Rich Girl World Premiere Production at CPH
Posted April 2, 2013 in Press Releases
CLEVELAND, OH (April 2, 2013) – A world premiere production of Rich Girl by Victoria Stewart anchors the 2013 New Ground Theatre Festival, the eighth annual showcase of new work at CPH. Directed by CPH Artistic Director Michael Bloom, this clever new comedy about women and their relationships with men, mothers and money features Tony Award-nominated actresses Dee Hoty, a Cleveland native, and Liz Larsen. Rich Girl, a co-production with George Street Playhouse, where The New York Times described it as “intriguing” and “highly appealing,” will begin in Second Stage at PlayhouseSquare on Friday, April 19, 2013. Due to popular demand, the run has already been extended one week and will now play through Sunday, May 19, 2013. Tickets are available by calling 216-241-6000 or online at www.clevelandplayhouse.com. CPH is generously funded by the citizens of Cuyahoga County through Cuyahoga Arts and Culture, and by the Ohio Arts Council. Rich Girl is sponsored by Ohio Savings Bank, Ulmer & Berne LLP, Walter Haverfield, and Westlake Reed Leskosky, with community support courtesy of College Now Greater Cleveland.
“It was great fun working on this whip-smart and topical new comedy,” says Michael Bloom. “I can’t wait to share our world premiere with Cleveland.”
ABOUT THE PLAY and PLAYWRIGHT
Eve, played by Dee Hoty, is a hugely successful financial guru, and controls every aspect of her surroundings —including the lives of her executive assistant Maggie, played by Liz Larsen, and her sheltered daughter Claudine (Crystal Finn). Eve supports a philanthropic foundation to fund worthy causes. Henry (Tony Roach) is a theatrical director who has applied to the foundation for a grant for his struggling company. When Claudine and Henry meet, they immediately sense a connection. Eve suspects Henry is interested in Claudine only for her money while Claudine falls head over heels for Henry. Will Claudine give up her wealth to marry Henry? Will he sign the pre-nup Eve demands? Situated at the intersection of money, romance, and the fate of art in a CNBC world, Victoria Stewart’s play could not be more timely.
“I do want people to leave the theatre talking about it, arguing about motives and who’s ‘right,”’ shares playwright Victoria Stewart. “I have sympathy for all the characters. I take them all at their word. But I think that’s the wonderful thing about this play: [the audience is] going to have different opinions about what the end of the play means and who’s right and who’s wrong.” Stewart says the novella Washington Square inspired her to write this play. “Henry James writes so much about class and money and writes wonderful female characters,” she says.
RICH GIRL Cast
Crystal Finn (Claudine) was seen last summer at The New York International Fringe Festival in Becoming Liv Ullman, a one-woman play that she wrote and will also be featured as part of the 2013 New Ground Theatre Festival. Other New York acting credits include Luther and Five Genocides, Clubbed Thumb; Some Women In Their Thirties Simply Start to Fall by Tina Howe, 59E59 Theaters; What Happened to Bill Viola, Ars Nova;Bird In The Hand, Fulcrum Theater; and Brack’s Last Bachelor Party and Crime and Punishment, 59E59 Theaters. Finn’s regional theatre credits include Two River Theater Company, Merrimack Repertory Theatre, Trinity Rep, Illinois Shakespeare Festival, Dorset Theatre Festival, Foothill Theatre Company and Brown/Trinity Playwright’s Rep.
Dee Hoty (Eve) got her start in theatre at Cleveland Play House. She has since earned three Tony Award nominations for starring roles in Footloose, The Best Little Whorehouse Goes Public, and The Will Rogers Follies. She starred on Broadway and in eight major U.S. cities as Donna in Mamma Mia! Additional Broadway credits include Bye Bye Birdie at Roundabout Theatre Company, City of Angels (Outer Critics Circle Nomination), Me and My Girl, Big River, The Five O’Clock Girl and Shakespeare’s Cabaret. Other highlights include playing Diana Vreeland in Full Gallop, tours of 9 to 5 as Violet, Barnum, Doctor Dolittle, Phyllis in Follies (Paper Mill, cast recording), and Kay Thompson in Stormy Weather (Barrymore Award, L.A. Ovation Award nomination). Film and television includesSmash, Elementary, Law & Order(s), the soaps, commercials, voiceovers, recordings and cabaret work.
