THE ALLEY THEATRE
www.alleytheatre.org
Gregory Boyd, Artistic Director
 

PRESENT

FOOL

By Theresa Rebeck

Directed by Gregory Boyd

February 21 - March 16, 2014

(Left to Right) Elizabeth Bunch as Joss, Jeremy Webb as Stuart and Jeffrey Bean as King in the Alley Theatre’s world premiere production of Fool. Fool runs February 21 – March 16, 2014 on the Hubbard Stage.  Photo by Michal Daniel.

Alley Theatre Announces Cast and Creative Team for the World Premiere

of a New Comedy by Theresa Rebeck

FOOL

Fool Runs February 21 through March 16, 2014 on the Hubbard Stage

HOUSTON – Alley Theatre Artistic Director Gregory Boyd announces the cast and creative team for the world premiere of a new comedy by Theresa Rebeck, Fool.  In Rebeck’s new comedy, two kings get together and place a wager on their fools – a jester competition, and the funniest one gets to keep his head.  Two evil minions have a lot to say about this, but not as much as the kitchen wench.  And what's the queen been up to all night?  A dramatical comical farcical tragical play about power, love and laughter, set in a medieval kitchen. Adult Language, Adult Situations, Beheadings.

“I wanted to write a comedy about comedy, and about power, and the desperation behind comedy," Playwright Theresa Rebeck says. "My play is set in the sub-kitchen of a 14th century castle, where, on the whim of a royal, a court jester could lose a head. But a Fool’s wit, resilience and joy can turn things about and inspire us to laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. Is it similar to corporate power struggles in today's culture? One can only hope."

Fool is the fifth play by Theresa Rebeck to be produced by the Alley, starting with the hugely successful Bad Dates in 2005, which Arts Houston called “dazzling.” In 2007 the Alley produced The Scene, called “tightly written, sharply observed, and all too true . . . first-rate social satire” by the Houston Chronicle. The “cunningly crafted suspense comedy” (Houston Chronicle) Mauritius followed in 2009. The Alley Theatre’s most recent production of Rebeck’s work was the “juicy black comedy” (Variety) What We’re Up Against in 2012.

Highly ambitious, FOOL Joss sets her sights on the King played by Jeffrey Bean.  The Alley Theatre’s world premiere production of Fool runs February 21 – March 16, 2014 on the Hubbard Stage.  Photo by Michal Daniel.

 

In the past two seasons, Pulitzer Prize nominee Theresa Rebeck’s comedies, Seminar and Dead Accounts opened on Broadway. Seminar received rave reviews including: “the funniest show on Broadway” (WOR), “surprising and witty” (Wall Street Journal), “enormously entertaining” (Variety) and “one of Rebeck’s best works” (Associated Press).  USA Today called Dead Accounts “Rebeck’s most robustly entertaining Broadway entry to date, with dialogue that crackles and purrs.” Rebeck’s writing is described by the NY Daily News as showing “smarts, topicality and zingy dialogue” and the Houston Press writes “Rebeck’s dialogue is deliciously rich with wry observations about the current human condition.”  In addition to writing and producing for Law & Order: Criminal Intent and NYPD Blue, she is the creator of the NBC drama SMASH and one of its executive producers.  Her play, The Scene, which the Alley produced in 2007, has been turned into a feature film titled Seducing Charlie Barker in 2010.  She was named one of the 150 Fearless Women in the World by Newsweek in 2011.

Fool features Resident Company Members Jeffrey Bean as King and Elizabeth Bunch as Joss.

Fool also features Joey Collins as Elliot (Alley Debut), Alma Cuervo as Queen (Alley’s You Can’t Take It With You), Sean Dugan as Marvel (Alley Debut), Carine Montbertrand as Lizabeth (Alley Debut) and Jeremy Webb as Stuart (Alley’s A Few Good Men).

Fool features scenic design by Neil Patel and costume design by Judith Dolan. Lighting design is by Japhy Weideman with music composition and sound design by Rob Milburn & Michael Bodeen and Fight Director Brian Byrnes. Fool also features Voice, Text And Dialect Coach Barney Hammond with New York casting by Pat McCorkle, McCorkle Casting, ltd. and Assistant Director Brandon Weinbrenner.

Fool, by Theresa Rebeck, directed by Gregory Boyd, begins performances Friday, February 21, 2014 opens officially Wednesday, February 26, and runs through March 16, 2014 on the Hubbard Stage.

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Jeremy Webb as the FOOL Stuart in the Alley Theatre’s world premiere production of Fool. Fool runs February 21 – March 16, 2014 on the Hubbard Stage.  Photo by Michal Daniel.

