before you go - La Jolla Playhouse

KNOW
BEFORE YOU GO
JULY 26 – AUGUST 21
Production Sponsors
Emily and Dan Einhorn
PERFORMANCES MAGAZINE P1
KNOW
BEFORE YOU GO
We look forward to seeing you at La Jolla Playhouse at your upcoming
performance of JUNK: The Golden Age of Debt. Below is some additional
information about the production and the venue to enhance your theater-going
experience.
PARKING
Parking is free for all subscribers. For all others parking is $2 (subject to change),
Mon-Fri. Upon arrival to campus, please purchase your parking permit from
one of the automated pay stations located next to the information kiosk. Simply
park, note your space number, and pay $2 at the pay station. Pay stations
accept Visa, MasterCard, American Express or cash ($1 and $5), and do not
give change. You will not need to return to your car. Parking is free on the
weekends.
ACCESSIBILITY
A golf cart is available to assist patrons with accessibility issues to and from the
parking lot. Please notify Patron Services prior to your performance if you are
in need of this service; additionally, you may pull into the five minute parking in
front of the theatre, and a friendly La Jolla Playhouse greeter will assist you.
Children under the age of 6 are not permitted in the theatre during
performances unless otherwise posted.
Unaccompanied minors ages 12 and under are not permitted in the theatre.
P2 PERFORMANCES MAGAZINE
DINING
James’ Place is the Theatre District’s on-site
restaurant.
Developed by renowned Sushi Master James Holder, the menu includes his signature
sushi, as well as delectable dishes created with Prime and Angus cuts of beef, locally
and sustainably harvested seafood, along with seasonal dishes. A lighter fare menu
is also served at the newly-redesigned sushi/cocktail bar, featuring craft beer and
California wines. James’ Place is open daily.
For reservations, please call (858) 638-7778. For menu and hours, please visit
jamesplacesd.com.
We also recommend the following nearby restaurants:
Adobe El Restaurante and
Mustangs & Burros
at Estancia La Jolla Hotel & Spa
9700 N. Torrey Pines Road
La Jolla, CA 92037
estancialajolla.com
Cusp Restaurant and
Hiatus Poolside Lounge
at Hotel La Jolla
7955 La Jolla Shores Drive
La Jolla, CA 92037
cusprestaurant.com
Café la Rue and The Med
at La Valencia Hotel
1132 Prospect Street
La Jolla, CA 92037
lavalencia.com
Fleming’s Prime
Steakhouse & Wine Bar
8970 University Center Lane
San Diego, CA 92122
flemingssteakhouse.com
Dolce Pane e Vino
16081 San Dieguito Road
Rancho Santa Fe, CA 92067
dolcepaneevino.com
Giuseppe Restaurants
& Fine Catering
700 Prospect Street
San Diego, CA 92037
giuseppecatering.com
Pamplemousse Grille
514 Via de la Valle, Suite 100
Solana Beach, CA 92075
pgrille.com
Piatti
2182 Avenida De La Playa
La Jolla, Ca 92037
Phone: 858-454-1589
piatti.com/lajolla
Rock Bottom
Restaurant & Brewery
Playhouse Patrons Get 20% Off
8980 Villa La Jolla Drive
La Jolla, CA 92037
rockbottom.com
PERFORMANCES MAGAZINE P3
A MESSAGE FROM THE
ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
MISSION STATEMENT:
MISSION STATEMENT:
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La Jolla Playhouse has received the highest rating from
Charity Navigator, the nation’s premier charity evaluator.
La Jolla Playhouse has received
La Jolla Playhouse has received the
the highest rating from Charity
highest rating from Charity Navigator,
Navigator, the nation’s premier
the nation’s premier charity evaluator.
charity evaluator.
P4 PERFORMANCES MAGAZINE
© Howard Lipin/U-T San Diego/ZUMA Wire
I began my tenure at La Jolla
Playhouse in late 2007, just as the
Great Recession was taking hold.
It was, as everyone reading this
surely remembers, a scary and
anxious moment. The explosion of
the mortgage bubble reverberated
around the world, and our fear was
quickly joined by anger at those who
had so recklessly rolled the dice with
our prosperity and security.
But, as Ayad Akthar reminds us in his world-premiere play JUNK: The
Golden Age of Debt, such “corrections” are by no means rare, and
our collective fascination with — and drive for — wealth makes us all
culpable. JUNK is a work of dramatic fiction inspired by true events; by
looking back to the 1980s, Ayad has created an origin myth for today’s
financial realities.
That was the moment when debt became an asset; when perceived
value overtook intrinsic value; when financing consumed manufacturing.
Ayad’s play unfolds as something akin to a cut-throat war, with board
rooms replacing battlefields. JUNK is not a period piece, however; it
looks forward, and invites us to understand the complex new world
order we’ve inherited. Our society fetishizes money; the weekly box
office reports for movies are news, “affluenza” has become a successful
legal defense and one of our presumptive nominees for president
has almost literally connected his virility and potency to his supposed
business acumen.
I am a huge admirer of Ayad Akhtar, and it’s a true pleasure to continue
the artistic relationship that started with our world premiere of The Who
& The What. Whether he’s writing from the deeply-personal perspective
of the cultural collision of America and Islam in the Pulitzer Prize-winning
Disgraced and The Who & The What, or tackling the interconnectedness
of economies in The Invisible Hand or JUNK, Ayad’s work evinces a
restless, wide-ranging and fierce intelligence, coupled with a master
dramatist’s keen hand for narrative.
This is a homecoming both for Ayad and the fantastic director Doug
Hughes, who returns to the Playhouse for the first time since 1994.
Together, they’ve created a production that depicts nothing less than a
revolutionary moment in our history, which we watch from our current
moment of revolution.
