Talley's Folly Study Guide

EDUCATION

STUDY GUIDE

Study Guide Contents

Director of Community Engagement & Education Joann Yarrow (315) 443-8603

3.)

Production Information

4.)

Letter from Community Engagement and Education Team

5.)

Educational Outreach at Syracuse Stage

Associate Director of Education Kate Laissle (315) 442-7755

7.)

Synopsis

8.)

Meet the Playwright

9.)

Meet the Director

Community Engagement & Education Specialist MiKayla Hawkinson (315) 443-1150

Group Sales & Student Matinees Tracey White (315) 443-9844

Box Office (315) 443-3275

10.) Characters 11.)

Set Design

12.)

Setting: 1944

14.)

Questions for Discussion

15.)

Elements of Drama

16.)

Elements of Design

17.) Sources

To Donate To Our Education Programs: Wendy Rhodes Director of Development 315-443-3931 wjneikir@syr.edu

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SYRACUSE STAGE EDUCATION

Designed by MiKayla Hawkinson

SEASON SPONSORS

PRESENTS

BY

Lanford Wilson DIRECTED BY

Robert Hupp SCENIC DESIGNER

COSTUME DESIGNER

LIGHTING DESIGNER

SOUND DESIGNER

Czerton Lim

Suzanne Chesney

Dawn Chiang

Jacqueline R Herter

MOVEMENT C O O R D I N AT O R

DIALEC T COACH

S TA G E M A N A G E R

Stephen Cross

Blake Segal

Laura Jane Collins

CEO BLACK CUB PRODUC TIONS

COO BLACK CUB PRODUC TIONS

Mylz Blake

Eric Derachio Jackson Jr.

Robert Hupp

Jill A. Anderson

Kyle Bass

Artistic Director

Managing Director

Associate Artistic Director

Talley's Folly is presented by special arrangement with Dramatists Play Service, Inc., New York. ©2020. This video recording was produced by special arrangement with Dramatists Play Service and Lanford Wilson.

All rights reserved. This performance is authorized for non-commercial use only. By accepting the video recording, you agree not to authorize or permit the video recording to be copied, distributed, broadcast, telecast or otherwise exploited, in whole or in part, in any media now known or hereafter developed. WARNING: Federal law provides severe civil and criminal penalties for the unauthorized reproduction, distribution or exhibition of copyrighted motion pictures, videotapes or videodiscs. Criminal copyright infringement is investigated by the FBI and may constitute a felony with a maximum penalty of up to five years in prison and/or a $250,000.00 fine.

November 11 - 22, 2020 SYRACUSE STAGE EDUCATION

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Dear Educator, The best way of learning is learning while you’re having fun.

Live theatre provides the opportunity for us to connect with more than just our own story, it allows us to find ourselves in other people’s lives and grow beyond our own boundaries. While times are different, we still are excited to share with you new theatrical pieces through pre-recorded means.

We’re the only species on the planet who makes stories. It is the stories that we leave behind that define us. Giving students the power to watch stories and create their own is part of our lasting impact on the world. And the stories we choose to hear and learn from now are even more vital. Stories bring us together, even when we must stay apart. Stories are our connection to the world and each other.

We invite you and your students to engage with the stories we tell as a starting point for you and them to create their own.

Sincerely, Joann Yarrow, Kate Laissle, and MiKayla Hawkinson Community Engagement and Education Team

2020/2021 EDUCATIONAL OUTREACH SPONSORS Syracuse Stage is committed to providing students with rich theatre experiences that explore and examine what it is to be human.

Research shows that children who participate in or are exposed to the arts show higher academic achievement, stronger self-esteem, and improved ability to plan and work toward a future goal.

Many students in our community have their first taste of live theatre through Syracuse Stage’s outreach programs. Last season more than 15,500 students from across New York State attended or participated in the Bank of America Children’s Tour, artsEmerging, the Young Playwrights Festival, Backstory, Young Adult Council, and/or our Student Matinee Program.

We gratefully acknowledge the corporations and foundations who support our commitment to in-depth arts education for our community.

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Educational Outreach at Syracuse Syracuse Stage is committed to providing students with rich theatre experiences that connect to and reveal what it is to be human.

