About the Director

James J. Christy

For 35 years, Dr. Christy has been a professor and director with Villanova University’s theatre department, serving as chairperson of the department for 13 years. In 2002, he received his sixth Barrymore Award nomination for Outstanding Direction of a Play for The Merchant of Venice at The People’s Light & Theatre Company. Other recent credits include Riders to the Sea and The Dreaming of the Bones and Arcadia at Villanova Theatre; The Weir at Arden Theatre Company; and The Laramie Project at Philadelphia Theatre Company, which received 2001 Barrymore Awards for Overall Production of a Play, Direction of a Play, and Outstanding Ensemble. Last spring, he directed fellow faculty member Michael Hollinger’s Red Herring for Actor’s Theatre of Louisville.

Press Release

VILLANOVA THEATRE PRESENTS THE TROJAN WOMEN

Villanova Theatre will present the Philadelphia premiere of a new translation of Euripides’ classic Greek tragedy, The Trojan Women, November 12­24, 2002, at Vasey Hall on the Villanova University campus. Show times are 8:00pm Tuesday­Saturday and 2:00pm Sunday. Tickets are priced $18­$22 and may be ordered by calling the Villanova Theatre Box Office at (610) 519-7474.

The Trojan Women is directed by 2001 Barrymore Award-winning director James J. Christy, who will utilize a 1999 translation by Chicago-based theatre scholar Nicholas Rudall, original music composed by Robert Maggio, and testimonials by women from war-torn countries to emphasize the modern implications of the play’s themes.

The Trojan Women was written in 415 bc by Greek tragedian Euripides, the author of over 75 plays, including The Medea, Electra, and The Bacchae. The Trojan Women takes place in the aftermath of the mythical Trojan War. As the play begins, the women of Troy are left standing in the ruins of their country, enslaved by the conquering Greeks and awaiting an uncertain fate. The Greeks have invaded Troy to reclaim the beautiful Helen, who was taken (willingly or not) from her husband Menelaus by Paris, the son of the King of Troy. Helpless while their men and children are slaughtered, the women of Troy must deal with the consequences of a war they did not start and carry on.

“I was teaching a Greek styles class at Villanova last semester and was working with many of our women graduate students on Greek tragedy,” said Christy. “They were doing amazing work and I was struck by how deeply Euripides and the other Greek playwrights had thought about the role of women in war and how they presented women in such complex and thought-provoking ways. That experience, coupled with the shock of the September 11th attacks, pushed me in the direction of The Trojan Women and its anti-war spirit.”

“The more I got to know the play, it seemed to me that Euripides was incredibly aware of the idea that the men perpetrate war and the women suffer,” Christy said. “So many of his plays confront the all-male Athenian audience with the consequences of their attitudes...toward a lot of things, but specifically their attitudes toward women and, in this case, their attitudes toward war and women in war.

“The play raises questions that are extremely relevant today: ‘Why war now?’ ‘Why is that the only way to solve problems?’ Women are clearly the sufferers of war: What happens to them during and after war?” Christy is setting The Trojan Women in a modern war-torn city to emphasize the timelessness of the play’s anti-war tone and to focus on the experiences of women affected today by war.

“I was going through the process of conceptualizing the production, and I wanted it to represent the universal tendency of humankind to provoke or to pursue war,” he said. “I settled on the idea of placing men in modern military gear and women in the traditional clothing of the ancient world. These are images we are seeing in the news on a daily basis.”

The women of the chorus will reflect the juxtaposition of the modern and the ancient through their dual identity as a traditional Greek chorus and as modern-day war refugees. “The chorus will be wearing ancient, ceremonial robes, but they will also wear costumes underneath resembling refugee clothing for the portions of the production where I have inserted war testimonials. These clothes look like the old sweaters, tattered jeans, and head scarves worn by refugees in Kosovo or Northern Ireland or any number of places where women are suffering the ravages of war,” said Christy.

The Trojan Women is the fourth Greek play Christy has directed at Villanova, where he has been a professor and director in the theatre department for over 30 years. He previously directed Euripides’ Iphigenia at Aulis, Orestes, and The Bacchae, readily admitting the plays are “an impossible task to direct. They’re great, they’re beautiful, they’re complex, but they are very difficult to render into a contemporary theatricality.”

He feels, however, that Rudall’s translation of The Trojan Women, which premiered to great acclaim at The Shakespeare Theatre in Washington, DC, under the direction of Joanne Akalaitis, will help make the 2,500-year-old play accessible to audiences. “It is an excellent translation. Very sharp, spare, poetic. It has great rhythm.”

