Marin Theatre Company presents The Glass Menagerie

Playbill

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Coming up next at MTC:
West Coast Premiere of A Steady Rain by Keith Huff
Directed by Meredith McDonough
Runs February 2 through 26

Two Chicago beat cops come under fire in this lurid neo-noir crime drama.

Part 1: Program
The Glass Menagerie
by Tennessee Williams
directed by Jasson Minadakis+
Scenic Designer: Kat Conley
Lighting Designer: Ben Wilhelm
Costume Designer: Jacqueline Firkins**
Composer & Sound Designer: Chris Houston
Dialect Coach: Lynne Soffer
Stage Manager: Jonathan Templeton*
Properties Artisan: Seren Helday
Casting Director: Meg Pearson
Dramaturg: Margot Melcon

Featuring: Anna Bullard,* Sherman Fracher,* Craig Marker,* Nicholas Pelczar* and Andrew Wilke

+ denotes member, Stage Directors and Choreographers Society
* denotes member, Actors' Equity Association
** denotes member, United Scenic Artists Local 829

THE GLASS MENAGERIE is presented by special arrangement with SAMUEL FRENCH, INC.

Original music (c)2011 Chris Houston Music ASCAP

Cover illustration by Mick Wiggins

Cast of Characters
in order of appearance
Tom: Nicholas Pelczar*
Amanda: Sherman Fracher*
Laura: Anna Bullard*
Jim: Craig Marker*

Musician
Trumpet: Andrew Wilke

Place: The Wingfield apartment, St. Louis

Time: The late-1930s

There will be one 15-minute intermission.

Please remember to turn off all cell phones or any other devices that could make a noise and be distracting to people around you.

Photographs and recordings of any kind are strictly prohibited.

Water-based haze may be used during this performance.

This production of Bellwether is generously underwritten by the following:

MTC PARTNERS
The Bellebyron Foundation
N.J. "Sky" Cooper
The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
National Endowment for the Arts
Gage Schubert
Christopher B. & Jeannie Meg Smith

SEASON PARTNERS
Marin Community Foundation
The Shubert Foundation
H. Hugh Vincent, MD & Joan Watson

VIP PARTNERS
Autodesk
Carl & Linden Berry
Tracy & Brian Haughton
Lori Lerner & Terry Berkemeier
Melanie & Peter Maier
Russell Pratt & Janet Brown
James & Beth Wintersteen

EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS
Susan & Russell Holdstein
Shirley LoubŽ
Michael & Kiki Pescatello

PRODUCERS
Michael & Joyce Axelrod

PATRON EVENT SPONSORS
Cactus CafŽ
Elizabeth Spencer Wines
Stacy Scott Catering
Graff Family Vineyards

WITH ADDITIONAL SUPPORT FROM
National Endowment for the Arts
The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
AT&T Yellow Pages
Marin Community Foundation
Marin Independent Journal
National Endowment for the Arts presents Shakespeare in American Communities
The Shubert Foundation, Inc.
Taproot Foundation
Yelp
Autodesk
The Bernard Osher Foundation
National New Play Network
Peter J. Owens Fund

Part 2: Letter from the Artistic Director

During our post-show talk backs, I am often asked why we chose to program a particular classic play. Since this is the first of two classics that we are producing during our 45th Anniversary Season, I thought this would be an excellent opportunity to take you behind the scenes of our decision-making process.

For a classic to enter consideration for our season programming, there are generally four requirements that the script must meet:

1. Our staff or an MTC affiliated artist (or both) must have a passion to revive the piece on our stage.

2. We must have something new and urgent to say with the classic text, an intriguing point of view that we haven't seen in production before. We must offer a new way to view the story.

3. We have actors that we believe must absolutely play a certain role.

4. You, our patrons, have suggested it.

Our approach to The Glass Menagerie exemplifies our passion to revisit the play, especially during the year of Tennessee's centennial, when the master would have turned 100. This production combines a tightly focused world of memory, a new musical approach and an emphasis on the play's Depression-era setting to create a unique vision unseen anywhere but MTC. To learn more about this approach, read the interview below.

After our production of Bill Cain's Equivocation, I was amazed at the number of patrons who came up to me, called or emailed to let me know they very much wanted to see a Shakespeare play at MTC. It just so happened that actor Aldo Billingslea and I had been eager to collaborate on Shakespeare's tragedy Othello since we first met in 2006. One of the things that we both agreed on was that we'd wait until we found an actor to play Iago that complimented Aldo's Moor. Over the past year, it became clear to me that Craig Marker, who also appears in The Glass Menagerie, was that actor... so, in March, I will direct Aldo and Craig in Othello, the Moor of Venice.

