ry ve co d e is i D Gu Adapted by Christopher Sergel from the novel by Harper Lee Directed by Mark Cuddy P.L.A.Y. (Performance = Literature + Art + You) Student Matinee Series 2015-2016 Season 1 Table of Contents Harper Lee, Monroeville, and To Kill a Mockingbird . . . . 2 What’s In A Name? . . . . . . . 4 Monroe County, Alabama, 1930 . . 5 Controversy . . . . . 5 Tom Robinson’s Maycomb. . . . . . . 6 Boo Radley’s Maycomb. . . . . . . 7 Mayella Ewell’s Maycomb. . . . . . . 8 Maycomb in the 1930s . . . . . . 9 Reconsidering Atticus Finch . . . 10 To Kill a Mockingbird: Then and Now . . 12 Designing To Kill a Mockingbird . . 13 Dear Educators, Modern classics don't come any more classic, or more modern, than To Kill a Mockingbird. This year, we at Geva are joining a number of other major regional theatres across the country in telling this story on our stage. Though the publication of Go Set a Watchman seemingly rejuvenated the general population’s interest in Mockingbird, it was not the reason we chose to embrace this important piece of literature in our season. When we, as a theatre, begin to explore what our following season might look like, a full year in advance of its arrival, our play selection team must examine a number of factors ranging anywhere from the piece’s artistic integrity and how well it fits within our theatre’s mission, to how nicely it plays with other productions up for consideration, the number of cast members it requires, and how much it will cost to mount the production. However, one of the most significant aspects of choosing our season - so significant, in fact, that it is the very first thing we investigate - is why we think it’s important to tell this particular story, at this particular time. We start by looking at what’s going on in the world, North America, the United States, New York, Rochester, and in our own building. This helps us determine relevant and meaningful pieces of theatre to share with our community. Much like 1935, our 2016 jails are disproportionately filled with black men, the makeup of prison populations and the racial makeup of juries are closely correlated, countless examples of violence and intolerance (the shooting deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, protests over racial discrimination at the University of Missouri, and the shooting of worshippers at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal church in Charleston, to name a few) are easy to find, the intersection of race and poverty and of social boundaries and economic class are clearly defined, and the inequities of our current justice system all call us to do something – to respond. These issues matter to us, as a nation, as a community, and as individuals. Our production of To Kill a Mockingbird and our wide range of programming that surrounds it, from community conversations and post-show talkbacks to student matinees and the Stage Door Project with Rochester’s own School of the Arts, is how we, as an artistic and cultural institution, are responding. Uniquely and powerfully, we are choosing to tell this story though the lens of a modern chorus of teenagers. The teens, comprised of local high school students from all over Rochester, offer a truly modern perspective on a classic coming of age story. They will open and close our story, and be a visible, driving force throughout the play. We will watch this story unfold through the eyes, minds, and hearts of this chorus of young people who represent our modern audience. The telling of this story is for everyone, but it is especially for our young adults, said Mark Cuddy. “The Teen Chorus was inspired by the fact that we’re producing this play in 2016 – I didn’t want the production to feel like a slice of history. It’s really related to so much happening in our world today.” Our Teen Chorus exists for the same reason Monroeville, Alabama still re-enacts Tom Robinson’s trail in their courtroom every year. In Atticus’ own words: “They’ve done it before, they did it tonight, and they’ll do it again. And when they do it – it seems that only children weep.” Our young people will carry us into the future. Like Scout, Jem, and Dill, they are the ones who recognize injustices and weep. How do we treat all people with respect and equality? Perhaps our youth will show us how. Sincerely, Lara Rhyner Associate Director of Education College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for grades 6-12 Reading: 1-11; Speaking and Listening: 1-4 Social Studies: 1 & 4; Language: 3-6; Arts: 1, 3 & 4 “Atticus saw every occasion as an opportunity to teach us something.” – Jean Louise Harper Lee, Monroeville, and To Kill a Mockingbird 2 In a 1991 Library of Congress survey, To Kill a Mockingbird ranked second only to the Bible as the book that had made a difference in reader’s lives. To Kill a Mockingbird takes place in the fictional town of Maycomb, Alabama. The story, told from the perspective of an adult Jean Louise Finch, is about the summer of 1935, when she was a young girl named Scout living with her older brother Jem, their father Atticus, and their cook Calpurnia. Much of Scout and Jem’s summer is spent in the company of their young friend Dill, who is staying in Maycomb with his Aunt Rachel. The children are simultaneously terrified and fascinated by their neighbor, the reclusive Arthur "Boo" Radley, and they plot and scheme to get Boo to come out of his house. Meanwhile, Atticus is appointed by the court to defend Tom Robinson, a black man who has been accused of raping a young white woman named Mayella Ewell. In a time and place where family and neighbors are divided by racism and classism, Scout, Jem, and Dill learn about the power of compassion and courage from the unlikeliest of teachers. Harper Lee in Monroeville’s courthouse When To Kill a Mockingbird was first published in 1960, the novel immediately struck a chord with young and seasoned readers alike. And still, decades later, the book is a staple in most classrooms and many readers consider it to be one of their favorite books of all time – a story worthy of revisiting time and time again. But what really makes the novel so special? Is it Harper Lee’s truthful depiction of childhood and coming of age? Or her straightforward approach to racism, class, and social injustice? Or is it simply a good story with vivid characters, regardless of which theme we find compelling? What has made this story so popular, when even its author, Harper Lee, expressed famously low expectations for her work? Shortly after its publication, she said, “I never expected any sort of success with Mockingbird...I was hoping for a quick and merciful death at the hands of the reviewers but, at the same time, I sort of hoped someone would like it enough to give me encouragement.” The story, told now in three formats – Lee’s novel, Horton Foote’s film adaptation starring Gregory Peck, and Christopher Sergel’s stage adaptation – remains as relevant today as it was when it won the Pulitzer Prize fifty-five years ago. Lee, of her novel, said, “It is and it isn’t autobiographical. For instance, there is not an incident in it that is factual. The trial, and the rape charge that brings on the trial, are made up out of a composite of such cases and charges. What I did present as exactly as I could were the climate and tone, as I remember them, of the town in which I lived.” Monroeville’s courthouse serves as a set for reenactments of To Kill a Mockingbird Photo by Rosa Irene Betancourt/Alamy Nelle Harper Lee was the daughter of A.C. Lee and Frances Cunningham Finch. Biographer Charles Shields wrote, “From