StageView Fall 14

SEPT - NOV 2014

SYRACUSE STAGE: |1| VANYA AND SONIA AND MASHA AND SPIKE |3| AUGUST WILSON'S THE PIANO LESSON SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY DRAMA: |9| PARADE |11| STEPPING OUT

Playwright Christopher Durang

PUTTING CHEKHOV IN A

COMIC BLENDER T

hroughout his long career, playwright Christopher Durang has often been praised for his distinct voice and unique sense of humor, a dramatic style he describes as “absurdist comedy married to real feelings.” By his own admission, though, many of his earlier plays, the plays that made his reputation such as Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All, Beyond Therapy, and The Marriage of Bette and Boo, tilted toward the dark and disturbing. Audiences laughed a lot but tended to leave the theatre not exactly happy, he recently acknowledged.

With his Tony Award-winning comedy Vanya and Sonya and Masha and Spike, Durang’s vision has shifted perceptibly to a brighter—if not quite sunny—side of the theatrical street. “I find as I get older, I myself want happier endings.”

How then did he arrive at the plays of Anton Chekhov as a point of departure for this delirious comedy that opens the 2014/2015 season? The brilliant Russian playwright is a master of unresolved endings and unfulfilled characters. Chekhov may have insisted that his plays were comedies, but they are filled with instances of unrequited love, personal disappointment, and stagnation.

To shake comedy out of such dismal matter, Durang employed an approach he describes as follows: “It takes Chekhov themes and characters and mixes them all up, as if I’ve put them in a comic blender. What’s a comic blender? It’s a blender that is funny.

As opposed to a tragic blender.”

Into Durang’s blender went four well-known Chekhovian characters. Each is a namesake of a character in Durang’s play. (No, Spike isn’t one of them.) Vanya and Sonya are uncle and niece from Chekhov’s 1897 play Uncle Vanya. They live and work, unhappily, on the country estate belonging to Sonya’s father (Vanya’s brotherin-law), a retired professor who shows up in the play and at the

estate with a beautiful young wife, Elena. In typical Chekhov fashion, Vanya is smitten with Elena who is more interested in the tree-planting Doctor Astrov for whom who Sonya pines futilely.

“I’m so unhappy, dear! If you only knew how unhappy I am,” Vanya tells Sonya toward the play’s end, pretty much summing up everybody’s state of mind.

There are actually two characters named Masha in the Chekhov canon, both equally unhappy in love. One is the middle of The Three Sisters who long for Moscow while living in a kind of perpetual expectation in a remote provincial town. This Masha falls for a married military officer temporarily posted to the town. He eventually moves away with his family leaving Masha and her sisters stranded in their stagnant existence. The second Masha is the young servant from The Sea Gull who is desperately in love with the aspiring writer Constantine Treplev. Unfortunately for her, Constantine is just as desperately in love with the aspiring actress Nina. Masha’s first line of dialogue is “I am in mourning for my life. I am unhappy.” There is also a Nina in Durang’s play, who happens to be an aspiring actress.

The Vanya and Sonia and Masha that emerged from Durang’s comic blender are not so much pulverized and reconstituted versions of these specific Chekhov characters as they are people afflicted with similar worries and woes. Like many Chekhovian characters (and many people of a certain age), Durang’s Vanya and Sonia find themselves on the downslope of middle-age and wondering if they have wasted their lives. They have lived in the same Bucks County farmhouse since they were children. (She is adopted.) Much of their adult lives has been spent taking care of their parents, through illness to the end of life. Neither has worked. Instead they have relied on their sister, Masha, for support. Masha, in this instance, is a famous movie star who much more closely resembles Chekhov’s Arkadina from The Sea Gull than either of the Mashas. When Durang’s Masha shows up at the farmhouse with her “not-terribly-age-appropriate boyfriend”

Spike, Vanya and Sonia’s long-simmering regret, resentment, and jealousy bubble to the surface.

