New Repertory Theatre Presents GOOD

New Repertory Theatre presents Good by C.P. Taylor, co-presented with Boston Center for American Performance, October 8-30, 2016 in the Charles Mosesian Theater at the Arsenal Center for the Arts, 321 Arsenal Street, Watertown, MA. Tickets are $30-$59 and may be purchased by calling the New Rep Box Office at 617-923-8487 or visiting newrep.org. Student, senior, and group discounts are available. Subscription packages that include Good are also available.

There will be 20 special immersive seats available and situated on the sides of the stage for each performance of Good. Please call the Box Office for more details and for reservations.

"The play that most typifies our 2016-2017 season this year is C.P. Taylor's Good," says Artistic Director Jim Petosa. "Presented in the weeks leading up to the 2016 presidential election, Good is a politically potent work that allows audiences to watch as one man is drawn into the nationalist furor that erupted in Germany during the 1930s. This play continues to be remarkably resonant today as issues of demagoguery emanate from major political factions in the United States and around the world."

"Since 2012, New Rep has had the pleasure of working with the Boston Center for American Performance to present some truly amazing productions," says Managing Director Harriet Sheets. "We are pleased to be collaborating once again this season on C.P. Taylor's Good as well as later this season with Brecht on Brecht. Both productions bring with them tremendous weight as they tackle topics and issues relevant to today's political climate. We're sure New Rep audiences will find them timely and compelling."

About GOOD

How does a good man turn toward the unthinkable? In 1930s Germany, Professor John Halder, played by Michael Kaye (Broken Glass, Amadeus, Opus), writes a novel about compassionate euthanasia, drawing the attention of the Nazi Party. Despite his own misgivings and the pleadings of his Jewish friend Maurice, John is tempted by the changing world around him. In this expressionistic play with music, C.P. Taylor poses questions that remain all too familiar in today's political landscape.

About New Repertory Theatre

New Repertory Theatre is the award-winning, professional theatre company in residence at the Arsenal Center for the Arts in Watertown, MA. For over 30 years, New Rep has been a leader of self-produced theatre in greater Boston, producing contemporary and classic dramas, comedies, and musicals in both the 340-seat Charles Mosesian Theater and the 90-seat Black Box Theater. Annually, New Rep serves over 40,000 patrons, including 2,000 season subscribers. In addition to its mainstage productions, New Rep produces Next Voices, a program dedicated to developing new plays with four playwrights through three staged readings and one world premiere production. Under its Lifelong Enrichment Arts Programs (LEAP), New Rep also produces its Classic Repertory Company, Page To Stage, Insider Experiences, and Spotlight Symposium Series.

New Rep's Mission

New Repertory Theatre produces plays that speak powerfully to the essential ideas of our time. Through the passion and electricity of live theater performed to the highest standards of excellence, New Rep expands and challenges the human spirit of both artists and audience. New Rep presents world premieres, contemporary and classic works in several intimate settings. We are committed to education and outreach, including special dedication to the creation of innovative in-school programming and providing access to underserved audiences. New Rep is an active advocate for the arts and a major voice in the national dialogue defining the role of theater in our culture.

About BOSTON CENTER FOR AMERICAN PERFORMANCE

Boston Center for American Performance serves as the professional production extension of the Boston University College of Fine Arts School of Theatre. Expanding the definition of the College as an "artistic home," BCAP is designed to foster significant interaction between members of the professional performing arts world and the College. BCAP employs professional artists to collaborate directly with student artists in a way that encourages intergenerational learning not only through the forging of strong teacher/student relationships, but through the creation of artistic collaborations between artists of differing levels of experience. It is the College's conviction that such collaborations will have a profound impact on the College's educational mission, become a significant source of inspiration for the creation of new work and/or new approaches to existing work, and provide the College with a professional extension of its expanding and diverse aesthetic.

Artistic Bios

JUDITH CHAFFEE* (Mother) is a specialist in dance, alignment/release techniques, Commedia dell'Arte, choreography, viewpoints, masks, contact improvisation, and period styles, and has taught in England, Italy, Denmark, South Korea, Latvia, and Germany. She played Mother in the Boston Center for American Performance production of C. P. Taylor's Good, and Puck in the Boston University production of Britten's opera, A Midsummer Night's Dream. She has choreographed for OperaBoston, Central Square Theater, Huntington Theatre Company, North Shore Music Theatre, Actors' Shakespeare Company, Merrimack Repertory Theatre, Boston Playwrights' Theatre, Hanover Theatre, and Stoneham Theatre, among others. In 2011, she was awarded the Boston University Metcalf Cup and Prize for excellence in teaching, and has co-edited with Olly Crick, the Routledge Companion to Commedia dell'Arte, released in November 2014.

Benjamin Evett* (Eichmann, Bouller) returns to New Repertory Theatre after performing in Broken Glass, Assassins, On the Verge, Camelot (2014 IRNE Award, Best Actor in a Musical), Amadeus, Cherry Docs, Opus, Indulgences, A Christmas Carol, Quills, A Girl's War, and Jerusalem, and directing RENT. He recently won the Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding Solo Performance 2015 for Albatross with The Poets' Theatre, where he is also Executive Director. He has appeared in Freud's Last Session and God of Carnage (co-produced with Arizona Theatre Company and San Jose Rep). He was a member of the ART Resident Acting Company from 1993 to 2003, performing in over 50 productions including Waiting for Godot, The Bacchae, Phedre, and Six Characters in Search of an Author. He has performed at Missouri Rep, Virginia Stage Company, Alley Theatre, Taiwan National Theatre, and Moscow Art Theatre. He is Founding Artistic Director of Actors' Shakespeare Project, where he played Coriolanus, Hamlet, Petruchio, Edmund, and Caliban.

