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PAGES
OF
HISTORY
Live Theatre — Living History
P.O. Box 352, Woodbridge NJ 07095
phone: (732) 636-7743
e-mail: [email protected]
➦ www.pagesofhistory.org
Can watching musical theatre
encourage more Americans to support
foster care and adoption?
The creators of Orphan Train believe it can.
And they’re taking that leap of faith straight into the American Heartland.
FAIRFIELD, IOWA. Mid-July, 2012 …
Why have a legendary Emmy-winning choreographer/director and a Broadway composer/arranger
traveled to the middle of cornbelt Iowa during the hottest summer on record to mount a new musical
about 19th-century foster kids?!
!
Because they believe in the power of Theatre to change the lives of 21st-century children.
!
Orphan Train is a play about Surplus Children, then and now. And what we as a society are prepared to
do about them … starting today.
This gritty glimpse at a forgotten chapter of American History will make its Midwestern debut at the
Stephen Sondheim Center for the Performing Arts in Fairfield, Iowa from Aug. 3-12, 2012, presented by
the Way Off Broadway theatre company of Fairfield and Pages of History, a New Jersey educational
theatre producer.
With book by L.E. McCullough, lyrics by Michael Barry Greer, music by Doug Katsaros and
direction by veteran choreographer Patricia Birch, Orphan Train dramatizes America’s first national
experiment in foster care, when between 1854-1929 nearly 250,000 children were rescued from the
streets of New York by the Children’s Aid Society and placed with adoptive families in the Midwest
and West.
Guided by visionary Methodist minister Charles Loring Brace (1826-1890), the faith-driven Orphan
Train movement believed these “surplus children” (as they were dubbed by the media of the day) would
achieve healthier, happier lives away from big-city poverty and neglect.
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The reality, however, was quite unpredictable. Some children disappeared into the frontier never to be
heard from again, while others thrived — two became state Governors. Today, an estimated 8 million
Americans are direct descendants of Orphan Train riders.
Orphan Train is a poignant, powerful story of how the
nation was built one child, one family at a time.
Offering a searing look into the lives of six 1870s
Orphan Train riders destined for a new life in Iowa, the
play challenges audiences to address the problem of our
era’s own Surplus Children … the millions of American
youth whose childhood is scarred by poverty,
homelessness, gangs and addiction.
But does Theatre really have that sort of juice anymore?
Does the ephemeral reality of live drama have any
impact on the ongoing reality of American life offstage?
Director Patricia Birch believes it does, and she’s devoted the better part of the last four years to
finding the most compelling method of bringing the Orphan Train message to audiences across the
country.
Since her Broadway breakout as Anybody’s in the original West Side Story, Birch’s career as dancer,
choreographer and director has been tightly interwoven with works exploring the myriad emotional
currents of youth — Grease, Big, Billy Bathgate, Zoot Suit, The Me Nobody Knows, Raggedy Ann,
You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown and, most recently on PBS Great Performances, The
Thomashefskys.
“We never lose our fascination with the child we left behind to grow into adulthood,” she says. “And
when we meet that child self in a book or film or play, it’s an incredibly powerful moment.”
Following Orphan Train’s New York Musical Theatre Festival debut and productions at the New York
State Theater Institute and Saratoga Performing Arts Festival, the next stop on the play’s journey would
typically be an Off Broadway run in Manhattan or a prominent regional theatre.
The tour plans to stage Orphan Train at non-theatrical
venues — railroad stations, outdoor plazas and historical
sites — in towns that follow the original Orphan Trains
routes. In each town, the play is presented in partnership
with a coalition of local children and family service
nonprofits, who reap exposure and donor support for their
causes.
It’s Theatre as public service. Theatre as community
activism. Theatre driven to spur its audiences into action
that just might change the life of just one child.
Birch has a broader vision:
taking the play into the American
Heartland, where the Orphan Train
legacy can serve as a rallying point
for contemporary organizations
doing the work of Rev. Brace and
the movement leaders of the past.
If that sounds a bit quixotic, don’t forget that the impetus for the play came from a dream.
