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the ur international theatre program

artistic director nigel maisterproduction manager gordon rice

administrator katie farrellassistant technical director sarah eisel

production assistant & props master carlotta gambatocostume shop manager nadine brooks taylor

box office & front-of-house manager lorry o’learyassistant costume shop manager daniel reade III

assistant props masters leana jelen & macie mcgowanscene shop assistants jeff englander & kevin gessner

props intern melanie (missy) furth publicity interns tom bauer, kathryn (joey) hartmann-dow, robert pakan,

stephanie schwartz, greg waldman & dani wisch theatre intern cassie dobbins

program information compiled by james spanglerURITP photographer richard baker

URITP videographer eva xieproduction trailer by elizabeth lirakis

graphic, program & poster designi:master/studios at imaster.studios@gmail.com

wrochrochestereduwww.rochester.edu/theatresam shepard’s modern masterpiececurse of the starving classanda world premiereof a newly commissioned work by emerging playwright,andy bragen

coming next semester

the university of rochester international theatre program presents

directed by susanna gellertset design by lee savage

lighting design by scott bolmancostume design by emily rebholz

sound design by josh schmidtchoreography by mary madsen

voice & acting coaching by danny hoskinsmusical direction by tom vendafreddo

by george s. kaufman & moss hart

Program content is compiled by the production’s Assistant Director, James Spangler, and edited by Susanna Gellert and Nigel Maister. For a complete list of sources and works cited, please contact the Theatre Program. The program and its printing is supported in part by the UR English Department (“The Program Project”).

a note about the program

Production Staff

production stage manager......................................alex rozanskyassistant production stage manager.....................meagan gorhamassistant stage managers..........................ashley anderson/props..............jeff englander/run crew head & animal/reptile handler.............................................................jeannine desoi/costumes..........................................................................katie hiler/props........................................................alex quinones-bangs/sound......................................................................hans stumpf/lights..........................................................frances swanson/costumesmaster electrician.............................................erica greenbaumassistant m.e. ........................................................david moiseevaudiovisual engineer............................................bruce stocktonassistant lighting designer...............................erica greenbaum assistant director......................................................jim spanglervideo board operator.........................................meagan gorhamstitcher................................................................melanie weekescostume assistant..............................................aliza jayne fegan

special thanksApplied Audio/Brighton Lites & Theatre Supply

Kevin Chandler, UR Fire Safety CoordinatorUR Film and Media Studies Program

Zac Hudgins and his snakes Tessa, Kayne, and BryantChad Halstead

The Farrell Family (Thomas, Mary, Katie, and Tosh)Rochester’s Barack Obama Election Headquarters

Andrew DollardAlice Calabrese

Liz Bailey and her cat, LokeyTyrone, the cat

WRUR (Krista Wentwarm, Nate Snyder, Zack Taschman, and Lauren Schleider)Ben SopchakThe Distillery

Martin CozensDrama House

Elizabeth LirakisMeagan Gorham

This production has been made possible through the combined efforts of ENG 170 & 270 (Technical & Advanced Technical Theatre),

ENG 172 (Intro to Stage Lighting & Sound) and ENG 290 (Plays in Production)

Scott Ames - Daniel Arnold - Hannah Arwe - Manpreet Brar - Christopher ClingermanMontoia Davis - Jeff Englander - Jihun Han - Jay S. Kim - Sarah Ko - Min-jae Lee - Roon Lee

Su Yuon Lee - Mike Levine - Peggy Mayo - Tae Min Park - Kevin PriceIsaac Richter - Stephen Supoyo - Brittania Turner - Andrea Wells

