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Imagine if you can a world emerging from a costly and devastatingwar. The most prosperous nation in the world brought to its knees,masses of its people struggling in vain to find work, let alone holdonto their homes. Where freak storms obliterate entire neighborhoods.Where entertainment consists of watching couples vie for prizes inmerciless ballroom dancing competitions. Where sad and tragic peoplebecome performing curiosities. Where film fantasy offers only a briefescape from relentless reality.

You can? Think again. It’s the 1930s. There are no safety nets, noFood Stamps, no Social Security, no FDIC to cover your savings, noAffordable Health Care Act.

This is the world eighty years ago in which two people in their earlytwenties were about to become headlines. Their names: Bonnie Parkerand Clyde Barrow.

A few years earlier, the Midwest had become home to the country’smost prolific farming belt, the world’s Bread Basket. By the earlyThirties, it was known only for the massive dust storms which forcedentire families out of their homes and to become migrants in theirown country. And if you were considering finding some escape in abottle, alcohol was still illegal thanks to the 18th Amendment.

The odds were stacked against the entire country — and against twotwenty-somethings trying to survive in it. Bonnie and Clyde werecriminals who caught the attention of the public and never let go.Tonight, we look beyond the headlines at the two people who becamethose legendary outlaws.

~ Joseph Russo, Director

Our Name Says It All...

46 North Main Street * PO Box 476 * Kent, CT 06757

860-927-3882www.payrollease.com * info@payrollease.com

1 Kent Rd, 4 Veterans Plaza · New Milford CT 06776Phone: 860-354-5444

www.thebridgenewmilford.com

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Sincere thanks to all our supporters

Every effort has been made to ensure that all donors’ names are included and listed correctly. If you notice anyerrors or omissions, please email info@theatreworks.us and let us know so that we may have the opportunity tocorrect our error and properly recognize your contribution.

Artists $5,000+• Grant & Jacqui Smith • Tillie Page Laird • Theodore Hine• CT Department of Economic & Community Development

• Harcourt FoundationPlaywrights Circle $1,500+

• The James J. McInerney and Gary R. Fafard Foundation• Connecticut Community Foundation • Allen Greenberg

• Savings Bank of Danbury • Marian & Douglas Wise • Mrs. Ishier Jacobson

Sponsors $500+• The Geraldine Stutz Trust • Maria Jacobson • Stephen Sondheim

• Michele Shackelford • Norman Adler • Brian Ashfield • Lucinda & DavidPollack • CCA • Jude Callirgos • Rich & Suzi Pettibone

• Kathy & John Bolster

Partners $250+• Deborah Begin • KC & Jonathan Ross • Ruth & Leonard Diamond

• Francis Arcaro • June Baldyga • Harry Cohen • Paul Sinclaire • Glenn & Dionne Couture • Donald Karcheski

• Diane & David Lockwood

Advocates $100+• David & Alice Sprintzen • Dr. Marilyn & Robert Gansel • Donald

Bickford • Bruce & Ilene Dresner • Anonymous • Penny Palmer• Elizabeth & Roger Smith • Stephen & Gloria Gorell • Anonymous

• Margie Bueide • Ronald Olsen • Joe Russo • Bodil & Warren Braren• David & Kathy Elmore • Tom & Carol Broesler • Dr. Joseph Privitera• James Scrimgeour • Emily & Mario Lucibello • Vicki & Kevin Sosbe

• Bernice Wollman & Warren Rubin • John & Carole Pettibone • ChickenLiver's Mom & Dad • Henry Spector • Harold & Patty Jacobson

• Ann M. KcKinney • Annabella Abrons • Carmela Castro • CatherineLibonate • Chris & Lisa Simo-Kinzer • Laurie Hornbecker • NancyHutchinson • Timothy Beard • Jill & Michael Pace • Cynthia Hudak

• Heritage Village Theatre Guild • Angela & Joseph Barna

Associates $50+• Philip & Marion Kallinikos • Sonnie Osborne • Ronald Wozniak • Peter &

Lucille Cronin • Ellen Alpert • Marilyn Lieff • Ethel Anderson Krenkel • RobertGrossman • Andrew Flatt • Dolores Teleski • Cynthia Hudak • Rebecca Devine

• Maura & Frederick Pauli • Norma Hart • Margaret Mongin • Peg Molina • Janet Huntington • Jacky Saulnier & Bruce Becker • Jan King • Christine

Daley • Grace & Tom Vetter • Virginia Smith • Vincent Romeo & Edwin Sparn• Lawrence Apolzon • Deborah Gogliettino • E. Bruce Mather • Kevin Taylor• Sharon Francis • Nancy Babington • Charles Ullmann • Lawrence Greenspan

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The play is performed without intermission.