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“I saw a procession of Victorian mothers,” recalls composer Doug Katsaros, “each carefully dressing a
small child in formal clothes, then leading the child to a large wooden door and leaving them. The door
creaked open and out came a procession of somber, robed women who, one-by-one, took the children
into a circle where a man in a uniform ushered them into a bank of fog.”
Unable to shake the dream’s haunting images, Katsaros teamed with New York lyricist Michael Barry
Greer to create the song “Lullaby”, a cascading choral anthem that forms the heart of a vibrant score
evoking a uniquely American soundscape … Tin Pan Alley brashness merging with poignant Celtic folk
strains, labor songs, gospel, honky-tonk, fiddle tunes and vaudeville.
For book writer L.E. McCullough, the Orphan Train story has a personal resonance. “My greatgrandfather and grandfather were both orphaned as young children in Wisconsin and Iowa,” he says.
“They and their siblings were dispersed to other families, some to relatives, some to neighbors. Telling
the Orphan Train story has been a tribute to them … and to the families who made that commitment.”
Orphan Train, however, is no mere history lesson about a bygone era of starry-eyed dreamers whose
faith-driven social movement transformed America’s concept of child care.
It is a play that tells the audience, “These people made a difference in their day. So can you.”
In a nation hungering for comic book saviors, Orphan Train shows how anyone be a hero for real.
Orphan Train (book-L.E. McCullough, lyrics-Michael Barry Greer, music-Doug Katsaros, directorPatricia Birch) runs Aug. 3-12 at Stephen Sondheim Center for the Performing Arts, 200 N. Main St.,
Fairfield, Iowa, for seven performances. Presented by Way Off Broadway http://wobroadway.com.
Tickets ($12-$38) may be ordered online at http://www.fairfieldacc.com, by calling the box office
at (641) 472-2000 or emailing [email protected].
TIMES:
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Friday, Aug. 3 - 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, Aug. 4 - 7:30 p.m.
Sunday, Aug. 5 - 2:00 p.m.
Thursday, Aug. 9 - 7:30 p.m.
Friday, Aug. 10 - 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, Aug. 11 - 7:30 p.m.
Sunday, Aug. 12 - 2:00 p.m.
To!Arrange!an!Interview!with!the!
Orphan'Train'Creative'Team!
~!Call!(732)!63697743!~!
“This slice of history musical is undoubtedly the one Festival
show that will exert the strongest tug on your heart strings. As
the stunning finale of the musical with a book by the prolific
journalist and author, L.E. McCullough, makes all too plain,
the problem of ‘surplus children’ remains with us.”
— Elyse Sommer, CurtainUp
“This poignant piece of musical theatre is being performed by
the New York State Theatre Institute under the direction of
Patricia Birch. It all works quite well together, the music,
lyrics, set, and costumes but it is the power of the story itself
that makes this an unforgettable afternoon at the theatre.
— Charles Isaac, Joy Papers
“It’s the children who make this musical a worthy experience.
With their poignant songs and stage innocence they make this
a message play about the condition of children throughout
history.”
— Larry Litt, New York Theatre Wire
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'Orphan Train' a bold, entertaining look at kids' frontier lives
By MICHAEL ECK, Special to the Albany Times Union
February 3, 2009
TROY — In 1854, the Rev. Charles Loring Brace and
the Children's Aid Society of New York began a
program of sending urban foundlings and forgotten
children west to live and work with frontier families.
The orphan trains ran for more than 70 years, placing
thousands of children in homes and laying the
groundwork for the foster family movement.
Obviously not every story ended happily, and a new
musical at the New York State Theatre Institute
shows both sides of the story with remarkable
balance.
"Orphan Train" was created by composer Doug Katsaros, librettist L.E. McCullough and lyricist Michael Barry
Greer, and it's directed in Troy by longtime NYSTI associate Patricia Birch.
A screen behind the stage projects images of the trains and stations and homes, and also serves as an entranceway
for actors. It's a standard bit of theater magic, but it works wonderfully here, keeping the playing space clear while
still defining the settings clearly.
A huge cast moves well in front of the screen, clad in period costumes courtesy of Dona Granata.
