Different
Stages Presents
Molly
Sweeney
by
Brian Friel
Director Karen
Sneed
Set
Design Paul
Davis
Lighting
Design Bill
Peeler
Sound
Design Karen
Sneed
Stage
Manager Jonathan
Urso
Producer Norman
Blumensaadt
CHARACTERS
AND CAST
(in order of
appearance)
Molly Peyton Hayslip
Frank Tom Chamberlain
Mr. Rice
Garry Peters
The
play is performed in two acts with
one
intermission.
Produced by special arrangement
with Dramatists Play Service, Inc.
THE PRODUCTION COMPANY
NORMAN
BLUMENSAADT ( Producer) is the Producing
Artistic Director for Different Stages. Recent acting roles include: Millet in Fuddy Meers, Aunt Augusta/Henry Pulling in Travels
With My Aunt and Vanya in Uncle Vanya. He was given the Austin Circle of Theaters’ Deacon Crain/John
Bustin Award in 1998 for his work with Different Stages. For Different Stages he has directed: The Misses Overbeck, An Ideal Husband, Two Gentlemen of Verona, The House of Bernarda Alba, and Summer
and Smoke. Next year, he will direct Garden
District by Tennessee Williams and Pericles
by Shakespeare.
TOM CHAMBERLAIN ( Frank)
Because of a slight misunderstanding with a convenience store clerk, a swarm of
APD was descending just as I was ducking 'round the corner. Who should I run
into but the lovely Karen
Sneed and the cast, minus one, of a new Different Stages
play. And it was put to me: Would I
take up the empty chair? Now seein' as the gauntlet was tightening around me it
seemed the choice was clear: Incarceration, or jail time? And so, here I am, on
Different Stages once again, and with Karen, a
partner in past DS plays like Johnny
on a Spot, Etta
Jenks
and Travesties, too. And happily so,
happily
so--for you, too, I hope.
PAUL DAVIS (Set Designer)
Most recent design was The Drawer Boy at Hyde Park Theatre. Other designs
include, Perdita, Quake, Coyote--A Fence, Marion
Bridge, Vigil, Art Stripped Naked,
Little FootSteps, Corpus Christi, Angels in America at Connecticut Rep, The Knight-Finborough, England. Scenic
Artist for Connecticut Rep, Portland Stage, and Dallas Theatre Center. Now
teaches theatre at Leander High School. For Different Stages Paul has designed:
The House of Bernarda Alba, Two Gentlemen of Verona and An Ideal Husband.
GARRY PETERS (Mr. Rice)
This is Garry's premier performance with
(Different Stages). Previous
Austin theater credits include The Road to Wigan Pier (Seneth Street
Working Men's Club), Hedda ( the
dirigo group), Billy Budd (Mainline
Theatre Project), and Santos and Santos
(Nushank Theatre Collective). His film credits include the feature, Master of the Game and Perils in Nude Modeling (student short
winner at The HBO comedy Arts Festival). Garry would like to thank Norman for
encouraging his participation with Different Stages over the years (the planets
finally lined up correctly, it seems); Peyton and Tom for their talent,
PROFESSIONALISM, and good humor; and Karen for allowing him to take on a dream
role in a fantastic play.
PEYTON
HAYSLIP (Molly) This is Peyton’s
2nd Different Stages production.
Her first was the world premier of Ann Ciccolella’s Fruits and Vegetables during the 2000-2001 season. She has
performed lead roles with numerous Austin theater companies including: the
dirigo group, the State Theater Co., Zachary Scott Theater’s Project InterAct,
and OnStage Theatre Co., and has been honored to receive numerous commendations
for her work as an actress. Peyton and her husband, Carl Anderson, are the
founders of thistlemouse productions, (www.thistlemouse.com) which produces
plays and performances for children and families. Peyton also teaches at and is the Associate Director of the
State Theater School of Acting. She received her training as an actress at the
Juilliard School in NYC.
WILLIAM
(BILL) PEELER (Lighting Designer) has
over 20 years experience as a lighting designer, holding both national and
international credits. From his work with the National Theatre Company of Costa
Rica to a four-year tenure in lighting the
International Bluegrass Music Awards Show, his work is varied and
extensive. He is a Professor and member
of the design faculty in the Southwest Texas State University Department of
Theatre and Dance, where he oversees the areas of lighting design and sound
production. This is Bill's seventh
collaboration with Different Stages, having previously designed the lighting
for Dangerous Corner, Madame X and The House of Bernada
Alba, Betty's Summer Vacation, and An Ideal Husband.
KAREN SNEED (Director) has been directing, acting and stage managing with Different Stages for what seems like many, many, many years (Midsummer Night's Dream, Talking With... Fen, Long Day's Journey Into Night, Johnny on a Spot, Travesties, Cymbeline, Etta Jenks, Juno & the Paycock, Dangerous Corner) and she assumes a great time was had by all. She just finished directing Crimes of the Heart for OnStage Theatre, and also directed American Buffalo and Holy Ghosts quite awhile back for Last Chance Productions. She is in real life a mild-mannered doting wife, and mother to the incredible Sunny Lyn Sneed.
