my wandering boy

My Wandering Boy • SOUTH COAST REPERTORY P1

43rd Season • 416th ProductionSEGERSTROM STAGE / MARCH 30 - MAY 6, 2007

David Emmes Martin BensonPRODUCING ARTISTIC DIRECTOR ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

presents the world premiere of

MY WANDERING BOYby Julie Marie Myatt

Christopher Acebo Shigeru Yaji Lonnie Rafael AlcarazSCENIC DESIGN COSTUME DESIGN LIGHTING DESIGN

Paul James Prendergast Austin Switser Dara WeinbergSOUND DESIGN VIDEO COORDINATOR ASSISTANT DIRECTOR

Megan Monaghan Jeff Gifford Randall K. Lum*DRAMATURG PRODUCTION MANAGER STAGE MANAGER

DIRECTED BY

Bill Rauch

The Playwrights Circle - HONORARY PRODUCERS

Bette & Wylie Aitken • Steve & Toni Berlinger • Edward F. & Susan K. GotschallMatthew E. & Bernice L. Massengill • John & Sue Murphy • Roger & Marion Palley

Tom Rogers & Sally Anderson • Nola Schneer • Laurie Smits Staude • Richard P. & Jane Taylor

THE CAST(in order of appearance)

John .......................................................................................... Brent Hinkley*Liza Boudin .......................................................................... Elizabeth Ruscio*Wesley Boudin ........................................................................ Richard Doyle*Detective Howard .............................................................. Charlie Robinson*Sally Wright ................................................................................... Purva Bedi*Rooster Forbes .......................................................................... John Cabrera*Miranda Stevens ....................................................................... Veralyn Jones*

SETTINGAmerica. The present.

LENGTHApproximately two hours including one 15-minute intermission.

PRODUCTION STAFFAssistant Stage Manager ................................................. Chrissy Church*Casting .............................................................................. Joanne DeNautStage Management Intern ............................................... Kristin CalhounAssistants to the Scenic Designer ... Ken Mackenzie, Shannon ScrofanoAssistant to the Lighting Designer .......................................... Mat StovallCostume Design Assistant .................................................... Merilee Ford

Please refrain from unwrapping candy or making other noises that may disturb surrounding patrons.The use of cameras and recorders in the theatre is prohibited. Smoking is not permitted anywhere in the theatre.

Cellular phones, beepers and watch alarms should be turned off or set to non-audible mode during the performance.

P2 SOUTH COAST REPERTORY • My Wandering Boy

Official AirlineMedia Partner

* Member of Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers.


1Afoot and light-hearted, I take to the open road,

Healthy, free, the world before me,

The long brown path before me, leading wherever I

choose.

Henceforth I ask not good-fortune - I myself am good

fortune;

Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more,

need nothing,

Strong and content, I travel the open road.

The earth - that is sufficient;

I do not want the constellations any nearer;

I know they are very well where they are;

I know they suffice for those who belong to them.

(Still here I carry my old delicious burdens;

I carry them, men and women - I carry them with me

wherever I go;

I swear it is impossible for me to get rid of them;

I am fill’d with them, and I will fill them in return.)

5From this hour, freedom!

From this hour I ordain myself loos’d of limits and

imaginary lines,

Going where I list, my own master, total and absolute,

Listening to others, and considering well what they

say,

Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating,

Gently, but with undeniable will, divesting myself of

the holds that would hold me.

I inhale great draughts of space;

The east and the west are mine, and the north and

the south are mine.

I am larger, better than I thought;

I did not know I held so much goodness.

All seems beautiful to me;

I can repeat over to men and women, You have done

such good to me, I would do the same to you.

I will recruit for myself and you as I go;

I will scatter myself among men and women as I go;

I will toss the new gladness and roughness among

them;

Whoever denies me, it shall not trouble me;

Whoever accepts me, he or she shall be blessed, and

bless me.

11Listen! I will be honest with you;

I do not offer the old smooth prizes, but offer rough

new prizes;

These are the days that must happen to you:

You shall not heap up what is call’d riches,

You shall scatter with lavish hand all that you earn or

achieve,

You but arrive at the city to which you were destin’d -

you hardly settle yourself to satisfaction, before you

are call’d by an irresistible call to depart,

You shall be treated to the ironical smiles and mock-

ings of those who remain behind you;

What beckonings of love you receive, you shall only

answer with passionate kisses of parting,

You shall not allow the hold of those who spread

their reach’d hands toward you.

Song of the Open RoadWalt Whitman, published in Leaves of Grass, 1900.

There is an adder in the pathwhich your own feet haveworn. You must make tracksinto the Unknown.

Henry David Thoreau, in a letter to Harrison Blake

You have completelydropped away from all who

love and care about you.Whatever it is – whoever

you’re with – do you think thisis right?

Billie McCandless, in a letter to her sonChris, quoted in Into the Wild

by Jon Krakauer

All photos by Julie Marie Myatt, Playwright


Through Emmett’s Eyes


Men go to admire thehigh mountains and the

great flood of the seasand the wide-rolling

rivers and the ring ofOcean and the movementsof the stars; and they aban-

don themselves!

The Confessions of St. Augustine

It should not be denied…that being footloose has al-ways exhilarated us. It isassociated in our mindswith escape from historyand oppression and law andirksome obligations, with ab-solute freedom, and the roadhas always led west.

