w. somerset maugham warner shook · 2019-11-15 · michael roth tom aberger *scott harrison...

by W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM

Scenic Design Costume Design Lighting DesignRALPH FUNICELLO WALKER HICKLIN YORK KENNEDY

Composer/Sound Design Production Manager Stage ManagerMICHAEL ROTH TOM ABERGER *SCOTT HARRISON

Directed by

WARNER SHOOK

AMERICAN AIRLINES, Honorary Producers

PERFORMING ARTS NETWORK / SOUTH COAST REPERTORY P - 1

38th Season • 365th ProductionMAINSTAGE / AUGUST 31 THROUGH OCTOBER 7, 2001

David Emmes Martin BensonProducing Artistic Director Artistic Director

presents

P - 2 SOUTH COAST REPERTORY / PERFORMING ARTS NETWORK

CAST OF CHARACTERS(In order of appearance)

Elizabeth Champion-Cheney ............................................................................ *Nancy BellArnold Champion-Cheney, M.P. ....................................................................... *John HinesFootman ................................................................................................. *John-David KellerMrs. Anna Shenstone .................................................................................. *Rebecca DinesTeddie Luton ............................................................................................. *Douglas WestonClive Champion-Cheney ...................................................................... *Paxton WhiteheadLady Catherine Champion-Cheney ........................................................... *Carole ShelleyLord Porteous .................................................................................. *William Biff McGuireJr. Footman ...................................................................................................... Travis VadenT.T. ............................................................................................................................... Herself

SETTINGThe action takes place at Aston-Adey, Arnold Champion-Cheney’s house in Dorset, England.

ACT IJuly. Early 1920s. Midday.

ACT IIAfternoon. A few days later.

ACT IIILater that same evening.

LENGTHApproximately two hours and 35 minutes, including two 10-minute intermissions.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSMillinery for Ms. Shelley and Ms. Dines by Arnold Levine, Inc. New York.

Official Airline

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

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PRODUCTION STAFFAssistant Stage Manager ................................................................. *Randall K. LumCasting Director .................................................................................. Joanne DeNautAssistant to the Director .......................................................................... Teresa PondAssistant to the Costume Designer ................................................... Linda DavissonStage Management Intern ................................................................. Collin MorrisonProduction Electrician ............................................................... Christina L. MunichAdditional Costume Staff ................. Jessica Barrios, Valerie Bart, Judith Bennett,

Brownwen Burton, Yen Trang-Le, Stacey Nezda

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


Director Warner Shook (with dog) and the cast of ‘The Circle.’ Back row, left to right, Travis Vaden, Dou-glas Weston, Nancy Bell, John Hines, Rebecca Dines and John-David Keller. Seated, Shook, Paxton White-head, Carole Shelley and William Biff McGuire.


W. Somerset Maugham, the prolific author of novels, shortstories, essays and travel books, earned his first success as aplaywright. In the following passage from his autobiogra-phy, The Summing Up, Maugham describes hisfeelings about working in the theatre.

Iwas never stage struck. I have knowndramatists who wandered in every night tothe theatre in which their play was being

acted. They said they did it in order to see thatthe cast was not getting slack; I suspect it wasbecause they could never hear their own wordsspoken enough. Their delight was to sit in adressing room during the intervals and talk overthis scene or the other, wondering why it hadfallen flat that night or congratulating them-selves on how well it had gone, and watch anactor make up. They never ceased to find thetheatrical gossip of the day absorbing. Theyloved the theatre and everything connected withit. They had grease-paint in their bones.

I have never been like that. I like a theatre bestwhen it is under dust-sheets, the auditorium in darkness,and the unset stage, with the flats stacked against the backwall, is lit only by footlights. I have passed many happyhours at rehearsals; I have liked their easy camaraderie, thehurried lunch at a restaurant around the corner with a

member of the cast and the cup of strong bitter tea, withthick bread and butter, brought in by the charwoman atfour o’clock. I have never quite lost that little thrill of sur-

prised amusement Ifelt when in my firstplay I heard grownmen and women re-peat the lines thathad come so easilyto my pen. It hasinterested me towatch the way inwhich a part growsin the actor’s handsfrom the first life-less reading of thetypescript to some-thing like the char-acter that I haveseen in my mind’seye. I have been di-verted by the im-portant discussionsabout the exactplace where a pieceof furniture shouldstand, the self-suffi-ciency of a director,

the tantrums of anactress displeasedwith her positions,the artfulness of oldplayers determinedto get the centre ofthe stage for theirscene, and the

desultory talk about any subject that came tohand. But the consummation is the dress re-hearsal. There are half a dozen people in thefront row of the dress circle. They are the

dress makers, subdued as though they were in church, butvery business-like; they exchange short, sharp whispers withone another during the performance and make little signifi-cant gestures. You know that they are speaking of thelength of a skirt, the cut of a sleeve, or the feather in a hat;and the moment the curtain falls, the pins already in their

Maugham on Theatre

Above, Ethel Irving in thefinal act of ‘Lady Freder-ick’ when she forces heryoung admirer to ob-serve her applying hermakeup. Left, ‘Mrs. Dot’with Lena Halliday,Marie Tempest and FredKerr in 1908.

mouths,they hurry throughthe door on to the stage. Thedirector shouts "curtain up"and when it rises an actresssnatches herself away froman agitated colloquy with twogrim ladies in black.

