A Noise Within Presents Ibsen's GHOSTS March 21 - May 9, 2009
By: Robert Diamond Feb. 27, 2009
A Noise Within (ANW), the acclaimed repertory theatre company, stages Henrik Ibsen?s Ghosts, a haunting tale of unrequited passion, revelation and horror, which opens Saturday, March 21 and runs through Saturday, May 9, 2009 (previews begin Saturday, March 14). Directed by Michael Murray, the cast features Mark Bramhall (Estrand), Alex Feldman (Oswald), Rebecca Mozzo (Regina), Deborah Strang (Mrs. Alving) and Joel Swetow (Manders).
Considered the most shocking and disturbing play of its time, Ghosts is described by Murray as ?a combination of film noir and Greek tragedy and still relevant to our times." He adds, ?I've written a new adaptation, set in the early 1900's but stripped down and modern in tone, stressing the emotional and erotic undercurrents among the five characters.?
Written by "the father of modern drama," Ghosts is set in the isolated grandeur of Scandinavia?s fjord country where Mrs. Alving relishes the homecoming of her artist son Oswald. An independent woman unafraid to brook the rigid moral code of a society dominated by men, she looks to a bright future with her beautiful boy and struggles to free both of them from the deadening hand of the past, but sins of the fathers and secrets of the dead reach out to decimate the foundation of her world.
A Noise Within (ANW) is the only classical repertory company in Southern California and one of only a handful in the entire country dedicated solely to producing classical dramatic literature year-round and working in the repertory tradition of rotating productions using a resident company of professional artists. ANW is led by Founders/Artistic Directors Julia Rodriguez-Elliott and Geoff Elliott.
Over the last 17 years, ANW has attracted fiercely loyal audiences and high praise from the media for its productions of great works of world drama and also as a leading regional force in arts education. The company?s consistent dedication to quality has been rewarded with 26 Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Awards, Los Angeles? highest recognition for theatrical achievement, and other similarly substantial honors. Since its founding in 1991, A Noise Within has presented more than 120 plays from the classics of world literature, each season producing a minimum of six plays from authors ranging from Shakespeare and Molière, to Ibsen, O?Neill and Shaw, to Miller and Williams. The Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle named A Noise Within's production of O'Neill's A Touch of the Poet Best Revival of 2006, and the LA Stage Alliance nominated Jarry?s Ubu Roi for six Ovation Awards. In 2004, the theatre collaborated with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen in a tandem performance of Shakespeare?s A Midsummer Night?s Dream at the Hollywood Bowl.
A Noise Within?s 2008-09 season is dedicated to the De Pietro family for their unflagging generosity and support for the past 17 years.
Single Tickets are $44 (Friday and Saturday evenings, Sunday matinees); $40 (Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday evenings, Saturday matinees); and $28 (previews). Groups (10 or more) are $25, or $30 on Saturday evenings and Sunday matinees; School Groups (10 or more) are $15, or $20 on Saturday evenings and Sunday matinees.
A NOISE WITHIN is located at 234 South Brand Boulevard, Glendale, CA 91204. To purchase tickets or for a full season brochure, call 818-240-0910 x1 or visit www.ANoiseWithin.org.
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ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Ghosts marks the fifth play Michael Murray (director) has directed for A Noise Within. The others are The Night of the Iguana, Romeo and Juliet, A Touch of the Poet, and Arms and the Man. He has served as Producing Director of the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park for nine years where he directed more than 25 productions, including Heartbreak House, Sweet Bird of Youth, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, Twelfth Night, And a Nightingale Sang, Compulsion, The Diary of Anne Frank, Where?s Charlie?, The House of Bernarda Alba, Threepenny Opera, Julius Caesar, A Month in the Country and The Baker?s Wife. Murray also co-founded ? with Olympia Dukakis and others ? and served as Artistic Director of the pioneering Charles Playhouse in Boston, a company that included at various times Al Pacino, Jane Alexander, Jill Clayburgh, Linda Lavin, John Seitz and Ned Beatty. He has directed at numerous regional and New York theaters such as the Hartford Stage Company, Center Stage in Baltimore, the Philadelphia Drama Guild, the Huntington Theater Company in Boston and the Alaska Repertory Theater. Recently he was Blanche, Barbara and Irving Laurie Professor of Theater Arts and Director of the Professional Theater Training Program at Brandeis University. He holds a BA from Catholic University and an MFA from Boston University.