Rudall is an Associate Professor of Classical Languages and Literature at the University of Chicago. He has translated numerous Greek plays, including Sophocles’ Antigone and Aristophanes’ Lysistrata. He won Chicago’s Joseph Jefferson Award for his translation of The Iphigenia Cycle and the After Dark Award for his translations of Oedipus the King and Antigone.

For The Trojan Women, Christy has assembled a cast predominantly composed of current Villanova theatre graduate students. Antoinette “Toni” Purnell portrays Hecuba, wife of the King of Troy; Kristyn Chouiniere is Cassandra, Hecuba’s daughter; Nina Donze is Andromache, Hector’s wife; Daniella Vinitski is Helen of Troy; Mike Kleba is Helen’s husband, Menelaus; and Carl Granieri is a Greek herald, Talthybius. The role of Poseidon, God of the sea, will be portrayed by theatre department chairperson Peter M. Donohue, OSA. Andromache’s son, Astyanax, will be played at alternate performances by third-grade students Dimitri Lewicki and Jacob VanLangeveld.

The eight-member chorus is composed of Villanova students Carrie Bray, Melissa Dryslewski, Jennifer Kulick, Cheryl Mazzarini, Gillian Nicoletti, Gina Pisasale, Dana Tretta, and Taylor Williams. Soldiers are portrayed by Juan M. Bertrán-Astor, Joe Leduc, Jason Moreen, and Gregg Pica.

The Trojan Women production team includes Scenic Designer Dirk Durossette, Costume Designer Charlotte Cloe Fox, Lighting Designer Jerold R. Forsyth, Sound Designer Matt Callahan, Properties Designer cdavid hall-cottrill, and Dramaturg CC McFarland.

The Trojan Women performs November 12-24, 2002. Press Opening is Wednesday, November 13, 2002, at 8:00pm. Performances are held in Vasey Hall, Lancaster & Ithan Avenues, on the Villanova University campus. Showtimes are 8:00pm Tuesday­Saturday and 2:00pm Sunday. Tickets are priced $18­$22, with discounts for seniors, groups, and students.

For tickets and information, call the Villanova Theatre Box Office at 610-519-7474 or visit http://www.villanova.edu/artsci/theatre/.

Cast of Characters

Press Release

VILLANOVA THEATRE PRESENTS PHILADELPHIA PREMIER OF MARINA CARR’S BY THE BOG OF CATS...

Villanova Theatre presents the Philadelphia Premiere of By the Bog of Cats..., Irish playwright Marina Carr's passionate tale of love, betrayal, and revenge. By the Bog of Cats... is directed by Barrymore Award-winning director and Villanova theatre professor Harriet Power, and runs February 11­23, 2003, at Vasey Hall on the Villanova University campus. Show times are 8:00pm Tuesday-Saturday and 2:00pm Sunday. Tickets are priced $18­$22 and may be ordered by calling the Villanova Theatre Box Office at (610) 519-7474.

Marina Carr is one of Ireland's most acclaimed contemporary playwrights. She is the author of nine plays, including Ariel, On Raftery's Hill, Portia Coughlan, and The Mai, which was named Best New Play at the 1994 Dublin Theatre Festival.

Inspired by Euripides’ legendary tragedy, Medea, By the Bog of Cats... received its premiere in Dublin and was awarded the 1998 Irish Theatre Award for Best Play and the Dublin Times Best New Play Award; its three U.S. productions (Chicago, San Jose, Cape Cod) have garnered rave reviews, with Aisle Say calling it "a richly poetic play with memorable characters and a gripping story."

Written with a rough elegance that reflects the unique vocal rhythms of Ireland's Midlands region where the play is set, By the Bog of Cats... is at once true to its epic Greek roots and stunningly original in its use of language and black humor.

“While the play is faithful to the structure of Medea, I also attempted to make it my own,” explained Carr. “At some point I forgot about the original structure and just went my own way. [Medea] is there like a ghost's imprint on the piece, though I have my own correlations to each of the characters."

Honoring the ancient Greek tradition of a play’s action taking place in a single day, By the Bog of Cats... moves from dusk to dawn on and around the Bog of Cats, a mysterious and starkly beautiful landscape that serves as home to Hester Swane, an Irish Traveller with a deep, almost unearthly connection to the mystical land.

"The bog exerts a soul-deep hold that almost goes beyond logic," says director Harriet Power, explaining Hester’s ties to the land. Believing that a "fully realistic treatment didn't honor the play or its Greek roots," Power enlisted Scenic Designer Daniel Boylen to create an "imaginative landscape" to physically represent the intimate expanse of the bleak, snow covered bog.

