josh aaseng june 9 - july 3, 2015

Transcription

PICTURED:
Robert Bergin, Todd Jefferson Moore, and Erik Gratton. PHOTO: John Ulman DESIGN: Shannon Loys
JUNE 2015
JUNE 9 - JULY 3, 2015
ADAPTED & DIRECTED BY
JOSH AASENG
I AM OF IRELAND | PRIDE AND PREJUDICE | THE D O G OF THE SOUTH | LITTLE BEE | SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE
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CONTENTS
JUNE 2015
Slaughterhouse-Five
by Kurt Vonnegut
Adapted and Directed by Josh Aaseng
Robert Bergin, Todd Jefferson Moore, and Erik Gratton. PHOTO: John Ulman DESIGN: Shannon Loys
PICTURED:
A1
JUNE 9 - JULY 3, 2015
A-1 Welcome
A-3 Slaughterhouse-Five Credits
A-8 Meet the Cast and Crew
A-13 Thank You to Our Contributors
A-16 Company Information
ADAPTED & DIRECTED BY
JOSH AASENG
I AM OF IRELAND | PRIDE AND PREJUDICE | THE D O G OF THE SOUTH | LITTLE BEE | SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE
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Visit EncoreArtsSeattle.com
Q & A with playwright
Wayne Rawley
BY BRETT HAMIL
Wayne Rawley is a playwright, director, actor and Cornish grad. He’s
a regular contributor to the 14/48 Festival and Sandbox Radio Live as
well as a teaching artist with ACT’s Young Playwright’s Program. You
might’ve seen some of his work produced last year in the form of Theater
Schmeater’s Attack of the Killer Murder…of Death! and Seattle Public
Theatre’s Christmastown: A Holiday Noir.
Rawley just completed a run directing his play Live! From the Last Night
of my Life, winner of the 2012 Gregory Award for Outstanding New Play.
The production reunited the cast and crew of the acclaimed 2011 show.
Continuing this month’s run of notable Seattle playwrights, Rawley joined
me for a handful of questions. See more interviews with Seattle theatre
artists every Friday over at EncoreArtsSeattle.com.
What’s the best performance you’ve seen lately?
This is a trick question because I just opened a show. If I say, “The best
performances? Why the performances are in MY show of course!” I sound
a little disingenuous. And if I say some other performances then my cast
chases me around the room with knives.
But here is the truth. One truly great performance for me this past
weekend was turned in by Jessamyn Bateman-Lino. She is the assistant
stage manager for Live! From The Last Night of My Life. She runs our
backstage before during and after every performance. She is a tireless,
4 ENCORE STAGES
rock solid support to the show. She was at every single rehearsal, she helps
keep the hundreds of moving parts backstage greased and spinning, the
entrances happening, the play moving forward. She sets up before the show
and leads the clean up after. We could not do Live! From The Last Night of My
Life without her and she does it night after night, flawlessly.
The best performance this weekend you didn’t see. Even if you did.
Crazy, right? So you are going to have to trust me. It truly is a sight to
not behold.
ENCORE ARTS NEWS
What’s the best meal in Seattle?
One Word. Med Kitch. Two words actually, but
each cut in half to equal one word. It’s the insider
way to say The Mediterranean Kitchen (I made
that up). On Boren just north of Madison. My
favorite food in the city that is not a Dick’s Burger.
That scream you heard back in 2005 and you
didn’t know what it was but it sounded close?
That was me living in Los Angeles learning that
their original Queen Anne location had closed.
But they have been back for a while now and if
you love garlic, you should stop whatever you are
doing and go get some shwarma. Or the Farmers
Plate, which is chicken wings covered in a sauce
so good we must not speak of it. If you don’t love
garlic, well then, you’ve got bigger problems than
I can help you with.
What music gets you pumped up? What do
you listen to when you’re sad?
The first thing I do when I think I have something
I want to work on is make a playlist. I have lots
of playlists. I’ve been listening to a lot of disco
lately. I like disco because it is the music of
people who feel very strongly that they are sexy
and yet may or may not actually be sexy. For the
last year I’ve had this idea for a play in my head
and I don’t have a clue about what it is except for
a vision of the poster that says the play’s title (I
don’t know) and right under the title it says “Now
with 75% more DISCO!” I can’t wait until it’s
written so I can stop listening to so much disco.
When I’m sad I listen to The Wailin’ Jennys’
cover of Neil Young’s “Old Man.” Female voices
singing in harmony take my eyes to the sky.
What’s the ideal setting for writing a play?
Right before it is due is always the most ideal
setting for writing a play. Beyond that, there is
not any such thing. Not anymore. If I’m going to
write, it’s got to be whenever I can, wherever I
am. 4 a.m. On the train. Any coffee shop with an
empty outlet and some type of sausage breakfast
sandwich.
I do a lot of writing on my bike commute. I
wrote this paragraph on my bike. I forgot the rest
of it, but it was very insightful.
What’s the most useful thing anyone’s ever
taught you about working in theatre?
A dear friend and teacher, Judith Weston, taught
me, “There is no Passive Income.” That means
that in the theater, if you want it to work, you
have to be there. And be there. And be there. You
can’t write it and walk away.
Oh, and “Play Your Pain.” August Wilson
taught me that. (Pause. Removes hat.)
For more previews, stories, video and a look
behind the scenes, visit EncoreArtsSeattle.com
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2014 GreGory AwArd TheATre of The yeAr
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REvOluTiON and REvElATiON
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A co-production with
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directed by Tyrone Brown
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JULY 16 - AUGUST 2
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Seattle Center Armory
Summertime provides the perfect
backdrop for big, bright musicals and
Shakespeare in the park! Here are
some performances to look forward to
this summer:
Wicked
July 8—August 9
This Tony Award-winning musical takes
place long before a tornado carried Dorothy
to the Land of Oz. Elphaba is a sweet but
misunderstood green-skinned girl and
Glinda is ambitious, popular and spoiled.
The story of friendship, trust and betrayal
reveals the hidden history of Oz and
the women who would become its most
famous—and infamous—inhabitants.
Godspell
July 10—August 15
This song-and-dance takeoff on the
Gospels has travelled around the world
to Broadway and back again. Featuring
tuneful parables in the form of memorable
songs like “Day By Day” and “Learn Your
Lessons Well,” Taproot presents the musical
as an appropriately sunny and hopeful
summertime treat.
Taproot Theatre
Grease
July 9—August 2
The students of Rydell High School capture
the innocence and raunch of adolescence on
the verge of adulthood with musical backing
by rockin’ Seattle mainstays The Dusty 45’s.
Thrill to the songs you know by heart (“Look
At Me, I’m Sandra Dee,” “Beauty School
Dropout,” “You’re the One That I want”)
with Danny, Sandy, Rizzo, the Pink Ladies
and the T-Birds.
5th Avenue Theatre
50 years ago, some parents had
just two choices:
institution or revolution.
So they started Northwest Center — and a revolution to include people of
all abilities at school, at work and in the community.
Join the Revolution.
nwcenter.org/revolution
Celebrating 50 Years
As You Like It
Henry IV
July 9—August 9
Experience the works of the Bard in the
open air with Wooden O’s summertime park
productions. Surrounded by soft breezes and
warm sunlight, join Rosalind and Celia in
the Forest of Arden for the romantic comedy
As You Like It, or cavort and intrigue with
Prince Hal and Sir John Falstaff with Part I of
the thrilling royal epic Henry IV.
Wooden O, various Seattle area parks
For more previews, stories, video and a look
behind the scenes, visit EncoreArtsSeattle.com
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The Rising Star Project at
5th Avenue Theatre
Robert Bergin; photo by John Ulman
ENCORE ARTS NEWS
BY BRETT HAMIL
ONSTAGE
June 9 - July 3
SLAUGHTER
HOUSE-FIVE
EMMA HASSELBACH
KURT VONNEGUT
The 5th Avenue Theatre’s
Rising Star Project puts kids
in charge of a mainstage
production with training
and support from in-house
professionals. Everything,
even administrative work
like fundraising and
marketing, is run by the
kids. It’s a big institutional
undertaking that will reap
long dividends in talent
development, giving
youngsters unprecedented
access to the inner workings
of a large theatre house.
MATHEW WRIGHT has directed each of
the Rising Star shows since the program’s
inception in 2012. “Every year I learn as
much from them as I hope they do from us,”
says Wright, “It’s hugely instructive. It’s a
great playground as a director, too, to try out
different ways of explaining things to different
levels of actors and to work those chops.”
I spoke to some of the Rising Star students
about their experiences and what they’ve
learned so far.
Kleo Chrisafis, props and set, stage left
How did you get involved in the Rising Star
Project?
I used to be involved in the drama program at
the first high school I went to but now I go to a
smaller high school that doesn’t have one, so I
was looking for an opportunity to do theatre.
What are the most valuable things you’ve
learned?
Being pushed to always be here five minutes
early and get my things done. Being
accountable and taking on responsibility
and then following through with what I need
to do, because if not the show won’t run as
smoothly.
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Rising Star Project, continued
Howard Family Stage
Rachel Andres,
development team
Under the Tents • Vanier Park, Vancouver, Canada
June 4 – Sept 26
1-877-739-0559 • bardonthebeach.org
8 ENCORE STAGES
What have you learned?
One of the biggest things
I’ve learned is that things
don’t always go as you’re
expecting them to go. We
were working on a lobby
campaign where we were
going to do a curtain speech
asking audience members
to donate money as they left
the theatre. We tried it one
night, but it was decided
that the curtain speech
didn’t go with the artistic
vision of the show. We had
to adjust our plan to how
we were going to still try to
raise money while being
conscious of the show.
Adrian Lockhart, actor, Starkeeper and
Strong Man
say. My director, Mat [Wright], gave us some
notes and he said when he was doing acting,
he’d always feel like he owed something to
that character. What was the character trying
to pursue? What’s his main objective?
What have you learned so far?
Professionalism and trying to live in the
moment. For a lot of actors it’s hard to still be
that character and believe what you’re acting,
but it shouldn’t be about acting, it should be
that you’re trying to make it into a reality.
What are you going to do with this
knowledge?
After I’ve learned everything I can—because
there’s always new stuff to learn—I hope to
take my talent to Los Angeles and pursue my
career in acting and movies.
How do you stay in the moment?
By not losing focus, not losing sight of things
that are in the outside world, staying in
character and honestly believing what you
Rehearsal photos courtesy Rising Star
development team member Emma
Hasselbach.
imagined
truth
“The truth is rarely pure
and never simple.”
OSCAR WILDE,
THE IMPORTANT OF BEING EARNEST
A New Season
of Children’s
Stories
Turn to page
A-12 to see
which titles
we’re adapting
in our 2015-16
Touring Season!
As an actress, director, musician, and arts
educator, I have made my living traveling
between two truths—the imaginary and
the real. And I will continue to traverse that
connection of imaginary and real truth as
Book-It’s director of education.
You might think the idea that truth has
two meanings is incomprehensible. But look
at Kurt Vonnegut’s worlds in SlaughterhouseFive—the real, World War II world and
the other-worldly Trafalmadore—the story
straddles both worlds giving it its own life.
As an artist and arts educator, the notion of
two worlds built of opposite, interdependent
truths best describes what we do both on
stage and in the classroom.
As an artist, the world of imaginary
truth is where I first adventured with Laura
Ingalls Wilder and Nancy Drew before my
interest shifted to Pecola, Nina Mikhailovna
Zarechnaya, and the poetry of Edna St.
Vincent Millay. In this world I created art
as Frida Kahlo Rivera, analyzed poetry while
in the skin of Dorothy Wordsworth, and
inhabited the Bard’s comedic and tragic
kingdoms. I have introduced this world to
my son who, at age eleven, enjoys exploring
the planet Tatooine with Luke Skywalker,
adventuring the seas with Poseidon, and
finding the magic at Hogwarts.
As an arts educator, it’s in the world of
real truth that real work happens and real
lives are changed. Real truths have proven
the arts foster analytical, practical and
creative thinking skills in students while
better preparing them for the 21st century
workforce. It’s real truth that the arts
opportunity gap is widest for children in high
poverty schools and that the persistent lack
of access to arts education is detrimental to
our future. It’s in this world that I work to
provide opportunities and programming that
celebrates an interactive relationship between
youth and literature that encourages the joy
of reading, enhances student and teacher
learning—and celebrates imaginary truth.
With deep respect for Oscar Wilde, I
argue that truth is pure and often simple, as
long as you fully embrace which truth you
are experiencing at the time. For me, I will
continue to travel between the two as often
as I can.
