Posted by Janet Ulrich Brooks (Mrs. Lippincott, Lithuanian Woman, Clara
Barton, Actress)
A True History of the Johnstown Flood hits the stage today in technical rehearsals! This is the most exciting time in the rehearsal process, as the work of every artist on the project comes together for the first time. During this time in the process, I stand back and am dazzled by just how many people it takes to make a play—and not many of them will be getting much sleep this week. :)
Until now, all of the people involved in creating the many elements of this show have been working in their own shops, rooms and studios. Actors are especially anxious to enter the world of the play with props, costumes, lights and sound…and this particular play is so rich in design. I’m writing this as I watch the clock tick—another hour before I leave for the theater—and I just can’t wait to get there! We are getting closer and closer to sharing this amazing story with audiences.
The process to this point has been very deep and rewarding. Working on a brand-new play is always exciting, but working on a brand-new Rebecca Gilman play under the direction of Bob Falls is the stuff actors dream of. It is thrilling to be a part of this collaboration, and I can’t wait to see it all realized.
Goodman Theatre has been so welcoming and generous with its resources. Having a crack literary team in on the process has been invaluable. Their dramaturgical information has deepened the rehearsal process, and will in turn deepen every audience member’s experience of the show.
Also, I wish everyone could follow the stage management team around for even just a day. This is not a job for the weak! They are the conduit through which ALL information is organized and disseminated. It’s staggering to witness their skills, without which we would all not be able to function. :) Imagine being responsible to—and for—so many people. Alden Vasquez and Jamie Wolfe should get a Parents of the Year Award!
Time to go...
Looking forward to seeing you at the theater!
—Janet Ulrich Brooks
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Monday, February 1, 2010
Why A True History of the Johnstown Flood?
Posted by Artistic Director Robert Falls
In the late afternoon of May 31, 1889, the thriving industrial town of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, was inundated with the waters of Lake Conemaugh, situated high above the town in the Allegheny Mountains. A torrential rainstorm the day before caused the dam containing the man-made lake to burst, sending 20 million tons of water through the Conemaugh Valley, where it swept away homes, factories and nearly everything else in its path. More than 2,200 residents of the valley perished in the deluge, at the time the highest loss of civilian life in a single incident that the United States had known—and the Johnstown Flood became an instant part of American folklore.
Today, few people know much about this storied disaster beyond the horrifying facts.
But the forces that led to the flood—a lake resort built for the entertainment of the town’s wealthy elite, a construction executed with too little regard for engineering sense and safety—presaged such other legendary disasters as the sinking of the Titanic and, more recently, the destruction wrought by Hurricane Katrina. Each has become a metaphor for class inequality in America: out of the hubristic dreams of the wealthy comes a disaster that disproportionately affects the poor.
In her extraordinary new play, A True History of the Johnstown Flood, Rebecca Gilman explores in vivid detail the social and economic forces that inexorably led to the flood. Much of the play is told through the experiences of a traveling theater company brought to Johnstown to entertain the wealthy clientele of the Lake Conemaugh resort with the melodramas that were the staple of American theater in the 1880s. It is this device which, I think, makes Rebecca’s play so timely. Should art reflect the values and sympathies of its primary patrons? Or should it strive for a greater truth, a more honest analysis of society as it truly exists, spotlighting the inequities and underlying forces that threaten to rip apart its delicate fabric? By 1889 these questions were already being argued by such European playwrights as Henrik Ibsen, Gerhart Hauptmann and August Strindberg, and they would soon be embraced by a new generation of American writers.
A True History of the Johnstown Flood is one of the most challenging plays I have directed at the Goodman, and is certainly one of Rebecca’s most ambitious works to date. Panoramic in its ideas as well as its theatricality, this compelling play asks us to re-examine one of the most terrifying events in our history through the lens of circumstances that continue to plague us today, too often with equally disastrous results. It has been a remarkable experience for all of us, and one that I am very proud to bring to you.
Robert Falls
Artistic Director
We hope you are as excited as we are about A True History of the Johnstown Flood! Please share your questions and comments with us, below.