Eric Yeh - Suho Yoo

you can’t take it with youruns 1 hour and 45 minutes without intermission

please note:a CO2 fire extinguisher is used in this production and is non toxic

george s. kaufman

George S. Kaufman, was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on November 16, 1889. Kauf-man initially studied Law,

but quickly lost his passion for the field. He took odd jobs working for newspa-pers in the DC and New York City area, before writing his first successful play, Dulcy, in 1921. Kaufman was primarily a writer who worked in collaboration with others, and only wrote one project independently: the play Butter and Eggs. One of the most successful playwrights of the “Golden Age” of Broadway (a particularly active and exciting period in Broadway theatre history lasting from 1943 to 1968), he wrote a total of forty-five plays, in addition to writ-ing for the film and television industry. Kaufman was a member of the Algonquin Round Table, a celebrated group of New York’s finest literary and artistic minds who got together each day for lunch at the Algonquin Ho-tel and whose witticisms and opinions on all social and artistic matters be-came legendary. Other members of the Algonquin Round Table included Franklin Pierce Adams (columnist), Robert Benchley (actor), Robert E. Sherwood (playwright), Dorothy Park-er (writer and poet), the New Yorker editor, Harold Ross, and the critic and journalist, Alexander Woollcott. Kaufman was a recipient of many prestigious honors, includ-ing two Pulitzer Prizes for drama for You Can’t Take It With You, and for the first musical to win a Pulitzer, Of Thee I Sing. He also won a 1951 Tony Award for the musical Guys and Dolls which he directed (but did not write). Kaufman continued working until the late 1950’s. He died on June 2, 1961 at the age of 72, in New York City.

Emily rEbholz (Costume Design) New York credits include: The Language of Trees (Roundabout Theatre); Clay (LCT 3); The Ones That Flutter (SPF); Jollyship the Whizbang, Boom (Ars Nova); U.S. Drag (StageFarm); The Drum of the Waves of Horikawa (HERE); Have You Seen Steve Steven? (13P); The Lacy Project (The Ice Factory, Ohio Theatre); MOMMA (PS 122); Gutenberg! The Musical! (The Actors Playhouse); The Private Lives of Eskimos; I (Heart) Kant (The Committee Theater). Regional: Bloody, Bloody Andrew Jackson (Centre Theatre Group); Marat/Sade (Bard College); Doubt and Expecting Isabel (Asolo Repertory Theatre); Broke-ology, Beyond Therapy, Demon Dreams, Polaroid Stories, and Twelfth Night (Williamstown Theatre Festival); Safe in Hell (Yale Repertory Theatre). Emily has also designed costumes for the photographer, Gregory Crewdson, including “The Dream House,” published by the New York Times Magazine. Education: BA, Northwestern University; MFA, Yale School of Drama.

Scott bolman (Lighting Design) recently lit Così Fan Tutti (Maryland Opera Studio) and Peter and the Wolf (Guggenheim), as well as the premieres of Charles Mee’s Gone (59E59), Lucy Thurber’s Stay (Rattlestick), Ruth McKee’s The Nightshade Family (SPF), and Ximena Garnica’s dance piece, A Timeless Kaidan (NYC Butoh Festival). He lit the premiere of Shen Wei Dance Arts’ Map at the 2005 Lincoln Center Festival. His Off-Broadway credits include Happy Days (CSC) and The Moonlight Room (Beck-ett Theater). Scott has also re-created lighting for Jennifer Tipton’s Don Giovanni ( Japan, U.S.) and The Magic Flute (Belgium, France, Israel, Italy, South Africa).

