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After 35 years of magnificent artistry at the Indiana Repertory Theatre, Priscilla Lindsay is leaving to take on the role of Chair of the Department of Theatre and Drama in the School of Music, Theatre, and Dance at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.  “Priscilla’s contributions to professional theatre in Indiana are inestimable: from her ingenue roles, played in the earliest years of the IRT, to her 10-year run directing IRT’s holiday classic, A Christmas Carol, to her inspiring work as a theatre educator, to her acting virtuosity in recent years in such roles as Linda Loman (Death of a Salesman), Amanda Wingfield (Glass Menagerie) and the unforgettable Shirley Valentine (which she did twice!), Priscilla’s momentous talent, authentic spirit, and generous heart have thrilled audiences young and old,” said Janet Allen, IRT Artistic Director and Co-CEO. “We can’t begin to thank Priscilla enough for the contributions she has made to the IRT in these many roles, but we can salute and celebrate the great artistry she has left behind, acknowledging that truly, she has been a cornerstone in the making and sustaining of the Indiana Repertory Theatre.”

How about you?  Do you have any farewell wishes for Priscilla?  Do you have a favorite memory of one of her performances? A rehearsal or class anecdote?  Please post your messages and memories in the comments below.  Please allow at least 24 hours for your message to post.

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IRT TO HOLD 2010 CHRISTMAS CAROL AUDITIONS

For boys and girls ages 8-13 on Tuesday, August 10^th and Wednesday, August 11^th from 5:00pm – 7:00pm.

Callbacks will be on Wednesday , August 18^th at 5:30pm. All auditions will be held at the Indiana Repertory Theatre – 140 West Washington, Indianapolis.

Call the receptionist at IRT (635-5277) to sign up for more information and audition times.

Please prepare a one-minute monologue or story to share, and bring a picture of yourself and a short resumé.

See website (irtlive.com) for details and dates of shows. Children of all ethnicities are encouraged to come to auditions.  Rehearsals begin on October 29^th, 2010.

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CONTACT:  Kelly Young, 317.753.3258, kelly@baisecommunications.com

IRT Curtain Closes on One of Indy’s Favorite Actresses as the IRT Announces the Resignation of Priscilla Lindsay, Associate Artistic Director, Director and Actor

(Indianapolis) – At today’s Annual Meeting, Indiana Repertory Theatre officials announced that Priscilla Lindsay, veteran actress and IRT’s Associate Artistic Director, has accepted an appointment as Chair of the Department of Theatre and Drama in the School of Music, Theatre, and Dance at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, pending the approval of the Regents.

“IRT is the first and only theatre with which I’ve been associated here in Indianapolis, and I’ve had a grand time,” said Lindsay, “so many wonderful roles and great plays to direct!  More importantly, I’ve had the best colleagues and friends in the world. My husband Richard and I have reared our three children here and could not imagine a more perfect, loving community in which to do that.”

Lindsay has been with the IRT 33 of its 38 seasons. Among her more than 80 productions at the IRT are the title roles in Shirley Valentine, Driving Miss Daisy, Molly Sweeney, and Joan and Charles with Angels, as well as Melissa Gardner in Love Letters, Nat in Rabbit Hole, Sister Aloysius in Doubt, Mrs. Gibbs in Our Town, Linda Loman in Death of a Salesman, Ma Joad in The Grapes of Wrath, Mrs. Bennet in Pride and Prejudice, Mrs. Alving in Ghosts, Madame Arcati in Blithe Spirit, Amanda in The Glass Menagerie, and Maggie in Dancing at Lughnasa. In recent years she has directed The Year of Magical Thinking, To Kill a Mockingbird and ten editions of A Christmas Carol, and Huckleberry Finn, The Color of Justice, A Woman Called Truth, Romeo and Juliet, The Red Badge of Courage, The Miracle Worker, I Am Somebody, and Ride a Blue Horse.