In the stalls are thephotographers, the manage-ment and the man from thebox-office, the mothers of theactresses in the cast and thewives of the actors, your ownagent, a girl-friend of yours,and three or four old actorswho haven’t had a part fortwenty years. It is the per-fect audience. After each actthe director reads out the re-marks he has jotted down.There is a row with the elec-trician, who, with nothing todo but attend to his switches,has turned on the wrongones; and the author is indig-nant with him for being socareless and at the sametime indulgent because hehas a notion that the electri-cian only forgot his work be-cause he was so absorbed inthe play. Perhaps a littlescene is repeated; then theeffective positions are ar-ranged and with suddenblares of flash-light pho-tographs are taken. The cur-

tain is lowered to set the scene for the next act and the castseparate to their dressing rooms to change. The dressmak-ers vanish and the old actors slink round the corner to havea drink. The management despondently smoke gaspers,

the wives and mothers of the cast talk to one another inundertones, and the author’s agent reads the racing newsin the evening paper. It is all unreal and exciting. Atlast the dressmakers filter through the fireproof doorand resume their seats, the representatives of rival firmsat a haughty distance from one another, and the stage-

manager puts his head round the curtain. "All ready, Mr. Thing," he says."All right. Fire away. Curtain up."


Above left, Kenneth Douglas, Estelle Winwood and Lawrence Grossmith in ‘Too Many Husbands’in New York, 1919. Above, Bernard Partridge’s drawing in ‘Punch’ of an aggrieved Shakespearesurrounded by evidence of Maugham’s prodigious success as a playwright.

Perfection is what American women expect to find in theirhusbands…but English women only hope to find in their but-lers.

❖❖

It is seldom that a man loves once and for all; it may onlyshow that his sexual instincts are not very strong.

❖❖

It goes hard with a woman who failsto adapt herself to the prevalentmasculine conception of her.

❖❖

The three duties of women. Thefirst is to be pretty, the second is tobe well-dressed, and the third isnever to contradict.

❖❖

If it were possible to dissolve mar-riage during the first year not one infifty couples would remain united.

❖❖

She’s unmarried. She told me that in hero p i nion marriage was bound to be afailure if a woman could only haveone husband at a time.

❖❖

No man in his heart is quite so cyni-cal as a well-bred woman.

❖❖

It’s awful, love, isn’t it? Fancy any-one wanting to be in love.


I s n ’t Love Aw f u l ?Somerset Maugham’s Thoughts on Marriage, Women and Love

Pictured on this page the 1921 produc-tion of ‘The Circle.’ Above, clockwisefrom top, Tonie Edgar Bruce (Mrs.Shenstone), Lottie Venne (Lady Cather-ine), Leon Quartermaine (EdwardLuton) , E. Holman Clark (Clive) andAllan Aynesworth (Lord Porteous);Fay Compton (Elizabeth) and ErnestThesiger (Arnold); Venne and Comp-ton.


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S e c o n d S t a g eHoldPleaseWORLD PREMIEREby ANNIE WEISMAN

NostalgiaWORLD PREMIEREby LUCINDA COXON

AnExcitingPremiere

TheDazzleWEST COAST PREMIEREby RICHARD GREENBERG

TheCircleby W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM

TheHomecomingby HAROLD PINTER

TheSchoolforWivesby MOLIERE

LobbyHeroWEST COAST PREMIEREby KENNETH LONERGAN

GettingFrankieMarried—andAfterwardsWORLD PREMIEREby HORTON FOOTE

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When The Circle premiered in 1921, critic DesmondMacCarthy hailed it as “a decided step forward on the roadtowards the creation of (Maugham’s) genuine cynical mas-terpiece.” Over the years, the term “cynical” surfaced re-peatedly as a means ofdescribing Maugham’sresponse to the worldaround him. Accord-ing to MacCarthy, “Inthe aquarium of life, hesees aristocratic sharks,humble greedy pike,gorgeous octopuses,fair drifting jelly-fish,and occasionally he no-tices a flat, good-na-tured sole at the bottomof the tank who is con-tent to lie modestly inthe sand.” Unquestion-ably a delightful come-dy, The Circle remainsone of Maugham’s mostloved and performedplays, and althoughthe scandalous behav-ior of its charactersmay not shock audi-ences today, Maugh-am’s special brand ofcynicism still comesthrough loud andclear. The followingpassage by Maughamfrom The Summing Updiscusses his own viewson cynicism andhuman nature.

Ihave been calledcynical. I have been accused of making men out worsethan they are. I do not think I have done this. All I

have done is to bring into prominence certain traits thatmany writers shut their eyes to. I think what has chiefly

struck me in human beings is their lack of consistency. Ihave never seen people all of a piece. It has amazed methat the most incongruous traits should exist in the sameperson and for all that yield a plausible harmony. I have

often asked myself howcharacteristics, seem-ingly irreconcilable, canexist in the same per-son. I have knowncrooks who were capa-ble of self-sacrifice,sneak thieves who weresweet-natured and har-lots for whom it was apoint of honour to givegood value for money.The only explanation Ican offer is that so in-stinctive is each one’sconviction that he isunique in the world,and privileged, that hefeels that, howeverwrong it might be forothers, what he for hispart does, if not natural

and right, is at lastvenial. The

contrast thatI havefound inpeoplehas inter-ested me,but I do

not think Ihave unduly

empha-sized it.The censure thathas from time totime been passedon me is dueperhaps to thefact that I


Cynicism and the Art of Life

After the war, Maugham returned to the Villa Mauresque, wherehe is shown, above center, in white ducks and espadrilles, in1951, a youthful 77. Right, H. Andrew Freeth’s etching of Maugh-am.

have not expressly condemned what isbad in the characters of my invention andpraised what was good. It must be a faultin me that I am not gravely shocked at thesins of others unless they personally affectme, and even when they do I have learntat last generally to excuse them. It ismeet not to expect too much of others.You should be grateful when they treatyou well, but unperturbed when they treatyou ill. “For every one of us,” as the Athe-nian Stranger said, “is made pretty muchwhat he is by the bent of his desires andthe nature of his soul.” It is want of imag-ination that prevents people from seeingthings from any point of view but theirown, and it is unreasonable to be angrywith them because they lack this faculty.