If you have a classic play that you think MTC should tackle, make sure you let me know. Chances are it might end up in a future season.

Enjoy the show,
Jasson Minadakis

LETTER END

Part 3: Dramaturgy

Article 1 - Tennessee Williams: Writing life into legacy

By Margot Manburg, Literary Intern

This year's centennial celebration of Tennessee Williams marks the anniversary of a playwright known for capturing the human spirit. His works convey an often-overlooked truth: simpler times are not any simpler, just clearer in hindsight. He produced some of the most compelling characters in the theater canon, a legacy made more poignant by the fact that many of his characters had real roots. Williams used his own life and experiences as the basis for his plays, especially for The Glass Menagerie. The honesty in his characters and plays is not a dramatic ploy, but a reflection on his own life viewed through the clarity of hindsight and the poetic shade of nostalgia.

The man who would become Tennessee was born Thomas Lanier Williams III on March 26, 1911, in Columbus, Mississippi, to Cornelius and Edwina Williams. Tom was the second of three children, two years younger than Rose and eight years older than Dakin. The closeness in age between Tom and Rose led to a tight bond between the two.

When Williams was seven years old, his father - who had been a traveling shoe salesman - was promoted to an office job at the International Shoe Company and the family relocated to St. Louis, Missouri. Around the same time, Tom suffered a debilitating illness and he began writing to divert his mind during the long, isolated recovery period. This hobby disappointed his father but delighted his Southern belle mother, who gave him his first typewriter. He entered his first writing contest at age 16, winning third place and a five-dollar prize.

In 1929, Tom enrolled in the University of Missouri-Columbia's School of Journalism. He thrived creatively but not academically and, in 1931, his father pulled him out of school for poor grades. For the next five years, Tom worked in the shoe factory warehouse. Meanwhile, his parents' marriage faltered due to his father's alcoholism, gambling and abuse. Their separation left Edwina to look after Dakin and Rose.

Rose's mental stability started to deteriorate. Depression, paranoia and hypochondria overtook her mind before she was formally diagnosed with schizophrenia and committed to a state hospital in 1936, where she remained for seven years. In 1943, his mother arranged to have Rose lobotomized in an attempt to stabilize her behavior. The loss of his sister devastated Tom, who felt heartbroken over the forfeit of their special bond and guilty for not doing more to help her.

The same year that Rose was committed, Tom re-enrolled in school, first in St. Louis and then at the University of Iowa. He completed his degree in English literature in 1938 and moved to New Orleans to pursue writing professionally. At the time, Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration program gave funding to artists as one of many ways to bolster the domestic economy. Tom received a $1,000 grant to develop his play Battle of Angels, which later became Orpheus Descending. 

It was in New Orleans that Tom adopted the nickname Tennessee, bestowed upon him by his fraternity brothers as a nod to his father's roots. With a new name, new town and new chapter in his life, the 1940s and 1950s saw the emergence of Tennessee Williams as a playwright. His plays The Glass Menagerie (1944), Orpheus Descending (1945), A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), Summer and Smoke (1948), The Rose Tattoo (1951), Camino Real (1953) and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955) all arose during this tumultuous period of self-discovery for the young writer. Streetcar and Cat each earned Williams a Pulitzer Prize, Rose Tattoo a Tony Award for Best Play and Menagerie, Cat and Streetcar each a New York Drama Critics' Circle award. Several plays hit Broadway and became Hollywood films, all to much acclaim. 

As his playwriting life flourished, Tennessee still grappled with the guilt that he felt from Rose's incapacitation, the newfound pressure to produce hits and his sexual orientation. It was during this time he met Frank Merlo, with whom he had his first long-term romantic relationship. Frank was Tennessee's advocate and anchor, helping him deal with the pressure of being in the spotlight. Frank's death in 1961 set off a depression that lasted two decades, which Williams combated with alcohol, drugs and travel. He continued writing short stories, plays, screenplays and poetry, but did not produce any commercial hits after 1961's Drama Desk Award-winning Night of the Iguana. In 1983, Tennessee Williams choked on a pill-bottle cap and died at age 71.

Williams used writing as an escape from reality, yet in doing so, he vividly recreated a version of reality that often revealed the situation he had been trying to escape. All his characters arose from a place of honesty; there are no great heroes, no saints or villains, just flawed people trying to secure their place in the world or merely in the eyes of another person.

