As I was struggling to organize my thoughts while composing this welcome letter, I decided to take a brief walk through the building to stretch my legs and clear my head. Taking a quick turn around the second-floor corridor, I was immediately struck not only by the level of activity I observed, but by the variety of sights and sounds that greeted me on this particularly sunny and warm Saturday afternoon in early Autumn.
Our mainstage-season-opening production of Crazy for You was in the final stages of rehearsal, so the strains of a Gershwin melody – punctuated by what sounded like hundreds of tapping feet – floated up from the Storch stage. From the Loft theater, I heard a group of students and faculty putting the finishing touches on a studentdevised and student-produced cabaret performance. In smaller studios, students were working individually and in pairs to practice songs, scenes, and monologues for their classes, and a group of sophomores was tackling Clare Boothe Luce’s The Women –a classroom project that constituted their first attempt at rehearsing a play following an intensive freshman year focused on classroom work only.
And I knew that what I could see and hear was only part of the story. In studios across the street, production shops on the lower level, and elsewhere across campus designers, stage managers, technicians, and craftspeople – students, faculty, and our professional partners at Syracuse
Stage – were busy preparing any number of upcoming productions or readying costumes and props for plays currently in performance.
All of this reminded me that what you will see at this performance is the tip of a very large iceberg. The training and the work that goes on behind the scenes are essential parts of creating the public performances that I hope you will enjoy. I am grateful to our students, faculty, and staff, and to our partners at Syracuse Stage. Their hard work and our unique partnership have helped us become one of the leading training programs in the country.
Your presence here makes you one of our valued partners as well. I hope you enjoy this performance, and that you will applaud not only the work that you see, but the work that you don’t see, which has made this all possible.
Ralph Zito Chair, Department of Drama
RALPH ZITO
College of Visual and Performing Arts
PRESENTS
A NEW PLAY WITH SONGS BY Caridad Svich
BASED ON THE NOVEL BY
Isabel Allende
DIRECTED BY
Celia Madeoy
SCENIC AND PROJECTIONS DESIGNER
Rasean Davonte Johnson
COSTUME DESIGNER
Emily Liberatore
FIGHT DIRECTOR
Felix Ivanov
LIGHTING DESIGNER
Charlie Hill
VOICE AND TEXT COACH
Holly Thuma
PRODUCTION
STAGE MANAGER
Rachel Gentile
SOUND DESIGNER
Jonathan Herter
CHOREOGRAPHER
Anthony Salatino
STAGE MANAGER
Andrew Weimerskirch
CHAIR, DEPARTMENT OF DRAMA
Ralph Zito
SEASON SPONSOR
MUSICAL DIRECTOR
Rebecca J. Karpoff
This play was originally commissioned by Repertorio Espanol/Spanish Repertory Theatre in New York City. Rene Buch, Artistic Director. The English-language version was developed in the Colorado New Play Summit by the Denver Center Theatre Company, Kent Thompson, Artistic Director. The House of the Spirits is produced by special arrangement with the Playwright and Elaine Devlin Literary, Inc., 411 Lafayette Street, 6th floor, New York, NY 10003, and with permission from the Balcells Agency in Barcelona, Spain.
November 10 - 18, 2017
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The action takes place in the 20th century in the capital city of an unnamed Latin American country, reminiscent of Chile, on the Tres Marias ranch and its outskirts in the countryside, the big house on the city corner, and in hidden rooms where torture is committed.
ABOUT MAGICAL REALISM
“For me, Magical Realism is where the real and fantastical are together coexisting. So it’s not necessarily magic like falling down from the sky, but it’s com- ing from within the earth and the landscape and also the imagina- tions of the characters that then we see that element heightened...”
—CARIDAD SVICH, PLAYWRIGHT OF THE HOUSE OF THE SPIRITS
Magical Realism in the broader sense is a term first used in the art world by German critic Franz Roh (1925) and later in literature by Cuban author Alejo Carpentier (1949). It typically refers to the coexistence of the real and fantastical, the natural and the supernatural, the normal and magical worlds. In Magical Realism elements of fantasy are not questioned. To put this in perspective, below is a passage from the original novel The House of the Spirits, that exhibits Magical Realism:
“It was true there had been times, just as they were about to sit down to dinner and everyone was in the large dining room, seating according to dignity and position, when the saltcellar would suddenly begin to shake and move among the plates and goblets without any visible source of energy or sign of illusionist’s trick. Nívea would pull Clara’s braids and that would be enough to wake her daughter from her mad distraction and return the saltcellar to immobility.”
The Death of Victor Jara
Although there are different accounts of Victor Jara’s death, the following is based on 2009 testimony by a former soldier who said he witnessed the singer’s murder as an 18-year-old conscript on guard duty at Estadio Chile.
On September 17, 1973, after four days of imprisonment and multiple sessions of torture in a basement room in Estadio Chile, with a swollen face and fingers fractured by the butt of a rifle, Jara was shot by a lowranking officer on a round of Russian roulette, with the barrel of the revolver resting against the temple. Jara’s body fell to the floor on its side, convulsing. Jara’s body was then shot again 43 times. There were 44 bullet wounds in his body, according to the autopsy.
