Sweet and Sad

May 28–June 20

By Richard Nelson
Directed by Weylin Symes

NEW ENGLAND PREMIERE

Part Two of the Apple Family Plays Presented in Collaboration with Stoneham Theatre

Featuring: Joel Colodner*, Laura Latreille*, Karen MacDonald*, Paul Melendy*, Bill Mootos*, and Sarah Newhouse*

On the tenth anniversary of 9/11, a family gathers to share a meal and grapple with topics of remembrance, loss, and change.

“Soul-stirring…One of Mr. Nelson’s points with this series is how world events are refracted and reflected in our own living and dining rooms in ways we’re not always aware of.”
The New York Times

About the Play
By Tony Award-winning playwright Richard Nelson, Sweet and Sad takes place on the tenth anniversary of 9/11 at a family gathering in Rhinebeck, New York. Against a backdrop formed by the ordinary actions of sharing a meal, the Apple family grapples with not-so-ordinary topics of remembrance, loss, and change. Second in the series of the Apple Family Plays and presented in collaboration with Stoneham Theatre, which is mounting the first Apple play, That Hopey Changey Thing, February 26–March 15. Some strong language.

Why It’s for You
The Apple family is just like your family—geographically far-flung; keeping in touch via phone, email, and social media; gathering (willingly or unwillingly) for reunions and milestone events; and placed somewhere on the dysfunction spectrum. If you’ve ever wrestled with what you say and how you say it when you’re sitting around the dinner table with people you love, whether you see each other every day or just every few years, pull up a chair. You’ll fit right in with the Apple family.

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Joel-Colodner-small-bioJoel Colodner* (Benjamin Apple) has appeared in Rimers of Eldritch and That Hopey Changey Thing at Stoneham Theatre and as Solomon Galkin in Imagining Madoff, Emil in Three Viewings at the New Repertory Theatre, the Stage Manager in the Huntington Theatre Company’s Our Town, Francis Hollister in Mrs. Whitney at Merrimack Repertory Theatre, Signor Naccarelli in The Light in the Piazza at SpeakEasy Stage Company, and most recently as V. Ira Taub in The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife at Lyric Stage Company of Boston. He played King Henry in Henry IV Parts One and Two, the Cardinal in The Duchess of Malfi, the King of France in King John, Marcus in Titus Andronicus and Polixenes in The Winter’s Tale for Actors’ Shakespeare Project. He played the role of Uncle Peck in How I Learned to Drive off-Broadway, was Starbuck in The Rainmaker for the Guthrie Theatre, Ritchie in Streamers, Mick in Comedians, and Horatio in Hamlet at the Arena Stage, and Konstantin in The Seagull at Pittsburgh Public Theatre, and was in the revival of Arthur Miller’s An American Clock at the Mark Taper Forum.


 

Laura-Latreille-small-bioLaura Latreille* (Jane Apple Halls) most recently has appeared in That Hopey Changey Thing (Stoneham Theatre) and in Dear Elizabeth (Lyric Stage Company of Boston). Other Stoneham Theatre credits include Of Mice and Men and The Unbleached American. Off-Broadway: Love Song (59E59 Theaters) and The Elephant Play (Playwrights’ Collective). Regional: Ryan Landry’s M and Mauritius (Huntington Theatre Company), God Of Carnage and Four Places (Merrimack Repertory Theatre), Time Stands Still (performance named Best Of Boston for 2012 by the Improper Bostonian) and The Understudy (Lyric Stage Company of Boston), Fat Pig and The Shape Of Things (Elliot Norton—Outstanding Actress Award) (SpeakEasy Stage Company), The Sussman Variations and The Glider (Boston Playwrights’ Theatre), The Blowin Of Baile Gall (Martha’s Vineyard Playhouse), Signs Of Trouble and Shel Shocked (Market Theatre), Bash and Sin (Coyote Theatre), and most recently the world premieres of The Trials of Gertrude Moody and Utility Monster with Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater. Laura has also participated in creating new works with the Denver Center Theatre Company, New Dramatists, and Women’s Project and Productions. Education: M.F.A. Brandeis University. Other: Laura is currently a faculty member at Bridgewater State University.