A Dose of Laughter, the Best Medicine for Medieval Times

Review of the play FOOL at the Alley Theatre

By Trisha Kaye
February, 2014
Houston, Texas
TexasWriter123@gmail.com

                This is the day of the fast paced lifestyle.  Plastic projected scenes played on flat screens after months of takes, retakes, cutting and splicing.  On February 26th, 2014 it was refreshing to return to live theater, in this case the Alley Theatre in the downtown theatre district.  I was privileged to attend the new comedy Fool written by playwright Theresa Rebeck on a cold, rain drenched Wednesday evening.  However, the ill weather did not damper the Alley Theatre patrons who filled the theater close to capacity.  The excitement and enthusiasm of seeing this new production was expressed by many of the patrons with whom I spoke before the theater opened for seating.

Houston Area Author / Poet

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"This competition of fools feels most diverting.  A terribly amusing diversion!" says Elliot played by Joey Collins.  (Left to Right) Jeremy Webb as Stuart, Joey Collins as Elliot and Elizabeth Bunch as Joss in the Alley Theatre’s world premiere production of Fool. Fool runs February 21 – March 16, 2014 on the Hubbard Stage.  Photo by Michal Daniel.

ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT

Theresa Rebeck is a widely produced playwright throughout the United States and abroad. New York productions of her work include Dead Accounts at the Music Box Theatre; Seminar at the Golden Theatre; Mauritius at the Biltmore Theatre in a Manhattan Theater Club Production; The Scene, The Water’s Edge, Loose Knit, The Family of Mann and Spike Heels at Second Stage; Bad Dates, The Butterfly Collection and Our House at Playwrights Horizons; The Understudy at the Laura Pels Theater in a Roundabout Theatre Company production; and View of the Dome at New York Theatre Workshop. Omnium Gatherum (co-written, finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2003) was featured at the Humana Festival, and had a commercial run at the Variety Arts Theatre. Her newest work, Poor Behavior premiered at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles in 2011 and will be seen at Primary Stages in 2014.

All of Ms. Rebeck’s past produced plays are published by Smith and Kraus as Theresa Rebeck: Complete Plays, Volumes I, II III, and IV and in acting editions available from Samuel French or Playscripts. Ms. Rebeck’s other publications are Free Fire Zone, a book of comedic essays about writing and show business. She has written for American Theatre Magazine and has had excerpts of her plays published in the Harvard Review. Ms. Rebeck’s first novel, Three Girls and Their Brother, was published by Random House/Shaye Areheart Books in April 2008. Her second novel, Twelve Rooms With A View, was published by Random House/Shaye Areheart Books in May of 2010. Both novels are available online and at booksellers everywhere. In television, Ms. Rebeck has written for Dream On, Brooklyn Bridge, L.A. Law, American Dreamer, Maximum Bob, First Wave, and ThirdWatch. She was the creator of the NBC drama Smash. She has been a writer/producer for Canterbury’s Law, Smith, Law and Order:Criminal Intent and NYPD Blue. Her produced feature films include Harriet the Spy, Gossip, and the independent features Sunday on the Rocks and Seducing Charlie Barker, an adaptation of her play, The Scene. Awards include the Mystery Writer’s of America’s Edgar Award, the Writer’s Guild of America award for Episodic Drama, the Hispanic Images Imagen Award, and the Peabody, all for her work on NYPD Blue. She has won the National Theatre Conference Award (for The Family of Mann), and was awarded the William Inge New Voices Playwriting Award in 2003 for The Bells. Mauritius was originally produced at Boston’s Huntington Theatre, where it received the 2007 IRNE Award for Best New Play as well as the Eliot Norton Award. Other awards include the PEN/Laura Pels Foundation Award, the Athena Film Festival Award, an Alex Award, a Lilly Award and in 2011 she was named one of the 150 Fearless Women in the World by Newsweek.

Ms. Rebeck is originally from Cincinnati and holds an MFA in Playwrighting and a PhD. in Victorian Melodrama, both from Brandeis University. She is a proud board member of the Dramatists Guild, a Contributing Editor to the Harvard Review, an Associate Artist of the Roundabout Theatre Company and has taught at Brandeis University and Columbia University. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two children.

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Carine Montbertrand as Lizabeth in the Alley Theatre’s world premiere production of Fool. Fool runs February 21 – March 16, 2014 on the Hubbard Stage.  Photo by Michal Daniel.

