2016-2017 Season
“Veronica's Room”
By Ira Levin
Premiering October 2016
Presented by iTheatre Collaborative
Oct. 14-29, 2016
Oct. 14, 15, 20, 21, 22, 27, 28, 29 and 8 pm Oct. 16, 23 at 2 pm
From the author of Rosemary’s Baby comes an harrowing labyrinth of suspense, entwining fantasy and reality. The story begins in 1973; Susan and her boyfriend, Larry have been enticed to the Brabissant mansion by the Mackeys, a charming, elderly Irish couple who are struck by Susan’s strong resemblance to Veronica, the long-dead daughter of the family for whom they work. Veronica’s room has been untouched by time and has been left exactly as it was in 1935. The mystery deepens as twist after twist unravels the frail threads of reality. Is it 1973 or 1935? Will Susan ever leave Veronica’s room?Buy Tickets
Cast
Alaina Beauloye (The Woman) has worked on Broadway and in film as well as national TV shows and commercials. She recently starred in the Discovery ID series, Love The Way You Lie. Recent stage roles;
Brad Bond (The Man) has had a long and varied life in the theatre and worn many hats, including actor, voiceover artist, director, choreographer, playwright, producer, and composer/lyricist. He’s worked all over the country--with national tours and extended gigs in Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Mississippi, and lived and worked for 18 years in New York City. A few of his favorite roles include the Baker in Into the Woods, Mozart in Amadeus, Charlie in The Foreigner, The Pirate King in Pirates of Penzance, Paul in A Chorus Line, and Tom in The Glass Menagerie. Since moving to the Valley 4 years ago, he has found a wonderful artistic home at Theatre Artists Studio, appearing in several productions including Maple and Vine, Cabaret, The Weir and the original run of The Velocity of Autumn. He has also worked on a number of projects at Lunchtime Theatre as a director and a performer. Brad is grateful to iTheatre Collaborative for another chance to do this beautiful play with the wonderful Judy Rollings. Maybe we can go home again after all!
Makala Close (The Girl) is a born and raised Phoenician. She has been performing for local audiences for over fifteen years, proudly calling iTheatre part of the family. Her first main show with iTheatre was Paul Zindel’s The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds. Ms. Close was in Bad Friend by Jules Feiffer and is excited to return to the stage in this production. She has worked with the Black Theatre Troup and Space 55 and other local companies. Makala believes the arts play a vital role in education and she hopes to enlighten her students and audiences through theatre.
Kyle Hartwick (The Young Man) from Tempe, Arizona, Kyle has a passion for the arts and creative process and is beyond thrilled to make his formal stage acting debut in Veronica’s Room. With nearly 10 years of musical performance experience and numerous appearances in short films and videos, Kyle wishes to bring his unique performance experiences and skills to the stage; a setting he wishes to spend a good deal of time at perfecting.
Playwright
Ira Levin graduated from the Horace Mann School and New York University, where he majored in philosophy and English. His first novel, A Kiss Before Dying, was well received, earning him the 1954 Edgar Award for Best First Novel. A Kiss Before Dying was turned into a movie twice, first in 1956, and again in 1991. Levin's first produced play was No Time for Sergeants (adapted from Mac Hyman's novel), a comedy about a hillbilly drafted into the United States Air Force that launched the career of Andy Griffith. The play was turned into a movie in 1958, and co-starred Don Knotts. Mr. Levin’s best known play is Deathtrap, which holds the record as the longest-running comedy-thriller on Broadway and brought Levin his second Edgar Award. In 1982, it was made into a film starring Christopher Reeve and Michael Caine. He is the author of the novels turned into films of; Rosemary's Baby, The Boys from Brazil, The Stepford Wives, and Sliver. Stephen King described Ira Levin as "the Swiss watchmaker of suspense novels, he makes what the rest of us do look like cheap watchmakers in drugstores.” Mr. Levin passed away in November of 2007 at the age of 78.
Creative Team
Rosemary Close (Production Stage Manager, Producer) has been involved in theater in the Valley for over thirty years. Her work dates back as far as the Arizona Contemporary Theater Company, Northwest Studios and the Glendale Little Theater to name a few oldies. Her onstage credits include; Frozen, Harvey, Chapter Two, Barefoot in the Park, Cabaret, The Balcony, The Way We Live Now, Royal Gambit, Love Scenes from Romeo and Juliet, Reel to Real, The Collected Works of Billy the Kid, The Maids, Skimpies and Bad Seed. Her recent directing credits include; Grounded and An Almost Holy Picture. In 1991, Rosemary began her longtime association with the New York theater company, Mabou Mines. She appeared in numerous productions with that company both in Phoenix and New York. The highlight of that work with Mabou Mines was a leading role in the multimedia stage production, Wrath of Kali, directed by the award winning and acclaimed, Lee Breuer. Currently, she is the Managing Director for iTheatre Collaborative and is proud to be a part of the impact iTheatre has made in the Phoenix downtown community.