CHRISTOPHER
ASHLEY
LA JOLLA PLAYHOUSE PRESENTS
Michael S. Rosenberg
Managing Director
Christopher Ashley
Artistic Director
BY
AYAD AKHTAR
DIRECTED BY
DOUG HUGHES
FEATURING
ANNIKA BORAS*, BENJAMIN BURDICK*, TONY CARLIN*, JOSH COOKE*, ZORA HOWARD ‡,
JENNIFER IKEDA*, JASON KRAVITS*, ZAKIYA IMAN MARKLAND*, JEFF MARLOW*,
SEAN McINTYRE ‡, DAVID RASCHE*, MATTHEW RAUCH*, ARMANDO RIESCO*,
LINUS ROACHE*, HUNTER SPANGLER ‡, HENRY STRAM*, KEITH WALLACE*
SCENIC DESIGNER
COSTUME DESIGNER
LIGHTING DESIGNER
ORIGINAL MUSIC & SOUND DESIGN
DRAMATURG
CASTING
STAGE MANAGER
ASSISTANT STAGE MANAGER
PRODUCTION MANAGER
JOHN LEE BEATTY
WILLIAM MELLETTE
BEN STANTON
MARK BENNETT
GABRIEL GREENE
CAPARELLIOTIS CASTING
CHARLES MEANS*
CHANDRA R.M. ANTHENILL*
AUDREY HOO
Developed with the support of New York Stage and FIlm and Vassar’s Powerhouse Season Summer 2015
PERFORMANCES MAGAZINE P5
THE CAST
(in alphabetical order)
Amy Merkin............................................................................................................Annika Boras
Giuseppi Addesso.......................................................................................... Benjamin Burdick
Corrigan Wiley/Union Rep/Curt................................................................................. Tony Carlin
Robert Merkin........................................................................................................... Josh Cooke
Charlene Stewart....................................................................................................Zora Howard
Judy Chen............................................................................................................ Jennifer Ikeda
Murray Lefkowitz/Chen’s Lawyer..........................................................................Jason Kravits
Jacqueline Blount.................................................................................. Zakiya Iman Markland
Boris Pronsky............................................................................................................ Jeff Marlow
Mark O’Hare/Merkin’s Lawyer/Union Worker��������������������������������������������������� Sean McIntyre
Leo Tresler............................................................................................................. David Rasche
Israel Peterman................................................................................................. Matthew Rauch
Raúl Rivera....................................................................................................... Armando Riesco
Thomas Everson.....................................................................................................Linus Roache
Devon Atkins/Waiter........................................................................................Hunter Spangler
Maximilien Cizik.......................................................................................................Henry Stram
Kevin Walsh.......................................................................................................... Keith Wallace
Setting:
1985 - Los Angeles, CA; New York, NY; Reading, PA.
JUNK: The Golden Age of Debt will be performed with a 15-minute intermission.
Author’s Note
JUNK: The Golden Age of Debt is a fictionalized account suggested by events in the historical public record. The characters in this play
are dramatic concoctions, stitched together — at times — with details pulled from history, but these characters are never anything
other than fictions. The purpose is to tell a tale not about some by-gone era, but about the world we inhabit today.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This work was developed in part at the Sallie B. Goodman Retreat at McCarter Theatre.
Special thanks to Lex Scott Davis and MM La Fleur.
ADDITIONAL
` STAFF
Associate Director..........................................Alexander Greenfield
Associate Lighting Designer...................................... Amanda Zieve
Associate Sound Designer.....................................Chris Luessmann
Assistant Scenic Designer.....................................Justin Humphres ‡
Assistant Costume Designer................... Desiree Hatfield-Buckley
* Members of Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage
Managers in the United States. The theatre operates under an agreement between the
League of Resident Theatres and Actors’ Equity Association.
This theatre operates under an agreement between the League of Resident Theatres
and the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society, an independent national labor union.
P6 PERFORMANCES MAGAZINE
Stage Management Assistant................................. Jessie Medofer ‡
Stage Management Intern.................................................Katie Pyne
Rehearsal Production Assistant.................................. Ashley Martin
Dramaturgy Assistant............................................ Samantha Matta
This theatre operates under an agreement between the League of Resident Theatres
and United Scenic Artists, Local USA-829 of the IATSE.
La Jolla Playhouse is a member of the League of Resident Theatres (LORT) and a
constituent of Theatre Communications Group (TCG), the national service organization
for the nonprofit professional theatre.
‡ UC San Diego M.F.A. Candidates in residence at La Jolla Playhouse.
THE COMPANY
ANNIKA BORAS, Amy Merkin
La Jolla Playhouse: Debut. Off-Broadway: Chair (Lortel
Award nomination), The Broken Heart, Macbeth (TFANA);
An Oresteia (Drama League Award nomination), Orlando
(CSC); John Patrick Shanley’s The Prodigal Son (MTC).
Regional: The Danish Widow (NYS&F); The Importance
of Being Earnest starring Lynn Redgrave, The Miracle Worker (Paper
Mill Playhouse); Romeo and Juliet (ART). London: Carver directed by
William Gaskill (Arcola Theatre). Recent TV: Chicago Fire, The Following,
Unforgettable, Lights Out, The Good Wife, Law & Order: SVU, Person
of Interest, The Blacklist and Homeland. Upcoming: Baz Luhrmann’s The
Get Down. Training: Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.