 

Karen-MacDonald-small-bioKaren MacDonald* (Barbara Apple) has appeared at Gloucester Stage in The Last of the Red Hot Lovers and directed An Ideal Husband and Woman in Black. Most recently, she appeared in Ulysses on Bottles with Israeli Stage at Arts Emerson. This season she has been seen in That Hopey Changey Thing and Doubt at Stoneham Theatre, Red Hot Patriot at the Lyric Stage Company of Boston and Ether Dome at the Huntington Theatre Company, as well as premiering A Soldier’s Carol with the Boston Holiday Pops. Last season, on Broadway, she understudied and appeared as Amanda in The Glass Menagerie. Other local credits include SpeakEasy Stage Company, Commonwealth Shakespeare Company, New Repertory Theatre, Arts Emerson, Boston Playwrights’ Theatre, and Merrimack Repertory Theatre. A founding company member of the American Repertory Theatre, she appeared in 70 productions, including The Sea Gull, Endgame, and Mother Courage. Awards include Elliot Norton and IRNE Awards and both the Robert Brustein Award for Sustained Achievement in the Theatre and the Norton Prize for Sustained Excellence in 2010. She graduated from Boston University’s CFA and is a Boston native.


 

Paul-Melendy-small-bioPaul Melendy* (Tim Andrews) is honored to be making his debut performance with Gloucester Stage, while also returning for the second chapter of his favorite Apple family. A North Shore native, Paul has teamed up with many local theaters including Huntington Theatre Company, Commonwealth Shakespeare Company, Speakeasy Stage Company, New Repertory Theatre, Actors’ Shakespeare Project, Centastage, and Wheelock Family Theater. Recent area credits include That Hopey Changey Thing with Stoneham Theatre, A Disappearing Number with Underground Railway Theatre, and several productions with the Gold Dust Orphans including Jesus Christ, It’s Christmas; Snow White; and It’s A Horrible Life, the latter of which he received an Elliot Norton nomination for Outstanding Musical Performance. Regional theater credits include collaborations with Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater, New Century Theater, Foothills Theatre, Public Theatre (Maine), and the Barnstormers’ Theatre (New Hampshire). Paul can also be seen frequently on local television sets as the Naked Guy in a popular Bernie and Phyl’s ad. Film credits: Unfinished Business (with Vince Vaughn), The Pink Panther Deux (with Steve Martin), and The Makeover (with Julia Stiles).


 

Bill-Mootos-small-bioBill Mootos* (Richard Apple) is delighted to be reunited with the Apple family after the Stoneham run of That Hopey Changey Thing. He last appeared at Gloucester Stage in Nina Beber’s Dew Point back in 2001. Recently he has appeared in Absence (with Joanna Merlin) and The Company We Keep at Boston Playwrights’ Theatre, Good People with the Gamm Theatre, Where the Mountain Meets the Moon at Wheelock Family Theatre, and Dial M for Murder with Ocean State Theatre Company. Other regional credits include productions with New Repertory Theatre, Sierra Repertory Theatre, Huntington Theatre Company, Central Square Theatre, the Publick Theatre, Metropolitan Playhouse NYC, Manhattan Theatre Source, North Shore Music Theatre, the Vineyard Playhouse, the Nora Theatre Company, the Hanover Theatre, the Lyric Stage Company of Boston, Merrimack Repertory Theatre, Ivoryton Playhouse, the Barnstormers, SpeakEasy Stage Company, and many others. Bill’s film credits include the NBC-TV pilots Odyssey and The Hatfields & McCoys, the HBO pilot The Devil You Know, and the films The Company Men, Locked In, Hard Luck, Siren, The Makeover, R.I.P.D. and others. Bill serves on the National Board of SAG-AFTRA and is a proud member of AEA.


