The Pulitzer Prize- and Tony Award-winning musical Next to Normal is in Austin for the first time. Below are photos from the show. Please feel free to share the pictures, but please remember to credit ZACH photographer Kirk Tuck wherever they appear.
Please visit ZACH’s website for more show and ticket information.
Initially I was reluctant to see Next To Normal on Broadway. The story of a bi-polar woman told in a musical seemed like a stretch, and it didn’t make my “must see” list in two different trips I had to NYC. During that time though I began to read the on-line comments of audience members and musical theatre fans who were seeing the show, loving it and talking about how revolutionary and moving it was. I finally went to see it, and was completely blown away by the terrific music, the extraordinary performances, the novel way the story was told, and the dynamic structure which found equal amounts of humor and pathos to relate this very compelling journey. Yes, it was a stretch all right, and in all the right ways.
I think it is brilliant writing and it has become my very favorite theatre experience of the past five years. Sometimes when you work on a play you greatly admire as a director, you can mess up the experience for yourself by spending everyday with it in a rehearsal room for five weeks, and for months before that planning and thinking about how you want to bring the story to life. With each day and each rehearsal I have grown in deeper appreciation for the great work the Next To Normal composers and book writers created.
I’m sure that most of us have experienced the challenges of a family member’s serious health issues — physical, emotional or mental. It takes a toll on the patient and the entire family of caregivers, and the family structure gets completely reconfigured around the person in distress. I knew the intimacy of this musical would be enhanced by being performed on ZACH’s stage. I also knew that Meredith McCall, with whom I have worked for 20 years, was ideally suited for this pivotal role, as she is Austin’s very best dramatic singing actress. Fifteen years ago Meredith tackled a similar character for me in ZACH’s production of Angels In America when she brought Harper, a depressed Mormon housewife who self-medicated herself to delusional fantasies, to vivid life on our stage. And I also knew that Jamie Goodwin, who has done great dramatic work on our stages as well as several comedic roles in musicals, would have the opportunity to show you a different side to his extraordinary abilities that combine these two sides of his talents.
Next To Normal had important, pivotal developmental productions at great regional theatres — Arena Stage in DC, and Off-Broadway at NYC’s Second Stage — on the way to becoming a Pulitzer prize winning Broadway musical. Each of these incarnations of the musical were vastly different, and huge changes were implemented by the composer team at each stage of the show’s development. With ZACH’s Topfer Theatre coming to fruition in 2012/13, I am thrilled that ZACH will now be one of the premiere places in our nation where you will be the first to see brand new, Broadway-bound musicals and plays being incubated and produced for the very first time, taking their first steps in front of you. And your input as the audience will now shape the future life and destiny of those next works of art that have a life beyond our city. Prepare to expect wonders!
Dave Steakley
Producing Artistic Director
Performances Tuesday-Saturday at 8pm & Sundays at 2:30pm
Call 512-476-0541 x1 for tickets or visit www.zachtheatre.org
Please arrive early. Click here for parking information.
Thank You Production Sponsors!
Jan. 19, 2012 Update: Now watch the full episode live below!
Anna Deavere Smith in LET ME DOWN EASY
On Friday, the show that started at ZACH, underwritten by The Alice Kleberg Reynolds Foundation, aired on PBS (locally KLRU) as part of the nationally broadcast “Great Performances” series.
Anna Deavere Smith workshopped the show at ZACH Theatre, premiering it to Austin audiences in April 2009. It was an instant sensation!
Called “the most exciting individual in American theater” by Newsweek magazine, Anna Deavere Smith (The West Wing, Nurse Jackie) turns her theatrical exploration to matters of the human body in Let Me Down Easy.
As in her acclaimed earlier plays Fires in the Mirror and Twilight: Los Angeles, Deavere Smith interviews an eclectic range of people, and then performs as the interviewee in their own words.
This new gallery of indelible portraits ranges from boldface names like Austin cyclist Lance Armstrong, supermodel Lauren Hutton and Texas Governor Ann Richards, to lesser known but equally memorable characters including a rodeo bull rider, a New Orleans hospital doctor and the director of a South African orphanage — all sharing their searing experiences in confronting the price and politics of health, facing the end of life, and encountering the ultimate resilience of the human spirit.
From PBS’s website:
Having been credited with creating a new form of theater, to create Let Me Down Easy Smith interviewed an eclectic group of people (300 on three continents) and performs several in an evening that is funny, moving and engaging.
The title resonates on several levels reverberating with meanings of lost love, the faith that sustains people in times of difficulty, and ultimately, the end of life.
Smith, through her chameleon-like virtuosity, creates an indelible gallery of portraits, from a rodeo bull rider to a prize fighter to a New Orleans doctor during Hurricane Katrina, as well as boldface names like former Texas Governor Ann Richards, legendary cyclist Lance Armstrong, network film critic Joel Siegel, and supermodel Lauren Hutton. She performs 19 characters in the course of an hour and thirty five minutes. Their stories are alternately humorous and heart-wrenching, and often a blend of both. Building upon each other with hypnotic force, her subjects recount personal encounters with the frailty of the human body, ranging from a mere brush with mortality, coping with an uncertain future in today’s medical establishment, to confronting an end of life transition. The testimony of health care professionals adds further texture to a vivid portrayal of the cultural and societal attitudes to matters of health.
