentice Elena Truman Costumes Apprentice