the time she was small, Nelle mainly knew her mother as an overweight woman with a host of demons, some of which resembled symptoms of what is now called bipolar disorder. Nelle and Frances did not get along, with Nelle’s tomboyish approach to life the main conflict between the two. Perhaps this is why, when writing To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout claims, ‘Our mother died when I was two, so I never felt her absence.’” Continued on page 3 “You two have the benefit of your father’s age. If Mr. Finch was thirty, you’d find life quite different.” – Calpurnia 3 Nelle herself was a fierce child. “In my mind’s eye I can still see the fire in those big brown eyes as they stared dead ahead,” recalled George Thomas Jones, who was a sixth grader when seven-year-old Nelle got into a fight protecting her friend, Truman. “Her teeth clenched in jaws set as only could be akin to a full-blood bulldog. Her tiny hands balled into tight fists as she strode, defiantly, from the playground back toward her fourth-grade classroom.” “She got rid of her surplus of hair in the summertime, and she could climb all the tall trees,” said Taylor Faircloth, who spent summers with the author. “When we played capture the flag at night, she held on longer than anybody.” Small wonder this same woman would create the character of Scout, who could easily be described with the same wording. The Lee family lived next door to the Faulks. They were hosting a boy named Truman Persons (later known as Truman Capote), who had been sent to live with his mother’s relatives during his parents’ bitter divorce. Nelle and Truman (who would eventually inspire the character of Dill) were fast friends, and started writing stories together when Nelle’s father gave them an Underwood typewriter one summer. While he moved to New York City in third grade, Truman returned to Monroeville most summers, and they remained close friends through adulthood. A man who grew up with Truman recalled, “He was a smart ass. No one liked him, but Nelle protected him.” The street where Harper Lee’s childhood home in Monroeville, Alabama is located The role of the Finch’s cook, Calpurnia, is believed to have been inspired by Hattie Bell Clausell, a woman A.C. Lee hired to help watch the children, cook, and clean the house while the family coped with Mrs. Lee’s nervous disorder. Hattie walked over to the Lee’s street from the Negro part of town. Mrs. Powell Jones, a wheelchair-bound neighbor of the Lee’s (and the muse for Mrs. Dubose), “could often be heard raising her voice at her beleaguered husband. Children passing by were not exempt from her imprecations, either,” recalled Lee. Another neighbor, Son Boleware, lived two doors down. Son and his friends broke school windows with a slingshot and burglarized a drugstore in 1928. Son’s father prevailed upon the judge to let the boy out of his designated punishment – a long-term stay at the state industrial school. But, after that, Son (much like Boo Radley) was rarely seen outside of his house again, though incidents of Peeping Toms were blamed on him. Once, Nelle saw Son resting in the shade and said she didn’t find him so strange. The Boleware house was “a dark, ramshackle structure with all the paint fallen off. Children held their noses while walking by to avoid inhaling evil vapors. Boleware wouldn’t spend a dime on his house, or its raggedy yard of tangled pecan trees. His sagging realm belonged to him, and no one was permitted to put a foot on it without his permission. When the pecans ripened and fell off, old man Boleware stood in the backyard, arms crossed, as if daring any pipsqueak on the playground to risk life and limb to steal one.” A map of Maycomb, created based on descriptions of the town in Lee’s novel Continued on page 4 “The Radley place fascinated Dill. In spite of our warnings, it drew him as the moon draws water.”– Scout 4 To Kill a Mockingbird was inspired not only by the life and legacy of Lee’s father and her childhood community, but also by a number of trials. It’s tempting, due to the circumstances, time, and location of the story, to tie Mockingbird to the infamous trial of the Scottsboro Boys – a trail that featured racial injustice, white jurors’ fear of miscegenation, and the courageous efforts of two attorneys. That trial, which lasted for six years beginning in 1931, saw nine black youths accused of raping two white girls on a train. Despite a lack of evidence and inconsistent testimony, the boys were found guilty and sentenced to death. Years of appeals removed the death penalty from their sentences and, as time passed, the trial itself was shown to be a great miscarriage of justice. However, that change in public opinion came about too late, as their lives had already been irrevocably altered. In a letter, Lee she said that while she did not have that case in mind when writing her novel, it would do “as an example of deep-South attitudes on race vs. justice that prevailed at the time.” The cases that truly inspired To Kill a Mockingbird happened much closer to Lee’s home. In Nelle’s hometown of Monroeville in 1933, a black man named Walter Lett was arrested and accused of raping a white woman named Naomi Lowrey near a brick factory. Lett claimed that he did not know Lowrey, and that he had been working somewhere else when the crime occurred. He was convicted (the jury took until 9pm the day of the trial to come to a decision on this capital case) and his execution date was set. However, many of Monroeville’s citizens thought there was something amiss, and three stays of execution were granted for Lett, while citizens argued their objections to the trial and verdict. In the end, the Governor decided to commute the sentence to life in prison. However, while he sat in Kilby’s Prison on Death Row (the same prison that held the Scottsboro Boys), Lett suffered a mental breakdown. He was judged insane by the state physician inspector and sent to the Searcy Hospital for the Insane, where he died of tuberculosis in 1937. Additionally, in 1919, Harper Lee’s father defended two black men who had been accused of murder. At the age of 29, A.C. Lee had been appointed the case by the court. He did his best, but lost, as he had probably been expected to do, given the times. His clients were hanged and their bodies mutilated. A.C. Lee never accepted another criminal case again, and spoke of this case only in vague terms. Christopher Shields, in his biography Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee connects these two cases to that of Tom Robinson, saying “This time, under his daughter’s sensitive hand, A.C. Lee, in the character of Atticus Finch, could be made to argue in defense of Walter Lett, and his virtues as a humane, fair-minded man would be honored.” Worth pointing out, however, is that Mr. Lee himself only gradually rose to the moral standards of Atticus. Like most of his generation, he believed that the current social order – segregation – was natural and created harmony between the races.” A.C. Lee did change his views and, by the 1950s, had become an advocate for civil rights. u What’s in a name? Atticus: A close friend of Cicero, a Roman philosopher, politician, lawyer, and orator. Atticus was an editor, banker, writer of letters, and a humanist, who believed in the value of human beings and their thoughts. He was known for his elegant taste, sound judgment, and moral stance stemming from stoicism; an emphasis on personal courage born from reason, endurance, the control of passions and emotion, love of justice, and the acknowledgement of the kinship of men and