Program Note Guidelines

Descriptions / Requirements

Dramaturg’s Note:

500 words – A note to contextualize the play and/or its themes; the physical, social, political, and economic environment in which the action takes place, etc.

Windows Into:

500 words – Research and information to aid the audience in understanding the show. This can be history, vocabulary, context, geography, etc.

Director’s Note:

500 words  – A few remarks from a director given to the audience, sharing their thoughts, inspirations, or research about the show.

Deadlines

Samples

Dramaturg’s Notes

Dramaturg’s Note from 2024 production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch

“Hedwig and the Angry Inch is a musical about the slipperiness of gender and the possibilities of personal transformation. It taps into the fundamental question of identity and how it’s shaped by the relationships we have. It suggests, most directly in the song Wig in a Box, that we can make ourselves into who, and what, we want to be. A wig, a bit of lipstick, some heels, and there you are.” John Cameron Mitchell’s fierce, fabulous, miraculous, unapologetic, rock screed to becoming your true self, got its start, as an ‘idea,’ way downtown, at the New York City club, Squeezebox, in 1994. Mitchell had been creating the piece gradually, trying out bits at rock clubs and using a jukebox format before conscripting Stephen Trask into writing the glam rock score. According to Mitchell, “I wanted to write a musical that was rock and roll with a punk edge, I’d seen a lot of so-called rock musicals that didn’t feel authentic and I knew that the myth of the origin of love from Plato would be the central metaphor.”

After giving the concept more concrete structure, as per story and characters, what would become the Hedwig we know and love, premiered Off-Broadway, at The Jane Street Theatre, an un-refurbished ballroom of the Jane Hotel, in 1998. “I would tell Stephen stories about my life. One of them was about a babysitter I had, Helga, a German army wife who I realized in retrospect was also a prostitute. She became the seed of Hedwig and Tommy (Gnosis) came from me as the son of a general.

Stephen was the house bandleader at Squeezebox so drag queens would do punk- rock covers with him. That’s where I did my first gig – because it was a drag club, I had to do the female character, Helga, who became Hedwig.” Mitchell’s creation of the character of the titular Hedwig, became a cult icon, immortalized (Mitchell staring) in the 2001 film, which spurred multiple stage productions, and multiple Hedwigs, around the world, including Broadway, enshrining ‘her’ as a beacon of proud individuality and courage. For Trask, Hedwig’s enduring appeal is in its universal themes. “There’s a lot of soul searching that Hedwig does about looking for a romantic partner and trying to find wholeness and be recognized for their music and their creativity; it’s not just a gender journey. John and I were very much talking honestly about our own journeys and expressing them through this character that in many ways, most of our audience didn’t have a lot in common with. But the story is so human and fundamental that people can figure out by watching if they are on the wrong path or the right path.”

Hedwig’s story, at face value, may be seen as wildly peculiar and atypical, but in its perceived oddities it represents any story of the struggles of growing up, finding yourself, and staying true to your convictions, not always an easy task. The old adage, ‘the journey is the destination,’ comes to mind. Hedwig’s journey is utterly unique and inspiring. ‘She’ refuses to back down from her checkered past, and in the immortal words of Albain, from La Cage Aux Folles, ‘she is what she is!’ Mitchell, who himself came out as non-binary in 2022, has explained that Hedwig is not a trans woman, but a gender-queer character. “She’s more than a woman or a man,” he has said. “She’s a gender of one, and that is accidentally so beautiful.” He also stated that, while Hedwig is meant to be a queer voice, she is not meant to be specifically transgender: “[The sex change operation is] not a choice. Hedwig doesn’t speak for any trans community, because she was … mutilated.” In these fractious times, with Drag Queen Story Time seen as morally subversive and LGBTQ+ rights, women’s freedom of reproductive choice, and the very foundations of governing all being sorely tested, Hedwig reminds us that we all fit in, each in our unique, messy, ways, free to assemble ourselves as we wish, metaphorically and physically, whether that be in t-shirt and jeans or Farrah Fawcett wig, glitter lipstick and spike heels, and that we shouldn’t allow, at any cost, the naysayers to ‘nay.’ In the closing number, Midnight Radio, Hedwig sings of the peace and sense of belonging that comes when you play that perfect record, that perfect song. She sings to all of us in the crowd who’ve ever felt misunderstood, unloved or apart, to “all the strange rock-n-rollers – you know you’re doing all right.”

