IN THIS ISSUE:

• DANCING IN THE DARK: Globe's thrilling world-premiere musical extended one week!

• Dancing with Douglas Carter Beane
• Broadway & Hollywood
• The Band Wagon
• Rise of the Revue
• Production Sponsors

• THE AMERICAN PLAN: West Coast premiere playing now through March 30

• Q & A with Playwright Richard Greenberg
• The Borscht Belt of the Catskills
• An Excerpt from Philip Roth
  

• GLOBE RECEIVES KRESGE FOUNDATION CHALLENGE GRANT

• FAREWELL TO THE CASSIUS CARTER CENTRE STAGE

• EDUCATION: OLD GLOBE TEACHING ARTISTS

• UPCOMING EVENTS
   •  Nights At The Globe
   •  Spring and Summer Upcoming Productions

DANCING IN THE DARK Globe's Thrilling world-premiere musical extended one week! Must Close April 20!

Now - April 20
Based on the classic MGM musical "The Band Wagon"
Book by Douglas Carter Beane
Adapted from the screenplay by Betty Comden and Adolph Green
Music by Arthur Schwartz   |   Lyrics by Howard Dietz   |   Directed by Gary Griffin
Produced by permission of Warner Brothers Theatre Ventures, Inc.
The Old Globe Theatre

Photos: Mara Davi and Scott Bakula; (center; l-r) Patrick Page, Mara Davi and Scott Bakula with the ensemble; Tony Award-winner Beth Leavel and Adam Heller. Photos by Craig Schwartz.

In the Globe's exciting world premiere production of Dancing in the Dark, Tony Hunter (Scott Bakula) is a Hollywood star with a career on the wane. Jeffrey Cordova (Patrick Page) is a Shakespearean actor-manager with a taste for high art. Together they team up with a diverse assortment of theatrical personalities to create a new musical that’s strictly “entertainment.” With a score packed with classics like “A Shine on Your Shoes,” that quintessential ode to show business, “That’s Entertainment!,” and the title song, Dancing in the Dark has audiences dancing in the aisles!

"CRITICS CHOICE!A seriously fun musical.  It’d be a surprise not to see this show make its way to New York, just like its own musical-within-a-musical.  Dancing makes the sale!"
     — San Diego Union-Tribune

“A clever and affectionate homage to the magic of showbiz.  They’ve got a winner on their hands!”
     —Orange County Register

“A good old-fashioned musical with contemporary humor, big-wow dance numbers and a strong cast, Dancing is the kind of smart crowd-pleaser that Broadway doesn’t make anymore!”
     — North County Times

•  Click here for artists interviews and performance footage.
•  Read more about the cast and creative team
•  Buy Tickets

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DANCING WITH DOUGLAS CARTER BEANE

Dancing in the Dark is not playwright Douglas Carter Beane’s first movie-musical adaptation, yet his approach to writing the book for this MGM favorite had to be much different from his work on Xanadu, the 2007 Broadway hit that was based on the notoriously bad 1980 movie starring Olivia Newton-John. The Band Wagon, the movie on which Dancing in the Dark is based, was nominated for three Academy Awards, including Best Music (Scoring of a Musical Picture) to Adolph Deutsch, and Best Writing (Story and Screenplay) to Betty Comden and Adolph Green. It was also recently rated #17 on the American Film Institute’s list of the 25 Greatest Movie Musicals. Conversely, Xanadu was a box office flop, and was even nominated for six “Razzies” – awards for the worst acting, worst directing, etc. – including “Worst Musical.” The vastly different track records of the two movie-musicals offered Beane the opportunity to explore adaptation in a new light.

“The thing about Xanadu is,” he explains, “it is so awful, but the soundtrack was hugely successful. So most people knew the basic premise and the score. There was a certain freedom to that. Most people who see the show on Broadway now haven't even seen the movie.

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BROADWAY AND HOLLYWOOD
By Laurence Maslon, from the official PBS website for
BROADWAY: THE AMERICAN MUSICAL, a 2004 documentary film by Michael Kantor.

Fred Asaire and Cyd Charisse in The Band Wagon film, 1953.

By the 1930s, the theater and film capitals of America were separated by an entire continent. In the early days of the Great Depression, artists had to make a choice: stay in New York, with its harsh winters and gray, shuffling breadlines, working for a business staggering from layoffs and cutbacks; or move to Hollywood, where it was sunny all year round, smelled of eucalyptus, and money was thrown at you in fistfuls by studio executives. Which would you choose? It is, of course, a trick question. Although the motion picture studios jumped at the chance to add musicals to their rosters after the introduction of sound with The Jazz Singer in 1927, it was several years before they mastered the technology of filming a musical successfully. Sound reproduction was tinny and false, and camera movement severely limited.

Scene from 42nd Street

None of this kept the Hollywood studios from exploiting the novelty of sound musicals. They acquired and filmed an enormous amount of material from 1927 to 1932. Film musicals were either portmanteau revues like King of Jazz, Hollywood Revue of 1929, or Paramount on Parade; awkwardly filmed stage adaptations like The Cocoanuts, Sally, or Show Boat (1929); or newly crafted stories, often with a backstage theme that glamorized that cosmopolitan city on the East Coast (The Broadway Melody, Broadway Babes, Footlights and Fools). Unfortunately, Hollywood glutted the market with an inferior product, and by the early '30s, audiences were turned off by the technical limitations of the film musical. A former marine drill instructor and Broadway dance director named Busby Berkeley turned all this around. In 1933, he conceived the dances to the quintessential backstage film musical, 42nd Street. His visual skill at manipulating both chorus girls and the camera finally made a string of backstage yarns successful for Warner Bros. Soon, the other studios were churning out their own musical styles (Paramount, elegant and sophisticated; MGM, glossy and overblown; RKO, Astaire and Rogers), and the Hollywood musical reached its heyday with a barrage of original musicals that would enrapture depression-era America.

