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design staff

cast of characters

DirectorRick Zimmer

Scenic and Prop DesignerKathleen Powers

Music ComposerPeter Armetta

Costume DesignerLiz Hoover

Lighting DesignerDaryl Harrison-Carson

Fight DirectorKendall Wells

Fight CaptainJeffrey Jason Gilpin

Sound DesignerJen Raynak

King LearSam A. Mowry

Goneril, Lear’s eldest daughter Megan Murphy

Regan, Lear’s middle daughter Heather Harlan

Cordelia, Lear’s youngest daughterLauren Luiz

Duke of Albany, Goneril’s husband David T. Loftus

Duke of Cornwall, Regan’s husbandAtticus Mowry

Duke of GloucesterMichael Streeter

Edgar, Lear’s legitimate sonJeffrey Gilpin

Edmund, Lear’s bastard sonColeton Sticka

Kent, Lear’s loyal earlTom Beckett

The FoolPeter Armetta

OswaldBryan Mikalson

FranceLeif Tjaden

BurgundyJordan Brown

CuranSara Rossi

Gentleman, Ladies, Knights, Officers, Soldiers,

Messengers, Attendants, and various other roles:

William Bodiford, Alex Bowman, Amanda Pred, Sara Rossi, Leif Tjaden, Barrie Wild

production crew

scene shop staff

Technical Director Daryl Harrison-Carson

Stage ManagerErin Mee

Assistant Stage ManagersChris Becker, Zach Olson

Light Board OperatorCory Wicht

Master ElectricianBrian Cort

Sound Board OperatorIan Countryman

Stage CrewJordan Brown, Billy Dreitlein,

Ruth Lowe, David Tangen

Graphic Design and Poster DesignChelsea Carter

MHCC Integrated Media: Graphic Design Student

PhotographersMatthew Houck, Michelle Brandow,

Chris Hoyt, Tanja Olson, Amanda Barnes

Shop ManagerDavid Tangen

Assisted byRuth Lowe

Specialty CarpenterEarnest Eckerson

CarpentersTA114/TA214 Students

Scenic ArtistDawn Shipley

Costume StitcherGwynievere Eugenia Marlow

Costume AssistantsCat Burgess,

Amanda Edgren, TA112/213 Students

Sound CrewTA112 Students

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Sam A. Mowry (King Lear) Sam is an award-winning actor, director and producer who had worked in Portland for the last 30 years. Sam’s career runs the gamut, from Lennie in “Of Mice and Men” to Petruchio in Taming

of the Shrew. Other favorites from over 100 possibil-ities include: Aslan in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Astrov in Uncle Vanya, Henry VIII in W.S. Gregory’s Mary Tudor, Shere Khan in Jungle Book, the title role in Macbeth, Clark in Short Eyes, Leeds in Children of a Lesser God, Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady and Jud Frye in Oklahoma. Sam is the director of the Willamette Radio Workshop. Check out www.radiowork.com for more information.

Megan Murphy Ruckman (Goneril) is pleased to be working on another show with Rick. A Shakespeare lover and performer since she was little, Megan’s favorite Shakespearean role to date has been Feste in

Twelfth Night. She is on the board of the Original Practice Shakespeare Festival and a frequent performer with the Festival. Originally from Northern California, Megan spent her formative years in conservatory with California Theater Center and has a degree in theatre arts from Whittier College in Southern California. She has been seen in various musicals at MHCC including The Mystery of Edwin Drood, 1940s Radio Hour and Fiddler on the Roof. She recently directed for The Pulp Stage, as part of the Fertile Ground Festival. She has worked with other local theatre companies such as CoHo Productions, Public Playhouse, Mt. Hood Rep, Willamette Radio Workshop, Lakewood Theatre Company, Sandy Actors Theatre, Eddie May Murder Mystery Dinner Theater and Speak-the-Speech.0

Heather Harlan (Regan) was last seen as Antigone in Antigone here at MHCC. She recently finished filming a feature length independent film in Portland called Tandem Hearts. She has performed ever since she

was a child, doing shows in Bend and Ashland, Oregon, as well as Portland. In addition to being a MHCC theatre student, Heather has also studied theatre and music at Southern Oregon University,

where she performed in many Ashland produc-tions. She hopes to keep getting more experience in the Portland area, and someday make performing her profession.

