December 19, 2014
BOTH YOUR HOUSES
Directed by Tony Award-Winner Frank Galati,
Both Your Houses Opens January 23 at Asolo Rep
“As timely as tonight’s CNN News” – Variety
(SARASOTA, December 19, 2014) — The old adage, “the more things change, the more they stay the same,” rings resoundingly true in this Pulitzer Prize-winning American classic. Helmed by Tony Award®-winning director Frank Galati, Maxwell Anderson’s scintillating political satire BOTH YOUR HOUSES opens Friday, January 23, 2015 at 8pm at Asolo Rep, with previews Wednesday, January 21 and Thursday, January 22 at 8pm. The play runs in rotating rep through Sunday, April 12, 2015. The title of this smart production derives from Mercutio’s famous line in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet: “a plague on both your houses.”
In the early 1930s, rookie representative Alan McClean is determined to clean up Capitol Hill. His tenacity is challenged by an ironclad political machine led by seasoned congressmen who are more interested in their own financial gain than their constituents’ welfare – sound familiar? When Alan discovers that he can’t beat his opponents at their own game, he shakes things up and what unfolds is a spirited, riveting political chess match.
“Maxwell Anderson’s BOTH YOUR HOUSES is a shrewd, fast-paced and witty play about getting a bill through congress,” said Michael Donald Edwards, producing artistic director of Asolo Rep. “This gripping satirical masterpiece will take our audiences on an exhilarating ride as they experience what it’s like to be at the center of political contention and its startling resolution.”
Anderson is a highly acclaimed playwright, journalist, author and poet who wrote several American classics, including Winterset, Bad Seed and Knickerbocker Holiday and historical dramas including Elizabeth the Queen and Mary of Scotland. BOTH YOUR HOUSES continues the third season of Asolo Rep’s American Character Project. Director Frank Galati kicked off the five-year exploration with his highly acclaimed production of 1776, a look at the birth of this nation. In BOTH YOUR HOUSES, Galati visits America’s decision makers in the 1930s and examines how these leaders, and their motives, have changed. Because the Maxwell Anderson Estate has given Frank Galati the opportunity to revisit the original text, he has sculpted it in a way that gives the second act an exciting velocity.
“In Anderson’s satire both houses of Congress, the Senate and the House of Representatives, are equally venal and corrupt,” said Galati. “Everyone in the play is an American character but only one of the Americans in the play has real character – the young congressman at the center of the action provides a moral compass in a tempest of graft and corruption. This play was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1933 and 81 years later we still want to scream, ‘a plague on both your houses.’”
CAST
(in order of appearance)
| Katie Cunningham* Gracie Lee Brown Ben Diskant* Douglas Jones* Jeffrey Todd Parrott David Breitbarth* Steve Hendrickson* Michael Frishman Matthew R. Olsen Brian Owen Carolyn Michel* Mark Konrad Don Walker Matt Andersen Tom Coiner* Paul Herbig |
Marjorie Gray Bus Nillson Eddie Wister Solomon Fitzmaurice Mark Simeon Gray Levering Merton Dell Sneden Miss McMurtry Wingblatt Peebles Farnum Alan McClean Ebner |
*Members of Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States.
SELECT CREATIVE TEAM MEMBERS
| Director Scenic Designer Costume Designer Lighting Designer Sound Designer |
Frank Galati Russell Metheny Mara Blumenfeld Paul Miller Matt Parker |
SELECTED ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES
(In alphabetical order)
DAVID BREITBARTH* ASSOCIATE ARTIST, NINETEENTH SEASON (Cab Man, The Matchmaker; Simeon Gray, Both Your Houses) Over 70 productions at Asolo Rep including: The Grapes of Wrath, Glengarry Glen Ross, Clybourne Park, God of Carnage, Once in a Lifetime, Twelve Angry Men, The Front Page, The Immigrant, world premieres of Men of Tortuga and Perfect Mendacity, The Winter’s Tale, A Few Good Men, Laughing Stock, A Flea in Her Ear, Rounding Third, Art, Hobson’s Choice, and Nicholas Nickleby. Broadway 1st National Tour: Spring Awakening. Off-Broadway: Short Change, Perfect Crime, Fluorescent Hunger, and This Hard Life. Los Angeles: Life in the Trees (West Coast premiere) and David’s Mother. Film and television: Frasier, Taken!, Law & Order, and Fame. He has appeared regionally around the country; most recently in Tribes at Florida Repertory Theatre, where he is a member of their Ensemble of Theatre Artists. David is a proud 2013 Lunt-Fontanne Fellow selected by the prestigious Ten Chimneys Foundation and he is married to the actress Kate Hampton.