Durang insists that his play is not a parody of Chekhov, nor is any special knowledge of Chekhov required to enjoy it fully. As Ben Brantley of the New York Times noted in his review of the Broadway production: “Even if you’ve never read a word of Chekhov, you’re likely to find plenty to make you laugh.” In large part, this reflects the playwright’s shift in emphasis. With this play, Durang has set aside the savagery and biting satire of earlier work to create a more consciously accessible comedy. The difference is reflected in this exchange between Sonia and Vanya: Sonia: If everyone took anti-depressants, Chekhov would have had

nothing to write about.

Vanya: Yes he would. He would have adjusted. He would have written a volume called Happy Stories for Happy People.

This overstates the adjustment Durang has made. However, the playwright does admit noticing a difference in audience reaction to this play, which in turn had a major impact on its success. Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike opened at the McCarter Theatre Center in Princeton and enjoyed a successful run there before moving to Broadway. For a while Durang was skeptical that the transfer would actually happen. Eventually though, the audiences convinced him it could work. Night after night, they not only laughed a lot, they left the theatre happy.

- Joseph Whelan

VANYA AND SONIA AND MASHA AND SPIKE

By Christopher Durang Directed by Marcela Lorca

SEP. 24 - OCT. 12 wed. SEP 24 7:30 pm p thur. SEP 25 7:30 pm p fri. SEP 26 8 pm op sat. SEP 27 3 pm, 8 pm sun. SEP 28 2 pm pl wed. OCT 1 2 pm o,w, 7:30 pm thur. OCT 2 7:30 pm h fri. OCT 3 8 pm sat. OCT 4 3 pm s,pl, 8 pm sun. OCT 5 2 pm, 7 pm d tues. OCT 7 7:30 pm wed. OCT 8 7:30 pm thur. OCT 9 7:30 pm pl fri. OCT 10 8 pm sat. OCT 11 3 pm ad, 8 pm sun. OCT 12 2 pm o p = preview op = opening d = discussion s = ASL interpreted o = open captioning ad = audio described h = happy hour pl = prologue w = Wed@1

PRESENTING SPONSOR

SPONSOR

MEDIA SPONSORS

ABOVE: Marcela Lorca returns to Syracuse Stage to direct Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike. Lorca previously directed Scorched (2013) and Caroline, Or Change (2012).

SEASON SPONSOR

OPPOSITE ABOVE: Anton Chekhov (center) reads The Sea Gull to the cast of the Moscow Theatre, 1898.

SYRACUSE STAGE |

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THE SOUND OF SILENCE Silence is best: poetry is forever striving for perfection of silence. George Mackay Brown

After a recent interview with Tim Bond about his upcoming production of August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson, as I shut off my tape recorder and prepared to gather my notes to leave, Tim and I drifted into a more casual conversation about Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play. I mentioned that I always found the ending elusive, too abrupt, a kind of deus-ex-machina appearance by a ghost that forces the final confrontation.

silence between the notes.” Wilson, very much influenced by the Blues, clearly understood this idea, and as Tim observes, used it quite effectively in his plays.

This idea wasn’t new to Tim. He has directed the play before at The Oregon Shakespeare Festival in 2004, and clearly, has thought a lot about it. His response was not only illuminating about The Piano Lesson specifically, but also unexpectedly eye-opening about Wilson’s work in general, another area in which he has considerable expertise having directed numerous productions of the playwright’s work.

The key to the end of The Piano Lesson, he explained, is not in the wrestling match between Boy Willie and the ghost of a man named Sutter, nor is it in the summoning of ancestral spirits performed by Boy Willie’s sister Berniece at the piano. Although both are essential, the key to grasping the play’s conclusion is in the silent moment shared by Berniece and Boy Willie after the ghost has been driven from the house.

What is communicated in that silence between these feuding siblings? What previously unacknowledged truth is understood in the unscripted exchange between brother and sister?

I found Tim’s observation insightful because I think of Wilson as the writer of great arias, those sweeping and lyrical monologues that flow from his characters and reveal layer upon layer of historic struggle and personal strength. Boy Willie, for example, seems to have something to say about everything, usually spun out with singular musicality and unrelenting energy.