Estadio Chile
BY VICTOR JARA, SEPTEMBER 1973
There are five thousand of us here in this small part of the city. We are five thousand. I wonder how many we are in all in the cities and in the whole country? Here alone are ten thousand hands which plant seeds and make the factories run.
How much humanity exposed to hunger, cold, panic, pain, moral pressure, terror and insanity? Six of us were lost as if into starry space. One dead, another beaten as I could never have believed a human being could be beaten. The other four wanted to end their terror one jumping into nothingness, another beating his head against a wall, but all with the fixed stare of death. What horror the face of fascism creates! They carry out their plans with knife-like precision.
Nothing matters to them. To them, blood equals medals, slaughter is an act of heroism. Oh God, is this the world that you created, for this your seven days of wonder and work? Within these four walls only a number exists
which does not progress, which slowly will wish more and more for death. But suddenly my conscience awakes and I see that this tide has no heartbeat, only the pulse of machines and the military showing their midwives’ faces full of sweetness.
Let Mexico, Cuba and the world cry out against this atrocity! We are ten thousand hands which can produce nothing. How many of us in the whole country? The blood of our President, our compañero, will strike with more strength than bombs and machine guns! So will our fist strike again!
How hard it is to sing when I must sing of horror. Horror which I am living, horror which I am dying. To see myself among so much and so many moments of infinity in which silence and screams are the end of my song. What I see, I have never seen What I have felt and what I feel Will give birth to the moment…
THE HOUSE OF THE SPIRITS
THE IMPORTANCE OF MEMORY
On January 8, 1981, Isabel Allende received word that her beloved grandfather, nearly 100 years-old, was dying. That evening, Allende sat at her kitchen table and began a letter to the man who helped raise her and who she knew she would not see before his death.
Allende was an exile. Forced out of her native Chile by the 1973 military coup, she had been working as a school administrator in Venezuela. Night after night she added to the letter “to tell him that I remembered everything he had ever told me.” He died before receiving the letter, which by the end of a year, had grown in length to 500 pages.
Allende recognized that what she had written was no longer a letter. It became her first novel, the much-acclaimed The House of the
Spirits, a story set in an unnamed South American country undergoing a political nightmare not unlike Chile under General Augustus Pinochet.
Allende’s family suffered significantly during the September 11, 1973 coup and its aftermath. Backed by the Nixon administration and supported by the CIA, the Chilean military overthrew the elected socialist government of President Salvador Allende, the author’s second cousin. President Allende died during the coup, reportedly having committed suicide as military jets
bombed the Presidential Palace in Santiago.
The author’s mother and stepfather, a diplomat, narrowly escaped an assassination attempt in Argentina. Then Isabel began receiving death threats and fled to Venezuela. Although she had worked as a journalist, she did not aspire to a career as a novelist. The coup and the death of her grandfather changed her.
“The House of the Spirits was an attempt to recover the world I’d lost in exile— my family, my country, my past, my grandfather—and
“Maybe the most important reason for writing is to prevent the erosion of time, so that memories will not be blown away by the wind. Write to register history, and name each thing. Write what should not be forgotten."
ISABEL ALLENDE. PHOTO: LORI BARRA.
I think I did. It will forever be in that book,” she explained in 2016 interview.
“I think I needed to lose my country to start writing.”
The atrocities of the Pinochet regime are well known. Nearly 3000 Chileans were executed or “disappeared” during his 17-year rule. Almost 30,000 more were detained and tortured. Chile became a country where “terror reigned” Allende has said, and that brutal history forms a significant part of The House of the Spirits.
In adapting The House of the Spirits , award-winning playwright Caridad Svich took an instance of that brutality and used it as gateway to the wider story. The first scene of her adaptation takes place in a prison where Alba— the youngest of the three generations of women in the Trueba family—undergoes interrogation. From this point forward, she becomes at once a participant in and a witness to history. The play spans the 1920s through the 1970s, as the
country moves through change and the upheaval that results in dictatorship. The memories of her family and of happier times help her survive the ordeal.
Svich has explained that she never set out to present a verbatim reproduction of the novel. She considers her play more of a “meditation and reflection” of Allende’s work. Her aim was to stay “true to the spirit” of the writer. Her choice to refract the entire story through the imprisoned Alba achieves
THE PRESIDENTIAL PALACE IN SANTIAGO, CHILE, AFTER BEING BOMBED IN THE 1973 COUP AGAINST PRESIDENT SALVADOR ALLENDE’S GOVERNMENT. PHOTO: ASSOCIATED PRESS.
that, especially with its focus on the family, which is at the heart of the novel.
“I was thinking of our very own Latin American families,” Allende once wrote. “I live in a continent where the family is very important, so it seemed natural to tell the story of a country and continent through the eyes of a family. My theory is that in my continent the state is generally my enemy. It’s every single citizen’s enemy. You can’t hope for anything from the state…. Where is your protection, your security? In your family, and to that extent that you have your tribe around you, you are safe. That’s why the family is so important, and that’s why it’s constantly present in Latin American literature.”