In the late afternoon of May 31, 1889, the thriving industrial town of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, was inundated with the waters of Lake Conemaugh, situated high above the town in the Allegheny Mountains. A torrential rainstorm the day before caused the dam containing the man-made lake to burst, sending 20 million tons of water through the Conemaugh Valley, where it swept away homes, factories and nearly everything else in its path. More than 2,200 residents of the valley perished in the deluge, at the time the highest loss of civilian life in a single incident that the United States had known—and the Johnstown Flood became an instant part of American folklore.
Today, few people know much about this storied disaster beyond the horrifying facts.
But the forces that led to the flood—a lake resort built for the entertainment of the town’s wealthy elite, a construction executed with too little regard for engineering sense and safety—presaged such other legendary disasters as the sinking of the Titanic and, more recently, the destruction wrought by Hurricane Katrina. Each has become a metaphor for class inequality in America: out of the hubristic dreams of the wealthy comes a disaster that disproportionately affects the poor.
In her extraordinary new play, A True History of the Johnstown Flood, Rebecca Gilman explores in vivid detail the social and economic forces that inexorably led to the flood. Much of the play is told through the experiences of a traveling theater company brought to Johnstown to entertain the wealthy clientele of the Lake Conemaugh resort with the melodramas that were the staple of American theater in the 1880s. It is this device which, I think, makes Rebecca’s play so timely. Should art reflect the values and sympathies of its primary patrons? Or should it strive for a greater truth, a more honest analysis of society as it truly exists, spotlighting the inequities and underlying forces that threaten to rip apart its delicate fabric? By 1889 these questions were already being argued by such European playwrights as Henrik Ibsen, Gerhart Hauptmann and August Strindberg, and they would soon be embraced by a new generation of American writers.
A True History of the Johnstown Flood is one of the most challenging plays I have directed at the Goodman, and is certainly one of Rebecca’s most ambitious works to date. Panoramic in its ideas as well as its theatricality, this compelling play asks us to re-examine one of the most terrifying events in our history through the lens of circumstances that continue to plague us today, too often with equally disastrous results. It has been a remarkable experience for all of us, and one that I am very proud to bring to you.
Robert Falls
Artistic Director
We hope you are as excited as we are about A True History of the Johnstown Flood! Please share your questions and comments with us, below.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
The Long Red Road Rehearsal Began Today!
In this raw, provocative world premiere, Sam attempts to drink away his past and exorcise his demons on an Indian reservation in South Dakota, where he has been trying to forget his role in a tragic accident involving his family. When a visitor from his past arrives on the reservation, Sam is forced to face his guilt and to take a harrowing look at the man he has become.
Rehearsals began TODAY!
Want to see more photos of the talented cast in rehearsal? Click here.
Monday, January 11, 2010
Why The Long Red Road?
Posted by Artistic Director Robert Falls
Few new plays have moved me as profoundly or touched me as deeply as Brett C. Leonard’s The Long Red Road. With unflinching and sometimes savage honesty, Brett explores the deeply fractured relationship of two brothers, each of whom has spent years dealing with the aftermath of a horrific accident. Without denying the very real flaws that infect many of the play’s characters, Brett is able to take us beyond their sometimes violent exteriors to explore their achingly vulnerable humanity. Alternately shocking and poetic, The Long Red Road is a stunningly affecting work, one that I have wanted to bring to the Owen stage since I first encountered it nearly two years ago.
Chicago last experienced Brett’s compelling work in 2005 when his play Guinea Pig Solo received rave reviews from critics, who hailed him as “a passionately engaged writer with a poetic soul, a gift for bristling dialogue, a pitch-black comic sensibility and an almost Orwellian view of the world” (Chicago Sun-Times). Like Guinea Pig Solo, The Long Red Road comes to us from the LAByrinth Theatre Company in New York, an off-Broadway theater that has become the artistic home of such other extraordinary writers as José Rivera, Stephen Adly Guirgis and John Patrick Shanley. Early in his LAByrinth tenure, Brett began a close working relationship with company member Philip Seymour Hoffman, who directed the first reading of The Long Red Road several years ago. Phil has remained an important part of the development of the play ever since, as has Tom Hardy, one of London’s most electrifying acting talents, for whom Brett created the central role of Sammy. I am extremely pleased that all three of these artists are part of this premiere production, joined by an outstanding group of actors and designers from around the country.