JoSh Schmidt (Sound Design) is a composer and sound designer. Off-Broadway: The Adding Machine (Minetta Lane Theatre; 4 Lortel Awards including Best Musical; 2 Outer Critics Awards including Best Musical Off-Broadway; 4 Obies; 9 Drama Desk Nominations; 1 Drama League Nomination); Crime and Punishment (59E59). Regional work at venues across the country including (in Chicago) at Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Writers Theatre In Glencoe, Next Theatre, Northlight Theatre, Sea-nachai Theatre Company, and many others; and at the Alley Theatre (Houston), the Kennedy Center and Ford’s Theatre (Washington DC), Bard College (NY), Seattle Repertory Theatre (WA), South Coast Repertory (CA), American Players Theatre (Spring Green), Madison Rep and UW-Madison (Madison), and in Milwaukee at Milwaukee Rep, Milwaukee Ballet, Milwaukee Chamber Theatre, Milwaukee Shakespeare, Renaissance Theaterworks, and dozens of others. As a recitalist of new music he has performed at Kunstverein Genthiner 11 and Rumänisches Kulturinstitut in Berlin, Germany, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, University of Mississippi-Oxford, and throughout his home state of Wisconsin. He is a recipient of the 2003-2005 NEA/TCG Career Development Program Award and was named one of nine emerging designers in Entertainment/Design Magazine in 2004. He has received 2 Jeff Awards, 1 After Dark Award, and multiple nominations for his composition/sound design work in Chicago. In addition, his work was part of the sound design exhibition at the 2007 Prague Quadrennial.

mary madSEn (Choreography) is originally from Wisconsin, and holds a BFA in modern dance from the University of WI-Milwaukee. For the past 5 years, she has been living and working as a modern dancer, choreographer, performer, and Pilates instructor in New York City. Currently Mary is beginning her 4th season with Regina Nejman and Company. She also works as a choreographer, performer & cu-rator for the Brooklyn band performance group, ‘Jigsaw Soul’; she was excited to be a featured dancer in their newest music video, Cockroach Hotel. Other companies Mary has performed with include Foothold Dance, Fusion Danceworks, VanDance, David Appel Dance, and Rebollar Dance Theater.

1889-1961

Moss Hart was born in 1904 in Brooklyn. His passion for the the-ater started at an early age (Hart’s aunt would sneak him into theaters

while he was meant to be at school). Hart dropped out of high school and began working in amateur theater and as a comedian at resorts in the Catskills. He scored his first hit with Once In A Life-time (on which he collaborated with George S. Kauf-man). Kaufman and Hart continued to collaborate for nearly a decade, producing a string of successful Broadway shows including You Can’t Take It With You, The Man Who Came to Dinner, and Merrily We Roll Along. Hart also worked a great deal in musical theater as both playwright and director, collaborat-ing with some of the greatest composers of the era, including Cole Porter and Irving Berlin. As a director; Hart’s credits include Lady in the Dark, Inside U.S.A., Miss Liberty, Camelot, and My Fair Lady (which ran for sev-en years on Broadway, winning the Tony Awardfor Best New Musical and garneringHart the Tony for Best Director). Although he was homo-sexual, Hart married an actress and friend, Kitty Carlisle.The couple had twochildren. Hart had ahistory of heart problems,and died of heartfailure on December20, 1961 during theout-of-towntryout of themusical,Camelot.

moss hart

SuSanna GEllErt (Director) most recently directed The Duchess of Malfi at the FSU/Asolo Conservatory and Marat/Sade at The Fisher Center for Performing Arts at Bard College. New York directing credits include The Lacy Project for Soho Think Tank’s Ice Factory ‘07 at the Ohio Theater, adaptations of Tamburlaine the Great and Valkyrie for Target Margin The-ater’s Laboratory, Match and L’Interieur at the American Living Room, as well as workshops at the Lark, EST, and NYU. Chicago direct-ing credits include The Winter’s Tale, The Bath-house, Electra, and Joe Whyte’s Nebraskoblivion. Yale School of Drama: The Duchess of Malfi, The Lacy Project, Measure for Measure, The Shoemaker’s Prodigious Wife, and Devil Caught Rope. Yale Cabaret: Request Concert, Tuesdays and Sundays, and Two Rooms. She is a recipient of SDCF’s Sir John Gielgud Fellowship and the Julian Milton Kaufman Memorial Prize. Susanna is a graduate of the Yale School of Drama and the University of Chicago.