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THE BAND WAGON

The Band Wagon was originally conceived as a musical revue by composer Arthur Schwartz and lyricist Howard Dietz and premiered on Broadway on June 3, 1931. It featured the talents of Fred Astaire and his sister Adele, as well as actors Frank Morgan, Helen Broderick, and Philip Loeb. Schwartz and Dietz wrote some of their most memorable songs for The Band Wagon, including “Dancing in the Dark" and “Something to Remember You By." Unlike the traditional musical format, The Band Wagon did not tell an ongoing story; instead, it featured individual skits that were written by playwright and humorist George S. Kaufman. (See below for a history of the musical revue.)

Both Schwartz and Dietz began in other professions; Schwartz was trained as a lawyer, and Dietz had a day job as MGM's advertising manager (he created their famous lion mascot). Their eventual partnership in show business seemed fated. “When they began collaborating at the end of the 1920s,” Broadway historian Laurence Maslon recalls, “they made beautiful music together. They rode in on the coattails of the ‘Little Shows,’ intimate, sophisticated revues that gave audiences some relief from the bombast of [Florenz] Ziegfeld and [George] White.” In addition to The Band Wagon, the team wrote three other successful revues: Three's a Crowd, Flying Colors, and At Home Abroad.

Betty Comden and Adolph Green

In 1953, MGM released the film version of The Band Wagon. Although many of the original songs were featured in the movie, Schwartz and Dietz added other numbers, most notably “That’s Entertainment!,” which quickly became a Broadway standard. The Kaufman skits were traded for a screenplay by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, who were coming off of another MGM favorite, Singin’ in the Rain. Casting was also overhauled; while Fred Astaire remained on the project, legendary dancer Cyd Charisse joined the production, as well as Oscar Levant and Nanette Fabray, who played the husband-and-wife writing team patterned after Comden and Green themselves. The Band Wagon earned three Academy Award nominations.

— Kim Montelibano Heil

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Fred and Adele Astaire in The Band Wagon "revue", 1931

In the years between the world wars, nothing on Broadway catered to Manhattan nightlife like the revue. During the RoaringTwenties, nearly 150 revues opened on Broadway. Pioneered by Florenz Ziegfeld and his elegant “Follies," revues allowed for an ever-shifting variety of songs, dances, skits, and production numbers. Idiosyncratic comics, specialty dancers, emotive singers, and chorus girls all found a home for their particular talents. Costume and scenic designers’ flash, color, topicality, and brazenness caught the spirit of the age. Revues had their conveniences, too; unlike musical comedies, you could miss the first act and it wouldn't make any difference. Revues could be assembled easily, and there was always room for an additional investor, whether it was a newly minted Wall Street broker with a crush on a showgirl or a bootlegging gangster who wanted to see his girlfriend installed at the end of a chorus line. There were so many chances for a songwriter to get his number placed in a show that the revue became the greatest incubator for popular music the country has ever seen.

After the advent of the narrative musical with Oklahoma! in 1943, it was harder to engage audience interest in a disconnected show. Television put the final nail in the coffin of the revue in 1948 by offering topical material, comedy, and dancing with a speed and economy that the Broadway stage could no longer match.

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The Old Globe would like to thank the following sponsors who have generously underwritten this production of Dancing in the Dark:

SHERYL AND HARVEY WHITE Sheryl and Harvey White have played and continue to play an essential role at The Old Globe. The Whites began their association with the Globe as season ticket holders, then Founder Circle donors and Production Sponsors. They have served as Season Sponsors for the past nine years, and Sheryl and Harvey have provided essential leadership to the Theatre, each serving as Chair of the Globe’s Board of Directors. Harvey currently is on the Board of Directors and serves as Co-Chair of the Globe’s Capital and Endowment Campaign Committee. Sheryl co-chaired her fifth Globe Gala this past year, and Harvey was one of the chairs for the Globe’s 70th Anniversary Gala in 2005. The Whites have previously sponsored The Times They Are A-Changin’, Don Juan, Pentecost, Imaginary Friends and Misalliance. Harvey and Sheryl have endorsed The Old Globe’s artistic vision through a generous leadership gift of $5 million, helping to build a dynamic new era for the Globe and a $1 million endowment gift to help secure the Globe for generations to come.

PETER COOPER AND NORMAN BLACHFORD Peter Cooper and Norman Blachford are longtime supporters of The Old Globe and well known for their philanthropic activities and community activism. Norman founded a manufacturing firm producing noise control materials for the transportation industry. Now retired, he enjoys traveling and helping others as a major philanthropist. Peter is a member of the Globe’s Board of Directors, serving on the Education and Nominating Committees. While running a successful commercial/industrial lighting company in San Diego, Peter also serves on the Board of the San Diego Youth Symphony and Conservatory and the Rendezvous In The Zoo (Ritz) Committee for the San Diego Zoo. Together with Norman, they are Founding Council members of The Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law, and are actively involved with the San Diego Human Dignity Foundation.

The Old Globe is proud to recognize California Bank & Trust as a sponsor for its production of Dancing in the Dark. California Bank & Trust is a longtime supporter of the Globe, providing volunteer and financial contributions for several productions including Hay Fever, The Sisters Rosensweig, The Lady with All the Answers, Dinner with Friends, Julius Caesar and Pericles. Joel Ewan, Executive Vice President of California Bank & Trust, serves on the Globe’s Board of Directors, and Sandra Redman, Senior Vice President and Manager of California Bank & Trust’s Private Banking Division, serves on the Globe’s Executive Board and is the Chair of the Nominating Committee.