Enjoy the show,
Annie DiMartino
Director of Education
Meet Annie DiMartino, Our New Director of Education
Annie joins us following her tenure at the Long Wharf Theatre in
New Haven, Connecticut, where she was in charge of all educational
programming and oversaw their Next Stage Resident/Intern
Program. We are thrilled to have her on the Book-It team.
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2015-16
MAINSTAGE SEASON
DECEMBER 2 - JANUARY 3, 2015
SEPTEMBER 22 - OCTOBER 18, 2015
What We Talk About
When We Talk About Love
by RAYMOND CARVER
Emma by JANE AUSTEN
Book-It revisits Jane Austen’s match-making classic in
honor of the 200th anniversary of its publication.
An evening of stories adapted from the 1981
collection by Northwest native Raymond Carver.
MAY 3 - JUNE 26, 2016
The Brothers K by DAVID JAMES DUNCAN
Part One: Joy to the Wordl! // Part Two: The Left Stuff
From the celebrated author of The River Why—an uplifting novel spanning decades of loyalty,
anger, regret, and love in the lives of the Chance family. Presented in two full-length parts.
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JANE JONES & MYRA PLATT, FOUNDING CO-ARTISTIC DIRECTORS | DANIEL Y. MAYER, MANAGING DIRECTOR
SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE
by Kurt Vonnegut
Adapted and directed by Josh Aaseng
cast
Robert Bergin
Rory
Eaden†
Jim Gall*
Erik Gratton*
Martyn G. Krouse
Jocelyn Maher
Cobey Mandarino*
Benjamin McFadden
Todd Jefferson Moore*
Eleanor Moseley
Joshua Ryder
Riley
Billy Pilgrim
Ensemble
Vonnegut / Ensemble
Billy Pilgrim
Bernard O’Hare / Ensemble
Valencia / Barbara / Ensemble
Derby / Ensemble
Lazzaro / Ensemble
Billy Pilgrim
Mary O’Hare / Ensemble
Weary / Ensemble
Shanahan†
Ensemble
Slown†
Ensemble
Jason
Sydney Tucker
Montana Wildhack / Ensemble
Artistic Team
Catherine Cornell
Scenic Designer
Ben Burris & Zane Exactly
Puppet Designers & Consultants
Kent Cubbage
Lighting Designer
Pete Rush
Costume Designer
Myra Platt
Music Director
Louise Butler*
Stage Manager
Matt Starritt
Sound Designer
Gin Hammond
Dialect Coach
Lindsay Carpenter
Dramaturg / Assistant Director
Emily Penick
Choreographer
Tom Dewey
Fight Choreographer
Victoria Thompson*
Assistant Stage Manager
* Member Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States † Book-It Acting Intern
season support
Lucky Seven
Foundation
media
sponsorS
Additional generous support is provided by individuals and by The Ex Anima Fund,
The Williams Miller Family Foundation, and Spark Charitable Foundation. Many thanks to all our supporters!
God Bless You, Mr. VOnnegut
notes
director
from
the
When I first picked up a copy of
Slaughterhouse-Five, I was in my early
twenties and we had just shocked and awed
the nation of Iraq with our superior military
science. In fact, I watched the bombing of
Baghdad on live television during spring
break. My generation’s wars are broadcast
live, and we get to watch as cities are
destroyed in real-time.
I wonder what the destruction of Dresden
would have looked like on CNN.
Like many young idealists who first
encounter Slaughterhouse-Five, I was
immediately taken with its biting humor
and anti-war sentiment. But, as I have
perennially reread the book and now as
I work with a tremendous group of artists
on this production, I have come to admire
it for all the questions it asks, and for the
few answers it provides. How do we make
sense of the tens of thousands of innocent
civilian deaths in Dresden in the midst of
a necessary and justifiable war? If wars and
human massacres are inevitable, then what
are we to do? Shrug and say, “So it goes”?
Ignore the awful times and focus merely on
the good?
Perhaps most compelling to me is Kurt
Vonnegut’s (often hilarious and irreverent)
exploration of what war does to the
individual and how one returns home after
experiencing its atrocities. In 2015, we are
still discussing these issues, and “PTSD” is
common parlance in our society. We’re aware
of the internal wounds the men and women
bear home from the battlefield, and at least
have a vocabulary to approach a healing
process. But what was it like for the young
men returning home 70 years ago? These
things were less understood and even less
publicly discussed.
Like the character Billy Pilgrim (and
his real-life author), many World War II
veterans struggled years later to find real
peace on the home front. With very few
resources compared to today’s returning
veterans, those men were left to construct
their own methods of coping with what they
experienced overseas. Some of those methods
were constructive, some destructive, and
some altogether unique—like this tale of
Billy Pilgrim.
Josh Aaseng
Adapter & Director
PHOTOS FROM THE REHEARSAL ROOM
For more
behind-the-scenes
stories and photos,
visit our blog
book-it.org/blog
A-4 BOOK-IT REPERTORY THEATRE
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
was born in 1922 in Indianapolis,
Indiana. A soldier at age 20, Vonnegut
became a Prisoner of War during
the Battle of the Bulge and survived
the Dresden Bombing while in a
slaughterhouse 60 feet underground.
After returning from the war, he married
and had three children. His first novel
was published in 1952. In 1957,
Vonnegut’s life was altered drastically
when his sister died from cancer and
her husband died in a train crash two
days later. Vonnegut and his wife took
in three of their children to raise with
their own.
Slaughterhouse-Five, published in
1969, transformed Vonnegut from a
writer with a small cult following into
a popular literary icon. He became
increasingly outspoken about his
political beliefs. He was especially
critical of George W. Bush’s
presidency and the increases in
American militarization following
September 11, 2001. Kurt
Vonnegut died in 2007, though
his legacy lives on.
THE VONNEGUT BIBLIOGRAPHY
NOVELS
COLLECTIONS
Player Piano (1952)
The Sirens of Titan (1959)
Mother Night (1961)
Cat’s Cradle (1963)
God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, or Pearls
Before Swine (1965)
Slaughterhouse-Five (1969)
Breakfast of Champions(1973)
Slapstick, or Lonesome No More (1976)
Jailbird (1979)
Deadeye Dick (1982)
Galápagos: A Novel (1985)
Bluebeard (1987)
Hocus Pocus (1990)
Timequake (1997)
Canary in a Cathouse (1961)
Welcome to the Monkey House (1968)
Wampeters, Foma, and Granfalloons
(1974)
Palm Sunday (1981)
Nothing Is Lost Save Honor (1984)
Fates Worse than Death (1991)
Bagombo Snuff Box (1999)
God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian (1999)
A Man Without a Country (2005)
Armageddon in Retrospect (2008)
Look at the Birdie (2009)
While Mortals Sleep (2011)
Kurt Vonnegut:
The Cornell Sun Years 1941-1943 (2012)*
We Are What We Pretend to Be (2012)*
Kurt Vonnegut: Letters (2012)*
Sucker’s Portfolio:
A Collection of Previously Unpublished
Writing (2013)*
If This Isn’t Nice, What Is?
Advice for the Young (2013)*
PLAYS
Penelope (1960)
Fortitude (1968)
Between Time and Timbuktu,
or Prometheus-5: A Space Fantasy (1972)
Make Up Your Mind (1993)
Miss Temptation (1993)
L’Histoire du Soldat, adaptation (1993)
DID YOU KNOW?
The full title of
Slaughterhouse-Five is:
Slaughterhouse-Five
or, The Children’s Crusade:
A Duty-Dance with Death
by Kurt Vonnegut,
A Fourth-Generation GermanAmerican Now Living in Easy
Circumstances on Cape Cod [and
Smoking Too Much], Who, as an
American Infantry Scout Hors
de Combat, as a Prisoner of War,
Witnessed the Fire Bombing of
Dresden, Germany, ‘The Florence
of the Elbe,’ a Long Time Ago, and
Survived to Tell the Tale. This is a
Novel Somewhat in the Telegraphic
Schizophrenic Manner of Tales of
the Planet Tralfamadore, Where the
Flying Saucers Come From. Peace.
*published after Kurt Vonnegut’s death
BOMBING DRESDEN
70 YEARS LATER, THE CONTROVERSY CONTINUES
DRAMATURGY BY LINDSAY CARPENTER
BEFORE
AFTER
BEFORE
Before the firebombing, Dresden in Germany
was known as a historic city, reputed for its
art, architecture, and culture and nicknamed
the Elbflorenz or “Florence of the Elbe.” The
bombing of Dresden on February 13-15,
1945 remains deeply controversial. Disputes
continue over why the city was bombed, its
innocence, and even the number of people
killed.
On February 13, 1945, Dresden
experienced a combined attack by the
American USAAF and Britain’s RAF that
lasted until February 15. Over a thousand
tons of high-explosive bombs and incendiaries
were dropped on the city. The attack destroyed
eighty percent of the main city center and fifty
percent of the remaining area. Dresden was in
ruins.
Dresden’s bombing is often described as a
senseless crime. At the time of the bombing,
the city was filled with thousands of refugees
from all over Europe and lacked enough air
raid shelters to protect and hold the number
of people staying in the city. The city was
seen as innocent of war, lacking sufficient
air defenses to defend itself, and given how
close the Allies already were to the end of the
war, the city’s destruction is often explained
as an Allied revenge, meant only to terrorize
Germans.
Yet Dresden’s image as an innocent city
is partly myth. Claims that it was an open
city—“a city declared to be unfortified
and undefended and so, by international
law, exempt from enemy attack” (Oxford
Dictionary)—are false. It was not officially,
under law, an open city. That said, many in
World War II perceived it as such.
Furthermore, it was not removed from
the war as many critics claim. Dresden did
have war-related industries and was a railway
hub for German soldiers on their way to the
Russian front. Though it had suffered little
damage by 1945, it had experienced previous
air raids during the war. Nonetheless, the
attack was unexpected and flew in the face of
the prevailing belief that the Allies had chosen
Dresden to be their postwar administrative
capital and planned to spare the city. Plus, with
the Eastern Front drawing nearer, Dresdeners
were more afraid of an attack from the east than
from the air.
Among the controversies over Dresden’s
bombing is the question of how many people
were killed. It’s impossible to say for sure,
especially since it’s unknown how many
refugees had entered Dresden by that point.
Estimates range from 8,000 deaths to 500,000,
though more recent assessments typically fall
between 35,000 and 135,000 with 35,000 as
the generally accepted amount. Kurt Vonnegut
cites 135,000 deaths in Slaughterhouse-Five.
Though general awareness of the Dresden
bombing on February 13-15, 1945 has
increased exponentially, in great part due
to Slaughterhouse-Five, the event remains
controversial. Were the Allies justified in
destroying the city? Did it serve any strategic
purpose? Was it an acceptable target or an
innocent city massacred out of revenge? And
how many civilians were actually killed so close
to the end of the war?
AFTER
BEFORE
AFTER
“From ‘Irritable Heart’ to ‘Shellshock’” 2012. <http://io9.com/5898560/from-irritable-heart-to-shellshock-how-post-traumatic-stress-became-a-disease>; “New Name Could Mean Less Stigma.” 2012. Washington
Post. <http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/new-name-for-ptsd-could-mean-less-stigma/2012/05/05/gIQAlV8M4T_story.html>; National Institute of Mental Health. “Post-Traumatic Stress
Disorder (PTSD).” <http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/post-traumatic-stress-disorder-ptsd/index.shtml>; Bowe, Meghan Kathleen. “Framing Memory: The Bombings of Dresden, Germany in Narrative,
Discourse and Commemoration after 1945. 2009. <http://bit.ly/1DOc3Rz>; History.com. “Bombing of Dresden.” <http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/battle-of-dresden>; Taylor, Alan. “Remembering DresA-6 BOOK-IT REPERTORY THEATRE
NAMING
TRAUMA
While the term Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD is
relatively new (introduced in 1980), the condition is not.
During World War II, it became increasingly accepted that all
men were vulnerable to the symptoms, though many doctors
and generals had little patience or sympathy for those who
experienced it. The condition has been called by more than 80
names over the centuries. As the term changed, so too has the
stigma and treatment surrounding the condition.
Nostalgia
Diagnosis for Swiss
soldiers in 1678
Homesickness
or “Heimweh”
Term given by German soldiers in
1600-1700s
Maladie du pays
French name, 1600s-1700s.
Translates “Disease of the country”
Estar roto
Spanish name, 1600s-1700s.