Wallace Stegner, American West


The Song Of Wandering Aengus

by William Butler Yeats

I went out to the hazel wood,

Because a fire was in my head,

And cut and peeled a hazel wand,

And hooked a berry to a thread;

And when white moths were on the wing,

And moth-like stars were flickering out,

I dropped the berry in a stream

And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor

I went to blow the fire aflame,

But something rustled on the floor,

And some one called me by my name:

It had become a glimmering girl

With apple blossom in her hair

Who called me by my name and ran

And faded through the brightening air.

Though I am old with wandering

Through hollow lads and hilly lands.

I will find out where she has gone,

And kiss her lips and take her hands;

And walk among long dappled grass,

And pluck till time and times are done

The silver apples of the moon,

The golden apples of the sun.

But now I was three miles intothe industrial jungle of L.A. in

mad sick sniffling smog night andhad to sleep all that night by a

wire fence in a ditch by the tracksbeing waked up all night by racketsof Southern Pacific and Santa Feswitchers bellyaching around, tillfog and clear of midnight when I

breathed better (thinking and pray-ing in my sack) but then more fog and

smog again and horrible damp whitecloud of dawn and my bag too hot tosleep in and outside too raw to stand,nothing but horror all night long, ex-cept at dawn a little bird blessed me.

The only thing to do was to getout of L.A. According to my friend’sinstructions I stood on my head, usingthe wire fence to prevent me fromfalling over. It made my cold feel alittle better. Then I walked to thebus station (through tracks and sidestreets) and caught a cheap bus twen-ty-five miles to Riverside. Cops keptlooking at me suspiciously with thatbig bag on my back. Everything was faraway from the easy purity of being withJaphy Ryder in that high rock campunder peaceful singing stars.

— Jack Kerouac,The Dharma Bums

Listening to a Flute in Yellow Crane Pavillion by Li T’ai-po, translated by Sam Hamil

I came here a wanderer thinking of home,

remembering my far away Ch’ang-an. And then, from deep in Yellow Crane Pavillion, I heard a beautiful bamboo flute play "Falling Plum Blossoms." It was late spring in a city by the river.

We shape clay into a pot,but it is the emptiness insidethat holds whatever we want.

— Tao Te Ching,ch. 11, tr. Stephen Mitchell


InterimBy Edna St. Vincent Millay(an excerpt)

You are not here. I know that you are gone,And will not ever enter here again.And yet it seems to me, if I should speak,Your silent step must wake across the hall;If I should turn my head, that your sweet eyesWould kiss me from the door. — So short a timeTo teach my life its transposition toThis difficult and unaccustomed key! —The room is as you left it; your last touch —A thoughtless pressure, knowing not itselfAs saintly — hallows each simple thing;Hallows and glorifies, and glows betweenThe dust’s grey fingers like a shielded light.

There is your book, just as you laid it down,Face to the table, — I cannot believeThat you are gone! — Just then it seemed to meYou must be here. I almost laughed to thinkHow like reality the dream had been; Yet knew before I laughed, and so was still.That book, outspread, just as you laid it down!Perhaps you thought, “I wonder what comes next,And whether this or this will be the end”;So rose, and left it, thinking to return.

Perhaps that chair, when you arose and passedOut of the room, rocked silently a whileEre it again was still. When you were goneForever from the room, perhaps that chair,Stirred by your movement, rocked a little while,Silently, to and fro…

And here are the last words your fingers wrote,Scrawled in broad characters across a pageIn this brown book I gave you. Here your hand,Guiding your rapid pen, moved up and down.Here with a looping knot you crossed a “t”,And here another like it, just beyondThese two eccentric “e’s”. You were so small,And wrote so brave a hand!

A Life

by Everett Ruess

A life Is a mirror

Reflecting the road over which it passes.

Sometimes

When it rains

The mirror itself is reflected in the road.

“I, too, would fain set down somethingbesides facts. Facts should only be asthe frame to my pictures; they shouldbe material to the mythology which Iam writing; not facts to assist men tomake money, farmers to farm prof-itably, in any common sense; facts totell who I am, and where I have been orwhat I have thought: as now the bellrings for evening meeting, and its vol-umes of sound, like smoke which risesfrom where a cannon is fired, make thetent in which I dwell. My facts shall befalsehoods to the common sense. I wouldso state facts that they shall be signifi-cant, shall be myths or mythologic. Factswhich the mind perceived, thoughtswhich the body though, — with these Ideal. I, too, cherish vague and mistyforms, vaguest when the cloud at which Igaze is dissipated quite and naught bythe skyey depths are seen.”

- Henry David Thoreau, The Journal of Thoreau

You Do Not ComeBy Fang Gan

The road is long, and east or west, I have no-one to ask,The cold has come, but I’ve no place to send your cold weather clothes.

When you left, we’d just planted the tree before the hall,The tree already bears a nest, the person’s not returned.


I’ve been havin’ some hard travelin’, I thought you knowed

I’ve been havin’ some hard travelin’, way down the road

W ho among us has never cherishedthe fantasy of dropping our dailyobligations, the mortgage, the taxes,the job, the knots and troubles wecreate in our personal lives, and

just… walking away? The dream of freedom fromworries and cares, of snapping the ties that some-times seem to hold us down, of wandering the worlddrinking in new sights and experienceswith every passing day, shines itsallure on almost everyone atsome point in our lives.