THE AMERICAN PLAN West Coast premiere playing now through March 30

NOW - MARCH 30
By Richard Greenberg
Directed by Kim Rubinstein
Cassius Carter Centre Stage

(L-R): Kate Arrington, Sandra Shipley and Patrick Zeller; Patrick Zeller, Kate Arrington, Sharon Hope and Sandra Shipley; Patrick Zeller and Michael Kirby; photos by Craig Schwartz.

Tony Award-winning playwright Richard Greenberg (Take Me Out, Three Days of Rain) is considered one of the American theatre’s greatest living playwrights. Set in an idyllic Catskills lake retreat in the early 1960's, The American Plan tells the tale of an elegant and imperious German-Jewish refugee mother, her eccentric daughter who strains against her mother’s tight leash, and the mysterious young man who enters their lives.
FOR MATURE AUDIENCES.

"Nuanced direction brings out poignance in Greenberg's 'American Plan'."
            — North County Times

CRITICS CHOICE! "Expertly nuanced, with smartly crafted plot turns and a talented cast."
            — San Diego Union-Tribune

"..."The American Plan," making its belated but most welcome West Coast debut at the Old Globe in a production marked by touches of elegance not unworthy of the master himself."
           –Variety


•  Read more about the cast and creative team
•  Buy Tickets

The American Plan is supported in part, by the following generous sponsors:

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Playwright Richard Greenberg recently spoke with Old Globe Co-Artistic Director Jerry Patch about writing The American Plan Patch has served as dramaturg on many of Greenberg’s plays.

Jerry Patch: Going back 20 years, where did this play come from?
Richard Greenberg: I don’t know. I got into Yale [Drama School] with the first play I’d ever written, and then had two plays in New York before I graduated. The second one got a lot of attention, so I was launched into this very public career. Back then, people were eager to find new playwrights. And, you know...you can learn something from drama school but it’s sort of a time-release thing. You don’t really understand it until you’re ready to, and I wasn’t ready to be paid attention to, to be scrutinized so closely. So I got into a little trouble after the first couple of plays. Then I realized after my Yale education that I had to turn into an autodidact. I decided I needed to write plays with very evident plots, so that I could get the feel when something was working, when the play added up to something, was finished? The easiest way was when it was clearly testable, which happens with plot-heavy plays, or plays where the plot is on the surface. You can test it against reality, you can test it against tradition – you could just test these plays. And so I wrote The Author’s Voice, which was a kind of gothic farce, and then I wrote The American Plan which has a lot of plot....for me. I knew I was putting together a lot of genres, but at the time it didn’t seem to me a problem, or problematic. I just said, “Well, of course! It’s just a gothic-melodrama-high-comedy-problem play. Why not?” I was telling a story, and you can tell when that kind of story is finished. So it was really a part of my self-education that followed my conservatory education.

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During the mid-century summers of 1940-1965 Jewish families living in New York City swarmed to the resorts and bungalow colonies of the Catskill Mountains in upstate New York, an area that became known as “Borscht Belt.” Resorts such as Grossinger’s, Kutsher’s, and The Concord were known for their kosher menus, their roster of daily activities, and their nightly entertainment, which often featured up-and-coming Jewish comics such as Carl Reiner and Lenny Bruce.

The bungalow colonies catered to the working class and many offered the same recreational activities and communal R&R offered by the larger resorts. These places served as a seasonal refuge for the Jews, especially at a time when Jewish communities were often “restricted” from the larger society. Some families were recent immigrants to the US, and found acceptance among others in the Catskills who shared not only their faith but their daily habits and values. But some families, like the Adlers in Richard Greenberg’s The American Plan, did not fit in as easily. German Jews who had fled Europe and the Nazis were out of place in these resorts for working and business class American Jews. Often the Germans were the “cultured” Jews, who had enjoyed more privileged lives than the “shtetl” Jews of Eastern Europe. But for vast majority of Jewish families, the Catskills offered them the opportunity to relax while their children enjoyed the outdoors – an experience the Borscht Belt delivered for decades.

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AN EXCERPT FROM "THE PROFESSOR OF DESIRE," BY PHILIP ROTH “Hey little Kepesh, come here,” say the guests. “Who do you want to be like when you grow up?” Temptation comes to me first in the conspicuous personage of Herbie Bratasky, social director, bandleader, crooner, comic and m.c. of my family’s mountainside resort hotel. When he is not trussed up in the elasticized muscleman’s swim trunks which he dons to conduct rumba lessons by the side of the pool, he is dressed to kill, generally in his two-tone crimson and cream-colored “loafer” jacket and wide canary-yellow trousers that taper down to enchain him just above his white, perforated, sharpie’s shoes. A fresh slice of Black Jack gum is at the ready in his pocket while another is being savored, with slow-motion sassiness, in what my mother derisively describes as Herbie’s “yap.” Below the stylishly narrow alligator belt and the gold droop of key chain, one knee works away inside his trousers, Herbie keeping time to hides he alone hears being beaten in that Congo called his brain. Our brochure (from fourth grade on composed by me, in collaboration with the owner) headlines Herbie as “our Jewish Cugat, our Jewish Krupa – all rolled into one!”; further on he is described as “a second Danny Kaye,” and, in conclusion, just so that everyone understands that this 140-pound twenty-year-old is not nobody and Kepesh’s Hungarian Royale is not exactly nowhere, as “another Tony Martin.”... ...In summer, I am under the demon drummer’s spell. Then Yom Kippur comes and Bratasky goes, and what good does it do me to have learned what someone like that has to teach a growing boy? Our -witzes, -bergs, and -steins are dispersed overnight to regions as remote to me as Babylon – Hanging Gardens called Pelham and Queens and Hackensack. Philip Roth is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of 26 novels, and is much admired by playwright Richard Greenberg.