Translates “To be broken”
Soldier’s Heart,
Irritable Heart, or
Da Costa Syndrome
Jacob Mendez da Costa’s diagnosis,
based on chest-thumping, anxiety,
and other symptoms in U.S. Civil
War veterans
Otis Archive/Flickr
or
Neurasthenia
Hysteria
Victorian term for those with
excessive neurosis or nervousness
Shell Shock
Common term from WWI
Combat Exhaustion
or Combat Fatigue
Popular term during WWII and the
Korean War
PTSD
Post-Traumatic
Stress Disorder
PTS or PTSI
Post-Traumatic Stress Injury
Alistair Hobbs/Flick
r
PTS
SYMPTOMS
ACCORDING TO THE NATIONAL
INSTITUTE OF HEALTH
Symptoms of PTS can disrupt a person’s
daily routine and make it difficult to sleep,
eat, and concentrate. Reminders of the
traumatic moment or event can trigger these
symptoms.
Re-experiencing symptoms
•
•
•
Nightmares
Scary thoughts
Avoidance symptoms
Introduced in 1980 when it was added
to the Diagnostic and Statistical
Manual of Mental Disorders
Within the last decade, specialists
have begun dropping the “Disorder”
part of PTSD. The change is due
to the stigma surrounding the
word disorder. Another alternative
substitutes “Injury” for “Disorder.”
Flashbacks
•
•
•
•
•
Avoiding places, events, or objects that remind the
person of the experience
Feeling emotionally numb
Feeling strong guilt, depression, or worry
Losing interest in activities that were previously
enjoyable
Having trouble remembering the traumatic event
Hyperarousal symptoms:
•
•
•
•
Easily startled
Feeling tense or on edge
Difficulty sleeping
Angry outbursts
den: 70 Years After the Firebombing.” The Atlantic; 2015.; Kennedy, David M. “Freedom From Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945.” 1999.; “Dresden WWII bombing pre-and after pictures
(English).” <http://www.alien8.de/dd/page-1.html>; Ellmers, Frank. “Dresden Survives as Potent World War II Symbol.” 2005. Los Angeles Times. <http://articles.latimes.com/2005/feb/13/news/adfg-dresden13>;
“The WWII Dresden Holocaust – ‘A Single Column of Fame’.” Rense.com. <http://www.rense.com/general19/flame.htm>; Fowler, George. “Holocaust on Dresden.” 1995. The Barnes Review. <http://www.wintersonnenwende.com/scriptorium/english/archives/articles/dresden-e.html>
meet the
Cast
ROBERT BERGIN
Billy Pilgrim
Robert is thrilled to
make his Book-It debut
with SlaughterhouseFive. He recently
appeared as Steve
Hubbell in A Streetcar
Named Desire at Civic Rep, and also as
Bertrand and the Director in 5 by Beckett
with Sound Theatre Company. Other
credits include Harrison in Terre Haute with
Bridges Stage Company, Middle Scrooge in
A Christmas Carol with ACT Theatre, and
Patrick Rowen in The Kentucky Cycle with
Bainbridge Performing Arts. Robert also
performed in the award-winning web series
Wrecked, from Honey Toad Studios. He is a
company member of Washington Ensemble
Theatre, and holds an MFA from the
University of Washington’s Professional Actor
Training Program.
RORY EADEN†
Ensemble
Rory is a Seattle-based
actor, singer, and
guitar player making
his Book-It debut
with SlaughterhouseFive. He is a proud
recent graduate of Cornish College of the
Arts where he received his BFA in musical
theater. Recent credits include Singin’ in the
Rain with Showtunes Theatre Company, The
Messiah and All Things Irish with The Inverse
Opera, the regional premiere of Bonnie and
Clyde the musical with Cornish College of
the Arts, The Secret Garden and Grand Hotel
at Cornish Playhouse, and a number of vocal
performances and cabarets around town
including the Columbia Tower Club and the
Paramount Theatre. So it goes.
JIM GALL*
Vonnegut / Ensemble
Some of Jim’s favorite
Book-It credits include
The Dog of the South,
If I Die in a Combat
Zone…, Pride and
Prejudice, Moby-Dick,
or The Whale, and Border Songs. His most
recent credits include a national tour of The
Miracle Worker with Montana Rep as Captain
Keller, The Two Gentlemen of Verona with
Seattle Shakespeare Company’s Wooden O
Theatre, and The Bunner Sisters with Athena
Productions at Theatre Off Jackson. Other
favorite roles include Atticus Finch in To Kill
* Member Actors’ Equity Association, the Union
of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the
United States.
† Book-It Acting Intern
a Mockingbird and Mountain McClintock in
Requiem for a Heavyweight. Locally Jim has
worked at The 5th Avenue Theatre, Seattle
Rep, Intiman, Village Theatre, and ACT
Theatre, to name a few. Jim has been named
best actor by the Seattle Times’ Footlight
Awards three times. He is proud to be
married to the talented and beautiful Kelly
Kitchens.
ERIK GRATTON*
Billy Pilgrim
Erik is ecstatic to
perform with Book-It
and to help tell this
story in particular. He
moved to Seattle in
2012 and has worked
at Village Theatre in Mary Poppins and played
the title roles in their productions of The
Foreigner and The Noteworthy Life of Howard
Barnes. Other favorite projects across the
country include the one-actor show Jacob
Marley’s Christmas Carol and playing some
of Shakespeare’s best characters including
Hamlet, Rosalind, and Jacques. He also
played a beaver on “Grimm” and is the cohost of The Lazy Muses Podcast. Up next is
Mr. Burns: a Post-Electric Play at ACT Theatre
this fall.
MARTYN G. KROUSE
Bernard O’Hare /
Ensemble
Martyn is pleased
to make his
Book-It debut in
Slaughterhouse-Five.
A Seattle-based actor
and voiceover artist, Martyn has been seen
in acclaimed productions at several Seattle
theatres including Seattle Shakespeare
Company, Washington Ensemble Theatre,
Sound Theatre Company, and Annex Theatre,
among many others. He has also appeared in
a number of feature films, including A Bit of
Bad Luck, and on the network television show
“Grimm.” He lives in South Seattle with his
partner, Amy-Ellen, his daughters, Mary Rose
and Amelia, and their leopard gecko, Sam.
www.martyngkrouse.com
JOCELYN MAHER
Valencia / Barbara /
Ensemble
Jocelyn is very thankful
to be returning
to Book-It with
She was last seen
on the Book-It stage portraying Dolores
Price in She’s Come Undone, for which she
earned a Gregory Award nomination for
Outstanding Actress. She has worked with
various companies around the Puget Sound
area including Seattle Public Theater, The
Horse In Motion, Macha Monkey, 14/48,
and ACT Theatre. Jocelyn holds a BA in
drama performance from the University of
Washington.
COBEY MANDARINO*
Derby / Ensemble
Cobey will be
originating the role
of Mike in Jenny
Connell Davis’ new
play, Goddess of Mercy,
at the Icicle Creek
Theatre Festival this summer. His latest film,
Refraction, is premiering at this year’s Seattle
International Film Festival. Cobey’s Seattle
theatre credits include Dick Whittington and
His Cat with Seattle Children’s Theatre and
She’s Come Undone and The Financial Lives of
the Poets with Book-It. His New York theatre
credits include productions at Roundabout
Theatre, The Public Theater, Soho Rep, and
American Theatre of Actors. He and his
fellow castmates earned The New York Times’
Ensemble of the Year honors for Roundabout
Theatre’s revival of David Rabe’s Streamers.
His television credits include “Grimm” and
“Law & Order” on NBC and “Six Degrees”
on ABC.
BENJAMIN MCFADDEN
Lazzaro / Ensemble
Ben is absolutely
thrilled to be returning
to the Book-It stage for
his sixth production.
Previous Book-It
credits include The
Financial Lives of the Poets, Owen Meany’s
Christmas Pageant, The Cider House Rules, Parts
I & II, and The Highest Tide. A Northwest
native and a graduate of Cornish College
of the Arts, Ben has worked with Seattle
Shakespeare Company, Sandbox Radio
Live, Seattle Children’s Theatre, Washington
Ensemble Theatre, 14/48 Projects, Balagan
Theatre, ArtsWest, Theater Schmeater,
Greenstage, and many others. On top of
acting, Ben also loves working with young
people as a teaching artist. You can catch
Ben next in Vincent Delaney’s The Art of Bad
Men with MAP Theatre, directed by Kelly
Kitchens.
TODD JEFFERSON
MOORE*
Billy Pilgrim
Todd happily returns
to Book-It where
he appeared in The
Financial Lives of the
Poets and A Tale of Two
Cities. Other recent local appearances include
The Ramayana at ACT Theatre; Crash, The
ELEANOR MOSELEY
Mary O’Hare /
Ensemble
Eleanor is delighted
to be back at Book-It,
last appearing here
in The Art of Racing
in the Rain. Recently
seen in The Long Road with Arouet, in August
she’ll play Eleanor of Aquitaine in The Lion
in Winter at SecondStory Repertory. Other
favorite local credits include Last Summer at
Bluefish Cove, The Torchbearers, The Ladies of
the Corridor, The Familiar, The Way of All Fish,
and Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy
Dean, Jimmy Dean. Recent film work includes
Regulate, You’re So Vain, Children of Light, and
The Dark Horse. An aspiring playwright, her
scripts have been staged at Seattle Fringe Fest
(2014), The Northwest Playwrights’ Alliance,
and will be part of the upcoming Seattle Play
Series.
JOSHUA RYDER
Weary / Ensemble
Josh is honored to be
making his Book-It
mainstage debut with
Last season he toured
The Phantom Tollbooth
with Book-It’s Arts and Education Program.
Josh is a proud graduate of the University of
Washington’s drama department, and since
then has worked at Village Theatre, Theater
Schmeater, Seattle Musical Theatre, and
frequents Studio East’s Storybook Theater.
He’s an avid believer in “Everything was
beautiful, and nothing hurt” and thanks you
for coming.
RILEY SHANAHAN†
Ensemble
Riley is a Sacramento
native, graduate from
Cornish College of the
Arts, and is thrilled
to be working with
Book-It. Most recently,
he appeared (and disappeared) in Seattle
Shakespeare Company’s Tartuffe featuring R.
Hamilton Wright. Up next, you can see Riley
perform at the 2015 Intiman Theatre Festival.
Some favorite school credits include Wait—
Is This Graded?! and A Midsummer Night’s
Dream with Cornish and The Crucible with
University of Oregon. He is also a voice-over
artist, teacher, and film actor. He dedicates his
performance to his late grandpa, Bob “Timer,”
who served as a naval captain on the USS
Mugford in WWII and to all those suffering
from PTSD—may they find peace.
†
JASON SLOWN
Ensemble
Jason is thrilled
to make his
Book-It debut in
He is a recent graduate
of Cornish College
of the Arts with a BFA in acting and he
spent a summer training in St. Petersburg,
Russia where he received a certificate of
achievement in the Stanislavsky system.
School credits include Professor/Jerry/Brian
in Jim Cartwright’s Road, Egeus/Snug in A
Midsummer Night’s Dream, Andrei in Anton
Chekhov’s The Three Sisters, and Robert in
Harold Pinter’s Betrayal. He lives in Seattle.
SYDNEY TUCKER
Montana Wildhack /
Ensemble
This is Sydney’s first
show with Book-It.
Past credits include
Late Night Bites
with Ghost Light
Theatricals, The Adventures of Owl and
Pussycat with theater simple, At Capacity
with soikowski research | performance, and
Quickies 14 with LiveGirls! Theater. You
may have also seen her on stage at 14/48:
The World’s Quickest Theater Festival or
performing around town as her burlesque
alter ego, Daisy O’Day. Sydney is a graduate
of Cornish College of the Arts.
www.sydneytuckerperformer.com
meet the
Edge of Peace, and The Wizard of Oz at Seattle
Children’s Theatre; Crime and Punishment,
Uncle Vanya, and The Grapes of Wrath at
Intiman; Waiting for Godot, King Lear, A
Midsummer Night’s Dream, Electra, and The
Miser at Seattle Shakespeare Company; and
Dancing at Lughnasa, OPUS, and Thom Pain
(based on nothing) at Seattle Rep.
Artistic
staff
JOSH AASENG
Adapter / Director
Josh is an actor and director based in
Seattle. Directing credits include Jesus’ Son,
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Passion, Where
the Mountain Meets the Moon, The Amazing
Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (assoc. dir.)
and The Seagull (asst. dir.). He is a consulting
director on Frank Boyd’s The Holler Sessions,
which premiered at On the Boards in
January, and which will be presented at the
Noorderzon Performing Arts Festival in the
Netherlands this August. Josh is the literary
manager for Book-It Repertory Theatre,
a member of the Lincoln Center Theater
Directors Lab, and a graduate of New York
University’s Tisch School of the Arts.
