The Bridge of San Luis Rey Playbill

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ABOUT US LEADERSHIP

Robert M. Rechnitz Executive Producer John Dias Artistic Director Joan H. Rechnitz Associate Producer Michael Hurst Managing Director

BOARD OF TRUSTEES Todd Herman President Anne Luzzatto Vice President Robert Butters Treasurer Susan Olson Secretary Stephen Becker Marilyn Broege Amanda Butterbaugh Carolyn Cushman DeSena Kathleen Ellis Gale Grossman Caroline Huber Mary Jane Kroon Hon. Edward J. McKenna, Jr. Nyire Melconian Adam Rechnitz Joan H. Rechnitz Robert M. Rechnitz Geoffrey Sadwith Maureen Silliman Mary Carol Stunkel Webster Trammell Richard B. Worley Howard P. Aronson William Marracini Kathryne Singleton Emeritus Board Members

Two River Theater, under the leadership of Artistic Director John Dias and Managing Director Michael Hurst, develops and produces great American theater. Through 10 theatrical productions each year (including world premieres, musicals, classics and theater for young audiences) and 50+ annual events happening around Monmouth County, we produce exceptional theater and cultivate engaged audiences. Two River celebrates and honors our core values of Artistic Excellence; Education and Community Engagement; Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion; and Operational Excellence.

Founded by Joan and Robert Rechnitz in 1994, Two River is recognized in the national theater community for its newplay commissioning program, which creates a pipeline for developing work that contributes to the vitality and future of the American theater. Each season, the theater hosts numerous artist residencies, workshops and readings, and presents an annual Cabaret of New Songs for the Musical Theater in association with NYU’s Graduate Musical Theatre Writing program. The Crossing Borders (Cruzando Fronteras) festival and Nosotros program foster a closer relationship between the theater and Latino artists and audiences.

Two River cultivates a new generation of theatergoers through innovative arts education programs that introduce young people to the theater and create opportunities for them to engage with renowned theater artists. For more information, visit tworivertheater.org or call 732.345.1400. Â

TABLE OF CONTENTS

5 Title Page 7 Patron Services 9 A Note from the Artistic Director, John Dias 11 Cast of Characters 12 Bios 18 When Thornton Met Gertrude 21 Leadership Bios 23 Gear Up for the 25th Anniversary Season 24 Greenspan on Theater, Theater People on Greenspan 28 Thornton Niven Wilder Chronology 29 Discovering and Rediscovering The Bridge 31 Education Spotlight: Metro Scholars 33 First Monday Masters 35 Coming Soon: Dancing at Lughnasa 36 Individual Donors 38 Donor Spotlight: Melissa and Joe DelBroccolo 41 Institutional Support 43 Meet Our Staff & Volunteers 46 Scene at Two River

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THE BRIDGE OF SAN LUIS REY

Robert M. Rechnitz Executive Producer John Dias Artistic Director Joan H. Rechnitz Associate Producer Michael Hurst Managing Director

By Thornton Wilder Adapted by David Greenspan WITH SUMAYA BOUHBAL JULIENNE HANZELKA KIM MARY LOU ROSATO

DAVID GREENSPAN ELIZABETH RAMOS BRADLEY JAMES TEJEDA

ZACHARY INFANTE STEVEN RATTAZZI MADELINE WISE

SCENIC DESIGNER......................................................................Antje Ellermann COSTUME DESIGNER................................................................Elizabeth Hope Clancy LIGHTING DESIGNER.................................................................Yuki Nakase SOUND DESIGNER........................................................................Karin Graybash WIG DESIGNER..................................................................................David Bova PUPPET CONSULTANT...........................................................Eric Wright CASTING..................................................................................................Taylor “Sharky” Williams PRODUCTION STAGE MANAGER ................................Megan Smith

Directed by Ken Rus Schmoll OPENING NIGHT: FEBRUARY 23/2018 MARION HUBER THEATER THE BRIDGE OF SAN LUIS REY © 1927 The Wilder Family LLC Dramatic agent: Alan Brodie Representation Ltd www.alanbrodie.com Two River Theater is supported in part by funds from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Department of State, a Partner Agency of the National Endowment for the Arts.

PRODUCTION SPONSORS:

SEASON SPONSORS:

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3/11/18 • 3:30pm

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This Program is made possible in part by Monmouth Arts through funding from the Monmouth County Board of Chosen Freeholders, and the New Jersey State Council on the Arts.

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PATRON SERVICES Thank you for joining us at this performance.

Two River Theater is dedicated to making your experience the best that it can possibly be.

Please note the following offerings and requests to better enhance your time at the theater:

BEFORE PLAY Join us 45 minutes prior to every performance in the Two River lobby for a pre-performance talk, which will give you valuable insight into the play you are about to see. Talks last 10-15 minutes and are led by a member of the company or Two River’s Artistic Department.

POST-PLAY DISCUSSIONS Post-play discussions are scheduled following three performances of every production. During these discussions, audiences are invited to share their questions and responses to the work on stage with members of the cast and staff of the theater. Post-play discussion dates for the current season can be found in our season brochure or on our website.

INSIDE TWO RIVER EVENTS A series of mostly FREE arts & humanities events specially curated for each of our productions. Events include film screenings, book club, poetry readings, crafting nights, lectures, social events with our artists & more! To make sure you are first to hear about these events sign up for our email list, follow us on Facebook, and stay tuned to our website!

BOX OFFICE Box Office Hours: Monday through Saturday 10am-6pm, Sunday from 12-5pm and starting one hour prior to all performances.

CONCESSIONS Coffee, tea, water, soda, candy, and snacks are available at the concessions stand in the lobby. Only water will be permitted into the theater during performances.

COURTESY

ACCESS

Two River Theater is committed to making its facilities and performances accessible for all patrons through: Barrier Free Access Assistive Listening Devices Large Print Programs *Open Captioning *Audio Description *American Sign Language Interpretation *Relaxed Performances *Available at select performances only.

2017/18 SEASON ACCESS DATES

The Bridge of San Luis Rey

Audio Description: Wednesday, March 14 at 1PM Open Caption: Saturday, March 17 at 3PM

A Little Shakespeare: The Comedy of Errors Relaxed Performance: Saturday, March 10 at 2PM

Dancing at Lughnasa

Audio Description: Wednesday, May 2 at 1PM Open Caption: Saturday, May 5 at 3PM Sign Interpretation: Sunday, May 12 at 3PM

The Young King

Relaxed Performance: Saturday, April 21 at 2PM

Oo-Bla-Dee

Audio Description: Wednesday, June 27 at 1PM Open Caption: Saturday, June 30 at 3PM

Access programs made possible through support from New Jersey State Council on the Arts.

Please limit food and drink, taking photographs and cell phone usage to our lobby or outside the theater. Late seating will occur at the discretion of Management.

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Monmouth University proudly supports Two River Theater

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A NOTE FROM THE

ARTISTIC DIRECTOR Photo by Danny Sanchez.

JOHN DIAS

“I regard the theatre as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being.”

T

hornton Wilder said that. Wilder was a dyed-inthe-wool theater animal. Despite the fact that his first published work of writing was a novel (The Cabala) and his second was a Pulitzer Prize-winning (emphasis mine) novel (The Bridge of San Luis Rey), he always felt his true calling was the theater.

Apparently, at age fifteen in his all-boys boarding school, Wilder was cast in a production of The Importance of Being Earnest, as Lady Bracknell. With great excitement and a little bit of pride, he wrote to his mom—his equally theater-obsessed comrade in arms: “I began learning my part right off and fell to work trying not to laugh at the clever epigrams I had to say.” But it wasn’t to be. His rather Puritanical, New England-born father intervened and wrote the headmaster that he’d rather Thornton not be in plays, especially taking female parts. Still, he was determined to make a life of the theater. At age sixteen, in the flyleaves of his first-year algebra textbook, he set up a table of contents for the miniature plays he’d written or planned to write: Three Minute Plays for Three Persons.

He planned for his works to be staged in theaters where they would “alternate with The Wild Duck and Measure for Measure.”

It was just around this time that he realized he’d never escape his fate: he was a writer. Earlier, at his English boarding school in China (his dad was the American Consul there), he chafed at the cloistered life of the Western students who were kept from knowing anything about the Chinese or their culture. He contrived a way out. While satisfying his father’s desire that he find an athletic pursuit, he convinced the headmaster to make him a one-man cross-country team; and out of the gates, and through the woods and into the villages he ran.

The running sent him into the forbidden; allowed him access to the places his curiosity tempted him. But it also helped him with his writing. “It is well known that writers

require long stretches of time alone—to think,” he wrote.

I imagine all those grand ideas, those youthful inquisitive pursuits fueling his feet in a giddy, tumbling sprint. As in his novels and plays, he’s chasing mysteries, always the existential and infinite ones.

Like Wilder, David Greenspan is in constant motion (even when he’s onstage sitting still), ever in pursuit. He’s one of the most prolific and abounding theater artists I know.

Always chasing the ineffable, and certain that the magic of theater can capture it; show it, however fleetingly, to an audience of fellow travelers. His theater is limitless.

In David’s theater, he plays fast and loose with time— because he always seems to live both in and outside of it. Like Wilder, he’s obsessed with the quotidian, the here and now. But determined to see beyond, into the infinite.

I’m reminded of something the Stage Manager says in Wilder’s Our Town (and you’ll see David’s winking homage to him in his Bridge). Towards the end of the play, he comes to this realization: We all know that something is eternal. And it ain’t houses and it ain’t names, and it ain’t earth, and it ain’t even the stars . . . everybody knows in their bones that something is eternal, and that something has to do with human beings. All the greatest people ever lived have been telling us that for five thousand years and yet you’d be surprised how people are always losing hold of it. There’s something way down deep that’s eternal about every human being.

