Anne of the Thousand Days: Director's Note

Anne of the Thousand Days presents some special challenges to its cast, crew, and audiences. It catalogs the span of an entire relationship - all 1,000 of its days - in the span of a few hours of moments. It requires the audience to meet and get to know the many other names and faces involved in Anne and Henry's lives, from first meeting to final (and permanent) end. The play also presents its highly stylized (and fictionalized) story through two unreliable narrators as they attempt to justify the ending of their lives together. Heavy stuff.

From the very beginning, I hoped to stage this play in a way that put a unique focus on the performativity of memory. So many people go in and out of the lives of these two characters during their story - and when they outlive their place in the narrative, where do they go? In this production, the small cast ensures that the faces and bodies of Anne and Henry's memories are remade and recycled into the next wave of moments. Faces become familiar, but interchangeable, as the dynamics of the play's relationships blur and change along with them. 

In the end, I hope the cast, crew, and audiences of this play are left with a sense of how memory - how we remember, and how we are remembered, the impermanence of people, places, and moments - can be embraced and experienced as a performance in its own right.

Melinda Marks

Anne of the Thousand Days: A Word from the Artistic Directors

Dragon’s 2nd Stages Program is one of the biggest factors that attracted Max and myself to take up the role of Co-Artistic Directors at the Dragon. Giving local artists opportunities to produce their passion projects in the Bay area, where options can be limited, really makes our job so worthwhile. 

Melinda Marks left quite a lasting impression with her robust pitch of Maxwell Anderson's play Anne of the Thousand Days. We could tell that Melinda had done her homework and that Anderson's text really had struck an artistic chord with her. The story of King Henry VIII and his courting of Anne Boleyn and the founding of The Church of England has always been a personal fascination, and with the today’s Me Too movement, the themes of gender power dynamics resonate even louder. Melinda’s approach to this production not only serves the story spectacularly, but also pays forward the opportunity she got in producing this show by creating roles for brilliant actors who may not otherwise get to play any roles quite like these. You're in for quite a treat! 

Alika & Max Koknar

Anne of the Thousand Days: Meet the Designers

Melinda Marks (Director) is a longtime Bay Area actor and director, and the co-founder and casting director of San Jose production company Play on Words. This is her first time directing at Dragon, after having previously been Stage Manager for Shoggoths on the Veldt earlier this season. Melinda holds an MA in Theater Arts from San Jose State and an MFA in Shakespeare and Performance from Mary Baldwin University. She was last seen onstage in Shakespeare in Love (Palo Alto Players), and in Teatro Visions' world premiere of Departera. In the spring, Melinda will be directing The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time at the Pear Theatre in Mountain View.

Nathanael Card (Lighting Designer), Wizard of the Theatre Arts, is proud to take the form of lighting designer for Dragon on this production. His past lighting designs include: Hickorydickory, Shoggoths on the Veldt, The Revolutionists, Three Days of Rain, and Cirque Exotique du Monde at Dragon. In addition to lighting, he designed sets as well for his last four shows at Dragon, and often crews as an electrician with Stanford University School of Music, Smuin Ballet, Berkeley Rep.

Arcadia Conrad (Stage Intimacy Workshop Facilitator) is an actor, director, playwright and theatre educator. She is currently an intimacy director in training and program director of Cupertino Actors Theatre at Cupertino High School, a contributor with Play on Words, and teaches writing with the San Jose Writing Project. A reading of her latest play, Script Doctor, was recently presented at The Dragon Theatre's Monday Night Playspace. 

Nita Lambert (Stage Manager) is pleased to be stage managing again, after a 17-year break. Favorite acting roles include Mistress Ford in The Merry Wives of Windsor and Mariah in Twelfth Night, both at Silicon Valley Shakespeare, as well as multiple characters in many productions of Northside Theatre Company's annual A Christmas Carol. In real life, her favorite roles include wife, mom, stepmom and grandma. She also enjoys directing choral music. Nita would like to thank her fabulous husband and daughter for their love and support.

Marley Teter (Costume Construction)

Michael Weiland (Sound Designer) has previously appeared in Shoggoths in the Veldt and Equivocation at the Dragon Theatre. Other appearances are Geeks vs Zombies at the Pear Theater, The Legend of Georgia McBride  at Los Altos Stage Company, Boom! at Minilights, and Rocky Horror at City Lights Theater Company. Michael is also a company member at Play On Words San Jose, a staged reading company for new works by local authors, playwrights, and poets.

Anne of the Thousand Days: Meet the Cast

Lisa Burton (Norfolk / Servant / Singer) is happy to be back on the Dragon stage and working with such a talented ensemble of artists.  She has previously appeared at Dragon Theatre swashbuckling in Shoggoths on The Veldt, rapping in The Making of The Star Wars Holiday Special, ring leading in Cirque Exotique du Monde, and organizing junk in The Charitable Sisterhood of The Second Trinity Victory Church.  Other credits include the comedies Exit The Body and Rumors (Santa Clara Players), The Millionth Production of The Christmas Carol (The Pear) as well as the podcast Church Biz available on Spotify.  Lisa is deeply grateful to her awesome, supportive family: Drew, Andrew, Zoe and Bolt as well as her best friend and partner in crime, Ashley.

