{ CAST }

SARAH BERNHARDT
Nicole Goeden

CONSTANT COQUELIN
Sean Dillon

EDMOND ROSTAND
Em Rosenberg +

ALPHONSE MUCHA
Derek “Duck” Washington

MAURICE / ENSEMBLE
Ben Qualley

LOUIS / ENSEMBLE
Jeremy Williams

ROSAMOND / ENSEMBLE
Ankita Ashrit

LYSETTE
Clara Marsh

RAOUL
Claire Chenoweth

FRANCOIS
Christy Johnson

{ CREW }

DIRECTOR
Carin Bratlie Wethern +

STAGE MANAGER
Clara Costello +

SET DESIGNER
Sadie Ward

COSTUME DESIGNER
Raphael Ferreira

LIGHTING DESIGNER
Emmet Kowler

SOUND DESIGNER
Jacob M. Davis +

PROPS DESIGNER
Jenny Moeller

INTIMACY/FIGHT CHOREOGRAPHER
Annie Enneking

DRAMATURG
Nissa Nordland Morgan +

ASSISTANT SET DESIGNER
Sarah Schniepp

+ The­atre Pro Rata Com­pa­ny Member

Director’s Notes

By all accounts Sarah Bern­hardt was a leg­end, and pos­si­bly the orig­i­nal influ­encer. She did out­ra­geous things (slept in a cof­fin, had numer­ous exot­ic pets, wore a hat dec­o­rat­ed with a taxi­der­mied bat…) while main­tain­ing the Vic­to­ri­an equiv­a­lent of rock star celebri­ty. Many of the char­ac­ters in the play are based on real peo­ple: Alphonse Mucha (painter of the icon­ic Nou­veau posters we think of when we think of the Divine Sarah), Edmund Ros­tand (up-and-com­ing play­wright, hard at work on a new play), Mau­rice (Sarah’s son — also grow­ing up into a play­wright and direc­tor in his own right)… and of course — Sarah herself. 

Sarah was an incred­i­ble per­former, and used her fame and tal­ent to grow her brand and her busi­ness. As her pow­er grew, so did her invest­ment of time and mon­ey into her sta­tus and work, cul­mi­nat­ing in pur­chas­ing a the­ater of her own; some­thing prac­ti­cal­ly rev­o­lu­tion­ary in 1897. She cre­at­ed work for her­self and for dozens of oth­er artists. And then she did some­thing even more rev­o­lu­tion­ary in the eyes of the pub­lic: she per­formed the role of Ham­let. Sarah had played pants roles before (Loren­zo de Medici, for exam­ple) but this was dif­fer­ent. At the dawn of the 20th cen­tu­ry Sarah grap­pled with a per­sis­tent soci­etal dou­ble stan­dard when it comes to gen­der, both in her life and onstage. She asked why can’t a woman play a man? Why does the gen­der of the actor (or oth­er iden­ti­fy­ing char­ac­ter­is­tics) mat­ter? After all: it’s a play, and this is pre­tend. And over 100 years lat­er, we con­tin­ue to ask the question.

-CBW