Writing for self-reflection and release rather than spectacle allowed Williams to portray the humor and gravity of ordinary people dealing with everyday, impossible circumstances. His characters range from prostitutes to plantation owners to poets working in a shoe factory, yet all face a dilemma still wrestled with today: what to do when desires and responsibilities conflict. There are times in life when wants and obligations co-exist, but at some point, even temporarily, one will rise above the other.

These moments of decision are where Tennessee Williams set his plays, and it is the desperate hope in each character to make the right decision that continues to make them relevant. While his characters do not always triumph in the traditional sense, they all try. What Williams captured - and why his plays endure - is the remarkable human spirit that lives in each person. As Williams's most autobiographical character Tom Wingfield says, we all dream about the "long-delayed but always expected something that we live for." 

ARTICLE END

Article 2 - Trapped in a memory: Director Jasson Minadakis on his concept for The Glass Menagerie

Interview conducted by Margot Melcon, Dramaturg

What is it about The Glass Menagerie that appeals to you?

I've always been intrigued by the Tennessee Williams play that lives in the Depression. Throughout Williams's plays his characters are always desperate, there is something they're longing to accomplish or longing to have happen. Everything about this play is incredibly urgent. The play is the battle between the love this family has for one another and the desire to accomplish other things, especially for Tom.

Many productions have done a disservice to the play by making it a wistful memory play when really it's a very strong exploration of a family fighting to maintain itself. I really want to highlight the love between these characters. You often see the fighting and the ferocity with which they're trying to get away from each other, only it feels hollow and selfish because all you're seeing is the attempt to pull it apart. The only way you can be trying to pull something apart is if what's holding it together is twice as strong. It's the love they have for each other.

Describe your concept for the scenic design.

The scenic design was very much inspired by Tennessee's stage directions, as well as his memory of what his sister Rose's room looked like in their youth. She would keep her shades drawn and it made her room look like it was constantly in twilight. The reason she kept the shades closed was because her window looked out onto a cul-de-sac of alleyways and fire escapes. A neighborhood dog would regularly chase stray cats into the cul-de-sac and kill them. In order to try to block that out, she would keep her shades drawn and play records. 

I knew I wanted the apartment to be surrounded by trapping mechanisms, staircases that interlock so that you can't figure out how to get out of them. The fire escapes begin to create a cage for the world of the play, so Tom and Laura and Amanda feel  imprisoned inside their apartment. 

These people are crammed in on top of one another. The front door and the bedrooms are the only escape the characters have. And, of course, Tom doesn't have a bedroom, Tom sleeps in the living room. So he has no refuge. He has nowhere to go. Once he comes out to start the story, he's stuck in the story until it's over. 

I was incredibly interested in exploring the poverty of the family, which translated into not using props, not having a lot of furniture, not having a lot of stuff. That also ties in with the idea of this being a memory play. The only props, the only things that the audience sees in the play are the pieces that stand out in Tom's memory. I asked each of the designers to make a list of the props they felt were absolutely essential and it came down to less than a dozen items that were necessary to tell the story.

And the music you're using in the play?

We were looking at different versions of the script, from before the Broadway production and after, and there is a line in Tom's opening monologue that says, "In memory everything seems to happen to music." And then, the next line is, "That explains the fiddle in the wings." But that line isn't in every published version of the play. They opted to use a fiddle to underscore the production on Broadway and that's why that line got added in. 

It occurred to me that we don't have to use a fiddle to underscore the play. We just need music. The trumpet has a lonely, melancholy sound that I think is so perfect for this play. I wanted a harder edge in a world so aggressive and so nasty. The muted trumpet felt like the perfect balance of isolation and loneliness. 

Thinking about the music, I wanted the trumpet player to be on stage the whole time, underscoring everything. Whenever we hear music, because it's Tom's memory, Tom is filtering all the sound through this one instrument. 

I'd also always been curious about the photograph of the father that figures into the story. I started thinking about why Tom would be filtering all the sound through one instrument, and that's where the idea of linking the father to the trumpet player started to come into play. It occurred to me that I could have the photograph of the father go away and come back when we wanted it to and not be in one location if I actually had someone walking around in the fire escapes being the portrait.

That's where the idea of having the father be the trumpet player and be in view all the time came from: at times, he's the portrait; at times, he's another ghost in Tom's memory. That's another spin on the show that I've never seen that I thought really allows the play to be centered on Tom.

You definitely think this is Tom's play.

It has to be. It's a play about his sister and about his mother and about his father, and it's a play about him leaving and about their time together. But it's him. He's the one who has to learn something over the course of the play. He's the one who has to come to the understanding of what he did. The other characters don't learn anything, but Tom does. Tom learns that he could not leave them, no matter how hard he tried. He has to realize that he destroyed them, to a certain degree, by abandoning them. 

