•  References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot by José Rivera (May 24 – June 9)
• The Consequences (a musical) by Nathan Leigh and Kyle Jarrow (June 14 – July 7) WORLD PREMIERE
• Saving Kitty by Marisa Smith (July 12 – July 28) WORLD PREMIERE
• Hysteria: Or Fragments of an Analysis of an Obsessional Neurosis by Terry Johnson (Aug. 5 – Aug. 25)
• Oblomov by Kevin Rice (Aug. 30 – Sept. 22) AMERICAN PREMIERE

 About the Season

References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot

by Jose Rivera
Directed by Dan Lombardo

Previews May 24 & 25. Opens May 26, Closes June 9.

Aniela Gonzalez (Gabriela)

Rivera’s magical masterpiece finds Gabriela talking to the moon – played by a man in a Panama hat playing a violin on her refrigerator. When her husband Benito returns from war, the limits of love are tested, the desert comes alive like a surreal Dali painting, and Gabriela’s housecat dances with a wily coyote. In this comic drama, the moon hovers over all, offering haunting music and dreamlike wisdom. Appearing with WHAT’s seasoned actors will be the young, talented actors of Boston’s TC Squared Theater.

Aniela Gonzalez: From Audition to a Starring Role
Interview by director Dan Lombardo

Sometimes the right actor walks in the door of the audition room and magic happens. You have your leading lady. In the case of the casting the lead character, Gabriela, I had already had a casting session for non-Equity actors in Boston, and two full days of Actors Equity auditions in Wellfleet. I still hadn’t found just the right Gabriela. Then, a young actor called to ask if she could come in and read for the part. I’ll let Aniela tell the rest of the story.

Dan Lombardo: Describe what your audition was like.
Aniela Gonzalez: I had a wonderful audition experience, the kind actors dream of. Everyone was very friendly from when I first walked in through the door and you were so kind and welcoming that I instantly felt at ease. I performed a monologue and scene; you had me read another scene and soon after you said “I never do this but you have the part!” I was thrilled and relieved to hear those words after a long journey from Manhattan to Wellfleet and having cancelled a flight to Miami the day before just to go to the audition. Gabriela is a part I have been wanting to play since I first read and fell in love with References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot and I am grateful it’s being done in such a special theater.

DL: Tell me about your character, Gabriela.
AG:  Gabriela is a young woman from Puerto Rico, who lives alone most of the year in a desert that is part of an army town. She spends most of the year waiting for her husband to come home from war. She longs for a certain sense of beauty in her life and looks for it in the Universe, the stars, galaxies, and the moon. They take her far away from her lonely reality. Her cat and the moon keep her company until Benito comes home for a few hours just to take her to bed and leave again. This behavior has left her progressively more empty and frustrated throughout the years. She loves deeply, dreams passionately, and wants her marriage to be beautiful again.

DL: Why should everyone on Cape Cod leave the beach and rush to WHAT to see References to Salvador Dali…?
AG: If you haven’t read References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot, I recommend you DONT READ IT!, come SEE it!, feel all the emotions, react to the characters, become a part of this world for a couple of hours and THEN read the play. These characters will carry you into their world, cuddle you and then spit you out. But that is the theater — it’s an experience worth leaving a day at the beach for.

. . .What are premonitions, hunches, Déjà vu,
and the little voices in your head?
That’s me –
whispering mightily in your ear,
hoping to give you a fighting chance in this hard carnivorous world.
— Moon

World Premiere Musical

The Consequences

by Nathan Leigh and Kyle Jarrow
Directed by Kel Haney

Previews June 14 & 15, Open, June 16 Close, July 7

A new indie rock musical co-authored by Nathan Leigh (WHAT’s resident sound designer and composer) and Obie Award-winning playwright Kyle Jarrow. A bittersweet rock and roll love story about roads not taken and dreams not followed. A winking deconstruction of the romantic comedy genre, it explores themes of fate, choice, and the difficulty of knowing one’s own heart. It was developed at the WHAT Lab, 2010.

Kyle Jarrow, Playwright

Composer Nathan Leigh

Listen to a song: All That You’re Touching is Skin, http://www.landoftrust.com Download songs: Nathan Leigh and Kyle Jarrow – The Sound of My Voice, http://www.nathanleigh.net/theatre/the-consequences

World Premiere

Saving Kitty

Caitlin Clouthier as Kitty

by Marisa Smith
Directed by Rand Foerster

Previews, July 12 & 13 Open, July 14, Close July 28.

Kitty, an up-and-coming TV journalist, brings her evangelical Christian boyfriend home to her Upper East-side parents with volcanic results. This new family comedy is like a Hepburn and Tracy film catapulted into the 21^st century. Religion, politics, and love come to dinner. Kate tries to save Kitty. And Kitty battles Kate, who is distractedly searching for a burka that flatters her youthful figure.

Laura Esterman as Kate

With WHAT’s Laura Esterman as Kate – star of many WHAT productions, Drama Desk Award and Obie Award winning Broadway actress. Caitlin Clouthier (The Betrothed, WHAT 2011), Elliot Norton Award-winning actor/director Richard McElvain (Daughter of Venus, WHAT 2010), and actor/singer “Taller than Life” Richard Wayne.

Hysteria: Or Fragments of an Analysis of an Obsessional Neurosis

by Terry Johnson
Directed by Todd Olson
A Co-production with American Stage Theater
St. Petersburg, FL

Previews August 2 & 3. Open, August 4. Close August 25

Stacy Fisher as Jessica

Jessica, one of Freud’s earliest “cases,” returns to haunt the psychoanalyst but finds Salvador Dali hiding in the cupboard. Featuring Stacy Fischer in her Elliot Norton Award-winning role as Jessica.