There’s a key distinctionbetween traveling, which pre-sumes an intent to return some-day, and is often done in com-pany; migrating, which factorsinto all of human history as pop-ulations shifted seeking morearable soil, better water suppliesand kinder climates; and wander-ing as the term is used in this play.The solitary Wanderer makes theroad his home, and builds her wholelifestyle around the single constant ofmoving on. Often a Wanderer hasmany part-time homes, maintained byother people with whom he or she nurtures intensebut intermittent relationships. And in the end, aWanderer can unbind those ties one by one and dropentirely out of sight, making it possible to begin anentirely new life and adopt a new identity — or per-haps to pursue the end.

Many world religions feature stories of Wander-ing. Siddhartha Gautama Buddha left his palace andhis royal life behind to become a monk, and spentthe rest of his life moving from place to place as hestudied and taught. Jesus of Nazareth disappeared

into the desert for 40 days, carrying no food or water— who can say whether his friends and loved onesexpected him ever to return? Both of these figuresemerged from their periods of Wandering with newwisdom to share. To this day, religious persons of alldescriptions engage in pilgrimage, a ritual form ofWandering intended to put them in touch with thatwisdom that can only be acquired on the road.

I’ve been walking that Lincoln highway, I thought you knowed,

I’ve been hittin’ that 66, way down the road

The vastness and diversity of the North Americanwilderness made it a heaven for Wan-

derers through the first couple ofcenturies of Western colonization,occupation and establishment ofstatehood. In his book Pilgrimsto the Wild , author John P.O’Grady describes several majorWanderers who left traces inwriting and art, including Ev-erett Ruess, Mary Austin, JohnMuir, and Henry DavidThoreau (who managed toWander while staying inone place).

To give one example,Ruess (1914-1934) wasreared in a bohemian fami-

ly that made no objection whentheir teenaged son committed his life

to the road — in fact, they encouraged him.Ruess’ letters to his family, published in 1983, de-scribe his mounting love affair with Utah’s great soli-tary spaces. Those spaces swallowed him up, andwhile his two burros were found in good health,Ruess never returned. Rumors of his adopting a newname and making a new life on the Navajo reserva-tion in Arizona were never proven, nor entirely dis-proven.

Not long before Ruess’ disappearance, the new-lywed couple Glen and Bessie Hyde vanished duringtheir honeymoon trip through the Grand Canyon.The pair traveled by flat-bottomed boat, hoping to be

BY MEGAN MONAGHAN

Wanderers in the Light, and in the Dark

“We like companionship, see,

but we can’t stand to be

around people for very long.

So we go get ourselves lost,

come back for a while, then

get the hell out again.”

- Ken Sleight, investigator of the

disappearance of Everett Ruess,

quoted in Into the Wild

by Jon Krakauer


the first people to navigate the entire Colorado Riverin such a craft. But their boat and all their belong-ings were discovered by the side of the river, with nosign of where their ownershad gone. The Hydes werenever seen again.

North American histo-ry even recounts tales ofentire populations disap-pearing, from the Anasazipeoples of the South-west, to the Roanokecolonists in 1588. Whileit is more likely in thesegroup disappearancesthat violence or diseasewas involved, the mys-tery lingers around theartifacts like thehaunting fragrance of long-pressed flowers.

I’ve been ridin’ them fast rattlers, I thoughtyou knowed

I’ve been ridin’ them flat wheelers, way downthe road

The Wanderer became a mythic figure, especially inthe United States. From our culture we inherit color-ful impressions of Woody Guthrie riding the rails,writing the songs and poetry of the Dust Bowl andthe Okie migration west. Nearly every American whomakes it through adolescence at some point receivesJack Kerouac’s seminal influence as played out in Onthe Road and The Dharma Bums. Some are attractedto the stories of lesser known but more recent per-sons such as Chris McCandless, whose tale is told inInto the Wild by Jon Krakauer.

I’ve been havin’ some hard travelin’, hard ramblin’, hard gamblin’

I’ve been havin’ some hard travelin’, lord

It must be acknowledged there are also darker talesof Wandering. The shining lure of footloose freedomcan draw us into dangerous territory indeed. An arti-cle in The New Yorker early this year delivered an in-depth profile of Adam Gadahn, who grew up inRiverside County but eventually chose to give up allhis ties there and change his name. Gadahn is nowknown as Azzam the American, an important mediaspokesman for Al Qaeda whose whereabouts are un-known. Other darker tales remove the element ofchoice, as in the case of 13-year-old Megumi Yokotawho in 1977 was kidnapped from her life in Japan.

Yokota one of many Japanese people abducted toNorth Korea, a state-sponsored action finally ac-knowledged by Kim Jong-Il in 2002. In our own

nearest neighborhoods

and areas, we see a plague of homeless-ness that affects men, women and children, thosewho are healthy and able to work, and those whoseillness makes employment impossible for them. Ourcities, states and nation struggle to address this prob-lem, and in the meantime we see unwilling Wander-ers excluded from the basic comfort and safety thatvoluntary Wanderers deliberately leave behind.

I’ve been ridin’ them blind passengers, dead-enders, kickin’ up cinders

I’ve been havin’ some hard travelin’, lord

Contemporary technology paradoxically makes Wan-dering both easier and more difficult. Cellularphones, email, and Global Positioning System (GPS)equipment installed in cars and personal electronicsall form new leashes that bind us to our existing lives— leashes that people of Ruess’ and Guthrie’s gener-ations did not have to fight. But 21st century ad-vances also offer the option to take one’s laptop andcell phone and live anywhere, or nowhere — an op-tion that attracts people from many walks of life, in-cluding numerous playwrights of this writer’s ac-quaintance.