lEE SavaGE (Scenic Design) NYC: The Private Lives of Eskimos and I (Heart) Kant (Committee Theatre Company); Harvest (La MaMa ETC); Go-Go Kitty Go! (Fringe NYC; Fringe NYC Best Play Award); Frag (HERE). Regional: Back Back Back and In This Corner (The Old Globe); Tamburlaine, Edward II and Richard III (Shakespeare Theatre Company); Death of a Salesman, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Just (Chautauqua Theater Company); Waiting for Godot (Berkshire Theatre Festival); Driving Miss Daisy (Delaware Theatre Com-pany); Peter Pan and Cyrano de Bergerac (University of Delaware PTTP); The Misanthrope and I Am My Own Wife (Dallas Theater Center); The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow (Yale Repertory Theatre); School for Scandal (Trinity Repertory Company); The Servant of Two Masters (Pittsburgh Public Theater); Intimate Apparel (Philadelphia Theatre Company); Love’s Labour’s Lost, Uncle Vanya and Orpheus Descending (Yale School of Drama). Interna-tional: The Jammer (Edinburgh Fringe Festival; Fringe First award). Awards: Helen Hayes Award Nomination (Richard III); Connecticut Critics Circle Award (The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow); The Donald and Zorka Oenslager Travel Fellowship. Affiliations: Wingspace Theatrical Design Group, The Lincoln Center Director’s Lab. Training: MFA, Yale School of Drama; BFA, Rhode Island School of Design.

artist bios1904-1961

castPenelope Sycamore

Essie CarmichaelRheeba

Paul SycamoreMr. DePinna

Ed CarmichaelDonald

GrandpaAlice Sycamore

Wilbur C. HendersonTony Kirby

Boris KolenkhovGay WellingtonAnthony Kirby Miriam Kirby

The Grand Duchess Olga KatrinaEd’s Band

Taryn KimelChristine M. RoseAleeza WachsAdrian ElimKevin McCarthyDoug ZeppenfeldPhillip WitteAndrew PolecJennifer WareMohamad SerajiZachary KimballJohn Amir-FazliElizabeth LirakisPhillip DumouchelStella KammelKelly MillerPhilip FleisherHyein JeonKristine Wadosky

The first recorded use of fireworks dates from the 12th Century AD in China. Years later, after the dis-covery of gunpowder, the Italians on their travels throughout Asia brought the science of pyrotechnics back to the West. The main ingredient in fireworks is gunpowder. In the 1800’s, Italian chemists created a way to change the colors of fire-works. Red, blue, white, and yellow are traditionally the primary colors used. To create red, strontium or lithium is added; for blue, cop-per halides; for yellow, sodium is added; for green, barium. White is produced with titanium, aluminum or magnesium powders. Over the years, fireworks have served varying functions, from functioning as weapons to festive displays of celebration.

Luna Park was an amusement park on Co-ney Island. The park opened in 1903 and was open for business for over forty years. In 1944, the park closed due to a series of fires. Renowned for the spectacular nature of its lights, Luna Park even had a number of domesticated elephants as amusements. By 1915, Luna Parks had spread throughout the globe, including two more in the United States (in Ohio and Pennsylvania) and two in Australia (in Sidney and Melbourne). Both of the Australian locations still run to this day.

Schrafft’s was a chocolate and candy company based in Charles Town, Massachusetts. The store was set up in 1861 and by 1915 the franchise had spread throughout New York State, with approximately 11 different loca-tions. Shrafft’s continued to expand throughout the decades-by 1968 the company owned 55 stores. Owner-ship of the store changed hands over the decades until 1984 when the company was shut down.

schraffts

luna park

fireworks

“I saw the show at a disadvantage— the curtain was up” George S. Kaufman

[below] The original Broadway cast of You Can’t Take It With You

Hattie Carnegie was one of the pre-eminent American clothing and jew-ellery designers of the 30’s and 40’s.

hattie carnegie

Childs, founded in 1889, was a quick-lunch chain of restaurants (a precursor of today’s fast food) that, by the mid-1920’s, was grossing $25 million a year from over 100 branches (mostly in the NY area). The Childs restaurant on the Coney Island boardwalk was one of the most elegant structures of its time, and its fireproof construction saved other buildings during catastrophic fires in the 1930’s. The Coney Island Childs was designated a NY landmark in 2003.

