07 08 JEKYLL Press Release
07 08 JEKYLL Press Release
07 08 JEKYLL Press Release
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INDULGE YOUR DARK SIDE WITH DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE
World premiere of Jeffrey Hatcher’s fiercely theatrical adaptation of the classic tale
What happened the night that Henry Jekyll died? The respected Dr. Jekyll has begun to display alarmingly erratic
behavior toward his friends. At the same time, a brutal figure has begun to haunt the city’s streets. In Jeffrey Hatcher’s
intense new version of Robert Louis Stevenson’s DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE, Dr. Jekyll confronts the monstrous Mr.
Hyde in a maze of interlocking scenes that attempt to answer the puzzles at the heart of a tortured soul. Commissioned
by ATC for this world premiere, DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE plays in Phoenix at the Herberger Theater Center from
February 7 through February 24. The Phoenix production underwriter is APS. Arizona Theatre Company’s season
underwriters are I. Michael and Beth Kasser.
In Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic 1886 novella, a respected doctor explores the inner workings of the mind and the
many sides of the personality. In Jeffrey Hatcher’s taut re-telling of this classic horror story, one actor plays Dr. Jekyll
and five other actors portray all of the rest of the characters who bring the gripping tale to life. The evil Mr. Hyde has
many faces – brutality, sexuality, heartlessness. Hatcher’s adaptation questions the lines between good and evil as the
mystery of the connection between the virtuous doctor and the vicious stranger unravels. The final struggle for control of
one man’s soul brings Jekyll face-to-face with his deepest nature.
“Everyone knows the basic story of DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE”, commented director David Ira Goldstein, “The story
has permeated popular culture for 120 years. Whether through the versions featuring Frederic March, John Barrymore,
David Hasselhoff or, heaven help us, even Abbott and Costello, we all know the story of the man who separated his
good and his bad selves. What intrigued Jeffrey Hatcher about this story and what infuses his new version with such
power is the idea that no one is truly just one thing or another. Although we live in a culture that wants to polarize and
categorize us into good or bad, left or right, moral or immoral, every person remains stubbornly more complicated than
that. All of us are a mixture of many elements, many motivations, many streams of exposed and hidden parts. People in
1886 were infinite in their variety and complexity, and they remain so today.”
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Playwright Jeffrey Hatcher adds, “In my version the roles are somewhat reversed, as are some aspects of Jekyll and Hyde
themselves. One of the arguments I've never quite believed -- and I suspect Stevenson didn't believe it either -- is that
Henry Jekyll is wholly good while Edward Hyde is wholly evil. I'm trying to have some fun with the notion that Jekyll and
Hyde play a cat-and-mouse game with each other, and with the question of just who we should be rooting for.”
JEFFREY HATCHER (Playwright) is one of America’s most produced playwrights. He is the author of Ella and co-author
of Work Song: Three Views of Frank Lloyd Wright and Tuesdays with Morrie – all of which have been seen on Arizona
Theatre Company’s stages. Mr. Hatcher authored the book for the Broadway musical, Never Gonna Dance. Off-
Broadway productions include Three Viewings and A Picasso at Manhattan Theatre Club, Scotland Road and The Turn of
the Screw at Primary Stages, Tuesdays with Morrie (with Mitch Albom) at Minetta Lane Theatre, Murder by Poe and The
Turn of the Screw with The Acting Company, Neddy at The American Place Theatre and Fellow Travelers at Manhattan
Punchline. His plays – among them, Compleat Female Stage Beauty, Murderers, Mercy of a Storm, Smash, and To Fool
the Eye– have been seen in hundreds of productions at regional theatres across the U.S. and abroad. Mr. Hatcher wrote
the screenplays for Stage Beauty and Casanova as well as the currently-in-production The Duchess starring Keira
Knightly and Ralph Fiennes, as well as authoring episodes of the Peter Falk series Columbo.