BENJAMIN BURDICK, Giuseppi Addesso
is a native of Idaho and graduate of Yale University. La
Jolla Playhouse: Blood and Gifts. Regional: The Sunshine
Boys (Ahmanson); God of Carnage (The Hippodrome,
Gainesville); The Real Thing (ETC, Santa Barbara). LA
Theatre: Arcadia; Rock-n-Roll (L.A. Premiere); Light Up
the Sky (LA Weekly nomination, Best Actor in a Comedy); Travesties
(LA Weekly Winner, Best Actor in a Comedy); Neil LaBute’s Autobahn
(west coast premiere). Film: The Stranger, Tattoo: A Love Story (Grand
Jury Prize, Florida Film Fest), The Board Room (HBO & Montreal
Comedy Festivals). Television: The Soul Man, Arrested Development,
Enlightened, CSI, Awake (recurring), The Glades, The Mentalist,
Entourage, Conspiracy (series regular), 24, Born Free (series regular).
For Jessica, Finn and Digby.
TONY CARLIN, Corrigan Wiley/Union Rep/Curt
La Jolla Playhouse: Debut. Broadway: Sylvia, All the
Way, Snow Geese, The Assembled Parties, The Best
Man, Time Stands Still, Lend Me a Tenor, Mary Stuart,
Spring Awakening, Pygmalion, Copenhagen, Democracy,
Jumpers, Heidi Chronicles and Mamma Mia (original
Broadway company). Off-Broadway: Stuff Happens (The Public Theater);
Entertaining Mr. Sloane (Laura Pels); Once in a Lifetime (Atlantic
Theater). Regional: Apples and Oranges (Alliance Theatre); Rabbit Hole
(Hudson Stage); Woman in Mind (Tiffany Theatre). Film: The Bourne
Legacy, Nutty Professor, True Colors, Crazy People. Television: The
Blacklist, Royal Pains, Star Trek Voyager, Seinfeld (finale), others.
JOSH COOKE, Robert Merkin
La Jolla Playhouse: Debut. Off-Broadway: The Common
Pursuit (Roundabout). Regional: Come Back, Little Sheba
(Kirk Douglas/CTG). Television credits include: Longmire,
Manhattan, The Middle, Hart of Dixie, Dexter, Better with
You. Film credits include: Hail, Caesar!; Finding Joy; I Love
You, Man. Education: B.A. in Theater from UCLA.
ZORA HOWARD, Charlene Stewart
La Jolla Playhouse: Debut. UC San Diego Theatre and
Dance: Go. Please. Go.; Movers and Shakers; The Cherry
Orchard; Angels in America: Millennium Approaches;
Second Skin; Venus; Burial at Thebes. Off-Broadway:
Macbeth, Trojan Women, Medea (Classical Theatre of
Harlem). Education: M.F.A. from UC San Diego, expected 2017.
JENNIFER IKEDA, Judy Chen
La Jolla Playhouse: Debut. Broadway: Top Girls (MTC);
Seascape (LCT). Other NY: Revolt.SheSaid.Revolt.Again,
Marie Antoinette (Soho Rep); Macbeth, Ping Pong, Titus
Andronicus, The Bacchae, Two Noble Kinsmen, As You
Like It (Public); Love and Information (NYTW); Charles
Frances Chan Jr’s... (NAATCO); Takarazuka!!! (Clubbed Thumb); Hamlet
(TFANA). Regional: Seminar (CTG). Film/TV: Killing Hasselhoff (upcoming), Advantageous (Sundance 2015 Special Jury Prize), Elementary,
Blindspot, Madam Secretary, Happyish, Person of Interest, Smash, Suits,
Fringe, Lipstick Jungle, Law & Order. Other: David Michalek’s Portraits
in Dramatic Time (Lincoln Center Festival); Selected Shorts (NPR). B.F.A.,
Juilliard. @ikedamame
JASON KRAVITS, Murray Lefkowitz/Chen’s Lawyer
La Jolla Playhouse: Debut. Broadway: Relatively Speaking,
The Drowsy Chaperone, Sly Fox. Regional credits include:
42nd Street (The Muny); The Taming of the Shrew and
Love’s Labour’s Lost (Shakespeare Theater); Free Will
and Wanton Lust and Goodnight Desdamona… (Woolly
Mammoth Theatre Company). TV credits include The Practice, The
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Madam Secretary, Madoff, Curb Your
Enthusiasm, The Blacklist, and Masters of Sex. Film credits include:
Casse-tete Chinoise (Chinese Puzzle), The Adjustment Bureau and
Morning Glory. Creator/Performer Off the Top! Solo Improvised Cabaret.
Company Member, Woolly Mammoth Theater Company. Member of The
Actors Center.
ZAKIYA IMAN MARKLAND, Jacqueline Blount
La Jolla Playhouse: Up Here. UC San Diego: La Bete,
The Cherry Orchard, Grapes of Wrath, A Lie of the Mind,
Battlecruiser Aristotle, Venus, Burial at Thebes, Second
Skin. FIU: RENT, The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, Medea,
Swimming in the Shallows, Top Girls, Body and Sold, The
Arabian Nights. Education: M.F.A. from UC San Diego;
B.F.A. from Florida International University.
JEFF MARLOW, Boris Pronsky
La Jolla Playhouse: Hollywood, Glengarry Glen Ross,
Sideways. Regional: Hamlet, Nothing Sacred (South Coast
Repertory); Moonlight and Magnolias, An Empty Plate in
the Café du Grand Boeuf, And the Winner Is, The Sleeper
(Laguna Playhouse); You Can’t Take It with You (Geffen
Playhouse); Handle with Care, Indoor/Outdoor, Around the World in
80 Days (Colony Theatre); The Missing Pages of Lewis Carroll, Medea
(Theatre @ Boston Court). As a member of the Reduced Shakespeare
Company: tours of the U.S., Europe and Asia in The Complete Works
of William Shakespeare (abridged) [revised], The Complete History of
America (abridged), Completely Hollywood (abridged). Film: Stevie D,
Akeelah and the Bee, The Hebrew Hammer. Television: Heartbeat, Dr.
