ROBERT FALLS, Artistic Director ROCHE SCHULFER, Executive Director

ROBERT FALLS, Artistic Director | ROCHE SCHULFER, Executive Director

presents

stop. reset.

Written and Directed by

REGINA TAYLOR

Set Design by

RICCARDO HERNANDEZ

Costume Design by

KAREN PERRY

Lighting Design by

KEITH PARHAM

Sound Design by

richard woodbury

Projection Design by

SHAWN SAGADY

Original Music by

DANIEL BERNARD Roumain

Casting by

Adam Belcuore, CSA

Dramaturg

tanya palmer

Production Stage Manager

donald E. claxon*

castin order of appearance

Alexander Ames / Eugene Lee*
J / Edgar Miguel Sanchez*
Tim / Tim Decker*
Chris / Eric Lynch*
Deb / Lisa Tejero*
Jan / Jacqueline Williams*

Location: Office of Alexander Ames Chicago Black Publisher

Time: Late 2016

Understudies never substitute for a listed player unless an announcement is made at the beginning of the play.

Anthony DiNicola—J; Charles Gardner—Chris; Tanya Thai McBride*—Deb; Chris Meister—Tim; Celeste Williams*—Jan; Cedric Young*—Alexander Ames

The video and/or recording of this performance by any means whatsoever are strictly prohibited.

Goodman productions are made possible in part by the National Endowment for the Arts; the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency; and a CityArts 4 program grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events.

Goodman Theatre is a constituent of the Theatre Communications Group, Inc., the national service organization of nonprofit theaters; the League of Resident Theatres; the Illinois Arts Alliance and the American Arts Alliance; the League of Chicago Theatres; and the Illinois Theatre Association.

Goodman Theatre operates under agreements between the League of Resident Theatres and Actors’ Equity Association, the union of professional actors and stage managers in the United States; the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers, Inc., an independent national labor union; the Chicago Federation of Musicians, Local No. 10-208, American Federation of Musicians; and the United Scenic Artists of America, Local 829, AFL-CIO. House crew and scene shop employees are represented by the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, Local No. 2.

*Denotes member of Actors’ Equity Association, the union of professional actors and stage managers in the United States.

notes

A Conversation with stop. reset. Playwright/Director Regina Taylor
By Tanya Palmer

This year marks playwright/director/actress Regina Taylor’s 20th season as an Artistic Associate at the Goodman. During her tenure, Taylor has presented an eclectic mix of work including the blues drama Oo-Bla-Dee, the Chekhov-inspired Drowning Crow and two productions of her inspiring musical Crowns. In a recent conversation with Tanya Palmer, the Goodman’s director of new play development, Taylor discussed her inspirations for her new play stop. reset. and reflected on her time at the Goodman.

Tanya Palmer: What inspired you to write stop. reset.?

Regina Taylor: The idea came when my favorite bookstore closed. The store was right across the street from my home and stopping in was part of my daily ritual. I’d go there to get a cup of coffee, browse the aisles and see what I might discover. I love books. I grew up with books. Now I was starting to think about what the future will hold for books, what it will look like and if I can accept it. So the play is about how I deal with change, but then also opens up to look at how we are all dealing with the enormous changes happening right now with regards to technology, race, gender, sexuality and economics. I thought about the history of books and of storytelling, going all the way back to the oral tradition. At one point in history people were accustomed to the hierarchy of oral tradition where someone functioned as the holder of history and memory. The hierarchy of who told the story and whose lives were worthy of being discussed was broken down when books were invented. That was an enormous change and there was resistance to moving from a gathering of people around a fire to an individual alone with a book. “What’s going to happen to the human mind and our civilization if we hand over this knowledge to individuals?” It feels like we’re now at that same moment in terms of books. We’ve shifted from oral tradition to books and now books to…what? We have a generation of people growing up on devices. There are all these things that we thought would never change, but now all these changes are happening on all these different levels. That’s where the play started. For the character Alexander Ames, who runs a publishing company, books are vessels of history and memory. They are the container of the voices of ancestors and legacy, of what we pass down palm to palm.

TP: You did a lot of research about new technologies through the course of developing this play. What did you discover? Has your point of view changed about technology?

RT: My perspective has opened up through conversations I’ve had with different people with different eyes on these issues. I’m open to the challenges and ready to take that leap.

TP: The play is also, I think, about the future of African American identity. Alexander Ames’ identity as an African American, that history and legacy that he carries with him, seems to be in question too, along with the books that he publishes.