the will to selfless action. Calpurnia: Julius Caesar’s third and last wife; humble and an oracle of wisdom. Finch: In addition to Finch being Harper Lee’s mother’s maiden name, a finch is small songbird, related to the mockingbird. Continued on page 5 “But remember this, no matter how bitter things get, they’re still our friends and this is still our home. “ – Atticus 5 Monroe County, Alabama, 1930 County Population: 30,070 Population of the town of Monroeville: 2,382 Population by race: Native white – 47.8%, Foreign-born white – 0.1%, African American – 52.5% Education: Ages 7-13: 88.9%, Ages 14-15: 35.1%, Ages 16-17: 59.5%, Ages 18-20: 21.4% Illiteracy (percentage of people over age 10 who could not read or write): Total population – 14.8%, white population – 8%, Negro population – 25.8% The Evolution of To Kill a Mockingbird The state of Alabama Monroe County is shaded For Christmas in 1956, friends of Lee’s presented her with the promise to take care of her expenses for a year – so she could quit her day job and focus on writing. Lee delivered the original manuscript, then titled Go Set a Watchman, to her agent in 1957. The novel, which was renamed Atticus and finally To Kill a Mockingbird, underwent many revisions and took three years to publish. One of the key changes to the novel was point of view. In the first draft, the story is told in first person; the second draft told the story in third person; and the final is somewhere in between, sometimes narrated by the adult Jean Louise looking back, and sometimes by the six-year-old Scout. The highly controversial publication of Go Set a Watchman in July of 2015 ushered forth massive sales and mixed review ranging from the gentle to the unforgiving. Perhaps The Guardian best sums up most of the book’s critical responses: “Once the dust has settled, Watchman will be seen for what it is: a literary curiosity and a fascinating illustration of the mysterious pathways of the creative imagination.” Controversy The word “nigger” is spoken by some characters in To Kill a Mockingbird. This usage reflects an accurate representation of the play’s setting in America during the 1930s, dramatizing themes of race, class, and hatred. The word “nigger” was not originally used for verbal assault. It first appears in historical documents in 1587 as “negar” – an alternate spelling of Negro. “Nigger” was a common word in both England and America by the seventeenth century; it was considered nothing more than an alternate pronunciation of Negro. By 1825, however, both abolitionists and Blacks found the word offensive and began to object to its use. Often when a word is employed as a slur against a certain group, members of the group will use that word among themselves to rob it of its negative power. Today, this casual, non-pejorative use of the word “nigger” within the African American community is still controversial. Although it may often be heard in rap songs, films, and stand-up comedy performances – as well as in conversation among younger African Americans – many older African Americans are deeply offended by it. Even within generations, not everyone agrees on this issue. Society at large, however, condemns the word as a racial slur. Historically, though nearly 75% of high school students across the U.S. (according to a 1989 survey) list the novel as required reading, enormous controversy has surrounded many schools assigning the reading of To Kill a Mockingbird, which used the word “nigger” 48 times. In addition to the use of this word, racial slurs, profanity, and the frank discussion of rape have compelled many schools and communities to challenge the appropriateness of Mockingbird in educational curriculum, and some to ban or remove it entirely. “Maycomb was an old town, but it was a tired old town when I first knew it.” – Jean Louise Tom Robinson’s Maycomb By 1935, the year in which To Kill a Mockingbird takes place, the United States was already six years into the Great Depression. No one at the time, of course, knew that the country’s entrance into World War II in 1941 would play a large part in the economic recovery of the country. All many people knew was that money was tight, food was scarce, and jobs were very difficult to find. For African Americans in the South in the 1930s, such as Tom Robinson and his family, however, life was even more difficult. The country was only a few generations away from slavery and much of that slave-holding and plantation-centered mindset was still present in Southern whites. It could be seen in virtually every facet of African American life. In his book Trouble in Mind: Black Southerners in the Age of Jim Crow, historian Leon Litwak describes a sense of the everyday reality for African-Americans throughout the South, a reality founded on “clearly drawn racial boundaries and modes of behavior based on centuries of enforced custom and thought. Every black child would come to appreciate the terrible unfairness and narrowness of that world – the limited options, the need to curb ambitions, to contain feelings, and to weigh carefully every word, gesture, and movement when in the presence of whites.” 6 A SAMPLING OF JIM CROW LAWS ENACTED IN ALABAMA DURING THE 1930s NURSES No person or corporation shall require any white female nurse to nurse in wards or rooms in hospitals, either public or private, in which negro men are placed. RAILROADS The conductor of each passenger train is authorized and required to assign each passenger to the car or the division of the car, when it is divided by a partition, designated for the race to which such passenger belongs. RESTAURANTS It shall be unlawful to conduct a restaurant or other place for the serving of food in the city, at which white and colored people are served in the same room, unless such white and colored persons are effectually separated by a solid partition. TOILET FACILITIES Every employer of white or negro persons shall provide for such white or Negro persons reasonably accessible and separate toilet facilities. The “clearly drawn racial boundaries” to which Litwak refers were what was known as the “southern code”– a set of rigid social dictates which, says author and professor Kathryn Lee Seidel, revered “public reputation above all else, with consequential preference for the stability of social class, individual and mob violence, and rejection of the code of law. Prescribed social order preserved privilege and power.” Underpinning the code was a belief common amongst many whites that the races should be separated along strict racial lines. This belief would enjoy the benefit of legal enforcement in what became known as “Jim Crow laws”– a series of laws throughout the South designed to make African Americans’ lives as difficult as possible. The “southern code” was enforced (legally or otherwise) in any number of ways. It could be seen, for example, in the living conditions of African Americans. In his book Remembering Jim Crow: African Americans Tell About Life in the Segregated South, W.R. Chafe notes that “decayed buildings and dirt roads were primary markers of a person’s entry into the black section [of nearly any Southern town]. While African Americans paid taxes, they did not reap the benefits of civic improvements.” The “southern code” was also evident in the workplace (“We worked on the plantation and we got paid 75 cents a day and the day was from sunup until sundown. They used the term ‘can until can’t.’ Time you can see it until you can’t see it,” recounts David Matthews, a sharecropper in Chafe’s book) and the classroom (“The schools blacks attended, especially in the rural South, looked very much alike,” writes Litwak, “with makeshift, primitive, unpainted one-room board structures, with shaky floors and cracks in the walls and roof, the only light came from small, glassless window openings”). It would be difficult to imagine any child’s aspirations being nurtured in such a dismal environment. While Calpurnia, the Finch’s cook and housekeeper, may have had more gainful employment than many African-Americans in her community (including Tom Robinson, with whom she attended church), she still lives in the black section of town and must commute (by foot or public transportation) to the Finch’s home each day. Calpurnia may have a better station in life than Tom and receive the respect of Atticus and his children, but her daily trek must certainly have reminded her that her advantages were only by the slightest of margins. u “I knowed who it was all right, passed the house every day, lived down yonder in that nigger-nest.” - Bob Ewell 7 Boo Radley’s Maycomb JEM: Once Boo was sitting in the living room cutting out pictures from the newspaper when his daddy walked by and Boo stabbed those scissors right into his daddy’s leg. They wanted to send Boo to an asylum, but his daddy said no Radley was going to any asylum, so there he is to this day, sittin’ over there with his scissors…who knows what he’s doin’ or thinkin’. Son Boleware, a teenage neighbor of young Harper Lee and the inspiration for Arthur “Boo” Radley, burglarized a Monroeville drugstore with some friends in 1928. The judge ordered him to attend the state industrial school in penitence for his crime. While Son’s father was able to persuade the judge to reconsider his punishment, a sentence like this was not uncommon for those deemed “troubled” during this period. In our nation’s past, many of society’s “troublemakers” (including the homeless, destitute, orphaned, sick, unstable, infirm, racially inferior, odd or eccentric personalities, children and elderly whose families could no longer afford to care for them, delinquents, and others who found themselves in trouble with the law) were often sent to mental institutions or hospitals. During the depression, isolation and institutionalization as a form of punishment or treatment became even more common. Faced with a lack of awareness of how to help many of these individuals, many people were stigmatized, ostracized, and isolated from society – confined to mental institutions, schools, or home; invisible and out of sight, but not out of mind. In the case of Boo Radley, rumors branded this myserious, reclusive man as the villain of Maycomb County, immortalized in legends and folk tales. JEM: Judging from his tracks, he’s about six and a half feet tall. He eats raw squirrels and all the cats he can catch. There’s a long jagged scar running all the way across his face. What teeth he has are yellow and rotten. His eyes are popped and most of the time he drools. With a testimony like that, even if Boo wasn’t involuntarily confined, it becomes increasingly understandable why he might have chosen to stay tucked away inside “Boo was our neighbor. He gave rather than face the ugly offerings of society: hurtful rumors, extreme poverty, us two soap dolls, a broken watch and chain, a pair ofgooddesperate loneliness, willful ignorance, hatred of entire races and classes of people, luck pennies, and our lives.” angry men assaulting children, daughters abused by their fathers, innocent men found guilty by their skin color in spite of convincing evidence to the contrary, and a black man shot 17 times. Through the rumors of his Maycomb neighbors, we meet Boo the demon; Boo the reclusive monster. But from his own actions, we meet Boo the gentle, Boo the curious, Boo the generous, Boo the protector, and Boo the attentive, loyal friend, who offers gifts of hand-carved soap figurines and unwavering courage when it is needed most – in the face of danger and hatred. From the start of the summer, the children are determined to get Boo to come out of his house. But Boo has come out long before they ever realize it. Despite being invisible to society, he quietly offered the Finch family strength, compassion, and courage in a time of need. Tom Robinson endures a similar persecution. As a member of the black population, he, too, is invisible – living separately from society; ostracized and demonized. Through Bob Ewell, we meet the Tom of viciousness and violence; Tom the uncivilized animal. But through his own action and words, we meet Tom the husband and father; Tom the gentleman who, even in the courtroom while on trail for his life, chose his words carefully so as not to belittle Mayella; the Tom of empathy who, with no expectation of repayment, often provided assistance to a poverty-stricken, uneducated, lonely, and abused girl with the enormous responsibility of caring for 7 children and an overwhelming amount of housework. Despite being invisible to society, he kindly offered Mayella strength in her time of need. In To Kill a Mockingbird, we meet Boo and Tom, both stigmatized troublemakers in the eyes of Maycomb County, and both with the gentleness of mockingbirds. And it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird. u “I think I’m beginning to understand why Boo Radley stays shut up in the house all the time.” – Dill Mayella Ewell’s Maycomb 8 In his 1934 study, Shadow of the Plantation, anthropologist Charles S. Johnson noted, “The state of Alabama is a country of extremes, from the rich Black Belt area, superbly adapted to cotton cultivation, to the wretched pine barrens where impoverished whites were driven before the Civil War by the richer and stronger slave-owning proprietors.” It is in the “wretched pine barrens” where the poverty-stricken Ewell family resides. They live an extremely hard-scrabble life with little in the way of basic necessities and few opportunities to improve their situation. The Ewell’s, unfortunately, are not unique. Author C.J. Shields notes that by the 1930s, “the cultural index, or standard of living, in the South was the lowest in the nation. The region was at the bottom of the list in almost everything: ownership of automobiles, radios, residence telephones; income per capita; bank deposits; homes with electricity, running water, and indoor plumbing. Rural houses, by and large, were dilapidated, unsightly, unpainted, and unscreened, with leaky roofs and outdoor toilets—if they had any toilets at all.” Much of the economic hardship found in Alabama (as well as the entire country) during the 1930s was certainly a direct result of the Great Depression. Farmers and those who worked the land were hit extremely hard during the Depression. Much has been written about the massive Dust Bowl that encompassed large portions of the American mid-West, making the land all but uninhabitable and useless for maintaining crops. The South, however, experienced similar conditions due, primarily, to the over-production of cotton and the subsequent ecological toll, rendering much of the land unusable for cultivation. The dire poverty in Alabama, though, was in place long before the country’s economic decline. In Alabama: The History of a Deep South State, historian Dr. Wayne Flynt states that the state’s population “was weakened already from debilitating problems of sickness and illiteracy, and many of Alabama’s poor people hardly knew that a depression had swept across the land.” A sharecropper family in the Depresion-era South The Ewell family is emblematic of many of the poor in Alabama of the 1930s. Consider, for example, Bob Ewell’s reluctance to call for a doctor