With keen observation and understated compassion, Smith – without judgment and maintaining the dignity of her subjects at all times — effortlessly submerges her own persona, and assumes her characters’ vocal and physical mannerisms with unerring accuracy.
Despite the profound poignancy of the issues at hand, Smith leavens the evening with many lighter anecdotes, some outright hilarious: choreographer Elizabeth Streb recounts how she accidentally set herself on fire as part of an elaborate birthday celebration; Smith’s own Aunt (Lorraine Colman) recalls the last (and distinctly unsentimental) words uttered by her elder sister; and when a Yale School of Medicine oncology fellow informs cancer patient Ruth Katz that the hospital has lost her records — he is dumbfounded to discover she is actually the associate dean of the medical school there. Other characters address the intensity of the will to live even in the face of dire sickness: University of Notre Dame musicologist Susan Youens rhapsodizes on the Adagio from Schubert’s String Quintet in C Major, one of over a thousand works Schubert composed before his untimely death at age 31; and while undergoing chemotherapy, Ann Richards defiantly tells of learning how to hang up the phone to preserve her precious “Chi.”
Called “the most exciting individual in American theater” by Newsweek magazine, Smith (Fires in the Mirror, Twilight: Los Angeles) turns on this occasion to tell a powerful story which points to the financial and psychological cost of care, the preciousness of life and the inevitability of our mortality.
“Even in the darkest hour, even where the crisis is the greatest, you’ll often find people who have the gift of grace, the gift of kindness, the gift of healing,” Smith observed. “Ultimately, through this play I am trying to spark a conversation that is easier, and maybe more enjoyable to have through art and entertainment than through politics.”
Let Me Down Easy was inspired by work she did at Yale School of Medicine, where she was invited as a visiting professor. Bill Moyers dedicated a full hour segment to profiling Ms. Smith and Let Me Down Easy, noting with amazement how her play transformed “a houseful of strangers” into “an intimate community.”
Throughout the evening, Smith assumes the parts of (in order):
- James H. Cone, author, reverend, and professor, Union Theological Seminary, NYC
- Elizabeth Streb, choreographer, Streb Dance Company, NYC
- Brent Williams, rodeo bull rider, Idaho
- Lance Armstrong, Tour de France Victor
- Sally Jenkins, sports columnist, The Washington Post
- Michael Bentt, world champion heavyweight boxer
- Hazel Merritt, patient, Yale-New Haven Hospital
- Lauren Hutton, supermodel
- Ruth Katz, patient, Yale-New Haven Hospital
- Kiersta Kurtz-Burke, physician, Charity Hospital, New Orleans
- Dr. Phillip A. Pizzo, dean, Stanford University School of Medicine
- Susan Youens, Musicologist, University of Notre Dame
- Eduardo Bruera, palliative care M.D., Anderson Cancer Center
- Ann Richards, former governor, Texas
- Lorraine Coleman, retired teacher, Anna Deavere Smith’s aunt
- Joel Siegel, ABC movie critic
- Peter Gomes, reverend, Memorial Church, Harvard University
- Trudy Howell, director, Chance Orphanage, Johannesburg
- Matthieu Ricard, Buddhist monk, author, French translator for the Dalai Lama
NBC’s Today raved, “Run – do not walk – to see this play! Watching Anna Deavere Smith on stage is magical. One minute you are laughing, the next you are crying. It is truly brilliant and stunning.” Variety heralded the work as “a totally vital piece of theater, mixing a standup comic’s instincts with a great reporter’s keen eye.” It was named one of Entertainment Weekly’s Top 10 of 2009.
On the West Coast, the San Francisco Chronicle declared the work “extraordinary,” and added, “This is Smith at the top of her unique documentary theater form, in writing, performance, and timeliness.”
Smith has been credited with creating a new form of theater. When granted the prestigious MacArthur Award, her work was described as “a blend of theatrical art, social commentary, journalism and intimate reverie.” She has performed in film and TV as well as on stage. She currently plays Gloria Akalitus on Showtime’s hit series Nurse Jackie, and is well remembered for her role of national security advisor Nancy McNally on NBC’s The West Wing. Her major film credits include “The American President,” “Philadelphia,” and “Rachel Getting Married.”
Smith’s Twilight: Los Angeles played around the U.S. and on Broadway. It received two Tony nominations, an Obie, Drama Desk Award, the New York Drama Critics Circle’s Special Citation and numerous other honors.
She produced, wrote and performed the film version of Twilight for PBS. Another of her plays, Fires in the Mirror, examined the Crown Heights riots in Brooklyn (1991), when racial tensions between black and Jewish neighbors exploded. It received an Obie Award, numerous other awards and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. She performed the play around the U.S., in London and in Australia. The film version was also broadcast on PBS.
Let Me Down Easy – directed for the stage by theater and opera director Leonard Foglia — was directed for television by veteran Matthew Diamond (Cyrano de Bergerac, From Broadway: Fosse, Swan Lake with American Ballet Theatre, all for Great Performances, and an Oscar nominee for the 1999 documentary Dancemaker).