JONATHAN
URSO (Stage Manager) is delighted to
be working with Different Stages. He most recently worked as Stage Manager for Crimes of the Heart, directed by Karen
Sneed and produced by ONSTAGE Theatre Company. Other ONSTAGE positions include
light/sound technician for Bell, Book,
and Candle in Columbus, TX, Assistant Director/Stage Manager (also playing
the role of E.J. Lofgren) for Harvey,
Stage Manager for The Gin Game, Barefoot in the Park (also playing the
role of Delivery Man), Last of the Red Hot
Lovers, The Mousetrap, I Ought to be in Pictures, and Run for your Wife. He served as
Assistant Director/Stage Manager for Love!Valour!Compassion!
with Panoramic Productions in Tucson, Arizona. Special thanks to Karen for her
confidence and trust, and to his wife, Cary, for her love, patience, and
support.
CARY
URSO (Sound Operator) is very happy
to be working with Different Stages. She most recently worked with Zach Scott
Theatre Center as Production Assistant/Dresser for It Ain’t Nothin’ But The Blues. Earlier this year, she was the
Production Assistant for DRT: Known
Unknown, produced by UT’s Department of Theatre and Dance. She has
volunteered extensively with ONSTAGE Theatre Company as Assistant Prop Master,
House Manager, Box Office Assistant, and Dresser, to name a few. She is
currently completing her undergraduate degree in Theatre and Dance at UT, with
a concentration in stage management. She would like to thank her husband,
Jonathan, for his infinite wisdom and patience.
PRODUCTION STAFF
Assistant Director Peggy Pleasant
Light/Sound Operator Jonathan Urso,
Cary Urso
Set Construction
Paul Davis
Graphic Artist Sarah Hauck
Seaton
Photographer Brett
Brookshire
Program Norman
Blumensaadt
Properties Norman
Blumensaadt
Publicity Carol
Ginn
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AND SPECIAL THANKS
Ercey L. Carver
Don & Sunny Sneed
Unity Church of the Hills
Ellen Fannin
Cindy Palla
Carl Ziegler
Tom Chamberlain
Peyton Hayslip
Garry Peters
Peggy Pleasant
Jonathan M. Roe
Different Stages, Inc. has been a community-based
organization since its inception in 1981 and incorporation in 1984. It produces works by playwrights whom we
believe to be defining forces in theatre.
We seek to entertain with performances that reveal life in all its
comedy, tragedy and intensity; and we hope to educate by choosing plays that
provide exceptional insight into the human condition. By challenging ourselves as artists and our audiences as
participants, we endeavor to provide the community with vigorous and exciting
live theatre.
Board of Directors: Karen Jambon, Henry V. Fitzgerald, Jr.
Norman E. Blumensaadt, Mike Groblewski, Royce Gehrels & Paula Ruth Gilbert.
Poem
Tell all the
Truth but tell it slant--
Success in
Circuit lies
Too bright for
our infirm Delight
The Truth's
superb surprise
As Lightning
to the Children eased
With
explanation kind
The Truth must
dazzle gradually
or every man
be blind---
--Emily
Dickinson
ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT
BRIAN
FRIEL (b.1929) was born in the town of Omagh, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland,
the son of a Catholic schoolmaster. When Friel was ten the family moved to
Londonderry, where he attended high school, and in 1946 he began studies at the
famous St Patrick's seminary at Maynooth in the Republic of Ireland. Although
he received a degree there in 1948, he abandoned his plans for the priesthood
and enrolled at a teacher's college in Belfast. From 1950 to 1960 he taught
school in Londonderry, and at the same time began writing short stories and
some stage plays and radio plays. In 1960, encouraged by the publication of
several of his stories in the New Yorker,
Friel left teaching to pursue a full-time writing career.
In
1963-64 he spent six months as an observer at the new Guthrie Theatre,
Minneapolis, an experience that certainly influenced and perhaps hastened his
development as a playwright. In 1964 his fourth play, Philadelphia Here I Come, premiered at the Gaiety Theatre, Dublin;
two years later it opened in New York, where it became the longest-running
Irish play in the history of Broadway. His next play, The Loves of Cass McGuire,
premiered in New York in 1966.
To date Brian
Friel has written some 30 plays, including such widely-produced pieces as Aristocrats (1979), Translations (1980), Faith
Healer (1979) Dancing at Lughnasa
(1990) and Molly Sweeney (1994). He
has also written new adaptations of Russian classics as Turgenev's A Month in the Country and Fathers and Sons, and Chekhov's Three Sisters and Uncle Vanya. In 1999 he
received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Irish Times, and
the
same year was honored with major retrospectives in Dublin and New York. He now
lives in Greencastle, County Donegal, near the most northerly tip of the Irish
Republic, across the bay from his native Northern Ireland.
Contributors
The
City of Austin, AT&T Foundation, Tera Quest Metrics, Inc.
