Weekly Preview | July 20-26

TRUE WEST has opened on the Main Stage!
Our second Main Stage show of the 2009 season opened Thursday night to a FULL HOUSE and was followed by an opening night gala at the Williams Inn. True West runs July 15 – July 26 and stars Nate Corrdry, Stephen Kunken, Debra Jo Rupp, and Paul Sparks.

Written by American screen and stage legend Sam Shepard and directed by former WTF Boris Sagal Directing Fellow Daniel Goldstein, this modern classic is an explosive exploration of family rivalry as two very different brothers attempt to sell Hollywood their version of the great American dream.

“…an enjoyable rendition of an American classic.” – Albany Times Union

WHAT IS THE CAUSE OF THUNDER? Opens on the Nikos Stage
The world premiere of Noah Haidle’s new play, What is the Cause of Thunder? OPENS THIS THURSDAY on the Nikos Stage. Directed by WTF Artistic Associate Justin Waldman, What is the Cause of Thunder? stars Betty Gilpin and Wendie Malick in the story of Ada, who, after 27 years on the same soap opera, has begun to confuse her art and her life.
Haidle’s poignant comedy brings us the hilarity of daytime drama alongside the harsher, but often equally fun realities of life. Thunder runs through August 2, buy your tickets today!

Fridays @ 3 this week is Sense of an Ending by Ken Urban
2008 Weissberger Award Winner, Sense of an Ending by Ken Urban, directed by Sam Gold will be read at the Paresky Center on the Williams College Campus on July 24th.
Charles, an African-American journalist, gets assigned to write a piece on the genocide in Rwanda through the story of two nuns being tried for crimes against humanity. These nuns are accused of knowing about the mass murder that happened within their church walls and doing nothing about it. Through his guide and another local man he meets, Charles struggles to understand the many crimes against humanity happening in Rwanda and ultimately must decide how to tell the story.


Workshop Shows in the Directing Studio in the ’62 Center
Wednesday, July 22 - Nico by Mira Gibson, Directed by Kate Pines, 11pm
with John Doherty, Heather Lind and Andrea Syglowski

Saturday, July 25- 10 Minute Plays presented by the Directing Interns, 11pm
Sidewalk Art by Erica Lipez, directed by Krista D’Agastino
with James Cusati-Moyer, Ed Porter and Claire Seibers

Death Comes for a Wedding by Joe Tracz, directed by Tracey Cameron Francis
with Becca Ballanger, Tommy Crawford, and LaToya Lewis

The Final Kiss by Maurice Level, directed by Adam Stone
with Brett Bolton, James Graham, Devin Kelley, and Georgia Lifsher

Two Pigeons Talk Politics by Lauren Gunderson, directed by Kimberly Faith Hickman
with Jake Elitzer and Ariana Seigel

Taste by Roald Dahl, adapted and directed by Matthew Strother
with Matt Helm, Michael Randazzo, Amanda Rodhe, Lily Spottiswoode, and Alison Yates

A Sermon by David Mamet, directed by Gabe Marantz
with Matt Bovee, Johnathan Hooks, Kristina Mueller, Noah Parks, Brenann Stacker, and Madeline Wise

For workshop shows, admission is free but reservations are a must - space is limited! Call the workshop office at 413.597.3386 to reserve a ticket!

[photo] T. Charles Erickson 2009. Pictured: Paul Sparks and Nate Corddry in TRUE WEST, Dir. Daniel Goldstein

© [Scenic Design | Neil Patel, Costume Design | Linda Cho, Lighting Design | Ben Stanton] 2009

© [graphic design] Art direction and design by Iris A. Brown Design, IABDNY.com. Illustration by Kristin R. Spix Design

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WAMC Radio Interview

Last Friday (July 17), Joe Donahue, Alan Chartock, and Sarah LaDuke from WAMC Northeast Public Radio did a live, three-hour radio interview with WTF directors, playwrights, and actors.

