Tasmania Performs proudly presents the Tasmanian Theatre Company Production of I Am My Own Wife in partnership with...

Arts Deloraine

Out On A Limb Regional Arts

Palais Theatre, Franklin

Channel Regional Arts Group

The Great Lake Community

Brighton Council

The Rotary Club of Scottsdale

Great Oyster Bay Regional Arts

Tasmania Performs presents the Tasmanian Theatre Company production of

The remarkable true story of Charlotte and her escape from persecution during the Second World War will leave you breathless!The only one–person play ever to win a Pulitzer Prize

I AmMy Own Wife

by Doug WrightStarring Robert Jarman

Tasmania Performs is a State Government initiative that works in partnership with artists and regional communities to present the best Tasmanian performances across the state.

Tonight’s production of I Am My Own Wife is touring to nine communities across Tasmania.

Tasmania PerformsProducer: Annette Downs

Management: Performing Lines Ltd

Graphic Design: Sarah Owen Design

If you would like to discuss the possibility of hosting a performance for your organisation or wish to send feedback on the production please contact:

Annette Downs Tasmania Performs

annette.downs@artsatwork.com.au

03 6233 5935

We love to hear your from you.

Many thanks to our Tasmania Performs Presenting Partners and their volunteers, we couldn’t do it without you, and if we did… it wouldn’t be nearly as much fun!

Brighton Post Office, Brighton •Council and Cathy Harper

The Rotary Club of Scottsdale, •Jan Hughes, Scottsdale DHS, Pamella Krushka, Grant Morrison and Roses Newsagents

In St Helens: John McCallum, •Carol Liefting from Choc-A-Lolly and Elaine Sullivan from Purple Possum Wholefoods, Star FM, Heidi Howe, Judy Spilsbury, Kay Barraclough and especially Tony Lawson-Brown,

Viv at Bear Cottage Crafts and •the hardworking committee of Great Oyster Bay Regional Arts

Palais Management •Committee, Charles Zuber, David Sales, Loris and Alan Patman, Deb Coombes, Merlene Abbot, and David Sales

Channel Regional Arts Group, •Paul and Belinda Sangha (Kettering Central Shop)

The Great lakes Community •Centre Inc, Community Rural Alive and Well, Central Highlands Council, Central Highlands Lodge.

The various businesses that •provided ticketing outlets across the State

Tasmania Performs would like •to thank Jen Cramer and Julie Waddington.

about

tasmania performs thanks

at this

performanceThe Tasmania Performs

I Am My Own Wife By Doug Wright

Touring team:

Cast: Robert Jarman

Tour Manager: Jill Munro

Technical Manager: Jessica Smithett

Mechanist Assistant Tour Manager: Mark Nicholson

There will be one interval of 20 •minutes

Photography and video are not •permitted

This venue is strictly non-•smoking

Patrons are advised that this •production contains adult themes and the occasional use of strong language

The Tasmanian Theatre

Production of

I Am My Own Wife By Doug Wright

By arrangement with Hal Leonard Australia Pty Ltd

On behalf of Dramatists Play Services, Inc

Director: Annette Downs

Cast: Robert Jarman

Designer: Rachel Lang

Sound Designer: Matthew Dewey

Stage Manager: Jill Munro

Set Builder: Mark Nicholson

Costume Maker: Nicole Ottrey

Lighting Technician: Jessica Smithett

This production opened May 6, Earl Arts Centre, Launceston for Theatre North’s 2009 Subscription Season, transferring to the Backspace Theatre, Hobart, running May 14–23 2009. It was remounted for a tour in 2011 which opened at The Whitehorse Centre, Nunawading, Victoria on April 27, 2011 and until July 15, 2011.

The Broadway Production Of I Am My Own Wife was produced by

Delphi Productions: David Richenthal

President; Anthony D Marshall

Chairman; Charlene T Marshall Executive Vice President

tasmania performs proudly presents

a note from the director annette downsA few years ago Robert Jarman passed me a small envelope…

In it was the script for this play and a note — he wanted to perform it, he wanted me to direct it, he didn’t have any money for either but he thought it was an extraordinary play and that we should do it anyway!

I read the script and was immediately swept into Charlotte’s world, with her astounding tales of survival and the myriad of contradictions surrounding them. Fortunately, in mid-2008 the Tasmanian Theatre Company decided to program I Am My Own Wife for their subscription season, making this fully professional treatment possible and allowing us the time and resources to do the play justice. Doug Wright’s script is a magnificently crafted, award-winning work and his subject completely intriguing.