Lauren Luiz (Cordelia) is a student at MHCC where she is currently studying vocal performance and taking various theater classes. She graduated from Gresham Union High School class of 2009 and was District,

Regional and State Solo Champion as an alto her senior year. Lauren has enjoyed this experience so much and hopes to pursue music and theater in the future. She would like to thank all of her fellow actors and crew members for making this such a memorable experience. She would also like to thank her family for all their lovin’.

David Loftus (Albany) has appeared in three Shake-speare-in-the-Parks productions and recorded five of Shakespeare’s plays for Speak-the-Speech.com. He has appeared in shows at Hillsboro Actors Repertory

Theater, Milagro Theater Group, Northwest Children’s Theatre, Lakewood Theater Company, Classic Greek Theatre and Mt. Hood Rep. Most recently, he was guest artist with Third Angle New Music Ensemble, reading (and singing the robots) in the world premiere of Oregon Symphony resident conductor Gregory Vajda’s Gulliver in Faremido. A freelance journalist and published author, he regularly reviews books for The Oregonian and for the Web ’zine, the California Literary Review.

Atticus Welles Mowry (Cornwall) has been an actor in Portland for the last five years. His favorite roles include Valmont in Les Liaisons Dangereuses at Portland State University and Charles the Wrestler in

As You Like It with Portland Actors Ensemble. He has also performed in several of the 24 Hour Plays at CoHo Theater. He would like to thank his family (especially his father) for their love and support in his acting endeavors.

Michael Streeter (Glouces-ter) is performing in his third production and second Shakespeare play with MHCC and Rick Zimmer. Michael was last seen on the MHCC stage in Fiddler on the Roof. Prior to that he was

in MHCC’s Henry V. Michael is the Artistic Director of Portland Actors Ensemble which has featured MHCC Theater alumni Mathew Pavic for the last two years. His patient and lovely wife Laura is the mother of his two wonderful children Brandon and Shyla.

Jeffrey Jason Gilpin (Edgar) wrecent theatre work includes Solyony in Tracy Lett’s world premiere of Three Sisters, Eros/Ensemble in Metamorphoses, Peter in Bug, Sonny in Appalachian Ebeneezer (Artists Repertory

Theatre); Arles Struvie and various characters in A Tuna Christmas (Oregon Repertory Theatre); Blake in Manna, Bobby Blin in Another Fine Mess, Alcibiades in Outrage (Portland Center Stage); Woody in Woody Guthrie’s American Song (American Heritage Theatre Company); Pontius Pilate in Jesus Christ Superstar (MHCC Performing Arts Department); Dionysus in The Bacchae(Classic Greek Theatre of Oregon); Ivanov in Ivanov, Giovanni in ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore (London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art); Octavius in Julius Caesar (Tygres Heart Shake-speare Company); Laertes in Hamlet, Claudio in Much Ado About Nothing, Philip in The Lion in Winter, Feste in Twelfth Night, and Lord Hastings in Richard III (Washington Shakespeare Festival).

Coleton Sticka (Edmund) is in his first year at MHCC, majoring in theater. Coleton has been in 12 productions in his lifetime, and this is his first Shakespeare play. He has won showcase for his scenes and monologues in

the 2007 and 2008 Mount Hood Conference district acting competition. Coleton would like to thank his Grandma for all of her support, and for always believing in him when no one else would. Thank you Nanny!

biographies

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Tom Beckett (Kent) wielded his first Shakespear-ean blade as Lysander in fourth grade. Since then he has produced, directed, acted in, built, lighted and adapted over forty productions of the Bard. Bardophile or

Bard-O-Geek, Tom currently introduces Sir William to the acting students of DaVinci Arts Middle School. Thank you, Catherine.

Peter Armetta (Music Composer, Fool) has appeared on stage for Classic Greek Theater, Portland Rep, Mt. Hood Rep, Tygres Heart Shakespeare Company and Oregon Stage Company, among others. As a

composer, he has contributed 15 scores to Oregon theater productions, and he is the composer/librettist of What Isn’t There, a chamber opera, and To Shine At Last, a musical dream drama. He is also a writer/producer of radio dramas for Dreams Landing (http://www.dreamslanding.org/), the Oregon non-profit he recently founded to explore the possibility of healing and renewal for our time through access to mythology, the dream, the shared story and the arts.

