CLYBOURNE PARK
CANADIAN PREMIERE
Tell us what you thought of the show and you could win tickets to our Fall 2012 remount of The Normal Heart!
In this hilariously unsettling comedy – inspired by Lorraine Hansberry’s 1959 play A Raisin in the Sun – a battle over race and real estate rages across two generations in a suburban Chicago neighbourhood. With a modern twist on issues of race, class, property ownership and community, Clybourne Park offers a satirical look at demographics, history, home and heart.
After its February 2010 premiere at Playwrights Horizons in New York, followed by its January 2011 UK premiere at the Royal Court Theatre in London, Clybourne Park has appeared in numerous top ten lists and won the 2010 London Evening Standard, 2010 Critics’ Circle and 2011 Olivier awards for Best New Play, as well as the 2011 South Bank Sky Arts Theatre Award and 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
The Pulitzer board described it as, “a powerful work whose memorable characters speak in witty and perceptive ways to America’s sometimes toxic struggle with race and class consciousness.”
Studio 180 is proud to present the Canadian premiere of this internationally acclaimed work, in association with Canadian Stage.
CLYBOURNE PARK is a Canadian Stage Berkeley Street Project initiative.
VIDEOS TO WHET YOUR APPETITE
An interview with Studio 180 Artistic Director and Director of Clybourne Park, Joel Greenberg, inter-cut with scenes from the play.
An interview with Clybourne Park ensemble members Sterling Jarvis and Kimwun Perehinec. Also with scenes from the play.
Studio 180 Core Artistic Team and Clybourne Park ensemble member Mark McGrinder put together this little behind the scenes look at the rehearsal hall.
BY Bruce Norris
DIRECTED BY Joel Greenberg
FEATURING Audrey Dwyer, Michael Healey, Sterling Jarvis, Jeff Lillico, Mark McGrinder, Kimwun Perehinec & Maria Ricossa
ORIGINAL SCENERY & COSTUME DESIGN David Boechler
COSTUMES Michelle Bailey
SET Jung-Hye Kim
LIGHTING DESIGN Kimberly Purtell
SOUND DESIGN Lyon Smith
PROPS BY Mary Spyrakis & Vanessa Janiszewski
STAGE MANAGER Robert Harding
ASSISTANT STAGE MANAGER Laura Baxter
ASSISTANT DIRECTOR Ray Strachan
PRODUCTION MANAGER Nathaniel Kennedy
Michelle Bailey
Costumes
Other Studio 180 productions: The Normal Heart, Our Class, Parade
Michelle lives and works in Toronto as a professional costumer for theatre and dance, primarily as Head of Wardrobe for Tarragon Theatre. Her Tarragon work includes Mimi, If We Were Birds, Forests, After Akhmatova and The Misanthrope. Select design credits include The Red Queen Effect (Dora Nomination, Seventh Stage Productions); King Lear, Comedy of Errors, Twelfth Night, Macbeth (Driftwood Theatre); and Whale Music (Assistant Designer, Seventh Stage Productions). Upcoming: A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Driftwood Theatre)
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Laura Baxter
Assistant Stage Manager
For Studio 180: Debut
Other credits include The Maids, Neon Nightz, Breakfast, Rhubarb Festival 2010, The Silicone Diaries, Hysteria Festival 2009 (Buddies in Bad Times Theatre); The Winter’s Tale (Canadian Stage Dream in High Park); More Fine Girls (Theatre Columbus/Tarragon Theatre); A Sleigh Ride Christmas Carol, Everyone, The Story, Macbeth (Caravan Farm Theatre); The New Electric Ballroom (MacKenzieRo); Jitters (Soulpepper); The Story, Happy Days, All That Fall, And Up They Flew (Theatre Columbus); Reconciliation (Cabaret Company); Schoolhouse (Festival Players of PE County); Toronto the Good, The Real McCoy (Factory Theatre).