Follow the links below to listen to the interviews online!

Interview with Nicholas Martin, Artistic Director

WHAT IS THE CAUSE OF THUNDER? Interview : Playwright Noah Haidle, Director Justin Waldman, Betty Gilpin & Wendie Malick

CAROLINE IN JERSEY Interview : Playwright Melinda Lopez & Lea Thompson

TRUE WEST Interview : Director Daniel Goldstein, Nate Corddry & Paul Sparks

THE TORCH-BEARERS Interivew : Andrea Martin, John Rubinstein, and Edward Herrmann

Interview with Dylan Baker, Adapter & Director for THE TORCH-BEARERS

[photos] SAM HOUGH for WTF ’09

[pictured] (1) Lea Thompson; (2) Edward Herrmann, Andrea Martin; (3) Nicholas Martin; (4) Betty Gilpin; (5) Justin Waldman; (6) Noah Haidle, Wendie Malick; (7) Lea Thompson, Melinda Lopez; (8) Joe Donahue, Sarah LaDuke, Nate Corddry, Paul Sparks, Daniel Golstein; (9) Nate Corddry, Paul Sparks; (10) Daniel Goldstein; (11) Dylan Baker

Taken on the Nikos Stage. © 09 [scenic design] Alexander Dodge - KNICKERBOCKER

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TRUE WEST Opening!

Check out these great photos from last night's party celebrating TRUE WEST's opening on the Main Stage!

[photos] © Sam Hough for WTF ’09

[pictured] (1) Kate Pines, Daniel Goldstein; (2) Daniel Goldstein, Nate Corddry, Paul Sparks, Debra Jo Rupp, Stephen Kunken; (3) Jessica Hecht, Dylan Baker, Becky Ann Baker, Lea Thompson, James Waterston; (4) Noah Haidle, Fitz Patton; (5) James Waterston, Dylan Baker; (6) Kate Pines, Daniel Goldstein, Joe Pantoliano, Lea Thompson; (7) Heather Lind, Reg Rogers; (8) Jane Mayer, Kris Kukul; (9) Sam Hough, Claire Whitman, Carrie Olson, Rachel Seklecki; (10) Michael Block, Lindsey Alexander, Lisa Jaeger, Evangeline Rose Whitlock

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The American Dream

Where the Suburbs and the Old West Meet

by Sarah Slight, Dramaturg for True West

1980 was this tipping point in culture. America was moving from Carter to Reagan, community to individual, even jock to nerd. Urbanization was at an all-time peak and credit and spending soon would be too—the fashion industry is booming from high to low, leading to the building of many a strip mall. It is the beginning of urban sprawl, the decimation of open space.

Between 1960 and 1990 the major metropolitan areas of the United States grew at an average of 44 percent. Smaller cities more than doubled in size (those at 50,000 to 100,000; 100,000 to 250,000 etc.) “But the most striking revelation of recent population trends is the extent to which we are moving to the fringes of our metropolitan regions” (Once There Were Green Fields by F. Kaid Benfield, Matthew D. Raimi, and Donald D. T. Chen). True West takes place at the advent of this phase. “Starting in 1980 suburban population has grown a staggering ten times faster than central-city population in our largest metro areas.”

Suburbs formed at the start because they could. As the car grew in popularity, people could live further and further away from their jobs. As people move out of town for the “idyllic suburban lifestyle,” so do businesses—shopping malls, movie theatres, restaurants—and industry. Soon, people can live and play in the suburbs and only go to the city for work. Austin lives pretty far north of L.A. but is an aspiring screenwriter. Even when he needs to get to L.A., he stays at his mother’s house in the suburbs. He seems to be on his way to achieving this ideal suburban life.