Yet, after all that rich and vibrant language, Tim points out that Wilson finds his concluding moment in poetic silence. Claude Debussy once noted that “music is the

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Erika La Vonn appeared as Risa in Two Trains Running (2013). She returns to portray Berniece in The Piano Lesson.

Photo: Michael Davis

Of course, as the director, it is Tim’s job to uncover such “unspoken” moments, to explore the potential for stage action and significance in the silence between the lines.

The trajectory of this particular stage moment— or the sequence of moments leading to whatever connection develops between Bernice and Boy Willie—are the business of rehearsal and of collaboration with the actors. Even if he wanted, Tim couldn’t say now exactly how it will play out on stage. The sister-brother relationship is dynamic, complex, and textured by an emotionally fraught family history, and will need to be specified by and for the actors throughout the entire play before the concluding moments can be approached.

Claude Debussy once noted that “music is the silence between the notes.”

Derrick Lee Weeden will play Doaker in The Piano Lesson. He previously worked withTim Bond at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival where he played Caesar Wilks in Gem of the Ocean.

Wilson set The Piano Lesson in 1936. The play opens with the unexpected arrival from Mississippi of 30-yearold Boy Willie at Berniece’s house in Pittsburgh. Boy Willie has a plan. He wants to sell a family heirloom piano in Berniece’s possession to raise part of the money he needs to buy land back in Mississippi.

The piano is unique because depictions of the family history have been carved into it by Boy Willie and Berniece’s great-grandfather. It is the physical repository of the family legacy. The land Boy Willie wants to buy belonged to the Sutter family who, during slavery, also owned Boy Willie and Bernice’s family, and whose history is also tied to the piano. The last in the line of Sutter family has recently died, either having fallen or having been pushed down a well. (It is his ghost that starts to haunt Berniece’s house.) The land is for sale and Boy Willie sees it as his future. “My heart say for me to sell that piano and get some land so I can make a life for myself to live in my own way,” he explains.

Stephen Tyrone Williams retuns to Syracuse Stage to portray Boy Willie in The Piano Lesson. Previously, he appeared as Cory in Fences (2010). Photo: Chris Bennion

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Berniece refuses to sell the piano. Not only do the carvings represent the family history, but her and Boy Willie’s father, Boy Charles, was killed after stealing the piano from the Sutters. Boy Charles believed that as long as the Sutter family owned the piano, he and his family would still be enslaved. He paid in blood in order to feel truly free. In tribute and in grief, Boy Charles’ wife, Mama Ola, polished the piano every day, rubbing it until her hands bled, then she rubbed the blood into the wood. “Money can’t buy what that piano cost,” Berniece tells Boy Willie.

As Tim considers the ending of The Piano Lesson, he points out that what transpires between Boy Willie and Berniece is much more than a sibling reconciliation.

Both come to an understanding of the importance of their ancestors and of what it is that can sustain them as they move forward. Even though Wilson leaves much unanswered about their futures, an important connection has been made, and silence is what serves best to affirm it.

– Joseph Whelan

Abdul Salaam El Razzac, G.Valmont Thomas, Godfrey L. Simmons, Jr. and Leland Gantt in Two Trains Running (2013). Photo: Mike Davis.

G. Valmont Thomas returns to Syracuse Stage as Wining Boy in The Piano Lesson. Thomas previously worked with Tim Bond in The Piano Lesson (Boy Willie) and Gem of the Ocean at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.

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AUGUST WILSON

In many respects, the confrontation between brother and sister is a variation of the classic dramatic construct of an irresistible force meeting an immovable object.

On their own, there is no resolution for the siblings; the answer lies in the past, in the family history that each must in some way embrace and understand, spiritually as well as psychologically. In quintessential Wilson fashion, The Piano Lesson insists that the characters fully understand their past—as individuals, as a family, and as a race—as a necessary component of moving forward into the future. “You have to know your history,” Wilson once said. “Then you’ll have a purposeful presence in the world.”

Excerpts from Tim Bond’s interview on August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson

wed. OCT 22 7:30 pm p

On directing the play for a second time.

