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A GENTLEMAN'S GUIDE TO LOVE AND MURDER IS HEADED TO BROADWAY!

(5/17/13) • A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder, which had its world premmiere at The Old Globe earlier this spring, is headed to Broadway! The musical comedy, about a young man's plot to inherit a dukedom (and bump off the people standing in his way), will begin preview performances this fall at the Walter Kerr Theatre on Oct. 22 and will officially open on Nov. 17.

Tony Award-winner Jefferson Mays will reprise his tour-de-force turn as the eight ill-fated members of the D'Ysquith clan. Former Old Globe Co-Artistic Director Darko Tresnjak will again direct the musical.

Old Globe Artistic Director Barry Edelstein said, "I am completely delighted to see A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder take its rightful place on Broadway. The Globe has sent a lot of musicals there over the years but this one is special: not only is it a giddy, witty confection, but it is also the work of one of our own: Darko Tresnjak. We couldn't be happier for him."

Congratulations to the entire Gentleman’s Guide team on this achievement!

To view more photos of Jefferson Mays in A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder, visit our Facebook page.

(Photo: Jefferson Mays as Lady Hyacinth D'Ysquith in the world premiere of A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder at The Old Globe. Photo by Henry DiRocco.)

CAST ANNOUNCED FOR THE NEW YORK PREMIERE OF NOBODY LOVES YOU

(5/16/13) • Casting has been announced for the New York premiere of Nobody Loves You, the musical by Gaby Alter and Itamar Moses that had its world premiere at The Old Globe last year. The comedy centering on a reality television dating show will feature Heath Calvert as the show's vapid host, Byron, the role he created at the Globe. Also returning from the Globe production is Lauren Molina as the abrasive Megan, who falls for a young Christian man. (Molina received a 2012 San Diego Theatre Critics Circle Craig Noel Award nomination for her performance in the show.)

The cast at Second Stage Theatre will also feature Bryan Fenkart, Roe Hartrampf, Autumn Hurlbert, Leslie Kritzer, Rory O'Malley and Aleque Reid. Director Michelle Tattenbaum and choreographer Mandy Moore also return to the project for its Big Apple bow, which will begin on June 20.

To view more photos of Heath Calvert and Lauren Molina in the Globe's world premiere production of Nobody Loves You, visit our Facebook page!

FROM TEARS TO LAUGHTER AND BACK AGAIN: AN INTERVIEW WITH BEKAH BRUNSTETTER

(5/15/13) • Where did the idea for Be a Good Little Widow come from?

Widow was actually my very first play commission ever (from Ars Nova in New York City). In early 2009, if you recall, there were a fair amount of plane crashes, starting with a commuter plane that crashed into a house in upstate New York. This tragedy unlocked a visceral, intense anxiety in me that I’m still attempting to quiet. I couldn’t stop thinking about the crash, and so I had to write about it. At the time, I was also spending a fair amount of brain space pondering my own emotional maturity. I found myself wondering: when would I grow up? At that point in my life, I’d never been to a funeral. Never experienced a great loss. I was terrified of what it would feel like and if I’d be able to act a lady through it. I found myself jealous of those who had experienced tragedy, as it seemed to make them drop into themselves.

And so, I shoved all of these worries and questions together into a play. Most importantly, I now cannot die in a plane crash, because it would just be too ironic. I hope. Now I have to go knock on nine types of wood.

The cross-generational relationship between Melody and Hope is one of the unforgettable things about the play — not only because of their conflicts but because of the gifts they have to offer each other. Would you talk a little bit about that?

I love that relationship too, and it was shockingly satisfying to write. I think it’s pretty much a dramatization of an argument that’s constantly going on in me, between my proper self and my improper self. But thankfully, it’s played out with characters. I oftentimes feel like a mess. I wasn’t raised that way, but I do, more often that not, find myself in situations where I feel like my dress or nail-biting or the way I eat my cheese is offending, well, everyone. But then, there’s also something incredibly liberating about being a mess. Via messiness (a la Melody) you have easier access to your emotions, to truth. But simultaneously, I love the decorum of Hope’s way of life, with its cloth napkins and its rules. I wish I had the fortitude, charm and class of the women of generations before me. It’s just a question that interests me. We’re so, so much more open now — as people, as women. Is this better? Worse? Either way, I have respect for both ways of life.

What have been the most challenging aspects of this play — either in writing it or getting it on its feet? What’s been most fun?

It’s a really delicate balance, tone-wise. It was tough to write, and has been tough to work on, as I’m expecting myself, my actors, my director and subsequently my audience to be yanked from tears to laughter and back again, sometimes even both simultaneously. But I couldn’t help but try and have a laugh during an incredibly tragic time. We say the most ridiculous things when we’re hurting, and I really wanted to try and capture that. Also, in terms of the darker moments of the play, I had to really make sure those were organic. I never want to manipulate my audience’s emotions.

With Melody, I wanted to write her youth and her journey from immaturity to approaching womanhood honestly. To do so, I had to honor the fact that she’s selfish. Potentially grating. It’s tricky to start with a character that could be perceived as unlikeable — thanks, the success of “Girls”! But I really, truly believe that she’s trying, trying to be a good wife, and subsequently a good widow, and that’s what really counts. Her heart is constantly in the right place. Lastly, it’s just one young woman’s story. Or rather, two, Melody and Hope’s. When you write a small-ish play, you always hope that it transcends its size and touches its audience in some universal way.

Do you find yourself returning to specific themes over and over in your work, or to specific styles?

Definitely. I always write in dramedy. Sometimes on the heavier side, but I always, always need to be able to laugh at myself when I’m working on something, and I need my characters to be able to do the same. I also keep returning to worlds that are grounded in reality but are theatrical in some way. As for themes, my first plays were all about love, faith and odd, contemporary re-tellings of Bible stories. I then shifted into a “military family play” phase, then into “how to be an adult in this world” and “what is death?” phases. Now that I’m the ripe old age of 30, I find myself thinking and writing a lot about morality — and where exactly it comes from — and my family history. I’m also thinking a lot about babies. But not so much writing about them. Mostly just spying on them on the internet.