What would you say about this production to people who have seen this play before?

We have been so loyal to the realism of these 20th century plays. We're just getting to the point where people are starting to think about the work in the poetic sense, like the way we look at Shakespeare's work. We're moving away from realism and trying to find certain elements that, perhaps, are more poetically true within the story than realism would allow. 

There are elements of this production that are more stylized than what people may be used to seeing with Glass Menagerie, but I think it's going to bring a different emphasis to the play than what you've seen before. The sentimentality of it will be replaced by a more powerful sense of the grounding emotions. Instead of it being a wistful look back, it's more of a painful look back for Tom. He can't get rid of these ghosts. We're dealing more with what the world meant to Tom rather than what the world actually was. It's not a fully fleshed out world, but the brutality of the world and the coldness of the world, the caged feel the world gave him is what we're highlighting. I think that'll bring a whole new texture to the play emotionally than what we've seen before.

ARTICLE END

Article 3 - Highlights from the late 1930s

1936:

Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell is published and wins the Pulitzer Prize.

The Santa Fe Railroad inaugurates passenger train service between Chicago and Los Angeles.

The first prefrontal lobotomy is pioneered and performed.

A severe drought (later known as the Dust Bowl) continues to devastate the Midwest and forces migrant workers to scramble westward in search of jobs.

King Edward VIII of England abdicates to marry American socialite Wallis Simpson; King George VI ascends the throne.

Hitler remilitarizes the Rhineland.

1937:

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien and Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck are published.

Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarves is the first full-length animated film.

The Golden Gate Bridge opens.

The Hindenberg zeppelin explodes as it arrives in New Jersey.

Japan invades China.

1938:

Superman debuts under Action Comics.

Orson Welles broadcasts H.G. Wells's The War of the Worlds on the radio, inciting a riot among people who tuned in late and believed Earth was being invaded by extraterrestrials.

A one-pound steak costs 20 cents.

Fair Labor Standards Act bans child labor and establishes the first federal minimum wage at 25 cents per hour with a maximum of 44 hours per week.

Germany annexes Austria and Czechoslovakia.

1939

Gone With The Wind hits big screens and goes on to win eight Academy Awards.

The Wizard of Oz and Judy Garland transport audiences somewhere over the rainbow.

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck is published.

Germany invades Poland, inciting Great Britain and France declare war on Germany.

Franco's nationalists overtake Spain, ending the Spanish Civil War.

ARTICLE END

Article 4 - "One of the brighter spots in Marin theater" ... in 1968: The Glass Menagerie returns to MTC after 43 years

Over the course of 45 seasons, Marin Theatre Company (known until 1984 as the Mill Valley Center for Performing Arts) has staged nearly 240 theater productions. It's no surprise that some plays have walked our boards more than once, whether the deck was in the Mill Valley Golf Clubhouse, San Rafael High School or our current home, the Boyer Theatre, which we opened in 1987.

The Glass Menagerie was last seen by MTC audiences in 1968, during our second season. Gene Nelson, the local late-night radio talk-show host of The Emperor Gene Nelson Show on KYA 1260 AM, starred as Tom with veteran Bay Area actress Norma Jean Wanvig appearing as Amanda, Jan Davis as Laura and Ed Vasgerdsian as Jim. The Pacific Sun called the production, directed by then-artistic director A.J. Esta, "one of the brighter spots in Marin theater this year."

ARTICLE END

Part 4: Who's Who

Section A: Artistic Staff Biographies

Tennessee Williams (Playwright) was one of America's major mid-20th century playwrights and his plays are among the most produced in the world. MTC has staged a number of his plays over the past 45 seasons, including The Glass Menagerie (1968), A Streetcar Named Desire (1973 and 2008), Vieux CarrŽ (1984), Spring Storm (1999, world premiere) and Fugitive Kind (2003, professional world premiere). He is best known for his plays The Glass Menagerie (New York Drama Critics' Circle Award), A Streetcar Named Desire (Pulitzer Prize for Drama) and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Pulitzer Prize for Drama). Other works for stage include American Blues, Summer and Smoke, The Rose Tattoo (Tony Award for Best Play), Camino Real, Orpheus Descending, Suddenly Last Summer, Sweet Bird of Youth, Night of the Iguana, The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore, The Seven Descents of Myrtle, In the Bar of a Tokyo Hotel, The Two Character Play and The Eccentricities of a Nightingale. Williams also wrote short stories, novels, poetry, essays, screenplays and a volume of memoirs. In 1980, President Jimmy Carter honored Williams with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. This year, marks the centennial of his birth. He died in 1983.