When time has no limit and we run in perpetual motion and death is merely one event in an infinite continuum, there is only one constant, one eternal. At the end of Bridge and from beyond the grave, David—as Uncle Pio—quietly realizes: “…you know, the love will have been enough.” n

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CAST OF CHARACTERS

(IN ORDER OF SPEAKING)

Uncle Pio.............................................................................................................................................DAVID GREENSPAN

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Doña María, Marquesa de Montemayor...............................................................MARY LOU ROSATO

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Doña Clara, Condesa d’Abuirre, Doña María’s daughter.......................MADELINE WISE

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Pepita, young protégé of Madre María del Pilar, servant to Doña María...........................................................................................................SUMAYA BOUHBAL

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Don Vicente, Conde d’Abuirre, Doña Clara’s husband/Don Andrés de Ribera, Viceroy of Peru/Captain Alvarado, a ship captain/Jaime, Camila’s son/Inez, a novice at the convent...............STEVEN RATTAZZI

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Madre María del Pilar, Abbess of Convent Santa María Rosa de las Rosas.....................................................................................................................................JULIENNE HANZELKA KIM Esteban, a scribe.........................................................................................................................ZACHARY INFANTE Manuel, a scribe, Esteban’s twin brother.............................................................BRADLEY JAMES TEJEDA Camila Perichole, celebrated Peruvian actress.............................................ELIZABETH RAMOS

A mutual company founded in 1845

The Bridge of San Luis Rey will be performed without an intermission.

PRODUCTION CREDITS Assistant to the Director: Brian Eckert Assistant Lighting Designer: Cody Richardson Assistant Sound Designer: Käri Berntson

SPECIAL THANKS David Greenspan would like to thank: Tappan Wilder and Rosey Strub from the Wilder Estate Barbara Hogenson Louis Rosen, who first brought the novel to my attention

MAKE A BIG IMPACT TURN YOUR FAVORITE ARTWORK OR PHOTOS INTO GALLERY WRAPPED PRINTS.

The Producers wish to thank the TDF Costume Collection for its assistance in this production, and Jack Doulin for his assistance with casting.

The Actors and Stage Manager employed in this production are members of Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States.

The Director is a member of the STAGE DIRECTORS AND CHOREOGRAPHERS SOCIETY, a national theatrical labor union NI SCE C A

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The Designers at this Theatre are Represented by

United Scenic Artists • Local USA 829 of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employes

The scenic, costume, lighting, and sound designers in LORT theatres are represented by United Scenic Artists, Local USA-829 of the IATSE

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Two River Theater Company is a member of the League of Resident Theaters (LORT), Theatre Communications Group (TCG), the New Jersey Theatre Alliance, and ArtPride New Jersey.

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E

I

BIOS MEET THE ARTISTS!

Sumaya Bouhbal (Pepita) is thrilled to be performing at Two River Theater. Sumaya’s credits include Runaways, the Encores! production at New York City Center, and Jessa in the offBroadway production of A Civil War Christmas at New York Theatre Workshop. Sumaya also performed in The TEAM’s Primer for a Failed Superpower concert, directed by Rachel Chavkin, and she co-starred as the Puerto Rican girl in the Amazon series Mozart in the Jungle. Sumaya would like to send a special thank you to her family, manager Achilles Tsakiridis (Prestige Management), agent John Shea (FBI), and singing coach Daniel Orama (Vocal Production Studios) for their love and continued support.

David Greenspan (Uncle Pio/Playwright) has acted in his plays The Home Show Pieces, Dead Mother, She Stoops to Comedy, The Argument, The Myopia, Go Back to Where You Are and I’m Looking for Helen Twelvetrees—and in premieres by David Adjmi, Sarah Ruhl, Adam Rapp, Stephin Merritt, William Hoffman, Terrence McNally, David Grimm, Kathleen Tolan, Richard Foreman and Mac Wellman. He has performed solo renditions of Eugene O’Neill’s Strange Interlude, Barry Conners’ 1925 comedy The Patsy, Gertrude Stein’s lecture Plays and a program of Stein lectures and a playlet entitled Composition…Master-Pieces…Identity. He enjoys close collaborative relationships with directors David Herskovits, Leigh Silverman and Jack Cummings III—and is the recipient of Guggenheim and Fox fellowships, Alpert, Lambda Literary and Helen Merrill Playwriting awards and five Obies.

Zachary Infante (Esteban), a native of Roselle Park, New Jersey, is grateful to be making his Two River debut. Off-Broadway: Big River (dir. Lear deBessonet) and Do I Hear a Waltz? (dir. Evan Cabnet), both for New York City Center’s Encores!; Pericles (dir. Trevor Nunn), Tamburlaine the Great (Drama Desk nomination, Outstanding Revival of a Play, dir. Michael Boyd), and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Francis Flute, dir. Julie Taymor), all for Theatre for a New Audience. Regional & International: Rent at Cas di Cultura, Aruba’s National Theatre (Angel, dir. Nicola Murphy); Fingersmith at the American Repertory Theater (dir. Bill Rauch); Somewhere at Hartford Stage (dir. Giovanna Sardelli); Peter Pan at Paper Mill Playhouse (dir. Mark Hoebee). Film & TV: School of Rock (dir. Richard Linklater); Carrie Pilby (dir. Susan Johnson); Alpha House; Gotham. BFA in Drama from NYU Tisch (CAP21 & ETW). A great many thanks to Ken, David, John and the TRT family for the opportunity to join The Bridge. He maintains love and gratitude for his family, friends, this cast, crew, and the team at Abrams Artists. “Life is what happens to us while we are making other plans.” www.zacharyinfante.com, @zachinfante Julienne Hanzelka Kim (Madre María) Broadway: Metamorphoses; Golden Child. Off-Broadway credits include: Among the Dead and Chairs and a Long Table at Ma-Yi Theater; Yellow Face at The Public; The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow at Atlantic Theater Company; The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci at Second Stage; Blood Orange at the Cherry Lane Theatre and the Blue Heron Arts Center; and The House of Bernarda Alba for NAATCO. Regional and International: Phaedra Backwards at McCarter Theater; Language Rooms at the Wilma Theater; Krystian Lupa’s adaptation of Three Sisters at A.R.T. and the Edinburgh International Festival; Yellow Face at Mark Taper Forum; Golden Child at The Kennedy Center, A.C.T., Singapore Rep and Seattle Rep; Everything That Rises Must Converge and The World Is Round with Compagnia de’ Colombari. TV/Film credits include: Castle Rock (Hulu); The Affair (Showtime); Blue Bloods (CBS); Elementary (CBS); The Good Wife (recurring CBS); Royal Pains (USA); Law & Order: CI (NBC); Rescue Me (FX); One Life to Live (recurring ABC); Children of the Northern Lights (ITVS, FutureStates); When We Dead Awaken; The Adderall Diaries; Shadows and Lies; The Tested; Robot Stories; Split; and 12

Life in Bed. Julienne holds an MFA from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts Graduate Acting Program where she was the recipient of the NYU Departmental Scholarship. She is a proud member of the Workshop Company at The Actors Center, on the steering committee of AAPAC (Asian American Performers Action Coalition), and is the recipient of a Van Lier Literary fellowship. In loving memory of Mark Schlegel.

Elizabeth Ramos (Camila Perichole) made her Two River debut last season in The Women of Padilla. OffBroadway: The Surgeon and her Daughters (Cherry Lane Theatre, dir. Adrienne Campbell-Holt); The Idea of Me (Cherry Lane Theatre, dir. Jose Zayas); and A Month in the Country (Classic Stage Company, dir.

Erica Schmidt). Regional: Fade (TheaterWorks, dir.

Jerry Ruíz); Deferred Action (Dallas Theater Center, dir.

David Lozano); Sleep Rock Thy Brain (Actors Theatre of Louisville, dir. Amy Attaway). Previous credits include Romeo and Juliet; Odilia; and Sonnets for an Old Century. Training: Actors Theatre of Louisville Apprenticeship and California State University, Fullerton. Liz would like to thank Two River Theater for letting her be a part of such an extraordinary family. And to her husband, her bridge…Kenji.

Steven Rattazzi (Don Andrés de Ribera/Captain Alvarado/Don Vicente/Jaime/Inez) previously appeared at Two River in The School for Wives. Broadway: Indecent. Off-Broadway: The Black Crook (Abrons Arts); Indecent (Vineyard); Henry V w/Liev Schreiber (Public Theater); Galileo w/F. Murray Abraham; The Tempest w/ Mandy Patinkin (CSC); Stunning (Lincoln Center); Dinner Party (Target Margin); Painted Snake on a Painted Chair (Obie); McGurk (ERS); Richard Foreman’s Samuel’s Major Problems (Ontological). Regional: Seder (Hartford Stage); Indecent (Yale Rep/La Jolla Playhouse); Marie Antoinette (ART/Yale Rep); The Lovesong of J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cincinnati Playhouse). Film: The Family. TV: Venture Brothers.

Mary Lou Rosato (Doña María) Broadway: Once Upon a Mattress, 1996 (Queen Aggravain), School for Scandal (National Actors Theatre), My Life as a Fairytale (Lincoln Center Festival), The Suicide, The Inspector General, The Robber Bridegroom, Beggar’s Opera, Measure for Measure, The Time of Your Life, The Three Sisters. Off-Broadway: The Skin of Our Teeth, Henry the 5th (TFANA), Government Inspector (Red Bull), The Winter’s Tale, The Misanthrope (CSC), Mother Courage, The Cradle Will Rock, Ten by Tennessee, School for Scandal (Drama Desk Award). Regional: Guthrie (Candide), Yale Rep (The Alchemist, Elizabeth: Almost By Chance a Woman), ART (The Miser), Shakespeare Theatre, Washington (Witch of Edmonton and King Lear), Cincinnati Playhouse (Medea), Seattle Rep (Misanthrope, Coming of Age in Soho), McCarter (Triumph of Love, Changes of Heart, Mirandolina), Old Globe San Diego (The Hostage), Williamstown Theatre Festival (Camino Real), Baltimore Center Stage (Roza), Berkshire Theatre Festival (High Spirits), St. Nicholas Theater Company (Curse of an Aching Heart—Jeff Award, Primary English Class), Playwrights Lab at Sundance, SCR (The Clean House), Mark Taper (Changes of Heart). Film: Quiz Show, Hudsucker Proxy, The Wedding Banquet, Two Bits, Spike of Bensonhurst, Brenda Starr, Illuminata. TV: Titus (Nurse Kathy), Law & Order: SVU, and Caroline in the City, Warehouse 13, The Lot, Miami Vice, Stone Pillow with Lucille Ball. Juilliard Drama (Group 1) under John Houseman and Michel St. Denis. Founding member: The Acting Company. Faculty Emerita—California Institute of the Arts.