Ken, Angie Tribeca, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, The Player, Mistresses, Rizzoli &
Isles, Rake, The Thundermans, NCIS, Grey’s Anatomy, Without a Trace,
Pushing Daisies.
SEAN McINTYRE, Mark O’Hare/Merkin’s Lawyer/
Union Worker
La Jolla Playhouse: Debut. UC San Diego credits: Go.
Please. Go. (Jeremy); Movers and Shakers (Jeffrey/Marta);
Angels in America (Roy); Hamlet (Claudius); 3 Women
in 4 Chairs (Henry); The Cherry Orchard (Yepikhodov).
NY Theatre: title role in Thomas Bradshaw’s Job, Agamemnon in Sean
Graney’s These Seven Sicknesses, King Saul in Rob Askins’ Bible Tales,
Wallace in Olivia Dufault’s Starwatch. Education: M.F.A. candidate from
UC San Diego, 2017. B.A. from James Madison University.
PERFORMANCES MAGAZINE P7
THE COMPANY
DAVID RASCHE, Leo Tresler
La Jolla Playhouse: Debut. Mr. Rasche began his career at
Chicago’s famed The Second City cabaret. He has worked
frequently Off-Broadway, and was most recently seen on
Broadway in Donald Margulies’ The Country House. His
film credits include: Burn After Reading, United 93, In the
Loop, Just Married and Manhattan. On TV, he played the
title role in Sledge Hammer! and has appeared in many episodic shows
from Miami Vice to Madam Secretary. This season he can be seen in
Veep on HBO and Impastor on TVLand.
MATTHEW RAUCH, Israel Peterman
La Jolla Playhouse: Debut. Broadway: The Merchant
of Venice, Prelude to a Kiss. Off-Broadway: A Particle
of Dread, Book of Days (Signature); Kin (Playwrights
Horizons); The Winter’s Tale (Shakespeare in the Park);
The Revenger’s Tragedy, The Duchess of Malfi - Callaway
Award: Best Classical Performance (Red Bull); Still Life
(MCC). Regional: title role in Macbeth - Connecticut Critics Circle
Award: Best Actor (Hartford Stage). Also Williamstown, Arena Stage,
Shakespeare Theater, Long Wharf, many others. Film: The Wolf of Wall
Street, Labor Day, The Tale. TV includes: 4 seasons of Banshee, Shades
of Blue, Believe, Treme, The Blacklist, The Good Wife, Law & Order.
Training: ART Institute at Harvard.
ARMANDO RIESCO, Raúl Rivera
La Jolla Playhouse: Debut. Off-Broadway: Toast (Public
Theater); Happiest Song Plays Last (Lortel Award nomination - Best Lead Actor) and Water by the Spoonful (Second
Stage); Sonia Flew (SPF); Four (MTC). Regional: Goodman,
Wilma, Lookingglass, Steppenwolf, Victory Gardens,
About Face Theater. Film/TV: Adult World, CHE, National Treasure,
Garden State, World Trade Center, Fever Pitch, Bella, 25th Hour, The
Family, Power, Vinyl, Blue Bloods, and others. Education: B.S.S.P. from
Northwestern University.
LINUS ROACHE, Thomas Everson
La Jolla Playhouse: Debut. Off-Broadway: Middletown
(Vineyard); Richard II, Coriolanus (Almeida BAM). UK theatre includes: Titus Andronicus, Julius Caesar, Richard II,
The Last Days of Don Juan, King Lear, Uncle Vanya (RSC);
Juno and the Paycock (RNT); The Glass Menagerie, Love’s
Labour’s Lost, Richard II (Royal Exchange); The Deep Blue
Sea (West End). Film: Priest, Wings of a Dove, Siam Sunset, Blind Flight,
Pandaemonium (Evening Standard Award), The Chronicles of Riddick,
Batman Begins, Find Me Guilty, Before the Rains, Non-Stop. TV: The
Gathering Storm (Golden Satellite Award), RFK (Golden Globe nomination), Law & Order, Vikings.
HUNTER SPANGLER, Devon Atkins
La Jolla Playhouse: Debut. Regional: You Are Here,
A Few Good Men (Centre Stage); A Little Night Music,
Laughter on the 23rd Floor (The Warehouse Theatre).
UC San Diego: Other People/Sin Eaters (WNPF); The
Venetian Twins, Rhinoceros, Borealis (WNPF), Hamlet,
Golden Boy. Education: Current M.F.A. student at UC
San Diego. B.A. from Clemson University. Thanks to family and friends
for all their support!
P8 PERFORMANCES MAGAZINE
HENRY STRAM, Maximilien Cizik
La Jolla Playhouse: Debut. Broadway: The Elephant Man
(also Theatre Royal Haymarket, London), Inherit the Wind,
The Crucible, Titanic. Recent Off-Broadway: The School
for Scandal (Red Bull); Posterity (Atlantic); Fly by Night
(Playwrights Horizons); Antony and Cleopatra (Public
Theater and Royal Shakespeare Company, Stratford-onAvon); The Cradle Will Rock (Encores! Off-Center); Charles Ives Take Me
Home (Rattlestick). Television: Smash, The Americans, White Collar, Law
& Order. Film: Submission, Irrational Man, Cradle Will Rock, The Grey
Zone. Mr. Stram is a graduate of the Juilliard School Drama Division and
the recipient of an OBIE Award for Sustained Excellence.
KEITH A. WALLACE, Kevin Walsh
is thrilled to be returning to the Playhouse stage. La Jolla
Playhouse: Blueprints to Freedom, The Bitter Game. UC
San Diego credits: Death of a Driver, Venus, Golden Boy,
In the Crowding Darkness, A Lie of the Mind, Grapes
of Wrath. Regional: Dance of the Holy Ghosts, Hoodoo
Love, The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, A Comedy of Errors,
Hairspray, Passing Strange, The Tempest. Directing credits: The Brothers
Size, The Last Days of Judas Iscariot. Education: M.F.A. from UC San
Diego. Many thanks to the talented cast and crew!
