DIGITAL PROGRAM
A Play by Joan Didion, Based on Her Memoir
Conception and Direction by Jonathan Silverstein
Starring Kathleen Chalfant
Costume Designer: Jennifer Paar
Lighting Designer: Anshuman Bhatia
Line Producer: Corinne Woods
General Manager: Reed Ridgley
Stage Manager: Arthur Atkinson
Assistant Stage Manager: Sloane Fischer
Pre-Production Line Producer: Henry Lombino
House Manager: Melody Munitz
Production Photographer: Richard Termine
Key Art Photographer: Ben Jay
ASL Interpretation: Inclusive Communication Services
Press Representatives: John Wyszniewski, Everyman Agency
Graphic Design: Alan Buttar, Muse Graphic Design
Accountants: Kudisch, Oster & Company, LLC
Note From the Artistic Director
This is the first time in Keen’s 23 year history that we have presented a play outside a theater’s walls. I like the ritual of going to the theater: the lights going to black, the music swelling, and the actors appearing as if magically materializing before our eyes. However, when the brilliant Kathleen Chalfant and I first met to discuss the play, she read it to me in her kitchen. It was at that moment that I realized that the most impactful way to experience Didion’s universal work would be to do so intimately, outside of the theater. Instead of an actor on stage, in the light, and the audience in the dark, it was important to me that everyone share the same space and be on equal terms. Keen’s mission is based on connection. It is my hope you feel especially connected tonight: to the performer, to your fellow audience members and to the challenges and joys of the human condition itself.
Jonathan Silverstein
Director of The Year of Magical Thinking & Artistic Director of Keen Company
Meet the artists
Joan Didion (Playwright) was born in California, is a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley, and spent her adult life in New York and Los Angeles. Winner of the 2005 National Book Award, The Year of Magical Thinking is one of 13 books by Joan Didion. Her other books include Play It As It Lays, Democracy, Slouching Towards Bethlehem, The White Album, Salvador, Miami and Political Fictions. With her husband, John Gregory Dunne, she wrote the screenplays for such pictures as The Panic in Needle Park with Al Pacino, True Confessions with Robert De Niro and Robert Duvall, A Star Is Born with Barbra Streisand and Up Close & Personal with Michelle Pfeiffer and Robert Redford. She was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, which awarded her its 2005 Gold Medal in nonfiction. She also received the 1996 Edward MacDowell Medal, the 1999 Columbia Journalism Award and the 2002 George Polk Book Award. She contributed to various periodicals, most frequently The New York Review of Books.
Jonathan Silverstein (Director) As Keen Company Artistic Director: This Space Between Us, Hear/Now: LIVE!, 1993, Molly Sweeney, Ordinary Days, Later Life, Lonely Planet, When It’s You, Tick, Tick…Boom!, Travels With My Aunt, John & Jen, Middle of the Night, The Film Society, The Old Boy, Marry Me a Little. Also with Keen: Lemon Sky, The Dining Room (Drama Desk Award: Outstanding Ensemble), I Never Sang For My Father, Tea and Sympathy, and The Hasty Heart. Selected Off-Broadway: The Temperamentals (Drama Desk Award: Outstanding Ensemble), Red Herring (FringeNYC; Outstanding Direction Award), Blueprint (Summer Play Festival), and The Train Play (Clubbed Thumb). Regional: Bucks County, Huntington, Old Globe, Cleveland Play House, Merrimack Rep, Dorset Theatre Festival, Cape Rep Theatre. Alumnus, The Drama League Directors Project. MFA, UCSD. Member, SDC.