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David Boechler
Original Scenery and Costume Designer
For Studio 180: Debut
David has designed sets and costumes for most major Canadian theatres. Credits include set and costume designs for Red (Canadian Stage/Playhouse Theatre/Citadel Theatre), Julius Caesar (Stratford Festival), Side by Side by Sondheim (The Grand Theatre) and The Devil’s Disciple (Neptune). Set designs include The Wizard of Oz (Ross Petty Productions), La Traviata (Pacific Opera Victoria), Glorious! (Canadian Stage/Theatre Calgary and Belfry/Arts Club co-productions), The Red Priest (Tarragon Theatre) and Tiger of Malaya (NAC/Factory Theatre). Costume designs include Cabaret, My One and Only, South Pacific (Stratford Festival); quondam (Royal Swedish Ballet); Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (Theatre Calgary); Fire, Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It, Twelfth Night (Canadian Stage); Equus (Citadel Theatre); The Importance of Being Earnest (Soulpepper); and three seasons at ATP’s playRites Festival. Production designs: Cinderella (National Ballet of Canada/Boston Ballet/American Ballet Theatre), The Innocent Eye Test (Mirvish/MTC), Trying and Macbeth (Theatre Calgary), Rock and Roll (The Grand Theatre) and The Goat (Citadel Theatre). Eight seasons at the Shaw Festival: The Man Who Came to Dinner, The Old Ladies and Diana of Dobson’s. Awards: one Sterling Award, two Betty Mitchells and a Dora.
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Audrey Dwyer
Francine/Lena
Other Studio 180 productions: The Overwhelming
Other credits include The Tempest (Canadian Stage), Medea (Mirvish/MTC) and Black Medea (Obsidian Theatre). Film and TV credits include Da Kink in My Hair, The Ron James Show, The State Within, Man of the Year and Where the Truth Lies. Audrey has been a member of the Second City Touring Company and the Associate Artistic Director of Nightwood Theatre, is a Dora-Nominated director for The Apology and recently Assistant Directed Nightwood Theatre’s The Penelopiad (by Margaret Atwood), and is a graduate of The National Theatre School of Canada.
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JOEL GREENBERG
Director
Other Studio 180 productions: The Normal Heart, Our Class, Parade (director and choreographer), The Overwhelming, Stuff Happens (2008/2009), Blackbird, The Arab-Israeli Cookbook, The Laramie Project (2003/2004), The Passion of the Chris
Originally from Montreal, Joel moved to Toronto in 1971, where he has lived and worked since. Joel’s credits as director (D), choreographer (C ) and playwright (P) cover a wide range of styles. In addition to his work with Studio 180, credits include Ain’t Misbehavin’ (D/C – Dora Award, Outstanding Direction) for the Premiere Dance Theatre; Forbidden Broadway (D/C – Dora Award Nomination, Outstanding Direction); The Underdogs (D) and What the Butler Saw (D) for Just For Laughs, Montreal; Taking Sides (D) for Centaur Theatre; The House of Blue Leaves (D), Lend Me a Tenor (D), You Can’t Take It with You (D) and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (D) for Theatre Aquarius; Second City (C – 7 productions in Toronto and Chicago); Drink the Mercury (P/D – Dora Award, Outstanding Young Audience Production) and The Nuclear Power Show (P/D – Chalmers Playwriting Award, Outstanding Young Audience Play) for Young People’s Theatre; Bells are Ringing (D/C), She Loves Me (C ) and Vanities (D) for the Grand Theatre; The Golden Land (D/C) and The Rothschilds (D/C) for Winnipeg Jewish Theatre. Joel is also a Professor in the University of Waterloo’s Drama Department.
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ROBERT HARDING
Stage Manager
Other Studio 180 productions: The Normal Heart, Our Class, Parade, Stuff Happens (2008/2009), Blackbird
Credits elsewhere include Side by Side by Sondheim (The Grand Theatre); “Master Harold”…and the boys (Thousand Islands Playhouse); Happy Days (Theatre Columbus); Another Home Invasion, Communion, A Beautiful View, How It Works, Past Perfect (Tarragon Theatre); Festen, Marion Bridge, A Whistle in the Dark (Company Theatre); British Invasion!, British Invasion 2: America Strikes Back! (Charlottetown Festival); Seussical (LKTYP); Carmela’s Table (Centaur Theatre); The Taming of the Shrew (ShakespeareWorks); and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Resurgence Theatre).
