WEST COAST PREMIERE
ABOUT THE SHOW
Spring 1955 - the Jim Crow South. At Monteagle, Tennessee’s Highlander Folk School, the consequential labor and civil rights leadership training center, six ordinary people from vastly different backgrounds wrestle with the obstacles to a fully functioning democracy - and each other - as they seek to move the nation forward. A boiling cauldron of collisions, epiphanies, and hope paralleling today’s fractious fault lines, People Where They Are reveals - with compelling, entertaining relevance - what is at stake in keeping alive the American Experiment.
RUN TIME: This performance runs 2 hours. There is one 15 minute intermission.
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“Brilliant theater. … confront(ing) the demons of our past…”
“A timely production, penned with coruscating insight by Bay Area playwright Anthony Clarvoe, physical proximity is loaded with explosive peril.”
“… jaw-droppingly stellar cast and Benny Sato Ambush’s inspired and bold directorial decisions,
People Where They Are is a must attend, must-experience …”
“It is not just a play; it is a call to action. Its lessons resonate across time and place, reminding us to confront our own biases and work towards a more compassionate, equitable solidarity”
CAST & CREATIVES
BENNY SATO AMBUSH† Director
ANTHONY CLARVOE Playwright & Dramaturg
AWELE MAKEBA Assistant to the Direcotr & Consulting Dramaturg
ILIANA KARBOWSKI* Stage Manager
GUILIO CESARE PERRONE Scenic Design
MAURICE VERCOUTERE Lighting Design
BETHANY DEAL Costume Design
STEVE SCHOENBECK Sound Design
MARYBETH CAVANAUGH† Dance Choreographer
JENN TRAMPENAU Props Coordinator
KIMBERLY MOHNE HILL Dialect Coach
KRISTIN HILL Assistant Dialect Coach
JONATHAN RHYS WILLIAMS Set Construction
AARON GIN Master Electrician
CHEYENNE BACON Production Assistant
STEPH PUENTES Production Assistant
HALEY BAUGHER Production Assistant
*Denotes members of Actors’ Equity Association
†Denotes members of Stage Directors & Choreographers Society
^Denotes members of United Scenic Artists, the union of professional designers.
PRODUCTION PHOTOS
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR
Benny Sato Ambush is the Artistic Director of Venice, FL’s Venice Theatre, America's 2nd largest community theatre, and a veteran professional SDC stage director, educator, published commentator, and consultant. He has artistically helmed Richmond, VA's TheatreVirginia (LORT C), Oakland, CA's Oakland Ensemble Theatre (SPT), and Providence, RI's Rites and Reason Theatre Company (Academic). Previously: Associate Artistic Director, American Conservatory Theater; Associate Artistic Director - Anna Deavere Smith’s Institute on the Arts and Civic Dialogue at Harvard University; Director - Institute for Teledramatic Arts & Technology at California State University, Monterey Bay; Senior Distinguished Producing Director in Residence - Boston's Emerson Stage at Emerson College; Co-Artistic Director - San Francisco Bay Area Playwrights Festival. He has numerous professional regional theatre directing credits nationally and has taught acting and directing nationwide in MFA, BFA, and BA training programs. AB - Brown University; MFA - University of California, San Diego. Board Membership: College of Fellows of the American Theatre, Seven Devils New Play Foundry, National Theatre Conference, Founding Steering Committee Member - National Alliance of Acting Teachers.
“It is an honor and a gift to direct a play with such potent relevance to the current pulse of our time.”
ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT
Anthony Clarvoe is known for his plays Pick Up Ax, Show and Tell, The Living, Let’s Play Two, The Brothers Karamazov, Ambition Facing West, Walking Off the Roof, Ctrl+Alt+Delete, The Art of Sacrifice, Gunpowder Joe, and People Where They Are and his translations of Henrik Ibsen’s Ghosts and The Wild Duck. He has received American Theatre Critics, Will Glickman, Bay Area Theatre Critics, LA Drama Critics, Garland, Elliot Norton, and Edgerton New American Play awards; fellowships from the Guggenheim, Irvine, Jerome, and McKnight Foundations, National Endowment for the Arts, TCG/Pew Charitable Trusts, and Kennedy Center; commissions from South Coast Rep, Mark Taper Forum, and Playwrights Horizons; the Berrilla Kerr Award for his contributions to American theater; and many others. He teaches dramatic literature at OLLI@UC Berkeley and playwriting in Oakland, CA. A native San Franciscan and long-time resident of New York City and the Midwest, he lives with his family in Berkeley, CA.
“It is increasingly difficult to get people in one place talking who have not already made up their minds because they are tight in their own bubbles... To have to listen to each other as they explore their perceived crimes and slights and conflicts, and to discover the very difficult and dangerous common ground that lies between—that seems incredibly important to happen right now.”