As I have often said, I strongly feel that new works are the lifeblood of any theater company. I am proud indeed to add Brett C. Leonard’s The Long Red Road to the distinguished list of plays that have gotten their start at Goodman Theatre.
Robert Falls
Artistic Director
We hope you are as excited as we are about The Long Red Road! Please share your questions and comments with us, below.
Few new plays have moved me as profoundly or touched me as deeply as Brett C. Leonard’s The Long Red Road. With unflinching and sometimes savage honesty, Brett explores the deeply fractured relationship of two brothers, each of whom has spent years dealing with the aftermath of a horrific accident. Without denying the very real flaws that infect many of the play’s characters, Brett is able to take us beyond their sometimes violent exteriors to explore their achingly vulnerable humanity. Alternately shocking and poetic, The Long Red Road is a stunningly affecting work, one that I have wanted to bring to the Owen stage since I first encountered it nearly two years ago.
Chicago last experienced Brett’s compelling work in 2005 when his play Guinea Pig Solo received rave reviews from critics, who hailed him as “a passionately engaged writer with a poetic soul, a gift for bristling dialogue, a pitch-black comic sensibility and an almost Orwellian view of the world” (Chicago Sun-Times). Like Guinea Pig Solo, The Long Red Road comes to us from the LAByrinth Theatre Company in New York, an off-Broadway theater that has become the artistic home of such other extraordinary writers as José Rivera, Stephen Adly Guirgis and John Patrick Shanley. Early in his LAByrinth tenure, Brett began a close working relationship with company member Philip Seymour Hoffman, who directed the first reading of The Long Red Road several years ago. Phil has remained an important part of the development of the play ever since, as has Tom Hardy, one of London’s most electrifying acting talents, for whom Brett created the central role of Sammy. I am extremely pleased that all three of these artists are part of this premiere production, joined by an outstanding group of actors and designers from around the country.
As I have often said, I strongly feel that new works are the lifeblood of any theater company. I am proud indeed to add Brett C. Leonard’s The Long Red Road to the distinguished list of plays that have gotten their start at Goodman Theatre.
Robert Falls
Artistic Director
We hope you are as excited as we are about The Long Red Road! Please share your questions and comments with us, below.
Friday, January 1, 2010
We Want to Hear from YOU!
Happy New Year from Goodman Theatre!With the beginning of 2010, we are inspired to reflect on the last 12 months and welcome growth and change in the new year. Fittingly, the next production on the Goodman stage—a double bill of Hughie and Krapp’s Last Tape starring Brian Dennehy—deals with the theme of self-reflection.
In O’Neill’s Hughie, the high-rolling gambler Erie struggles to redefine his identity after his confidante passes away. In Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape, the title character Krapp has a birthday tradition. Every year, he records the important—and the banal—moments of the last year. As he prepares to record a new tape on his 69th birthday, he begins to listen to his archives and reflect on his life.
Robert Falls, Goodman Artistic Director and director of Hughie shares his thoughts about the power of reflection and wants YOU to join the conversation:
Although Hughie and Krapp’s Last Tape are stylistically very different, they share a great many themes and characteristics—not the least of which is the nature of personal reflection. In each play, the central character spends a great deal of time and energy recalling the past, either through the stories that Erie Smith relates in Hughie or through Krapp’s examination of audio tapes from his past. In each case, these ruminations simultaneously celebrate the glories of the past and mourn their loss, making the act of reflection both comforting and painful. This is, I think, the nature of reflection and the source of its power: by revisiting the past, we not only experience again the joys and sorrows that we find there, but use those memories to measure how far we have come—however joyful or difficult that journey might have been.