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Bradley James Tejeda (Manuel) recently appeared in Two River Theater’s production of El Coquí Espectacular and the Bottle of Doom as Alex/El Coquí. From San Antonio, TX, he obtained a B.A. in Theatre Arts from the University of the Incarnate Word in 2013, then recently graduated from the Yale School of Drama in 2016. Bradley will be playing Ralph in a stage adaptation of Lord of the Flies at Nebraska Repertory Theatre in Lincoln, Nebraska in April.

The power of Love itself doesn’t happen accidentally, but it does desperately desire to become intention.

Be patient, the power of loving yourself and another profoundly with an undying purpose to master the tight-rope walk of love itself—connecting the lands of the living and the dead—is primary. To love, is to live.

To live with. That is primary. Before we can live for another, we must learn to love. Profoundly, courageously, faithfully. Convivir! Conjunto! Con el Mundo!

Madeline Wise (Doña Clara) Select theater credits include Cute Activist (The Bushwick Starr); Far Away (Sharon Playhouse); Minor Character (Public Theater’s Under the Radar Festival; Invisible Dog; Sharon Playhouse); The World My Mama Raised (Clubbed Thumb Summerworks); the feels (KMS) (American AF Festival/New Ohio); Choice (Huntington, IRNE nom for Best Supporting Actress); PlayMoney (La MaMa ETC); Tall Women in Clogs (Edinburgh Fringe). Film/web includes Whatever this is., Snow Day, The Outs, Peacekeepers. Readings and developmental work with Playwrights Horizons, LCT3, New York Theatre Workshop, Clubbed Thumb, Ars Nova, Playwrights Realm, Drama League, New Group, The Lark, Huntington, and more. Madeline is a founder of New Saloon Theater Co and a member of the Actors Center. madelinewise.com.

Thornton Niven Wilder (1897-1975) Born in Madison, Wisconsin, and educated at Oberlin, Yale (B.A. 1920) and Princeton (M.A. 1925), Thornton Wilder was an accomplished novelist and playwright whose works, exploring the connection between the commonplace and the cosmic dimensions of human experience, continue to be read and produced around the world. Wilder is the only writer to win Pulitzer Prizes for both fiction and drama—for his novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1927) and two plays, Our Town (1938) and The Skin of Our Teeth (1942). His other novels include The Cabala, The Woman of Andros, Heaven’s My Destination, The Ides of March, The Eighth Day and Theophilus North. His other major dramas include The Matchmaker (adapted as the musical Hello, Dolly!) and The Alcestiad. The Happy Journey to Trenton and Camden, The Long Christmas Dinner and Pullman Car Hiawatha are among his celebrated shorter plays. Wilder also enjoyed success as an essayist, translator, research scholar, teacher, lecturer, actor, librettist and

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screenwriter. His screenplay for Alfred Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt (1943) remains a classic psycho-thriller to this day. Wilder’s many honors include the Gold Medal for Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the National Book Committee’s Medal for Literature, The Order of Merit (Peru), and the Goethe-Plakette (Germany). In 1930, with royalties received from The Bridge of San Luis Rey, Wilder built a home for himself and his family in Hamden, CT. Although often away from it for as many as 250 days a year, restlessly seeking quiet places in which to write, Thornton Wilder always returned to “The House The Bridge Built.” He died here on December 7th, 1975. More information on Thornton Wilder and his family is available in Penelope Niven’s definitive biography, Thornton Wilder: A Life (2013) as well as on the Wilder Family website, www.thorntonwilder.com David Greenspan (Uncle Pio/Playwright) See actor bios Ken Rus Schmoll (Director) directed Tony Meneses’s The Women of Padilla and Madeleine George’s Seven Homeless Mammoths Wander New England at Two River Theater. Other regional credits include John (ACT); Hilary and Clinton (Philadelphia Theatre Company); The Grown-Up, Death Tax (Humana Festival); and Love in the Wars (Bard SummerScape). New York credits include Sagittarius Ponderosa (NAATCO); Antlia Pneumatica, Iowa (Playwrights Horizons); Judy, Grounded (Page 73); Card and Gift, Luther, Telethon, Amazons and Their Men, Demon Baby (Clubbed Thumb); The Invisible Hand, Red Dog Howls (New York Theatre Workshop); Not What Happened (BAM Next Wave); The Peripherals (Taking Band); A Map of Virtue, Mark Smith, Aphrodisiac, The Internationalist (13P); Middletown, The Internationalist (Vineyard Theatre); What Once We Felt (LCT3); FUREE in Pins and Needles, Telephone (Foundry Theatre); and Hello Failure (PS 122). He staged the world premiere of Charles Wuorinen’s cantata It Happens Like This (Tanglewood) and the American premiere of Wolfgang Rihm’s opera Proserpina (Spoleto Festival USA). He is a usual suspect at New York Theatre Workshop, an affiliated artist with Clubbed Thumb, a co-mentor of the Clubbed Thumb Directing Fellowship, a former co-chair of the Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab, and the recipient of two Obie Awards, a Lucille Lortel Award nomination, and a Drama League Award nomination. Next he will direct Jordan Harrison’s Marjorie Prime at Marin Theatre Company.

Antje Ellermann (Scenic Designer) designs sets for theater, opera and TV. Her NY credits include: Building the Wall, Stuffed, Dear Elizabeth (WP Theater and Off Broadway), I’ m Looking for Helen Twelvetrees, The Belle of Amherst, The Open House (Signature Theatre), Hamlet and The Broken Heart (Theatre for a New Audience), and Honor (La Mama). Regionally her work has been seen at: Kansas City Rep, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Hartford Stage, Long Wharf Theatre, Yale Rep, Berkeley Rep, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Williamstown Theatre Festival, NY Stage & Film, Trinity Rep, Huntington Theatre Company, Arena Stage, Denver Center Theatre Company, Cleveland Playhouse, Seattle Rep, Geffen Playhouse, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Bard SummerScape and Pittsburgh Opera Center. Award nominations: Connecticut Critics Circle Award (The House that will not Stand), Helen Hayes Award, Ovation Award and Lucille Lortel Award (Nine Parts of Desire), Emmy Award nomination: Becoming American). www.antjeellermann.com Elizabeth Hope Clancy (Costume Designer) Broadway: A Christmas Story: The Musical, Passing Strange, The Goat; or Who Is Sylvia?, The Ride Down Mt. Morgan. West End: A Few Good Men. Dublin: Death of a Salesman (Gate). Off-Broadway: The Lady from Dubuque, The Oldest Profession, The Last of the Thorntons (Signature), Measure for Measure (Shakespeare in the Park), Hamlet (TFANA), In the Blood, A Dybbuk (Public), Memory House, Recent Tragic Events, The Wax (Playwrights Horizons), Waiting for Godot, Endgame, The Entertainer (CSC). Regional: The Outsiders (Paper Mill), Our Town (George Street), productions at The Guthrie, Seattle Rep, Intiman, Huntington, Mark Taper, OSF, Hartford Stage, Long Wharf, Geffen, Yale Rep, etc. Dance: resident designer for Sally Silvers Dance. MFA: Yale School of Drama. Faculty: Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers and Fashion Institute of Technology.

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Yuki Nakase (Lighting Designer) previously designed Tony Meneses’ The Women of Padilla with Ken Rus Schmoll and Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest with Michael Cumpsty at Two River Theater. With Ken Rus Schmoll: Octavia at Todd Theatre on the University of Rochester’s River Campus and Craig Lucas’ Blue Window (Columbia Stages/CSC). Recent design credits include Anne Washburn’s Apparition (SBU), Un Yamada’s Kaya (Japan), Chanel Haute Couture Presentations FW 17/18 (Venue57), Nene Humphrey’s Circling the Center (3LD), Mallory Catlett’s Decoder 2017 (Agnes Varis PAC), Kate Ballen’s No One Asked Me (SoHo Playhouse), Bastards of Strindberg inspired by August Strindberg’s Miss Julie (Theatre Row), Michel Hausmann’s The Golem of Havana (La MaMa). Recent associate design credits include Mira Nair’s new musical Monsoon Wedding (Berkeley Rep), Steve Martin’s new play Meteor Shower (Old Globe/Long Wharf), NYFW FW 2018 for COACH 1941(Basketball City). B.A. in Dance: JWCPE, M.F.A. in Lighting Design: NYU. She was born in Tokyo, grew up in Kyoto, Japan and currently lives north of NYC in the woods. For more information, visit http://yukinakase.com.

Karin Graybash (Sound Designer) has created numerous sound designs for regional theater and Off-Broadway, including: Hartford Stage, Long Wharf, Berkeley Rep, Dallas Theater Center, Yale Rep, McCarter, Arena Stage, Portland Stage, Folger Theatre, People’s Light, and the Alliance. Her conceptual sound design for Popsicle’s Departure was also produced internationally. Her work has been nominated for the Helen Hayes Awards and she is a recipient of the Bay Area Theatre Critics Award for her sound design of Polk County at Berkeley Repertory Theatre. Karin was the original live sound consultant for the multi-media production Freedom Rising at the National Constitution Center. Many of her soundscapes can be heard at The Franklin Institute’s exhibit entitled Your Brain. Karin also holds the position of Sound Supervisor for the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University.

David Bova (Wig Designer) Broadway designs include The Visit, The Real Thing, Violet, Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill, Motown, The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess, All About Me, and Next to Normal. Films include Angelica and The Night Before. TV includes Six by Sondheim, Scream Queens, Gotham, Mozart in the Jungle, and Inside Amy Schumer.

Eric Wright (Puppet Consultant) Performance credits include: The Soldier’s Tale (Bushwick Starr), What Are You Eating? (The Tank), The Firebird (City Center), Alice in Wonderland (New York City Opera), P.S. Jones and the Frozen City (New Ohio Theater), Compulsion (Yale Rep, Berkeley Rep, The Public), Disfarmer (St. Ann’s Warehouse), Madama Butterfly (Metropolitan Opera), Peter and Wendy (Arena Stage), Powerhouse (Fringe Festival NYC), Petrushka (Lincoln Center), La Bella Dormente… (Spoleto Festival), Hiroshima Maiden (St. Ann’s Warehouse), Don’t Trust Anyone over 30 (Art Basel Miami). He is an Associate Artist of Sinking Ship Productions, and regular performer in Puppet Playlist. Mr. Wright is one of the co-founders and ‘Head Chef’ of the Puppet Kitchen, which provides puppetry services for stage and screen productions worldwide. www.puppetkitchen.com

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Taylor “Sharky” Williams (Casting) is the Casting Director at New York Theatre Workshop. For Two River Theater she has cast: Pericles, The Lion in Winter, The Ballad of Little Jo, A Raisin in the Sun and El Coquí Espectacular and the Bottle of Doom.

