Download Threesome - Portland Center Stage

PORTLANDCENTERSTAGE
Presents
Threesome
By Yussef El Guindi
Directed by Chris Coleman
January 24 – March 8, 2015
Artistic Director | Chris Coleman
1
PORTLANDCENTERSTAGE
Presents
Threesome
By Yussef El Guindi
DIRECTED BY CHRIS COLEMAN
Costume Designer
Alison Heryer
Lighting Designer
Peter Maradudin
Sound Designer
Casi Pacilio
Stage Manager
Stephanie Mulligan
Production Assistant
Kristen Mun
Seattle Casting
Margaret Layne
New York City Casting
Brandon Woolley
The World Premiere of Threesome is co-produced by Portland
Center Stage, Portland, Oregon, Chris Coleman, Artistic
Director and ACT Theatre, Seattle, Washington, Kurt Beattie,
Artistic Director.
The videotaping or other video or audio recording of this
production is strictly prohibited.
2
CAST
Alia Attallah…………………….Leila
Dominic Rains…………………….Rashid
Quinn Franzen…………………….Doug
The Actors and Stage Manager employed in this production are
members of Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of
Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States.
“Tell me it didn’t change everything.”
-Leila, in Threesome
In Yussef El Guindi’s play, Threesome, we enter unfamiliar
terrain: The bedroom of an Egyptian couple. Granted, one of
those Egyptians was born and raised here in the States, but it’s
still a new experience. And the terrain we are traveling is made
even more intriguing by adding a third party to the landscape.
With all that has happened since the Arab Spring, and the
headlines we read every day about conflicts unfolding in the
Middle East, a bedroom farce might seem an unlikely entry
point to a conversation on the topic.
3
But El Guindi, like Mr. Durang, has a few things on his mind –
only one of which is sex. Born in Cairo, raised in Cairo and
London, and spending most of his writing career split between
the U.S. and Egypt, Yussef views the events of our day from a
unique vantage point. The notion that relationships between a
couple, relationships between men and women – and their
bodies – can become such a flashpoint in the huge political and
social battles being waged, is at the heart of the conversation he
is taking on. It’s layered, meaty, provocative material that I am
extremely proud to bring to Portland in its world premiere. Like
Crazy Enough and A Feminine Ending, The Body of an
American and The People’s Republic of Portland – Threesome
was developed at our JAW festival, and continues a long
tradition of bringing new voices to this community.
Alia Attallah
Leila
A Minnesota native, Alia received her B.F.A. from the
University of Minnesota/Guthrie Actor Training Program. In the
years that followed she acted in various professional projects,
such as King Lear and Ibsen's Ghosts. In 2011, Alia moved to
New York City to fulfill her dream of attending the Graduate
Acting program at New York University's Tisch School of Arts.
Some highlights of Alia's graduate career include being directed
in Samuel Beckett's Rockabye by JoAnn Akalaitis, and
appearing as Masha in Richard Feldman's (Juilliard) production
4
of The Seagull. Alia has also studied in London, where she
worked with John Barton (Royal Shakespeare Company) and
studied clowning at the London Institute for the Performing Arts
(LISPA). Alia also worked with Eve Ensler (author of The
Vagina Monologues) on a performance festival in 2006. Alia is
thrilled to be making her PCS debut, and to be in a city that
takes drinking coffee so so seriously!
Quinn Franzen
Doug
Quinn is thrilled to be making his Portland Center Stage debut.
A member of the Seattle-based new works company the Satori
Group, he developed and performed in Returning to Albert
Joseph, reWilding, and Fabulous Prizes. He was last seen
onstage as Louis in Intiman Theatre Festival’s Angels in
America (parts one and two). Other Seattle credits include:
Stapleton in Hound of the Baskervilles (Seattle Repertory
Theatre), Algernon in The Importance of Being Earnest (Seattle
Shakespeare Company), Romeo in Romeo and Juliet, Frank in
Dirty Story (Intiman Theatre Festival), and the title role in Crash
(Seattle Children’s Theatre). He has done a number of smaller
commercial and television projects including a spot on NBC’s
Grimm. He has trained with Pig Iron, The Market Theatre in
Jo’burg, Shakespeare and Company and the London Academy
of Music and Dramatic Art. Quinn holds a B.A. in theater from
Williams College.
