The Retreat From Moscow

By William Nicholson

CAST

Edward Paul O'Brien*

Alice Sandra Shipley*

Jamie Scott Barrow*

ACT I

Outside London, Autumn,
a few years ago in Alice and Edward's house.
Nearby, five days later
In Alice and Edward's house.
In Edward's thoughts.

There will be one 15 minute intermission

ACT II

Later that autumn in Jamie's London flat.
In Alice and Edward's house
and elsewhere.

*Member, Actor's Equity Association

Partial text of hymn heard this evening:
    Once to ev'ry man and nation
    Comes the moment to decide
    In the strife of truth with falsehood
    For the good and evil side…
    Then it is the brave man chooses
    While the coward stands aside,
    And the multitude make virtue
    Of the faith they had denied.
The concluding lines of Matthew Arnold's DOVER BEACH:
    And we are here as on a darkling plain
    Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
    Where ignorant armies clash by night.
                                                                                                     -jgb

THE RETREAT FROM MOSCOW is presented by arrangement
with Dramatists Play Service, Inc. in New York

ARTISTIC STAFF

Artistic Director / Producer MJ Bruder Munafo

Director Joann Green Breuer

Set Design Stephen M. Zablotny

Lighting Design John R. Malinowski

Costume Design Abigail Bailey

Properties Treather Gassmann

TECHNICAL AND PRODUCTION STAFF

Stage Manager Jane Siebels*

Executive Administrator Amy Cohn Crawford

Technical Director Stephen M. Zablotny

Assistant Stage Manager Colleen Danaher

Sound Construction Jim Novack

Scenic Carpentry Rich Kugler

Scenic Painting Treather Gassman,
Amelia Freeman-Lynde

Staff Photographer/Properties Master Sally Cohn

Poster Design Eric S. Hawkes

Box Office Lane Gregory

House Managers Barbara Dupree, Debbie Hart,
Gayle Stiller

SPECIAL THANKS to Laury Binney and The Oak Bluffs School,
Sally and George Cohn, Russell Urban, Patsy Wheeler,
Off Main, Ken Bailey, George Brush, Alex Senchak,
Le Roux at Home, MV Thrift Shop, Nancy Luedeman,
Donaroma's, Sharon & John Pearson
and all our family, friends and supporters
who helped make this production possible.

WHO'S WHO IN CAST & CREW:

