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Juilliard Press Release
Juilliard Drama Division 2002-2003 Season Begins This Week
Euripides’ The Trojan Women, translated by Nicholas Rudall, The School of Night by Peter Whelan, Blue Window by Craig Lucas, directed by Martha Banta The King Stag by Carlo Gozzi, Sir Patient Fancy by Aphra Behn, Juilliard’s 2002-2003 Drama Division Fall Preview season opens with two productions this week: The School of Night by Peter Whelan, directed by David Warren, and Euripides’ The Trojan Women, translated by Nicholas Rudall and directed by Juilliard alumna Joanna Settle. Performances for The School of Night take place on Wednesday, September 25, Thursday, September 26, and Friday, September 27; these performances are at 8 PM. Additional performances take place on Saturday, September 28 at 2 and 8 PM and Sunday, September 29 at 7 PM. Performances of The Trojan Women take place in Studio 301 on Tuesday, September 24 thru Monday, September 30 at 8 PM. The season continues with Blue Window, by Craig Lucas, directed by Martha Banta on Thursday, November 14 at 8 PM, Friday, November 15 at 8 PM, Saturday, November 16 at 2 PM and 8 PM, Sunday, November 17 at 7 PM, and, finally, on Monday, November 18 at 8 PM. An adaptation by Shelley Berc and Andrei Belgrader of The King Stag by Carlo Gozzi, directed by Andrei Belgrader, who is head of Juilliard’s Artist Diploma Program in Theater Directing, opens on Wednesday, December 11 at 8 PM with additional performances on Thursday, December 12, Friday, December 13 (both at 8 PM); Saturday, December 14 at 2 and 8 PM, and on Sunday, December 15 at 7 PM. Sir Patient Fancy by Aphra Behn, begins on Wednesday, February 12 at 8 PM, with additional performances on Thursday, February 13, Friday, February 14 (both at 8 PM); Saturday, February 15 at 2 and 8 PM and on Sunday, February 16 at 7 PM. Please check our website at http://www.juilliard.edu/search/calendar.asp for the exact dates of the drama division's spring repertory performances that traditionally begin in April, when all five plays are remounted in sequence. The 2002-2003 season features actors in Juilliard's Group XXXII: Will Beinbrink, Jeff Biehl, David Briggs, Marcello Butron, Dawn Gardner, Norm Lee, Sarah McMinn, Kelly Miller, Jessica Weixler, Jessica Chastain, Marco de La Cruz, Graham Hamilton, Julie Jesneck, Jasmine Jobity, Luke Macfarlane, Joaquin Perez-Campbell, Holly Troupe, and Michael Urie (John Houseman Prize Award Winner). Free tickets are required for the Fall Preview performances. An extremely limited number of tickets become available approximately two weeks prior to the opening of each show and are available at either the Juilliard Box Office or the Drama Division. Tickets to the Drama Repertory Season in the spring semester are $15, available five weeks prior to performances, with TDF available. For information please contact the Juilliard Box Office 60 Lincoln Center Plaza, Monday-Friday, 11 AM to 6 PM, (212) 769-7406. Please check our website at http://www.juilliard.edu/search/calendar.asp throughout the season for updated information. Commissioned by the Royal Shakespeare Company a decade ago and premiering in Stratford, England, in 1992, Peter Whelan’s drama The School of Night receives its U.S. premiere this fall at Juilliard. It has been described by Time Out London as "A cracker of a play." The play is inspired by the 16th century murder of English poet and playwright Christopher Marlowe, a maverick of Elizabethan theater who often was found among the best and brightest set of his day. A contemporary of William Shakespeare, educated at Cambridge, and in the company of Thomas Kyd, Sir Walter Raleigh, and the mysterious Tom Stone, Marlowe was killed on May 30, 1593 in a pub brawl - or was he? The School of Night explores the mystery surrounding Marlowe’s death and his association with the clandestine group called the School of Night. The play was premiered in Stratford-upon-Avon before moving to London at the RSC’s Pit Theatre during 1992-1993. First performed in 415 B.C. and still one of the most widely produced Greek tragedies, Euripides’ The Trojan Women probes the psychology of human despair. After the Trojan men were killed, the Trojan women were at the mercy of their captors. Every woman was to be distributed among the victors. Even the Trojan queen, Hecuba, is to become the possession of the hated Odysseus; her daughter Cassandra has been allotted to Agamemnon, and