There are a number of discoveries I know I’m going to make because I have an entirely new cast. Even in auditions I’ve already heard things I didn’t hear the first time around because of these particular actors—because it is a piece of poetry, as all of Wilson’s work is—there are so many interpretations. I’m keeping myself open to discovery. It is like a new play for me again.

sat. OCT 25 3 pm, 8 pm

On what strikes him differently this time.

I feel like I have a little bit of a different take on the protectiveness of this house and how heightened the tensions are going to get for these characters. There’s more life and death stakes going on than appears on the page. What’s it like in the Pittsburgh streets in 1936?

What dangers are present outside of this house for the characters coming up from the South?

On the character Boy Willie.

He’s a great character. He comes on the stage like a ton of bricks.

Boy Willie is a force of nature. He has a sense of humor and a sense of defiance of the world outside that’s pretty infectious.

On Boy Willie’s plan to buy land in Mississippi.

I think he represents a pretty strong faction within the totality of the African American community who would never leave the South, who are not comfortable up North, who still believe that their legacy is in the South, and until they can be in the South in the way of equality and opportunity they should have, then the world isn’t right.

There are many people who believe that when we left the South as African Americans to go up North for the “dream” is when we lost the true power of the African American community. That we’ll never have full freedom up North that we think we’ll have.

On Berniece’s refusal to play the piano and its connection to the past.

What she doesn’t understand is that spiritually reconnecting with those ancestors [in the piano] is where she has strength, and where the continuum of her family will come from—in terms of creativity, in terms of counsel, in terms of life-blood support, of inner strength.

The complete interview with Tim Bond is available at www.SyracuseStage.org

thur. OCT 23 7:30 pm p fri. OCT 24 8 pm op sun. OCT 26 2 pm pl wed. OCT 29

2 pm w,o, 7:30 pm

thur. OCT 30

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fri. OCT 31

8 pm 8 pm

sat. NOV 1

3 pm s, pl, 8 pm

sun. NOV 2

2 pm, 7 pm d

tues. NOV 4 7:30 pm wed. NOV 5

7:30 pm

thur. NOV 6

7:30 pm pl 8 pm

fri. NOV 7

8 pm

sat. NOV 8

3 pm ad, 8 pm 7

sun. NOV 9

2 pm o

p = preview op = opening d = discussion s = ASL interpreted o = open captioning ad = audio described h = happy hour pl = prologue w = Wed@1

SPONSORS:

MEDIA SPONSORS:

SEASON SPONSOR:

SYRACUSE STAGE | 6

THE FRANKLIN PROJECT: SYRACUSE STAGE GOES BACK

This fall Syracuse Stage Department of Education initiates a Theatre Arts enrichment program for all students at Franklin Elementary in Syracuse.

Part of the extended learning day at the school, the enrichment program features five teaching artists who will work with students on specific areas of the theatre process in each of four marking periods. The focus of each marking period is intended to build toward a final presentation of work presented to the school community.

THE TOPICS FOR EACH MARKING PERIOD ARE: Devising poetry based performance pieces based upon the meaning of family and community.

Creating a movement piece which utilizes the poetry created during the first session.

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SCHOOL

Syracuse Stage director of education Lauren Unbekant will oversee development of the program at Franklin Elementary, along with Syracuse Stage producing artistic director Tim Bond. Education outreach manager Kate M. Laissle is serving as project manager.

Generating set and costume designs for the movement piece, exploring various techniques and creative aspects of theatre technology.

Unifying these three projects together into a cohesive event for family and community members.

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Left to Right: Corinne Tyo, Ken Elliot, Bella Poynton, Jessica Bland, Cyan Corwine and Kate Laissle

CHILDREN’s TOUR

Since 2004, Bank of America has generously supported the Bank of America Children’s Tour. Now entering its 37th season, the touring production brings high-energy, interactive, and culturally diverse performances to elementary school audiences. Each performance is fully staged with scenery, costumes, and sound. Performances include a talkback with the actors and our helpful study guide for further classroom exploration.

Annabel Drudge had a very bad first day at her new school...and she's not going back. "Not with another 179 days left to go." Her ever positive parents Phillip and Ima Drudge try to convince Annabel that she is special and will find friends who won't care that she wears a leg brace. Annabel doesn't want to be "special," she just wants to fit in. With help from her Nana, a midnight journey to Istanbul and a pair of magical slippers, Annabel discovers just how special she is.