 

Helena G. Clarkson (Cardinal Wolsey / Madge / Thomas Wyatt, Singer) is happy to back onstage at Dragon.  She was last seen here as the Female Chorus in Libation Bearers and Ginger in Becky’s New Car. She has performed at many of the local bay area theaters including Foothill Musical Theater, Tabard, Santa Clara Players, and the Pear. Helena received a BA from Santa Clara University in 2007 (double major in Theater and English), after she completed two AA’s at Foothill College (Theater Arts and Human Performance). Helena would like to thank her son for supporting her every endeavor and everyone here for supporting live theater!!

April Culver (Thomas Boleyn / Elizabeth Boleyn / Thomas More / Bailiff) Recent performances include: The Grapes of Wrath (Rose of Sharon) at Los Altos Stage Company, Shakespeare in Love (Viola) at Palo Alto Players, King Lear (Cordelia / Fool)  B8 Theatre, In the Next Room… (Mrs. Givings, SFBATCC Nomination), A View from the Bridge(Catherine) and Uncle Vanya (Sonya) for Pear Theatre, and A Midsummer Night's Dream (Helena), As You Like It (Celia), and Hamlet (Rosencrantz) at Silicon Valley Shakespeare. She thanks her friends and family for their love, humor, and support. 

Ivette Deltoro (Anne Boleyn) is happy to be working on her first show at Dragon Productions. Past credits include: Spending the End of the World on Ok Cupid at The Pear Theatre (ensemble), Silicon Valley Shakespeare's Hamlet (ensemble/dance), and Epic Immersive’s Matthew Briar and the Age of Resurrection (Isabela Martinez). Ivette also works with City Lights Theater Company where she originated the role of Clara Krieger in the world premiere of Truce: A Christmas Wish from the Great War, and was a TBA nominee for her role as Caroline in Lauren Gunderson’s I and You. She is a graduate of the Foothill Theater Conservatory and serves as the Casting Assistant and Patron Experience Manager at City Lights Theater Company. 

Tonya Duncan (Mary Boleyn, Percy, Cromwell, Jane Seymour) is thrilled to make her Dragon debut! Past roles include: Club Secretary in Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure of the Suicide Club (Silicon Valley Shakespeare), Texas in Cabaret (City Lights Theatre Company), and Anne in Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley (City Lights Theatre Company). When not in the theatre, Tonya can be found playing with her puppies, pestering her boyfriend, and procrastinating by watching all the bad horror movies Netflix has to offer.

Ronald Feichtmeir (Norris / Fisher / Courier / Servant) is pleased to return again, and work with the nice folks at the Dragon Theatre. Recent credits at the Dragon include Medford Pumbleshire in Shoggoths on the Veldt, Dr. Singer in Cirque Exotique du Monde, and personal favorite of his, Estragon in Waiting for Godot. Ronald is a Bay Area Native, a graduate of Los Altos High School, Foothill College and University of California Santa Cruz. He loves theatre and films.

Keenan Flagg (Smeaton / Musician / Servant, Loughton / Kingston) is ecstatic to finally be working at Dragon Productions Theatre Company. His recent credits include the Porter in Silicon Valley Shakespeare’s production of Macbeth; and the Loud Stone in Eurydice at City Lights Theater Company. When not on stage, Keenan works as a voice and writer with Play On Words.

Peter Ray Juarez (Henry VIII) is very thankful to be making his return to the Dragon Productions Theatre Company where he last appeared as Evan in U.S. Drag. Selected credits: Duncan in Leading Ladies at Hillbarn Theatre, Henry in Northanger Abbey at The Pear Theatre, Tom Snout in A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Livermore Shakespeare Festival, Betty/Edward in Cloud 9 at The Western Stage, and Wintergreen in Catch 22 at Los Altos Stage Company. He earned an MA in Theatre Arts from San Jose State University and holds a BA in Theatre Arts from California State University, Chico. He would like to thank Haley and his friends and family for their love and support.

Anne of the Thousand Days: Meet the Playwright

Maxwell Anderson was born in Atlantic, Pennsylvania, on December 15, 1888. His father worked as a traveling minister, so his youth was split among many states. As a child, Maxwell was frequently sick, missing a great deal of school. He used his time sick in bed to read voraciously, and both his parents and Aunt Emma were storytellers, which contributed to Anderson's love of literature.

He graduated from the University of North Dakota with a BA in English Literature in 1911 and completed his master's degree in English Literature at Stanford three years later. He taught high school in San Francisco and eventually wrote for the San Francisco Evening Bulletin and the San Francisco Chronicle. He moved to New York City to write about politics for The New Republic in 1918, but he was fired after an argument with the Editor-in-Chief. He then went on to write for The New York Globe and the New York World. Meanwhile, he began to write plays on the side.