KRESGE FOUNDATION CHALLENGES YOU WITH A $1 MILLION GRANT

The Old Globe is pleased to announce the receipt of a $1 million challenge grant from the Kresge Foundation to help support the Globe’s Capital and Endowment Campaign. In order for the Globe to receive this grant, however, the Theatre must raise the remaining capital required to complete the Campaign, and your participation is vital.

Architectural rendering of the interior of the Sheryl and Harvey White Theatre.

The Securing a San Diego Landmark campaign was launched in March 2006 with the singular goal of securing the Globe’s long-term stability through: 1) new and updated facilities, 2) a special Artistic and Education Fund, 3) an enhanced annual fund and 4) an appropriately sized endowment. The Kresge Challenge Grant helps fund the first two pieces of this campaign, and in 2008 the Globe asks friends, subscribers and donors to help meet the Kresge Challenge.

One way for you to participate is by purchasing a personalized granite paver, which will be creatively designed into two prominent central locations on the new Copley Plaza. Payment plans are available, and pavers can be purchased at $10,000, $25,000 and $50,000 each.

New displays can be found in the theatre lobbies with information about a variety of naming opportunities, including the personalized granite pavers.

Help ensure that this great institution continues to thrive and grow for many years by
contributing today. For further information, please call the Development Department at (619) 231-1941 x2317.

ABOUT THE CONRAD PREBYS THEATRE CENTER

In June of 2008, The Old Globe will break ground on the new Conrad Prebys Theatre Center. In addition to technical and artistic support spaces for all three theatres, the facilities project will provide better access, new and improved amenities and an improved experience for all Globe patrons and visitors.

The Globe’s rejuvenated and enhanced facilities will support artistic and education goals and provide for the comfort and enjoyment of audiences and artists. The project includes:

• The Sheryl and Harvey White Theatre, a new arena stage replacing the Cassius Carter Centre Stage, will retain all of the benefits afforded both audiences and artists by having an intimate performance space. Nearly identical in size and configuration to the current facility, this theatre’s critically needed improvements will include: an expanded lobby and improved ADA-compliant accessibility for patrons with special needs, better stage access for actors and crew, a lighting grid and trap room, additional dressing rooms and a new green room to support all three theatres.
  
  
• The Karen and Donald Cohn Education Center will provide on-site classroom and performance space for the Globe’s education programs serving children, as well as adults. This new Education Center will help alleviate the ongoing challenge to simultaneously secure space for visiting artists, graduate students, children from local schools, teachers and others — whose needs are all vitally important to the Globe and the San Diego community.
  
  

  Architectural rendering of the new facility

• A Redesigned Copley Plaza, accessible year-round to the more than 12 million visitors in Balboa Park, will make more efficient use of the Globe’s public space in Balboa Park. The new Plaza will continue to serve as the Globe’s “outdoor lobby” for more than 620 performances and 300,000 admissions each year, as well as venue for the annual Globe Gala, free public events, education activities and the annual open house, which opens the summer Shakespeare Festival. With improved wheelchair accessibility, the new Plaza will provide additional seating areas and benches, as well as a new pavilion for outdoor dining.
  
  
• Upgraded Backstage, Technical and Support Spaces will help ensure the Globe’s continued ability to meet the needs and expectations of our creative teams. The high caliber of the Globe’s productions depends, in part, upon the theatre’s ability to offer outstanding technical support.

Globe Bids a Fond Farewell to the Cassius Carter Centre Stage
and Welcomes New Arena Theatre

With the Globe's production of The Glass Menagerie (April 12 - May 18), we bid farewell to the Cassius Carter Centre Stage.  In July 2008, construction will begin on the Globe’s new Conrad Prebys Theatre Center, which will house a new arena stage, the Sheryl and Harvey White Theatre, and the Karen and Donald Cohn Education Center, featuring Hattox Hall, a 1,700 square foot training and performance space.  But we cannot move on to this exciting future without taking a moment to honor the history of the space upon which the new facilities will rise.

The Carter itself is a reincarnation of an earlier space.  It began as the Falstaff Tavern, part of the 1935 International Exposition in Balboa Park, a “Merrie Olde Englande” theme restaurant featuring hearty English fare served by waitresses in period costume. Following the Exposition, the space served at times as a rehearsal hall, as storage space for scenery and props, and even living quarters for the Globe’s then resident manager.  By 1963, the Globe was beginning to grow beyond its single theatre space, so 200 chairs on wooden risers turned the Falstaff Tavern into a performance space that housed 28 productions over the next six years.     

The success of productions in the Tavern prompted the Globe to invest in a second permanent stage retaining the intimacy of the Tavern space.  Using some of the original Tavern walls, architect Victor L. Wulff designed an arena theatre with 245 seats in four sections surrounding a 12.5 by 16.5 foot stage.  This new space was dubbed the Cassius Carter Centre Stage in honor of an early San Diegan who was both a Shakespearean scholar and San Diego’s District Attorney from 1902 to 1906. 

Over 40 years and 229 productions, the Carter has become a beloved space for audiences and artists alike.  Opening in 1969 with a production of Peter Ustinov’s anti-war satire The Unknown Soldier and His Wife, directed by Craig Noel, the Carter was an innovative space for, as an early program described it, “controversial, classical, experimental or seldom performed” plays.  Early productions ranged from Jean Genet’s The Balcony to Woody Allen’s Play It Again, Sam.   