Education Advocacy Board

YAC: Young Adult Council

The Education Advocacy Board is a group of teachers from the Central New York region who meet four times a year with Syracuse Stage to share their ideas and concerns about current arts education issues. Members work with Education staff at Syracuse Stage to help tailor programming to best fit the educators and students served.

This past year topics discussed have included creating more useful study guides, exchanging views on future programming, working towards more effectively engaging young people in the arts, as well as discussing the influence of the Common Core on arts education.

THE YOUNG ADULT COUNCIL (YAC) at Syracuse Stage seeks to give teens a voice in the programming designed for them while exploring how theatre impacts their lives.

The program focuses on peer led discussion and events in addition to advocating for theatre and arts participation to fellow students. The Syracuse Stage YAC is a group of high school students from the Central New York area that meets monthly to create and implement pre-show events that will help inspire the next generation of theatregoers. YAC members can also take advantage of opportunities to learn from professional theatre artists at Syracuse Stage and through workshops, internships, and shadow programs.

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Educational Outreach at Syracuse Children’s Tour

Backstory

Each fall, the Bank of America Children’s Tour brings high-energy, interactive, and culturally diverse performances to elementary school audiences. Each performance is fully staged with scenery, costumes, and sound. This year you will be able to experience the performance as a pre-recorded production. Performances include a talkback with the actors and our helpful study guide for further classroom exploration. Pre- or post-show sessions with our talented teaching artists can be arranged upon request.

Each winter, the Backstory program brings history to life as professional actors portray historical figures in classrooms and other venues. Previous presentations have included historical figures such as Anne Frank; Ace, a Tuskegee Airman; and Annie Easley a human computer for NASA.

Virtual Syracuse Stage Education Classes and Workshops

Young Playwrights Festival

Our program features engaging content for theatre-lovers of all ages.

Delve deep into the craft through private classes, group acting courses, live virtual classroom experiences, and master classes on a variety of subjects. Please note that due to COVID-19, all of our programming is virtual. New class workshops for all ages available here: https://syracusestage.coursestorm.com

Each spring, Syracuse Stage invites Central New York high school students to write original ten-minute plays and other performance pieces for entry in our annual Young Playwrights Festival contest.

Our panel of theatrical and literary professionals evaluates each student’s play. Semifinalists are invited to a writing workshop at Syracuse Stage where their plays will be read and critiqued.

Finalists will see their plays performed as staged reading by Syracuse University Department of Drama at the annual Young Playwrights Festival. The festival is free and open to the public.

Summer Youth Theatre Experience

Our very successful 2020 season was presented as a virtual four night experience on our social media platforms. Having the opporunity to showcase our top 16 virtually helped reach a much larger audience in a fun, new, and safe capacity.

Come and play with professional teaching artists of Syracuse Stage as we dive into the magical world of creativity and performance. This year we completed a wonderful 2-week summer virtual theatre program with 32 students, ages 11-14, from 4 different states.

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Talley’s Folly

photograph by Brenna Merritt

Talley’s Folly is a one-act play taking place on the Fourth of July, 1944. Matt Friedman believes he’s found true love in Sally Talley after they met the previous summer while he was on vacation. Since then, Matt has sent Sally a letter every day, receiving only one in return. Despite that lone letter giving no indication that Sally returned the feelings that Matt has for her, he’s returned to ask her to marry him. Sally is in disbelief that Matt has come to visit uninvited. After all, Matt is Jewish and therefore unwelcome according to her conservative family. Sally, however, longs to break free from her family. As the two bond by her family’s boathouse, a folly built by her uncle that always symbolized a place of escape for her, Sally may finally find the independence she’s been looking for in the form of an offer from Matt.

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Meet the Playwright Lanford Wilson Lanford Wilson was born in Lebanon, Missouri, in 1937 before moving to Springfield, Missouri, at the age of five with his mother. By 1962, Wilson had moved to New York City and begun a career that would result in him being known as a pioneer of Off-Off-Broadway and regional theatre. His one act play Home Free! was produced Off-Off-Broadway at the Caffe Cino in 1964, and his first full-length play, Balm in Gilead, then premiered the next year. Wilson was also one of the founders of the New York City regional theatre Circle Theatre (later Circle Repertory Company) in 1969, a company he remained involved with until it closed in 1996.