In By the Bog of Cats..., Hester, after a long, imposed departure, has returned to the bog where she was raised. Like the mythical Medea, Hester is pushed to the brink of despair when she is abandoned by the younger man she loves, and is faced with leaving her home and giving up her child.

Emphasizing what Power calls the play's strong sense of "generations," the ensemble of By the Bog of Cats... is composed of Villanova graduate theatre students, alumni, and local theatre talent of many ages.

Rose Malague stars as Hester Swane. She is a graduate of Villanova's M.A. theatre program, and is currently a professional actress and professor in the theatre arts program at the University of Pennsylvania. Professional actor and Villanova theatre graduate Patrick Edward White is Hester's one-time lover, Carthage; 2002 Barrymore Award-winning actress Hazel Bowers appears as his mother, Mrs. Kilbride; and 11-year-old Maddie Sutton-Smith is Hester and Carthage’s daughter Josie.

Current Villanova graduate theatre students Mike Dees, Carl Granieri, and Brett Maguire, and undergraduate Thomas Sibley, appear in the production, along with Villanova theatre professor Joanna Rotté as the mysterious Catwoman, retired Philadelphia Inquirer theater critic William B. Collins as the bumbling Father Willow, Temple University theatre professor and Villanova theatre graduate Michael Friel as the land baron Xavier, and Villanova graduate Theresa Donahue as Hester’s friend Monica.

The production team assembled for By the Bog of Cats... includes Barrymore Award winning Lighting Designer Jerold R. Forsyth, Scenic Designer Daniel Boylen, Costume Designer Margaret K. McCarty, Composer/Sound Designer Obadiah Eaves, Properties Designer cdavid hall-cottrill, Dramaturg Michael Kleba, Dialect Coach Megan Bellwoar, and Fight Choreographer John Bellomo.

Playwright Marina Carr was born in 1964 and brought up in County Offaly, Ireland. She graduated from University College of Dublin in 1987. Her plays to date include Low in the Dark, Deer’s Surrender, Ullaloo, This Love Thing, The Mai, Portia Coughlan, By the Bog of Cats..., On Raftery’s Hill, and Ariel. Ms. Carr has been awarded The Macaulay Fellowship, The Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, The Hennessy Short Story Prize, and the E.M. Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her work has been translated into several languages and produced in America and Europe. Carr has been writer-in-residence at the Abbey Theatre, Trinity College, and Dublin City University.

Carr currently holds the Charles A. Heimbold, Jr. Endowed Chair in Irish Studies at Villanova University where she is teaching Modern Irish Play Voices and Playwriting.

Director Harriet Power is an associate professor of theatre at Villanova, teaching dramaturgy, acting, and solo performance, and is also a professional director and dramaturg. Recent directing credits include Missing Link, InterAct Theatre Company (2002 Barrymore nominee for Best New Play); Measure for Measure, Philadelphia Shakespeare Festival (2001 Barrymore nominee for Outstanding Direction); Uncle Vanya, Villanova Theatre.

From 1995-98, as Artistic Director of Venture Theatre, she directed A Moon for the Misbegotten (1998 Barrymore nominee for Outstanding Direction), Fires in the Mirror (with Ozzie Jones), and Mad Forest (co-produced with Temple Theaters), and produced two world premieres. She has worked extensively with new plays and playwrights (at Bay Area Playwrights Festival, West Coast Playwrights, Iowa Playwrights Festival, and in Philadelphia), and directed the world premiere of Dorothy Louise's LoveKnot at the International Women Playwrights Festival, Galway, Ireland.

Among the 11 productions Power has staged at Villanova, Angels in America: Perestroika, co-directed with James J. Christy, won 1997 Barrymore Awards for Outstanding Direction of a Play, Outstanding Ensemble, and Outstanding Supporting Actress.

By the Bog of Cats... performs February 11-23, 2003. Press Opening is Wednesday, February 12, 2003, at 8pm. Performances are held in Vasey Hall, Lancaster & Ithan Avenues, on the Villanova University campus. Showtimes are 8:00pm Tuesday-Saturday and 2:00pm Sunday. Tickets are priced $18-$22, with discounts for seniors, groups, and students.

For tickets and information, call the Villanova Theatre Box Office at 610-519-7474 or visit  www.villanova.edu/artsci/theatre/.

Cast of Characters

*Appears Courtesy of Actors' Equity Association

About the Director

Fr. Peter M. Donohue, O.S.A.