Experimental 60s staging tended toward plain sets, sometimes even a bare stage, so the planners of that time could never have predicted the transformations later artists would imagine for the Carter.   The space has been everything from a lake, to a parade float, to a basement with a working coal chute, to a 3-dimensional maze.  And the weather we’ve conjured here!  There has been blazing sun, snow, dense fog precisely calibrated so that audiences could see the actors but not the audience on the opposite side, and rain falling from pipes above the perimeter of the stage (into carefully designed gutters to keep the audience dry).

And, as you know, the actors enter the stage by the same doors and stairs that the audience uses—as many actresses could tell you, quite a challenge in a hoop skirt!  But perhaps the greatest challenge to the arrangement of entrances and exits came in a production of Greater Tuna, when two actors played 11 characters, rushing from one door to another while changing on the fly from, for example, a grandma in a wig, birdseed-filled body form and cane to a dandy in a leisure suit and cowboy hat.

At 40 years old, the Carter has matured from an avant-garde member of the flower generation to a beloved grande dame, but, truth be told, she is showing her age.  The Carter will bequeath to its successor space all we have learned about staging in the round.  The new theatre will have the same configuration as the Carter but allow for even greater flexibility in set design and stage technology with the addition of new actor entrances, state-of-the-art lighting and audio systems, a new control room, and a full trap room under the stage.  Audience comfort will improve as well, with easier access to seats, more leg room, restrooms accessible from the lobby, and improved disabled accommodations.  Above all, we have made it our top priority to preserve the intimacy — the close-up relationship to actors and action — that has made the Carter so special. 

Thanks to the generosity of the Museum of Art, just next door to the Globe, we will be able to offer you uninterrupted enjoyment of close-up productions during the construction period.  For the 2008 and 2009 seasons, a near-replica of the Carter will be constructed in the Museum’s Copley Auditorium to house our arena stage productions.   

So, as we bid farewell, we look forward — to the newest evolution of this space that, from the beginning, has been devoted to cutting edge work in the craft of theatre.

EDUCATION EXPERIENCES: OLD GLOBE TEACHING ARTISTS

Teaching artist Amy Biedel guides students in a pre-show learning activity.

The Old Globe’s Education Department directly serves some 15,000 students each year through its various programs. Children of all ages are treated to top-notch professional theatrical productions on the Globe’s stages, In-School workshops and residencies, Backstage and Shakespeare-based Tours of the theatre, and the wildly successful Globe Readers Program. The Theatre has long been known for its commitment to education and to supporting the community’s access to live theatre.

It takes highly professional people to deliver the kind of quality programming for which The Old Globe is known. Our roster of professional Teaching Artists is at the core of that programming.

The term “Teaching Artist” is unfamiliar to most people and occasionally creates confusion when it is assumed that it refers only to visual artists. An artist is a practitioner of any of the major art forms. Visual art, dance, music, literary arts, and theatre are generally considered to be part of the category of The Arts. A Teaching Artist (TA) is an artist first and foremost. This artist is practicing his or her art form in the professional realm and has considerable knowledge, talent, and experience. But this professional artist also takes pleasure and joy in his or her ability to share that knowledge and talent with others. This artist enjoys a skill that not all artists possess. He or she is adept at teaching; a talent that sets him or her apart from the rest and elevates the artist to the level of master of the art form.

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UPCOMING EVENTS:

Photos by J. Katarzyna Woronowicz

Spend an Evening OUT AT THE GLOBE
Thursday, March 20 - Choose The American Plan OR Dancing in the Dark

An evening for gay and lesbian theatre lovers and the whole GLBT community. This event includes a hosted wine and martini bar, delicious appetizers, door prizes
and a pre-show mixer. Everyone is welcome.
Sponsored by Heaven Sent Desserts. Featured Performers: Swell! Ensemble from Gay Men's Chorus of San Diego.

Be sure to RSVP for "OUT AT THE GLOBE" when ordering!

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THANK GLOBE IT'S FRIDAY! - Add $19 to your ticket price*
Friday, March 21 - Choose The American Plan OR Dancing in the Dark

Kick off the weekend in style with friends at TGIF Martini Nights, our music-filled pre-show bash! Includes a hosted wine and martini bar, delicious appetizers and dessert, and live music from a local San Diego artist. Sponsored by Park Manor Suites Hotel. Featured Performer: Patti Zlaket.

ALL EVENTS TAKE PLACE FROM 6:30 - 7:45 PM IN THE GLOBE'S LOWER PLAZA, JUST STEPS AWAY FROM YOUR THEATRE SEATS.
They’re a festive way to relax and unwind before a stimulating evening of theatre, and the best way to connect with friends you invite to join you at the performance!

CALL TO RSVP (619) (234-5623) - AND ASK US HOW TO ADD PRE-SHOW EVENTS TO YOUR 2008 SEASON SUBSCRIPTIONS!
*The American Plan Tickets = $54; Dancing in the Dark Tickets = $69.

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SPRING AND SUMMER PRODUCTIONS:

THE GLASS MENAGERIE
April 12 - May 18, 2008
Cassius Carter Center Stage

Classic American Drama By Tennessee Williams Directed by Joe Calarco Mare Winningham The Old Globe’s “Classics Up Close” series continues with the play that established Tennessee Williams as one of the most riveting voices in the American theatre. Amanda Wingfield, played by two-time Emmy Award-winning actress Mare Winningham, reminisces about a tranquil Southern childhood and fights to provide a better life for her grown children Tom and Laura, while they struggle for a future that seems unlikely to fulfill their mother’s hopes and dreams. But a change in fortune suddenly seems possible with the arrival of the long-hoped-for “gentleman caller.” An unforgettable American classic! TICKETS ON SALE MARCH 30 AT 10 AM!