RT: The play is about identity, legacy and how we pass those things down in this time of societal upheaval with technology and all these changes. It’s told through the lens of an African American. We have a play that is set in Chicago in a not-too-distant future and we take on the speculative fiction of what lies ahead. It is then a science fiction play, an Afrofuturist play.

TP: How would you describe the Afrofuturist genre?

RT: The most noted contemporary author writing in this genre was Octavia E. Butler [1947 – 2006, a novelist and short story writer whose works include Bloodchild and Parable of the Sower.] But it goes back to books such as George Schuyler’s 1931 novel Black No More or Ishmael Reed’s 1972 novel Mumbo Jumbo. Afrofuturism is a way of grappling with who we are as African Americans in the present moment by looking at our past and speculating on how we get to tomorrow. I’m a big sci-fi fan. Afrofuturism is very interesting to me and not just in literature. There are musicians like Sun Ra, who spent a lot of time in Chicago, whose work influences a lot other important musicians, from George Clinton to Frank Ocean to Janelle Monae to Kanye West. The children of this Afrofuturistic music are all fascinating to me, and they’re all speculating what we’ll become as African Americans. In the sci-fi movies I watched growing up, if there was a black character—and a lot of times there weren’t because black people just weren’t thought of as being part of the future—they usually died within the first few moments. With Afrofuturism, the focus is on grappling with where we as African Americans have been, where we are now and dreaming about who we will become.

TP: There is another important character in the play who seems to be the polar opposite of Ames: a young man named J who is totally in tune with technology and for whom books hold no meaning.

RT: J gives us a window into the next generation and generations to come. In terms of African American history, we think about that line of how to get to freedom. We think about that in terms of our most immediate past, which still affects us at this present time and will through tomorrow. Freedom. But freedom into what? Will race matter 500 years from now? At what point does the conversation change? I wanted to get different perspectives on change and what that means in terms of identity. Certainly these two characters, Alexander Ames, who’s about 75 years old, and J, who is much younger, can speak to the greatest spectrum of perspectives in this play and provide different viewpoints. There are also a number of other perspectives represented by the office workers at Alexander’s publishing house who are all afraid of losing their jobs. But certainly the greatest distance, I think, comes from Ames and J, two people whose lives have been affected by history in very different ways.

TP: This is the second production of stop. reset.; you directed the play at the Signature Theatre in New York last season. What did you learn from that process and will anything change with this new incarnation?

RT: I’m in the process of reimagining the play. This is a play about Chicago, and I look at it as a way of celebrating my 20 years here with the Goodman. It’s an ideal way to explore my relationship with the theater and the city where I am based. I’m also very interested in how we present the play. I’m excited about expanding the life of the play beyond the stage. To that end I’m collaborating with a number of artists and institutions to engage in conversations about the play’s ideas and themes and to invite others to create work that responds to the play through various disciplines. I’ve invited composers, photographers, visual artists, filmmakers and writers to create unique, original pieces that will be presented during the run of the play. I’m also working with the Goodman to plan a series of dinners and symposia to engage scholars, business leaders and politicians in conversations about change in Chicago. We’re presenting a series of one-on-one interviews with real people in Chicago—politicians, doctors, artists—as they talk about about how they are dealing with changes in their fields. All of these art works and discussions are being documented and will be uploaded onto StopReset.org, a microsite created by the Goodman for the play. Audiences can really start engaging with the piece before they come to the theater, and can continue to do so after they see the play. The dialogue continues. That’s really important to me. I’ve had this unique opportunity in the last 20 years working at the Goodman to find my own voice and part of that is having dialogue with the theater and the communities in Chicago that have helped shape my work. Finding new ways to break down the walls of the theater and have these conversations with audiences is really fascinating.

profiles

TIM DECKER* (Tim) returns to the Goodman, where he appeared in Charles Smith’s Black Star Line. Chicago credits include a four-year run with 1,600 performances as Sam Phillips in Million Dollar Quartet (Apollo Theatre); People’s Temple and Dark at the Top of the Stairs(American Theater Company); Mornings at Seven (Drury Lane Theatre); Ghetto (Famous Door Theatre Company); The Comedy of Errors (Chicago Shakespeare Theater); Toys in the Attic (American Blues Theatre, Jeff Award) and Complete History of America (Noble Fool Theatre). Mr. Decker’s television work includes two seasons on Boss, Chicago Fire, Detroit 187, Doubt, Turks and Cupid. Additionally he has done many voice-overs for both national and regional spots.