The Children's Tour for Fall 2014 selection is Annabel Drudge...and the Second Day of School, written and directed by Lauren Unbekant, Director of Education at Syracuse Stage.

Annabel Drudge . . . and the Second Day of School WILL PERFORM AT THE FOLLOWING SCHOOLS THIS FALL: Roberts pre K - 8, Syracuse; Charles E. Riley Elementary School, Oswego; Mae E. Reynolds Elementary School, Baldwinsville; Bellevue Elementary School, Syracuse; Van Duyn Elementary School, Syracuse; Holy Family School, Syracuse; Dr. Weeks Elementary School, Syracuse; APW Elementary School, Parish; Hughes Elementary School, Syracuse; Cicero Elementary School, Cicero; Webster Elementary School, Syracuse; Seymour Dual Language Academy, Syracuse; McKinley – Brighton Elementary, Syracuse; LeMoyne Elementary School, Syracuse; Greene Central School, Greene; Harry E. Elden Elementary School, Baldwinsville; St. Margaret’s School, Mattydale; Franklin Elementary School, Syracuse; Ed Smith pre K – 8, Syracuse; Minetto Elementary School, Minetto; HW Smith pre K – 8, Syracuse.

Performed in striking visual terms, Annabel Drudge... and the Second Day of School offers an extraordinary opportunity to share a rich theatrical experience with students.

With vivid, funny, and attentionholding characters, the production conveys important lessons about accepting who you are, standing up to bullies, and staying positive through difficult times.

FROM LEFT TO RIGHT: Lori Pasqualino and Elliot Peterson in Annabel Drudge, 2010.

PHOTO: Michael Davis

CHOOSING LIFE AND HUMANITY

Alfred Uhry

In a climate of vehement anti-Semitism, a jury convicted Frank on shaky circumstantial evidence and the judge sentenced him to hang. Georgia Governor John M. Slaton commuted the sentence to life imprisonment. This action enraged many. In 1915, a mob broke into the prison, dragged Frank from his cell, and lynched him from a tree.

Playwright Alfred Uhry (Driving Miss Daisy, The Last Night of Ballyhoo) grew up in the Atlanta Jewish community and was well acquainted with the case since childhood. He remembers that talk of Leo Frank was always shrouded in fear and secrecy. His family had direct ties to the case as his great uncle owned the National Pencil Factory, and his grandmother was friends for many years with Frank’s widow Lucille. His great uncle raised money for Frank’s defense. Uhry was determined to one day write about the case.

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Uhry’s book for the musical does not shy away from the ugliness of the murder and the hatred surrounding the trial.

Frank was a Jew and a Yankee and therefore an easy target for deep-seated anger and long-held resentment of many Southerners, emotions Uhry’s upbringing allowed him to understand, though certainly not condone.

“I grew up among people who knew people who remembered the Civil War, that enormous sense of loss,” he told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in an interview. “I understand why they hated Yankees: they were the despoilers, the rapers of the land. Those who surrounded the courtroom calling for Frank’s head were proud men who often couldn’t get decent prices for their crops and had to send their children to work in factories.”

Jason Robert Brown

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he subject of Parade is explosive. The Alfred Uhry and Jason Robert Brown Tony Award-winning musical is based on an infamous miscarriage of justice, the Leo Frank case. Frank was a Jewish man from Brooklyn who moved to Atlanta, Georgia to become superintendent of the National Pencil Factory. In April of 1913, a 13-year-old employee named Mary Phagan was found strangled to death in the factory’s furnace room.

A janitor named Jim Conley, a suspect in the case, accused Frank of the murder.

To underscore his point, Uhry notes that on the day Mary Phagan was killed—Confederate Memorial Day, 1913— many Civil War veterans marched in the annual commemorative parade. Among them was the widow of Stonewall Jackson. Defeat remained close and still stung sharply and became volatile when mixed with the desperate need to preserve pride. But the bigotry and hatred directed at Leo Frank, however historically accurate, represent only part of the story Uhry and Brown tell in Parade. Folded within the reprehensible events that drive the musical is an unusual and very moving love story.

