My play Venus in Fur began with a very powerful, very bad idea.

A few years ago I re-read Histoire d’O, the notorious erotic French novel of the 1950s. Story of O (as it’s known in English) is the tale of a woman identified only as “O” who from the very first page accedes to her lover’s demands for various kinds of sexual submission. O masochistically submits for two hundred more pages, the classical severity of the book’s style and the odd purity of the main character’s commitment lending the novel an air of spirituality, of larger meaning and metaphor. By the end, O, who has willingly passed through stations of sometimes gruesome erotic engagement, approaches a state of near personal extinction.

Somehow I got the idea that all this would make for a terrific play. I envisioned an evening that crossed over into performance art. Kabuki! Robert Wilson! High pretension! Well, luckily for me the rights to the book were unavailable because I’m apparently not the only fool who ever dreamt of putting O onstage. Understand, my idea wasn’t bad because of the nature of the material. It was bad because the story is fundamentally undramatic. If your main character submits on page one, where’s the drama? So, yes, it might have been theatrical. But dramatic? Never.

Having x’d O, I was led by process of association to re-read Venus im Pelz, Leopold von Sacher-Masoch’s notorious 1870 novelization of his own submissive erotic entanglement. Venus in Fur has never been considered a “great” novel (its prose is as Teutonically leaden as velvet sandbags) but it is enough of a milestone that Sacher-Masoch put the M in S&M, lending his name, because of the book, to the term “masochism.”

Never mind the prose: I found myself electrified. Dramaturgically electrified, I mean, because the relationship between Severin and Vanda, the two lovers of the plot, seemed to dramatize itself without the intervention of a playwright’s hands. Unlike Story of O, Venus in Fur sparks with the friction of two buttoned-up people in an erotic power play who challenge, resist and disagree with each other even while bound by mutual sexual attraction. That sure sounded dramatic to me.

So I set about adapting the book for four actors—two to play Severin and Vanda, two for the side roles, all straightforwardly in period and period dress. By the way, for anyone wondering about the title (“Why Venus in Fur? Isn’t it Venus in FURS?”) Venus in FUR has always sounded better, and more natural to me, than the uglier Venus in FURS. And these days, we don’t say that a woman is wearing furs, we say she’s wearing fur or a fur. Nuff, or muff, said.

Having finished my adaptation, I sent it to my friend and longtime collaborator the actor/director/wonder Walter Bobbie, whose taste and judgment I trust absolutely. Walter didn’t know the Sacher-Masoch novel but quickly read the script and told me essentially this: that the relationship between Severin and Vanda was fascinating, but that the play I’d made out of them seemed both uncontemporary and too literal. For what is erotic and suggestive on a page (e.g., whips and chains) can be stunningly unstageable if not ridiculous under lights. And what does this relationship of 1870, however complex, have to do with us in the early 21st century? Walter apologized, I remember, for not being more specific than that. As always, I took his opinion very seriously indeed.

I pondered the matter for some weeks or months with no real idea how to use Walter’s thoughts to readdress or reshape what I’d written, but during this time the story of Venus in Fur, the relationship of Severin and Vanda, was still very present to me. Since their plight wouldn’t let me go, I felt certain that I was bound (so to speak) to go back to it. And then one day I did, though I don’t know what spurred me to take the route I took, which was to strip away everything but my two lovers and create a frame story set today in an audition room where a playwright seeks an actress to play Vanda in his adaptation of, what else, Venus in Fur. In fact, the writing went quite swiftly and I finished a new draft in 10 days or so.

I sent the revision to Walter, and Walter said, “Let’s do it”—the Cole Porterish music to every playwright’s ears.

“We are thrilled to be producing a season of work by an amazing group of writers and creators, each with a deeply personal story to tell and a distinctive way of telling it.  Some writers, such as Amy Herzog and Nina Raine are new to us and to Philadelphia.  In the case of Colman Domingo, it was just a matter of time before we brought this brilliant performer back to his hometown to share his coming-of-age story.  The much celebrated Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike is our third production of a play by Christopher Durang, the last one being the world premiere of his musical Adrift in Macao. Its Bucks County setting is certain to add extra dimension (and chuckles) to Philadelphia audiences. Producing the musical Nerds, however, represents a truly unique journey for PTC.  One of the most popular productions in our history when we mounted its world premiere in 2007, we are now producing a newly reimagined version that we know will propel it into a bright new future.”