Bryan Mikalson (Oswald) is eager to be a part of this production. This is his first show working with professional actors as well has his first Shakespearean show. Bryan graduated from Gresham High School,

where you might have seen him in Pirates of Penzance, Oklahoma, Into the Woods and Lend Me a Tenor. Last year he attended Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, where he played the title role in a production of The Scarlet Pimpernel. Gabriel’s main focus has been working on musical theatre. He has competed in a number of musical competitions, making it all the way to nationals. Gabriel would like to thank his friends, co-actors and family for all of their help and support. “Thanks Mom.”

Leif Tjaden (Ensemble) is a freshman at MHCC and a member of the National Thespian Society. In high school, Leif hit the ground running, placing in district, state and national competi-tions three years in a row and

performing the roles of Lumiere in Beauty and the Beast and Oberon in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Leif volunteers at MetroEast Community Media Center. He would like to thank his family for supporting all the work he has put into this production.

Jordan Brown (Burgundy) is a David Douglas High School graduate, where he appeared in a number of productions. Jordan is now taking classes in the MHCC Technical Theatre program in order to round out his theatre training.

Sara Rossi (Ensemble) is a first year MHCC theatre student and this is her first Shakespearean production. She was also in Reynolds High School’s Jekyll and Hyde the Musical and The Complete History of America,

Abridged, as well as The Emperor’s Dragon at MHCC. Sara would like to thank her friends and family, and you. Enjoy the show! “Act well your part, there all the honor lies.” -- Alexander Pope

William “Billy” Bodiford (Ensemble) has wanted to be an actor ever since he was eight years old and his mother told him, “you’re being way over dramatic.” In the fifth grade he did Destination Imagination, an

improvisational production where he played Sour, the villain, and Sniff, the kid that was turned into a dog. Last year he did extra work in the film Extraordinary Measures, starring Brendon Frasier and Harrison Ford. Billy is a freshman at MHCC, majoring in theatre.

Alex Bowman (Ensemble) is a freshman at MHCC and has been participating in theater since his sophomore year at Sam Barlow High School. He has been involved in advanced theater classes and chamber choir

and was on Barlow’s varsity speech and debate team, winning state titles in both programs. Alex has played the Mad Hatter, the Scarecrow, Jack in Jack vs. Jill and Wally in The Angry Housewives. He has taken classes from Northwest Children’s Theater and just recently won Overall Actor for his age group at a national acting convention sponsored by AMTC. Alex is thrilled to be doing his first Shakespearean show at MHCC and thanks the cast, his family and friends for all their support.

Amanda Pred (Ensemble) is a freshman MHCC theatre and music student. She graduated from David Douglas High School, where she was seen in South Pacific and directed a student production as part of her senior project.

Emily Estrada (Ensemble) is a freshman at MHCC and a Theater Arts major. King Lear is Emily’s first MHCC production. In the past, she has participated in shows including Cinderella and The Lion, The Witch and the

Wardrobe through other organizations. Emily has greatly enjoyed being part of such a diverse and talented cast.

Barrie Wild (Ensemble) was born and raised on Glasgow’s tough south side. Escaping the youth gangs of Glasgow, he participated in early experimental theater with Pip Simmond’s Theatre Group. By 1987, he had

moved to the United States, working behind the scenes in theatre and film and playing a key role in the creation of a large circular set piece constructed for Baryshnikov and Twyla Tharpe in Zoetrope, directed by Annie Leibovitz and featured in PBS’s Great Performances - Twentieth Anniversary. Barry co-produced the U.S. premier of Abigail’s Party by Mike Leigh. He is proud to have worked with some of theatre’s wilder elements such as The Living

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Theater and Stuart Sherman and was influenced early on by the work of the artist Bruce Lacey and musicians like Pete Brown and Captain Beefheart. Barrie waited until 2008 to go back on stage and into the camera’s focus, a place he firmly enjoys and hopes to remain for a while.

