UTNT (UT New Theatre): The Orange Garden

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T U N T

The ORANGE GARDEN

By JOANNA GARNER April 15, 20 at 7:30 p.m.

April 23 at 2:00 p.m.

oscar g. brockett theatre F. Loren Winship Building

theatredance.utexas.edu

UTNT (UT New Theatre) is made possible through the generous support of the Michener Center for Writers and the College of Fine Arts’ Department of Theatre and Dance.

This production was created in collaboration by these artists: Lawrence Bennett – Technical Director • Kate Ducey – Lighting Designer Joanna Garner – Playwright • Billy Henry – Sound Designer • E.L. Hohn – Costume Designer Bruno-Pierre Houle – Scenic Designer/Projection Designer • Jasmine Kurys – Stage Manager Alexandra Bassiakou Shaw – Director • Peter Stopschinski – Composer Caroline Tarpey – Dramaturg • Kyle Winkelmann – Production Manager

cast (in order of appearance) Haideh, Samantha ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������Katherine Lozano Rainey ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������Natalie Patton Gabor, Barry ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ Jesse Wormington Raheem, Policeman ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Adam Foldes John ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ Luke Stodghill

There will be one 10-minute intermission.

Videography and photography are strictly prohibited.

The Orange Garden was developed with the support of the 2015 Banff Playwrights Colony – a partnership between The Banff Centre and the Canada Council for the Arts.

a note from the playwright I grew up with a vivid, sensory experience of a place I’d never been. My father served in the Peace Corps in Iran in the 1960s. It was a wholly transformative experience for him, a young man just out of college and unsure of his future. Years later, he still speaks Farsi fluently and conjures details about Iran every day. I fell in love from a distance, through backgammon games, piles of saffron rice and black and white photos of ghosts.

Though the play references many actual events of the 1970s (the Vietnam War, the Iranian Revolution), the play’s characters are largely fictionalized. The story contains much more than my father’s experiences. Once any of us step outside the comforts of the familiar, we begin to look at ourselves differently. We ask, “What is my place in the world?” “What am I willing to fight for?” “When was the moment that everything broke open?”

Transcendent moments are born from love – desire for it, celebration of it, mourning for it.

Romantic love, yes, but also love of a place, a time or a higher power. Love irrevocably changes us.

a note from the curator At the heart of UTNT (UT New Theatre), now in its ninth year, is a simple notion: the present moment has not been written. While architecture has been called “frozen music,” the new play seeks not so much to capture the here and now as to explore/explode it. What we call the “theatre” is, in fact, the lingering, lasting legacy of previous “present moments” rendered in language and motion, ephemeral as the air.

Playwrights Lydia Blaisdell, Joanna Garner, Gia Marotta and Tegan McLeod, along with their dynamic student and professional collaborators, have met the moment we are in head-on. They have crafted plays of boldness, beauty, potency and ache. We are eager to preview these plays for you, our Austin community, before they move on to other cities and stages.

Multiple plays from UTNT’s past have found major productions in both the United States and abroad. We are deeply proud of this track record. However, they all started here, in the threadbare splendor of the Winship building, in that remarkable crucible of rigor, discovery and experimentation we call the Department of Theatre and Dance.

Any necessary art form tells new stories in new ways. Welcome to UTNT (UT New Theatre), where the new and necessary stories of tomorrow are being told on our stages today. Thank you for being here.

Steven Dietz, Curator

The Department of Theatre and Dance is a world-class educational environment that serves as the ultimate creative incubator for the next generation of artists, thinkers and leaders in theatre and performance.

cast

Katherine Lozano

Natalie Patton

Adam Foldes

Jesse Wormington

Luke Stoghill

DIRECTOR’S COUNCIL The Texas Theatre and Dance Director’s Council is a premier volunteer group designed to foster strong and collaborative connections between The University of Texas at Austin and the local community by supporting initiatives in fundraising and community relations. As advocates for the department, this group of alumni, parents and fine arts supporters play a key role in continuing to build a professional theatre and dance training program serving thousands of talented Texans for generations.