CATHERINE CORNELL
Scenic Designer
Catherine is happy to work with Book-It
yet again after designing Truth Like the Sun,
Jesus’ Son, and several touring shows in their
Arts and Education Program. Other scenic
design credits include Master Harold… and
the Boys with West of Lenin; Henry IV with
Freehold Theatre; Red Light Winter and 25
Saints with Azeotrope; Undo, Zapoi!, and
Precious Little with Annex Theatre; Into the
Woods with STAGEright; and Cloud Nine with
University of Michigan. Catherine is also a
skilled prop artisan (Adventures of Huckleberry
Finn: Uncensored; The Financial Lives of the
Poets; and She’s Come Undone with Book-It
Repertory Theatre) and scenic artist (Oz: The
Great and Powerful by Walt Disney Pictures).
www.catcornell.com
KENT CUBBAGE
Lighting Designer
This is Kent’s fourth show with Book-It,
following Geek-Out, Jesus’ Son (Gregory
Award-nominated for lighting), and The
Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay.
Recent theatre and dance designs include
Moisture Fest, Sam Boshnack Quintet/Karin
Stevens, and Converge at Velocity; Twelfth
Night with Seattle Shakespeare Company; and
The Explorers Club and Appalachian Christmas
Homecoming with Taproot. He also recently
assistant designed An Evening of One Acts with
ACT Theatre and A Room With a View and
A Chorus Line with The 5th Avenue Theatre.
Other recent endeavors include designing
lights for Emerald City Comic-Con, The
Dismemberment Plan, and Josh Rouse and
showing his large-scale interactive lighting
art at Sea Compression. He is a resident
designer at the Triple Door, the Neptune,
the Crocodile, and Theater Off Jackson, and
teaches and designs at Seattle University.
PETE RUSH
Costume Designer
Pete previously designed costumes for The
Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay,
Truth Like the Sun, The Cider House Rules,
Parts I and II, The Art of Racing in the
Rain, and Night Flight for Book-It, along
with scenery for Sense and Sensibility.
Seattle designs include Hamlet, Electra,
Antony & Cleopatra, A Doll’s House, The
Merchant of Venice, and Cymbeline for
Seattle Shakespeare Company; Rapture,
Blister, Burn, and Little Shop of Horrors
for ACT Theatre; Jasper in Deadland and
RENT for The 5th Avenue Theatre; The
Adding Machine for New Century Theatre
Company; Sprawl, BedSnake, Sextet, and
meet the
Artistic
staff
Tall Skinny Cruel Boys for Washington
Ensemble Theatre; as well as productions
at ArtsWest and Seattle Public Theater.
Regional credits include Hangar Theatre,
George Street Playhouse, and Berkshire
Theatre Festival.
MATT STARRITT
Sound Designer
Matt is a freelance sound designer for both
theatre and dance and a writer from Seattle.
He is currently the sound design associate
at Seattle Repertory Theatre, and is a parttime lecturer for the UW’s School of Drama.
In Seattle he has designed for Book-It, The
Cherdonna and Lou Show, Intiman and the
Intiman Theatre Festival, Seattle Repertory
Theatre, Seattle Shakespeare Company,
Strawberry Theatre Workshop, Waxie
Moon, and was a founding member of the
Washington Ensemble Theatre. Nationally, he
has designed for the Alley Theatre, Berkeley
Repertory Theatre, Cornerstone Theater
Company, Illusion Theatre, and South Coast
Repertory.
LOUISE BUTLER*
Stage Manager
Louise is glad to return to Book-It having
previously worked as assistant stage
manager for The Art of Racing in the Rain
and Border Songs. Louise has been a part
of stage management teams for Village
Theatre (Around the World In 80 Days, Mary
Poppins, In The Heights, The Foreigner, Trails,
Big River), Seattle Shakespeare Company
(King Lear, A Doll’s House, As You Like It,
Coriolanus, The Merry Wives of Windsor,
Cymbeline, Wittenberg; Wooden O’s Two
Gentlemen of Verona, Henry V, and Macbeth;
and the educational touring productions
of Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth), Balagan
Theatre (Carrie, Hedwig and The Angry Inch,
The Full Monty, Closer, Othello), Showtunes
Theatre Company (Miracle on 34th Street),
Theater Schmeater (Twilight Zones), the
Northwest Folklife Festival, Giant Magnet,
and 14/48.
VICTORIA THOMPSON*
Assistant Stage Manager
Victoria is a freelance stage manager. She was
the production stage manager at Book-It for
three and a half seasons where she worked
on several productions including Pride and
Prejudice, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier
& Clay, Jesus’ Son, and She’s Come Undone.
Other credits include The Holler Sessions with
Frank Boyd presented by On the Boards,
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof with ACT Theatre,
Waiting for Godot and Richard II with Seattle
Shakespeare Company, and Tails of Wasps
with New Century Theatre Company.
LINDSAY CARPENTER
Dramaturg / Assistant Director
Lindsay is excited to be working on
Slaughterhouse-Five. Previously with Book-It
she worked as the assistant director for The
Dog of the South and as dramaturg for I Am
of Ireland. She is also their year-long literary
artistic intern. Lindsay’s primary focus is as a
playwright and director, and she has had her
plays produced and workshopped in Seattle
(Theatre Battery, Eclectic Theatre), Boston
(Boston Shotz, Bare Bodkin), and California
(Barnyard Theatre, ACME Theatre). In
April, she received the Kennedy Center
American College Theatre Festival National
Undergraduate Playwriting Award for her
play Borders.
BEN BURRIS
Puppet Designer & Consultant
Ben is excited to be making his designer
debut with Book-It! A Seattle actor and
part of the absurdist comedy group Le
Frenchword, Ben is also a puppeteer with
Thistle Theatre, a local children’s puppet
theatre. You may have seen him recently in
Zapoi! at Annex Theatre, SnowGlobed with
Playing in Progress, and The Boy at the Edge of
Everything at Seattle Children’s Theatre.
www.BenBurris.com
ZANE EXACTLY
Puppet Designer & Consultant
Zane is a visual artist turned theatre artist and
has a BFA in sculpture. He works for Thistle
Theatre as a puppeteer and in repair/tech. He
is also part of the clown/puppet duo Good
Evening, Mr. Homunculus, who have their
own show at Annex Theatre this fall: Mad
Scientist Cabaret. He is a fanatical horror fan,
a ravenous reader, a producer of puppets, and
an admirer of alliteration.
GIN HAMMOND
Dialect Coach
Gin is a Harvard University/Moscow Art
Theatre grad, a certified voice geek, and is
very happy to be collaborating with this
army of talents. She teaches voice, voice-over,
public speaking, and dialect coaching at the
Seattle Voice Institute, and can be heard on
commercials, audiobooks, and a variety of
video games including Undead Labs: State of
Decay, DotA 2, Aion, and Halo 3 ODST.
EMILY PENICK
Choreographer
Emily is the artistic associate at ACT
Theatre. Recent movement credits include
fight choreography for Othello with Seattle
Shakespeare Company, movement direction
for Mary’s Wedding with New Century Theatre
Company, choreography for Don Nordo Del
Midwest with Café Nordo, and choreography/
direction of Distance, a dance and poetry
piece. Recent directing credits include The
Other Woman, Wandering, and the world
premiere of the devised short play Pot of Gold
at The Milwaukee Repertory Theater. Favorite
associate directing credits include Bethany
with ACT Theatre, The Seagull with American
Players Theatre, and War is F**king Awesome
with Vampire Cowboys Theatre Company.
Emily, who was born in California, raised
in Princeton, New Jersey, and who earned
her MFA in directing from Ohio University,
is grateful to call Seattle’s thriving theatre
community home. emilypenick.com
TOM DEWEY
Fight Choreographer
Tom is honored to join the team of
Slaughterhouse-Five. As an actor and fight
choreographer, his work has been seen
around the Puget Sound Region. For BookIt, he has choreographed the fights for Great
Expectations, The Financial Lives of the Poets,
She’s Come Undone, and Little Bee. He also
played the role of Fisher in Border Songs.
Other credits include Brad in Gloucester
Blue at Harlequin Productions, Titus Lartius
in Coriolanus with Seattle Shakespeare
Company, and Petruchio in The Taming of
the Shrew with GreenStage. Tom is an actor
combatant with the Society of American
Fight Directors and a proud graduate of
the theatre arts and history programs at the
University of Puget Sound in Tacoma.
MYRA PLATT
Founding Co-Artistic Director
As co-founder, Myra has helped Book-It
produce over 100 world premiere mainstage
productions and over 30 education touring
productions. Most recently she adapted and
directed Little Bee and directed The Amazing
Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, which won
the 2014 Gregory Award for Outstanding
Production and received a Seattle Times 2014
Footlight Award. She directed Persuasion,
Plainsong, Cry, the Beloved Country, and Sweet
Thursday, and she adapted and directed The
Financial Lives of the Poets, The River Why,
Night Flight, Red Ranger Came Calling, The
House of the Spirits, Giant, I Know Why
the Caged Bird Sings, and Cowboys Are My
Weakness, among others. She adapted The
Art of Racing in the Rain, co-adapted Owen
Meany’s Christmas Pageant with Jane Jones,
and composed music for Prairie Nocturne,
Night Flight (with Joshua Kohl), Red Ranger
Came Calling (with Edd Key), The Awakening,
Ethan Frome, Owen Meany’s Christmas Pageant,
* Member Actors’ Equity Association, the Union
of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the
United States.
† Book-It Acting Intern
production
staff
A Child’s Christmas in Wales, A Telephone
Call, and I Am of Ireland. Her acting credits
include Prairie Nocturne, The Beautiful Things
That Heaven Bears, The Awakening (West
Los Angeles Garland Award), Howards End,
and The Cider House Rules, Parts I and II
(original production). She has performed
at Seattle Repertory Theatre, Intiman, New
City Theatre, and the Mark Taper Forum.
Myra is the recipient, with Jane Jones, of a
Paul G. Allen Family Foundation Anniversary
grant, the 2010 Women of Influence from
Puget Sound Business Journal, and was
named by Seattle Times an Unsung Hero
and Uncommon Genius for their 20-year
contribution to life in the Puget Sound region.
JANE JONES
Founder, Founding Co-Artistic Director
Jane is the founder of Book-It and founding
co-artistic director of Book-It Repertory
Theatre, with Myra Platt. In her 27 years of
staging literature, she has performed, adapted,
and directed works by such literary giants
as Charles Dickens, Eudora Welty, Edith
Wharton, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Pam Houston,
Raymond Carver, Frank O’Connor, Ernest
Hemingway, Colette, Amy Bloom, John
Irving, John Steinbeck, Daphne du Maurier,
and Jane Austen. A veteran actress of 30
years, she has played leading roles in many of
America’s most prominent regional theatres.
Most recently, she played the role of Miss
Havisham in Book-It’s Great Expectations.
Film and TV credits include The Hand That
Rocks the Cradle, Singles, Homeward Bound,
“Twin Peaks,” and Rose Red. She co-directed
with Tom Hulce at Seattle Rep, Peter Parnell’s
adaptation of John Irving’s The Cider House
Rules, Parts I and II, which enjoyed successful
runs here in Seattle, at the Mark Taper Forum
in Los Angeles (Ovation Award, best director)
and in New York (Drama Desk Nomination,
best director). Jane directed Cyrano, Pride
and Prejudice, and Twelfth Night at Portland
Center Stage which won the 2008 Drammy
award for Best Direction and Production. For
Book-It, she has directed The Dog of the
South, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn:
Uncensored, Truth Like the Sun, The House
of Mirth, The Highest Tide, Travels with
Charley, Pride and Prejudice, Howard’s End,
In a Shallow Grave, The Awakening, Owen
Meany’s Christmas Pageant, A Tale of Two
Cities, and The Cider House Rules, Parts I and
II, winner of the 2010 and 2011 Gregory
Awards for Outstanding Production. In 2008
she, Myra Platt, and Book-It were honored to
be named by the Seattle Times among seven
Unsung Heroes and Uncommon Genius
for their 20-year contribution to life in the
Puget Sound region. She is a recipient of the
2009 Women’s University Club of Seattle
Brava Award, a 2010 Women of Influence
award from Puget Sound Business Journal,
and the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation’s
20th Anniversary Founders Grant, and was
a finalist for the American Union for Stage
Directors and Choreographers Foundation’s
2012 Zelda Fichandler Award.
BRYAN BURCH
DANIEL Y. MAYER
ELIZABETH STASIO†
Managing Director
This past November, Daniel joined the staff of
Book-It as its managing director. Most
recently, he spent eight years at the Kirkland
Performance Center. Prior to that, Mayer
worked in a variety of arts nonprofits in the
Seattle area including Photographic Center
Northwest, Spectrum Dance Theater, On
the Boards, Seattle Jewish Film Festival, Sand
Point Arts & Cultural Exchange, The Empty
Space, and the Bellevue Philharmonic. Dan
returned to his hometown of Seattle 16 years
ago from New York where he worked as a
consultant to POZ Publishing and Condé
Nast Publications and as executive director
at Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts for five
years. Earlier, Mayer lived in Washington,
D.C. where he was the executive director of
artsave, an artist rights project founded by
People for the American Way, a civil liberties
organization founded by Norman Lear.