Connie
McMillan, Norman S. Blumensaadt, Paula Ruth Gilbert, Norman E. Blumensaadt,
Joseph A. Bowen, Sally Dennison, Kathleen Langstaff, Karen Kuykendall, Irene
Dubberley, Austin Theatreworks, Margery Hauck,
Laurence McGonigal, Scott K. Schroeder, Robert Tolaro, Bruce McCann, David Hill
Smith,., Jennifer Underwood, Karen Jambon, Harvey Guion , Corina Del Toro, Don
Howell, Carol Smith Adams, Jerry Conn, Valiere D'Antonio, Betsy Christian, William (Dirk) Van Allen,
Arno Blase, Deanna Abshire, Ercey Carver
Different Stages’ Repertory
Begun as Small
Potatoes Theatrical Company
1981: August Strindberg’s Creditors and The Stronger. 1982:
William Shakespeare’s The Tempest
and A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
1983: George Bernard Shaw’s Candida; Anton Chekhov’s The
Brute, Swan Song, and Celebration. 1984: Luigi Pirandello’s Right You Are (If You Think You Are); Jane Martin’s Talking With… 1985: Caryl Churchill’s Cloud 9; William Shakespeare’s As
You Like It; Carl Sternheim’s The
Underpants; Michael Weller’s Moonchildren. 1986: Amlin Gray’s How I Got That Story; William Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale; Eugene
O’Neill’s
Beyond the Horizon. 1987: Michael Weller’s Loose Ends; Aristophanes’ The
Wasps; Larry Kramer’s The Normal Heart; Arthur Schnitzler’s Anatol.
1988: Wallace Shawn’s Aunt Dan and Lemon; Dylan Thomas’ Under Milk Wood;
Moss Hart’s Light Up the Sky; Jean
Racine’s Phaedra; Jean-Baptiste
Moličre’s The Misanthrope. 1989: Caryl Churchill’s Fen; Charles Ludlam’s The
Artificial Jungle; William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice. 1990:
Eric Overmeyer’s On the Verge;
Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night; Milan Kundera’s Jacques and His Master; Tom White’s The Trouble with Tofu; William
Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus. 1991: George Kelly’s The Show-Off; George Bernard Shaw’s Mrs. Warren’s Profession; Keith Reddin’s Life and Limb;
Mozart/Lorenzo da Ponte’s Cosě fan Tutte;
Jean-Baptiste Moličre’s The Learnčd
Ladies. 1992: Alan Ayckbourn’s Woman in Mind; Carlo Gozzi’s The Raven; Henrik Ibsen’s The Wild Duck; Charles MacArthur’s Johnny on a Spot; George Farquhar’s The Recruiting Officer. 1993: Timberlake Wertenbaker’s Our Country’s Good; Charles Ludlam’s The Secret Lives of the Sexists; Tennessee Williams’ Orpheus Descending. 1994:
Constance Congdon’s Tales of the
Lost Formicans; William
Shakespeare’s Cymbeline; George M.
Cohan’s The Tavern; Marlayne Meyer’s Etta Jenks. 1995: Pierre Marivaux’s The Triumph of Love; Tom Stoppard’s Travesties; Larry Kramer’s The
Destiny of Me; Alexander Ostrovsky’s The
Diary of a Scoundrel. 1996:
Caryl Churchill’s Mad Forest;
Agatha Christie’s Black Coffee;
William Congreve’s The Way of the World. 1997:
Terrence McNally’s A Perfect
Ganesh; Dorothy Parker’s Here We Are; Alan Ayckbourn’s Drinking Companion; Terrence McNally’s Noon; George M. Cohan’s Seven Keys to Baldpate; Sean O’Casey’s Juno and the Paycock. 1998:
Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia;
Aeschylus’ Agamemnon; Giles
Havergal’s Travels with my Aunt;
Arthur Miller’s All My Sons. 1999: Edit Villareal’s My Visits with MGM; Jean-Baptiste Moličre’s The Hypochondriac (tr. Martin
Sorrel); Edward Percy and Reginald Denham’s Ladies in Retirement; Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya. 2000: Peter Parnell’s The Rise and Rise of
Daniel Rocket; Ann Ciccolella’s Fruits and Vegetables; George S. Kaufman
and Marc Connelly’s Merton of the Movies;
Martin McDonagh’s The Cripple of
Inishmaan. 2001: Milcha Sanchez-Scott’s Roosters;
George Bernard Shaw’s The Devil’s Disciple; J. B. Priestly’s Dangerous Corner; Tennesee Williams’ Summer and Smoke. 2002: Ann Ciccolella’s Madame X; David Linsay-Abaire’s Fuddy
Meers; Agatha Christie’s The
Unexpected Guest; Federico
Garcia Lorca's The House of Bernarda Alba. 2003:
Christopher Durang's Betty's Summer
Vacation; Horton Foote The
Traveling Lady, William Shakespeare's Two
Gentlemen of Verona; Oscar
Wilde's An Ideal Husband;
2004: John Patrick's The
Hasty Heart; Tom White's The Misses
Overbeck; Brian Friel's Molly Sweeney.
Programs by: Visit our website @ www.upstages.com
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