2015/2016 Director’s Council Members Carol Smith Adams Francesca Brockett and Jim Pedicano Barrett Bruce Jean Cheever Joanne and Jack Crosby Dee Dawson Laura Eastman

Gary Farmer JoLynn Free Missy Grimes Pam and Edmund McIlhenny Annie McKinnon Debbie Oliver Miriam Relyea

Diane Robinson Russ Sartain Nancy Scanlan Marc Seriff Laura Sheffield Karen Skolnik Leah Stolar Sharon Watkins

creative LAWRENCE BENNETT (Technical Director) hails from Houston, Texas by way of Chicago, Illinois. He received his B.F.A. from the Conservatory of Theatre Arts at Webster University and his M.F.A. from The University of Wisconsin in technical direction and theatre technology, respectively. Bennett has been the technical director and lighting designer at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls, as well as the technical director at the University of South Florida. He has worked at various summer stock productions across the country, including Williamstown Theatre Festival, Utah Shakespeare Festival and the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis.

KATE DUCEY (Lighting Designer) comes to Austin, Texas by way of Los Angeles, California after working in the television industry for the past six years. Recent productions include lighting design for William Glick’s play, Wilma and projection design for Texas Theatre and Dance’s production of Twelfth Night. Upcoming work includes lighting for Poor Herman at the Off Center this May. JOANNA GARNER (Playwright) crafts plays and experiences that are wild, sexy, dangerous and musical, sometimes all at once. Her work has been developed nationally and internationally at the Banff Centre Playwrights Colony, Seattle Repertory Theatre, On the Boards, Tofte Lake Center, the NEWvember New Play Festival, groundswell playwrights conference and the New York and Hollywood fringe festivals, among others. Garner’s original country musical, 100 Heartbreaks, was workshopped in Seattle Repertory Theatre’s New Play Program, the Northwest Playwrights Alliance and presented at the country’s largest arts and culture festival, Bumbershoot, before premiering in Austin last year.

BILLY HENRY (Sound Designer) teaches sound design for theatre at The University of Texas at Austin where he has served as a sound

designer for numerous plays and musicals including last season’s production, Refugia.

His music can be heard before every football game at Darrell K. Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium. Henry has received several awards for his compositions including multiple ADDY Awards and served as an engineer on the Grammy Award-winning album Los Super Seven. Henry has worked with numerous artists including Don Henley, Sheryl Crow, Neil Young and the Dixie Chicks.

E.L. HOHN (Costume Designer) is a second-year M.F.A. in Design and Technology candidate with a focus in costume design at The University of Texas at Austin. Her work was recently seen in Shrewd Production’s As You Like It, Rude Mech’s Fixing Timon of Athens and Texas Theatre and Dance’s production of The Wild Party. Other Austin credits include Aye, No! (Teatro Vivo) and After: A Post-Gay Vaudeville, Emma When You Need Her and Teen Girl FANtasies (The Cohen New Works Festival, 2015). Hohn comes to Austin from Chicago where she worked with Piven Theatre Workshop, Red Theater Chicago and The Whiskey Rebellion, among others.

BRUNO-PIERRE HOULE (Scenic Designer, Projection Designer) is a second-year M.F.A. in Design and Technology candidate with a focus in scenic design. Recent designs include William Glick’s play, Wilma, The Great God Pan (Street Corner Arts) and The Wild Party (Texas Theatre and Dance). Originally from Montreal, Canada, Houle served as the production designer on numerous short films and music videos as well as the feature film Sarah Prefers to Run. JASMINE KURYS’ (Stage Manager) mentorship with Eric Tysinger led her to New York where she shadowed him on Sting’s Broadway production, The Last Ship. In January 2015 Kurys participated in the Design/ Technology/Management Competition at the United States Institute for Theatre Technology (USITT) Southwest Symposium

creative and won a Certificate of Achievement in Stage Management and an eight-week scholarship to the Stagecraft Institute of Las Vegas. Kurys currently works as an assistant to the production manager at Texas Performing Arts.

ALEXANDRA BASSIAKOU SHAW (Director) is a Greek-American theatre writer/director and managing director of the Austin-based experimental theatre collective, Rude Mechs. She is currently creating Public Good, a documentary theatre performance commissioned by Actor’s Theatre of Charlotte. She is an alumna of the National Theater Institute. M.F.A., Columbia University.

