Previewing OF “The PhiladelPhia STOry” PreSenTed by PiOneer TheaTre cOmPany.

The Phil adelPhiaSTory

Jan 11 - Jan 26 2013

Backstagetalk

Talking Tracy...

u Talking Tracy . . . . . . . . 1

u DirecTor’s noTe . . . . . . . 1

u conTenT aDvisory . . . . . . . 2

u DramaTurg’s noTe . . . . . . 3

u cosTume Design . . . . . . . . 4

u clybourne Park evenTs . . 5

u our casT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

u loge gallery . . . . . . . . . . 7

Allison McLemore returns to Pioneer Theatre Com-pany after playing Mina Harker in 2010’s Dracula. In playing Tracy Lord, McLemore takes on an iconic character of stage.

Allison takes a few minutes away from rehearsal to talk to Backstage about this role.

Backstage: Tracy Lord represents a character who was not often seen on stage, especially in the late ‘30s. In what ways do you resemble Tracy? Allison McLemore: I think what I have in common with Tracy is something that most of us have in common with her: All of us—to different degrees—have a certain image of ourselves. We believe we are “like this” and “not like that.” But Tracy learns through the course of the play that people are much more complicated than that. Human beings change and grow and make mistakes. I fall into that frame of mind a lot:

Continued on page 5

“Tolerance with a champagne chaser never goes out of style.”

Continued on page 2

Salt Lake Tribune photographer Francisco Kjolseth shoots (L-R) Jay Stratton (George Kittredge), Allison McLemore (Tracy Lord) and Todd Gearhart (C.K. Dexter Haven) on location at Tiffany & Co. in City Creek Shopping Center.

by Kirsten Park, Director of Marketing

by Jenn Thompson, Director

“The time to make up your mind about people is never,” Tracy Lord says in The Philadelphia Story.

The same can be said about plays.

At first glance this classic comedy of class, manners and marriage might easily be dismissed as the ultimate precursor to the modern day rom-com; a frothy and witty peek into the private lives of the high and mighty. When I began my work on this production last spring, the country was dominated by a divisive election and an endless loop of news coverage featuring a sluggish economy and ceaseless chatter about the “1%”. I fretted over how this privileged family might fair through a 2013 lens. Indeed, despite my great and long-standing affection for the piece, I even found myself judging the aptly named Lord family a little, and wondered if today’s audiences might see only their excesses and eccentricities.

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Barry knew better. Writing this play in 1938, with unemployment hovering at 19% and the country experiencing yet another economic after-shock of the Great Depression, surely carried its own artistic risks. Yet, it’s Barry’s deep, personal understanding and compassion for his characters that emboldens his audience to look beyond their surface traits and circumstances, even as he asks it of the characters themselves. It seems we must shed our prejudice and blank intolerance together. The fact that the delivery system of such a message is awash in champagne and moonlight makes it all the more intoxicating.

In our modern world of sound bites and snap judgments, of “red” and “blue” states, the flawed, beautiful people who inhabit this play remind us, again, to look beyond our own preconceived notions, no matter how enshrined. To consider the person not the position. This, I believe, is the gift of reviving and revisiting the great plays of our past. Not only do they allow us a glimmer of life and art as they once were, but invite and challenge us to experience and marvel at their continued or renewed relevance.

Turns out, tolerance with a champagne chaser never goes out of style.

d

Director’s Notes....continued from page 1

Above: Allison McLemore (Tracy Lord).

Right: Todd Lawson (Mike Connor) and Allison McLemore (Tracy Lord).

Photos by Alexander Weisman.

Content AdvisorySYNOPSIS: Beautiful young Philadelphia social-ite Tracy Lord is about to marry self-made man George Kittredge. But when her ex-husband, as well as a writer and photographer assigned to cover her wedding all show up at the same time, things start to get complicated.

LANGUAGE: Nothing stronger than a few ex-clamatory oaths (“damn,” “hell,” and “Good Lord.”)

SMOKING AND DRINKING: The Philadelphia Story was written in the 1930s, and many of the characters in the play drink. Tracy drinks too much champagne on the eve of her wedding, and this causes several of the plot complications.

SEX: None.

VIOLENCE: None beyond Dexter giving Mike Connor a friendly punch in the nose.

FOR WHICH AUDIENCES?: The Philadel-phia Story is suitable for all audiences, including children aged 10 and up. Younger children might be bored by it.

RATING: If it were a movie, The Philadelphia Story would be rated “PG.”

