Crossroads Repertory Theatre
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Bad Dates


by Theresa Rebeck

Directed by Dale McFadden

Starring Julie Dixon


OPENS FRIDAY, JUNE 24th


Experience the topsy-turvy world of Haley, a single mom in New York City, as she shares her adventures of making a living, raising an alienated teenage daughter, and trying to meet Mister Right.  Dating disasters and even the Romanian Mafia do not deter her from forever pushing forward in this wonderfully funny, insightful but ultimately uplifting monologue-style play, by one of America's leading playwrights and starring CRT’s very own fireball, Julie Dixon.

Design Team Director ..............................................................................................................................Dale McFadden Scenic Designer ..................................................................................................................Dana M. Harrell Scenic Artist ........................................................................................................................Elizabeth Goble Costume Designer .................................................................................................................. Clair Hummel Lighting Designer ........................................................................................................... Porsche McGovern Sound Designer ........................................................................................................................ Jeff O’Brien Property Designer ...................................................................................................Rachelle Martin Wilburn THE CAST Haley ......................................................................................................................................Julie Dixon* There will be no intermission. This production is sponsored by Women of Words. Join us on June 26 around 5:30 p.m. (ten minutes following the 4:00 p.m. Sunday matinee) for a Sunday Talk with Amy Owens, known professionally as The Single’s Coach and author of The Itty Bitty Breakup Book, who will join us to discuss the trials and triumphs of dating and finding love in the 21st Century *Actors’ Equity Association member. Bad Dates is presented by special arrangement with Samuel French, Inc. Opening Night audience members can enjoy a cupcake, generously donated by Caboodles Cupcakes, as they leave the theater, being mindful that there is no such thing as a bad date when you can be eating a Caboodles’ cupcake! Production Staff Stage Manager ............................................................................................................Catherine Jefferson Assistant Stage Manager ........................................................................................................ Joe Wagner Lighting Board Operator .................................................................................................... Emery Becker Sound Operator ....................................................................................................................Eli Van Sickel Wardrobe Head ................................................................................................................... Aaron Owens Dresser ........................................................................................................................... Savannah Stevens Run Crew ............................................................................................................................... Brian Kogut House Manager .................................................................................................................Ryan Niemiller THERESA REBECK “As a writer, I have always considered it my job to describe the world as I know it; to struggle toward whatever portion of the truth is available to me.” Theresa Rebeck In the fall of 2007, only one woman was to debut an original work on the Broadway scene: Theresa Rebeck. After producing nearly one new play every season since 1992, enjoying fast-growing regional popularity, and receiving a Pulitzer Prize nomination in 2004, Theresa Rebeck is certain to maintain her rightful place in the canon of contemporary theater for years to come. Rebeck grew up in Ohio and attended Ursuline Academy in Cincinnati. After completing her undergraduate work at the University of Notre Dame, Rebeck’s academic accreditations escalated, and by 1989, she had earned an MA from Brandeis University, as well as an MFA in playwriting, and a Ph.D. in Victorian Melodrama. Since 1990, Rebeck has written over twenty one-acts and nearly a dozen full-length plays (all anthologized in three collections), but her writing prowess has not ended with the stage. She has also written screenplays and lent stories to films like Harriet the Spy and Gossip as well as numerous episodes for the ABC crime drama, NYPD Blue. She has gone on to write episodes for Law and Order, Criminal Intent, LA Law, and several other network shows. Rebeck’s work with NYPD Blue earned her the Mystery Writers of America’s Edgar Award, a Writers Guild of America Award for Episodic Drama, and two Emmy Nominations. In addition to plays, films, and television, Theresa Rebeck has published two novels and a collection of essays. Venturing into the world of nonfiction, this prolific, contemporary writer published Fire Free Zone (2007), a collection of comedic essays on the challenging nature of working in show business. A novel dedicated to her children and titled Three Girls and Their Brother was published in 2008, and Twelve Rooms with a View was just released last year. With her wide range of character development and willingness to explore writing from a variety of mediums, it seems that Rebeck’s rhetorical creativity and insight know no limits. When interviewed by The New York Times in anticipation of her 2007 play Mauritius, Rebeck commented that most of her plays are about “betrayal and treason and poor behavior. A lot of poor behavior.” This frank and self-reflective approach to the human condition has become one of the recurring themes throughout Rebeck’s works, revealing an honesty that invites audiences to see their own poor behavior for what it often is: a risk worth taking. In Bad Dates, we see Rebeck gracefully avoid the clichéd gender stereotypes of the middle-aged, single mother and