THE CAST

Brian Dennehy
Krapp

Mr. Dennehy returns to Long Wharf Theatre having performed in Hughie and The Front Page. He has won two Tony Awards for Best Actor in a Play; in 2003 for Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night and in 1999 for the 50th anniversary production of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman. Mr. Dennehy also received a Golden Globe Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award and an Emmy nomination as best actor for Showtime’s television adaptation of that production. Mr. Dennehy starred in Death of a Salesman at the Lyric Theatre in London’s West End in 2005, for which he was awarded a Lawrence Olivier Best Actor statue. He also starred on Broadway in Desire Under the Elms, by Eugene O’Neill, Inherit the Wind, and Brian Friel’s Translations. At Chicago’s Goodman Theatre he appeared in leading roles in Robert Falls’ productions of A Touch of the Poet in 1996, The Iceman Cometh in 1992, and Galileo in 1986. He and Falls collaborated again in 1992 for a remounting of The Iceman Cometh at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. Additional theatre credits include Peter Brook’s 1988 production of The Cherry Orchard at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Majestic Theater; Wisdom Bridge Theatre’s production of Rat in the Skull and Says I, Says He at the Mark Taper Forum and the Phoenix Theatre in New York. He was recently seen at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Twelfth Night and The Homecoming. Mr. Dennehy has also starred in numerous television movies and miniseries and was nominated for an Emmy on five other occasions – for his work in Burden of Proof, To Catch A Killer – The John Wayne Gacy Story, Murder in the Heartland, A Killing in a Small Town and Our Fathers. However, Mr. Dennehy is perhaps best known for his work in feature films, some of which include Ratatouille, Semi-Tough 10, First Blood, Gorky Park, Never Cry Wolf, Cocoon, Silverado, F/X, Presumed Innocent, Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo and Juliet, and Peter Greenway’s The Belly of an Architect, for which he received the Chicago Film Festival Award as best actor. Mr. Dennehy toured as the title character in Trumbo, a play based on the letters of blacklisted writer Dalton Trumbo, as well as in The Exonerated, a role he reprised for the Court TV premiere movie event alongside Susan Sarandon and Danny Glover.

 

The Creative Team

 

Samuel Beckett
Playwright
Samuel Barclay Beckett (April 13, 1906 – December 22, 1989) was an Irish avant-garde and absurdist playwright, novelist, poet and theater director. Beckett studied French, Italian and English at Trinity College in Dublin from 1923-1927, whereupon graduating he took up a teaching post in Paris. While in Paris, he met the Irish novelist James Joyce, who became an inspiration and mentor to the young Beckett. He wrote and published many essays and reviews throughout the 1930s. Throughout the 1940s, during and after his involvement with the French Resistance, he continued to write novels and began writing his most famous play, Waiting for Godot, in October 1948. The critical and commercial success of Waiting for Godot opened up the door of a playwriting career for Beckett. He wrote many other well-known plays, including Endgame (1957), Krapp’s Last Tape (1958), Happy Days (1961) and Play (1963). Beckett is regarded as one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century and was awarded the 1969 Nobel Prize in Literature. He died on December 22, 1989, of complications from emphysema and possibly Parkinson’s disease five months after his wife, Suzanne. The two are interred together in Montparnasse Cemetery in Paris.

 

Jennifer Tarver
Director
Jennifer Tarver is an award-winning theatre and opera director. She has been directing at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival for the past four seasons, where her works include The Homecoming, Krapp’s Last Tape, Zastrozzi and the world premiere of George F. Walker’s King of Thieves. She and Brian Dennehy revised Krapp’s Last Tape for the Goodman Theatre in 2010. Canadian premieres include Crave at Nightwood Theatre, Thom Pain (based on nothing) at Tarragon Theatre and Ines, a contemporary Fado opera at Queen of Puddings Music Theatre. Her own creations include Not Faust, History Play and the award-winning She’s Gone Away, a collaboration with choreographer Susanna Hood. She has directed opera at the Royal Conservatory of Music, the Opera Centre in Sulmona, Italy and the University of Toronto, including The Rape of Lucretia, L’Enfant et les Sortileges, The Magic Flute, The Turn of the Screw, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Cosi fan Tutte. Jennifer’s composition of Beckett plays, That Time – Five Beckett Shorts, garnered eight Dora Award nominations and four wins, including Best Director and Best Production. Other Dora nominations include Outstanding New Play and Outstanding Direction for History Play and Outstanding Direction for Crave. Honors include: the 2010 Siminovitch prize short list, Best Director 2007 Now Magazine, the 2002 John Hirsch Director’s Award and the 2006 Pauline McGibbon Award in Directing.

 

Eugene Lee
Set and Costume Design
Mr. Lee holds BFA degrees from the Art Institute of Chicago and Carnegie Mellon, an MFA from Yale and three honorary doctorates. He has been the production designer at “Saturday Night Live” since 1974. He has received the Tony Award, the American Theatre Wing’s Design Award, Outer Critics’ Circle Award, Drama Desk Award, Lucille Lortel Award, Elliott Norton Prize for Sustained Achievement, and the Pell Award. He is currently represented on Broadway by the musical Wicked, and was recently inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame in New York. Previous Long Wharf credits include The Price, Hughie, Coming Home, Have You Seen Us ?, and The Train Driver. He will be designing the set for Long Wharf Theatre’s upcoming production of Sophie’s Choice. Other recent work includes Compulsion at Berkeley Rep, Wally Shawn’s Grasses of a Thousand Colors at the Royal Court, and Will Ferrell’s You’re Welcome, America, a Final Night with George W. Bush, on Broadway. Films include Coppola’s Hammett, Huston’s Mr. North, and Malle’s Vanya on 42nd Street. He lives with his wife Brooke and their dogs in Providence, where they raised their two sons.

