Patrick Andrews and Tracy Letts in Steppenwolf Theatre Company’s American Buffalo. Photo by Michael Erosilow.

Have you seen American Buffalo?

What did you think? Did you think it was the bee’s knees? Do you agree with the newspaper reviews, or disagree? Favorite parts of the show? Things that weren’t to your taste?

Post an “audience response” or read what other people are saying by clicking on the “comments” link below.

We can’t wait to hear what you think!

Okay, I’m a member of Generation Y.  While it has its benefits (Oregon Trail, Where’s Waldo, and the fact that I have a computer in my kitchen), it also means that I lack a certain cultural knowledge about, well, anything that happened before the 1990’s.

So working on Fetch Clay, Make Man—a play about the unlikely friendship between controversial former Hollywood actor Stepin Fetchit and heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali—has been quite an experience.  So much for me to learn!  Fortunately, as a child of the 1980’s, I immediately thought of digital media and social networking as a way to fill in my knowledge gap.  And of course, both Ali and Fetchit are represented on Youtube.

So here’s the first part of our Generation Y video roundup—some excerpts of Stepin Fetchit in performance.  If you’ve never seen it—it’s quite something!  The first is from Judge Priest, the second is him performing the song “Lazy Richard.”

What do you think?  Is he cleverly subverting the social order of his time, or is he perpetuating a stereotype?  Share your comments below by clicking on the “comments” link, then come and see Fetch Clay, Make Man and see playwright Will Power brilliantly engage the question.

Posted by Adam Immerwahr, Producing Associate at McCarter Theatre.

I just received this blog submission from Jean Hanff Korelitz, a fantastic writer and also one of the parents of a member of our Young Ensemble for A Christmas Carol—and I thought it would be a great addition to the blog.  Got a comment?  Just click the “comments” link at the bottom of the article!
—Adam Immerwahr, Producing Associate

A (JEWISH) CHRISTMAS CAROL

By Jean Hanff Korelitz

This is my ten year old son’s second year in A Christmas Carol’s young ensemble, where he is soon to portray a much put upon young delivery boy who hauls a massive turkey to the Cratchit family at the end of act two.

Having a kid in a show with a three week run means that you get to watch the show in question many, many times, but I never get tired of A Christmas Carol. The fact is, I’ve always loved Dickens’ story. When I was my son’s age, I routinely viewed every available version on television, from Albert Finney’s Scrooge (still my personal favorite) to the much maligned Mr. Magoo version, and I have continued to reread the novella itself every year. My devotion may be a bit strange, given that I’m Jewish and all, but there’s something about this story of magic and personal transformation, so expertly leavened with real sadness and real euphoria, that always sort of called out to me.

Besides, I figured something out about A Christmas Carol, that ultimate Christmas story, that indispensable part of the Christmas season from Princeton to Timbuktu. A Christmas Carol is…wait for it…don’t laugh…really a Jewish story.

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The original manuscript of A Christmas Carol

“Marley was dead.”  Those are the first words of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.

If you haven’t seen it yet, check out this fascinating article at the New York Times about the original manuscript of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Apparently Dickens did quite a bit of re-writing as he was completing the original manuscript of the novella, and now you can read every detail (and all the details that were cut) here—in a set of digital scans of the original version.  The NYTimes is even sponsoring a contest for whoever can find the most interesting edit that Dickens made.

If you’re in a mood for A Christmas Carol contests, you can visit McCarter’s own contest—and win two free tickets to our production of A Christmas Carol.  Visit here for the full contest details.

If you want to know more about how McCarter got from Dickens’ novella to the adaptation that we use on our stage, you can watch a video with A Christmas Carol adaptor David Thompson or read my article about the final lines of A Christmas Carol.

Posted by Adam Immerwahr, Producing Associate at McCarter Theatre.

So I was over at Princeton University’s Mudd Library (which houses McCarter Theatre’s archives), looking for some archival photos of Nicholas Martin—the director of the upcoming production of She Stoops to Conquer.  Nicholas started out in the profession as an actor, and he earned his equity card while performing at McCarter in the 1960’s.  I was searching for a picture of him in the 1960 production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (I think I found some!), but while I was there I also stumbled into the archives for the 1963 McCarter production of She Stoops to Conquer (after Nicholas had left McCarter).

