THE CLEAN HOUSE SWEEPS INTO ATC
Southwest premiere of Sarah Ruhl’s hit Off-broadway comedy
Tucson: Temple of Music and Art from April 5 through April 26, 2008.
Phoenix: Herberger Theater Center from May 1 through May 18, 2008.
Photo: Bernard Burak Sheredy, Rae C Wright and Alexandra Tavares in Arizona Theatre Company's The Clean House. Courtesy ATC.
THE CLEAN HOUSE is a mischievously comic
look at love, laughter and the secrets we sweep under the rug. This
contemporary comedy is written by Sarah Ruhl, one of the brightest new
playwriting talents on the American stage.
THE CLEAN HOUSE is making its Southwest
premiere after acclaimed productions off-Broadway and around the
country. The New York Times called it, “One of the finest and funniest
new plays you’re likely to see this season … a play that keeps revealing
surprising insights, whimsical images and layers of rich feeling as it
goes along.”
THE CLEAN HOUSE plays in Tucson at the
Temple of Music and Art from April 5 through April 26, 2008. It
continues its run in Phoenix at the Herberger Theater Center from May 1
through May 18. Arizona Theatre Company’s season underwriters are I.
Michael and Beth Kasser.
The story centers around Matilde, the child of the two funniest
people in Brazil. She has gotten a job as a cleaning woman for an
American doctor with no sense of humor – which doesn’t really matter
since all of her jokes are in Portuguese anyway. And even though she’s a
complete failure at dusting, ironing and vacuuming, she is nevertheless
a catalyst for cleaning up the lives of the people around her.
The Clean House was inspired by a real-life
incident in which the playwright overheard a doctor at a cocktail party
complaining about her cleaning woman and lamenting that “I didn’t go to
medical school so I could clean my own house.” THE CLEAN HOUSE contains
mature themes and language.
Director Jon Jory speaks with admiration of the playwright,
noting that “Sarah Ruhl has, by general acclamation, been called the
most important young playwright to appear in America in the last ten
years.” In reflecting on her eclectic voice, Jory says, “THE CLEAN HOUSE
is a comedy; it’s a tragedy; it’s got wonderful language; it has
terrific wisdom, I think; it has great acting parts. It’s very
theatrical –Sarah writes for the theatre. What Sarah does in her
script is something we couldn’t do in film; it’s only something that can
be done in the theatre. I think that people will be struck by
it.”
SARAH RUHL (Playwright) is the author of The Clean House (Susan
Smith Blackburn Award, 2004; Pulitzer Prize Finalist, 2005;
Pen Award); Melancholy Play; Eurydice; Late: A Cowboy Son; Orlando;
Demeter in the City (NAACP Image Award nomination); Passion Play, a
cycle (Fourth Forum Freedom Award, Kennedy Center) and Dead Man’s Cell
Phone which is currently playing a sold-out run off-Broadway starring
Mary Louise Parker.
Her plays have been performed on Broadway
and at Lincoln Center, Second Stage Theatre, Playwrights Horizons,
Goodman Theatre, Yale Repertory Theatre, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, and
South Coast Repertory Theatre, among other theatres across the country.
Her plays have been translated into German, Polish, Korean, Russian and
Spanish, and have been produced internationally in London, Canada,
Germany, Latvia, and Poland. Ms. Ruhl received her MFA from Brown
University. She is the recipient of a Helen Merrill Award, Whiting
Writers' Award, and a MacArthur Genius Fellowship. She is a proud member
of New Dramatists and 13P.
Arizona favorite JON JORY (Director) returns to ATC where he
has directed The Underpants, Twelfth Night and adapted and directed the
world premiere of Pride and Prejudice which has since played at theatres
across the country. Next season he will direct the world premiere of
Jane Martin’s new comedy Somebody/Nobody and is currently writing a new
musical for ATC with long time collaborator Peter Ekstrom. He was
Producing Director at Actors Theatre of Louisville from 1969-2000 where
he also founded the Humana Festival of New American Plays.
He has directed on and off-Broadway and at
many regional theatres and is currently Professor of Acting and
Directing at University of Washington. Mr. Jory has directed
internationally in nine countries and is the recipient of numerous
awards, including The Drama League’s Outstanding Contribution to Theatre
Award, American Theatre Association’s Award for Distinguished Service
to Theatre, the Margo Jones Award twice for the production of new plays
and recently the ATA Distinguished Career Award.
Photo:
Rae C Wright, Felicity La Fortune, Kate Goehring and Alexandra Tavares
in Arizona Theatre Company's The Clean House. Courtesy ATC.
The cast of THE CLEAN HOUSE includes Kate
Goehring (Virgina), who returns to ATC where she appeared in How I
Learned to Drive and Work Song: Three Views of Frank Lloyd Wright.
Ms. Goehring played Harper in the national tour of Angels In America
(LA Pride/Carbonel Awards). Off-Broadway, she was seen in Carrie: A
Period Piece at P.S. 122 and Laughing Wild at Bailiwick Repertory
Theatre (After Dark/Jeff Awards).
Her regional appearances include Intiman
Theatre, Arena Stage, McCarter Theatre Center, Goodman Theatre,
Huntington Theatre Company, and Actors Theatre of Louisville. Felicity
La Fortune (Lane), who recently appeared in Tom Stoppard’s three-part
Russian epic The Coast of Utopia and Adam Guettel’s The Light in the
Piazza, both at Lincoln Center Theater. Her Broadway appearances include
The Goat, or Who is Sylvia?; Sex and Longing and A Month of Sundays.
Off-Broadway, she has been seen in Dinner With Friends, The Exception
and the Rule (directed by Jerome Robbins) and All My Sons (directed by
Jose Ferrer).