ABOUT THE CAST

Jeffrey Bean (King) is in his 19th season as an Alley Company Artist and has appeared in over 100 Alley productions since 1989. Recently he has appeared in A Christmas Carol as Ebenezer Scrooge, You Can’t Take it With You as Mr. De Pinna, The Elephant Man as Frederick Treves, Clybourne Park as Russ/Dan, Death of a Salesman as Charley and November as Charles Smith. Previous Alley highlights include Amadeus as Salieri, Boeing-Boeing as Robert, The Farnsworth Invention as David Sarnoff, Cyrano de Bergerac as Cyrano, The Scene as Charlie, Doubt as Father Flynn, Subject to Fits as Prince Myshkin, Much Ado About Nothing as Benedick, The Pillowman as Michal, Twelfth Night as Feste, The Importance of Being Earnest as Algernon, Billy Bishop Goes to War as Billy Bishop, Gross Indecency as Oscar Wilde, The Foreigner as Charlie Baker and Stones in His Pockets as Charlie Conlon, et al. Broadway credits include Bells Are Ringing as Francis and Amadeus as Kappelmeister Bonno. Film & Television credits include Clinger, Law & Order, Law & Order: SVU and All My Children. He is a graduate of Southern Methodist University’s Meadows School of the Arts and a Princess Grace Award winner. www.jeffreybean.com

Elizabeth Bunch (Joss) has appeared in more than 40 productions at the Alley Theatre since 2002. This Premier of Fool marks her third production of a Theresa Rebeck play. She was previously seen as Jackie in Mauritius and Clea in The Scene. Most recently Elizabeth appeared as Brooke Wyeth in Other Desert Cities. Previous Alley performances include Gay Wellington in You Can’t Take it With You, Mrs. Kendal in The Elephant Man, Bev/Kathy in Clybourne Park, Bernstein in November, Eliza Dolittle in Pygmalion, Karen in August: Osage County, Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure of the Suicide Club, The Hollow, Peter Pan, Boeing-Boeing, Harvey, 39 Steps, Our Town, The Lieutenant of Inishmore, Doubt, Steel Magnolias, Proof, and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. New York and Regional theater include The Water Children with Playwrights Horizons, The Voice of the Turtle and Museum with The Keen Company, The Light Outside with Bat Theater Company, Little Foxes with The Denver Center for the Performing Arts, A Midsummer Night’s Dream with The Guthrie Theater and the national tour of Goosebumps. With the Breadloaf Acting Ensemble she appeared in A Streetcar Named Desire, Romeo and Juliet, Twelfth Night, Measure for Measure, Big Love and Arcadia. Television includes Law and Order: SVU. Elizabeth is a graduate of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.

Elizabeth Bunch poses as a male jester Joss in the Alley Theatre’s world premiere production of Fool.  Fool runs February 21 – March 16, 2014 on the Hubbard Stage.  Photo by Michal Daniel.

Joey Collins (Elliot) is thrilled to be making his Alley Theatre debut in Fool. His Broadway credits include The Glass Menagerie with Jessica Lange, Rock ‘n’ Roll and The Lonesome West. Off-Broadway he has performed in Vieux Carré directed by Austin Pendleton at The Pearl Theatre Company; BUG by Tracy Letts; Beasley’s Christmas Party with Keen Company; Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde with Tectonic Theater Project; Apartment 3A; The Antigone Project with The Women’s Project Theater. Regionally, creations include F. Scott Fitzgerald in the world premiere of Mark St. Germain’s Scott and Hem in the Garden of Allah both at the Contemporary American Theater Festival and Barrington Stage Company; Neil LaBute’s In A Forest Dark and Deep and Evan M. Weiner’s Captors, Contemporary American Theater Festival; The Pillowman; A Steady Rain; The Shape of Things; Sideman at The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis; The Night of the Iguana; The Caretaker at Triad Stage; Suddenly Last Summer at Berkeley Repertory Theatre; Kingdom of Earth at Yale Repertory Theatre; Proof with Pioneer Theatre Company; the World Premiere of Custody of the Eyes at Cleveland Play House; Beat Generation with Merrimack Repertory Theatre. Joey has also worked with Pittsburgh Public Theater, The Old Globe, Cape Playhouse, American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, and others. Film credits include Dottie’s Thanksgiving Pickle with Olympia Dukakis and Bittersweet. Television credits include Law and Order, Kidnapped, All My Children, Guiding Light,  and As the World Turns. He holds an MFA from University of Alabama/Alabama Shakespeare Festival and a BA from UNC-Wilmington. www.joeycollins.net