Perhaps no one reading this essay will trulyfollow the siren call of the open road ourselves. Butperhaps we will be a touch more aware of the paral-lel world of Wanderers that constantly swirls aroundus.

(N.B. All italicized quotations are from the song “HardTravelin’,” words and music © 1959 by Woody Guthrie.)

TELL ME, O MUSE, of that ingenious hero who travelled far and wideafter he had sacked the famous town of Troy. Many cities did he visit,

and many were the nations with whose manners and customs he wasacquainted; moreover he suffered much by sea while trying to save

his own life and bring his men safely home; but do what he might hecould not save his men, for they perished through their own sheer

folly in eating the cattle of the Sun-god Hyperion; so the godprevented them from ever reaching home. Tell me, too, about all

these things, O daughter of Jove, from whatsoever source you mayknow them.

-- Opening lines of Homer’s Odyssey, tr. Samuel Butler


*PURVA BEDI (Sally Wright) ismaking her SCR debut. Onstage, Bedi appeared in East isEast (Manhattan Theatre Club &The New Group), Kingdom ofLost Songs (Lincoln Center Direc-tors Lab), Rice Boy (Mark TaperForum/ Taper Too), Merchant onVenice (Mark Taper Forum, EastWest Players, Cornerstone The-ater Company and The Lark The-atre), Bad Women (The TalkingBand), Clothes (New World The-atre) and numerous productionswith Target Margin Theater in-cluding These Very Serious Jokes,Sonoma, The 5 Hysterical GirlsTheorem and The Seagull. Filmand television appearances in-clude American Desi, Cosmopoli-tan, Green Card Fever, The Em-peror’s Club, Wings of Hope, TheArrangement , “House,” “ER,”“The Drew Carey Show,” “BostonLegal,” “Alias,” “Law & Order:Criminal Intent,” “Strong

Medicine” and “The West Wing.”Bedi is the Artistic Director andFounder of Disha Theatre. Sheis also executive producer andlead actress on Shyam Madiraju’snew feature film, Broken .www.purvabedi.com

*JOHN CABRERA (RoosterForbes) appeared at SCR previ-ously in the Theatre for YoungAudiences production of TheStinky Cheese Man , theNewSCRipts readings of Incendi-ary and House to Half and theHispanic Playwrights Projectreading of Cry of the Bronx .Theatre credits include GoodThing (Ovation Award, Best En-semble) at the Mark TaperForum, Refuge (2001 Joseph Jef-ferson Award, Best SupportingActor) at CollaborAction Theatre,Polaroid Stories at Trap DoorTheatre, Stupid Kids with Road-works Productions and A Wrin-

kle in Time with Lifeline Theatre.Film credits include Nightlight,Openminds, Role Play and Back-stage Pass. Mr. Cabrera has ap-peared on “American Dreams,”“Miracles,” “CSI,” “NCIS,” “Studio60 on the Sunset Strip” and cur-rently plays the role of Brian onthe CW’s series “Gilmore Girls.”

*RICHARD DOYLE (WesleyBoudin) is an SCR FoundingArtist. He appeared earlier thisseason in Life is a Dream, Noth-ing Sacred and A ChristmasCarol; last season in The Adven-tures of Pør Quinly, Born Yester-day and The Caucasian ChalkCircle; and previously in HabeasCorpus, as Eddie in A View fromthe Bridge, Intimate Exchanges,The Last Night of Ballyhoo andthe world premieres of TheBeard of Avon, On the Jump, ButNot for Me, BAFO, The Interroga-tion of Nathan Hale, She Stoops

Artist Biographies

JOHN CABRERA

Rooster ForbesPURVA BEDI

Sally WrightRICHARD DOYLE

Wesley Boudin


to Folly, Wit, Hospitality Suite andHighest Standard of Living.Other credits include RelativelySpeaking, Proof, Major Barbara,Much Ado about Nothing, A Deli-cate Balance, Of Mice and Men,Ah, Wilderness! and IntimateExchanges, for which he earneda Los Angeles Drama Critics Cir-cle (LADCC) Award nomination.He won an LADCC Award for hisrole in Sally Nemeth’s Holy Daysand was nominated for his roleas Reverend Hale in The Cru-cible. “Cheers” fans will remem-ber him as Woody’s snooty fa-ther-in-law Walter Gaines. Hehas many other film and televi-sion credits. As a voice-actor,Mr. Doyle has become a familiarvoice in commercial advertise-ments, CD-ROM games, docu-mentaries and animated series.Listen for Mr. Doyle as SenatorKelly on “Wolverine,” the new X-Men series. If you visit the newLincoln Library in Springfield, IL,Mr. Doyle is your holographichost in the Union Theatre.

*BRENT HINKLEY (John) is makinghis SCR debut. Previous stage

credits include 1984, The Seagulland Woyzeck at Actors’ Gang The-atre; Embedded and Carnage atThe Public Theater; A Soldier’sTale and The Guilty Mother atLong Beach Opera and MotherCourage at La Jolla Playhouse.Film and television credits includeEmbedded, Blood Work, Say ItIsn’t So, Ed Wood, Jacob’s Ladder,Silence of the Lambs, FallingDown, “Monk,” “The Closer,”“Gilmore Girls,” “Carnivále,”“Buddy Faro,” “The West Wing,”“Seinfeld,” “The PrestonEpisodes,” “ER” and “The X Files.”