“Priscilla’s contributions to professional theatre in Indiana are inestimable: from her ingenue roles, played in the earliest years of the IRT, to her 10-year run directing IRT’s holiday classic, A Christmas Carol, to her inspiring work as a theatre educator, to her acting virtuosity in recent years in such roles as Linda Loman (Death of a Salesman), Amanda Wingfield (Glass Menagerie) and the unforgettable Shirley Valentine (which she did twice!), Priscilla’s momentous talent, authentic spirit, and generous heart have thrilled audiences young and old,” said Janet Allen, Artistic Director and Co-CEO. “We can’t begin to thank Priscilla enough for the contributions she has made to the IRT in these many roles, but we can salute and celebrate the great artistry she has left behind, acknowledging that truly, she has been a cornerstone in the making and sustaining of the Indiana Repertory Theatre.”

Lindsay graduated from the University of Michigan in 1971 with a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre and in 1972 as a Professional Theatre Fellow with a Master of Arts.

“This new job was not something I was seeking, but an offer like this comes around once in a lifetime. I look upon this as a new adventure, a new chapter in our lives. To be a part of one of the great universities of the world, heading up the department I was once a part of, is a dream come true.”

Lindsay is the first woman to chair the Theatre Department at Michigan. She will officially begin her tenure on September 1, 2010.

###

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[4 May 2010; [broadcast 6 May 2010

AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS AT IRT

By BILL LISTON

For INDIANA PUBLIC RADIO

Around the World in 80 Days opened on the main stage of the Indiana Repertory Theatre last Friday night, and it was a busy night for the five actors who did all the work.

Everyone of a certain age, I suppose, knows the plot.  In 1862, Phileas Fogg bets some of his friends in the Reform Club in London that he can travel around the world in 80 days, and off he goes, accompanied only by his manservant Passepartout.  The story comes from Jules Verne’s novel of the same name, published in 1872, and the tale was made even more famous by the film of 1956 starring David Niven.

Truth to tell, there isn’t much of a play, in the traditional sense: there is little if any characterization, and the whole plot depends on whether or not Fogg will surmount all the problems, foreseen and unforeseen, that he encounters.  You’re safe in believing that he will win his bet.

The stage is bare, with a floor of red and tan wood.  Sometimes it looks like a rich carpet, and at other times it looks the deck of a sailing ship.  In a sense there is no set, and that’s the fun of the play.  The actors have to make it up as they go, transforming it from the Reform club to Fogg’s house to various ships, trains, elephants, and strange cities as they go.  Thanks to scenic designer Kevin Depinet, all the illusions work.

Jeff Cummings, a veteran of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and many other theatres, does an excellent job in the role of Phileas Fogg, a real British gentleman of the Victorian era.  Much of the fun of the play is seeing others of the cast coming back time after time in new roles, but always clear in their functions.  One of these is John Lister, a graduate of Ball State University, who goes along on the whole trip as Detective Fix, but he doubles as other characters when a stout and sturdy man is needed.  All the cast-members are Chicago actors and new to the IRT, and you will hope that they come back.

Mark Brown is the playwright who adapted Jules Verne’s novel, and William Brown is the director; they both do good work.

Around the World in 80 Days continues on the main stage of the Indiana Repertory Theatre through May 16^th.  Call (317) 635-5252 for ticket information.

–For Indiana Public Radio, I’m Bill Liston

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Zack Buell Gauthier Ralph et al.
Zack is very proud to be making his IRT debut with Around the World in 80 Days. Recent credits include the world premiere of Rewind by Laura Eason (The Side Project), Awake and Sing (u/s, Northlight Theatre), Blue Man Group as well as the world tour of Blue Man Group: How to Be a Megastar, and Cowboy Mouth (Producer’s Club, New York). Zack is a graduate of the School at Steppenwolf, Circle in the Square Theatre School in NYC, and New England Conservatory in Boston, where Buda and Moses taught him jazz drumming. “Thanks to Mom and Dad for their love and support.”

Jeff Cummings Phileas Fogg
Jeff is thrilled to make his IRT debut in Around the World in 80 Days. Recent credits include Garry in Noises Off for Theatre at the Center in Munster, Indiana, and as the theater critic in Curtains at the Drury Lane Theater in greater Chicago. Jeff worked for seven seasons with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, where favorite roles included Berowne in Love’s Labor’s Lost, Jack in The Importance of Being Earnest, and Dr. Paramore in Shaw’s The Philanderer. Other regional credits include Cassius in Julius Caesar, Septimus in Arcadia, and Einstein in Picasso at the Lapin Agile.