—Robert Falls, Goodman Theatre Artistic Director
We want to know: How do you revisit the past, and by which moments do you measure how far you have come? Post a comment below to share your story.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
We Want to Hear from YOU!
Share your favorite memory of A Christmas Carol. The cast and crew of the Goodman’s beloved holiday classic share their own stories and want to YOU to join the conversation:
My favorite scene is Fezziwig’s party, because of all the dancing and energy. But I wrote about that before, so I asked my dad about his favorite scene. Can you believe that I’m not even in it? Or even alive! He says that every time he sees Bob Cratchit (played by Ron Raines) hang my crutch on the wall in Scrooge’s future, he cries like a baby.
—John Babbo (Tiny Tim Cratchit)
The first year I was in A Christmas Carol was in 2004, and I played Belinda Cratchit. I was twelve years old and it was my first professional show, and I vividly remember my first day in "tech" rehearsal. I had never been on a stage that big! The first time I saw the counting house move onstage by itself, I stood there with my mouth hanging open until my Young Performer Supervisor snapped me back into reality. It was like magic. Of course, the beautiful scenery was only the beginning. The real magic was the warmth and energy I felt each night from our loving audience!
—Lauren Patten (Martha Cratchit/Young Woman)
My favorite memory of A Christmas Carol is the opening night performance. Everyone in the cast was really excited. My mom and dad were in the audience, and the entire audience seemed really excited to see the show. They laughed louder than any audience we had before.
Some people in the cast brought opening night presents for each of the cast members. Since it was my first time in the show, I didn’t know about this ritual. I guess some people bring closing night presents, so I might do that. But I did get lots of neat gifts, like Frango chocolate mints and candy. I also got a couple of really nice notes from people in the show. I have made lots of new friends, and we have a lot of fun together.
After the show, we all changed out of our costumes and put on our party clothes for the opening night party. I got to wear one of my prettiest Christmas dresses. I love to get dressed up! The party was at The Melting Pot, a fondue restaurant in Chicago. There were chocolate fondue fountains where you could dip marshmallows, strawberries and mini donuts. It was awesome. You could eat as much as you wanted! All the kids in the cast hung out together near the chocolate fountains. We had a lot of fun!
Merry Christmas,
Mackenzie Wilkin (Belinda Cratchit/Fan)
We want to know all about YOUR favorite memory of A Christmas Carol! Post a comment below to share your story.
My favorite scene is Fezziwig’s party, because of all the dancing and energy. But I wrote about that before, so I asked my dad about his favorite scene. Can you believe that I’m not even in it? Or even alive! He says that every time he sees Bob Cratchit (played by Ron Raines) hang my crutch on the wall in Scrooge’s future, he cries like a baby.—John Babbo (Tiny Tim Cratchit)
The first year I was in A Christmas Carol was in 2004, and I played Belinda Cratchit. I was twelve years old and it was my first professional show, and I vividly remember my first day in "tech" rehearsal. I had never been on a stage that big! The first time I saw the counting house move onstage by itself, I stood there with my mouth hanging open until my Young Performer Supervisor snapped me back into reality. It was like magic. Of course, the beautiful scenery was only the beginning. The real magic was the warmth and energy I felt each night from our loving audience!—Lauren Patten (Martha Cratchit/Young Woman)
My favorite memory of A Christmas Carol is the opening night performance. Everyone in the cast was really excited. My mom and dad were in the audience, and the entire audience seemed really excited to see the show. They laughed louder than any audience we had before.Some people in the cast brought opening night presents for each of the cast members. Since it was my first time in the show, I didn’t know about this ritual. I guess some people bring closing night presents, so I might do that. But I did get lots of neat gifts, like Frango chocolate mints and candy. I also got a couple of really nice notes from people in the show. I have made lots of new friends, and we have a lot of fun together.
After the show, we all changed out of our costumes and put on our party clothes for the opening night party. I got to wear one of my prettiest Christmas dresses. I love to get dressed up! The party was at The Melting Pot, a fondue restaurant in Chicago. There were chocolate fondue fountains where you could dip marshmallows, strawberries and mini donuts. It was awesome. You could eat as much as you wanted! All the kids in the cast hung out together near the chocolate fountains. We had a lot of fun!
