Tiny Beautiful Things - Playbill

BASED ON THE BOOK BY CHERYL STRAYED ADAPTED FOR THE STAGE BY NiA VARDALOS CO-CONCEiVED BY MARSHALL HEYMAN, THOMAS KAiL, AND NiA VARDALOS

MARCH 9 - 27, 2022 DiRECTED BY SiDONiE GARRETT

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

STAFF

President

Producing Artistic Director Cynthia Levin Director of Finance Jason Kralicek Associate Artistic Director Ian R. Crawford Director of Marketing Nathan Gwartney Director of Development Em Swenson Production Manager Taylor Jene Sullivan Technical Director Andy Peveler Literary Manager Hannah Taylor Box Office Manager Sarah Cooper Social Media Coordinator Anna Sell Production Stage Manager Tanya Brown Photography Cynthia Levin

Kevin Gabriel

Vice President

Carol Gee

Treasurer

Kirsty Melville Secretary

Sally Everhart Winnie Dunn Cynthia Levin Paul Milakovich Michael Nonbello Kimberly Stern Annie Swartz Meredith Webster Shannon Wooten Amy Wright

UNICORN THEATRE’S MISSION Unicorn Theatre enhances the Kansas City community by developing and producing high-quality, thought-provoking plays that have never been seen in the region. We illuminate social issues by shining a light on diversity and inclusive stories which include race, religion and gender identity. Unicorn creates opportunities for the advancement of emerging and established actors, directors, playwrights, designers, technicians and administrative staff.

VISION STATEMENT By producing provocative new plays Unicorn Theatre fosters the next generation of great American writers and artists, creating innovative and intimate theatrical experiences that transcend the ordinary. We inspire the community to think and feel deeply; to see the world in new and different ways. Unicorn strives to be one of the preeminent homes for new plays in the country.

Opening Night March 9th, 2022

UNICORN THEATRE PRESENTS

Based on the book by Cheryl Strayed Adapted for the stage by Nia Vardalos Co-Conceived by Marshall Heyman, Thomas Kail, and Nia Vardalos Directed by Sidonie Garrett THE CAST Sugar Letter Writer #1 Letter Writer #2 Letter Writer #3

Carla Noack* Darren Kennedy* Jess Andrews* Darrington Clark*

PRODUCTION TEAM Stage Manager Scenic Designer Lighting Designer Costume Designer Sound Designer Props Designer Dramaturg Scenic Painter Lead Electrician Production Assistant Sound Board Operator

Tanya Brown* Ian R. Crawford Art Kent Arwen White David Kiehl Eric Palmquist Hannah Taylor Kelli Harrod Taylor Sullivan Michael LeDesma Eric Lugenbeel

* Denotes member of Actors’ Equity Association

Tiny Beautiful Things is presented by arrangement with Concord Theatricals on behalf of Samuel French, Inc. www.concordtheatricals.com Original New York Production by The Public Theater Oskar Eustis, Artistic Director Patrick Willingham, Executive Director

3828 MAIN STREET | KANSAS CITY, MO 64111 | (816) 531-7529 | UNICORNTHEATRE.ORG

THE CAST & PRODUCTION TEAM

Cynthia Levin Producing Artistic Director

Sidonie Garrett Director

Carla Noack Sugar

Darren Kennedy Letter Writer #1

Jess Andrews Letter Writer #2

Darrington Clark Letter Writer #3

A NOTE FROM THE PLAYWRIGHT The Letters are real … I thought, as l read Cheryl Strayed’s incredibly moving book, Tiny Beautiful Things.

People wrote these letters.

A few years ago, author Cheryl Strayed gave advice as Sugar for the literary website, The Rumpus, and later collected the letters into a book. Journalist Marshall Heyman gave his friend, director Thomas Kail, the book and Tommy gave it to me suggesting it could become a play. As I read the letters exchanged, I wept, smiled, and was astonished by the raw and extraordinary candor.

Sugar and the writers of the letters reveal themselves and we find ourselves in their conundrums and sorrows, in their lives lived and roads traveled. I yearned to be as bold, audacious and willful. As I adapted the book into a play, I found the words so illuminating that l grieved and moved on from certain events of my own.