Mayer began his legal career in Chicago as
executive director of Lawyers for the Creative
Arts, a pro bono legal assistance organization
for artists of all genres. During this time
he was also a fellow at the Office of Policy,
Planning and Research at the National
Endowment for the Arts. Mayer is a graduate
of Case Western Reserve University School
of Law and Claremont McKenna College,
and also studied at the London School of
Economics. He has taught at Columbia
College in Chicago, New York University,
and Columbia University School of Law;
in Seattle he has been a lecturer at Cornish
College of the Arts, and the EDGE Artist
Professional Development Program at Artist
Trust. Mayer is the co-chair of the Arts
Advisory Council of 4Culture and on the
board of directors of Khambatta Dance
Company and Coyote Central.
Interim Production Manager
KARLA DAVENPORT
Properties Manager
Stage Management Intern
CHARLOTTE COOK†
Directing Intern
DAN SCHUY
Interim Technical Director
ANDERS BOLANG
Master Carpenter
SUZI TUCKER
Carpenter
CARMEN RODRIGUEZ
Scenic Charge Artist
TREVOR CUSHMAN
Master Electrician / Light Board Operator
JESSICA JONES
Sound Engineer / Sound Board Operator
ANNA BOWEN
Wardrobe Supervisor
Puppets built at
Thistle Theatre
studios by Ben Burris
and Zane Exactly.
affiliations
special thanks to
The 5th Avenue Theatre, ACT Theatre,
ArtsWest Playhouse and Gallery,
Macall Gordon, Kirk Honda, PsyD.,
R90 Lighting, The Red Badge Project,
Roosevelt High School, Seattle Pacific
University, Seattle Scenic Studio / Craig
Wollam, Thistle Theatre, Village Theatre
BOO K-IT’S A RTS & EDUCAT ION PROGRAM
Bring Book-It to your school, library, or community venue...
Actors and arts educators perform original adaptations of children’s stories in the
unique Book-It Style.® A touring package includes performance, workshop, book,
and study guide.
...or make it a family affair!
Bring the kids to a Family Fun Day—a morning of book-themed crafts,
performance, and a drama workshop. Children 12 and under: $10; Adults $12.
For dates, visit book-it.org/family-fun-series.
For more information or to book a tour: 206.428.6266 | BOO K-IT.O RG
Thank You
Merci
Gracias
Tack
Thank you for answering your phone during our Spring Fund
Drive and for making a gift to Book-It during GiveBig!
There’s Still Time...
to help us meet our $55,000 goal by June 30!
Visit book-it.org/support or call 206.428.6202.
Grazie
honoring
book-it contributors
Book-It would like to thank the
following for their generous support!
Literary Legends’ Circle $75,000+
Nobel Prize Circle $1,000+
Nobel Prize Circle, cont.
ArtsFund
N. Elizabeth McCaw & Yahn W. Bernier
Anonymous (6)
Connie Anderson
Emily Anthony & David Maymudes
Salli & Stephen Bauer
Judy Brandon & H. Randall Webb
Patricia Britton
Sally Brunette
Karen Bystrom
Mary Anne Christy & Mark Klebanoff
Amy & Matthew Cockburn
Carol & Bill Collins
Nora & Allan Davis
Julie Edsforth & Jabez Blumenthal
The Ex Anima Fund
Polly Feigl
Elizabeth & Paul Fleming
Mark Hamburg
Liz Harris
Phyllis Hatfield
Signy & James Hayden
Mary Frances & Harold Hill
Judith Jesiolowski & David Thompson
Thomas Jones
Jamie & Jeremy Joseph
Debbie Killinger
Jacqueline Kiser
Lea Knight
Joyce Latino & John O’Connell
Melissa & Don Manning
Holly & Bill Marklyn
Peter Maunsell
Ellen Maxson
Anne McDuffie & Tim Wood
Merck Foundation
Lisa Merrill
Susan & Furman Moseley
Joni Ostergaard & Will Patton
Myra Platt & Dave Ellis
Kathy & Brad Renner
Paula & Stephen Reynolds
Kathryn & Stephen Robinson
Nathan Rodriguez
Christine Sanders
Martha & Donald Sands
John Schaffer
The Seattle Foundation
Charyl & Earl Sedlik
Gail & John Sehlhorst
Martha Sidlo
Virginia Sly
Mary Snapp
Spark Charitable Foundation
Sara Thompson & Richard Gelinas
Kathy & Jim Tune
Ruth & Jerry Verhoff
Judith Whetzel
Williams Miller Family Foundation
Patricia Wilson
Margaret Winsor & Jay Hereford
Christina Wright & Luther Black
Wyman Youth Trust
Literary CHampions’ Circle $25,000+
4Culture
Boeing Company
Sonya & Tom Campion
Matthew Clapp
The Norcliffe Foundation
Mary Pigott
Ann Ramsay-Jenkins
Shirley & David Urdal
Kris & Mike Villiott
producers’ circle $10,000+
City of Seattle Office of Arts
& Cultural Affairs
Stuart Frank & Marty Hoiness
Lucy Helm
Ellen & John Hill
Stellman Keehnel
Margaret Kineke & Dennis West
Nordstrom
Lynne & Nick Reynolds
The Shubert Foundation, Inc.
Partners’ circle $5,000+
Arthur N. Rupe Foundation
Joann Byrd
Gretl Galgon
Mary Metastasio
Michell & Larry Pihl
Anne Repass
Drella & Garth Stein
Leadership circle $2,500+
Monica Alquist
Karen Brandvick-Baker & Ross Baker
Catherine Clark & Marc Jacques
Carolyn & George Cox
D.A. Davidson & Co.
Emily Davis
Caroline Feiss & Gordy Davidson
Ellen & Stephen Lutz
Microsoft Matching Gifts Program
Cheryl & Tom Oliver
Deborah Parsons
Christiane Pein & Steven Bull
Schwab Charitable Fund
Shirley Roberson
Steve Schwartzman & Daniel Karches
Colleen & Brad Stangeland
Deborah Swets
U.S. Bank
April Williamson
Pulitzer Prize Circle $500+
Jennifer & Russ Banham
Donna & Anthony Barnett
Lenore & Dick Bensinger
Elizabeth Braun
Cathy & Michael Casteel
Mary Chambers
Dorothy & Sean Corry
Pamela Cowan & Steve Miller
Deborah Cowley & Mark Dexter
Dottie Delaney
Rebecca Dietz & Michael Drumheller
Lauren Dudley
Sara Elward
Jane & Stanley Fields
Jean Gorecki
Diane Grover
Laura & Erik Hanson
Barbara & Randy Hieronymus
Mary Horvitz
Heather Howard
Hughes Media Law Group
Melissa Joyce
Clare Kapitan & Keith Schreiber
Karen Koon
Emily Krebill
Marsha Kremen & Jilly Eddy
Eleni Ledesma & Eric Rose
Steve Loeb
Darcy & Lee MacLaren
Richard Monroe
Whitney & Jerry Neufeld-Kaiser
Andrea Niculescu
Glenna Olson & Conrad Wouters
Cecilia Paul & Harry Reinert
Sandra Perala & John Platt
Gloria Pfeif
Judy Pigott
Scott Pinckney
Roberta Reaber & Leo Butzel
Paula Riggert
Jo Ann & Jim Roberts
Rebecca Roe & T. A. Greenleaf
Polly Schlitz
Pamela & Nate Searle
Jo & Michael Shapiro
honoring
book-it contributors
Book-It would like to thank the
following for their generous support!
Pulitzer Prize Circle, cont.
National Book Award Circle, cont.
Pen/Faulkner Award Circle, cont.
Marcia & Peter Sill
B. Richal Smith
LiAnn Sundquist
Cassandra Tate & Glenn Drosendahl
Susan Tate
Jennifer Lee Taylor
Janet Vail
Gregory Wetzel
Leora & Robert Wheeler
Jean & David White
Paula & Bill Whitham
Merrily Wyman
Shari Zehm & Kerry Thompson
Mary Zyskowski
Sarah Ryan & Douglas Larson • Kim &
Kenneth Schiewetz • Cindi Schoettler •
Marilyn Sloan • Jenness & John Starks •
Christine Stepherson • Maria Strickland •
Paul Stucki • Cassandra & Eric Taylor • Alan
Tesler • Jennifer Teunon & Adam Smith •
Charlotte Tiencken & Bill West • Marcia
Utela • Ruth Valine & Ed McNerney • Karen
Van Genderen • Matthew Villiott • Pat Walker
• Sandra Waugh • Suzanne Weaver • Kristi
& Tom Weir • Eddie & Marty Westerman
• Hope & Ken Wiljanen • Rob Williamson
• Bo Willsey • Mary Wilson & Barry Boone
Stephanie Hilbert • Sandy Hill • Mary
Hinderliter • Beth Hogg • Kate Hokanson •
Julie Howe & Dennis Shaw • Cynthia Huffman
• Melissa Huther • IBM Matching Grants
Program • Jill & James Jago • Liz Ann Jones •
Robert Jones • Susan Jones • Ted Jones • Kris
Jorgensen • Gil Joynt • Gay Jungemann •
Joan Kalhorn • David Kasik • Malia & Chang
Kawaguchi • Shannon Kelly • William Kennedy
• Katherine King • Arleen Klasky • Jean & Harris
Klein • Shannon Knipp • Nancie Kosnoff •
Noelle Kowalick • Alan Kristal • Fay Krokower
• Gerald Kroon • Sandy Kubishta • Erika Larson
• Molly Lawless • Nancy Lawton & Steve Fury •
Judd Lees • Meredith Lehr & William Severson
• Lois Levy • Sylvia Levy • Sandy Lew-Hailer •
Madalene Lickey • Erika Lim • Cynthia Livak
& Peter Davenport • Nancy Lomneth & Mark
Boyd • Carol Lumb • Heather Macmaster •
Scott Maddock • Anthony Martello • Daniel Y.
Mayer • Susan McCloskey • Kathy McCluskey •
Deirdre & Jay McCrary • Patricia H. McCreary
• Jim McDermott • Morna McEachern • Anna
& Paul McKee • Jill & Joe McKinstry • Meg
McLynn • Jeanne Metzger • Elaine Mew • Tami
Micheletti • Iryna & Irwin Michelman • Gary
Miller • Shyla Miller • Patricia Mines • Marion
& George Mohler • Cornelia, Terry, & Tallis
Moore • Margaret Morrow • Phill Mroz • Milly
& Ralph Mullarky • Kerry Mulvaney • Betty
Ngan & Tom Mailhot • Judy Niver • Pam &
Scott Nolte • Laura O’Hara • Chris Ohlweiler •
Nancy & Stephen Olsen • Timothy O’Sullivan
• Sam Pailca • Susan Palmer • Michael Patten •
Donna Peha • John Pehrson • Carol & Ed Perrin
• Barbara Peterson • Robert Pillitteri • Anne
Pipkin • Felicia Porter • Susan Porterfield • Joan
& William Potter • Gordon Prouty • Andrea
Ptak • Pamela Queen & Richard Murphy •
Linda Quirk • Laurie Radheshwar • Marion
Reed • Roberta & Brian Reed • Carolyn Rees •
Marcia Repaci • Janey L. Repensek • Jeannette
Reynolds • Karen & Eric Richter • Carla
Rickerson • Rebecca Ripley • Roberta Roberts
• Amy Robertson • Robert Romeo • Kate
Roosevelt • Fernne & Roger Rosenblatt • Debra
Rourke • Jennifer Russell • Rebecca Sadinsky •
Donna Sand • Betty Sanders • Donna, Carol, &
Robert Saunders • Lisa Schafer • Kinza & Philip
Schuyler • Greg Scully • Lavonne & Josh Searle •
Audrey & John Sheffield • David Shellenbarger
• Tom Sherrard • Marilyn Sherron • Mark Siano
• Eileen Simmons & Roger Berger • Catharine
Simon • George Smith • Warren Smith • Diane
Snell • John Spady • Barbara Spear • Dana
Standish & Noah Seixas • Diane Stark • L.K.