Rick Zimmer (Director) is the Theatre Artistic Director and instructor for the MHCC Theatre Department. He has appeared on the David Let-terman Late Show where he had the chance to share his short-lived film career. During the twenty years of teaching and directing high school theatre he has directed over 50 plays and musicals for David Douglas and Reynolds High Schools in east Multnomah County. During his time at Reynolds High School he was able to collaborate with a high school from Minsk, Belorussia, prior to the break-up of the Soviet Union, on a production of Lee Blessing’s A Walk In The Woods, a two-person show about nuclear arms talks, which involved an Ameri-can high school actor and a Minsk high school actor playing the two roles. Rick also has directed for Mt. Hood Repertory Theatre and directed the premiere of Ray Bradbury’s original one-man play, The Illustrated Man. He is past-president of the Oregon Theatre Arts Association and has served on the board of the Oregon Alliance for Arts in Education, the Gresham Center for the Arts, and Mt. Hood Repertory Theatre. His all time favorite directing experiences have been Jesus Christ Super-star, Little Shop of Horrors, Guys and Dolls and the collaboration with Mt. Hood Repertory Theatre on the production of Fahrenheit 451. Rick would like to dedicate King Lear to his high school theatre instructor, Nancy Wheeler.

Kathleen Powers (Scenic Designer) was the MHCC Gallery Curator and taught a basic design course at MHCC in 1999. Shortly after she opened a solo show of her photographs and paintings in the MHCC Visual Arts Center gallery, MHCC Theater Director Rick Zimmer contacted her to ask about her creative process. He thought her artwork would translate perfectly to the theater. She was soon hired to design a full theater set for MHCC‘s pro-duction of Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure. This current production of Shakespeare’s King Lear is Kathleen’s second collaboration with Rick Zimmer. This scenic design represents a complete integra-tion of Kathleen’s artistic style, sense of color and composition, with Rick’s profound understanding and passion for Shakespeare.

Liz Hoover (Costume Designer) is delighted to be working with MHCC’s Theater Department. After obtaining her MFA in costume design from the University of Illinois, she has been designing costumes for a variety of performing arts including theatre, opera and dance. She has worked in New York, Chicago, California and Oregon, and some of her credits include Batboy, A Nutcracker Christmas, Inherit the Wind, Einstein and the Polar Bear, Inti-mate Apparel, Marisol and Twelfth Night.

Daryl Harrison-Carson (Lighting Designer, Techni-cal Director) is completing her tenth year as Theatre Technical Director and Instructor at MHCC; she is very proud of her students’ work to bring this production to life. Prior to joining the MHCC fac-ulty, Daryl was the Assistant Lighting Designer for Oregon Ballet Theatre. More recently, Daryl was Lighting Designer for Bouand Dance Company’s 2009 performance at the Newmark Theatre. Daryl is excited to work with the very talented creative team of students and professionals that has been as-sembled for this production of King Lear.

Kendall Wells (Fight Director) is an actor and fight director who works in Portland and Los Angeles. He graduated from a four-year acting conservatory in 2004, and in the same year became the protégé of Hollywood sword and whip master Anthony DeLongis. Kendall has been featured in many Portland theatre productions, includ-ing Blue Monkey’s Robin Hood and Northwest Classic Theater Company’s Macbeth, for which he won a Drammy for fight choreography. Kendall has also been featured on The History Channel’s More Extreme Marksmen, and will be co-starring as weapon expert on season two of SpikeTV’s Deadli-est Warrior, in which he which performs with sharp weapons on horseback.

Jen Raynak (Sound Designer) has designed for most of Portland’s theatre companies. Her recent sound designs include Fabuloso, The Pavilion and Grace for Third Rail Repertory Theatre; The Recep-tionist for CoHo Productions and Portland Center Stage, How to Disappear Completely and Never Be Found for PCS and James and the Giant Peach for Oregon Children’s Theatre. Jen is the steward of the Winningstad Theatre in the Portland Center for the Performing Arts, and serves on the Membership Committee of IATSE Local 28.

Erin Mee (Stage Manager) is thrilled to get back to her roots in the theatre world. She graduated in 2003 from Whitworth College in Spokane with a BA in Technical and Performance Theatre. After moving back

to Portland, she worked as a stage manager for MHCC’s production of Fahrenheit 451 and as prop designer for MHCC’s Return to the Forbidden Planet, and stage-managed and designed props for various productions at Mt. Hood Rep. Erin is so excited to be working with an amazing cast and crew and looks forward to working even more in the theatre community of Portland in the upcoming years. She would like to thank Rick and Daryl for giving her this opportunity to work on an amazing show; and thanks to her mom, Nick and Austen for being such an amazing support system and inspiring her to follow her dreams. Austen, all of Mommy’s work is devoted to you, so that you can, one day, follow your dreams as well.