Banjo accompaniment by John Bolster

b o n n i e&

c l y d eby Adam Peck

directed by Joseph Russo

Produced by special arrangement with Adam Peck

BonnieMarilyn Hart

ClydeAdam Stordy

t ime & p l a c et ime & p l a c et ime & p l a c et ime & p l a c et ime & p l a c e1934 - an abandoned barn

Product i on StaffDirector ....................................................................... Joseph RussoStage Manager ................................................... Reesa RoccaprioreLighting Design ...................... Richard Pettibone, Scott WyshynskiSet & Costume Design ............................................... Joseph RussoSound Design ..................................... Joseph Russo, Tom LibonateBuilders ................................ ...Scott Wyshynski, Richard Pettibone,........... Glenn R. Couture, Bill Hughes, Joseph Russo, John BolsterScenic Decoupage ................................................ Glenn R. CoutureHouse Managers ...................................... Christine Daley, Jill PacePublicist ..................................................................... Tom LibonateProduction Photography ............................ Ghostlight PhotographyWeb Site ........................................................ printplusdesignllc.comProducers ............... Richard Pettibone, Joseph Russo, Bill Hughes

Special ThanksFM97.3 WZBG Backstage with Johnny O

WHO’S WHO IN THE CAST

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MARILYN HART (Bonnie) is thrilled to have this incredibleopportunity to play Bonnie. Past performances include Chrissy inDancing at Lughnasa (Sherman Playhouse) and Linda in Talk Radio(TheatreWorks). This production, although challenging, has beenone of the most pleasant and enjoyable shows she’s worked on due tothe cast and crew. Joe, Bill and Reesa have made a fantastic productionteam, and she would like to give a special nod to her stage partnerAdam on his first theater performance. She would also like to thankher husband Alex for his unending support. She hopes you enjoywatching the show as much as she has enjoyed playing it.

ADAM STORDY (Clyde) is from Sandy Hook CT, and is very excitedto be making his theatre debut at Theatre Works. Being very passionateabout acting, he hopes to contribute to beautiful pieces of art such asBonnie & Clyde, and touch even just one person who views them. Hewould like to thank the great people at TheatreWorks, his family,friends, and wonderful girlfriend, who all give him more love andsupport than anyone could ask for.

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WHO’S WHO IN THE CAST

REESA ROCCAPRIORE (Stage Manager) is happy to be back atTheatreWorks, this time working behind the scenes. She most recentlyappeared in Boeing Boeing as Gabriella and as Veronica in God ofCarnage at the Brookfield Theatre for the Arts. Reesa is so happy tohave a second chance to work with the amazing Joe Russo and she soincredibly proud of Marilyn and Adam.

JOSEPH RUSSO (Director/Designer) has directed numerous showsand readings regionally, including Boeing Boeing, TennesseeWilliams’ Suddenly Last Summer; Oscar Wilde’s Salomé; All AboutEve; The Normal Heart; Auntie Mame, Torch Song Trilogy, and theWorld Premiere of See Dick… In 2010, he assisted Gordon Edelsteinon Long Wharf Theatre’s production of A Doll’s House. As an actor,he appeared in The Cripple of Inishmaan (Cripple Billy), Dog SeesGod (Beethoven) and Ghost of a Chance (Bob Cratchit). Also aplaywright, Joseph is a member of the Dramatists Guild; the LiteraryManagers & Dramaturgs of the Americas and the National Academyof Television Arts and Sciences. His award-winning works have beenseen at Hartford Stage and the HBO Studios in NYC. He is on theBoard of Directors at TheatreWorks where he serves as Secretaryand the dramaturg of the Page to Stage reading series.

ADAM PECK (Playwright) was born in Leeds in 1979, and nowlives in Bristol. He is a playwright and actor, and a co-founder ofFairground. His previous work includes Gilgamesh, Joan of Arc andChocolate Money for Bristol Old Vic, Out of Touch - A Trilogy andThe Red Man for Fairground, and My Bristol Vista for Paines Plough.Since 2006 he has worked extensively with the Bristol Old Vic YoungCompany as a dramaturge, writer and playwriting tutor.

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The i r Wor ld• Prohibition in the United States was a nationwide Constitutional

ban on the sale, production, importation, and transportation ofalcoholic beverages that remained in place from 1920 to 1933.

o Organized crime received a major boost from Prohibition.Mafia groups limited their activities to prostitution,gambling, and theft until 1920, when organizedbootlegging emerged in response to Prohibition. Aprofitable, often violent, black market for alcoholflourished.

o The Eighteenth Amendment was repealed on December5, 1933, with ratification of the Twenty-first Amendmentto the U.S. Constitution.