“For the past 37 years, PTC has gained both regional and national recognition for the consistent high quality of its productions thanks to its award-winning creative teams and performers,” said President Priscilla Luce.  “Our new season continues this legacy in support of some of the finest plays and most important voices on the national theater scene today.”

The season opens with the Philadelphia premiere of the 2013 Pulitzer Prize nominated 4000 Miles by Amy Herzog, running October 11 – November 10.  Winner of the OBIE Award for Best New Play in 2012 and named #1 Play of 2012 by Time Magazine, 4000 Miles is a funny, moving drama from one of today’s most celebrated playwrights.  Twenty one-year-old neo-hippie Leo unexpectedly arrives on the doorstep of his feisty grandmother Vera’s West Village apartment, dazed and confused after a cross-country bike trip. Over the course of a single month, these unlikely roommates infuriate and bewilder each other, and discover the fragile line between growing up and growing old through humor, heartache, and love.  Frequent PTC director, Mary B. Robinson (most recently at the helm of Edward Albee’s At Home at the Zoo, PTC 2009), is slated to direct.

November 29-December 29 brings the musical comedy hit Nerds back to PTC with book and lyrics by Jordan Allen-Dutton and Erik Weiner and music by Hal Goldberg.  Nerds had its world premiere at PTC in 2007 where it was enthusiastically received by both critics and audiences and won that season’s Barrymore Award for Best Play.  This re-imagined version is directed by Marc Bruni, who last directed The 25^th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee at PTC, and is currently slated to direct the just-announced Beautiful: The Carole King Musical in San Francisco before its likely Broadway run in 2014. Nerds is an outrageous new musical that follows the lives of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs as they rise from garage inventors to billionaires. From the floppy disk era to the present day iPhone phenomenon, Nerds hilariously celebrates the computer revolution and the two pop-culture icons that made it possible.

The New Year kicks off from January 24-February 23 with the Philadelphia premiere of Tribes by Nina Raine, which had its world premiere in 2010 at London’s Royal Court Theatre and recently concluded a successful run at New York’s Barrow Street Theatre.  This winner of the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Play follows Billy, a young deaf man living silently among his loud, intellectually elite and fiercely opinionated family who talk a lot, but don’t listen so well.   He has adapted brilliantly to his hearing family’s unconventional ways, but they’ve never bothered to return the favor. It’s not until he meets Sylvia, a young woman on the brink of deafness, that he finally understands what it means to be understood.  New York Magazine’s #1 play of the year, Tribes explores the fascinating interplay between sound and communication, perception and truth, and hearing and listening.  Tribes is directed by Stuart Carden, Associate Artistic Director of Chicago’s Writers’ Theatre, and is a co-production with Pittsburgh’s City Theatre.

Christopher Durang’s Chekhov-inspired comedy Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, which transferred to Broadway this spring after an acclaimed run at Lincoln Center Theater, is next up for PTC from March 21-April 20.  Vanya and his sister Sonia live a quiet life in the Bucks County farmhouse where they grew up. When their movie star sister Masha returns from Hollywood unannounced with Spike, her twenty-something boy-toy in tow, an unforgettable weekend of rivalry, regret and hilarity ensues. By the end of their impromptu family reunion, this lovable bunch won’t ever be the same.  This explosively funny, laugh-out-loud, new American comedy is Christopher Durang at his affectionate, unpredictable best!  Winner of the 2013 Drama Critics Circle Award for Best New Play, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike was recently honored with six 2013 Tony Award nominations including Best New Play. PTC also produced the world premiere of Christopher Durang musical comedy Adrift in Macao which later enjoyed a successful run Off-Broadway at Primary Stages.

The season concludes on May 23-June 22 with A Boy and His Soul, written and performed by Colman Domingo, who received a Tony nomination for his role in The Scottsboro Boys, and directed by Tony Kelly.  A coming-of-age story, A Boy and His Soul follows Domingo’s upbringing through a box of vinyl records discovered in the basement of his boyhood West Philadelphia home. A one-man tour de force, A Boy and His Soul digs deep into the joys and pains of living in a working-class background, and the pivotal moment of coming out as a gay African-American man in 1980s Philadelphia.  This triumphant work features tunes by Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Donna Summer and others as the soundtrack to one man’s soul-stirring journey.