childs restaurant

The Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo was one of the most influential bal-let companies of the 20th century. Founded by René Blum and Colonel Vassily de Basil, the company followed on from the famed Russian impr-essario, Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballet Russe company. Léonide Massine and George Balanchine were both associated at one time with the company.

ballet russe de monte carlo

living on credit One of the first things Franklin D. Roosevelt did upon taking presidential office was to put an end to Prohibition, the decade old constitutional amendment that made the sale and manufacture of alcohol illegal. Throughout the 1920s, Prohibition was a crucible of cultural conflict in the United States. Social libertarians, reacting to the government’s decision to limit personal freedoms, chal-

lenged cultural traditions. This was the age of jazz clubs, flapper girls, dandies, and feminists. The New Deal offered these artists and individualists opportunities to channel their energies into government sponsored projects. The writers, painters, and musicians of the 1920s bohemian scene became the artists of the government-sponsored work program, the WPA (Works Progress Administration). Under Roosevelt, the government reinforced its commitment to individual liberties guaranteed by the First Amend-ment. It was in this context of cultural resurgence that Kaufman and Hart created the unique individuals of the Sycamore-Vanderhof household. In You Can’t Take It With You, the Sycamore-Vanderhof families—principally through the character of Martin “Grandpa” Vanderhof—subscribe to a philosophy we might now define as “libertarian.” The unfettered personal freedom of human beings is Grandpa’s primary concern and the families seem to work avidly to main-tain each individual member’s free-will and independent identity. The dancer, the writer, the musician, and the firework designer are all given the freedom and resources they need to create their work, however unsuccessful their creations might be. Directly opposing these ideals is the Kirby family who seek conformity and social approbation and assimilation above all else. The Kirbys are portrayed as a family who has repressed their passions and desires in order to conform to the social mores of their time. Their uptight adherence to a strict idea of success—as measured solely by monetary affluence—has created a generations-old family of respected bankers. Despite this, their son, Tony, clearly desires to emulate the Sycamore-Vanderhof ’s freedom of existence and to transcend the boundaries of class that constrain his ambitions. While the Kirbys are hidebound by tradition, freedom of expression is what the Sycamore-Vanderhof families cherish above all else. It is the artistic freedom implicitly provided by the First Amendment that per-mits these families to exist outside the boundaries of traditional societal values. Religious freedom, freedom of speech and association (the Sycamore-Vanderhoffs are certainly, by the social standards of the day, significantly open-minded when it comes to race relations), freedom of the press: all of these define one of the most beloved and idiosyncratic households ever to make their appearance on the American stage.

freedom of speechand the vanderhof household

The Department of Justice was formed in 1789 “to enforce the law and defend the in-terests of the United States according to the law; to ensure public safety against threats foreign and domestic; to provide federal leadership in preventing and controlling crime; to seek just punishment for those guilty of unlawful behavior; and to ensure fair and impartial administration of justice for all Americans.” This federal department was in charge of the Drug Enforcement Ad-ministration, the US Marshall’s office, and national security. It also had a civil rights division.

Grigori Rasputin, born on January 10, 1869 in Siberia, was a man of mystery and cor-ruption. From his early youth he was con-sidered a mystic and said to have healing powers. People flocked from miles to expe-rience his supposed abilities. After spending some years in a monastery, Rasputin became a devout Christian. Despite his strong faith, he was rumored to be involved in many scandalous sexual affairs. These rumors in-creased as he became increasingly involved with the Russian royal family who consulted him in the hope of healing the hemophilia of Alexis, the Czar’s son. He used his in-fluence with Czarina to garner considerable political power in the royal court, despite warnings by members of the Czar’s retinue and government that his influence and pow-er be kept in check. The Czar’s lack of action on these warnings and counsels led a group of nobles, including Prince Felix Yusupov, Grand Duke Dmitry Pavlovich, Vladimir Purishkevich, Lieutenant Sukhotin, and Dr. Lazaver, to murder Rasputin.