MARK BRAMHALL (Estrand) appeared as Lucky in A Noise Within?s acclaimed production of Waiting For Godot in both the current and past season. He began his professional acting career in 1966 as a member of the original company of The American Conservatory Theatre (A.C.T.) in San Francisco. In five seasons there, he played leading roles under the guidance of some of the country?s foremost theatrical directors, including William Ball, Ellis Rabb, Alan Schneider and Nagle Jackson. In his New York debut, he starred as George in Our Town opposite Henry Fonda, Robert Ryan, Estelle Parsons and Jo Van Fleet. In Los Angeles, he appeared at the Mark Taper Forum in the ?New Plays For Now? series, directed by Gordon Davidson. He abandoned his burgeoning acting career for 17 years to father four daughters and pursue political activism, and, in the throes of mid-life crisis, returned to his art?and his birthplace, Los Angeles?in 1990. Since then, he has appeared at the Pasadena Playhouse, La Jolla Playhouse, Odyssey Theatre Ensemble, Colony Theatre, Pacific Resident Theatre Ensemble, Skirball Cultural Center, Egyptian Arena, Theatre Forty, Tamarind Theatre, Taper Amphitheatre, Theatricum Botanicum, Arizona Theatre Company, and Portland Center Stage. He has been a Resident Artist for 15 years at A Noise Within, where he has played leading roles in thirty celebrated productions. Among his favorite roles are Alceste in The Misanthrope, Harpagon in The Miser, Dr. Prentice in What The Butler Saw, Howard in Picnic and Virgil in Bus Stop. His acting awards and nominations include LA Drama Critics Circle, Ovation, Dramalogue, LA Weekly and Robby honors, as well as industry awards for Books On Tape narration. Among his film and television roles are All Through The Night, Vanilla Sky, Too Pure, Introducing Dorothy Dandridge, Sliver, Fools, One Is A Lonely Number, NYPD Blue, Dark Skies, The Burning Zone, 7th Heaven, X-Files, and recurring roles on Alias, That 70?s Show, Days Of Our Lives, The Young and the Restless, Passions, and General Hospital. Bramhall holds a B.A. from Harvard, and has studied at U.C. Berkeley, London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (Fulbright Scholar), American Conservatory Theatre, Classical Theatre Lab and Steve Eastin Studio.
ALEX FELDMAN (Oswald) makes his ANW debut in Ghosts. Most recently, the theatre veteran directed David Mamet?s Sexual Perversity in Chicago at The Complex Theater Row in Los Angeles. His New York City theater credits include In The Widow?s Garden at The New York Chekhov Now Festival, Salvation at Ensemble Studio Theater, Whiskey Down at the Million Stories Art Festival, Chicago City Limits. He has appeared in the films Kush, American Gun, When Will I Be Loved, The Final Patient, Trespassers, The Midnight Man, and Sent, which he also wrote and directed. Among his television credits are Law & Order, Law & Order:SVU, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, CSI:Miami, Cold Case, In Plain Sight, From The Underbelly and Guiding Light. Feldman received his training at the New York Conservatory For Dramatic Arts School Of Film and Television. He was also coached privately by Anthony Abeson and Caryn West and studied improvisation with The Groundlings and Chicago City Limits.