Jasson Minadakis (Director) is in his sixth season as artistic director of MTC. Last season, he directed Edward Albee's Tiny Alice, the world premiere of Seagull and the west coast premiere of Happy Now?. In past seasons, he directed Equivocation (2010 Bay Area Critics Circle Award for Director), Sunlight, Lydia, The Seafarer, Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune, A Streetcar Named Desire, said Sa•d, Love Song and The Subject Tonight is Love. He will direct Othello, the Moor of Venice later this season. As artistic director of Actor's Express Theatre Company, he directed The Pillowman, Bug, The Love Song of J. Robert Oppenheimer, Echoes of Another Man, Killer Joe, Burn This, The Goat or, Who is Sylvia?, Blue/Orange and Bel Canto. As producing artistic director of Cincinnati Shakespeare Festival, he directed Jesus Hopped the 'A' Train, Chagrin Falls, The Beard of Avon, Arcadia, Nocturne, Fuddy Meers, Lovers & Executioners, Jacob Marley's Christmas Carol, Betrayal, The Weir, Waiting for Godot, The Misanthrope, A Chance of Lightning, The Three Musketeers, Dracula, The Color Wheel and 19 productions of Shakespeare. Regional credits include Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Hamlet at Georgia Shakespeare, Copenhagen at Playhouse on the Square and Bedroom Farce at Wayside Theatre. The Atlanta Journal Constitution, Creative Loafing and Southern Voice named him Best Director of 2004. He has won "Production of the Year" awards for The Pillowman and Bug at Actor's Express, Copenhagen at Playhouse on the Square and Chagrin Falls at Cincinnati Shakespeare.

END SECTION

Section B: Cast Biographies

Anna Bullard (Laura) has appeared at MTC in the Bay Area premiere of Equivocation, world premiere of Magic Forest Farm and Killer Joe. Her recent credits include Titus Andronicus and Mrs. Warren's Profession at Cal Shakes, as well as the world premiere of Jeffrey Hatcher's Ten Chimneys at Arizona Theatre Company. Other Bay Area credits include productions at A.C.T., San Jose Rep, TheatreWorks, Magic Theatre and Porchlight. Her regional credits include productions at Actors Theatre of Louisville, the Humana Festival and Laguna Playhouse, as well as the NYC Fringe and Dorset Theatre Festivals. She received her BA from Whitman College and was an acting apprentice at Actors Theatre of Louisville.

Sherman Fracher (Amanda) makes her MTC debut in The Glass Menagerie. She has been a company member at Cincinnati Shakespeare Company for nine seasons and has appeared in Much Ado About Nothing, Arm and the Man, The Ideal Husband, Romeo and Juliet, A Streetcar Named Desire, Chagrin Falls (Cincinnati Entertainment Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role) and more. Her other regional credits include A Christmas Carol at Actors Theatre of Louisville; Macbeth and A Christmas Story at Georgia Shakespeare; Side Man, Private Eyes, Sight Unseen and Three Days of Rain at Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati; and Bug at Actor's Express. She appeared in the film Tattered Angel with Lynda Carter. Sherman resides in Northern Kentucky with her husband, actor/director Drew Fracher. She is a registered yoga instructor in the Kripalu tradition.

Craig Marker (Jim) has appeared at MTC in the world premieres of Seagull and 9 Circles, Bay Area premiere of Equivocation and Bus Stop. His Bay Area theater credits include The Circle and Curse of the Starving Class at A.C.T.; Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet at Cal Shakes; As You Like It, The Foreigner, Iphigenia at Aulis and The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow at San Jose Rep; Macbeth at Shotgun Players; Third, Theophilus North, Brooklyn Boy, Dolly West's Kitchen and Shakespeare in Hollywood at TheatreWorks; Wirehead, First Person Shooter and The Story at SF Playhouse; The Mousetrap and The Marriage of Figaro at Center REP; Cymbeline and Love's Labour's Lost at San Francisco Shakespeare Festival; and The Shape of Things and The Persians at Aurora Theatre Company. Marker appeared in David Edgar's Continental Divide at Berkeley Rep, Birmingham Repertory Theatre, Barbican Theatre (UK) and La Jolla Playhouse.

Nicholas Pelczar (Tom) has appeared at MTC in the Bay Area premiere of boom. Other Bay Area credits include War Music, Rock 'n' Roll and A Christmas Carol at A.C.T.; Much Ado About Nothing, Macbeth, The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, Othello, Titus Andronicus, Taming of the Shrew, All's Well That Ends Well and The Importance of Being Earnest at Cal Shakes; 4 Adverbs with Word for Word; Hamlet and As You Like It at Pacific Repertory Theatre; A Midsummer Night's Dream at San Francisco Shakespeare Festival; and Marius and Dublin Carol at Aurora Theatre Company. He is a graduate of the A.C.T. MFA acting program.