Alma Cuervo (Queen) is thrilled to return to the Alley, where she played in The Baltimore Waltz in 1992 and You Can’t Take It With You last fall. Broadway credits include: Beauty And The Beast, Cabaret, Titanic, The Heidi Chronicles, Ghetto, Quilters, Is There Life After High School?, Censored Scenes From King Kong and Bedroom Farce. National Tours include My Fair Lady, Wicked, Cabaret, and M. Butterfly. Recent Off-Broadway credits include Far From Heaven and Sondheim and Weidman’s Road Show. She won an OBIE for her performance in Uncommon Women And Others, also PBS. Recent regional credits include 4000 Miles at Good Theater in Portland, Into The Woods at Baltimore/Westport, The Clean House at Syracuse Stage, And The Curtain Rises with Signature Theatre Company, The Three Sisters at Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park and The Miracle At Naples at Huntington Theatre Company. She won a BARRYMORE Award for The Beauty Queen Of Leenane at Philadelphia Theatre Company. She was a series costar of Norman Lear’s Aka Pablo. Graduate of Tulane and Yale Drama School.

Originally, there were two Kings.  Both end up dead.  Why?  There is only one logical explanation:  Long Live the Queen!  Alma Cuervo as Queen in the hilarious Alley Theatre’s world premiere production of Fool.  Fool runs February 21 – March 16, 2014 on the Hubbard Stage.  Photo by Michal Daniel.

Sean Dugan (Marvel) makes his Alley debut in Fool. On Broadway, his performance in Next Fall received a Drama Desk Award nomination. Off-Broadway credits include Tail!Spin!, The Illusion, Next Fall, The English Channel, Perfect Harmony, BFF, Nerds: The Musical, Valhalla, Flesh and Blood, Corpus Christi and Shakespeare’s R&J. He has worked across the country at the Chautauqua Theater Company, American Conservatory Theater, Round House Theatre, Yale Repertory Theatre, Huntington Theatre Company, The Old Globe, California Shakespeare Theater, and as a company member for three seasons at the American Repertory Theater. His film credits include Stephen King’s A Good Marriage, the short film Dinner@40 (both upcoming), Victoriana, Gigantic, Trust the Man, Company Man, and Overnight Sensation. Television credits include Theresa Rebeck’s Smash, Boardwalk Empire, Blue Bloods, Elementary, I Just Want My Pants Back, The Good Wife, Fringe, Law & Order: SVU and Criminal Intent and four seasons as Timmy Kirk on HBO’s Oz. He graduated with Honors from Brandeis University.

Carine Montbertrand (Lizabeth) played Hannah in The Night of the Iguana directed by Ed Stern this past fall at University of Delaware Resident Ensemble Players, where, as a company member, she’s also appeared in Theresa Rebeck’s premieres of Fever and O Beautiful as well as Noises Off directed by Gregory Boyd. Off-Broadway credits include Classical Theatre of Harlem’s Henry V; Soho Repertory’s The Flying Machine’s Frankenstein; and two seasons with The Acting Company (Lady Macbeth, Margaret). Regional credits include Othello at Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park for which she won an AcclaimAward for supporting performance as Emilia, Actors Theatre of Louisville, The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, Pioneer Theatre Company, Capital Repertory Theatre, Hangar Theatre, Utah Shakespeare Festival, Milwaukee Repertory Theater, the Independent Shakespeare Company in LA and many others. She has narrated dozens of audiobooks, mostly for Recorded Books Productions, and is the recipient of AudioFile’s Earphones Award and The American Library Association’s Notable Recording and Selected Audio. T.V. credits include As the World Turns.

Jeremy Webb (Stuart) is thrilled to return to The Alley where he appeared in Gregory Boyd’s production of A Few Good Men as Danny Kaffee. Houston credits include Sir Robin in Spamalot at Theatre Under The Stars. New York credits include The Visit  on Broadway and with The Actors Fund; The Glorious Ones at Lincoln Center Theater, Original Cast Recording; The Baltimore Waltz with Signature Theatre Company; Tabletop with Working Theater, which received a Drama Desk Award; Photograph 51 at The Ensemble Studio Theatre; BFF at Women’s Project Theater; and workshops of The Royal Family of Broadway, Dance of the Vampires and Yeast Nation. Regional credits include The Apple Family Plays at Studio Theatre; Williamstown Theatre Festival; McCarter Theatre Center; The Eugene O’Neill Theater Center; New York Stage and Film; The Old Globe; The Kennedy Center; Long Wharf Theatre; Shakespeare Theatre Company; the Huntington Theatre Company; and The Hangar Theatre. His film and television credits include Love Walked In, Law & Order (Guest), Law & Order: SVU, Law & Order: Criminal Intent (twice), and over 100 episodes as Thomas on The Guiding Light. Radio credits include Next Fall with NPR/LA Theatreworks. Mr. Webb received his training from The Drama School at The University of North Carolina School of the Arts. Upcoming credits include Maria Aitken’s production of Noel Coward’s Private Lives with Shakespeare Theatre Company.