His plays are in widely varying styles, and Anderson was one of the few modern playwrights to make extensive use of blank verse. His first play,White Desert, was a contemporary verse tragedy that opened in 1923 to little response. Retooling his approach to establish himself, he scored a hit by co-writing the WWI comedy What Price Glory, which was a Broadway hit. Written with Laurence Stallings, the play made use of profanity, which caused censors to protest. But when the chief censor (Rear Admiral Charles Peshall Plunkett) was found to have written far more obscene letters to General Chamberlaine, he was discredited: soldiers really did speak that way.

Some of his plays were adapted into movies. The only one of his plays that he himself adapted to the screen was Joan of Lorraine, which became the film Joan of Arc (1948) starring Ingrid Bergman. When Bergman and her director changed much of his dialogue to make Joan "a plaster saint" he got angry. 

He won the Pulitzer Prize for 1933's Both Your Houses, and the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for the highly successful and acclaimed contemporary tragedy Winterset, based on the Sacco and Vanzetti trial. He repeated the latter feat in 1936 with High Tor. 

Anderson also wrote the screenplays of other authors' plays and novels – All Quiet on the Western Front (1939) and Death Takes a Holiday (1934) – in addition to books of poetry and essays.

Anne of the Thousand Days

Anderson enjoyed great commercial success with a series of plays set during the reign of the Tudor family, who ruled England, Wales and Ireland from 1485 until 1603. One play in particular – Anne of the Thousand Days– the story of Henry VIII's marriage to Anne Boleyn – was a hit on the stage in 1948, but did not reach movie screens for 21 years. It opened on Broadway starring Rex Harrison and Joyce Redman, and became a 1969 movie with Richard Burton and Geneviève Bujold. Margaret Furse won an Oscar for the film's costume designs.

Another of his Tudor plays, Elizabeth the Queen opened in 1930 with Lynn Fontanne as Elizabeth and Alfred Lunt as Lord Essex. It was later adapted to the screen as The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939), starring Bette Davis and Errol Flynn. Directed by John Ford, Mary of Scotland (1936) was an adaptation of his play of the same name involving Elizabeth I, starring Katharine Hepburn as Mary, Queen of Scots, Fredric March as the Earl of Bothwell, and Florence Eldridge as Elizabeth. The original play had been a hit on Broadway starring Helen Hayes in the title role.

In 1938, Anderson teamed up with the recently emigrated composer Kurt Weill, who'd fled to New York to flee the Nazis, and sought out the city's top playwrights in search of collaborators. Their first effort was Knickerbocker Holiday, a historical musical set in the time when New York was still the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam. Anderson wrote the book and lyrics, and although the play was a decent-sized success, its "September Song" proved to have a life far beyond its source, thanks in part to a recording by Frank Sinatra. In 1939, Anderson and Weill began work on another musical, to be titled Ulysses Africanus, however, they never found an actor suited to the lead role, and the show was never completed. Anderson and Weill remained on good terms, but it took them quite some time to find another project to work on together; Weill originally wanted Anderson to write lyrics for the play that became Street Scene, but Anderson, unconvinced of his talent as a lyricist, let the job go to poet Langston Hughes.

His last successful Broadway stage play was 1954's The Bad Seed, Anderson's adaption of the William March novel. He was hired by Alfred Hitchcock to write the screenplay for Hitchcock's The Wrong Man (1957). Hitchcock also contracted with Anderson to write the screenplay for what became Vertigo (1958), but Hitchcock rejected his screenplay Darkling, I Listen.

Anderson died in Stamford, Connecticut, on February 28, 1959, two days after suffering a stroke. He was 70 years old. He was cremated. Half of his ashes were scattered by the sea near his home in Stamford. The other half was buried in Anderson Cemetery near his birthplace in rural northwestern Pennsylvania. 

Hickorydickory: From the Director

Time. Time is cherished; the lack of time is precious.

What would you do if you, a friend, or a family member, knew exactly how much time they had left to live? That’s the question the five characters in Hickorydickory have to answer for themselves.

When this play was first presented to me, I do what I normally do, sit at the kitchen table with an oversized cup of coffee, reggae music in the background, and delve in. Sometimes I have to force myself to finish a script. Sometimes a script will speak to me so strongly that I’m am transported to that world with those characters. Hickorydickory was the latter. I could not stop reading Marisa Wegrzyn’s heartfelt, magical and inventive comedy. I could see and hear each character and wanted to learn more about Cari Lee, Jimmy, Kate, Dale and Rowan. I then journeyed back 18 years to understand Richard, Helen, Young Jimmy, Young Kate and experience Cari Lee all over again. I was astonished by the playwright’s use of dialogue, mystery and fantasy to tell a story that is thought-provoking, captivating, relatable and delightfully imaginative.

I did not hesitate to say yes when I was asked to direct this show for Dragon Theatre Production Company. It’s rare to experience a piece of work where, just on paper alone I could see the humor, the thoughtfulness, the supernatural, the nostalgia. Then entering the rehearsal process with five remarkably talented actors whose timing and skillfulness caused us to laugh out loud, showed vulnerability, and made us reminiscence.