RUNNING TIME: Two hours and 25 minutes, which includes a 15-minute intermission.

Know before you go...

Just northwest of the city of Philadelphia lies a region called the Main Line. Made up of 20 affluent little communities connected by the Pennsylvania Railroad, the Main Line is the center of Philadelphia’s high society.

It was also, for most of the twentieth century, the home of Helen Hope Montgomery Scott (1904-1995). Born an heiress who later married the heir to the Pennsylvania Railroad, Scott was one of the Main Line’s most famous socialites. Her 750-acre estate, Ardrossan, was the center of the Main Line’s social scene, full of grand parties and events. As Scott reminisced,

“Everybody had so much money - there were so few taxes. People gave grand dinner parties and dances: women wore wonderful dresses and men came in fine evening clothes. Usually there would be two orchestras —a swing band and Hungarian music —and there would be divine food like

terrapin and champagne . . . Oh! But we had fun.”

Scott was also a friend of Philip Barry, who had grown up in an affluent family and made his name writing plays about the idle rich. In 1938 he came up with a new variation:

“The family in the process of being studied for a piece in Fortune. Most unfortunate.”

Basing his main character on his glamorous friend Helen Scott, and calling on his friend Katharine Hepburn (with whom he had worked on the Broadway production and eventual film of his Holiday) to help, Barry started to work on what would become his most famous play.

Barry was particularly inspired by Scott because of her Philadelphia roots. Unlike New York, a town where mere wealth was the entrance key into high society, the Philadelphia Main Line was all about family. As Mark Twain famously said, “In Boston they ask, how much does he know? In New York, how much is he worth? In Philadelphia, who were his parents?” Built on “old” money and “old” families, the Main Line’s society was highly exclusive – and determined to stay that way. No amount of money could buy you a coveted position in

the Social Registrar (a book dedicated to detailing the “who’s who” of Philadelphia). The elite “bubble” of the Main Line seemed impenetrable.

Except by Barry. With The Philadelphia Story, Barry burst open the bubble of this class-conscious, family-obsessed and deeply private society. Even though Barry produced the play on the tail end of the “Roosevelt Recession,” when the American economy had spiraled back into the woes that had plagued the country during the Great Depression and there was little sympathy for the upper class, he managed to create a high society character that was so beloved that it inspired a generation to name, for the first time, their daughters “Tracy.”

And what did the Main Line residents think about Barry’s portrayal of their elite society? Scott, who was a guest of honor at the Broadway premiere, said, “We were thrilled. But I was amazed because I didn’t think we were all that interesting to write about.”

It seems that most people would disagree. d

by Janine Sobeck, Dramaturg

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Welcome to the Main Line

Above: Jay Stratton (George Kittredge) and Allison McLemore (Tracy Lord). Left: Allison McLemore (Tracy Lord), Bailee Johnson (Dinah Lord) and Joyce Cohen (Margaret Lord).Photos by Alexander Weisman.

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Designing costumes for a production like The Phil-adelphia Story is a step into history. Guest artist David Toser, costume designer for this produc-tion, brings over 50 years of Broadway and off-Broadway design experi-ence to this production. His first Broadway show, Noël Coward’s Sweet Potato, opened in 1968. This is his first time de-signing for PTC.

Director Jenn Thompson: “When I found out I was directing The Philadelphia Story I knew there was only one costume designer for the job. David Toser’s attention to character, detail and period is unparalleled. Actors look beautiful in his clothes because they feel beautiful. This is his world!”

Costumes

All sketches by David Toser.

Right: Joyce Cohen (Margaret Lord) in one of her outfits created from Toser’s sketch, shown directly above.

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Up Next: “Clybourne Park” The 2012 Tony Award Winner for Best Play Clybourne Park, by Bruce Norris, also won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. It runs February 15-March 2, 2013. Contains strong language.

Written as a sequel of sorts to Lorraine Hansberry’s award-winning play A Raisin in the Sun, Clybourne Park portrays fictional events set before and after Hansberry’s play — the same house, with Act II taking place fifty years after the events in Raisin.

Clybourne Park is a fascinating, insightful, and often brutally funny look at the way we talk about—or avoid talking about—race in America. When a white couple wants to buy a home in the gentrifying, all-black neighborhood of Clybourne Park, Chicago, they

unknowingly re-enact the same tense drama, fraught with miscommunications and barely suppressed hostility that occurred fifty years earlier in the same house, as depicted in Lorraine Hansberry’s award-winning play, A Raisin in the Sun.