PETER STOPSCHINSKI (Composer) has composed music for Madeleine George’s Pulitzer Prize-nominated play The Watson Intelligence, string arrangements for Grupo Fantasma’s Grammy Award-winning album El Existential and the film score for two-time Academy Award-winning director Al Reinert’s film Rara Avis: The Life and Art of John James Audubon. His operas and musicals have been performed across the country from Arena Stage (Washington, D.C.) to Playwrights Horizons (New York) to Center Theatre Group’s Kirk Douglas Theater (Los Angeles).

CAROLINE TARPEY (Dramaturg) developed a passion for Persian language and culture during her studies at Georgetown University. She earned her master’s degree in Professional Studies - Persian Language at the University of Maryland, College Park, including a year of research in Persian (Farsi), Dari and Taijiki in Dushanbe, Tajikistan. She

is the co-founder of FreshWill, an Austin organization devoted to promotional of Persian art and culture through events featuring classic and modern poetry, dance, music and vocal performance.

KYLE WINKELMANN (Production Manager) is a fourth-year B.A. in Theatre and Dance student with an emphasis in stage management as well as a student at the McCombs School of Business with a focus in management.

As an active member of the department, Winkelmann has worked on several shows including serving as the stage manager for A Streetcar Named Desire and Advance Man and the co-technical director and an executive committee member for The Cohen New Works Festival (2015). He plans to graduate in May before pursuing a career in professional theatre in stage or production management.

HANNAH WOLF (Co-Curator) is a first-year M.F.A. in Directing candidate, originally from Juneau, Alaska. Her work has been seen at Perseverance Theatre, Superhero Clubhouse, The Vineyard Theatre, The Civilians, Culturebot, Conni’s Avant Garde Restaurant, Colt Coeur, Howlround, TerraNOVA Collective, New York University (NYU), Peppercorn Theatre, Writopia Lab, The Secret City and The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. She received a B.A. from Western Washington University, trained at the SITI Company Intensive and is the former literary resident at The Vineyard Theatre.

Member: 2012 Lincoln Center Theater’s Directors Lab, 2014/2015 Soho Rep. Writer/ Director Lab. Fellowship: Fulbright (Bucharest, Romania). hannahjwolf.com

cast Katherine Lozano (Haideh, Samantha) is a second-year B.F.A. in Acting student. Most recently she was seen as “Cookie” in Rumors.

Past credits include Enter A Woman, Pretty Enough (Texas Theatre and Dance) and This Emotional Closet (The Cohen New Works Festival, 2015).

Natalie Patton (Rainey) is a third-year B.F.A. in Acting student. Previous roles include “Doreen” in Poor Boys’ Chorus, “Miep” in The Diary of Anne Frank and “Girl” in Green Eyes.

Patton recently produced her first original work entitled Life, Love, and What I Lost at The Cohen New Works Festival (2015). She plans to attend the UT Los Angeles Program before graduating in 2017.

Jesse Wormington (Gabor, Barry) is a secondyear B.F.A. in Acting student at The University of Texas at Austin Department of Theatre and Dance from Dallas, Texas. Last year he worked with The Moving Company in their collaborative production with Texas Theatre and Dance entitled Refugia. Wormington was also a dancer in Richard Linklater’s Dazed

and Confused sequel Everybody Wants Some and acted in several performances as part of The Cohen New Works Festival (2015).

Adam Foldes (Raheem, Policeman) has performed in Austin, Texas as “Rajan” in Operation Istanbul (The Cohen New Works Festival, 2015) and “Tom” in The Relentless Pursuit of Ice (FronteraFest). He received his undergraduate degree from Georgetown University (B.S. in Foreign Service) and has taken workshops with Central School of Speech and Drama (London) and The New Works Studio (New York). He is a third-year student at Texas Law at The University of Texas at Austin.

Luke Stodghill (John) is a first-year B.F.A. in Acting major originally from Dallas, Texas.

He began acting during his sophomore year of high school in Arthur Laurents’ West Side Story followed by “Kenickie” in Grease and “King Arthur” in Spamalot. Stodghill has since been a finalist for two National Speech and Debate Association (NSDA) awards in dramatic interpretation.

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