After its Arena Stage run, the production embarked on a national tour with stops at The Wexner Center for the Arts; Philadelphia Theatre Company; a collaborative presentation of San Diego REPertory Theatre, La Jolla Playhouse, and the Vantage Theatre, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, and The Broad Stage.
Great Performances is funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Irene Diamond Fund, Vivian Milstein, the Philip and Janice Levin Foundation, the Starr Foundation and Joseph A. Wilson, LuEsther T. Mertz Charitable Trust,public television viewers, and PBS. For Great Performances, Bill O’Donnell and Mitch Owgang are producers; O’Donnell is series producer; David Horn is executive producer.
Visit PBS online at http://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/ for videos and more behind-the-scenes information, images and interviews about Friday’s broadcast.
The set of GOD OF CARNAGE, Photo by Michael Raiford
Set designer Michael Raiford did an amazing job designing the set of God of Carnage, drawing inspiration from the arty sensibilities of the character Veronica Novak in the play – and modern artist Cy Twombly, known for his large-scale freestyle scribbles on canvas.
Michael Raiford notes, “Cy Twombly seemed the perfect fit to embrace a space that was about an art aficionado and adults acting like children. He was sometimes know as ‘the scribbler’. This interpretation of Twombly pushes the childlike qualities of ’scribbling’ on a wall.”
Hilariously played by Lauren Lane, Veronica is the victim’s mother who works part-time in an art history bookshop. She has a collection of coffee table art books, which become seminal props in the play, and surely Cy Twombly would be in her catalog.
Lauren Lane and Thomas Ward as Veronica and Michael Novak in ZACH's GOD OF CARNAGE
Raiford’s set design was an homage to Twombly, who passed away in July of this year after a career spanning from the 1950s. Some of Twombly’s best known works are from the 1960s where he practiced lowercase “e”s on canvas. He blurred the lines between painting and drawing, and though it may look like scribbles to some, each line or smudge was painted with its own history and to Twombly was proper subject matter.
Veronica tells the other couple, “I contributed to a collection on the civilization of Sheba, based on the excavations that were restarted at the end of the Ethiopian-Eritrean war,” and Raiford’s inspirational use of Twombly in his set design also reflects the historical sensibilities in Twombly’s work.
"Apollo and the Artist" by Cy Twombly
Late in Twombly’s career (he painted through 2010), many of his paintings and works on paper moved into “romantic symbolism”, and their titles were meant to be visually interpreted through shapes and forms and words.
Twombly often quoted the poet Stéphane Mallarmé, as well as many classical myths and allegories in his works. Examples of this are his “Apollo and The Artist” and a series of eight drawings consisting solely of inscriptions of the word “VIRGIL”.
In a 1994 retrospective, curator Kirk Varnedoe described Twombly’s work as “influential among artists, discomfiting to many critics and truculently difficult not just for a broad public, but for sophisticated initiates of postwar art as well.” After acquiring Twombly’s Three Studies from the Temeraire, painted in 1998–99, the Director of the Art Gallery of New South Wales said “sometimes people need a little bit of help in recognizing a great work of art that might be a bit unfamiliar.”
When Veronica’s books are … soiled by an over-the-top incident in the play, she takes great care (and that’s an understatement) to preserve the art books, a collection of interest that is very telling about her character and the grave concern she has about a playground skirmish involving her kid.
Who knew so much went into a set? Raiford is one of dozens of artists that contributed to the artful God of Carnage, written up by the Austin American-Statesman as “box office gold,” and called “wickedly funny” by Austin Culture Map.
Thanks to Kirk Tuck for all the great production photos!
An all-star Austin cast of Lauren Lane, Thomas Ward, Eugene Lee and Angela Rawna, from Friday Night Lights fame, stars in the outrageous Tony-winning “Best Comedy” God of Carnage.
This outrageously funny play took Broadway by storm and is by far the most popular new play in the country. So popular, in fact, that controversial director Roman Polanski is releasing a film version called Carnage in January with Oscar winners Jody Foster and Christopher Waltz, who are joined by the ineffably funny John C. Reilly and Kate Winslet.
Carnage opened the 2011 New York Film Festival and was met with rave reviews. The Hollywood Reporter says it “fully delivers the laughs and savagery of the stage piece,” the Telegraph agrees, calling it “giddily enjoyable,” and The Playlist boasts that it’s “very, very funny.”
But before the film Carnage is released nationally, Austin has a chance to catch the original script live on stage at ZACH. If you think the Polanski film is getting good reviews, the stage version is now the third-longest-running play of the 2000s. From coast to coast critics agree – LA Times wrote that the play is a “chomping treat” and “riveting,” and The New York Times made it a critics’ pick, saying it “delivers the cathartic release of watching other people’s marriages go boom” and is “savagely primitive entertainment with an intellectual veneer.”
The story of two couples meeting to sort out a playground skirmish between their two boys, God of Carnage erupts into hilarity when coffee is replaced with rum and the gloves come off for an all-out throw-down between some of the finest actors in Austin.