Peter M. Donohue, O.S.A. (Director) is chairperson of the Villanova University theatre department and teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in dramaturgy, musical theatre, and theatrical experience. He has received five Barrymore nominations for Outstanding Direction of a Musical for Parade, Children of Eden, Into the Woods, Evita, and Chicago, which received nine nominations and three 2002 Barrymore Awards, including Outstanding Direction of a Musical. Other directing credits at Villanova include City of Angels, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, West Side Story, Candide, and Once on This Island. His recent appearances on the Vasey stage include Twelfth Night, Don Juan, The Trojan Women, and The Passion of Christ.

Press Release

VILLANOVA THEATRE PRESENTS CITY OF ANGELS
Barrymore Award-winner Peter M. Donohue, O.S.A., directs the hit musical comedy March 25­April 13, 2003

Villanova Theatre ends its 2002-2003 season with the six-time Tony Award-winning musical comedy City of Angels. Lauded for its “smart, swinging, sexy” style (Newsweek), City of Angels is directed by Peter M. Donohue, O.S.A., chairperson of the Villanova University theatre department and winner of the 2002 Barrymore Award for Outstanding Direction of a Musical for last season’s hit musical Chicago.City of Angels performs March 25­April 13, 2003, at Vasey Hall on the Villanova University campus. Show times are 8:00pm Tuesday-Saturday and 2:00pm Sunday. Tickets are priced $18­$22 and may be ordered by calling the Villanova Theatre Box Office at (610) 519-7474.

City of Angels is set in 1940’s Los Angeles where a fledgling screenwriter named Stine is adapting his detective novel into a film for an egomaniacal producer. While Stine struggles to transform his words from the page to the screen, the action moves back and forth between two worlds: Stine’s technicolor “real” world, a post-War Hollywood populated with overbearing producers, saucy secretaries, and self-serving starlets, and the black and white “reel” world of Stine’s imagination, a film noir entitled City of Angels that stars Stine’s alter ego, a sardonic Private Investigator named Stone.

Paying hilarious but heartfelt homage to the pulp fiction novels and detective films of the ‘30s and ‘40s, City of Angels premiered on Broadway in 1989, winning Tony Awards for Best Musical, Book, Score, Scenic Design, Featured Actress, and Lead Actor. City of Angels features an uproarious script by Larry Gelbart, snappy lyrics by David Zippel, and a jazzy musical score by Cy Coleman that is loaded with popular songs that range from show stoppers to torchy ballads.

“As soon as City of Angels starts, people will know what they’re in for,” said Donohue. “Audiences are familiar with the archetypes of film noir and they will immediately recognize the characters on stage. They will appreciate the quick pace of the show and the great humor in it. The dialogue is very funny; there is a lot of sophisticated sexual innuendo. The creators have done a very nice job of spoofing film noir.”

Donohue feels audiences will especially enjoy the music because of its unique blend of jazz and pop styles. “The songs have a real ‘40s feel to them and people will be able to take themselves back to another time period,” he said. “The lyrics are clever and the music is well-written in a style that is not typical of modern musical theatre.” An onstage quartet dubbed the “Angel City Four” provides tight four-part harmonies as underscoring throughout, providing dramatic cues and moving the action forward, “much like the musical scoring used in film,” explained Donohue.

One hallmark of the Broadway production was the ingenious scenic design by Robin Wagner that used full-color costumes, sets, and lighting for Stine’s real-life scenes in Hollywood and a cool black and white palette for Stone’s on-screen adventures.

“The show is written for a proscenium stage and it was originally designed to have these two worlds living together side by side,” explained Donohue. “But in our space that is impossible because we have a thrust stage surrounded by seats, so we decided to use detailed scenic projections against the back wall of the set. These projections will not only provide a very clear and immediate sense of location for the audience, they will also maintain the wonderfully inventive idea of placing Stine in a Technicolor world and Stone in the black and white world of film noir.”

The members of City of Angels’ creative team are veterans of stage, screen, and television. Composer Cy Coleman’s many honors include three Tony Awards, three Emmys, two Grammys, election to the Songwriter's Hall of Fame, and the ASCAP Foundation Richard Rodgers Award for Lifetime Achievement in the American Musical Theater. In addition to City of Angels, his numerous Broadway credits include Little Me, Sweet Charity, On the Twentieth Century, The Will Rogers Follies, and The Life. Coleman’s film scores include Father Goose, The Art of Love, Garbo Talks and Family Business, and he wrote Shirley MacLaine's television specials, If My Friends Could See Me Now and Gypsy in My Soul.

