The adventurous Louis de Rougemont invites you to hear his amazing story of bravery, survival and celebrity that left nineteenth-century England spellbound. Dare to be whisked away in a story of the high seas, populated by exotic islanders, flying wombats, giant sea turtles and a monstrous man-eating octopus. SHIPWRECKED! examines how far we’re willing to blur the line between fact and fiction in order to leave our mark on the world.
THE COMPANY
JACKIE DAVIS PLAYER #1
JACKSON GOLDBERG PLAYER #2
RODNEY WITHERSPOON II LOUIS DE ROUGEMONT
JUSTIN TORRELLAS MUSICIAN
CHRISTOPHER OSTROM SCENIC AND LIGHTING DESIGNER
SETH BODIE COSTUME DESIGNER
SAM SEWELL SOUND DESIGNER
PAIGE O’CONNOR DIALECT COACH
KATIE SCARLET GRAVES PRODUCTION STAGE MANAGER
KATE YORK ASSISTANT STAGE MANAGER
Cast
Jackie Davis
Player #1
Jackie Davis (Player #1) is thrilled to be back in Wellfleet! She directed WHAT’s 2019 production of Race, and previous to that, appeared as Diane in WHAT’s production of The Empaths. Other notable theatre directing credits include Ruined, Hairspray and For Colored Girls Who Consider Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf. Zoom directing projects include Paradise Blue, for Gloucester Stage Company and the world premiere of Songs of a Caged Bird, produced by Rites and Reason Theatre. Notable choreography projects include The Wiz and Caroline or Change. Notable roles: Agnes, Bug; Marie, Barbecue; Benevolence, black odyssey. She is a co-Producer/Director for the web series “From a Distance”.
Currently, you can listen to Jackie as “Addie” in God Talks to an Agnostic” a 12-part series Sundays on NPR or see her as abolitionist Susan Robbins in Columbia Pictures’ Film, Little Women, currently streaming. She was last on stage in Trinity Repertory Company’s production of A Tale of Two Cities. Jackie is the founding artistic director of New Urban Theater Laboratory, where she produced and directed five years of new works in Massachusetts. Jackie is a member of Actors Equity Association and the Screen Actors Guild.
Jackson Goldberg
Player #2
Jackson Goldberg (Player #2) is thrilled to make his Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater debut! He has co-written and starred in two short films this year, the dark comedy “Dawn of Duck” as well as the alien thriller “Son Land.” Both are available to stream on Youtube. He recently appeared as the protagonist in the music video for Sammy Hagar’s new single “No Worries” on YouTube and Vevo. Regional credits include: Liam Haber in BAD JEWS (American Stage Co.); Doug in GRUESOME PLAYGROUND INJURIES (4615 Theatre, DC); Inspector Patrick Moor in POST OFFICE (George St. Playhouse); Biondello in TAMING OF THE SHREW (Indiana Festival Theatre); Indiana University Bloomington credits include: Hastings in Richard III, Rabbi Chemelvitz in ANGELS IN AMERICA, Herman in HELLO, HERMAN, Leo in VIBRATOR PLAY, Lord Crabtree in SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL. AEA National Tour credits include: 17 characters, ages 8-50, speaking in Arabic, Hebrew, and English in THERE IS A FIELD. Additional NYC credits include: Theater for the New City, SAIPAF, Access Theater, Soho Playhouse. Jackson can be seen starring in Act Natural, a YouTube series he co-wrote, produced, and scored. UPCOMING: Paddy Chayefsky’s THE TENTH MAN at the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene! Jackson has a B.A. in Arabic language and is from San Francisco, CA. “Thanks to my incredible and loving family!”
www.jacksonmgoldberg.com
Rodney Witherspoon II
Louis de Rougemont
Rodney Witherspoon II (Louis de Rougemont) is an actor, writer, director, and teaching artist. He is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley and is currently attending the Brown/Trinity Rep MFA Acting program. His play, Tidwell, or the Plantation Play, is published by Samuel French, Inc. He has worked with companies across the country, including Berkeley Repertory Company, Commonwealth Shakespeare Company, Mixed Magic Theatre, Wilbury Theatre Group, ART Station, and Marietta’s New Theatre in the Square.