Equally significant in both play and novel is the importance of memory. “Maybe the most important reason for writing is to prevent the erosion of time, so that memories will not be blown away by the wind. Write to register history, and name each thing. Write what should not be forgotten,” Allende has noted.
of the Spirits is an elegant ghost story,” she explained in a 2013 interview. “But ultimately, it’s a teaching story. We Americans in the U.S.A. still haven’t reconciled ourselves with our past. I wrote this play with former President George Bush and the abuses of Abu Ghraib in mind. We have to look at the past—both good and bad. Don’t whitewash history. Learn from it.”
The date January 8 is now sacred for Allende. She has written more than twenty books, each began on a January 8. She maintains the ritual, the discipline, whether or not she knows what she is going to write. She trusts the story will come and she wants to connect with her readers. She wants people to know what “has happened before will happen again.” She knows from experience the value of experience. Before September 11, 1973, she never believed Chile would ever be governed by a dictator.
—Joseph Whelan
We Americans in the U.S.A. still haven’t reconciled ourselves with our past . . . We have to look at the goodpast—both and bad. Don’t whitewash Learnhistory. from it.
This point resonates with Svich. “The play, The House
CARIDAD
SVICH.
PHOTO: JODY CHRISTOPHERSON.
CAST
Brittany Adebumola ( Transito Soto ), is a sophomore Acting major from Brooklyn, NY. Brittany is ecstatic to be making her Department of Drama mainstage debut after a summer of interning at a casting agency and managing a summer arts conservatory. She is even more thrilled to be a part of such a big and magical production of The House of the Spirits, which is unlike any other production she’s worked on.
Michelle Elizabeth Arotsky ( Alba ) is a junior Musical Theater major from Voorhees, NJ. She is thrilled to make her Department of Drama mainstage debut in this production of The House of the Spirits . Past Department credits include studio project presentations of Failure: A Love Story (Chorus), and Le Diable Amoureux, a Hip-Hop Ballet (Exotic).
Phillip Baker (Guard, Male Swing) is a sophomore Acting major from Nashville, TN. He is excited to be making his Department of Drama mainstage debut in The House of the Spirits.
Kat Eaton ( Pancha, Woman 1) is a sophomore Acting major from Thousand Oaks, CA. She is thrilled to be making her mainstage debut with the Department of Drama.
Libby Hall ( Nivea, Woman 2 ) is a senior Acting major from Stonington, CT. She is thrilled to be making her mainstage debut in The House of the Spirits. Previous Department of Drama credits include Gertrude Fail in Failure: A Love Story (studio project), Hero in Gemini Vanishing (studio project), and the Fortune Teller in The Skin of Our Teeth (sophomore project). She also performed scenes from The Merchant of Venice at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre while studying in London, England.
Sarah Herrman (Clara) is a senior Acting major from Framingham, MA. At the Department of Drama she has been seen as Pantalone in The King Stag (mainstage), and Helena/Helen of Troy in Gemini Vanishing (faculty studio project directed and devised by Lauren Unbekant), which was taken to NYC and produced as part of the 2016 RADD Theatre Festival. Her first Syracuse credit was CB’s Sister in the Black Box Players production of Dog Sees God. She is a proud alumnus of the renowned performing arts training center, Stagedoor Manor.
Aliana Kilmer-Setrakian ( Rosa, Blanca ) is a junior Acting major from New Jersey. She is honored to be making her mainstage debut at the Department of Drama. Last se -
CAST
mester she was a swing in First Lady Suite (studio project). Some of her favorite credits include Rosalia in West Side Story, Nora in A Doll’s House, and Maria in Smile.
Bria Patrick (Woman 3, Female Swing) is a sophomore Acting major and Marketing minor from Evanston, IL.
Mario Marqués (Esteban Garcia) is a junior Acting major from San Juan, Puerto Rico. In the Department of Drama, he has been seen as Tartaglia in The King Stag (mainstage), and as George in Once in a Lifetime (sophomore project). Mario is also featured every Thursday night at 11 p.m. in Syracuse’s finest radio show: Mojo and the Buggs. His favorite food is spaghetti bolognese.
Zachary Pearson (Pedro Tercero, Guitarist ) is a sophomore Acting major from Hastingson-Hudson, NY.
Kristen Misthopoulos (Ferula, Count of Satigny) is a senior Acting major from Connecticut. This is her Department of Drama mainstage debut. Most recently in the Department of Drama, she was seen as Queen Margaret from Henry VI in Black Box Players’ production of And the Women Cried. Alongside training here at Syracuse University, Kristen has also trained at The Globe Theatre in London as well as various studios in Manhattan. Kristen will be moving to NYC in January for the Tepper Semester.
Daniel Ramirez (Esteban Trueba ) is a senior Musical Theater major from Miami, Fl. Recent credits include West Side Story , Chicago , and The Drowsy Chaperone at Summer Rep Theater Company in Santa Rosa, CA. Department of Drama credits include the mainstage productions Agamemnon and Berlin to Broadway (swing) as well as the studio projects Failure: A Love Story, Ragtime, and A Little Night Music.
Ian Soares ( Severo, Pedro Garcia, Father Antonio ) is a sophomore Acting major from western Massachusetts. He is thrilled to be making his mainstage debut in the Department of Drama.