Lyricist David Zippel has received a Tony Award, two Academy Award nominations, two Grammy nominations, and three Golden Globe nominations. His songs appear on over 25 million CDs around the world. His Broadway show, The Goodbye Girl with music by Marvin Hamlisch and book by Neil Simon, received a Tony nomination for Best Musical and earned him an Outer Critics Circle Award nomination for Best Lyrics. Off Broadway shows include A...My Name is Alice, Hal Prince's Diamonds, Just So, and 5,6,7,8...Dance! For Disney, he wrote the songs for Hercules with Alan Menken and Mulan with Matthew Wilder, earning Oscar and Golden Globe nominations for both. His lyrics for the animated feature The Swan Princess were nominated for a Golden Globe Award. Zippel wrote the theme song lyrics for the sitcom Veronica's Closet and the end title song to the Jennifer Lopez film The Wedding Planner. A revue of his work, It’s Better With a Band, was staged at the Prince Music Theatre last fall.

Bookwriter Larry Gelbart began his career in high school as a sketch writer for Danny Thomas’ radio series "Maxwell House Coffee Time with Danny Thomas." He later wrote for such radio shows as "Duffy's Tavern" and "The Eddie Cantor Show,” and provided gags for Jack Paar and Bob Hope. In the 1950s, Gelbart’s work for television included "The All-Star Revue," "Caesar's Hour," and "The Art Carney Show." Gelbart’s stage credits include The Conquering Hero, Sly Fox, Mastergate, City of Angels, and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. Screenplay credits include The Notorious Landlady, The Thrill of It All, The Wrong Box, Movie Movie, Rough Cut, Tootsie, Blame It on Rio, and Oh God!, for which he received an Oscar nomination. In the early ‘70s, Gelbart turned Robert Altman's 1970 black comedy M*A*S*H* into a weekly television series that ran 11 seasons. Other television series include United States, AfterMASH, Barbarians at the Gate, and Weapons of Mass Distraction.

Director Donohue chairs the Villanova theatre department and teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in dramaturgy, musical theatre, and theatrical experience. His directing credits at Villanova include Children of Eden, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Into the Woods, Evita, West Side Story, Candide, and Once On This Island. In 2002, Donohue received the Hal Prince Award for Outstanding Direction of a Musical from the Theatre Alliance of Greater Philadelphia for Villanova’s production of Chicago.

City of Angels’ 23-member cast features Villanova theatre graduate student Gregg Pica as the embattled writer Stine and fellow graduate student Joe Leduc as Stine’s tough-guy hero, Stone. Other members of the cast, composed of Villanova graduate and undergraduate students and guest artists, perform two roles, each appearing as characters in both Stine’s “real” world and in the “reel” world of Stone.

Nina Donze portrays Stine’s wife Gabby and Stone’s ex-wife Bobbi; Jason Michaels appears as the egomaniacal producer Buddy Fidler and his on-screen alter ego, Irwin S. Irving; Cheryl Mazzarini is Buddy’s secretary Donna and Stone’s secretary Oolie; and Dana Tretta is Buddy’s wife Carla and the mysterious femme fatale Alaura Kingsley who hires Stone to find her missing step-daughter.

David Wetzel, Joseph Cutalo, Melissa Dryslewski, Juan M. Bertrán-Astor, Thomas Gelo, Erica Mapes, Nick Falco, Mike Kleba, John Galla, Rafael Dueno, Jennifer Kulick, Margaret Kuronyi, Daniella Vinitski play a variety of characters throughout the musical. The musical quartet, Angel City Four, is made up of Nicholas Martorelli, Nicole Mancino, Lea Montalto-Rook, Paul Recupero.

The production team assembled for City of Angels includes Scenic Designer Dirk Durossette, Costume Designer Janus Stefanowicz, Lighting Designer Jerold R. Forsyth, Properties Designer cdavid hall-cottrill, Sound Designer Matt Callahan, Choroegrapher Barby Hobyak-Roche, and Dramaturg Abby Jill Suchting. Music Director Jim Ryan leads an orchestra of 13 musicians.

City of Angels performs March 25­April 13, 2003. Press Opening is Wednesday, March 26, 2003, at 8:00pm. Performances are held in Vasey Hall, Lancaster & Ithan Avenues, on the Villanova University campus. Showtimes are 8:00pm Tuesday-Saturday and 2:00pm Sunday. Tickets are priced $18-$22, with discounts for seniors, groups, and students. For tickets and information, call the Villanova Theatre Box Office at 610-519-7474 or visit http://www.villanova.edu/artsci/theatre/productions/tickets.htm.

Production Photos

"Without me, you're nothing...you're nothing without me at all..." Gregg Pica (right) as Hollywood screenwriter Stine and Joe Leduc (left) as his fictional alter ego Stone.

Cast of Characters