Megan Smith (Production Stage Manager) is thrilled to work with Ken and David again and to be at Two River Theater. Select credits include: OffBroadway: Fetch Clay, Make Man and Red Dog Howls (New York Theatre Workshop); The North Pool, The Scottsboro Boys, The Slug Bearers of Kayrol Island, Mary Rose, The Internationalist (The Vineyard Theatre); Look Back in Anger, Ordinary Days, Distracted, Entertaining Mr. Sloane (Roundabout Theatre Company); Good Boys and True (Second Stage); Book of Days (Signature Theatre). Regional: Romeo and Juliet, Grounded, Lettice and Lovage, What the Butler Saw, The Invisible Hand, Art & Red (in rep), Bedroom Farce, The Liar, Of Mice and Men, David Copperfield, Finian’s Rainbow (Westport Country Playhouse); Les Liaisons Dangereuses (Baltimore Center Stage); Rain, Found, The Nightingale (New York Stage and Film); Love in the Wars (Bard SummerScape); The Scottsboro Boys (The Guthrie). Ms. Smith is a Founding Member of Blue Roses Productions. Proud member of Actors’ Equity since 1999.

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WHEN THORNTON MET GERTRUDE The Epistolary Inter-Genre Love Affair of Thornton Wilder and Gertrude Stein

By Madeleine George, Playwright-in-Residence

Thornton Wilder aboard a ship en route to Europe, 1928.

(Courtesy of the The Wilder Family and YCAL (Yale Collection of American Literature), Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library) 18

A

curious corner of the biography of Thornton Wilder, one of the greatest writers America ever produced, is his ardent mid-life friendship with Gertrude Stein, one of the other greatest writers America ever produced.

In almost every respect the two titans of literature couldn’t have been more different: she the aging experimentalist, he the upstart traditionalist; she the butch grand-dame, he the fastidious young phenom. Stein’s work is famously opaque; she’s known for her obscure language games, setting words loose from their grammars to iterate and repeat, rather than building straightforward linear sentences or narratives (“Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose,” goes her most famous poetic claim). Wilder, of course, is best known for that paean to the ephemeral beauty of ordinary life, Our Town. An instant classic when it premiered in 1938, the play has a reputation (unfair, but widely accepted) for being almost embarrassingly accessible—it’s a staple of the high-school drama club repertory, and it’s said that there has been at least one production of Our Town happening somewhere on planet Earth every night since the day it opened.

They were both sexual outlaws, but in this, too, Stein and Wilder took radically opposite approaches. Whereas Gertrude hid her lesbianism in plain sight, living openly with her lover, Alice B. Toklas, in France, surrounded by a dazzling community of bohemian art stars, Thornton concealed his desires so discreetly that it seemed to some he hid them even from himself. Samuel Steward, the only man Wilder seems to have maintained a long-term relationship with, said in an interview in 1993, “Thornton always went about having sex as though it were something going on behind his back and he didn’t know anything about it.”

Yet despite this chasm of differences, Wilder and Stein adored each other. They met in 1934 when Stein was on a lecture tour of America, and the playful, affectionate correspondence that ensued now fills a fat volume. In 1934, the 60-year-old Stein was having her first brush with fame. After decades of producing work that enraged critics and frustrated readers, her experimental memoir The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas was an international smash hit, and she was capitalizing on that success by returning to America for the first time in 30 years to tour the country. The 37-year-old Wilder heard her give her talk on poetry and grammar at the University of Chicago (“As I say a noun is a name of a thing, and therefore slowly if you feel what is inside that thing you do not call it by the name by which it is known. Everybody knows that by the way they do when they are in love and a writer should always have that intensity of emotion about whatever is the object about which he writes...”), and he was instantly smitten. Stein had misgivings about fame—she craved it but she feared it—and Wilder knew a little something about literary celebrity, having been crowned a sensation in 1927 when The Bridge of San Luis Rey won him his first Pulitzer and was the bestselling book of the year. So Stein sought Wilder’s advice on matters of literary notoriety, while Wilder knelt at Stein’s knee in matters of formal innovation.

You might think that Wilder, the great seeker of patterns, the great devotee of classical traditions, would have dismissed Stein as peremptorily as her many critics did. But where critics saw meaninglessness and monotony, Wilder saw something radiant and essential shining through Stein’s fractured language. Wilder convinced Stein to co-teach a seminar with him at the University of Chicago on narrative (oh, to have been a fly on that wall), and wrote to a friend, “At present, I am the secretary, errand boy-companion of Gertrude Stein who is teaching here for two weeks—a great, sensible, gallant gal and a great treat.” After she returned to France, he pushed the University press to publish her lectures on narrative as a book, Narration, and undertook to write the introduction to it. Stein herself had strong, not entirely friendly opinions on how her language should affect people (“A long complicated sentence should force itself upon you, make yourself know yourself knowing it”), but Wilder, always kind—sometimes to the point of paternalism—to his audience, took it upon himself to lead potentially baffled readers gently through Stein’s challenging language to the essence within.

Stein’s lectures and Wilder’s introduction to them are a frequent subject in their letters, along with dogs, dinners, operas, translations, ex-lovers, current lovers, scenery, paintings, gossip about friends, gossip about enemies, plans for visits, and their passionate affection for each other (“Gertrude, you’re a wonder; you’re a seer; you’re my Toasted ice-cream!”). The letters are a pleasure to read. Scented with the perfume of 1930s Europe— the pines of the Schwarzwald, the crisp lakewater of Zurich, the bakeries of Paris—they evoke a prelapsarian world of continental high culture, decadent and leisurely but passionately concerned with clarity and beauty in art.

In his introduction to Narration that Stein finally approved, Wilder quotes Stein’s basic but provocative claim: “Narration is what anybody has to say in any way about anything that can happen, that has happened or will happen in any way,” and writes in response, “Here we return to first principles, indeed...There is an almost terrifying exactness in Miss Stein’s use of the very words that the rest of the world employs so loosely: everybody, everything, and every way. Consequently the discussion leads at once into the realms of psychology, philosophy, and metaphysics, to a theory of knowledge and a theory of time.”

Everybody, everything, a theory of knowledge, a theory of time— surely we’re in Our Town or Bridge of San Luis Rey territory here.

That Wilder could see his own artistic project reflected in Stein’s fractured mirror—that these two could be friends at all—shows us something not only about their big, idiosyncratic personalities but about the nature of art itself. The syntax-seeker and the syntax-dissolver recognized in each other the same hunger: to articulate that inarticulable, mystic dimension of universal human experience: that we are all in this together, and that our uniqueness is, paradoxically, exactly what we have in common. n

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LEADERSHIP BIOS JOHN DIAS (ARTISTIC DIRECTOR) assumed his position as Artistic Director of Two River Theater in August 2010 after working as a producer and dramaturg in New York for 20 years. In partnership with Managing Director Michael Hurst he has brought new vitality to the 24-yearold Red Bank theater, including producing subscription shows on two stages for the first time; launching the theater’s first literary department and commissioning program for new plays; presenting annual events such as a musical theater cabaret in collaboration with New York University’s Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program and the Crossing Borders festival of Latino plays; and developing numerous arts-education initiatives for young people including A Little Shakespeare, an annual production of one of Shakespeare’s plays performed by high-school students. He is the co-author and was the director of Two River’s musical The Ballad of Little Jo, which he wrote with composer Mike Reid and lyricist Sarah Schlesinger. Throughout his career, John has been a leading advocate for bold new American plays and stimulating productions of the classics, including the Broadway productions of Lisa Kron’s Well and Shakespeare’s The Tempest. For 12 seasons, he worked in a variety of capacities at The Public Theater/New York Shakespeare Festival, including Associate Producer and Associate Artistic Director. Previously, John was dramaturg at Hartford Stage Company. He also co-founded and led Affinity Company Theater, a production company dedicated to bringing daring new works from around the world to New York, and The Playwrights Realm, an off-Broadway company that produces new plays by emerging artists. He has been a Tony Award nominator, a consultant for the National Endowment for the Arts and numerous other organizations, and he has taught at New York University and Yale University. John currently teaches in the graduate school at Columbia University. He received his BA from George Washington University and his MFA from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

MICHAEL HURST (MANAGING DIRECTOR) has been the Managing Director of Two River Theater since 2011. During his tenure, Two River has embarked on a new Strategic Plan; began producing subscription shows on two stages for the first time; and launched the theater’s first commissioning program for original plays, as well as numerous new community and education programs. Under his joint leadership with Artistic Director John Dias, Two River has experienced ambitious growth and enjoyed new recognition in the national theater community. Prior experience includes 16 years at The Public Theater, including four years as General Manager and six as Managing Director, overseeing budgets that ranged from $16 to $20 million. Michael was responsible for all financial aspects of the productions at The Public Theater and Central Park’s Delacorte Theater. During his tenure at The Public, he oversaw the Broadway transfers of many productions, including Topdog/Underdog by Suzan-Lori Parks, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama; Take Me Out, winner of the Tony Award for Best Play; and Tony Kushner and Jeanine Tesori’s Caroline, or Change. Michael was also part of all strategic planning including the opening of Joe’s Pub, now considered one of the country’s best small venues for music and performance. Prior to coming to Two River, Michael was Chief Operating Officer of the Film Society of Lincoln Center, which presents the New York Film Festival. At the Film Society, he oversaw the building of a new three-theater, $40-million facility that opened in June 2011, and he managed the organizational growth necessary to support the facility. Michael served as Vice President for The Off-Broadway League and was a member of The Broadway League for 14 years. He is a graduate of Rutgers University and currently serves on the Board of Trustees for the New Jersey Theatre Alliance and on the Advisory Board for the Indie Street Film Festival.