I think I could be justly blamed if Isaw only people’s faults and were blind totheir virtues. I am not conscious that thisis the case. There is nothing more beauti-ful than goodness, and it has pleased mevery often to show how much of it there isin persons who by common standardswould be relentlessly condemned. I haveshown it because I have seen it. It hasseemed to me sometimes to shine morebrightly in them because it was surround-ed by the darkness of sin. I take the good-ness of the good for granted, and I amamused to discover their defects or vices;I am touched when I see the goodness of

the wicked, and I am willing enough to shrug a tolerantshoulder at their wickedness. I am not my brother’s keep-er. I cannot bring myself to judge my fellows; I am contentto observe them. My observation has led me to the beliefthat, all in all, there is not so much difference between thegood and the bad as the moralists would have us believe.


Left, one of the earliest of Gerald Kelly’s portraits of Maugham.This one was painted in 1907. Below, Maugham, a life-longbridge addict, playing a hand at Crockford’s Club, as he ap-proached his eightieth birthday.

*NANCY BELL (Elizabeth Champi-o n - C h e n e y) a p p e a red at SCR asAnn Deever in All My Sons and asJulia Craven in The Philanderer.Most recently she appeared in theworld pre m i e re of Polish Joke at AContemporary Theatre in Seattle.Regional theatre credits includeMcCarter Theater, Berkeley Reper-tory Theatre, Dallas Theatre Center,Studio Arena Theatre, BaltimoreCenter Stage, Berkshire TheatreFestival, Cincinnati Playhouse, Pa-permill Playhouse, Repertory The-a t re of St. Louis and the GeorgiaS h a k e s p e a re Festival. In New Yo r k ,she has appeared at the New Yo r kT h e a t re Workshop, Ensemble Stu-dio Theatre, Waterline TheatreC o m p a n y, Surf Reality, Grove Stre e tT h e a t re, Tribeca Lab and Alice’sFourth Floor, variously as an ac-t ress, writer or dire c t o r. In Los An-geles, she has appeared withOdyssey Theatre Ensemble, EchoT h e a t re Company and GrindstoneT h e a t re Company. Ms. Bell has ap-

p e a red at Edinburgh and SpoletoInternational Festivals. Her televi-sion credits include “Guiding Light,”“Mad About You,” “Newsradio,”“Chicago Hope,” “Star Trek Vo y a g e r, ”“Law and Order,” “Payne,” “TheJourney of Alan Strange” and thetelevision films T h i r s t and A m e r i-can Tr a g e d y.

*REBECCA DINES (Mrs. AnnaS h e n s t o n e) is making her SCRdebut. Her theatre credits includeLove’s Labour’s Lost a n d Much Adoabout Nothing at the Lake Ta h o eS h a k e s p e a re Festival, The Home-c o m i n g and Widowers Houses at Au-rora Theatre Company, As Bees inHoney Drown, Psychopathia Sexu-a l i s, Present Laughter, Once in aL i f e t i m e, The Man Who Came toD i n n e r, As You Like It, La Bete a n dMrs. Klein at Theatre Wo r k s ,Stonewall Jackson’s House at theE u reka Theatre, Old Times at ACT,The Real Thing at the Marin The-a t re Company and Much Ado about

Nothing, Love’s Labour’s Lost and AMidsummer Night’s Dream at theSan Francisco Shakespeare Festi-val. She earned Bay Area TheatreCritics Circle Awards for her rolesin The Homecoming, As Bees inHoney Drown a n d The Man WhoCame to Dinner. She also re c e i v e dBay Area Theatre Critics CircleAward nominations for P r e s e n tLaughter and As You Like It. H e rfilm and television credits includeDeath of a Soldier, The DuneraBoys, Going Sane, The Clean Ma-chine, “Prisoner Cell Block H” and“ Te l e c l u b . ”

*JOHN HINES (Arnold Champi-o n - C h e n e y, M.P.) is making his SCRdebut. His New York theatre cre d i t sinclude Labor Day at ManhattanT h e a t re Club, Spring Aw a k e n i n g a tNew York Performance Wo r k s h o pand Black Snow at the Judith An-derson. His regional theatre cre d i t sinclude Way of the World, Betrayal,P e n t e c o s t and The Skin of Our Te e t h


NA N C Y BE L L

Elizabeth Champion-CheneyRE B E C C A DI N E S

Mrs. Anna ShenstoneJO H N HI N E S

Arnold Champion-Cheney, M.P.

A rtist Biographies


at Yale Repertory; Enchanted Aprilat Hartford Stage; Richard II at theGoodman Theatre; and The InvisibleM a n at the Cleveland Playhouse.His film and television credits in-clude The Devil and Daniel We b s t e r,The Tao of Steve, 54, Best Man inGrass Creek (also writer) , TheMoney Shot, “Spin City,” “Sex andthe City” and “Law and Order. ”

* J O H N - D AVID KELLER (F o o t -m a n) is a member of SCR’s re s i d e n tacting company, and is often re-f e r red to as “the last of the barna-cles.” He has been with the compa-ny since 1973 working as both anactor and dire c t o r. He has dire c t e dA Christmas Carol for its entire 21-year history. He is responsible ford i recting SCR’s Educational To u r i n gProductions, and is working onPower Play, which opens in January2002. Among his directing cre d i t sa re Godspell, Jacques Brel, In Fash-ion, The Real Inspector Hound( S C R ’s first Equity show), Peg O’My Heart a n d To m F o o l e r y, to namea few. He has also acted in manyshows at SCR. Last season Mr.Keller appeared in Much Ado aboutN o t h i n g and in the previous seasont o u red with the Educational To u r-ing Production of My Mom’s Dad.