Lauren Lane, playing Veronica Novak, delivers a performance that’s one of her best on any stage, says ZACH’s Producing Artistic Director Dave Steakley, and her counterpart Angela Rawna, as Annette Raleigh, makes a 180 departure from the wayward, drug-addicted character she played in NBC’s Friday Night Lights to an over-the-top hilarious character with impeccable comedic timing and line-after-line of laughs that left preview audiences on the edge of their seats.
The men, too, hold their own in this laugh-fest. Thomas Ward, who co-wrote and starred in the film Sironia, which premiered at the Austin Film Festival and won the “Audience Favorite” award, plays Lauren Lane’s husband Michael Novak. And Eugene Lee, from Suzan-Lori Parks’ The Book of Grace at ZACH, plays opposite Angela Rawna as Alan Raleigh.
Directed by Matt Lenz, returning to Austin after previous ZACH credits of Aida, Love! Valor! Compassion! and Dirty Blonde, just came off several Broadway directing credits as associate director of Catch Me If You Can and Hairspray and resident director for the Broadway and national tours of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. Lenz notes: “I am so pleased to be back in the director’s seat at ZACH. God of Carnage is one of those new plays that I just couldn’t wait to sink my teeth into. It is brimming with raw human emotion, wonderfully idiosyncratic – but true – characters and an engaging dialogue that will extend long after the play is over. I always relish the opportunity to help orchestrate a superb group of actors in some deliciously bad behavior surrounding a contemporary conflict that resonates like this one does. This one feels a bit like being the mediator at a World Wide Wresting event!”
“Never underestimate the pleasure of watching really good actors behaving terribly, ripping the stuffing out of one another, tearing up the scenery, stomping on their own vanity and having the time of their lives!” – The New York Times
GOD OF CARNAGE is live at ZACH Theatre, starring Lauren Lane, Thomas Ward, Eugene Lee and Angela Rawna from NBC’s “Friday Night Lights.” Below are production photos from the show by ZACH photographer Kirk Tuck. Feel free to repost these photos, but please credit Kirk Tuck wherever they appear.
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“We haven’t offered you anything, coffee, tea, is there any of that clafouti left, Ronnie? It’s an extraordinary clafouti!”
– Michael Novak
Clafouti is a traditional French peasant dessert – the ratatouille of the pastry world, a French version of the American apple pie. It’s cheap and simple to make. Lately, the offices at ZACH Theatre have been filled with the home-baked smell of pastry, which is a significant stage prop for the Tony-winning “Best Comedy” GOD OF CARNAGE (performances begin tonight.) It’s been a delicious entrée to the holiday season.
A COMEDY OF BAD MANNERS
GOD OF CARNAGE was written by French playwright Yasmina Reza (author of ZACH’s comedic hit ART.) It debuted in London’s West End where the story was set in Paris. Reza collaborated with translator Christopher Hampton when the show moved to Broadway in 2009, Americanizing the play and its characters and the result was an instant award-winning comedy hit!
In this hilarious story of a playground skirmish turning into outrageously funny argument between otherwise well-behaved adults, little details in the GOD OF CARNAGE – like clafouti – tell a lot about the characters in the play.
The choice of clafouti in the original French text satirizes some remarkable things about characters Veronica and Michael Novak (played by Lauren Lane of TV’s “The Nanny” and Thomas Ward.)
Veronica’s clafouti recipe comes from Michael’s mother. Because clafouti is a classic peasant dish, the idea the playwright may be conveying is that Michael himself is lower class. This certainly explains his hilariously appropriate proclamation that he is a “Neanderthal.”
The use of clafouti also gives us some insight into Michael’s wife Veronica. She has taken the original recipe and enhanced it by mixing it with apples and pears instead of cherries and giving it a gingerbread base – much the same way she’s taken Michael, a simple man, and enhanced him by making him act like a sophisticated, liberal socialite.
The gloves all come off at ZACH Theatre starting next Wednesday. The GOD OF CARNAGE Champagne Opening is this Saturday, December 3, so get ready to laugh out loud as you see really good Austin actors behaving terribly!
For tickets, contact ZACH’s box office at 512-476-0541 x1. Visit www.zachtheatre.org for more information and behind-the-scenes video, photos and insider information.
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The Tony Award-Winning “Best Comedy” Opens at ZACH Tues., Nov. 29th
Actress Lauren Lane stars in the uproarious new comedy GOD OF CARNAGE — Tony Award-winner of Best Comedy and the most popular play in the country this season — making its Austin premiere on Tues., Nov. 29th on ZACH’s intimate Kleberg Stage.
Winner of “Best Actress” by the Austin Critics’ Table and B. Iden Payne Award, many know Lauren Lane from her hilarious role as C.C. Babcock in the long-running hit television comedy “The Nanny.” Lauren has most recently graced ZACH stages in the wildly popular stage comedy August: Osage County and the Texas premiere of Steven Dietz’s play Becky’s New Car. A master of comedy, this is her most anticipated role yet.