Travel with us to 1992, and 1974. Open your mind and your heart to experience the real, and the unreal. I hope your engagement with this play is as entertaining, amusing, and moving as it has been for us to create it for you. 

Kimberly Ridgeway

Director 

Hickorydickory: Artistic DIrector's Note

In the end, it is love that tethers us together. Hickorydickory is a beast of a play. It is full of theatrical magic, immense emotional stakes, and lots of words. But in the end, it is about one simple thing; love. This production has been loved since the beginning when our founder, Meredith, gifted it to us as the new artistic directors. And it was with so much love and generosity that she entrusted us, along with the amazing direction of Kimberly Ridgeway, with bringing the script to life on the Dragon stage. The love is there in every rehearsal we visit, and every production meeting we attend. It is an unconditional sort of love that radiates from everyone working on this show that persists despite all the challenges. It’s that sort of love that makes a room feel like home, and a team feel like family. And we hope you, as part of our Dragon family, feel that love tonight.

Alika and Max Koknar

Hickorydickory: Meet the Cast

Allie Bailey (Kate/Helen) is delighted to be making her Dragon Theatre debut with this thought provoking production. Allie is a local bay area theatre actor, director, production manager, teaching artist, and production stage manager who specializes in classical and musical theatre, opera, ballet, and modern dance. Before moving to California, Allie graduated from the University of Alberta with a BFA in theatre and worked as a CAEA stage manager in Edmonton, Alberta. Favorite theatre credits include Into the Woods (Los Altos Stage Company, Pacifica Spindrift Players), Rent (Cabrillo Stage), Peter and the Starcatcher (Hillbarn Theatre), The Nutcracker (Bay Pointe Ballet), Roots and Wings (sjDANCEco), Pippin, Cabaret (Sunnyvale Community Players), Sir John in Love (Bronx Opera), La bohème, The Magic Flute, Carmen, Idomeneo (Opera San Jose), A Chorus Line, The Marvelous Wonderettes, The Music Man (Broadway by the Bay), The Comedy of Errors (Freewill Players), La Traviata and The Flying Dutchman (Edmonton Opera).

Jonathan Covey (Rowen/Young Jimmy) has been heralded by top Bay Area theatre critics with such breathless praise as “fine” and “colorless” for his portrayal of Malcolm/Son Macduff/Lord #4 in Dragon’s production of Macbeth earlier this year. Recounted in vivid detail as “admirable” and “also in this play, I guess” for his performance of Detective Sgt. Trotter in Crystal Springs’ production of Agatha Christie’s The Mouse Trap back in 2009. Typically, Covey has focused on sound design and music, working on several other Dragon productions, such as Equivocation, Caeneus & Poseidon, Miss Reardon Drinks A Little, The Making of the Star War Holiday Special, and most recently, Shoggoths on the Veldt. He also did sound for Hillbarn’s productions of The Elephant Man and Noises Off, as well as numerous other plays for several other theatre companies around the Bay. But with such rapturous jubilation for his two–count them, TWO–whole swings at acting, how could he not try to top himself with a third?

Sarah Hass (Cari Lee) is thrilled to be making her debut with the Dragon Productions Theatre Company. Recent credits include Stupid F*cking Bird (Nina) with City Lights Theater Company, Seminar (Kate) at San Jose State University, A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Puck) at San Jose State University, The Shape of Things (Evelyn) at San Jose State University, The Great Gatsby (Daisy) at San Jose State University, and Curtains (Ensemble) with South Bay Musical Theater. She graduated with BA in Theatre Arts from San Jose State University and spends her days as a pastry baker. She would like to thank her family and friends for being an overwhelming and constant source of love and support. 

Troy Johnson (Jimmy / Richard) has been acting and directing around the Bay Area for the past 25 years and is excited to be back at Dragon Productions as part of this team of passionate theatre artists. Previous acting credits at Dragon Productions include Porter / Witch / Soldier in this season’s production of Macbeth, Tesman in last season’s The Further Adventures of Hedda Gabler, and Mitch in A Streetcar Named Desire back when Dragon Productions was located in Palo Alto. Other recent acting credits include Harry Dangle in One Man, Two Guvnors at Palo Alto Players and Tesman in Hedda Gabler at The Pear Theatre. Troy thanks you for continuing to support live local theatre.

Zoey Little (Dale) is thrilled to be making her debut at Dragon Theatre. She is currently pursuing a BFA in dance from San Jose State University with a double major in Communication Studies. Credits include Sophie in Mamma Mia (Stage 1 Theater), Jean in the American Psycho West Coast premiere (Ray of Light Theatre), and Rusty in Footloose (West Valley Light Opera). Most recently, Zoey performed in Billy Elliot at Woodminster Summer Musicals. Favorite film credits include Haley in Metamorphosis: Junior Year (Betsy Franco), and Nicole in Animus (Alexis Williams). She also teaches dance at Dance Connection Palo Alto and occasionally choreographs youth theatre in the bay (Peninsula Youth Theater, Chrysalis Youth Theatre, HEART Academy). She is honored to join the phenomenally talented and inspiring cast of Hickorydickory and hopes you enjoy the show! Love and thanks to Mumma and Papa.