What are you currently working on?

I’m currently writing for ABC Family’s fantastic Peabody Award-winning show, “Switched at Birth.” I’m taking a wee break from playwriting. This is the first time in four years I don’t have a commission (not woe is me, at all, but still), and I want whatever play I work on next to just hit me in the face one day (hopefully not while I’m driving), and then I’ll start writing it. I’m patiently waiting for that. I don’t want to force it. In the meantime, I scratch my theatre itch with my custom-made monologue business for actors and tend to say “Yes, please!” anytime anyone asks me to write a short play, because I love any excuse to write one. I’m also working on a movie called Together/Apart which one might call a romantic comedy but with more words.

—Interview by Danielle Mages Amato

(Top photo: Playwright Bekah Brunstetter. Photo by Maggie Takyar. Bottom photo: (from left) Christine Estabrook as Hope and Zoë Winters as Melody in Be a Good Little Widow. Photo by Ed Krieger.)

OLD GLOBE ASSOCIATE ARTIST JACQUELINE BROOKES PASSES AWAY AT 82

(5/14/13) • Beloved Old Globe Associate Artist Jacqueline Brookes, who first appeared at the Globe over 50 years ago, passed away on April 26 at the age of 82. The actress and educator's career spanned award-winning work on stage, television and film. Below, Old Globe Historian Darlene Davies reflects on Brookes' career and history with the Globe.

Jacqueline Brookes brought her distinctive and constant artistry to The Old Globe during the 1960s. Her clear and uncluttered performances in numerous productions of the Globe’s San Diego National Shakespeare Festival were like beacon lights. She was so well trained and could do anything, from comedic roles to ones of high drama. That bell-like voice of her youth was commanding. She completed, in the fullest sense, each production with her presence. She had a firm understanding of her characters and strong technical skills. In 1960, Brookes played Queen Gertrude to the legendary William Ball’s Hamlet at the Globe. Victor Buono, who went on to appear in myriad films and learned acting at the Globe and San Diego Junior Theatre, was King Claudius, with director Nicholas Martin also in the cast. There were others in that cast who built solid careers in theatre, movies and television. Brookes worked in all those media. She could switch acting styles instantly, according to the medium.

Brookes acted in countless venues. She acted at the American Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Connecticut, with Katherine Hepburn. Like Hepburn, she was an excellent tennis player and, while in San Diego rehearsing and performing, regularly played on Armistead Carter’s Mission Hills tennis courts along with Lowell Davies and others.

The actress was a classically good looking woman, healthy and wholesome in appearance. She was also a knowing make-up artist who artfully transformed her features through stage make-up.

As a character actress in her later years, she appeared in major films, and she taught acting at the Circle in the Square Theatre School until her death recently at age 82.

(Above photo: Old Globe Associate Artist Jacqueline Brookes as Gertrude and William Ball in the title role in Hamlet at The Old Globe, 1960. Photo courtesy of The Old Globe.)

FROM THE ARTISTIC DIRECTOR: BE A GOOD LITTLE WIDOW

(5/13/13) • One of The Old Globe’s strongest assets is the breadth of its repertoire. On our three stages we produce Shakespeare (our house writer), musicals, classics from the American and world canon, and brand new writing. As the largest theatre in San Diego, the second largest in California, and the sixth largest in the United States, we have a mandate to serve a broad constituency—to provide, as it were, something for everyone—and the wide range of material in one of our typical seasons is a natural expression and fulfillment of our mission.

My job is of course to select the material we produce. The process can be dizzying. After all, any one genre of theatre has in it dozens of worthwhile plays. You want a French classic? There’s Molière, Marivaux, Racine, Corneille, Ionesco. German? Brecht, Goethe, Schiller. You want a musical? Should it be a revival or an original work? An epic, Broadway blowout with chorus girls and two dozen sets, or a chamber piece with a small cast and a piano?

But in no area do I feel more spoiled for choice than in new American writing. These days one hears endless proclamations of doom and despair about the state of the contemporary American theatre, but if the measure of our industry’s health is the number of people writing for it and the number of accomplished works they are creating, then I’m an optimist. There are hundreds of terrific, worthy, smart, and provocative new plays being written right now, by countless devoted, innovative, and deeply talented individuals in communities all across this country. Indeed, I’d go so far as to argue that we are living in a Golden Age of American playwriting.

Tonight’s play is a prime example. Bekah Brunstetter is by no means a household name. She will be, though, and soon, on the strength of Be a Good Little Widow and a growing body of imaginative and emotionally engaged plays. Widow is a small gem of a piece, deceptive in its simplicity but devastating in its sincerity and commitment to psychological truth. In her characterization of her heroine, Melody, Brunstetter has her finger firmly on the pulse of this moment in popular culture, in which smart, hyperarticulate, searching, and slightly mystified twenty-something women are the subjects of books, essays, songs, and hit cable TV series. But inasmuch as she’s a figure in a work of theatre art rather than a profile in Vanity Fair, Melody has a dimensionality and emotional verisimilitude that is rich, striking, and to me completely disarming. Profane and wretchedly immature one moment, profoundly self-actualized the next, Melody becomes a kind of Everywoman, thrown into an experience that’s all too widespread, but making of it something new. She turns widowhood into a strange form of art, fashioning from deep loss a new sense of self, and from grief a very modern kind of hope.

On the first day of rehearsal I told the Globe company that the play is for me a kind of Trojan Horse. Its beguiling outside, charming and funny, makes us drop our defenses and open our gates. But once we’ve let it in, the play’s belly bursts open and lets loose a troop of furious Greeks—here, Brunstetter’s slyly deployed characters in all their confusion and intensity—who slay us, move us, and rend our hearts. The captain of this theatrical Trojan Horse is my esteemed colleague Hal Brooks, an artist who, like our playwright, is a real devotee of theatrical truth. He and his cast have served Brunstetter well and brought to the Globe a sterling example of what today’s American theatre is all about: meaningful stories on themes that matter, told with panache and a sensibility that, while by no means sentimental, loves laughter and fears no tears. I’m proud to be part of it.