Minita Gandhi Aouda et al.
Minita is thrilled to make her IRT debut! Regional credits include Mary Zimmerman’s The Arabian Nights at Lookingglass Theatre; Half-Life, A Christmas Carol, and The Voysey Inheritance at Milwaukee Repertory Theatre; and Distracted at ATC. She will next be seen this summer as Viola in First Folio Theatre’s production of Twelfth Night. Minita is a graduate of the Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts and is currently studying aerial arts at the Actors Gymnasium. “I am thankful to God, my family, friends, and Dawn and Brooke of Gray Talent for supporting my dreams.”

John Lister Detective Fix et al.
Having grown up in West Lafayette, John is thrilled to be back home in Indiana performing with the IRT. Chicago credits include productions with Steppenwolf Theatre, Chicago Shakespeare Theater, The Goodman Theatre, Northlight Theatre, Writer’s Theatre, Eclipse Theatre, and CollaborAction. Regional credits include productions with Peninsula Players, Notre Dame Summer Shakespeare, and the International Mystery Writer’s Festival. Film and television credits include Public Enemies (Universal), Prison Break (FOX), and The Beast (A&E). John received his B.S. from Ball State University and his M.F.A. from Michigan State University. He is a proud member of Actors Equity Association, the union of professional actors and stage managers.

Mark Brown Playwright
Mark Brown is an award-winning writer and actor who has performed in theatres across the country. His films include Out of Sight, Holy Man, and Amy’s O. Notable TV credits include From the Earth to the Moon, House, Ally McBeal, Providence, Diagnosis Murder, and countless commercials and made-for-TV films. His play Around the World in 80 Days has literally been produced around the world. Awards for 80 Days include two Lillie Stoates Awards, including Best Production (Orlando Shakespeare Festival), four Shellie Awards, including Best Production (Center Rep Theatre), five Sarasota Magazine Theatre Award nominations (Florida Studio Theatre), and two Los Angeles Ovation Award nominations (the Colony Theatre). The Sacramento Bee named 80 Days Best Theatrical Comedy of 2004. His other plays include The Trial of Ebenezer Scrooge, China: The Whole Enchilada, and Poe: Deep into That Darkness Peering.

William Brown Director
Chicago director William Brown recently directed the world premiere of Brett Neveu’s Old Glory at Writers’ Theatre, where he has directed Jeff-nominated productions of As You Like It, Another Part of the Forest, Arms and the Man, Our Town, Rocket to the Moon, Misalliance, The Glass Menagerie, and Arthur Miller’s Incident at Vichy. At Northlight Theatre he has directed his own adaptation with original music of She Stoops to Conquer (After Dark Award), as well as The Chalk Garden and Lady Windermere’s Fan. At American Players Theatre in Spring Green, Wisconsin, he has directed Hay Fever, The Comedy of Errors, A Midsummer’s Night Dream, Night of the Iguana, Shaw’s You Never Can Tell, Antony and Cleopatra, All’s Well That Ends Well, The Cherry Orchard, Twelfth Night, and Thornton Wilder’s The Matchmaker. As associate artistic director of Montana Shakespeare in the Parks, he most recently directed his adaptation of Romeo and Juliet for Shakespeare in the Schools, touring the rural areas of Montana. He also directs A Christmas Carol at the Goodman Theatre. Bill’s website—containing slideshows of some of his work—is at williambrowndirector.com.

Kevin Depinet Scenic Design
Kevin is delighted to be working at the IRT for his first time. Recent credits include American Buffalo, Dublin Carol, First Look Repertory of new plays 08 and 09, and associate designer for August Osage County at Steppenwolf; The Crowd You’re In With and High Holidays at the Goodman Theatre; American Buffalo at the McCarter Theatre; What The Butler Saw at the Court Theatre; Oh Coward at Writer’s Theatre; Miss Saigon, Thoroughly Modern Millie, and Ragtime at Drury Lane; and Comedy of Errors at American Players Theatre, where this summer he will design Another Part of The Forest. Kevin just recently finished working on Michael Mann’s new film Public Enemies. He is also an adjunct professor of design at DePaul University. He studied at Ball State University and the Yale School of Drama.