Chris Becker (Assistant Stage Manager) is very excited to be the assistant stage manager for King Lear. Chris has run lights, sound and fly system for Wizard of Oz, Matchmaker, Bye Bye Birdie and The Emperors

Dragon, but this is his first time doing any kind of stage managing work, and he loves every aspect of it. He would like to have the opportunity to be the head stage manager for a show one day, and he also has very high hopes to become either a Technical Director or work backstage for a large Broadway production. Chris would also like to say that he loves his mom and dad very much and would be completely lost without them.

Zach Olson (Assistant Stage Manager) is studying technical theater at MHCC. This is his first production at MHCC. He loves live theatre and Shakespeare.

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scene synopsis

Part OneAct One, Scene 1: King Lear’s Palace.

Act One, Scene 2: Outside the Earl of Gloucester’s Castle.Act One, Scene 3: The Duke of Albany’s Palace.

Act One, Scene 4: A hall in the same.Act One, Scene 5: Court before the same.

Act Two, Scene 1: Gloucester’s Castle.Act Two, Scene 2: Before Gloucester’s Castle.

Act Two, Scene 3: A wood.Act Two, Scene 4: Before Gloucester’s Castle.

Act Three, Scene 1: A heath.Act Three, Scene 2: Another part of the heath. Storm still.

Act Three, Scene 3: Gloucester’s Castle.Act Three, Scene 4: The heath. Before a hovel.

Act Three, Scene 5: Gloucester’s Castle.Act Three, Scene 6: An abandoned shelter near the castle.

Act Three, Scene 7: Gloucester’s Castle.

There will be one 15-minute intermission between Parts One and Two.

Part TwoAct Four, Scene 1: The heath.

Act Four, Scene 2: Before Albany’s Palace.Act Four, Scene 3: The French Camp near Dover.

Act Four, Scene 4: The same. A tent.Act Four, Scene 5: Indeterminate location.

Act Four, Scene 6: Fields near Dover.Act Four, Scene 7: A tent in the French Camp.

Act Five, Scene 1: The British Camp near Dover.Act Five, Scene 2: A field between the two camps.Act Five, Scene 3: The British Camp near Dover.

*Please, for the safety of the actors and as a courtesy to others in the audience, no photography or recording of any kind is allowed during performances.

**Please enjoy food and drink in the lobby and refrain from bringing it into

the auditorium.

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An aging King Lear decides to abdicate and divide his kingdom among his three daugh-ters. He seeks a kind of oath of love before doing so, with which Goneril and Regan falsely comply. Feeling that any statement of “most love” would be false, Cordelia refuses, provoking Lear to disown her and then banish his faithful steward Kent who comes to her defense. She leaves to marry the king of France. However, Lear still wants the trappings of kingship, so proposes to move between the now-divided kingdoms of his two remaining daughters while demanding royal privileges, represented by a companion train of one hundred knights. Kent reap-pears in disguise and takes up service to Lear. However, Lear gets no further than two weeks at Goneril’s castle. She tires of his knights’ un-ruly behavior, and threatens to take away half of them. In a rage Lear moves to Regan’s, but she has removed herself to Gloucester’s house, which is too small for one hundred knights. There she and Goneril gradually reduce his status until he is little more than an unwanted houseguest, stirring him to increasingly bitter tirades against their ingratitude. He finally banishes himself, winding up on the heath in a brutal storm.

Meanwhile, Edmund, the bastard son of Gloucester, has convinced his father through the ruse of a forged letter and a staged wound from a fight that his legitimate son, Edgar, intends to assassinate him. Edmund also con-vinces Edgar that he is in danger (of course he is). Edgar flees and disguises himself as a beggar and madman to avoid detection. In this state he hides in a hovel on the heath dur-ing the storm. Nearby, Lear rages against the gods, nature, and his daughters. As the Fool and Kent try to get him shelter, they discover the “mad” Edgar. The quartet carry on in a madcap kind of way until Lear asks “Is man no more than this?” and has his clothes removed (in some performances). Gloucester finally finds them and leads them to shelter, where Lear conducts a mock trial of his daughters. Sensing danger, Gloucester has Lear led to Dover where (we assume) the French army awaits.

