Tucson: Arizona Theatre Company presents DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

From: Arizona Theatre Company [mailto:aztheatreco@aztheatreco.pmailus.com]
Sent: Friday, December 28, 2007 5:02 PM
Subject: Indulge your dark side with DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE



For Immediate Release
December 28, 2007

Bevan Brunelle Bluemer, Public Relations Manager: 520.884.8210 Ext. 8205

INDULGE YOUR DARK SIDE WITH DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

World premiere of Jeffrey Hatcher’s fiercely theatrical adaptation of the classic tale.


What happened the night that Henry Jekyll died? The respected Dr. Jekyll has begun to display alarmingly erratic behavior toward his friends. At the same time, a brutal figure has begun to haunt the city’s streets. In Jeffrey Hatcher’s intense new version of Robert Louis Stevenson’s DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE, Dr. Jekyll confronts the monstrous Mr. Hyde in a maze of interlocking scenes that attempt to answer the puzzles at the heart of a tortured soul. Commissioned by ATC for this world premiere, DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE plays in Tucson at the Temple of Music and Art from January 12 through February 2. It continues its run in Phoenix at the Herberger Theater Center from February 7 through February 24. The Tucson production underwriter for DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE is APS, with additional support from Tucson Pima Arts Council, and the Phoenix production underwriter is APS. Arizona Theatre Company’s season underwriters are I. Michael and Beth Kasser. 

In Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic 1886 novella, a respected doctor explores the inner workings of the mind and the many sides of the personality.  In Jeffrey Hatcher’s taut re-telling of this classic horror story, one actor plays Dr. Jekyll and five other actors portray all of the rest of the characters who bring the gripping tale to life.  The evil Mr. Hyde has many faces – brutality, sexuality, heartlessness.  Hatcher’s adaptation questions the lines between good and evil as the mystery of the connection between the virtuous doctor and the vicious stranger unravels. The final struggle for control of one man’s soul brings Jekyll face-to-face with his deepest nature.

“Everyone knows the basic story of DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE”, commented director David Ira Goldstein, “The story has permeated popular culture for 120 years. Whether through the versions featuring Frederic March, John Barrymore, David Hasselhoff or, heaven help us,  even Abbott and Costello, we all know the story of the man who separated his good and his bad selves. What intrigued Jeffrey Hatcher about this story and what infuses his new version with such power is the idea that no one is truly just one thing or another. Although we live in a culture that wants to polarize and categorize us into good or bad, left or right, moral or immoral, every person remains stubbornly more complicated than that. All of us are a mixture of many elements, many motivations, many streams of exposed and hidden parts. People in 1886 were infinite in their variety and complexity, and they remain so today.”  

Playwright Jeffrey Hatcher adds, “In my version the roles are somewhat reversed, as are some aspects of Jekyll and Hyde themselves. One of the arguments I've never quite believed -- and I suspect Stevenson didn't believe it either -- is that Henry Jekyll is wholly good while Edward Hyde is wholly evil. I'm trying to have some fun with the notion that Jekyll and Hyde play a cat-and-mouse game with each other, and with the question of just who we should be rooting for.”

JEFFREY HATCHER (Playwright) is one of America’s most produced playwrights. He is the author of Ella and co-author of Work Song: Three Views of Frank Lloyd Wright and Tuesdays with Morrie – all of which have been seen on Arizona Theatre Company’s stages. Mr. Hatcher authored the book for the Broadway musical, Never Gonna Dance. Off-Broadway productions include Three Viewings and A Picasso at Manhattan Theatre Club, Scotland Road and The Turn of the Screw at Primary Stages, Tuesdays with Morrie (with Mitch Albom) at Minetta Lane Theatre, Murder by Poe and The Turn of the Screw with The Acting Company, Neddy at The American Place Theatre and Fellow Travelers at Manhattan Punchline. His plays – among them, Compleat Female Stage Beauty, Murderers, Mercy of a Storm, Smash, and To Fool the Eye– have been seen in hundreds of productions at regional theatres across the U.S. and abroad. Mr. Hatcher wrote the screenplays for Stage Beauty and Casanova as well as the currently-in-production The Duchess starring Keira Knightly and Ralph Fiennes, as well as authoring episodes of the Peter Falk series Columbo.