He also narrates the fifth grade con-certs for the Orange County Phil-harmonic Society. His love of clas-sical music has afforded him the op-portunity to perform with the Na-tional Symphony Orchestra and theSydney Philharmonic when theyt o u red in Orange County.

*WILLIAM BIFF McGUIRE (L o r dP o r t e o u s) was born in America, butmade his theatrical debut in Lon-don under the leadership of Ty r o n eGuthrie in the original productionof William Saroyan’s The Time ofYour Life, directed by PeterGlenville. Mr. McGuire was a lead-ing actor with the Guthrie Theatre ,C a n a d a ’s Stratford-on-Avon underthe direction of John Hirsch (cre a t-ing the role of Hugh the schoolmas-ter in Brian Friel’s award-winningp re m i e re of Tr a n s l a t i o n s), NewYo r k ’s Lincoln Center under the di-rection of Jules Irving, the DenverCenter under the direction of Ed-ward Payson Call. Mr. McGuire hasa p p e a red in leading roles in numer-ous original Broadway productionsincluding South Pacific; Dance Me aSong; The Greatest Man Alive;Catonsvil le Nine; Father’s Day;Camelot; A View from the Bridge;Tower Beyond Tragedy; Portrait of

a Madonna (opposite Jessica Ta n d yand directed by Hume Cronyn);Sean O’Casey’s Pound on Demand;Bedtime Story (with Ms. Tandy andM r. Cronyn); the 1973 revival of AStreetcar Named Desire; C o n v e r s a-tions with My Father, directed byDan Sullivan; and the original En-semble Theatre production ofArthur Miller’s The Last Ya n k e e. In1960, he met and married his co-star Jeannie Carson when they ap-p e a red in and recorded the ac-claimed Broadway revival of F i n i-an’s Rainbow. Seattle Repertory hea p p e a red in She Stoops to Conquer,The Real Inspector Hound, Dancingat Lughnasa, Strider, Enemy of thePeople, Our Town, The Merry Wivesof Windsor, Moon for the Misbegot-ten, The Cherry Orchard, You Can’tTake it With You, Conversationswith My Father, Long Day’s Jour-ney Into Night, Richard III, Mea-sure for Measure, Twelfth Night,The Tempest, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,Heartbreak House, and the Rep’sown Inspecting Carol . Mr.M c G u i re ’s films include S e r p i c o ,The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, TheThomas Crown Affair, Station SixSahara, The Gary Powers Story,Nero Wo l f and M i d w a y . He hasbeen a leading actor on television

WI L L I A M BI F F MCGU I R E

Lord PorteousCA R O L E SH E L L E Y

Lady Catherine Champion-CheneyJO H N- DA V I D KE L L E R

Footman

from “the golden years” to the pre-sent. He served with the 80th Divi-sion 305 Combat Engineers in Wo r l dWar II, attended the Nuremberg tri-als and helped to rebuild the We i s-baden Opera House. Mr. McGuireattended Massachusetts Stage Col-lege, Shrivenham University in Eng-land, and New Yo r k ’s Art Student’sLeague. As a writer, he adaptedJames Thurber’s Q u i l l o w and theG i a n t for BBC-TV and served asstaff writer for the NBC award-win-ning “Mr. Peepers.” Many of hisoriginal dramas have been seen onNBC, BBC, and ITV television. OnBroadway he appeared in The Yo u n gMan From Atlanta and received aTony nomination for best feature da c t o r.

*CAROLE SHELLEY (Lady Cather-ine Champion-Cheney) is makingher SCR debut. She recently ap-p e a red on Broadway as FrauSchneider in C a b a r e t. She was alsoseen on Broadway in Hal Prince’scritically acclaimed revival of S h o wB o a t and starred in Alfred Uhry’sBroadway production of The LastNight of Ballyhoo. Prior to that, shea p p e a red in The Film Society by JonRobin Baitz, directed by Roger Rees.She starred in New York in Neil

S i m o n ’s London Suite, d i rected byDaniel Sullivan. Other Broadwayc redits include The Odd Couple ( N Ydebut), The Miser, Stepping Out( Tony nomination), Noises Off, TheElephant Man ( Tony Award, BestA c t ress), Hay Fever, The NormanConquests (LADCC Award), A b s u r dPerson Singular ( Tony nomination)and Loot. National Tours includeBroadway Bound, The Royal Fami-ly (both LADCC Nominations) andNoises Off. Repertory appearancesinclude The Country Wife, Macbeth,Twelfth Night and Romeo and Julietat Stratford, CT; The Club, Dear An-toine a n d Waiting for the Parade i nLondon, Ontario, directed by RobinPhillips; as a member of the Canadi-an National Shakespeare Companyof Stratford, Ontario, tours of K i n gL e a r and Taming of the Shrew(Russia/Europe). Off Broadway ap-pearances include Richard II(NYSF), Later Life (Drama DeskNomination), Cabaret Ve r b o t e n ,What the Butler Saw, Little Mur-ders, Twelve Dreams (Obie Aw a r d )and Tartuffe. Her last appearancein the West End was as Lettice inLettice and Lovage, d i rected byMichael Blakemore. Her films in-clude Quiz Show, The Road toWellville, Jungle to Jungle and the

classic The Odd Couple. Disney An-imated Features are Hercules, TheA r i s t o c a t s and Robin Hood.