following his daughter’s alleged attack (“If I had, would’ve cost me five dollars.”) or Walter Cunningham paying for legal work with nuts and firewood (a common Depression-era practice). As difficult as the effects of poverty were for all of the Ewell family members, the large majority of it falls on nineteen-year-old Mayella, who is charged with keeping the household running as well as caring for her seven younger siblings since their mother passed away several years prior. Even if the country’s economy was in better shape or her family situation not so extreme, Mayella’s options, however, would still have been limited. She may have become a society lady (or “missionary lady” as Harper Lee refers to them in her novel) with her days full of teas and fundraisers, for example, or a stereotypical Southern belle, overly-concerned with matters of manners and decorum, but she still would not have been able to express her opinions on weightier topics. Aside from raising her many siblings, though, Mayella must also contend with her father’s repeated sexual abuse, as he beats her if she does not acquiesce to his advances. Bob Ewell’s actions, unfortunately, may have been an all too common practice of the time. Author Laura Fine in her essay “Structuring the Narrator’s Rebellion” states that this seemingly societal acceptance includes Atticus Finch whose “conception of those in need of protection does not include girls being sexually abused by their own fathers.” Fine also points out that Mayella, in her quest, however misguided, for a less-than-abusive encounter with a man, inadvertently mimics her father’s power over her, stating that “Tom should be off-limits to her as an object of desire simply because he is married, just as Mayella should not be a sexual object to her father.” Mayella also trades on the small bit of power that she possesses, knowing that the word of a white woman, however poor and disenfranchised, will be given more weight than that of a black man – a power dynamic not unlike that between Mayella and her head-of-the-household father. Mayella, claims author Kathryn Lee Seidel, is the “anti-Scout: she has no restraint, no understanding of the moral community in which she lives.” To Kill a Mockingbird, concludes Seidel, “shows that without careful instruction by a loving parent, [a young girl] could become another Mayella, an outcast because of her destructiveness.” u “She says what her papa do to her don't count.” – Tom Robinson 9 Maycomb in the 1930s In To Kill a Mockingbird, author Harper Lee makes reference to Maycomb’s “usual disease” – her phrase to describe the entrenched racism that permeated much of everyday Southern life in the 1930s. Her use of the word “usual” is indicative of just how casual and accepted the “disease” was by many Southerners, as well as a fair amount of Americans in general. This immediate root of this institutionalized racism can be traced back to pre-Civil War America. Prior to the Civil War, one in four Southern families kept slaves – and the majority of those slave-holders were wealthy plantation owners. Following the war’s conclusion in 1865, Southern families had to comply with the newly passed Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery. The former slave-owners now had to contend with concerns over how to support themselves without the resource of free and enslaved labor. This question lingered throughout the Reconstruction period, and animosity by whites, particularly poor whites, towards the former slaves in the South grew considerably as the economic engine of the region came to a dramatic halt. White men like Bob Ewell and Walter Cunningham now found themselves in direct competition with the descendants of slaves for employment, a situation that would have once been unthinkable to them. It’s important to note that To Kill a Mockingbird takes place only 70 years after the end of the Civil War and many of Maycomb’s residents may very well have had family members who fought in the war. Some of the residents may have had their assumptions about race and class challenged for the first time. While we never learn the age of Mrs. Henry Lafayette Dubose, for example, the Finch’s prickly and opinionated neighbor, she is obviously elderly and set in her opinions, including those based on the difference between the races and social classes. “What has this world come to when a Finch goes against his raising?,” she demands of Scout. “I’ll tell you! Your father's no better than the niggers and trash he works for. That Robinson can run around and rape up the countryside for all your father cares.” What, by this point in her life, could convince Mrs. Dubose to reconsider, much less change, her opinions? Not all of Maycomb’s residents, of course, share the same views as those as of Mrs. Dubose and Bob Ewell. Some, such as Heck Tate, Maycomb’s sheriff, and Judge Taylor, who oversees Tom Robinson’s trial, seem to have a sense of the inherent imbalance of the ingrained racism in the town and seek to make inroads to change the situation. Judge Taylor, for example, specifically chose Atticus to defend Tom in court, knowing that Tom would most likely be found guilty but that Atticus was, according to Calpurnia, “the only man in these parts who can keep a jury out so long in a case like this.” It is an acknowledgement that changes in Maycomb, and many towns like it, while inevitable, would be slow and arduous with progress coming only incrementally. A sign addressed to Negroes in Alabama And yet, for all of the tension around them, Jean Louise tells us that while Maycomb was “a tired old town” with “nowhere to go, nothing to buy, no money to buy it with, and nothing to see outside the boundaries of the county,” it was still a place and time with significant charms for Scout, Jem and their friend Dill as they entered adolescence. They anticipated summer “with impatience. It was our best season: it was sleeping on the back screened porch on cots, or trying to persuade Atticus to let us sleep in the tree house. Summer was everything good to eat; it was a thousand colors in a parched landscape.” They had not yet begun to fully sense some of the darker elements to be found in their small Southern town. They could still enjoy “getting a squirt of hot milk from a neighbor’s cow on a summer day” or Dill telling them how his father owned the L & N railroad, thus allowing him to “help the engineer run the train whenever [he] wanted.” It was a time when, as Jean Louise recalls, they were told that they had “noting to fear but fear itself.” And they still had enough innocence to believe that to be true. u “This is their home, Calpurnia. Since some of us have made it this way for them, they might as well learn to cope with it.” – Atticus Reconsidering Atticus Finch 10 “To Kill a Mockingbird always gets a strong response because people have a strong need for heroes of a particular type, someone who represents a set of values. Atticus Finch embodies those values, and people [especially kids] encounter him with a sense of relief. Atticus is certain of what he believes and that kind of certainty hardly exists today.” - Novelist and journalist David Guterson Atticus Finch, Harper Lee’s morally-sound single father to Jem and Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird is easily one of the most beloved characters in all of American literature. In a 2015 essay for Slate Magazine, for example, author and law professor Thane Rosenbaum stated that “Atticus Finch is invoked as a guiding influence more frequently in essays for law school admission than any other factor, by far. His