 

Stephen Strawbridge
Lighting Design
For Long Wharf Theatre: Have You Seen Us?, Coming Home, Prayer for My Enemy, The Front Page, Singing Forest and Two Days. Over 200 productions on and off-Broadway, at leading regional theatre and opera companies across the US and in cities overseas including Bergen, Copenhagen, The Hague, Hong Kong, Linz, Lisbon, Munich, Naples, Sao Paulo, Stockholm, and Vienna. Recent work: A.R. Gurney’s Black Tie (Primary Stages, NYC); The How and the Why and Having Our Say (McCarter Theatre, Princeton); James and the Giant Peach (Goodspeed Opera). We Have Always Lived in the Castle and The Battle of Black and Dogs (Yale Repertory Theatre); Happy Days (Westport Playhouse). Nominations and awards: American Theatre Wing, Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle, Connecticut Critics Circle, Dallas-Fort Worth Theatre Critics Forum, Helen Hayes, Henry Hewes Design and Lucille Lortel awards. He is co-chair of the Design Department at Yale School of Drama and resident lighting designer at Yale Repertory Theatre.

 

Richard Woodbury
Sound Design
Mr. Woodbury is a composer and sound designer working in theatre, dance and media arts. His work for theatre includes music and/or sound design for Tony award-winning Broadway productions of August: Osage County, A Long Day’s Journey Into Night, A Moon for the Misbegotten, Death of a Salesman, and The Young Man from Atlanta as well as numerous productions for Chicago’s renowned Goodman and Steppenwolf theatres,and other venues in the United States, Canada and Europe. Since 1980 Richard has served as Music Director at the Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago where he is an Associate Professor and “Distinguished Faculty Artist.” Richard has composed numerous scores for dance and has performed live with The Merce Cunningham and Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Companies. Richard has received Joseph Jefferson and Helen Hayes Awards for outstanding sound design, and the Ruth Page award for Outstanding Collaborative Artist, as well as nominations for New York “Drama Desk”, and Los Angeles “Ovation” awards.

 

Andrew Shaver
Assistant Director
Mr. Shaver is thrilled to be back in the room with Brian and Jennifer after spending the summer with them as the Assistant Director on the Stratford Shakespeare Festival production of The Homecoming. Stratford acting credits include Zastrozzi (dir Jennifer Tarver), Cyrano de Bergerac (dir Donna Feore) & Macbeth (dir Des Mcanuff). Andrew is Artistic Director of SideMart Theatrical Grocery, Montreal (www.sidemart.ca), with whom his recent directing credits include World premieres of Gordon (by Morris Panych), Oooo! (by Gerard Vasquez) and SideMart's original musical Haunted Hillbilly (music by Matthew Barber). Hillbily is currently in preproduction for a feature length film adaptation. Shaver was also a performer and creation ensemble SaBooge Theatre from 2000-07. Shaver is a graduate of Queen's University (Ontario), École Jacques Lecoq (Paris, France) and the Michael Langham Conservatory for Classical Direction at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival (2010 & 2011).

 

Stephen Gabis
Dialect Coach
Recent: Long Wharf Theatre’s Shirley Valentine and The Train Driver. Broadway/Off Broadway: Brief Encounter, Lombardi, Lend Me A Tenor, A View From the Bridge, Memphis, Brighton Beach Memoirs, Guys and Dolls, The 39 Steps, Jersey Boys, Butley, Coram Boy, The Lieutenant of Innishmore, Doubt, Frozen, all Mike Leigh plays. For Lincoln Center Theater: When the Rain Stops Falling, The Frogs, Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Toward the Somme, A Man of No Importance. Misc. Venues: Roundabout, Manhattan Theatre Club, Playwrights Horizons, M.C.C., The New Group, Yale Rep., Hartford Stage, McCarter,Houston Alley, Signature Theatre, Public Theatre, Atlantic Theater Co. Film: Salt, Bernard and Doris, Across the Universe, The Notorious Bettie Page. Misc. Credits: The Dialect Workshop for the Old Vic Exchange Program (April ’10). As an actor: Tom, The Corn is Green (dir. Nicholas Martin, starring Kate Burton). Fourteen years as Resident Dialect Coach for the Williamstown Theatre Festival.

 

Katrina Lynn Olson
Production Stage Manager
Off Broadway: Classical Theatre of Harlem, The Public Theater, Theatre for a New Audience, Vineyard Theatre. International: The Brothers Size, The Abbey Theatre, Dublin, Ireland. Regional: Long Wharf Theatre, Paper Mill Playhouse, New York Stage & Film, Philadelphia Theater Company, Hartford Stage, Trinity Repertory Company, Yale Repertory Theatre, Colorado Shakespeare Festival, Houston Grand Opera, Scottish Opera, Glasgow, Scotland, International Festival of Arts & Ideas. MFA, Yale School of Drama. Proud member of Actors’ Equity Association.