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Cakewalk

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Cakewalk Chronicles the twenty-year love affair between Lillian Hellman and the writer Peter “Cuff” Feibleman.  The temptuous affair begins when Hellman invites the young writer to her home on Martha’s Vineyard to help him with his second novel.  She is in her fifties and he is twenty-eight.  At the opening of Act II, Hellman visits Feibleman’s home in New Orlenas to begin her memoirs and reclaim her bisexual lover.  In the end, Hellman, paralyzed and blind, clings to her love for him.

Credits

Creative team

By

Peter Feibleman

Directed by

Ron Daniels

Directed by

Ron Daniels

At the American Repertory Theater Ron Daniels has directed Hamlet, The Seagull, Dream of the Red Spider, Cakewalk, Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2, The Cherry Orchard, Henry V, The Threepenny Opera, The Tempest, and Long Day's Journey Into Night on the Loeb Stage and Silence, Cunning, Exile and Slaughter City for the A.R.T. New Stages; he was also associate artistic director of the A.R.T. and director of the American Repertory Theater/Moscow Art Theater Institute for Advanced Theater Training at Harvard University from 1992 to 1996. Mr. Daniels was a founding member of the Teatro Oficina in São Paulo, Brazil, where he was born. In 1977, he joined the Royal Shakespeare Company as artistic director of the Other Place, Stratford-upon-Avon. His work in the U.S. includes Romeo and Juliet at the Guthrie Theater, Camille at Long Wharf, and Bingo, Ivanov, Man Is Man, and Mister Puntila and His Chauffeur Matti at the Yale Repertory Theatre. At the RSC, his productions included The Tempest, Julius Caesar, Hamlet, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Pericles, Timon of Athens, Richard II, A Clockwork Orange, and many more, as well as world premieres of works by David Edgar, David Rudkin, Stephen Poliakoff, Pam Gems, and others. Mr. Daniels has staged Titus Andronicus and Hamlet in Tokyo, Japan. He is an honorary associate director of the Royal Shakespeare Company.

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Set design by

Tony Straiges

Set design by

Tony Straiges

Tony Straiges' set designs for Hartford Stage in addition to The Glass Menagerie include Rough Crossing, Enchanted April, Long Day's Journey Into Night, A Christmas Carol—A Ghost Story of Christmas, and The Great Magoo. Broadway designs include Golden Child, Rumors, Artist Descending A Staircase, I Hate Hamlet, Into The Woods, Sunday In The Park With George, John Curry's Ice Dancing, Copperfield, and TimBukTu! Recent designs include A Flea In Her Ear at the Alley Theatre and Giselle for the Royal Swedish Ballet (Stockholm).

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Costume design by

Catherine Zuber

Costume design by

Catherine Zuber

Catherine Zuber has created the costumes for Richard II, The Doctor's Dilemma, and over forty other A.R.T. productions including Three Farces and a Funeral, Antigone, Loot, The Idiots Karamazov, Ivanov, Phaedra, The Merchant of Venice, Valparaiso, The Imaginary Invalid, The Taming of the Shrew, Peter Pan and Wendy, The Bacchae, Man and Superman, The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari, Woyzeck, The Wild Duck, The Naked Eye, Long Day's Journey Into Night, Tartuffe, Ubu Rock, Waiting for Godot, The Oresteia, Shlemiel the First, Picasso at the Lapin Agile, A Touch of the Poet, What the Butler Saw, The Cherry Orchard, and Orphée. Ms. Zuber's credits include work at Lincoln Center, The Joseph Papp Public Theater, Goodman Theatre, The Guthrie Theater, Mark Taper Forum, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Hartford Stage Company, La Jolla Playhouse, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Houston Grand Opera, and Glimmerglass Opera, among others. Her Broadway credits include The Triumph of Love (Connecticut Critics Circle Award and Drama Desk nomination), Ivanov (Drama Desk nomination), The Sound of Music, Twelfth Night, The Red Shoes, London Assurance, The Rose Tattoo, and Philadelphia Here I Come. Ms. Zuber was the recipient of the 1997 Obie Award for sustained achievement in design. She is the costume designer for La Fête des Vignerons de 1999, the massive Festival of the Winegrowers in Vevey, Switzerland.

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Lighting design by

Howell Binkley

Lighting design by

Howell Binkley

Howell Binkley's lighting designs for Hartford Stage in addition to The Glass Menagerie include Camino Real and The Clearing, and his designs for the American Repertory Theater include Sweet Table at the Richelieu, The Good Woman of Setzuan, Gillette, Quartet, The Miser, Twelfth Night, Heartbreak House, and The Cherry Orchard. On Broadway his work has appered in The Full Monty; Gore Vidal's The Best Man; Minnelli on Minnelli; Parade; Kiss of the Spiderwoman; My Thing of Love; Sacrilege; Taking Sides; and High Society. Off-Broadway work and tours include Never the Sinner; Whistle Down the Wind; Jekyll and Hyde; and Civil War. He has worked at numerous regional theaters, including the Alley Theatre; McCarter Theatre; La Jolla Playhouse; Shakespeare Theatre; New York Shakespeare Festival; City Center Encores Productions; and Cirque Ingeniux for Networks. His work in dance and opera includes American Ballet Theater; National Ballet of Canada; Paris Opera Ballet; Hubbard Street Dance; Parsons Dance Company (co-founder); Peter Pucci Plus; Joffrey Ballet Billboards; Metropolitan Opera; and Dallas Opera.

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Sound design by

Maribeth Back

Incidental Music by

Carly Simon

Cast

Lilly

Eliane Stritch

Lilly

Eliane Stritch

Cuff

John Slattery

Cuff

John Slattery

Mother/Mary Wilson/Dolly/Clara/Young Woman/Esther/Second Interviewer/Stewardess/Rita/Head Nurse

Stephanie Roth

Mother/Mary Wilson/Dolly/Clara/Young Woman/Esther/Second Interviewer/Stewardess/Rita/Head Nurse

Stephanie Roth

Guest/Lawyer/Sam Wilson/Captain/Young Man/Interviewer/Sid/Air Steward/Edgar/Buddy/Funeral Guest

Matthew Rauch

Guest/Lawyer/Sam Wilson/Captain/Young Man/Interviewer/Sid/Air Steward/Edgar/Buddy/Funeral Guest

Matthew Rauch