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Hershey Felder's
BEETHOVEN, AS I KNEW HIM
May 3- June 8, 2008
The Old Globe Theatre

World Premiere Text by Hershey Felder Directed by Joel Zwick Music by Ludwig Van Beethoven Hershey Felder brought Old Globe audiences to their feet last season with his portrayal of American master George Gershwin. His limited engagement as Monsieur Chopin was an instant sell-out. Now, because of the overwhelming reception he was given by San Diego audiences during his last visit, he is premiering his next tour-de-force on The Old Globe stage. With his one-of-a-kind style and virtuoso talent as a pianist and actor, Hershey Felder will bring to life one of the greatest composers of all time, the immortal Ludwig van Beethoven. You’ll never be closer to the music or to the genius who gave us these masterpieces than you will be at this must-see theatrical event! TICKETS ON SALE MARCH 30 AT 10 AM!

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THE OLD GLOBE 2008 SUMMER SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL
Under the stars in our beautiful outdoor theatre
June 14 - September 28 (in repertory)
Lowell Davies Festival Theatre

Lucas Hall in the title role of The Old Globe’s Summer 2007 Shakespeare Festival production of HAMLET. Photo by Craig Schwartz. ROMEO AND JULIET Directed by Richard Seer The most thrilling Shakespeare festival yet begins with swords clashing, duets danced, oaths of love sworn, and treacherous sleeping potions swallowed — in the greatest love story of all time. The Montague and Capulet families have been feuding for years. When young Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet meet by chance – Shakespeare’s “star-cross’d lovers” defy their entire world to be together, with the help of Juliet’s flighty Nurse and Romeo’s cunning advisor Friar Laurence. This romance of the ages has inspired countless adaptations – from film to opera to Broadway musicals like West Wide Story. Young love has never been so dangerous and delightful – as it is in San Diego’s most romantic theatre venue. THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR Directed by Paul Mullins The notorious Sir John Falstaff steps out of the world of court life to take up residence in the country town of Windsor. There he attempts to use his own celebrity to his advantage by seducing two happily married wives. But once the wives (and their husbands) find out the game that’s afoot, Shakespeare’s fat knight may find the last laugh to be on him. This sunny comedy is awash with wit, deception, and the fun to be had when one of literature’s most beloved larger-than-life personalities makes the mistake of underestimating small-town folk. ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL Directed by Darko Tresnjak Helena secretly loves Bertram. He’s of noble birth, while she’s just a doctor’s daughter. When the king becomes ill of a deadly disease, she offers him a miracle cure if he will grant her the husband of her choice. After he agrees and she chooses the unwilling Bertram, she finds that marriage and requited love are, sadly, worlds apart. But all is not lost in this enchanting Shakespearean fairy tale, in which true love goes hand in hand with the tenacious spirit of an indomitable heroine, who cunningly sets out to win the heart of her man. TICKETS ON SALE MAY 18!

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Q & A With Playwright Richard Greenberg continued

JP: What about the subject matter, or the setting?
RG: I don’t really remember where that came from. I think I started writing it when I was living in Woodstock.... I saw a woman who was in her 50s and her mother. The woman I knew of a bit, and she was delightful and somewhat scatty, and, I think, in pain. Her mother was sort of a looming, late Ibsen-esque figure. I saw them in one particularly heightened emotional situation. As the mother, who was in her 70s – even 80s – was talking, I could see the daughter’s mouth working, and it looked as if she was trying to swallow her mother’s words as they came out. And that stayed with me. It was a long time ago, so I can’t really account for all of it.

JP: What about the nature of that Catskills world you put your characters in?
RG: One of the reasons I put them there was because they as a family don’t belong there. It’s a perverse choice to put them in one of those old resorts like The Concord with all the middle class Jews from Brooklyn and the Bronx. They’re German Jews; they’re fancy, rich, and completely out of place.

* * * * *

TWO LYRICS FROM KILROY'S CARNIVAL: A Masque

I Aria

"--Kiss me there where pride is glittering
Kiss me where I am ripened and round fruit
Kiss me wherever, however, I am supple, bare and flare
(Let the bell be rung as long as I am young:
let ring and fly like a great bronze wing!)

"--I'll kiss you wherever you think you are poor,
Wherever you shudder, feeling striped or barred,
Because you think you are bloodless, skinny or marred:
Until, until
your gaze has been stilled--
Until you are shamed again no more!
I'll kiss you until your body and soul
the mind in the body being fulfilled--
Suspend their dread and civil war!"

II Song

Under the yellow sea
Who comes and looks with me
For the daughters of music, the fountains of poetry?
Both have soared forth from the unending waters
Where all things still are seeds and far from flowers
And since they remain chained to the sea's powers
May wilt to nonentity or loll and arise to comedy
Or thrown into mere accident through irrelevant incident
Dissipate all identity ceaselessly fragmented by the ocean's
immense and intense, irresistible and insistent action,
Be scattered like the sand is, purposely and relentlessly,
Living in the summer resorts of the dead endlessly.

—Delmore Schwartz

* * * * *

The Borscht Belt continued

Nighttime entertainment offered vacationers the chance to watch first-class comedy. Catskills comedians, whose self-deprecating stand-up routines satirized Jewish life, became “Borscht Belt comics.” Myron Cohen was among such comedians, touting jokes that poked fun at Jewish types:

Son walks in on Old World, traditional father, who's watching a basketball game. Son is stunned: “Dad, I didn't know you liked basketball; what's the score?" Dad replies, “78 to 62." “Who's winning?" Dad says, “78."