Rebecca Mozo has appeared at the Colony Theatre as Rita in Educating Rita and also won a Best Lead Actress Ovation Award nomination for her performance there in Trying. With South Coast Repertory, she played Sister James in Doubt, and this coming fall, she will play Marian Almond in The Heiress. With Center Theatre Group, she appeared as Anya in The Cherry Orchard opposite Annette Bening and Alfred Molina at the Mark Taper Forum. With Hollywood Food Chain Productions, she starred in I Capture the Castle (directed by Cameron Watson) and won an Ovation Award nomination for Best Lead Actress. She appeared in the award-winning Pera Palas With Antaeus Theatre Company at The Theatre @ Boston Court, the audio production of The Charles Dickens Project with LA Theatreworks, and Classicsfest?s The Dresser and A Month in the Country. Film appearances include The Waterhole, the award-winning independent film Zerophilia, and Headless Horseman, which was released on DVD this year. Television includes Cold Case, Medium, Young and the Restless, and Pizza Time. Mozo received her BFA in acting at Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University, and she also studied at Shakespeare?s Globe in London.
DEBORAH STRANG (Mrs. Alving) has been a Resident Artist with A Noise Within for 16 years and has performed in more than 40 productions. Most recently she played Gertrude in Hamlet. Other productions have ranged from Shakepeare to Tennessee Williams, and Chekhov to Alfred Jarry. Her favorite roles include Maxine Faulk in The Night of the Iguana, Mrs. Dearth in Dear Brutus, Paulina in The Winter?s Tale, the Nurse in Romeo and Juliet, Nora Melody in A Touch of the Poet, Ma Ubu in Ubu Roi, Dolly Levi in The Matchmaker, Amanda Wingfield in The Glass Menagerie, Mrs. Antrobus in The Skin of Our Teeth, Regina in Little Foxes, Alexandra in O Pioneers, Ranyevskaya in The Cherry Orchard, Rosemary in Picnic and as Titania in A Midsummer Night?s Dream in a co-production with the LA Philharmonic at the famed Hollywood Bowl. Also at ANW, Strang co-directed Moliere?s The Learned Ladies on the main stage as well as productions of Comedy of Errors and Twelfth Night for the Summer With Shakespeare teen programs. She currently teaches Acting Shakespeare and coaches the interns in the ANW Conservatory and recently spent two weeks as a guest artist at the acclaimed Oklahoma Arts Institute at Quartz Mountain. Her film and TV credits include Cold Case, Close to Home, Numb3rs Ghostwhisperer, Threshold, Carnivale, The X-Files, Deep Space Nine, Kiss the Girls, Things To Do In Denver, and the soon to be released Eagle Eye with Shia LaBeouf. Strang can be heard most Saturday mornings as the voice of Aunt May in the new animated TV series The Spectacular Spider-Man. Strang, a coal miner?s daughter, was born and raised in Apalachia, Virginia.
A Noise Within resident artist JOEL SWETOW (Pastor Manders), played Estragon in Waiting for Godot, which also featured fellow cast member Mark Bramhall. Also with ANW, he portrayed Duke Vincentio in Measure for Measure, Philante in The Misanthrope, Jaggers in Great Expectations, Scrooge in A Christmas Carol, Malvolio in Twelfth Night, Vershinin in The Three Sisters, Arnolphe in The School for Wives, the title role in Tartuffe, Shylock in The Merchant of Venice, as well as major roles in Under Milk Wood, The Seagull, Major Barbara, A Midsummer Night?s Dream, Blood Wedding, Man and Superman, The Duchess of Malfi and The Way of the World. For ANW he also co-directed The Learned Ladies. Among his numerous roles with New York City and regional theatre companies, Swetow played Marc Antony in Antony and Cleopatra at Theatricum Botanicum, appeared in Mad Forest at the Matrix Theatre Company, and played lead roles in The Normal Heart, Talley?s Folly, and The Sound of Teeth. He directed The Cherry Orchard at Interact Theatre Company, which earned the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award, Best Production of 1999, As You Like It at Actor?s Co-op, and the world premieres of My Brain Tumor and Muckrakers. Swetow directs The Crucible at Actors Co-op this spring. His film and television credits include Burn Notice, Charmed, Alias, Judging Amy, Stargate, She Spies, various Star Treks, Days of our Lives, 3 Ninjas, Live From Baghdad, The President?s Man 2, Clive Barker?s Lord of Illusions, the award winning shorts Chicxulub and Vartan LLP, and many others.
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