Dramaturg’s Note for the 2023 production of Matinicus

How would you have fared?  If you were a teenage girl in the 1850s, on a desolate and rocky island, during a dangerous winter storm, with an ailing mother, three younger sisters, a father stranded on the mainland, and a duty to keep a lighthouse shining through the day and night?  When we encounter human beings from the past, our chronological distance may cause us to wonder:  How did they live in that time and place?  How did they manage under those circumstances?  How did they survive?

Jenny Connell Davis has described writing Matinicus, a Chance Theater commission, almost like an act of creative survival in the midst of a global pandemic.  In this play, Jenny Connell Davis conjures a historical time and place that is likely unfamiliar to many of us and circumstances that are probably unfathomable to most of us, but an experience to which we all might actually relate.  Ask yourself this question: When have I made the choice to pull away from the life I know into a space of separation, or even isolation, for the sake of keeping others safe?

In this play, we witness teenaged Abbie’s begrudging arrival on Matinicus Rock, a half-mile long and less than eighth-mile wide granite island in the Atlantic Ocean, twenty-five miles from shore.  She is on this island to support her mother and help take care of her sisters while her father and brother work as lighthouse keepers – the one’s who ‘keep a good light’ to keep seafarers safe.  This move to Matinicus separated Abbie from her best friend, four of her siblings, her school, a neighborhood dance, from shopping at the store, from singing in church…Abbie was cut off from the life she’d always known to help keep strangers safe.  Maybe life as a teenager in the 1850s on a desolate, rocky island isn’t so unfathomable for anyone who lived through 2020.

By witnessing this play unfold, we have a chance to reflect on our own experiences from the past three years and also start imagining what generations might say about us in the 150 or 200 years that follow:  How did they stay isolated for so long?  How did children go to school?  How did families cope with loss?  How did communities find ways to pull together despite social distancing?  How did they survive?  If the creation of this play was an act of survival, then watching it might help shine a light on our own survival and light the way to help others survive too.

Director’s Notes

Director’s Note from 2023 production of RENT:

A NOTE FROM THE DIRECTOR
Rent was the defining musical of my youth. In the 90s when it opened on Broadway and the cast album was released on two compact discs, I played mine obsessively for days on end. I wanted to be those characters. Their fight was my fight. Their fear was my fear. The album was simultaneously speaking to me and for me. So, for the first time in my life I flew to New York City, went straight to the Nederlander Theatre and slept outside the box office to see the next evening’s show front-row center (a handful of seats were sold at low cost to those who were first in line). It was life-changing.

Now, nearly 30 years later, it fills me with joy to direct this show. Rent hasn’t lost its power. It still resonates and its mantra, “No Day But Today,” continues to instruct us to savor the moment, the time spent with each other, and the importance of responding to the challenges of our time. I’m so thrilled to be able to share Rent with you and I hope it inspires you as it inspired me. Thanks for coming and enjoy the show.

— Matthew McCray

Director’s Note from 2021 production of Yellowman

If only a director’s note could be an invitation to tea after the show. There is much to talk about, but much to be experienced first. I wouldn’t dare put myself between you and the play.

I will share that my body has much in common with this play. I am a Black mixed race woman with broad shoulders and full hips. My heart has much in common with this play. I have had the wind knocked out of me by love. I have fought for my own place in the world.  I have discovered my own rhythms, and yearned for the rhythms of someone else.

The setting of the play takes us from South Carolina, where the rich culture of the Gullah Geechee people is embedded in our American narrative — all the way up to New York City. As in all cultures, Black culture is not a singular narrative. It is filled with nuance, opposition, joy, differing opinions, and mysteries to be uncovered even at your own family table. The play is a conversation about some of the many voices that live in our world.

Tonight we give you a love story. At its heart are two life long friends who are trying to get through the noise of the world, so that they can discover what is possible for them.  As Miles Davis so famously said, “Man, sometimes it takes you a long time to sound like yourself.” These two dance through the chaos for the once in a lifetime opportunity to find their futures in each other.

The show belongs to you now, dear audience. Welcome.

Love and care,

Khanisha Foster

Windows Into

Ride the Cyclone Windows Into Fortune Telling Machines

Five members of the St. Cassian High School chamber choir of Uranium City, Saskatchewan boarded the Cyclone roller coaster at the Wonder Ville traveling fairground.  Only the Amazing Karnak, the mechanical precognition machine, knows that the children will experience the ride of their lives.

Throughout history, mankind has been both fascinated and frightened by the idea of predicting the future, from the Greek Oracle of Delphi and ancient civilizations that relied on runes and divination to the development of horoscopes and cartomancy to modern artificial intelligence technology, humans have continuously sought out ways to catch a glimpse of what lies ahead.