rasputin

In You Can’t Take It With You the Kit Kat Club is referred to as a nightclub. (The Kander and Ebb musical, Cabaret, might have borrowed the name from Kaufman and Hart’s play!) The original Kit Kat Club was, however, an 18th century English gentlemen’s club which catered to a literary and political clientele.

the kit kat club

Spiritualism was a religious trend (for some, a reli-gious movement) that caught America by storm in the late 1800s, peaking in popularity in the 1920s. Especially popular with the middle and upper classes, the majority of Spiritualists were God-fear-ing Christians despite the fact that they believed in talking to spirits through mediums and other psychic entities. The movement first started pick-ing up adherents in America with the Fox sisters of Hydesville, New York. These young women were said to be able to contact a dead peddler who had reportedly been murdered. The movement spread quickly throughout the United States and it soon became a fashionable fad to seek out psychics and to hold séances.

spiritualism

the dept. of justice

“Have you any good second act curtains?”

George S. Kaufman(to the Linen Department

at Bloomingdales)

A star of stage and film, Kay Fran-cis was, between 1930 and 1936, the number one female star at the Warner Brother’s studios and the highest paid American film actress.

kay francis

FDR and the New Deal

Kaufman and Hart’s You Can’t Take It With You is set in 1936, at the time of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s first term (of four) in office, and at the end of the Great Depression. The term “New Deal” was coined in Roosevelt’s acceptance speech as the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee at the 1932 Democratic Convention when he said: “I pledge you, I pledge myself,

to a new deal for the American people.” The term harked back, however, to the title of a book by the economist and engineer, Stuart Chase. Between 1933 and 1938 the series of programs that were to constitute the New Deal were created, aimed at helping the American economy to emerge from the Great Depression (from 1929-1933 the economy had suf-fered enormously with a concurrent deflation of currency and an American inability to repay debt). The “Great Depression” had also seen approximately two million people rendered poverty stricken, unemployed and homeless. The New Deal thus also had the goal of giving work—known as “relief ”—to those hardest hit. In a time of absolute economic fear and uncertainty, relief helped people realize “there is nothing to fear but fear itself ” (as Roosevelt put it). The New Deal can be divided into two distinct parts. In the first part, work relief, and banking and in-dustrial reform were instituted. The second half aimed partly at establishing unions for workers, and included the establishment of the Social Security Act. FDR’s first hundred days in office saw him pushing (and passing into law) a record number of reforms through Congress.

Programs that formed part of the first half of the New Deal included the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) which hired young men to work on environmental conservation programs. Not only did the CCC provide work, it also improved the quality of many national parks and roadways. The Agricultural Adjustment Administra-tion (AAA) helped America’s farmers by giving them subsidies so that they might plant less and thus see a rise in the price of produce. The Tennessee Valley Authority was set up to reduce unemployment in the Tennessee River Valley by employing people to work on dams and on the creation of hydroelectric power plants. The Works Progress Administration (WPA), during the second part of the New Deal, was the govern-ment’s attempt to create a program that would provide work instead of welfare. It created a plethora of government-funded building projects (including those that built schools, train stations, and bridges) and employed students as well as some of the era’s greatest American artists. Artists associated with the WPA program include Thomas Hart Benton, Romare Bearden, Arshile Gorky, Philip Guston, Jackson Pollock, Ad Reinhardt, Berenice Abbott, Mark Rothko, Milton Avery, and Dorothea Lange, amongst many others. In total, the WPA helped approximately 9 million people. The impact of the New Deal and FDR’s policies—though always controversial—indubitably realigned the role of government in the federal arena and saw it assume a greater regulatory role, something that has been associ-ated with the Democratic Party ever since.

“A radical is a man with both feet firmly planted in the air.”Franklin Delano Roosevelt