ROBERT M. RECHNITZ (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) founded Two River Theater in 1994 and serves as the theater’s Executive Producer. In 2015/16, Two River premiered his play (written with Kenneth Stunkel), Lives of Reason. An educator, writer, and director, he is one of New Jersey’s most esteemed theater leaders. He earned his PhD from the University of Colorado and was a Professor of American Literature at Monmouth University for 35 years, contributing scholarly articles and short stories to various academic journals. As Two River’s Executive Producer, he oversaw the theater’s move from Monmouth University in West Long Branch to the Algonquin Arts in Manasquan. While the company was in residence in Manasquan, he planned for and oversaw the building of Two River’s state-of-the-art, two-theater complex in Red Bank as its permanent home. He directed the opening production in the new building, the classic American comedy You Can’t Take It with You, in 2005. Among the other notable productions he has directed at Two River are Curse of the Starving Class (for which he received a nomination for Best Director of a Comedy from The Star-Ledger), True West, A View from the Bridge, The Glass Menagerie, Thieves’ Carnival, Uncle Vanya, American Buffalo, and Barefoot in the Park. Bob is an active member of a number of organizations benefiting our Monmouth Country, including serving as a Board member for several local non-profits. He has been the recipient of numerous awards, honors, commendations, and accolades.

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A production for audiences aged eight to 80!

Slingsby—the much-acclaimed children’s theater company of Adelaide, South Australia— has thrilled audiences internationally with their imaginative and engaging storytelling, drawing in the young and the young-at-heart. This spring, Two River continues our season of productions for family audiences with the company’s enchanting, moving, and immersive adaptation (children are invited to participate throughout the show!) of the fairytale by Oscar Wilde.

“Slingsby uses traditional storytelling, unique and interactive stagecraft, puppetry and live music to immerse audiences in the otherworldly kingdom of Oscar Wilde’s The Young King,” says The New Victory Theater of New York, where the production had its American premiere last year. “As two actors and one musician bring to life a tale of challenging choices and rich rewards, audiences will greet the heir apparent, explore on foot the riches of the land and discover the path to the Young King’s coronation.”

The Young King is recommended for audiences ages 8 and up. Tickets are $25 and can be purchased now at the box office or www.tworivertheater.org LEAD SPONSOR:

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25TH ANNIVERSARY SEASON! GEAR UP FOR OUR

Next year Two River turns 25! It’s going to be a BIG year for us, filled with new adventures and exciting opportunities for our family of artists and audiences.

We’ll have more to share in the spring, but right now we are offering a special deal on tickets for next year.

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AND JOIN US FOR OUR 2 0 1 8/1 9 S E ASO N A N N O U N C E M E N T …learn about our exciting 25th Anniversary Season from our family of artists!

DATE : MON DAY, M A RC H 2 6 AT 7 P M W HE R E : JOA N A N D RO B E RT RE C H N I T Z T H E AT E R R E S E RV E : Visit T WO RI V E RT H E AT E R.O RG or call the B OX O FFI C E AT 73 2 . 3 4 5.1 4 00 Refreshments will be provided in the lobby following the announcement.

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GREENSPAN ON THEATER, THEATER PEOPLE ON GREENSPAN

DAVID “ GREENSPAN IS PROBABLY ALL-ROUND THE MOST TALENTED THEATER ARTIST OF MY GENERATION. —Playwright Tony Kushner

”

“There’s an impassioned camp of theater lovers who assert that Thornton Wilder is the consummate American theater artist,” says Two River’s Artistic Director, John Dias. “There’s another camp who say the same of David Greenspan. Imagine what they’ll say when these two collaborate on something new.”

David Greenspan Commissioned by Two River Theater, five-time Obie Award-winning playwright and actor David Greenspan brings The Bridge of San Luis Rey— Wilder’s masterpiece about life, fate, and love—to the stage as a profound meditation on theater and live performance. Greenspan (most recently seen in a solo performance of Eugene O’Neill’s Strange Interlude) leads a nine-actor company in the role of Uncle Pio, the play’s narrator.

Here are some of our favorite quotes about theater from David Greenspan—and some quotes about David and his work.

“I think Greenspan is probably all-round the most talented theater artist of my generation. He fuses psychologically grounded American narrative realism with high modernism’s philosophical concerns, including the way that the artifice of art, and especially the theater, is the perfect metaphor for human consciousness. But what I find so amazing about David’s work also makes it incredibly hard to describe. Because a lot of the most stunning things he’s done were dependent on the matrix he creates as actor-writer-director.”

—Playwright Tony Kushner

David Greenspan (right) with Artistic Director John Dias at The Bridge of San Luis Rey table reading.

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Founder Robert Rechnitz (left), Trustee Caroline Huber, and David Greenspan.

Photos by Yurik Lozano.

AVANT-GARDE “ IS TRICKY BECAUSE ONE PERSON’S AVANTGARDE SEEMS TO BE ANOTHER PERSON’S WATCHING HIM CONVENTIONAL “ IS LIKE WITNESSING THEATER. THERE A RECITATION, ARE SO MANY A PRAYER, DIFFERENT FORMS OF A MADNESS, EXPERIMENTATION. ” A MODERN BALLET. “…Of course, our mortality should be a source of inspiration, in terms of what we do with our time—how we decide what makes a contribution, what’s selfish, what’s generous. Time is limited and our place in the scheme of things is small. When you think of yourself as a fleck of sand, I think there’s much to be gained. But many writers work with this knowledge, certainly. Death may be so present in my work because of what we started talking about today—that I’m drawn to characters who are seeing, and sometimes finding, a release of some kind, even one this extreme.”

—David Greenspan, from an interview with Marc Robinson, published in The Myopia and Other Plays by David Greenspan (The University of Michigan Press)

—David Greenspan, from an interview with Terry Stoller, Westbeth Profiles in Art

”

—From the New York Times review of the Transport Group’s 2017 revival of Strange Interlude, a six-hour performance in which David Greenspan played every role in Eugene O’Neill’s epic play

“David Greenspan’s mind is wildly inventive and fantastically unique.

He tells a story in such an unpredictable way that even material you thought you knew, like Interlude or Bridge, you meet new again. He is a radically deep thinker, a master performer and a true original.”

—Director Leigh Silverman

”In the cinema, you’re often brought into a world that’s so encompassing that you forget it’s a film—partly because the screen is so big that it magnifies everything, and also because it’s as if we’re seeing pictures in our minds. (I once read that a movie screen is a bit like the back of one’s mind.) In the theater, the artificiality of the form is constantly apparent. Usually theaters are not as dark as movie theaters and so we’re more aware of the audience around us, and also the theater performance is really happening in time, unlike a movie, which has been recorded. As Gertrude Stein writes, ‘the actors are there and they are there right away.’ We’re not seeing something real and yet we’re seeing something that’s really happening at that moment. That tension between the artificial and the real I find interesting. I don’t often watch movies on DVD or television. I like to go out to the movies; I like to be around people when I’m viewing. The theater, for the most part, is a communal experience, and I find that very comforting and very exciting. That awareness that you’re seeing a play is something that I want to transmit to the audience.”

—David Greenspan, from an interview with Marc Robinson, published in The Myopia and Other Plays by David Greenspan (The University of Michigan Press) n

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THORNTON NIVEN WILDER CHRONOLOGY 1897 Born in Madison, Wisconsin (April 17) 1906 Moves to Hong Kong in May and to Berkeley, California in October 1906-10 Emerson Public School in Berkeley 1910-11 China Inland Mission School, Chefoo, China (one year) 1912-13 Thacher School, Ojai, California (one year). First play known to be produced: The Russian Princess 1915 Graduates from Berkeley High School; active in school dramatics 1915-17 Oberlin College; published regularly 1920 B.A. Yale College (3-month service in 1918 with U.S. Army in 1918); many publications 1920-21 American Academy in Rome (8-month residency) 1920s French teacher at Lawrenceville School, Lawrenceville, New Jersey (’21-’25 & ’27-’28) 1924 First visit to the MacDowell Colony, Peterborough, New Hampshire 1926 M.A. in French literature, Princeton University

The Trumpet Shall Sound produced off-Broadway (American Laboratory Theatre)

The Cabala (first novel) 1927 The Bridge of San Luis Rey (novel-Pulitzer Prize) 1928 The Angel That Troubled The Waters (first published collection of drama—playlets) 1930s Part-time faculty, University of Chicago (comparative literature and composition); lectures across the country; first Hollywood screen-writing assignment (1934); extensive foreign travel 1930 The Woman of Andros (novel)

Completion of home for his family and himself in Hamden, Connecticut 1931 The Long Christmas Dinner and Other Plays (six one-act plays) 1932 Lucrece opens on Broadway staring Katharine Cornell (translation of André Obey’s Le Viol de Lucrèce) 1935 Heaven’s My Destination (novel) 1937 A Doll’s House (adaptation/ trans.) opens on Broadway with Ruth Gordon 1938 Our Town (Pulitzer Prize) and The Merchant of Yonkers open on Broadway 1942 The Skin of Our Teeth opens on Broadway (Pulitzer Prize)

Screenplay for Alfred Hitchcock’s The Shadow of a Doubt 1942-45 Service with Army Air Force in North Africa and Italy (Lieut. Col. at discharge –Bronze Star and O.B.E.) 1948 The Ides of March (novel); performing in his plays in summer stock in this period

The Victors opens off-Broadway (translation of Sartre’s Morts sans sépulture) 1949 Major role in Goethe Convocation in Aspen; lectures widely.

1951-52 Charles Eliot Norton Professor of Poetry at Harvard 1952 Gold Medal for Fiction, American Academy of Arts and Letters 1953 Cover of Time Magazine (January 12) 1955 The Matchmaker opens on Broadway staring Ruth Gordon

The Alcestiad produced at Edinburgh Festival with Irene Worth (as A Life in the Sun) 1957 German Peace Prize 1961 Libretto for The Long Christmas Dinner (music by Paul Hindemith—premieres in Mannheim, West Germany) 1962 “Plays for Bleecker Street” (Someone from Assisi, Infancy, and Childhood) premiere at NYC’s Circle in the Square Libretto for The Alcestiad (music by Louise Talma—premieres in Frankfurt, West Germany) 1963 Presidential Medal of Freedom 1964 Hello, Dolly! starring Carol Channing opens on Broadway 1965 National Book Committee’s Medal for Literature 1967 The Eighth Day (National Book Award for Fiction) 1973 Theophilus North (novel) 1975 Dies in sleep in Hamden, CT on December 7. Buried at Mt. Carmel Cemetery, Hamden, Connecticut

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For more information, please visit www.thorntonwilder.com and www.thorntonwildersociety.org.