Andrew Wilke (Trumpet) makes his MTC debut in The Glass Menagerie. His Bay Area theater credits include children's theater productions at Berkeley Playhouse, The Music Man at Starstruck Theatre; A Chorus Line, West Side Story, Something's Afoot and Oliver! at Pinole Community Theater; and Sophisticated Ladies at CSU East Bay. He is featured on recordings by A Class Act, Bobby Joe Ebola & the Children MacNuggets, James Nagal, Pomplamoose and Jack Conte. Currently studying with Erik Jekabson, Wilke previously had two years of classical study with Jeff Biancalana (San Francisco Symphony). He received a BA in trumpet performance with jazz emphasis from CSU East Bay.

END SECTION

Section C: Production Staff Biographies

Jonathan Templeton (Stage Manager) recently stage managed MTC's production of  Seven Guitars. He has worked in Chicago on Good Boys and True, Art and four seasons of First Look Repertory of New Work at Steppenwolf Theatre Company; Trust, Fedra, Argonautika, The Brothers Karamazov, Great Men of Science, The Shaggs, 1984, The Old Curiosity Shop, Black Diamond and Around the World in 80 Days at Lookingglass Theatre Company, where he is a production affiliate; Loving Repeating, Execution of Justice and Wedding Play at About Face Theatre; and Orpheus Descending at American Theatre Company. He also spent two summers with Weston Playhouse in Vermont. Templeton is a graduate of Northwestern University.

Kat Conley (Scenic Designer) has designed scenery for MTC's production of Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune. Based in Atlanta, Conley has designed scenery for the Kennedy Center, the Alliance Theatre, Georgia Shakespeare, the Center for Puppetry Arts, Kenny Leon's True Colors Theatre, the Atlanta Ballet, Actor's Express, 7 Stages, Theatrical Outfit, Theater in the Square, The Springer Opera House, The Bloomenthal Performing Arts Center and Aurora Theatre Company. She is an Associate Artist with both Georgia Shakespeare and Actor's Express. For the past 12 seasons, Conley has also been the Charge Scenic Artist for the Alliance Theater.

Ben Wilhelm (Lighting Designer) makes his MTC debut in The Glass Menagerie. In the Bay Area, he has designed lighting for A.C.T.'s MFA productions. He is an ensemble member with the House Theatre of Chicago. His other theater design credits in Chicago include Steppenwolf Theatre, 500 Clown, Redmoon and Next Theatre. He has designed motion graphic displays for The Oprah Winfrey Show and worked in architectural lighting design.

Jacqueline Firkins (Costume Designer) makes her MTC debut in The Glass Menagerie. Her regional design work includes the Goodman Theatre, Writer's Theater, Court Theatre, Victory Gardens Theatre, Northlight Theatre, Chicago Children's Theatre, Timeline Theatre, House Theatre of Chicago, Hartford Stage Company, Longwharf Theatre, Dallas Theatre Center, Portland Stage Company, Portland Center Stage, Shakespeare Festival of St. Louis, Idaho Shakespeare Festival, Shakespeare and Company, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Yale Repertory Theatre, Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey Shakespeare, Brave New Repertory, AboutFace Theatre Company, Dorset Theatre Festival and the Yale School of Drama. Jacqueline is a recipient of a 2001 Princess Grace Award and is a faculty member at Loyola University Chicago.

Chris Houston (Composer and Sound Designer) is a pianist, composer and sound designer. He has designed sound for MTC's productions of Bellwether, Seven Guitars, Edward Albee's Tiny Alice, Fuddy Meers, Seagull, Happy Now?, In the Red and Brown Water, Equivocation, Sunlight, boom, My Name is Asher Lev, Magic Forest Farm, Lydia, The Seafarer, Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune, Love Person, A Streetcar Named Desire, said Sa•d and Lovers & Executioners. Locally, his designs and compositions have been featured at A.C.T., Aurora Theatre Company, SF Playhouse, Center REP, Magic Theatre and the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival.

Lynne Soffer (Dialect Coach) has provided coaching for 24 MTC productions, including Happy Now?, My Name Is Asher Lev, Lydia, My Children! My Africa! and A Streetcar Named Desire. She has worked on over 200 theater productions at A.C.T., Berkeley Rep, San Jose Rep, Magic Theatre, Cal Shakes and Marin Shakespeare Company among others. Her regional credits include the Old Globe, Dallas Theater Center, Arizona Theatre Company, the Arena Stage, Seattle Rep and Denver Center Theatre Company. Her film and television credits include Metro, Duets, The Land of Milk and Honey and America's Most Wanted. Soffer works as a professional actor and acting teacher and is the recipient of the 2011 Actors' Equity Association Lucy Jordan Humanitarian Award.