AYAD AKHTAR, Playwright
Mr. Akhtar’s The Who & The What had its world premiere at La Jolla
Playhouse in 2014 and was developed as part of the Playhouse’s DNA
New Work Series. The play later went on to run at LCT3/Lincoln Center
Theater. Mr. Akhtar is also a novelist and author of American Dervish,
published in over 20 languages worldwide and named a 2012 Best Book
of the Year by Kirkus Reviews, Toronto’s Globe and Mail, Shelf Awareness
and O, The Oprah Magazine. His play Disgraced won the 2013 Pulitzer
Prize for Drama, ran on Broadway at the Lyceum Theatre and is currently
the most produced play in the country. In addition to Disgraced, his plays
The Who & The What and The Invisible Hand received Off-Broadway
runs and are currently being produced around the world. Akhtar was listed as the most produced playwright at the 2015/16 season by American
Theatre. As a screenwriter, he was nominated for an Independent Spirit
Award for Best Screenplay for The War Within. He has been the recipient
of fellowships from MacDowell, Djerassi, the Sundance Institute, Ucross
and Yaddo, where he currently serves as a Board Director. He is also a
Board Trustee at PEN/America.
DOUG HUGHES, Director
Mr. Hughes’ recent Broadway productions include The Father (Tony
Award nomination, Best Play); Outside Mullingar (Tony nomination, Best
Play); The Big Knife; An Enemy of the People; Born Yesterday; Elling;
Mrs. Warren’s Profession; Oleanna; the Tony-nominated revival of The
Royal Family; A Man for All Seasons; Mauritius; the Tony-nominated
revival of Inherit the Wind; A Touch of the Poet; Frozen (Tony Award
nominations; Best Director, Best Play) and the Pulitzer Prize- and Tony
Award-winning Doubt, for which he won the Tony Award for Best
Director. Recent Off-Broadway productions include Incognito, The City of
Conversation, Death Takes a Holiday, The Whipping Man, An Experiment
with an Air Pump, Flesh and Blood and Defiance. In addition to the Tony,
he has been awarded Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, Lucille Lortel,
Obie and Callaway Awards for his productions. He is a McCarter Theatre/
Sallie B. Goodman Fellow.
PLAYHOUSE
LEADERSHIP
THE
COMPANY
JOHN LEE BEATTY, Scenic Designer
Broadway: 110 productions including Disgraced, The Nance, Other Desert
Cities, Good People, Doubt, The Color Purple, Chicago, The Heiress, Proof,
A Delicate Balance, The Sisters Rosensweig, Burn This, Ain’t Misbehavin’,
Talley’s Folly, Crimes of the Heart, Fifth of July. Off-Broadway: Substance of
Fire, The Whipping Man, A Life in the Theater, Sylvia and many seasons at
Manhattan Theatre Club, Circle Rep, Lincoln Center, The Public, City Center
Encores!. Awards: Multiple Tony, Obie, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle
awards, Theater Hall of Fame. Education: Yale School of Drama, Brown
University.
CAPARELLIOTIS CASTING, Casting
Upcoming Broadway: The Front Page, Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Glass
Menagerie, Jitney, The Little Foxes. Recent and select Broadway/OffBroadway: Blackbird, The Father, An Act of God, Prodigal Son, Fish in
the Dark, It’s Only a Play, Disgraced, Sex with Strangers, Casa Valentina,
Holler If Ya Hear Me, The Trip to Bountiful, Grace, Seminar, Lend Me
a Tenor, Fences. Also: MTC, 2nd Stage, Atlantic, LCT3, Ars Nova,
Steppenwolf, The Old Globe, Goodman, McCarter and others. Film/
television: American Odyssey (NBC), How to Get Away with Murder pilot
(ABC), Ironside pilot (NBC), Steel Magnolias (Sony for Lifetime).
WILLIAM MELLETTE, Costume Designer
La Jolla Playhouse: Debut. Other credits and clients include The New York
Fringe Festival, Mattel, Thomas the Tank Engine, Billboard Music, Holland
America Cruise Line as well as various music videos, fashion shoots and
Off-Broadway shows and national tours. Visit www.williammellette.com for
more info.
CHARLES MEANS, Stage Manager
La Jolla Playhouse: His Girl Friday. Broadway: The Real Thing, Seminar,
The Motherf**ker with the Hat, The Pitmen Painters, Next Fall,
Oleanna, You’re Welcome America: A Final Night with George W.
Bush, Mauritius, The Goat or Who Is Sylvia? and Doubt. National Tour:
Doubt. Off-Broadway: The Laramie Project and Wit as well as productions at Manhattan Theatre Club, The Public Theater, New York Theatre
Workshop, Roundabout Theatre Company, Center Theatre Group
and The Old Globe. TV: HBO telecast of Will Ferrell’s You’re Welcome
America. Mr. Means is the head of the stage management program and
current chair of the Department of Theatre and Dance here at UC San
Diego. http://theatre.ucsd.edu/people/faculty/CharlesMeans
BEN STANTON, Lighting Designer
La Jolla Playhouse: Unusual Acts of Devotion. Broadway: Fully Committed,
Deaf West’s Spring Awakening (Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle
Award nominations), Fun Home (Tony nomination), An Enemy of the
People, Seminar. Off-Broadway: Incognito (MTC); Dot (Vineyard Theater);
The Legend of Georgia McBride (Lortel nomination, MCC); Our Lady
of Kibeho (Drama Desk nomination, Signature Theater); The Christians,
Marjorie Prime (Playwrights Horizons); The Nether (Lortel nomination, MCC);
Angels In America (Hewes nomination, Signature Theater); Murder Ballad
(Lortel nomination, MTC/Union Square Theater); Belleville (Lortel nomination, NYTW); Into the Woods (Shakespeare in the Park, Delacorte); The
Whipping Man (Lortel Award, Drama Desk nomination, MTC). Regional:
Amhanson Theatre, Mark Taper Forum, Kirk Douglas Theatre, The Old
Globe, South Coast Rep, Goodman Theatre, Shakespeare Theatre,
Hartford Stage, Long Wharf, Dallas Theater Center, Huntington Theatre,
Philadelphia Theatre Co., George Street Playhouse, Paper Mill Playhouse,
McCarter Theatre, Intiman Theatre, Actors Theatre of Louisville. Concert
designs for Bang On A Can All Stars, Beirut, Melanie Martinez, Regina
Spektor, Sufjan Stevens, St. Vincent.