By most accounts, Leo’s marriage to the Southern-bornand-bred Lucille Selig was more or less an arranged affair.

He was reportedly cold and distant and disdainful of the place that for her was home. The ordeal of the trial and his conviction for murder changed them both, as Uhry discovered in his research.

“Reading the letters between Leo and his wife, Lucille, I realized I had a special story here of people who fell in love after they were married,” Uhry explained. “It started out as an arranged, uptight marriage. Frank was 27 and very good at numbers and pencil caps, but he was not an open man. He became one. When adversity hit, their marriage blossomed. She went from being a proper little shy Atlanta wife, 22 years old, to being an Eleanor Roosevelt figure who fought for her husband, pestered the governor of Georgia to review his case and get him a new trial. Finally, in letters from prison, he calls her, ‘My darling.’”

The music of Parade was composed by Jason Robert Brown, who along with Uhry won a Tony Award for the show and who was most recently represented on Broadway by the musical The Bridges of Madison County.

Brown said he never saw his songs and Uhry’s book as separate. “I thought of the whole show as one large structure,” he told Dramatics magazine. “We were all thinking cinematically.

That’s why there aren’t many spaces for applause, and there aren’t many blackouts. It moves fast.” The music of Charles Ives served as inspiration for the period for Brown, but the final score reflects a variety of styles.

“Ives seemed right, though he was from the wrong milieu. Ives is Massachusetts, and Parade is Georgia,” Brown explained.

“I knew I had to adapt his music and make it more Southern, but the stylistic impulse was right, his impulse of all this music happening at the same time: marching bands, rags, and waltzes playing against more sinister, symphonic sounds. I thought that, at heart, the texture of the show should be collisions, many things jumping on top of each other and never really ending.”

Uhry and Brown acknowledge that some audiences have found Parade challenging because of its subject and complexity. It is closer to Stephen Sondheim than Rodgers and Hammerstein.

But the challenge is what sets it apart. As the writer Fintan O’Toole noted: “Parade looks death and injustice in the face and chooses to affirm life and humanity. It is a masterly fusion of seriousness and entertainment.”

PARADE October 10-19, 2014

Book by Alfred Uhry Music by Jason Robert Brown Co-conceived and directed on Broadway by Harold Prince Performed in the Storch Theatre

SPONSORED BY:

Presented by Syracuse University Department of Drama in the College of Visual and Performing Arts, Book by Alfred Uhry, Music by Jason Robert Brown. October 10 - 19, 2014 in the Storch Theatre at 820 East Genesee Street. Tickets are $17-$19, available at 315-443-3275 or by visiting http://vpa.syr.edu/drama.

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tepping Out opened in London’s West End in1984.

That year it won The London Standard’s Best Comedy Award and went on to enjoy a run that lasted three years.

In 1987 Tommy Tune directed a Broadway production and in 1991 Liza Minnelli starred in a film adaptation. A musical version opened in London in 1997. It is one of those plays that is always being performed somewhere for the simple reason that it is very human and very funny.

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Stepping Out was written by the British playwright Richard Harris (not to be confused with the late Irish actor of the same name who was the original Dumbledore in the Harry Potter films). Harris set his play in a dingy North London church hall where a group of seven women and one man meet each week for a tap dancing class. The class is taught by Mavis, a former chorus girl, with piano accompaniment provided by the caustic Mrs. Fraser. Over the course of a series of lessons, the amateur dancers work to achieve a level of proficiency that will enable them to perform at a local charity event. In the course of that process, details of their lives emerge and the individual stories give Stepping Out depth as the hopes, desires, losses, and frustrations of the characters are revealed.

The comedic potential of Stepping Out is multi-faceted.

There is the sharp and witty banter among the characters as tensions flare and relationships shift. The ability or inability of the students as they attempt to master their choreography adds to the play’s levity. Then there is the time period, the 1980s, when even some nondancers embraced leg-warmers for the sake of fashion, if not necessarily for warmth. As one reviewer noted, “there is plenty of scope for fun.”