Also popular was song parodist Allan Sherman, who was best known for the 1963 hit “Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh,” which chronicled summer camp misery. In his essay, “Shine on, Harvey Bloom: Why Allan Sherman Made Us Laugh,” Ken Kalfus remembers how Sherman “made Jewish humor about Jewish people mainstream humor”: “[Sherman’s song parodies] expressed Jews' apartness from mainstream American culture, at a time when the culture itself was about to go counter....The fact that many listeners besides myself barely recognized the songs on which Sherman's parodies were based - including, for heaven's sake, ‘The Battle Hymn of the Republic’ - suggests how distant we found ourselves from the supposed center of the culture.”

While visitors to the Borscht Belt may have felt separated from the rest of the country, comics like Cohen and Sherman threw a more humorous light on the Jewish identity, bonding the Catskills guests further as a community. Ironically, vacationers came to the Borscht Belt less frequently as Jews became more assimilated into mainstream society in later decades, and eventually most resorts closed for good. But, for a brief period, the summers in the Borscht Belt represented more than just a vacation for the scores of Jews who came with their families. It was a place and time when they belonged.

Dancing with Douglas Carter Beane continued

“The Band Wagon is loved by people in the theatre, but most people don't know it,” Beane says of his current project.

“There is a greater level of respect in my adaptation of Dancing in the Dark. There is also a deeper and richer story I wish to tell than there ever was in Xanadu.”

The “greater level of respect” that Beane speaks of refers to his reverence to the original material, authored by Comden and Green, who were friends of Beane’s. He was fortunate to have discussed the project with Comden, who gave him a copy of the original shooting script. “In a weird way [adapting The Band Wagon is] like I’m having a conversation with an old friend,” he says of the process. “Adolph and I had spoken about The Band Wagon — he was very forthcoming about its flaws and strengths. This conversation happened long before I even considered working on it.

“Sadly,” he adds, “Betty passed away before I could show her anything I had written. But when you see the show — there are plenty of places where I make a point of referencing Betty and Adolph’s life and shows and performing style. And these moments are done with the utmost love.”

L-R: Douglas Carter Beane, Gary Griffin and Lou Spisto. Photo by Craig Schwartz.

As a playwright, Beane not only made waves with Xanadu but with his play The Little Dog Laughed, which was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Play in 2007. The four-character piece is a lot more intimate than the large-scale spectacle of both of his musical adaptations, proving his dexterity in writing both straight plays and musical theatre. He notes that there are payoffs in both genres.

“Musicals have so many different and exciting departments — you never feel alone on a musical. A play can be lonely.” He thinks about it. “But then the playwright is all powerful in a play — so it balances out. Power but loneliness.”

As for the criticism that musicals lack depth and meaning, Beane scoffs. “If [musicals] are criticized this way, it is being done by an extremely shallow person,” he says. “The Band Wagon is about a man returning home. It is about a loner becoming a part of a community for the first time. It is the prodigal son, bruised and broken and returning to his real life. And it has a great hayride number.”

So what kind of project is next on Beane’s dance card?

“I like stories that talk about who we are, in America,” he says. “No matter when it is set."

“And,” he adds cheekily, “there should be a great hayride number.”

— Kim Montelibano Heil

* * * * *

Broadway and Hollywood continued

Cyd Charisse and Fred Astaire from The Band Wagon film

Every major Broadway songwriter was under some kind of film contract by the early 1930s. Irving Berlin was initially distrustful of film technology and studio interference, but he was lured back to write Top Hat for Astaire and Rogers and began a healthy relationship with various studios. (The greatest hit he — anyone — ever wrote, White Christmas, came out of the 1942 film Holiday Inn). The Gershwins loved the lifestyle of Hollywood but frequently commuted back and forth to the East Coast until George's negative reviews on Porgy and Bess sent him back into the arms of RKO. Jerome Kern, never one to suffer fools, surprisingly liked Hollywood. He teamed up with various studio-contracted lyricists like Dorothy Fields, Johnny Mercer, even Ira Gershwin, and produced some of his most extraordinary songs: “The Way You Look Tonight," “I'm Old-Fashioned," and “Long Ago and Far Away." Cole Porter was easily amenable to the assembly-line method of creating songs in Hollywood; he was always content to toss out one song and start over again on another.

Fred Astaire, Nanette Fabray and Jack Buchanan in The Band Wagon film, 1953

But Hollywood never had the one thing Broadway reveled in: creative freedom. In addition to interference by studio chiefs and producers, Hollywood had its own form of self-censorship. The Production Code, better known as the Hays Code, was introduced in 1934. Even if film producers wanted sophisticated Broadway material reproduced intact on its sound stages, the Hays Code made that impossible.

Hollywood soon relied on its own stable of songwriters. Harold Arlen’s and Johnny Mercer’s “Blues in the Night," “One for My Baby," and “That Old Black Magic" came from some utterly forgettable movies. Sadly, their one great ambition was to write a hit Broadway musical. It never happened. The most spectacular songwriting team in Hollywood was Harry Warren and Al Dubin, who created the scores for the Busby Berkeley movies with such legendary numbers as “I Only Have Eyes for You" and “Lullaby of Broadway." Other writers like Dorothy Fields, Frank Loesser, and Jule Styne were nurtured by the studio system and able to extend their successes to Broadway in the late 1940s and 1950s when Hollywood musical production was slowing down.

When Hollywood did buy the rights to a Broadway property, it rarely, if ever, made its way to celluloid intact. Wholesale revisionism was typical of Hollywood, especially with shows from the 1930s, but even small changes in the book musicals of the 1940s and 1950s changed their tone: the 1950 version of On the Town throws away the World War II setting so crucial to its meaning; Kiss Me, Kate in 1953 kept most of the score, but idiotically has someone pretending to be Cole Porter sort of introducing the movie.

