2007/08 Season Study Guide

2 0 0 7 - 2 0 0 8 E D U CAT I O NA L O U TR E AC H S P ONS O R S Student Matinee Program

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Syracuse Stage Season Study Guide 4

Theatre and Education

8

Les Liaisons Dangereuses

15

Misery

19

Fiddler on the Roof

29

The Lieutenant of Inishmore

35

Doubt

42

The Bomb-itty of Errors

53

The Fantasticks

Ta b l e o f C o n t e n t s

5 Theatre Etiquette and Frequently Asked Questions

6 Theater Basics

— Nichole Gantshar and Lauren Unbekant, editors Laronika Thomas and Patrick McKelvey contributing writers

Syracuse Stage 3

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Theatre and Education "Theatre brings life to life."

way all over again."

S y ra c u s e S t a g e

— Zelda Fichandler

When the first cave dweller got up to tell a story, theatre began. Almost every culture has some sort of live performance tradition to tell stories. Television and film may have diminished the desire for access to theater, but they have not diminished the importance. Live theater gives each audience member an opportunity to connect with the performers in a way he or she never could with Matt Damon or Nicole Kidman. The emotions can be more intense because the events are happening right in front of the audience.

Ultimately, there is a fundamental difference in the psychological responses aroused by electronic media and theatre because the former presents pictures of events whereas the latter performs the actual events in what amounts to the same space as that occupied by the audience. This difference results in one unique characteristic of theatre: its ability to offer intense sensory experience through the simultaneous presence of live actors and audience.

"The sole substitute for an experience which we have not ourselves lived through is art and literature." ­— Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn Pedagogically, theatre can be used in a variety of ways.

In many respects the teacher in the classroom is much like the actor onstage - with an audience (hopefully attentive), a script (lesson plan), props and set (classroom setting and teaching tools). The environment of the teaching experience can change day to day, and can be impacted by weather, mood, outside events - in other words, each day is a unique, active, sensory occurrence, just like a play.

From this perspective all of what can be taught can be taught theatrically, whether it is having young children creating a pretend bank to learn about money, to older students acting out a scene from a play. Theatre provides an opportunity to teach, and any play provides an opportunity to teach more.

— Eudora Welty

Bringing your students to productions at Syracuse Stage, and utilizing this study guide in teaching about the plays, fulfills elements of the New York State core requirements.

We know that as educators you are the more qualified to determine how our plays and study guides blend with your lesson plans and teaching requirements. We hope that you find possibilities to cover many disciplines.

As you bring your students to the shows, you might want them to examine not merely the thematic elements of the written word, but also how production elements explore these themes. Everything you see on this stage has been created specifically for this production - there are no standard sets for Les Liaisons Dangereus, no codified method for presenting Fidder on the Roof, no rules for costuming The Lieutenant of Inishmore. How, for example, will we represent the play's desolate Aran Islands' landscape?

How will the costumes differentiate between characters?

Our designers meet with our directors months before rehearsals start, and shows are built to their specifications, which are in line with their vision of the work. In our detailed study guides for our school shows, we will try to give you some previews of this process, but you might want to explore discussing all of the design elements with your students as a way of opening the door to the production they will be seeing. You probably know all of the elements that make up a show, but to recap: Sets Props Choreography

Costumes Sound Music

Lights Painting Casting

And of course, the one thing that is vitally necessary for any piece to be theatre: AN AUDIENCE Without this last, most important element, the theatre ceases to be. Welcome to Syracuse Stage's Educational Outreach Programs.

"Children, like animals, use all their senses to discover the world. Then artists come along and discover it the same

Syracuse Stage 2007-2008 Study Guide education office: 443-1150 or SyracuseStage.org/education.html

4

Questions and Answers and theatre etiquette as well...

T

eachers: please speak with your students about the role of the audience in watching a live performance. Following are some helpful suggestions and guidelines to make the day more enjoyable.

Busses not staying should load and unload on East Genesee Street. Bus parking is available along East Genesee Street at the bagged meters. Parking at bagged meters is for busses only — cars will be ticketed.

Please do not park in the Centro Bus Stop. Exit the bus, and have your group stay together in the lobby.

We do not allow backpacks, cameras, walkmans, recording devices, food or chewing gum in the theatre.

We do not have storage facilities for these items so leave them at school or on the bus. Taking photographs What is the audience’s role? or recording the performance is illegal, disruptive to other audience members, and A performance needs an audience. It is as dangerous to the actors. much a part of the theatre event as actors, All cameras and recording designers, technicians and crew. Each playdevices are prohibited and wright asks you to come into the world he will be confiscated.

or she has created — but this world is different than television or movies. The actors need your responses — your laughter, your applause — but conversations, cell phones, beepers and other distractions will disrupt that world. If any student becomes disruptive to the point of interference with the performers or other audience members, a chaperon will be asked to remove that student.

If you play your part well, the actors can play their parts well and all will enjoy the show!

When possible, soda and snacks will be available for sale during intermission, at a cost of $1.00 (exact change appreciated.) Food is not allowed in the auditorium.

There are restrooms in the main lobby. We ask that students use the facilities before the show and during intermission only and not get up during the show.

There are no tickets — ushers will direct you to your seats. Students will be asked to fill in the rows and not move around once seated. We request that teachers and chaperones distribute themselves throughout the students and not sit together. Remember, we have to

Syracuse Stage 5

2007-2008 Study Guide education office: 443-1150 or syracusestage.org/education.html

S y ra c u s e S t a g e

We recommend you arrive at the theatre at least 30 minutes prior to the performance.

Student matinees begin promptly at 10:30 am ­— we do not hold the curtain. Latecomers will be seated at the discretion of the Management.

seat 500 people as quickly as possible, so your help in seating is greatly appreciated.

Elements of Theatre SSyyra raccuussSet aSge tage

Theatre usually engages other art disciplines including writing, visual/design, music and dance or movement Character Who?— Who are the characters in the play and what is their relationship to each other.

Plot/Story What? — What is the story line? What happened before the play started? What do the characters want? What happens next?

Setting Where? Where does the story take place? This influences design concepts and actors' actions. Characters move and behave according to their environment.

Time When? Time consists of historical (period in history), time of year/season and time of day, which influence design concepts and actors actions.

Character Relationship Conflict/Resolution Action Plot/Story Setting Time Improvisation Non-verbal communication Staging Realism/Naturalism Visuals/ Visual cues Composition Metaphor Language Tone Pattern Repetition Emotion Point of View Humor Sound Color

In the next column are some possible elements for further classroom exploration when investigating a piece of theatre.

Creating questions for exploration Creating an open-ended question using an element for exploration, otherwise known as a “Line of Inquiry” can help students make discoveries about a piece of theatre and its relevance to their own lives. A Line of Inquiry is also useful for Kinesthetic Activities - On your feet exercises.

Examples of Lines of Inquiry: 1. How does an actors exploration of physical space define the type of character he/she is portraying? Think of ways your students could conduct similar explorations.

2. How might a director/actor create a sense of realism or believable behavior on stage?

3. How does an actor’s use of physical action help to define the setting or time period of the play?

4. How does a set or costume designer use metaphoric scenic elements to enhance the meaning of the play?

Syracuse Stage 2007-2008 Study Guide education office: 443-1150 or syracusestage.org/education.html

6

In the Classroom General Questions These questions were designed to promote classroom discussion of all the plays. For classes attending the entire season of plays, use these questions to help design your own as a model for play analysis.

1) How does the play start?

2) What does the playwright do to set the scene, how does he/she introduce the characters?

4) Who is the main character? What changes impact this character through the course of the play?

5) Is there one scene where that change leads to a pivotal point?

6) Why is this play set in the time period it is? Would the play be different if the time period were different? How? 7) Is there one character that helps the lead character come to decisions and changes? Is this done through opposition, reflection? Is this character a villain? Does that matter? Does there need to be a good character and an evil character?

8) What makes a play be relevant? What makes a play important? Hes does a play stand the test of time?

9) Why do you think the playwright wrote this for the theatre and not for television or as a movie?

Photo by Mike Davis

Syracuse Stage presented The Sound of Music in December, 2005.

Syracuse Stage 7

2007-2008 Study Guide education office: 443-1150 or syracusestage.org/education.html

Syra c u s e S t a g e

3) What other techniques does the play use to help you jump into the story?

James A. Clark

Timothy J. Bond

Managing Director

Producing Artistic Director

PresentS

Les Liaisons Dangereuses by

Christopher Hampton Directed by

Robert Moss Scenic and lighting design

costume design

Steve Ten Eyck

Tracy Dorman

sound design

fight choreography

Jonathan Herter

Anthony Salatino

exclusively sponsored by

Syracuse Stage 2007-2008 Study Guide education office: 443-1150 or syracusestage.org/education.html

8

The Plot

When I came o ut

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The Marquise and Valmont begin their campaign by trying to help Cécile with her own dalliance. She and the Chevalier Danceny (Cecile's music tutor) are in love. To gain their trust, the older pair help them meet. But behind the scenes, Valmont works his campaign.

He blackmails Cecile into having sex with him. During the day, he proclaims his love to de Tourvel. At night, he teaches Cecile about sex.

wa

s told , gave m e the perfect oppor tunit

ten

y to lis

and

pay atten

In the meantime, Merteuil takes Danceny as a lover without losing sight of her goal. When she realizes Valmont has fallen in love with de Tourvel, she shames him into breaking it off. They fight and Merteuil declares war on Valmont forcing the play toward its conclusion. She tells Danceny that Valmont seduced Cécile, and the two men duel. Tragedy ensues.

tion

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Syracuse Stage 9

2007-2008 Study Guide education office: 443-1150 or syracusestage.org/education.html

Les Liai s o n s D a n g e r e u s e s

, I ' d a l r e ad

yr ea

The play opens with the Marquise de Merteuil calling on her former lover, the Vicomte de Valmont. She wishes him to exact revenge on a lover who has spurned her. She wants Valmont to seduce the man's fiance, Cécile de Volanges. Valmont tells her he is determined to seduce the virtuous (and married) Madame de Tourvel, who is living with Valmont's aunt. But when Valmont learns that Cecile's mother has warned Madame de Tourvel of his reputation, he agrees to take up the Marquise's campaign.

Meet the Playwright Christopher Hampton (1946 - )

L e s L i a i s oSnysraDcauns gS et ar ge euses

C

hristopher Hampton was born in the Azores in 1946 and as a child lived in Aden and Alexandria. His first play, When Did You Last See My Mother?, was produced by the Royal Court after he submitted it to the Oxford University Dramatic Society Student Festival while an undergraduate at New College. Written when he was 18, it made him the youngest playwright in the modern era to have a production in London's West End.

Writer’s Guild Award and Critic’s Circle Award for the screenplay.

Since then Hampton has pursued a prolific career as playwright, translator, screenwriter and director. Translations for stage include Hedda Gabler, A Doll’s House, Uncle Vanya, Three Sisters, Tartuffe and the long-running Art by Yasmina Reza. Original plays include Total Eclipse, a dramatization of the relationship between the French poets Rimbaud and Verlaine, The Philanthropist, Savages, Tales from Hollywood and The Talking Cure, which starred Ralph Fiennes in the 2002 production. A number of his works have enjoyed life in both stage and screen versions: Total Eclipse was filmed in 1995, starring Leonardo di Caprio and David Thewlis; A Doll’s House (1973) starred Claire Bloom and Anthony Hopkins; and both Tartuffe and Tales from Hollywood were screened by the BBC. Perhaps most famously, he adapted Laclos’ novel Les Liaison Dangereuses, initially for stage and then film, as Dangerous Liaisons. He received an Academy Award, BAFTA,

Novels Hampton has adapted for film include The Honorary Consul (1984) and The Quiet American (2002) by Graham Greene; and Atonement by Ian McEwan, due for release in 2007. He directed his own screen adaptations of The Secret Agent (1996) by Joseph Conrad and Carrington (1995), a biography of Lytton Strachey by Michael Holroyd. Screenplays currently in development include adapations of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, by Susannah Clarke and Somerset Maugham’s The Moon and Sixpence.

www.criticalvoices.ie/speakers/ display.asp?ArtistID=58

Syracuse Stage 2007-2008 Study Guide education office: 443-1150 or syracusestage.org/education.html

10

Timeline

World Events Surrounding The Publishing of Les Liaisons Dangereuses 1783

Georges Louis Lesage patents the electric telegraph.

1775

Louis Sebastien demonstrates the first parachute.

Benjamin Hanks patents the self-winding clock.

Joseph Michel Montgolfier and Jacques Etienne Montgolfier invent the hot-air balloon.

Alexander Cummings invents the flush toilet.

Jacques Perrier invents the steamship.

Englishmen, Henry Cort invents the steel roller for steel production.

