About the Director

James J. Christy

For 36 years, James J. Christy has been a professor and director with Villanova University's theatre department, serving as chairperson of the department for 13 years. Last year, 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. Recent credits include The Passion of Christ, Arcadia, and The Trojan Women at Villanova Theatre, 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 year, Dr. Christy directed fellow faculty member Michael Hollinger's Red Herring for Actor's Theatre of Louisville, and he will direct the Broadway hit, Proof, for Arden Theatre Company in January. Dr. Christy had the good fortune to spend last Spring on sabbatical in Paris which rekindled his interest in French culture and theatre, specifically, Moliere.

Press Release

Villanova Theatre Presents Don Juan

He is history's greatest cad and man about town, his name synonymous with seduction the world over. Villanova Theatre brings the legendary lothario vividly to life in Moliere's Don Juan, adapted and translated by Richard Nelson and directed by Villanova theatre professor James J. Christy.

Don Juan runs November 11-23, 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.

Considered one of Moliere's most controversial plays at the time of its premiere in 1665, Don Juan is the story of a suave but soulless aristocrat who travels the countryside stealing hearts and breaking marriage vows. Accompanied by his loyal but dimwitted valet, Sganarelle, Don Juan seduces and deserts woman after woman, ridicules his rivals, and mocks the heavens--until his self-centered behavior invokes the wrath of God.

Barrymore Award-winning director Christy transports Moliere's 17th-century comedy to the 1950s; the eclectic production design is inspired by such diverse sources as Federico Fellini's groundbreaking film 8 1/2 and its current Broadway incarnation, Nine, and the grace, eroticism, and mystery of the tango.

Christy has also added a bevy of "fantasy women" who surround Don Juan and a silent, acrobatic quartet, "The Zannis," inspired by commedia dell'arte, the ancient Italian improvisational masked comedy born in the Renaissance and utilized by Moliere in his own productions.

"I've introduced a circle of women, which comes from the world of 8 1/2, and the Zannis, which comes out of the commedia tradition, as a way to make more immediate and experiential the ideas the actors are talking about on stage," explained Christy.

"Moliere's play doesn't have a great deal of overt sexuality; it is a play of ideas about religion and politics," he continued. "So I wanted to bring out the seductive aspects of the Don Juan myth and find ways for our young actors at Villanova to handle this challenging play with very big ideas."

The tango will also be used in the production to enhance the atmosphere of sexual excitement.

"The tango is very passionate and erotic, and at times angry and even a little violent," he said. "Don Juan's nature involves aggression and hostility, as well as charm and attraction. The tango embodies these contradictory qualities."

Christy feels the play is also filled with contradictions. "There is a great deal of low comedy, involving very funny servants and charming rustic peasants, contrasted with big intellectual discussions," he explained. "There is also a mystical element and a melodramatic love story. The play itself is stylistically inconsistent and feels a bit more like Shakespeare than Moliere."

Moliere was born Jean Baptiste Poquelin in Paris, France, and baptized on January 15, 1622. In 1643, he founded The Illustrious Theatre Company, changed his name to Moliere, and began to write short plays. Moliere's troupe earned great success and the appreciation of the King Louis XIV, who supported Moliere throughout his career. Moliere wrote his best plays during these years, including Tartuffe (1664), Don Juan (1665), The Misanthrope (1666), and The Miser (1668). On February 17, 1673, while performing the lead role in his play The Imaginary Invalid, Moliere became deathly ill and died hours after finishing his performance.

Don Juan is adapted and translated by Richard Nelson, winner of the 2000 Tony Award for Best Book for James Joyce's The Dead. Born in Chicago in 1950, Nelson's career in theatre has encompassed playwriting, dramaturgy, adaptation, and direction. He received a 1992 Tony nomination for Best Play for his production of Two Shakespearean Actors and was nominated for the Olivier Award for Best Comedy for Some Americans Abroad. Nelson won the Olivier Award for Best Play for Goodnight Children Everywhere. His other plays include Franny's Way, My Life With Albertine (co-written with Ricky Ian Gordon), The General From America, New England, Sensibility and Sense, and Principia Scriptoriae. He has translated and adapted Carlo Goldoni's Il Campeillo, Anton Chekhov's Three Sisters, Pierre de Beaumarchais' The Marriage of Figaro, Bertolt Brecht's Jungle of Cities and The Weddings, Nikolai Erdman's The Suicide, and Dario Fo's Accidental Death of an Anarchist. Nelson also wrote the screenplay for the film Ethan Frome and the book for the musical Chess.