DAVID IRA GOLDSTEIN (Director) this year celebrates his sixteenth season as Artistic Director of Arizona Theatre Company. He has directed over 30 mainstage productions for ATC ranging from classics to new plays to musicals including the current production of the enormously popular The Pajama Game, as well as the world premieres of Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure, Inventing van Gogh, Rocket Man, Private Eyes, Over The Moon and Dracula by Steven Dietz and For Better or Worse by Geoff Hoyle.  He has been a guest director at theatres from coast to coast including Seattle Rep, Berkeley Rep, The Pasadena Playhouse, Kansas City Rep, Florida Stage, Children’s Theatre Company of Minneapolis, Northlight Theatre, Geva Theatre, Mixed Blood and many others. Last year he won both the Jeff Award in Chicago and the LA Drama Critics Award for A Marvelous Party: The Noël Coward Celebration which he also co-authored. He received the 2003 Governor’s Arts Award as Individual Artist for his contributions to the arts in Arizona. 

The cast of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde features a mix of returning and new faces to ATC. R. Hamilton Wright (Dr. Henry Jekyll) last appeared with Arizona Theatre Company as George Finch in Over the Moon.  His other ATC credits include The Mystery of Irma Vep, Scapin, Dreams from a Summer House as well as the world premiere of Steven Dietz’s Private Eyes. Recent credits include George W. Bush in David Hare's Stuff Happens at Seattle's ACT Theatre, where he also directed Stephen Temperly's Souvenir. In thirty years as an actor he has appeared in over 120 professional productions at Seattle Repertory, ACT Theatre, Intiman Theatre, Milwaukee Repertory Theater, South Coast Repertory, The Empty Space and The Public Theatre in New York, among others.  Ken Ruta (Gabriel Utterson, Edward Hyde) began his association with Arizona Theatre Company as an actor and director 25 years ago as Astrov in Uncle Vanya. More recently, he appeared in Over the Moon and Copenhagen. Other ATC productions include Galileo, Our Town, The Illusion, Shadowlands and The Heiress, as well as directing Billy Bishop Goes to War; ‘night, Mother; The Learned Ladies; The Real Thing; Goodbye Freddie and The Last Night of Ballyhoo. He appeared in the Broadway productions of The Elephant Man, Three Sisters, Duel of Angels, Ross, Separate Tables and Inherit the Wind, as well as touring nationally in Oscar Wilde: Diversion and Delights. Stephen D’Ambrose (Sir Danvers Carew, Edward Hyde) appeared last season in ATC’s production of Molly’s Delicious. Other recent appearances include Our Town with Two River Theatre Company, Cardinal Antonelli in Edgardo Mine at Guthrie Theater and Democracy at Park Square Theatre. Nationally, he has toured with Guthrie Theater’s Great Expectations, The Tavern and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, as well as with Jungle Theater Company’s The Pavilion.

Making their ATC debuts are Mark Anderson Phillips (Dr. Lanyon, Edward Hyde), who is based in the San Francisco Bay Area where his work includes roles with TheatreWorks, Magic Theatre, San Jose Repertory Theatre, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Marin Theatre Company, Aurora Theatre Company, California Shakespeare Theater and Center Repertory Theatre. He is the recipient of two Bay Area Drama Critics Circle Awards for the role of Jake in Stones in his Pockets (Magic Theatre) and Tom Joad in The Grapes of Wrath (TheatreWorks); Carrie Paff (Poole, Edward Hyde) has appeared in New York in The Death of Griffin Hunter at Soho Rep. and Fortinbras at 78th Street Theatre Lab, among others. Her regional credits include After the War at American Conservatory Theater, The Joan Rivers Theatre Project and Charles Grodin’s The Right Kind of People at Magic Theatre, Small Tragedy and Betrayal at Aurora Theatre Company, The Mousetrap and How the Other Half Loves at Center Repertory Theatre; and The Haunting of Winchester at San Jose Repertory Theatre; Anna Bullard (Elizabeth Jelkes) performed in the Humana Festival premieres of Kia Corthron's Moot the Messenger and Uncle Sam's Satiric Spectacular, as well as in Dracula and 2B (or not 2B) for Actors Theatre of Louisville. Other regional credits include Blackbird at American Conservatory Theater, Ambition Facing West at TheatreWorks, Killer Joe at Marin Theatre and The Mousetrap and Nunsense for Dorset Theatre Festival. Also appearing are University of Arizona students Rebecca Angel and Stephen Gaeto.