A graph in Once There Were Green Fields shows percentages of growth in population and land area covered from 1970-1990. Los Angeles leads the group (which includes Cleveland, Chicago, New York, Seattle and L.A.) at 45 percent population and 300 percent developed land area growth. Three-fourths of the population and 89 percent of land considered part of L.A. lies outside the central city. By 2000, L.A. alone occupies space the size of Connecticut. Now, the west coast, from San Diego to San Francisco threatens to become a megalopolis, a phenomenon yet to be seen (though the area from Washington, D.C. to Boston is also close) in which big cities expand far enough and become so populated that they merge together, forming one giant city.

In 1980 the desert is the space into which these L.A. suburbs are expanding. Lee says he’s been living out in the desert, meaning the Mojave, which occupies a large area in southern California, Nevada, Utah and Arizona. While the Mojave does have several large cities within it, Las Vegas being the most populated, and some small towns, like Needles which currently has a population of about 5,300, up 1,200 from 1980, it is also home to several ghost towns, old mining and frontier towns that have been abandoned. Many of them lie along the old Route 66. This specific urban decay in the Western United States began as early as the 1920’s and continued through the 1980’s.

In some ways, these ghost towns represent what is left of the ideal American West, in which cowboys roamed the land free from all societal constraints. The American West once existed as a myth; it was an ideal place where anyone could go claim land for themselves and, with hard work and determination, live off of it. Like jazz and baseball, the western movie genre is something genuinely American, whose purpose was to perpetuate that myth of the West. “Westerns are the major defining genre of the American film industry, a nostaligic eulogy to the early days of the expansive, untamed American frontier (the borderline between civilization and the wilderness). They are one of the oldest, most enduring and flexible genres, and one of the most characteristically American genres in their mythic origins” (AMC’s genre articles, Westerns).

The idea that the American West ever existed as a free and open space where any American could take a piece of land and live off of it is a myth. “John Wayne wouldn't have been a cowboy, rather he'd be a lawyer or a land surveyor” (Debunking the Myth of the American West, lesson plans by Dina Secchiaroli).Land surveyors went west to divide it up, creating boundaries that they then expected everyone, including the natives, to respect. The people that worked on this newly divided up land were rarely as independent and free as we tend to think; most depended on government funding to help run their farms and ranches.

The suburbs represent freedom in the same way, as a myth that once you live outside the city in a wholesome neighborhood yet work successfully within the city, you are living the American Dream. What both the West and suburbs represent exists as part of the American psyche rather than an achievable ideal. They represent a freedom and success that is unattainable. In True West, Shepard seems to simultaneously mourn the loss of the American West and expose it for the myth it is, while at the same time showing us how the suburbs have created a new, yet similar, myth as they physically take up more and more space.

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TRUE WESTern Films

from AMC’s genre articles on www.filmsite.org

Westerns are the major defining genre of the American film industry, a nostaligic eulogy to the early days of the expansive, untamed American frontier (the borderline between civilization and the wilderness). They are one of the oldest, most enduring and flexible genres and one of the most characteristically American genres in their mythic origins. [The popularity of westerns has waxed and waned over the years. Their most prolific era was in the 1930s to the 1960s, and most recently in the 90s, there was a resurgence of the genre.]

This indigenous American art form focuses on the frontier West that existed in North America. Westerns are often set on the American frontier during the last part of the 19th century (1865-1900) following the Civil War, in a geographically western (trans-Mississippi) setting with romantic, sweeping frontier landscapes or rugged rural terrain. However, Westerns may extend back to the time of America's colonial period or forward to the mid-20th century, or as far geographically as Mexico. A number of westerns use the Civil War, the Battle of the Alamo (1836) or the Mexican Revolution (1910) as a backdrop.