Jeremy Webb as Stuart in the Alley Theatre’s world premiere production of Fool. Fool runs February 21 – March 16, 2014 on the Hubbard Stage.  Photo by Michal Daniel.

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ABOUT THE CREATIVE TEAM

Gregory Boyd (Director) is celebrating his 24th season as Artistic Director of the Alley. During his tenure the Alley has risen in national and international prominence, winning the Special Tony Award and experiencing record growth in its Houston audiences, while also transferring its productions to major European Festivals (including two in one season at the Venice Biennale), Broadway, and on tour to 40 American cities. Boyd’s addition of artistic associates has enhanced the Alley’s visibility and reputation worldwide; while his commitment to maintaining a resident company of actors has made the Alley unique among American theatre companies. At the Alley, Mr. Boyd has produced over 100 new productions of the widest ranging repertoire in the country, among them the premieres of Not About Nightingales by Tennessee Williams (Alley, London, Broadway), Jekyll & Hyde, (Alley, National Tour, Broadway), The Civil War (which he also co-authored), Shakespeare’s Roman Plays (with Vanessa and Corin Redgrave); Robert Wilson’s productions of Hamlet, When We Dead Awaken and Danton’s Death (with Richard Thomas); Ellen Burstyn in O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night and Tony Kushner’s Angels in America Parts 1 & 2 (both directed by Michael Wilson), premieres by Keith Reddin (Synergy); Eve Ensler (Lemonade); and Alley Artistic Associates Edward Albee (The Play About the Baby), Horton Foote (The Carpetbagger’s Children), Ken Ludwig (The Gershwins’ An American in Paris, Leading Ladies) and Frank Wildhorn (Jekyll & Hyde, Wonderland and The Civil War). At the Alley, he has appeared as an actor in Danton’s Death (Tom Paine) and Cyrano de Bergerac (Cyrano) and directed over 40 productions including: Seagull, Rock ‘n’ Roll, Eurydice, Cyrano de Bergerac, Treasure Island, Subject to Fits, Hitchcock Blonde, Hapgood, The Pillowman, Jekyll & Hyde, Three Sisters, In the Jungle of Cities, After the Fall, The Greeks, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Macbeth, As You Like It, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Directing projects outside the Alley have included Our Town at Hartford Stage (Hal Holbrook), Coward’s Design for Living at Williamstown (Marisa Tomei, Campbell Scott, Steven Weber), Stoppard’s Travesties at Long Wharf (Sam Waterston, Tom Hewitt) and the premiere of Pulitzer Prize winner Robert Schenkkan’s Lewis and Clark Reach the Euphrates at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles. This season, he will direct Death of a Salesman and The Elephant Man. Boyd has served as Panelist for the National Endowment of the Arts, the Texas Commission on the Arts and the Massachusetts Council for the Arts. He has taught on the faculties of Carnegie-Mellon, Williams College, the University of Houston, and the University of North Carolina, where he headed the Professional Theatre Training Program. He was educated at the University of California, Berkeley, where he is a Distinguished Alumnus, and at Carnegie-Mellon.

Neil Patel (Scenic Design) Alley Theatre credits include The Real Thing, Hamlet, Dinner with Friends and Pygmalion. Mr. Patel's designs are well known on and off Broadway and at regional theaters and opera houses in the US and abroad. Mr. Patel designed the original productions of Water by the Spoonful which won the Pulitzer Prize, Side Man which won the Tony Award Best Play, Dinner with Friends which won the Pulitzer Prize, Collected Stories, American Night, References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot, Adoration of the Old Woman, Quills,  The Grey Zone, Reasons to Be Happy, The Mercy Seat, Some Girl(s), By the Way, Meet Vera Stark, A Question of Mercy, The Language Archive, [title of show],  Madame Mao, Anna Karenina, Pilobolus' Shadowland , the HBO series In Treatment which won a Peabody Award and the feature film Some Velvet Morning with TriBeCa Films. neilpateldesign.com

"Comedy is meant to be illuminating!" says Joss played by Elizabeth Bunch in the Alley Theatre’s world premiere production of Fool. Fool runs February 21 – March 16, 2014 on the Hubbard Stage.  Photo by Michal Daniel.