Seren Helday (Properties Artisan) is resident props artisan for MTC. She has provided props for all productions since 2008. She has also provided props for A.C.T., Center REP, Cal Shakes and SF Playhouse. She spent one year as Master Carpenter at New Conservatory Theatre Center in San Francisco, building some 30 shows for their season. Helday was also technical director of the Live Theatre Workshop in Tucson in addition to working as a designer, performer and manager.

END SECTION

Section D: Administrative Staff Biographies

Ryan Rilette (Producing Director) is in his fifth season as producing director at MTC, where he has directed Bellwether, Fuddy Meers, In the Red and Brown Water, boom and Magic Forest Farm. He will direct God of Carnage later this season. From 2002 to 2008, Rilette served as producing artistic director of Southern Rep in New Orleans, where he directed the world premieres of The Breach, Rising Water, The Sunken Living Room, The Vulgar Soul and The House of Plunder and regional premieres of Kimberly Akimbo, The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? and In Walks Ed. He has also directed for A.C.T.'s MFA program, New Theatre in Miami, the Tennessee Williams Festival, Soho Rep and the Flea, among others. He is the president of the National New Play Network, cofounder and former executive artistic director of Rude Mechanicals Theater Company in New York and a former professor at Tulane and Loyola Universities.

Margot Melcon (Dramaturg) joined MTC in 2008 and has served as dramaturg for all productions in the past three seasons. She was Literary and Publications Associate at A.C.T. for four years. She has worked with the Kennedy Center and Bay Area Playwrights Festival, was a fellow at the National Critic's Institute at the O'Neill Playwrights Festival and is a freelance writer for American Theatre magazine. She is a graduate of California State University, Chico. Recently, she taught a Principles of Dramaturgy course at the Playwrights Foundation in San Francisco.

Meg Pearson (Casting Director) has directed casting for all MTC mainstage productions since 2008. In addition, she directs casting for MTC's School Tour and MTC's New Works staged readings series. Outside of MTC, Ms. Pearson recently served as casting director on the feature film Seducing Charlie Barker, directed by Amy Glazer, and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Bay Area Children's Theatre.  Before coming to MTC, she served as casting assistant on television shows Las Vegas, King of Queens and Grounded for Life, as well as feature films Eurotrip, Dude, Where's My Car? and Straight Jacket.  Pearson is a graduate of the Theatre Arts program at Boston College.

SECTION END

Section E: About MTC

Celebrating our 45th Anniversary this season, Marin Theatre Company is the Bay Area's premier mid-sized theater and the leading professional theater in the North Bay. We produce a six-show season of provocative plays by passionate playwrights from the 20th century and today in our intimate 231-seat proscenium theater. We are committed to the development and production of new plays by American playwrights, with a comprehensive New Play Program that includes at least one world premiere each season, two nationally recognized annual playwriting awards, new play readings and workshops by the nation's best emerging playwrights and a leadership position in the National New Play Network. Our numerous educational programs serve more than 6,000 students each year.

MTC is a proud member of the National New Play Network, the country's alliance of non-profit professional theaters that champions the development, production and continued life of new plays for the American theater.

WHO'S WHO END

Part 5: Expanded Programs

Article - Making great theater an essential part of growing up in Marin: An interview with teacher Rhianna Kaplan about MTC's School Tour

At Marin Theatre Company, we strive to make great theater an essential part of growing up in Marin County. Our School Tour brings theater productions directly to elementary schools in our county and the greater Bay Area. Each year, this program provides nearly 4,500 students the opportunity to connect with professional playwrights, directors and performers.

This past year, MTC actors Patrick Jones (Bellwether) and Danielle Levin (My Name Is Asher Lev) traveled to 23 Bay Area elementary schools to perform TALL Tales by MTC's 2009 Playwright in Residence Steve Yockey (Bellwether). For the 2012 School Tour, MTC commissioned acclaimed local hip-hop theater artists Tommy Shepherd and Dan Wolf to write and perform a new adaptation of Anansi the Spider.

To learn more about this program's impact, Artistic Director of Expanded Programs Josh Costello interviewed Rhianna Kaplan, a second grade teacher at Marin County's Tomales Elementary School.

JC: Tell us a little bit about the kids you teach. What do they like to do? What challenges do they face? What are they working on in school?