The artistic team for DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE includes Kent Dorsey (Scenic Designer), who returns to ATC where he designed scenery for For Better or Worse, A Streetcar Named Desire, A Moon for the Misbegotten, Work Song: Three Views of Frank Lloyd Wright (ariZoni Award), and many others. Mr. Dorsey has designed scenery and/or lighting on over 95 productions for The Old Globe, as well as for most of the major resident theatre companies; Anna Oliver (Costume Designer), who has designed for theatre and opera companies including Seattle Repertory Theatre, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, La Jolla Playhouse, The Old Globe, American Conservatory Theater, San Francisco Opera, Houston Grand Opera, among many others. Ms. Oliver is the recipient of a Helen Hayes Award nomination for Don Juan (2006), two Craig Noel Awards For Excellence in Theatre, a Geffen Award and numerous Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Awards; Dawn Chiang (Lighting Designer), who designed ATC’s productions of Crowns, Blues for an Alabama Sky and Oh Coward! She also lit David Ira Goldstein’s production of Guys and Dolls at Kansas City Repertory Theatre. On Broadway, she designed Zoot Suit and Tango Pasion (co-designed with Richard Pilbrow). Off-Broadway, she has designed for Manhattan Theatre Club and Roundabout Theatre Company. Her regional credits include the Mark Taper Forum, Guthrie Theater, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, South Coast Repertory, Milwaukee Repertory Theater, Seattle Repertory Theatre and Denver Center Theatre; Roberta Carlson (Composer), who composed scores for ATC’s Macbeth, Over the Moon, As You Like It, Inventing van Gogh, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Dracula, Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure and many others. Her work has also been heard at The Children's Theatre Company, Guthrie Theater, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Kansas City Repertory Theatre, Capital Repertory Theatre and San Jose Repertory Theatre; Brian Jerome Peterson (Resident Sound Designer), who celebrates his 22nd season and 54th sound design for ATC, where he has recently designed Touch the Names, I Am My Own Wife, Molly’s Delicious, and Twelfth Night. His designs have been heard at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Cleveland Play House and San Jose Repertory Theatre, among others; and Ken Merckx (Fight Director), who has choreographed fights and taught actors combat for film and television, theatres and universities all across the country, and is the Resident Fight Choreographer for the Idaho Shakespeare Festival, Great Lakes Theater Festival (Cleveland) and A Noise Within (Los Angeles). The Stage Manager is Bret Torbeck.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a co-production with the award-winning San Jose Repertory Theatre, where it will play from May 10 - Jun. 8, 2008.

Tickets range from $26-$50 depending on date and section choice and are available at arizonatheatre.org or by calling the box office at (520) 622-2823. Discounts are available for students, seniors and active military on specific performance days. Half-price student rush tickets are available for balcony seating for all performances one hour prior to curtain at the ATC box office (subject to availability; must show ID). For discounts on groups of eight or more, call (520) 622-2823.

ATC offers an audio-described performance for patrons who have low vision or blindness on January 30 at 2 PM and January 31 at 2 PM. Interested patrons may request a tactile tour one hour prior to curtain. Braille and large-print playbills are available upon request from the house manager. An American Sign Language-interpreted performance is offered on January 31 at 7:30 PM. Patrons who have deafness or hearing impairment will receive a biography of the interpreters, a description of the play and name signs of each character.  An open-captioned performance is offered on January 31 at 2 PM. As the play progresses, those in open-captioned seating will be able to read the play’s dialogue in large green letters on an LED. The service is for patrons with mild to severe hearing loss who may not be ASL-literate. Tickets for all performances are available through the ATC box office at (520) 622-2823 or online at arizonatheatre.org. TTY access for the box office is available via Arizona Relay at (800) 367-8939 (TTY/ASCII).
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Photos and Art for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Cast bios and photos can be found at: http://aztheatreco.org/pressroom_gallery_JEKYLL_bios.html
Production photos will be available after January 4 at: http://aztheatreco.org/pressroom_gallery_JEKYLL_photos.html

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