]]> http://philadelphiatheatrecompany.org/philadelphia-theatre-company-announces-its-five-play-2013-2014-season/feed/ 0 http://philadelphiatheatrecompany.org/pipelineproject/ http://philadelphiatheatrecompany.org/pipelineproject/#comments Thu, 02 May 2013 17:55:58 +0000 admin http://philadelphiatheatrecompany.org/?p=3248 Knight Foundation Supports New Project Exploring School-To-Prison Pipeline

Philadelphia Theatre Company will host a residency for Anna Deavere Smith leading to the creation of her new work, The Pipeline Project thanks to a generous gift from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation as part of its Knight Arts Challenge.  The Knight Arts Challenge funds innovative projects that engage and enrich Philadelphia’s communities.

The two-year, $100,000 grant will support the research and development of The Pipeline Project through its commission and production.  This is PTC’s second grant from the Knight Arts Challenge, having most recently received a two-year grant to expand its PTC@Play festival of new work.

The Pipeline Project will address the increasing numbers of American youngsters – especially African-American males – being “shuttled” from school into the criminal justice system. During her 2013-2015 residency at PTC, Smith will use elements of the theatre process that she has refined over the past three decades to create a compelling theatre piece that is also an opportunity to spark city-wide dialogue and public engagement about our education system and our civic responsibilities to children.

“It is a great honor as well as an exciting opportunity for PTC to provide Anna Deavere Smith with the resources to help her create both a civic dialogue as well as vibrant theater,” said Executive Producing Director Sara Garonzik. “The Pipeline Project will allow us to deepen our connections to our own community as well as to this extraordinary artist, activist, and thinker.”

“One of the most important things great art can do is inspire a conversation about an important issue. We’re excited by the idea of Anna Deavere Smith’s piece and look forward to watching it engage the community,” said Dennis Scholl, VP/Arts at Knight Foundation.

Smith explains, “In The Pipeline Project I plan to use not only what I know about creating a drama, but also what I know about creating conversation, to make the process as well as the product useful to the cause of increasing awareness about what is happening to our young people. I also intend to create new audiences and spur advocacy while doing so.”  She continued: “I am delighted to be returning to work with PTC both because of their track record, which is unquestionable, and because this is a theatre which at its very root has compassion. The project that I am about to create requires an environment that can support it artistically, but also, has, in its own DNA, true civic empathy.”

During the two-year residency, Smith will be in residence at PTC to conduct in-depth interviews with advocates, teachers, students, parents, and law enforcement officers involved in the school-to-prison “pipeline.”  A community-wide and public reading of the piece performed by Smith and later a workshop will be highlights of her time in Philadelphia.  The world premiere of The Pipeline Project would be the final production of the 2014-2015 mainstage season.

Playwright, actor, educator, and journalist Anna Deavere Smith last appeared at PTC in Let Me Down Easy in 2011 for which she won the Barrymore Award for Best Actress. She is probably most recognizable in popular culture as Nancy McNally, national security advisor on NBC’s long-running hit The West Wing and as Gloria Akalitus on Showtime’s current hit series Nurse Jackie.

Looking at current events from multiple points of view, Ms. Smith’s theater combines the journalistic technique of interviewing her subjects with the art of interpreting their words through performance. These one-woman shows are a part of a series she began in the early 1980s called On the Road: A Search for American Character. Her goal has been to learn as much about America as she can, by interviewing individual Americans from diverse backgrounds, and putting herself in other people’s words the way you might think of putting yourself in another person’s “shoes.”  Twilight: Los Angeles received two Tony nominations, an OBIE, Drama Desk Award, and a Special Citation from the New York Drama Critics Circle, and Fires in the Mirror, examining a race riot in Crown Heights, Brooklyn (1991), when age-old racial tensions between black and Jewish neighbors exploded, received an OBIE Award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

The recipient of the prestigious MacArthur Award, Smith’s work blends theatrical art, social commentary, journalism and intimate musings.  She was the 2013 recipient of the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize awarded to “a man or a woman who has made an outstanding contribution to the beauty of the world and mankind’s enjoyment and understanding of life.”  She is the recipient of numerous honorary degrees, among them those from Juilliard, The University of Pennsylvania, Arcadia Northwestern, Williams College, Radcliffe, Haverford, Bryn Mawr, Barnard, Spelman, The John Jay College of Criminal Justice and many more.