Liz Larsen (Maggie) appeared on Broadway in Hairspray, The Rocky Horror Show, Damn Yankees, Most Happy Fella (Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Award nominations, L.A. Drama Logue Award), A Little Night Music (City Opera), Starmites, Smell of the Kill, Fiddler on the Roof, and Annie. Off-Broadway includes A New Brain, Lincoln Center Theatre; Loman Family Picnic and The New Yorkers, Manhattan Theatre Club;Bingo; Little By Little; Him and Her (Fringe Festival Best Actress Award); Such Good Friends and My Mother’s Lesbian Jewish Wiccan Wedding (New York Musical Theatre Festival Best Actress Award for both). She has toured nationally in Blues in the Night with Eartha Kitt, Sunday in the Park with George (Helen Hayes Award nomination, Best Featured Actress), and Baby). Film and television include Bridge and Tunnel (2014),Bunheads (ABC Family), recurring roles on Law & Order for 10 seasons and Law & Order: SVU for four; The Sopranos; Exit 19 (with Geena Davis); and My Guys. Web series includeWainy Days, Weiner on Weiner and Submissions Only.
Tony Roach (Henry) acted in New York at Primary Stages in a workshop of The Men, The Actors Company Theatre (TACT) in You Can’t Take It With You and Separate Tables(Salon Series), Studio 42 in the American premiere of Gaugleprixtown, and Drama League/Fringe in Cop Out. Regional theatre includes Shakespeare Theatre Company,The Liar (world premiere); All’s Well That Ends Well, Mrs. Warren’s Profession, and The Imaginary Invalid, Shakespeare & Company; As You Like It and Romeo & Juliet, Portland Stage Company; Marie Antoinette, The Color of Flesh and many others, Kitchen Theatre; Arizona Theatre Company; American Repertory Theatre; Shakespeare Festival of St. Louis; Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park; Alabama Shakespeare Festival; and Vermont Stage Company. Film includes the title role in The Adventures of Buckskin Jack and Miles from Nowhere.
For actor headshots, please go to http://www.clevelandplayhouse.com/main-stage/2012-2013/rich-girl and click on the “artists” tab.
RICH GIRL Creative Team
Victoria Stewart (Playwright) was a professional stage manager before graduating from the Playwrights Workshop at the University of Iowa. Stewart has received the Francesca Primus Prize, a McKnight Advancement Grant, the Helen Merrill Playwriting Award, a Martha R. Ingram New Works Fellowship, a Jerome Fellowship, and she was a finalist for The Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. She’s been artist-in-residence at Ucross Foundation/Sundance Institute, London’s Donmar Warehouse, The Hermitage Artist Retreat, Tofte Lake Center and Hedgebrook. Rich Girl has had readings at City Theater and Broken Watch and was developed in residence at Tennessee Repertory Theatre. Her plays include Hardball, Summer Play Festival and Live Girls! Theater, named one of the best productions of 2011 by The Seattle Times; 800 Words: The Transmigration of Philip K. Dick, Caravan Theatre, Live Girls! Theater, and Workhaus Collective, named one of the top ten productions of 2009 by Citypages; Live Girls, Urban Stages, Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater, and Stage Left; Nightwatches, Overlap Productions; Mercy Watson to the Rescue,Children’s Theatre Company; Leitmotif, The Last Scene; and an adaptation of Henry James’ The Bostonians. She was a collaborator on Fissures (lost and found) presented at Actors Theatre of Louisville’s 2010 Humana Festival. Recently she completed a screenplay for HBO and a bilingual collaborative piece, Clandestino, with Cory Hinkle and The Wilhelm Brothers about the INS raid in Postville, Iowa. She is a producing member of the Workhaus Collective (a collective of Minnesota playwrights producing their own work); a core member of The Playwrights’ Center; and member of Writers Guild of America, West.
Michael Bloom (Director) is the eighth artistic director of Cleveland Play House. For CPH he has adapted Emma (published by Samuel French), and directed Bell, Book and Candle; Every Good Boy Deserves Favor (with The Cleveland Orchestra for New Ground Theatre Festival); Ten Chimneys; Lost in Yonkers; Heaven’s My Destination; The Glass Menagerie; A Streetcar Named Desire; Lincolnesque; Rabbit Hole; Well; and Private Lives. He has directed at many of the country’s other major theatres including American Repertory Theatre, Berkeley Rep, Old Globe Theatre, South Coast Rep, Seattle Rep, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Manhattan Theatre Club, Alley Theatre, Alliance Theatre Company, and Long Wharf Theatre. His productions have also been seen throughout Japan. His off-Broadway production of Sight Unseen garnered three Obie Awards, and he received a Drama Desk nomination for direction. Other productions include the American premiere of A Young Lady from Rwanda; Gross Indecency, Elliott Norton Award for Best Directing, 1998; and the world premieres of Dinner with Friends at Actors Theatre of Louisville and Tennessee Williams’ Spring Storm. His articles have appeared in American Theatre Magazine and The New York Times, and his book Thinking Like a Director was published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux in 2001.