“

THERE IS A LAND OF THE LIVING AND A LAND OF THE DEAD AND THE BRIDGE IS LOVE, THE ONLY SURVIVAL, THE ONLY MEANING. —The concluding words of The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder

” DISCOVERING AND

REDISCOVERINGTHE BRIDGE

By Tappan Wilder

The following excerpts are from the Afterword to the current print edition of The Bridge of San Luis Rey written by Tappan Wilder, Thornton Wilder’s nephew and literary executor.

A great literary success can vanish like a comet, or encounter short or long periods of neglect. But The Bridge of San Luis Rey has never been out of print, and over the years, in addition to its place in many anthologies, the book has appeared in numerous regular and special editions. As a paperback, for example, it was selected in 1929 to be the first book issued in Boni’s pathbreaking Paper Book Series. In 1939, it was chosen as one of the first ten titles in the Pocket Book series that revolutionized publishing in this country.

The Bridge regularly turns up on lists such as the Modern Library’s top one hundred Best Novels (1998), and Time Magazine’s list of the one hundred All-Time Best English Language Novels (2005). In 2009 it was selected, together with Wilder’s play Our Town, for the National Endowment for the Arts “Big Read” program that “brings communities together to read, discuss and celebrate books and writers from American and world literature.” To date Wilder is the only writer to be represented in this program by two titles chosen for a single event.

What can be said about the public’s encounter with and knowledge of a novel now in its eighth decade? Although The Bridge of San Luis Rey is currently less frequently read and studied in secondary schools and colleges, long the primary market for the novel, it stays in the public eye because its concluding four sentences are among the most famous in all literature. They are frequently spoken from podiums at memorial services. They find their way into print at least once a day somewhere. The lines are such a part of the canon in some clerical circles that they have been called the Gospel According to The Bridge. [….]

As has been true perhaps for decades, readers are discovering and rediscovering The Bridge. J.D. McClatchy, editor of the Library of America’s three-volume collection of Wilder’s fiction and drama, helpfully points out that Wilder’s novels are works “readers approach … on their own. He is discovered more than he is taught.” McClatchy’s observation makes sense, especially when the emphasis, with older readers in focus, is placed on rediscovered. [....]

To turn again to J.D. McClatchy, this time discussing the theme of rediscovery against the larger backdrop of Wilder’s early novels, including The Bridge: I started reading Wilder’s novels in high school—The Bridge and The Ides of March. The others came later, as did my appreciation of those two familiar novels. This parallels the fate of Our Town: you first encounter it when you are old enough to be touched by it but still too young to understand its depths. And later you realize it is not the sentimental chestnut you’d remembered, but a dark, wrenching, overpowering work about human memory and loss. So too with these first five novels of his. Encountering them again, having oneself acquired the scars on the heart Wilder had set out to reveal, you feel you are at last reading them for the first time, in all their true freshness and wonder and gravity. I sit stunned, time and again, by their shimmer and tensile strength, their miraculous access to the soul’s secrets. n

Afterword Copyright © 2003, 2014 by Tappan Wilder.

Published by arrangement with Tappan Wilder and The Barbara Hogenson Agency, Inc. All rights reserved. To read more about Thornton Wilder, visit: www.ThorntonWilder.com

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EDUCATION SPOTLIGHT:

METRO SCHOLARS One of the most meaningful things about Two River’s Education programs, which are guided by Artistic Director John Dias and Director of Education Kate Cordaro, is that they are integrated with our productions and create opportunities for young people to engage with artists. This is true of all the department’s programs—but only one Education initiative offers an immersive year-long opportunity for students to be part of the work of the theater.

17/18 Metro Scholars getting to know each other on their first day.

The Metro Scholars program, now in its 13th season, is open to high school juniors who are interested in exploring acting, design, or technical theater/stage management.

Metro Scholars assist Two River Theater’s staff in departments including Education, Development, Marketing, and Production. In addition to seeing every show at Two River for free, the students participate in moderated conversations following each production, and take specially designed master classes with professionals working at the theater.

So far this season, Metro Scholar workshops have included Season Planning and Casting (taught by Kate Cordaro and Education Assistant Amanda Espinoza), Acting (taught by Mahira Kakkar and Liesel Allen Yeager from the cast of The Importance of Being Earnest) and Geek Theater (taught by Matt Barbot, playwright of El Coquí Espectacular and the Bottle of Doom).

Metro Scholars pose with playwright Matt Barbot at the Geek Theater workshop.

“Two River’s Metro Scholars program engages a wide range of students with many different interests,” says Kate Cordaro, who has overseen the program since its inception.

“All of the students make a significant contribution to Two River during their time here, and enjoy the benefits of conversations with artists, learning from theater professionals, and being part of the daily work of the theater.”

Since 2005, 141 students have completed the Metro Scholars program, and many of them—including singer/songwriter Phoebe Ryan, who signed with Columbia Records in 2015; or Diana McCorry, who wrote a screenplay that was accepted for the Sundance Film Festival—have gone on to pursue careers in the performing arts. Several (like Brian Eckert, Two River’s Artistic Assistant for the current season) went on to attend some of the country’s finest training programs. Others are working professionally at regional theaters around the country, or have founded their own theater companies.

And some former Metro Scholars have found beautiful ways to keep theater in their lives—like Casie Fitzgerald who currently works as a high school history teacher and directs her school plays.

Metro Scholars taking a tour of The Importance of Being Earnest set with Technical Director Frank Meyer.

Says Matthew Conkling, a Metro Scholar from the 2016/17 Season, “This program is an opportunity for theater-loving students to immerse themselves in an environment of extreme creativity and kindness, and explore potential career paths that are on and off stage. Being a Metro Scholar exposed me to theater in a way that I hadn’t experienced before. I’ve gained the ability to assess a situation and begin to know how to solve it, and I’ve learned the value of putting 100% of your energy into everything you do.” n 31

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FIRST MONDAY MASTERS

Join us for our series of participatory master classes led by some of the marvelous artists who are involved in our season.

UPCOMING CLASSES:

COSTUME DESIGN WITH JESS GOLDSTEIN MARCH 5 | 6:00-8:00PM For adults and high-school students, limited to 16 participants

Tony Award-winning costume designer Jess Goldstein’s Two River credits include The Ballad of Little Jo and The Importance of Being Earnest. His more than 30 Broadway credits include Newsies: The Musical and Jersey Boys. He will walk the class through the costume design process from the page to the stage by discussing his work on new musicals and classic plays. This workshop will take place in Two River Theater’s Costume Shop!

DEVISING (CREATING) THEATER WITH MATT BARBOT APRIL 9 | 6:00-8:00PM For adults and high-school students, limited to 16 participants

Matt Barbot’s play El Coquí Espectacular and the Bottle of Doom recently enjoyed its world premiere in Two River’s Marion Huber Theater. Scene on Stage called the play “colorful and action-packed…as entertaining as it is important.” Matt will get participants up on their feet and lead them through devised theater processes and other playwriting exercises.

SAVE THE DATES, ARTISTS TBA: MAY 7 AND JUNE 4

COST: $40 per class. To reserve your spot, visit tworivertheater.org or call the box office at 732.345.1400. *Teachers can use our two-hour First Monday Masters classes for professional development, and will receive a certificate of completion at the end of the evening. We do accept Purchase Orders for these classes; please contact the box office to make arrangements if using a school Purchase Order for payment.

CELEBRATING

49 YEARS

IN BUSINESS

è 33

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DANCING AT LUGHNASA

COMING SOON

“When I cast my mind back to that summer of 1936 different kinds of memories offer themselves to me.” —Michael, the narrator, in Dancing at Lughnasa

FIVE SISTERS, ONE IRISH SUMMER, AND THE BOY WHO REMEMBERS IT ALL.

BRIAN FRIEL DIRECTED BY JESSICA STONE WRITTEN BY

APRIL 14 – MAY 13

è

Director Jessica Stone has delighted Two River audiences with her productions of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (hailed by The Wall Street Journal as “the best musical revival of 2015”) and Absurd Person Singular. She returns to direct our next production, Dancing at Lughnasa by Brian Friel.

A memory play about five unmarried sisters on the west coast of Ireland in 1936, Dancing at Lughnasa won the 1992 Tony Award for Best New Play and was made into a 1998 film starring Meryl Streep and Michael Gambon.

“Mr. Friel had long been recognized as Ireland’s greatest living dramatist,” noted the New York Times in its 2015 obituary of the writer, quoting the paper’s former Sunday theater critic, Vincent Canby. Friel, Canby wrote in 1996, “dazzled us with plays that speak in a language of unequaled poetic beauty and intensity.”

FREE INSIDE TWO RIVER EVENT: MONDAY, MARCH 19 AT 7PM Film Screening: The Quiet Man Performances of Dancing at Lughnasa begin in the Rechnitz Theater on April 14 and continue through May 13. For more information or tickets, visit tworivertheater.org or stop by the box office.

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INDIVIDUAL

DONORS

THANK YOU to the following generous individuals who made contributions to the theater!