Creative
Donald Margulies
Playwright
Donald Margulies (Playwright) has won a Lucille Lortel Award, two American Theatre Critics New Play Citations, two Los Angeles Drama Critics Awards, two OBIE Awards (for SIGHT UNSEEN and THE MODEL APARTMENT), one Tony Award nomination (for TIME STANDS STILL), one L.A. Ovation Award (for THE COUNTRY HOUSE), two Dramatists’ Guild Hull-Warriner Awards, five Drama Desk Award nominations, five Burns Mantle Best Play citations, two Pulitzer Prize nominations (for SIGHT UNSEEN and COLLECTED STORIES), and one Pulitzer Prize (for DINNER WITH FRIENDS). His other plays include BROOKLYN BOY, THE LOMAN FAMILY PICNIC, WHAT’S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?, FOUND A PEANUT, GOD OF VENGEANCE, CONEY ISLAND CHRISTMAS and SHIPWRECKED! AN ENTERTAINMENT — THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF LOUIS DE ROUGEMONT (AS TOLD BY HIMSELF). His work has been produced in New York by Manhattan Theatre Club, Primary Stages, Roundabout Theatre Company, the New York Shakespeare Festival/Public Theatre, Jewish Repertory Theatre and Theatre for the New City; at theaters across America including South Coast Repertory, the Geffen Playhouse, Actors Theater of Louisville, Williamstown Theatre Festival, and Long Wharf Theatre; and in theaters around the world. Mr. Margulies has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, The New York Foundation for the Arts, and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. In 2005 he was honored by the American Academy of Arts and Letters with an Award in Literature, and he was the recipient of the 2000 Sidney Kingsley Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Theatre by a playwright and the 2014 PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater American Playwright in Mid-Career Award. Mr. Margulies is an alumnus of New Dramatists and serves on the council of The Dramatists Guild of America. He is an adjunct professor of English and Theatre Studies at Yale University.
Daisy Walker
Director
Daisy Walker (Director) WHAT: Rhinoceros, An Act of God, Painting Churches, Oblomov, The Little Dog Laughed, Ride, Hazard County, One Night in the Life of Denise Ivanovich, Private Eyes, Stonewall Jackson’s House. Daisy is Executive Artist Director of Theater Masters —a 20 year old company devoted to playwrights at different stages of their career. She has directed around the country from San Diego to NYC, at theatres such as The Guthrie Theater Lab, La Jolla Playhouse, Keen Company, Classic Stage Company, Berkshire Theatre Group, New Georges, Payomet PAC, Cape Rep, Harbor Stage, Adirondack Theatre Festival, and others. She has directed new work by artists such as Kristoffer Diaz, Julia Jordan, Duncan Sheik, Eric Lane, Kevin Rice, Courtney Baron, and Melanie Marnich. Previously, she was an Assistant Director on Jersey Boys on the Broadway, National Tour, and Regional productions, and served as an Artistic Associate at Classic Stage Company. Other Broadway Assistant Directing credits include Aaron Sorkin’s The Farnsworth Invention, Dracula: The Musical, and Sinatra, His Music, His World, His Way at Radio City Music Hall. A Usual Suspect at New York Theatre Workshop. Affiliated Artist New Georges. 2005 Recipient of SSDC Sir John Gielgud Fellowship. MFA from UCSD.
“If you are ready for live theater outdoors, it’s time to get your tickets. Shipwrecked is a must-see” – Cape Cod Chronicle
“WHAT veteran Daisy Walker directs this spectacle with a light vaudevillian touch, keeping the level of imagination high and the narrative at a pleasant clip, punctuating the farcical goings-on with understated winks and nudges. The lovely scenic and lighting design is by WHAT’s producing artistic director, Christopher Ostrom; the costumes (often cottony beige or white) are by Seth Bodie; and the crisp sound design was created by Sam Sewell. They provide the storied Wellfleet company with a well-suited return to live theater after a long and painful absence….” -Provincetown Independent
“A bit of old-fashioned storytelling wrapped in a sleek and modern package.”
-Cape Cod Times
“the performances in Shipwrecked, under the direction of Daisy Walker, were all outstanding and kept a Thursday night audience of people in all age ranges (from 10 to 90 probably) entertained throughout the 90-minute show.”
-Provincetown Magazine
“in the end, the truth resides in the beholders of this spectacle, just as it always should.” -Provincetown Independent
The Actors and Stage Managers of this production are members of the Actors’ Equity Association, the union of professional actors and stage managers in the United States.
The Scenic and Lighting Designer of this production is represented by United Scenic Artists Local USA-829 of the IATSE.
SHIPWRECKED!
An Entertainment
The Amazing Adventures of
Louis de Rougemont
(as told by himself)
by Donald Margulies
directed by Daisy Walker
July 2 – 25, 2021 | Preview July 1
Wednesday – Sunday Evenings at 7:00
on our new Garden Stage
“Recreating the pleasures of nineteenth-century platform entertainment with a tart contemporary twist, Donald Margulies’ SHIPWRECKED! offers a self-promoting fabulist a forum to inform and persuade, and it delights in both respects.” —Variety
“Louis de Rougemont was a man who claimed to have survived in the outback for 30 years after being shipwrecked. He eventually returned to society, where he told his story of heroics publicly and in print, and became a celebrity—until the story began to unravel. Various anthropologists and oceanographers began to find clues in his text that pointed to fabrication, and slowly his story fell apart until he was basically disgraced. The debunking is one of the things that fascinated me; the tale he told is so captivating that it raises the question, “How significant is it that it was made up when the pleasure of the journey was so powerful?” I think that’s an interesting question.
It was then that, for me, Shipwrecked! became a story about the power of storytelling. It also became a way to celebrate theater, to do what theater does better than spectacle, film or multimillion-dollar musicals: to simply get back to the essence of telling a good story.” – Donald Margulies