Dominic Rains
Rashid
This is Dominic’s first collaboration with Portland Center Stage.
Dominic is a member of the acclaimed Elephant Theater
5
Company in Los Angeles, having appeared in The North
Plan, Baby Doll, Love Sick, Block 9 and the Love Bites series.
Dominic has appeared in over a dozen television shows
and movies, including the Sundance Film Festival hit The
Taqwacores by Eyad Zahra (Best Actor, International Film
Festival of Ourense, Spain), Jinn: The Ghost is Dead (Freestyle
Releasing) and the critically acclaimed A Girl Walks Home
Alone at Night (three Independent Spirit Award nominations,
Vice Films). Upcoming projects include the title character ‘T’
in Chee and T (directed by Tanuj Chopra) and Funeral
Day (directed by Jon Weinberg). He is thrilled to make his
Portland Center Stage debut in the world premiere of Yusself El
Guindi’s Threesome under the tutelage of Chris Coleman.
On the eve of Threesome’s world premiere at Portland Center
Stage, playwright Yussef El Guindi took a moment to shed some
light on his new play, originally developed at PCS’s JAW: A
Playwrights Festival in 2013. He answered these questions about
Threesome from Egypt, where he was currently working on a
co-adaptation of the Japanese epic The Tale of Heike (with
playwright Philip Kan Gotanda); along with another new play,
The Talented Ones.
6
What was your impetus for tackling this topic?
What informs my plays is usually some abiding and festering
sense of injustice about something. I came to understand the
play was about a woman asserting her right to her own body.
As always when I write plays that involve Middle Eastern
characters, I try to find parallels that a Western audience might
be able to relate to. In this case, it would be that the violence
some Egyptian women experience is also experienced by
American women in other contexts.
Explain your use of comedy as an entryway in this play.
I didn’t start out to write a comedy. I have sometimes begun a
play with the intention of writing a comedy, but not with
Threesome. In general, I have an amused point of view with
most things I write about. I think we’re funny as a species
(almost as funny as cats). So even when I stray into dark areas, I
still find human behavior weird and comical at times. The
comedy in Threesome is situational. We become a little funnier
when we’re naked, and sexually awkward — in that we make
ourselves so very vulnerable in those situations. A slight turn
(new information, a different context) and that vulnerability can
also then become heart-wrenching. But the intention was not to
be funny. It’s that the characters find themselves in a very
awkward, and somewhat comical, situation. When their situation
shifts, so does the tone of the play.
7
Could you talk a little about your inspiration for the
character of Leila?
I come from a family of very strong women. While there is of
course a strong paternal/patriarchal paradigm in place in a lot of
areas around the world, including Egypt, I think it’s a Western
Orientalist tic to want to perceive Middle Eastern women as
passive individuals waiting to be rescued by Western
enlightenment. A lot of women from that region would beg to
differ. The situation is much more complicated and nuanced on
the ground. When one talks of writing three-dimensional Middle
Eastern characters, one is really just talking about presenting
characters that have their own moral agency (and are not mere
background props for the Westerner-in-the-Middle-East
narrative). Also, something as simple as having the right to
engage in conversations that aren’t fraught with the latest
Western headlines about the region, or to fall into any of the
tropes Westerners have of the region, and of the sexes there
(e.g., all Middle Eastern women are fragile, abused, put-upon
creatures, and somewhere in the play/film/TV show, the
Arab/Muslim male is sure to slap her, because, well, according
to these stories, that’s just what Arab/Muslim males do. They
can’t help themselves. Or so we are led to believe).
I’ve wanted to introduce more layered and nuanced Middle
Eastern characters in my plays. There seems to be a dearth of
them in most entertainment in the West.
This interview has been edited for brevity. You can read the full
interview with El Guindi at pcs.org/El-Guindi-on-Threesome.
8
Tell us what you think of the show!