GOD OF CARNAGE is the humorous story of two sets of parents coming together to discuss their children’s play date gone awry. But it’s more than that, as The New York Times notes, GOD OF CARNAGE is your chance to watch “really good actors behaving terribly, ripping the stuffing out of one another, tearing up the scenery, stomping on their own vanity and having the time of their lives!”
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In the play, Lauren plays Veronica Novak – a caring earth mother type who turns into a wild-woman warrior after her son gets the wrong end of the stick in a playground skirmish. A writer, Veronica is always right. Playwright Yasmina Reza — award-winning writer of ZACH’s comedic sensation Art — has said, “Veronica is the character we all would like to be. She’s the one who cares deeply about the adults children are going to grow up to be. The only reason she is becoming insufferable is that she’s making a big effort to turn this into something positive, and she’s not listened to.”
Veronica scoffs in the play, “Behaving well gets you nowhere. Courtesy is a waste of time, it weakens you and undermines you.” She admits she is humorless.
Watch the gloves come off starting Tuesday, November 29th at ZACH, and get ready for a laugh-out-loud night at the theatre with what The New York Times calls “a cathartic release of watching other people’s marriages go boom … as rum replaces coffee and outer garments are removed, sides of combat blur.”
Satire, comedy, parents behaving badly: GOD OF CARNAGE is a fabulous way to kick off your ha-ha-holidays. ZACH’s Champagne Opening performance and post-show reception is Saturday, December 3.
Give ZACH’s box office a call if you have any questions at 512-476-0541 x1 or check out ZACH’s website for video, actors bios and more behind-the-scenes information at www.zachtheatre.org.
GOD OF CARNAGE runs on ZACH’s Kleberg Stage Tuesdays-Sundays through January 8, 2012.
LAUREN LANE* (Veronica Novak) – just played Madame Lyubov Andreievna Ranevskaya in The Cherry Orchard as a URTA Guest Artist at The University of Texas at Austin under the direction of Brant Pope. AT ZACH THEATRE: August: Osage County and Becky’s New Car, winning both the Austin Critics’ Table Award for “Best Actress” and B. Iden Payne Award for “Best Actress in a Comedy” for both productions. She also starred in The Clean House at ZACH Theatre, for which she received a B. Iden Payne nomination for “Best Actress in a Drama.” In 2009, she won the B. Iden Payne Award for “Best Actress in a Comedy” for her work as “Sue” in House of Several Stories. REGIONAL THEATRE: A Writers Vision(s) for FronteraFest as well as joining the New York cast for the Austin production tour of Celebrity Autobiography. For six years, Lauren was a company member of Tim Robbins’ award winning Los Angeles-based theatre company – The Actors Gang – where she won a Drama-Logue award for her work in Electra directed by Oskar Eustis. She has also worked at Actors Theatre of Louisville, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, The Mark Taper Forum, The American Conservatory Theatre and Dallas Theatre Center, among others. TV/FILM: For six seasons, she played “C.C. Babcock” on the television show, The Nanny. She also played the female lead, “Chris Novak,” on the TV detective show Hunter, as well as a recurring role on L.A. LAW. Last April, Lauren was seen at The Kennedy Center in Nebraska at Noon and Two Socks Discuss Loss as part of the acting company of The American College Theatre Festival. OTHER: Lauren graduated from the M.F.A. program at The American Conservatory Theatre. She is an Assistant Professor at Texas State University and lives with her daughter Kate in Austin. Lauren is represented by Collier Talent.
EUGENE LEE* (Alan Raleigh) – AT ZACH THEATRE: Vet in Suzan-Lori Parks’ The Book of Grace. REGIONAL THEATRE: Eugene enjoys an acting career that goes back as far as a command performance of a University Drama department production of A Raisin in The Sun for President Lyndon B. Johnson on his Texas ranch in 1972. On the professional stage, his career goes as far back as the original cast of Pulitzer Prize-winning A Soldier’s Play by Charles Fuller with the Negro Ensemble Company to a Broadway appearance in Gem of the Ocean by August Wilson. Other professional theatre credits include the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. (2008) performing in five of the ten August Wilson Century of Plays, Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre production of Wilson’s Two Trains Running, Huntington Theatre in Boston production of Fences (Fall 2009) and the world premiere of Marcus Gardley’s every tongue confess at Arena Stage in D.C. (Fall 2010). Other Negro Ensemble Company appearances include Home by Samm Art William, Sons and Fathers of Sons by Ray Araanha and Manhattan Made Me by Gus Edwards. Lee appeared as Sterling in the Huntington Theatre staging of Radio Golf and Eli in their Broadwaybound production of Gem of The Ocean, as well as the True Colors Theatre Company in Atlanta productions of Fences by August Wilson, Ceremonies in Dark Old Men by Lonne Elder and Miss Evers’ Boys by David Feldshuh. As a playwright, he has written the plays East Texas Hot Links, Fear Itself, Somebody Called: A Tale of Two Preachers, Killingsworth and the musical Twist. TV/FILM: Dallas, Good Times, The White Shadow, Guiding Light, playing coroner Hud Sanders on The District, The Women of Brewster Place mini-series with Oprah Winfrey, The Jackson Five: An American Dream, and recent features Blacklisted and Coach Carter. He has written episodes for television that include Homicide: Life on the Streets, Walker Texas Ranger, Michael Hayes, The Turks and The Journey of Allen Strange. OTHER: Mr. Lee serves as Artist in Residence and Artistic Director of the Texas State University Black and Latino Playwright’s Conference.