Judith Dolan (Costume Design) has designed costumes for numerous Alley Theatre productions, including Freud’s Last Session, You Can’t Take It With You, The Seafarer, Harvey, The Lieutenant of Inishmore, Arsenic and Old Lace, Leading Ladies, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, The Glass Menagerie, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Macbeth and As You Like It.  Her work extends beyond theatre to opera, film and television. Dolan is a Tony Award-winner for Candide, who also earned a Lucille Lortelle Award for The Petrified Prince and two Drama Desk nominations. She designed the Broadway production of LoveMusik, with music by Kurt Weill, as well as Parade and Hollywood Arms by Carol Burnett and Carrie Hamilton. Other credits include Lewis and Clark Reach the Euphrates and Travesties, both directed by Gregory Boyd and the current The Winter's Tale at the Old Globe, directed by Barry Edelstein.  Opera designs include Idomeneo for Wolf Trap Opera Company and Christholf Von Dohnanyi’s The Magic Flute for The Cleveland Orchestra. Dolan has designed for a number of other companies, including Dublin’s Abbey Theatre, Theatre Clwyd in Wales, Brooklyn Academy of Music, D.C.’s Shakespeare Theatre Company, Goodman Theatre, Houston Grand Opera and the Old Globe Theatre. She has a Ph.D. in Directing and Design from Stanford University and is a Professor in the Department of Theater and Dance at the University of California, San Diego. She is the recipient of the 2014 League of Professional Theatre Women's Ruth Morley Design Award. 

Japhy Weideman (Lighting Design) Alley Theatre credits include The Mountaintop. Broadway credits include The Nance which received a Tony Nomination, Macbeth, The Snow Geese, and Cyrano de Bergerac. Other New York credits include 4000 Miles, Slow Girl, All-American, Stunning, A Kid Like Jake at Lincoln Center Theater; Sons of the Prophet, Tigers Be Still at Roundabout Theatre Company; All New People, Warrior Class, The Talls at Second Stage Theatre; Wild With Happy, The Singing Forest at The Public/New York Stage and Film; Frankenstein at Soho Repertory Theater, which received a Drama Desk Nomination; Jack Goes Boating which received Drama Desk and Lortel Nominations, Last Days of Judas Iscariot, Little Flower of East Orange at LAByrinth Theater Company. Regional credits include American Conservatory Theater, Arena Stage, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Cleveland Play House, Huntington Theatre Company, La Jolla Playhouse, Magic Theatre, The Old Globe, Shakespeare Theatre Company, and Williamstown Theatre Festival. International credits include West End, Royal Sheakespeare Company, La Scala, De Nederlandse Opera, Edinburgh Festival, Epidaurus Greece. Upcoming credits include Of Mice and Men starring James Franco on Broadway.

Rob Milburn & Michael Bodeen (Sound Design) Broadway credits include music composition and sound for No Man's Land / Waiting for Godot, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, The Miracle Worker, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and The Speed of Darkness; music for My Thing of Love; and sound for Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Superior Donuts, reasons to be pretty, A Year with Frog and Toad, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, Hollywood Arms, King Hedley II, Buried Child, The Song of Jacob Zulu and The Grapes of Wrath. Off Broadway credits include music and sound for Checkers, Inked Baby, After Ashley, Boy Gets Girl, Red, Space, The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci and Marvin's Room; sound for Brundibar, The Pain and the Itch and Jitney; and music direction and sound for Eyes for Consuela and Ruined.  Recent original music and sound credits at Houston’s Alley Theatre include Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure of the Suicide Club, The Seagull,  Peter Pan or The Boy Who Would Not Grow Up and Cyrano de Bergerac and sound design for You Can’t Take It With You and  Rock’n’Roll. They have created music and sound at many of America's resident theatres, often with Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre, the Comedy Theatre in London's West End, The Barbican Center, the National Theatre of Great Britain, the Cameri Theatre in Tel Aviv, the Subaru Acting Company in Japan and festivals in Toronto, Dublin, Galway, Perth and Sydney. Please visit www.milbomusic.com.