DAVID IRA GOLDSTEIN (Director) this year celebrates his sixteenth season as Artistic Director of Arizona Theatre
Company. He has directed over 30 mainstage productions for ATC ranging from classics to new plays to musicals
including the current production of the enormously popular The Pajama Game, as well as the world premieres of
Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure, Inventing van Gogh, Rocket Man, Private Eyes, Over The Moon and Dracula by
Steven Dietz and For Better or Worse by Geoff Hoyle. He has been a guest director at theatres from coast to coast
including Seattle Rep, Berkeley Rep, The Pasadena Playhouse, Kansas City Rep, Florida Stage, Children’s Theatre
Company of Minneapolis, Northlight Theatre, Geva Theatre, Mixed Blood and many others. Last year he won both the
Jeff Award in Chicago and the LA Drama Critics Award for A Marvelous Party: The Noël Coward Celebration which he
also co-authored. He received the 2003 Governor’s Arts Award as Individual Artist for his contributions to the arts in
Arizona.
The cast of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde features a mix of returning and new faces to ATC. R. Hamilton Wright (Dr. Henry
Jekyll) last appeared with Arizona Theatre Company as George Finch in Over the Moon. His other ATC credits
include The Mystery of Irma Vep, Scapin, Dreams from a Summer House as well as the world premiere of Steven Dietz’s
Private Eyes. Recent credits include George W. Bush in David Hare's Stuff Happens at Seattle's ACT Theatre, where he
also directed Stephen Temperly's Souvenir. In thirty years as an actor he has appeared in over 120 professional
productions at Seattle Repertory, ACT Theatre, Intiman Theatre, Milwaukee Repertory Theater, South Coast Repertory,
The Empty Space and The Public Theatre in New York, among others.
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Ken Ruta (Gabriel Utterson, Edward Hyde) began his association with Arizona Theatre Company as an actor and director
25 years ago as Astrov in Uncle Vanya. More recently, he appeared in Over the Moon and Copenhagen. Other ATC
productions include Galileo, Our Town, The Illusion, Shadowlands and The Heiress, as well as directing Billy Bishop Goes
to War; ‘night, Mother; The Learned Ladies; The Real Thing; Goodbye Freddie and The Last Night of Ballyhoo. He
appeared in the Broadway productions of The Elephant Man, Three Sisters, Duel of Angels, Ross, Separate Tables and
Inherit the Wind, as well as touring nationally in Oscar Wilde: Diversion and Delights. Stephen D’Ambrose (Sir Danvers
Carew, Edward Hyde) appeared last season in ATC’s production of Molly’s Delicious. Other recent appearances include
Our Town with Two River Theatre Company, Cardinal Antonelli in Edgardo Mine at Guthrie Theater and Democracy at
Park Square Theatre. Nationally, he has toured with Guthrie Theater’s Great Expectations, The Tavern and A
Midsummer Night’s Dream, as well as with Jungle Theater Company’s The Pavilion.
Making their ATC debuts are Mark Anderson Phillips (Dr. Lanyon, Edward Hyde), who is based in the San Francisco
Bay Area where his work includes roles with TheatreWorks, Magic Theatre, San Jose Repertory Theatre, Berkeley
Repertory Theatre, Marin Theatre Company, Aurora Theatre Company, California Shakespeare Theater and Center
Repertory Theatre. He is the recipient of two Bay Area Drama Critics Circle Awards for the role of Jake in Stones in his
Pockets (Magic Theatre) and Tom Joad in The Grapes of Wrath (TheatreWorks); Carrie Paff (Poole, Edward Hyde) has
appeared in New York in The Death of Griffin Hunter at Soho Rep. and Fortinbras at 78th Street Theatre Lab, among
others. Her regional credits include After the War at American Conservatory Theater, The Joan Rivers Theatre Project
and Charles Grodin’s The Right Kind of People at Magic Theatre, Small Tragedy and Betrayal at Aurora Theatre
Company, The Mousetrap and How the Other Half Loves at Center Repertory Theatre; and The Haunting of Winchester
at San Jose Repertory Theatre; Anna Bullard (Elizabeth Jelkes) performed in the Humana Festival premieres of Kia
Corthron's Moot the Messenger and Uncle Sam's Satiric Spectacular, as well as in Dracula and 2B (or not 2B) for Actors
Theatre of Louisville. Other regional credits include Blackbird at American Conservatory Theater, Ambition Facing West
at TheatreWorks, Killer Joe at Marin Theatre and The Mousetrap and Nunsense for Dorset Theatre Festival. Also
appearing are University of Arizona students Rebecca Angel and Stephen Gaeto.