The story hinges on a quintet of orphans — Barney (Charles Franklin), Bridget (Alison Lehane), Emma (Kyra
Bechard), Jenny (Eleah Jayne Peal) and Peter (George Franklin). Once west, their paths diverge and each faces
their own particular catastrophes. Some come through shining. Others don't. Bridget, for example, lands with a
couple headed by a less than honorable father (David Bunce). And Emma might have fared better had she stayed
an urchin in New York City.
What makes "Orphan Train" bold is its honesty, not its elements. Birch does her usual bang-up job of
moving many players around, and she keeps a close eye on what's happening to these kids. They inhabit a world
where adults seem to have forgotten that they were once children too, and in some ways that is the heart of the
show's message.
* RECOMMENDED.
“With fine young performers from the region’s schools blended with the excellent professional actors of the
NYSTI company, the story is told simply yet tellingly by L. E. McCullough’s script, underscored by Doug
Katsaros’ compelling music and Michael Barry Greer’s incisive lyrics.”
— Martin Kelly, Ravena News Herald
“Orphan Train has the comic book-grit of "Annie" combined with the raw guts of a Sondheim historical
show. This is an important show, entertaining in the extreme and historically informative at the same time.
Melding these elements is not easy but the creators and interpreters here have done the job of giving their
audience more than they bargained for and still sending them out humming.”
— J. Peter Bergman, Bright Focus
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Creative Team Bios
PATRICIA BIRCH (Director). In a career that crosses all media, Patricia Birch has earned two Emmy Awards and five
Tony nominations. Other honors include Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, Barrymore, Billboard, and MTV awards, as well
as a Directors Guild nomination and the prestigious Fred Astaire Award for her choreography and direction of music-driven
projects ranging from Sondheim to the Rolling Stones. Just received last year: Induction to the Theater Hall of Fame.
Ms. Birch was trained at School of American Ballet and the Martha
Graham School; she became a soloist in the Graham Company and
played Anybody’s in the original Broadway production of West Side
Story.
Ms. Birch has created the musical staging for original Broadway and
off-Broadway shows including Grease, You're a Good Man, Charlie
Brown, The Me Nobody Knows, A Little Night Music, Candide, Over
Here, Diamond Studs, The Happy End, Pacific Overtures, They're
Playing Our Song, Gilda Radner, Live from New York, Zoot Suit,
Rosa, Parade, Like Jazz and LoveMusik, with Donna Murphy and
Michael Cerveris and directed by Harold Prince.
Direction as well as choreography credits: Celebrating Gershwin at
BAM, the Melissa Manchester musical I Sent a Letter to My Love; the
original production of Maurice Sendak and Carole King’s Really Rosie; Joe Raposo’s Raggedy Ann; The Snow Queen, Band
in Berlin, a multi-media docu-musical about the Comedian Harmonists; the Cy Coleman musicals Exactly Like You, and Like
Jazz. With Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony: semi-staged productions of Gershwin’s Of Thee I Sing
and Let ’Em Eat Cake, as well as The Thomashefskys, the story of Tilson Thomas’s grandparents and stars of the Yiddish
Theater. The piece debuted at Zankel Hall, played Tanglewood this past summer and will be at Avery Fischer Hall next year.
Opera and music projects include The Mikado, Candide, and Street Scene for New York City Opera, The Mass and The
Balcony for The Opera Company of Boston, and A Wedding by William Bolcom, Arnold Weinstein, and Robert Altman at
the Chicago Lyric Opera. Rag Dolly, Man of La Mancha, King Island Christmas, The Snow Queen and Orphan Train are
projects staged at The New York State Theater Institute.
Ms. Birch’s film credits include choreography for all musical sequences in Grease and direction as well as choreography on
Grease 2. She has also staged musical sequences for Big, Working Girl, Stella, Awakenings, Billy Bathgate, Roseland, The
Wild Party, First Wives Club and The Human Stain (with sequences for Anthony Hopkins, Gary Sinise and Nicole Kidman),
among others. For television, Ms. Birch has directed Natalie Cole: Unforgettable with Love and Celebrating Gershwin,
(Emmy Awards in direction). She was choreographer for The Electric Company and staged numbers for Gilda Radner, Steve
Martin, Bill Murray, John and Jim Belushi and Dan Ackroyd on Saturday Night Live. She also directed music videos for
Cyndi Lauper, the Rolling Stones, Carly Simon and the NBC Olympics.