it is revealed that her other daughter Polyxena has been slaughtered on the tomb of Achilles. However, Cassandra foretells of the disasters that will come upon their conquerors. One critic called Blue Window "a marvel, an intricate and quiet piece that never stops surprising you." New York playwright Craig Lucas, author of plays Prelude to a Kiss and Reckless, and the film Longtime Companion, does not present a story in Blue Window; rather he provides numerous clues for numerous stories. As the nervous Libby is preparing a dinner party, we are introduced to her guests in their apartments, as they prepare themselves to attend. The six strangers do not seem to communicate with each other; but instead become part of a collage that manages to combine an Italian opera aria, a jazz piano solo, passages from Virginia Woolf, Hermann Hesse, Eugene O’Neill, Buster Keaton, and Descartes, as well as game shows, family therapy, and sky-diving. The King Stag by Carlo Gozzi is an 18th century fairytale for all ages. It’s a story of a king in search of a wife; however, King Deramo is not just searching for any wife. Having rejected 748 candidates, Deramo is only interested in Angela, the beautiful daughter of his Second Minister - who also is loved by the evil Tartaglia. With the help of a magical statue, an enchanted forest, and Deramo’s own magical powers, the tale does end happily ever after. Juilliard presents this play in an adaptation created by Shelley Berc and Juilliard’s own directing program head, Andrei Belgrader. Aphra Behn, the 17th century female playwright, was known for breaking "the unwritten rules that sought to limit the female experience." Behn’s plays were as colorful as her life (an affair that included dozens of plays and episodes working for the crown as a secret agent in Europe). Sir Patient Fancy is a ribald comedy of love’s labors and losses, infidelity, and class differences, with mistaken identities, unrequited love, and wanton foolishness. In the play’s "Epistle to the Reader", Aphra Behn writes, "The play has no other misfortune but that of coming out for a Womans: had it been owned by a Man, though the most Dull Unthinking Rascally Scribbler in Town, it had been a most admirable Play." Joanna Settle, is an alumna of the first group of young directors accepted in 1995 into Juilliard’s advanced program for director training, studying with Michael Kahn, JoAnne Akalaitis, and the late Garland Wright. For five years previously, she had worked with the avant-garde Mabou Mines, where she was a resident artist in 1994. During the first summer break from Juilliard, in 1996, Ms. Settle directed a production of Balcony for Chicago’s newly formed company, Thirteenth Tribe - which is now known as Division 13 - and since 1997, after completing the program at Juilliard, Ms. Settle has directed all but one of their productions and became their artistic director. Among her other Division 13 credits are: the award winning BLOOD LINE: The Oedipus/Antigone Story, and several Beckett plays, Play, Rockaby, and Cascando, and in 2001 she directed Ionesco’s absurdist twist on Shakespeare, Macbett. Ms. Settle’s freelance credits include the South American tour of the musical, two productions of Penthesilea by Heinrich Von Kleist, and the Rossini opera Il Seor Bruscino. She made her film debut in 2001 with the featurette Night, Night, and has taught and directed at various university theater programs. In 2000, Ms. Settle received a two-year Career Development Grant for Directors from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) administered by Theatre Communications Group (TCG). David Warren directed Holiday at Circle in the Square, receiving an Outer Critics Circle nomination for best revival, Summer and Smoke and Misalliance at Roundabout Theater Company, and Hobson’s Choice at Atlantic Theatre Company for which he received a Lucille Lortel Award nomination for best revival. He has directed the premieres of Richard Greenberg’s The Dazzle, and Hurrah at Last For Roundabout, Night and Her Stars and his adaptation of Pal Joey, Nicky Silver’s Pterodactyls, for which he won an Obie Award, as well as Silver’s The Eros Trilogy, Raised in Captivity, Fit To Be Tied, and My Marriage to Ernest Borgnine; Tom Donaghy’s Minutes from the Blue Route, and From Above; Leslie Ayvazian’s High Dive; William Luce’s Baptiste: The Life of Molière; William Finn’s Romance in Hard Times; Eric Overmeyer’s Mi Vida Loca; Albert Innaurato’s Gus and