ARTISTIC STAFF
Rasean Davonte Johnson (Scenic and Projections Designer) is excited to be working with Syracuse University’s Department of Drama where he last designed projections for the mainstage production Laura and the Sea . A Chicago based designer, his work can be found in theater, film, and installations as a projection designer, animator, and filmmaker. His credits include New York: Midsummer (Tiltyard). Regional: The Stone Witch (Berkshire Theatre Group), Cymbeline (Yale Repertory Theatre), The Magic Negro (Alliance Theatre), and Rock of Ages (Drury Lane Theatre). International: Farewell My Concubine (Ningbo Song and Dance Company/YinMei Dance). Other credits include collaborations with Manual Cinema, Timeline Theatre, The Hypocrites, The Civilians, Halcyon Theatre, Teatro Vista, and Porchlight Music Theatre. He has lectured and led workshops at Syracuse University, Yale University, Boston University, The Theatre School at Depaul, and The Ohio State University. M.F.A. Yale School of Drama. Member United Scenic Artists Local 829. raseandavontejohnson.com.
Felix Ivanov (Fight Director) is a graduate of the prestigious Shchukin Theatre School at the Vakhtangov Academy Theatre and the Stasov Musical School (violin) in Moscow, Russia. He has choreographed combat, movement, and character dance scenes for over 300 Russian drama
and puppet theaters, motion pictures and television. Presently, Felix is an associate professor at the Syracuse University Department of Drama. He has previously taught at The Juilliard School, The Actors Center, Brooklyn College, and SUNY Purchase, NY; Rutgers University, NJ; The Hartt School, Hartford, CT; and The North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston Salem, NC. His stage movement and combat choreography have been seen at many American venues including The Acting Company, Lincoln Center Theater, The Metropolitan Opera, The New York Theatre Workshop, The Wooster Group, The Cherry Lane Theatre in NYC; The Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, MN; The Shakespeare Theatre Festival in Cleveland, OH; and The Shakespeare Theatre in Washington, D.C., among others.
Holly Thuma ( Voice and Text Coach) is very happy to be working with this company on The House of Spirits. An actor and director, Holly’s credits include productions with Quantum Theatre, the Dallas Theatre Center, City Theatre Company, and Perry Mansfield New Play Festival, as well as independent films. She has served as dialect/vocal coach for many productions including Major Barbara and Top Girls here in the Department of Drama, Cloud 9 at Seton Hill, Richard Robichaux’s production of The Importance of Being Earnest, and The Ubiquitous Mass of Us for Marie Remalia’s contemporary dance company.
ARTISTIC STAFF
Anthony Salatino (Choreographer) is a graduate of the Juilliard School. Tony has choreographed for many opera and dance companies throughout the United States. He choreographed the New York City Opera premiere of Margaret Garner, music by Richard Danielpour, libretto by Toni Morrison (based on her novel Beloved), and directed by Tazewell Thompson. His most recent credits include choreography for Cato in Utica at the Glimmerglass Opera Festival, Peter Pan at Syracuse Stage, and Rappaccini’s Daughter at Opera Naples in Florida. For Syracuse Stage he directed and choreographed Rent, Little Women, Fiddler on the Roof, The Sound of Music, West Side Story, and Peter Pan (2000), and choreographed A Christmas Carol, The Wizard of Oz, Big River, and My Fair Lady He also served as movement consultant for The Boys Next Door and The Turn of the Screw, created movement for M. Butterfly, served as associate choreographer for Caroline, or Change, designed the fights for Bug and A Streetcar Named Desire, and set the dances and fight scenes for Romeo and Juliet. At Connecticut’s Westport Country Playhouse, he choreographed the world premiere of Jam and Spice, a revue of the music of Kurt Weill. An associate professor at Syracuse University’s Department of Drama, Tony most recently directed Nine , and previously directed Sweeney Todd.
He conceived, directed, and choreographed three original productions: Bravo Piaf!, The Table (Der Tisch), and The Clowns . He co-directed and choreographed The Wind in the Willows for the Department of Drama and New York’s New Victory Theater. He served as choreographer for Carmen at the Virginia Opera, and director and choreographer for Maria de Buenos Aires and Tango for Naples Opera. Tony also has directed and choreographed for the Fort Worth, Connecticut, Pittsburgh, and Syracuse Opera Companies. Tony was the artistic director of the Fort Worth (TX) Ballet Company, and associate artistic director of the Hartford (CT) Ballet. He has performed with dance companies throughout the United States and Europe, and he has performed with the (New York) City Center Company at the White House.
Rebecca J. Karpoff (Musical Director) is coordinator of Vocal Instruction in the Department of Drama. She has been featured as a soloist with the Syracuse and Baltimore Symphony Orchestras, the Rochester Philharmonic, the Rochester Oratorio Society, and Eastman School Symphony Orchestra, and at the Ravinia, Aspen, and Skaneateles Festivals. Operatic roles include the Countess in The Marriage of Figaro, Fiordiligi in Così fan tutte, Rosina in The Barber of Seville, the title role in Puccini’s Suor Angelica, and with the Syracuse Opera, Dorabella
ARTISTIC STAFF
in Così fan tutte and Zerlina in Don Giovanni. She has been music director/vocal coach/pianist for Pippin, Honk, Jr., A Little Night Music, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Sunday in the Park with George, First Lady Suite, and numerous cabarets.