THE CAST & PRODUCTION TEAM Cynthia Levin (PRODUCING ARTISTIC DIRECTOR) is in her 43rd season with the Unicorn. Over the years she has served as a director, actor, designer or producer for over 300 productions. Most recently Cynthia directed Our Black Death and Bernhardt/Hamlet. Some of the other productions she has directed here are Bond, Vietgone, Chesapeake, Priscilla Queen Of The Desert: The Musical (co-directed with Missy Koonce), Eclipsed, Hand to God, Heathers: The Musical (again, with Missy), The Oldest Boy, Women Playing Hamlet (world premiere), Bad Jews, Grounded, Venus in Fur, My Name is Asher Lev, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, The Soul Collector (world premiere), Hungry (world premiere), Red, Two Jews Walk Into A War…, Distracted, Green Whales (world premiere), Miss Witherspoon, My First Time, The Clean House, Mauritius, 9 Parts of Desire, The Great American Trailer Park Musical, Bat Boy: The Musical and additionally the world premieres of rightnextto me (both at the Unicorn and Geva Theatre Center, Rochester, NY), How His Bride Came to Abraham, Light:Damage, Mercy Killing, Innocent Thoughts and Jack and Jill. At Coterie Theatre, she has directed Number the Stars, And Then They Came for Me, Frankenstein, Gatherings in Graveyards (I and II), Valley Song and To Kill A Mockingbird. At the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., she directed readings of Our Black Death, Occupants, In The Belly Of The Whale, The Friendship Of Her Thighs, The Last Pair Of Earlies, Tigers Be Still and White Devil and Loving Mother for the MFA Playwright’s Workshop.

Cynthia is a graduate of Park University which also awarded her an Honorary Doctorate in 2002. She is a founding board member of the National New Play Network, an organization dedicated to the development and production of new works. She has been honored with the Pinnacle Award for Excellence in the Arts, the Human Rights Campaign Equality Award and most recently the

THE CAST & PRODUCTION TEAM Kathryn V. Lamkey Award from the Actors’ Equity Association for her ongoing commitment to inclusion and diversity. She shares her home with Zia (the beagle), Dodger (the cat) and the spirit of the big red dog, Sylvia.

Sidonie Garrett (DIRECTOR) is the Executive Artistic Director of the Heart of America Shakespeare Festival where she most recently directed Shakespeare in Love, and the previous five season’s productions, Much Ado About Nothing, The Winter’s Tale, King Lear, Twelfth Night and Hamlet, all awarded Best Play in Pitch Magazine’s BEST OF KC as well as 15 other Shakespeare plays. Previously, at Unicorn Theatre she directed Red Bike, The Effect, Disgraced, How to Use a Knife, The Whale, I’ll Eat You Last, Other Desert Cities, The Motherf**ker With the Hat, Time Stands Still, In the Next Room: the vibrator play, Faith Healer, Rising Water, Iron Kisses, Retreat from Moscow, Omnium Gatherum, the world premiere of Thanatos, SubUrbia, The Waiting Room, Desert Holiday, Spinning Into Butter, SantaLand Diaries and co-directed Light/Damage with Cynthia Levin. Sidonie directed A Streetcar Named Desire and ‘Night Mother for Kansas City Actors Theatre. At the Coterie Theatre she directed The Macbeth Project: In Spite of Thunder, the U.S. premiere of After Juliet, Mr. A’s Amazing Maze Plays, Little House on the Prairie, Little House by the Shores of Silver Lake, Of Mice and Men, Playing for Time and co-directed The Hobbit. Sidonie co-directed Tony & Tina’s Wedding (Kansas City and St. Louis) for Fourth Wall Productions. She directed The African Company Presents with the Black Repertory Theatre of Kansas City, Eleemosynary and Gruesome Playground Injuries at the Fishtank Theatre and has directed collaborations with KC Ballet, KC Symphony, Bach Aria Soloists and KC Chorale, and Script-In-Hand readings including The Beard of Avon and The Women, with KC Actors Theatre and The Tempest for JCCC’s Performing Arts Series. During the pandemic she directed and produced streaming productions; Shakespeare at Home, William Shakespeare’s Christmas Carol, Show-Me Shakespeare and an in-person film version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. She also directed live outdoor performances of Shakespeare’s scenes, Yard Bards, ShakesFEAR! and Shakespearience and two projects with UMKC Theatre; Twelfth Night on zoom and an in-person production of The Tempest.

In summer 2022 she will direct Romeo and Juliet for HASF’s 30th season in Southmoreland Park.

