Musical Preshow begins 15 minutes before curtain
Discussion with the cast and director follows all performances
Preview Night Thursday November 4, 7:30 P.M.
Pay-What-You-Will Nights
Thursdays November 11 & 18, 7:30 P.M.
Half-price Student Rush 15 minutes before curtain No performance Thursday November
25 (Thanksgiving)
Mrs. Alving’s son has returned from Paris
with a troubling fatigue, just as she is finishing the construction
of an orphanage named in honor of her late husband. As the moment
approaches to dedicate the children’s home, secrets old
and new are revealed and the family’s foundations crumble
away—a powerful, taut drama of legacy, love and catastrophe.
Robert Anthony Peters (Oswald Alving) and Cynthia
Meier (Mrs. Helene Alving)
Make your reservations now for a spectacular
meal before the performance at
533 N. 4th Avenue
Two blocks from The Rogue Theatre
On Opening Night, Friday, November
5,
Delectables will feature a special “Rogue menu” of
Scandinavian specialties.
Rogue Season Ticket Holders receive 20% off their
meal
before any performance of Ghosts!
This season, The Rogue Theatre is launching
a new publication, In Rehearsal at the Rogue, as part of our
continuing commitment to foster a dialogue with our audience about the
challenging, provocative and complex ideas behind quality dramatic language
and literature. In Rehearsal at the Rogue is written and edited
by Dr. Carrie J. Cole. The second issue discusses Ghosts and
can be downloaded here.
The file is viewable in Adobe Reader, downloadable here.
Press
Ibsen’s Ghosts
alive, well and quite relevant at Rogue
Shaw comedy lifts spirits after Ghosts
Reviews of Ghosts and Overruled by Kathleen Allen
in the November 12 Arizona Daily Star
Ibsen vs. Shaw
Rogue’s Ghosts and Now’s Overruled take
on hypocrisy in extremely different ways
Reviews of Ghosts and Overruled by Nathan
Christensen in the November 11 Tucson Weekly
Fine performance invigorates
Ibsen’s Ghosts
In our Jerry Springer-desensitized era, it’s hard to appreciate
how truly outrageous this play was
Review of Ghosts by Dave
Irwin posted November 9 on TucsonSentinel.com
The future is now in Rogue’s
Ghosts
Preview of Ghosts by Kathleen
Allen in the October 29 Arizona Daily Star
Direction
David
Morden (Director) has directed The Rogue Theatre’s
productions of A Delicate Balance, The Goat
(2008 Arizona Daily Star Mac Award), Six Characters in Search
of an Author and Krapp’s Last Tape, Not
I and Act Without Words. David has appeared with
The Rogue Theatre as Brabantio and Montano in Othello,
Editor Webb in Our Town, in the ensembles of Animal
Farm and Orlando, as Madame Pace in Six Characters
in Search of an Author, The Pope in Red Noses, Yephikhov
in The Cherry Orchard, The Man in the Silver Dress in
the preshow to The Maids and Glaucus in Endymion.
He has acted locally with Arizona Onstage Productions (Assassins),
Arizona Opera (The Pirates of Penzance and The Threepenny
Opera), Actors Theatre (The Bible: The Complete Word
of God (Abridged)) and Green Thursday Theatre Project (Anger
Box, Rain), of which he was a co-founder. David
has directed productions with Green Thursday (Shakespeare’s
R&J, White Garden), Oasis Chamber Opera (Sing
to Love), DreamerGirl Productions (The Dreamer Examines
His Pillow) and Arts For All (The Apple Tree).
Director’s Notes
What a privilege it has been to discover the brilliance
of Henrik Ibsen first-hand! I always knew that he was a great writer
from having seen and read some of his greatest hits: A Doll House,
Enemy of the People, Peer Gynt, The Wild Duck
and Hedda Gabler, among others. But analyzing and rehearsing
a script of Ibsen’s from “the inside” was an unexpected
joy and offered up revelation after revelation throughout the process.
He is a master craftsman and this play is a tightly wound story that
spins out slowly and methodically, revealing only one piece of the plot’s
mysteries at a time. We don’t see the full picture until the last
few minutes of the play. What’s more, he tells the story in a
way that we, the audience, figure things out at exactly the moment the
characters on stage do. One is never ahead of this playwright when watching
his plays. Needless to say, it creates gripping drama to watch.