VISIONARY CIRCLE ($25,000+) Anonymous Caroline P. Huber The Estate of Victoria J. Mastrobuono Joan and Robert Rechnitz The Leslie Miller and Richard Worley Foundation

THE INNOVATOR CIRCLE ($10,000-$24,999) Jane Bergere Marilyn and Bob Broege Phyllis Kinsler Mary Jane and Rick Kroon Anne Luzzatto and Gordon Litwin

BENEFACTOR ($5,000-$9,999) Lisa and Stephen Becker* Dianne and Robert Butters Sam Chevalier Kelly and Brooks Cullen Carolyn DeSena Kathleen Ellis and Kenneth Pringle* Cynthia and Robert E. Evanson Gale and Dr. Robert B. Grossman Guttenplan Family Foundation Joan and Paul Hamelberg Lanae and Todd Herman Barbara and Jim Hrebek Joanna and Brian Leddin* Helaine and Sid Lerner Victoria and William Marraccini Linda McKean The Honorable Edward J. McKenna JP Nicolaides and The Honorable Ed Zipprich Sean O’Connell Susan and Ty Olson Mary Beth and Gerald Radke 36

Liz and Adam Rechnitz Anne Marie Schultz* Elizabeth Tortorella and Ivan Polonsky Anne and Sheldon Vogel

CHAMPION ($2,500-$4,999) Howard P. Aronson Shirley S. Boll Rose Caiola Patrick Callinan Jennifer Colyer and Shemmy Mishaan Juliet Cozzi and Ronald Gumbaz Lynne and Jan Dash The Devon Group Joan Ellis Nancy and Thomas Gravina Christina Hewitt Maureen and James Hurst* Nancy Karpf and Scott Brady Cathy Larson Beth and Vinnie Mazza* Kathleen and Arthur McConnell Nyire and Gregory Melconian Shirley and Bob Neff Gloria Nilson Fund Allyn and Patrick Quagliano Patricia and Vernon Ralph Linda and Andrew Safran Mary Carol and Ken Stunkel Kathy and Webster Trammell Susan E. Whyman Cynthia and William Wilby Meta and Ralph Wyndrum

PATRON ($1,000-$2,499) Jutta and George Aguilar Barbara and Andy Andres Marie and Robert Arbour Pat and Andre Archambault Kasandrea Banks

Betsy and Robert Barrett Lois Broder Dennice and Ray Carey Barbara and Tom Carroll Tamara Casriel Mai and John Cleary Roberta and Harvey Cohen Elizabeth Mihalyak Columbo Melissa and Joseph Del Broccolo III* Nancy and Michael Del Priore John Dias Gail and John Duffy Linda and Bob Ensor Margean Gladysz Lorraine and Bob Henry Michael Hurst Melissa and Paul Hurst Jean Jaslovsky and Vincent Gifford Grace and Peter Kalac Ginny Kamin Gerri and Brett Lawrence Edward Madden The Wendy and Jerry Marks Foundation Aida and Brian Murphy Herbert Paul, P.C. Patricia Perfect Jean Pokress Barry V. Qualls Rev. and Mrs. William Riker Monica and John Ryan* Lori and Geoffrey Sadwith Candy and Dr. Sigmund Sattenspiel June and Mort Seligman Bruce Sherrill and Robert Cordrey Maureen Silliman and William Parry Charles and Caryl Sills Laura and Gregg Wallace* Warters Family Fund Cathy and Gene Weber* Catherine Weiss and Samuel Huber Chryssa Yaccarino, Esq. Joan Zakanych

PRODUCER ($500-$999) Jennifer and Joe Anderson Nancy and Ed Butler Barbara and Harold Chafkin Patricia and Dr. E. F. Cheslock Isabella and John Chiappinelli Stephanie and Kevin Christiano Judy and Richard Fuller Valerie Gordon-Johnson Eve R. Hershkowitz Thomas K. Hessman Patricia and William Jaeger Drs. Sheela and Suresh Jain Natalia and Andre Kachala Giovanna Kanu Judith Laufer Kim Mason Lois and Robert Mortenson Lauren Nicosia Penney Riegelman The Craig and Flori Roberts Foundation, Inc. Daryl Roth Peter A. Schkeeper Anita and Robert Stix* Penny and Larry Turtel Gail and Stuart Van Winkle

DIRECTOR ($250-$499) Anonymous (4) Andre and Pat Archambault Meredyth Armitage Lynne and Edward Beach Roxanne Blount Dr. Janice Breen Amanda Butterbaugh and Michael Mulheren Joseph Calabro Lucy Campanella The Carton Family Marjorie and Peter Cavalier Susan and Alan Coen Roberta and Harvey Cohen Barbara G. Fleischman Susan and Roy Gelber Barbara and Stephen Hecht Kathleen A. Horgan

Phyllis and Donald Howard Dr. Barbara Jaye and Dr. William Mitchell Gail Klein and Marc L. Harrison Suzanne Longley and Guy Gsell May Louie and Walter Graczyk Bob MacKasek Allan Mallach Lorraine and Bob McGirr Diane and Gregory Mensanko Linda Mitchell Jennifer and Thomas Mullins Lauren Nicosia Karen C. Pajak Karen and David Rajala Ginger and Joel Richman Toni Rinella and Brian Compton Louis Rodriguez Ann Roseman and Stan Lumish Barbara Sager Peggy Sansone Linda M. Schottland William G. Shala Kathryne and Richard Singleton Victoria J. Snoy Susan Stamler Karen and Joe Stein Jennifer Tipton Judith and Joseph Vassallo Cheryl Wild Dee and Fred Williamson Marjorie and Zeke Zaccaro Barbara and Maurice Zagha

MATCHING GIFTS

The following have provided matching gifts to Two River on behalf of their employees.

TRIBUTES AND MEMORIALS In Honor of Howard P. Aronson: Caroline Huber In Memory of Eileen Bassler: The Honorable William G. Bassler In Memory of Robert “Bob� Benson Julia and Jeffrey Mullen In Honor of Judith and Rich Fuller: Nancy and Jim Hoffman In Honor of Caroline Huber: Howard Aronson Jacqueline and David Carboy Dennice and Raymond Carey Diane Dey Joan Ellis Samuel Huber and Catherine Weiss Ginny Kamin Linda McKean Ann McKee Marilyn I. Pearlman Joan Zakanych In Honor of Michele Klinsky: Debra L. Lemeshow In Memory of Dorothy Nicosia: Phyllis Kinsler In Honor of Emily J. Patek: Katherine & Thomas Esposito In Memory of Richard J. Schwartz David Schwartz Foundation, Inc In Memory of Bernice Steinman Rita and Arthur Steinman In Honor of Michael Stelle: Maureen Silliman and William Parry

AT&T Matching Gifts (3) BlackRock In Memory of Fred Traphagen: Goldman Sachs Debra Lenden Johnson & Johnson Matching Gifts (3) JP Morgan Chase Foundation Microsoft Corporation Morgan Stanley Prudential Financial, Inc. (3) TE Connectivity Verisk Analytics Verizon Wireless Listing reflects gifts made between November 1, 2016 and February 6, 2018 to the Annual Fund. *Includes matching gift.

37

AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE AT THE BOX OFFICE

BOOK OF THE MONTH:

ORIGINAL CAST RECORDINGS:

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DONOR SPOTLIGHT

JOE AND MELISSA DELBROCCOLO

W

e’re always delighted to throw a spotlight from the stage to some of the wonderful people—like Melissa and Joe DelBroccolo— who support Two River Theater as patrons and donors. Melissa and Joe, Middletown residents, both work in New York City: Joe in global banking, and Melissa in talent management.

After moving to the area, they were looking for things to do, and discovered Two River Theater almost accidentally.

Melissa was the first to step inside 21 Bridge Avenue, after an online post for the 2015 Crossing Borders festival piqued her interest.

She went to check out the festival, which includes staged readings of work by Latino playwrights, and thought the Marion Huber Theater’s intimate space and the caliber of the readings were “phenomenal.” She immediately made plans to check out a fully staged production: August Wilson’s Seven Guitars.

“At first I said ‘no, I’m not into it, I don’t want to go,’” Joe laughs. “I was never into theater. But we had seats in the second row, and I was immediately blown away. I hadn’t realized that theater could be like that.”

Since that first electrifying performance, Melissa and Joe have been up for whatever comes to the Two River Theater stages. Even if they aren’t familiar with the play— especially if they aren’t familiar with the play.

“You kind of don’t know what to expect,” Melissa says.

“We’re always blown away, and in different ways each time. After every show, we keep talking about it for a long time afterwards. It’s just how everything comes together—the stage, the setting, the design, the passion that everyone brings to the stage—you’re so enraptured in that moment, you feel you’re really a part of it.”

“We love it. We look forward to every show. They’re so unique, and so unexpected,” Joe says. “And when we get the chance to hear from the casts and the actors, what they’re about, the effort they put in, it’s incredible.”

Since getting hooked by Seven Guitars, their favorite Two River productions have included productions as diverse as Pericles, Hurricane Diane, A Raisin in the Sun, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, and A Lion in Winter (which they went to see multiple times!).

Melissa and Joe DelBroccolo

The DelBroccolo’s also come out for Two River’s more participatory theatrical events. They’re big fans especially of the Halloween Ball, and got decked out in full Roman regalia for the 2017 haunted carnival.

“It’s a nice community too, we’ve met some really cool people,” Melissa says. “They’re all super fun, super passionate, and everyone is really welcoming. We’ve made a lot of really good friends here! Everyone wants to keep talking about what we just saw, what we just experienced, it always impacts us.”

Almost immediately after seeing Seven Guitars, Joe and Melissa decided to become donors as well as theater patrons.

“It was an easy choice to start donating,” Joe says. “We want to give back to the community, and we loved what the theater was doing, so there was really no qualms about it.”

“One of the reasons we feel really good about supporting Two River is the impact it has on us,” Melissa says. “It makes us think, it moves us, makes us laugh, makes us cry, takes us out of the day-to-day. Whether it’s the time of August Wilson’s plays or the time of Hurricane Diane, it shows how people treat each other, how people show up for each other.”

“It’s critical to have a place like this, especially now,” Joe says. “Everything’s digital, you can do everything at home on your iPad, without leaving your house or seeing anyone. It’s really good to have this, and especially with all the support for the kids that the theater does, to make sure that future generations have access to this as well.” n 39

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INSTITUTIONAL SUPPORT

THE VISIONARY CIRCLE $25,000+

THE STONE FOUNDATION

INNOVATOR CIRCLE $10,000-$24,999 The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust

BENEFACTOR $5,000 - $9,999

COMMUNITY PARTNERS DAVID SCHWARTZ FOUNDATION

The Merrill G. & Emita E. Hastings Foundation

IN-KIND SUPPORT

41

MEET OUR RESTAURANT PARTNER: The Dining Room at Molly Pitcher Inn

The Dining Room at Molly Pitcher Inn is a fabulous location for brunch, lunch, dinner and drinks. Enjoy contemporary American cuisine prepared with only the freshest regional ingredients. Your dining experience is paired with beautiful panoramic views of the Navesink River.

Sip on a wide selection of cocktails at the Dining Room’s International Bar. The striking mahogany bar offers sweeping views of the River providing a sophisticated setting for an elegant evening out. Happy hour specials are available Monday through Thursday from 4 – 6:00PM. The Dining Room’s famed Sunday Brunch has been the proud recipient of the Asbury Park Press, Readers’ Choice Award for Best Brunch since 1996. Brunch is available Sundays from October through mid-June.