Merry Christmas,
Mackenzie Wilkin (Belinda Cratchit/Fan)
We want to know all about YOUR favorite memory of A Christmas Carol! Post a comment below to share your story.
Monday, November 23, 2009
I’m So Excited to be in the Cast of A Christmas Carol Again
Posted by Caroline Heffernan (Child in Doorway/Emily Cratchit/Want)
I became interested in A Christmas Carol because I watched my brother, Matthew, play the role of the Turkey boy in 2005 and 2007. He loved it and encouraged me to try out in 2008. In 2008 I went to the open call and was called back a couple of days later. I found out that I would be playing the role of Emily Cratchit and my brother would be playing the role of Peter Cratchit. So it turned out that I would be in the Cratchit family with someone in my OWN family!
This year I tried out again and was told a few days later I would be in the show again, but with some new cast members. It sounded like a ton of fun. I was very excited again! This year I am playing Child in the Doorway, Emily Cratchit, Want, School Boy and Fezziwig Guest.
My favorite thing about being in the cast of A Christmas Carol is either the Secret Santa exchange or the Dressing Room Wars. Every year for Secret Santa we draw a name out of hat and exchange notes or little gifts such as chocolate with one other cast member. They give hints but we can’t find out who our Secret Santa is until we have the pot luck at the end of the year. We get three guesses and if we don’t guess right, our Secret Santa stands up and tells us who they are. The one rule in this is that a kid can't get another kid.
The Dressing Room Wars is a contest between all the dressing rooms. Each dressing room puts together a skit to perform on a special day near Christmas. There are judges (usually our director, Bill Brown, and a couple of other people) and they select the winning dressing room. They put the name of the winning skit and year on a plaque that has the previous winners on it and hangs on the billboard backstage. Last year for the first time in MANY years, the kids won!
My favorite costumes are the Want and Child in Doorway costumes. I LOVE my other costumes but these are probably the coolest. I love the Want costume because it is so unique and scary. It is very light weight and easy to put on. I like my Child in the Doorway costume because I get to be a boy and no one really knows it's me!
Happy Holidays!
Caroline
I became interested in A Christmas Carol because I watched my brother, Matthew, play the role of the Turkey boy in 2005 and 2007. He loved it and encouraged me to try out in 2008. In 2008 I went to the open call and was called back a couple of days later. I found out that I would be playing the role of Emily Cratchit and my brother would be playing the role of Peter Cratchit. So it turned out that I would be in the Cratchit family with someone in my OWN family!This year I tried out again and was told a few days later I would be in the show again, but with some new cast members. It sounded like a ton of fun. I was very excited again! This year I am playing Child in the Doorway, Emily Cratchit, Want, School Boy and Fezziwig Guest.
My favorite thing about being in the cast of A Christmas Carol is either the Secret Santa exchange or the Dressing Room Wars. Every year for Secret Santa we draw a name out of hat and exchange notes or little gifts such as chocolate with one other cast member. They give hints but we can’t find out who our Secret Santa is until we have the pot luck at the end of the year. We get three guesses and if we don’t guess right, our Secret Santa stands up and tells us who they are. The one rule in this is that a kid can't get another kid.
The Dressing Room Wars is a contest between all the dressing rooms. Each dressing room puts together a skit to perform on a special day near Christmas. There are judges (usually our director, Bill Brown, and a couple of other people) and they select the winning dressing room. They put the name of the winning skit and year on a plaque that has the previous winners on it and hangs on the billboard backstage. Last year for the first time in MANY years, the kids won!
My favorite costumes are the Want and Child in Doorway costumes. I LOVE my other costumes but these are probably the coolest. I love the Want costume because it is so unique and scary. It is very light weight and easy to put on. I like my Child in the Doorway costume because I get to be a boy and no one really knows it's me!
Happy Holidays!
Caroline
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