(Photo: Old Globe Artistic Director Barry Edelstein. Photo by Joseph Moran.)

AUDIENCES AND CRITICS TAKE A TRIP TO OTHER DESERT CITIES!

(5/13/13) • Audiences and critics alike have been riveted by the San Diego premiere of Jon Robin Baitz's Other Desert Cities. This funny and moving portrait of a Palm Springs family and their long-buried secrets runs through June 2 at The Old Globe. This is one family reunion you won't want to miss!

“BEAUTIFUL!
Scintillating, superbly written, expertly acted!”
-KSDS Jazz 88

“Engrossing – the cast excels!”
-San Diego Reader

“An absorbing and provocative ride!”
-U-T San Diego

“A rich theatrical experience. The entire cast is in top form.”
-San Diego CityBeat

To view additional photos from Other Desert Cities, visit our Facebook page!

THE GLOBE GUILDERS FASHION SHOW IS A WEEK AWAY!

(5/10/13) • The models will be strutting the catwalk at the Globe Guilders Fashion Show on Tuesday, May 21. One of the premier fashion events in San Diego, this annual fundraiser benefits The Old Globe's artistic, education and community programs. This year's show will once again feature Naeem Khan, one of the most sought-after fashion designers in the world. Fresh from New York’s 2013 Fashion Week, Khan’s art-deco inspired creations were admired recently by over one billion viewers around the world on First Lady Michelle Obama live from the White House and Stacey Keibler on the red carpet on Oscar night.

The event will include a champagne reception, seated luncheon, silent and live auctions and a fashion show featuring Khan's Fall 2013 couture collection, presented by Neiman Marcus.

For more information and to buy tickets, click here!

(Photos: The 2013 Fall Couture Collection by Naeem Khan. Photos by Dan Lecca.)

THE CAST AND CREW OF OTHER DESERT CITIES CELEBRATE THEIR OPENING NIGHT!

(5/10/13) • Following the opening night performance of Other Desert Cities on Thursday, May 2, the cast and creative team gathered with friends and family to celebrate in Hattox Hall. Old Globe Artistic Director Barry Edelstein was on hand to greet director Richard Seer and the cast of the show, including Dana Green, Andy Bean and Associate Artists Robert Foxworth, Kandis Chappell and Robin Pearson Rose. The party was full of friendly faces, including Old Globe Board Chair Harold W. Fuson Jr., Associate Artist and Shakespeare Festival scenic designer Ralph Funicello, the Artistic Director and Managing Director of TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, which is co-producing the show, and candidates of the Old Globe/University of San Diego Graduate Theatre Program, who are appearing in the Festival this summer.

Below are just a few of the photos from the celebration. To see more, visit our Facebook page!

POSTCARDS FROM PALM SPRINGS

(5/10/13) • People first came to Palm Springs for their health. A turn-of-the-century tourist destination popular for its desert climate and mineral-springs spas, Palm Springs’ popularity exploded in the 1920s, first as a shooting location for films and then as a vacation spot for actors and producers. From Rudolph Valentino and Theda Bara to Clark Gable and Bette Davis, Palm Springs quickly became the Playground of the Stars. In the 1950s and 1960s, Palm Springs was the glamorous, decadent Hollywood getaway. Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack made the city their personal retreat; Elvis Presley and Liberace bought Palm Springs homes. Every year, as the weather cooled down, the parties heated up, and big-name performers like Nat King Cole, Bing Crosby and honorary mayor Bob Hope performed at the infamous Palm Springs Racquet Club for an audience of stars, hopefuls and hangers-on.

Political figures, too, made their way to this desert oasis. President Dwight Eisenhower was televised on vacation in Palm Springs in 1954 and later retired there. In 1962, John F. Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe supposedly spent a weekend together in Bing Crosby’s Palm Springs home. (Marilyn was “discovered” in Palm Springs; she is commemorated with a 26-foot-tall statue downtown.) Ronald Reagan honeymooned in Palm Springs with first wife Jane Wyman and owned a home there with second wife Nancy. Sunnylands, the nearby estate of publishing magnate Walter Annenberg, hosted presidents and princes for 40 years and last year was transformed into a Camp David of the West Coast, a spot for international summit meetings and political retreats.

Palm Springs attracted architects as well, and the city’s heyday is preserved in a wealth of mid-century modern homes and public buildings. Innovative and avant-garde, architects like Albert Frey, John Lautner and Richard Neutra used glass, concrete and steel to create homes with minimalist style and modernist shapes.

Palm Springs struggled in the 1970s and 1980s, but in recent years it has undergone a retro-cool revival. The wealthy old guard remains, but it now coexists with a younger generation of tourists and residents, reinventing Palm Springs once again.

It’s a wealthy city built in a wholly inhospitable place. It’s protected by a desert, separated from the rest of the world — much like the Wyeths themselves. And it’s no coincidence that the Iraq War, the war in question in the play, is a desert war, played out in “other desert cities.” As the characters look out over the Palm Springs desert, we can’t help thinking of all the other children, the other brothers, lost in another desert half a world away.
—Director Richard Seer

(Above photo: Nancy and Ronald Reagan relaxing at Sunnylands, 1981. Designed by A. Quincy Jones, 1966.)

ALEXANDER DODGE'S THEATRICAL TRIFECTA

(5/9/13) • Were you wowed by the revolving set in Pygmalion? Delighted by the stage-within-a-stage in A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder? Transported by the mid-century modern home in Other Desert Cities? All three sets, seen at The Old Globe this year, came from the nimble and ingenious mind of scenic designer Alexander Dodge.

Which one of the three sets would you say was the most challenging?

Probably A Gentleman’s Guide, because it’s a musical, and it’s so elaborate. That set has so many different aspects to it, and it was the trickiest to figure out how to grasp onto the world that needed to be created for the production.

What’s the difference between designing for a play and a musical?

With a musical, you have so many different locations and scenes, generally speaking. With these two plays, at least, that wasn’t the case. If you’re doing a Shakespeare play, it’s almost like you are designing for a musical, because you are dealing with lots of different locations. But with a musical you also need to think about choreography, about having room for dance and an orchestra, so there are more elements that come into it. That’s very different from Other Desert Cities, where you have one great location and that’s it.