HIckorydickory: The Design Team

Kimberly Ridgeway (director) has been working professionally as an Actor, Director, Writer and Producer in film and theater for over 20 years. Kimberly wrote, produced, directed, and starred in the stage plays Heavy Burdens, No More Secrets, Prospect Place, and The Gigolo Chronicles, and the short film “The Confession”.  Her favorite acting roles include Mrs. Muller, Doubt, Sam Stevens, The Gigolo Chronicles, Coretta Scott King/Fannie Lou Hamer, All The Way, Randa, Savannah Sipping Society, Bernice, The Piano Lesson, Duchess, Wonderland (World Premiere), Tiana in “Hopes Identity” and Camae in The Mountaintop for which she won the 2016 BroadwayWorld San Francisco Award for Best Leading Actress in a Play (Local). Kim has directed projects for several Bay Area Theater Companies including The Playwrights Center of San Francisco, Bay Area Drama Company, and Ubuntu Theater Project. Her upcoming directing projects include Wait Until Dark (Village Theater, Danville), February 2020 and Crowns (Contra Costa Civic Theater, El Cerrito), July 2020. Kim returns to Dragon Productions Theatre Company after directing David Mamet’s Race last season.  

Tom Shamrell (scenic designer) is elated to serve as scenic designer for this unique experience at Dragon Productions. This team is bringing an intriguing story to life and Tom is honored to create the play space you see before you.  Tom is also a bay area as an actor, director, teacher,  property builder and much more. Tom holds a BA in Theatre Arts from San Jose State University and is a graduate of the Foothill Theatre Conservatory.

Nathanael Card (Lighting Designer), Wizard of the Theatre Arts, is proud to take the form of lighting designer, scenic designer, and painter for Dragon. His past scenic designs include: The Revolutionists, Three Days of Rain, and Cirque Exotique du Monde at Dragon; Godspell, Carousel, and A Chorus Line, with Youth Musical Theater Company; and Southern Lights, with 3 Girls Theater at Z Below. He designed lights as well for his last three shows at Dragon, and often crews as an electrician with Smuin Ballet and Berkeley Rep.

Kathleen Qiu (costume designer) is thrilled to return to Dragon for Hickorydickory. Previously, she designed Shoggoths on the Veldt, The (Curious Case of the) Watson Intelligence, Equivocation, and Insignificance. Selected credits include Orfeo ed Euridice (West Edge Opera), Passion, How I Learned to Drive, The House of Yes (Custom Made Theatre) The Fit, You Mean to Do Me Harm (SF Playhouse), 12 Angry Wo/Men, She Kills Monsters, A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Foothill College), Two Mile Hollow (Ferocious Lotus), and Universal Robots (Quantum Dragon Theatre). You can see some of her other work right now in The Glass Menagerie (Role Players Ensemble, where she also designed Honky and All My Sons). She is currently working on an MFA in Costume Design from the Academy of Art. www.kathleenq.com

Lana Palmer (Sound Design). Credits: The How and the Why; Race(Dragon Productions), School Girls; or, The African Mean Girls Play(Kansas City Rep/Regional Premiere),For Colored Girls (African-American Shakespeare Company), The Revolutionists(Town Hall Theatre Company/Bay Area Premiere), and Dracula(Inferno Theatre), for which she was nominated for a TBA Award for Original Music.  Upcoming: The Daughters  (SF Playhouse), Bull in a China Shop (Aurora Theatre). Affiliations: Dramatists Guild, SDC (Associate). www.lanapalmer.com

Kate Martin (Properties Master) designs and creates costumes and props, and performs with Epic Immersive and Hubba Hubba Revue, as well as teaches elementary school science and engineering during the week. In her free time she performs immersive comedy with her girlfriend and creates all sorts of strange things.

Miranda Whipple (Stage Manager) has worked as a stage manager and props designer in the Bay Area for the past four years. Past stage management credits include Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (American Conservatory Theater), Girls Kill Nazis and Geeks vs. Zombies (Pear Theatre), La Llorona (Opera Cultura), and The Witches (Los Altos Youth Theatre). She has also designed props for productions of August: Osage County, West Side Story,In the Heights, Making God Laugh, Thoroughly Modern Millie, and Cabaret. Miranda graduated from Cal State University, Fullerton with a B.A. in Theatre Arts in 2014. 

Jacob Vorperian (Asst. Technical director) is proud to be joining the creative team of Hickorydickory. He studied computer science at Willamette University before moving on to his current roles as House Technician for Dragon Productions, Head of Technology for Epic Immersive, and Projectionist for Viberation Visuals. Jacob also has over a decade of extensive experience in acting, singing, and dancing, with his most recent role being that of Short John in Epic Immersive's production of The Changeling: a Neverland Story. He would like to thank Marilyn Izdebski for introducing him to the wonderful world of theater and Max and Alika for bringing him to Dragon.