Christopher Haines (Scenic Design, Producer) is a theater veteran with over thirty years of experience as an actor, producer, stage manager, writer, director and designer. He graduated in 1991 from Duke University. As a designer his work includes: Topdog/Underdog, A Raisin in the Sun, Gunplay, Peter Pan and Wendy, Wizard of Oz, The Colored Museum, The House of Bernarda Alba, and Horn in the West, a 1500 seat outdoor amphitheater in Boone, N.C. In 1994, Mr. Haines collaborated with the internationally acclaimed director, Lee Breuer (founder of Mabou Mines), on his project Wrath of Kali, as the Director of Videography, both in its debut in Phoenix, AZ and in New York. Other design work in video, photography and media includes the Daniel Lentz Group’s A Crack in the Bell, such plays as Jack, Reel to Real, Romeo and Juliet, Sweet Thunder, Don’t Bother Me, I Can’t Cope, and he has worked as the Director of Photography on the feature lms Wake of the Hero and Means of Escape and was the production designer for the independent lm Hack. In 2002 he co-founded iTheatre Collaborative. His work at iTheatre has garnered national attention and recognition with invited performances at the National Black Theater Festival in Winston-Salem, N.C., the Black Arts Movement Festival in Austin, TX and the Last Frontier Theatre Conference in Valdez, AK. For iTheatre he has produced well-over fty productions in the Valley with numerous regional and world premieres. Mr. Haines will be graduating in the Fall from A.S.U. with a Master’s degree in Nonpro t Leadership and Management.
Charles St. Clair (Director) s an interdisciplinary artist with over 400 major productions to his credit in theatre, lm and video. Some directing credits include: By the Way, Meet Vera Stark, Race, Indivisible, August in April, TopDog/UnderDog, Death and the Maiden, The 36th, Underneath the Lintel, Venus, Bee-Luther-Hatchee, The Piano Lesson, A Raisin in the Sun, Mozart’s Opera The Marriage of Figaro, The Impresario, as well as The Three Penny Opera, Faust, Tosca, La Traviata, Carmen and the ve- time ariZoni award winning production of Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill. Mr. St. Clair was Resident Equity Stage Manager for Burt Reynolds’ Theatre in Jupiter, FL, the Ruth Foreman Theatre in Miami, FL and the North Carolina Shakespeare Festival. He has been a technical director and production manager for over 300 productions and events, including the Closing Ceremonies of the Winter Special Olympics, the Orange and Sun Bowl half time productions and tours to Europe, China, India and the Middle East. He has also had the opportunity of lighting such well-known performers as Liza Minnelli, Barbara Mandrell, Pia Zadora, Alabama, Harry Belafonte and tours of the Broadway shows A Chorus Line, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Into My Parlor, I’m Not Rapport and Arsenic and Old Lace. Mr. St. Clair presently serves on the faculty of Arizona State University at the West campus where he teaches Acting and Directing and serves as the Technical Director for the Division of Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies in the New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences.
About the Show
Veronica’s Room opened on October 25th, 1973 at the Music Box Theatre and closed December 29th with 75 performances. The production was directed by Ellis Rabb and designed by Douglas W. Schmidt who won a Drama Desk Award. The original cast featured Eileen Heckart and Arthur Kennedy as the Woman and the Man with Regina Baff as the Girl and Kipp Osborne as the Young Man. Regina Baff was nominated for a Tony but lost to Frances Sternhagen in Neil Simon’s comedy The Good Doctor, one of the big hits in the ’73-’74 season.
The play features a plot full of twists and turns in the second act, and Levin and the producers took great steps to keep the plot a secret. Such as, identifying the characters by name would spoil the plot of the play for audience members, so printed programs only identified the four characters as Man, Woman, Young Girl and Young Man. William Glover, an AP Drama Writer, writing about Ira Levin and the play before it opened reported, “Secrecy extends to a ban upon any photograph of the second act, on the grounds that might tip the plot to mystery connoisseurs.” Even a note in the Playbill asks audiences not to reveal the plot after seeing it.
The play opened to mixed reviews. “The play is meaty, suspenseful, and brilliantly acted,” cheered critic Geoffrey Holder for NBC-TV4. In his Best Plays of 1973-1974, the noted critic Otis L. Guernsey, Jr wrote, “It was a melodrama with a difference, in that our fool hardy heroine does not escape the clutches of dark perversions…an atmosphere so noxious that murder seems almost a cleansing act….Veronica’s Room was a raw red helping of evil served up for the pure flavor of it.”
On the other side, Clive Barnes in the New York Times panned the show titling his review “‘Veronica’s Room’ is Found Empty.” He writes: “A note in the program suggests that:”For the enjoyment of future audiences, it will be appreciated if you do not disclose the plot of the play.” Their secret will be safe with me.” He goes on “The play is strong on atmosphere and totally weak in reality”
In the 1973 AP preview on the play, William Glover described Levin’s process for creating the very first scene, “Contrary to the usual pattern of thinking up a situation verbally first, "Veronica's Room" came to him first pictorially. "One day I sat down at the typewriter," he recalls, "and I really saw an image and couldn't get rid of it. As clear as I've ever seen anything in a theater. A man and woman were entering a room in which all the furniture was covered with sheets. A girl was waiting in the doorway and a young man was standing behind her. That took a year and a half to figure out.””