Do you prefer working on highly theatrical designs or more detailed, realistic designs?

I prefer to be more stylized and create my own world. But that being said, both Other Desert Cities and Pygmalion were a lot of fun. More than just doing one kind of project, it’s the variety that really keeps me going.

Although these three designs are very different, each one is spectacular and jaw-dropping in its own way. Is there something about them that marks them as yours?

I try to have the sense that the set is another character in the play or that the set elevates the production to another level. But I also don’t want it to take center stage. I’m sure I have a style, but I do try to focus on the specific needs of this current production, with this director, at this time. I may do another production of the same play with the same director at a different time in my career, and the set will look different.

What were some of the goals you wanted to achieve with the design for Other Desert Cities?

I think it was the specificity and authenticity of the location, which of course is Palm Springs. But also, we wanted to push it a little bit — there are definitely some symbolic elements in what you see on stage.

(To view more photos of Alexander Dodge's scenic designs for Pygmalion, A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder and Other Desert Cities, visit our Facebook page!)

CBS 8's MARCELLA LEE TO HOST THE 2013 GLOBE HONORS AND THE ROAD TO THE JIMMY™ AWARDS

(5/9/13) • Local CBS News 8 anchor Marcella Lee will host the 2013 Globe Honors and The Road to the Jimmy™ Awards, the annual competition recognizing excellence in high school theater, on May 20 at 8:00 p.m. at The Old Globe. Lee will emcee the final round of competition before a live audience and announce the winners of the event, which will take place on the Donald and Darlene Shiley Stage in the Old Globe Theatre, part of the Globe’s Conrad Prebys Theatre Center. Tickets to attend Globe Honors and The Road to the Jimmy Awards™, which is presented by the Globe in association with Broadway/San Diego – A Nederlander Presentation, are $5 for students and $10 for adults and can be purchased online at www.TheOldGlobe.org, by phone at (619) 23-GLOBE or by visiting the Box Office at 1363 Old Globe Way in Balboa Park.

Marcella Lee joined KFMB-TV News 8 in March 2004 as weekend anchor at 5 p.m., 6:30 p.m. and 11:00 p.m. A Detroit native, she graduated from the University of Michigan School of Business in Ann Arbor and began her journalism career as a videographer/reporter at WLNS-TV in Lansing, Michigan. She received her first Emmy Award at the young age of 23. After positions in Denver and Detroit, Lee moved to San Diego and has since received five additional Emmy Awards, which include three for her anchoring and reporting of the October 2007 San Diego wildfires. In her weekly Adopt 8 segments, Lee also profiles children in San Diego County who are waiting to find a permanent home. Lee is a supporter of numerous organizations in San Diego, including ASIA: The Journal of Culture & Commerce and the Union of Pan Asian Communities.

Globe Honors and The Road to the Jimmy™ Awards invites high school students to compete in one of four categories: Outstanding Achievement in Musical Theatre, Spoken Theatre, Technical Theatre and leading role in a High School Musical. Winners of all Globe Honors categories will receive $1,000 scholarships, and the winners of the Musical, Spoken and Technical Theater categories will participate in a two-day trip to Los Angeles where they will go behind the scenes at Center Theatre Group, attend a casting workshop and take in a show. The Leading Actor and Actress in a High School Musical winners will receive an all-expenses-paid trip to New York City to participate in the National High School Musical Theater Awards/The Jimmy™ Awards (NHSMTA) competition to be held on July 1 at the Minskoff Theatre on Broadway.

To view photos of this year's Globe Honors semi-finalists, visit our Facebook page!

(Above photo: CBS News 8 anchor Marcella Lee. Photo courtesy of KMFB-TV.)

A CONVERSATION WITH OTHER DESERT CITIES PLAYWRIGHT JON ROBIN BAITZ

(5/8/13) • Baitz is already well-known to regional theatre, Broadway and Hollywood audiences for his psychologically rich plays and the television show “Brothers & Sisters,” which he created and oversaw during its five-year run on ABC. Baitz sat down with Globe alumnus Henry Wishcamper, who recently directed a production of Other Desert Cities at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre, to talk about the play.

Henry Wishcamper: What was your initial inspiration for Other Desert Cities?

Jon Robin Baitz: Initially, I was interested in all of the interconnected impasses that had occurred in American life and my own at the same time. Culturally in the time period — the play starts in 2004 — the smoke was starting to clear from the first moments of a long war, and sides were very vividly drawn in the country. There was a sense that there had been a sea change within the conservative movement and that there was a kind of nostalgia for the old Republicans — Reagan Republicans, and prior to that, Eisenhower Republicans. This new kind of conservatism is fascinating to me. It seems to be very aggressive and involve a lot of new language like “preemptive” and “unilateralism.” And I wondered how that had happened, and I also wondered how the old Republicans were reacting to it.

At the same time I was involved in figuring out my own relationship with California, which is my natural habitat — but one that I don’t have a very peaceful relationship with — and I started to see this play. The Palm Springs in the play is a kind of battleground, but a battleground at the end of America, where all the promise of the West has been frozen in time. There were these anachronistic Americans living in a kind of cinematic library of old Hollywood movies, old versions of Western success. They were flitting around in my head, as was my own increasing anxiety about the role of the writer in the lives of others, and the responsibility that a writer has to himself and the people he loves. I had recently created and left a TV show — “Brothers & Sisters” — in Los Angeles and sworn never to go back to that life, and I thought I’d try and do some of the things that “Brothers & Sisters” would not permit me to do: to write about the family as a narrative and a certain kind of privileged America, which is acknowledged in the play.

HW: I’m curious to hear you talk about the members of the family but also the central impasse in which we find the family when the play begins.