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Michael Healey
Russ/Dan
Other Studio 180 productions: Stuff Happens (2008/2009)
Most recent acting credits: Are You Okay (Peggy Baker Dance Projects/Necessary Angel), Radio Play (Peggy Baker Dance Projects), Them and Us (Theatre Passe Muraille), Frost/Nixon (Canadian Stage/Vancouver Playhouse), and The Pessimist and The Optimists (Tarragon Theatre). Other acting credits include The End of Civilization (Factory Theatre), Marie and Bruce (SummerWorks Festival), Ballad for a Rumrunner’s Daughter (Blyth Festival) and Kicked (Toronto Fringe). Since 1996, Michael has also had a career as a playwright.
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Sterling Jarvis
Albert/Kevin
Other Studio 180 productions: The Overwhelming
Other credits include Caroline, or Change (Acting Up Stage/Obsidian Theatre), Ruined (Obsidian), The Lion King and We Will Rock You (Mirvish Productions), Crowns (Canadian Stage/MTC/NAC) and Of Mice and Men (Canadian Stage/Theatre Calgary). Film and TV credits include Covert Affairs (USA Network), Life With Boys (YTV), Warehouse 13 (SyFy), Insecurity and The Border (CBC), Phase One (feature), The Bridge (CTV/CBS), The Sentinel (New Regency), The West Wing (NBC) and The Eleventh Hour (CTV). Sterling is a two-time Juno Award nominee. His voice has been heard on numerous radio voice-overs and commercial jingles.
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NATHANIEL KENNEDY
Production Manager
Other Studio 180 productions: The Normal Heart, Our Class, Parade, The Overwhelming, Stuff Happens (2008/2009), Blackbird, Offensive Shadows
Nathaniel has worked in theatre production across Canada and internationally. Most recently he has worked with Tarragon Theatre, Necessary Angel and Lorraine Kimsa Theatre for Young People. Nathaniel is currently a Special Events Supervisor for the City of Toronto.
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JUNG-HYE KIM
Set
For Studio 180: Debut
Jung-Hye is a Toronto-based set and costume designer. Her other credits include The Great Mountain (Red Sky Performance/YPT), The Washing Machine (2012 Next Stage Festival), Pub Opera (Tapestry New Opera), After Akmatova (Tarragon Theatre), Montparnasse (Theatre Passe Muraille/Groundwater Theatre – Dora Nomination for outstanding costume design), The Middle Place (Canadian Stage/Project Humanity/ Belfry Theatre/GCTC), The Big League (YPT), The Great Mountain (Red Sky), Radiance (b current), Iphigenia at Aulis (Festival of Ideas and Creation at Canadian Stage), Sia (Pyretic Productions at 2010 Toronto Fringe), If We Were Birds (Tarragon/Groundwater Theatre), Ten Green Bottles (Te-Amim Theatre) and Offensive Fouls (Theatre Direct – Dora Nomination for outstanding TYA production). As a new young designer, she received an honourable mention for the Siminovitch Prize in 2006.
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Jeff Lillico
Jim/Tom/Kenneth
For Studio 180: Debut
Theatre credits include Cruel & Tender (Canadian Stage); The Glass Menagerie, Our Town (Dora Nomination), The Time of Your Life, The Fantasticks, Parfumerie, Of the Fields Lately, Salt-Water Moon, Leaving Home, Antigone, A Month in the Country, American Buffalo, The Real Thing, King Lear and others (Soulpepper); Romeo and Juliet (Chicago Shakespeare Theatre); The Light in the Piazza (Dora Award, Acting Up Stage); Journey’s End, Gypsy, Floyd Collins, Three Men on a Horse, The Coronation Voyage, Happy End and others (Shaw Festival); All’s Well That Ends Well, The Taming of the Shrew, Hamlet (Stratford Festival); All Clear, Down the Main Drag (Alberta Theatre Projects); Little Mercy’s First Murder (Tarragon Theatre); A Christmas Carol (Geva Theatre); and Somewhere in the World (Charlottetown Festival Young Company).