Rachel Anne Healy Costume Design
Based in Chicago, Rachel has designed costumes for various stages, including the Goodman Theatre, Steppenwolf Theatre, Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, Writers’ Theatre, Chicago Children’s Theatre, the Court Theatre, Northlight Theatre, Drury Lane Theatre, American Theatre Co, the Next Theatre, Timeline Theatre, and Remy Bumppo Theatre. Regionally, she has designed with the Alliance Theatre, Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, First Stage Children’s Theatre of Milwaukee, American Players Theatre, and Long Wharf Theatre. Upcoming productions include Milwaukee Repertory’s The Seafarer and American Players Theatre’s Another Part of the Forest.

Charles Cooper Lighting Designer
Charles is thrilled to be making his IRT Debut. Recent credits include Curtains at Drury Lane Oakbrook; Of Mice and Men and First Look Repertory of New Work at Steppenwolf Theatre; Old Glory, As You Like It, Another Part of the Forest, Seagull, and The doctor’s Dilemma at Writers’ Theatre; she Stoops to Conquer and The Chalk Garden at Northlight Theatre; Blue Door, the Defiant Muse, Court-Martial at Fort Devens, and Shoes at Victory Gardens Theatre; Around the World in 80 Days at Peninsula Players; Well and The Overwhelming at the Next Theatre; True West and Top Dog/Underdog (in rep), Speech and Debate, Half of Plenty, Heritage, and Orpheus Descending at American Theater Company; Rhymes with Evil, Creole, and The Last Supper for Infusion Theatre. Charles is an associate artist at TimeLine Theatre, where his many credits include All My Sons, Weekend, Dolly west’s Kitchen, Harmless, Guantanamo: Honor Bound to Defend Freedom, A Man for All Season’s, Martin Furey’s Shot, and This Happy Breed. Other credits include work at Apple Tree Theatre, Teatro Vista, and numerous other theaters in and around Chicago. Charles is the recipient of five Jeff nominations and two After Dark Awards. He is proud to be a member of United Scenic Artists local 829. Charles lives in Oak Park with his wife Angela, son Ethan, and golden retriever Shelby. Please visit his web site at cooperportfolio.com.

Andrew Hansen Original Music and Sound Design
Andrew makes his IRT debut. He is an associate artist with Chicago’s TimeLine Theatre where he most recently designed The History Boys, selected as one of the 10 best productions of 2009 by the Wall Street Journal. In Chicago he has worked with the Goodman, Steppenwolf, Northlight, Writer’s Theatre, and others. He regularly collaborates with William Brown and will team again with him this summer on Another Part of the Forest at American Players Theatre in Spring Green, Wisconsin. He has composed music for short films, documentaries, one feature, and Lifetime’s Project Runway.

Richard J Roberts Dramaturg
As dramaturg for 12 of his 20 seasons with the IRT, Richard provides research for the IRT’s productions and works with playwrights in the development of new plays. He has also been a dramaturg for the New Harmony Project and the Bonderman Symposium. He has directed the IRT’s productions of Pretty Fire, The Giver, The Power of One, and Twelfth Night. Other directing credits include the Phoenix Theatre, Edyvean Repertory Theatre, Indianapolis Civic Theatre, and Anderson University. He was editor-in-chief of Arts Indiana magazine and has taught theatre courses at Butler University and IUPUI. He studied music at DePauw University and theatre at Indiana University. In 2003 he received a Creative Renewal Arts Fellowship from the Arts Council of Indianapolis.

Nathan Garrison Stage Manager
This is Nathan’s 14th season at the IRT. He has also worked at Center Stage in Baltimore and at the Utah Shakespearean Festival. In 2005, he was awarded a Creative Renewal Arts Fellowship from the Arts Council of Indianapolis. This past summer, Nathan directed Much Ado about Nothing for HART in White River State Park.