JRB: Lyman is a kind of lionesque, benign patriarch who appears to be profoundly affable — a peacemaker, a diplomat, slightly opaque, slightly befuddled. But that may very well be a defense mechanism, a mask even; he’s a very practiced actor. Like many fathers, he loves his children in ways that sometimes shock even him. He especially worries about his oldest daughter, Brooke, who’s exiled herself from the West much like I did; moved out to Sag Harbor much as I did; has written professionally, been a novelist and has dried up, much as I occasionally have; has suffered from serious clinical depression much as I have; and is burdened by the memory of her older brother’s suicide when they were teenagers. And this has caused her a lifetime’s worth of agony and a sense of loss and betrayal. Her ability to function over the years has dwindled, and she’s been hospitalized. When we meet her, she’s regained buoyancy and has just completed a new book that the family thinks is a novel but of course is actually a memoir. She’s come to announce this book and ask for her parents’ approval before it’s published.

This brings us to Polly, the matriarch of the family. There are ways in which she mirrors Nancy Reagan, the Annenbergs and the old California conservatives. She’s modeled her life with a kind of rigorous combination of discipline and certitude. She’s a realist, and she’s fiercely dedicated to her family’s survival.

Trip, the surviving son, who is younger than Brooke, has found a way to survive: to go with the flow. His overarching dogma consists of “Let it go, it’s California, it’s all fine.” He has become a producer of TV game shows, he’s steeped in pop culture and fornication and he’s constantly being called upon to make peace between Polly and Brooke. And the other character is Polly’s troublemaking sister, Silda, also a writer. She is as much a liberal as Polly is a conservative, and they have a volatile relationship but one that’s built out of love.

And thus you have this fragmentation that reverberates throughout the piece. I strive to find the exact point in a narrative where the personal and the political intersect perfectly, because I find the two things completely inseparable.

(Reprinted with permission from Goodman Theatre. Photo: The cast of “Brothers & Sisters.”)

THE OLD GLOBE CELEBRATES ITS VOLUNTEERS

(5/8/13) • On April 26, 2013, The Old Globe honored the volunteers who have made outstanding contributions of their time over the past year to support the institution at a reception in Hattox Hall. As a non-profit arts organization serving the community, the Globe relies greatly on the generosity of volunteers, who help in the administrative offices (Marketing, Development, Business, Education), the costume shop, the Helen Edison Gift Shop and Lady Carolyn's Pub; serve as backstage tour docents, Patron Services Ambassadors and Ushers for our shows; and are members of our auxiliary volunteer group, the Globe Guilders.

In addition to seeing Globe productions for free and the satisfaction of helping support one of the top regional theatres in the country, volunteers also have the opportunity to work alongside some of the most dedicated and talented theatre professionals in the world.

The recipients of the 2013 Globe Volunteer Awards were:

Outstanding Tour Docent: Craig & Mary Hunter
Outstanding Patron Service Ambassador: James Kerr
Outstanding Administrative Volunteer: Lorraine Kraker
Outstanding Helen Edison Gift Shop Volunteer: Kathleen Israel
Outstanding Lady Carolyn’s Pub Volunteer: Jackie Ander
Usher Captain of the Year: Lynn Spafford
Volunteer of the Year: Don and Dodie Schulz

For more information on how to volunteer at The Old Globe, please contact our volunteer coordinator at (619) 231-1941 x2330. To view more photos of the reception and awards ceremony, visit our Facebook page!

THE OLD GLOBE COMMUNITY VOICES COMES TO LIFE ON STAGE

(5/7/13) • The Old Globe Community Voices has been busy this winter, welcoming five different community groups in San Diego County to take part in workshops to learn the basics of playwriting and create 10-minute plays. At the end of each series of workshops, the participants, along with their friends and families, gathered at an event in Hattox Hall to watch actors bring the plays to life. And on the way to their after-parties they stopped by the red carpet for some photo ops.

Below are just a few of the photos of the playwrights, actors, friends and family at these final presentations. To view more, visit our Facebook page!

FROM THE ARTISTIC DIRECTOR: OTHER DESERT CITIES

(5/3/13) • As a recent immigrant to California I now and then find myself in need of an interpreter, a cultural translator who could decode for me some of the more — how shall I put this? — byzantine idiosyncrasies of this unique place. It has a culture all its own, the southern sector of The Golden State. It is welcoming and warm, to be sure, and as upbeat and sunny as the morning’s weather forecast. But it won’t surprise any locals to hear that for this relocated Brooklynite, the quirks and personalities that make California, California can be daily sources of surprise.

That’s one reason I’m so glad to be working on Other Desert Cities, the most recent triumph from Jon Robin Baitz. In addition to being one of the most important playwrights now working in the American theatre, Baitz is also perhaps the best literary explainer of California to have emerged in the past few decades. This play functions as a kind of Baedeker Guide to the psychology and socioeconomics of one slice of the swath of California extending from the border north to Santa Barbara and from the sea east to the high Mojave. Indeed its very title comes from a road sign on the 10 Freeway, the asphalt spinal column that links Los Angeles to Indio via the “Inland Empire” (a name whose grandiosity I quite enjoy). Two hours in the company of the Wyeths, the family at the center of Other Desert Cities, is, I find, as bracing an introduction to the folkways and customs of the Southern California elite as any dinner party I’ve attended since arriving in San Diego.

Baitz’s understanding of California is authentic and native. He was born in Los Angeles and educated at no less an avatar of the California way of life than Beverly Hills High School. He has explored this state and its citizens again and again in his career, from his very first produced play through his acclaimed, Pasadena-set television series “Brothers & Sisters.” His portait of the Palm Springs milieu of Other Desert Cities is to me a particular astonishment. Detailed and humane, it sets money and politics and art and pop culture chafing against each other in the hot crucible of the Coachella Valley. When they ignite, their flames illuminate an Arthur Miller-like family drama: Baitz’s writing eases back and forth and with real mastery from love and laughter to remorse and recrimination. A moment in the life of the Wyeth family turns out to be an exploration of great themes: the imprecision of memory, the elusive nature of truth, the stunning burden of the legacies and gifts that parents transmit to their children. But most remarkably, Other Desert Cities reveals just how potent a metaphor for the American experience California itself can be. This land of Nixon and Reagan and Chavez and Hayden, of reality-distorting Hollywood fakery and thrillingly magnificent natural splendor, has always been the American subconscious, the superego and the id of our civilization. It takes a brilliant analyst, a major writer, to plumb its depths and limn its borders, and that writer is Robbie Baitz.