More importantly, though, Henrik Ibsen wrote many steps
ahead of his audience thematically. He tackled social issues during
the last quarter of the 19th century that few writers (and no playwrights)
were willing to go near. The fallibility of the church, the pollution
of free trade, the validity of marriage and many more “risky”
topics are faced down and discussed by Ibsen’s characters. What
his plays say about women’s rights in the pre-suffrage era is,
in itself, staggering. He was a visionary whose plays continue to raised
questions about Victorian society and continue to raise questions about
modern society and our values today. Incidentally, Ibsen insisted that
his characters were not a mouthpiece for his own political and moral
views. He simply constructed stories in which the characters could struggle
with the issues on their own without the playwright directing them from
his soapbox.
Ibsen’s plays—and Ghosts, in particular—were
loudly criticized for being immoral and indecent when they were first
published. The vituperation that was leveled at him in the press would
have sent a lesser playwright running for cover, never to return to
the public stage again. Ibsen, however, knew that he was writing for
a higher purpose and allowed the anger and the bile to pass over him
as he waited for society to catch up to his characters’ insights
and discoveries. He was, of course, vindicated in every way as he sits
in the pantheon of the greatest authors that ever lived. We are grateful
and blessed to have the opportunity to live in the world of Ibsen and
Ghosts and to learn from a great mind and a great artist. We
thank you for being a part of that journey.
*Member
of Actors’ Equity Association,
the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United
States,
appearing under a Special Appearance Contract
Cast Biographies
Jill Baker
(Regina Engstrand) has previously performed with
The Rogue Theatre in Nāga Mandala, Animal Farm,
Red Noses, The Cherry Orchard and The Good
Woman of Setzuan. Other favorite roles include Catherine
in Proof at Beowulf Alley Theatre and Bertha in The
Father at the Berkshire Theatre Festival. She has recently
spent time acting in film in Mattie and D.I.Y.,
which she is also directing with Director’s Seat Productions.
She enjoys teaching theatre to young people and has directed numerous
children’s productions, including CYT’s Narnia.
She graduated with her BFA in Theatre Performance from Missouri
State University.
Joseph
McGrath (Pastor Manders) is the Artistic Director
for The Rogue Theatre for which he has performed in Nāga
Mandala, Othello, Krapp’s Last
Tape, A Delicate Balance (winner of the Arizona
Daily Star 2009 Mac Award for Best Actor), Animal Farm,
Orlando, Six Characters in Search of an Author,
Happy Days, The Goat, The Cherry Orchard,
The Good Woman of Setzuan, The Dead and The
Fever. He authored and directed Immortal Longings
for The Rogue and has directed The Balcony, Endymion,
The Maids (winner of the Arizona Daily Star
2007 Mac Award for Best Play), Red Noses and Our
Town. Joe is a graduate of the Juilliard School of Drama.
He has toured with John Houseman’s Acting Company and performed
with the Utah Shakespearean Festival. In Tucson, he is a frequent
performer with Ballet Tucson appearing in The Hunchback of
Notre Dame, Cinderella, A Midsummer Night’s
Dream, Dracula and The Nutcracker. He has
also performed with Arizona Theatre Company, Arizona Opera, Tucson
Art Theatre, and Arizona OnStage. Joe is also a scenic designer
and owns Sonora
Theatre Works with his wife Regina Gagliano, producing theatrical
scenery and draperies.
Cynthia
Meier (Mrs. Helene Alving) is the Managing and
Associate Artistic Director for The Rogue Theatre for which she
has performed in Not I, Our Town, A Delicate
Balance, Immortal Longings, Six Characters in Search of an Author,
Red Noses, The Goat (Best Actress, Arizona Daily
Star 2008 Mac Award), The Maids, Endymion and
The Balcony. For The Rogue, she adapted and directed
James Joyce’s The Dead, directed Nāga
Mandala, Othello, Animal Farm, Orlando,
Happy Days, The Good Woman of Setzuan, The
Fever and The Cherry Orchard. A co-founder of Bloodhut
Productions, Cynthia has also performed in Cat on a Hot Tin
Roof (Arizona Repertory Theatre), A Streetcar Named Desire
(Arizona Theatre Company), Blithe Spirit and A Midsummer
Night’s Dream (Michigan Repertory Theatre), Romeo
& Juliet and Chicago Milagro (Borderlands Theatre),
A Namib Spring (1999 National Play Award winner), and
Smirnova’s Birthday, The Midnight Caller,
and The Ballad of the Sad Cafe (Tucson Art Theatre).