Kathleen Chalfant (Joan Didion) In a career spanning more than five decades, Kathleen Chalfant’s performances on stage, screen and television have garnered her praise and acclaim from critics and audiences alike. Perhaps best known for her shattering portrayal of Vivian Bearing, a scholar battling cancer, in Wit, she received the Obie, the Drama Desk, the Lucille Lortel, the Outer Critics Circle, the Ovation, Connecticut Critics Circle, the Garland and the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Awards for her work. BROADWAY: Angels in America (Tony and Drama Desk nom.), Racing Demon, Dance With Me. OFF-BROADWAY: A Woman of the World, Wit (Drama Desk, Lucille Lortel, Outer Critics Circle, Drama League, Connecticut Critics Circle, Obie Awards), For Peter Pan on Her 70th Birthday, A Walk in the Woods (Drama Desk nom.), Tales from Red Vienna, Miss Ovington & Dr. Dubois, Talking Heads (Obie Award), Dead Man’s Cell Phone, Nine Armenians (Drama Desk nomination), Henry V (Callaway Award).
Jennifer Paar (Costume Designer) The Year of Magical Thinking marks Jennifer’s 17th production with Keen Company, having first designed costumes for Alphabetical Order in 2010. Other New York credits include: The Oracle, Transatlantica (Operating Theater), ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore (Toy Box Theatre Company), Futurity, The Musical with The Lisps (Joe’s Pub), Every Day Above Ground with SaBooge Theatre (PS 122) and Thrill Me (York Theatre). Regional credits include: The Fantasticks (Cape Playhouse), The Tempest, Elizabeth Rex, Much Ado about Nothing (Opera House Arts), On Golden Pond (Bucks County Playhouse), Glengarry Glen Ross (Asolo Rep), and Rabbit Hole (Premiere Stages). Jennifer regularly teaches and designs at Actors Studio Drama School, Ramapo College in NJ, and Kingsborough Community College. She is also the Co-Founder of The Costume Studio, a non-profit organization that provides space and supplies for costume designers working on non-profit productions in NYC. For more information visit jenniferpaar.com or thecostumestudionyc.org.
Anshuman Bhatia (Lighting Designer) Previously for Keen; Ordinary Days, Lonely Planet, Molly Sweeney. His design’s for Opera, Theater, and Dance have been seen at Santa Fe Opera, Beijing’s National Center for the Performing Arts, Dublin’s Civic Theater, The McKittrick Hotel, Soho Rep, The Public, The Atlantic, Arena Stage in Washington D.C., The Park Avenue Armory, Bard Music Festival, WP Theater, The Juilliard School, Madison Opera, Kentucky Opera, Lyric Opera of Kansas City, Opera Omaha, Writers Theater, Classic Stage Company, HERE Arts Center, LoftOpera, Ma-Yi Theater Company, Opera San Jose, Pacific Symphony, Puerto Rican Traveling Theater, Virginia Arts Festival,. M.F.A. NYU. www.bhatiadesign.com
Reed Ridgley (General Manager) has been managing nonprofit theatre companies in NYC since 2000. He spent most of that time at the Vineyard Theatre where he eventually worked as the General Manager for five years. He served as General Manager at Classic Stage Company for one year, Development Manager for the Cherry Lane Theatre for three years, and is currently working his fourth season as General Manager at Keen. General management highlights include The Scottsboro Boys (world premiere), [title of show] (world premiere), Avenue Q (Vineyard Theatre),The Book of Mormon (first workshops), Carrie (Off Broadway premiere), Wig Out! by Tarell Alvin McCraney (world premiere), The Long Christmas Ride Home by Paula Vogel (world premiere), The Slug Bearers of Kayrol Island (world premiere), and God’s Ear by Jenny Schwartz (world premiere). A graduate of NYU Tisch School of the Arts, Reed also is a proud member of the teaching staff at ModoYoga NYC.
Arthur Atkinson (Production Stage Manager) is thrilled to return to Keen Company! Traveled this fall to Tottori, Japan for the Bird Theatre Festival with Theatre Breaking Through Barriers’ production of BRECHT ON BRECHT. Recent NYC theatre productions: Liz Swados’s Nightclub Cantata at the Cell Theatre, The Daughter-in-Law at City Center (Mint Theater), Paradise Lost (FPA), Cagney - The Musical at the Westside Theatre; many shows at the Irish Repertory Theatre, the York Theatre Company, The Directors Company, Cape Playhouse, et al. Toured internationally in Fiddler on the Roof starring Topol, then Harvey Fierstein and Theodore Bikel. A proud member of Actors Equity Association. Love to Lisa.