I’ve written elsewhere of the influence of Henrik Ibsen on Baitz’s craft, and those of you who saw our production of A Doll’s House this season will see in Other Desert Cities an Ibsenite’s understanding of how the secrets of the past can detonate a family’s present. Globe favorite Richard Seer’s production pulls the pin on this grenade with an expert fury. And I’ve written too about how bringing to San Diego the finest works of the contemporary American stage is one of the Globe’s most important functions. It’s a special pleasure to refract both of these notions through the lens of this play, as good an exemplar as any I can find of brilliant dramaturgy and a local setting coming together to enhance an audience’s understanding of itself and the world in which it lives. I hope Jon Robin Baitz won’t object if I reveal that for years his email address actually had the word “Baedeker” in it. It was entirely appropriate for this man who is something very special and rare: the playwright as tour guide, leading an expedition to the heart and soul of a state, a nation, a people.

(Photo: Old Globe Artistic Director Barry Edelstein. Photo by Joseph Moran.)

COMPLETE 2013 SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL CAST ANNOUNCED!

(5/2/13) • The complete cast and creative team for the 2013 Shakespeare Festival has been announced. Festival Artistic Director Adrian Noble returns to San Diego for his fourth and final year of Festival programming. The internationally acclaimed director will helm productions of William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice and Tom Stoppard’s classic farce, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. Laurence Olivier Award-nominated director Ian Talbot will make his Old Globe debut with the enduring Shakespeare favorite A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The 2013 Shakespeare Festival, performed in repertory in the outdoor Lowell Davies Festival Theatre, runs June 2 – Sept. 29.

“Seeing Shakespeare outdoors on a balmy summer night is one of the most magical experiences it’s possible to have in the theater, and the Globe’s annual Shakespeare Festival is as good as that experience gets,” said Old Globe Artistic Director Barry Edelstein. “One of the reasons it’s so special is the talent of our own Adrian Noble, and while he will be leaving the Globe once this summer’s Festival is open, all San Diegans will be able to cheer and salute him for giving us another fantastic season with two superb productions of his own, and a third from the gifted Ian Talbot. The Globe and I thank Adrian for four summers of beautiful work, and we look forward to welcoming him back soon.”

Craig Noel Award winner Miles Anderson (The Madness of George III, Amadeus, The Tempest) returns to the Festival as Shylock in The Merchant of Venice and as Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Fellow Craig Noel Award winner Jay Whittaker (King Lear, Richard III, Amadeus) returns for his fourth consecutive Festival season as Oberon in Midsummer. Whittaker will also star as Guildenstern, joining Festival newcomer John Lavelle as Rosencrantz in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. Lavelle will also appear as Snug in Midsummer and Lancelot Gobbo in Merchant. Also making her Festival debut is Krystel Lucas who will appear as Titania in Midsummer as Portia in Merchant.

Lucas Hall, last seen on the Festival stage as Hamlet, will reprise the role in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, as well as play Puck in Midsummer and Bassanio in Merchant. Midsummer’s quartet of star-crossed lovers is comprised of Festival vets Winslow Corbett (The Tempest, Amadeus) as Hermia, Ryman Sneed (Much Ado About Nothing) as Helena and newcomers Nic Few as Demetrius and Adam Gerber as Lysander. In addition to these roles, The Merchant of Venice will feature Corbett as Jessica, Sneed as Nerissa, Few as Prince of Morocco, and Gerber as Lorenzo. In Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Corbett will appear as Ophelia, Sneed as Gertrude and Few as Horatio.

The repertory company also features Donald Carrier, Sherman Howard, Old Globe Associate Artist Charles Janasz and Triney Sandoval, as well as The Old Globe/University of San Diego Graduate Theatre Program candidates Erin Elizabeth Adams, Matthew Bellows, Meaghan Boeing, Jeremy Fisher, Adam Gerber, Kushtrim Hoxha, Stephen Hu, Allison Layman, Danielle O’Farrell, Stephanie Roetzel, Christopher Salazar, Robbie Simpson, Whitney Wakimoto and Sean-Michael Wilkinson.

The creative team includes Old Globe Associate Artist Ralph Funicello (Scenic Design), Deirdre Clancy (Costume Design), Alan Burrett (Lighting Design), Dan Moses Schreier (Sound Design, Original Music), Peter Golub (Original Music), Elan McMahan (Music Direction), George Yé (Fight Director), James Vásquez (Movement), Jan Gist (Voice and Dialect Coach), Samantha Barrie, CSA (Casting) and Bret Torbeck (Stage Manager).

For artist biographies, acting company grid, show descriptions and performance and 3 Plays/3 Days schedules, please view the 2013 Shakespeare Festival PDF.

A PEEK AT THE DESIGNS OF BE A GOOD LITTLE WIDOW

(5/1/13) • The creative team of Be a Good Little Widow recently met with the cast and staff to present and discuss its designs for the quirky comedy, which runs May 11 – June 9, 2013 at The Old Globe. Director Hal Brooks discussed his ideas for the production, as well as the lighting design concept of Seth Resier and the sound design concept of Ryan Rumery. Scenic designer Jason Simms showed off his set model, and costume designer David Israel Reynoso displayed his costume renderings for the characters. And Old Globe Artistic Director Barry Edelstein was on hand to talk about the play and its playwright, Bekah Brunstetter.

To view more photos of the team from Be a Good Little Widow, visit our Facebook page!

OLD GLOBE ASSOCIATE ARTISTS NICHOLAS MARTIN AND GREGG BARNES RECEIVE TONY NOMINATIONS!

(4/30/13) • Old Globe Associate Artists Nicholas Martin and Gregg Barnes were honored with Tony Award nominations this morning!

Martin was nominated for Best Director of a Play for Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, which he will direct at the Globe next season. Kristine Nielsen, who appeared in last season's Anna Christie at the Globe, was nominated for Leading Actress in a Play for her hilarious turn as Sonia. The comedy by Christopher Durang received six nominations in total, which also includes Best Play, Leading Actor in a Play for David Hyde Pierce, Featured Actor in a Play for Billy Magnussen and Featured Actress in a Play for Shalita Grant.

