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Ann Arbor Civic Theatre Opening night June 1, 2000 at the Playhouse

THE Heidi Uhroniules

Written by

Wendy Wasserstein

Producer Jan Koengeter

Assistant Director

Sharon Sheldon

Stage Manager Deb Huntley

Set Designer Slide Projectionist

Art Exhibit Coordinator Pax Bobrow

Set Builder Jim Barnes

Set Crew John Alexander Heidi Buchele Andrew Goss Deb Huntley Pat Huntley

Angela Hurlbut Roberta P~tersen Josephine Rood

Glen Ulrich

Directed by

Jan Koengeter

Special Thanks to

Assistant Stage Manager Michele Leshan

Sound Designer Jeff Zupan

Sound Operator Neil Clennan

Lighting Designer & Operator Amanda Diaz

Props & Set Dressing Barbara Wells

Costumes

Cast Susie Berneis

Make-Up & Hair Cast

Costume Running Crew Heidi's Dresser Alix Berneis

Carol Powloski of the Eastern Michigan University Slide Library for providing us with the slides for the play, Ann Arbor Community Education and Recreation, and

Kathi Genik for filling in as Heidi's Dresser on the night Alix was unavailable.

Cast (in order of appearance)

Heidi Holland · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · Mori Richner

Susan Johnston · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · Debra Steele Chris Boxer, Hippie, Mark, Steve The TV Technician, Waiter & Ray · · · · · · · · · · · · · R.J. White

Peter Patrone · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · Michael A. LaFlamme

Scoop Rosenbaum · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · Carl Hanna Jill · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · Sharon Sheldon Fran & April Lambert··············································· Susie Bemeis

Becky Groves················································ Melissa 'Misty' Mills

Debbie· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · Michele Leshan

Molly & Betsy · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · Jennifer Nardine Lisa Freidlander Rosenbaum· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · Rebecca Kleinheksel

Denise Friedlander · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · Cherie Kifer

Synopsis of S~enes Act I Prologue: Columbia University Lecture Hall, New York, 1989

Scene 1: High School Dance, Chicago, 1965 Scene 2: Eugene McCarthy Fundraiser Dance, Manchester, New Hampshire, 1968 Scene 3: Huron Street Ann Arbor Consciousness Raising Rap Group, 1970

Scene 4: Protest outside the Chicago Art Institute, 1974

Scene 5: Outside the Pierre Hotel Ballroom (Wedding Reception), New York, 1977

Act II Prologue: Columbia University Lecture Hall, New York, 1989

Scene 1: Scoop & Lisa's New York Apartment (Baby Shower), 1980

Scene 2: "Hello New York" TV Studio, 1982

Scene 3: Trendy New York Restaurant, 1984

Scene 4: "Women-Where Are We Going?" Luncheon, Plaza Hotel, New York, 1986

Scene 5: Pediatrics Ward Lounge, New York, 1987

Scene 6: Heidi's New York Apartment, 1989

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About the Cast and Crew Jim Barnes (Set Builder) One of Jim's retire­

ment hobbies is set building. He has been on

many AACT set crews, and both designed and

built some of them, Candide, Blood Wedding,

Brighton Beach Memoirs, that he can remem­

ber. He also is a regular set crew member for

the University of Michigan Gilbert and Sulli­

van Society. Besides all that he fiddles with

the innards of computers and with other elec­

tronic stuff.

Susie Berneis (Fran and April) After playing

the wonderfully poisonous Stella in AACT's

Light Up the Sky, Susie was going to take a

little rest but who can resist The Heidi Chron­

icles? She is also delighted to be plumbing her

own history in order to help with costuming.

What a long, strange trip it's been!" Thanks to

old friends and new!

Pax Bobrow (Set Design) Pax is a student of

fine arts at Eastern Michigan University. She

has been involved with theater since she was

nine years old. This is her first attempt at set

design. Pax can do anything because Andrew believes in her.

Neil Clennan (Sound Operator) has worked

backstage several times before but this is his

first experience running sound. Jan and the

cast greatly appreciate that he stepped in at

the very last minute when a replacement was

needed! Neil is more often seen onstage at

AACT-most recently as the Mute in The

F antasticks earlier this season. Neil was glad

' to be our "midnight hour" savior, especially

since Jan is a friend who has directed him as

an actor twice before, and hopefully will direct

him again someday soon!