Stephenson • Jane Stevens • Janice & Pat Strand
• Streamline Consulting, LLC • Sheila Striegl •
Amy Sweigert • Gail Tanaka • Anne Terry •
Catherine Thayer • Sarah Thomas & Tom Sykes
National Book Award Circle $250+
Anonymous (8) • Douglas Adams • Sheena
Aebig & Eric Taylor • Mito Alfieri &
Norman Cheuk • Christina Amante • Kim
Anderson • Susan Bennett • Inez Noble
Black • Bob Blazek • Betty Bostrom • Mary
Anne Braund & Steve Pellegrin • Margaret
Bullitt • Kristina Huus Campbell • Linda
& Peter Capell • Kate Carruthers • Sylvia &
Craig Chambers • Joyce Chase • Carl Chew •
Sandra & Paul Dehmer • Carol & Kelly Dole
• Gaylee & Jim Duncan • Lori Eickelberg &
Arni Litt • Laura Einstein • Jane Faulkner •
Liz Fitzhugh & Jim Feldman • Jamie & Steve
Froebe • Norman Garner • Claire Gebben •
Elizabeth Gilchrist • Terry Graham • Carla
Granat & Stephen Smith • Patricia Graves
& David Nash • Janet & Corina Hardin •
Nancy & Bruce Herbert • Lloyd Herman
& Richard Wilson • Chris Higashi • Tom
Hoffmann • Lisa & William Holderman
• Carolyn Holtzen • Elizabeth Hubbard
• Joyce & John Jackson • Pam Kendrick •
Janine King • Mary Klubben • The Kowal
Family • Richard LeBlanc • Larry Lewin
• Todd London • Craig Lorch • Stephen
Lovell • Sheila Lukehart • Lynn Manley &
Alexander Lindsey • Elizabeth Mathewson
• Elaine Mathies • Ann McCurdy & Frank
Lawler • Christine & Sandy McDade •
Marion McGowan • Marcie & John McHale
• Jennifer Mcintyre • Susan Mecklenburg
• Donna Miller-Parker • Christine Mosere
• Linda & Kevin O’Morrison • Lauren
Packman • Judd Parkin • Meta Pasternak •
Corliss Perdaems • Sherry Perrault • Olivia
Pi-Sunyer • Sharon Prosser • Barbara &
Daniel Radin • Doris & Charles Ray •
Michelle Rebert • Nancy Reichley • Beth
Rollinger • Debby & Dave Rutherford
Pen/Faulkner Award Circle $100+
Anonymous (7) • Carole Aaron • Lynne &
Shawn Aebi • Heather Allison • Kimberly
Allison • Gail Anderson • Marjorie Anderson •
Virginia Anderson • Joel Aslanian • Cinnimin
Avena • Sonia & Kendall Baker • Diane Barbour
& Jim Rulfs • Jo Ann Bardeen • Rebecca Barnett
& Roger Tucker • Mary & Doug Bayley • Ellen
Bezona & Shawn Baz • Deb Bigelow • Lindsay
& Tony Blackner • Rebecca Brewer • Vibeke
Brinck • Becky Brooks & Jeff Youngstrom •
Don Brown • Jonathan Buchter • Rachel &
David Bukey • Alice Burgess • Carol Butterfield
• Barbara Buxbaum • Kathleen Caldwell •
Zimmie Caner • Casey Family Programs •
Mary Casey-Goldstein • Kristine & Gerry
Champagne • Marilyn & David Chelimer •
Lisa Clark • Jack Clay • Catherine Clemens •
Harriett Cody & Harvey Sadis • Frank Cohee
• Susan Connors & Eric Helland • Debra
Covert-Bowlds • Kay & Garry Crane • Janice
Cummings O’Mahony • Amy Curtis • Kate
Curtis • Claudette Davison • Robin Dearling
& Gary Ackerman • Chas DeBolt • Ronald
DeChene & Robert Hovden • Richard Detrano
• Lynn Dissinger • Marcia Donovan • Marcia
Douglas • Susan Dyer • Lorna Dykes • Betty
Eberharter • Jeremy Eknoian • Nancy Ellingham
• Judith Endejan • Marilyn Endriss • Joyce
Erickson • Judith Erickson • Constance Euerle
• Janice & Chandler Felt • Deborah Ferguson •
Laura Fischetti • Mary Ellen Flanagan • Sarah
Fleming • Carolyn Fletcher • Gregory Flood •
Jennifer Fontaine • K Denise & James Fortier •
Toni Freeman • Susan Fuchs • Lori Fujimoto &
Jim Simon • Kai Fujita • Carol Furry & Ronald
Kessler • R. Brooks Gekler • Susan George •
Mitzi Gligorea • Ann Glusker • Vicki & Gerrie
Goddard • Suzanne Goren • Anke Gray • Laurie
Greig • Laurie Griffith • Geneva, Kirk, & Carla
Griswold • Jim Hamerlinck • Faith Hanna •
W. Benson Harer • Jill Hashimoto • Elizabeth
Hatch • Elizabeth Heath • Anne Helmholz •
Rebecca Herzfeld & Gordon Crawford •
Rita Hibbard & Roger Neale • Diana Hice
Pen/Faulkner Award Circle, cont.
O. Henry Award Circle, cont.
Cappy Thompson • Molly Thompson
& Joe Casalini • Richard Thorvilson •
Jennifer Tice • Deborah Torgerson • Grace Urdal
• John Urdal • Eugene Usui • Elizabeth Valentine
• Roxann Van Wyk • Pieter Vandermeulen •
George Von Fuchs • Jorie Wackerman • Colin
Wagoner • Bennet Wang • Todd Warren • Susan
Warwick • Jerry Watt • Jennifer Weis • Julie
Weisbach • Laurie Wenzel • Terry Westerkamp
• Dan Whalen • Jennifer Whitaker • Sara White
• Chelene Whiteaker • Margaret Whittemore •
Jane Wiegenstein • Melinda Williams • Carol &
Bryan Willison • John Wilson • Elana Winsberg
• Michael Winters • Jodie Wohl & Richard
Hert • Irene Yamamoto • Kim R. York • Daniel
& Sherri Youmans • Diane Zahn & Mark
McDermott • Julie Ziegler • Lucy Zuccotti
David Krakora • Art & Barb Lachman •
Danielle Lavilla & Michael Huber • Jo Anne
Laz • Teri Lazzara • Sandia Lell • Shawn
LeValley • Bonnie Lewman • Robert Lowe •
Patricia Lynch • Kiran Mascarenhas • Cecilia
Matta • Eile McClellan • Marcia McGovern •
Eileen McLanahan • Joan Merrill • Ellen Mills
• Kathleen Moore • Mark Morgan • William
Mowat • Susan Mozer • Deborah & Michael
Murphy • Donna Murphy • Martha Noerr &
Jeff Keane • Ellen Nottingham • Darla O’Brian
• Pat O’Connor • Amy Olsson • Frank Pariso •
Julia Paulsen • Annie Pearson & Jacyn Stewart
• Kathryn Pearson • Louise Perlman • Suzanne
Perry • Brad Peterson • Susan Petitpas • Carolita
Phillips • Jean Picha-Parker • Michelle Plants •
Wilson Platt • Candace Plog • Paula Podemski
• Kim Port • Jeremy Reinholt • Mildred
Renfrow • Caroline Rhoads • Ginger Rich •
Virginia & Thomas Riedinger • Ellen Roth •
Michele Ruess • David Rush • Joshua Ryder •
Patricia Rytkonen & William Karn • Deanna
& Bo Saxbe • Jamie Scatena • Tami Schendel
• Julie Schoenfeld • Heidi Schor • Frank
Schumann • Mark Seklemian • Carol Shafer •
Sally Sheck • Linda Snider • Lynn Sorensen •
Dale Stammen • Julie Stohlman • Constance
Swank • Sally & Greg Thomas • Amber
Walker • Jonna Ward • Doug Weese • Alberta
Weinberg • Kayla Weiner • Elizabeth Weir •
Dorothy Wendler • Cristina Wenzl • Christine
Wick • Christopher Wiggins • Kim Winward
• Kairu Yao • Kathy Young • Sam Zeiler
O. Henry Award Circle $50+
Anonymous (8) • Rebecca Adler • Judith
Alexander • Gail Allen • Marilee Amendola •
Amgen Foundation • Susan & John Anderson
• Diana Armstrong • Roger & Anne Baker •
Anne Banks • Brook Becker • Brenda Bennett
• Chris Bennion • Beth & Benjamin Berman •
Carolyn & Daniel Bernhard • Colleen Bernier
• Michael Betts & Klint Keys • John Bigelow
• Cleo Bloomquist • Cheryl Bohn • John
Bortnem • Crai Bower • Eloise Boyle • Erin
Branigan & Jim Horrigan • Becky Brauer •
Bridge Partners LLC • Carolyn Burger • Diana
& Chuck Carey • Cory Carlson • Jessica Case
• Phyllis Caswell • Tracy Chellis • Deborah
Christensen • Greta Climer • Richard O. Coar
• Mary & Robert Cooper • Teresa Cooper •
Kevin Corrigan • Susan Corzatte • Sharon Cox
• Maureen Crawford • Caroline Cumming •
Margaret Curtin • Terence DeHart • Hady
DeJong • Nancy Dirksen • Ellen Downey •
Yasue Drabble • Carol & Greg Druse • Andi
Duncan • Roger Edmonson • Bernice EgeZavala • Karen Elledge • Brent Enarson •
Virginia Enstad • Fidelity Charitible Gift Fund
• Laura Fine-Morrison • Judi Finney • Susan
Ford • David Gassner • Nina Gerbic • Siobhan
Ginnane • Jake Greenberg • Scott Guettinger
• Lynn Hartung • Shuko Hashimoto • Trining
Hawkins • Linda Heinen • Kate Hemer •
Catherine & Tim Hennings • Karyn Henry
• Ray Hoffman • Meg Horrigan & Terry
Foster • Carol Horton • Susan Howell • Mary
Howland & Michael Shope • Rebecca Hsia
• Harriet Huber • Beatrice Hull • Robert
Hunter • Heather Hutchinson • Alison Inkley
• Wendy Jackson • Avis Jobrack • Michael
Johnson • Patricia Karsky • Trina Kauf-Jones •
Anne Kiemle & Kael Sherrard • Vicki & James
King • James Knapp • Shirley Knight • Larry
Knopp • Art Kobayashi • Mary Catherine Kolb
Gifts in Honor & memory
Anonymous in memory of Willis Strange
The Book-It Babes
in memory of Ivan Doig
D.A. Davidson & Co.
on behalf of Margaret Kineke
John Hirschel in honor of
Tom Oliver’s birthday
Lisa Holderman in honor of
Margaret Kineke
Book-It’s
Wish List
Can you donate any of the
following to Book-It?
Please contact Sally Brunette,
Director of Development for
more information.
[email protected]
Thank you!
1 laptop (PC) for box office
Four years old or newer.
2 computer monitors with DVI ports
1 MacBook (Pro or Air) or Mac Mini
Four years old or newer.
2 tablets (PC or Apple)
Two years old or newer.
2 handheld barcode scanners
1 portable CD player
1 digital camera
Two years old or newer.
1 inkjet desktop printer
1 clothing rack
1 metal shelving unit (adjustable)
2 large suitcases (rolling)
Iryna and Irwin Michelman in memory of their
daughter Elizabeth Ann Michelman
Meta Pasternak in honor of
Joann Byrd
John Pehrson in memory of
his wife Beverly Welti
Polly Schlitz, Blake Wilson, and Patricia Wilson
in honor of Myra Platt’s birthday
Deborah Swets in memory of Jack Slater
The donor list reflects gifts received
April 1, 2014 – May 15, 2015.
Book-It makes every attempt to be accurate with
our acknowledgements. Please email Development
Associate Leslie Witkamp at [email protected] with
any changes.