Sloane Fischer (Assistant Stage Manager) is a New York based Stage Manager with a BA in Stage Management from PACE University. Some Pace credits include; A Midsummer Night's Dream (ASM), Julio Down By the Schoolyard (ASM), Twelfth Night the Musical (PSM) and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (PSM). Professional credits include; Grease (PA) at Studio Tenn, Future Fest (PSM) at 54 Below, a staged reading of the new play, Blood, Sweat, Tears (PSM) at The Tank, Christen the Place (PSM) at IRT, The Samuel French competition with a staged reading of the new play Blocked (PSM) at Playwrights Horizons, How to Find a Husband in 37 Years or Longer (PSM) at Under St. Marks, and a staged reading of the new play, Into The River I Went (PSM) at The Kraine. Off Broadway credits include; The Keen Teens Festival (ASM) at Theater Row. This process has indeed been magical, and she is so thankful to have this opportunity to be a part of such an amazing production and team! Words cannot express how thrilled she is for you all to see this amazing show! Enjoy!
Everyman Agency (Press Representatives) is a communications firm promoting complex ideas, mostly in the arts. Founded by John Wyszniewski, Everyman Agency builds awareness and provokes action for cultural organizations and individual artists by putting impactful storytelling, strategic thinking, and meaningful relationships at the heart of its work. They believe in the power of the media to shine a spotlight on new and underrepresented voices. Everyman Agency specializes in dance, theater, music, visual art, and the compelling work in between. Clients include the american vicarious, Ars Nova, Axis Theatre, The Civilians, Elevator Repair Service, Keen Company, Ma-Yi Theater Company, Target Margin Theater, TheaterWorks Hartford, and SITI Company, among others. www.everymanagency.com
The Year of Magical Thinking is presented by arrangement with Concord Theatricals on behalf of Samuel French, Inc. concordtheatricals.com
The Actors and Stage Managers employed in this production are members of Actors’ Equity Association, the union of professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States. The Directors and Choreographers are members of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society, a national theatrical labor union. United Scenic Artists, Local USA 829 of the I.A.T.S.E. represents the Designers & Scenic Artists for the American Theatre.
Special Thanks
Stephanie Bok, Robert Bradshaw, Henry Chalfant, Amyt Eckstein, Michael Gottlieb, Haley Huxley, Zach Kaufer, Sarah Paar, Joe Pilaro, Quinn Reynolds, Daisy Walker, Gary Rivlin, Laura Carbonell Monarque, Linn Cary Mehta, Micah Bucey & Judson Church, and Jack Cummings III
Thank You to Our Hosts & Community Partners
ART/NY South Oxford Space, Bronx Documentary Center, Church-in-the-Gardens, Rose Courtney, Joanna D’Angelo, Catherine and Chris Engel, Kenny Finkle and Sheldon Allen, Goddard Riverside Community Center, Sally and Robert Huxley, iD Studio Theatre, Jefferson Market Library, Cynthia and Bruce Miltenberg, Michael Rose and Heidi Hoover, St. Ann and the Holy Trinity Church, Matthew Schermerhorn and Andy Rice, Jeffery Steinman and Jody Falco, Patricia Stockhausen and Michael Emmerman, Pamela Thomas, Tanya Weisman and Ari Handel
Welcome to the Theater
Welcome to Keen Company! Our mission centers on identification and connection, two elements which thrive in comfortable and safe environments. So we’re taking a second to really say, “Welcome! We’re glad you’re here.” Our audiences are at the heart of our work, and your experience matters to us. We hope you’ll feel free to enjoy this piece in whatever way moves you. Go ahead: laugh, cry, gasp, scream, even give it a standing ovation! Great stories invoke big reactions. We aren’t here to tell you how to experience the piece, we just hope you feel welcome to connect.