The design team for Rich Girl includes Wilson Chin (Scenic Design), Matthew Richards (Lighting Design), Jennifer Caprio (Costume Design), Dave Bova (Hair/Wig Design), and Jill BC Du Boff (Sound Design). Also on the team: Jennifer Matheson Collins (Stage Manager).
For complete bios, please go to http://www.clevelandplayhouse.com/main-stage/2012-2013/good-people
Ticket Information
Single tickets are on sale now; prices range from $49 to $69. New! Under age 30 guests receive 50% off any regular ticket price, based on availability. Tickets are $15 for currently enrolled students under age 25 with valid ID. For single tickets, please call 216-241-6000 or go online at www.clevelandplayhouse.com. Groups of 10+ save up to 40% off single ticket prices; call 216-400-7027 or email cwheeler@clevelandplayhouse.com.
FACT SHEET
WHAT:
Rich Girl, written by Victoria Stewart, directed by Michael Bloom Featuring Tony Award-nominated actresses Dee Hoty and Liz Larsen
SYNOPSIS:
When sheltered Claudine meets starving artist Henry, she falls head over heels. But her mother, a celebrated tough-talking financial guru, has her doubts: Is Henry everything her daughter deserves or is he only after her money? Rich Girl, a modern-day take on the Henry James novella Washington Square and the classic play and film The Heiress, is a clever new comedy about women and their relationships with men, mothers and money.
WHERE:
Allen Theatre, PlayhouseSquare, 1407 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio
WHEN:
Preview Performances:
Fri 4/19, Sat 4/20, Sun 4/21, Tue 4/23
Opening Night:
Wednesday, April 24th, 2013
Final Performance:
Sunday, May 19th, 2013
Tuesday Evenings @ 7:00 pm
Wednesday - Saturday Evenings @ 7:30 pm
Saturday and Sunday Matinees @ 2:30 pm
Weekday Matinee @ 1:30pm, Thu 5/2
Special Events
* InsideCPH: "How to Build a Play" – April 22 @ 6:30pm - 8:00pm - Ever notice that “playwright” isn’t spelled “write”? Just like a shipwright and other such artisans, playwrights needs special skills for their craft. Find out how to build a play—and how to steer it safely to its premiere—in this revealing conversation with two New Ground Theatre Festival artists: Victoria Stewart, whose world premiere play Rich Girl is the centerpiece production of NGTF 2013; and actor/playwright Crystal Finn, who stars in Rich Girl and will present two workshop performances of her new play, Becoming Liv Ullmann, as part of the Festival.
* Pre-show Conversations – 45 minutes before every production. Led by CPH actors and staff, these interactive half-hour conversations pull back the curtain early to let you connect with the people, themes, ideas and creative choices that go into each production, in an engaging and relaxed setting.
* Post-show Discussions – Sunday, 4/28; Tuesday, 4/30; Sunday, 5/5 A chance to interact with the cast, creative team, local experts and fellow playgoers in a lively and wide-ranging discussion of each production and the questions it raises.
* Play Reading with CPH – Wednesday, 4/3 @ 7:00pm, Cuyahoga County Public Library-Beachwood; Monday, 4/15 @ 6:30pm, Allen Theatre; Saturday, 4/27 @ 2:00pm, Cleveland Public Library-Downtown; Tuesday, 4/30 @ 7:00pm, Cleveland Heights-University Heights Library-Main. This reading club takes place in a fun, social group setting where attendees spend 75 minutes with a member of the CPH Artistic Staff, who will provide insight into the play itself and lead a lively discussion about how directors, actors, and designers put their skills to use in taking a play from the page to the stage.
* Play Date – Saturday, 4/27; Saturday, 5/11 @ 2pm - A new program for parents, grandparents, caregivers and their children. While grown-ups are watching Rich Girl, children are in a play date where they will experience teamwork and learn what it means to be a leader on the field and the stage. Cost is $15 per child with purchase of Rich Girladult tickets. Call 216.400.7096 for tickets.
* Gen.NOW – Wednesday, 4/24 @ 6pm-10pm - A program for young and engaged Clevelanders ages 25-40 looking to enjoy each other, downtown hotspots, and CPH’s newest show, all at a special price. Call 216.400.7096 for tickets.
* nightOUT! – Thursday, 4/25 @ 6pm-10pm - A new program for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community and friends. A fun way to spark a conversation and get to know a whole new rainbow of downtown places, friendly faces and CPH, all at a special price. Call 216.400.7096 for tickets.