*VERALYN JONES (MirandaStevens) is making her SCRdebut. Ms. Jones is an award-winning actress who has ap-peared in numerous theatricalproductions. Previous stagecredits include A Selfish Sacrificeat Denver Center Theatre and APerfect Wedding at Kirk DouglasTheatre. For Mark TaperForum’s New Work Festival sheappeared in Slide Glide the Slip-pery Slope and Black/ White Man.She also appeared in The Fatherat the August Strindberg Festival

in Stockholm, Sweden. Othertheatre includes The Merchant ofVenice, The Winter’s Tale,Twelfth Night, A MidsummerNight’s Dream and Richard IIIfor L.A. Women’s ShakespeareCompany; Hamlet at NevadaShakespeare Festival; and Moonon a Rainbow Shawl at theCaribbean American RepertoryWest. Film and television creditsinclude The Legacy, Summoning,Silent Colors, “Strong Medicine,”“Threat Matrix,” “The District,”“ER,” “Just Shoot Me,” “MovieStars,” “Brooklyn South” and re-curring roles on “City of Angels”and “Seinfeld.”

CHARLIE ROBINSON (DetectiveHoward) appeared at SCR previ-ously in The Piano Lesson. Hehas acted in over 80 plays, win-ning an Ovation Award recentlyfor his performance in Fences.He has performed at several the-atres including the Actors Studio,Mark Taper Forum, Houston’sAlley Theatre and the HoustonMusic Theatre. Mr. Robinson’sfilm credits include Jackson,Molding Clay, Antwone Fisher,

VERALYN JONES

Miranda StevensBRENT HINKLEY

JohnCHARLIE ROBINSON

Detective Howard


Beowulf, Set it Off, Land of theFree, The River, Apocalypse Now,Gray Lady Down and the soon tobe released Even Money. He hasappeared in numerous televisionshows including series regularroles on “Buddy Faro,” “Ink,”“Love & War,” “Night Court” and“Buffalo Bill”; a recurring role on“Home Improvement”; and sev-eral television movies includingSecret Santa, Miss Lettie and Me,Santa Jr., The Last Dance, Pro-ject: Alf, Murder C.O.D., CrashCourse, Rehearsal for Murder,Haywire, Buffalo Soldiers, Roots:The Next Generation, King, TheTrial of Lee Harvey Oswald andA Killing Affair.

*ELIZABETH RUSCIO (LizaBoudin) returns to SCR having

performed inproductions of A View fromthe Bridge, The Georgraphy ofLuck, Fool for Love and in stagedreadings of Mimesophobia andAnon, among many others. Sheis the recipient of a Los AngelesDrama Critics Circle Award, sev-eral LA Weekly and Drama-Logueawards, and Ovation and Robbynominations. She garneredawards at last year’s Method Festfor Best Actress/ Short Film forher work in her brother MichaelRuscio’s film, In Order of Ap-pearance; and at Deep Ellum inDallas (Best Ensemble). A long-time veteran of the Taper NewWorks Festivals and A.S.K. Com-mon Ground Festivals, she ap-peared in premiere stagings ofCat’s Paw, American Bullfighter,

Shiloh Rules,Looking for

Normal, Stop Kiss, Mr. Xmas andher husband Leon Martell ’sBea(u)tiful in the Extreme.Other productions include at TheDreamcoast, The Square, Moe’sLucky Seven at Taper, Too andLiving Out at Mark Taper Forum,directed by Bill Rauch. Othertheatre includes Slide (TheWilton Project), Pot Mom andSavage in Limbo (The Cast), TheShaper (The Met and Actors The-atre of Louisville), Hoss Drawin’by Leon Mar-tell, and their co-written 1961 Eldorado (ThePadua Hills Playwrights’ Festival).Film appearances include 28Days, Falling Like This, Lettersfrom a Killer, A Perfect Worldand, her favorite, The Positively

ELIZABETH RUSCIO

Liza Boudin

“I like to dive into a rhythmic stream likea fish into the gulf currents and go whereit takes me. I like to be a sun swingingthrough space with all my seven planetsdisposed about me, and I like to be thegreen flush that creeps up and diesrhythmically along the side of PaloCorona. Best of all, I like to flash intothe life rhythm of some other humanbeing, and find myself suddenly knowingall about what it was, now and will be.”

- Mary Austin, quoted in Mary Austin: Song of a Maverick, by Esther Lanigan Stineman


True Adventures of the AllegedTexas Cheerleader-MurderingMom. She’s in the upcomingindie feature, Otis E. Recent tele-vision appearances include“Nip/Tuck” (as Joy Kringle), “SixFeet Under,” “The Division,”“Judging Amy” and “7th Heav-en.” Finally, she is a publishedpoet, and has just been namedone of six NEWER POETS OFL.A. and will read with them laterthis year at L.A.’s Central Library.

