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 the play

Director

Dramaturg

Director’s Note
My father has always been a car buff. There are many different reasons for becoming a car buff. Some people are enamored with speed. Others collect cars of rarity. Still others are on an endless quest to "soup up" their dream car. My father, though, has always worshipped cars at the altar of quality workmanship. He enjoys finding cars designed with glorious simplicity or ingenuity. (It must be his German heritage.) The fine details that go into making the whole car function well mean a world to him. When I drive a car I have a general notion that it's a good car or not--my father, however, knows the technical reasons, the philosophy and mechanics, behind my simple notion. Plays are a lot like cars. I can think of many reasons to fall in love with a play--great dialogue, interesting characters, topical subject matter, or perhaps a thrilling, unique plot. When we pick plays at tws, we look for scripts with a multitude of attractive characteristics. I'll admit, however, that it is getting harder and harder to find plays with more than a single thing to recommend them. Instead, many contemporary authors give us one great idea, a charismatic character, or a plot device that is so prominent and appealing that it obscures other shortcomings. When one is attracted to such a play, it's like falling in love with a convertible, only to realize that, hot rod that it is, it still needs new brakes and a transmission. Now, sometimes you can't tell whether a play is a speedster or an Edsel simply by reading it to yourself; you have to go into rehearsal with it to discover how well it operates. Rehearsals are like a test drive: we "open it up and see what she can do." When I'm in rehearsal, I'm usually very blunt about a play's shortcomings as we encounter them. I don't want my collaborators to lose faith in the play, but I also want them to help me work past the play's problems. After all, we're working together to create the best possible production for our audience, and we don't want you to be distracted from a good play just because it has a small ding or two on its fender.  During rehearsals for The Last Night of Ballyhoo, one thing that stood out repeatedly was its high level of craftsmanship. Alfred Uhry knows how to build plays. The dialogue is great. The characters are remarkable. The dramatic situations are ripe with possibilities.  Probably the hardest technical feat to accomplish in writing plays is to marry comedy with a serious theme. Yet, Alfred Uhry makes it look easy in Ballyhoo. Yes, there is "important" dialogue about racism and the damage it causes, but the play cruises along so smoothly that you won't feel the bump of crossing into more difficult thematic territory. Uhry's flow of comedic one-liners and strong romantic tension act as a suspension. The play never veers too far toward the heavy or crosses the line into the ridiculously silly; it purrs along between them.  Of course, you don't have to be a "technical" play buff to enjoy this show any more than you have to read Road and Track to enjoy a fine car. Just sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride of this fine dramatic vehicle.

Alfred Uhry's Top Ten of the Century
The author of The Last Night of Ballyhoo was recently asked to proffer his personal pick of the highlights of 20th-century drama. Here is his selection of the ten best American dramas written between 1900 and 2000. They're listed in no particular order; the ranking within this elite group is entirely random. 
¥ The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams
¥ Glengarry Glen Ross by David Mamet
¥ Craig's Wife by George Kelley
¥ Angels in America by Tony Kushner
¥ Six Degrees of Separation by John Guare
¥ Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
¥ Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf by Edward Albee
¥ Long Day's Journey Into Night by Eugene O'Neill
¥ The Dining Room by A.R. Gurney
¥ You Can't Take It With You by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart

Production Credits
Director, Tony Vezner
Stage Manager, Bill Hammack
Assistant Stage Manager,  Arlene Page
Costume Designer,  Mary Dempsey
Costume Crew,  Mary Ellen Druyan, Marcia Grohne, Jennifer Jindrich, Debby Mills, Margaret Nikoleit, Elizabeth Roche, Helen Smith, Jane Stacy
Dramaturg, David Bremer
Lighting Designer, Benton Bullwinkel
Lighting Crew, Jim Dutton, Greg Maurer, Scott Noris, Bill Redding, Paul Roach 
Makeup Designers, Karen Arnold, Bridget Kellens Bittman
Makeup Crew, Catherine Bloomer, Deidre Kellens, Sandra O'Neal Lulay, Craig Mahlstedt, Jan Mahlstedt, Mary Pavia, Eileen Vandenburg
Properties Designers, Angelee Johns, Tom Pfeil
Properties Crew, Catherine Bloomer, Tom Frohnapfel, Laura Leonardo-Ownby
Set Designer, Bill Rotz
Set Construction Chairs, Mike Huth, Bill Rotz
Set Construction Crew, Catherine Bloomer, Anne Cahill, George Dempsey, Mark Favoino, Tim Feeney, Tom Frohnapfel, Kirby Harris, Mark Hewitt, Von Jansma, Heinz Karplus, Christine Klamer, Keith Klamer, John Otto, Rich Ptacek, Paul Roach, Fred Sauers, Noel Smith, Julie Suarez
Set Painting Chair, Rob Pold
Set Painting Crew, Diane Changelian, Tim Feeney, Tom Frohnapfel, Pat Huth, Deidre Kellens, Christine Klamer, Keith Klamer, Martha Niles, Mary Pavia, Mike Pavia, Patricia Rafferty, Helen Smith, Sandy Squillo 
Sound Designer, Dorothy Attermeyer
Sound Crew, Ralph Byers, Mike Janke, Rick Pavia Production Box Office Chair, Mary Ellen Schutt
Production Box Office Crew, Peg Callaghan, Ruth Cekal, George Dempsey, Lori B. Proksa, Joan Roeder, Patti Roeder, Paulette Sarussi, Sandy Squillo, Don Strueber, Carol Suda
Production Group Sales Chair, Carol Clarke
Production Hospitality Crew, Jean Bonkoske, Carol Clarke, Mark Cunningham, Mary Ellen Druyan, Chet Dubowski, Charlie Egan, Liz Egan, Bill FitzGerald, Kirby Harris, Karen Holbert, Mike Huth, Pat Huth, Christine Klamer, Caitlin Machak, Nikita Machak, Erica Manta, Duane Mills, Connie Sierzputowski, Rob Snyder 
Production Lobby Photo Display, Marjorie Mason Heffernan, Jane Stacy
Production Posters, Kathleen Kusper
Production Program Chair, Jeff Arena
Production Program Design, John Vilhauer
Production Publicity Chair, Joseph Petrolis
Marketing and Managing Director, Jeff Arena

Convergences and History, Dramaturg notes 
by David Bremer
A popular saying states that "Everything that rises must converge." Another slogan is "The South will rise again." Together, these maxims suggest that the South (especially the southern Jewish community of The Last Night of Ballyhoo) has been destined to converge again and again. Ballyhoo has roots in quite a few convergences. The original "American" Jews settled in New Amsterdam. The "Russian" Jews settled first in New York. In Alfred Uhry's play, both camps have moved to Georgia. And Ballyhoo's South is itself experiencing a convergence. When that most intoxicating fantasy of antebellum glories, Gone With the Wind, becomes the "reality" of a movie, the premiere in Atlanta inspires a real-life celebration of fantastic proportion. That The Last Night of Ballyhoo was itself commissioned as part of festivities intended to showcase a triumphant South, the 1996 Olympics, shows just how real-life and staged dramas converge. 
Here's an interesting side note. Teddy Roosevelt was a booster of the modern Olympiad. In addition to championing the games, he opened the civil service to Jews. Yet, of greater interest to our Ballyhoo characters would be the fact that Roosevelt's mother, Mittie Bullock Roosevelt, was a member of a prominent aristocratic family from Georgia. In fact, Margaret Mitchell modelled Scarlett O'Hara on the real-life Mittie, from her physical description to her vocal mannerism. Fiction and its inspiration converge once more.
To identify these convergences, it pays to know the background. Jews have a long history in America, dating to 1654. By the Civil War, Jewish settlers had homes in every part of the nation. During the war, they fought on both sides; surprisingly, they found greater acceptance with the Confederacy. And after the war, Jews were vital to the economic revival of the South. Most of these early American Jews were Ashkenazi, with cultural ties to Germany and Northern Europe. Over time, their worship services evolved via the American Reform Movement which "westernized" its practices in manners that resemble mainstream American Protestant practices. A high value was placed on assimilation, seeking protection from persecution by stressing a secular Americanism. Yet prejudice remained a strong, if hidden, force best illustrated by restrictions that quietly kept Jews out of country clubs, government jobs, and public accommodations. In response, parallel institutions appeared. Jewish-run social organizations offered the patina of equity. In the late 1800s, that illusion was threatened as people of Eastern Europe and the Mediteranian arrived in America. Few established Jews welcomed this wave of Sephardic Jews, whose roots were in Spain and Portugal, but whose cultural identities were formed in Russia, Poland, and other Slavic countries. American Jews referred to the newcomers as "Minsky-Pinsky" and "East of the Elbe." In response, the Sephardim forged their own identity:  religiously conservative, clinging to their heritage, yet proud to be in America. They shocked a Jewish establishment that viewed them as pushy and uncouth. Fear of a new tide of anti-Semitism, of being made visible again, created a sense that the Sephardim were a distinct, damaging "other."  These are the forces at play in Atlanta, 1939. The complacent world of Ballyhoo, with its social order represented by the ball itself, is the comforting construct of American Jews with deep southern roots. Watch as their world is rocked by "that boy from New York" and all he represents. 