OUR MISSION IS TO TRANSFORM GREAT LITERATURE INTO GREAT THEATRE THROUGH SIMPLE AND SENSITIVE PRODUCTION AND TO INSPIRE OUR AUDIENCES TO READ.
book-it staff
Jane Jones
Myra Platt
Founder & Founding
Co-Artistic Director
Daniel Y. Mayer
Founding Co-Artistic Director
artistic
marketing &
communications
Josh Aaseng
Managing Director
administrative
Patricia Britton
Bill Whitham
Bookkeeper
Anthea Carns
Shannon Loys
production
Lindsay Carpenter
Dana Masters
Literary Manager
Director of Marketing
& Communications
Gavin Reub
Casting Associate
Publications & Media Manager
Literary & Artistic Intern
Interim Technical Director
Patron Services
education
Anders Bolang
Dana Masters
Scene Shop Manager
House Manager
Annie DiMartino
Director of Education
Jocelyne Fowler
Tom Dewey
Costume Shop Manager
Box Office Manager
Katie McKellar
Tour Manager
Elizabeth Stasio
Ana Duenas
Stage Management Intern
Box Office Associate
Amelia Reynolds
Education Intern
Ali Rose Schultz
A.J. Heinen
Costume Shop Intern
Katie McKellar
development
services
Sally Brunette
Adam Smith Photography
Alan Alabastro Photography
Chris Bennion Photography
John Ulman Photography
The Makeup Session
Robert Thornburgh, Custodian
Tom Wahl, IT Support
Amelia Reynolds
Director of Development
Leslie Witkamp
Sascha Streckel
Development Associate
Anna Strickland
Leslie Witkamp
Development Intern
Interim Production Manager
Dan Schuy
Publications Intern
Literary & Artistic Intern
Bryan Burch
Stuart Frank, President
Community Leader
Thomas Oliver, Vice-President
Educator
Kristine Villiott, Treasurer
CPA, Minar and Northey LLP
Shirley Roberson, Secretary
Senior Associate, Hughes Media Law Group
Monica Alquist
Director of Events & Special Projects,
Puget Sound Business Journal
Ross Baker
Public Policy Director,
Virginia Mason Medical Center
Joann Byrd
Journalist & Editor, Retired
Jane Jones
Founder & Founding Co-Artistic Director,
Book-It
Margaret Kineke
Senior V.P., D.A. Davidson & Co.
Mary Metastasio
contact us
Senior Portfolio Manager, Safeco, Retired
Will Najar
Board Intern
Technical Account Manager, Microsoft
BOOK-IT REPERTORY THEATRE
2010 Mayor’s Arts Award-winner, recipient of the 2012 Governor’s Arts Award and the 2014 Inaugural Sherry
Prowda Literary Champion Award, Book-It Repertory Theatre began 27 years ago as an artists’ collective,
adapting short stories for performance and touring them throughout the Northwest. The company incorporated
as a non-profit in 1990. Today, with over 100 world-premiere adaptations of literature to its credit—many of
which have garnered rave reviews and gone on to subsequent productions all over the country—Book-It is widely
respected for the consistent artistic excellence of its work.
center theatre + box office
admin offices
box office contact
206.216.0833 | [email protected]
admin contact
206.216.0877 | [email protected]
305 Harrison Street, Seattle, WA 98109
Board of
Directors
Myra Platt
Founding Co-Artistic Director, Book-It
David Quicksall
Independent Theatre Artist & Teacher
Anne Repass
Community Leader
158 Thomas Street, Seattle, WA 98109
Stephen Robinson
Writer
Steven Schwartzman
Attorney, U.S. Postal Service,
Western Area Law Department
book-it.org
Deborah Swets
FACEBOOK
TWITTER
INSTAGRAM
VINE
V.P. for Membership,
Washington State Hospital Association
Elizabeth J. Warman
/bookitrep
@book_it
bookitrep
Book-It
Director Global Corporate Citzenship,
NW Region, The Boeing Company
SPIRITED DISCUSSION
America’s Vice-filled Past Comes to
MOHAI
“Did you know that a woman wasn’t allowed to
sit alone at a bar in Washington State until 1967?”
I’m speaking with Lorraine McConaghy, public
historian for the Museum of History & Industry,
and we’re discussing Washington’s restrictive
Blue Laws, overturned in 1966. McConaghy has
been doing exhaustive research on them as she
creates 21st Century Speakeasy, a locally focused
exhibit running alongside the nationally touring
American Spirits: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition,
which opened at MOHAI on April 2. (Speakeasy
opens in June.)
Together, the two exhibits will tell a Seattle
story within a national context, shedding light
on Prohibition as well as the changing attitudes
toward vice over time.
American Spirits spans the early-1800s
temperance movement through the 1920s to
the repeal of Prohibition in 1933. “In so many
ways it’s a Seattle story,” says MOHAI executive
director Leonard Garfield. “There’s quite a
bit of history in our community—because of
our proximity to Canada for one thing and
our location on the water, but also because
Washington has been a place, historically,
that was always one step ahead of the country
in terms of reform and changes in laws.”
Washington State passed an initiative banning
alcohol four years before the federal law took
effect in 1920.
American Spirits, created by the National
Constitution Center in Philadelphia, is making its
West Coast debut at MOHAI, which contributed
an interactive exhibit in which you pilot a police
boat to chase rumrunners through Puget Sound.
Interactive, elements like this—you can also
learn to dance the Charleston—join more than
100 rare artifacts, like ratification copies of the
18th and 21st Amendments and equipment used
for making moonshine.
Supplemental programming connects to
Seattle’s booming alcohol scene today, pairing
craft booze, beer, wine and cider with historical
context. 21st Century Speakeasy focuses on three
subjects in Washington State history—alcohol,
gambling and marijuana—from Washington
Territory days through 2012 when Washington
voters passed initiatives to legalize marijuana
and privatize the sale of alcohol.
Both exhibits explore the unintended
consequences of Prohibition, good and bad.
“There were strands in the Prohibition movement
that were instead looking for ways to penalize
or disadvantage the immigrant community,
who tended to come from countries where
alcohol was a social norm,” Garfield says. On
the good side, Prohibition leveraged significant
social progress. When it took effect, Garfield
says, ordinary people were suddenly outlaws,
a reality that made them much more receptive
to counterculture—ultimately fueling explosive
change in the 1920s. Says Garfield, “We ended
Prohibition with a society that was much more
liberal, had much greater roles for women, and
new forms of music and art.” GEMMA WILSON
M OV E
R E STO RE
REFLECT
B RE AT H E
YO G A
YOGA
CENTERS
NOMINATIONS OPEN FOR THE
MAYOR’S ARTS AWARDS!
Nominations open
May 1 – 31 at
seattle.gov/arts
Save the Date for the
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ENCORE ARTS NEWS
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ENCORE ARTS NEWS
Inside Café Nordo’s brand-new
kitchen facility beneath their
brand-new theatre in Pioneer
Square, actors Ryan Higgins
(as Don Nordo), Maximillian Davis
(Sancho) and Opal Peachey
(Food Writer) pour on the charm.
Don Nordo del Midwest will be
the first production in the space,
dubbed the Culinarium.
PHOTO BY BRUCE CLAYTON TOM
10 ENCORE STAGES
from city arts magazine
the
Legend
of
Café Nordo
Seattle’s
experimental dinner
theatre settles in but
doesn’t settle down.
by JONATHAN ZWICKEL
T
HE SIXTH ACT OF DON NORDO DEL MIDWEST,
the new production by experimental dinner theatre company Café
Nordo, brings up a quintessentially Nordoesque conundrum: What
the heck is this stuff we’re drinking?
According to the storyline, Don Nordo and his sidekick Sancho
are treated to homemade hooch “micro-distilled” in a junkyard carburetor by
an insane-genius chef. At this point in the show, a cadre of jocular hobos will
enter the theatre/dining room, bottles in hand, circulating among the tables
where the audience/diners are seated. Into their awaiting wine glasses they’ll
pour what appears to be the same bootlegged liquor as our heroes are drinking.
ENCORE ARTS NEWS
not coincidentally a riff on Don Quixote. The
menu: “Midwestern tapas.”
More significantly, Don Nordo del Midwest
is the first production to be staged in Café
Nordo’s new, permanent location. Dubbed
the Culinarium, the 4,000-square-foot space
occupies part of the former Elliott Bay Books
in Pioneer Square. It’s the first theatre to
open in the neighborhood since the Pioneer
Square Theater closed in 1989 and it sets a
precedent for Café Nordo.
For its first five years, the company was
itinerant, staging productions at different
spaces around the city—the warehouse of
Theo Chocolate, West of Lenin, Theatre Off
Jackson. None of these places had a full-time
kitchen. With each new show, Café Nordo
attempted a molecular-gastronomic Teatro
ZinZanni with a pop-up budget. All along, a
permanent space was calling.
As we sit in the high-ceilinged, brickwalled Culinarium, occasionally flinching to
the cacophony of heavy construction in the
unfinished space, Brindley and Podgorski
tell me how they found their home. Two
years ago, looking for a location for their
new production, the pair met with Karen
True, director of business development
In Nordo’s
immersive
brand of
dinner
theatre,
food and
drink isn’t
simply for
eating and
drinking.
It’s for
character.
for the Alliance for Pioneer Square. She
showed them several spaces around the
neighborhood; they eventually settled on a
private dining space run by the owners of
Delicatus. There they put on a show called
“Smoked!” to tremendous response.
“We were doing this spaghetti western,
and the space has a saloon vibe,” Brindley
says. “First time we had an on-site kitchen.
It was perfect. So we did the show there and
the response from the neighborhood was
amazing.”
“We ran at like 99 percent capacity,”
Podgorski says.
“It was a lot of neighborhood people,”
are so excited for art and interesting things
to come down here. We fell in love with the
neighborhood.”
A few months later, Nordo took over
Washington Hall for a show that featured
a poultry course prepped at a commissary
kitchen on the other side of I-5, hauled to the
Hall and served out of a coffin. True attended
and brought with her Ilze Jones, owner of the
Elliott Bay Books building.
“She came to the show, ate the chicken
that crossed the road, had lots of wine,”
Brindley says. “We went up to her afterwards
Café Nordo
company regular
Carter Rodriquez
was part of Let
the Dinner Games
Begin at 2013’s
Lo-Fi Festival at
Smoke Farm.
BRUCE CLAYTON TOM
This fiction throws off the audience from
an important fact. “It’s actually really good
sherry,” says playwright Terry Podgorski.
“Nice amontillado from Spain.”
Overseeing a full-cast rehearsal in the
Bullitt Cabaret below ACT theatre one
Tuesday night in early February, Podgorski
and director Erin Brindley agree to defer the
question of how to present the sherry. Don
Nordo del Midwest is more than a month from
opening and, as experience has taught them,
this detail will make its solution known in
time. Right now they’re more focused on
another scene, one that culminates in a brawl
straight out of The Three Stooges. With nine
actors playing attendees of the Southwest
Convention of Servers, punches fly, nipples
are twisted, serving trays are thrown and
Don Nordo suffers a giant kick in the nuts.
The scene—the fourth out of 20—requires
meticulous fight choreography; tonight they
run through at half-speed for more than an
hour.
Café Nordo exists in an uncanny valley of
gastronomic disbelief. Not just in Don Nordo
del Midwest, which is currently scheduled
to open this spring, but in each of the
productions they’ve put on over the last five
years. In Nordo’s immersive brand of dinner
theatre, food and drink isn’t simply for eating
and drinking. It’s for character. Sherry as
moonshine. Squid-ink custard as primordial
ooze. Mashed potatoes and gravy as donut
and coffee. The dinner plate as a tiny stage.
You eat the performance, multiple courses
per show.
Of course you also watch the performance,
typically by a cast of a dozen or so veterans
of Seattle’s theatre, comedy and dance
scenes. Podgorski’s Nordo plays tend toward
absurdist musical edutainment, setting
up stories that involve the history, legend
and social context around a particular
type of food or food trend. The post-WWII
development of pre-packaged foods, for
instance, or the history of the restaurant,
or the dangers—and benefits—of factory
farming. And there’s live music, singing and
dancing—provided by your servers.
Don Nordo del Midwest details Chef Nordo
Lefesczki’s origin story, which mirrors Café
Nordo’s real-life mission: Both are intent
on exploring the intersection of food and
art. The company’s namesake is a mystery,
possibly a fabrication, based on airline-pilot
jargon for a plane flying with no radio. As
such, Nordo is a cypher for the complicated
nature of Café Nordo itself: He’s a mad
gourmet championing real food prepared
imaginatively, presented in a fictional
context with factual basis.
More than any other Café Nordo play, this
one is self-reflective, self-mythologizing. It is
ENCORE ARTS NEWS
and she was like, ‘You belong in my building.
Let’s start talking.’”
Brindley and Podgorski had met years
earlier working with the now-defunct Circus
Contraption, one of Seattle’s most well-loved
circus-arts groups, where Podgorski was
technical director and Brindley managing
director. Contraption’s final shows took
place at the Theo Warehouse, so the space
transitioned easily to accommodate their first
foray as Café Nordo. The pair collaborated
on the general storyline—it was called
The Modern American Chicken—and then
Podgorski wrote the script and Brindley
prepared the menu. One show led to another:
Sauced traced the history of the cocktail;
Bounty! was an evolutionary ode to seafood
that began with the earth cooling and oceans
forming. Nordo piqued media interest and
earned a loyal audience. After a few years,
they believed they could sustain a year-round
lease. They were working as a nonprofit with
a minimal budget, a small board of directors
and a loyal team of actors and volunteers.