All of you watching this performance are in for a treat. The play requires an incredible actor to bring nearly 40 characters to life and Robert rises to the task. He has captured the spirit of Charlotte von Mahlsdorf and allows her to sparkle. The production has enjoyed a recent successful tour to Victoria and the ACT and following this return season in Hobart, Tasmania Performs will present the show in nine regional areas across Tasmania.

Annette Downs

DirectorTasmania Performs is supported by

Tasmania’s Minister for the Arts through Arts Tasmania

about bout the tasmanian theatre companyThe Tasmanian Theatre Company is a professional theatre company for all Tasmanians. It produces contemporary Australian theatre and focuses on telling Tasmanian stories and promoting the work of Tasmanian artists.

The Company operates three major programs:

The Professional Producing Program which includes public seasons of plays, commissioning and developing new work, a training program, an annual playreading series of 10 new Tasmanian plays, partnering with other arts organisations and regular touring throughout the state.

The Aurora Energy Community Enrichment Program is a state-wide program which includes programs for and with indigenous performers, emerging artists, young people, elderly people, prisoners and performers with a disability.

The Theatre Royal Backspace is the performance home of the Tasmanian Theatre Company. The Backspace offers a curated support program for independent Tasmanian theatre artists. In 2012 a new program: Creative Coalitions will be made available to artists from around Tasmania.

Visit tastheatre.com for the latest Tasmanian Theatre Company news, production information, online bookings and email updates.

playwright doug wright

Doug Wright won an Obie Award for Outstanding Achievement in Playwriting and the Kesselring Award for Best New American Play from the National Arts Club for his play Quills.

He went on to write the screenplay adaptation, making his motion picture debut. The film was named Best Picture by the National Board of Review and nominated for three Academy Awards with Geoffrey Rush going on to win his first Oscar for Best Performance Quills.

His screenplay was nominated for a Golden Globe Award and received the Paul Selvin Award from the Writers Guild of America.

Doug’s stage work has been produced at New York Theatre Workshop, Lincoln Center, WPA Theater, Geffen Playhouse, Wilma, Woolly Mammoth, McCarter Theater and La Jolla. Titles include The Stonewater Rapture, Interrogating the Nude, watbanaland, Buzzsaw Berkeley and Unwrap Your Candy.

Doug has been published three times in The Best Short Plays series and his work has appeared in The Paris Review.

He’s a member of the Dramatists Guild, the Writers Guild of America, the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers and serves on the board of the New York Theatre Workshop.

A freelance theatre artist, Robert is a director, performer, writer, designer and teacher.

Previously for the Tasmanian Theatre Company, Robert performed in Poxed (2011) directed and designed Sex, Death and a Cup of Tea (2010), directed Bombshells (2008), starred in I Am My Own Wife (2009), and designed Andrew Corder Thinks Twice (2010).

Robert’s performance credits are extensive: over a hundred productions, mainly in Tasmania, Sydney and North Queensland, and national touring. He has created a series of eight solo shows; the most recent, The Spectre of the Rose, was invited for presentation (its third season) in the 2007 Ten Days on the Island Festival.

Robert has been an occasional lecturer in Performance and Communications, Movement, Music-Theatre, Opera and Cabaret for the Tasmanian Conservatorium of Music, and in Modern Drama for the Department of English, UTAS. He has also tutored at Al Quds University (Abu Dis), and Birzeit University Ashtar Theatre Company (Ramallah), and is an associate member of the General Union of Palestinian Artists.

In 2002, Robert was awarded the Centenary of Federation Medal for services to the performing arts and in 2009 was one of eight nominees, drawn from across all art forms, for the inaugural Distinguished Tasmanian Artist Award.

director annette downs

Previously for The Tasmanian Theatre Company, Annette has directed I Am My Own Wife (2009) and Andrew Corder Thinks Twice (2010).

Annette is currently the Producer of Tasmanian Performs, an Arts Tasmania initiative supporting product and market development for the performing arts.

Originally trained as a dancer, Annette has worked as a university lecturer, performer, artistic director, general manager and producer. She came to Tasmania to work with the Salamanca Theatre Company in 1991. From 1992-99 she was Artistic Director of Terrapin Puppet Theatre.