Hickorydickory: About the Playwright

Marisa Wegrzyn (born 1981) is an American playwright based in Chicago, Illinois. She grew up in Wilmette, Illinois. Born to an anesthesiologist and former flight attendant, she began writing plays at 18. While at Washington University in St. Louis, Wegrzyn won the university's A.E. Hotchner playwriting award after finishing second the preceding year. She came as runner-up as a freshman for Polar Bears on U.S. 41, and was chosen to take part in the WordBRIDGE program. Hosted by Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida, it is a two-week program with theatre professionals.

The next year, her play Killing Women, about female hitmen, won the award and was produced by the University’s A.E. Hotchner Play Development Lab. After graduation in 2003, she was put in touch with the Steppenwolf Theatre Company's director of new play development.

Wegrzyn's black comedy The Butcher of Baraboo debuted by Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre Company in 2006 and ran again at the Second Stage Theater in New York City a year later. The play went on to receive its West Coast premiere in San Diego, CA, in 2009 where it was then hailed by critics as a success.

In 2009, Wergzyn won the third annual Wasserstein Prize for her play Hickorydickory, which had not yet been produced. The award, named in honor of Wendy Wasserstein, is given to a female playwright under 32 who has yet to receive national attention.

She has been commissioned by Steppenwolf (twice), Yale Repertory Theatre, and Theatre Seven. She is a founding member of Theatre Seven in Chicago and is currently writing for TV (Goliath, Amazon) while continuing her work in theater around the country.

The How & the Why: The Playwright

Sarah Treem is the Golden Globe Winning writer and producer of Showtime's The Affair. Her full-length plays include Empty Sky,Against the Wall, Mirror, Mirror, A Feminine Ending, Human Voices, When We Were Young and Unafraid, and Vienna's Amazing.A Feminine Endingreceived its world premiere at Playwrights Horizons in Fall 2007, was subsequently produced at South Coast Repertory and Portland Center Stage in 2008. Human Voices was part of Manhattan Theater Club's Springboard's New Play Series and New York Stage & Film's Powerhouse Reading Season in 2007. Sarah has been in residence at The Sundance Institute and The Ojai Playwriting Conference. She has been commissioned by South Coast Repertory and Playwrights Horizons, and she is a current fellow at the Lark Playwrights' Workshop. On the television side, Sarah is a Writer/Producer on two acclaimed HBO series, In Treatmentand Mark Wahlberg's How To Make It In America. She also writes for House of Cardsfor Netflix. Sarah is currently adapting Tom Wolfe's novel I Am Charlotte Simmons for Bill Haber and Tina Brown at HBO. Born in Boston and raised in multiple states on the east coast, Sarah graduated from Yale University with a B.A. and the Yale School of Drama with an MFA. 

The How & the Why: Director's Note

“It would help if you didn’t think of science as such a contact sport.”

The How and the Why follows two women meeting for the first time, one well-established in her career, and one on the cusp of entering into professional life. Propelled by coincidence, fate, or a mysterious turn of genetic determinism, they are both evolutionary biologists.

This is no casual meeting, and conversation gravitates to vital questions: Their work, their families, their choices, their bodies. And perhaps most importantly, their dreams - and the sacrifices made to achieve them. 

These are women striving to gain, and keep, a foothold in a highly competitive field. While working on this play, we asked ourselves what it meant to be driven towards achievement and success, and whether these successes are enough to build a fulfilled life.  While Zelda and Rachel are both scientists, I believe these questions are applicable to all of us. In the quote above, ‘science’ could easily be replaced by ‘life’. I hope that this play offers you an entryway to explore your own questions on the great mystery of How and Why we become who we are.

-Lana Palmer, director

The How & the Why: Meet the Designers

Lana Palmer (Producer/Director/Sound Designer/Properties Master/Costume Coordinator) is a Canadian-born, San Francisco-based theatre and filmmaker. Sound Design credits include Race (Dragon Theatre), School Girls (Kansas City Rep/Regional Premiere), The Grapes of Wrath (Los Altos Stage), For Colored Girls (African-American Shakespeare Company), The Revolutionists (Town Hall Theatre Company/Bay Area Premiere), and Dracula (Inferno Theatre), for which she was nominated for a TBA Award for Original Music. Her directing credits include Red and The North Pool (Bread & Butter Theatre), and staged readings of Middletown (Actors Ensemble of Berkeley) and Uncanny Valley (Town Hall Theatre Company). 

Rebekah Lazar (Stage Manager) (Bekah for short) is a university student studying theatre design and production at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, BC. Her main focus is on stage management, lighting, and anything else she has the opportunity to learn about. She feels so fortunate to work with and learn from such a passionate and driven team that inspires her to do what she loves to do. Bekah would like to thank everyone who takes a bit of time out of their day to spend a few hours in the world of theatre; after all, a show is nothing without its audience.

