A Letter from Artistic Director Timothy Near
Hello! Thank you for stopping by our website to learn more about San Jose Rep. This is a great time to pay us a visit because we are celebrating 25 years of producing adventurous work that stimulates understanding of ourselves and others through the shared experience of live theatre. As the Rep has grown up our productions have become marked by fresh innovative approaches and a reflection of our community and the world in which we live.
The Rep was founded in 1980 by James P. Reber. It was the first professional theatre in San Jose, and it produced 5 plays a year at a city-run facility shared by many community performing arts groups. An immediate success, it became the fastest growing theatre in the country. The San Jose Rep Board hired me to be the Artistic Director in the fall of ’87 and I participated in the planning and design of a beautiful new theatre, which is now the sole/soul, home of San Jose Rep. In our new home we have developed and produced 8 world premieres and many US and west coast premieres. We have hosted on our stage such world-renowned talents as Holly Hunter, Ronnie Gilbert, Lynn Redgrave, Holly Near, James Avery, Mike Lee, Sab Shimono, Culture Clash and Anne Bogart and her SITI Company. We have built a strong core of over 13,000 subscribers who are happy to support the Rep in becoming more adventurous and innovative in its programming. We have a dedicated and hard working Board of Trustees, which has supported us through thick and thin, and the Rep’s partnership with the city has been uniquely close. The Rep has always seen itself as a major contributing force to the health and growth of downtown San Jose. We want to see San Jose become a sophisticated city offering its citizens a rich cultural life with a high quality arts scene. As well as attracting 500 plus people to downtown 6 nights a week and twice a day on weekends (helping to keep restaurants busy and streets safe), the Rep also produces our Red Ladder project, which works primarily with at-risk youth, increasing their self-esteem, reading ability, social skills and imagination through the use of theatre games and improvisation. So, at age 25, we have a lot to be joyful about.
I have chosen for next season 7 plays that I hope will celebrate the past, the present and the future.
We will kick off our celebration with the world premiere of a Rep-commissioned musical about a famous local landmark, The Winchester Mystery House, written by an internationally known local composer, Craig Bohmler and a Tony Award nominated playwright, Mary Bracken Philips. This mysterious musical called The Haunting of Winchester, presents us with a heroine, Sarah Winchester, who exemplifies the eccentric imagination that still exists today in Silicon Valley. It also playfully pokes fun at our “wild, wild west” past. And for those who want a more universal theme, the play also chides with humor the American obsession with developing ever more lethal weapons. This is a project that is 5 years in the making. The Rep has developed it in our play festival and in other workshops and we are very excited to unveil the work. The Haunting of Winchester will be performed by a cast of 12 and supported by an orchestra of 7. The leading actors are Tamra Hayden and Dan Sharkey, both Broadway musical veterans. Michael Butler, who directed the highly imaginative Nixon’s Nixon, Desire Under The Elms, Mary’s Wedding (remember that amazing wooden horse?) and brings his great visual imagination to this project to give us a truly surprising and stunning production. Don’t expect realism. You can go visit the real thing for that. Michael and Bill Bloodgood who designed my production of Art has come up with an amazing set. My recommendation for a fun family weekend: come see the play and then go visit the Winchester Mystery House with new insights gained from this imaginative and entertaining musical.
The book, The Tricky Part, is on sale now at Barnes and Noble and receiving great reviews. The author of the book, Martin Moran, performs the theatrical version the Rep is producing. I first knew Martin as an actor on Broadway in such musicals as Big River, The Titanic and Cabaret. He is a warm, charming, funny, talented man who has a beautiful singing voice. The beginning of The Tricky Part almost feels like stand-up comedy. Then, as the play continues we learn about Martin’s decision as an adult, to go confront the man who sexually took advantage of him from the age of 12 to 15. I felt that it was important for the Rep to present a play about child abuse because it is an issue that we constantly face in the news. It is a difficult subject, but if I want to try to understand it better, I’d rather go on that complex journey of sexuality and human trespass with Martin Moran than with anyone else I know. In New York, where Martin won an Obie Award for this work, I gather he often stayed after with the audience for post show discussions. His play sort of led to “community meetings” on an issue that affects all of us, and the children in our lives. I think that would be great to do at The Rep as well. To find out more about Martin Moran and The Tricky Part click here.
To celebrate the holidays we are producing a World Premier stage adaptation of Jane Austen’s beloved classic, Pride and Prejudice. We are co-producing this beautiful romantic comedy with 2 other theatres (Arizona Theatre Co. and The Alliance Theatre of Atlanta). This allows The Rep to expand our budget to design and build many fabulous costumes for a large cast of 13. We offer you a stage version of the substantial and witty novel by Jane Austen and promise more costume eye candy than has ever dressed the stage at San Jose Rep. Jon Jory, founder of The Humana Festival in Louisville, and a director with an impeccable sense of style, is the playwright and director of this elegant classic. I am so proud that at age 25, The Rep has built the skill, expertise and organizational fortitude to be able to produce a show of this size. For those of you who were with us in 2003 and before, you will see talented old friends on stage such as Remi Sandri (Rounding Third, 12th Night,), David Pichette (Nixon’s Nixon and Art), Julia Dion and Peggity Price (The Underpants), Pat Nesbit (Little Foxes), Amy Resnik (Glass Menagerie).