Pioneer Theatre Company is hosting a series of FREE events to expand the conversations raised by this thought-provoking play. Visit www.PioneerTheatre.org/cp for more information.

• January 24th: Public reading of A Raisin in the Sun. Dumke Auditorium, Utah Museum of Fine Arts. 6:30 p.m.• January 29th: Public reading of A Raisin in the Sun. Salt Lake City Public Library. 6:00 p.m.• February 6th: Film screening of the 1961 film version of A Raisin in the Sun. Broadway Center Cinema, 7:30 p.m.• February 21st: Panel discussion, “The Price of Change: Neighborhood Identity in Clybourne Park and Salt Lake City.

University of Utah, Babcock theatre. 5:00 p.m.• February 23rd: Actor talk back with cast of Clybourne Park. Simmons Pioneer Memorial Theatre, directly after 2

p.m. of Clybourne Park performance.

Seating for all free events is General Admission; first come, first served.

believing that I am defined by a list of characteristics and that if I stray from that list I’ve failed others or myself. This project has been a fun and enlightening way to explore those ideas.

Backstage: If Tracy had been born in 1988, do you think she would still have gotten engaged to George? Or divorced Dexter? A.M.: I do. I think those choices are a matter of her personal journey and she needs to go through those steps, regardless of the time or its social mores.

Backstage: You receive a lot of attention on the set, and from three handsome men! How do you prepare

mentally for a role in which so much of the focus is on your character? A.M.: With enormous humility! I’m surrounded by excellent actors, saying timeless words, wearing beautiful clothes, on a grand set. I cross my fingers, say a prayer, and hope I do it all justice. Also, I always double-check that my fly is zipped.

Backstage: (And beautiful shoes! Don’t forget the shoes.) In real life, you and Jay Stratton, who plays George, are married. Have you acted together before? What challenges are there in acting on stage with your spouse? A.M.: For the most part it’s a great gift! We can come to the work with trust and delight. We also know instantly when the other’s work is anything less than its best, so it’s a great barometer. But there have been some funny moments. For

example, Jenn [Thompson, Director] caught us the other day, correcting each other’s blocking during a scene, by giving little tugs and nudges to one another (still fully in character!). That’s something I would NEVER do to another actor. Also—spoiler alert!—learning the breakup scene was not very fun!

Allison McLemore....continued from page 1

Allison’s Notes:First Professional Play: Revenge of the Space Pandas at The Peterborough PlayersFavorite Play: Three Sisters Favorite Movie: To Kill a Mockingbird Favorite Place in Utah: Any and every hiking trail....We don’t have views like this in New York!

JENN THOMPSON (Director) is based in New York and directs at PTC for the first time. She is happy to have assembled such an accomplished cast for this production.

JOYCE COHEN* (Margaret Lord) returns to PTC after last season’s Laughing Stock. PTC productions include: Hamlet, Dancing at Lughnasa, Arcadia, Othello, A Streetcar Named Desire, Enchanted April and Copenhagen. Broadway: Once a Catholic. TV & Film credits include: High School Musical, SLC Punk, The Dance, Pixel Perfect, The Adventures of Food Boy, Independence Day, Touched by an Angel, Everwood and Archie Bunker’s Place. TODD GEARHART* (C. K. Dexter Haven) Broadway: Bye Bye Birdie. NY: Manhat-tan Theatre Club, Roundabout Theatre Company, Playwrights Horizons, The Vineyard Theatre, and The Beckett Theatre. TV: Gossip Girl, Lipstick Jungle, recurring role on Law & Order, The Education of Max Bickford, All My Children, The Guiding Light and One Life to Live. Film: Batman: The Dark Night Rises, Dogs Lie, Moving Mike and Peppermills. TODD LAWSON* (Macaulay “Mike” Connor) PTC debut. Broadway: Summer and Smoke. National Tour: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. New York: Stones In His Pockets, Flight, Unnatural Acts, Alphabet City III & IV, The Grecian Formula and Barefoot in the Park.

ANDERSON MATTHEWS* (Seth Lord) returns to PTC from Laughing Stock, Our Town, Is He Dead? Noises Off, You Can’t Take It With You, As You Like It and The Three Musketeers. Broadway credits include The Robber Bridegroom and Peter Ustinov’s Beethoven’s 10th. Television credits include The Equalizer and Law & Order.