* Currently Ms. Birch is choreographing sequences for HBO’s Boardwalk Empire produced by Martin Scorsese.
L.E. MCCULLOUGH (Book) is a prize-winning journalist and author who has
written 48 books of fiction, non-fiction, and plays, including 177 published stage and
script works and received the Emerging Playwright Award for the New York
premiere of his play Blues for Miss Buttercup, based on the life of blues piano legend
Leroy Carr. Dr. McCullough’s original Plays of America has been named to the
Glencoe/McGraw-Hill Recommended Reading List alongside classics like To Kill a
Mocking Bird, Great Expectations, Lord of the Flies and Midsummer Night’s Dream.
His commissions include plays on journalist Ernie Pyle, 1920s jazzman Charlie
Davis, corporate patriarch Eli Lilly, Catholic activist Dorothy Day, the scientist
Galileo, singer-heiress Libby Holman and, for the new National Constitution Center,
a play on the U.S. Constitution. His most recent New York production is First
Mothers: The Women Who Raised America’s Presidents. www.lemccullough.com
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MICHAEL BARRY GREER (Lyrics) This production of Orphan Train is dedicated to the memory of the late Michael
Barry Greer, a stellar actor, lyricist, composer and author. Michael was represented off-Broadway as lyricist or composerlyricist by the revues Break a Leg and The Way It Is. His cabaret piece Columbus Avenue was performed at Don't Tell Mama,
and his musical Split was presented at the New Jersey Shakespeare Festival. Other musicals included Mister! (w/ Obiewinner Leslie Lee), Legs, My Man Godfrey, Someone Seeking and Ice Cream in August. He was also a novelist and
screenwriter. As an actor, he appeared On and Off-Broadway, at most major regional theatres, in film and on television.
DOUG KATSAROS (Music) has a lengthy theatre
résumé that includes writing the opening theme and
special material for the Tony Awards. For Broadway he
conducted Footloose, vocal and dance arranged The Life,
orchestrated The Rocky Horror Show, co-starred in and
musical directed Cy Coleman’s Exactly Like You, starred
as Berger in Hair, served as composer/lyricist for Jackie
Mason’s Laughing Room Only. For Off-Broadway he
composed and directed Abie’s Island Rose, composed Just
So, co-composed and orchestrated A...My Name Is Alice
and co-composed Hal Prince’s Diamonds. He has written
the original symphonic and rock scores for the Macy’s
NBC July 4th Fireworks Extravaganza since 2003 wrote a
season of music for the Ringling Brothers Circus and was
composer/lyricist/co-star in the Broadway Project for
PBS.
Mr. Katsaros co-hosted and musical directed VH-1’s Stand-Up Spotlight and was the subject of a documentary on TV Nation.
His band Balance had 2 Billboard hits, and he has played keyboards, sung and orchestrated on CDs for Judy Collins, Donny
Osmond, Cher*, Diane Schuur, Kiss*, Live*, Peter Frampton, Bon Jovi*, Gloria Estefan*, Sinéad O'Connor, Richie Havens,
Peter, Paul & Mary, Raul DiBlasio, Frank Sinatra*, B. B. King and Todd Rundgren among others and arranged several tunes
for Rod Stewart's American Songbook.* (* Platinum) http://broadwayworld.com/people/Doug-Katsaros/
Mr. Katsaros has scored and conducted 6
films, including Sandra Bullock’s Me and
the Mob, Sarah Jessica Parker’s If Lucy Fell
and the sci-fi classic Star Crystal, and has
written thousands of TV themes and
commercials including Elton John's "Diet
Coke" spots, the new ABC Saturday Night
Movie theme, Mancuso FBI, The Tick, The
Jim Henson Hour and the immortal "By
Mennen". He musical directed Elayne
Boosler’s Showtime special, played in
Barry Manilow’s big band, arranged the
first parade for Universal Studios Florida
and has toured the world with various
international musical artists.