She has been artist in residence in environments as varied as MTV networks and Grace Cathedral, San Francisco.  Smith is also a teacher.  She is currently University Professor at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.  She also held tenure at Stanford University, was a professor at the University of Southern California and Carnegie Mellon.  She taught at the former Pennsylvania Governor’s School for the Arts.

She has been awarded the 2009 Social Justice Award by the Urban Justice Center and the USA Susan V. Berresford Fellowship from United States Artists. In 2007, Americans for the Arts presented her with the Kitty Carlisle Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Arts. She also received the Mayor’s Award for Art and Culture from the Mayor of New York City in 2007. In 2006, she received the Alphonse Fletcher Fellowship, which recognizes work by scholars, writers and artists who address and carry out the broad social goals of the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision of 1954. She was four times nominated for the NAACP Image Award and received the prestigious New York Women in Communication’s Matrix Award for her remarkable achievements and outstanding leadership role in her field in spring 2008.

Smith has been featured in several films, among them The American President, The Human Stain, Dave, Rachel Getting Married and Rent.  She was a regular on the CBS series Presidio Med, had a recurring role on The Practice and co-starred in HBO’s 2007 film Life Support.

Smith founded and directed the Institute on the Arts and Civic Dialogue, originally funded in large part by the Ford Foundation, and was the Ford Foundation’s first artist in residence (1997).  The Institute is now at New York University and focuses on developing curricula for arts and social change. Anna Deavere Smith Works is a program of the Aspen Institute.  It convenes artists from around the world who combine artistic excellence with content that aspires to effect positive societal and global change.

Founded in 1974, Philadelphia Theatre Company is a leading regional theatre company whose mission is to produce, develop and present entertaining and imaginative contemporary theatre focused on the American experience that both ignites the intellect and touches the soul.  By developing new work through commissions, readings and workshops, PTC generates projects that have a national impact and reach broad regional audiences.  Under the leadership of PTC’s Executive Producing Director Sara Garonzik since 1982, PTC supports the work of a growing body of diverse dramatists and takes pride in being a home to many nationally recognized artists who have participated in more than 140 world and Philadelphia premieres.  PTC has received 46 Barrymore Awards and 155 nominations.  In October 2007, PTC opened the Suzanne Roberts Theatre, their home on Philadelphia’s Avenue of the Arts, which has helped contribute to the revitalization of Center City Philadelphia’s thriving arts district.

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation supports transformational ideas that promote quality journalism, advance media innovation, engage communities and foster the arts. The foundation believes that democracy thrives when people and communities are informed and engaged. For more, visit KnightFoundation.org.

I really loved the show. It’s funny, witty, candid and very sophisticated storytelling.
Gregory W.

We really loved this show. We loved that it’s about writers, that it’s incredibly funny, that the language is great fun, and that the acting was excellent.
Jean B.

It’s a witty adult language play with spunk.  We were caught laughing-out-loud a lot.  The actors were terrific with great energy and timing. Also loved the sets.
Sayre D.

Seminar really hit home for me, as I have been a student in several writing seminars (and one of my teachers was even named Leonard!) The play was hilarious, the characters interesting and vibrant. I loved how the teacher’s character grew more and more dimensional over the course of the play. At the beginning I hated him for being so critical and candid and by the end he was my favorite character because of those same characteristics. As a writer, I felt for how Martin’s character was so hesitant to show his work to others and to accept help. It’s so difficult to give up that dream of becoming successful based solely on talent. I have one main criticism which is that I felt like it took a good 15 minutes for the plot to gain momentum (but gain momentum it did!).
Jennifer A.

The play was absolutely sensational!! I thoroughly enjoyed the wittiness and would recommend it as a definite MUST SEE!! WOW!!! All of the actors were electric and great chemistry.
Marilyn P.

I loved the set design. It was fabulous. The acting was superb as was the dialogue.
Tiffenia A.