1776

James Watt invents steam engine in which pistons both push and pull.

American Declaration of Independence

Composer Johann Christian Bach dies.

David Bushnell invents the submarine.

1789 The French Revolution

1778 Laclos' Contemporaries

Laclos begins work on Les Liaisons Dangereuses.

France recognizes American independence.

England declares war on France.

Act of the U.S. Fragonard's Congress prohibits import of slaves into the United States.

the stolen kiss

Denis Diderot (1713-1784) Jean-Jacques Rousseau (17121778) Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805) Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) Voltaire (1694-1778) Richard Brinsley Sheridan ( 1751-1816 )

1782 2000 copies of Les Liaisons Dangereuses printed

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Les L i a i s o n s D a n g e r e u s es

1774

Roots of the Novel sSSaytn ra agge cusStage L e s L i aSiys ra o ncsuD e reuses

A Note on the Author Laclos

I

n many respects, Pierre-Ambroise-Francois Choderlos de Laclos (1741-1803) is the perfect author: he wrote, at around the age of 40, one piece of fiction, which was not merely a masterpiece, but the supreme example of its genre, the epistolary novel; and then troubled the public no further.

Fortunately, the obscurity from which, during his lifetime, this astonishing tour de force delivered him only briefly has remained sufficiently deep to preserve his enigma. But those few facts which are known about him continue to throw an intriguing light on his rigorously classical novel.

A career soldier in an unusually extended period of peace, Laclos volunteered to serve in the American War of Independence, but lacked the means necessary to be a campaign officer. As a result, he was posted to a drab island in the Bay of Biscay and put in charge of its fortification. It was from here, bored and disappointed, that he wrote, famously, to a friend, announcing his intention to "write something out of the ordinary, eye-catching, something that would resound around the world even after I had left it." Few artists can have fulfilled their predictions so satisfactorily.

The novel caused an immediate and continuing sensation and in its wake Laclos addressed himself to two other pieces of work: a treatise on women's education, unpublished in his lifetime; and a blistering demolition of one of France's military sacred cows, the tactician

Marechal de Vauban, which caused such offence that he was immediately rewarded with a series of particularly dreary provincial postings.

In the Revolution he was a Jacobin (the radical left responsble for the reign of terror), not prominent but assiduous, a friend of Danton and the associate and secretary of the Duc d'Orleans, the king's liberal cousin.

Inevitably, during the Terror, he was jailed twice and escaped execution, which he clearly expected, only narrowly and for reasons which have remained obscure.

It took some time for him to be accepted back into the army, but eventually, at the turn of the century, he was made a general by Napoleon. The result, however, of this final success was that, only a few weeks after arriving in Taranto in Southern Italy to take up a new command, he died of dysentery and malaria. His last letter was a dignified but urgent appeal to Napoleon, asking for support for his wife and three children.

Geometrician, inventor, military strategist, feminist, revolutionary, devoted husband and father: all of those qualities, some initially surprising in the author of Les Liaisons Dangereuses, others less so, make their contribution towards a way of looking at this extraordinary and meteoric work without however exhausting the pleasures of its rare and merciless intelligence.

by Christopher Hampton Playbill, June 1987

Other Adaptations Valmont (1989) stars Annette Benning and Colin Firth.

Conrad Susa wrote an opera in 1994 (revised in 1996-97) entitled The Dangerous Liaisons, set in 18th century France.

Cruel Intentions (1999) was a modern retelling of the story starring Sarah Michelle Geller.

Les Liaisons dangereuses (1959) is a French movie.

Untold Scandal (2003) is a Korean adaptation.

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12

Additional Resources A comprehensive bibliography of essays on Les Liaisons Dangereuses movies based on the novel and scholarly articles www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIkTue5N9WE&mode=related&search= An interview with Christopher Hampton about the play.

Watch Alan Rickman (a.k.a. Professor Snape) as Valmont in the Broadway production www.youtube.com/ watch?v=6o9WEThZW7M

Syracuse Stage 13

2007-2008 Study Guide education office: 443-1150 or syracusestage.org/education.html

Les Liai s o n s D a n g e r e u s e s

www.sonoma.edu/users/r/renaudin/Flie214/resources.html

uD scSaut nas Sgge tage L e s L i aSiysra oSnycsra ereuses

In The Classroom 1) Webquest or Library Project: Have the students write an outline of their own adaptation of Les Liaisons Dangereuses. The adaptation must be set against another period of political upheaval and make use of the class divisions in the society the student picks. They can use the Web, primary documents and the library to defend their choices and create the setting.

2) Why do the students think this story has been adapted so many times? Does the fact that it has make it an important one? What makes a story/play/book important to a society, to history or to you personally?

3) Using the Web site: ldmuziejus.mch.mii.lt/naujausiosparodos/lenku_rubu_paroda_virt.en.htm (a museum display of period costumes) Using these pictures as a primary resource, what can your students tell about the lives of the people who wore these clothes? Are they rich? Poor? What do their clothes suggest about their daily activities and the role they played in society? (for teachers more background ... a good article is www.jstor.org/view/02707993/ap040036/04a00180/0) or www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/eudr/hd_eudr.htm

Syracuse Stage 2007-2008 Study Guide education office: 443-1150 or syracusestage.org/education.html

14

James A. Clark

Timothy J. Bond

Producing Artistic Director

Managing Director

PresentS

Misery by

adapted for the stage by

Stephen King

Simon Moore

Directed by

Emma Griffin

Scenic design

costume design

lighting design

Felix Cochren

Jessica Trejos

Mark Barton

sound design

fight choreography

Jeremy Lee

Tim Davis-Reed

sponsored by

Syracuse Stage 15

2007-2008 Study Guide education office: 443-1150 or syracusestage.org/education.html

Intense Journey

S yM rai sceursyS t a ge

Paul Sheldon is the writer of the very successful Misery series of romance novels. When he is injured in a car accident, his legs are broken and he cannot walk. Annie Wilkes, who says she is a nurse, takes him in to her home to recover. She brings him painkillers, feeds and clothes him, and says she is "his number one fan."

He soon becomes very uncomfortable as the line between caretaker and captor becomes blurred.

Paul continually tries to escape the room to find a phone to get help; he finds out that Annie has deliberately disconnected the phones from the outside world.

Annie becomes even more crazed when she realizes that Paul has killed off her favorite character in his latest book. Though his car accident wounds have healed, she maims him to keep him in her home.

Stephen King is the 2003 recipient of The National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.

She forces him to write a new book that will bring her favorite character back to life.

Paul finds himself acting almost as crazily as Annie. They engage in an increasingly manipulative relationship, which leads to the climactic ending.

In 2001, the 28th Annual Vision Awards to Pay tribute to Pioneering Luminaries in Film, Television, Music & Technology was held, and the winner of the Author of Vision Award was Stephen King. news.excite.com/news/pr/010613/ca-rp-intl-vision-awd

Syracuse Stage 2007-2008 Study Guide education office: 443-1150 or syracusestage.org/education.html

16

Stephen King Master of Suspense

S

Starting in his sophomore year at the University of Maine at Orono, he wrote a weekly column for the school newspaper. He was active in student politics, serving as a member of the Student Senate. He supported the antiwar movement. He graduated from the University of Maine at Orono in 1970, with a B.A. in English and qualified to teach on the high school level. A draft board examination post-graduation found him 4-F on grounds of high blood pressure, limited vision, flat feet, and punctured eardrums.

He and Tabitha Spruce married in January of 1971.

He met Tabitha in the stacks of the university library, where they both worked. Stephen was unable to find placement as a teacher. They lived on his earnings as a laborer at an industrial laundry, and her student loan savings and an occasional boost from a short story sale.

Stephen sold his first professional short story ("The Glass Floor") to Startling Mystery Stories in 1967. Throughout the early years of his marriage, he sold stories to men's magazines.

novel Carrie for publication. On Mother's Day of that year, Stephen learned from his editor at Doubleday a major paperback sale would provide him with the means to leave teaching and write full-time.

At the end of the summer of 1973, the Kings moved their growing family to southern Maine because of Stephen's mother's failing health.

Renting a summer home on Sebago Lake in North Windham for the winter, Stephen wrote his next-published novel, originally titled Second Coming and then Jerusalem's Lot, before it became Salem's Lot, in a small room in the garage. During this period, Stephen's mother died of cancer, at 59.

Carrie was published in the spring of 1974. That same fall, the Kings left Maine for Boulder, Colorado. There King wrote The Shining. Returning to Maine in the summer of 1975, the Kings purchased a home in the Lakes Region of western Maine. There, Stephen finished writing The Stand, much of which is set in Boulder.

In 1977, the Kings spent three months of a projected year- long stay in England. Next, the Kings moved north to Orrington, near Bangor, so that Stephen could teach creative writing at the University of Maine at Orono.

Stephen and Tabitha now spend winters in Florida and the remainder of the year at their Bangor and Center Lovell homes.

The Kings have three children: Naomi Rachel, Joe Hill and Owen Phillip, and three grandchildren.

— based on matieral from Tabitha King, and Marsha DeFilippo King

In the fall of 1971, Stephen began teaching at Hampden Academy, the public high school in Hampden, Maine.

Writing evenings and weekends, he continued to produce short stories and work on novels.

In the spring of 1973, Doubleday & Co. accepted the

Syracuse Stage 17

2007-2008 Study Guide education office: 443-1150 or syracusestage.org/education.html

Misery

tephen Edwin King was born in Portland, Maine in 1947, the second son of Donald and Nellie Ruth Pillsbury King. His parents separated when Stephen was a toddler. When Stephen was 11, his mother brought her children back to Durham, Maine, for good.

Her parents had become incapacitated with old age, and her sisters persuaded her to take over their parents' physical care. Other family members provided a small house and financial support.

After Stephen's grandparents passed away, Mrs. King found work in the kitchen of a nearby residential facility.

In The Classroom S y ra S ycM ra uisscSeutrasySge tage

1) Is Annie mentally ill? What constitutes "normal" fan behavior and when does it cross the line?

2) The thought that someone would hold their favorite author captive strains credulity. Yet, the play progresses in a manner that makes the situation believable. How does the play create a world that the audience can believe even after the play crosses into Annie's erratic behavior?

3) What does this story offer as a play that makes it different from the original novel and/or movie?

4) Why do you think this story has been so popular? Was it something about the time in which it was written? Is it still popular today?

Additional Resources www.stephenking.com/ /i-generation.blogspot.com/2005/09/week-8-fan-culture-origins-of.html

Readings on fan culture Textual Poachers, television fans and participatory culture, Henry Jenkins, Routledge, NY, 1992

Syracuse Stage 2007-2008 Study Guide education office: 443-1150 or syracusestage.org/education.html

18

James A. Clark

Timothy J. Bond

Producing Artistic Director

Managing Director

Fiddler on the Roof based on the Sholem Aleichem stories by special permission by Arnold Perl

book and lyrics by

Joseph Stein

LYRICS by

Sheldon Harnick

Directed AND CHOREOGRAPHED by

Anthony Salatino

Music by

Jerry Bock

musical director

Dianne Adams McDowell

Scenic design

costume design

Troy Hourie

Jessica Ford

lighting design

sound design

Mark Barton

Jonathan Herter

The Excellus BlueCross BlueShield Family Holiday Series

Syracuse Stage 19

2007-2008 Study Guide education office: 443-1150 or syracusestage.org/education.html

A Bit of Tradition ge Fi d d lSeyrraocnu tshS et aRoof

Fiddler on the Roof is set in the small Jewish village of Anatevka, Russia, in 1905 and is concerned primarily with the lives of Tevye, a dairyman, his wife, Golde, and their five daughters.

Tevye explains the role of God's law in providing balance in the villagers' lives through the inner circle of the community and the outer circle of authority figures, as he explains, "We don't bother them and so far, they don't bother us."

Tevye's daughters dream of romance. The matchmaker, Yente, tells Golde that she has selected the butcher Lazar Wolfe as a match for their eldest daughter, Tzeitel. But Motel, a tailor, loves her and she him.

An outsider and student, Perchik, complicates matters. He brings news of a violent pogrom in a nearby village and falls for another daughter, Hodel.

Amid talk of the ensuing chaos outside the village, Tevye tries to persuade his wife that Motel and Tzeitel should be allowed to wed.

At the wedding, the dissonance outside their village finally breaks through.

When Fyedka, a Russian boy, tries to dance with Chava, and the community reacts violently.

Tevye's poor but peaceful life begins to fall apart. Perchik tells Hodel that he is leaving to work for justice in Kiev. He proposes to her and she accepts.

Tevye again says goodbye to a daughter when she leaves to join Perchick. But he cannot accept the romance between Chava and Fyedka.