Al; Jeffrey Essmann’s and Michael John LaChiusa’s Triplets in Uniform and Artificial Intelligence; and Harmony by Barry Manilow and Bruce Sussman. Mr. Warren’s other credits include west coast productions of Raised in Captivity and Jon Robin Baitz’s The End of the Day; Manhattan Theatre Club productions of Night and Her Stars, and Darrah Cloud’s The Stick Wife; and the national tours of Jekyll & Hyde and Barry Manilow’s Copacabana. He has directed numerous regional theater productions including Twelfth Night at Long Wharf Theatre, The Philadelphia Story at Hartford Stage, Eric Bogosian’s Griller and other productions for La Jolla Playhouse, South Coast Repertory, New York Stage and Film, and others. Mr. Warren has received one LA Weekly and three DramaLogue awards, and a Los Angeles Drama Critic’s Circle nomination. He is a founding member of Drama Dept. and a member of the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers executive board. Upcoming projects include the premieres of John Corwin’s Gone Home in November at Manhattan Theatre Club, Steven Dietz’s Fiction at the McCarter Theatre in March, and Daniel Stern’s Barbra’s Wedding at Plays and Players Theater in May. Martha Banta is the artistic director and co-founder of the Adirondack Theatre Festival, founded eight summers ago in Glens Falls, New York. She has directed five world premieres at the Adirondack Theatre Festival, and several other productions including Margaret Edson’s Wit, Yasmina Reza’s Art, and Edward Albee’s Three Tall Women. Ms. Banta was the artistic associate at New York Theatre Workshop (NYTW) for five years where she developed cast, directed, or found new plays. Some New York directing credits include new plays at the Clark Theater at Lincoln Center, New York Theatre Workshop, New Georges, Soho Repertory Theatre, Ensemble Studio Theater, One Dream Theater, Westbank Café, Columbia University, Tiny Mythic Theatre Company, Orange Thoughts Theater, and The 52nd Street Project. In addition, she has worked developing and directing new plays for The Public Theater, The York Theatre Company, ASCAP, NYTW, La Mama Theatre, The Ensemble Studio Theatre (E.S.T.), and Syracuse Stage. She was the assistant director of Rent in New York City and tours in the US and London, and directed the first foreign language productions of Rent in Japan and Germany. This past year she directed the new play Hallowed Ground by Laura Harrington at Portland Stage Company in Maine, and directed Barbara’s Blue Kitchen by Lori Fischer at the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park. Currently her Playhouse Disney Live is running at Disney’s MGM Studios in Orlando, Florida. This year Ms. Banta is serving as resident director for Mamma Mia on Broadway and is developing a new play with Tyrone Henderson based on the short stories of Richard Wright. She has been a guest teacher at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, and at Dartmouth and Vassar. Andrei Belgrader is the director of award-winning stage, film, and television projects, as well as an actor and teacher whose stage adaptations, created most frequently with Shelley Berc, have been produced coast-to-coast. Since 1992 Mr. Belgrader has been a professor of acting and directing at the University of California, San Diego. Before that, from 1978-92, he was associate professor at the Yale University School of Drama. He has directed numerous works for Yale Repertory Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut, and American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts, including the 1983 production of Waiting for Godot that garnered "Best Director" and "Best Play" awards from the Boston Theatre Critics Circle. He also has directed for The Goodman Theatre in Chicago; CSC Repertory, The West Bank Café, New York Stage and Film, and The Changing Space in New York; as well as for American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, Watermann Theatre in London, and the Edinburgh Festival. Among these productions are Mr. Belgrader’s own adaptations including Rameau’s Nephew, Scapin, Servant of Two Masters, Ubu Rock, and The Imaginary Invalid, all created with Shelley Berc. They also created The King Stag, commissioned by American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco. By himself, Mr. Belgrader has created a stage adaptation of The Little Prince. Drama Division Fourth-Year Production Schedule 2002-2003
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