Emily Liberatore (Costume Designer) is a senior Theater Design and Technology major from Hamburg, NJ. Her past Department of Drama credits include costume designer for Black Box Players production of And the Women Cried, costume designer for the independent project Two Rooms, assistant costume designer for mainstage productions of Punk Rock, Laura and the Sea, and The King Stag, and assistant scenic designer for the mainstage production of Nine
Charlie Hill (Lighting Designer) is a Senior Theater Design and Technology major from San Diego, CA. He has his focus in Sound and Lighting Design. This is his first mainstage lighting design and he will make his first mainstage sound design next semester with The Baltimore Waltz directed by Katherine McGerr. Previous lighting design credits include the faculty project Failure: A Love Story directed by Thom Miller and Black Box Players productions of And The Women Cried and Pterodactyls
Jonathan Herter (Sound Designer). Jon is serving as resident sound designer for his 21st season at Syracuse
Stage and the Department of Drama. He is looking forward to designing Next to Normal later in the season. Mr. Herter has designed for Indiana Repertory Theatre, Studio Arena, Wilma Theater, Geva, Round House, Shakespeare Santa Cruz, Virginia Stage, and the Hangar Theater as well as other theaters across the nation. Some of his favorite designs have been: Ring of Fire, Nine, Hairspray, The Overwhelming, Caroline, or Change, The Miracle Worker, The Day Room, The Christians, Radio Golf, Parade, The Diary of Anne Frank, The Lieutenant of Inishmore, Red Noses, The Real Thing, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, M. Butterfly, A Raisin in the Sun, A Lesson Before Dying, Frozen, Copenhagen, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Inherit the Wind, and Big River
Rachel Gentile (Production Stage Manager ) is a senior Stage Management major from Mahwah, NJ. Her past credits in the Department of Drama include stage manager of And the Women Cried (Black Box Players) , stage manager of Gemini Vanishing (independent faculty project), and assistant stage manager of Lips Together, Teeth Apart (mainstage). Outside of the Department, her credits include stage manager of Gemini Vanishing (RADD Theatre Festival) and stage manager of Hair (Porch Light Productions). She can be found next semester interning in New York City for Syracuse University’s Tepper Semester.
ARTISTIC STAFF
Andrew Weimerskirch ( Stage Manager) is a junior Stage Management student whose past shows include Kiss Me, Kate (mainstage) as an assistant stage manager, Amphibian Stage
Production’s The Bible: The Complete Work Of God (Abridged) as an assistant stage manager, I Am My Own Wife (studio project) as a stage manager, and Swallow (workshop) as a stage manager.
ASSISTANTS & ASSOCIATES
Rachel Ackerman (Assistant Director, Dramaturg) is a sophomore Stage Management major from Cherry Hill, NJ.
Jonathan Hayes (Assistant Projection Designer) is a sophomore Theater Design and Technology major with a focus in Scenic Design. He is from Springfield, VA.
Claire Kenny (Assistant Stage Manager) is a freshman Stage Management major from Los Angeles, CA.
Abby Magee (Assistant Costume Designer) is a sophomore Theater Design and Technology major with concentrations in Scenic and Costume Design from Sussex County, NJ.
Dominic Martello (Casting Assistant, Creative Consultant) is a sophomore Acting major from Canton, OH.
Samantha Olszewski (Assistant
Stage Manager) is a freshman Theater Design and Technology major from Darlington, PA.
Roslyn Palmer (Associate Scenic Designer) is a senior Theater Design and Technology major with a concentration in Scenic Design from Oregon City, OR.
Mar Regan (Assistant Scenic Designer) is a senior Theater Design and Technology major with a concentration in Scenic Design from Cincinnati, OH.
Aria Sivick (Assistant Projections Designer) is a junior and a dual major in Theater Design and Technology and Television, Radio, Film. She is from Bethlehem, PA.
McKenna Vargas ( Assistant Lighting Designer ) is a sophomore Theater Management major from Fullerton, CA.
DIRECTOR
Celia Madeoy . This season marks Celia’s eighth year on Performance faculty with the B.F.A. Acting, Musical Theater, and Summer Pre-College programs at the Syracuse University Department of Drama. Recent Syracuse Stage and Department of Drama acting credits include Miss Andrew in Mary Poppins, Guido’s Mother in Nine, the Adult Woman in Spring Awakening, Mrs. Dubose in To Kill a Mockingbird, Mrs. Fezziwig in A Christmas Carol, Frances Flute in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Aunt Ev in The Miracle Worker. Professionally, she has performed as Flo in the North American World Premier of Saturday Night Fever at the Fin-
ger Lakes Musical Theatre Festival, twice at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Shakespeare Theatre Company, Folger Theatre, American Shakespeare Center, Theatre J, Arizona Repertory, Rogue Theatre, and as a company actor in several productions at Shakespeare & Company. Internationally, she has worked alongside Andrew Wade, Giles Block, Patsy Rodenburg, and other distinguished directors and voice teachers of the Royal Shakespeare Company, British American Drama Academy, Canadian National Voice Intensive, National Institute of Dramatic Art in Australia, and Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London. Celia is a proud M.F.A. Acting graduate of The Theatre School Conservatory at DePaul University in Chicago.