During the same interval (Act III), Edmund has learned from Gloucester of an impend-ing invasion from France, and betrays his father to Regan’s husband Cornwall. After sending Lear away, Gloucester finds himself seized, strapped to a chair, and then brutally blinded one eye at a time. Cornwall does the deed, but he is slain by an angry servant in return. Left alive but unable to see, Gloucester crawls towards Dover when he encounters Edgar in disguise. Feigning a helping hand to Gloucester’s desire to commit suicide, Edgar convinces him that he hovers over the cliffs of Dover, over which Gloucester thinks he throws himself. Saved, Gloucester decides to let nature finish his life. He then meets Lear cavorting about with a crown of weeds. The two have a mad, sad, sublime reunion. Cordelia has meanwhile appeared with the army of France. She finds Lear, takes him in and revives him, and then forgives him in the play’s most shining moment of reconciliation if not redemption. However, she loses the subsequent battle; she and Lear are captured.

Edmund (it turns out) has been engineering a domestic civil war by alternating his sexual favors between Goneril and Regan, both now wanting him. Edmund has also been a leader in the fight against Cordelia. He orders Lear and Cordelia imprisoned, then secretly orders their deaths. Meanwhile, Goneril has poisoned Regan, who staggers off the stage sick to death. At the third trumpet, Edgar arrives, still disguised but now as some kind of warrior. He battles Edmund and kills him. A messenger arrives to disclose that Goneril has killed herself. Before dying Edmund confesses his deeds and his intentions for Lear and Cordelia. However, they are too late. The executioner has hung Cordelia, but he is killed in turn by Lear. Lear returns to the stage howling, with Cordelia in his arms. Imagining (against hope) that she may still live, he too dies, of grief. Only Kent, Edgar, and Gon-eril’s good husband Albany are left to rue the “weight of this sad time.”

Shakespeare borrowed plots and ideas from other material for the bulk of his writing. His two long poems tell old tales, and only four of the commonly recognized 38 plays have no known single-organizing precedent (Love’s Labor Lost, Midsummer Night’s Dream, A Winter’s Tale, Tempest). Such a practice was commonplace in the English Renaissance, whose “rebirth” was often realized by imitating classical work or borrowing from more contemporaneous work. But Shakespeare left nothing untouched. His imitations often turned into things entirely new, th e unquestionable outcome of his plundering of previous Lear stories.Shakespeare wrote King Lear against a background of a known story, indeed, a kind of history of England story, about an ancient king (Leir was the common spelling) who de-cides to divide his kingdom among his three daughters, but administering a love test before doing so. His youngest daughter refuses, and disaster ensues. The four most commonly attested Leir stories come from Geoffrey of Monmouth, writing around 1136, two very close recapitulations of that story from Ra-phael Holinshed and Edmund Spenser in the late sixteenth century, an expanded version by Higgins in the compilation The Mirror for Magistrates, and a wild, often comedic varia-tion of the story written as a play sometime in the early 1590’s. All these stories end with Leir, Cordelia, and her husband, the King of Gallia, defeating Leir’s other two daughters and their husbands, regaining the kingdom. How it unfolds thereafter varies a bit, but the Leir story itself ends happily for Leir. None of these stories presents Leir as mad, or going mad, although the play shows Leir in serious decline, starving, and in borrowed clothes be-fore reuniting with Cordelia. None of course involve a second plot or a character like the Fool. Most importantly, none are written like the Shakespeare version.

The second plot borrows from a short story contained in Philip Sidney’s Arcadia, a discon-nected selection of stories of various kinds bound together by segments of pastoral poetry. It was published in 1590 after Sidney’s death.

synopsis about the play

May 6-9 and May 12-16

7:30 PM

Sunday Matinees

2:00 PM

Coming Next Term… Music and Lyrics by Stephen Schwartz

Book by John-Michael Tebelak

MHCC Studio Theater | All Seats $15.00

Tickets go on sale April 15, 2010 | mhcc.edu/theatre