It was fascinating!  The archives included the program, the advertisements, the stage manager’s promptbook (with the 1963 blocking), the set design groundplan, a hand-drawn illustration for the show curtain, the lighting design (hand-written on two pieces of yellow legal paper!), and lots of pictures.  The show ran in repertory with another play, and I noticed in the calendar that the November 16th 8:30pm perforamnce was followed by a midnight concert by “America’s fastest-rising young folksinger”—yup, you guessed it, Bob Dylan!

According to the program, “illumination” was “created by Mr. Gilbert V. Hemsley, Jr.”.  The show featured a grand total of 17 light cues—undoubtedly a far cry from the hundreds that lighting designer Ben Stanton will create for our 2009 production.  Of course, Ben has the advantage of computerized lighting operation, while poor Gilbert had to design the show to be run on three “two-scene preset” manually faded boards (and according to his notes, the light board operator had to sometimes take breaks to help with scene changes).

The cast included: Karl Light (as Mr. Hardcastle), Anne Murray (as Mrs. Hardcastle), Clarence Felder (as Tony Lumpkin), Christine Pickles (as Miss Kate Hardcastle), Angela Thornton (as Miss Neville), Grenville Cuyler (as Sligo), Donald Moffat (as Young Marlow—and also the director of the production!), Edward Zang as Mr. Hastings, Edward Groves as Diggory, Virginia DeAngelis as Pimple, Edward Grover as Sir Charles, and an ensemble of Jack Dreifert, Apollo Dukakis, Dennis Gilliland, William Smith and James Stripp.

As I was flipping through the program, I noticed something very, very familiar.  An ad for Lahiere’s!  Forty-six years later, this Princeton restaurant is still one of our regular program advertisers.  Thanks, Lahiere’s, for your sustained support of the arts in your community.  Some things never change.

Posted by Adam Immerwahr, Producing Associate at McCarter Theatre.

Last week, 150 community members from Trenton, Princeton, and beyond joined writer/director Emily Mann and actors Yvette Freeman and Lizan Mitchell at a special reception held at Morven Museum & Garden to kick off McCarter’s upcoming production of Having Our Say. We couldn’t have asked for a better setting; the current exhibit, Let Your Motto Be Resistance – African American Portraits, on loan from the Smithsonian Institution, highlights African-American individuals whose passion, determination, and talent played an influential role in shaping our country’s notion of race and status over the past 150 years.

Walking among the photos selected for this exhibit, I got to thinking that despite the many changes that have shaped our world, one thing has always been a constant: the spirit of determination and pride that is at the core of Having Our Say and the American experience. At its heart, Having Our Say is an American story, a true testament to the resilience of ordinary Americans surviving and persevering through extraordinary times. The Delany sisters are one example of this spirit, and the collection at Morven pays homage to Americans who have refused to allow their circumstances to stop their dreams or their hopes—W.E.B. DuBois, James Weldon Johnson, Paul Robeson, Angela Davis, Diana Ross, and Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, to name a few. Despite racism, sexism, and economic hardships, these individuals took a stance believing in themselves and their right to equality and the pursuit of happiness. Surveying the room last night, this spirit of pride was so apparent in our guests. After listening to Emily and the actors share their experiences working on Having Our Say and hearing from Civil Rights pioneer Edith Savage Jennings, the room was filled with excitement, a sense of pride, and a buzz that was so contagious that I know it will create a lasting memory to all who shared in last night’s festivities.

Click the link below for a few photos from the event!

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I had the great good fortune last week of listening to two of this season’s plays being read aloud.  First, I heard a reading of Fetch Clay, Make Man that we produced in NYC.  This was the third or fourth reading of the play that I have heard, and it’s a revelation every time.  And then on Friday, I was able to stay for the first read-through of Having Our Say.  A few months ago I saw an archival video of McCarter’s 1995 production of Having Our Say, but this was the first time I’ve been able to hear that play read live.