name is synonymous with moral perfection; his quiet dignity the standard of ethical conduct.” The American Bar Association Journal concurred when they labeled him as “America’s Favorite Fictional Lawyer,” stating that “Atticus is an instrument of truth, an advocate of justice, the epitome of reason. To lawyers, he is the lawyer they want to be. To nonlawyers, he fosters the desire to become one.” Atticus has, according to author Alice Hall Perry, been labeled by those in the legal profession as a saint and a prophet; he has been compared to Abe Lincoln and Clarence Darrow, the revered American attorney and legal scholar; he has been referred to as Christ-like and Olympian. Author and law professor Thomas L. Shaffer has said that Atticus’ dedication to the truth is indicative of his inherently heroic nature. The truth, opines Shaffer, “is how Atticus understood who he was…not telling the truth would have caused him to lose his grasp on who he was, to lose control of himself, to suffer personal disintegration, and to lose his way among the people with whom he lived.” Atticus Finch as a superhero However, despite such glowing praise, there is a significant body of work that looks at Atticus Finch through a more critical lens, calling into question his legal judgment, his relationship with the ingrained racism of the South in the 1930s, and even his parental choices in raising his children. Consider this passage by the law professor Monroe Freedman from his Legal Times essay, “Atticus Finch, Esq., R.I.P.,” in which he examines Atticus’ relationship to the casual and everyday discrimination found throughout Atticus’ adopted hometown of Maycomb: [Finch] knows that the administration of justice in Maycomb is racist. He knows that there is a segregated “colored balcony” in the courthouse. He knows, too, that the restrooms in the courthouse are segregated – if, indeed, there is a restroom at all for blacks inside the courthouse. Finch [most likely] goes to segregated restaurants, drinks from segregated water fountains, rides on segregated buses, and sits in a park that may well have a sign announcing ‘No Dogs or Coloreds Allowed.’ Finch is not surprised when Tom Robinson, having been convicted by a bigoted jury, is later shot to death with no less than 17 bullets while making a hopeless attempt to escape from prison to avoid execution. Atticus Finch does, indeed, act heroically in his representation of Tom Robinson. But he does so from an elitist sense of obligation. Except under compulsion of a court appointment, Finch never attempts to change the racism that permeates Maycomb. On the contrary, he lives his own life as the passive participant in that pervasive injustice. Had Atticus been truly concerned with the plight of Negroes in Maycomb and their constant indignities, Freedman argues, he would not have needed to have Robinson’s case assigned to him – he would have, instead, readily volunteered his services. Continued on page 11 “To tell the truth, I’d hoped to get through life without a case of this kind.” - Atticus 11 This critical view of Atticus extends to his legal methods. In a 2009 article in The New Yorker, questioning what he sees as Atticus’ approach based on “accommodation, not reform,” author Malcolm Gladwell cites the legal scholar Steven Lubet as one of Atticus’ strongest critics. Consider the following from Gladwell’s article: In “Reconstructing Atticus Finch,” in the Michigan Law Review, Lubet points out that Finch does not have a strong case. The putative rape victim, Mayella Ewell, has bruises on her face, and the supporting testimony of her father, Robert E. Lee Ewell. Robinson concedes that he was inside the Ewell house, and that some kind of sexual activity took place. The only potentially exculpatory evidence Finch can come up with is that Mayella’s bruises are on the right side of her face while Robinson’s left arm, owing to a childhood injury, is useless. Finch presents this fact with great fanfare. But, as Lubet argues, it’s not exactly clear why a strong righthanded man can’t hit a much smaller woman on the right side of her face. Couldn’t she have turned her head? Couldn’t he have hit her with a backhanded motion? Given the situation, Finch designs his defense, Lubet says, ‘to exploit a virtual catalog of misconceptions and fallacies about rape, each one calculated to heighten mistrust of the female complainant.’ It is reasonable to ask, of course, about what other options were available to Atticus in his defense of Tom Robinson. How else could he have tried his case? And would they have actually affected the outcome of the trial? The belief that Atticus Finch is, as writer David G. Allan states, “arguably fiction’s greatest father” cannot be overstated. There are countless articles and essays extolling the virtues of Atticus’ parental skills, such as his ability to stay calm in difficult situations, his faith in his children to make their own decisions, and his seemingly-infinite patience with his children as they encounter life’s more difficult truths. Atticus, however, like any parent is far from perfect – and that imperfection has some very real consequences for his children. Actor Skip Greer, who plays Atticus in Geva’s production of To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus Finch acknowledges that while Atticus has become “a kind of legendary hero, almost iconic, superimposed on a really” he still makes some serious misjudgments in the care of his children. One page from To Kill a Mockingbird misjudgment is Atticus’ refusal to allow Jem and Scout to interact with their reclusive neighbor, Boo Radley. Boo, Greer believes, “thinks of Jem and Scout as his own, in a way, and continually looks out for them. The kids are Boo’s connection to the world outside, but Atticus doesn’t see that.” Atticus’ own misgivings about the Radley family, it seems, prevent his children from heeding his own advice – that is, to always attempt to see the world from another person’s point of view. Another misjudgment by Atticus in regards to his children, according to Greer, carries a much more significant weight. It is an error that Greer says is “almost catastrophic. Atticus severely underestimates Bob Ewell’s venom and his willingness to strike out following his humiliation in court. Scout and Jem almost pay the price with their lives.” It is a moment that Greer says he is eager to explore. “I’m curious about how Heck Tate’s lie effects Atticus. I wonder if Atticus is more understanding of the grey in life and in justice than we first believe.” One final point where Greer questions Atticus’ parenting style is in the moments following the trial, after Tom Robinson has been found guilty. JEM: How could they do it? How could they? ATTICUS: I don’t know how, but they did it. They’ve done it before, they did it tonight, and they’ll do it again. And when they do it – it seems that only children weep. Good night. Why, Greer wonders, would Atticus leave his son’s question so unanswered. “That’s rough,” says Greer. “Jem is hurting. Atticus knows it and only has “good night” to offer. Does he think it’s time for Jem to handle this discovery on his own? Is he moved to the point that he needs to leave? Is he covering up his own emotions? All interesting stuff to consider.” u “The only thing that does not abide by majority rule, honey, is a person’s conscience.” - Atticus 12 To Kill a Mockingbird: Then and Now While its story is set in 1935, the publication of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird in 1960 is widelyconsidered to be a pointed commentary on the heightened racial tensions that existed throughout the country and in the South, in particular, during the first half of the twentieth-century. Law professor and author John Jay Osborn Jr. claims that “To Kill a Mockingbird continues to have such power because its story depicts the South poised to fall headlong into the Civil Rights movement. We can hear the buses of the freedom marchers at the state line.” Below are some of the more notable events of the Civil Rights movement that took place during the 1950s and, most assuredly, influenced Lee in her development of To Kill a Mockingbird. 