Cynthia is a Faculty member in Speech at Pima Community College
and holds a Ph.D. in Performance Studies from the University of
Arizona. In 2000, Cynthia was awarded the Tucson YWCA Woman on
the Move Award.
Robert
Anthony Peters (Oswald Alving) has performed with
The Rogue Theatre as Cassio in Othello and George Gibbs
in Our Town. In 2001, he completed his BS at the University
of Arizona in Marketing and Entrepreneurship, was subsequently
a Koch Fellow in Washington, DC, and went on to train at the Lee
Strasberg Theatre Institute in New York City. A few of his films
that are available to the purchasing public are The Pursuit
of Happyness, Revolution Summer, The Village
Barbershop, Wasted, and many more that have yet
to see the light of day. These days he is primarily seen working
in his father’s Pak
Mail store in Northwest Tucson. He is also a student online
at the Mises
Academy, currently studying Austrian Business Cycle Theory.
He is the president of Laissez
Faire Media and a member of SAG, AFTRA, and Theatre Bay Area.
His website is robertanthonypeters.com.
Brian
Taraz (Jacob Engstrand) has appeared with The
Rogue as Kappanna in Nāga Mandala, as the
Duke in Othello and as Joe Stoddard in Our Town.
Previously, Brian performed the role of Harold in Black Comedy
at Beowulf Alley Theatre Company. Most of
Brian’s acting has taken place in San Diego, performing
in numerous Shakespeare plays such as Macbeth, Twelfth
Night and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, as well
as Marat/Sade, Book of Days, The Trial
and I Hate Hamlet. Brian also has a musical side, composing
original pieces using traditional religious texts as the lyrics.
Samples of his work can be heard at www.godsminstrel.com.
Joseph McGrath (Pastor Manders) and Brian Taraz
(Jacob Engstrand)
Photo by Tim Fuller
Preshow
Music
Program
Nocturne in E minor, Op. 72, No. 1
Frédéric Chopin
Waltz Op. 12, No. 2
Edvard Grieg, Lyric Pieces
Notturno Op. 54, No. 4
Edvard Grieg, Lyric Pieces
Homesickness Op. 57, No. 4
Edvard Grieg, Lyric Pieces
When I compose a song, my concern is not to make
music but,
first and foremost, to do justice to the poet’s intentions.
—Edvard
Grieg
Tonight’s preshow begins with Chopin’s Nocturne
in e minor and is completed with Waltz, Notturno
and Homesickness from the Lyric Pieces of Edward Grieg.
Pianos were so popular at the time of Ibsen we can easily imagine Mrs.
Alving of Ghosts seated at the piano playing either Chopin
or Grieg late into the night.
A fellow Norwegian and contemporary of Ibsen, Grieg’s
ten volumes of Lyric Pieces played a major role in making his
name known and loved in every piano-playing home in Europe. With their
simple, intimate mood images evoking the folk music and natural environment
of Norway, this lovely collection of pieces helped earn Grieg the name,
“The Chopin of the North.” Grieg’s admiration of Chopin’s
lyrical style can especially be heard in the Notturno.
The very first encounter between Grieg and Ibsen took
place at the Scandinavian Society in Rome, on Christmas Eve 1865. Grieg
was then a young adult of 22 years, Ibsen fifteen years his senior.
Ibsen must have quickly acquired a positive impression of Grieg. To
a friend he characterized Grieg as “a splendid chap, one of those
who will set the course of the future.”
Both were interested in presenting an intimate, authentic
slice of life in their homeland. While Grieg set several of Ibsen’s
poems to music, their bond was solidified when Ibsen asked Grieg to
write the incidental music to Peer Gynt, one of the major works
of the 1870s.
When Grieg received word of Ibsen’s death he wrote
in a diary entry from London, 23 June 1906: “Although I was prepared,
the news came as a shock. How much do I owe him! Poor, great Ibsen!
He was not happy; it was as if there was a lump of ice in him, which
never melted. But beneath this lump of ice lay a warm love of mankind.”
With a style based on the German romantic tradition of
music, Grieg strove to create a typical Norwegian style of music. His
friendships and discussions with other young Norwegians such as Rikard
Nordraak (1842–1866), whose patriotism reached its fullest expression
in the choral setting of Norway’s national anthem, also furthered
this development. Grieg went in search of folk music in its native environment,
attempting to reproduce the special atmosphere and the almost magical
rhythms and harmonies folk musicians could coax out of their instruments.