In January (and it was January when founder, Jim Reber, opened the Rep’s first show) we will produce a revival of The Immigrant, a lovely play that had great national success in the mid ‘80’s. Immigration is such a big part of American history and continues to be an issue for all of us, and this heart warming play about a Jewish couple immigrating to Texas in 1909, is pertinent and one of the sweetest plays I know. It is funny and deeply moving. John McCluggage ,who has a great ability to direct plays that pull at the heartstrings, will direct this true story about the playwright’s family. He will work again with set designer, Scott Weldin, who designed John’s productions of Enchanted April, Rounding Third,and Flea In Her Ear.
A 25th Anniversary should celebrate the new as well as the old. The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow by Rolin Jones just jumped off the page at me with energy and life and told me I had to produce it at The Rep. It is young, fresh, and lives in the very contemporary, almost near future high tech world. The lead characters and the title character are both Chinese American. The themes are universal. It isn’t a musical, but director Kim Rubenstein from the Long Warf Theatre in New Haven, will underscore it with hot contemporary music. This is a delightful “adopted-post-teen-computer-geek-searches-for-birth-mom” story and will hold a broad appeal for the hip young and hip at heart of Silicon Valley. I am so delighted that the extraordinary Peter Maradudin who has designed so many shows for me, including my 1940’s Radio Hour and By The Bog of Cats…, will return to design this very jazzy piece.
I wanted to include a play about war in this season. The Rep strives to produce plays about current issues in entertaining and universal ways. Don Taylor’s adaptation of Euripides’ drama, Iphigenia at Aulis is witty, ironic, accessible and horrifying. The play was written 2400 years ago but you would swear it was written last year. I have invited Krissy Keefer and her dance company of 4 women to play The Chorus. Greek chorus in 400 BC often danced and sang. They were the “entertaining commentator” on the serious issues being discussed in the play. I can’t wait to work with choreographer/dancer/actress Keefer. She will bring a bold, irreverent, Amazonian approach to the style of the work. This production celebrates the Rep’s history of producing imaginative approaches to the classics. Think back to Mirandolina, Oedipus, 12th Night, Desire Under The Elms, The Game of Love and Chance, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Master Builder, Major Barbara. Anna Oliver, who designed the beautiful costumes for Major Barbara, will come up with a brilliant fusion of ancient Greek and contemporary fashion for the play. The brilliant Lap Chi Chu (Making Tracks, Drawer Boy, Wintertime) returns to the Rep to design the lights.
How better to close our 25th Anniversary Season than with a play about 2 artists and their journey from being precocious young talents to mature performers facing the realities of being in the arts. 2 Pianos, 4 Hands is a tour de force for 2 actors who also play piano expertly. It is hard to find 2 such unique talents. Carl Danielson who you enjoyed in 1940 Radio Hour and also in Cole, is such a talent. Mark Anders from Seattle is equally brilliant and together they will amaze you, charm you, and move you as they play 2 grand pianos and play the many characters that people their story of reaching for a dream. This is one of the most produced plays across the US and England. Don’t miss what the London Daily Mail called a “rare jewel of real entertainment.”
Throughout our 25th Season we will provide you with opportunities to join in the celebration. One such opportunity will be on Monday Dec 19th at 7pm. Holly Near will appear in concert on the Rep stage. Holly wrote and performed in the Rep’s first commissioned play, Fire in the Rain, Singer in the Storm. She has returned often to give benefit concerts for the Rep. Holly is a superb singer and brings to the stage an integration of world consciousness, spiritual discovery and theatricality. Holly’s concert offers an alternative way to celebrate the spirituality of the holidays. To learn more about Holly go to her website www.hollynear.com.
Tickets are on sale now.
The Rep is putting together a Gala Fundraiser on January 21st. We will present Film, Television and Broadway star, Mandy Patinkin in concert.
Mandy is one of the most extraordinary performers I know and his voice is from heaven. You may know him as the swashbuckling dashing swordsman in the film The Princess Bride. You may remember him as the singing Physician in the wonderful hospital TV series, Chicago Hope, for which Mandy won an Emmy. Mandy has starred in the original Broadway productions of Evita, Sunday in the Park with George, The Secret Garden and The Wild Party. He will star in a new CBS crime series this fall. It is called Criminal Minds. But he plans to find time to come help the Rep celebrate. His concert will be followed by dinner and dancing at the elegant Fairmont Hotel.
Tickets are priced a little higher because this is a fundraiser to help The Rep bring you an exciting Anniversary season. There will be other lower priced or free celebratory events as well.
Thank you for visiting my web letter. Thank you for supporting SJ Rep over the past 25 years. Without you we wouldn’t be here, because theatre is all about the communication between the artists and the audience. I see this next season as a way to salute you, our extremely diverse, energetic and intelligent audience. As always The Rep’s season choices celebrate the full range of human complexity through an essentially optimistic, humanist and enlightened aesthetic. I hope that our work will affect you and that you will go out and make the world a better place. See you soon!
Sincerely,
Timothy Near, Artistic Director