I settled into Seminar with mixed expectations and came out more than pleasantly surprised. The set and the characters were both well done and familiar to anyone who’s been part of a college seminar, salon or other gathering of literary/intellectual types. At the same time, the context– a pay-up-front, post-grad gathering – seemed a bit different. And so too was this play. It moved from a drawing room comedy of manners and literary references and ambitions and attractions to something else as the plot thickened and the characters exposed themselves through developments. Each was more than they seemed. And the surprises that emerged stripped the Seminar and its characters of their pretensions to reveal some substance worth thinking about. In the process, we joined the Seminar. Seminar was far more than the prototypes–the Maileresque teacher, the earnest feminist, the flirty intellectual exotic, the workmanlike preppie, and the financially/emotionally inhibited talent–and its plot lines. By the end, we were more seduced by Seminar than the characters whom we expected the teacher to mesmerize from the outset. Enjoyable and stimulating.
Kay F.

I enjoyed the performance and thought it was very well written and the actors were very good. The performance engaged the audience and it felt as if you were listening in on an actual seminar. Memoir can be very powerful and as the character Leonard we can get drawn into these narratives and we believe in them based upon our flawed perceptions and our view of the world. The set design was excellent and I liked the change in costumes.
Barbara B. 

Excellent cast! The 90 minutes flew by although it was tough to get into the first 5 minutes of the play as Douglas was doing his monologue. Good use of UWS apartment set. Your playbill is excellent and I wish I had read the “Name Dropping” article before the play started. It would have helped me understand the first several minutes of the play with more clarity. Overall…extremely enjoyable!! I notified my girlfriends who are in writers’ groups the very next day and told them they must see this play!
Sharon S.

I loved the performance. I was completely drawn into the story. It was classic while still being edgy and hilarious! The set and the cast were effortlessly convincing and fluid; even the set changes they executed personally were entertaining and well done. My only complaint is that it had to end; I was so engrossed in the characters and the plot. I was shocked to discover only 90 minutes had passed! I was left wanting more; I’d love to see a continuation of this particular screenplay in the future! I surely hope Ms. Rebeck does a follow-up.
Juanita M.

I thought the play was extremely well-performed and the direction/blocking was largely enjoyable, but the script and the plot were shallow and, often, offensive. Basically, the play seems to be about the men in the play, while the women function as mere plot devices. I appreciated the acting, the set design was BEAUTIFUL, and there were lots of smart lines. But it seems to suffer from lapses in smart and thoughtful writing.
Khadijah W.

The play itself was very entertaining. Theresa Rebeck has created an interesting array of characters — from the snarling writer/editor who eviscerates most of the writing his students offer for his approval to the young writers expecting success as their due — decent people willing to play psychic war games to gain Leonard’s approval. There was a very cohesive, ensemble feel to the cast. They played off each other well.
Ann K.

I thoroughly enjoyed myself at the show. The sophisticated humor was delightful, and I only hope I did not disturb the people sitting near me too much with my frequent outbursts of laughter. The sets were very interesting. The actors did an excellent job. I am amazed at the energy with which they delivered their lines, as well as the facts that they could memorize so much. It was truly an enjoyable afternoon.
Sheila M.

“The road to hell is paved with works-in-progress.”
—Philip Roth

“The road to hell is paved with adverbs.”
—Stephen King

“Cheat your landlord if you can and must, but do not try to shortchange the Muse. It cannot be done. You can’t fake quality any more than you can fake a good meal.”
—William S. Burroughs

“Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.”
—George Orwell

“It ain’t whatcha write, it’s the way atcha write it.”
—Jack Kerouac

“I don’t care if a reader hates one of my stories, just as long as he finishes the book.”
—Roald Dahl

“The freelance writer is a man who is paid per piece or per word or perhaps.”
—Robert Benchley

“If I had not existed, someone else would have written me, Hemingway, Dostoyevsky, all of us.”
—William Faulkner

“Each writer is born with a repertory company in his head. Shakespeare has perhaps 20 players. … I have 10 or so, and that’s a lot. As you get older, you become more skillful at casting them.”
—Gore Vidal

“We’re past the age of heroes and hero kings. … Most of our lives are basically mundane and dull, and it’s up to the writer to find ways to make them interesting.”
—John Updike