As Golde turns her sights to the younger daughter, the Constable brings the news that everyone in the town has to sell their houses and household goods and leave Anatevka in three days.

Tevye decides that those who are left in his family will go to America.

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20

Trivia on the roof Awards

Favorite quotes

1965

“If you’re wealthy enough, no one will call you stupid.”

— Tevye

Best Musical, Best Composer and Lyricist (Jerry Bock/ Sheldon Harnick), Best Actor in a Musical (Zero Mostel), Featured Actress in a Musical (Maria Karnilova), Best Choreography (Jerome Robbins), Best Direction of a Musical (Jerome Robbins), Best Costume Design (Patricia Zipprodt), Best Producer of a Musical (Harold Prince), Best Musical (Joseph Stein)

Tony Nomination

“May all of your futures be pleasant ones, not like our present ones. Drink, L’Chaim, to life.”

— Ensemble “The Bible clearly teaches us, you must never trust an employer.”

— Perchik Perchik: Money is the world’s curse.

Tevye: May the Lord smite me with it.

Best Scenic Design (Boris Aronson)

1972 Special Tony for becoming the Longest Running Musical in Broadway History — a record now held by Phantom of the Opera

1982 Tony Nomination

Best Actor in a Musical (Herschel Bernardi)

1991 Tony Award

Best Revival of a Musical

Tony Nomination

Best Actor in a Musical (Topol)

2004 Tony Nominations

Best Revival of a Musical, Best Actor in a Musical (Alfred Molina), Best Featured Actor in a Musical (John Cariani), Best Scenic Design, Best Lighting Design, Best Orchestrations

Producer Harold Prince pours champagne for his Fiddler on the Roof stars Maria Karnilova and Herschel Bernardi, as they celebrate the 1,254th sold-out performance Sept.

22, 1967, at the Majestic Theatre in New York.

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Fid d l e r o n t h e R o o f

Tony Awards

Brief History of Russia 1853 - 1917 1853-56

S y ra c u s S t a ge Fi d d l e r o n t h e Roof

Crimean War — Fought between Russia, and the alliance of the United Kingdom, France, the Ottoman Empire, and Piedmont-Sardinia. It ended in an embarrassing defeat for Russia.

1861

The emancipation of the serfs causes economic unrest.

When faced with opposition from the landowners, Tsar Alexander II replied, "It is better to abolish serfdom from above than to wait for the time when it will begin to abolish itself from below.”

1864

Local Russian governments organize provincial government, ideally made up of representatives of all classes, which are responsible for schools, roads and public health. Property owners levy taxes and labor to support their activities. With support from the police, they have control over education, health, and communications.

1866

An attempt to assassinate Alexander II.

1872

Russian translation of Marx's Das Kapital is published.

1873

The To the People movement emerges and calls on the peasants to force Russia’s transition to a Socialist political system.

1874

The Mad Summer, where thousands of young intellectuals flock unorganized to the countryside in order to teach socialism; peasant disinterest causes it to fail dismally.

Mandatory military service is reduced from the outrageous length of 25 years. Censorship laws and control over education are temporarily relaxed.

1877

Russo-Turkish War begins

To the People Party, set out to overthrow the monarchy through terrorism and assassinate Alexander II in 1881.

1881-1894

Alexander III revives religious censorship, persecutes non-Russian populations, fosters violent anti-Semitism, institutes the Okhrana (the secret police).

1894

Accession of Nikolai Alexandrovich Romanov, as Nicholas II.

1898

The 1st Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Party unites revolutionary organizations into one party.

1903

The RSDP splits into Mensheviks, who believe that an intermediary bourgeois class was necessary to reform the country, and Bolsheviks, who insist that destroying the bourgeoisie and aristocracy is necessary to revitalize the nation.

1904

The Russo-Japanese War occurs.

1905

Bloody Sunday, an insurrection in which 500 peaceful protesters were killed in front of the Tsar’s Palace, incites a general revolution.

1906

The promised parliament, the Duma, is dissolved when it produces an anti-government majority even though elected on a narrow franchise.

1914

World War I begins.

1917

The Russian Revolution begins.

Adapted from The Summer People: Actor Resource Guide compiled by Shelley Mannis, Patrick McKelvey, and Erica Nagel, The University of Texas-Austin, Spring 2006

1879

The People's Will Party, a small militant offshoot of the

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22

Everybody's Fiddler The Link Between Chagall and Tevye

O

Theater in New York, but the play was a disaster. Still, Sholem Aleichem was undeterred and completed a screen adaptation, which was optioned but not produced.

This image, by far Chagall's most popular and wellknown creation, was the source of the title for the 1964 stage musical Fiddler on the Roof, based on the Tevye stories of Sholem Aleichem.

Even though he never did make a movie version of "Stempenyu," Schwartz's 1929 stage version for the Yiddish Art Theatre in New York was a great success.

And it is in this production that the critical link connecting Aleichem and Chagall with Fiddler a set designer named Boris Aronson. Aronson, who designed the set for Schwartz's production, had worked at the Moscow State Yiddish Theatre at the same time that Chagall worked there. He published a monograph in 1923 called Marc Chagall, and designed the sets for Fiddler in 1964.

Some Chagall experts explicitly deny any relation between the musical and Chagall's painting, while certain Sholem Aleichem experts remain adamant that the writer never mentioned any fiddlers on any roofs. Chagall's imagery, they assert, had nothing to do with Sholem Aleichem's words.

They are wrong. With a century of scholarship to ground us, Fiddler's 40th anniversary in September 2004 encourages us to look at the musical's two major sources with fresh eyes. There was a clear point of convergence, a person who became an archetype. His name was Stempenyu. According to Yale Strom, author of The Book of Klezmer: The History, The Music, The Folklore, Stempenyu was born with klezmer in his blood, the descendant of 10 generations of klezmer musicans. By 18, he had his own kapelye (klezmer band) in Odessa and was known for his virtuosity as well as his composing skills."

Stempenyu died in 1879 at the age of 57. Nine years later, Sholem Aleichem wrote "Stempenyu: a Jewish Romance." Although an obscure story today, in its time it was extremely popular; it was the first Sholem Aleichem story translated into other languages, first German in 1889, and then English in 1913.

University of Michigan professor Anita Norich quotes an Aleichem letter where he explicitly says the story was based on "a real figure, a violinist, from Berdichev."

In 1907, according to author Jacob (Kobi) Weitzner's book, Sholem Aleichem in the Theater, Aleichem wrote a theatrical adaptation for Boris Thomashefsky's People's

When Sidney Alexander interviewed Aronson for his 1978 book Marc Chagall: A Biography, Aronson told him: "As a designer (Chagall) is doing Fiddler on the Roof all his life." He said "(Chagall) takes Anatevka with him wherever he goes. I only got to do it once."

Although there is no proof Chagall knew of Stempenyu or had read "Stempenyu" the story, we know from his autobiography, My Life, that Chagall studied violin as a child, and we know from his wife Bella's autobiography, Burning Lights, she was a fervent reader. "My heart says that not only did Bella read the initial text by Sholem Aleichem, but Chagall did too," says Bella Meyer, Chagall's granddaughter.

Strom and Weitzner also told The Forward that the connection was likely.

Each of these three great artists — Stempenyu, Sholem Aleichem and Chagall — was trying to capture the same phenomenon. As Sholem Aleichem wrote in the prologue to "Stempenyu: “Any heart, especially a Jewish heart, is a fiddle: You squeeze the strings and you draw forth all kinds of songs Oh, what a master Stempenyu was! He would grab the violin and ... it spoke, pleaded, crooned tearfully, in a Jewish mode, with a force, a scream from the depths of the heart, the soul.”

— Jan Lisa Hutter

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Fid d l e r o n t h e R o o f

ne of Marc Chagall's most famous painting is a fiddler on the roof originally created for the Moscow State Yiddish Theatre in 1920 and called, simply, Music.

Tevye's beginnings Sholem Aleichem (1859 -1916)

ge Fi d d lSeyrraocnu tshS et aRoof

S

augmented by his essays and speeches dedicated to the holem Aleichem, born Sholem Naunomovich Rabinovich, was a Russian writer, folklorist, and creation of a Jewish state. After leaving Russia, Aleichem split his time between New York and Switzerland humorist who has frequently (if oversimplistically) before moving to New York permanently, where he died been referred to as a Jewish Mark Twain. He began in 1916 while working on his last novel. More than his writing career by writing in Russian and Hebrew.

100,000 people attended his funeral services and monuAleichem committed a radical act when he began writing in Yiddish, the language of ments have been erected in his honor in both Kiev and Moscow. the working class and poor. This trailblazing move made literature “Life is a dream for the wise, much more accessible to Russian a game for the fool, a comedy Jews. for the rich, a tragedy for the His cannon of literature fills more than 40 volumes, including novels, plays, short stories, and children’s literature. His short story (and later, play), Tevye, The Milkman, is the original source material for Fiddler on the Roof.

poor.”

“No matter how bad things get you got to go on living, even if it kills you.”

“The rich well up with pride, the poor from hunger.”

He suffered from bouts of tuber— Sholem Aleichem culosis and his health began to decline steadily following his collapse on a train, after which he began writing his biography, Funm Yarrid. A committed Zionist, Aleichem’s political creative works were

F

iddler on the Roof is based on stories that were written in Yiddish. It's a language that began in the Rhineland cities of Germany in the early Middle Ages. As Jews were forced to move from city to city, due to wars, the whims of ruling dukes and princes, and to flee anti-semitism, German‑speaking Jews spread throughout Europe and incorporated the local language, into their German dialect.

The language uses Hebrew script and German for its grammar. While Hebrew provides the vocabulary for religious concepts and tradition, other words are drawn from Aramaic, medieval French, Provencal, and Italian, and from the Slavonic languages. The word "Yiddish" is the popular Lithuanian pronunciation of the language's name.

There are three Yiddish dialects. In addition to the familiar German-based language, Laddino is a Spanish-based Yiddish spoken by Jews in Spain and Northern African countries. The Jews of Turkmenistan and neighboring countries in the south of what used to be the Soviet Union speak a Persian-Uzbeck based dialect called Bukhori. You could travel to part of Queens and hear Bukori spoken in some neighborhoods today.

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24

Backstory Understanding the events in the musical

I

n the late 19th century, there were a series of violent attacks on Jews. Called pogroms — or riots — there were few before 1881 and the assassination of Alexander II. As unrest between social classes and ethnic groups rose, Jews came under violent attacks. Soldiers and police often looked on without interfering.

In 1903 anti-Semitism was at a boiling point. Protests and marches escalated into a pogrom at Kishinev. The riot resulted in the death of 45 Jews and the destruction of 1,300 homes and shops. It began as a drunken brawl on Easter and escalated into a two-day massacre.

Although it has not been proved conclusively the Tsarist government organized pogroms, historians believe the government's anti-Semitic policies certainly encouraged them. Newspapers received government funds to write anti-Semitic diatribes and perpetrators received light sentences for their crimes. After the attacks on May 18, the London Times published a letter the Russian minister of the interior wrote to the governor of the area advising that he take no strong action against Christian attackers.

Pogroms devastated more than 300 towns and cities, leaving almost a thousand people dead and many thousands wounded. Because there was no sign of change in the Tsar's policies and as the pogroms took place with apparent approval by the authorities, a feeling of despair spread throughout Jewish communities.

After the abortive revolution of 1905, pogroms increased in number and violence. With the success of the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, pogroms ceased in the Soviet Union; they were revived in Eastern Europe after Adolf Hitler attained power.

The attack was covered in the international press and further spurred Jewish emigration from the Russian Empire to the U.S.

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Fid d l e r o n t h e R o o f

These pogroms encouraged the first emigration of Russian Jews to the United States. After the first wave of attacks, there was a period of reprieve until 1903.

During the 1904 war with Japan, the anti-Semitic press blamed the Jews for conspiring with the enemy. This dialogue culminated in a new wave of pogroms. A radical group, The Black Hundreds, openly declared the extermination of the Jews as their program.

Words and Lyrics Meet Sheldon Harnick (1924 -) and Jerry Bock (1928 - ) ge Fi d d lSeyrraocnu tshS et aRoof

J

erry Bock came to New York with a University of Wisconsin classmate, Larry Holofcener. Around 1950, they were hired to write songs for Your Show of Shows with Sid Caesar. In the off season they headed for a resort in the Catskills, where they worked with such Broadway starts as Dick Shawn, Jack Cassidy, Neil Simon, and Barbara Cook, creating a show a week. After writing three songs for a short-lived Broadway musical, Catch a Star, Bock and Holofcener were hired to write Mr. Wonderful, a 1956 show starring Sammy Davis, Jr.

Bock and Harnick's next work was Fiddler on the Roof.