Carla Noack (SUGAR) returns to the Unicorn having most recently appeared in Bernhardt/Hamlet, The Wolves, Hir, Men on Boats, Grounded, How to Use a Knife, Lasso of Truth and Time Stands Still. Prior to moving to Kansas City from Minnesota, she was a co-artistic director of the Commonweal Theatre Company and a company member of the Great River Shakespeare Festival. Other credits include Kansas City Repertory Theatre, Heart of America Shakespeare Festival, Kansas City Actors Theatre, Theatre Latte Da and Ten Thousand Things Theatre.

Carla is a faculty member of the UMKC Conservatory.

THE CAST & PRODUCTION TEAM Darren Kennedy (LETTER WRITER #1) Kansas City Theatre productions include Noises Off and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof at The Kansas City Repertory Theatre, Much Ado About Nothing, Hamlet and The Merchant of Venice with the Heart of America Shakespeare Festival, The Lieutenant of Inishmore, Mauritius, Green Whales, The Motherf**ker with the Hat, Water by the Spoonful and How to Steal a Picasso at the Unicorn Theatre, Perfect Wedding and I’ll Be Back before Midnight at the American Heartland Theatre and Sea Marks at Kansas City Actors Theatre. TV credits include CSI, General Hospital, Just Shoot Me, Gilmore Girls. Film credits include On Sight, Treehouse, Trust Fund and Junior Detective Agency.

Jess Andrews (LETTER WRITER #2) is thrilled to be back at Unicorn Theatre!

A recent grad of UMKC’s MFA acting program, her local credits include Dance Nation (Unicorn Theatre); Ghost Light (KCRep); Brainstorm (The Coterie); 12th Night, The Moors, An Italian Straw Hat (UMKC Theatre). Before moving to KC, Jess was an active member of Seattle’s vibrant DIY theatre scene where she devised and created original work with several local ensembles.

Darrington Clark (LETTER WRITER #3) Grateful barely describes the feeling of sharing this space with you. Kansas City: Unicorn Theatre (Dance Nation, Kill Move Paradise, Who’s Your Baghdaddy?), Starlight (Godspell, Hairspray), Coterie (Charlie Brown Christmas, Garfield, Puffs) Music Theater Heritage (Cats, My Fair Lady). Regional: Milwaukee Repertory Theater, First Stage, Circa 21, Children’s Theater of Madison. Thanks to Aly, Austin, Donna & Scott, and the village that has supported me. “Be brave enough to break your own heart.” @darringtune Tanya Brown (STAGE MANAGER) is in her sixteenth season with Unicorn Theatre. Some of her all-time favorites have been The Revolutionists, Venus in Fur, Hand to God, Cock, Stupid F##king Bird, and Priscilla Queen of the Desert.

Ian R. Crawford (SCENIC DESIGNER) is proud to be the Associate Artistic Director at Unicorn Theatre. At the Unicorn, Ian has designed the set for Chesapeake & Women Playing Hamlet. Other favorite set designs include The Importance of Being Earnest, Careless Love, Dada is Dead/Long Live DADA!, & Quartett. Ian is looking forward to directing The Inheritance Part 2. Thank you to Vince for all your support.

Art Kent (LIGHTING DESIGNER) is happy to be back designing at the Unicorn once again where his first professional design was seen in 1984. Since that time Art has been involved with over 100 Unicorn productions. Recently Art designed A Spectacular Christmas 2019 for MTH; Blues In The Night at BRKC. Art also has 31-year history with the Coterie Theatre where he has hundreds of design credits, as well as Designs with Kokopelli Theatre, Black Repertory Theatre KC, Late Night Theatre, KCKCC Theatre, The Lawrence Arts Center, and The

THE CAST & PRODUCTION TEAM Pembroke Hill School to name a few.

David Kiehl (SOUND DESIGNER) is excited to be back at the Unicorn where he has worked as sound designer for over 50 productions. Previous Unicorn designs date back to 1997 and include Sylvia, The Laramie Project, and Proof; more recently they include Pipeline, The Lifespan of a Fact, & Kill Move Paradise.

You may have heard his work around town at KCAT (The Pests, ‘night, Mother), the Living Room (Nocturne, Milking Christmas) and over 100 productions at the Coterie (SpongeBob The Musical, Electric Poe, Puffs).