Barney Hammond (Voice, Text, and Dialect Coach) trained at London's Royal Central School of Speech and Drama with Cicely Berry and has an Advanced Diploma in Voice Studies and Guildhall School of Music and Drama with Patsy Rodenburg.  He has coached over 50 productions for the Stratford Festival including such highlights as Michael Langham's Measure for Measure with Elizabeth Marvel, Timon of Athens with Brian Bedford, Phaedra with Patricia Conolly, Hamlet, Macbeth,  Imaginary Invalid  with William Hutt, Our Town with Roberta Maxwell and School for Wives with Brian Bedford. He has also coached for the Shaw Festival Theatre for two seasons, Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington DC, The Old Globe, Seattle Shakespeare Company, The Acting Company, and Canadian Stage. He designed the voice program for the University of North Carolina School of the Arts,  Former students include Fool's Drama Desk Award winner Jeremy Webb; Tony nominee Lauren Ward in Matilda; Daniel Stewart Sherman in Kinky Boots; Paul Whitty in Once; Obie winner Marc Damon Johnson, Missi Pyle in Oscar winning The Artist, playwright JT Rogers, director John Langs. Other teaching includes National Theatre School, Canada, Guildhall, Moscow Art Theatre, University of Texas at Austin.

Elizabeth Bunch as Joss in the Alley Theatre’s world premiere production of Fool. Fool runs February 21 – March 16, 2014 on the Hubbard Stage.  Photo by Michal Daniel.

McCorkle Casting, ltd. (New York Casting) Broadway credits include productions of End of the Rainbow; The Lieutenant Of Inishmore; The Glass Menagerie; Cat On A Hot Tin Roof; One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest; Amadeus; She Loves Me; Blood Brothers and A Few Good Men. Off-Broadway credits include Lady Day; Tribes; Falling; Our Tow; Almost Maine; Freud’s Last Session; and Driving Miss Daisy. Feature Film credits include Premium Rush; Ghost Town; Secret Window; Tony and Tina’s Wedding; The Thomas Crown Affair; Die Hard III; and School Ties. Television credits include “Twisted” “Sesame Street”; “Californication” which received an Emmy nomination, “Chapell’s Show” and "St. George" a new series starring George Lopez. www.mccorklecasting.com

Brian Byrnes (Fight Director) has staged fights and movement for over 60 Alley Theatre productions including Noises Off!, Peter Pan, Cyrano de Bergerac, The Pillowman, Deathtrap, The Comedy of Errors and many others.  Credentials include Fight Director and Certified Teacher via the Society of American Fight Directors, as well as SAFD Fight Master for his outstanding contributions to the art form and to the SAFD. Other fight direction includes New York theaters, regional theaters, opera companies, Shakespeare festivals, American Players Theatre, Dallas Theater Center, Texas Ballet Theater, Houston Grand Opera, Stages Repertory Theatre, Theatre Under The Stars, Houston Ballet, Houston Shakespeare Festival, Dominic Walsh Dance Theater, The Ensemble Studio Theatre, The Catastrophic Theatre, as well as “motion capture” for animation companies in the U.S. and Sweden.  Brian is a proud member of AEA and acting work includes the Alley Theatre, Stages Repertory Theatre, regional theatres and Shakespeare festivals.  He also works as a director and has written several plays that have been professionally produced. He is an Associate Professor with the Old Globe/USD MFA in Dramatic Arts.

Brandon Weinbrenner (Assistant Director) is pleased to be working on his seventh show at the Alley as Assistant Director, having previously worked on Other Desert Cities, You Can’t Take It With You, The Hollow, Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure of the Suicide Club, The Elephant Man, and A Few Good Men. Brandon made his Alley Theatre directing debut with David Ives’ Venus in Fur earlier this season. Past theatrical credits include serving as the Bret C.Harte Directing Fellow at Berkeley Rep, producing the 2013 Out of the Loop Fringe Festival in his hometown of Dallas, Texas, and acting in productions at the Guthrie Theater, The Children’s Theatre Co., Illusion Theater, WaterTower Theatre, and Undermain Theatre. Brandon is a graduate of the University of Minnesota/Guthrie Theater BFA Acting Training Program.

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ABOUT THE ALLEY THEATRE

The Alley Theatre is a nationally recognized Theatre Company based in Houston, Texas.  The Alley was founded in 1947 and is one of the few US companies with a commitment to resident artists. Under the direction of Artistic Director Gregory Boyd and Managing Director Dean R. Gladden, the Alley creates a wide-ranging repertoire of innovative productions of classics, neglected modern plays, and new works in its 11 production season. The Alley has brought its productions to Broadway, Off-Broadway, London, 40 American cities, to Berlin, Paris, and St. Petersburg, as well as to major European festivals (including two in one season at the Venice Biennale). A recipient of the Special Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre, the Alley has premiered plays by Edward Albee, Horton Foote, Robert Wilson, Rajiv Joseph. Kenneth Lin,  Eve Ensler, Keith Reddin, and Herbert Siguenza, as well as creating the premieres of the musicals Jekyll & Hyde, The Civil War, and Wonderland. Other notable collaborations include The Roman Plays (with Vanessa Redgrave), Hydriotaphia (by Tony Kushner), and Danton's Death. The Alley’s productions are built and rehearsed in the Alley Theatre Center for Theatre Production – a 75,000-square-foot facility adjacent to the theatres themselves and are performed on the 824-seat Hubbard Stage and the 310-seat Neuhaus Stage. The Alley continues to provide its audiences with thought-provoking, diverse and transformative theatre. alleytheatre.org