Isaac Fine (Scenic Designer) is a second year MFA student at San Francisco State University studying scenic design. His credits include [title of show], Pericles, Prince of Tyre, and The North Pool. He has also worked as a projection designer for Hair: An American Tribal Love-Rock Musical, and How to Pray. Isaac is thrilled to be working on his first production with the Dragon Theatre. 

Bruce Avery (Lighting Designer) is a Bay Area actor and director as well as Professor of Theatre Arts at San Francisco State University. Lighting design credits include Exit the King and Baltimore Waltz (San Francisco State University) and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Bread & Butter Theatre Co). Directing credits include Pericles, Prince of Tyre, Much Ado About Nothing, and Baltimore Waltz at San Francisco State University, and Midsummer for Bread & Butter. Acting credits include Rothko in Red, Dr. Danielson in The North Pool, and Polonius in Hamlet.  

The How & the Why: Meet the Cast

Alicia Piemme Nelson (Rachel Hardeman) is thrilled to be making her Dragon debut in The How and the Why. Regional credits include: WAMTheatre (The Last Wife, The Virgin Trial). She has worked with many Bay Area theatres, most recently: TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, Berkeley Playhouse, Bay Area Children’s Theatre, Crowded Fire, Word for Word, and Ragged Wing Ensemble. She has a BFA in Acting from Boston University and is a Theatre Bay Area award winner. www.ampnelson.com

Kelly Rinehart (Zelda Kahn) is thrilled to be back at Dragon. She was previously seen here in Private Eyes and Miss Reardon Drinks A Little. She has also worked with Altarena, Custom Made Theatre Company, Contra Costa Civic Theatre, Hillbarn, Palo Alto Players, Ragged Wing, San Francisco Olympians Festival, and Those Women Productions, among others. One of her day jobs is as a lecturer and clinical supervisor at a university, where she is grateful that she does not have to do research, because her passion is for the teaching part. She also likes playing outdoors and ice cream. So much to be grateful for…

Shoggoths on the Veldt: About H. P. Lovecraft and his fictional world

Who is Lovecraft? 

Howard Phillips (H.P.) Lovecraft (1890-1937) was a writer from Rhode Island whose biography is both interesting and controversial, but for our purposes, we will contain ourselves to his writing. A fan of Poe, he was fascinated with the macabre and horror, and made most of his income came from pulp fiction magazines of the day. His writing includes such themes/ideas as: exploration of places man has never been or has not seen since a bygone age, fear of the unknown and with it a fear of knowledge/progress into areas man is not ready to know, madness and/or death at the hands of things the human brain cannot comprehend nor even contend with, the kind of sacrifice required to forestall humanity's end against forces that it has no hope against and prodigious use of words and phrases like “Cyclopean” “Eldritch” and “Non-Euclidean Geometry” to fill in the gap between where the English language could not describe something ended and the readers imagination began. All of this lead to what we now call the ‘Cthulhu Mythos’. 

What is the ‘Cthulhu Mythos’? 

The name is inspired from one of Lovecraft’s best (or at least most famous) work: “The Call of Cthulhu”. As to the ‘Mythos’ part... 

Well, lots of pulp fiction writers of the day corresponded with each other (to both collaborate and commiserate on how hard it was to make a living writing) and Lovecraft ended up with a large circle of correspondents/fans/friends ( called, rather blandly “The Lovecraft Circle”, which included famed writer Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan the Barbarian) and most of them either saw a gap in the market or were truly inspired by his writing to add to it, helping make one of the largest author approved fan fiction groups ever. Writers would take stories, single lines from stories or just an idea and expand them to where today, their writing is considered as canon as Lovecraft’s by most fans. 

Okay, so a bunch of writers made up spooky stories around a hundred years ago. Surely no one talks about it anymore, right? 

That is where you are wrong, you cheeky, hastily conjured straw man! The Mythos is still with us and is a part of popular culture to this day, including, but by no means limited to: 

Evil Dead Series: Both the more recent TV show and the original movies owe much to Lovecraft, especially the Necronomicon (which is featured/mentioned in many Mythos texts). 

Re-Animator: A series of horror movies starring Jeffery Coombs, the original is based wholesale on a Lovecraft story, updated on its era, involving reanimating dead people and the problems it can cause. 

Conan the Barbarian: From the novels to the 80s movies with Arnold Schwarzenegger, many of the supernatural/strange elements bear the mark of its creators love of Lovecraft. 

Ghostbusters: Mentions some tomes and names familiar to Lovecraft fans and the cartoon version (The Real Ghostbusters) had an episode entitled “The Collect Call of Cthulhu” as a wholesale homage. 

John Carpenter: Parts of the film “The Thing” that are not based on the previous version or its original short story are cribbed from Lovecraft’s story “At the Mountains of Madness;” which is even further referenced in style and tone in one of Carpenter's other film “In the Mouth of Madness”. 

Metallica: Has two songs referencing Lovecraft ‘The Thing That Should Not Be’ and “The Call of Ktulu’.