Land Acknowledgement
You’re joining Keen Company today in New York City, which is the traditional land of the Lenape people. Keen Company recognizes the long history of the territory we occupy, and its significance for the Indigenous peoples who lived and continue to live and work here. We pay our respects and gratitude to the Elders, both past and present, for their stewardship of this region.
About Keen Company
Keen Company is a Drama Desk and Obie Award-winning Off-Broadway company creating theater that connects. In intimate productions of plays and musicals, we celebrate the complexities of hope and the joys of the human condition. Keen has brought such wholehearted work to the stage as Marry Me a Little, A Walk in the Woods, John and Jen, Travels with My Aunt, Boy, Tick, Tick...BOOM!, Lonely Planet, Surely Goodness and Mercy, Molly Sweeney, Blues for an Alabama Sky, and This Space Between Us. Keen also fosters mid-career playwrights through our Keen Playwrights Lab and mentors students from all five boroughs of NYC through our Keen Teens education program. In everything we do, Keen Company thrives through our welcoming ethos and community commitments.
Team Keen
Jonathan Silverstein: Artistic Director
Jeremy Stoller: Director of New Work
Celestine Rae: Director of Education
Ashley DiGiorgi: Managing Producer
Brad Ogden: Marketing Manager
Reed Ridgley: General Manager
Our Keen Friends
We are endlessly grateful for the support of our community which has fueled Keen Company for over two decades. Thank you to all of our donors, patrons, and friends for your steadfast generosity. We are honored to continue to create and connect. Storytelling is alive and well at Keen Company, thanks to you!
Thank you to our leading foundation sponsors for supporting our work!
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
George Bean (Co-Treasurer), Bill Bradford (Co-Treasurer), Elizabeth Corradino (Secretary), Rose Courtney, Linda D'Onofrio (President), Amyt Eckstein, Chisa Hutchinson, Charlie MacLeod, Marsha Mason, Nisha Sheth, Patricia Stockhausen, Jason Tam, Sharon Tzuang, Chris Yegen (Chair)
ADVISORY COUNCIL
Kate Baldwin, Michael Emmerman, Catherine Engel, Patricia Follert, Tim Grandia, Brian D’Arcy James, Kelli O’Hara, Mark Orsini, Pamela Thomas
SPIRITED SPONSORS ($10,000+)
The Howard Gilman Foundation, The Kaplen Brothers Fund, The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, The New York State Council on the Arts, The Shubert Foundation, George and Jane Bean, Bill and Casey Bradford, Elizabeth Corradino, Linda D’Onofrio, Amyt Eckstein, Sylvia Golden, Chisa Hutchinson, Sally and Bob Huxley, Koari Kitao, Charlie MacLeod, Marsha Mason, David and Faith Pedowitz, Nisha Sheth, Ted and Mary Jo Shen, Patricia Stockausen and Michael Emmerman, Jason Tam, Sharon Tzuang, David F. Wertheimer, Charlie Whitehead, Emily Wexler, Christian and Lonna Yegen, Emmy Zuckerman, and Anonymous
PASSIONATE PARTNERS ($5,000+)
The Axe-Houghton Foundation, Moses and Singer LLP, Kathleen Chalfant, Lara Koritzke and William Navarre, Wendy Rowden and John Carton
AVID AMBASSADORS ($2,500+)
The Phillip W. Riskin Charitable Foundation, Amy and Brad Ball, Nadja Caulfield, Pamela Fingleton, Barbara Gottlieb, Barbara McIntyre Hack, William P. Huxley Jr., Robert and Nina Kaufelt, Judith Manocherian, Marc Milic, Katherine and David Rabinowitz, Edward Schwarz, Alban Wilson, Ernest and Judith Wong