MARK BENNETT, Original Music & Sound Design
La Jolla Playhouse: His Girl Friday, A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Composer
- Craig Noel Award), An Iliad (Craig Noel Award), Most Wanted, Dogeaters,
Wonderland, The Country, Cloud Tectonics. Broadway (partial listing):
Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, Driving Miss Daisy, A Steady Rain,
The Coast of Utopia (Drama Desk Award), Golda’s Balcony, Who’s Afraid
of Virginia Woolf?. BAM/The Old Vic: THE BRIDGE PROJECT: The Cherry
Orchard, The Winter’s Tale, As You Like It, The Tempest and Richard III. San
Diego: Arms and the Man, Pygmalion, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and
Spike (The Old Globe). Awards: 1998 OBIE - Sustained Excellence in Sound
Design; OBIE - An Iliad; Ovation, Robbie and Garland Awards, twelve
Drama Desk Award nominations and three Lucille Lortel Award nominations.
GABRIEL GREENE, Dramaturg
joined La Jolla Playhouse’s artistic staff in 2007 and currently serves as their
Director of New Play Development. In addition to curating and producing the annual DNA New Work Series, he has dramaturged over twenty
new plays and musicals for the Playhouse, including Ayad Akhtar’s The
Who & The What, The Last Tiger in Haiti, Blueprints to Freedom, Up Here,
The Darrell Hammond Project, Kingdom City, El Henry, Yoshimi Battles
the Pink Robots, Milk Like Sugar (also Off-Broadway; OBIE Award) and
Memphis (also Broadway and London; 4 Tony Awards). Goosebumps Alive,
his immersive adaptation of R.L. Stine’s best-selling novels (co-written and
directed by Tom Salamon) recently premiered at The Vaults (London). With
Alex Levy, he co-created Safe at Home, which was developed as part of the
2016 DNA Seriesand will receive its world premiere at Mixed Blood Theatre
in 2017. B.A.: University of Michigan. M.Phil: Trinity College, Dublin. B.F.F.:
Mia Fiorella.
CHANDRA R.M. ANTHENILL, Assistant Stage Manager
is thrilled to be joining the La Jolla Playhouse family. Her credits as
Production Stage Manager include R. Buckminster Fuller: THE HISTORY
(and Mystery) OF THE UNIVERSE, Outside Mullingar, The Oldest Boy,
Everybody’s Talkin’: The Music of Harry Nilsson, Oedipus El Rey, Honky
and A Weekend with Pablo Picasso (San Diego Rep); Sons of the
Prophet, True West, Fool for Love, Spring Awakening, A Christmas Carol:
A Live Radio Play, Assassins, and Company (Cygnet Theatre). Credits as
Assistant Stage Manager: Camp David and The Comedy of Errors (The
Old Globe); In the Next Room or the Vibrator Play, The Who’s Tommy,
Walter Cronkite Is Dead, Tortilla Curtain, Zoot Suit, A Hammer, A Bell,
and A Song to Sing (San Diego Rep); and Dirty Blonde (Cygnet Theatre).
Ms. Anthenill is a proud member of Actors’ Equity.
Tell us. Tell everyone.
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La Jolla Playhouse
PERFORMANCES MAGAZINE P9
PLAYHOUSE
LEADERSHIP
THE
COMPANY
CHRISTOPHER ASHLEY, Playhouse Artistic Director
has served as La Jolla Playhouse’s Artistic Director since
October, 2007. During his tenure, he has helmed the
Playhouse’s acclaimed productions of Hollywood, Come
From Away, The Darrell Hammond Project, Chasing
the Song, His Girl Friday, Glengarry Glen Ross, A Dram
of Drummhicit, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Restoration and the
acclaimed musicals Xanadu and Memphis, which won four 2010 Tony
Awards including Best Musical. He also spearheaded the Playhouse’s
Without Walls (WoW) series and the Resident Theatre Program. Prior to
joining the Playhouse, he directed the Broadway productions of Xanadu
(Drama Desk nomination), All Shook Up and The Rocky Horror Show
(Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Award nominations), as well
as the Kennedy Center Sondheim Celebration productions of Sweeney
Todd and Merrily We Roll Along. Other New York credits include: Blown
Sideways Through Life, Jeffrey (Lucille Lortel and Obie Awards), The
Most Fabulous Story Ever Told, Valhalla, Regrets Only, Wonder of the
World, Communicating Doors, Bunny Bunny, The Night Hank Williams
Died and Fires in the Mirror (Lucille Lortel Award), among others. Mr.
Ashley also directed the feature films Jeffrey and Lucky Stiff, as well as
the American Playhouse production of Blown Sideways Through Life for
PBS. Mr. Ashley is the recipient of the Princess Grace Award, the Drama
League Director Fellowship and an NEA/TCG Director Fellowship.