ABIGAIL BAILEY (Costumes) is in her sixth season costuming at the Vineyard Playhouse. This summer she designed QED, Life x 3, A Midsummer Night's Dream and Mahalia: A Gospel Musical. Her past creations have included gypsies, tramps, and thieves and the occasional wardrobe malfunction. She would like to especially thank her family.
SCOTT BARROW (Jamie) is very happy to be back at the Vineyard Playhouse where previous credits include last summer's Proof, The Laramie Project, and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Abridged. Recent credits include the premieres of Paul Rudnick's Valhalla at the New York Theatre Workshop and Adam Rapp's Bingo With the Indians. Other credits include work with Trinity Repertory, D.C.'s Studio Theatre, Arkansas Repertory, New Repertory, Commonwealth Shakespeare and Shakespeare and Company amongst others. Soon Scott will be dragging his wonderful new wife Amy to Las Vegas for a production of Romeo and Juliet.
JOANN GREEN BREUER (Director) This is Joann's seventh year with the Vineyard Playhouse, where she serves as Artistic Associate and directs plays, among them: Fighting Words, The Waverly Gallery, The Last Night of Ballyhoo and Far East. As Artistic Director of The Cambridge Ensemble, she directed plays and adapted works from classic and contemporary repertoire, fiction, and folklore, all of which appeared on 'Best Ten' lists. Joann has directed Deaf/hearing companies, taught acting at Harvard University and elsewhere, and is the author of The Small Theatre Handbook. This year Joann directed her libretto of The Log of the Skipper's Wife in Stratford, England with Royal Shakespeare Company, which the RSC then invited to the Kennedy Center. Her staging of Finding My Mother's Voice just completed a sold out run in New York, (short run/small theatre). It has been invited to the Edinburgh Festival where it is currently in performance. Joann is the recipient of an Elliot Norton Award for Continuous Excellence in Directing.
AMY COHN CRAWFORD is the Executive Administrator of the Vineyard Playhouse. Most recently she stage managed The Laramie Project and choreographed The Snow Queen and A Midsummer Night's Dream. Amy has a B.A. from Smith College and an M.A. in Theater Education from Emerson College. She is also the director of Summer Stars Theater Arts Camp.
SALLY COHN (Staff Photographer/Properties Master) spent seven seasons with the Playhouse as resident properties master and set dresser. In addition, she has worked in many areas of the theater, most recently as chairperson for Raising The Curtain, the annual summer benefit.
TREATHER GASSMANN (Properties) has a B.A. in Vocal Performance from the Boston Conservatory and an M.A. In Theatre Education from Emerson College. Treather has worked in various aspects of theater from performing to behind the scenes. This is her first summer with the Playhouse.
JOHN MALINOWSKI (Lights) designed lights for this season's QED, Life x 3, and Mahalia: A Gospel Musical. He was the lighting designer for Broadway Meets Dance at the Tabernacle this August. He has designed lighting for the American Repertory Theater, Lyric Stage Co., New Repertory Theater, and Merrimack Repertory. New York theaters: HERE, Westbeth, Ohio Theater, and the Promenade. He received an Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding Design in 1996. He was a TCG/NEA Design Fellow from 2000-2002.
MJ BRUDER MUNAFO is Producer and Artistic Director of the Vineyard Playhouse. She has directed and produced countless shows at the theater; most recently, Proof, The Laramie Project and The Snow Queen. This summer, MJ directed A Midsummer Night's Dream outdoors at the Tisbury Amphitheater. MJ is a writer, an actor and also loves working with children.
WILLIAM NICHOLSON (Playwright) was born in 1948, and grew up in Sussex and Gloucestershire. He was educated at Downside School and Christ's College, Cambridge, and then joined BBC Television, where he worked as a documentary filmmaker. There his ambition to write, directed first into novels, was channeled into television drama. His plays for television include Shadowlands and Life Story, both of which won the BAFTA Best Television Drama award in their year; other award-winners were Sweet As You Are and The March. In 1988 he received the Royal Television Society's Writer's Award. His first play, an adaptation of Shadowlands for the stage, was Evening Standard Best Play of 1990, and went on to a Tony-award winning run on Broadway. He was nominated for an Oscar for the screenplay of the film version, which was directed by Richard Attenborough and starred Anthony Hopkins and Debra Winger. Since then he has written more films - Sarafina, Nell, First Night, Grey Owl, and Gladiator (as co-writer), for which he received a second Oscar nomination. He has written and directed his own film, Firelight; and three further stage plays, Map Of the Heart, Katherine Howard and The Retreat From Moscow.
PAUL O'BRIEN (Edward) appeared at the Vineyard Playhouse last summer in Proof, directed by MJ Bruder Munafo. He has performed on Broadway in The Crucible, Twelfth Night and most recently in Christopher Plummer's King Lear. Off Broadway Paul was in Death Defying Acts (Three one acts by Woody Allen, Elaine May and David Mamet), Three Birds Alighting on a Field at Manhattan Theatre Club, Widow's Blind Date at Circle in the Square and The Seagull at Second Stage. Regionally he has appeared at the Guthrie, Actors Theater of Louisville, Geffen Theater, South Coast Rep, Long Wharf, The Huntington, Trinity Rep, and earlier this summer at Gloucester Stage with Sandra Shipley in Life x 3. On TV Paul has guest starred on The Practice, Providence, ER, Star Trek Voyager, Angel, Law & Order and in the films: Devil's Own and What's the Worst That Can Happen? He is also the author of a play, The Agoraphobe, which won a Mass Council on the Arts Fellowship.
SANDRA SHIPLEY (Alice) appeared at the Vineyard Playhouse last season in Fighting Words directed by Joann Green Breuer. Sandra was educated at London University and the New College of Speech & Drama. She was a member of the Royal Court, with both regional companies and London's West End. On Broadway Sandra appeared in Vincent in Brixton, The Deep Blue Sea, Arms and the Man and Indiscretions. Off Broadway appearances include the musical Once Around the City at Second Stage, Kindertransport at Manhattan Theatre Club, Carpetbagger's Children at Lincoln Center, The Cleaning at Blue Light, Phaedra at Classic Stage and most recently with David Strathaim in Hannah and Martin with the Epic Theatre Center. Regionally she has worked at Williamstown, Hartford Stage, Long Wharf, Coconut Grove and La Jolla Playhouse. She was a company member at the American Repertory Theatre and Boston Shakespeare Co. and appeared on most Boston area stages, most recently with Paul O'Brien in Life x 3 at Gloucester Stage. She was the first actor to be honored with the Elliot Norton Award for sustained excellence, received a Boston Theatre Critics Circle Award for A Lesson From Aloes, another Elliot Norton Citation for a Best Actress for Medea and Moon For The Misbegotten, a New England Theatre Conference Award for Theater Excellence and an LA Robbie for Best Performance in a Drama. Her television and film credits include All My Children, Law & Order, Law & Order SVU, Third Watch, Spencer for Hire, Monument Avenue, The John Lennon Story; Mermaids.
JANE SIEBELS (Stage Manager) This show marks Jane's fifth season with the Vineyard Playhouse. Past favorites include Fighting Words, Ain't Misbehavin', and Fully Committed. Off island she has worked at numerous venues in New York, Boston, New Hampshire, and Florida. She lives in Medford, MA with her dashing husband, Troy.
STEPHEN M. ZABLOTNY (Set/Technical Director) is the Technical Director of the Vineyard Playhouse. This is his third year with the Playhouse. He has also designed several sets including this summer's QED and Life x 3. He has a BS in Industrial Design from the Philadelphia College of Art where he and his wife Peggy, have been on the faculty teaching courses in Exhibit Design and Graphic Design.

The Vineyard Playhouse
gratefully acknowledges
our Corporate Sponsor for the 2004 season.

Cronig's Market

The Vineyard Playhouse
is a Constituent Member of Theatre Communications Group, TCG,
the national organization for the American theater.

DON'T MISS THE FINAL
MONDAY NIGHT SPECIAL OF THE SUMMER!

Monday, August 30 at 7PM

TEA FOR THREE: Lady Bird, Pat, and Betty

A new play by Eric H. Weinberger
With ELAINE BROMKA
Directed by Lenny Bart

An intimate portrait, both tickling and touching,
of three celebrities - in what Pat Nixon called
"the hardest unpaid job in the world!"
Elaine Bromka is no newcomer to the First Ladies,
having played eight of them when starring opposite Rich Little
in "The Presidents" on PBS and in theaters across America.
She has been on Broadway, Off-Broadway, film and television
for over thirty years.

The Vineyard Playhouse
Box 2452
24 Church Street
Vineyard Haven, MA 02568
508-696-6300
www.vineyardplayhouse.org