Amanda Diaz (Lighting) I'm glad to be work­ing lighting for this show. Other shows I have

worked on are Angels In America, The Fan­

tasticks, and was crew in The Crucible. Most

recently I was spotlight coordinator for A Chorus Line. I'm glad to be in this show with

this cast. I hope you enjoy the show.

Carl Hanna (Scoop Rosenbaum) Carl's AACT

credits include Ezekiel Cheever in The Cruci­

ble, John in A Life In The Theater and Eugene Gant in Look Homeward, Angel. His previous

roles for Huron High School are Rubin Flood

in The Dark At the Top of the Stairs, Inspector

Belsize in Night Must Fall and numerous

small roles in Feijfer's People. His interests are

chess, soccer, computers, movies and music.

He has been employed as a rural letter carrier

for the Dexter Post Office for twelve years. He

has been married to his lovely wife Mary for

seventeen years and they have one sixteen­

year-old son, Luke. Carl would like to thank

Jan for this marvelous opportunity and express

his gratitude toward the rest of the cast and

crew for their high level of commitment.

Deb Huntley (Stage Manager) This is Deb's

first experience with the AACT. She has previ­

ously participated in many aspects of the the­

ater. Deb currently works at Washtenaw Engi­

neering as a Civil Engineer.

Cherie Kifer (Denise Friedlander) A new­

comer to the Civic stage, Cherie is grateful to

be playing the witty part of Denise. Almost

a junior at EMU, past favorite roles include

Marta in Company, Sandy in Grease and var­

ious roles in Joseph and the Amazing Tech­

nicolor Dreamcoat and Oliver! plus many many

more. Thanks to all her family and friends who

pay money to see this stuff. Pirouz and Terry

for the inspiration to go on and all the cast and

crew for making this show such a blast! Rock

on to all of you!

Jan Koengeter (Director & Producer) has

directed several AACT shows, including Burn

This, Mame, The Music Man and Damn Yan­

kees-ali of which won the AACT award for

best of season. She also directed last season's

The Snow Queen as well as The Musical

Comedy Murders Of 1940, the Farnsdale spoof

of A Christmas Carol and several shows for

other area theater groups. Although less and

less frequently in recent years, Jan also occa­

sionally acts and, in fact, won AACT's Best

Actress award as Betty in The Foreigner.

Although it's hard to believe in miracles, Jan

sincerely hopes that AACT's financial future

improves "dramatically," and that we can con­

tinue to have use of a theater/playhouse plus

rehearsal space and storage space for cos­

tumes, props and set pieces in a set-up at least

remotely similar to what we've enjoyed these

last several years.

Rebecca Kleinheksel (Lisa) Rebecca returns

to the AACT stage for the second time (previ­

ously seen in The Snow Queen, winter 1998).

She spent her four years of high school as a

student in the Creative and Performing Arts

program in Livonia and working backstage for

the Jewish Ensemble Theatre in Bloomfield

Hills. She is re-dedicating herself to the per­

forming arts after four years of establishing

her massage therapy practice and one year of

establishing her marriage. She wishes to thank

her family for their love and support ( espe­

cially her husband, Chuck) and the powers

that be for bringing balance into life once

again.

Michael A. LaFlamme (Peter Patrone) Mike

once sang at the Hollywood Bowl (his tour­

group didn't see him slip away) and he was

on stage at the Fisher Theatre for Equus (the

college audience). He has been involved with

theater for some 27 odd years (obviously). He

was last seen as Thomas Putnam in The Cru­

cible.

Michele Leshan (Debbie) From the Elizabe­

than Age to modem times ... this is Michele's

fourth show at AACT. The first was The Mer­

chant of Venice. Still wearing black, but speak­

ing more lines, Michele is grateful for this

opportunity to emerge from backstage. Thanks

to Steve for his constant encouragement.

Melissa 'Misty' Mills (Becky Groves) Misty is happy to be returning to the AACT stage,

having recently appeared in last year's produc­

tion of Romeo & Juliet. She would like to give

a special thank you to her mom Barbara, her

husband Christopher and (of course) Angie for

II

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Paesano's is offering V.I.P. (Very Important Punctuality) treatment to AACT patrons

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Bring your ticket stub in after the show for coffee and

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all their support. Oh yeah, and the hair? It's

real.

Jennifer Nardine (Molly & Betsy) The Heidi

Chronicles marks Jennifer's third appearance

in an AACT production. She landed in Ann

Arbor after a stint as a lounge singer in Chi­

cago, and now spends her days at local soft­ware development company. She's also a pub­

lished poet, and looks forward to the day when

she can "stop being responsible and run away

to sing on cruise ships and write stories."