EAGER ENDORSERS ($1,000+)
($1,000+) The Cory and Bob Donnalley Charitable Fund, The Dorothy Strelsin Foundation, CeCe Black, Jeffrey Blair and Ivor Clark, Elizabeth and Blair Boyer, Gary and Ellen Cohen, Katherine Crost, Michela Daliana, Ryan DiGiorgi, Catherine and Christopher Engel, Molly Gurney, Mark and Alison Hunt, Heidi Hoover and Michael Rose, David McMahon, Trevor Middleton, Bruce and Cynthia Miltenberg, Richard and Kayla Pechter, Daryl and Steven Roth, Susan Shapiro and Bob Piller, Linda Tam, Pamela Thomas, Joan Thuebel, Amos Tappan Wilder, Mary and John Wight, Louise and Bill Williams
DEVOTED DONORS ($500+)
Marsha Baldinger, John Contratti, Kathleen Clark and Richard Frankel, Bruno and Mary Louise DiGiorgi, Arlene Dubin, Malcolm Duffy, Tim Grandia, Edward and Julia Hansen, Robyn Huffman, Frank and Dara Iryami, John Koester, Judith Krupp, Ruth and George Landow, Judith Lidsky, John Lundsten, Jon and Rosemary Masters, Eugenia McGill, Richard and Janine Perry, Roberta Pichini, Erik Piecuch and Alex Wright, Urmi Ray and Sanjiv Nanda, Maxine and Jay Rosenthal, Marjolein Steenbergen, Tracy Toon-Spencer, Shuana Weinberg, Marie and Allen Wolpert
FIERCE FRIENDS ($100+)
Ellen Abrams, Priyanka Adhikari, Michael Albanese, Shawn Alexander, Kate Baldwin and Graham Rowat, Sandra Baldwin, Judith Barlow, Kenneth Bartels, Todd Bartels, Marsha Bennett, Carmen Bowser, Ellen Brown, Louise Burke, Mary-Kelly Busch, Nan Canfield, Janet and John Canning, Michele Cardella, Chiamin Chang, Gary and Ellen Cohen, Mary Corradino, Jamie Cowperthwait, Terry Cox, Jack Cummings III and Barbara Walsh, Mary Davis, John Demous, Asu De Ozer, Joseph Diamente, Denise Dickins, Arden Down, Joseph Drach, Julia Edwards, Judith Eschweiler, Caryl Field, Kenneth Finkle, Jeffrey Fischer-Smith, Patricia Follert, David Gersten, Mary Gibbons, Jack Gilpin and Ann McDonough, Amy Glass, Betty Goldberg, Susie Gould, Carmen Gozdick, Helen Greenberg, Dean Haas, Jonathan Hadary, Lynne Halliday, Thomas Hanson, Mike Harlow, Maev Hewitt, Nancy and Donald Holste, Michael Israel, Jo Jagoda, Lauren Jordan, Tayari Jones, Peter H. Judd, Anna Klausner, Phillip and Mary Lou Kron, Amanda Lee, An Lee, Nicholas LoPorto, Ginny Louloudes, John Lundsten, Karen Maclean, Elizabeth Magnes, Cory Malinowski, Nello McDaniel and Mary Giudici McDaniel, Eileen McDonough, Patricia Mollica, Susan Molloy, Curt Monday, Stephen Nahley, Asha and DV Nayak, Daniel Neiden, Jill Nelson, Jessica and Paul Niebanck, Linda Niebanck, Mark Orsini, Michael Ostroff and Esther Rosenberg, John Pesando, Joel Piser, Kilburg Reedy, Hugh Rockoff, Dan Rothenberg, Rachel Routh, Charles Rubinger, Audrey Rush, Nancy Lee Russell, Thomas Jay Ryan, Patricia Schaupp, Toni Saldivar, Chintan Sheth, Roger Silverstein, Robert and Wonza Sinclair, Kimberly Singletary, Cindy Sipkin, Alice Silkworth, Sue Sole, Charles Sperling, David and Joan Steinberg, Jeffrey Steinman and Jody Falco, Ruth Stevens and David Olson, Bettina Stoller, Mike Surabrian, Christopher Swift, Maria Thompson, Kassandra and Nathanial Vaught, Tonya Walker, Andrea and Bill Watson-Canning, Diana Wege, Alison Weller, Laura Wiley, David Wilson, Kyle Winslow, Trudy Wood, Corinne Woods, Eric Wybenga, Carolyn and Richard Ziegler, Alan Zucker