*DOUGLAS WESTON (Te d d i eL u t o n) is delighted to return toSCR. He played Will Shakespearein the world pre m i e re of The Beardof Av o n h e re last season and wasThe Philanderer in 1999, for whichhe received the Los Angeles DramaCritics Circle Award. He was alsonominated by the LADCC for hisperformance as Septimus in A r c a-d i a at The Mark Taper Forum.Other theatre credits include B l o o dBrothers on Broadway, The SleepingH i p p o and Working Title O f f - B r o a d-w a y, W h i t e s t o n e s (La Mama Etc.)and W h i t e w a t e r (The PerformingGarage), Torvald in N o r a (The LaJolla Playhouse), the title roles inHamlet (Merrimack Rep.) and inPeter Pan (The Barter Theatre ) ,Mrs. Warren’s Profession ( Ya l eRep.), Don Juan (Center Stage)and Rough Cross ing ( M c C a r t e rTheater Center). Film and televi-sion includes Six Days Seven Nights(Disney), Fools Rush In(Columbia), Sex and the City(HBO), “Two Guys a Girl and aPizza Place” (ABC), “The Hughlies”(UPN), “Liberty” (PBS) and theindie films Guardian, Quicksand, 7Songs a n d The Rule of Three. Hehas recorded several Plays for Radiofor LA Theatreworks on KCRW andhe is the Artistic Director of TheG reenlight Group for whom he pro-duced A Servant of 2 Masters a tBergamot Station.

* PAXTON WHITEHEAD (C l i v eChampion-Cheney) p reviously ap-p e a red at SCR as Frank Foster inHow the Other Half Loves a n d C a p-tain Shotover in Heartbreak House.M r. Whitehead has performed onBroadway in My Fair Lady, A LittleHotel on the Side, Lettice and Lo-vage with Maggie Smith, Artist De-scending a Staircase by Tom Stop-


DO U G L A S WE S T O N

Teddie LutonPA X T O N WH I T E H E A D

Clive Champion-Cheney


pard, Run For Your Wife, Noises Off,Camelot with Richard Burton, C r u-cifer of Blood as Sherlock Holmes,Habeas Corpus, Candida, Beyondthe Fringe and The Affair by C.P.S n o w. An Associate Artist of theGlobe Theatres in San Diego, he hasjust appeared there as Malvolio inTwelfth Night and previously as T h eM i s e r, Richard III, Sir Peter Te a z l ein School for Scandal, Sir AnthonyAbsolute in The Rivals, Benedick inMuch Ado About Nothing, and di-rected Misalliance and Beyond theFringe. M r. Whitehead has ap-p e a red in Los Angeles in Woman inM i n d, How the Other Half Loves,The Pirates of Penzance, Camelotand Noises Off. As Artistic Dire c t o rof the Shaw Festival, Niagara on theLake, Canada, he produced, dire c t-ed and/or appeared in 27 produc-tions of George Bernard Shaw playsbetween 1967-77, and was in theLondon production of H e a r t b r e a kHouse with Rex Harrison and DianaRigg. His film credits include T h eAdventures of Huck Finn, Back toSchool, Baby Boom, Chips, the Wa rDog and the upcoming Kate andL e o p o l d . His TV work includes“Marb lehead Manor” (series),“Simon” (series), “Frasier, ”“Friends,” “Ellen,” “Mad About Yo u , ”“3rd Rock From the Sun,” and“ Tales from the Hollywood Hills.”

P L AY W R I G H T,D I R E C T O R

& D E S I G N E R S

WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGH-A M (P l a y w r i g h t) was born in 1874,

the son of a wealthy solicitor whoworked for the British Embassy inFrance. Orphaned at 10, he went tolive with his uncle, the Rev. HenryMaugham. While training to be adoctor Maugham worked as an ob-stetric clerk in the slums of Lam-beth. He used these experiences tohelp him write his first novel, L i z aof Lambeth (1897). The book soldwell and he decided to abandonmedicine and become a full-timew r i t e r. Maugham achieved famewith his play Lady Frederick(1907), a comedy about money andmarriage. By 1908 Maugham hadfour plays running simultaneouslyin London. On the outbreak of theFirst World Wa r, Maugham, nowaged 40, joined a Red Cross ambu-lance unit in France. While servingon the Western Front he met the 22year old American, Gerald Haxton.The two men became lovers andlived together for the next 30 years.During the war Maugham was invit-ed by Sir John Wa l l i n g e r, head ofBritain's Military Intell igence(MI6) in France, to act as a secre tservice agent. Maugham agre e dand over the next few years actedas a link between MI6 in Londonand its agents working in Europe.In 1915, Syrie Wellcome, the daugh-ter of Dr. Thomas Barnardo, gavebirth to his child. Her husband,Henry Wellcome, cited Maugham asc o - respondent in divorce proceed-ings. After the divorce in 1916,Maugham married Syrie but contin-ued to live with Gerald Haxton.During the war, Maugham's best-known novel, Of Human Bondage

(1915), was published. This wasfol lowed by another successfulbook, The Moon and Sixpence(1919). Maugham also developed areputation as a fine short-storyw r i t e r. One story, R a i n, which ap-p e a red in The Trembling of a Leaf(1921), was also adapted into a sev-eral feature films. Popular playswritten by Maugham include T h eC i r c l e (1921), East of Suez ( 1 9 2 2 ) ,The Constant Wife (1926) and theanti-war play For Services Rendered(1932). In his later years Maughamwrote his autobiography, The Sum-ming Up (1938) and works of fic-tion such as The Razor's Edge(1945), C a t a l i n a (1948) and Q u a r-t e t (1949). He died in 1965.