ANGELA RAWNA (Annette Raleigh) – AT ZACH THEATRE: Mrs. Muller in Doubt (2008 Austin Critics’ Table Award). REGIONAL THEATRE: Sonny’s Last Shot by Pulitzer Prize winner Lawrence Wright and For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf (Lady in Blue). TELEVISION: Regina Howard on NBC’s Emmy Award-winning drama Friday Night Lights, co-starred on the WB’s Jack & Bobby and FX’s Oil Storm, guest star roles on Parenthood and Private Practice. FILM: Currently shooting Boyhood, directed by Richard Linklater, A Scanner Darkly, The Return, The Cassidy Kids, Elvis and Anabelle and Friday Night Lights. ADDITIONAL CREDITS: Several national commercials.
THOMAS WARD* (Michael Novak) – joins ZACH Theatre for the first time. OFF-BROADWAY: The Unseen by Craig Wright (Cherry Lane Theatre). REGIONAL THEATRE: Hamlet, Relative Values, Much Ado About Nothing and Julius Ceasar (Alabama Shakespeare Festival); The Merry Wives of Windsor (Nashville Shakespeare Festival); Talking Pictures (Stage West, Ft. Worth); Humble Boy and As You Like It (WaterTower Theatre, Dallas). FILM: Sironia (also co-writer) by Kaboom Productions, which premiered at the Austin Film Festival and won the “Audeince Favorite” award. ADDITIONAL CREDITS: M.F.A. from University of Alabama, currently Assistant Professor of Acting in the Baylor University Department of Theatre. www.thomaswardonline.com.
MATT LENZ (Director) – is delighted to return to Austin to direct at ZACH Theatre, having previously directed ZACH productions of Aida, Love! Valor! Compassion! and Dirty Blonde. BROADWAY: Catch Me If You Can (Associate Director), Hairspray (Associate Director – Matt also directed the Hairspray National Tours, South Africa, Las Vegas, Toronto and German companies), Disney’s Beauty and the Beast (Resident Director for Broadway and Tours) and The Yellow Brick Road Not Taken: WICKED’s 5th Anniversary Celebration at the Gershwin Theater. OFF-BROADWAY: The Irish Curse (Soho Playhouse), Idaho! (New York Music Theatre Festival ’08 – “Best Show of Festival” and “Best Director” Awards), Fingers and Toes (NYMF ’10) REGIONAL: Hairspray (Paper Mill Playhouse), [title of show] (George Street Playhouse), Idaho! (Forestburgh Playhouse), Saint Heaven, Scituate (Stamford Ctr.), Aida, Beauty and the Beast, Hairspray (St. Louis MUNY), The Full Monty, South Pacific, Grease (North Carolina Theatre) Confidentially, Cole (Tiffany Theatre, LA). Matt is currently developing two new Broadway bound musicals: Empire and The Jolson Show.
MICHAEL RAIFORD (Scenic Design) – is a freelance scenic and costume designer based in Austin. Michael has been a resident designer at ZACH Theatre for almost 20 years, where he has designed more than 100 productions. Recent ZACH projects include Spring Awakening, Hairspray, The Book of Grace, August: Osage County, Rent, The Drowsy Chaperone, Becky’s New Car, Let Me Down Easy, Love Janis, Shooting Star, Caroline or Change and The Clean House. Michael has also designed more versions of Rockin’ Christmas Party than we can count! Michael is in his fifth season designing for the Humana Festival of New American Plays at The Actors Theater of Louisville. This season includes Elemeno Pea by Molly Smith Metzler and Bob by Peter Sinn Nachtrieb. Previous Humana projects at ATL include Sirens by Debra Zoe Laufer, Fissures by Dominique Serrand, Phoenix by Scott Organ and Absalom by Zoe Kazan. Other projects at ATL include Jouét, Shipwrecked, Hedwig and the Angry Inch and The Kite Runner. Other favorite regional productions include Well, The Chosen, and Inherit The Wind at Cleveland Playhouse; The Young Lady from Rwanda at Kansas City Repertory Theatre; Guys and Dolls and Tin Types at the Maltz Jupiter Theatre, Florida; The Bartered Bride at Opera Boston; The Fantastiks at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, DC; and What Goes Up at New Victory Theatre, NYC. Other Austin productions include Rigoletto for Austin Lyric Opera, Big Love and Tesla for The Rude Mechanicals and When Something Wonderful Ends for our own Barbara Chisholm. Upcoming designs this season include Carmen at Central City Opera and The Magic Flute for Ballet Austin. Michael received his M.F.A. from the University of Texas, where he taught for 10 years, and he is a member of United Scenic Artists.