 

Sarah-Newhouse-small-bioSarah Newhouse* (Marian Apple Platt) Select Boston-area credits: The King Stag, Macbeth, Picasso at the Lapin Agile (American Repertory Theatre), The River Was Whiskey and King of the Jews (Boston Playwrights’ Theatre), Legacy of Light, Lost in Yonkers, The Miracle Worker (Lyric Stage Company of Boston), DollHouse (New Repertory Theatre), That Hopey Changey Thing, Miracle on 34th Street, Picnic (Stoneham Theatre) and Shear Madness (Charles Playhouse). Select regional productions: The Rose Tattoo (Berkshire Theatre Festival), Arcadia (Firehouse Theatre at Newburyport), and Of Mice and Men (American Stage Festival). For three consecutive years, she played Annie in Alan Ayckbourn’s trilogy, The Norman Conquests at Gloucester Stage, for which she and the cast received an IRNE award for Best Ensemble. Off and Off-Broadway credits: Playwrights’ Horizons, Kraine Theatre, LaMama ETC, Manhattan Punch Line, Synchronicity Space. Ms. Newhouse is a founding company member of the Actors’ Shakespeare Project, with whom she has performed more than a dozen roles in 10 years. Some of her favorite productions include Comedy of Errors, The Cherry Orchard, The Merchant of Venice, King Lear, Medea, Twelfth Night, Love’s Labour’s Lost, and The Taming of the Shrew. She also currently serves as an Artistic Associate at Actors’ Shakespeare Project. Sarah is a graduate of Hampshire College and the A.R.T. Institute for Advanced Theatre Training at Harvard University.

Weylin Symes (Director) is thrilled to be directing all four of The Apple Family Plays as part of Stoneham Theatre’s collaboration with Gloucester Stage. As the Producing Artistic Director of Stoneham Theatre, he has directed over 25 productions and adapted several pieces for performance, including The Old Man and the Sea, Dracula, and It’s a Wonderful Life. Some favorite directing projects include: Seminar, Distant Music, I Capture the Castle, Buddy Cop 2, Gaslight, Strangers on a Train, Marathon, A Prayer for Owen Meany, The Violet Hour, The Dazzle, and The Girl in the Frame. Prior to Stoneham Theatre, he directed several productions in the Boston area, including Henrik Ibsen’s John Gabriel Borkman and We Bombed in New Haven by Joseph Heller, and spent a year training law enforcement personnel through role-playing exercises. Weylin graduated from New York University and studied at the Experimental Theatre Wing of the Tisch School of the Arts and at the Dell’ Arte International School of Physical Theatre.


Gail Astrid Buckley† (Costume Designer) is happy to return to GSC and the next Apple Family Play. Selected designs at Gloucester Stage include The Most Happy Fella, Spring Awakening, Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris, Happy Days, Going to St Ives, The Goat or Who is Sylvia?, and The Norman Conquests. Recent designs include: Comedy of Errors and God’s Ear for Actor’s Shakespeare Project, L’italiana in Algeri: at Boston Conservatory, The Fabulous Lipitones at Wellfleet Harbor Actor’s Theater, Something’s Afoot and That Hopey Changey Thing at the Stoneham Theatre, and A Christmas Carol at the Hanover Theatre. Gail received the 2002 Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding Costume Design, the 2010 Elliot Norton for Best Design for The Adding Machine at SpeakEasy Stage, the 2002 IRNE Award for Costume Design for Twelfth Night at Commonwealth Shakespeare Company, and the 2006 IRNE Award for Costume Design for her work on both Caroline, or Change and The Women for SpeakEasy Stage Company.