Even in Grieg’s lifetime those who heard his music gained the
impression that it was strongly linked to the landscapes and way of
life of the people around him.
His first biographer, Aimer Gronvold, described a summer
day in the 1880s, when Gronvold sailed past the little settlement of
Ullensvang in Hardanger on the local steamer and caught sight of the
small figure of Edvard Grieg, striding along beside the fjord at Lofthus.
Picking a path through rocks and stream Grieg made his way towards his
destination, a small knoll with a wooden cabin specially built for him
to compose in. It boasted but one tiny room, and was poised on the edge
of the fjord, in the midst of the exquisite beauty of Ullensvang, with
the dark, deep fjord below, and the glittering ridge of the Folgefonna
glacier on the other side of the water. Grieg returned there every summer,
and sometimes in the winter too, to seek the peace and tranquility he
needed for his work. In the heart of this matchless amphitheater of
nature, surrounded by the most sublime and majestic scenery in Norway,
Grieg placed his grand piano and his writing desk. Here he sat, like
an Orpheus reborn, and played in his mountain fastness, among the wild
animals and the rocks.
His music came from the depths of rural Norway, where
the quick and resonant tones of the Hardanger fiddle met his ear, and
the Hardangerfjord’s shifting moods enchanted his eye. It is almost
impossible to listen to Grieg, be it in a concert hall or a drawing
room, without sensing a light, fresh breeze from the blue waters, a
glimpse of sparkling glaciers, a recollection of the steep mountains
and of life in the fjordland of western Norway, where Grieg was born
and dearly loved to roam.
—Dawn C. Sellers, Pianist
From The Rogue’s
new YouTube channel:
In preparation for The Rogue Theatre’s Ghosts,
we interviewed Dawn Sellers, pianist and assistant director
for the play, about her choice of music by Grieg for the
preshow, the relationship between Grieg and Ibsen, and
the musicality of Ibsen’s writing.
Dawn C.
Sellers (Pianist, Assistant Director) serves on
The Rogue Theatre’s Board of Directors, performed in The
Rogue’s production of Our Town, and was Assistant
Director for The Rogue’s production of Nāga
Mandala. Dawn was a pianist, composer and educator prior
to receiving an MFA in dramatic writing from Carnegie Mellon University.
Her screenplay, Butterfly Found, won the Arthur Sloan
Foundation Screenwriting Award as well as the Santa Fe Screenwriter’s
Conference Award. She composed music for the Off-Broadway production
of Dance with Me by Jean Reynolds and is published with
Hal Leonard Music Publishing, Alfred Music Publishers and the
Neil A. Kjos, Jr. Music Company. Dawn also holds a Masters of
Music from Northwestern University and a Ph.D. in Music Education
from the University of Oklahoma. Since moving to Tucson three
years ago, her plays have been produced by This Side Up Productions,
Beowulf Alley Theatre Company, Live Theatre Workshop and The Arizona
Women’s Theatre. A member of Tucson’s Old Pueblo Playwrights,
her play Frozen Heart was presented at Live Theatre Workshop
this past April.
Joseph McGrath (Pastor Manders) and and Cynthia
Meier (Mrs. Helene Alving)
Photo by Tim Fuller
Designers
Scenic Design
Joseph McGrath
Costume Design
Cynthia Meier
Lighting Design
Clint Bryson
Production
Staff
Stage Manager
Nic Adams
Assistant Director
Dawn C. Sellers
Scenic Artist
Amy Novelli
Carpenter
Chris Babbie
Dramaturg
Carrie J. Cole
House Manager
Susan Collinet
Assistant House Manager
JoAn Forehand
Box Office Manager
Thomas Wentzel
Box Office Assistant
Anna Swenson
Snack Bar Manager
Leigh Moyer
Snack Bar Assistant
Shannon Macke
Poster and Program
Thomas Wentzel
Clint
Bryson (Lighting Designer) has designed lights
for nearly every Rogue Theatre production. Other lighting design
credits include As Bees in Honey Drown and Golf Game
for Borderlands, Woman in Black for Beowulf Alley, and
The Seagull for Tucson Art Theatre. Clint is currently
the Shop Foreman, Production Technical Director and Marketing
Director for Catalina Foothills Theatre Department where he designs
and coordinates the construction of all scenery. He is also a
member of Rhino Staging Services, and a regular participant in
Arizona Theatre Company’s Summer on Stage program where
he designs and builds the scenery as well as teaches production
classes.