Claire Simon Casting
Claire Simon and her associate Teresa Thoma have worked with the IRT on the casting for 23 productions, including Romeo and Juliet, The Heavens Are Hung in Black, Crime and Punishment, Doubt, Hamlet, Our Town, Young Lady from Rwanda, Inherit the Wind, Searching for Eden, Pride and Prejudice, and many more. Other regional credits include Missouri Rep, the Guthrie Theater, Madison Rep, Milwaukee Rep, the Clarence Brown Theatre, St. Louis Repertory, Cleveland Play House, and Jeff Daniels’s Purple Rose Theatre. Claire also casts for film, television, and commercials. Most recently she has worked on the A&E series The Beast starring Patrick Swayze and the films The Lake House with Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock, Eagle Eye with Shia Lebouf, The Informant with Matt Damon, and A Home at the End of the World with Colin Ferrell and Sissy Spacek. She also cast the pilot and first season of the 20th Century Fox television series Prison Break, for which she won an Artios Award for casting.

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Universally acknowledged as the father of science fiction, Jules Verne wrote nineteenth century novels that featured many wonders not yet invented. He is often credited with predicting skyscrapers, submarines, helicopters and airplanes, film projectors, and jukeboxes, as well as expeditions to the north and south poles, the use of hydrogen as an energy source, and exploration of the moon.

Born in 1828 to an attorney and his wife in the bustling port of Nantes, France, Jules would be the eldest of five children in a family with a summer house on the banks of the Loire. No doubt the constant coming and going of ships in the harbor or up and down the river must have sparked the young boy’s taste for travel and adventure. He wrote short stories in boarding school, but when he grew up he studied law in Paris as his father had done.

When Verne got his law degree in 1850, however, he got a job as secretary of the Théâtre Lyrique,
publishing short stories and scientific essays in the periodical Musée des familles and writing librettos for operettas. His father disapproved of his bohemian lifestyle and soon cut off his allowance, so Verne went to work on the Paris Stock Exchange, a job he hated but did well. In 1857 he married Honorine de Viane Morel, a widow with two daughters; together they would also have a son. Verne continued to write, spending hours on research at the Bibliothèque Nationale, dreaming of a new kind of novel that would combine scientific fact with adventure fiction. He met literary legend Victor Hugo (Les Misérables, The Hunchback of Notre Dame), who offered writing advice; and he became good friends with Alexandre Dumas père (The Count of Monte Cristo, The Three Musketeers).

After years of rejections, Verne met Victor Hugo’s publisher, Pierre-Jules Hetzel, who saw something in Verne. Hetzel worked closely with the author, encouraging him to add comic touches, turn sad endings into happy endings, and tone down his politics. In 1863 they published Five Weeks in a Balloon, or, Journeys and Discoveries in Africa by Three Englishmen. It was an international best seller, and the start of a 40-year author-publisher relationship that led to more than 60 of Verne’s voyages extraordinaires.

Published at the rate of two or more a year, Verne’s early successes included Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864) and From the Earth to the Moon (1865). In 1867 he sailed to the United States, spending just a few days in New York City and Niagara Falls; this was the only time in his life he traveled beyond Europe and the Mediterranean. More acclaim followed with Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea (1870), Around the World in Eighty Days (1873), and The Mysterious Island (1875). Many of his novels were first serialized in Hetzel’s Magazine d’Éducation et de Récréation; once completed, they were published in three book editions: standard, small and cheap, and large and lavishly illustrated. His books brought him a fortune, but the real money came from the royalties on theatrical adaptations of his novels, particularly Around the World in Eighty Days. Although now based in Amiens, France, Verne spent much of his time sailing around Europe on a series of yachts, each called the Saint-Michel.

In 1886, Verne was shot in the leg by his mentally ill nephew; for the rest of his life, he walked with a limp.
His publisher Hetzel died in 1887. In 1888 Verne was elected councillor of Amiens, serving 15 years in office. During this time his rebellious son, Michel, became an even greater challenge, and Verne experienced financial difficulties that cost him his beloved yacht. His books—such as Floating Island (1895) and Master of the World (1904)—became darker, less about the joys of discovery, more about the dangers of technology and the hubris of scientists.