Michael Kaye* (John Halder) returns to New Repertory Theatre after performing in The Elephant Man, Amadeus, Opus, House With No Walls, and Silence. Other area credits include Mothers and Sons and Clybourne Park (SpeakEasy Stage Company); Uncle Jack, Monster, The Glass Menagerie, and Good (Boston Center for American Performance); A Midsummer Night's Dream (Actors' Shakespeare Project); Book of Days (The Lyric Stage Company); and various productions at Huntington Theatre Company and Boston Playwrights' Theatre. Mr. Kaye serves as Assistant Professor of Acting at Boston University School of Theatre, where he earned both his BFA and MFA in Acting and Theatre Education respectively. Born in Chicago, he now lives in Arlington.

ALEX SCHNEPS* (Bok/Hitler) makes his New Repertory Theatre debut. Other credits include Romeo and Juliet (Hartford Stage); Prelude to a Kiss (Huntington Theatre Company); Good (Boston Center for American Performance); Women Beware Women and Three Sisters (Royal Conservatoire of Scotland); and The Learned Ladies, The Creation of the World and Other Business, and The Hill (Boston University School of Theatre). He received his BS in Film and Television Production from Boston University and his MA in Classical and Contemporary Text from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.

Tim Spears* (Maurice) returns to New Repertory Theatre after performing in The Elephant Man, Amadeus, and Mister Roberts. Other area credits include Clybourne Park (SpeakEasy Stage Company); Monster, House (IRNE Nomination), Good, and A Question of Mercy (Boston Center for American Performance); and The Devil's Teacup (Boston Playwrights' Theatre). In New York he performed in Good and A Question of Mercy (Potomac Theatre Project) and JUMP! and Realism (The Exchange). Mr. Spears earned his BFA in Acting and MFA in Directing from Boston University School of Theatre.

CASEY TUCKER* (Anne) returns to New Repertory Theatre after performing in Assassins. Area credits include Henry V (Arts After Hours); Assassins, The Women of Henry VIII, Passion Play, and A Delicate Balance (Boston University); The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds (Boston Center for American Performance); and Romeo and Juliet (London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art). She received a BFA in Acting from Boston University. Originally from Orange County, CA, Ms. Tucker currently resides in the Mission Hill area of Boston.

ALSO FEATURING Jesse Garlick, Lily Linke, Will Madden, and Christine Power.

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Jim Petosa (Director/Artistic Director) joined New Repertory Theatre as an award-winning theatre artist, educator, and leader in 2012. He has served as Director of the School of Theatre, College of Fine Arts, at Boston University since 2002, and Artistic Director of Maryland's Olney Theatre Center for the Arts and its National Players educational touring company (1994-2012). While at Boston University, he established the Boston Center for American Performance (BCAP), the professional production extension of the Boston University School of Theatre, in 2008. Throughout the Northeast, Mr. Petosa has directed for numerous institutions, including Freud's Last Session, The Testament of Mary, Broken Glass, Assassins, On the Verge, The Elephant Man (IRNE Nomination), Amadeus, Three Viewings, The Last Five Years, and Opus at New Rep. In Boston, his work was nominated for two IRNE awards for A Question of Mercy (BCAP). He has served as one of three artistic leaders for the Potomac Theatre Project (PTP/NYC) since 1987. In Maryland, his work earned over 25 Helen Hayes Award nominations as well as the award for outstanding direction of a musical for Jacques Brel is Alive and Well... His production of Look! We Have Come Through! was nominated for the Charles MacArthur Award for outstanding new play, and he earned the Montgomery County Executive's Excellence in the Arts and Humanities Award for Outstanding Artist/Scholar. A member of Actors' Equity Association, Mr. Petosa has served on the executive board of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society, and currently serves on the Board of Directors for StageSource. Originally from New Jersey, he was educated at The Catholic University of America and resides in Quincy.

C.P. Taylor (Playwright) was born in Glasgow, Scotland in 1929 and was the author of more than 70 plays. Married and father of four children, he spent his last 20 years in Northumberland, in Newcastle-on-Tyne. There he wrote many plays for young audiences and was closely associated with the Live Theatre Company for which he wrote And a Nightingale Sang (1977). About his writing, Taylor said, "[My] main themes are the conflicts between man's ideals and his limitations. Every play is about particular people, particular periods, particular incidents. The universal comes from a close and accurate study of the particular." His longtime friend Max Roberts, artistic director of the Live Theatre Company, wrote of him: "Whatever the subject matter, all the plays he wrote contained a basic 'truth' or something he unearthed that was 'real,' however small or seemingly inconsequential. Add to this an enormous 'worry' about the human race, a gifted instinct to make sense of the absurdities, cruelty and humor of its people, a total inability to write anything shallow or transparent, and you have a very special playwright ... he left behind him not only a fantastically diverse canon of work but a constant reminder of what was possible in the past and a stimulus for achievement in the future." In 1981, C.P. Taylor died suddenly at the age of 52.

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