For 36 years, Director Christy has been a professor and director with Villanova University's theatre department, serving as chairperson of the department for 13 years. Last year, 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. Recent credits include The Passion of Christ, Arcadia, and The Trojan Women at Villanova Theatre, 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 year, Christy directed fellow faculty member Michael Hollinger's Red Herring for Actor's Theatre of Louisville.

The cast of Don Juan features graduate student actors pursuing the M.A. in theatre at Villanova University, including Juan M. Bertrán-Astor as Don Juan; John Kiefer Galla as his sidekick, Sganarelle; Daniella Leah Vinitski as Don Juan's jilted wife, Elvira; Mike Dees as her servant Gusman and the mysterious Commander; Melissa Dryslewski and Gina Pisasale as peasant girls; Bob Bonocore as Don Juan's creditor, M. Dimanche; and Taylor Williams as a Poor Person. Nick Falco appears as a peasant, Pierrot, and Peter M. Donohue, O.S.A., chairperson of the theatre department, portrays Don Juan's father, Don Louis Tenorio.

The acrobatic Zannis are played by Joe Leduc, Johnny Lozano, Gregg Pica, and Josh Sauerman, and the fantasy women include Carrie Bray, Nancy Furey, Margaret Kuronyi, and Erika Mapes.

The production team is comprised of scenic designer Dirk Durossette, costume designer Charlotte Cloe Fox, lighting designer Jerold R. Forsyth, sound designer Bill Moriarty, properties designer cdavid hall-cottrill, and dramaturg Nicole Mancino. The movement and dance is choreographed by John Bellomo.

Don Juan performs November 11-23, 2003. Press Opening is Wednesday, November 12, 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.

The Villanova Theatre season continues in the spring with Tennessee Williams' Summer and Smoke, February 10-22, 2004, and the musical Parade, March 23-April 4 and April 13-18, 2004. For tickets and information, call the Villanova Theatre Box Office at 610-519-7474 or visit http://www.villanova.edu/artsci/theatre/.

Production Photos

Cast of Characters

About the Director

Joanna Rotté

JOANNA ROTTÉ is a writer, actor, and director. She is Professor of Theatre and former chair of the Villanova theatre department. At Villanova, she has directed Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot and Endgame, David Rabe's In the Boom Boom Room, Tina Howe's The Art of Dining, and Sam Shepard's True West and The Tooth of Crime, as well as numerous works by Caryl Churchill, including Light Shining in Buckinghamshire, Top Girls, Vinegar Tom, Owners, Fen, and Ice Cream. Her own plays, Prajna, Death of the Father, and Art Talk, have been featured presentations of the Philadelphia Fringe Festival. Rotté is the author of Scene Change (A Theatre Diary: Prague, Moscow, Leningrad) and Acting With Adler. She writes a quarterly column for the New York-based newspaper, Soul of the American Actor, a version of which she posts on her website, www.homepage.villanova.edu/joanna.rotte. Rotté appeared on stage at Villanova Theatre last season as the Catwoman in Marina Carr’s By the Bog of Cats...

Press Release

Villanova Theatre Presents Summer and Smoke

Villanova Theatre continues the 2003-2004 season with a rare Philadelphia-area production of Tennessee Williams’ Summer and Smoke, a moving exploration of repressed desire and unrequited love. Summer and Smoke is directed by Villanova theatre professor Joanna Rotté and runs February 10–22, 2004, at Vasey Hall on the Villanova University campus. Showtimes 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. Additional information is available at http://www.villanova.edu/artsci/theatre/.

Set in the small town of Glorious Hill, Mississippi, in the early 1900s, Summer and Smoke explores the relationship between a puritanical spinster, Alma Winemiller, and her charismatic neighbor, John Buchanan, Jr., for whom she has harbored a life-long infatuation. In her search for spiritual love, Alma finds herself pitted against John’s sensuous, reckless nature. They engage in an emotional battle of wills and their struggle between body and soul, anarchy and order, and lust and love leads to profound changes in both their lives.