“There are no laws for the novel. There never have been, nor can there ever be.”
—Doris Lessing

“I do not over-intellectualize the production process. I try to keep it simple: Tell the damned story.”
—Tom Clancy

“When your story is ready for rewrite, cut it to the bone. Get rid of every ounce of excess fat. This is going to hurt; revising a story down to the bare essentials is always a little like murdering children, but it must be done.”
—Stephen King

“Beware of advice—even this.”
—Carl Sandburg

“I would advise anyone who aspires to a writing career that before developing his talent he would be wise to develop a thick hide.”
—Harper Lee

“It’s none of their business that you have to learn to write. Let them think you were born that way.”
—Ernest Hemingway

“Writers are always selling somebody out.”
—Joan Didion

“Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.”
—Robert A. Heinlein

“Keep a small can of WD-40 on your desk—away from any open flames—to remind yourself that if you don’t write daily, you will get rusty.”
—George Singleton

“Literature is strewn with the wreckage of men who have minded beyond reason the opinions of others.”
—Virginia Woolf

“If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.”
—Elmore Leonard

“The difference between the almost right word and the right word is … the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.”
—Mark Twain

“I always start writing with a clean piece of paper and a dirty mind.”
—Patrick Dennis

“I almost always urge people to write in the first person. … Writing is an act of ego and you might as well admit it.”
—William Zinsser

“Never be sincere — sincerity is the death of writing. “— Gordon Lish

“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” – Samuel Beckett

“Henry James was one of the nicest old ladies I ever met.”
–William Faulkner

“I can’t bear another minute of Noël’s inane chatter. Who’s interested in a bunch of old English actresses he’s picked up from the gutter? Not me. If he wags that silly finger once more I may hit him.”
– Ernest Hemingway, on Noel Coward

“Nobody can be more clownish, more clumsy and sententiously in bad taste, than Herman Melville, even in a great book like ‘Moby Dick’….One wearies of the grand serieux. There’s something false about it. And that’s Melville. Oh dear, when the solemn ass brays! brays! brays! ” – D.H. Lawrence

“Why do you like Miss Austen so very much? I am puzzled on that point. What induced you to say that you would rather have written ‘Pride and Prejudice’…than any of the Waverly novels? I should hardly like to live with her ladies and gentlemen, in their elegant but confined houses. “- Charlotte Bronte

“I have read several fragments of ‘Ulysses’ in its serial form. It is a revolting record of a disgusting phase of civilisation; but it is a truthful one; and I should like to put a cordon around Dublin; round up every male person in it between the ages of 15 and 30; force them to read it; and ask them whether on reflection they could see anything amusing in all that foul mouthed, foul minded derision and obscenity. “- George Bernard Shaw

” How to read ‘Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s Stone’? Why, very quickly, to begin with, and perhaps also to make an end. Why read it? Presumably, if you cannot be persuaded to read anything better, Rowling will have to do. “-Harold Bloom

“As to Hemingway, I read him for the first time in the early ‘forties, something about bells, balls and bulls, and loathed it. ” -Vladimir Nabokov

“An unmanly sort of man whose love-life seems to have been largely confined to crying in laps and playing mouse.”
― W. H. Auden, on Edgar Allan Poe

“Reading the work can even be said to resemble the act of making love to a 300lb woman. Once she gets on top, it’s over. Fall in love, or be asphyxiated.”
- Norman Mailer, on Tom Wolfe

by carrie Chapter, PTC Dramaturg

The play contains a wealth of “literary insider” buzzwords and a “Who’s Who” catalog of vital authors and editors. Join the Algonquin Round Table *, and be in the know with the following terms:

Yaddo
An exclusive artists’ retreat colony located in Saratoga Springs, New York, Yaddo acquired its peculiar name from one of the original family’s children, who substituted it for the word “shadow” (which is also how “yaddo” is pronounced as well). However, the Trask family, who owned the lush, 400-acre expanse of property, faced the deaths of all four of their children, and financier Spencer Trask wanted to transform their estate into an artists’ colony as a gift to his author wife, Katrina. Since its first artists arrived in 1926, well over 6,000 artists have soaked their creative juices on the hallowed grounds, including James Baldwin, Sylvia Plath, Truman Capote, Philip Roth, Langston Hughes, and Jonathan Franzen. Its doors are open to all kinds of residencies like film, dance, photography, literature, sculpture, painting, performance, and music.