Suffering from diabetes, Jules Verne died in 1905 at the age of 77. His desk drawers were filled with nearly finished manuscripts which his son Michel published posthumously, including The Lighthouse at the End of the World (1905), The Golden Volcano (1906), and The Hunt for the Meteor (1908). In 1926, the year after Michel died, Amazing Stories, the first science fiction literary magazine, began publishing.

Jules Verne’s fiction has inspired generations of real scientists, inventors, and explorers. In 1954 the first nuclear-powered submarine was named for Verne’s Nautilus. After 135 years, people still attempt to break records while traveling around the world. Next to Agatha Christie, Jules Verne is the second most translated author of all time.

Verne’s second novel, Paris in the 20th Century, looked forward to a world of glass skyscrapers, high-speed trains, gas-powered automobiles, calculators, air conditioning, television, and a worldwide communications network. Despite these wonders, the book’s hero cannot find happiness and comes to a tragic end. Declaring that the novel’s pessimism would damage Verne’s fledgling career, Hetzel refused to publish it, and Verne locked away the manuscript in 1863. The author’s great-grandson discovered it in 1989, and the book was finally published in 1993, re-affirming Jules Verne’s place among the world’s great writers as a man of unparalleled vision and imagination.

—Richard J Roberts, Dramaturg

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by Janet Allen, Artistic Director

Just three years before Jules Verne wrote Around the World in Eighty Days (serialized in Le Temps in 1872), two great achievements changed the course of human movement. In 1869, the French opened the Suez Canal, so that ships from Europe no longer had to sail around continental Africa to reach Asia; and the United States completed the transcontinental railroad, linking up the east and west coasts in a relatively short, comfortable journey. It seems impossible that these events did not inspire Verne’s imagination as he created a proper English gentleman who accepts a wager to circumnavigate the globe in a record-breaking 80 days via steam, wind, and foot.

Today, of course, many of the adventures that Fogg and Passepartout encounter would be lost in the florescent glare of airports and high-speed train terminals. We traverse the globe electronically at lightning speed, connecting to people on the other side of the world via internet, cell phones, Skype, and online chat rooms. Fogg, on the other hand, encounters many different ways of looking at the world principally because he is thrust into the midst of foreign customs, languages, religions, currencies, transportation modes, and time zones (without an iPhone!), and his need for efficiency causes him to have to figure out how to manage these differences quickly—and all the while with a detective on his heels! The result is a recipe for absolute entertainment, mimicked today by the reality shows that focus on exotic globe-trotting. After all, there is nothing new in the world.

Perhaps most relevant to us, though, is the perennial popularity of Verne’s story. A year after the publication of the book, the story made its way into the theatre where it ran, in dramatized form, for fifty years. It’s inspired countless movies, television take offs, and most recently, video games and amusement park rides. Obviously, Verne knew more than a little something about human fascination for travel, for intrigue, for ingenuity, and eventually, for romance. He was a master storyteller whose sense of craft is contained even in the rather deadpan tongue-in-cheek manner in which he names the 37 chapters of the book: “In Which Phileas Fogg Secures a Curious Means of Conveyance at a Fabulous Price” (Chapter 11); “In Which Passepartout’s Nose Becomes Outrageously Long” (Chapter 23).

One of the great strengths of Mark Brown’s stage adaptation is how he takes Verne’s delight in human ingenuity and contains it in the style of the adaptation itself. His adaptation is meant to be played with five actors, so part of the treat of the piece is seeing actors transform to play the dozens of characters that Fogg encounters on his globe-trotting escapade. One minute they are proper English gentleman at the Reform Club in London, and not too many minutes later they are cowboys and train engineers in the Wild West. It’s all part of the fun as they leap from one cultural cliché to another in Peter Sellers–like affectionate mockery. Its takes some pretty elastic acting to keep this kind of pastiche in the air, and its verve and energy provide a truly great season ender.

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