TOM COINER* GUEST ARTIST, FIRST SEASON (Alan McClean, Both Your Houses) is delighted to be making his Asolo Rep debut. He’s performed around the country, treading the boards at Colorado Shakespeare Festival, the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, PlayMakers Rep in North Carolina, Rochester’s Geva Theatre, and close to home at the Cape Playhouse on Cape Cod. His TV credits include appearances on Person of Interest, Boardwalk Empire opposite Steve Buscemi, and the upcoming HBO mini-series Crime starring John Turturro. www.tomcoiner.com
FRANK GALATI FIFTH SEASON (Director, Both Your Houses) is a member of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago. Over the years, he has received nine Joseph Jefferson Awards for his work in Chicago theatre. Here at Asolo Rep he has directed Philadelphia, Here I Come!; 1776; My Fair Lady; and the award-winning Twelve Angry Men. He has directed at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Berkeley Rep, Mark Taper Forum, Long Wharf Theatre, Chicago Opera Theater, San Francisco Opera, Dallas Opera, Chicago Lyric Opera, The Metropolitan Opera, The Stratford Festival in Canada, and the Roundabout Theatre in New York. For twenty years he was an Associate Director at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago. He won two Tony Awards in 1990 for his adaptation and direction of the Steppenwolf production of The Grapes of Wrath on Broadway and was nominated again in 1998 for directing the musical Ragtime on Broadway. In 1989, Mr. Galati was nominated for an Academy Award for his screenplay (with Lawrence Kasdan) of The Accidental Tourist. In 2000 he was inducted into The American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Mr. Galati is a Professor Emeritus in the Department of Performance Studies at Northwestern University. He lives in Sarasota.
SPECIAL PUBLIC PROGRAMMING
Inside Asolo Rep
Wednesday, February 25 at 11am
FSU Center for the Performing Arts
Cook Theatre
Tickets for Inside Asolo Rep are $5 for the general public and free for donors and Asolo Rep Guild members.
Michael Donald Edwards, Asolo Rep’s producing artistic director and director of Our Betters, and Frank Galati, the Tony Award-winning director of BOTH YOUR HOUSES, will shed light on their creative processes in this dynamic behind-the-scenes discussion. Led by Asolo Rep’s dramaturg/literary manager Lauryn Sasso, the panel will also feature actress Katie Cunningham, who plays Marjorie Gray in BOTH YOUR HOUSES.
Inside Asolo Rep is sponsored by the Observer Media Group and Hotel Indigo.
ONGOING PUBLIC PROGRAMMING
Tuesday Talkbacks
February 17, March 3, March 17, 2015
Asolo Rep’s Mezzanine
Join us for an intimate post-show discussion with featured actors or guests following every Tuesday performance of BOTH YOUR HOUSES.
Meet the Actors
Sunday, January 25, 2015
Asolo Rep’s Mertz Theatre
Immediately following the 2pm matinee, ask questions and learn more from members of the cast.
TICKETS
Tickets for BOTH YOUR HOUSES and the entire 2014-2015 Asolo Repertory Theatre season are on sale now. Tickets for BOTH YOUR HOUSES start at just $22. To purchase tickets, call 941.351.8000 800.361.8388 visit www.asolorep.org, or visit the Asolo Repertory Theatre Box Office, located in the lobby of the theatre. Asolo Repertory Theatre is located at 5555 North Tamiami Trail in the Florida State University Center for the Performing Arts. The box office is open Monday 10am – 4pm, Tuesday 10am – 7:30pm, Wednesday – Saturday 10am – 8pm, and Sunday 10am – 2pm. The box office closes at 5pm when there are no evening performances and phone lines close one hour prior to the start of any performance. Season subscription packages are also available online and by visiting or calling the box office.
SPONSORS
Asolo Rep is able to present BOTH YOUR HOUSES because of the generosity of its sponsors. Corporate sponsors for BOTH YOUR HOUSES are Plumbing Today, Sarasota Magazine, SNN Suncoast News Network, Gold Coast Eagle Distributing, and Gulf Coast Community Foundation. Asolo Rep’s major season sponsors are Florida State University, Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation, Gulf Coast Community Foundation, Designing Women Boutique, The Shubert Foundation, The Woman’s Exchange, Inc., and Tropical Cadillac. Asolo Rep’s artistic programs are paid for in part by Sarasota County Tourist Development Tax revenues. Asolo Rep is sponsored in part by the State of Florida, Department of State, Division of Cultural Affairs and the Florida Council on Arts and Culture.