PLAYWRIGHT,DIRECTOR & DESIGNERS

JULIE MARIE MYATT (Playwright)wrote the ten-minute play, Mr.and Mrs. that will premiere atthe Humana Festival this March.She is currently working on aplay about reproductive rightsfor Cornerstone Theater Compa-ny, and her play Boats On ARiver will premiere at theGuthrie Theater in May. Herplay The Sex Habits of AmericanWomen was produced by theGuthrie Theater, Signature The-atre in Arlington, VA, Synchronic-ity Performance Group, and pre-miered at the Magic Theatre inSan Francisco. Her work hasbeen developed and/or seen atActors Theatre of Louisville, Seat-tle Repertory, Cherry Lane,LAByrinth Theater Company andA.S.K Theater Projects, amongothers. She received a Walt Dis-ney Studios Screenwriting Fel-

lowship, a Jerome Fellowship atthe Playwrights’ Center, and aMcKnight Advancement Grant.Her other plays include August isa thin girl, Alice in the Badlandsand Welcome Home, Jenny Sutter.

BILL RAUCH (Director) is a proudAssociate Artist of SCR, where hestaged The Further Adventures ofHedda Gabler, Habeas Corpus,Lovers and Executioners andWalking Off the Roof for the in-augural Pacific Playwrights Festi-val. He co-founded CornerstoneTheater Company, where heserved as artistic director for 20years. For Cornerstone, he di-rected over 40 of the company’sproductions, many of them col-laborations with diverse commu-nities across the nation. He hasalso directed at Mark TaperForum, Oregon Shakespeare Fes-tival, Guthrie Theater, LongWharf Theatre, Great Lakes The-ater Festival, Arena Stage andYale Repertory Theatre, wherehe is an Associate Artist. He haswon Helen Hayes, Garland, LAWeekly, Drama-Logue and Con-necticut Critics Circle Awards forhis direction and was the onlyartist to win the inaugural Lead-ership for a Changing WorldAward. He served on the boardof Theatre CommunicationsGroup from 1992-1998 and hastestified to Congress on behalf ofthe N.E.A. Mr. Rauch is a ClaireTrevor Professor of Drama at UC

Irvine and is the incoming artisticdirector of the Oregon Shake-speare Festival. He is proud tobe one of Liam and Xavier’s twodads.

CHRISTOPHER ACEBO (ScenicDesign) designed the world pre-miere productions of The FurtherAdventures of Hedda Gabler, TheBeard of Avon, Hold Please andCalifornia Scenarios; the WestCoast premiere of The Countess;and the annual production of LaPosada Mágica at SCR. Recentproductions include the worldpremieres of The Clean House atYale Repertory and at LincolnCenter Theater; Electricidad atThe Goodman Theatre (andCTG); and Water and Power, Liv-ing Out and Chavez Ravine forCenter Theatre Group. Other re-gional design work includes pro-ductions for Guthrie Theater,Berkeley Repertory, La Jolla Play-house, Oregon Shakespeare Fes-tival, The Goodman Theatre,Denver Center Theatre Company,The Children’s Theatre Companyin Minneapolis, Hartford Stageand Portland Center Stage,among others. Mr. Acebo is anensemble member of Corner-stone Theater Company in LosAngeles. He received his MFAin design at the University of Cal-ifornia, San Diego and is a pastrecipient of the NEA/TCG fellow-ship for designers. This summerhe will become the Associate


Artistic Director of the OregonShakespeare Festival.

SHIGERU YAJI (Costume Design)has designed costumes for over50 SCR productions includingmost recently The Further Ad-ventures of Hedda Gabler,Habeas Corpus, Cyrano de Berg-erac, Lovers and Executionersand the annual production of LaPosada Mágica. His other re-cent work has been seen at Lin-coln Center Theater, Yale Reper-tory Theatre, Oregon Shake-speare Festival, CornerstoneTheater Company and San JoseRepertory Theatre, as well as atNashville Ballet. He is the recip-ient of numerous awards andrecognitions, including six LosAngeles Drama Critics CircleAwards and a Bay Area TheatreCritics Circle Award, as well asan Emmy Award nomination forCathy Rigby’s Peter Pan. Mr.Yaji is a member of the UnitedScenic Artists Local 829 and theUC Irvine Drama Departmentfaculty.

LONNIE RAFAEL ALCARAZ(Lighting Design) is an AssociateProfessor at UC Irvine and a pro-fessional lighting designer. Hehas designed at various regionaltheatre houses, such as SCR,Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Sier-ra Repertory Theatre, ArenaStage, Laguna Playhouse, Alaba-ma Shakespeare Festival andUtah Shakespearean Festival. Inaddition to his twelve seasonswith La Posada Mágica, produc-tions at SCR include The Princeand the Pauper, Blue Door, Manfrom Nebraska, Bunnicula, TheHoboken Chicken Emergency,Play Strindberg, Dimly PerceivedThreats to the System, SidneyBechet Killed a Man (for whichhe received a Drama-LogueAward), BAFO, Later Life and

Three Viewings. He designedCulture Clash’s The Birds at bothSCR and Berkeley Repertory,along with their national touringshow, Radio Mambo, which hasbeen seen in Los Angeles, SanDiego, San Francisco, Arizona,New York, Seattle and Washing-ton, DC. Recent design experi-ence includes Warriors Don’tCry, Lethe, I Ask You, Farewell toManzanar and Waking Up InLost Hills with Cornerstone The-ater Company; and Utah Shake-spearean Festival’s 2006 summerseason of shows: Hamlet, TheMerry Wives of Windsor andAntony & Cleopatra. He wasalso a designer for Universal Stu-dios, Japan, where he designedthe live shows Terminator 2 in3D, and Monster Makeup, the at-tractions Jurassic Park the Rideand Snoopy Studios, along withexterior architectural facadesthroughout the park. He is amember of the United ScenicArtist/IATSE - Local 829.

