SpeakEasy Stage To Present RED 1/6-2/4

From January 6 through February 4, 2012, SpeakEasy Stage will present the New England Premiere of the 2010 Tony Award-winning play RED by John Logan.

A searing portrait of an artist’s ambition and vulnerability, RED focuses on abstract expressionist painter Mark Rothko in 1958 as he is about to begin work on a series of large murals for the Four Seasons Restaurant in New York’s famed Seagram Building. To help with this work, Rothko hires a new young assistant; and as the two prep canvasses and mix paint, they have what amounts to a master class on the methods and purpose of art. A moving and compelling account of one of the greatest artists of the 20th century, RED also chronicles Rothko’s growing realization that this commission, which should be the crowning achievement of his career, could also be his undoing.

For this New England Premiere production, SpeakEasy Stage Company Producing Artistic Director Paul Daigneault has tapped Norton Award-winner David R. Gammons to direct. Mr. Gammons is a director, designer, visual artist, and theatre educator whose recent directing projects include The Hotel Nepenthe, The Duchess of Malfi, and Titus Andronicus for Actors' Shakespeare Project and the Boston premiere of Blackbird for SpeakEasy.

Boston actor Thomas Derrah, winner of the 2011 Elliot Norton Award for his work in the one–man show R. Buckminster Fuller: The History (and Mystery) of the Universe, will portray Mark Rothko in the SpeakEasy production. He will be joined by Boston University alumnus Karl Baker Olson, whose SpeakEasy credits include roles in The History Boys and Reckless.

The design team includes Cristina Todesco (scenic); Gail Astrid Buckley (costumes); Jeff Adelberg (lighting) and Bill Barclay (sound). Katie Ailinger is the Production Stage Manager.

RED will play for five weeks, from January 6 through February 4, in the Virginia Wimberly Theatre in the Stanford Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts,

527 Tremont Street in Boston’s South End.

Ticket prices range from $50-$55 with discounts for students, seniors and persons age 25 and under. For tickets or more information, the public is invited to call 617-933-8600 or visit www.SpeakEasyStage.com.

About Mark Rothko

Born Marcus Rotkovitch in the town of Dvinsk, Latvia, then part of the Russian Empire, Mark Rothko immigrated to the United States with his family at the age of ten, settling in Portland, Oregon. A gifted student, Rothko attended Yale University on scholarship from 1921-23, but disillusioned by the social milieu and financial hardship, he dropped out and moved to New York to "bum around and starve a bit." A chance invitation from a friend brought him to a drawing class at the Art Students League where he discovered his love of art. He took two classes there but was otherwise self-taught.

Rothko painted in a figurative style for nearly twenty years, his portraits and depictions of urban life baring the soul of those living through The Great Depression in New York. The painter Milton Avery offered Rothko both artistic and nutritional nourishment during these lean years. In the 1930s, Rothko exhibited with The Ten, a close-knit group of nine American painters, which included fellow Avery acolyte, Adolph Gottlieb. Success was moderate at best but the group provided important incubation for the Abstract Expressionist school to come.

The war years brought with it an influx of European surrealists, influencing most of the New York painters, among them Rothko, to take on a neo-surrealist style. Rothko experimented with mythic and symbolic painting for five years before moving to pure abstraction in the mid 1940s and ultimately to his signature style of two or three rectangles floating in fields of saturated color in 1949. Beginning in the early 1950s Rothko was heralded, along with Jackson Pollock, Willem deKooning, Franz Kline and others, as the standard bearers of the New American Painting--a truly American art that was not simply a derivative of European styles.

By the late 1950s, Rothko was a celebrated (if not wealthy) artist, winning him three mural commissions that would dominate the latter part of his career. Only in the last of these, The Rothko Chapel in Houston was he able to realize his dream of a truly contemplative environment in which to interact deeply with his artwork.

RED presents a fictionalized account of Rothko’s frustrated first attempt to create such a space in New York’s Four Season’s restaurant. Rothko sought to create art that was timeless; paintings that expressed basic human concerns and emotions that remain constant not merely across decades but across generations and epochs. He looked to communicate with his viewer at the most elemental level and through his artwork, have a conversation that was intense, personal and, above all, honest. A viewer’s tears in front of one of his paintings told him he had succeeded. While creating a deeply expressive body of work and garnering critical acclaim, Rothko battled depression and his brilliant career ended in suicide in 1970.

Production History
RED was first produced by the Donmar Warehouse in London, where it opened on December 8, 2009 and ran until February 6, 2010. It was directed by Michael Grandage and starred Alfred Molina and Eddie Redmayne. On March 11, 2010, RED opened at the John Golden Theatre on Broadway, closing on June 27, 2010 after running for 22 previews and 101 regular performances. Mr. Molina and Mr. Redmayne transferred with the production, which was again directed by Mr. Grandage.