In John and Alma, Williams has created characters whose strong passions irrevocably alter them. John, the son of a prominent doctor, personifies Williams’ archetype of the “beautiful, young Southern man,” says Rotté, “But John is also complicated. He is more than a statue or an inhuman god. He suffers.”

And Williams strongly identified with Alma, a fragile minister’s daughter whose prim exterior masks her inner desires. "The character I like most is Miss Alma," he once said. "She really had the greatest struggle. Alma went through the same thing I went through."

Rotté points out that John and Alma are drawn to each other in their attempt to become whole selves. “The play invites us to be open to our own sense of compassion for John and Alma when we see so clearly these are two motherless children who are trying very hard to find a way to grow up into themselves,” she said.

“In the first half of the play, you see them turn to each other to try to fulfill themselves. The second half of the play allows for a wholeness to happen to each of them. They do fulfill themselves and that’s a wonderful thing, but the sad part is they don’t get to end up together.”

Summer and Smoke opened on Broadway in 1948, where it ran for 102 performances. In 1952, it was revived at the Circle in the Square Theatre in New York, a production that cast Geraldine Page as Alma, a role she brought to the screen in Paramount’s 1961 film version. Summer and Smoke may be one of his lesser-known works, but it is trademark Williams, full of lyrical language, smoldering undercurrents, and a small southern town filled with memorable characters. Williams is currently enjoying a resurgence on stages across the U.S.A revival of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof opened on Broadway and the Kennedy Center will honor him with a five-month festival this spring and summer.

The cast of Summer and Smoke features graduate theatre student Elizabeth Pool as Alma Winemiller. A recent graduate of NYU’s Tisch School for the Arts, Pool is making her Philadelphia Premiere in Summer and Smoke. Her New York credits include Margarite in Berlin/Berlin at Playwrights Horizons Studio Theatre, The Woman in Eh Joe at Studio Theatre, and Exeter in Henry V at Access Theatre, the inaugural production of the N.Y. Women's Shakespeare Company. Guest artist Stephen Fletcher, a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University, appears as the charismatic John Buchanan, Jr. His Philadelphia credits include Julius Caesar (Octavius) and Macbeth (Malcolm, Fleance, & Caithness) with The Philadelphia Shakespeare Festival.

Villanova graduate theatre students featured in other principal roles include Mike Dees as Rev. Winemiller, Taylor Williams as Mrs. Winemiller, Daniella Leah Vinitski as Rosa Gonzales, Brian Manelski as Papa Gonzales, Noëlle Nettl as Mrs. Bassett, and Bob Bonocore as Roger Doremus. Villanova undergraduates in the cast include Rebecca McFadden as Rosemary, Shaun Malleck as Vernon, and Thomas Sibley as Archie Kramer.

Villanova adjunct theatre professor Seth Pendleton appears as Dr. John Buchanan, Sr. and Villanova graduate student Kate Ryan Singer is Nellie Ewell. General Wayne Elementary School fourth-grader Audrey Goldman appears as Young Alma and Great Valley Middle School sixth-grader Grey Tampa portrays Young John.

Summer and Smoke’s production team includes scenic designer Hiroshi Iwasaki, costume designer M. Lisa Ford, lighting designer Jerold R. Forsyth, sound designer Matt Callahan, properties designer cdavid hall-cottrill, and dramaturg Joe Leduc.

Production Photos

Cast of Characters

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 the Philadelphia Premiere of the Tony Award-winning musical PARADE

Villanova Theatre ends the 2003-2004 season with the Philadelphia Premiere of the Tony Award-winning musical Parade, the true story of Leo Frank, a shy Jewish man from Brooklyn, NY, who was accused of murdering thirteen-year old Mary Phagan in Atlanta, GA, in 1913.

Parade has been extended due to overwhelming ticket demand and now runs March 23–April 4 and April 13–25, 2004, at Vasey Hall on the Villanova University campus. Showtimes 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. Additional information is available at http://www.villanova.edu/artsci/theatre/.

Parade features music and lyrics by Jason Robert Brown, book by Alfred Uhry, and co-conception/ Broadway direction by Harold Prince. Originally produced at Lincoln Center in 1998, Parade won Tony Awards for Best Book and Best Original Score, as well as two Outer Critics Circle Awards and six Drama Desk Awards.