Bernard Burak Sheredy (Charles) appeared
Off-Broadway in Dinah Was and Waiting for Lefty (directed by Joanne
Woodward). His regional theatre work includes Pericles and Lorenzaccio
with Shakespeare Theatre Company, Guthrie Theater, Wilma Theater,
Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, and Denver Center Theater Company.
His film work includes House of D, Meet the
Parents, Outside Providence, The Fish in the Bathtub, Quiz Show and
Liebestraum. Alexandra Tavares (Matilde) has appeared in Three Sisters
and Heartbreak House at Intiman Theatre and Jason and the Golden Fleece
at Seattle Children's Theatre. Other regional theatre work includes The
Comedy of Errors and Much Ado About Nothing at Seattle Shakespeare
Company, Little Women at Book-It Repertory Theatre and Crumbs Are Also
Bread and Swimming in the Shallows at Washington Ensemble Theatre. Rae C
Wright* (Anna) is an Obie-winning performer/writer of She's Just Away!,
Animal Instincts: Tales of Flesh & Tales of Blood, My Mad Brother,
The Moon in Vain and Vicki Weaver & I....
She also shares a Jane Chambers Playwriting
Award with Deb Margolin for The Breaks (The Culture Project). She has
appeared Off-Broadway as Arkadina in The Seagull. Ms. Wright is a
Professor at New York University. (*Please note that there is no period
after the “C” in Ms. Wright’s name.)
The artistic team for THE CLEAN HOUSE includes Neil Patel
(Scenic Designer), who designed Ring Of Fire, Sideman and ‘Night Mother
on Broadway. Off-Broadway he has designed scenery for Some Girls
and The Mercy Seat at MCC Theater; Living Out at Second Stage Theatre;
Going to St. Ives at Primary Stages; Between Us and Glimmer, Glimmer
& Shine at Manhattan Theatre Club; A Question of Mercy, Bob, Quills,
Slavs!, Score and Unmade Bed at New York Theatre Workshop; and Lobster
Alice and On The Mountain at Playwrights Horizons, among others.
Other New York theatre designs include
McReele at Roundabout Theatre Company and Dirty Tricks and Othello at
The Public Theater. Lorraine Venberg (Costume Designer) returns to ATC
where she designed last season’s Love, Janis. At Actors Theatre of
Louisville, she has designed productions of Spunk, The Underpants,
Dracula, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, 9 Parts of Desire, Mary’s Wedding,
The Chosen, Gem of the Ocean, Intimate Apparel, The Crucible,
Twelfth Night, Love, Janis (also at Kansas City Repertory Theatre,
Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, and The Cleveland Play House),
Fences, Pure Confidence, Memory House, A Christmas Carol, Blues for an
Alabama Sky, Ain’t Misbehavin’, Omnium-Gatherum, The Pavilion and
The Importance of Being Earnest. Brian J. Lilienthal (Lighting Designer)
is the Resident Lighting Designer at Actors Theatre of Louisville where
he designed Hedwig and the Angry Inch, The Underpants, 9 Parts of
Desire and Italian American Reconciliation, among many others. His
designs have also been seen at Trinity Repertory Company, Arden Theatre
Company, Merrimack Repertory Theatre, Cherry Lane Theatre, Capital
Repertory Theatre, La Mama Experimental Theatre and the National
Playwrights Conference at the Eugene O’Neill Center, where he was
Resident Designer. Matt Callahan (Sound Designer) designed sound for
many Actors Theatre of Louisville productions including, Hedwig and the
Angry Inch, Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure, My Fair Lady, The
Crucible, Twelfth Night, The Glass Menagerie, A Christmas Carol, and
Betrayal. Mr. Callahan has served as Audio Engineer for Chicago’s
Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Assistant Engineer for The Blue Man Group
and was a member of Defiant Theatre. Glenn Bruner is the Production
Stage Manager.
THE CLEAN HOUSE is a co-production with Actors Theatre of
Louisville, with whom ATC previously co-produced CROWNS in 2005.
Tickets and pricing
Ticket prices range from $26-$50 depending
on date and section choice and are available at arizonatheatre.org or by
calling the box office at (520) 622-2823. Discounts are available for
students, seniors and active military on specific performance days.
Half-price student rush tickets are available for balcony seating for
all performances one hour prior to curtain at the ATC box office
(subject to availability; must show ID).
Ten Dollar Tuesday for THE CLEAN HOUSE is
April 8. Balcony seats for this preview performance are available for a
suggested $10 donation. (Tickets must be purchased at the ATC Box Office
starting at 11 AM on April 8. Seating is first-come, first served and
is not guaranteed. Cash only, please. Two tickets per person maximum.)
For discounts on groups of eight or more, call (520) 622-2823.
ATC offers an audio-described performance for patrons who have
low vision or blindness on April 23 at 2 PM and April 24 at 2 PM.
Interested patrons may request a tactile tour one hour prior to curtain.
Braille and large-print playbills are available upon request from the
house manager. An American Sign Language-interpreted performance is
offered on April 24 at 7:30 PM. Patrons who have deafness or hearing
impairment will receive a biography of the interpreters, a description
of the play and name signs of each character.
An open-captioned performance is offered on
April 24 at 2 PM. As the play progresses, those in open-captioned
seating will be able to read the play’s dialogue in large green letters
on an LED. The service is for patrons with mild to severe hearing loss
who may not be ASL-literate. Tickets for all performances are available
through the ATC box office at (520) 622-2823 or online at
arizonatheatre.org. TTY access for the box office is available via
Arizona Relay at (800) 367-8939 (TTY/ASCII).