The western film genre often portrays the conquest of the wilderness and the subordination of nature, in the name of civilization, or the confiscation of the territorial rights of the original inhabitants of the frontier. Specific settings include lonely isolated forts, ranch houses, the isolated homestead, the saloon, the jail, the livery stable, the small-town main street, or small frontier towns that are forming at the edges of civilization. They may even include Native American sites or villages. Other iconic elements in westerns include the hanging tree, Stetsons and spurs, saddles, lassos and Colt .45's, bandannas and buckskins, canteens, stagecoaches, gamblers, long-horned cattle and cattle drives, prostitutes (or madams) with a heart of gold, and more. Very often, the cowboy has a favored horse (or 'faithful steed'), for example, Roy Rogers' Trigger, Gene Autry's Champion, William Boyd's (Hopalong Cassidy) Topper, the Lone Ranger's Silver and Tonto's Scout.

Western films have also been called the horse opera, the oater (quickly-made, short western films which became as commonplace as oats for horses), or the cowboy picture. The western film genre has portrayed much about America's past, glorifying the past-fading values and aspirations of the mythical by-gone age of the West. Over time, westerns have been re-defined, re-invented and expanded, dismissed, re-discovered, and spoofed. In the late 60s and early 70s (and in subsequent years), 'revisionistic' Westerns that questioned the themes and elements of traditional/classic westerns appeared (such as Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch (1969), Arthur Penn's Little Big Man (1970), Robert Altman's McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971), and later Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven (1992)).

Westerns Film Plots: Usually, the central plot of the western film is the classic, simple goal of maintaining law and order on the frontier in a fast-paced action story. It is normally rooted in archetypal conflict - good vs. bad, virtue vs. evil, white hat vs. black hat, man vs. man, new arrivals vs. Native Americans (inhumanely portrayed as savage Indians), settlers vs. Indians, humanity vs. nature, civilization vs. wilderness or lawlessness, schoolteachers vs. saloon dance-hall girls, villains vs. heroes, lawman or sheriff vs. gunslinger, social law and order vs. anarchy, the rugged individualist vs. the community, the cultivated East vs. West, settler vs. nomad, and farmer vs. industrialist to name a few. Often the hero of a western meets his opposite "double," a mirror of his own evil side that he has to destroy.

Typical elements in westerns include hostile elements (often Native Americans), guns and gun fights (sometimes on horseback), violence and human massacres, horses, trains (and train robberies), bank robberies and holdups, runaway stagecoachs, shoot-outs and showdowns, outlaws and sheriffs, cattle drives and cattle rustling, stampedes, posses in pursuit, barroom brawls, 'search and destroy' plots, breathtaking settings and open landscapes (the Tetons and Monument Valley, to name only a few), and distinctive western clothing (denim, jeans, boots, etc.).

Western heroes are often local lawmen or enforcement officers, ranchers, army officers, cowboys, territorial marshals, or a skilled, fast-draw gunfighter. They are normally masculine persons of integrity and principle - courageous, moral, tough, solid and self-sufficient, maverick characters (often with trusty sidekicks), possessing an independent and honorable attitude (but often characterized as slow-talking). The Western hero could usually stand alone and face danger on his own, against the forces of lawlessness (outlaws or other antagonists), with an expert display of his physical skills (roping, gun-play, horse-handling, pioneering abilities, etc.).

Influences on the Western: In many ways, the cowboy of the Old West was the American version of the Japanese samurai warrior, or the Arthurian knight of medieval times. [No wonder that westerns were inspired by samurai and Arthurian legends, i.e., Kurosawa's Yojimbo (1961) served as the prototype for Clint Eastwood's A Fistful of Dollars (1964), and Kurosawa's The Seven Samurai (1954) was remade as John Sturges' The Magnificent Seven (1960). Le Mort D'Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory also inspired much of Shane - a film with a mythical western hero acting like a noble knight in shining leather in its tale of good vs. evil.] They were all bound by legal codes of behavior, ethics, justice, courage, honor and chivalry.

Compiled by TRUE WEST Dramaturg Sarah Slight

[photo] T. Charles Erickson 2009. Pictured: Nate Corddry, Stephen Kunken in TRUE WEST, Dir. Daniel Goldstein

© [Scenic Design | Neil Patel, Costume Design | Linda Cho, Lighting Design | Ben Stanton] 2009

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