1952 Tuskegee Institute reports that, for the first time in the 71 years it has been keeping records, there were no lynchings of African Americans during the year. 1954 In Brown v. Board of Education, the decision widely regarded as having sparked the modern Civil Rights era, the Supreme Court rules deliberate public school segregation illegal, effectively overturning the “separate but equal” doctrine of Plessy v. Ferguson. Chief Justice Earl Warren, writing for a unanimous Court, notes that to segregate children by race “generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone.” Thurgood Marshall heads the NAACP/Legal Defense Fund team winning the ruling. 1955 On August 28, 14 year old Emmett Till is beaten, shot, and lynched by whites after allegedly saying “bye, baby” to a white woman in a store in Mississippi. In Alabama, the Montgomery Bus Boycott begins when Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat. The boycott lasts 382 days and thrusts Martin Luther King, Jr. into the national spotlight. streets” if African Americans push efforts to integrate. On September 24, federal troops mobilize to protect the nine African American students at the high school from white mobs trying to block the school's integration. In a recent article discussing the enduring influence of To Kill a Mockingbird, The New York Times cited Harper Lee’s book as, “a classic coming-of-age story, a redemptive novel associated with the Civil Rights movement, [and] a universal parable about the loss of innocence.” It is, of course, all of those things. Much of the story’s power, though, comes from its continuing relevance – change some of the 1930s details and To Kill a Mockingbird becomes a story about 2016. It is this sense of enduring resonance that guided many of director Mark Cuddy’s decisions during this production’s artistic and rehearsal processes. It was important to Cuddy that this production not feel like a “historical piece” but, rather, relevant and contemporary. Consider, for example, a 2012 study published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics which found that “in cases with no blacks in the jury pool, black defendants were convicted at an 81% rate and white defendants at a 66% rate. When the jury pool included at least one black member, conviction rates were almost identical: 71% for black defendants and 73% for whites.” Jury pools are created largely from the records of registered voters. Many states, depending upon a number of extenuating circumstances, may elect to strip the voting rights of a person who has been imprisoned for a felonious (or in some cases, a misdemeanor) crime. It is estimated that 1 in every 15 African American men and 1 in every 36 Hispanic men arrested is incarcerated in comparison to 1 in every 106 white men. It is easy to see how a non-black jury can be assembled, if so desired – not unlike Tom Robinson’s jury in To Kill a Mockingbird. u 1956 Montgomery Bus Boycott ends in victory on December 21 after the city announces it will comply with a November Supreme Court ruling declaring segregation on buses illegal. Earlier in the year, King's home was bombed. Autherine Lucy is the first African American admitted to the University of Alabama. 1957 Efforts to integrate Little Rock, Arkansas Central High School are met with legal resistance and violence; Governor Orval Faubus predicts “blood will run in the A Black Lives Matter protest in New York City “Mister Jem, I’ve never seen any jury decide in favor of a black man.” – Reverend Sykes 13 Designing To Kill a Mockingbird Occasionally, one person is asked to design multiple elements of a particular production. Jack Haldoupis designed both the set and the costumes for Geva’s To Kill a Mockingbird. Back in early December, Geva’s costume shop team met with Jack for the first time: he brought with him a color palette that he wanted everything within the world of the play to adhere to, an inspiration board, and preliminary costume renderings. Jack’s vision was for the world of To Kill a Mockingbird – a play told from Jean Louise’s memory – to look tonally washed out; like an old film or old photo, mostly neutral, but with some muted color. The set is neutral in color, and carries with it resemblances of a watercolor painting; ombré hues and translucency that highlight the interplay of light and shadow – all styles that are also reflected in the costuming and are very fitting for a memory play. However, the limited colors of the set meant the costumes needed a slightly broader range of color so the actors pop against the set, rather than blend into it. Knowing the time period and the color palette, the costume shop began pulling from stock, purchasing, and building articles of clothing to suit the world Jack had envisioned. One of the greatest challenges in creating costumes for this story is that the movie is so iconic that it’s tricky to make choices about what each character will look like, knowing that so many people have not only seen the movie, but also have a very particular image of the characters in mind. Jack wanted to honor the film, beloved by so many, and the vision of the characters it created, but he also didn’t want to copy it. A designer must blend time period, accuracy, pre-conceived images of iconic characters, actors’ physiques, characters’ personalities and worldviews, physical and movement requirements, director’s concepts, their own unique ideas, and many other considerations as they imagine how each character will present themselves to the world around them. Most of the items you will see onstage were purchased new, tailored to fit each person who wears it, and then dyed and distressed to Jack Haldoupis' inspiration board and color palette appear aged and worn. A few items were pulled from stock and for Geva's To Kill a Mockingbird altered, as necessary, to suit the color palette, actor’s size, and requirements of the character, and a handful of pieces were custom made, from scratch, in our costume shop. On left, brand new overalls; middle, new overalls only part-way through the aging and distressing process; on right, new overalls fully aged and distressed by the costume shop Upwards of 7 pairs of overalls were purchased brand new and needed to look old. To distress them, our costume craftsperson Jessica Pautler began by washing the overalls with a formula that makes them look like they’ve been washed many times; essentially, it breaks down the fibers in the clothing. Next, Jessica used sandpaper to add wear to specific places – knees, elbows, and collars – and then proceeded with a light dye job (using a hint of yellow/brown dye) to add age, followed by carefully applied streaks of paint to give the appearance of additional wear and dirt, depending on the character. Patches, holes, and frayed hems were added to finish off the look. Items that could not be purchased because of the style of the time period or an actor’s proportions were built in the shop based on Jack’s renderings. Two complete 3-piece suits for the actor playing