Annette is a Churchill Fellow and the 1998 Telstra Tasmanian Business Woman of the Year. She has served on numerous Boards including the Australian National Playwrights Centre, Tasdance, Salamanca Arts Centre, Tasmanian State Development Board, Tasmanian Arts Advisory Board, The Federal Governments Playing Australia Committee and the Australia Councils Theatre Board. Annette is currently member of the Theatre Royal Management Board.

cast robert jarman

Rachel is a graduate of the National Institute of Dramatic Art, in Set and Costume Design. During her time in Sydney she worked for Belvoir Street Theatre, Griffin Theatre, Tuggeranong Theatre (Canberra), SBS television, and was employed as a designer for the Australian Museum.

Rachel moved to Tasmania in 1998 and during her time in Hobart has been raising her three beautiful children and studying a Bachelor of Fine Arts, majoring in painting and installation art. Rachel has maintained her love for theatre working as a designer for Salamanca Theatre Company, Terrapin Puppet Theatre, IHOS Opera, The Old Nick Company, Directions Theatre and Tasmania Performs. She has also undertaken the role of Art Director for The Promising, a short film funded by Screen Tasmania, and aims to continue her career as a practicing designer and artist.

Matthew is a Tasmanian born composer and sound designer. His compositional work includes four chamber operas: A Priest’s Passion, The Death of Chatterton, 15 Years on Hold and The Buzz of the Sea; an array of concert music, scores and sound designs for numerous theatrical productions including underwhere, Con Artists and Macbeth.

Matthew’s compositions have been commissioned and performed by groups including: The New York Miniaturist Ensemble, IHOS Music Theatre laboratory, the Seymour Group (Sydney), Hobart Chamber Orchestra, Terrapin Puppet Theatre and by musicians including Jean Louis Forestier (Conductor), Joshua Rubin (Clarinetist – International Contemporary Music Ensemble) and Harry Spaarnay (Bass Clarinet).

Matthew’s first symphony was recorded by the Russian Philharmonic Orchestra in 2009. For more information, please visit Matthew’s website at www.matthewdewey.com

designer

rachel lang

Jill has worked as Stage Manager or Assistant Stage Manager on every Tasmanian Theatre Company production. She has worked on several other large Hobart productions including Miss Saigon, Dido and Aeneus, and The Wizard of Oz. Jill is also a qualified Floral Designer and Interior Designer. She has a varied background in costume design, puppet making and prop construction. She studied and worked in Sydney making and designing costumes and props for television and stage, for companies such as The Wiggles, Raggs Club, The Simpsons, the NRL and AFL, and New MacDonald’s Farm. As a floral designer she won several national and international awards and has created sculptural installations for window displays, functions and promotions. Jill is currently designing The Boy with the Longest Shadow for the Tasmanian Theatre Company.

stage manager jill munro

sound designer matthew dewey

“I am an optimist. I believe in the triumph of goodness even if it is sometimes slow in coming. That idea has often kept me alive.

Eventually the city will inherit everything, since we can’t take anything with us into the cold grave — the last garment has no pockets.

The city of Berlin has, in this house and this museum, a golden egg. It only needs a bit of cleaning up. As long as I’m alive, naturally, I’ll take care of it.”

Charlotte Von Mahlsdorf I Am My Own Woman

Charlotte von Mahlsdorf (Formerly Lothar Berfelde)

The Ministerium für

Staatssicherheit (German for

Ministry for State Security),

commonly known by the

abbreviation Stasi, was the

main security (secret police) and

intelligence organization of the

German Democratic Republic (East

Germany). Widely regarded as one

of the most effective intelligence

agencies in the world, it was

modeled on the Soviet KGB. The

Stasi’s influence over almost

every aspect of life in the German

Democratic Republic cannot be

overestimated. Until the mid-1980s,

a civilian network of informants

(Inoffizielle Mitarbeiter (IMs),

or unofficial collaborator) grew

within Germany, East and West.

By the East German collapse in

1989, it is estimated that the Stasi

had 91,000 full-time employees

and 300,000 informants. This

means approximately one in 50

the stasi the state within the state

East Germans collaborated with

the Stasi, one of the highest

penetrations of any society by

an organization. When the East

Germany government fell, the final

figure for all political prosecutions

was somewhere around 300,000.

In every case, the Stasi was

involved either in the initial

arrest or in pretrial interrogations

during which “confessions” were

usually extracted by physical or

psychological torture, particularly

between the mid-1940s and the

mid-1960s.