Bock and Harnick also created the score for a spectacle staged at the 1964 World's Fair and wrote songs on an uncredited basis for the 1965 musical Baker Street, based on Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes.

In 1966, the pair collaborated on The Apple Tree, a three-act musical based on short stories by Mark Twain, Frank R. Stockton, and Jules Feiffer. A revival was on Broadway last season and starred Kristin Chenoweth.

Sheldon Harnick worked briefly as a professional violinist. At the urging of his brother Jay, an actor working on Broadway, Harnick moved to New York in 1950 to pursue his songwriting career.

Bock and Harnick's final collaboration, The Rothschilds, which opened in 1970, depicted the rise of the international banking family, The Rothschilds.

Bock and Harnick Harnick went on met in 1956 through to write musicals a mutual acquainand operettas with tance, musical theatre several different performer Jack Cassidy. composers, most They first collaborated notably Richard on The Body BeautiRodgers, with ful. The production whom he wrote the Sheldon Harnick (left) and Jerry Bock bombed but brought 1976 show Rex. Bock and Harnick to the attention of director George He also collaborated with Michel Legrand, translating Abbott and producer Harold Prince, who were in search The Umbrellas of Cherbourg to the stage and writing a of songwriters for their musical about New York City stage version of A Christmas Carol. With Joe Raposo, of Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia.

Sesame Street fame, he created Sutter's Gold, a cantata premiered in 1980 by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Fiorello! was a major critical and commercial sucand in 1986 A Wonderful Life. He also has written libretcess. The 1959 musical ran 795 performances and was tos for operas and written songs and themes for film and awarded the Pulitzer Prize for drama. television.

The story of a crusading minister in 1890s New York was the basis for Bock and Harnick‘s next musical, Tenderloin, which opened in 1960. The show was not a big success.

The original 1963 production of Bock and Harnick's next musical, She Loves Me, (a musical based on the same story as the movie You've Got Mail) was overshadowed by the season's big hit, Hello Dolly!

Jerry Bock has worked with University of Houston's Children's Theatre Festival.

Bock and Harnick have occasionally joined forces to edit or enhance their musicals for new productions and even reunited to write a new song, "Topsy-Turvy," for the production of Fiddler on the Roof that opened in February 2004 on Broadway.

www.nypl.org/press/2004/bockharnick.cfm

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26

In the Classroom 1) Fiddler on the Roof is performed dozens of times every year by a wide range of theater groups, high schools and other amateur productions. It has been revived a number of times on Broadway. This fall, there are 54 different productions scheduled across the United States. Why is this musical so popular?

3) Are there any students who can recreate through research their own families' story?

4) Discuss how the musical juxtaposes the fragmentation of the traditional religious village life with the changes in Russian society? What conflicts occur in the musical that draw on these changes?

5) Is this a political musical? How? 6) What purpose do the songs serve in furthering the musical's story? Do the songs operate to educate the audience about characters' motivations and dream? Do they tell a story? How would the action be different if there was no music? Do you think the songs help or hurt the story?

6) Based on Chagall's "Music" how can a painting reveal story and character?

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Fid d l e r o n t h e R o o f

2) Web quest. Fiddler on the Roof ends with the resident of Anetevka in exile. The history of the United States has is filled with tales of other people of exile. On the additional resources page that follows this one, there are a number of Web sites that list refugee groups. What can your students learn about other peoples of exile?

Additional Resouces www.un.org/documents/ga/docs/50/plenary/a50-12.htm (1995)

ge Fi d d lSeyrraocnu tshS et aRoof

www.state.gov/g/prm/asst/rl/rpts/36116.htm Assyrian refugees in Jordan www.ellisisland.org/

Students of Eastern European descent can see if they can find their relatives' entrance date to the U.S. www.fairus.org/site/PageServer?pagename=research_research9c29 table of immigration www.pbs.org/now/society/immhistory.html www.crf-usa.org/immigration/immigration_history.htm master page of sites for educators on immigration score.rims.k12.ca.us/activity/immigration/ nevada educators' site about immigration usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/histryotln/index.htm history of immigrants www.sholomaleichemclub.org/ ww.storyspieler.com/id7.html Online accecss to Sholom Aleichem's stories www.pbs.org/wnet/broadway/stars/bock_j.html

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28

James A. Clark

Timothy J. Bond

Managing Director

Producing Artistic Director

PresentS

The Lieutenant of Inishmore by

Martin McDonagh Directed by

Robert Moss

costume design

Scenic design

Camille Assaf

Adam Stockhausen

sound design

lighting design

Jonathan Herter

Matt Richards

sponsored by

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A Dark Comedy of Errors

S y ra c u s S t a ge Inishmore

The Lieutenant of Inishmore is Padraic (21), a renegade enforcer for a splinter group of the IRA. We meet him when he is torturing a drug dealer. He's about to cut off part of the man's body when he gets a phone call from his Da, Donny telling him that his cat, Wee Thomas, is ill. The Lieutenant of Inishmore is a cruel man who has empathy for no one — but he cares deeply for Wee Thomas.

And so the comedy of errors begins. The call is a bit of a ruse on several levels. Wee Thomas is not ill.

Wee Thomas is dead, or so we are lead to believe. Davey (17), a neighbor, thinks he may have killed Wee Thomas with his bike. And he knows that Padraic will kill him if he finds out.

But James, Christy and Brendan have killed the black cat as a ruse to bring Padric back to the Aran Islands. They think he is a renegade who must be stopped.

Davey tries to hide his crime by covering an orange cat, Sir Roger, with black shoe polish. Padraic quickly sees through the ruse and dispatches Sir Roger to the great beyond, demanding to know what happened to Wee Thomas.

Adding to the intrigue, Mairead (16), Davey's sister, wants to join Padraic on his crusade. At first he says no but Mairead will have her way. The romance is cut short, however, when Padraic learns that Sir Roger was her cat. Mairead becomes the new Lieutenant of Inishmore.

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30

Meet the Playwright Martin McDonagh

M

McDonagh watched a great deal of television and movies while he was beginning to write. He found himself essentially bored by theater in London—calling it "dull."

His favorite play is said to be David Mamet's short excursion into the world of petty thieves, American Buffalo. After that, he claims to have been influenced by the films of David Lynch, Martin Scorsese, Terence Malick, and Quentin Tarentino.

Judging from the plays he has written, this training was exactly right for him. He does not claim much knowledge of classic English or Irish plays, although he has been frequently compared with John Millington Synge and Sean O'Casey, two of the most renowned Irish playwrights of the twentieth century. His use of language in Beauty Queen of Leenane and related plays is very much in the same vein as the language that John Millington Synge created for The Playboy of the Western

World and his other "peasant dramas." Like Synge, McDonagh did not live in the west but as a visitor listened to the daily speech of people remote from the city.

The Beauty Queen of Leenane is the first play in a trilogy of plays set in Leenane, a remote small town in Connemara, County Galway, north of the Aran Islands, where some of the people still speak Irish. The second play is A Skull in Connemara, a dark play about death and guilt. The last play in the trilogy, The Lonesome West, also set in Leenane, examines the emotion between two brothers, Coleman and Valene.

McDonagh has developed yet another trilogy, this time set on the Aran Islands. In the first play, The Cripple of Inishmaan, Cripple Billy claims he has tuberculosis to meet Robert Flaherty, the filmmaker who is making the documentary film Man of Aran (1934). Cripple Billy goes to Hollywood but returns to Inishmaan because he cannot tolerate the stupid lines he is given to say in American films. At that point he learns he really does have tuberculosis and contemplates an early death. The other two plays in this trilogy are The Lieutenant of Inishmore and The Banshees of Inisheer. When asked whether he will always explore despair and violence in his plays, McDonagh has said that someday "I'll write a romantic comedy where hardly anyone gets murdered at all." www.bedfordstmartins.com/ litLinks/drama/mcdonagh.htm

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Inishmore

artin McDonagh is something of a marvel in contemporary theatre. He left school at 16 and spent five years writing radio scripts and collecting rejection notices until two scripts were taken by stations in Australia. He spent eight days writing his first play, The Beauty Queen of Leenane (1996). By the time that play was first produced in London in 1997, McDonagh was 27 and had four plays showing simultaneously in London. This is something few if any writers his age have ever accomplished.

Moreover, while most of his plays have been set in the west of Ireland, he has spent summers but never lived there. He and his brother were born in Camberwell, London, but his parents, who are from Galway, returned to Ireland and left Martin and his brother to live in the London flat.

Timeline 1167

in 1849. By 1849, Ireland's population decreases from emigration and starvation by 2 million people.

1641

Irish war of independence. Sinn Fein (Ourselves Alone) holds the Dublin assembly. The IRA starts a guerilla campaign against British.

SI n y ra u soSrtea ge i s hcm

Arrival of Normans at Baginbun County, Wexford, thus starting 1,000 year struggle between English and the Irish.

Catholic rebellion for return of lands. English settlers were driven out of Ulster. Catholics hold 59 percent of the land in Ireland.

1919-21

1920

1650

The British parliament passes the Government of Ireland Act establishing one parliament for the six counties of Northern Ireland, and another for the rest of Ireland.

1691

1949

Irish sent to exile so that by 1658 the population estimated at 1,500,000 is reduced to 500,000.

Irish surrender at Limerick. In subsequent years, until 1829, Catholics are excluded from Parliament and all professions.

Ireland leaves the British Commonwealth. Republic of Ireland declared.

1991

1695

Ireland signs the Treaty on European Union at Maastricht. Ireland receives a guarantee that its strict abortion prohibition will not be affected.

Anti-Catholic Penal Laws pass. Catholics hold 14 percent of the land.

1714

1994

Irish hold 7 percent of the land in Ireland.

IRA declares cease fire.

1998

1782

Irish Parliament wins legislative independence.

1791

Irish revolution begins to brew.

The scene of a May 17, 1974, car bomb explosion which took place in the center of Dublin, Ireland, that killed 33 people.

1829

Catholic emancipation passes.

The Good Friday Agreement, a political settlement for Northern Ireland, is approved by voters in referendums in the Republic of Ireland and in Northern Ireland.

2006

Government launches a 20-year strategy to create a bilingual, Irish and English-speaking society.

1845

Potato harvest sustains blight. Famine begins and ends

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32

Geography as character The Aran Islands

I

t's no mistake The Lieutenant of Inishmore takes place on the Aran Islands. Martin McDonagh wanted to draw on the islands' rugged history.

The islands were formed some 350 million years ago, as part of the complex of limestone terraces that make up the Burren — rocky shore line — in western County Clare. Limestone is quite susceptible to the forces of erosion, and this has helped to create one of the strangest and yet most beautiful landscapes in the world.

The islands maintained contact and trade with the Connemara coast, which allowed them to import some valuable non-native items. The most important import was peat from the Connemara bogs, used as fuel to heat the islanders' homes. The major activities on the Aran Island — farming, fishing, and kelp harvesting — have remained largely the same throughout its history.

The islands remained isolated for much of its history. In the late 17th century, Oliver Cromwell's troops reached Inis Mór, plundering several local forts and churches to build their own stronghold at Castle Arkin.

For the most part the English hand touched this region only lightly. They probably found the islands as unappealing as the Burren, an area which one of Cromwell's generals famously remarked contained neither enough wood to burn a man, nor enough rope to hang him, nor enough water to drown him.

The islanders could send out boats to catch the abundant fish of Galway Bay or the Atlantic, and they could build houses and farms.

The first inhabitants of the islands were Celtic tribes who built monumental stone forts. When Ireland converted to Christianity, they built churches and monasteries on the islands.

The early Aran settlers found the islands largely covered by forest, But once the islanders had harvested the trees, erosion became a major problem. Within a few centuries, the islands threatened to turn back to desolate patches of rock and sand.

That the islands remain inhabited is a tribute to human tenacity and resourcefulness. Forced to rebuild their environment from the materials at hand, the islanders created new soil by hand, by mixing beach sand with seaweed, fish meal, and manure. The less fertile grass-

The harsh living conditions on Inis Mór were never conducive to support a large population, but before the Great Famine the island was home to more than 2,500 inhabitants. This dropped drastically after the potato blight destroyed the major staple crop and made life harder still for the few who remained.

Today, fewer than a thousand people live on Inis Mór, many of them still making their living as farmers or fishermen. Tourism has brought more money into the local economy, along with the attendant downsides of increased crowding and pollution.

— based on www.apricot.com/~jimcat/ pictures/aranislands/aranhistory.htm

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Inishmore

When the first inhabitants of the Arans arrived on Inis Mór, they found it divided into two distinct regions. The southern part consisted of rocky terraces that dropped off into the Atlantic in cliffs up to three hundred feet high. The other featured fertile soil, trees, and safe harbors with sandy beaches.

lands and rocky uplands were used for cattle and sheep grazing.

