July 23–August 15
By Enda Walsh Directed by Robert Walsh NEW ENGLAND PREMIERE
About the Play From the author of the musical Once comes a dark comedy about three sisters living in a small town on the coast of Ireland. The youngest, Ada, works at the local fish-packing plant, but Breda and Clara stay home and relive their teenage encounter with a 1950s rocker at the New Electric Ballroom. Their surreal routine is interrupted by Patsy, a fishmonger who ends up offering the sisters more than just the catch of the day. Winner of the OBIE Playwriting Award. Some strong language and adult situations. Running time: Approximately 90 minutes with no intermission.
Why It’s for You There’s a stamina and ruggedness in those who live and work by the sea. There exists a pride in that heritage and also, sometimes a cost. Enda Walsh’s wistful portrait is one all of us experience when we ponder dreams of what might have been, given different circumstances. His sisters must come together to support one another through the disappointment of lost dreams and the hope and expectation of dreams to come. Come savor the language, the joy, and the heartache in this magical tale.
Nancy E. Carroll* (Breda) Gloucester Stage: 4000 Miles, North Shore Fish, Trad, Breath of Life, Doubt: A Parable, Happy Days, My Old Lady, Collected Stories. Broadway: Present Laughter (Roundabout Theatre Company). International: The Cripple of Inishmaan, Big Maggie (Druid Theatre, Ireland). Regional: The Seagull, Rapture Blister Burn, Good People, The Luck of the Irish, Prelude to a Kiss, Brendan, Present Laughter, The Rose Tattoo, Dead End (Huntington Theatre Company); Our Town, She Loves Me (Williamstown Theatre Festival); The Year of Magical Thinking, The Glass Menagerie (Lyric Stage Company of Boston); Trad (Tir Na Theatre); The Clean House, Frozen, Sweeney Todd, Kindertransport (New Repertory Theatre); Other Desert Cities, The Savannah Disputation, The Women, Company, A Man Of No Importance (SpeakEasy Stage Company); Bailengangaire (Súgán Theatre); Humble Boy, Hamlet, The Winter’s Tale (Publick Theatre); Auntie and Me (Merrimack Repertory Theatre); Buried Child, The Unexpected Man (Nora Theatre). She received Elliot Norton Awards for Miss Erickson in Present Laughter and the Woman in Brendan (Huntington Theatre Company) and Mommo in Bailegangaire (Súgán Theatre).
Adrianne Krstansky* (Ada) Acting credits include Lola in Come Back, Little Sheba at the Huntington Theatre Company; Paradise Lost, Britannicus, and Ubu Rock at the American Repertory Theater; Tribes, Body Awareness, and Snakebit at SpeakeasyStage Company; On the Verge, Becoming Madoff, Holiday Memories, Three Viewings, 2.5 Minute Ride and Frozen at New Repertory Theatre; Legally Dead and Gary at Boston Playwrights’ Theatre; Closer at Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater; and Danny and the Deep Blue Sea at the Martha’s Vineyard Playhouse, among others. Adrianne has worked extensively in Chicago, regionally, and Off-Broadway, at the Steppenwolf Theatre Company, and at Atlantic Theater Company in New York City. Film: Company Men, HBO’s Olive Kitteridge. Adrianne is an Associate Professor of Theater Arts at Brandeis University.
Marya Lowry* (Clara) Actors’ Shakespeare Project, Founding Member (The Cherry Orchard, Two Gentlemen of Verona, Cymbeline, Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2, Duchess of Malfi, Macbeth (title role), Hamlet, Twelfth Night, Julius Caesar, Richard III). Local Theatre: Gamm Theatre, SpeakEasy Stage Company, Martha’s Vineyard Playhouse, American Repertory Theater, Commonwealth Shakespeare Company, Merrimack Repertory Theatre, Nora Theatre, and New Repertory Theatre. Featured Performer and Narrator: Boston Pops and the Handel & Haydn Society at Symphony Hall, Cantata Singers at Jordan Hall, and the Musicians of the Old Post Road. International and Regional: The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, Barter Theatre, Riverside Shakespeare Company, Luminato Festival, Toronto, Roy Hart International Arts Centre, France, Bulgarian singing tour with Divi Zheni. Teaching: Brandeis MFA Professional Actor Training Program since 1986. International Teaching includes Greece, France, Italy, Poland, Cyprus, United Kingdom, and Canada. Marya is a spiritual mentor to incarcerated women.