Excerpted from: the full-length article from Wikipedia:

www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi

To ensure that the people would

become and remain submissive,

East German communist leaders

saturated their realm with

more spies than had any other

totalitarian government in recent

history. The Soviet Union’s KGB

employed about 480,000 full-time

agents to oversee a nation of 280

million, which means there was

one agent per 5,830 citizens. Using

Wiesenthal’s figures for the Nazi

Gestapo, there was one officer for

2,000 people. The ratio for the Stasi

was one secret policeman per 166

East Germans. When the regular

informers are added, these ratios

become much higher. In the Stasi’s

case, there would have been at

least one spy watching every 66

citizens! When one adds in the

estimated numbers of part-time

snoops, the result is nothing short

of monstrous: one informer per 6.5

citizens. It would not have been

unreasonable to assume that at

least one Stasi informer was present

in any party of ten or 12 dinner

guests.

Excerpted from: Stasi: The Untold Story of the East German Secret Police by John O. Koehler. Oxford: Westview Press, 1999. www.nvtimes.comlbooks/firsVklkoehler-stasi.html

“These Stasi-Johns behaved like big shots… ‘we have the power and you are zero’ was their message. Their puffed up masquerade simply amused me.”

Charlotte Von Mahlsdorf I Am My Own Woman

1770-1952 Founding and flourishing of Mulack-Ritze Cabaret in Berlin.

1877 Thomas Edison invents the phonograph. Emile Berliner invents the

gramophone.

1911 Magnus Hirschfeld publishes “Die Transvestiten.”

1920 Adolf Hitler organizes National Socialist German Worker’s Party (NAZI).

Mar 18, 1928 Lothar Berfelde (later Charlotte von Mahlsdorf ) is born.

Jan 1933 Adolf Hitler appointed Chancellor. Article 48 of Weimar Constitution

denies civil liberties in time of national emergency. Federal police agencies,

SA (Storm Troops) and SS (Special Security), are created.

1933-45 Gays deported to concentration camps.

1934 Lothar begins collecting phonograph records and clocks.

1935 The Nazi Party passes the Nuremberg Laws, persecuting the German Jews.

The lover of Lothar’s Tante Luise is murdered in Nazi’s euthanasia program

1937 Participation in Hitler Youth becomes mandatory.

Nov 9, 1938 Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass),

Nazis burn synagogues and homes of Jews.

1939 World War II begins.

1942 Lothar and family evacuate Berlin and move to Bischofsburg. He receives

Grunderzeit furnishings from Tante Luise.

1943 Lothar’s father, Max Berfelde, dies.

Apr 26, 1945 Liberation of Berlin by Allied Forces.

1945-49 Resurgence of gay life in Berlin.

1949 Founding of German Democratic Republic.

1952-63 Communists close gay and lesbian bars, including the Mulack-Ritze.

1959 Lothar takes possession of Hultschiner Damm 333 and begins restoration.

1960 Gründerzeit Museum (formerly Hultschiner Damm 333) opens.

1961 Berlin Wall, symbol of the Cold War, erected.

1963 Mulack-Ritze Cabaret is resurrected in the basement of the Gründerzeit

Museum.

1971 Lothar permanently assumes the identity of “Charlotte von Mahlsdorf.”

1989 Berlin Wall falls.

1990 East and West Germany unite. Charlotte receives the country’s Federal

Service Cross for her restoration efforts.

1991 Charlotte moves to Sweden

30 Apr, 2002 Charlotte passes away in Berlin.

5 Dec, 2003 I Am My Own Wife by Doug Wright opens on Broadway to stellar reviews.

selected chronology

Timeline source: www.iammyownwife.com

United States production creditsI Am My Own Wife was originally produced on Broadway by Delphi Productions and David Richenthal.

Playwrights Horizons, Inc., New York City, produced the World Premiere Off-Broadway in 2003.

This play was written with support from Playwrights Horizons, made possible in part by funds granted to the author through a program sponsored by Amblin Entertainment, Inc.

A workshop of the play was presented by La Jolla Playhouse; Des McAnuff, Artistic Director, Terrence Dwyer, Managing Director.

Developed in part with the support of the Sundance Theatre Laboratory.

A workshop was also presented by the About Face Theatre (Eric Rosen, Artistic Director) in association with the Museum of Contemporary Art.