In the Classroom 1) The Lieutant of Iishmore has been called a dark comedy. What does that mean?

2) Is the fact the play is set in Ireland important? How so?

SI n y ra u soSrtea ge i s hcm

3) Padraic has a unique set of ethics. How does he decide what is wrong and what is right? How can the audience still like him? What does the playwright do to make that happen?

4) How did the Irish dialect help or hurt your enjoyment of the play? Did the playwright or director do anything to help you understand the differences?

Additional Resources www.visitaranislands.com/ www.lookaroundireland.com/mapofaranislands.htm

www.cfr.org/publication/9240/

Council on Foreign Relations history of the Irish Republican Army www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/ira/

History, songs and video

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34

James A. Clark

Timothy J. Bond

Managing Director

Producing Artistic Director

PresentS

Doubt

A Parable by

John Patrick Shanley Directed by

M. Burke Walker

Scenic design

costume design

David Birn

Katrin Nauman

lighting design

Phil Monat

sound design

Jonathan Herter

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A World of Change

S yD raocuubs tS t a ge

Doubt opens against the turbulent social and political landscape as American Catholics mourn their poster-boy, John F. Kennedy, who was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald. The world is changing too fast for some. Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act into law, and the Catholic Church toils amidst its Second Ecumenical Council, Vatican II, meetings which brought radical changes in the liturgy and daily religious practice. St. Nicholas, a parish school, reflects this change.

St. Nicholas tests the waters of integration by admitting Donald Muller, and a new priest, Father Flynn, follows the orders of Vatican II, looking his congregation in the eye, delivering mass in English. Father Flynn embraces these modernizations of Catholicism, excited about the possibilities for community building within his congregation. He encourages his congregation to take advantage of this uncertainty, to utilize their doubt as an important resource.

In a stark contrast to the warm, eager Father Flynn, Sister Aloysius remains the staunch, autocratic principal of the school. Unlike the young Father Flynn, who appears open to interrogations of self and faith, Sister Aloysius stands firm in her traditionalist convictions. Situated between these two ends of the spectrum is Sister James, a young teacher whose friendly spirit and desire for progressive education often posits her in opposition to Sister Aloysius. Sister James’ spiritual consciousness and pedagogical approach volleys back and forth between the polarized beliefs of Father Flynn and Sister Aloysius.

Sister Aloysius catalyzes the action of the play when she articulates her suspicions that Father Flynn has engaged in a sexual relationship with Donald Muller. The play intersperses Father Flynn’s sermons with confrontational scenes between Sister Aloysius and each of the other characters; she is determined to elicit a confession from Father Flynn and protect the young boy. Sister James appears more than willing to believe Father Flynn when he provides an alternative version of the scenario. Even Donald’s mother is willing to allow the potential molestation to continue for the rest of the school year if it means Donald is safe from the physical abuse he endured in the public school system.

Despite everyone’s faith in Father Flynn, Sister Aloysius maintains her doubts about his guilt and concocts a scheme to have the priest transferred to another parish. Going against her unstinting commitment to tradition, Sister Aloysius works outside the predetermined hierarchy to ensure Donald’s safety. As the play ends: “Everything seems uncertain” to Sister James as Sister Aloysius confesses that she too has become overwhelmed with doubt.

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Glossary

FDR/The New Deal (pg 10):

The name ascribed to the amalgam of social welfare programs developed by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in response to the Great Depression. Of the programs developed during this time period, the primary programs still in effect today are Social Security and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Pope John XXIII

Socrates (pg 12):

Famous Greek philosopher whose theories were made famous in The Socratic Dialogues and Plato’s Republic. As the teacher of Plato and founder of much of the Western philosophical tradition, Socrates teachings and philosophy of pedagogy continue to resonate in educational institutions today.

St. Aloysius:

The patron saint of Catholic youth.

Interestingly, St. Aloysius worked primarily in Florence and Castiglione, cities visited by Elizabeth Seton during her trip to Italy.

humankind rather than imbuing animals and forces of nature with the humanity. The defining element of a parable is “prescriptive subtext”—it suggests how people should behave or what they should believe. Parables are frequently utilized within the Christian tradition, with famous examples including “The Good Samaritan” and “The Prodigal Son.”

St. Boniface: (pg. 22) the patron saint of Germany.

Heretical (pg 31):

Of or pertaining to a belief or opinion which contradicts religious doctrine.

Second Ecumenical Council (pg 30): Popularly referred to as

“Vatican II,” the Second Ecumenical Council convened an enclave of bishops and other leading clergy members of the Catholic Church at the Vatican on four separate occasions from 19621965. Called for by Pope John XXIII, the Second Ecumenical Council sought to re-evaluate and modernize the Catholic Church. Among other reforms, the Council called for increased social activities within parishes, including increased social relations between clergy and lay people. Mass was now to be spoken in English (or the spoken tongue of the particular congregation) rather than Latin, the “lingua franca” (or common language). Additionally, the priest was now to face his congregation during Mass, and portions of the Mass previously said secretly were now to be said by the priest in communion with his congregation.

Transistor radios (pg 42):

Invented in 1953, transistor radios enjoyed mass popularity (and affordability) in the 1960s; despite advances in communications technology, the transistor radio is the most popular communications device in existence.

Parable:

A brief story that teaches a moral or religious lesson; it differs from a fable in its realism, focusing on

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Doubt

Sisters of Charity (pg 7): An order of Catholic nuns founded in the tradition of St. Vincent DePaul.

Elizabeth Bayley Seton (“Mother Seton”) founded the first Sisters of Charity community in Emmitsburg, Maryland, in 1809. They had their roots in the Daughters of Charity, a radical organization that formed in seventeenth-century France and did not swear allegience to the Pope. It was a community of lay women who took vows of obedience and charity. The Sisters, as the Daughters before them, focused on education, care of the elderly and employment training. The Sisters of Charity founded the first free Catholic school for girls in the United States, which schools became the basis of the entire parochial school system that proliferated throughout the United States for more than a hundred and fifty years.

1964

The Year in Review

S yD raocuubs tS t a ge

P

ope Paul VI (the head of the Roman Catholic church) and Patriarch Athenagoras I (the head of the Greek Orthodox church) meet in Jerusalem; this is the first time the two churches have met since their split in the 15th century.

wald, John F. Kennedy’s assassin.

President Lyndon B. Johnson declares the “War on Poverty” during his State of the Union Address.

Henry Hezekiah Dee and Charles Eddie Moore, two young African-American men, are kidnapped and beaten to death by members of the Ku Klux Klan.

The first major student protests against the Vietnam War. The largest march was in New York, but others occurred in Boston, Seattle, and Madison, WI.

In response to the US seizing four Cuban fishing boats off the coast of Florida just days prior, Cuba cuts off the water supply to the United States’ Guantanomo Bay Naval Base.

A Jackson, Mississippi jury, trying Byron De La Beckwith for the murder of Medgar Evers (an African American civil rights activist), reports that it cannot reach a verdict; the case is declared a mistrial.

The Vatican condemns oral contraceptives.

President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Three American civil rights workers, Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, and James Chaney, are found dead in Mississippi; they had been missing for nearly two months.

September 14th: The opening of the third meeting (of four) of the Vatican’s Second Ecumenical Council.

Folk singer Joan Baez clowns Dec. 2, 1964 as she sits with student demonstrators in Sproul Hall on the University of California campus in Berkeley, Calif. The students, participating in a Free Speech Movement, said they would remain until disciplinary action is dropped against four student leaders.

After being suspended from the nation of Islam, Malcolm X declares that he is forming a black nationalist party.

Kitty Genovese, 28, is stabbed to death in her apartment in Queens, NY. Although 38 of her neighbors claim to have heard her cries for help, none interfered, as they expected someone else to do something.

Psychologists have come to term this phenomenon the bystander effect.

The first official investigation of John. F. Kennedy’s assassination, the Warren Commission Report, is published.

Martin Luther King Jr. receives the Nobel Peace Price, making him the youngest recipient of the award in history.

The People’s Republic of China tests an atomic bomb.

While campaigning for re-election, President Lyndon B. Johnson publicly announces his plans for his “Great Society.”

Jack Ruby is found guilty of killing Lee Harvey Os-

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38

Meet the Author J

Awards for Doubt

His movies The Waltz of the Tulips (2006) Live From Baghdad (2002) (TV, Emmy) Congo (1995) Alive (1993) Joe Versus the Volcano (1990) also directed The January Man (1989) Moonstruck (1987) Five Corners (1987) Four Dogs and a Bone (?)

Stage plays Welcome to the Moon (1982) Danny and the Deep Blue Sea (1983) Savage In Limbo (1984) The Dreamer Examines His Pillow (1985) Italian American Reconciliation (1986) Women of Manhattan (1986) All For Charity (1987) Italian American Reconciliation (1988) The Big Funk (1990) Beggars in the House of Plenty (1991) What Is This Everything? (1992) Kissing Christine (1995) Missing Marisa (1995) Four Dogs and a Bone (1995) The Wild Goose (1995) Psychopathia Sexualis (1998) Where's My Money? (2001) Cellini (2001) Dirty Story (2003) Doubt (2004) Sailor's Song (2004) Four Dogs and a Bone (2004) Defiance (2005)

Tony Awards Best Play, Best Actress in a Play, Best Supporting Actress in a Play and Best Direction of a Play Drama Desk Awards Outstanding New Play, Outstanding Actor in a Play, Outstanding Actress in a Play, Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Play, Outstanding Direction of a Play, Best New Play

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Doubt

ohn Patrick Shanley, the “Bard of the Bronx,” was born in 1950 and received his early education at parochial schools throughout the Bronx. These schools, established and administered by the Irish Christian Brothers and the Sisters of Charity, are the subject of Doubt, his most critically lauded play to date. His personal biography published at the back of Doubt states that Shanley was “thrown out of St. Helen’s … banned from St. Anthony’s … [and] expelled from Cardinal Spelling High School.” After serving in the Marine Corps, Shanley completed his education at New York University, where he discovered his passion for playwriting.

Shanley’s earliest literary interests were comprised of science fiction and poetry; he recalls having decorated his bedroom walls with verse penned by Wallace Stevens, Robert Frost, and Dylan Thomas.

Shanley wrote primarily as a poet himself until returning from the Marine Corps and discovering that a playwriting course was the only available creative writing course at NYU. In addition to Doubt, his plays include Danny and the Deep Blue Sea, Dirty Story, Psychopathia Sexualis, and Welcome to the Moon. Shanley is currently adapting Moonstruck (for which he won an Academy Award for Best Screenplay) into a musical with Henry Krieger and Susan Birkhead.

Additional Resources Dirvin, Joseph. Mrs. Seton: Foundress of the American Sisters of Charity mcraeclan.com/Caitlin/SaintEAS/CaitSaintEAS.htm

Biographical information about Mother Seton

S yD raocuubs tS t a ge

Yeakel, Sister Mary Agnes. The Nineteenth Century Educational Contribution of the Sisters of Charity of Saint Vincent De Paul in Virginia.

Gy, Pierre-Marie. The Reception of Vatican II Liturgical Reforms in the Life of the Church Kelly, Ellin and Annabelle Melville. Elizabeth Seton: Selected Writings www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/entertainment/jan-june05/doubt_5-2.html

An interview with John Patrick Shanley www.northern.edu/wild/DanY/Thea100/StdGuide_Doubt.pdf

Another study guide for the play boston.com/globe/spotlight/abuse/ A comprehensive newspaper account of the Church abuse scandal

The chilling beauty of the play originates with the specific example that Shanley employs to moot one of organized religion's most recurring issues: the place that doubt has in the minds and hearts of the faithful. Refusing to supply a pat answer to the ever-present quandary, Shanley is cunning as he pits a self-proclaimed religious woman who brooks no reservations about her beliefs against a clear-cut religious man who does. The playwright doesn't confine the argument to the philosophical wrestling match on stage; before the intermissionless 90-minute play ends, he's provided information on Sister Aloysius and Father Flynn that leaves patrons grappling with their own doubts.

— David Finkle

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In the Classroom 1. The Second Ecumenical Council (in 1962) called for priests to deliver Mass in the local language. For traditionalists, this prompted debates about possibility for “truth” in the language. What arguments about language and truth do Sister Aloysius and Father Flynn make?

2. Performative language is language that calls something new into being. Sister Aloysius warns about the danger of performative language; she says “I must be careful not to create something by saying it” and insists that “the best teachers do not perform, they cause the students to perform.” Using the text of the play, find the various moments in which each character uses the power of language to create something new. What is the relationship between performative language and live performance?