The artistic team for DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE includes Kent Dorsey (Scenic Designer), who returns to ATC where he
designed scenery for For Better or Worse, A Streetcar Named Desire, A Moon for the Misbegotten, Work Song: Three
Views of Frank Lloyd Wright (ariZoni Award), and many others. Mr. Dorsey has designed scenery and/or lighting on over
95 productions for The Old Globe, as well as for most of the major resident theatre companies; Anna Oliver (Costume
Designer), who has designed for theatre and opera companies including Seattle Repertory Theatre, Berkeley Repertory
Theatre, La Jolla Playhouse, The Old Globe, American Conservatory Theater, San Francisco Opera, Houston Grand
Opera, among many others. Ms. Oliver is the recipient of a Helen Hayes Award nomination for Don Juan (2006), two
Craig Noel Awards For Excellence in Theatre, a Geffen Award and numerous Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Awards;
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Dawn Chiang (Lighting Designer), who designed ATC’s productions of Crowns, Blues for an Alabama Sky and Oh
Coward! She also lit David Ira Goldstein’s production of Guys and Dolls at Kansas City Repertory Theatre. On Broadway,
she designed Zoot Suit and Tango Pasion (co-designed with Richard Pilbrow). Off-Broadway, she has designed for
Manhattan Theatre Club and Roundabout Theatre Company. Her regional credits include the Mark Taper Forum, Guthrie
Theater, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, South Coast Repertory, Milwaukee Repertory Theater, Seattle Repertory Theatre
and Denver Center Theatre; Roberta Carlson (Composer), who composed scores for ATC’s Macbeth, Over the Moon, As
You Like It, Inventing van Gogh, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Dracula, Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure and many
others. Her work has also been heard at The Children's Theatre Company, Guthrie Theater, Seattle Repertory Theatre,
Kansas City Repertory Theatre, Capital Repertory Theatre and San Jose Repertory Theatre; Brian Jerome Peterson
(Resident Sound Designer), who celebrates his 22nd season and 54th sound design for ATC, where he has recently
designed Touch the Names, I Am My Own Wife, Molly’s Delicious, and Twelfth Night. His designs have been heard at
Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Cleveland Play House and San Jose Repertory Theatre, among
others; and Ken Merckx (Fight Director), who has choreographed fights and taught actors combat for film and
television, theatres and universities all across the country, and is the Resident Fight Choreographer for the Idaho
Shakespeare Festival, Great Lakes Theater Festival (Cleveland) and A Noise Within (Los Angeles). The Stage Manager is
Bret Torbeck.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a co-production with the award-winning San Jose Repertory Theatre, where it will play from
May 10 - Jun. 8, 2008.
Tickets range from $30-$63 depending on date and section choice and are available at arizonatheatre.org or by calling
the box office at (602) 256-6995. Discounts are available for groups of eight or more, students, seniors and active
military on specific performance days. Half-price rush tickets are available for balcony seating for all performances one
hour prior to curtain at the ATC box office (subject to availability).
ATC offers audio-described performances for patrons who have low vision or blindness on February 13 at 7:30 PM and
February 14 at 2 PM. Interested patrons may request a tactile tour one hour prior to curtain. Braille and large-print
playbills are available upon request from the house manager. An American Sign Language-interpreted performance is
offered on February 23 at 4 PM. Patrons who have deafness or hearing impairment will receive a biography of the
interpreters, a description of the play and name signs of each character. An open-captioned performance is offered on
February 17 at 7 PM. As the play progresses, those in open-captioned seating will be able to read the play’s dialogue in
large green letters on an LED. The service is for patrons with mild to severe hearing loss who may not be ASL-literate.
Tickets for all performances are available through the ATC box office at (602) 256-6995 or online at arizonatheatre.org.
TTY access for the box office is available via Arizona Relay at (800) 367-8939 (TTY/ASCII).