WARNER SHOOK (D i r e c t o r) di-rected SCR’s productions of Yo uCan’t Take It with You, Frankie andJohnny in the Clair de Lune a n dBeyond Therapy. He directed thep re m i e re of the Pulitzer Prize-win-ning The Kentucky Cycle on Broad-w a y, the Mark Taper Forum and theKennedy Center. He served asArtistic Director of the IntimanT h e a t re in Seattle from 1992 to1999. While there he directed A n-gels in America, The Little Foxes,The Royal Family, Who’s Afraid ofVirginia Woolf?, Faith Healer, ThreeTall Women and Molly Sweeneyamong others. Other regional the-a t re credits include the world pre-m i e re of The Mandrake Root w r i t-ten by and starring Lynn Redgraveat the Long Wharf; The Man WhoCame to Dinner at Oregon Shake-s p e a re Festival; Love! Valour! Com-

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p a s s i o n ! at Berkeley Repertory; C a ton a Hot Tin Roof at American Con-servatory Theatre; Sister Mary Ig-natius Explains It All For Yo u a n dBrian Friel’s Tr a n s l a t i o n s at LAStage Company; Mrs. California a tthe Mark Taper Forum, the Ameri-can pre m i e re of Breaking the Si-l e n c e and Bus Stop starring LeaT h o m p s o n at the Pasadena Play-house. At Intiman he produced theworld pre m i e res of Ellen McLaugh-l i n ’s Tongue of a Bird, Chay Ye w ’sRed, Leslie Ay v a z i a n ’s Nine Armeni-ans, J e f f rey Hatcher’s S m a s h a n dp resented Anna Deavere Smith inTwil ight and Lynn Redgrave inShakespeare for My Father. He hasbeen honored with a Bay Area The-a t re Critics Best Director Award forLove! Valour! Compassion! and anomination for a Helen Hayes BestD i rector Award for The KentuckyC y c l e . Next spring he will again di-rect The Mandrake Root s t a r r i n gMs. Redgrave in New Yo r k .

RALPH FUNICELLO (Scenic De-s i g n e r) is back at South CoastRepertory for his 18th season.Among his SCR credits are the de-signs for The Education of RandyNewman, The Piano Lesson ,Ta r t u f f e, Private Lives, Old Times,Death of a Salesman, Six Degrees ofS e p a r a t i o n, She Stoops to Folly, T h eM i s a n t h r o p e , Dancing atL u g h n a s a , Hedda Gabler , T h eM i s e r, Twelfth Night, Happy End,Kiss of the Spider Wo m a n, S p e e d -T h e - P l o w, Going for Gold, Misal-l i a n c e, Highest Standard of Living,Buried Child, G o o d and D a. Hiswork has been seen On and Off-B r o a d w a y, and at many re s i d e n tt h e a t res including the Lincoln Cen-ter Theatre, Intiman Theatre, Seat-tle Repertory Theatre, Denver Cen-ter Theatre, Berkeley RepertoryT h e a t re, Guthrie Theater, McCarterTheater Center, The Oregon Shake-s p e a re Festival, Milwaukee Reper-tory Theatre, Stratford Shake-

s p e a rean Festival of Canada and theGlobe Theatres, where he is an As-sociate Artist. He has had a long as-sociation with the Mark Ta p e rForum and worked for 23 years withSan Francisco’s American Conserva-tory Theatre, where he was Dire c t o rof Design. Mr. Funicello designedthe scenery for the acclaimed pro-duction of La Rondine for New Yo r kCity Opera and The Taming of theS h r e w for PBS. He served on theNational Endowment for the Artst h e a t re panel, and his work is fea-t u red in the book American Set De-s i g n . He is currently the PowellChair in Set Design at San DiegoU n i v e r s i t y.

WALKER HICKLIN (Costume De-s i g n e r) has designed 27 Mainstageproductions , among them T h eBeard of Avon, Much Ado aboutNothing, The Philanderer ( G a r l a n dAw a r d ), On the Jump, Ah, Wilder-n e s s !, Arcadia, An Ideal Husband,Arms and the Man, The Cherry Or-chard, Dancing at Lughnasa a n dGreat Day in the Morning (Los An-geles Drama Critics Circle Aw a r d ) .He has designed more than 175 pro-ductions for the theatre in New Yo r k(both On and Off-Broadway), and inleading resident theatres through-out the country, including HartfordStage, Long Wharf Theatre, Tr i n i t yRepertory Company, Baltimore Cen-ter Stage, Arena Stage, New Yo r kS h a k e s p e a re Festival, The KennedyC e n t e r, New York Theatre Wo r k-shop, Manhattan Theatre Club, theAlley Theatre, Berkeley RepertoryT h e a t re and American ConservatoryT h e a t re, among others. Mr. Hicklinwas Associate Artist of New Yo r k ’sfamed Circle Repertory Company,w h e re he designed more than 20productions including The Balti-more Wa l t z (Obie Award), T h eFiery Furnace starring Julie Harrisand The Size of the World with RitaM o reno. He designed costumes forthe feature films Longtime Com-

p a n i o n; Prelude to a Kiss with AlecBaldwin, Meg Ryan and KathyBates; R e c k l e s s starring Mia Farrow;and the upcoming Foolish Heartsand Lily and Rose. Most re c e n t l y,M r. Hicklin designed Looking forN o r m a l , starr ing Beau Bridges ,Laurie Metcalf and MichaelLearned at the Geffen Playhouseand A Moon for the Misbegotten f o rthe Hangar Theatre where he is anassociate artist. For Nadine.