Find us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
Yussef El Guindi
Playwright
Yussef El Guindi’s most recent productions include The
Ramayana (co-adaptor with Stephanie Timm) at ACT; Pilgrims
Musa and Sheri in the New World (winner of the
Steinberg/American Theater Critics Association’s New Play
Award in 2012; Gregory Award 2011; Seattle Times’ “Footlight
Award” for Best World Premiere Play, 2011) at ACT and Center
Repertory Company (Walnut Creek, CA) 2013; Language
Rooms (Edgerton Foundation New American Play Award, as
well as ACT’s New Play Award), co-produced by the Asian
American Theater Company and Golden Thread Productions in
San Francisco, at the Wilma Theater in Philadelphia (premiere),
and at the Los Angeles Theater Center. Other productions: Jihad
Jones and The Kalashnikov Babes produced at Golden Thread
Productions in San Francisco, at InterAct Theater in
Philadelphia, and at Kitchen Dog Theater in Dallas, as part of
the National New Play Network. It has also been performed at
Theater Schmeater in Seattle, Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater
in Massachusetts, and Cyrano’s Theatre Company in
Anchorage. His play Our Enemies: Lively Scenes of Love and
Combat was produced by Silk Road Theater Project and won the
M. Elizabeth Osborn award. His plays Back of the Throat
(winner of L.A. Weekly’s Excellence in Playwriting Award for
9
2006), Pilgrims Musa and Sheri in the New World, Jihad Jones
and The Kalashnikov Babes, Such a Beautiful Voice is Sayeda’s
and Karima’s City have been published by Dramatists Play
Service. The latter one-acts have also been included in The Best
American Short Plays: 2004-2005 published by Applause
Books. Ten Acrobats in an Amazing Leap of Faith (winner of
Chicago’s “After Dark/John W. Schmid Award” for Best New
Play in 2006) is included in Salaam/ Peace: An Anthology of
Middle-Eastern American Playwrights, published by TCG,
2009. Our Enemies: Lively Scenes of Love and Combat is
included in the anthology Four Arab American Plays published
by McFarland Books. Pilgrims Musa and Sheri in the New Word
was included in the September 2012 issue of American Theatre
Magazine. Language Rooms was published in Rain City
Projects’ anthology Manifesto Series, Volume 3. Yussef is the
recipient of the 2010 Middle East America Distinguished
Playwright Award. He holds an M.F.A. from Carnegie-Mellon
University and was playwright-in-residence at Duke University.
Chris Coleman
Director
Chris joined Portland Center Stage as artistic director in May
2000. Before coming to Portland, he was artistic director at
Actor’s Express in Atlanta, a company he co-founded in the
basement of an old church in 1988. Chris recently returned to
Atlanta to direct Phylicia Rashad and Kenny Leon in Same Time
Next Year. Favorite PCS directing assignments include
Dreamgirls, Othello, Fiddler on the Roof, Clybourne Park,
Sweeney Todd, Shakespeare’s Amazing Cymbeline (which he
also adapted), Anna Karenina, Oklahoma!, Snow Falling on
Cedars, Ragtime, Crazy Enough, Beard of Avon, Cabaret, King
10
Lear, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Man and Superman, Outrage,
Flesh and Blood and The Devils. Chris has directed at theaters
across the country, including Actor’s Theater of Louisville,
Oregon Shakespeare Festival, ACT-Seattle, The Alliance, Dallas
Theatre Center, Pittsburgh Public Theatre, New York Theatre
Workshop and Center Stage in Baltimore. A native Atlantan,
Chris holds a B.F.A. from Baylor University and an M.F.A.
from Carnegie Mellon. He is currently the board president for
the Cultural Advocacy Coalition. Chris and his husband,
Rodney, are the proud parents of an 18 lb Jack Russell/Lab mix,
and a 110 lb English Blockhead Yellow lab.
Alison Heryer
Costume Designer
Alison Heryer is a costume designer for theater, film and print.
Threesome is her first collaboration with Portland Center Stage.