Hearing these two plays in dialogue with each other made me think about some of the themes that run through all of the plays in our season.  For me, one of the most powerful and resonant themes is of how we shape (or try to shape) our own self-images.  The characters in this season’s plays are interested in creating a version of themselves for others to see, and a great deal of the dramatic tension in this year’s plays comes out of the distance and dissonance between the characters themselves and the image they are trying to create.  In Having Our Say, as Bessie and Sadie Delany reflect on their lives one hears a difference in how they speak about each other and how they speak about themselves.  As African-American women living through 100 years of American history, their lives were filled with situations in which they had to forge a public identity of themselves that doesn’t always match the inner woman.   In She Stoops to Conquer, characters disguise themselves, pretending to be lower class in order to, well, conquer.  Fetch Clay, Make Man examines very literally what happens to people as they shape their public images—Cassius Clay becomes Muhammad Ali, Lincoln Perry becomes Stepin Fetchit, and even the supporting characters (Sonji Clay, William Fox and Brother Rashid) are in the process of re-shaping their images.  They are changing their names and putting on metaphorical masks as they make the man (or woman!) that they will become.  American Buffalo concerns three small-time crooks as they posture for each other and negotiate their relationships, and Take Flight tells the story of four pioneers of aviation, trying to shape their legacies.

So I started to wonder why this theme felt so present this season (in a way that it didn’t, for example, last season).  Of course, part of it is that three of this season’s plays are about historical characters (the Delany Sisters, Fetchit, Ali, Fox and Clay, and of course the Wright Brothers, Amelia Earhart and Charles Lindbergh).  In writing these characters drawn from America’s history book, the playwrights are naturally intrigued by the questions of identity and legacy–who was the private person underneath the public, etc.  But perhaps also maybe there’s something about this moment, at least for us here at McCarter, that drew us (unconsiously, I’m sure) to stories that share in an exploration of shaping self-image.  As we enter our artistic director’s 20th season and start our first full season with a new managing director, we’ve all spent a lot of time thinking about who we are as a theater right now, and what our identity is in the world and our own community.  And as our nation has undergone a massive shift, with democrats winning two of the three branches of our government, and with a president who represents, for many, a very new (and welcome) idea of the image of American leadership, it seems natural that we would be thinking about these questions.  Frankly, as America starts to look toward our sister nations and say: “we are a different country  now than we were a year ago,” perhaps we are all thinking about identity differently.

What do you think?  Coincidence, or is there an underlying trend here?

Posted by Adam Immerwahr, Producing Associate at McCarter Theatre

Backstage at McCarter Theatre. Photo by Kristina Plucinsky.

On Saturday, March 28, McCarter donors were treated to a backstage tour of Twelfth Night.  Very well conceived and presented, the tour added to the pleasure for those of us who witnessed the performance, and for the few on the tour who were yet to attend the show, the appetite was whetted.

The morning began with an introduction from Tom Muza, General Manager, who provided a brief history of McCarter and background on the production.  The show was co-produced with the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, DC, where it originated and then moved to McCarter.

Tom handed the group to Alison Cote, the Production Stage Manager, who provided insight into how an elaborate staging appears so seamless to the audience.  From her seat at a “tech table” set up in the house, she told us of the little tricks she uses to run the show, among them signal lights controlled from her panel.  These cue musicians, actors and, frankly, just about everything that we take for granted.  During the course of the show, Alison’s voice is audible throughout the backstage area but inaudible to the audience.  What struck me most was the coordination involved in each performance.  It is easy to assume the actors walk on stage and say their lines; clearly there is much more involved than simply memorizing and speaking words written on a page.  I wish Alison had more time to speak, she was so fascinating and, I suspect, had more secrets to divulge, but time was of the essence and we moved onto the stage itself.

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The Brother/Sister Plays Website Designed by Dimple Parmar

After months of planning, I’m thrilled to say that we’ve finally launched the website for The Brother/Sister Plays, which you can visit at www.mccarter.org/tarell.  We’ll be adding new content regularly, including streaming video and audio, press links, and additional feature articles on the plays, the production, and the playwright (Tarell Alvin McCraney).