RED won six 2010 Tony awards, including: Best Play, Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Play (Eddie Redmayne), Best Direction of a Play (Michael Grandage), Best Scenic Design of a Play (Christopher Oram), Best Lighting Design of a Play (Neil Austin), and Best Sound Design of a Play (Adam Cork). Alfred Molina also received a nomination for Best Actor in a Play. The play also won the 2010 Drama League Award for Distinguished Production of a Play, as well as the 2010 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Play.

About Playwright John Logan

For his work on RED, playwright John Logan received the Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critic Circle and Drama League Awards. Mr. Logan is also the author of more than a dozen other plays including Never the Sinner, Hauptmann and Speaking in Tongues. His work as a screenwriter includes the current or upcoming films Hugo and Coriolanus, as well as such well-known films as Sweeney Todd (Golden Globe Award); The Aviator (Oscar, Golden Globe, and WGA nominations); Gladiator (Oscar, Golden Globe and WGA nominations); The Last Samurai; Any Given Sunday; and RKO 281. Mr. Logan has also collaborated on the script for the upcoming James Bond film, Skyfall.
About Director David Gammons

This is director David R. Gammons’ second project for SpeakEasy Stage Company, having directed the award-winning Boston premiere of Blackbird in 2008. Recent directing projects include The Hotel Nepenthe, The Duchess of Malfi, and Titus Andronicus (2007 Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding Director) for Actors' Shakespeare Project; the New England premieres of Cherry Docs, The Lieutenant of Inishmore and My Name is Rachel Corrie at New Repertory Theatre; the world premiere of The Salt Girl by John Kuntz at Boston Playwrights' Theatre; Adrienne Kennedy's Funnyhouse of a Negro with Brandeis Theatre Company; and The Winter's Tale as part of the Shakespeare Exploded Festival at the American Repertory Theater. David has served as the Director of the Theatre Program at Concord Academy since 2000.

About The Cast

Thomas Derrah* (Mark Rothko) returns to SpeakEasy Stage, having earlier appeared in Fuddy Meers and The Drowsy Chaperone. Locally, he has appeared in 119 productions at the American Repertory Theater, most recently in the one-man show R. Buckminster Fuller: The History (and Mystery) of the Universe (2011 Outstanding Actor, Elliot Norton Award) ; Cabaret (Fraulein Schneider); Endgame (Clov), The Seagull (Dorn), Oliver Twist (also at Theatre for a New Audience and Berkeley Repertory Theatre), Highway Ulysses (Ulysses), Uncle Vanya (Vanya), i (Marquis de Sade), Richard II (Richard). He was seen on Broadway in Jackie: An American Life (23 roles), and Off-Broadway in Dario Fo's one-man show Johan Padan and the Discovery of the Americas and Big Time (Ted). He toured with the A.R.T. across the U.S., with residencies in New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles, and internationally throughout Europe, Canada, Israel, Taiwan, Japan and Moscow. Thomas has recently been touring through France in Julius Caesar. He has appeared with several local theatre companies, including Boston TheatreWorks, New Repertory Theatre, and Commonwealth Shakespeare Company, as well as Houston's Alley Theatre and other theaters throughout the U.S. His awards include the 1994 Elliot Norton Prize for Sustained Excellence, 2000, 2004 and 2011 IRNE Awards for Best Actor, the 1997 Los Angeles DramaLogue Award (for title role of Shlemiel the First) and the 2010 Robert Brustein Award. He is on the faculty of the A.R.T. Institute and is a graduate of the Yale School of Drama.
Karl Baker Olson* (Ken) has appeared in SpeakEasy’s productions of The History Boys and Reckless. For director David R. Gammons he has acted in The Lieutenant of Inishmore (New Rep) and The Duchess of Malfi (Actors’ Shakespeare Project). Other Boston area credits include performances at the Huntington, Merrimack Rep, Commonwealth Shakespeare and Boston Playwrights’ Theatre. Karl has trained at the Boston University School of Theatre, the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art and the Tony Award-winning Children’s Theatre Company. He currently lives in Brooklyn, NY.

SPEAKEASY STAGE COMPANY’s mission is to connect, inspire, and challenge our audience with the most socially relevant theatrical premieres featuring the most talented artists in Boston. We are also committed to supporting local actors, directors, and designers by providing a nurturing environment in which they can practice and develop their craft. In 2007, SpeakEasy was named the Calderwood Pavilion Resident Theatre for the Boston Center for the Arts. For more information, visit speakeasystage.com.

THE BOSTON CENTER FOR THE ARTS (BCA) is a not-for-profit performing and visual arts campus that supports working artists to create, perform and exhibit new works; develops new audiences; and connects the arts to community. Visit www.bcaonline.org for more information.

Box Office: 617-933-8600; www.BostonTheatreScene.com