Mechanical fortune telling machines, like the Amazing Karnak, have a long and fascinating history. While the exact date of the first mechanical fortune teller is unknown, mechanical fortune telling machines began to appear in Europe and the United States as early as the mid to late 19th century, often found in amusement parks, arcades, and fairs. Karnak’s spiritual ancestors were used as a form of entertainment, designed to mimic the movements and sounds of a human (or mystical) oracle. Featuring everything from mummies, devils, and wizards, to old women, Puss-in-Boots, or the politically inspired Donkey Wonder and Elephant Wonder.

Gaining popularity in the early 1900s, with the rise of penny arcades and boardwalks, these machines used electronic circuits and sensors to generate fortune telling results based on everything from gender, zodiac sign, or pure chance. Operated by inserting a coin or token, fortune telling results emerged in various forms such as a mechanical arm that would dispense a fortune telling card or paper scroll or in some, rare, cases such as Montana Heritage Commission’s The Gypsy, spoken from a hidden record player. Most examples move, deal cards, breathe, or look into a crystal ball while others had more unique mechanisms; the Elephant Wonder used his trunk to open the pages of a book to show the patron their fortune, and the Donkey Wonder spun a ship’s wheel to reveal one of 24 possible fortunes to the patron.

Despite a resurgence in popularity following the 1988 Tom Hanks movie, Big, in which the mechanical Zoltar transforms a 12 year old boy into an adult. Today, mechanical and electronic fortune telling machines have become a rare sighting. While we haven’t lost our desire to peer into the future, we may have to resign ourselves to the Magic 8 Ball and our daily horoscope.

Your lucky number is seven…

You will get a promotion…

You will soar to great heights…

Be sure to ride the Cyclone!

Matinicus Windows Into Lighthouses

A Map of Maine

Most of us can recall or imagine what ocean and even perhaps an island lighthouse looks like, but imagining exactly what Matinicus Rock looks like is a different story.  Matinicus Rock is located approximately 25 miles from Rockland, ME (a distance similar to the miles between Huntington Beach, CA to Catalina Island).  In the 1850s this typically meant a 7 hour journey in a small boat over moderate waters, and longer when heavy with supplies and passengers, or navigating rough seas or inclement weather.

[Ideally this image would have a bright noticeable arrow pointing to where Matinicus Rock actually is on the map – click on this image to see Dramaturgy Slide with reference image.]

Link to Image in Dramaturgy Slides:
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1alZZE4IDvU3eLHm8x7H6UbfiSb0TOOyxR—UinyFG4/edit#slide=id.g2330adc184c_0_0

Matinicus Rock

In 1891 the U.S. Lighthouse Board described Matinicus Rock as a, “bare, rocky islet about half a mile long and of irregular width, nowhere exceeding an eighth of a mile, and the highest part is not more than 50 feet above the sea level. There is a little cove where material can be hauled up in pleasant weather, but it has no harbor. The lighthouse keeper effects [sic] a landing by steering his boat through the breakers on the top of a wave, so that it will land on the boatways, where his assistants stand ready to receive him and draw his boat so far up on the ways that a receding wave can not carry it back to the sea. There is neither tree nor shrub and hardly a blade of grass on the rock. The surface is rough and irregular and resembles in a large way a confused pile of loose stone.”

Link to Image: https://img.marinas.com/v2/f5f86143525bb8eb12fa162f1b09ccec8c2e68899425940a021868b4bd70b11c.jpg

Abbie Burgess

Abigail Elizabeth (Burgess) Grant was born August 01, 1839 in Rockland, ME.  She was officially recognized by the U.S. Lighthouse Board as a Lighthouse Assistant in 1867, but records indicate she had begun assisting her father with lighthouse keeper duties over a decade before.  Abbie stayed on Matinicus as Lighthouse Assistant after her father left and worked with her husband William Grant, who she married in 1861.  Abbie and William had four children on Matinicus Rock.  In 1875, Abbie and William moved to the Whitehead Island Lighthouse where they worked until 1890.  Abbie died  on June 16, 1892 in Portland, ME, at the age of 52 after over 30-years of lighthouse keeper service

Link to Image: https://gazette665.files.wordpress.com/2017/08/abbie-burgess-portrait-tim-harrison.jpg

Lighthouse Lens Scale

Photograph of a lighthouse keeper polishing the glass of a first-order Fresnel Lens.  From 1812 to 1840, nearly all American lighthouses were outfitted with the Winslow Lewis reflector and lamp design.  Starting in 1852, all U.S. Lighthouses began to be refitted with a brand-new technology sweeping the nation and the world, The Fresnel Lens.

Link to Image: https://coastalreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/2.-Point-Reyes-lens.jpg