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SPONSORS

Fool is generously sponsored Honorary Producers Cornelia and Meredith Long and Supporting Sponsor Technip USA. The Alley Theatre is supported by the 2013-2014 season sponsor United Airlines, the official airline of the Alley Theatre.

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TICKET INFORMATION

Tickets to Fool start at $26. All tickets to Fool are available for purchase at alleytheatre.org, at the Alley Theatre Box Office, 615 Texas Avenue, or by calling 713.220.5700. Groups of 10 or more can receive special concierge services and select discounts by calling 713.220.5700 and asking for the group sales department.

(Left to Right) Elizabeth Bunch as Joss, Carine Montbertrand as Lizabeth and Jeremy Webb as Stuart in the Alley Theatre’s world premiere production of Fool. Fool runs February 21 – March 16, 2014 on the Hubbard Stage.  Photo by Michal Daniel.

REDCOLLAR RESCUE $10 TIX 

Saturday, February 22, 2014

The Alley Theatre continues its efforts to make the theatre affordable to patrons. Partnering with other social non-profit organizations, the Alley seeks to generate in-kind donations and reward patrons with $10 Tix for select performances. The $10 Tix are available in person only on Saturday, February 22, and are limited to two tickets per person. With your donation, you can purchase two $10 tickets for Sunday, February 23 at 7:30 p.m., Tuesday, February 25 at 7:30 p.m. or Thursday, February 27 at 7:30 p.m. Donate and purchase in person at the box office (615 Texas Ave.) on Saturday, February 22 only. Limited availability. The requested donation for Fool is new/unused Milkbones or USA-made Rawhide treats.

CAPTIONED AND AUDIO DESCRIBED PERFORMANCE

Sunday, February 22, 2014 at 2:30 p.m.

The Alley Theatre offers access services for our deaf or hard of hearing and sight-impaired patrons. Audio Description is provided for each Hubbard Stage production and Open Captioning is offered for every Hubbard Stage and Neuhaus Stage production. To ensure that your seats will accommodate your needs, please call the box office 713.220.5700 when ordering tickets to this performance.  Discounted tickets are available for groups of 10 or more.

INTERACT

Thursday, February 27, 2014 at 6:00 p.m.

Grab your group and join us for InterACT, the Alley Theatre’s newest pre-show mixer for groups of 10 or more. Interact and network with members of other theatre-loving groups while enjoying music, complimentary cocktails and appetizers provided by Frankie P. Mandola's Catering and Damian's Cucina Italiana. This pre-curtain event is free with a group purchase of 10 or more tickets to the 7:30 p.m. Thursday, February 27 performance of  Fool. Group Leaders can contact the Group Sales Department at 713.315.3346 or email groupsales@alleytheatre.org to inquire about group rates, seat availability, easy payment options and flexible payment due dates. The Group Sales Department is open from 9:30 a.m. - 6 p.m., Monday through Friday. InterACT is a great way to mix and mingle prior to seeing the performance. Treat your group to an evening of fun and come interact with the Alley – space is limited so call today!

TALKBACK

Tuesday, March 4, 2014 at 7:30 p.m.

Members of the cast return to the stage following the performance to take questions from the audience. TalkBacks are led by a member of the Alley Artistic Staff.

ACTOUT

Thursday March 6, 2014 at 6:00 – 7:15 p.m.

Join the hottest GLBT theatre event in town! ActOUT is in its fifth season with a variety of events and productions that will once again have Houston’s GLBT community talking. Patrons enjoy fabulous pre-performance mixers with music, socializing, complimentary cocktails and appetizers. The place to see and be seen, ActOUT is sure to be a great night on the town. This pre-curtain event is free with your ticket to the Thursday, March 6, 7:30 p.m. performance. To buy a ticket, required for this event, use the promo code: ACTOUT. Purchase by calling the box office anytime at 713.220.5700, then enter 1. For more information, please call 713.228.9341 ext. 556.

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