Y O R K K E N N E D Y (Lighting De-s i g n e r) returns to SCR having de-signed productions for theatre sacross the country including Berke-ley Repertory Theatre, San Francis-c o ’s ACT, Old Globe Theatre, SeattleRepertory Theatre, Alley Theatre ,Yale Repertory Theatre, IndianaR e p e r t o r y, Brooklyn Academy ofMusic and the Whitney Museum inNew York. Designs for South CoastRepertory include last season’s B o-soms and Neglect and previous pro-ductions of All My Sons, The Nor-man Conquests, Good as New ,Hedda Gabler, Old Times and L i p sTo g e t h e r, Teeth Apart. He has re-ceived D r a m a - L o g u e, San DiegoDrama Critics Circle, Back StageWe s t Garland, Arizona Theatre Crit-ics and Bay Area Theatre CriticsCircle awards for theatrical lightingdesign. In the dance world, as astage manager and lighting design-e r, he has toured with theMalaschock Dance and Co. in Amer-ica and extensively throughoutPoland, Romania and Macedonia. Agraduate of the California Instituteof the Arts and the Yale School ofDrama, he has lectured at numer-ous universities and served for twoyears as head of lighting design atSan Francisco State University. Ana r c h i t e c t u re lighting designer andconsultant with Gallegos LightingDesign, his current projects includethe Lego Imagination Center at Dis-neyland Chicago, the Port Colum-bus Civil War Naval Center in


Columbus, Georgia, the MississippiRiver Discovery Center in Dubuque,Iowa and numerous residential pro-jects throughout Northern Califor-n i a .

MICHAEL ROTH (C o m p o s e r /Sound Designer), a composer andsound designer for theatre, film,dance and chamber ensembles, ispleased to be back at SCR, where hewas most recently co-conceiver, or-chestrator and music director forThe Education of Randy Newman.Other collaborations with Mr. New-man include orchestrat ing hisF a u s t and editing two songbooks forWarner Bros. Mr. Roth’s work hasbeen heard in more than 35 produc-tions at SCR, including Donald Mar-gulies’ Dinner with Friends ( d i re c t-ed by Dan Sullivan, also seen Off-Broadway), Sight Unseen (also Off-Broadway), and the CultureClash/John Glore musical adapta-tion of The Birds (also at BerkeleyRep). At La Jolla Playhouse, wherehe has been resident composer forover 30 productions, he has beenpleased to work with Lee Blessing(including A Walk in the Wo o d s,also on Broadway and PBS),Michael Greif, James Lapine, BillIrwin, Peter Sellars, Jeff We i s s ,Kate Whoriskey and many others.Collaborations with Mac We l l m a ninclude their music/theatre pre-m i e re The Allegory of Whiteness(2001 Humana Festival, directed byLisa Peterson); the pre m i e res ofTerminal Hip, Bad Penny and T h eLesser Magoo; and directing A l b a n i-an Softshoe. Other projects: Anne

B o g a r t ’s The Wo m e n, collaboratingwith Tom Stoppard and Care yPerloff on the American pre m i e re sof Indian Ink and The Invention ofLove at ACT, Des McAnuff ’s filmBad Dates, the independent featureHoly Days and the Henry V s e c t i o nof Penny Marshall's The Renais-sance Man. The CD of Mr. Roth'schamber opera “Their Thought andBack Again” is available through e-mail at [email protected].

*S C O T T H A R R I S O N (Stage Man-a g e r) returns for his 12th seasonwith SCR. Last season he stagemanaged Everett Beekin, A Christ-mas Carol, Much Ado about Noth-i n g and The Beard of Avon. He hasstage managed an additional 27shows on the Mainstage, as well asthe pre m i e re of La Posada Mágicaand I Am Celso on the SecondStage. He has previously served asAssistant Stage Manager on morethan 33 Mainstage productions.Prior to joining SCR, he served fortwo seasons as Stage Manager forThe Broadway Series at La MiradaT h e a t re for the Performing Arts.M r. Harrison is a graduate of Pep-perdine University, where he re-ceived his BA in Theatre Arts. Hehas also stage managed at IntimanT h e a t re in Seattle, San Francisco’sPalace of Fine Arts, ShakespeareFestival/Los Angeles, Highways Per-formance Space and the St. Gene-sius Theatre. Mr. Harrison wouldlike to take this opportunity to ac-knowledge and continuously sup-port his friends and colleagues whoa re battling the fight of AIDS.

*RANDALL K. LUM (A s s i s t a n tStage Manager) begins his 12thseason of stage managing shows atSCR with The Circle. During hislong association he has had thep l e a s u re of working on over a dozenworld pre m i e re s and as one of SCR’sresident stage managers, he hasbeen associated with more than 50productions. In 1997, Mr. Lumstage managed the AIDS Benefit“Help is on the Way III” at thePalace of Fine Arts in San Francis-co. Other stage managing cre d i t sinclude the American ConservatoryT h e a t re in San Francisco, the GlobeT h e a t res in San Diego, BerkeleyRepertory Theatre, San Jose CivicLight Opera, VITA Shakespeare Fes-tival, Pacific Conservatory of thePerforming Arts, Long Beach Ballet,S a n Francisco Convention Bure a uand Kawasaki Motorcycles. Hewould like everyone to take a mo-ment to remember all those whohave lost the battle and all thosestill suffering and fighting the AIDSepidemic.