Wilson’s first major hit at Circle Theatre was his 1973 play The Hot l Baltimore, which ran for over 1,000 performances. Wilson’s Broadway plays include The Gingham Dog, Talley’s Folly, Fifth of July, Angels Fall, Burn This, Redwood Curtain, and Wilson’s translation of The Three Sisters. He was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Play three times during his career, including for Talley’s Folly. While Wilson didn’t win any Tony Awards during his career, he was awarded with the 1980 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Talley’s Folly.

Wilson wrote Talley’s Folly as part of a trilogy of plays about the Talley family.

Talley’s Folly was actually the second play in the trilogy, but the first to appear on Broadway. The first play in the trilogy is Fifth of July, Wilson’s play about the Talley family in the wake of the Vietnam war, premiered Off-Broadway in 1978 before making its way to Broadway in November 1980. Talley’s Folly, which depicts a conversation between Sally Talley and her suitor, and Talley & Son both take place on the same day, July 4, 1944. This is 33 years before the events of Fifth of July. Talley’s Folly premiered Off-Broadway in 1979 before opening on Broadway nine months before Fifth of July.

Wilson’s career, and penchant for opening his works in smaller venues before moving them Off-Broadway and then to Broadway, led to him being credited as a leading figure in the Off-Off-Broadway theatre movement. Wilson died in 2011 from complications of pneumonia.

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Photograph provided by www.nytimes.com

1937-2011

“It’s very strange. You never know where a play comes from. You may have had the idea for five years; you still don’t know where it came from or where it’s going to hit you; or when you’re going to actually sit down and write the darned thing. And when you do sit down to write, you may write something completely different.”

-Lanford Wilson in a 1991 interview with John C. Tibbetts “One day in Chicago I was working in an ad agency and started a new story. I said, you know what?--this doesn’t sound like a story, this sounds like a play! I got halfway down the page, no more than that, and said--I’m a playwright. It was just as clear as day. I had an actual talent for writing dialogue and no talent at all for writing narrative. Writing down the way people spoke in a room was suddenly incredibly exciting. It was one of those life decisions where you know immediately--you’re never going to get to the bottom of this thing. And what more could you want than something that you’re never going to--that’s never going to satisfy you completely? And I just saw this as an enormous, great challenge that was going to be worth banging away at for the rest of my life.”

- Lanford Wilson (same interview)

Meet the Director

photograph by Brenna Merritt

Robert Hupp

Robert Hupp is in his fifth season as artistic director of Syracuse Stage. He recently directed Amadeus, Noises Off, Next to Normal, and The Three Musketeers for Stage. Prior to coming to central New York, Robert spent seventeen seasons as the producing artistic director of Arkansas Repertory Theatre in Little Rock. He directed over 30 productions for Arkansas Reperatory ranging from Hamlet to Les Miserables to The Grapes of Wrath. In New York City, Robert directed the American premieres of Glyn Maxwell’s The Lifeblood and Wolfpit for the Phoenix Theatre Ensemble. He also served for nine seasons as the artistic director of the Obie Award-winning Jean Cocteau Repertory. At the Cocteau, Robert’s directing credits include works

by Buchner, Wilder, Cocteau, Shaw, Wedekind and the premieres of the Bentley/Milhaud version of Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children, Seamus Heaney’s The Cure at Troy, and Eduardo de Filippo’s Napoli Millionaria. He has held faculty positions at Pennsylvania’s Dickinson College and, in Arkansas, at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and Hendrix College. Robert served as vice president of the Board of Directors of the Theatre Communications Group and has served on funding panels for the New York State Council on the Arts, National Endowment for the Arts, the Theatre Communications Group, the New Jersey State Council of the Arts, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. While in Arkansas, Robert was named both Non-Profit Executive of the Year by the Arkansas Business Publishing Group, and Individual Artist of the year by the Arkansas Arts Council. He and his wife Clea ride herd over a blended family of five children, one dog, and two cats.

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Characters

Matt Friedman - A liberal Jewish accountant, born in Lithuania of a Prussian father and Ukrainian mother, who considers himself non-nationalistic. Matt is sure he and Sally share true love.

He also serves as the play’s narrator.

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Sally Talley - A nurses aide, born into a wealthy, conservative family. She’s considered an outcast due to her socialist beliefs.