Barnes was nominated for Best Costume Design of a Musical for Kinky Boots, honoring not only those razzle-dazzle outfits but also all of those incredible shoes.

Congrats to all of these nominees!

THE OLD GLOBE'S 2013-14 SEASON ANNOUNCED!

(4/26/13) • Old Globe Artistic Director Barry Edelstein’s inaugural season kicks off with The Last Goodbye, a new musical that marries Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and the electrifying songs of the legendary singer-songwriter Jeff Buckley. As previously announced, the rock musical is directed by two-time Tony Award nominee Alex Timbers (Peter and the Starcatcher, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson) with choreography by Sonya Tayeh (“So You Think You Can Dance”). The 2013-14 Season will also feature the World Premieres of The Few by Samuel D. Hunter and Dog and Pony, a new musical by Rick Elice and Michael Patrick Walker. Edelstein will make his Old Globe directorial debut with Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale. Rounding out the season are the California Premiere of Pulitzer Prize winner Water by the Spoonful by Quiara Alegría Hudes, the West Coast Premiere of Bethanyby Laura Marks, the J.B. Priestley classic Time and the Conways and Christopher Durang’s current Broadway hit Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike.

The 2013-14 Season will also include the 16th annual production of Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas! Tickets to the Globe’s 2013-14 Season are currently available by subscription only. Subscription prices range from $94 to $606.50. Subscription packages may be purchased online at www.TheOldGlobe.org, by phone at (619) 23-GLOBE or by visiting the Box Office.

For complete details about the new season, including descriptions and biographies of the artists, please view the press release.

MEET THE CAST OF BE A GOOD LITTLE WIDOW!

MEET THE CAST AND DIRECTOR OF OTHER DESERT CITIES!

CAST AND CREATIVE TEAM ANNOUNCED FOR BE A GOOD LITTLE WIDOW

(4/19/13) • The Old Globe has announced the complete cast and creative team for the West Coast Premiere of Bekah Brunstetter’s quirky and tender comedy Be a Good Little Widow. Directed by Hal Brooks, Be a Good Little Widow will run May 11 – June 9, 2013 in the Sheryl and Harvey White Theatre, part of the Globe’s Conrad Prebys Theatre Center.

Melody thought being a young wife was hard—until she became a widow. Luckily her mother-in-law Hope is an expert in the field. As she navigates the prickly terrain of pressed black dresses, well-meant advice and inappropriate outbursts, she stumbles toward understanding what it means to find someone through losing them. A bittersweet look at the messy parts of life, Be a Good Little Widow contemplates how grief, devotion and hope can persevere within us all.

“I’m proud to welcome the very talented Bekah Brunstetter and her delicate and touching play to the Globe,” said Artistic Director Barry Edelstein. “One of this theater’s most important jobs is to introduce San Diego audiences to the voices that will shape the next period in the American theater, and Bekah’s is surely one of those. Be a Good Little Widow is a gentle work, humane and intimate, and I marvel at how its light touch delivers such a moving evening in the theater.”

The cast features Christine Estabrook (Hope), Ben Graney (Craig), Kelsey Kurz (Brad) and Zoë Winters (Melody).

The creative team includes Jason Simms (Scenic Design), David Israel Reynoso (Costume Design), Seth Reiser (Lighting Design), Ryan Rumery (Sound Design), Caparelliotis Casting (Casting) and Anjee Nero (Stage Manager).

To view more photos of the team from Be a Good Little Widow, visit our Facebook page!

THERE ARE NO VILLAINS IN IBSEN

(4/15/13) • Ibsen did not write melodramas peopled by heroes and villains, "good guys" and "bad guys." Although he absorbed much of his playwriting technique from the hundreds of melodramas and well-made plays he stage managed during his early years, he was uniquely able to disguise some of the mechanics we associate with these types of plays by creating seemingly real people, believably fleshed out in three dimensions. Ibsen's men and women are no cartoon characters, no conventional types.

Ibsen relies especially on speech as he masterfully creates his individualized characters. Everyone in A Doll's House has his or her own way of speaking, but the central character, Nora, has an entire repertoire of different voices. In addition to her own voice when she is alone, she has one voice as her husband Torvald's "little bird," another with her friend Kristine, another with the nursemaid Anne-Marie and yet another with her children. With Krogstad, who is blackmailing Nora to keep his job, she is straightforward, cold and disdainful — no point in trying to charm him. With Torvald and his friend Rank her speech has a caressing, lilting quality, and she uses a childish, limited vocabulary along with a repertoire of attitudes: breathless enthusiasm, pouting, cajoling, flattering, teasing. In other words, Ibsen creates a woman who hides her own intellect beneath a role she is playing. Audiences beware — do not for a moment believe that the little bird you see in the first scene with Helmer is the real Nora. Nora is neither heroine nor flibbertigibbet. She may be poorly educated, spoiled and immature; her notions of loans and the law may be laughably naive. But she is no little bird.

Ibsen avoids stereotypes by creating carefully observed and original characters and scrupulously providing motivations for their actions. If we were able to hear with ears of the 1880s, we would fully understand the demands, constraints and pressures that explain — though may not legally excuse — Krogstad's actions. Krogstad is no Iago. He is a victim of circumstance who is struggling to survive.

Nor is Torvald Helmer a villain, though he has certainly been played as such. Ibsen's contemporaries saw Helmer not as an archenemy of feminism, but as a fine, educated, honest lawyer and an unusually indulgent and tender spouse, pushed to the limit by his wife's behavior. They understood that as the head of an Aktiebank — a new type of bank that relied for its success on the integrity and unassailable reputation of its manager — Helmer would indeed be utterly ruined if Nora's dealings with Krogstad became known. Nor is Nora blameless in their unequal marriage. In modern parlance, Helmer and Nora are codependent. They perform for each other, he the role of the noble, indulgent male protector, she the helpless female seeking shelter under his wing.