Derry Woodhouse* (Patsy) Derry is a native of Limerick, Ireland, and has enjoyed working on both sides of the Atlantic. Previous Gloucester Stage performances include The Weir and Stones in His Pockets. He has worked extensively in the Boston area with the Súgán Theatre, SpeakEasy Stage Company, Tir Na Theatre, Stoneham Theatre, Publick Theatre, and Wellesley Summer Theatre. Film work includes The Departed, The Busker, and Deportation. He is a graduate of the Gaiety School of Acting in Dublin, Ireland.
Erika Bailey (Dialect Coach) is Head of Voice and Speech for the Institute of Advanced Theater Training at American Repertory Theater and the resident dialect coach at ART. Most recently she has served as voice coach on Susan-Lori Park’s Father Comes Home from the Wars and Eve Ensler’s O.P.C. She has also coached productions at the Guthrie Theatre, the McCarter Theatre, Kansas City Repertory Theatre, and for the Nora Theatre Company in Cambridge, MA, as well as on Broadway for the Tony-nominated production of Mary Stuart. Professor Bailey is an Associate Editor of the Voice and Speech Review. She received an MA in Voice Studies from Central School of Speech and Drama in London and an MFA from Brandeis University.
Arshan Gailus (Sound Design) Area credits include sound design and original music for Becoming Cuba (Huntington Theatre Company); Phedre, The Cherry Orchard, Romeo and Juliet, Pericles, Macbeth, and Twelfth Night (Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding Design) (Actors’ Shakespeare Project); Splendor, The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity (Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding Design); 1001, GRIMM, after the quake, The Overwhelming, and Voyeurs de Venus (Company One Theatre); Tribes, Clybourne Park, and The Divine Sister (SpeakEasy Stage Company); Lungs (New Repertory Theatre); and Chinglish, Avenue Q, The Temperamentals, Superior Donuts, The Understudy, Blithe Spirit, and Legacy of Light (Lyric Stage Company of Boston). Arshan teaches Sound Design at Emerson College and serves as the Resident Sound Designer for Emerson Stage. Arshan’s other work includes sound design and original music for independent video games in the Boston area and internationally. Arshan holds a B.S. in Music from MIT. www.arshangailus.com
Miranda Giurleo (Costume Design) Miranda is delighted to return to Gloucester Stage, where previous designs include: Fighting Over Beverley, Ponies, Dear Liar, Our Son’s Wedding, The Heidi Chronicles, The Wind in the Willows, Calvin Berger, and The Secret of Mme. Bonnard’s Bath. Other design credits include: Measure for Measure, As You Like It, Two Gentlemen of Verona (Actors Shakespeare Project), Closer Than Ever (New Repertory Theatre), Dead Man’s Cell Phone, A View from the Bridge, Visions of an Ancient Dreamer (Brandeis Theater Company), Shockheaded Peter, She Kills Monsters, Love Person, Neighbors, GRIMM, The Good Negro, and After the Quake (Company One), Roots of Liberty (Underground Railway Theater), Matt and Ben (Central Square Theater), Batboy (MetroStage), Eccentricities of a Nightingale/Summer and Smoke, The Beauty Queen of Leenane, Pillowman, The Crane Wife (Teatro Zuccone). Miranda has also designed and built costumes for the USS Constitution Museum’s original production Sailor’s Wives and Sailor’s Lives. She is currently on the faculty at Bridgewater State University.