Russ Swift† (Lighting Designer) GSC: Resident Lighting Designer for Spring Awakening; North Shore Fish; Round and Round the Garden; Carnival; “Master Harold” . . . and the Boys; 9 Circles; Crimes of the Heart; Living Together; The Most Happy Fella; Fighting Over Beverley; Table Manners; Tender; Trying; You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown; The Breath of Life; The Goat or, Who Is Sylvia?; Sins of the Mother; Billy Bishop Goes to War; Enigma Variations; Going to St. Ives; Doubt: A Parable; Dear Liar; The Belle of Amherst; Ponies; The Widow’s Blind Date; Calvin Berger; The Secret of Mme. Bonnard’s Bath; The Price; The Heidi Chronicles, Long Day’s Journey Into Night; My Old Lady; Dinner with Friends; A Grand Night for Singing; Marry Me a Little; Compromise; Spinning into Butter; The Loman Family Picnic. Boston-area (select): Snow White (Wheelock Family Theatre); Scarlett Letter, Sunshine Boys (Worcester Foothills); It’s All True (Lyric Stage Company of Boston); Cosi fan Tutte, Lysistrata, Rags (The Boston Conservatory); The Odd Couple; Giants Have Us in Their Stories, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Twelfth Night, Wedding Band, 2010 and 1012 Gala (Boston Arts Academy). Other: Mr. Swift has also designed for Tri-Cities Opera, the Summer Theatre in Meredith Village, Gordon College, Endicott College, the Jewish Theatre of New England, the Publick Theatre, Chamber Theatre Productions, Boston Lyric Opera, the Worcester Forum Theatre, Boston Playwrights’ Theatre, and the Theatre of Newburyport. Regional: Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, Bristol Riverside Theatre, American Ensemble Theatre, Stephan Petronio Dance Company, the Caldwell Theatre, KewPee Corporationk and the Trinidad Theatre Workshop. Mr. Swift has been on the faculty or staff at Northeastern University, Emerson College, Endicott College, Westfield Stage University, Eastern Connecticut State University, Salem State University, Community College of Rhode Island, and Groton School. He is currently the production manager for the theatre department at Boston College. Russ resides in Wilbraham with his wife, Mayre, and daughter, Michaela.


Crystal Tiala† (Scenic Designer) is the Chair and Associate Professor of the Theater Department at Boston College and a professional freelance Scenic Designer working in the theater and film industry since 1982. She has designed over one hundred productions at regional theaters throughout the East Coast and as far away as Rybinsk, Russia. She is also the Chair of the BC Arts Council and the BC Arts and Social Responsibility Project. Previous professional service includes the Chair of USITT/NE Section (1996 to 2010) and Design Chair of Region I of KCACTF (2005 to2008). Her past experience includes interior design, event design, charge scenic artist, and lead construction on the films Lincoln, Pet Sematary and Heart of Dixie. She is a member of the United Scenic Artists Local 829 union and has a Master of Fine Arts in Scene Design from the University of Connecticut.


David Wilson† (Sound Designer) has designed lighting or sound for over 350 productions of opera, theater, concert, and dance. He has served on the faculty of Brandeis University, heading the graduate program in sound design, and has designed and taught at Boston College, Boston Conservatory of Music, Bowdoin College, Emerson College, New England Conservatory, Tufts, Suffolk University, and UMass-Lowell. He is the resident lighting designer at Reagle Music Theater, and his designs for theater at other companies include Actors’ Shakespeare Project, Boston Playwrights’ Theatre, Central City Opera, Company One, Dibble Dance, Harwich Junior Theatre, Merrimack Repertory Theatre, Moonbox, New Repertory Theatre, the Nora Theatre Company, North Shore Music Theatre, Stoneham Theatre, Shakespeare & Company, and Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater. Recent designs include sound and music for The Comedy of Errors at Commonwealth Shakespeare Company (Elliot Norton Award, lighting and sound design for Windowmen at Boston Playwrights’ Theatre (IRNE nomination, best design), lighting design for Pinocchio at Wheelock Family Theatre, sound design for That Hopey Changey Thing at Stoneham Theatre, and City of Angels at Lyric Stage Company of Boston. dw-design.com


 

Represented by United Scenic Artists, Local USA-829 of the IATSE

“Rendered here in a production with great sensitivity and awareness, the mixture of social relevance, deeply personal stakes, and thoughtful questioning is more or less why we go to the theater.” –The Boston Globe

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* Member of Actors’ Equity Association (AEA)

May 28–June 20

7:30PM Wed thru Sat

2PM Sat and Sun

FILM June 1 The 25th Hour

PLAY READING June 16 110 Stories

Talk Backs May 31, June 7, June 14

 

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John and Mollie Byrnes