With an ensemble of ten, there is also plenty of scope for strong performances, and playwright Harris gives all the characters moments to shine. If taking the weekly tap class allows the characters a brief time to step out of their lives, a series of monologues reveals the lives they wish temporarily to escape. It is a simple but effective device for letting the audience into the private worlds of the characters.

“This is one of those plays that creeps up on an audience,” says director Timothy Davis-Reed. “Before you quite realize it, you find yourself caring about these people.” There is an accessibility about the play and the characters that Davis-Reed finds effective.

“None of these characters, none of these lives, seems particularly extraordinary. There’s an everyday quality about them,” he explains. “But that’s the strength. Like us, these are ordinary people confronting ordinary concerns and because we can recognize ourselves in them, it becomes compelling, and of course, quite humorous.”

Davis-Reed says he also thinks the play provides a good forum for showcasing some the strong women performers in the Department of Drama.

November 14 - 23, 2014

By Richard Harris Performed in the Storch Theatre

“Every year we have so many talented women in the Department. It’s great to be able to find and present plays that allow them to use their talents, and given the range of ages and social backgrounds of the people in the play, it gives them a chance to stretch those talents as well.”

– Joseph Whelan SPONSORED BY:

Presented by Syracuse University Department of Drama in the College of Visual and Performing Arts, Stepping Out

By Richard Harris. November 14 - 23 in the Storch Theatre at 820 East Genesee Street. Tickets are $17-$19, available at 315-443-3275 or by visiting http://vpa.syr.edu/drama.

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GALA 2014:

Remembering Arthur Storch and Honoring Jim Clark

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ith an electrifying performance by world renowned guitar virtuoso Jesse Cook and a video salute to founding producing artistic director Arthur Storch, Syracuse Stage celebrated its annual Gala on June 7, 2014 at Schine Student Center on the campus of Syracuse University. The evening’s honoree, long-time Syracuse Stage leader Jim Clark, received the third annual Louis G. Marcoccia Award for Exemplary Service to Syracuse Stage.

TOP: (L to R) Timothy Bond, Jeffrey Woodward, Jim Clark and Lou Marcoccia.

BOTTOM LEFT: Virginia Kiser BOTTOM RIGHT: Jesse Cook and the band Photos: Michael Davis

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SYRACUSE STAGE

Created by Stu Lisson, the special video presentation included interviews with Vanessa Williams, Alan Alda, John Cullum, Taye Diggs, Virginia Kiser, and others who knew Arthur, worked with Arthur, and appeared at Syracuse Stage. Many members of Arthur’s family were in attendance.

In accepting the award from honorary chair Lou Marcoccia, Clark graciously acknowledged the work of others whose contributions over the years have made Syracuse Stage successful.

The evening concluded with a rousing performance by Cook and his band that had many in the crowd up and dancing. Considered one of the most influential figures in “nuevo flamenco” music, Cook incorporates elements of flamenco rumba, jazz, and many forms of world music into his work.

Presented by the Syracuse Stage Guild and Stage Board of Trustees, the event co-chairs were Stage Board member Fran Nichols and Jacki Goldberg from the Stage Guild Board. The Gala also celebrated the Syracuse Stage’s 41st season and netted $50,000 for Syracuse Stage artistic and educational programs.

EVENTS SEPTEMBER - NOVEMBER 2014 SYRACUSE STAGE Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike

ACTOR TALKBACK SERIES

A lively discussion with the actors following the 7 p.m. Sunday night performance.

By Christopher Durang Directed by Marcela Lorca September 24 - October 12

Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike Sunday, October 5

August Wilson's

August Wilson's The Piano Lesson Sunday, November 2

The Piano Lesson

Directed by Timothy Bond October 22 - November 9 PROLOGUE

During the run of each show, join us for free, intimate, pre-show talks led by a member of the cast. One hour prior to curtain, three performances per show.

Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike Sunday, September 28 at 1 p.m.

Saturday, October 4 at 2 p.m.

Thursday, October 9 at 6:30 p.m.