Despite her desire to escape from an unhappy home life, her low self-esteem combined with a deep secret have led to selfimposed spinsterhood.

All costume designs and renderings by Suzanne Chesney.

Set Design

Renderings, scale model, and set progress of Talley’s Folley.

The title itself, Talley’s Folly, has several meanings: Folly as an architectural term referring to an ornamental and decorated building (the boathouse in the story) that doesn’t necessarily fit within the style of the surroundings nor have any practical purpose. Folly is also a noun, referring to someone who may be foolish and lacks good sense. Both certainly apply to “Whistler” Talley, who built the structure. I also think the title could refer to Sally Talley herself, both in having started a romance with Matt Friedman and now with her resistance to admitting that she actually fancies him. That the story is about these two people, who both feel out of time and place, having this particular conversation in this boathouse, which is also out of time and place, just tickles me to no end.

Matt describes the surrounding as “a Valentine”, so a lot of the images I sought out were looking at real places with a romantic lens - the beautifully dilapidated boathouse, a moonlit river, worn out wooden dock planks and posts, river reeds and rowboats, willow trees by the bend - all these textures and compositions and that the story takes place at the height of summer means that the colors and ambience wanted to be lush, vibrant, and tactile.

We wanted to take Matt’s description of the place and rather than do a realistic, literal approach to the architecture with all the “lattice and geegaws in place,” we instead wanted to capture the more poetic essence of the space to really heighten the valentine Matt needs to win Sally over. The result was us inverting the visual image so that the silhouette of the boathouse and gazebo structure ends up as an open space with Matt and Sally always framed by the willow tree, the river, the sky, and the moon in full view, allowing the conversation to take place as these two characters find each other and perhaps fall in love in real time.

- Czerton Lim, set designer for Talley’s Folley SYRACUSE STAGE EDUCATION

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Setting: 1944 Talley’s Folly takes place entirely on July 4, 1944 in a boathouse near rural Lebanon, Missouri. The boathouse, a gazebo-like structure built by Sally’s eccentric uncle Everett in 1870, is surrounded by weeds and old fishing equipment and has a floor so rotten that Matt falls through it. Even though the boathouse has fallen into disuse, Sally still escapes to it sometimes to get away from her family. In addition to being an escape for Sally, it also provides a connection to her uncle, who Sally considers to be the healthiest member of her family for his courage. The boathouse is the first glimpse into the two-fold meaning behind the title of the play.

A folly generally can refer to a “lack of good sense,” like how Sally’s family perceives her potential relationship with Matt. Similarly, folly in this play could refer to Matt’s continued pursuit of Sally despite extremely limited response to a year’s worth of letters. As it applies to the setting, however, the architectural use of “folly” is more appropriate. A folly can also refer to “a costly ornamental building with no practical purpose, especially a tower or mock-Gothic ruin built in a large garden or park.” In the play, Everett is known for building follies all over town, including the town’s bandstand.

Scenic inspiration photographs provided by designer, Czerton Lim. Set of Talley’s Folly by Syracuse Stage.

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Now, whether or not a structure can be truly considered a “folly” really lies in the eyes of the beholder. A building considered a folly, or a “folly” of the architect, is typically one that serves no purpose outside of being decorative, despite having the appearance of a building that should be functional. Follies grew in popularity in England during the 18th and 19th centuries as estates constructed buildings to resemble medieval towers, castles overgrown with vines, or even crumbling temples complete with fallen columns. These follies, built for their decorative additions to the landscape, were often built on a smaller scale than the buildings off of which they were modeled.

The folly in the case of the play is Talley’s boathouse, a fanciful structure dripping with Victorian dressings. But taking the metatheatricality a step further, Wilson uses Matt to break the fourth wall, showing the audience that this structure is just a set, an ornamental, fake structure that is being used to tell this story, not a real boathouse. Purpose-built to be decorative rather than functional, the set itself becomes a folly around which the story of Matt and Sally is told.