Batman: The Arkham Asylum where most of Batman’s rogues gallery ends up is a reference to a central location in the Cthulhu Mythos, the tiny New England town of Arkham, Massachusetts.

Call of Cthulhu: A Tabletop Role Playing Game that is based entirely on the Mythos, originally published in the 80s, is now in its 7th Edition and still going strong. Famous in its circles for having a sanity mechanic where exposure to the strange and horrifying can leave your character like poor Montcrag. 

Stephen Kinghas a soft spot for Lovecraft, even having his main villain in ”The Stand” claim Nyarlathotep as one of his incarnations.

True Detective: Not a Cthulhu Mythos show per se, but it has some references and its bleak tone is exactly what many Lovecraft stories tend to feel like.

Hellboy: Both the movies and the comics are steeped in Lovecraft and eldritch abominations.

Glossary of Terms: 

Here’s a glossary of potentially tricky terms, entities and ideas in the show in case you’d like to know what they are: 

Shoggoth [Shoe-gauth or SHOW-goth]: A creature created to be a slave race by a species that ruled Earth before the rise of man, they rebelled and now a few of them remain in the dark, hidden places of the world. 15 feet across, they are essentially a cross between a massive ball of living Play-Doh with the bioluminescence and partial consistency of a jellyfish. Able to create/extend tentacle to carry out tasks and can open up multiple mouths across its’ body to speak. As the show points out, also kind of like a ginormous amoeba. First appears in Lovecraft’s “At the Mountains of Madness”.

Elder Sign: A symbol with five branches (sometimes depicted as a tree, but also seen as a star, as in the show), that is the fulcrum for many spells in the Cthulhu Mythos, by acting as a beacon to the Great Old Ones (coupled with intent and sacrifice to power it), who actually make the spell work (most spells in the are prayer/pleas to the Great Old Ones and if they respond favorably, they enact the spell you described in your prayer/plea). Speaking of which... 

Great Old Ones: Most of the things that people could call ‘gods” in the Cthulhu Mythos are alien beings, who are so beyond our understanding in terms of powers and existence that we shorthand convert them into gods to avoid having to think about them too hard. Their motives are inscrutable - at best they ignore us and at worst they have plans for us. Most spells or supernatural effects come from them or something that worships them/is aligned with them in some way. A few get a passing reference (Bugg-Shash, Gla’aki, a few others) but any with significant presence in the show will get their own entry.

R’lyehian: The language of the Great Old Ones, first brought to Earth by the denizens of the sunken city of R’lyeh that worship dead Cthulhu. The language cannot be uttered correctly by a human tongue and is only used to attract the attention of a Great Old One when performing a spell/ritual. Most sentences are constructed in a matter of fact, no frills way, as the language has no distinction for parts of speech (nouns, verbs, adjectives and such are all interchangeable) and only two tenses (present and not-present, as the Great Old Ones do not experience time as we do). For instance, the R’lyehian phrase: ‘ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’yleh wgah’nagl fhtagn’ is translated into (correctly structured) English as ‘In his house at R’lyeh dead Cthulhu lies dreaming’ but a direct translation would be “Dead, yet dreaming, Cthulhu waits in his palace in R’yleh’. Both the text and the language first appear in Lovecraft’s “Call of Cthulhu.”

Shub-Niggurath [Shoob-Neeg-er-ath]:‘ The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young’ as she is often known, Shub-Niggurath is the closest thing in the Mythos to a fertility goddess, having birthed some of the worst entities in existence and continually spawning monstrosities from her massive form as easily as breathing, many times absorbing them back into herself (if they do not grow quickly enough to escape). As a being of life and supposedly having control over all that is flesh, she has a great many worshippers, among both humans and various other alien species.

Nyarlathotep [N-Yar-Lat-Ho-Tep]: ‘The Crawling Chaos’, ‘The God with a Thousand Masks’ and all the names those Masks possess. Was originally the messenger of the Great Old Ones, once upon a time, but these days is known by the sobriquet Nyarlathotep (which is really just the name of one of the Masks he wore in ancient Egypt, roughly translated as “The Black Pharaoh”) and he delights in causing chaos and suffering wherever he is called (no one knows what his true form is and it is possible he does not have one). Unlike most Great Old Ones, he has a great understanding of what humans are and how they behave, and enjoys giving followers and the unsuspecting alike exactly what they ask for (in the most ironic/horrible way possible). The God of The Bloody Tongue is one of his Masks. 

Azathoth [Az-a-thoth]: As described in the show, The Daemon Sultan is in fact the first being that ever existed. If one imagines the raw, seething power that must have existed in a single point to expand outwards at the Big Bang, that point is Azathoth (albeit with a face not even a mother could love or even look at without devolving into gibbering insanity and the temperament of the worst kind of Child-King imaginable). He dances in his court surrounded by eldritch beings, playing weird instruments, forever playing for his amusement, lest he grow so bored he unmakes all of existence. 

(big thanks to ASM Austin Barnes for the bulk of this document!)