4. Given inaccuracies in Wikipedia, the abundance of misinformation on the Web, how do your students identify facts? How can doubt be healthy?

John Patrick Shanley and Cherry Jones won Tony Awards for their work on Doubt. Jones, who won best actress for her portrayl of Sister Aloysius, will play the President of the United States on the next season of 24.

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Doubt

3. Playwright John Patrick Shanley said the word “doubt,” not the recent Catholic Church scandals, are what inspired his play, and encourages his audience to consider “doubt” in a greater political and social context: “Whether it was the invasion of Iraq—and the certainty that it was the right thing to do—or people in the Democratic and Republican parties who, year in and year out, show up like convicts chained together — having the exact same position on everything!” Consider the ways that absolutist ideas — be they impenetrable convictions or overwhelming uncertainties, are used to shape our thinking?

James A. Clark

Timothy J. Bond

Managing Director

Producing Artistic Director

PresentS

The Bomb-itty of Errors by

Jordan Allen-Dutton, Jason Catalano, Gregory Qaiyum and Erik Weiner Music by

Jeffrey Qaiyum Directed by

Andy Goldberg

Scenic design

costume design

Shoko Kambara

Amelia Dombrowski

sound design

Jonathan Herter

sponsored by

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History of Errors A long-popular story The Menaechmi by Plautus (254 - 184 BC) Moschus, a merchant of Syracuse, had twin sons. When the boys were 7, Moschus took one of them, Menaechmus, with him on a business trip. There the boy became separated from his father and lost in the crowd. He was found later and adopted by a wealthy merchant of Epidamnus. In this city, he grew to manhood and married a rich wife.

The lost brother, Menaechmus of Epidamnus, has been quarreling with his wife about a bracelet he took to give his girlfriend. The girlfriend sees Menaechmus of Syracuse, and insitsts he come in and eat the feast she has prepared.

When he leaves she gives him a gold bracelet and requests that he have it repaired.

The wife and the girlfriend continue to mistake one brother for the other, leaving one very hungry and the other the victim of constant beatings.

Finally the twin brothers are brought face to face but it never seems to occur to Menaechmus Sosicles that here is the twin he has been seeking. It is left for Messenio to unravel the tangle and thus win the gift of freedom. The comedy closes with plans for an auction of all the property of Menaechmus of Epidamnus, including his wife, that he may return with his brother to Syracuse.

Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare (1558 - 1616) Aegeon was a merchant of Syracuse, which is a seaport in Sicily. He and his wife had twins. At the inn where they lived, two baby boys were born to a much poorer couple. They were so poor, they sold the babies into slavery to the parents of the other twins. The couple set sail to show off their new family , but the ship ran into bad weather and the family was separated.

Aegeon returned to Syracuse. His own child he called Antipholus, and the slave child he called Dromio. By coincidence those were the names given to the children who floated away from him.

Now grown, Antipholus of Syracuse, along with his slave, Dromio of Syracuse, goes in search of his brother. He goes to Ephesus and immediately cases of mistaken identity begin. One has money and the other doesn't. The bracelet repairman doesn't understand why he can't be paid. One man's wife mistakes the twin for the other. And no one is the wiser.

The story escalates. Antipholus of Ephesus' wife thinks he must have gone mad. But all becomes apparent when she cries, "I see two husbands or mine eyes deceive me;" and Antipholus, espying his father, said, "Thou art Aegeon or his ghost." (for a longer synopsis go to www.shakespeare-online.com/plots/comedyps.html

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Bom b - i t t y o f E r r o r s

When the other brother, Menaechmus of Syracuse, reached young manhood he set out with his slave, Messenio, to cover the known world in search of his twin.

Add-rap-tation B o m bS -yira t t yc uosfS tEarge rors

S

hakespeare set to hiphop? This is not gonna be any ordinary evening at the theatre ...

Such were my thoughts as I entered 45 Bleeker to see The Bomb-itty of Errors, an "add-rap-tation" of Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors. Within minutes my suspicions were confirmed. Bomb-itty is not ordinary in any sense of the word. It is, in fact, a pretty extraordinary tour-de-force.

Act one opens with four homeboys cranking out raps against live hip-hop music, provided by disk jockey J.A.Q. (who penned the score), on a stage-set comprised of a delicate balance of graffiti-covered brick, corrugated tin and an oversized manhole placed strategically at center-stage.

To give the plot away or not to, that is the question.

Well, I guess since the plot is about 400 years old, a quick synopsis won't hurt. Suffice it to say, Bomb-itty revolves around a series of mishaps that occur when a quartet of birth twins are separated early in life and then serendipitously joined together years later. One pair of siblings, Antipholus and Dromio, is unaware that their identical counterparts (who also happen to be named Antipholus and Dromio) are residing in the city of their travels (Ephesus) and pandemonium ensues.

barely do this play justice. From a delivery boy who can't rap for his life, to a cop that raps with an Irish accent, to a RuPaul-esque hooker that lusts after a necklace consisting of a golden steering wheel (complete with The Club attachment), Bomb-itty has no shortage of zany characters and amusing raps to keep you thoroughly entertained through its duration. Here's a sample: "What did you feed me, you stupid twit. This tastes like elephant shit." "Not elephant shit, elephant urine," Rastafarian medicine man Doctor P quickly corrects.

A small aside on The Bomb-itty of Errors: Although, on one hand, it may quite possibly be one of the most original outings to take place in the entertainment industry in years, it is nonetheless an adaptation of a parody that is four centuries old. It's interesting to note that the same vehicle that captured the hearts and minds of Shakespeare's original audience still entertains us today. The World Wide Web may allow us to buy books and CDs at the click of a button but perhaps we really haven't changed so much in the past 400 years.

Otto Luck www.nyrock.com/reviews/2000/bombitty.htm

Written and performed by Jordan Allen-Dutton, Jason Catalano, Gregory Qaiyum and Erik Weiner, Bomb-itty is a merciless assault of sidesplitting comedy that had the audience in stitches from start to end. (I, myself, haven't laughed so hard since I heard that Donald Trump is running for president.) The entire dialogue is sung rap style, with a combination of wit and exuberance that immediately brings to mind masters of the respective arts of rap and comedy, such as the Beastie Boys and Robin Williams. I found myself entertaining superlatives, which I usually avoid with an eleven-foot pole, such as brilliant, fresh, hilarious and damn-thisis-good. The humor is so on-the-money, in fact, that I found myself fantasizing the summary execution of all the writers and entire staff of Saturday Night Live. It's times like this that I realize how bad the status quo of humor entertainment really is.

What can I say, I'm just a humble rock critic. I can

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Tagging The hiphop vibe in two-dimensions

T

Graffiti range from simple marks to complex and colorful compositions. Motives for the production of such marks may include a desire for recognition that is public in nature, and/or the need to appropriate public space or someone else's private space for group or individual purposes.

An example of this cross-culturally prevalent genre of graffiti, political graffiti, may combine with other artistic and expressive forms, such as poster and comic book production, mural painting, newspaper and pamphlet production, and political art exhibitions.

A second genre of graffiti, gang graffiti, are used as markers by gangs usually active in urban areas.

A third genre of graffiti, graffiti art, is commonly called "hip-hop" or "New York style" graffiti and derives from a tradition of subway graffiti that originated in New York during the 1970s. This type of graffiti has spread to large urban centers around the USA and the rest of the world, especially in Europe. Where subway cars like those in New York are unavailable, walls, rocks, road signs, billboards, train carriages, and even motor vehicles are considered suitable canvases. This work ranges from simple monochrome "tags" (the artist's "name tag," often represented in an exaggerated cursive style) to elaborate, multicolored works called "pieces" (derived from the word "masterpiece") which are considered in some circles to be of museum quality. As graffiti has begun to find its way from its original urban locations to the walls of galleries and museums, the question of vandalism and graffiti as an art form has provoked endless controversy. The work of the late Keith Haring in particular became "legitimized" as it moved from New York's subway walls to the walls of galleries and private collectors in the USA. It is in part the rapid movement of hip-hop graffiti art and its concomitant controversies which has spurred the development of scholarly interest surrounding people's use of graffiti in all its aspects.

BOMB-ITTY

Different-sized nozzles are used to achieve various effects, for example, a thin line as opposed to a wide band of paint. Where spray paint is not used or available, almost anything may serve as a substitute.

Because it is impossible to limit or regulate the resources, the graffiti medium constitutes an open channel for expression. It represents a type of discontinuous communicative strategy through which people can engage in a visual dialogue which does not rely on face-toface interaction or necessary knowledge of the writers' identities.

Communities that produce graffiti (as opposed to the individual "scribbler") may target cryptic messages toward their own closed community. The writers may not sign their real names; they employ the use of nicknames, codes, and stylized symbols. This type of graffiti is geared toward people who understand the messages and may act to enhance group solidarity.

If a community's ideological focus is geared toward the larger society or the politics of the larger state, graffiti messages usually lack cryptic symbolism, make use of the national language, and retain a more straightforward aesthetic style.

Graffiti can be understood as manifestations of personal and communal ideologies which are visually striking, insistent, and provocative. They are worthy of the continued attention of art historians, social scientists, and policy makers alike.

— Based on Dictionary of Art, MacMillan Publishers

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Bom b - i t t y o f E r r o r s

agging is the term applied to an arrangement of institutionally illicit marks driven to establish the artist's vision in a coherent composition. The term "graffiti" derives from the Greek graphein ("to write").

Graffiti meaning a drawing or scribbling on a flat surface, originally referred to those marks found on ancient Roman architecture. Although examples of graffiti have been found at ancient sites, they are usually associated with 20th-century urban environments.

B-Boys of History Origins of HipHop

B o mSby- ira t tcyuos Sf tEarge r ors

A

frican people brough to the United States their rich tradition of elaborate language set to rhythm and music to convey history. This music, rich in language, developed through the years in gospel, jazz, blues and popular music.

Did you know that a man named Clive Campbell who was born in 1955 in Kingston, Jamaica is The Father of Hip Hop? Kool Herc Kool Herc, born Clive Campbell in 1955 in Kingston, Jamaica, came to the Bronx in 1967. There he started playing DJ at birthday parties. He was particularly interested in

the "break" section of the song when the beat would dominate and riff without lyrics. He also played with mixing music, playing the record simultaneously on two turntables. In 1973, he was hired at a club called The Twilight Zone for his first professional DJ gig.

As his popularity grew, his music developed and the beat sections became longer. In 1975, he started working at Hevalo, what became a famous hip hop club.

In the late 1970s, as Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five rose in popularity, Kool Herc's fame diminished. In 1977, he was stabbed at one of his parties and his career never rebounded.

Key Dates

1980

1969

1985

Don Campbell had become a well-known street dancer in Los Angeles and invented a dance called "Campbellock."

1970-1973

n Kool Herc plays n HipHop "Grandfather" Afrika Bambaataa (Godfather of Hip-Hop culture, Father of Electro Funk sound, founder of the Universal Zulu Nation), starts to DJ. n The Last Poets, pioneers of hip-hop, record their self-named LP on Douglas Records, using a mix of speEch, jazz drumming and instrumentations.

1977

Hip Hop shifted more attention to the MCs while DJs Bam, Disco King Mario, Breakout, Casanova Fly, Disco Wiz, and Grandmaster Flash also perform.

1978

Music industry coined 'rap music'.

1979

The Sugarhill Gang (a pre-fab group assembled by record mogul Sylvia Roberts) records "Rapper's Delight."

Record labels begin to battle for hip-hop artists. n Salt 'n' Pepa makes its first appearance." n"The Show" by Doug E. Fresh and the Get Fresh Crew changes the sound of hip hop.

1986

Run-D.M.C. releases a hip-hop version of Aerosmith's "Walk This Way," and hip-hop breaks into the pop charts, MTV, and mass media all at once.

1988

n N.W.A.'s "Straight Outta Compton" goes gold, popularizing the 'gangsta' school of rap. n "Big Daddy Kane" (aka Antonio Hardy) releases "Ain't No Half Steppin" from his album Long Live The Kane.

1998

Dr. Dre signs Eminem to his Aftermath label after hearing the rapper freestyling on a Los Angeles radio station. The Slim Shady LP is released on Feb. 23, 1999 and hits No. 2 on the Billboard charts within weeks.

www.b-boys.com/classic/hiphoptimeline.html

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History continued

G

Formed in the South Bronx, they were one of the first rap posses, responsible for such masterpieces as “The Message,” “Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel” and “White Lines.” The combination of Grandmaster Flash’s turntable mastery and the Furious Five’s raps, which ranged from socially conscious to frivolously fun, made for a series of 12-inch records that forever altered the musical landscape.

genre—and the authoritatively deep voice who delivered the anti-cocaine rap “White Lines” — recalled the early days of hip-hop: “Disco was for adults, and they wouldn’t let the kids in. That forced us to go out on the streets and make our own entertainment.”

Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five issued their first record, “Superrappin’,” on the Enjoy label in 1979.

They then signed to Sylvia Robinson’s New Jersey-based Sugarhill label, where they made the R&B charts with a 12-inch single called “Freedom,” which ran for more than eight minutes.

Various combinations of Grandmaster Flash, Melle Mel and the Furious Five placed 10 records in the charts during a three-year span from 1980 to 1983.

As Rolling Stone observed, Flash, along with DJ Kool “’The Message’ was [the Herc and Afrika Bamfirst record] to prove that baataa, pioneered the art rap could become the of break-beat deejaying inner city’s voice, as well — the process of remixing as its choice.” This slice of Joseph Saddler a.k.a. Grandmaster Flash and thereby creating a new unvarnished social realism piece of music by playing sold half a million copies vinyl records and turntables in a month, topped numeras if they were musical instruments. Disco-era deejays ous critics’ and magazines’ lists of best singles for 1982, like Pete “DJ” Jones, an early influence on Grandmaster and cemented Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five’s Flash, spun records so that people could dance. Turnplace in hip-hop’s vanguard. tablists took it a step further by scratching and cutting records, focusing on “breaks”—what Flash described In 1984, disagreements over business matters, including as “the short, climactic parts of the records that really a lawsuit with Sugarhill, caused the group to split into grabbed me” — as a way of heightening musical excitetwo factions, and their commercial momentum was lost.

— Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ment and creating something new.

Too young to play in clubs, Flash began DJing at parties in 1974. Flash worked briefly with Kurtis Blow, but Cowboy became the first MC to officially join Grandmaster Flash in what would become the Furious Five.

Cowboy’s rousing exhortations — including now-familiar calls to party, like “Throw your hands in the air and wave ‘em like you just don’t care!” — became essential ingredients of the hip-hop experience.

Grandmaster’s squadron of MCs expanded to include Kidd Creole, Melle Mel, Mr. Ness (a.k.a. Scorpio) and Raheim, in that order. Melle Mel, one of the most phonetically and rhythmically precise rappers in the

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Bom b - i t t y o f E r r o r s

randmaster Flash and the Furious Five fomented the musical revolution known as hip-hop.

Theirs was a pioneering union between one DJ and five rapping MCs. Grandmaster Flash (born Joseph Saddler, 1951) devised various techniques and designed turntable and mixing equipment.

Crossing Social Barriers Musical artists tell America's story in rap

B o m bS -yira t t yc uosfS tEarge rors

A

frican-American and Latino teens with a turntable and time on their hands in the 1970s invented hip-hop — born in the USA and now the center of a mega-music and fashion industry around the world.

hip-hop artist and promoter, filmmaker and producer Fab 5 Freddy, born Fred Brathwaite, in an interview with the Washington File. “It is dominant in every youth culture in every country.”

Hip-hop began 30 years ago in the South Bronx, a borough of New York City, a neighborhood that seemed to exemplify the bleakness of poor urban places.

“One thing that is applicable to every generation of teenagers is urgency,” music producer and film director Mark Shimmel said. Everything about hip-hop — the sound, the lyrics, the style, the language — conveys that sense of urgency.

Using turntables to spin old, worn records, kids in the South Bronx began to talk over music, mostly on the streets and in basements in what were called block The sociological and cultural impact of rock and roll parties, creating an entirely new music genre and dance pales in comparison to what hip-hop has been able to form. This "talking over," or MCing (rapping) or DJing accomplish, Shimmel said. (audio mixing or scratching), became the essence of rap “Hip-hop is the singular most immusic, break dance and grafportant melding of black and white Some argue that "Space Cowboy" fiti art, according to Marvette cultures that has ever existed in the coined the term "Hip Hop" in his Perez, curator at the Smithsonian United States,” Shimmel said. Hip-hop rap: Institution’s National Museum is a story about music, but it is much of American History in Washmore than that. Urban music, like "I said a hip hop ington, which is planning a new Motown, “worked for white audithe hippie the hippie to the hip exhibit on the history of hip-hop. ences,” Shimmel said, but you did not hip hop see blacks and whites together at live & you don't stop the rock it to the “Out of this forgotten, bleak concerts. bang bang boogie say you jumped place, an incredible tradition the boogie to the rhythm of the was born,” Perez said in a WashHip-hop changed that, Shimmel said, boogie" ington File interview. because it was about fashion and language from the beginning, and — From the beginning, style has most importantly — captured a sense been a big element of hip-hop, Perez said. “Hip-hop of urgency that teenagers in the suburbs and in the cities tells the story of music but also of urban America and its could relate to. style.”

“When hip-hop artists wrote about the world they saw “With the significant contributions from the hip-hop in the inner city, black and white teens recognized that community, we will be able to place hip-hop in the con- the isolation of suburbia was not much different,” Shimtinuum of American history and present a comprehenmel said. sive exhibition,” Brent D. Glass, director of the museum, told the Washington File.

Today, Ebony magazine reports, two out of every 10 records sold in America are hip-hop; 80 percent of buyers are white.

The museum’s multiyear project will trace hip-hop from its origins in the late 1970s, as an expression of urban black and Latino youth culture, to its status today as a Fab 5 Freddy, host of Yo! MTV Raps in the 1980s, said hip-hop is successful because the music is "infectious" $4 billion industry. Perez said the museum already has and because it allows people to express themselves in a received collections from such hip-hop artists as Grandpositive, dynamic and consciousness-raising way. “Hipmaster Flash, Afrika Bambaataa, Kool Herc, Ice T, Fab 5 Freddy, Crazy Legs, and MC Lyte. hop is for everybody with an open ear,” he said.

“Hip-hop is the most important contribution to the American cultural landscape since blues and jazz,” said

In 1985, when Run-D.M.C.’s King of Rock became the first hip-hop record to “go Platinum,” an award given

Syracuse Stage 2007-2008 Study Guide education office: 443-1150 or syracusestage.org/education.html

48

Crossing Social Barriers continued technique resonates throughout the United States and the world,” Perez said.

usinfo.state.gov/scv/Archive/2006/May/12-522164.html

Bom b - i t t y o f E r r o r s

by the Recording Industry Association of America to a musical or performing artist for the sale of a million records, CDs, or cassettes, Shimmel said it was apparent that hip-hop had crossed over from African-American and Latino urban music into white culture. In 2005, Outkast’s Grammy for Album of the Year was a first for a hip-hop album.

Shimmel said hip-hop today is not much different from its South Bronx roots. “Every musical form evolves,” Shimmel said. “Hip-hop started in New York, and it was interpreted differently in Los Angeles, and then the South added another element,” he said. “It has evolved, but it hasn’t changed.”

Perez acknowledged that some hip-hop music is notable for its disrespect of women, adding that the museum does not plan to dismiss this aspect of hip-hop. The so-called "gangsta" rap in the 1990s, with lyrics promoting drug use and violence and tagging, a form of graffiti used to mark gang territories, is a component of the hiphop culture that cannot be ignored, Perez said.

“I don’t judge it,” Perez said. “It is what it is. On the whole, the majority of hip-hop is creative and positive; it just happens that the worst of it can also be the most commercial.”

There is no way to ignore the fact that hip-hop is a way of walking and talking, Perez said, or that hip-hop’s influence both musically and culturally is global. “The

"One of the things that makes hip-hop so important, not only as a music genre but as a worldwide cultural phenomenon, is the way it allows us to consider the intersection of race, popular culture, global media and political activism."

Ian Condry professor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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William Shakespeare

1564 - 1616

W

.

S y- ira Bomb t t cy uos fS tEarge r ors

illiam Shakespeare, third son of John Shakespeare, glover and trader, and Mary Arden, a landowner's daughter, was born in Stratfordon-Avon in 1564.

His birthdate is celebrated April 23 by convention only; since Shakespeare himself left no personal records we glimpse him only through official records. In 1568 his father was elected mayor of Stratford. Young William would have attended the town's free school to learn his "small Latin and little Greek." But merchant's sons did not attend university, so his schooling was probably over when he was 15, in 1579.

and that Richard III was a very big hit for Strange's Men, which may have led to Will's being hired by them.

Many scholars believe that Shakespeare wrote Love's Labor's Lost, Romeo and Juliet, King John, A Midsummer Night's Dream and Richard II between 1594 and '96, as a member of the Chamberlain's (Stranges) Men.

In 1596, Will's son Hamnet died. After 1599, when Shakespeare became a partner in James Burbage's new Globe Theatre and began to share in the "box office" take, the popularity of the plays written between 1596 and 1603 allowed him to send more money home. These plays include: In November 1582, young The Merchant of Venice, The Will and Anne Hathaway Merry Wives of Windsor, both As Shakespeare did not come from a noble were issued a marriage parts of Henry IV, Henry V, background no portraits or pictures of the license; in May 1583 their Much Ado About Nothing, Bard, or any members of his family, were comdaughter Susanna was Julius Caesar, As You Like It, missioned. Neither is there any evidence that christened. Some believe Hamlet, Twelfth Night and Shakespeare commissioned his own portrait or Will was forced to marry Troilus and Cressida. pictures in his later, prosperous years. There is Anne when she became no evidence that a portrait or pictures were pregnant but others point Love's Labor's Lost was ever painted of the Bard whilst he was still out that formal betrothal, the first of his plays to be alive, nor is there any written description of his to which they had commitpublished, in 1598. Once physical appearance. Any images or ted themselves, was both King James of Scotland pictures of William Shakespeare were all legally binding and permitcame to Elizabeth's throne apparently crafted after his death. Portraits of ted conjugal rights. in 1603 Chamberlain's Men Shakespeare differ dramatically. became the King's Men and In early 1585, the Shakeperformed twice as often at speares welcomed twins, court than before. This "new" Judith and Hamnet. By then John Shakespeare had audience saw Othello, All's suffered financial setbacks and shortly thereafter, Will Well That Ends Well, Measure for Measure, King Lear, seems to have left Stratford. Although several acting Macbeth, Coriolanus, Antony and Cleopatra, companies are known to have passed through Stratford and perhaps Pericles and Timon of Athens between (the Earl of Leicester's Men in 1586, the Queen's Men in 1603 and 1608 and Chamberlain's Men became the 1587), none seems to have filled vacancies while "on King's Men and performed twice as often at court than the road," so it is unlikely Shakespeare traveled to before.

London in a troupe. Somehow though, between 1589 and 1592, he became a London actor and someIn the Blackfriar's Theatre new patrons enjoyed Henry time playwright.

VIII, The Winter's Tale, Two Gentlemen of Verona, and Cymbeline. Between 1608 and 1611 Shakespeare It is known that several of Shakespeare's early plays The gradually withdrew from the King's Men and London, Comedy of Errors, Titus Andronicus, the Henry VII plays retiring to Stratford. The Tempest, generally considered and possibly The Taming of the Shrew and Richard III to be his last play, may have been written at his home, were performed by such troupes as Sussex's, Admiral's, New Place; it was presented by Burbage's troupe in Pembroke's and Strange's before the plague hit in 1592, 1611. Shakespeare died at home on April 23, 1616.

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50

Key Dates In Shakespeare’s history 1596 – 1603

born in Stratford-on-Avon

The Merchant of Venice, The Merry Wives of Windsor, both parts of Henry IV, Henry V, Much Ado About Nothing, Julius Caesar, As You Like It, Hamlet, Twelfth Night, and Troilus and Cressida

1568 his father John Shakespeare is elected Bailiff (aka mayor)

1597 – 1603

1582 Will and Anne Hathaway are issued a marriage license in November

Purchases a Stratford estate for his family, New Place, and parcels of land

1598

1583

Love’s Labors Lost published

Their daughter Susanna is christened in May

1601

1585

The Shakespeares become the parents of twins, Judith and Hamnet.