PAUL JAMES PRENDERGAST(Composer/Sound Design) is verypleased to be back at SCR andamong old friends. PreviousSCR productions include TheFurther Adventures of HeddaGabler, Lovers and Executioners,Habeas Corpus and The LittlePrince. Other theatre credits in-clude productions at the MarkTaper Forum, Long Wharf The-atre, Hartford Stage, Great LakesTheater Festival, Florida Stage,Geffen Playhouse, OregonShakespeare Festival, East WestPlayers, dozens of 99 seaters and20 productions with CornerstoneTheater Company. His work hasbeen featured at theme parks, infeature films, on recordings andin music venues nationwide. Healso works as a vocalist, actor,director, and is knee deep in theworld of alternative (natural)

house building. He lives in LosAngeles and Joshua Tree.

AUSTIN SWITSER (Video Coordi-nator) has worked with manyperformance groups around thecountry, creating original videoprojections for live performance,including a previous design atSouth Coast Repertory for Vesu-vius. In the past months he hasdesigned projections for Defi-ance at Pasadena Playhouse;Gilgamesh at The Theatre @Boston Court; Hippolytos at theGetty Villa; ¡El Conquistador! atNew York Theatre Workshop;WET, a new opera performed atREDCAT; Way of Light, an origi-nal piece commissioned for theInternational Trumpet Guild;Diva and Open Window atPasadena Playhouse; APOLLO:Lebensraum at Kirk DouglasTheatre and the Ivy Substation;and Bell Solaris at REDCAT. Hehas also collaborated on the re-cent shows 13 and Distracted atMark Taper Forum. Mr. Switsergraduated in 2004 from CalArtswith a degree in Video for Per-formance.www.austinswitser.com

DARA WEINBERG (Assistant Di-rector) is honored to be workingat SCR for the first time. She di-rected The Marriage of Heavenand Hell, an improvised danceplay based on William Blake’spoetry, at the Met Theatre Com-pany. Other Los Angeles direct-ing credits include A Vast Wreckand Brandohead at Theatre ofNOTE, where she is an associatemember. She directed the pre-miere of Helma Fries’ anti-warplay Human Bombing for theBerliner Compagnie, a politicaltheatre ensemble in Kreuzberg.The production has toured Ger-many every year since 2003.She choreographed Don Giovan-


ni and The Threepenny Opera forWest Bay Opera Company, andAC/DC: A Dance Spectacular forSerial Killers at Sacred Fools The-atre Company. She was the dra-maturg for Assassins at Sight Un-seen. She has directed numer-ous readings and workshops,and continues to devise methodsof working on the free radicalchorus, an experiment in impro-vised choral theater. She holds aBA from Stanford University.

MEGAN MONAGHAN (Dra-maturg) is the Literary Managerof SCR, where she serves as co-director of the Pacific PlaywrightsFestival. She was the dramaturgof SCR’s productions of Bach atLeipzig, The Studio, The FurtherAdventures of Hedda Gabler andDumb Show. Before coming toSCR, she was the Literary Direc-tor of the Alliance Theatre in At-lanta, GA, the Director of Play-wright Services at The Play-wrights’ Center in Minneapolis,MN, and the Director of NewPlay Development at Frontera @Hyde Park Theatre in Austin, TX.Her freelance dramaturgy workhas included The O’Neill’s Na-tional Playwrights Conference,the New Harmony Project, andthe Bay Area Playwrights Festi-val. She has been a panelist forthe Fulton County Arts Council,Atlanta’s Bureau of Cultural Af-fairs, TCG, The O’Neill’s NationalPlaywrights Conference, NAMT,

and Austin ScriptWorks, and aguest dramaturg and teacher atIowa Writers’ Workshop, YaleSchool of Drama graduate pro-grams, Brown University, UCSD,and the Kennedy Center - Ameri-can College Theatre Festival.She has directed recent produc-tions at Actor’s Express, HorizonTheatre, and Theater Emory. Ms.Monaghan earned an MFA in di-recting from the University ofTexas at Austin and a BA fromEmory University.

*RANDALL K. LUM (Stage Man-ager), now in his 17th season,worked on Pig Farm, RidiculousFraud, and Nothing Sacred. Lastsummer he stage managed hisgood friend Amy Freed’s playRestoration Comedy for Califor-nia Shakespeare Theater inNorthern California. Last seasonhe stage managed Blue Door,Man From Nebraska, Born Yes-terday and The Further Adven-tures of Hedda Gabler. Duringhis long association as SCR’s resi-dent stage manager, he hasworked on more than two dozenworld premieres and has beenassociated with over 80 produc-tions. In 1997, Mr. Lum stagemanaged the AIDS Benefit Helpis on the Way III at the Palace ofFine Arts in San Francisco.Other stage management creditsinclude the American Conserva-tory Theater in San Francisco,The Old Globe in San Diego,

Berkeley Repertory Theatre, SanJose Civic Light Opera, VITAShakespeare Festival, PacificConservatory of the PerformingArts, Long Beach Ballet, SanFrancisco Convention Bureauand Kawasaki Motorcycles. Hewould like everyone to take amoment to remember all thosewho have lost the battle and allthose still suffering and fightingthe AIDS epidemic.