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MARK MCGRINDER
Karl/Steve
Other Studio 180 productions: The Normal Heart, Our Class, Parade, Stuff Happens (2008/2009), Offensive Shadows, The Arab-Israeli Cookbook, The Passion of the Chris, The Laramie Project (2003/2004)
Most recently Mark appeared in The Big League (LKTYP). A veteran of five seasons with the Shaw Festival and several revues with The Second City’s National Touring Company, Mark’s other stage credits include Summer of My Amazing Luck, The Beggar’s Opera (Thousand Islands Playhouse); The Kitchen Witches, Over the River and Through the Woods (Theatre North West); No Good Reason (Red Socks Company/Young Centre); The Trial of Ebenezer Scrooge (Theatre and Company); The Adventures of Joseph Andrews (Tarragon Extra Space); The Foursome (Showboat Festival); Alexander Graham Bell I Want to Have Your Love Child (Canadian Fringe Tour); The Anger in Ernest and Ernestine, Tough (Adelaide Fringe); and Wild Abandon (Waterloo Fringe). Mark is a co-founder and member of the Core Artistic Team for Studio 180 and was the Assistant Director for Blackbird.
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Kimwun Perehinec
Betsy/Lindsey
Other Studio 180 productions: Our Class, Offensive Shadows, The Arab-Israeli Cookbook, The Passion of the Chris, The Laramie Project (2003/2004)
Kimwun is a co-founder and member of the Core Artistic Team for Studio 180, as well as one of our artist educators. Her credits include Madhouse Variations (Eldritch Theatre) and This Is About the Push (Seventh Stage), as well as work with such companies as Roseneath Theatre, the Stratford Festival, Theatre Direct Canada and Absit Omen. She has been an associate artist of the SummerWorks Festival and co-editor of WORKS (the SummerWorks theatre journal); and has twice produced/curated SummerWalks, a series of walking tours that she co-created in 2009. Film and TV credits include recurring roles on the TMN series The Line and the web series B.J. Fletcher: Private Eye; and Escape, The Transit Lounge, Max and Zoe, Puppets Who Kill, Nikita and Thieves. Kimwun is a graduate of the actor training program at George Brown College.
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KIMBERLY PURTELL
Lighting Designer
Other Studio 180 productions: The Normal Heart, Our Class, Parade, The Overwhelming, Stuff Happens (2008/2009), Blackbird
Kimberly is a Toronto-based lighting designer for theatre, opera and dance. Her designs have been critically acclaimed on both national and international stages. They have been seen across Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Prague, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Russia and Mongolia. She has received 12 Dora Award Nominations, winning twice, and is a recipient of the Pauline McGibbon Award. Selected design credits include The Maids (Buddies in Bad Times), His Greatness (IART), The Little Years (Stratford), Beckett: Feck It! (Queen of Puddings), This Is What Happens Next (Necessary Angel), The Penelopiad and The Happy Woman (Nightwood), Seussical (Young People’s Theatre), The Children’s Republic (Tarragon Theatre) and Caroline, or Change (Acting Up Stage/Obsidian Theatre).
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Maria Ricossa
Bev/Kathy
Other Studio 180 productions: The Arab-Iraeli Cookbook
Maria has appeared in theatres across Canada and the U.S. including four
seasons at the Stratford Festival playing roles in King Lear, Twelfth Night, Measure for Measure, Love’s Labour’s Lost, Much Ado About Nothing, Henry IV, pt.1, Streetcar Named Desire and Hamlet. Other credits include A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Sisters Rosensweig, Frankie and Johnnie in the Claire de Lune (MTC); The Heidi Chronicles (MTC & The Royal Alex); The Taming of the Shrew (Skylight Theatre); House of Blue Leaves (Theatre Aquarius); Beaux Gestes and Beautiful Deeds (Pleiades Theatre); Poor Superman (Canadian Stage); Tamara (Necessary Angel for The World Stage); The Cryptogram, Bea’s Niece, The Misanthrope (Tarragon Theatre); and Crave (Nightwood). Film and TV credits include recurring roles on Missing, Da Kink in My Hair, Degrassi and Riverdale, and roles on Flashpoint, Warehouse 13, Unnatural History as well as in the feature films The In-laws, Some Things That Stay and The Cry of the Owl.
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Lyon Smith
Sound Designer
For Studio 180: Debut
Select credits: The Cure for Everything (Contrary Company); Fernando Krapp Wrote Me This Letter (Canadian Stage); Window on Toronto, Christmas Carol (Soulpepper); Third Eye Looming (Workman Arts); Bird Brain, Dead Ahead, The Big League (YPT); Night (Human Cargo/NAC); Saving Lonesome George, Peg and the Yeti (Carousel Players); and Agokwe (Buddies in Bad Times Theatre). Lyon has received multiple Dora nominations and one award for his sound work.