Arwen White (COSTUME DESIGNER) is a Kansas City based costume designer and founder of Juste Jaquet Designs, a creative studio for costume design and fine art. She has designed theatrically throughout the city on productions including Wicked Creatures - Confluence Theatre, Something Rotten!, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Peter Pan- The White Theatre, Our Black Death, Lifespan of a Fact, Who’s Your Baghdaddy…, The Revolutionists, Sweat, The Mountaintop, My Name is Asher Lev- Unicorn Theatre, Chainsaw -Living Room Theatre, Gruesome Playground Injuries -Fishtank Theatre. She is an Entertainment Contractor for Norwegian Cruise Line, stitching for Burn the Floor, Paradie, Priscilla Queen of the Desert, and Band on the Run. A Teaching Artist throughout Kansas City she is loving the opportunity to help young artists grow and explore through theatre and design. arwenjwhite.com, @arwenjwhite Eric Palmquist (PROPS DESIGNER) is a graduate of the University of Kansas theatre program and a founding member of Terra Femina Collective. Recent work includes Our Black Death, Dance Nation, Pipeline, The Lifespan of a Fact, American Son, Babel, Bernhardt/Hamlet, Who’s Your Baghdaddy, The Revolutionists, The Humans (Unicorn), Caroline, or Change, Every Brilliant Thing, Billy Elliot (Spinning Tree), and A Moon for the Misbegotten (KCAT).

An AEA member, he was last seen in Viper (Terra Femina) and Nomad Motel (Unicorn), and has performed with the Coterie, the Living Room, Equity Actors Reader Theatre, the MET, and the Buffalo Room.

Hannah Taylor (DRAMATURG) is a Kansas City based theatre artist specializing in directing and dramaturgy. She is the Literary Manager and Resident Dramaturg here at Unicorn. Recent dramaturgy credits include Our Black Death, Babel, A Doll’s House, Part 2, The Revolutionists, Bond, and The Effect at Unicorn and A Doll’s House at Kansas City Actors Theatre. She wore her director hat for productions of Into the Woods, Little Women, Beauty and the Beast, and The Lion King at Trilogy Cultural Arts Centre, and for a staged reading of Paper Cut as part of Unicorn’s In-Progress New Play Reading Series. When Hannah isn’t doing the theatre thing, she is working as a photographer with epagaFOTO. All the love in the world to Coleman and Beauty.

A NOTE FROM THE DRAMATURG Where do you go when you need advice? Maybe you ask your partner.

Maybe you ask your therapist. Or maybe you ask a complete stranger on the internet named Sugar.

“Dear Sugar” was an online advice column published on a literary website called The Rumpus from 2010 to 2012. Troubled advice seekers could anonymously submit their most personal questions to the mysterious Sugar who would publish her responses to the letters in the column.

What set Sugar apart in the advice column genre was how much of herself she brought to each of her responses. She dug deep within herself, baring every shadowy corner in order to shed some light in the corners of the questioner. Her responses were profound not because she was an all knowing oracle with the keys to the universe, but because she answered the letters as a real person, unabashedly human in every way.

The unprecedented humanity laced into Sugar’s letters is what made the Dear Sugar column into a phenomenon not only online, but also as a bestselling book titled Tiny Beautiful Things which was later adapted into the play you are going to see today.

Over the past two years, we’ve gone through some serious shit. We have all felt loneliness and isolation in profoundly new ways and we are all looking for opportunities to reach out, to be seen. There is comfort to be found in the universality of human suffering. This is why a play like Tiny Beautiful Things is so important in this current moment. The intimacy created when someone shares the deepest parts of themselves and is met with unconditional compassion is revolutionary.

“Whatever happens to us—even the hardest, darkest things—is so LIKE what happens to others, but it’s really easy to forget that. We all feel so alone and original. Telling the stories I do, I’m attempting to reach across that divide,” said Sugar in an interview with Lidia Yuknavitch.

We are all suffering. We are all searching. We are all growing. Maybe the advice you’re looking for won’t be found in your therapist’s office or in a self-help book, but from listening to the story of a stranger. In the raw honesty of others, we can find pieces of ourselves. Because we are all human. We are all Sugar.

FINANCIAL SUPPORT FOR UNICORN THEATRE THIS SEASON HAS BEEN PROVIDED BY:

AFFILIATIONS & MEMBERSHIPS

Unicorn Theatre is a constituent of Actors’ Equity Association; Theatre Communications Group, Inc.; The National New Play Network; Missouri Citizens for the Arts; The Downtown Council; Main Street Development Corporation; Nonprofit Connect; Urban Core Group; and The Kansas City Convention and Visitors Bureau.