DEBBY BUCHHOLZ, General Manager
has served as general manager of La Jolla Playhouse
since 2002. She is the Secretary of the League of Resident
Theaters (LORT) and a member of its Executive Committee.
In 2009, she received a San Diego Women Who Mean
Business Award from The San Diego Business Journal.
Previously she served as Counsel to The John F. Kennedy Center for the
Performing Arts and the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington,
D.C. She was a faculty member of the Smithsonian Institution’s program
on Legal Problems of Museum Administration. Prior to The Kennedy
Center, she served as a corporate attorney in New York City and
Washington, D.C. She is a graduate of UC San Diego and Harvard Law
School. Ms. Buchholz and her husband, noted author and White House
economic policy advisor Todd Buchholz, live in Solana Beach and are
the proud parents of Victoria, Katherine and Alexia.
MICHAEL S. ROSENBERG, Managing Director
has served as the Managing Director of La Jolla Playhouse
since April, 2009. Working in partnership with Artistic
Director Christopher Ashley, he has developed and produced new work by Ayad Akhtar, Trey Anastasio, Amanda
Green, Kirsten Greenidge, Quiara Alegría Hudes, John
Leguizamo, Herbert Siguenza, Basil Twist, Doug Wright and The Flaming
Lips. Playhouse collaborations have included projects with UC San
Diego, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, The New Children’s
Museum, San Diego Rep, Tectonic Theatre Project, the I.D.E.A. District
and the cities of Escondido and Chula Vista. Previously, Mr. Rosenberg
was Co-Founder and Executive Director of Drama Dept., a New York
non-profit theatre company, where he produced new works by the likes
of Douglas Carter Beane, Warren Leight, Isaac Mizrahi, Paul Rudnick
and David & Amy Sedaris. His early work included stints at the Kennedy
Center and the National Dance Institute. Mr. Rosenberg serves on the
Boards of the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce, NBC 7 San
Diego Community Advisory Board and the Theatre Communications
Group, where he is on the Equity, Diversity & Inclusion Committee and
chairs the Global Theatre Initiative Community. Follow him on
Twitter: @MrMikeRosenberg
DES McANUFF, Director Emeritus
served as La Jolla Playhouse’s Artistic Director from 1983
through 1994, and from 2001 through April, 2007. Under
his leadership, the Playhouse garnered more than 300
awards, including the Tony Award for Outstanding Regional
Theatre. Playhouse to Broadway credits: Jersey Boys (four
Tony Awards); Billy Crystal’s 700 Sundays (Tony Award); How to Succeed
in Business Without Really Trying (five Tony nominations); director and
co-author with Pete Townshend on The Who’s Tommy (Tony and Olivier
Awards for Best Director) and Big River (seven Tony Awards), among
others. Film credits: Quills, The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle, The
Iron Giant (9 Animation Society awards) and Cousin Bette. Recipient of
the Drama League’s 2006 Julia Hansen Award, Mr. McAnuff served as
Artistic Director at Canada’s Stratford Festival from 2007 through 2012.
He recently directed the hit productions of Sideways, Yoshimi Battles the
Pink Robots and Jesus Christ Superstar at the Playhouse.
James’ Place is the Theatre District’s on-site restaurant. Developed by Sushi Master James Holder, the menu features his signature
sushi, delectable dishes created with Prime and Angus cuts of beef, locally and sustainably harvested seafood and other seasonal
dishes. Lighter fare is served at the newly-redesigned sushi/cocktail bar, which also offers craft beer and California wines.
Please call (858) 638-7778 for reservations.
P10 PERFORMANCES MAGAZINE
Visit JamesPlaceSD.com for more information.
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PERFORMANCES MAGAZINE P11
“NOTHING MAKES MONEY THE WAY MONEY MAKES MONEY”
A conversation between playwright Ayad Akhtar and director of new play development Gabriel Greene
GG: JUNK is the second of your plays that
deals overtly with the world of finance.
How did your fascination with the subject
take root?
the consequences of this thrilling buzz of making
money that actually leaves us all impoverished in
some spiritual way.
GG: In rehearsal today, we talked about the
AA: My dad made a deal with me when I
idea that wealth now connotes celebrity.
moved to New York in my early 20s. He’s a
ridiculously successful doctor, and I was readAA: It connotes more than that. It’s ontology.
ing poetry. He was like, “We got to put some
Wealth is existential, wealth connotes being. One
sense in this kid. Staring at paper all the time.
doesn’t exist as a citizen in this advanced, late-capCan we get him to stare at different paper?”
italist moment without wealth. One has no agency
So he said that if I read The Wall Street
without wealth. We exist in the grip of a corporate
Journal every day, he’d pay my rent. For two
financial vise that squeezes everybody. I think
years I read The Wall Street Journal every day
that the aspect of wealth as a kind of measure of
Playwright Ayad Akhtar. Photo by Nina Subin.
— I was a dutiful son — and I started getting into
celebrity speaks to the way in which wealth is the only
economics. It was the beginning of a bull market, so money was everyvalue that we still aspire to.
where: the New Yorker was writing about money and at book parties
people were talking about money and everyone had their stock portGG: There seems to be something almost Shakespearean — and I
folio and everybody was making money. I started to get into this stuff.
know you shy away from comparisons to Shakespeare…
I think my dad was hoping maybe I’d go into finance or something. I
didn’t, but that was my inculcation with all of this stuff, and money and
AA: I mean, anybody should.
the world of finance has been an important part of my work.
