From the Artistic Director

As the temperature hits the century mark here in Arizona,
all of us at ATC are already thinking of the cooler temperatures of fall and the exciting start of our 2008-2009 season. June and July are always busy times at ATC as we work on casting, designing and building shows. It is during these summer months that the outlines of each of our productions go from ideas and words on a page, to the reality of artists, interpretations, musicians, auditions, imagination and craft.

I thought this might be a good time to bring you inside our planning as we approach our 42nd Season. 2007-2008 was embraced by audiences and critics as one of ATC’s most exciting and wide-ranging seasons ever. We think we have an equal treat in store in the coming year, so please take a little peek behind the curtain and let us share some of what’s in store.

ENCHANTED APRIL
Our season kicks off with a wonderfully romantic story about waking up to the enchantments of life, based on the delightful novel by Elizabeth von Arnim.  It was a hit on Broadway and enjoyed several enthralling productions around the world over the last few years. Set in Britain and Northern Italy in the 1920s, it centers on a quartet of British women breaking out of the patterns of their lives, forming unlikely friendships and discovering the simple joys around them.

Enchanted April will be directed by Timothy Near, Artistic Director of San Jose Repertory Theatre for the past twenty-one seasons, in her ATC debut.  Her many directing credits at San Jose include, among others, Bad Dates, Art, Miss Julie, The Little Foxes and The Sea Gull. She has also directed at numerous theatres throughout the United States, including such renowned companies as Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Mark Taper Forum in LA and the New York Shakespeare Festival. She has received L.A.’s DramaLogue Awards for her direction of Ghosts on Fire, and Fire in the Rain...Singer in the Storm, a one-woman show performed by her sister, Holly Near. Most recently, her production of Major Barbara swept the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Awards.

We also are delighted to welcome back Kent Dorsey, who will design scenery for Enchanted April.  Kent was responsible for the chilling operating theatre in last season’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, as well as a long list of other favorite ATC shows, including A Streetcar Named Desire, Work Song: Three Views of Frank Lloyd Wright, A Moon for the Misbegotten and How the Other Half Loves. Kent is tremendously ingenious and inventive, and for Enchanted April he is planning…well, let’s just say you don’t want to miss the first 30 seconds of the second act!

THE LADY WITH ALL THE ANSWERS
Our second show is a fascinating look at one of America’s favorite media personalities (and surrogate moms), Ann Landers.  David Rambo’s touching comedy offers an opportunity to spend an evening with this witty, wise and intriguing woman as she works out her own personal problems standing under the spotlight of her own celebrity.  Incorporating some of the most well-known and notorious letters from Ms. Landers’ actual readers, this show blends reality and fiction to paint a glorious portrait of a complex and modern woman.

The Lady with All the Answers will be directed by ATC’s Associate Artistic Director and Director of Education Samantha Wyer, who last season took us so memorably to Maycomb, Alabama to witness the powerful drama of To Kill a Mockingbird.  This season marks Samantha’s eleventh year at Arizona Theatre Company and over that time she has created some of our most memorable productions, from the drama of Wit to the rich puzzles of Proof to the intriguing theatricality of I Am My Own Wife. The Lady With All the Answers will be designed by Tucsonan and University of Arizona faculty member Peter Beudert, who will recreate the lush and elegant interior of Ann Lander’s lakeshore Drive apartment in Chicago.

HAIR
It’s been exactly forty years since Hair rocked Broadway and the world.  Whatever you – or your parents! -  thought of this ‘American Tribal Love-Rock Musical,’ it was one of the most influential artistic creations of the Twentieth Century as it wended its way deep into the social debates of a turbulent time with a message of peace and love. Now, the generation that came of age during the 60s is running the world and making a difference in a whole new way.  For just a little while, however, we can step back in time, let our hair down and re-experience the freedom and the flower power, the rebellion and the creativity of that landmark year – not to mention the chance to listen to that whole score of indelible songs that rocked a generation.

In a fun shift of gears from directing this past season’s The Pajama Game, I’ll be tackling Hair along with the same team that gave us such wonderful ‘Steam Heat’ this year: Christopher McGovern, as Musical Director and Patti Wilcox as choreographer. My relationship with Patti has been one of the most fruitful of my 17 years as Artistic Director. We’ve collaborated on such musicals as My Fair Lady, The Pirates of Penzance, Oh! Coward and Little Shop of Horrors, and on plays like Much Ado About Nothing and Scapin. I’m unashamed to admit that I am of the age that remembers when Hair first conquered the world, but I’m also thrilled to be working on a new production with an entire cast that wasn’t even alive when Hair first opened. In fact, there are many people under fifty that tell me they are eager to experience Hair for the first time and discover what relevance it has today.

The sound design for Hair will be by the legendary Abe Jacobs. This is exciting news on two fronts: Abe is one of the greatest and most legendary of Broadway designers who practically invented the field of musical sound design through his landmark designs for the original Broadway productions of such shows as Chorus Line, Cats, Evita, Chicago and a host of other great musicals. And Abe was the original sound designer for Hair on Broadway in 1968! It’s also always a thrill to have Abe work with us at ATC because he is a Tucsonan born and bred, who made his acting debut in knee britches on the stage of the Temple of Music and Art almost sixty years ago.