John Shakespeare dies

1603

1592 Robert Greene quotes Henry VI in a poem.

Elizabeth I dies and is succeeded by her nephew, James VI of Scotland

1594

1603 - 08

The Comedy of Errors, Titus Andronicus, the Henry plays and possibly The Taming of the Shrew and Richard III, performed by such troupes as Sussex’s, Admiral’s, Pembroke’s and Strange’s before the plague hits London and the theatres are closed

Othello, All’s Well That Ends Well, Measure for Measure, King Lear, Macbeth, Coriolanus, Antony and Cleopatra, and perhaps Pericles and Timon of Athens (left unfinished)

1608 – 11

1594 – 96 Love’s Labor’s Lost, Romeo and Juliet, King John, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Richard II

Henry VIII, The Winter’s Tale, Two Gentlemen of Verona, Cymbeline, and The Tempest. Shakespeare’s mother dies

1596

1616

John Shakespeare granted a coat of arms; Hamnet Shakespeare dies

Dies at home, New Place, on April 23

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Bom b - i t t y o f E r r o r s

1564

Additional Resources B o m bS -yira t t yc uosfS tEarge rors

www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4823817 www.b-boys.com/classic/hiphoptimeline www.hiphoparchive.org/.html ap.about.com/od/hiphop101/a/hiphoptimeline.htm www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/28/AR2006022801754.html www.globalartistscoalition.org/hiphophistory.html Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip Hop Generation

By Jeff Chang (St. Martin's Press, 2005) 546 pp. $27.95 Angry Black White Boy, Or the Miscegenation of Macon Detornay: A Novel

By Adam Mansbach (Three Rivers Press, 2005) 352 pp. $12.95 Hip Hop Culture

By Emmett Price (ABC-CLIO, 2006) 348 pp. $85.00 (hardcover)

Syracuse Stage 2007-2008 Study Guide education office: 443-1150 or syracusestage.org/education.html

52

James A. Clark

Timothy J. Bond

Producing Artistic Director

Managing Director

PresentS

The Fantasticks book and lyrics by

Music by

Tom Jones

Harvey Schmidt Directed by

Peter Amster

Scenic design

lighting desigN

costume design

Scott Bradley

Ann Wrightson

Maria Marrero

sponsored by

Syracuse Stage 53

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A Fable The plot of The Fantasticks

.

S y ra c u s S t a ge Th e Fa n t a s t i cks

The Fantasticks opens with El Gallo addressing the audience as Narrator and tells us the simple story of a boy (Matt), a girl (Luisa), two fathers (Hucklebee and Bellamy), and a wall. From the beginning we realize that Luisa is young, innocent, pretty, and thinks she's in love with her Matt. Matt feels the same about Luisa. But when their fathers appear, the lovers do not show their affection since the two fathers are supposedly engaged in a private feud.

But the fathers have concocted the feud for no other reason than to get their two children together. They have built the wall simply to add to the deception. There is only one difficulty: they can't decide how to end the feud. Finally one father suggests that they hire a man (El Gallo) to stage a fake abduction. They both agree. The plan is that El Gallo will abduct Luisa, Matt will run in to save her — thus ending the feud.

El Gallo is helped in the abduction by two actors who are down on their luck, Mortimer (who specializes in dying) and one rather old Henry (who specializes in reciting mixed up passages from Shakespeare's plays). The actors succeed in the abduction with just a little bungling and Matt emerges as the hero having vanquished all three actors with his wooden sword. Our girl, our boy, and our fathers embrace in a loving tableau.

In Act Two, the fathers tell their children that the abduction and feud were all arranged. El Gallo makes his appearance with the bill for the abduction, and Matt tries to sword fight him again, but this time he loses. Our fathers part, angry with each other over gardening habits, and our lovers part, over equally trivial things.

The two young lovers learn that the world is not always friendly. El Gallo explains that hurting them was a necessary part of their growing. One father suggests they tear down the wall and El Gallo responds, "No. Leave the wall. Rememberyou must always leave the wall. ... Deep in December it's nice to remember / The fire of September that made us mellow."

www.bard.org/Education/Other/thefantastickssy.html

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54

Time Capsule

The world of The Fantasticks premier, 1960 The Fantasticks premiered on May 3, 1960 at The Sullivan Street Playhouse in New York City and played for 17,162 performances before closing on January 13, 2002.

Approximately 90 percent of Americans owned at least one television set.

World Population in 1960 had grown to 3 billion. (In comparison, the CIA estimated World population in 2005 at more than 6 billion) The first automated post office was dedicated in Providence, Rhode Island. Also, the Post Office experiments with facsimile mail (faxes).

On September 26, 75 million Americans watch the Presidential debate on TV. After these debates, Democrat John F. Kennedy narrowly defeated Vice President Richard M. Nixon in the November presidential election.

Broadway closed down for nearly two weeks due to an actors' strike.

16-year-old Bobby Fischer won the U.S. Chess Championship.

"The Twist" by Hank Ballard is recorded by Ernest "Chubby Checker" Evans, and launches an international dance craze.

Around 2,000 electronic computers are delivered to U.S. business offices, universities, laboratories, and other buyers.

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCCknown as Snick), a group of young people working for civil rights, is founded in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Nobel Prize for Chemistry: Willard Frank Libby, for his method to use Carbon-14 dating for age determination in archaeology and other sciences 33rd Annual Academy Awards: Best Picture: The Apartment Best Actor: Burt Lancaster in Elmer Gantry Best Actress: Elizabeth Taylor in Butterfield 8 3rd Annual Grammy Awards: Record of the Year: Percy Faith for "Theme from A Summer Place" Album of the Year: Bob Newhart for Button Down Mind Song of the Year: Ernest Gold - Composer for "Theme from Exodus" Best New Artist: Bob Newhart

The ATM is invented by Luther Simjian.

Theodore Maiman uses a synthetic ruby to build first true laser.

Taking a food order by telephone, Domino's delivers a pizza.

Zenith tests subscription TV; unsuccessful.

Mattel's Chatty Cathy doll speaks 11 phrases in random order.

Major Films: Exodus, Spartacus, Psycho, Elmer Gantry, Inherit the Wind, The Entertainer, The Magnificent Seven, Pollyanna Books: Rabbit, Run (John Updike) To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee) www2.lhric.org/pocantico/century/1960s/1960.htm www.fashionera.com/1950s/1950s_9_timeline_chart.htm archer2000.tripod.com/1960.html

African-Americans begin to "sit-in" on February 1 at Greensboro, N.C., at lunch counters. The city desegregates eating places July 25.

Enovid 10 is introduced in August by G. D. Searle - it

Syracuse Stage 55

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Th e Fa n t a s t i ck s

S y ra c u s S t a ge

Almost 60 percent of American families owned their own homes.

was the first commercially available birth control pill.

Meet the Creators Tom Jones (1928 - ) and Harvey Schmidt (1929 - )

.

S y ra c u s S t a ge Th e Fa n t a s t i ck s

T

om Jones and Harvey Schmidt wrote The Fantasticks for a summer theatre production at Barnard College. Their relationship began unofficially at the University of Texas in 1950 with a musical revue entitled Hipsy-Boo! Neither was planning to become a writer. Jones was an actor; Schmidt wanted to become a commercial artist.

rial, the two writers threw out everything (except a song "Try to Remember") and, starting from scratch, completed the basis of what is now The Fantasticks in less than three weeks.

However, Hipsy-Boo! was successful. So after graduation, while both of them were serving in the army during the "Korean conflict," the two continued their informal collaboration by mail, exchanging lyrics and musical tapes. Upon discharge, the pair came to New York.

Among these experiments, was the use of The Narrator to help them tell the story, and the "invisible" Property Man from the Chinese Theatre.

The suggestion of a commedia company on a crude wooden platform was inspired by Carlos Goldoni's A Servant of Two Masters. The thought of using the moon for one act and the sun for the other was borrowed from a John Houseman production of Shakespeare's A Winter's Tale.

They returned to the original title. The English version of the Rostand play called The Fantasticks,

The first New York years were more productive for Schmidt than for Jones, who eked out Shakespeare served as a model. a meager existence "I decided to attempt the "teaching a little bit, whole thing in verse," Jones conducting a theatre said, "to mix open verse with Tom Jones (left) Lore Noto (center), The Fantasticks workshop. Schmidt heavy rhyming and even, upon original producer, and Harvey Schmidt at the last worked as a graphic artoccasion, doggerel. I tried to performance of the show in 2002. ist for NBC Television, let people end scenes with and then as a freelance couplets as a sort of flourish. illustrator for such magazines as Life, Harpers Bazaar, I followed Shakespeare's device of using a unifying Sports Illustrated and Fortune. image to glue the whole thing together. In this case, it was vegetation. Seasons. Gardening. Fruition.

The two continued writing together, contributing mateHarvest. Whenever in doubt, I tried to put in something rial for TV shows. They worked on a full-scale musical about vegetation and the seasons. Curious, nobody's based on a little-known Edmund Rostand play called ever noticed it. At least no one ever mentioned it in a Les Romanesques. review."

"Eventually," says Jones, "the whole project just collapsed, our treatment was too heavy, too inflated for the simple little Rostand piece. It seemed hopeless."

For Broadway, Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt have written 110 in the Shade, which had a new Broadway production in 2007, as well as I Do! I Do!

It was at that point, in the summer of 1959, their friend, Ward Baker, got a job directing Barnard College's summer theatre. He told his friends that if they could give him a one-act musical version of the Rostand play in three weeks, he would give them a production of it three weeks later.

In addition to an Obie Award and the 1992 Special Tony for The Fantasticks, Jones and Schmidt are the recipients of the ASCAP-Richard Rodgers Award. In February of 1999 they were inducted into the Broadway Hall and in 1999, their "stars" were added to the OffBroadway Walk of Fame.

After years of struggling unsuccessfully with the mate-

www.thefantasticks.com/webpages/authors.htm

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56

Edmund Rostand The inspiration for The Fantasticks

F

rench poet and dramatist, best-known from his play Cyrano de Bergerac, about the heroic individualist, who has an outsized nose. The connection between the true Cyrano, the 17th century French soldier, dramatist, and soldier, is nominal. Rostand's plays were romantic and entertaining, providing an alternative to the naturalistic theatre.

Rostand's first successful play was Les Romanesques (1894). It was produced at the Comédie Française and was based on Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Three years later Cyrano de Bergerac became his most popular and enduring work — at that time he was 29-yearold. L’Aiglon(1900), a tragedy based on the life of Napoleon's son, the Duke of Reichstadt, also became popular. During its first run in 1900, the famous actress Sarah Bernhardt played the title role. Bernhardt also acted in La Samartine (1897), based on the biblical story, and La Princesse Lointaine (1895), a story about an unattainable princess and a troubadour hero, who dies in her arms. "The dream, alone, is of interest. What is life, without a dream." With these works Rostand revitalized the old romantic drama in verse.

Naturalism was the major movement in literature ­— it was the time of Emile Zola — but Rostand took up old themes and followed the Romantic tradition of Victor Hugo.

Cyrano de Bergerac is poetic, five-act romantic drama in verse, set in the reign of Louis XIII. The central character, Cyrano, is a famous swordsman, and an aspiring poet-lover. "A great nose indicates a great man - /

In 1901, at the age of thirty-three, Rostand was elected to the Académie Française. However, Rostand found his fame and unwanted publicity hard to bear.

Suffering from poor health, he retired to his family's country estate at Cambon, in the Basque county. He continued to write plays and poetry, but his subsequent works did not gain the popularity of Cyrano de Bergerac. In 1910 appeared Chantecler, a story from the animal world of La Fontaine. It told of a barnyard rooster who believes that his song makes the sun rise.

The work was pronounced a failure, and the author started his retirement at the luxurious villa Arnaga.

Rostand died of pneumonia in Paris on December 2, 1918. His last dramatic poem was about Don Juan.

The posthumously performed play failed totally.

"The success of Cyrano de Bergerac was a turning-point in Rostand's life," writes Sue Lloyd in her biography on Rostand (2003). "His future was assured but he had to live up to the expectations of the French people ... the fame he had set out to achieve from his very first book of poems turned into a crushing burden from which only death released him." www.kirjasto.sci.fi/rostand.htm

Syracuse Stage 57

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Th e Fa n t a s t i ck s

Edmond Rostand was born in Marseille into a wealthy and cultured Provençal family. Rostand studied literature, history, and philosophy at the Collège Stanislas in Paris. In the 1880s he published poems and essays in the literary review Mireille. His first play, Le Gant Rouge, was produced in 1888. Rostand abandoned his law studies in 1890 when his first book of poems, Les Musardises appeared. He gave it to the poet Rosemonde Gérard, a granddaughter of one of Napoleon's marshals, whom he married in the same year.

Genial, courteous, intellectual, / Virile, courageous."

Because of his grotesquely large nose "that marches on/ before me by a quarter of an hour," he is convinced he is too ugly to deserve his adored Roxane. Cyrano helps his inarticulate rival, Christian, win her heart by allowing him to present Cyrano's love poems, speeches, and letters as his own work. Soon the romance starts, Christian whispers his own love from the shadows in glorious words that Roxane believes are his. But Christian realizes that it was not his own good looks but Cyrano's letters that won Roxanne. Before his death on the battlefield, Christian asks Cyrano to confess their plot to Roxane. Cyrano keeps their secret for fourteen years — until he is dying. He visits Roxane and reveals the truth. The play opened at the Porte Saint-Martin Theatre in December 1897. Cyrano's gallantry was seen as the reincarnation of the true Gallic spirit and Rostand became a national hero.

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