Nic Adams
(Stage Manager) has worked with
The Rogue Theatre, both onstage and off, on its productions of
Nāga Mandala, Othello,
Krapp’s Last Tape, Not I, Act Without
Words, Orlando and Six Characters in Search
of an Author. Nic has appeared with the Now Theatre in This
Property is Condemned and The Zoo Story , both “Rogue
After Curfew” productions. A theatre student at the University
of Arizona, Nic performed in productions of Titus Andronicus
and Candide. He can next be seen in The Rogue's upcoming
production of The Tempest.
Carrie J. Cole
(Season Dramaturg) teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in
Theatre History and Dramaturgy at the University of Arizona. Her
areas of interest include American theatre and performance, performance
ethnography, and audience and fan studies. She is a member of the
American Society of Theatre Research, Popular Culture/American Culture
Associations, and a Recognized Actor/Combatant by the Society of
American Fight Directors. She holds a Bachelor of Theatre from Willamette
University, a MA from the University of Arizona, and a Ph.D. from
University of Maryland. Carrie was fight choreographer for The Rogue’s
production of Othello and will be appearing on stage in
the upcoming production of The Tempest.
Susan
Collinet (House Manager) received her A.A. Degree
from Pima Community College in 2005, and her B.A. in Creative
Writing and English Literature from the University of Arizona
in 2008. Before returning to college as a non-traditional student,
Susan spent twenty years in amateur theater, mostly on the East
coast, as well as in the American Theater of Brussels and the
Theatre de Chenois of Waterloo, Belgium. She has worked in such
positions as volunteer bi-lingual guide in the Children’s
Museum of Brussels, Bursor of a Naturopathic Medical school in
Tempe, Arizona, and volunteer assistant Director of Development
of the Arizona Aids Project in Phoenix. Susan is currently peddling
a manuscript of poetry for publication and continually working
on collections of creative nonfiction and fiction. Her writing
has won awards from Sandscript Magazine, the John Hearst Poetry
Contest, and the Salem College for Women’s Center for Writing,
and has been published in the 2010 Norton Anthology of Student’s
Writing. In addition to being House Manager, Susan acts as Volunteer
Coordinator for The Rogue.
Our Thanks
Arizona Theatre Company
Ballet
Tucson
Arizona Daily
Star
Sonora Theatre Works
Nils Hasselmo
Jesse Greenberg
Judy Wallingford
Shawn Burke
Tim Fuller
Chuck Graham
Delectables Restaurant and Catering
Our Advertisers
Brian Taraz (Jacob Engstrand) and Jill Baker (Regina
Engstrand)
Photo by Tim Fuller
Performance
Schedule for Ghosts
Location: The Rogue Theatre at The Historic Y, 300 East University
Boulevard
Free off-street parking! Click here
to see map and parking information.
Performance run time is approximately 2 and a half hours, not including musical
preshow or post-show discussion. There will be one 10-minute intermission.
Thursday November 4, 2010, 7:30 pm PREVIEW
Friday November 5, 2010, 7:30 pm OPENING
NIGHT
Saturday November 6, 2010, 7:30 pm
Sunday November 7, 2010, 2:00 pm matinee
Thursday November 11, 2010, 7:30 pm, PAY-WHAT-YOU-WILL
Friday November 12, 2010, 7:30 pm
Saturday November 13, 2010, 7:30 pm
Sunday November 14, 2010, 2:00 pm matinee
Thursday November 18, 2010, 7:30 pm, PAY-WHAT-YOU-WILL
Friday November 19, 2010, 7:30 pm
Saturday November 20, 2010, 7:30 pm
Sunday November 21, 2010, 2:00 pm matinee
Thursday November 25, 2010 NO
PERFORMANCE
Friday November 26, 2010, 7:30 pm
Saturday November 27, 2010, 7:30 pm
Sunday November 28, 2010, 2:00 pm matinee
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Brian’s acting has taken place in San Diego, performing
in numerous Shakespeare plays such as Macbeth, Twelfth
Night and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, as well
as Marat/Sade, Book of Days, The Trial
and I Hate Hamlet. Brian also has a musical side, composing
original pieces using traditional religious texts as the lyrics.
Samples of his work can be heard at 