Jenna McFarland Lord (Scenic Design) Jenna has designed for the Gloucester Stage Company since 2003 and was the resident set designer for GSC from 2003–2013. GSC credits include: North Shore Fish, Spring Awakening, Round and Round the Garden, Living Together, Table Manners, Trying, Breath of Life, Sins of the Mother, Doubt: A Parable, The Widow’s Blind Date, The Belle of Amherst, My Old Lady, Dinner with Friends, LifeX3, Spinning into Butter, The Loman Family Picnic. Other Boston-area credits: Something’s Afoot, Distant Music (both IRNE award nominations for Best Set Design), It’s a Wonderful Life, Steel Magnolias, The Porch, Guys on Ice, The Mousetrap (Addison Award for Best Set Design) (Stoneham Theatre); Big Fish, The Color Purple, In The Heights, The Drowsy Chaperone (IRNE award nomination for Best Set Design, The Great American Trailer Park Musical, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Theatre District, and Moonlight Room (SpeakEasy Stage Company); Collected Stories, Cherry Docs (both IRNE award nominations for Best Set Design) (New Repertory Theatre); Groundswell, November, This Wonderful Life (Lyric Stage Company of Boston); The Merry Wives of Windsor, Macbeth (Actors Shakespeare Project); Don Giovanni (New England Conservatory); Noises Off, Oklahoma, The Full Monty, Twelfth Night, Cosi Fan Tutte (Boston Conservatory); A View from the Bridge, Escape From Happiness (Brandeis University). Off-Broadway: The Secret of Mme. Bonnard’s Bath (New York Playwrights Lab). Ms. McFarland Lord received her theatre training at Emerson College and she is currently the set design teacher at the Boston Arts Academy, a public high school for the arts. jennamcfarlandlord.com
Russ Swift† (Lighting Design) GSC: Resident Lighting Designer for the past 10 years. Productions include: Jacques Brel; Fences; Spring Awakening; North Shore Fish; Carnival; “Master Harold” . . . and the Boys; The Most Happy Fella; Fighting Over Beverley; Table Manners; Trying; The Breath of Life; Sins of the Mother; Billy Bishop Goes to War; Going to St. Ives; Dear Liar; The Belle of Amherst; Ponies; The Widow’s Blind Date; The Secret of Mme. Bonnard’s Bath; The Price; The Heidi Chronicles, Long Day’s Journey Into Night; My Old Lady; Spinning into Butter. Boston-area (select): The Hobbit (Wheelock Family Theatre); Scarlett Letter (Worcester Foothills); It’s All True (Lyric Stage Company of Boston); Rags (The Boston Conservatory); A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Twelfth Night, 2010 and 1012 Gala (Boston Arts Academy). Other: Mr. Swift has designed for Tri-Cities Opera, the Jewish Theatre of New England, the Publick Theatre, Chamber Theatre Productions, Boston Lyric Opera, the Worcester Forum Theatre, Boston Playwrights’ Theatre, the Theatre of Newburyport, Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, Bristol Riverside Theatre, American Ensemble Theatre, Stephan Petronio Dance Company, the Caldwell Theatre, KewPee Corporation and the Trinidad Theatre Workshop. Mr. Swift has been on the faculty or staff at Northeastern University, Emerson College, Endicott College, Westfield State 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.
“Enda Walsh’s award-winning play The New Electric Ballroom has come to vivid life at The Gloucester Stage in its New England debut. . . . [Derry] Woodhouse is just sensational”
Sally Applegate, Beverly Citizen
“Laced with mordant humor . . . [Marya] Lowry . . . delivers a raw, emotionally rich performance”
“Superlative acting, intense staging, and timeless themes . . . [Nancy E.] Carroll uses her trademark deadpan delivery to great effect.”
Nancy Grossman, BroadwayWorld.com
“A touching, almost incantatory production . . . Adrianne Krstansky is both transfixed and transfixing . . . Derry Woodhouse rides his part to sly, hip-swiveling heights”
Carolyn Clay, The Artery, WBUR
“Electrifyingly sad and funny . . . nothing in this production is left to chance . . . wonderfully memorable”
Jack Butterworth, The Lynn Item
“The New Electric Ballroom is a thought-provoking play that you will find yourself talking about on the ride home and even days later. If that’s the kind of theater you enjoy, this may be just your cup of tea.”