If there is any villain in A Doll's House, it is, as in other Ibsen plays, dead conventions, preconceived notions, accepted dogma, impossible ideals — "ghosts." All the characters in the play are hemmed in, some by physical, economic or social constraints, some by ideals that they are trying to live up to. Nora throws off these constraints and sees that the "most wonderful of all, a true marriage" between herself and Torvald would be impossible.

Ibsen's skillfully created characters seem like people we know. (He said that of all his characters, Nora was the one he felt he knew best.) We hope you will come to know them, too, as you meet them where he envisioned them — fully alive, on stage.

—Danielle Mages Amato

(Photo: Henrik Ibsen, 1863. Photo courtesy of the National Library of Norway.)

THE LAST GOODBYE, FEATURING THE MUSIC OF JEFF BUCKLEY, WILL OPEN THE 2013-14 SEASON

(4/10/13) • The Old Globe will open its 2013-14 Season with The Last Goodbye, a new musical that marries Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and the incendiary songs of the legendary singer-songwriter Jeff Buckley. Conceived and adapted by Michael Kimmel, the rock musical is directed by two-time Tony Award nominee Alex Timbers (Peter and the Starcatcher, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson). Choreography is by Sonya Tayeh (“So You Think You Can Dance”), and orchestrations, music direction and arrangements are by Kris Kukul. The complete creative team and casting, as well as the remainder of the Globe’s new season, will be announced at a later date. The Last Goodbye will run on the Donald and Darlene Shiley Stage in the Old Globe Theatre, part of the Globe’s Conrad Prebys Theatre Center, Sept. 20 – Nov. 3, 2013.

The Last Goodbye is a remarkable fusion of the classic and the modern, melding Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, in its original text and period, with some of the most thrilling rock music of the past 20 years, staged with limitless invention by one of the true theatrical visionaries at work today. That light in yonder window is still the east and Juliet is still the sun . . . but the sound in her bedchamber is all new: the sweeping, emotional and extraordinarily beautiful songs of the late rock icon Jeff Buckley. The Last Goodbye views the feud between the Capulets and the Montagues firmly from the perspective of the young people it impacts most, and the violence, turmoil and passion in the public streets and private rooms of Verona are given voice not only through Shakespeare’s celebrated poetry but also through music that is intimate and epic, raucous and sublime.

“I am deeply proud and very excited to launch the Globe’s 2013-14 Season, and my tenure as Artistic Director here, with The Last Goodbye,” said Barry Edelstein. “This daring, moving and hugely entertaining work brings together many of the things that are central to the Globe’s identity: a classic text, the vibrant energies of the musical theater, a sumptuous and splendid production and a creative team of the first rank in the American Theater. It’s a particular thrill to welcome Alex Timbers to the Globe, an artist whose work delights and surprises and whose sensibility renews the American musical in ways I both appreciate and admire. I know that audiences in San Diego and beyond will love this powerful and original show.”

“I cannot imagine a better launching pad for this project than The Old Globe,” said Mary Guibert, mother of the late Mr. Buckley. “Michael Kimmel's concept, which combines Jeff's music and the Bard's words, lifts the story to another level, entirely . . . and it rocks! I can't wait to share it with the world.”

DON'T MISS A DOLL'S HOUSE!

(4/7/13) • Critics and audiences love The Old Globe's productions of A Doll’s House! The world premiere adaptation of Henrik Ibsen's masterpiece, about a wife's dangerous sacrifice to save her husband, runs through April 21 at The Old Globe. Don't miss your chance to see this moving classic brought to new life!

CRITIC'S CHOICE
“Henrik Ibsen's classic has lost none of its gripping power!
It's easy to get swept away by this well-directed tale.”
-U-T San Diego

“EXHILARATING!
The dialogue and characterizations are crisp, clear and contemporary.
The cast is exceptional, anchored by Gretchen Hall's dazzlingly nuanced performance as Nora.”
-Jazz 88 FM

“Gretchen Hall's transformation from giddy housewife and mother to desperate woman
makes every minute of this intriguing scenario tick with intensity.”
-La Jolla Light

“The Old Globe shows A Doll's House can still resonate.”
-San Diego CityBeat

To view additional photos from A Doll's House, visit our Facebook page!

CAST AND CREATIVE TEAM ANNOUNCED FOR OTHER DESERT CITIES

(4/5/13) • The Old Globe has announced the complete cast and creative team of the San Diego premiere of Jon Robin Baitz’s award-winning family drama Other Desert Cities. Directed by Richard Seer, Other Desert Cities will run on the Donald and Darlene Shiley Stage in the Old Globe Theatre, part of the Globe’s Conrad Prebys Theatre Center, April 27 – June 2, 2013.

“Jon Robin Baitz is one of the most important playwrights now working in the American Theater, and everything that makes him such a significant voice is on striking display in Other Desert Cities,” said Artistic Director Barry Edelstein. “The play is a detailed and humane exploration of how the crosscurrents that flow through the world around us can buffet even our most intimate relationships. Set in Palm Springs, it’s also a sharp and captivating look at what makes California so unique—and as a newcomer to the state, I appreciate the insights! I’m happy to have the play on our stage, especially in the capable hands of Globe favorite Richard Seer.”

Novelist Brooke Wyeth is home in Palm Springs for the holidays with a copy of her latest manuscript—one she’s not showing her parents. Her brother Trip is a reality show producer, her father Lyman a former movie actor turned politician, her mother Polly a ’60s-era comedy writer turned socialite—but now long-buried secrets threaten to put her picture-perfect famous family back on the tabloid pages. Other Desert Cities is a riveting portrait of a prominent family and their very public fall from grace.

Three Old Globe Associate Artists return to the Globe stage for this explosive family reunion: Kandis Chappell (Polly Wyeth), Robert Foxworth (Lyman Wyeth) and Robin Pearson Rose (Silda Grauman). Joining them on stage are Dana Green (Brooke Wyeth) and Andy Bean (Trip Wyeth).

The creative team includes Alexander Dodge (Scenic Design), Charlotte Devaux (Costume Design), York Kennedy (Lighting Design), Paul Peterson (Sound Design), Caparelliotis Casting (Casting) and Diana Moser (Stage Manager).

To view more photos of the team from Other Desert Cities, visit our Facebook page!