Molly Pitcher Inn not only offers excellent dining options, it is the ideal location for your waterfront wedding.

Whether it’s your special day or renewing your vows, Molly Pitcher Inn offers the perfect setting for your event.

Envision your cocktail reception on our promenade, dancing the night away in our Ballroom overlooking the Navesink River.

A luxury setting, impeccable service and remarkable food are all components that create an unforgettable event.

Our professional catering staff will assist you with all aspects of your wedding day. For more information or appointments, please contact the Catering Department at 732-858-5310 or email us info@mollypitcher-oysterpoint.com.

Molly Pitcher Inn is located just three blocks away from Two River Theater. Onsite and valet parking is available.

88 Riverside Avenue Red Bank, NJ 07701 • 732.784.4028 • themollypitcher.com 42

MEET OUR STAFF & VOLUNTEERS! ARTISTIC Stephanie Coen Associate Artistic Director Madeleine George Playwright in Residence Brian Eckert Artistic Assistant ADMINISTRATION Alma MalabananMcGrath General Manager Margaret Shafai Director of Finance Karen Pierce Staff Accountant AUDIENCE SERVICES, PR & MARKETING Courtney Schroeder Director of Marketing Jenna Rocca Associate Director of Marketing Hannah Walker Institutional Marketing Manager Yurik L. Lozano Multimedia Manager Michele Klinsky Box Office Manager Lauren Mancuso Box Office Supervisor Kristina Marinos Box Office Supervisor/ Student Matinee Coordinator Lynn Kroll Box Officer/Group Sales Coordinator Vernette Spicer Box Officer/Access Coordinator Evan Kudish Brianna Merriman Samantha Truglio Matt Yee Box Officers Angela White House Manager & Volunteer Coordinator Carmen Balentine Doreen Fromage Melissa Javorek Julie Mullen Donna Stiles Francesca Trerotola Assistant House Managers Briana Butler Colette Dante Thomas Dougherty Matt Markowski

Daniel Pino Kayla Santry Gabby Scerbo John Knodel Front of House Staff DEVELOPMENT Jennifer Anderson Director of Development Katie Benson Events Associate Ellen Hahn Institutional Development Associate EDUCATION Kate Cordaro Director of Education Amanda Espinoza Education Assistant Amanda Butterbaugh Claro de los Reyes Livv DiMattio Tara Giordano Melissa Hodges Artem Yatsunov Teaching Artists Sara Holdren Adaptor/Director OPERATIONS Zeke Zaccaro Director of Operations Vinnie Gillick Lamar Hicks William Hinton Donnie Quarles Wayne Van Saint Building Maintenance PRODUCTION Lauren Kurinskas Director of Production Will Cruttenden Associate Production Manager Margaux Greenhouse Production Management Assistant Mackenzie Cole Company Management Assistant Matt Balfour Colt Luedtke Production Assistants Frank Meyer Technical Director Fiona Malone Assistant Technical Director Duane Noch Master Carpenter

Christian Dilks Staff Carpenter David Slice Shop Assistant Colleen Dolan Scenic Charge Jeena Yoon Properties Supervisor Victoria Schilling Assistant Properties Supervisor Katherine Browne Props Assistant Dan Montano Sound Supervisor Sue Patino Lighting Supervisor Eric Nickl Lighting Assistant Tiffany Reichel Sound Assistant Lesley Sorenson Costume Shop Supervisor Jill DiGiuseppe Draper Maggie Barnett Wardrobe Supervisor Jaclyn Vela Costume Assistant SPECIAL SERVICES Gilda Rogers Community Relations Social Sidekick Press & Publicity Design Army Graphic Design Suzanne Anan Graphic Design T. Charles Erickson Production Photography Michael Boylan Pennant Collective, Production Video Trailers and Commercials Gordon N. Litwin, Esq., Litwin & Provence, LLC Legal Counsel WithumSmith + Brown Auditors VOLUNTEER GUILD Arthur Aaron Ronnie Aaron Suzanne Allyn Marlene Abelon Debbie Adamchak Juanita Agee Irwin Altschiller Maddy Altschiller Karen Anderson Cecelia Ambrosio Ellen Balthazar

Gale Baran Myriam Barthole Paddy Barber Carl Battaglia Ellen Battaglia Joyce Becker Herb Bein Diane Bein Carmen Benimeli Barbara Berg Joan Blake Kathy Boushie Charles Blake Helena Blyskun Marti Bookstein Mercedes Brand Barbara Brodzinski Arlene Brown Robert Buchbinder April Bunn Carmen Cancel-Seaman Judith Carluccio Kathleen Castore Barbara Chasser Dora Chu Bob Connolly Roslyn Cooper Lynda Crawford Nancy Daley Elizabeth De Carvalho Diane DeLoche Florence Diller Eleanor Falcichio Ellen Falvo June Farkouh Steve Faustina Arleen Faustina Bonnie Foerst George Foerst Robyn Flipse Judy Fuller Prudence Frechette Janet Garcia Nancy Gargan Sidney Gelbein Pat George Bill Gerdes Lara Gomez Jim Graf Margaret Graf Marilyn Griffin Constance Gryczka Helene HelgesenMonserrate Roland Monserrate Nona Hammer Kathleen Hari Cynthia Hellman Greg Held Jeri Held Robert Hespe Karen Hespe Karen Heyer Marion Holinaty Caroline Huber Cecilia Jelic

Shirley Johnson Bonnie Johnson Thomas Johnson Virginia Kamin Barry Kaplan Dee Kaplan Karen Kelly Barbara Kenas Beverly Keyes Karen Kirkwood Valerie Kilpatrick Phyllis Kinsler Dottie Kirschenbaum Eleanor Kitzhoffer Mavis Kolb Diane Kragh Diane Kuriloff Harriet Kuropatwa Betti Lane Mary Anne Lapiana Margaret Lelivelt Donna Lizotte Bob Levine Carol Levine Barbara Lipton Kathy Lloyd Diane Lopresti Frank Lopresti Brittany Lovely Donna Lovely Gay Lowden Sharon Lucas Iris MacNeil Mary Mahoney Joanne Mallon Robert Mallon Janis Marano Pamela Marhan Libby Markowitz Mary Mason Susan Mazur Vinnie Mazza Joan McCue Eileen McDermott Jo McKeon-Hutton Bill McMurray Mary Melosh Evelyn Mendelsohn Anne Messinger Dorothy Michels Carol Migliore Bernard Miller Carol Miller Susan Minehardt Linda Monti Marilynne Morley Gloria Moro Susan Moss Michele Mullin Judith Mugrace Leslie Nicholson Kathy Nielsen Eileen Nolan Maureen O’Connor Leach Olivia Olson Linda Pacotti

Dolores Palonetti Katherine Parisi Terri Pinto Marilyn Pennell Art Perri Pat Perri Tracy Peternich Claire Planchere Terri Pontecorvo Philomena Porcello Lois Priest Marion Quinn Mark Rabinow Judy Rector Fran Reinhold Susan Richman Ruth Rosencrown Carl Rosencrown Lori Sadwith Gil Saltzman Marcia Saltzman Gail Sanderson Evelyn Schneider Connie Schulman Phyllis Searby Jeffrey Shepard Deb Sieron Robin Siegel Judy Simmons-Bradshaw George Smith Arlene Smelson Arthur Steinman Cathy Stelzner Howie Stelzner Linda Stewart Carol Stewart Mary Carol Stunkel Denise Sobotka Martin Sulkes Rose Sullivan Lorraine Stone Leila Sulkes Michele Susalis Eunice Taylor Steve Tepperman David Tolleth Deborah Tolleth Lauren Tolleth Chris Wallace Patricia Walter Mollie Warar Deborah Wasserman Marvin Wasserman Marty Weinstein Marla Weinstein Joy Weinstein Gregory White Nina Willey Kirk Willey Joyce Wingerter Barbara Withers Mary Ellen Wirin Zina Wolin Martin Wolin Joan Zakanych Laura Zakanych 43

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SCENE

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TWO RIVER

ELCOQUÍ ESPECTACULAR AND THE BOTTLE OF DOOM OPENING NIGHT

On Friday, January 12, Two River Theater hosted a post-show reception for donors and special guests attending the opening night performance of El Coquí Espectacular and the Bottle of Doom. Those in attendance had the chance to mix and mingle with our creative and artistic teams along with a wide array of actors from Two River productions.

SHADOW OF A DOUBT FILM SCREENING

Photos by Teja Anderson.

On January 22, Two River Theater in partnership with Monmouth Film Festival held a special film screening of Shadow of a Doubt, directed by Alfred Hitchcock and written by Thornton Wilder. After the screening, themes of the film, Wilder and Hitchcock, and our upcoming world premiere production were discussed through a talkback conversation and Q&A session. Panelists included Joan Ellis (Film Critic Two River Times), Robert Scott (Monmouth University Film Professor), Stephanie Coen (Associate Artistic Director Two River Theater) and was moderated by Monmouth Film Festival’s Director of Education, Chris Adornato.

Photos by Daniel Buckley.

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THIS MARCH, LOCK IN THE BEST SAVINGS FOR OUR 25TH ANNIVERSARY SEASON! JOIN AUTO-RENEW TODAY! Auto-renew subscribers receive exclusive access and the greatest discount of 30% off on tickets before our 18/19 season is announced.

Auto-Renew campaign starts March 7th with a deadline of Friday, March 23rd.

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$135.00

Regular subscription campaign starts March 28 with deadline of Friday, April 20.

ADDITIONAL SUBSCRIBER BENEFITS INCLUDE: • Prime Seating – Auto-renew subscribers and have access to the best seats, before tickets go on sale to the general public.

• Free & Unlimited Ticket Exchanges - Swap your tickets into another equally priced performance date if plans change.

• Exclusive Pre-Show Access to the theater’s VIP Lounge with complimentary tea and coffee.

• 10% Off Add-On Tickets for you and your friends!

• No Box Office Fees on additional tickets.

• Gifts & Discounts to local businesses throughout the season.

FOR MORE INFORMATION, VISIT TWORIVERTHEATER.ORG OR CALL THE BOX OFFICE AT 732.345.1400