A “wild, weird and funny, serious, compassionate and shocking, blasphemous and reverential, intellectual and frivolous, a factual fantasy, a demented farce…” (The New York Times).

In both senses of the word, Hysteria is hysterical—gut-shakingly funny, and yet so prone to mood swings that you’re liable to wind up with psychological whiplash. (Time Out, Boston)

American Premiere

Oblomov

by Kevin Rice
American Premiere
directed by Daisy Walker

Previews, August 30 & 31. Open September 1 Close, September 22

            

Oblomov, slave to slumber and sultan of sloth, looms as one of the greatest satirical — and definitely the most horizontal — heroes ever penned, a man who doesn’t get out of bed before late afternoon, if at all.  In this adaptation, the prince of procrastination comes brilliantly alive or, at least, awake for an hour and a half as he and his servant, Zakhar (think Don Quixote and Sancho Panza) are pitted against the world.  A Mystery Woman fills out this rollicking and often comic epic that takes the audience on a wild ride, something of a timeless commute between the neon lights of today’s Moscow and Oblomov’s imagined field of ripe but unharvested dreams. Written by one of the Founders of WHAT!

Subscriptions are available on-line this season for $125 or available by calling 508.349.WHAT (9428)

See you at the theater!

 

 

Playwright Meryl Cohn – The Final Say

Free Public Reading on the Julie Harris Stage
Saturday, April 14, 2012. 7:00 pm
Directed by David Drake
With:
Tim Babcock,  Andrew Clemons,  D’Arcy Dersham
Natalie Ross Miller,  Eliza Ryan, Kaitlin Varkados

Cohn’s plays often blend feelings from opposite ends of the emotional spectrum. Her 2006 play “Naked with Fruit” followed four women confronted simultaneously with loss and love, while her 2005 play “And Sophie Comes Too” explored the liberating experience of becoming who you are against the backdrop of loved one’s constraining wishes. She splits her time between Provincetown and Northampton, MA.

The Final Say,synopsis:
“Betsy Gold might finally get her play about her grandmother’s heroic actions during WWII produced– if only “Holocaust Superhero: The Musical” weren’t just about to open. When Betsy learns that the upcoming musical has a similar story line, and was written by her former playwriting professor, she is forced to decide how far to go to protect her play and her beloved grandmother’s story. It’s a serious play in some ways– but there’s also a fair amount of comedy and a wry perspective on the theatre world.”

Jeffry George, WHAT Executive Director

The Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater (WHAT) will have a new executive director, Jeffry George, when the season comes alive on the Julie Harris Stage this summer. The announcement was made today by Bruce A. Bierhans, President and CEO of the company.

George will, on his first day, put his key in a lock he more than likely picked out himself while overseeing the construction and opening of WHAT’s new facility on Route 6 with its beloved Julie Harris Stage. As executive director, he will be responsible for management of the day-to-day affairs of the organization. He and President/CEO Bruce Bierhans will work together to guide WHAT in issues of policy and planning. He begins work the first week of May.

“From the moment I saw my first WHAT production, I recognized that it was in the same league as the finest regional theatres in the country,” said George. “The founders and artisans who followed since 1985 have made this organization a destination for theatre lovers. I am honored with the request to return.”

“I could not be happier to have Jeffry George back at WHAT! Jeffry was an extraordinary managing director here WHILE overseeing the construction of the new WHAT building, with its glorious Julie Harris Stage,” said WHAT Artistic Director, Dan Lombardo. “He somehow did two full-time jobs with enormous skill, intelligence, grace, and humor. Jeffry’s heart is in this theater, and this will truly be a homecoming.”

After serving stints at theaters on the East Coast from Florida to Massachusetts, George forged west and became managing director at Theater Aspen in Aspen, Colo. He currently serves as executive director of Cantata Singers in Boston where he oversees all administrative, development and production for a 44-member semi-professional choral organization that presents a four-concert season at various venues in Boston and Cambridge. He is also on the national tour of the Broadway production of “High” by Matthew Lombardo starring Kathleen Turner.

George attended Interlochen Center for the Arts, 1971-1973 and graduated from Ithaca College where he earned a B.M.E. in 1978. He attended Harvard University’s Excellence in Non-Profit Leadership Program in 2007.

Since 1976, he has been a member of Actors Equity Association and received his SAG card in 1981. George is married to Hunter O’ Hanian, and maintains residences in Provincetown, Boston and Ft. Lauderdale. The two were the original creators and owners of “Utilities”, a kitchen and home goods store in Provincetown. While operating Utilities, George served on the Provincetown Cultural Council and the board of the Provincetown Theater Company.

“Jeffry has a great history with our organization, and I’m thrilled to be able to bring him back,” said Bierhans. “With Jeffry on board with Dan Lombardo, Stephen Russell, Ted Vitale, a Kevin Rice production this summer, and our fantastic WHAT staff and board members, the WHAT legacy and tradition is certain to continue.”

George’s leadership and experience comes at a timely juncture as WHAT produces its entire summer theater season of four plays and one musical on the Julie Harris Stage.

A community asset since 1985, Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater is one of the region’s finest professional Actors Equity Association theaters. In its new home, WHAT has expanded its year-round programming with live simulcasts of the Metropolitan Opera and the Bolshoi Ballet as well as independent cinema and live musical productions including collaborations with the Cape Cod Symphony Orchestra.