A RAISIN IN THE SUN
Our five-year “America Plays! Celebrating Great American Stories” program was launched spectacularly this season with To Kill a Mockingbird and the dozens of ancillary events that we programmed around the community in tandem with the play. We continue “America Plays!” next season with one of the greatest dramas of the last century.  A Raisin in the Sun revolutionized Broadway by letting the world experience what it meant to be an American of color in the 1950s.  The strength, pride and determination of the Younger family as they wrestled with universal family issues in A Raisin in the Sun not only was a tangible reminder that we as Americans are alike in more ways than we are different – it also gave African Americans visible role models in the popular culture and launched the careers of icons of the stage and screen such as Sidney Poitier, Ruby Dee and Louis Gossett, Jr.

We’ll be busy again this season with many community participation events to coincide with A Raisin in the Sun, including play readings, discussions and a variety of new and creative ways to experience the drama of this story.

This show marks a welcome return to ATC for director Lou Bellamy, who directed the powerful and moving Jitney during the 2006-2007 season.  Mr. Bellamy is the Founder of Penumbra Theatre in St. Paul and has served as its Artistic Director for over thirty years.  He was one of the earliest collaborators with the great August Wilson, and a national champion of August’s work. You will be seeing one America’s greatest stage actors, Franchelle Stewart Dorn, in her ATC debut with this production. Designing the set will be Vicki Smith, who created the impressively authentic storefront in Jitney, as well as the Vietnam Veterans Memorial for Touch the Names, and a wealth of other ATC productions, including Hank Williams: Lost Highway and Dirty Blonde, among many others.

SOMEBODY/NOBODY
We are very excited to present the world premiere production of a new comedy by the mysterious Jane Martin.  One of America’s most popular and widely produced playwrights with a Pulitzer Prize nomination to her pseudonymous name, no one has ever seen Jane Martin.  Rumor has it that Ms. Martin is actually director Jon Jory, but we’ve never asked and he’s never told – so your guess is good as mine. Not that we’re worried about it, though – we’re just proud to present a brand new play by the author of Talking With, Vital Signs, Criminal Hearts and Keely and Du, which was a nominee for the 1994 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.  In Somebody/Nobody, Ms. Martin takes us on a wild ride through the underbelly of Hollywood, and shows us a hilarious fun-house reflection of our unending quest for fifteen minutes of fame.

This world premiere will be directed by our great good friend and collaborator Jon Jory (hmmm…is that a clue?), who brought us our wildly popular and outrageously accomplished productions of The Clean House, Twelfth Night, Pride and Prejudice and The Underpants. The set will be designed by Neil Patel, who last season brought us the snowy white living room full of surprises in The Clean House, while the costumes will be by one of America’s premiere costume designers, Marcia Dixcy Jory, in her ATC debut.

BEETHOVEN, AS I KNEW HIM
Last season we sang along with George Gershwin and we sat in on a salon with Fryderyk Chopin. You loved those shows and their inimitable creator, Hershey Felder. And we loved him, too. You called, wrote, cornered me at the grocery store and at Costco. “Bring Hershey back,” was the universal cry. Happily, he loved ATC audiences and with almost no arm twisting he has agreed to return with his brand new show, which just premiered last month at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego to rave reviews.

This season, Hershey will bring us another musical genius through the eyes of one of his last acquaintances, Gerhard von Breuning.  Using von Breuning’s memoir, “Aus dem Schwarzspanierhaus,” as source material, Hershey’s new show is an intimate look at the great Beethoven who wrote such overwhelming masterpieces.  And, of course, Mr. Felder’s virtuosity at the keyboard will be put to excellent use as he tells us about the creation of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, the "Moonlight" and "Pathetique" sonatas, the ever-popular "Für Elise,” and much more.

ATC was privileged earlier this spring to build both the sets and furniture for Hershey’s new show that is now on the stage of the Old Globe and will tour the world along with him. We are eagerly awaiting their return next spring to the Temple and the Herberger!

As you can see, it’s a busy time here at ATC with all six of our mainstage shows currently in some stage of preparation. Keep in touch and we promise to do the same – but most importantly, we say, as always:

See you at the Theatre!

Warmest regards,

David Ira Goldstein
Artistic Director

P.S. Don’t forget that we are also bringing a special one-week presentation of Shakespeare’s Henry V next spring to both Phoenix and Tucson. This production comes to us from two of America’s great theatres – Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis and the Acting Company from New York. It will be directed by Davis McCallum, one of the most lauded and exciting young directing talents in the nation. It promises to be a theatrically adventurous look at one of Shakespeare’s most popular plays. Subscribers get a great discount and first chance at prime seats for what is sure to be a sold-out engagement. Our recent special presentations of The Importance of Being Earnest from the Theatre Royal Bath and Hamlet from the National Theatre were sold out events, so planning early is encouraged.