CREATIVE TEAM
Caridad Svich ( Playwright ) received a 2012 OBIE Award for Lifetime Achievement in the theater, a 2012 Edgerton Foundation New Play Award and NNPN rolling world premiere for Guapa, and the 2011 American Theatre Critics Association Primus Prize for her play The House of the Spirits, based on the Isabel Allende novel. She has won the National Latino Playwriting Award (sponsored by Arizona Theatre Company) twice, including in the year 2013 for her play Spark. She has been shortlisted for the PEN Award in Drama
four times, including in the year 2012 for her play Magnificent Waste. Her works in English and Spanish have been seen at venues across the US and abroad, among them San Diego Repertory Theatre, Gala Hispanic Theatre, Denver Center Theatre, Mixed Blood Theatre, 59E59, The Women’s Project, Repertorio Espanol, Salvage Vanguard, Teatro Mori (Chile), Artheater-Cologne (Germany), Ilkhom Theater (Uzbekistan), and Edinburgh Fringe Festival/UK. Recent premieres include The Hour of All Things at Ensemble Studio
CREATIVE TEAM
Theatre/NY under William Carden’s direction; Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter (based on the Mario Vargas Llosa novel) at Repertorio Espanol in New York City; In the Time of the Butterflies (based on Julia Alvarez’ novel) at San Diego Rep; JARMAN (all this maddening beauty) at Atlas Performing Arts Center in Washington D.C.; and Upon the Fragile Shore at Summerworks Festival in Toronto, Canada. Among her key works are 12 Ophelias, Any Place But Here, Alchemy of Desire/Dead-Man’s Blues, and Iphigenia Crash Land Falls on the Neon Shell That Was Once Her Heart (a rave fable). Seven of her plays are published in Instructions for Breathing and Other Plays (Seagull Books and University of Chicago Press, 2014). Five of her plays radically re-imagining ancient Greek tragedies are published in Blasted Heavens (Eyecorner Press, University of Denmark, 2012). Her works are also published by TCG, Broadway Play Publishing, Manchester University Press, Playscripts, Arte Publico Press, Smith & Kraus, Alexander Street Press, StageReads, and more. Among her awards/recognitions are: Harvard University Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study Fellowship, TCG/Pew Charitable Trusts National Theater Artist Residency at INTAR, NEA/ TCG Playwriting Residency at the Mark Taper Theatre Forum Latino Theatre Initiative. She has edited several books on theater including Innovation in Five Acts (TCG, 2015),
Out of Silence: Censorship in Theatre & Performance (Eyecorner Press, 2014), and Trans-Global Readings: Crossing Theatrical Boundaries (Manchester University Press, 2004). She sustains a parallel career as a theatrical translator, chiefly of the dramatic work of Federico Garcia Lorca as well as works by Calderon de la Barca, Lope de Vega, Julio Cortazar, Victor Rascon Banda, Antonio Buero Vallejo, and contemporary works from Mexico, Cuba, and Spain. She is alumna playwright of New Dramatists, Drama Editor of Asymptote literary journal, associate editor of Contemporary Theatre Review (Routledge,UK), contributing editor of TheatreForum, and founder of NoPassport theater alliance and press (www.nopassport.org), which recently published Todd London’s collection of essays The Importance of Staying Earnest. She is a Lifetime Member of EST, and is on the advisory board for the US-Mexico Exchange at the Lark Play Development Center in New York City. She holds an M.F.A. in Playwriting from UCSD. Website: www.caridadsvich.com
Isabel Allende ( Author ). Chilean author Isabel Allende won worldwide acclaim when her bestselling first novel, The House of the Spirits, was published in 1982. In addition to launching Allende’s career as a renowned author, the book, which grew out of a farewell letter to her dying grandfather, also established her
CREATIVE TEAM
as a feminist force in Latin America’s male-dominated literary world. She has since written 22 more works, including Of Love and Shadows , Eva Luna, Stories of Eva Luna, The Infinite Plan , Daughter of Fortune , Portrait in Sepia, a trilogy for young readers (City of Beasts, Kingdom of the Golden Dragon, and Forest of the Pygmies), Zorro, Ines of My Soul, Island Beneath the Sea, Maya’s Notebook , Ripper , and her latest book, The Japanese Lover . Books of nonfiction include Aphrodite, a humorous collection of recipes and essays, and three memoirs: My Invented Country, Paula (a bestseller that documents Allende’s daughter’s illness and death, as well as her own life), and The Sum of Our Days. Allende’s books, all written in her native Spanish, have been translated into 35 languages and have sold nearly 70 million copies. Her works both entertain and educate readers by weaving intriguing stories with significant historical events. Settings for her books include Chile throughout the 15th, 19th, and 20th centuries, the California gold rush, the guerrilla movement of 1960s Venezuela, the Vietnam War, and the 18th century slave revolt in Haiti. Allende, who has received dozens of international tributes and awards over the last 30 years, describes her fiction as “realistic literature,” rooted in her remarkable upbringing and the mystical people and events that fueled her imagination. Her writings are equally
informed by her feminist convictions, her commitment to social justice, and the harsh political realities that shaped her destiny. A prominent journalist for Chilean television and magazines in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Allende’s life was forever altered when Gen. Augusto Pinochet led a military coup in 1973 that toppled Chile’s socialist reform government. Allende’s cousin Salvador Allende, who had been elected Chile’s president in 1970, died in the coup. The Pinochet regime was marked early on by repression and brutality, and Allende became involved with groups offering aid to victims of the regime. Ultimately finding it unsafe to remain in Chile, she fled the country in 1975 with her husband and two children. The family lived in exile in Venezuela for the next 13 years. In 1981 Allende learned that her beloved grandfather, who still lived in Chile, was dying. She began a letter to him, recounting her childhood memories of life in her grandparents’ home. Although her grandfather died before having a chance to read the letter, its contents became the basis for The House of the Spirits, the novel that launched her literary career at age 40. The novel details the lives of two families living in Chile from the 1920s to the country’s military coup in 1973, and has been described as both a family saga and a political testimony. In addition to her work as a writer, Allende also devotes much of her time to human rights. Following
CREATIVE TEAM
the death of her daughter, Paula, in 1992, she established in her honor a charitable foundation dedicated to the protection and empowerment of women and girls worldwide. Since 1987, Allende has made her home in the San Francisco Bay Area in California. Allende became a U.S. citizen in 1993, but lives, she says, with one foot in California and the other in Chile.