EUGENE LEE* (Alexander Ames) returns to the Goodman, where he previously appeared in A Soldier’s Play. He has appeared in many works by August Wilson including the Broadway production of Gem of the Ocean and Wilson’s autobiographical play How I Learned What I Learned. He has worked with the Negro Ensemble Company, True Colors Theatre, Huntington Theatre Company, Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company, Center Theatre Group and Crossroads Theatre Company. Television credits include The Women of Brewster Place with Oprah Winfrey, Dallas, Good Times, The White Shadow, The District and the title character in Wolf, an award-winning independent film. Mr. Lee is also a playwright whose work includes East Texas Hot Links, Fear Itself, Stones in My Passway, Somebody Called: A Tale of Two Preachers, Killingsworth, Lyin’ Ass and the musical Twist. His television writing credits include Homicide: Life on the Streets, Walker, Texas Ranger, Michael Hayes, The Journey of Allen Strange and The Turks. He is an artist-in-residence and artistic director of the Black and Latino Playwright’s Conference at Texas State University. Eugeneleeonline.com

ERIC LYNCH* (Chris) returns to the Goodman, where he previously appeared in Buzzer (Black Theater Alliance Award nomination). Chicago credits include Native Son (Court Theatre/American Blues Theater); Broken Fences (16th Street Theater); Blacktop Sky (Theatre Seven); Holidaze (Step Up Productions) and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Sankofa Theatre Company). Mr. Lynch is also an artistic affiliate with American Blues Theater. His regional credits include Twelfth Night and Richard III (Lakeside Shakespeare Theater) and Buzzer (Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park). Mr. Lynch has appeared on television on Chicago Fire and Chicago P.D.

EDGAR MIGUEL SANCHEZ* (J) makes his Goodman Theatre debut. Chicago credits include Water By The SpoonfulandNative Son(Court Theatre);The Wheel(Steppenwolf Theatre Company);Romeo and Juliet(Chicago Shakespeare Theater);This Is Our Youth(Sankofa Theatre Company);The Ghost Is Here(Vitalist Theatre);Fever Chart(Eclipse Theatre Company);Brothers of the Dust(Congo Square Theatre Company);Sinbad: The Untold Story(Adventure Stage);1001(Collaboraction);Red Noses (Strawdog Theatre Company);Welcome to Arroyo’s(American Theater Company);Wilson Wants It All(House Theatre) andTwelfth Night(Chicago Shakespeare Theater). Regional credits include the title character inHamlet(GableStage);Twelfth Night, Richard III, Troilus and CressidaandThe Admirable Crichton(American Players Theatre) andA Midsummer Night’s Dream, OthelloandThe Comedy of Errors(Oregon Shakespeare Festival). Mr. Sanchez’s television credits include Sense 8.

LISA TEJERO* (Deb) returns to the Goodman, where she previously appeared in The White Snake,A Christmas Carol,Ghostwritten,Mirror of the Invisible World, Silk, TheOdyssey, As You Like It, Journey to the West and The Winter’s Tale. She is an artistic associate of Lookingglass Theatre Company, where she has helped develop and appeared in Argonautika, Ethan Frome,Fedra,Curiosity Shop, 1984andS/M. Other Chicago credits include Kafkaon the Shore (Steppenwolf Theatre Company) and Macbeth(Oak Park Festival Theatre). Ms. Tejero appeared on Broadway in Metamorphoses (also at Arena Stage). Regionally, she has appeared in Henry V(Oregon Shakespeare Festival) and The White Snake (Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Berkley Repertory Theatre and McCarter Theatre). She has also worked at Cincinnati Playhouse, Court Theatre, Huntington Theatre Company, Mark Taper Forum, Milwaukee Repertory Theater, Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Shakespeare Theatre Company and Victory Gardens Theater. Ms. Tejero is arecipient of two After Dark Awards and was a Drama League Distinguished Performance nominee.