Villanova’s production of Parade is directed by theatre department chairperson Peter M. Donohue, O.S.A., winner of the 2002 Barrymore Award for Outstanding Direction of a Musical for Chicago. Donohue will direct a cast of 34 actors portraying dozens of historical roles in Villanova’s largest production to date.

In Parade, pencil factory supervisor Leo Frank is accused of killing one of his young workers. When an angry mob of citizens – suspicious of him because he is an outsider in a tight-knit community – calls for his execution, he turns to his Southern-belle wife and a governor with a conscience to defend him. The musical covers not only the murder and subsequent trial, but also dramatizes the relationship between Frank and his wife Lucille.

“Leo Frank was, tragically, the wrong man in the wrong place at the wrong time,” said Donohue. “Parade is a historical retelling of his story, but it also examines class and race relations, prejudice, and the South after the Civil War. Ultimately it addresses larger issues of religious intolerance, discrimination, and human rights violation.”

 Frank’s trial was an unprecedented media sensation in its time, producing three or four headlines a day, national coverage, a documentary, and angry public demonstrations.

“The people of Atlanta were resentful of interference from outsiders so the quickest way to solve the crime was taken,” said Donohue. “There was no careful examination of the crime scene, the body, the fingerprints. The murder took place and the townspeople wanted to punish someone...anyone. They pointed their fingers at Frank because he was different.”

Parade is also a story about a young couple who discover they have strength in each other. “They are able to sustain their relationship through the worst possible circumstances,” Donohue said. “Their relationship changes and Lucille changes – into a strong woman promoting a cause at a time when women had no voice.”

In recent years, the Frank case has generated a television mini-series (“The Murder of Mary Phagan” starring Jack Lemmon), a romance novel, and numerous books, including 2003’s “And The Dead Shall Rise,” Steve Oney’s definitive recounting of the crime and trial.

Bookwriter Alfred Uhry’s inspiration for Parade came from his own family. "Southern extended families are prone to telling stories and so are Jewish ones,” he recounted in an interview. “Mine was both, so I got a double dose. I grew up hearing about the quirks of distant relatives, in-laws, and a whole network of people I didn't know. They all came with stories attached. But nobody mentioned Leo Frank. Some of the family even walked out of the room if the name came up. I found this confusing, because I knew that my Great Uncle Sig had been his employer, and Lucille Frank was my grandmother's friend. Due to this hush-hush policy, I developed a fascination for the case...which led to the idea for Parade."

Uhry began his career as a lyricist under contract to Frank Loesser, and went on to write the music and lyrics for The Robber Bridegroom (1975). His first play, Driving Miss Daisy, opened in New York in 1987, winning the Outer Critics Circle Award and the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. For the film version, Uhry won an Academy Award and the film was voted Best Picture of the Year. Uhry's second play, The Last Night Of Ballyhoo, opened on Broadway in 1997. It was chosen Best Play by the American Theatre Critics Association, The Outer Critics Circle, and The Drama League, as well as winning the 1997 Tony Award.

Composer/lyricist Jason Robert Brown had one musical under his belt when he was approached to write the music and lyrics for Parade. In 1995 his musical Songs for a New World was produced in New York. He has also written music and lyrics for The Last Five Years (2001) and Urban Cowboy (2003).

The production team assembled for Parade includes Scenic Designer Dirk Durossette, Costume Designer Janus Stefanowicz, Lighting Designer Jerold R. Forsyth, Properties Designer cdavid hall-cottrill, Sound Designer Matt Callahan, Choreographer Barby Hobyak-Roche, and Dramaturg Gina Pisasale. Co-music director Kenneth T. Brill and co-music director/conductor John Baxindine will lead a nine-piece orchestra.

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

Production Photos

Larry Cox as the Young Soldier	Bob Meenan as the Old Soldier
The People of Atlanta praise the Old Red Hills of Georgia	Governor Slaton (FR. DAVID CREGAN, O.S.A.) Addresses the People of Atlanta
Frank (Josh Sauerman) dreams of Brooklyn while the Atlantans celebrate Confederate Memorial Day	Lucille Frank (Nina Donze) tries to get Leo to stay home on Confederate Memorial Day
Jim Conley (André N. Jones) and the chain gang feel the thunder rolling	Prosecutor Dorsey (Joe Leduc) gives Newt Lee (Ron Jones) the third degree

Cast of Characters