SUSAN BRANCH TOWNE (Costume Design) – Previous ZACH Theatre designs: Hairspray, August: Osage County, The Drowsy Chaperone, Our Town,The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, The Clean House, Jesus Christ Superstar/Jesucristo Superestrella, Present Laughter, Bad Dates, Urinetown, Aida, Cabaret, It Ain’t Nothin’ But the Blues, Always…Patsy Cline, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Smokey Joe’s Cafe, The Laramie Project and Jelly’s Last Jam. Other Austin credits include The Magic Flute for Ballet Austin and The Bat for Austin Lyric Opera; and The Music Man, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Annie Get Your Gun, The Secret Garden and Crazy For You for Zilker Theatre Productions. Favorite regional engagements include King Lear, The Diary of Anne Frank, and A Flea In Her Ear at the Denver Center Theatre Company; Crowns, Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, Twelfth Night, and The Taming of the Shrew at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival; My Fair Lady, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Chicago, Julius Caesar, Tartuffe, Richard III and Sophisticated Ladies at Pioneer Theatre in Salt Lake City; and The Producers, A Little Night Music, Sweeney Todd and Forum for Milwaukee’s Skylight Opera Theatre. In New York, Susan designed for New York City Opera and numerous Off-Broadway productions. Susan is a graduate of Carnegie-Mellon University and the Yale School of Drama, and is a 25-year member of United Scenic Artists, Local 829.
SARAH EC MAINES (Lighting Design) – joins ZACH Theatre for the first time. NATIONAL THEATRE: Associate/Assistant Lighting Designer for Jersey Boys (eight productions including Broadway, Las Vegas and Toronto), In the Heights (First National Tour), Gypsy starring Patti Lupone (Broadway and NYCC). OTHER THEATRE: Lighting Designer for A Little Princess (world premiere concert version); As You Like It and All Shook Up at Texas State University; Mikado and A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Florida State Opera. OTHER CREDITS: Sarah holds an M.F.A. in Theatrical Lighting Design from the University of California, San Diego, and is a professor at Texas State University, San Marcos. She is a member of USA 829.
SAM KOKAJKO (Sound Design) – has been working with ZACH Theatre as a sound engineer and designer for the last two years and is excited to be working with them once again. Recent ZACH Theatre sound credits include Hairspray (Sound Design), Red Hot Patriot, Rent, The Drowsy Chaperone, Love, Janis, and many more. Other sound design credits include Footloose, Beehive, The Wedding Singer, Annie, Brigadoon, Grease, and Little Shop of Horrors. Sam also works as a freelance sound engineer/designer for several companies in Austin – including Zilker Theatre Productions and Austin Shakespeare – and enjoys working with video, recording and other forms of media.
BLAKE REEVES (Properties Design) – AT ZACH: Spring Awakening, Hairspray, The Book of Grace, August: Osage County, Fiction, Red Hot Patriot: The Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins and Rent. Blake has also worked with ZACH’s production team in numerous facets for The Santaland Diaries, The Drowsy Chaperone, Metamorphoses, Becky’s New Car, Our Town and The Flaming Idiots. In addition to production work, he performed with the award-winning cast of Our Town. Blake attended Baylor University and, during his time as a student, he designed, choreographed and performed in a number of productions. He later returned to serve as the Coordinator of Special Performances for the university, producing and designing several shows. He also provided prop design for Footloose with Zilker Theatre Productions this summer. Blake is a proud member of the Society of Properties Artisan Managers.
TINA GRAMANN (Fight Choreographer) – Tina choreographed fights for Spring Awakening, The Book of Grace, August: Osage County, The Grapes of Wrath, Porgy and Bess, Take Me Out, Cabaret, Omnium Gatherum, Misery, bee-luther-hatchee, As You Like It, Whose Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and more. Tina’s weapon specializations include single sword, broadsword, rapier and dagger, and hand to hand combat. Four-times recognized by the Society of American Fight Directors, Tina received her M.F.A. from the University of Houston School of Theatre.
PAUL FLINT (Director of Production) – joined ZACH Theatre in 2008. He earned his B.F.A. from Shorter College and M.F.A. from Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, with a focus on Technical Direction, Scenic Design and Arts Management. He has more than ten years experience in technical theatre and has worked as a Technical Director for eight years. His theatre credits include the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta, Ga., Glimmerglass Opera in Cooperstown, New York, Vitalist Theatre Company in Chicago, Ill., and he is a founding member of Seaside Repertory Theatre in Seaside, Florida. Paul is the author of Managing the Creative Mind: A Technical Director’s Process.
JIM O’SULLIVAN (Technical Director) – is excited to be working on his second show at ZACH. He came to Austin from TheatreWorks–Silicon Valley where he was the Assistant Technical Director from 2007-2011. He worked on more than 30 productions, with 7 world premieres, at TheatreWorks including the musicals Emma, Tinyard Hill and Daddy Long Legs. He also served as Technical Director for Renegade Theatre Experiment and the Cutting Ball Theatre. He won an Arty Award for scenic design of On Golden Pond at the Benicia Old Town Theatre Group.