Here at McCarter, new play development takes many forms.  As a new play nears production, part of its development path is about building an audience for the work.  Often, this takes two different forms: marketing (persuading audience members to purchase tickets); and audience development (preparing the audience for the production, so that they can enjoy it as fully as possible).  For us, audience development is multi-faceted and can include a wide range of activities, programs, and publications that will help contextualize the production and guide an audience’s expectations and understanding of the work.  Of course, audience development and marketing go hand-in-hand; if the marketing materials prepare an audience for a laugh-a-minute comedy, they’ll be disappointed by a beautiful, quiet and sentimental memory play, and the converse is true as well.

For a world premiere like The Brother/Sister Plays, audience development is of even greater importance—because the play is new and the writer relatively unheard of to the general public, a theater cannot count on any received knowledge of the play, the work or the writer.  For The Brother/Sister Plays, we’re pulling out all the stops.  Our audience development initiatives on this project include:

• The Trilogy website (www.mccarter.org/tarell)
• Community Events (we held our first one on March 24th, and another one last night at the Princeton Public Library).
• A letter from our Artistic Director to our current ticket buyers (going into the mail this week).
• A lobby display in the Berlind Theater Lobby.
• A statement from Tarell in the playbill for The Brother/Sister Plays.
• This blog.
• A “Coming Next” article about Tarell in the playbill for Twelfth Night.
• A series of interviews with local and national press.
• YouTube videos about the trilogy.
• A video trailer (coming soon!)
• A series of conversations that surround the plays (Dialogue on Drama and post-show discussions).
• A set of discussions celebrating the “marathon days,” when you can see all three plays at once.

So I urge you to visit our Trilogy website—a lot of us here at the theater have worked really hard to make it possible, and I think you’ll find a lot of interesting material there.

What do you think?   Have a comment?  Post it below by clicking on the “Comments” link!

Posted by Adam Immerwahr, Producing Associate at McCarter Theatre.

The day many McCarter community members have long awaited has finally come: Tarell has moved to Nassau Street and rehearsals are underway for the world premiere of his The Brother/Sister Plays. The first few days in the rehearsal process has been, admittedly, a little overwhelming. We started out the first day of rehearsal with a business meeting run by our Resident Stage Manager, Cheryl Mintz. As Cheryl went over the usual information: schedule, contact sheet, Equity guidelines, it quickly became clear that this process is like no other that the cast or artistic team has experienced. With three shows opening in repertory under the direction of two different directors, the schedule for the next few months is daunting to say the least. By the time In the Red and Brown Water opens, we will already be starting technical rehearsal for Brothers Size and Marcus, so the actors will be rehearsing 2 plays during the day and performing a third at night - and all this without understudies!

We were all a bit dazed by the end of the meeting, but after a read-through of In the Red and Brown Water, Tina Landau, the director, decided to jump right in. Tina talked about how the most important part of In the Red and Brown Water for her is truly creating an ensemble. In this non-traditional piece, all of the actors play a pantheon of gods (derived from the Yoruba spiritual tradition) who weave in and out of the story they are telling together. In order to start building that feeling of a community of storytellers and create a common vocabulary, Tina launched the actors into an intense introduction to Viewpoints, a technique for movement and improvisation Tina developed along with director and mentor Anne Bogart. Originally based on a set of “viewpoints” choreographers use in creating a dance, the training Tina works with separates movement into 10 distinct qualities (eg. tempo, direction, shape, etc.). Taking the simple movement of running, for example, one can play with extremes of tempo: how does running look, for example, if one goes very very fast? And if one goes as slow as it is possible to go and still call it movement? Within the tempos one can also vary the size and fluidity of the run. It is fascinating how the different “runs” tells an entirely different story.

As we went through these improvisations, Tina introduced a really great term way for us to express when some gesture or movement seems really appropriate to our show. Apparently on the set of Miami Vice, there was one person whose job was to communicate between the literary, design and production departments to make sure the show ended up as a complete world. Rather than having to explain every decision, they could simply say “That’s Vice!” or “That’s not Vice!” We’ve now introduced this term to our rehearsal process, so whenever something works really well the whole room explodes with calls of “Vice!!!” and then we know all the collaborators are on the same page!

Posted by Sarah Wansley, Directing/Producing Intern at McCarter Theatre.