Then Jones came knocking with the keys to
the building.
“We’d been growing our board that whole
time, collecting people that we knew would
donate when the time came,” Podgorski says.
(He himself was growing his skills in technical
directing with Degenerate Art Ensemble and
Washington Ensemble Theatre.) Several new
board members, including current president
John Tynes, work at Microsoft, which matches
donations made by employees to nonprofits.
Through individual donations, matching
funds and ticket-subscription sales, Nordo
has collectively raised almost $290,000 in
less than a year. That sum covers technical
additions to the space—light grid, sound gear,
electrical and plumbing improvements. It pays
for Podgorski and Brindley to go full-time so
they don’t have to work other jobs. And, along
with a significant investment from Jones, it
pays for the brand-new kitchen downstairs.
What will open in April is a fully equipped
theatre space with an adjoining professional
kitchen—walk-in fridge, commercial-grade
gas stove, ovens, prep stations, and room for a
half-dozen cooks and servers. Two-thousandsquare-feet upstairs, 2,000-square feet
downstairs.
During the eight months out of the year
when Nordo isn’t running one of their own
productions in the Culinarium, Brindley
and Podgorski will open it to what they’re
calling “interstitial programming.” They
imagine hosting podcast recordings with
celebrity chefs, curated food-and-movie
nights, neighborhood cooking classes and
salon-style conversations pairing luminaries
in art, politics or science with accomplished
bartenders.
“Think TED Talks with alcohol,” Podgorski
says.
“We’ve never had the sandbox that we
always wanted to play in,” Brindley says.
As Nordo’s menu designer and head cook,
Brindley is looking forward to cooking less
and designing more. “But I’m sure I’ll still be
in the kitchen, especially now that it’s mine.”
At first I’m surprised to learn that Brindley
is almost entirely self-taught. She says she
worked in her mom’s bakery growing up and
learned by osmosis while living in New York
with a boyfriend who cooked at some of New
York’s most celebrated restaurants. But then
again, her Nordo creations barely adhere
to the dogma of “good taste” instilled by
restaurant cooking. Her food is based equally
in creative concept and flavor, a daring sort
of stunt-cuisine that works not only because
it tastes good but because Nordo is as much a
theatre experience as a dining one.
“Our tongue is firmly planted in our cheek
most of the time,” Brindley says. “We take
ourselves less seriously than anyone thinks
we do. I was doing serious, avant-garde
theatre in New York, which no one ever
came to. Then I started working at Circus
Contraption and seeing people leave with this
beautiful sense of joy. It became clear that
giving people something they enjoy is better
than giving them something to figure out.”
Which is not to say Café Nordo is easy to
digest. Especially Don Nordo del Midwest—at
nine small courses, it’s Nordo’s most complex
menu yet. Along with carburetor sherry,
expect pigs-in-a-blanket made with housemade chorizo, “Chicken McCroqeuttes” served
in a fast-food takeout box and “Bacalao Tater
Tots” served family-style and unraveled from
a hobo’s bindle.
Podgorski describes how the stage will
be set for the show but, because it’s rather
unusual, asks that I don’t divulge too much.
Suffice it to say the room won’t look like a
restaurant or a theatre but rather a big, dark,
blank canvas beckoning interaction between
guests.
“It’s going to challenge people,” Podgorski
says. “We want people to know that when
they come to our shows they’re not going to be
spoon-fed.”
“I think it’s going to turn out really
beautifully,” Brindley says, “but people are
going to be like…”
“‘Where’s my chair? Where do I sit? Can I sit
with my friends?’”
“‘Is it going to be like this the whole time?
How will the servers know I’m gluten free?’”
“It’s all these things that people get really
uptight about with their dinner experience,”
Podgorski says. “We just want to tell them,
‘It’s fun, let go. Trust us, it’s going to be
awesome. Here’s a glass of wine.’” n
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ENCORE ARTS NEWS
HIT MACHINE
Beat Connection counters pop
perfection with incisive intellect.
BY JONATHAN ZWICKEL
I
heard the best new music of 2015 inside
a rundown former roadside motel not far
from the Space Needle.
The members of Beat Connection had
invited me to preview their second album
as a one-time, in-person deal—listen all the
way through and then wait until it’s officially
released this summer. They bring me to their
rehearsal space, a spacious and surprisingly
well-appointed room in a graffitied complex
abutting Highway 99 near Seattle Center. I
sit in an office chair while Reed Juenger, Beat
Connection’s primary creative force, cues up
his Macbook, which is hooked into a pair of
powerful studio monitors, and hits play.
Forty-some minutes of euphoria: swirling
and breezy, casually upbeat, meticulously
balanced between dense arrangement and
loose composition, strong vocals shifting from
somber soul to keening cry. Au courant but
original, dance-floor propulsive but friendly.
As ambitious as any indie-electro on KEXP,
as accessible as any Top 40 on KISS 106.1, and
apropos of both. There’s no Seattle touchstone
for this stuff. Instead Mark Ronson—voracious
student of music, skilled stylistic dilettante and
bona-fide hitmaker—comes to mind.
“This is really smart, fun pop music,” I say.
“I don’t have any
interest in being
involved in anything
mediocre.”
“That’s what we were going for,” Juenger
replies. “Glad we pulled it off.”
He speaks with a solemn face and the
inflection of a newsreader. This is his de-facto
expression, that of a serious young professional, recently graduated from the University
of Washington with a degree in digital art
and experimental media, aware of his own
intelligence, unafraid to expose it, committed
to a rigorous approach to a playful pastime.
Perfecting pop music is a quixotic mission.
Juenger is well-suited for it.
“I don’t have any interest in being involved
in anything mediocre,” he says before the
listening session, as Juenger, drummer Jarred
Katz, bassist Mark Hunter and singer Tom Eddy
sit around a tiny table at Caffe Vita in Queen
Anne. “That’s maybe a ridiculous thing to say,
but I’m not gonna f-- with it if it’s not gonna be
the best it can be. So that’s why it’s taken us so
long and why it was so life-or-death and why
we had to be so committed to it.”
Beat Connection has endured a slew of
lineup changes since it began five years ago
with Juenger and a friend no longer in the
band. It weathered the chillwave trend, come
and gone over the course of 2009, and its
association with beachy vibes and dreamy nostalgia. The band members have slogged away
at day jobs to ensure themselves time to write,
rehearse, record and tour. Modest sacrifices,
yes, but also hard work in service to a project
with genuine mainstream potential.
Eddy’s expanded role, from guest vocalist
to full-time member, was the tipping point.
With him on board the band moved on from
introspective electronica toward extroverted
dance-pop. They continue to walk that line,
which is part of their appeal.
“I get a little self-conscious when I get in
the moment and, like, try to be the rock guy,
which I think is an important attribute to have
AVI LOUD
From left to right:
Jarred Katz, Tom Eddy,
Reed Juenger and
Mark Hunter
in a live group because it resonates with people
when you’re that dude,” Eddy says. “But we’re
aware that our music comes from a place which
does not require that sort of hero figure. It’s more
of a collective-type situation.”
For his part, Eddy is a compelling frontman
whose fashion-model cheekbones and square
jaw belie real-deal pipes and witty, observant
lyricism—an all-American Chris Martin, maybe,
without the pretension. Where Ronson and other
producer-auteurs cast their rock star lead singers
on a song-by-song basis, Beat Connection’s is
in-house.
Katz came on board around the same time as
Eddy, after the three of them had been living
together in a house in the University District.
Hunter, a friend of Katz’s from the UW jazz
studies program who officially joined last
year, was the final puzzle piece. Since then,
Beat Connection has released three impeccable singles, starting with the sinuous, funky
“Hesitation” last May, which was easily one of
the best songs of the year. All three are on the
upcoming album, Product 3. The business-savvy
Juenger refuses to divulge the LA-based indie
label it’s coming out on, or a specific date (“July.
Maybe August.”) until the ink on the contracts
is dry.
“I remember feeling a stigma against ambition
when we started out,” Juenger says. “It was
like, ‘Oh yeah, we just started a band and that’s
what’s happening’,” he says in a blasé affect.
“But now we couldn’t be further away from
unambitious.”
Juenger’s purposefulness extends to the
album artwork and promo materials that he
designs with sleek, urban-sophisticate imagery
and photography. And it extends to the stark
philosophy lurking behind the music’s gleaming
pop exterior.
“We call it Industrial Condo Sadness,” he
says. “It has to do with those nice, well-lit
condos that are probably pretty tight. But there’s
a price you pay to be in them that involves working at Amazon or, I don’t know, denying other
people access to basic human rights so that you
can have a nice condo.”
It’s a devastating duality reflective of Seattle
in its current moment of transition. Eddy’s lyrics
on the new album, love songs hung up on the
technology-induced gap between perception
and reality, take on the same depth. But will a
mainstream pop audience get it?
“I don’t think you’re supposed to,” Juenger
says. “You’re supposed to casually be in the
nice apartment and be like, ‘Look at this Ikea
furniture! We have a really nice fluffy dog! This
is tight!’”
“Pop music is the blinder in front of your
eyes in a lot of ways,” he continues. “But we
think about those things. And honestly, that’s
not something you should be satirical about.
It’s like, how do we deal with these realizations
as people who make pop music, and find joy in
it, and find that it’s something people want to
hear? How can we bring a little bit of awareness
to that? Pop music, that’s a good start. And we
need to set ourselves up to do more.” l
ENCORE ARTS NEWS
STAY AWHILE
Airbnb as Art Installation
Interactions with objects are fleeting at
a gallery or museum, so a pair of artists
have tapped into a more lasting way to
experience art: Airbnb. Right now, a
cozy, brightly lit ground-floor unit in an
Eastlake apartment building is filled with
art to be experienced at your leisure,
overnight or over a string of days.
Rob Rhee and Dawn Cerny conceived
of the idea late last year. They and a small
group of fellow artists had started a book
club (wryly dubbed “Poker Night”) that
led to discussion about the intersection of
everyday domesticity and art.
“We wanted to exhibit more,” Rhee
says. “We considered opening our own
space but didn’t have the money for it. We
realized we all do have spaces—we just
happen to live in them.”
At first Cerny curated an art show in her
Beacon Hill Craftsman home, photographed it and created an Airbnb profile
for the space but didn’t receive guests.
The conceptual exhibit lived online.
“Photographs of homes on Airbnb.com
double as exhibitions where art is used as
a prop or decorative cue, showing what
life might be like in that space,” she says.
Then Rhee jumped at an opportunity
to take over a friend’s unused apartment
in Eastlake, curating the exhibit Xenia (a
Greek term for hospitality that literally
translates as “guest-friendship”), open for
public booking. Xenia includes works by
15 artists from Seattle, Portland, New York
and elsewhere. Rhee’s arrangement of
the apartment gently demands interaction, riding a fine line between functional
domestic space and formal group show.
Guests are given a list of the artworks
with instructions for handling. Instead of
a couch, a large, square, raised platform fills the living room. Cushions are
The living room in the
Eastlake apartment
where Xenia is installed
provided to lounge on, as well as a variety of small tables constructed by artists
and topped with objects.
“It’s important that the apartment not
be furnished in a typical way,” Rhee says.
“Instead, it asks you to be aware of your
body.”
For example, the plates and mugs of
Natalie Riha’s “Dishware” are the only
items in the cabinets—handmade with
fragile gray clay, fired but unglazed. “Use
it as you would dishware in your daily
life,” the artwork guide instructs. “Don’t
be worried if it stains. It is meant to stain
with each use as an index of this experience.” Barely visible are faint traces of
coffee stains left by past guests.
The minimal bedroom is outfitted with
a queen-size bed piled with pillows and
a top-stitched, cream-colored quilt. A
sheet of paper—a simple oil painting of
an ear by Shaw Osha—hangs above the
headboard, suggesting that this space is
intended for close listening. Three pairs
of headphones made by Jamie Hilder are
mounted on the wall next to the bed,
their earpads replaced by seashells.
When you put them on, you hear the
ocean roar.
Xenia is available for booking through
May for $100 per night (https://www.
airbnb.com/rooms/5307747). So far a
handful of people have rented the space.
After Xenia closes, Rhee and his fellow
artists will continue to pursue different
twists on the idea.
“It’s my dream that people know
that when you come to Seattle, one of
the things you do is stay at one of these
places and have these experiences,” Rhee
says. “That this is part of the art scene:
long-term, super-intimate, unique experiences you get to have with art.”
AMANDA MANITACH
AIRBNB: ROB RHEE
July 30 – August 02, 2015
at CenturyLink Field Event Center
seattleartfair.com
seattleartfair.com

josh aaseng june 9 - july 3, 2015

Transcription

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