refreshingly embrace the greater, universal needs of communication, acceptance, friendship, and hope. In its article highlighting Bad Dates, The Theater Communications Group emphasized that the most notable attribute of Rebeck’s “straight- talking plays”is their willingness to accept the messiness of life and use it as a means to resolve greater personal challenges. Throughout her career, Rebeck has long resisted the label of “woman playwright” commenting, “I believe that women are as fully human as men and that their experiences are as worthy of representation, as universally significant, as men’s … women are as deeply flawed as men are. I’m interested in writing about the way both genders make mistakes and the ways we grow, or don’t grow…But for myself, I would most like to be considered a playwright.” Theresa Rebeck’s work continues to challenge and charm audiences, no matter her choice of medium. Whether it is on stage, page, or screen, Rebeck’s complex characters often treasure their poor behavior and invite us to accept our own. Alone with the Audience: Storytelling and the Monodrama “The word monologue means ‘to speak alone’— and that is often how a monologist feels. If in facing a thousand solemn faces he is not a success, no one in all the world is more alone than he.” -- Anonymous “The Nature of the Monologue” The act of standing alone in front of a group is not a new concept. Many cultures have used oral histories as a way of passing down knowledge from one generation to the next. Storytelling itself has been around for centuries, with evidence of Homer’s complete poetic works being memorized and performed by bards for the entertainment of others. Still, the act of getting up in front of a group of people, one person performing for many, creates a certain bond between audience and performer. To hold the collective attention requires much work. As solo performer Ruth Draper observed, “It is the audience who must supply the imagination. What is really important is not to put anything ‘over,’ but to bring the audience up onto the stage and into the scene with you. It is they who must give you even more than you give them in the way of imagination and creative power.” While the monodrama seems like a fairly modern convention, its roots extend to the stages of England over 200 years ago. Actors who were not members of one of the two London theatres licensed by the king (and therefore retaining the sole rights to legitimate drama) were forced to be creative and resourceful in the work they performed. British satirist, Samuel Foote, found his niche with The Rehearsal, a burlesque in which he satirized everyone from famous actors to statesmen. While those he mimicked (often in unflattering ways) attempted to derail his performances, Foote continued to entertain the public for thirty years in one-man performances. When others saw how successful Foote’s solo lampooning was, they, too, hit the stage. Two centuries later, solo performance found itself in America in the form of platform shows where professional elocutionists read to the public from works of literature. Charles Dickens himself wowed audiences with his personification in voice and action of the characters he had created. Years later, Welsh playwright Emlyn Williams toured the world for over 35 years in Emlyn Williams as Charles Dickens. These readings would later transform into monologues and character sketches, which in turn became monodramas. The monodrama itself has branched into different categories. Monologues occur when a speaker addresses an unknown or silent listener, which is, in most cases, the audience. A monopolylogue is when an actor performs more than one character, with those characters occasionally having dialogue with one another. Many monodramas are biographical in nature, often exploring an historical figure’s life, such as Hal Holbrook’s celebrated Mark Twain Tonight! Other times, they are the more vulnerable confessions of an autobiographical show. John Leguizamo’s conflict with his father in Freak is a good example. Some monodramas help us escape to otherworldly places with unexpected characters, like a demon made of worms in Mark O’Rowe’s Terminus, whereas the one-woman docudramas of Anna Deveare Smith, whose Fires in the Mirror chronicled the Crown Heights, Brooklyn crisis in 1991, take us to a place that is frighteningly real. Perhaps due to unfortunate cuts to funding for the arts, the popularity of the solo-show has quickly escalated. With the cost of rent skyrocketing, it is often easier and more cost effective to book a small space for one actor and a small audience than to rent the larger venues required for a fully realized production. Fortunately, meager funds have never curtailed theatrical creation, and through the popularity of the monodrama, theater artists have created and entertained in the face of poverty since the Great Depression. Another explanation is that more and more actors want to explore the borders of their talents, and monodramas offer a unique outlet for this exploration. Or perhaps we are simply recapturing the heritage of the bard and still have a story to tell. Director’s Note Theresa Rebeck is an acclaimed playwright who brings sympathy, humor, and insight to stories of people in the midst of financial, familial, and emotional turmoil. Her main characters, usually women approaching middle age, find themselves in a world where few people can be trusted. Any solution to the crisis at hand can only be found through the use of one’s wits and a bit of scheming and plotting to get out of a jam that was not totally one’s fault. The play is set in Haley’s apartment, and in talking with our designers the idea of seeing the apartment as a refuge from the hurly-burly of the everyday world has become an important concept. The apartment is a place of quiet and refuge in which Haley can share her thoughts and plans with the audience who serves as a sympathetic listener and companion. A combination of stand-up comedy, a crime story, and a mother daughter drama, BAD DATES takes the audience into the very recognizable world of a working mother doing her best to make a living, raise her daughter, and reenter the world of dating. Women finding themselves through challenges and accomplishments is a theme that Theresa Rebeck knows well, and the journey we take with Haley is time well spent in the theatre.