ALLISON McLEMORE* (Tracy Lord) returns to PTC after Dracula. New York: The Madras House and Rutherford and Son at the Mint, Nora and The Dybbuk at Marvell Repertory Theatre. Other Regional: The Nibroc Trilogy and Turn of the Screw at Chester Theatre Company; Last Train to Nibroc at Peterborough Players; The Underpants at The Olney Theatre; Cyrano at Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival; Three Sisters, Othello and Jane Eyre at Pittsburgh Irish and Classical Theatre; Pygmalion (Denver Post Ovation Award) and Enchanted April at Creede Repertory Theatre.

BILL NABEL* (William “Uncle Willie” Tracy) returns to PTC after appearances in Man of La Mancha and Sunset Boulevard. TV: “Saperstein” in Starz’ Gravity opposite Ving Rhames; the French ambassador, Gossip Girl. Over 9,400 performances on Broadway: Beauty and the Beast (Lumiere), A Chorus Line (Al), Sweeney Todd (Pirelli), 42nd Street (Bert Barry), Home Sweet Homer (Melios), Ain’t Broadway Grand, Evita and Most Happy Fella (Giuseppe).

MARGARET NICHOLS* (Elizabeth “Liz” Imbrie) New York: Children, Bedroom Farce, Long Island Sound (off-Broadway); Seeing Stars (NYMF); A Christmas Carol (Lucille Lortel); What You Will (original musical based on Twelfth Night; world premiere, Moonwoork Productions) and Naked (Gene Frankel Theatre, Themantics). National Tour: Les Misérables. TV: All My Children.

ANDY RINDLISBACH* (Alexander “Sandy” Lord) appeared at PTC in Of Mice and Men, Laughing Stock, The Tempest, The Diary of Anne Frank, Hamlet, Our Town and Othello, as well as understudying for Touch(ed) and Twelve Angry Men. He has worked locally with SLAC, Meat & Potato, Plan-B, Hale Centre Theatre, Salt Lake Shakespeare and Naughty Zanni Productions. Film and TV credits include Disney’s Minutemen and Dadnapped, 17 Miracles and One Good Man.

JAY STRATTON* (George Kittredge) returns to PTC after 2000’s A View From the Bridge and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. New York credits include The Man Who Came to Dinner at the Peccadillo Theatre; The Dishwashers at 59E59; She Stoops to Conquer, Twelfth Night and The Oedipus Cycle at The Pearl Theatre and Duchess of Malfi with Red Bull Theatre.

Our Equity Cast

Bill Nabel(William “Uncle Willie” Tracy)

Margaret Nichols(Elizabeth “Liz” Imbrie)

Andy Rindlisbach(Alexander “Sandy” Lord)

Jay Stratton(George Kittredge)

Joyce Cohen (Margaret Lord)

Todd Gearhart(C.K. Dexter Haven)

Todd Lawson (Macaulay “Mike” Conner)

Anderson Matthews(Seth Lord)

Allison McLemore(Tracy Lord)

* Member of Actors’ Equity Association

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Backstage Newsletter is published seven times per year by Pioneer theatre Company and available online.

Please send comments to Kirsten Park • Director of Marketing and Communications 801-581-6270 • Fax: (801) 581-5472 • Email: kirsten.park@ptc.utah.edu Simmons Pioneer Memorial Theatre • 300 South 1400 East • Room 325, Salt Lake City, UT 84112–0660 PTC Box Office: (801) 581-6961 • PTC Online: www.pioneertheatre.org

Thank you The following sponsors have provided support for this production:

Loge Gallery“My paintings begin with chaos. Oh! I have so much fun mak-ing that mess. I spatter and spray, dribble and collage until chaos abounds. Then I sit back and look. The looking can take minutes or days. When I see what the paint tells me to paint I begin the process of organizing the chaos with value, line and color. The result is an expression which comes from my heart. It would be easy to edit out all that is meaningful by judging an inspiration as too sentimental, too complicated, funny or just plain too crazy to paint. Wrestling with both angels and demons, I paint a world with my own unique symbolic language....”

during the run of The Philadelphia Story, Willamarie’s eclectic paintings that “begin with chaos” will be featured on the walls of the Loge Gallery. The Loge Gallery is open for ticket holders before and after performanc-es, during intermission, and to the public during business hours 10 am to 6 pm, Monday - Friday.

www.pioneertheatre.org/loge-gallery

Lawrence T. and JaneT T. dee FoundaTion

EdElman Financial SErvicESU.S. Bancorp FoUndation