CHAIR, DEPARTMENT OF DRAMA
Ralph Zito is in his eighth year as chair of the Department of Drama. He came to Syracuse University from the Juilliard School Drama Division, where he had been a teacher and director from 1992 to 2010 and chair of the Voice and Speech Department since 1999. He was a director and adjunct lecturer in the Barnard College Theater Department from 2006 until 2010 and has been a guest artist at training programs across the country, including the Old Globe in San Diego, The University of Texas at Austin, and the Academy for Classical Acting in Washington, DC. Directing credits for the Department of Drama include: The Spitfire Grill , As You Like It, Gruesome Playground Injuries, and The Aliens. He has served as a voice, text or dialect consultant for numerous professional productions both on and off-Broadway, including: The Light in the Piazza; Awake and Sing!; The Herbal Bed; Mrs. Klein; The Fiery Furnace; The Time of the
Cuckoo (Lincoln Center Theatre); Tongue of a Bird; The Merchant of Venice (New York Shakespeare Festival); The Pitchfork Disney (Blue Light Theatre Company); Birdy (The Women’s Project); The Model Apartment (Primary Stages); the New York premiere of Tony Kushner’s SLAVS! (New York Theatre Workshop); and The African Company Presents Richard III (The Acting Company). His regional theater credits include numerous productions at The Shakespeare Theatre and Arena Stage in Washington, DC; Syracuse Stage; Baltimore CENTERSTAGE; Hartford Stage; and the McCarter Theatre, among others. A former touring member of The Acting Company, he served as artistic associate of The Chautauqua Theatre Company for seven years and was a member of the Board of Directors of The American Society for the Alexander Technique (AmSAT) for six years. He is a graduate of Harvard University, The Juilliard School, and the American Center for the Alexander Technique.
ABOUT THE DEPARTMENT OF DRAMA
Part of the College of Visual and Peforming Arts, the Syracuse University Department of Drama offers degree programs in Acting, Musical Theater, Theater Design and Technology, Stage Management, and Theater Management utilizing conser vatory-style training in a university setting and in collaboration with Syracuse Stage. With
much appreciation, the Department of Drama wishes to acknowledge the valuable contribution of the Syracuse Stage staff. While students are responsible for designing the technical elements of most Drama productions, implementing these designs requires a significant contribution by the professional staff of the Syracuse Stage production department.
Publications Director Joseph Whelan
Layout Jonathan Hudak
Advertising Joanna Penalva
The House of the Spirits published November 10, 2017
NEXT AT SYRACUSE STAGE
THE WIZARD OF OZ
BY L. FRANK BAUM | WITH MUSIC AND LYRICS FROM THE MGM MOTION PICTURE SCORE BY HAROLD ARLEN AND E. Y. HARBURG WITH BACKGROUND MUSIC BY HERBERT STOTHART | BOOK ADAPTATION BY JOHN KANE FROM THE MOTION PICTURE SCREENPLAY | DIRECTED BY DONNA DRAKE | CHOREOGRAPHY BY 2
RING CIRCUS | MUSICAL DIRECTION BY BRIAN CIMMET | CO-PRODUCED WITH THE SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF DRAMA | NOVEMBER 29 – JANUARY 7 | OPENING NIGHT: DECEMBER 1
Syracuse Stage teams up with New York’s 2 Ring Circus to create a dazzlingly acrobatic take on The Wizard of Oz. This stage adaptation contains all your favorite characters and songs from the Oscar-winning movie score, including “Over the Rainbow,” “We’re Off to See the Wizard (Follow the Yellow Brick Road),” and more. The cirque-like feats of 2 Ring Circus make it an Oz and a holiday family treat—like you’ve never seen before. Great songs and L. Frank Baum’s beloved characters make this musical a classic.