Mori Richner (Heidi Holland) Heidi marks

Mori's second show with AACT (her last time

on stage was as Alaura in City of Angels). Past

favorite performances include Luisa in The

Fantasticks and a stint with the Young Ameri­

cans. She spent three years as an actor and

writer for Griffin's Tale Repertory Company, a

touring children's theater troupe in Chicago, as well as three years as the voice of Lauralai

Olivier in Virtue in the Storm, a radio soap opera spoof. Love and gratitude to Cedric and

Sorbie for your support, love, and patience.

Sharon Sheldon (Assistant Director, Jill),

Sharon was most recently see in AAC1"s The

Snow Queen. She's thankful to Jan for this

delightful diversion and grateful for the four

terrific men in her life.

Debra Steele (Susan Johnston) Debra was

born and raised in the Ypsilanti/ Ann Arbor

area. She attended Ypsilanti High School, and

graduated from EMU, where she majored in

telecommunications & film and minored in

journalism. She has worked as a TV news

anchor/reporter in California and Ohio. Debra

is a divorced single mother of a five-year-old

daughter.

R.J. White (Chris Boxer, Hippie, Mark, Steve

The TV Technician, Waiter & Ray) What the

critics are saying:

"Mr. White's bios have been lacking ever since

January's Light Up the Sky. Who cares?"

-Carl Bonroy, Sacramento Bee

"He usually ends by thanking his parents and Sara. How trite!"

-A. Vardo, Cleveland Plain Dealer

Jeff Zupan (Sound Designer) Jeff has been around so long and done so many shows that he's getting tired of writing these little blurbs.

He's been everything from stagehand to stage

manager, apprentice builder to award-winning set designer, actor to director, (most recently

of last year's "Best Play", On Golden Pond),

as well as designing lighting and sound. He'll

be directing Saline Area Players' Harvey in

August.

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From the Director I think The Heidi Chronicles is a wonderful

play. Since it won the 1989 Tony Award for

Best Play as well as the 1989 Pulitzer Prize, I guess I'm not the only one who thinks so.

Here's what a few N.Y. critics said: "an enlight­

ening portrait of a generation" (Mel Gussow,

The New York Times), "perceptive and very

funny" (Michael Kuchwara, Associated Press),

"with splendid humor, clear-headedness and

a healthy compassion for absurdity ... This is

not just a funny play, but a wise one." (Howard

Kissel, New York Daily News), "Smart, compas­

sionate, witty, courageous ... gloriously well­

written" (Linda Winer, New York Newsday),

and "Delightfully amusing ... emotionally pen­

etrating" (William A. Raidy, The Star-Ledger).

So, are you excited now or what? I saw the

Broadway production and agree with all those

critics!

Heidi is only a few years older than me. That

probably has something to do with why this play appeals so much to me. I experienced

some of the same things, listened to the same

music, met some of the same kinds of people,

and have some of the same kinds of friendships

as Heidi. But although this play may have

the most resonance for members of the baby

boom generation, I think the basic essence of humanity reflected in the play is relevant for

people of all ages. Most of the actors in our

production were born after the boomers, but

they seem to feel a close connection to and

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have a deep understanding of these charac­

ters. Hopefully, you will also enjoy these char­

acters and the changes they go through from

1965 to 1989.

To those of you who may not agree with the choices Heidi makes, please remember the

title is The Heidi (not "every woman') Chroni­

cles. Wendy Wasserstein is not trying to tell you

that all women should make the same choices

as Heidi to end up feeling happy and fulfilled.

Heidi chooses what she thinks is best for her.

Heidi's friends choose various life paths. As

Sly & The Family Stone sang to us, "Different

strokes for different folks". And for those of

you men who might try to dismiss this play

by comparing it to what some of you like to

refer to as "chick flicks", then, as Heidi, her­

self, might retort, "Suffer!" Or her more oft­

said "Oh, please!" would also suffice. I hope

you take the time to peruse the artwork in the

gallery. It wasn't hard to find some fantastic

local women artists. I'm glad they were willing

to exhibit their work and share their art with us

during the run of performances.

Lastly, yes, Wendy Wasserstein really did set

Act I, Scene 3 in Ann Arbor. We did not local­

ize it just for fun. I heard that she really did

visit a college friend here, herself, which made

her think of "immortalizing" our town (and

Ypsilanti, too!) in her play. It sounds likely, but I can't guarantee its veracity. We hope

you enjoy our production as much as we have

enjoyed preparing it for you.

-JK

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