Other theater credits include The Bluest Eye (New Victory); The
Fall to Earth, A Lesson Before Dying, Orange Flower Water
and World Set Free (Steppenwolf Theatre); Pippin, The
Whipping Man, A Little More Alive and The Who and The What
(Kansas City Rep); The King and I, 33 Variations, RENT and
Doubt (ZACH Theatre), Jackie and Me at (Indiana Repertory
Theatre) and Bum Philips All-American Opera (La MaMa).
Recent awards include the Austin Critics Table Award and the
ArtsKC Inspiration Grant. Upcoming projects include The Price
at Artist Repertory Theatre and Three Days of Rain at Portland
Center Stage. Alison is a new faculty member at Portland State
University. She is a graduate of Washington University in St.
Louis and The University of Texas at Austin and a member of
United Scenic Artists.
11
Peter Maradudin
Lighting Designer
Peter Maradudin is pleased to return to Portland Center Stage,
where previous work includes Othello, The Imaginary
Invalid, Ragtime, Crazy Enough, A Feminine Ending, West Side
Story, The Fantasticks, Anna in the Tropics, Hamlet, King
Lear, Little Foxes and Terra Nova, among others. He is also the
lighting designer for the lobby spaces of the Gerding Theater at
the Armory. On Broadway, he designed the lighting for Ma
Rainey’s Black Bottom and the Pulitzer Prize-winning The
Kentucky Cycle, and Off-Broadway Hurrah at Last, Ballad of
Yachiyo and Bouncers. Peter has designed more than 300
regional theater productions for such companies as the Kennedy
Center, the Guthrie Theater, American Conservatory Theater,
Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Mark Taper Forum, La Jolla
Playhouse, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Old Globe Theatre,
Huntington Theatre Company, South Coast Repertory,
Steppenwolf, Dallas Theater Center and the Oregon Shakespeare
Festival. He is the Studio Director of the architectural lighting
group StudioK1, and is the author, under his pen name Peter
Alexei, of the novels The Masked Avenger and The Queen of
Spades.
Casi Pacilio
Sound Designer
Casi keeps busy with a variety of work and play in Portland and
around the country. PCS credits include Vanya and Sonia and
Masha and Spike, Dreamgirls, The Last Five Years, Othello, A
Small Fire, Chinglish, Twist Your Dickens (2013 and 2014), The
Mountaintop, Fiddler on the Roof, Oklahoma!, The North Plan,
Shakespeare’s Amazing Cymbeline, Black Pearl Sings!, Opus,
12
futura (with composer Jana Losey), Ragtime (PAMTA Award
2010), The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Alfred
Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps, Snow Falling on Cedars, Crazy
Enough, The Little Dog Laughed, Sometimes a Great Notion,
Cabaret, The Pillowman, I Am My Own Wife, West Side Story,
Celebrity Row and eight seasons of JAW. National shows:
Holcombe Waller Surfacing and Wayfinders; Hand2Mouth
Theatre credits: Left Hand of Darkness, My Mind is Like an
Open Meadow (Drammy Award 2011), Something’s Got Ahold
Of My Heart and PEP TALK. Other theatrical credits include
Squonk Opera’s Bigsmorgasbord-WunderWerk (Broadway,
PS122, national and international touring); I Am My Own Wife, I
Think I Like Girls (La Jolla Playhouse); Playland, 10 Fingers
and Lips Together, Teeth Apart (City Theatre, PA). Film credits
include Creation of Destiny, Out of Our Time and A Powerful
Thang. Recordings: Glitterfruit’s fruit snacks.
Stephanie Mulligan
Stage Manager
As a stage manager, Stephanie has worked with such notable
American directors as James Edmondson, Penny Metropulos,
John Dillon, Aaron Posner and Nancy Keystone, as well as her
longtime friend and mentor, Allen Nause. She is also a stage
director in both the professional and educational arenas. Recent
work includes The Outgoing Tide, Little Women: The Broadway
Musical, Jesus Saves, The Guys, Standing on Ceremony, Dear
Galileo, Yankee Tavern, Nickel and Dimed, The Wizard of Oz,
Murder Is My Business, Love’s Labour’s Lost, The Laramie
Project and The Comedy of Errors. Most recently, Stephanie
directed The Seven Wonders of Ballyknock for Lakewood
Theatre. She has been a frequent participant in international arts
13
programming, including collaborations with India’s Mahesh
Dattani and Lillette Dubey; Vietnam’s Doan Hoang Giang and
Dang Tu Mai; and Australia’s Cate Blanchette, Robyn Nevin
and Andrew Upton. Locally, she has worked with Portland
Center Stage, Broadway Rose Theatre Company, Clackamas
Repertory Theatre, Oregon Children’s Theatre and Artists
Repertory Theatre among others. She has been a guest lecturer
at universities across the county, as well as in Hanoi and
Vietnam. Thanks to Laura for her constant support; and to
Kristen for her PA superpowers.