Atticus were custom built because a pre-existing, vintage, 3-piece, matching suit with a high-waist could not be found to accommodate the actor’s height. For reference, one custom-made suit coat can take 8-10 full days to create. A 3-piece suit could easily require two weeks of full-time dedication to build from scratch, including making the pattern. A custom suit is extremely labor intensive, demands a good deal of hand-sewing, and is created using dozens of tiny pieces that need to be stitched together to form the pockets, collar, and sleeves. Additionally, quality wool can run upwards of $50 per yard. Atticus’ suits were quite the undertaking! “What are you doing in those overalls? You should be in a dress and camisole, young lady.” – Mrs. Dubose 14 Another memorable costume built onsite is the ham costume Scout wears in Act II. The material used to create the ham is a thermoplastic (heat molding plastic) called Fuzzform, which can be likened to a felt batting that stiffens and shrinks when heat is applied. First, Jessica made a rough shape for the ham using a children’s dress form that was padded to size based on the measurements of the two young actors playing Scout. Once the form was made, it was covered with chicken wire and a layer of Fuzzform. Jessica steamed the Fuzzform so it could be shaped and molded while the material was still warm. After fittings with the actors and designer consultations, the ham continued to be shifted, sculpted, and On left, the finished ham; on right, research images shaped. Jessica also added shoulder straps and and rendering for the ham a large eye hole. Foam and padding were added internally to protect both the actors wearing the ham and the costume itself from falls during the fight sequence and, after the padding was installed, Jessica narrowed and shaped the bottom and covered it with a product called Sculpt-or-Coat, along with muslin strips to further protect the ham by stiffening it to add resilience. For the final layer – the finished look – the ham was treated with paint and the word “ham” was scrawled across the front. The ham also mirrors the set and the rest of the costumes with it’s slightly ombré, watercolor appearance. The ham is an intentionally handmade project; it is designed to look homemade by Calpurnia and the Finch family – slightly lumpy, off-kilter, lopsided, and imperfect – but, it still needed to have the resilience to withstand daily wear, 8-10 shows per week, and a fight sequence. Though it is designed to look like a family craft project, it is extremely well-crafted and sturdy. Sets aren’t built like houses; they are built to be thrown away in a few weeks. Costumes, however, are the just opposite. Costumes are built to last; to withstand daily wear and multiple shows per week, for weeks, months, or years on end. One of the dresses Calpurnia wears was built in 1987, but you’d never know by looking at it! One group of characters, connective-tissue storytellers who are instrumental in bridging the realms of the world the story takes place in, the people who belonged to that world then, and the people who live in our world now, is the Teen Chorus. This group of young adults, conjured as contemporary witnesses to Jean Louise’s memory of the summer of 1935, are costumed in modern, non-descript jeans, tees, and sneakers, with ombrédyed hoodies in the color palette of the scenery that surrounds them. This enables them to simultaneously integrate into the set as scenery themselves, and to live and breathe alongside Jean Louise and the people that inhabited the world then, and the audience that observes it now. With Jack as both the scenic and costume designer, this modern Greek chorus was able Costume rendering for the Teen Chorus; to exist and thrive in a way that, likely, would not have designed by occurred if the costumes and set were designed by two Jack Haldoupis different people. u “All right. I’m comin’. But I feel like a fool wearing this thing.” – Scout Staff Skip Greer Director of Education/ Artist in Residence Lara Rhyner Associate Director of Education Eric Evans Education Administrator Jack Langerak, Marcy Savastano & Shawnda Urie Artist Educators Jenni Werner Literary Director/ Resident Dramaturg Mark Cuddy Artistic Director Christopher Mannelli Executive Director DO YOU KNOW STUDENTS EAGER TO EXPAND THEIR ACTING SKILLS? . The Summer Academy is a five-week professional theatre training program for 30 selected young actors, ages 12 to 18, who wish to explore, define and develop the actor in themselves. Open to students of all levels of theatre experience, Summer Academy provides quality training for the beginning actor, as well as advanced level study for the young actor with previous experience. The focus of this year’s Summer Academy is Contemporary Theatre. Admission into the program is by audition and interview only. Full and partial scholarships are available. For audition dates, programs dates,and other information, please visit our website at http://www.gevatheatre.org/young-artist-training/. . For more information, please call (585) 420-2035 Education Partners Thank you to our corporate and foundation donors who support our education programs. (Donors are listed for the time period 12/01/2014 through 2/08/2016) Ames-Amzalak Memorial Trust in Memory of Henry Ames, Semon Amzalak and Dan Amzalak Canandaigua National Bank & Trust The Donald F. and Maxine B. Davison Foundation Enterprise Feinbloom Supporting Foundation Fred & Floy Willmott Foundation Louis S. & Molly B. Wolk Foundation David & Sharon Mathiason The Guido and Ellen Palma Foundation Paychex, Inc. Dr. & Mrs. Richard Poduska The Polisseni Foundation Eric & Elizabeth Rennert Rochester Area Community Foundation Lynn Rosen & Bradley Rosen The Rubens Family Foundation Time Warner Cable Mr. & Mrs. Peter van Demark Wegmans Food Markets Sherwin & Linda Cornell Weinstein Wollner Charitable Trust The Xerox Foundation Printing Sponsor Excellus BlueCross BlueShield To Kill A Mockingbird Education Program Sponsor Canandaigua National Bank & Trust Summer Curtain Call Supporters Thank you to the supporters of the 2015 Summer Curtain Call Event, our annual gala in support of our education programs. Executive Producer Nocon & Associates, A private wealth advisory practice of Ameriprise Financial Services, Inc. Dawn & Jacques Lipson, M.D. Elaine P. & Richard U. Wilson Foundation Associate Producer Pamela Giambrone Kim & Janet Tenreiro Sergio & Mary Ann Esteban LLD Enterprise Director Jack & Lisa Baron Victoria & Bill Cherry CJS Architects Constellation Brands, Inc. Suzanne Gouvernet Michael & Joanna Grosodonia Manning Squires Hennig Co., Inc. REDCOM Laboratories Joseph A. Floreano Rochester Riverside Convention Center Rochester Regional Health System Rochester Red Wings Trillium Health U.S. Employee Benefits Services Group VisitRochester Helen A. Zamboni & Steven L. Rosen With additional support from (585) Magazine Balsam Bagels Black Button Distilling Conolly Printing Daryl Hogg Entre Computer Services Fioravanti Florist Hedonist Artisan Chocolates ImageNow by Mahar Madeline’s Catering Mark’s Pizzeria Marshall Street Bar & Grill The Melting Pot Moonlight Creamery News 10 NBC New York Wine & Culinary Center Nolan’s Rental Inc. Paper Moon Productions ROC Brewing Co. WXXI Public Broadcasting 75 Woodbury Boulevard Rochester, New York 14607 Box Office: (585) 232-Geva (4382) Education Department: (585) 420-2058 or 420-2035 www.GevaTheatre.org Interested in sponsoring Geva’s Educational programming? Contact Mary Tiballi-Hoffman at (585) 420-2011
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