GG: But there is something Shakespearean about the way in
That’s the background context of writing this play, in a way. I wanted to
which finance, power, and masculinity collide in what amounts to a
write a play about finance. I feel like we don’t understand how our lives
modern-day “war play.”
are so completely dominated by finance. We don’t get it. I didn’t want
to write a screed against finance; I wanted to write a thrilling story that
AA: Those are all interwoven thematic nubs that were at the heart of
was going to embed the audience in the process of capital — so that
a global transformation that has been underway for a generation and
they could feel what it feels like, and why it’s so compelling. And then
a half, two generations. In the process, we’re distracted by our chatter
at the end of the play they can make up their minds.
about identity politics and equality, distracted by these matters of our
individual well-being. Our collective well-being has been undermined
GG: And how has the play changed as it developed?
by this larger movement. I wanted to write about that process in a way
that was human and engaging and that was thrilling. And it seemed
AA: I had an early draft of the play, which I think effectively embedded
to me that Shakespeare was somebody who was able to write about
the audience in capital but didn’t necessarily enlist them in the philopower and masculinity and succession in ways that were thrilling, and
sophical and social dimensions and consequences of what the process
so he became a kind of way of thinking about how to write this play.
of capital is doing to our country. Over the last couple of years, Doug
Yes, it’s a silly thing to do — to try to write in dialogue with Shakespeare
[Hughes] and I have been working toward a vision of how to enlist
in that way — but there it is.
the audiences’ sympathies in various ways, to make them experience
P12 PERFORMANCES MAGAZINE
GG: When you and I first talked about JUNK, you called it an
origin myth for the economy that we’ve inherited.
AA: That’s exactly right. I’m not really writing about that period; I’m
writing about now. I’m using the mythos of that time to address matters
of moment today. I do think that fundamental philosophical debates
around notions of shareholder rights, equity, and ownership are at the
center of our democracy in way that people don’t understand. These
are abstract things, but actually they go to the heart of our experience
as citizens of this country, or as non-citizens, as it were.
I’m trying to show a shift in the
ethos, how we changed our feeling. We feel thoughts more than
we think them, and I’m trying to
show how the feeling/texture
of the thought around money
changed at a certain moment in
our history. And we are living the
consequences of that shift.
GG: A major component in that
shift was junk bonds. They
weren’t new to the 1980s, but
they became the means to accomplish a completely different,
revolutionary end than anybody
had thought of before.
summer. Which points to the extent to which capital is an abstraction,
actually. Like all things, capital must be returned to the cycle of decay,
too. The corrections are unpleasant reminders of that reality.
GG: Certain things have inherent value for survival: water, food,
housing, clothes. When societies developed, currency emerged as
a way to assign worth to that. Now, it feels like currency itself is
of value.
AA: When you make things, when you exist within the real world of
making and consuming, natural economic growth is at two percent.
Capital — through investments —
grows at five percent. At a certain
point, when you have this process of
growth at two percent versus growth at
five percent, the path diverges. Capital
takes on a top-heavy quality; everything is transformed into a process
of finance, usurped by this need for
five percent. We no longer make cars
to make cars, we make cars to create
debts that yield five percent. We no
longer sell food to sell food, we sell
food because credit cards are used to
buy the food, and that credit card debt
yields five percent. Nothing makes
The cast of JUNK. Photo by Jim Carmody.
money the way money makes money.
AA: The play is called JUNK but it’s not about junk bonds. The play is
about the moment in American history when our relationship to debt
changed. But it didn’t even begin with junk bonds. It began with the
Fed raising interest rates to 20% in the late ‘70s/early ‘80s, creating a
climate where pursuing yields like that was even possible. The only way
to get there was to turn debt into an asset — which is exactly what the
treasury department did by letting interest rates run that high.
The real innovation of junk bonds in the era of the 1980s under
[Michael] Milken was to create possibility. When you have cash, there is
possibility. Junk became a means to raise a lot of cash. We see it today
in the venture capital realm; if it weren’t for corporate seed money, we
wouldn’t have the technological advances that we have. The precursor
to that kind of disruptive financial support is junk bonds.
GG: And therein lies the central debate. There are those who extol
the virtues of debt as a democratizing paradigm shift. It changes
who gets a seat at the table —
AA: …and who can own a house.
GG: And yet, very few would argue that when these bubbles inevitably burst, something went wrong.
This is what’s happened! We’re distracted by identity politics and
consumption and the war on terror and the Kardashians, and in the
process, the entire world has been sold out from under us. This is
what’s happened. I don’t even know how you change it at this point,
but the first step has got to be some understanding of what’s really
going on. The international mantra has become: do less, make more.
And within that context, the only role for labor is to be exploited. Labor
can’t compete; it’s caught in the cycle of two percent.
GG: While everybody else is operating on four to five percent.
AA: Well, the few with ninety percent of the wealth, yes. And that gap
continues to get wider and wider, and in the process has eroded any
notion of collectivity. When a big-box store such as a Walmart moves
into a community, 86 cents of every dollar spent there leaves the community. That puts pressure on local businesses, which, over time, only
creates more dependency on the box stores, the chains. Which quickens the process of a community’s impoverishment and the enrichment
of those who have no stake in that community. That is the invisible
centralization of power that exists at the heart of the corporate fiscal
dictatorship. And I hesitate to use the word “dictatorship,” because it’s
going to make me sound like a commie. I’m not a communist. But the
stakes are really high.
GG: And what role can art play?
AA: One of the problems of capitalism is that capital is expected to
grow at a steady, constant, unfettered rate. Capital is never subjected
to the natural cycle of decay. Money in the bank is expected to grow,
ideally at five percent, forever. Well, the reality is everything that grows
goes through its seasons: spring, summer, fall and winter. Capital has
no fall and no winter; it’s expected to live through an eternal spring and
AA: To me, embedding the audience in the process of capital is not to
moralize to them; they should make up their own minds about all of
this stuff. But let’s be fully in it emotionally, intellectually, physically, narratively. Let’s be excited, let’s be enthralled and absorbed by it so that
we have some felt sense of what this is.
PERFORMANCES MAGAZINE P13