*CHRISSY CHURCH (AssistantStage Manager) is a proud mem-ber of Actors’ Equity. Previouscredits at SCR include the worldpremieres of Mr. Marmalade,Getting Frankie Married — andAfterwards, Making It and Nos-talgia, productions of The RealThing, Hitchcock Blonde, threeglorious seasons of A ChristmasCarol, Born Yesterday, Pinoc-chio, The Little Prince, IntimateExchanges, La Posada Mágica,Anna in the Tropics, Proof andthe Pacific Playwrights Festivalworkshop of Tough Titty.

DAVID EMMES (Producing Artis-tic Director) is co-founder ofSCR. He has received numerousawards for productions he hasdirected during his SCR career,including a Los Angeles DramaCritics Circle Award for the direc-tion of George Bernard Shaw’sThe Philanderer. He directedthe world premieres of AmyFreed’s Safe in Hell, The Beard of


Avon and Freedomland, ThomasBabe’s Great Day in the Morn-ing, Keith Reddin’s Rum andCoke and But Not for Me andNeal Bell’s Cold Sweat ; theAmerican premieres of TerryJohnson’s Unsuitable for Adultsand Joe Penhall’s Dumb Show;the West Coast premieres of C.P.Taylor’s Good and Harry Kon-doleon’s Christmas on Mars; andthe Southland premiere of TopGirls (at SCR and the WestwoodPlayhouse). Other productionsinclude the West Coast premieresof Three Viewings by JeffreyHatcher, The Secret Rapture byDavid Hare and New England byRichard Nelson; and Arcadia byTom Stoppard, The Importanceof Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde,Ayckbourn’s Woman in Mindand You Never Can Tell byGeorge Bernard Shaw, which herestaged for the Singapore Festi-val of Arts. He has served as atheatre panelist and onsite evalu-ator for the National Endowmentfor the Arts, on the ExecutiveCommittee of the League of Res-ident Theatres, and as a panelistfor the California Arts Council.After attending Orange CoastCollege, he received his BA andMA from San Francisco StateUniversity, and his PhD in the-atre and film from USC.

MARTIN BENSON (Artistic Direc-tor), co-founder of SCR with hiscolleague David Emmes, has di-rected nearly one third of theplays produced here. He hasdistinguished himself in the stag-ing of contemporary work, in-cluding William Nicholson’s TheRetreat from Moscow, the worldpremiere of Horton Foote’s Get-

ting Frankie Married — and Af-terwards and the critically ac-claimed California premiere ofNicholson’s Shadowlands. Hehas won accolades for his direc-tion of five major works byGeorge Bernard Shaw, includingthe Los Angeles Drama CriticsCircle (LADCC) Award-winnersMajor Barbara, Misalliance andHeartbreak House. Among hisnumerous world premieres isMargaret Edson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Wit, which he also di-rected at Seattle Repertory The-atre and the Alley Theatre inHouston. He has directed Ameri-can classics including Ah,Wilderness!, A Streetcar NamedDesire, A Delicate Balance and AView from the Bridge. Mr. Ben-son has received the LADCC Dis-tinguished Achievement in Di-recting awards an unparalleledseven times for the three Shawproductions, John MillingtonSynge’s Playboy of the WesternWorld, Arthur Miller’s The Cru-cible, Sally Nemeth’s Holy Daysand Wit. He also directed thefilm version of Holy Days usingthe original SCR cast. Along withEmmes, he accepted SCR’s 1988Tony® Award for OutstandingResident Professional Theatreand won the 1995 Theatre LAOvation Award for LifetimeAchievement. Mr. Benson re-ceived his BA in Theatre fromSan Francisco State University.

PAULA TOMEI (Managing Direc-tor) is responsible for the overalladministration of South CoastRepertory and has been Manag-ing Director since 1994. A mem-ber of the SCR staff since 1979,she has served in a number of

administrative capacities includ-ing Subscriptions Manager, Busi-ness Manager and General Man-ager. She served on the boardof Theatre CommunicationsGroup (TCG), the service organi-zation for theatre, from 1998-2006 and was its President forfour years. She has also servedas Treasurer of TCG, Vice Presi-dent of the League of ResidentTheatres (LORT) and has been amember of the LORT NegotiatingCommittee for industry-wideunion agreements. In addition,she represents SCR at nationalconferences of TCG and LORT;is a theatre panelist for the Na-tional Endowment for the Artsand the California Arts Council(CAC), and site visitor for theCAC; served on the AdvisoryCommittee for the Arts Adminis-tration Certificate Program at theUniversity of California, Irvine;and has been a guest lecturer inthe graduate school of businessat Stanford and the University ofCalifornia, Irvine. She graduatedfrom the University of California,Irvine with a degree in Eco-nomics and pursued an addition-al course of study in theatre anddance.

The Actors and Stage Managers em-ployed in this production are membersof Actors’ Equity Association, the Unionof Professional Actors and Stage Man-agers in the United States.

The Scenic, Costume, Lighting andSound Designers in LORT theatresare represented by United ScenicArtists Local USA-829, IATSE.

The Director is a member of the Soci-ety of Stage Directors and Choreogra-phers, Inc., an independent nationallabor union.

my wandering boy

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