NEXT TO NORMAL
MUSIC BY TOM KITT | BOOK AND LYRICS BY BRIAN YORKEY | DIRECTED BY ROBERT HUPP | CHOREOGRAPHY BY ANTHONY
SALATINO | MUSICAL DIRECTION BY BRIAN CIMMET | JANUARY 24 - FEBRUARY 11
OPENING NIGHT: JANUARY 26
At the center of this acclaimed Pulitzer Prize- and Tony Award-winning musical is a family at once familiar and recognizable, but also coping with its own particular dysfunction. Intimately told, Next to Normal blends the insight of fine drama with the emotional impact of a moving rock score. Often funny and always poignant, Next to Normal is a work of grace and power that goes right to the human heart. The New York Times calls Next to Normal a “brave, breathtaking musical….”
THE SEAGULL
BY ANTON CHEKHOV | DIRECTED BY ROB BUNDY | FEBRUARY 23 – MARCH 4
OPENING NIGHT: FEBRUARY 24
“The comedy has three female roles, six male roles, four acts, a view of a lake, much conversation about literature . . . and five tons of love.” So wrote Anton Chekhov to a friend about The Seagull, the 1895 play that established his reputation as a playwright and catapulted the famed Moscow Art Theatre to prominence. It’s all quite simple: Medvedenko loves Masha who loves Konstantin who loves Nina who loves Trigorin who’s involved with Arkadina. Meanwhile, Paulina is married to Shamreyev, but she pines for Dr. Dorn. What could go wrong? “So much love! Oh, that bewitching lake!”
THE BALTIMORE WALTZ
BY
PAULA VOGEL | DIRECTED BY KATHERINE M c GERR | MARCH 30 – APRIL 8 | OPENING NIGHT: MARCH 31
Paula Vogel is a master of finding humor in life’s dark corners. The Baltimore Waltz, written as a kind of theatrical eulogy to her beloved brother who died of AIDS in 1988, is a satiric and at times whacky comedy that charts a tale of a schoolteacher named Anna who takes a wild, lust-filled, last grab at life trip abroad after contracting a (fictional) fatal malady. As she indulges in food and romance, her brother Carl embarks on an absurd pursuit for a possible cure inspired by the classic film The Third Man. Reality and fantasy intermingle in this daringly comedic and ultimately heart-stirring play about love, loss, and coping with grief.
THE HOUSE OF THE SPIRITS PRODUCTION STAFF & RUN CREW
Faculty Advisor to Student Designers......................................................................Alex Koziara
Faculty Advisor to Stage Managers........................................................................Dianna Angell
Production Assistants....................................Georgi Cassell, Candice Hayatakema, Alex Keane, Kevin Morrison, Tommy Montgomery, Pauline Pauwels,
Olivia St. Peter, Jack Rento, Logan Schiller, Lexie Smychynsky
Business Manager.................................................................................................................Lisa Tucci
Administrative Specialist...................................................................................Charlotte Santella Director, Tepper Semester in NYC.............................................................................Lisa Nicholas
Assistant Musical Director...........................................................................................Jacob Stebly Director, 914Works..........................................................................................................Scott Rose
Sign Language Interpreters....................Brenda Brown, Jim Brown, Aaron Burton, Angelo Coppola, Mikki Evans, Sue Freeman, Joanne Jackowski, Zenna Preli, Trisha Schwartz, Ryan Wight
Open Captioning.......................................................................................................Tionge Johnson
Audio Description...................................................................................Kate Laissle, Joseph Whelan
Community Services Officers.......................................................Stacey Emmons, Joseph O'Connor
Custodians.............................................................................Kitty Ashby, Les Edwards, Tony Rogers
THE THREE MUSKETEERS
SEPTEMBER 20 – OCTOBER 8
THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME
OCTOBER 25 – NOVEMBER 12
THE WIZARD OF OZ
NOVEMBER 29 – JANUARY 7
NEXT TO NORMAL
JANUARY 24 – FEBRUARY 11
A RAISIN IN THE SUN
FEBRUARY 21 – MARCH 11
COLD READ
NEW DATES: APRIL 5 - APRIL 8
THE MAGIC PLAY
APRIL 25 – MAY 13
SEASON SPONSORS
CRAZY
OCTOBER 6 - 15
OPENING NIGHT: OCTOBER 7
THE HOUSE OF
NOVEMBER 10 – 18
OPENING NIGHT: NOVEMBER 11
THE WIZARD OF OZ*
CO-PRODUCED WITH SYRACUSE STAGE NOVEMBER 29 – JANUARY 7
OPENING NIGHT: DECEMBER 1
THE SEAGULL
FEBRUARY 23 – MARCH 4
OPENING NIGHT: FEBRUARY 24
THE BALTIMORE WALTZ
MARCH 30 – APRIL 8
OPENING NIGHT: MARCH 31
LITTLE SHOP OF
HORRORS
MAY 4 -12
OPENING NIGHT: MAY 5
*DRAMA SUBSCRIBERS WILL RECEIVE VOUCHERS REDEEMABLE FOR TICKETS TO THE WIZARD OF OZ
PHOTO: EZEKIEL EDMONDS WITH ENSEMBLE IN NINE DIRECTED AND CHOREOGRAPHED BY ANTHONY SALATINO. MUSIC DIRECTOR: BRIAN CIMMET. SCENIC DESIGNER: FELIX E. COCHREN. COSTUME DESIGNER: KATHRYN BAILEY. LIGHTING DESIGNER: ALEX KOZIARA. (PHOTO BY MICHAEL DAVIS)