* Currently Mr. Katsaros has composed
the music for the new Broadway musical
Somewhere in Time and tours internationally
as keyboardist/arranger for Latin superstar Raul DiBlasio.
RICHARD FINKELSTEIN (Scenery and Projections) has designed scenery and/or lighting for countless productions
including the Off-Broadway production of American Enterprise, and the musical, A Tale of Cinderella (Warner Home
Video). He has designed for The Colorado Shakespeare Festival, The Barter Theatre, and The National Theatre of the Deaf.
His design-related work has been seen in nine countries and was featured in the World Stage Design exhibition presented in
Toronto last spring. His work as a stage photographer has been featured in books and journals including Dance Magazine and
Stage Directions. He currently serves as Head of Design at James Madison University. http://www.rfdesigns.org/
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KIRK BOOKMAN (Lighting Designer) New York productions:
Tribeca Theater Festival, The Cook at Intar Theatre 53, Recent
Tragic Events at Playwrights Horizons (starring Heather Graham),
Shanghai Moon at Drama Dept. (starring Charles Busch), Mondo
Drama, Havana is Waiting, Force Continuum, My One Good
Nerve (starring Ruby Dee), The Green Heart at Manhattan
Theatre Club, The Shawl, Rude Entertainment, The Book of Liz
(David and Amy Sedaris), Les MIZrahi (Isaac Mizrahi), Hope is
the Thing with Feathers, As Thousands Cheer and June Moon.
For the National Actors Theatre: The Sunshine Boys (Jack
Klugman and Tony Randall), The Gin Game (Julie Harris and
Charles Durning), Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Right You Are.
For the Irish Rep: Bedbound, Playboy of the Western World,
Eclipsed, and two productions directed by Tony Walton, The
Importance of Being Earnest and Major Barbara. Regionally, Mr. Bookman has designed at such notable theaters as
Goodspeed Opera House, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Geva Theatre, Coconut Grove Playhouse and Santa Fe Stages.
Ballet credits include English National Ballet, Santiago Ballet, Cincinnati Ballet and Kansas City Ballet. He is a member of
the New York Off-Broadway theater company Drama Dept. http://www.kirkbookman.com/
DONA GRANATA (Costume Designer) designs internationally for film, stage, television and opera.
Theatre: 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Jolson, Chaplin, Says He, Says I, Canciones de Mi Padre (Broadway); Hope of the
Heart, The Aristocrats, Hoagy, Bix Wolfgang Beethoven Burkhaus, Stepping Out, My One and Only (LA); Double Feature
(Regional). Worked with leading opera companies in USA, Barcelona Opera, Spoleto Festival (Italy/USA): The Nutcracker
(Hartford Ballet); Beatrice and Benedict (WNO); It Had to Be You (Lorimar/CBS); Dark Rapture (Dallas Theatre); The
Immigrant (Virginia Theatre); Ghosts (Old Globe Theatre); Scenes from an Execution (Mark Taper Forum); David’s Mother
(CBS/MOW); All’s Well That Ends Well (San Diego); The Barber of Seville, Beatrice and Benedict (Houston Grand Opera).
Features: Dark Horse (Republic Pictures/Carolco), Once in a Blue Moon (Discovery Program/Showtime), Scenes from the
Class Struggle in Beverly Hills (Cinecom), Happy Together, World Gone Wild (Apollo Pictures), Nobody’s Fool (Island
Pictures), Lust in the Dust (New World Pictures), The Goodbye People (Embassy Pictures), Deathtrap, The Wiz. Ms. Granata
won an Emmy Award and a Costume Designers Guild Award for the 2001 ABC biographical drama Judy Garland: Me and
My Shadows and received Emmy nominations for Showtime’s The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone and Robert Altman’s musical
documentary Jazz '34.
*"All"photos"by"Richard"Finkelstein;"set"design"by"Richard"Finkelstein."
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