The MacDowell Colony
After one of America’s first great composers, Edward MacDowell, passed away, his wife decided to give other artists the opportunity to create in Edward’s home – a tranquil, woodsy farm in Peterborough, New Hampshire. Its colony status first began in 1907, and has hosted thousands of writers, poets, playwrights, artists, and composers in their residencies, at a rate of approximately 20-30 invited artists at a time, over period of five weeks to two months.

Tin House
In the spring of 1999, Tin House magazine was launched as a literary publication that would highlight new work from new writers, without the academic stuffiness of its literary journal predecessors. Poetry, fiction, nonfiction, interviews, and even a crossword puzzle would be commingling in a single issue. The magazine soon crossed over into its own brand of publishing, Tin House Books, in 2002, and now holds an annual summer writers’ workshop on the Reed College campus in Portland, Oregon.

Bennington
Bennington College in Vermont boasts one of the strongest creative writing residency programs in the country. In addition to accepting students of fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction, the program is also known for its prominent writers–in-residence. In the past, Bennington has hosted the likes of Robert Pinsky, Sue Miller, Erica Jong, Mary Gaitskill, Francine Prose, and Geoff Dyer. Currently, Rick Moody is one of its writers–in-residence, and it counts Amy Hempel, Phillip Lopate, and Susan Cheever among its core faculty.

Frank Conroy
An influential teacher and author, Conroy gained a devoted following once he became director of the acclaimed Iowa Writers’ Workshop, a position he held until his death in 2005. His memoir, Stop-Time, which was published in 1967, was nominated for a National Book Award, and cemented his literary stature.

Tobias Wolff
Primarily known as a writer of memoirs – most notably This Boy’s Life – and short stories, Wolff has also garnered praise for his two novels as well. He has held a professorship at Stanford University since 1997, and even had a brief position as the director of its Creative Writing program.

Robert Penn Warren
In addition to his literary success with his book, All the King’s Men, Penn Warren is also responsible for helming the age of New Criticism. Both his poetry and his novels are oft-praised bodies of work. Penn Warren taught sporadically in his later life (he was a Rhodes Scholar), including a brief stint at Yale University, a school he briefly attended as a student.

* Algonquin Round Table  – a historic group, an in-crowd, of writers, actors, and critics who met for lunches at New York City’s Algonquin Hotel from approximately 1919 to 1929. Dorothy Parker, Robert Benchley, Harpo Marx, Edna Ferber, and George S. Kaufman were among the privileged few.

We are pleased to have reached an agreement with IATSE Local 8, and the stagehand union strike is now over. We are extremely grateful to our loyal subscribers, patrons, and artists for their support and patience during this time. A settlement has been attained that is reasonable for PTC and appropriate for a theatre our size, and we are happy that we can continue to focus on our mission to produce great theatre.

Please call the box office at 215.985.0420 or click here to arrange for tickets.

We look forward to seeing you at the theatre!

The power of The Mountaintop lies within the core of its story, and we have committed to bring you that story through the beautiful and masterful words of Katori Hall, performed with eloquence and passion by our two actors, Sekou Laidlow and Amirah Vann, and staged by the immensely talented director, Patricia McGregor.

As some of you may be aware, PTC is currently in the midst of contract negotiations with IATSE Local 8, representing our stagehand employees. After only a few short weeks of productive and professional negotiations, the stagehands walked off the job one week ago. PTC has not replaced these workers, and we continue our commitment to reaching a fair and reasonable agreement with the union as quickly as possible.

At our preview performances thus far, audiences are seeing a version of our production with reduced theatrical effects that is fully-staged, on a set with complete costumes and brilliant performances by our actors. We are pleased to report that we have been playing to full and enthusiastic audiences each night.  Our number one priority at PTC is to stay true to our mission and to tell this important story with the artistic integrity and quality you’ve come to expect from us.

Performances will continue as originally scheduled, including all pre-and-post-show talks and events. We look forward to greeting you at the Suzanne Roberts Theatre very soon.

Thank you for your ongoing support of Philadelphia Theatre Company.