• The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 was the most destructiveriver flood in the history of the United States, with 27,000 squaremiles inundated up to a depth of 30 feet.

o The flood caused over $400 million in damages and killed246 people across Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana,Mississippi, Missouri, Tennessee, Texas, Oklahoma andKansas.

o By May 1927, the Mississippi River below Memphis,Tennessee reached a width of 60 miles.

• The Wall Street Crash of 1929, also known as Black Tuesday,began in late October 1929 and signaled the beginning of the 10-year Great Depression that affected all Western industrializedcountries.

• During the Great Depression, cities all around the world were hithard, especially those dependent on heavy industry. Constructionwas virtually halted in many countries. Farming and rural areassuffered as crop prices fell. Facing plummeting demand with fewalternate sources of jobs, areas dependent on cash cropping, miningand logging suffered severely.

• A period of severe dust storms that greatly damaged the ecologyand agriculture of the US and Canadian prairies during the 1930s,creating the Dust Bowl; severe drought and a failure to preventwind erosion caused the phenomenon.

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o The drought and erosion of the Dust Bowl affected100,000,000 acres that centered on the panhandles of Texasand Oklahoma and touched adjacent sections of NewMexico, Colorado, and Kansas.

o During the drought, the soil turned to dust that theprevailing winds blew away in clouds that sometimesblackened the sky. These choking billows of dust – named“black blizzards” – reached as far as New York City andWashington, D.C. and often reduced visibility to a yard orless.

• Aimee Semple McPherson (October 9, 1890 – September 27,1944), also known as Sister Aimee, was a Canadian-American LosAngeles–based evangelist and media celebrity in the 1920s and1930s.

o She conducted public faith-healing demonstrations beforelarge crowds, allegedly healing tens of thousands of people.In San Diego, California, the city called in the NationalGuard and other branches of the armed forces to control arevival crowd of over 30,000 people.

o Her fame equaled Charles Lindbergh, Johnny Weissmuller,Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Louise Brooks, and RudolphValentino.

• Dance Marathons During the Depression, marathons reflectedthe status of America at the time. A heavily staged form of forcedlabor, marathons relied on the amount of time spectators andcontestants, out of work victims of the Depression, had on theirhands. Promoters found new ways of forcing the marathons tocontinue for months, enlisting entertainers and staging dramaticsituations. They established ways of adding tension and excitementto the dreary competition, including races and complicated testsof endurance for the contestants; elimination contests that likenedthe marathons to the horrors of spectator sports in the RomanColiseum. The chance at fame and fortune was there, but at thecost of humiliation at least, and at most, mental and physical healthproblems or even death. By the depressed 1930s, marathons tookon new meanings: the pain and misery of the contestants helpedspectators feel better about their own situations, while the prizerepresented a hope of the American Dream for contestants, probablynever to be realized. It was certainly a far cry from the fun, voluntarysport that it had been in the 1920s.

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bonn ie & c lyde

• Several accounts describe Bonnie and Clyde’s first meeting,but the most credible version tells that Bonnie Parker metClyde Barrow on January 5, 1930 at Clarence Clay’s (a friendof Clyde) house at 105 Herbert Street. Parker was out of workand was staying in West Dallas to assist a female friend witha broken arm. Barrow dropped by the girl’s house while Parkerwas in the kitchen making hot chocolate.

• When they met, both were smitten immediately; mosthistorians believe Parker joined Barrow because she was inlove. She remained a loyal companion to him as they carriedout their crime spree and awaited the violent deaths theyviewed as inevitable.

• Although Barrow and Parker claimed to be married, Parkerremained legally married to her first husband, Roy Thornton.On the day she died, she still wore his wedding ring and borea tattoo on her leg with intertwined hearts and their names,Bonnie and Roy.

• Parker was an honor student and a poet, and life as one ofAmerica’s most wanted didn’t stifle those interests. Shortlybefore her death, Parker wrote a poem called “The Story ofBonnie and Clyde,” which was published in severalnewspapers and immortalized their tale.

• No less than 167 bullets were fired at Bonnie and Clyde.

• The pair attained such notoriety that hordes of people flockedto the scene of their death and later to the coroner’s to retrieve“souvenirs.” Some attempted to cut off Barrow’s ear or finger;others took snippets of Parker’s blood-soaked dress orshattered window glass. One man offered Barrow’s father over$30,000 for Barrow’s body—the equivalent of over $600,000today.

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