JACQUELINE WILLIAMS* (Jan) returns to the Goodman, where she most recently appeared in Pullman Porter Blues. Other Goodman credits include Camino Real,The Trinity River Plays, The Story, The Dreams of Sarah Breedlove, Crowns, Blues for an Alabama Sky, Oo-Bla-Dee, TheAmen Corner, Gertrude Stein: Each One as She May, Richard II and The Skin of Our Teeth. Chicago credits include Airline Highway, Head of Passes,The Hot L Baltimore and The Brother/Sister Plays (Steppenwolf Theatre Company); The Good Book, Fences, The First Breeze of Summer, Electra and Caroline, or Change (Court Theatre); Gee’s Bend, Po Boy Tango and The Miser (Northlight Theatre); Yellowman and Fabulation (Next Theatre Company) and The Gospel of Lovingkindness and The Colored Museum (Victory Gardens Theater). Regionally, Ms. Williams has appeared at LaJolla Playhouse, Huntington Theatre Company, A Contemporary Theatre (Seattle), Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Portland Stage Company, Arena Stage and others. She appeared on Broadway in The Young Man from Atlanta and off-Broadway in From the Mississippi Delta, Mill Fire and The Talented Tenth. She has appeared in national tours of Crowns and Born in the R.S.A. Ms. Williams’ film and television credits include the recurring Officer Becerra on Chicago Fire and Chicago P.D., Turks (series regular), The Chicago Code, Prison Break, ER, The Break-Up, The Lake House, Hardball,Whiteboyz and the recently completed Heartlock.Ms. Williams is a former Lunt-Fontanne fellow (representing the Goodman) and has been recognized with awards and nominations from the Jeff Committee, 3Arts, Helen Hayes, Black Theater Alliance, American Arts Council, Drama Desk, Sarah Siddons, Excellence in the Arts, After Dark Awards and others. She holds a BFA from the Goodman School of Drama/Theatre School.

REGINA TAYLOR (Playwright/Director) celebrates her 20th year as an Artistic Associate with Goodman Theatre this season. With an impressive body of work that encompasses film, television, theater and writing, Ms. Taylor’s career continues to evolve with exciting and challenging projects. She is best known to television audiences for her role as Lilly Harper in the series I’ll Fly Away. She received many accolades for her performance in the show including winning a Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actress in a TV Series, an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series and two Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series. Ms. Taylor was most recently seen starring in the USA series Dig and CBS’ hit drama The Unit. She took home the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actress in a Drama for her work on The Unit. Ms. Taylor made her professional acting debut on CBS in the movie Crisis at Central High. Other television credits include the series The Education of Max Bickford and Feds, as well as the television movies Strange Justice (playing Anita Hill, earning her a Peabody Award and Gracie Award); Cora Unashamed; Children of the Dust; Howard Beach:Making a Case for Murder. Her film credits include The Negotiator, Courage Under Fire, A Family Thing, The Keeper, Clockers, Losing Isaiah and Lean on Me. In addition to her film and television work, Ms. Taylor holds the honor as being the first black woman to play Juliet on Broadway in William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.Other theater credits include As You Like It, Macbeth, Machinal, The Illusion and Jar the Floor. In addition, she won the L.A. Drama-Logue Award for her performance in The Tempest. She is also an accomplished playwright and director.Her plays include Oo-Bla-Dee (for which she won the American Critics’ Association new play award); Drowning Crow (her adaptation of Chekhov’s The Seagull, which was produced on Broadway by Manhattan Theater Club in its inaugural season at the Biltmore Theater and starred Alfre Woodard); The Dreams of Sarah Breedlove; Escape from Paradise; Watermelon Rinds and Inside the Belly of the Beast. Ms. Taylor’s Crowns continues to be one of the most performed musicals in the country. It is the winner of four Helen Hayes Awards including Ms. Taylor’s win for Best Direction. Ms. Taylor’s play Magnolia premiered at the Goodman in March 2009. Her trilogy The Trinity River Plays premiered as a co-production with the Dallas Theater Center and the Goodman, and was the recipient of the 2010 Edgerton Foundation New American Play Award. She also wrote and directed Post Black (a monologue played by Micki Grant, Carmen de Lavallade and Ruby Dee) for The River Crosses Rivers II Festival at New York’s Ensemble Studio Theatre. She is also a resident playwright at New York’s Signature Theatre Company. She received the Hope Abelson Artist-in-Residence Award from Northwestern in 2010. She has received honorary doctorates from Columbia College, DePaul University and Lake Forest College. Ms. Taylor wrote and directed stop. reset. at Signature Theatre Company in 2013. She was named one of six 2012 Chicagoans of the Year by Chicago magazine andwas awarded the 2013 Oscar Micheaux Award from the Chicago Film Critics Association. Ms. Taylor is also the national spokesperson for the Ovarian Cancer Symptom Awareness Organization (OCSA). Reginataylor.com, Crownsthegospelmusical.com, stopreset.org, Twitter: TheReginaTaylor, Facebook: Crowns The Gospel Musical