Kristen Mun
Production Assistant
Kristen Mun is originally from Hawaii and graduated from
Southern Oregon University with a B.F.A. in Stage
Management. Previous Portland Center Stage credits include
production assistant on Lizzie and 2nd production assistant on
Fiddler on the Roof. Outside of Portland she has worked at the
Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Idaho Repertory Theatre and
Actors Theater of Louisville. In Portland she has worked as a
production assistant and stage manager with other theater
companies such as Artists Repertory Theatre (And So It Goes
…, Red Herring), Oregon Children’s Theatre (A Year With Frog
and Toad, Charlotte’s Web, Ivy and Bean), Northwest Classical
Theatre Company (King John, Measure for Measure, As You
Like It), and Post5 Theatre (Hamlet). Outside of stage managing,
Kristen is also a fight choreographer and stage combat teacher.
14
Barbara Hort, Ph.D.
Dramaturg
Barbara Hort, Ph.D., has maintained a private practice in
Portland for over 25 years, working primarily from the
psychological perspective developed by the Swiss psychoanalyst
Carl Jung. At the invitation of Chris Coleman, Dr. Hort has
served as a dramaturg on the PCS productions of Sweeney Todd,
Clybourne Park, the 2013 JAW festival, Fiddler on the Roof,
Othello, Dreamgirls, and now Threesome, providing material on
the psychological dynamics of the play that can be used by the
artists who are creating the performance.
Technical Direction
Seth Chandler
David McCrum
Erinn McGrew
Scenic Painters
Shawn Mallory
Props Artisans
Teresa Pilar Huarte
Sound Programmer and Engineer
Em Gustason
15
Lead Corporate Champion Umpqua Bank
From the lead actor to the light technician, from the front seats
to the back row, we’re proud to support every inch of Portland
Center Stage. Of course we’re writing this in hope that, as a
fellow lover of the theater, you’ll come and visit us. But for
now, sit back, enjoy the show and cheers for the season!
Dr. Barbara Hort
The mission of Portland Center Stage is “to inspire our
community by bringing stories to life in unexpected ways.”
What is unspoken in this mission statement is the fact that
bringing to life any story about authentic human experience
demands great courage — courage from the story’s creators and
courage from its witnesses. Threesome is one such story. It is
my honor to support the courage of Threesome’s creators, and to
inspire the courage of you, its witnesses, by sponsoring the
production of this bold new play. Stories about the injury and
healing of one person can inspire the healing of many others.
But healing requires steadfast courage, as well as genuine
creativity and a dollop of humor. Threesome entails all three
elements, and thus, it offers us one of the theater’s golden
opportunities for healing, as well as entertainment. I hope it will
deliver both to you.
Ronni Lacroute
Creating new works of art is a cultural necessity, and it is
contemporary theater that speaks to the issues of our times. I am
honored to sponsor a new play from Portland Center Stage’s
JAW festival, by the important Arab American playwright
16
Yussef El Guindi. According to this Egyptian-born playwright,
"Life is a dark comedy. It's perplexing, bewildering and funny.
Humor has its own wisdom." I love the wisdom of El Guindi's
humor in Threesome as well as the intense dynamics and
changing rhythms of the piece. He is a linguistic and dramatic
acrobat who will surprise you repeatedly. I hope that audiences
will enjoy the roller coaster ride!
Sharon Mueller and Reynolds Potter
We are longtime fans of Portland Center Stage. Always happy
and enthusiastic to support their productions.
17