August Wilson's

HAPPY HOUR SERIES

Warm up before the show with half-price drinks, signature cocktails, and complimentary appetizers from fine local restaurants. Located in the Sutton Pavilion at Syracuse Stage, Happy Hours start at 6 p.m. with performances at 7:30 p.m.

Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike Thursday, October 2 August Wilson's The Piano Lesson Thursday, October 30

SU DRAMA

Parade Book by Alfred Uhry Music by Jason Robert Brown October 10 - 19

Stepping Out

By Richard Harris Directed by Timothy Davis-Reed November 14 - 23

New Trustees Join Syracuse Stage Board On May 27, at the final Board of Trustees meeting of the 2013/2014 season, the following individuals were nominated and approved by the board to begin the first year of a three year term, starting July 1, 2014. These new trustees bring the total number of board members to forty.

The Piano Lesson

OPEN CAPTIONING

Sunday, October 26 at 1 p.m.

Saturday, November 1 at 2 p.m.

Thursday, November 6 at 6:30 p.m.

Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike Wednesday, October 1 at 2 p.m.

Sunday, October 12 at 2 p.m.

OPENING NIGHT PARTY

August Wilson's The Piano Lesson Wednesday, October 29 at 2 p.m.

Sunday, November 9 at 2 p.m.

Brian Cimmet, Professor of Practice/Music.

Director in the Department of Drama, College of Visual and Performing Arts, Syracuse University.

AMERICAN SIGN LANGUAGE INTERPRETED

John Huhtala, Vice President, Commercial Banking, Chase Bank

Join us for a post-show party with live music and complimentary food following each opening night performance. All performances at 8 p.m.

Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike September 26: Kim and Chris August Wilson's The Piano Lesson October 24: TBA WEDNESDAY@1 LECTURES

Pre-show lecture at 1 p.m. in the Sutton Pavillion before the 2 p.m. matinee performance.

Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike Wednesday, October 1 Speaker: Chris Woodworth “Chekhov in PA: Durang’s Riff on Nostalgia, Longing, and the Importance of Place” August Wilson's The Piano Lesson Wednesday, October 29 Speaker: Jeff Gonda “Specters of the South: Race, Migration, and the Inscribed Histories of August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson” *Speakers and topics subject to change

Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike Saturday, October 4 at 3 p.m.

August Wilson's The Piano Lesson Saturday, November 1 at 3 p.m.

AUDIO DESCRIPTION

Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike Saturday, October 11 at 3 p.m.

August Wilson's The Piano Lesson Saturday, November 8 at 3 p.m.

Kevin R. McAuliffe, Partner, Hiscock & Barclay Michelle Schultz, HR Business Partner, AXA Equitable

New Slate of Officers of the Stage Board At the final board meeting of the 2013/2014 season Stage trustees approved the nomination of the following officers to serve for the 2014/2015 season: Robert Pomfrey Louis G. Marcoccia Janet Audunson Fran Nichols Mel Stith Bea Gonzalez Rod McDonald

is published by Syracuse Stage and Syracuse University Drama throughout the season for their subscribers and alumni. Editor: Joseph Whelan (jmwhelan@syr.edu). Designer: Brenna Merritt.

Chair President Vice Chair Vice Chair Vice Chair Treasurer Secretary

Timothy Bond, Producing Artistic Director Jeffrey Woodward, Managing Director Ralph Zito, Chair of SU Drama SYRACUSE STAGE/ SU DRAMA |

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Nonprofit Organization US POSTAGE PAID Syracuse Stage Syracuse, NY

820 East Genesee Street Syracuse, NY 13210-1508 www.SyracuseStage.org

SYRACUSE STAGE: VANYA AND SONIA AND MASHA AND SPIKE SEPTEMBER 24 - OCTOBER 12 AUGUST WILSON'S THE PIANO LESSON OCTOBER 22 - NOVEMBER 9 SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY DRAMA: PARADE OCTOBER 10 -19 STEPPING OUT NOVEMBER 14 - 23

Adriana Gaviria and Michael Kirby in The Glass Menagerie.

PHOTO: Michael Davis