RK: This year, I have a very active class - mostly boys - and so sports are a very popular thing. They all love to sing and do artwork. Many of the families here at Tomales speak Spanish as their first language, so many of my students are English language learners, which can be a challenge. In class, we just wrapped up a unit on family and friends and, now, we are starting a unit on heroes.

JC: What were the students' reactions to MTC's School Tour performance?

RK: Last year's performance was wonderful. The students were laughing and seemed to really enjoy watching the TALL Tales performance and could follow the stories well. For weeks following the performance, many students continued to talk about different parts they remembered and enjoyed about the show.

JC: What did you (and the other teachers) think of the performance?

RK: The overall feeling from the primary teachers was that is was wonderful. I asked around and got responses such as: "I love, love, loved it!" "It was a perfect fit" and "I really enjoyed everything about it." My favorite part was when they acted out Paul Bunyan's story and used a Barbie doll to represent the young lady who was talking to Paul, trying to create a better understanding of how big he was.

JC: Did anything about the performance connect back to your classroom curriculum? If so, how?

RK: In second grade, we learn about tall tales and other story types. Even though the timing didn't match up, when we read about tall tales later in the year, the students could really make the connection from what they remembered from the performance.

JC: Is there anything else you'd like us to know?

RK: I just want to thank MTC for taking time to come to our school and for having such a wonderful kid-friendly program. We look forward to having you back soon!

Information about Anansi the Spider, including a video interview with playwrights/performers Tommy Shepherd and Dan Wolf, is available on MTC's website. Please encourage your child's school to book a performance; dates are available February 27 - March 30, 2012.

Help MTC bring a performance of Anansi to an underprivileged community. To sponsor performances at Title 1 schools, contact Josh Costello, 415.388.5200 x3310 or education@marintheatre.org.

Learn more about MTC's Expanded Programs
Visit marintheatre.org and click on "Education" to learn about all of MTC's Expanded Programs. For more information, contact Josh Costello,
josh@marintheatre.org or  415.388.5200 x3310.
- Theater for Young Audiences, including School Tour (Anansi the Spider booking now), Student Matinees (booking now for The Glass Menagerie and Othello) and Family Matinees
- Drama Classes and Workshops
- Internships
- Teen Advisory Board
- Summer Theater Camps
- Marin Young Playwrights Festival

ARTICLE END

Part 6: Patron information

CONTACT US
Box Office: 415.388.5208
Tuesday-Saturday, 12-5PM
Closed Sundays, Mondays and Holidays
During performance runs the box office is open until show time and on Sundays.

Address: 397 Miller Avenue, 
Mill Valley CA 94941
General: 415.388.5200

Playbill Advertising:
Sasha Hnatkovich, 415.388.5200 x3313

Group Sales:
Groups of 15 or more receive a discounted rate plus a free group leader ticket.  
Julie Knight, 415.388.5200 x3302

PERFORMANCE SCHEDULE
Tues, Thu, Fri, and Sat  8:00pm
Wed  7:30pm
Sun  7:00pm
Matinees: Thu  1:00pm  ¥  Sat & Sun  2:00pm

TICKET PRICES
Previews: Thu through Sun, $34
All Other Performances:
Tues, $38/34 (excludes Opening) 
Wed, Thu eve & Sun eve, $44/$39 
Fri, $50/45
Sat eve, $55/50 
Matinees Thu, Sat & Sun $44/$39  
Opening Night with Cast Reception, $55/50 
Note: Price difference is between center and side sections. 

Ticket discounts
Under 30: $20, all performances, must show valid ID
Seniors: $6 off tickets to Thu & Sat matinees; $3 discount to all other performances
Rush tickets: $15 (based on availability,
one hour prior to curtain) 

SERVICES & INFORMATION
Arrive on time: Performances begin promptly. There are no refunds for latecomers. Late patrons cannot be seated until a designated seating break or possibly intermission. Patrons returning late from intermission will be seated at the discretion of the House Managers.

MTC CafŽ: Food and beverages are available before performances and during intermission. Save time and order intermission refreshments prior to the start of the performance.

Recycling: Please help MTC conserve resources. Recycle your programs in the racks provided on the way out of the theater, and use the labeled recycling bins for cans, bottles and paper. 

Recording Equipment: The use of sound, video or photographic recording equipment during performances is prohibited. 

Listening Devices: For patrons with impaired hearing, listening devices are available free. Please see the House Manager for details.

For information about physical and program access at MTC, please call 415.388.5208 or dial 711 to use the California Telecommunications Relay Service.

END OF DOCUMENT