D AVID EMMES (Producing Artis-tic Director) is co-founder and Pro-ducing Artistic Director of SCR, oneof the largest professional re s i d e n tt h e a t res in California. He has re-ceived numerous awards for pro-ductions he has directed duringS C R ’s 37-year history, including a1999 Los Angeles Drama Critics Cir-cle Award for the direction ofGeorge Bernard Shaw’s The Philan-d e r e r. He directed the world pre-m i e res of Amy Fre e d ’s The Beard ofAv o n and Freedomland, T h o m a s

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B a b e ’s Great Day in the Morning,Keith Reddin’s Rum and Coke a n dBut Not for Me and Neal Bell’s C o l dS w e a t ; the American pre m i e re ofTerry Johnson’s Unsuitable forA d u l t s; the West Coast pre m i e res ofC . P. Ta y l o r ’s Good and Harry Kon-d o l e o n ’s Christmas on Mars; and theSouthland pre m i e re of Top Girls ( a tSCR and the Westwood Playhouse).Recent productions include the We s tCoast pre m i e res of Three Viewings b yJ e f f rey Hatcher, The Secret Raptureby David Hare and New England b yRichard Nelson; and A r c a d i a by To mStoppard, Six Degrees of Separationby John Guare, The Importance ofBeing Earnest by Oscar Wilde, Ay c k-b o u r n ’s Woman in Mind and Yo uNever Can Tell by George BernardS h a w, which he restaged for the 1990S i n g a p o re Festival of Arts. His pro-ducing responsibilities involve theoverall coordination of SCR’s pro-grams and projects. He has served asa consultant to the Orange CountyPerforming Arts Center and as a the-a t re panelist and onsite evaluator forthe National Endowment for the Arts.He has served on the board of theCalifornia Theatre Council, the Exec-utive Committee of the League ofResident Theatres, and as a panelistfor the California Arts Council. Afterattending Orange Coast College, hereceived his BA and MA from Califor-nia State University, San Francisco,and his PhD in theatre and film fromU S C .

M A RTIN BENSON (Artistic Direc-t o r) shares co-founder credit andartistic leadership of SCR with his

colleague David Emmes. As one ofS C R ’s chief directors, Mr. Benson hasd i rected nearly one third of the playsproduced here in the last 37 years.He has distinguished himself in thestaging of contemporary work, mostnotably Paul Osborn’s Morning’s atS e v e n, the critically acclaimed Cali-fornia pre m i e re of William Nichol-s o n ’s S h a d o w l a n d s, Athol Fugard’sP l a y l a n d, Brian Friel’s Dancing atL u g h n a s a, David Mamet’s O l e a n n a,the West Coast pre m i e re of PeterHedges’ Good As New and DavidH a re ’s S k y l i g h t. He has won acco-lades for his direction of five majorworks by George Bernard Shaw, in-cluding the Los Angeles Drama Crit-ics Circle (LADCC) Aw a r d - w i n n e r sMisalliance and Heartbreak House.Among the numerous world pre-m i e res he has directed are Jon Bas-t i a n ’s Noah Johnson Had a Whore. . . ,Tom Stre l i c h ’s B A F O , and Margare tE d s o n ’s Pulitzer Prize-winning W i t ,which he also directed at SeattleRepertory Theatre and the Alley The-a t re in Houston. He has dire c t e dAmerican classics including A h ,W i l d e r n e s s !, A Streetcar Named De-sire, A Delicate Balance and All MyS o n s. Mr. Benson has been honore dwith the Drama-Logue Award for hisd i rection of 21 productions and re-ceived LADCC’s DistinguishedAchievement in Directing awards anunparalleled six times for the twoShaw productions, John MillingtonS y n g e ’s Playboy of the Western Wo r l d,Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, SallyN e m e t h ’s Holy Days and W i t . He alsod i rected the film version of H o l yDays using the original SCR cast.

Along with David Emmes, Mr. Bensonaccepted SCR’s 1988 Tony Award forOutstanding Resident ProfessionalT h e a t re and won the 1995 TheatreLA Ovation Award for LifetimeAchievement. Mr. Benson re c e i v e dhis BA in Theatre from CaliforniaState University, San Francisco.

PAULA TOMEI (M a n a g i n gD i r e c t o r) is responsible for the over-all administration of the day-to-dayoperations of South Coast Repertory.A member of the staff since 1979, shehas served in a number of adminis-trative capacities including Subscrip-tions Manager, Business Managerand, for six years, General Manager.She currently serves as President ofT h e a t re Communications Group(TCG), the national service organiza-tion for theatre where she just com-pleted a two-year term as Tre a s u re r,and has served as the Vice Pre s i d e n tof the League of Resident Theatre s(LORT). In addition, she has been amember of the LORT NegotiatingCommittee for industry-wide uniona g reements and re p resents SCR atnational conferences of TCG andL O R T; is a theatre panelist for theNational Endowment for the Arts andthe California Arts Council (CAC),and site visitor for the CAC; servedon the Advisory Committee for theArts Administration Certificate Pro-gram at UC Irvine; and has been aguest lecturer in the graduate schoolof business at Stanford. She graduat-ed from UC Irvine with a degree inEconomics and pursued an addition-al course of study in theatre andd a n c e .

w. somerset maugham warner shook · 2019-11-15 · michael roth tom aberger *scott harrison...

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