BLAIR HURRY (Costume Shop Manager) – grew up in Austin and studied Costume Design & Technology at the University of Texas. Her costume design works at ZACH Theatre include Red Hot Patriot: The Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins, Metamorphoses, Shooting Star (2009-2010 Season), Farm to Market and Call It Courage (ZACH’s Performing Arts School). Other local designs include Vampyress (Vortex Theatre), Parade: A Musical (St. Edward’s University), The Famous Rio Grande, The Trojan Women and Cabaret (University of Texas). Prior to ZACH, she built costumes for the Williamstown Theatre Festival, The Ohio Light Opera Company and STAGES: St. Louis. She also worked as Head of Wardrobe and Make-up for the national tour of Playhouse Disney’s The Doodlebops LIVE! and the 2008 national tour of The Moscow Ballet’s The Great Russian Nutcracker. She is currently an active member of the local 205 IATSE union.
LILY WILLIAMS (Company Manager) – graduated from Montana State University with degrees in Media & Theatre Arts and Spanish Language & Literature. During her time in Montana, Lily served as the producer and stage manager for numerous university productions, including The Last Acts and Allen Ball’s Five Women Wearing the Same Dress. She has vast experience in film, event management and visual art.
IAN SCOTT* (Stage Manager) – AT ZACH: Stage Manager for The Book of Grace, Shooting Star, Urinetown, Crowns, The Vagina Monologues, Circumference of a Squirrel, Rockin’ Christmas Party (Austin and San Antonio), Art, Evita, Abundance, Pride’s Crossing, Angels in America, Z-Cabaret, Gospel at Colonus, Das Barbecü and Once On This Island; Actor in The Drowsy Chaperone (Underling), The Rocky Horror Show (Dr. Scott), The Who’s Tommy (Uncle Ernie), Jelly’s Last Jam, And the World Goes Round, Passion and Schoolhouse Rock. Additional ZACH credits include Keepin’ It Weird, I Am My Own Wife, Schoolhouse Rock (Project Interact), Bucky!, Plaid Tidings, Bad Dates, House Arrest, Shear Madness, American Play, Twisted Olivia, Rocky Horror, Forever Plaid, My Children My Africa, Falsettos, Buddy Holly, Harvey and Nunsense. REGIONAL THEATRE: Numerous credits with companies that include Arkansas Rep, Austin Contemporary Ballet, Ariel Dance Theater, Austin Circle of Theaters, Austin Handel/Haydn Society, Austin Lyric Opera, Austin Musical Theater, Austin Shakespeare Festival, Broadway Austin, Capital City Playhouse, Casa Manana/Bass Hall, Deus Ex Machina, Different Stages, Erwin Center, Imagine That Productions, Live Oak Theatre, Mary Moody Northen, Myrna Loy Center – Montana, Palmer Auditorium, Paramount Theater, Playfest, Scott Schroeder Presents, State Theater, Southwestern University, Teatro Vivo, Tex-ARTS, University of Texas and Zilker Theatre Productions.
YASMINA REZA (Playwright) – is a French playwright and novelist based in Paris, whose works have all been multi-award-winning, critical and popular international successes, produced worldwide and translated into 35 languages. She has written seven plays – Conversations After a Burial, The Passage of Winter, ART, The Unexpected Man, Life X 3, A Spanish Play, God of Carnage and How You Talk the Game - and six novels: Hammerklavier, Une Desolation (Desolation), Adam Haberberg, Dans la Luge d’Arthur Schopenhauer, Nulle Part and L’Aube, le Soir ou la Nuit (Dawn Dusk or Night). Films include Le Pique-Nique de Lulu Kreutz, directed by Didier Martiny, and Chicas, written and directed by the author.
CHRISTOPHER HAMPTON (Translation) – Hampton’s plays, musicals and translations have garnered three Tony Awards, two Olivier Awards, four Evening Standard Awards and the New York Theatre Critics Circle Award. Film/television awards include an Academy Award, two BAFTAs, a Writer’s Guild of America Award, the Prix Italian and a Special Jury Award at the Cannes Film Festival. Plays at the Royal Court include: Treats, Savages, The Philanthropist, Uncle Vanya, Total Eclipse, Marya and When Did You Last See My Mother?. Also: Embers, Three Sisters, ART, Sunset Boulevard, The Talking Cure, Alice’s Adventures Under Ground, White Chameleon, Tales From Hollywood, Don Juan Comes Back from the War, Tales from the Vienna Woods, An Enemy of the People, The Wild Duck, Hedda Gabler, Life X 3, Tartuffe, Les Liaisons Dangereuses, The Unexpected Man and Conversations After a Burial. Hampton’s plays have been performed at the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Almeida, the Royal National Theatre and both on the West End and Broadway. His television credits include The Ginger Tree, Hotel du Lac, The History Man and Able’s Will. He has written the screenplays for Atonement, Imagining Argentina, The Quiet American, The Secret Agent, Mary Reilly, Carrington, Total Eclipse, Dangerous Liaisons, Wolf at the Door, The Good Father, The Honorary Consul, Tales from the Vienna Woods and A Doll’s House.
The rock musical SPRING AWAKENING is live on stage at ZACH Theatre.
Here’s a clip of the cast singing “Totally F***ed” from the show: http://youtu.be/DbfoMP9IUsM
Tickets and info at http://www.zachtheatre.org/show/spring-awakening or 512-476-0541 x1.
The first act of David Sedaris’ 