Broadway producers, songwriters, and librettists learned to cry all the way to the bank as film options on their material became more and more frequent in the 1950s. Record sums for the rights to shows like My Fair Lady topped out at $5 million. Hollywood would have the last laugh on its East Coast detractors, flooding Broadway in the 1980s and 1990s with stage versions of original Hollywood musicals such as Gigi, 42nd Street, Singing in the Rain, Meet Me in St. Louis,and Footloose, as well as Disney animated films like The Lion King.

— Laurence Maslon is the associate arts professor at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. With Michael Kantor, Maslon is the co-author of the companion volume, BROADWAY: THE AMERICAN MUSICAL, published in 2004 by Bulfinch Press.

Teaching Artists continued

Eric Booth, actor, Teaching Artist, writer and speaker, gives this description of the etymology of the term Teaching Artist:

"It seems that the term was officially coined by June Dunbar at Lincoln Center Institute in the early 1970s. In answer to my question about this anecdotal history, she wrote, ‘I guess I was the originator of the term Teaching Artist. I came up with the words as a reaction to the dreadful one used by my rather short-lived predecessor at what was then known as the Education Department at Lincoln Center. The words she used to describe the activities of artists in schools sounded to me like a description for a typewriter repairman, plumber or an irritating educationalese term: Resource Professional. Anyway, my term seemed more direct and specific, and it has stuck.’ So, at its origin, the new term shifted the identity of this artist-educator away from the needs of the institutions involved toward the unique hybrid practice we still struggle to define; and it put ‘artist’ at the center.”

In the ensuing nearly three decades, the term has been used within the network of Institutes of Aesthetic Education, led by Lincoln Center Institute, and has appeared in other programs too. In recent years, the term has gained wider use, by many different programs and by individuals; as Richard Burrows wrote, ‘I have noticed the term Teaching Artist has been appropriated nationally as a designation of this kind of work.’ "

Burrows’ comment is important because “this kind of work” has evolved over the course of the 30-odd years that the term Teaching Artist has been in use. In the 1970s educators were beginning to re-recognize the role of the Arts in education. Educational philosophy had changed and the classic Greek ideal of the truly educated person having a base of knowledge in math, science, language, and The Arts gradually devolved to include only “reading, writing, and ‘rithmatic.’ Whatever happened to the arts was not fully understood but the loss was, thankfully, recognized by savvy educators and a quiet campaign began to revive them as a part of the core curriculum in schools.

It began with a small but motivated core of arts and education professionals who found innovative ways to approach learning through the arts. Studies by major universities touted the value of arts learning to the ability to conceptualize and comprehend other subject matter. Practicing the Arts, it was beginning to be understood, helped people’s brains absorb knowledge in a variety of critical ways. It is part of the development of the whole person, not an add-on that can be skipped if there isn’t time.

Being a part of that renaissance of arts education practice 30 years ago seemed exciting and revolutionary. Young artists were recruited to venture (often untrained) into schools to share their love and knowledge of their art forms. It didn’t always go well. Teaching, it turned out, is an art unto itself and the idea that because someone is good at his or her creative discipline does not necessarily transfer to an ability to teach it to others. Organizations like New York’s Lincoln Center understood this and built their highly regarded Institute (LCI) program around the training of what they called Teaching Artists. Most people outside LCI didn’t use the term then but they often do now. The term Teaching Artist has become the generally accepted name for an emerging profession that even has its own professional journal which debuted in 2003. Conferences, seminars, and full training courses abound and more are being developed every day. There is no set standard for TA training but educators and arts organizations are working hard to develop a curriculum that will prepare the next generation of TAs for this honorable and crucial profession.

Teaching artist Janet Hayatshahi conducts a workshop

The Old Globe trains its Teaching Artists through a series of workshops that focus on arts education philosophy, methodology, education standards, and more. TAs are hired based first on their arts background and second on their demonstrated ability to work with young people and to be flexible and creative in their approach to teaching. The Theatre’s programs are varied and it takes a solid knowledge base and a passion to share it for a TA to be successful in the classroom.

Before The Old Globe’s TAs go out to schools to prepare students for one of the Theatre’s Student Matinees, the TAs meet in planning sessions to brainstorm themes and ideas about the show that will serve as the backbone for their workshops. They discuss “stumbling blocks” that may sidetrack students’ understanding and enjoyment of the show. They try to put themselves in the place of the students and to see the show as teenagers might. Will they “get” that historical reference? Will they be distracted by the language or accents used? How will they relate to the adult themes? Where will they be confused? What will put them off? What will they wonder about?

These stumbling blocks are explored and the TAs create theatre games such as improvisations, movement activities, and vocal exercises that incorporate the themes and stumbling blocks. The workshops allow students to explore the show’s ideas kinesthetically and experientially rather than through a lecture mode. A TA might have the students improvise scenes using a series of given circumstances that will be found in the show. Without giving away any surprises from the play, the students are still able to reflect on the themes and have been guided in how this show may resonate for them personally. It is uncanny how some of the classroom improvisations bear striking resemblances to scenes that will play out in the production even though the Teaching Artist only gave a few, simple instructions on character, setting, and circumstances to the students.

Additional training sessions for current and new Teaching Artists takes place throughout the year with the goal of providing solid, continuing education for these arts education professionals and supporting their work in and out of schools. Ongoing training of Teaching Artists is crucial to the integrity of The Old Globe’s Education Programs. By focusing on quality training the Theatre is serving not only its own programming but that of other organizations and schools in which these Arts Education professionals will serve in the future. The future of arts patrons and arts practitioners is being shaped by these talented and committed professionals and The Old Globe is proud of its roster of exceptional Teaching Artists.

By Roberta Wells-Famula, Director of Education