Wilson’s choice of July 4, 1944 was also significant, both in terms of Independence Day reflecting Sally’s pursuit of independence, as well as the weight of the United States’ involvement in World War II, including D-Day which would have happened less than a month earlier on June 6. Through his characters, Wilson uses this play, which opened mere years after the Vietnam War, to explore differing ideologies around war. Matt, for instance, did not enlist and while he may not know it yet, his love story takes place simultaneously as millions of Jews are dying on the other side of the world. Meanwhile, Sally’s family, despite her disapproval, is profiting from the war. This backdrop allows Wilson to explore themes of capitalism, anti-Semitism, and patriotism throughout his play.

Scenic inspiration photographs provided by designer, Czerton Lim. Photographs by Brenna Merritt.

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1.) Why does Matt, speaking in 1944, feel so bitter about his family’s homelands?

2.) How important is religious heritage in the community in which you live?

3.) How would parents in your community feel about Sally and Matt, or any other two people of different religions, getting married?

4.) Meta-theatricality, as commonly understood, is when the people in a play acknowledge the fact that they are in a play. They usually do this by either talking to the audience directly, or making some other side comment about the fact that they are acting.

We see metatheatricality in Talley’s Folly can you think of another time when you witnessed this in a play or theatrical experience?

Talley’s Folly study guide questions adapted from Gale. ©2005-2006 Thomson Gale, a part of the Thomson Corporation.

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elements of drama PLOT

What is the story line? What happened before the play started? What do the characters want? What do they do to achieve their goals? What do they stand to gain/lose?

THEME

What ideas are wrestled with in the play? What questions does the play pose? Does it present an opinion?

CHARACTER

Who are the people in the story? What are their relationships? Why do they do what they do? How does age/status/etc. effect them?

LANGUAGE

What do the characters say? How do they say it?

When do they say it?

MUSIC

How do music and sound help to tell the story?

SPECTACLE

Any piece of theatre comprises multiple art forms.

As you explore this production with your students, examine the use of:

WRITING

VISUAL ART/DESIGN MUSIC/SOUND DANCE/MOVEMENT

ACTIVITY

At its core, drama is about characters working toward goals and overcoming obstacles. Ask students to use their bodies and voices to create characters who are: very old, very young, very strong, very weak, very tired, very energetic, very cold, very warm. Have their characters interact with others. Give them an objective to fulfill despite environmental obstacles. Later, recap by asking how these obstacles affected their characters and the pursuit of their objectives.

How do the elements come together to create the whole performance?

Other Elements: Conflict/Resolution, Action, Improvisation, Non-verbal Communication, Staging, Humor, Realism and other styles, Metaphor, Language, Tone, Pattern and Repetition, Emotion, Point of view.

INQUIRY

How are each of these art forms used in this production? Why are they used?

How do they help to tell the story?

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elements of design LINE can have length, width, texture, direction,

and curve. There are five basic varieties: vertical, horizontal, diagonal, curved, and zig-zag.

SHAPE is two-dimensional and encloses space.

It can be geometric (e.g. squares and circles), man-made, or free-form.

FORM is three-dimensional. It encloses space

and fills space. It can be geometric (e.g. cubes and cylinders), man-made, or free-form.

COLOR has three basic properties:

HUE is the name of the color (e.g. red, blue, green), INTENSITY is the strength of the color (bright or dull), VALUE is the range of lightness to darkness.

TEXTURE refers

to the “feel” of an object’s surface. It can be smooth, rough, soft, etc. Textures may be ACTUAL (able to be felt) or IMPLIED (suggested visually through the artist’s technique).

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SPACE is

defined and determined by shapes and forms. Positive space is enclosed by shapes and forms, while negative space exists around them.

Sources https://www.britannica.com/biography/Lanford-Wilson https://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/25/theater/lanford-wilson-pulitzer-prize-winning-playwright-dies-at-73.html https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/talleys-folly#F https://www.enotes.com/topics/talleys-folly-lanford-wilson/characters https://www.dramatists.com/cgi-bin/db/single.asp?key=1354 https://www.britannica.com/art/folly https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/folly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanford_Wilson

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A SEASON Re-Imagined

NOVEMBER

TALLEY’S FOLLY

MARCH

DECEMBER

APRIL /MAY

MISS BENNET: CHRISTMAS AT PEMBERLEY JANUARY/FEBRUARY

TWILIGHT: LOS ANGELES, 1992

315.443.3275 SYRACUSESTAGE.ORG 18

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OUR TOWN JUNE WO R L D P R E M I E R E

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