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Ray Strachan
Assistant Director
For Studio 180: Debut
Recent directing credits include Oleanna and Caesar and Cleopatra (Nomadic Players), and Through my Father’s Eyes (Anansi School of Art). Ray has also served as Assistant/Apprentice Director on Bad Dates, The Drowsy Chaperone and Grumpy Old Men: The Musical (MTC). Ray has recently been seen on stage in Romeo and Juliet (MTC), One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (MTC/Theatre Calgary), Remember the Night (Moving Target) and The Paper Bag Princess & More (Prairie Theatre Exchange).
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“EXPLOSIVE! EXCEPTIONAL! EXHILARATING! This is the BEST: one of the few award-winning plays that actually deserves its prize. Subversive humour that is bitingly HILARIOUS. Under Joel Greenberg’s direction, this is a BRILLIANT feat of ensemble work.”
NATIONAL POST
“A NASTY and BRILLIANT Pulitzer Prize-winning COMEDY. Digs into the politics of race and class buried beneath housing bubbles and bidding wars. The production SOARS!”
GLOBE AND MAIL
“CUTTING SATIRE and surgically incisive drama. The audience GASPED.”
TORONTO STAR
“HILARIOUS! Fascinating play and WONDERFUL production. The cast is TERRIFIC!”
CIUT FM & SLOTKINLETTER.COM
“EXCELLENT! Thought-provoking and hilarious! It finds the PERFECT balance between awkwardness, discomfort and humour. EVERYONE SHOULD SEE THIS PLAY – you’ll laugh, you’ll squirm and leave with a new perspective on discussions happening in our own city right now.”
THE CHARLEBOIS POST
“Smart, abusively funny and fiendishly provocative.”
LA TIMES
“A spiky and damningly insightful new comedy.”
NEW YORK TIMES
“Superb, elegantly written and hilarious.”
NEW YORKER
“[A] buzz-saw sharp new comedy of inadvertent bad manners.”
WASHINGTON POST
“Outrageously funny and provocative. A firecracker of a play.”
DAILY TELEGRAPH
“Richly comic and unexpectedly moving… as unsettlingly immediate as it is exhilarating.”
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
“With an irascible fearlessness, [Norris] flies in the face of political correctness.”
LOS ANGELES TIMES
“The funniest play of the year.”
LONDON EVENING STANDARD
Talkbacks and pre-show chats
We provide several opportunities to get an insider’s point of view on our work. Join our discussions about the issues explored in and the story behind Clybourne Park.
To hear more about the play’s context, on Monday evenings and Wednesday afternoons meet Studio 180 Artistic Director and Director of Clybourne Park Joel Greenberg, or another Studio 180 team member, one half hour before curtain for a chat. Or, to get a taste of cast members’ experiences working on the piece, stay after a Wednesday matinee or Thursday evening performance for a talkback.
- Pre-show chats – Monday evenings, April 9, 16 & 23 (7:30PM)
and Wednesday matinees, April 11, 18 & 25 (1PM) - Post-show talkbacks – after Wednesday matinee and
Thursday evening performances, April 11, 12, 18, 19, 25 & 26
Reference
- You can certainly enjoy Clybourne Park whether or not you are familiar with Lorraine Hansberry’s classic A Raisin in the Sun; however, you might enjoy reading the play or watching the film for an extra layer of insight.
- Clybourne Park is set in Chicago, but many of the issues it addresses will sound familiar. To access resources about urban development, including issues currently affecting our city, visit University of Toronto Cities Centre.
- Check out University of Toronto Professor David Hulchanski’s work on income polarization in Toronto – a revelation of the growing disparity between rich and poor over the past 35 years: Neighbourhood Change & Building Inclusive Communities from Within.
- Studio 180 Core Artistic Team member Mark McGrinder did a great interview with playwright Bruce Norris, which is featured in the programme for the play (available at the theatre), as well as in our March newsletter (you can download the PDF here).
- You can also check out an interview between Norris and Rebecca Rugg, Artistic Producer of Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre Company.