Frankly My Dear: Gone With the Wind Mania
by Jeff Arena
Gone With the Wind became a phenomenon almost as soon as Margaret Mitchell's book was published on June 10, 1936. Producer David O. Selznick purchased the screen rights for $50,000 in July, but he didn't actually read the three-and-a-half pound, 1,037-page novel until after it had sold a half-million copies. By the time Gone With the Wind won the Pulitzer Prize, Selznick was planning "to give the public just as much of the book as is endurable." At three hours and forty minutes (plus intermission!), Gone With the Wind was truly epic in proportion, and it was the most expensive film ever produced. At a price of nearly four million dollars, Gone With the Wind embodied excess and an elusive fantasy. Even the casting process took place on an epic scale. Since so many readers identified strongly with the novel's heroine, the casting of Scarlett O'Hara had the urgency of a national emergency. The process took over two years. Nearly 1,400 potential Scarletts were interviewed; 90 screen tests were produced at a cost of $92,000. Among those who auditioned were Lucille Ball, Tallulah Bankhead, Joan Crawford, Katharine Hepburn, Barbara Stanwyck, Lana Turner, and Mae West. David Selznick finally found his Scarlett on December 10, 1938 (just six weeks before the deadline for principal filming) when Vivien Leigh, a minor English actress, accompanied her lover Laurence Olivier onto a back lot to watch the crew filming exterior shots of "Atlanta" burning. Everything about Gone With the Wind was purposely oversized. Even the typeface for the title is so large that only one word can appear on screen at a time. The production team was enormous: four directors, two cinematographers, 11 paid writers and at least six more who tinkered as a favor to the producer. (Selznick himself penned the film's opening text, "There was a land of Cavaliers and Cotton Fields called the Old South...a Civilization gone with the wind," and he personally added the scene that brings Scarlett back to Tara for the film's end.) There were 550 specially created wardrobe pieces, 90 sets, 36 original wallpaper designs, almost as many carpet patterns, 59 speaking parts, thousands of extras, 1,000 uniformed dummies as Confederate wounded, 1,100 horses, 375 other animals, and much, much more. Gone With the Wind was only the thirteenth picture filmed in Technicolor; it was by far the most ambitious. The crew used all seven of the Technicolor cameras in existence, recording more than 449,512 feet of color film; 88 hours worth. To celebrate such an oversized movie, a larger-than-life premiere was required, and Atlanta rose to the occassion. Georgia's governor proclaimed a public holiday; Atlanta's mayor declared a three-day festival. 300,000 people (half of Atlanta's population, many dressed in period costume)greeted the stars' motorcade. At Thursday night's charity ball, Miss Margaret Palmer, whose figure conformed more closely than any other Junior Leaguer's to the measurements of Vivien Leigh, was lent one of Scarlett's costumes to lead the Grand March. Clark Gable accompanied the mayor's daughter; the mayor escorted Gable's wife, Carole Lombard. Friday's festivities included tea and cocktail parties, and finally, the film. Four hundred State Troopers managed the crowd outside Loew's Grand Theater, which was rebuilt to look like the film's Twelve Oaks mansion. Margaret Mitchell, who started it all, was ill and could not attend. 

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