P L A Y B I L L

We’re in our third week of rehearsal and I think I’ve set the table 200 times. Apart from a brief stint waitressing a decade ago, it may be the only time I’ve done it.

I’ve had to google ‘formal dinner setting’ and ‘rattail spoon’; whether the salad is brought at the beginning or the end of the meal, and countless other things. So much of it strikes me as stiff and needlessly complicated and I want to tell all the characters to just use paper towel and to keep their forks for pie. But then I remembered that when I was very young, my mother had a pink teacup that she’d let me use for milk. I’d wake up from my nap and we’d have ‘tea’. Just us. She’d let me choose my cup and I’d choose that pink one, every time. I don’t remember anything else about it - whether we’d talk, or if the radio was on, or even if I got to eat cookies. I just remember sitting with my mom and my fancy cup, being happy.

ARTIST NOTE: SARAH WILSON

So there’s something to all these objects, after all.

Maybe what I’ve thought of as stuffiness is actually thoughtfulness. Maybe there is a kind of formality that brings people closer together.

We’re three weeks into rehearsal and I still have only questions. I’ll think about it all as I perform my little ritual, setting the table again.

I hope you enjoy the show.

SARAH WILSON

in The Dining Room

THE DINING ROOM

ApproximAte ru nning time: 2 hours & 10 minutesthere will be one 20 minute intermission

A. R. GURNEY

THE DINING ROOM

}{

produc t ion sponsor

The Dining Room was first produced Off-Broadway by Playwrights Horizons in 1982. The Dining Room is presented by special arrangement with Dramatists Play Service, Inc., New York.

The cast plays more than 50 characters, ranging in age from 6 to 86; from school children to grandparents.

i llust r At ion: t h e h e A ds of stAt e

Jacqueline Robertson-CullHead of Hair & Makeup

Erika Connor Lead Wardrobe Coordinator

Joanne LambertonStefan DeanCutters

Barbara Nowakowski First Hand

Janet Pym Natalie SwierczDressers

Paul BoddumScenic Painter

Greg ChambersProps Builder

SOULPEPPER PRODUC T ION

Brenda RobinsFirst Actress

Diego MatamorosFirst Actor

Sarah WilsonSecond Actress

Derek BoyesSecond Actor

Courtney Ch’ng LancasterThird Actress

Jeff LillicoThird Actor

Joseph ZieglerDirector

Robin FisherSet & Costume Designer

Ken MacKenzieLighting Designer

Richard FerenSound Designer

Mike RossMusic Consultant

Diane PitbladoDialect Coach

Kelly McEvenueAlexander Coach

Kate PorterStage Manager

Darragh ParsonsStage Manager

Emily MewettAssistant Stage Manager

Marc BondyAssistant Director

PRODUC T ION

CAS T

CREATIVE TEAM THE DINING ROOM

Background Notes by 2015 Resident Artist Paula Wing

When The Dining Room premiered in 1982, Frank Rich, the respected

(and feared) critic of The New York Times, called the play “a series of snapshots of a vanishing culture.” The culture in question is usually rendered by a stinging acronym: WASP. Playwright A.R. Gurney is a native son. He knows this world from the inside. His deep knowledge of the culture, along with wry humour and keen powers of observation created this kaleidoscopic comedy of manners.

The play is set in the titular dining room, where families have assembled for generations to celebrate special occasions and mark the rituals of daily life. There are only six actors on stage but they play more than 50 roles, embodying grandfathers and teenagers, wealthy women and house- maids. Gurney uses a mosaic structure: each of the 18 scenes offers a peek into a different household and time period. Taken together the stories build a portrait of a particular class of people in America in the last century. Particularly evident here is the influence of writer John Cheever. His stories, like Gurney’s plays, use this milieu to explore the death of tradition and the relentless demands of progress.

For director Joseph Ziegler, the play embraces what he calls both sides of America. It sings the society that produced Thomas Jefferson, who penned those indelible words about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. From that dream, as Gurney says, “Everything else followed, good and bad.” The beauty of the play is that it reveals the darker side of that huge hope, the other America, a country that has squandered so much possibility and promise. Both Americas are honoured in this play.

What lifts The Dining Room is Gurney’s sense of theatricality – the years and lives flashing before our eyes in that same familiar room – and his rigorous precision. Every single character is given its full, un-compromised humanity. For all its seeming conventionality, the play has a quiet, sustained power. It has lasted more than thirty years because at its heart it is a rich, melancholic look at a world in the process of fading away.

PL AY WRIGHT BIO

Albert Ramsdell (Pete) Gurney was born in 1930 in Buffalo, New York. He served with the Navy and went to the prestigious Yale School of Drama. For more than 20 years he taught literature at M.I.T. and wrote on the side. In 1982 he moved to New York and The Dining Room premiered that year. Its success allowed him to write full time, producing a few novels and more than 50 plays. Gurney is a member of the Theater Hall of Fame and The American Academy of Arts and Letters. He’s been married to wife Molly for more than 50 years. They have four children and eight grandchildren.

BACKGROUND NOTES

416 866 8666SOULPEPPER.CA

YOUNG CENTRE fOR THEPERfORMING ARTSTORONTO DISTILLERY HISTORIC DISTRICT

THANK YOU fOR AT TENDING!

Soulpepper Theatre Company is an active member of the Professional Association of Canadian Theatres (pAct), the Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts (tApA) and Theatre Ontario, and engages, under the terms of the Canadian Theatre Agreement, professional artists who are members of Canadian Actors’ Equity Association. Scenic Artists and Set Decorators employed by Soulpepper Theatre Company are represented by Local 828 of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees.

fACEBOOK.COM/ SOULPEPPERTHEATRE

YOUTUBE.COM/ SOULPEPPERTHEATRE@SOULPEPPER SOUNDCLOUD.COM/

SOULPEPPERTHEATRE

SOULPEPPER CONCERT SERIES concert series sponsor

SLAIGHT fAMILY DIRECTOR Of MUSIC MIKE ROSS

JACKIE RICHARDSON

A Soulpepper concert is unlike any other. Each musical event is enriched with dance, design and interdisciplinary combustion. The series is led

by Soulpepper’s Slaight Family Director of Music Mike Ross. This year a spotlight will shine on a Canadian legend, Jackie Richardson, who will appear in all five concerts.

photos: jA son h u dson

VISIT SOULPEPPER.CAfOR fULL CONCERT AND SEASON LISTINGS.