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The setting is Chicago, 1919. Bill Cracker, a gang member and proprietor of Bill’s Beer Hall, is beloved by both a seductive criminal and an attractive lieutenant from the Salvation Army. As Lieutenant Holiday converts Bill, the line between saints and sinners becomes blurred, and both realize their common battle with oppression.

Credits

Creative team

Lyrics by

Bertolt Brecht

American adaptation and lyrics by

Michael Feingold

Music composed by

Kurt Weill

Original German play by

Elisabeth Hauptmann

Directed by

Walton Jones

Set design by

Michael H. Yeargan

Set design by

Michael H. Yeargan

Michael Yeargan designed sets for King Stag, Six Characters in Search of an Author, Long Day's Journey Into Night, The Threepenny Opera, The Juniper Tree, The Seven Deadly Sins, and Sganarelle at the A.R.T. He is resident designer for the Yale Repertory Theatre and Professor of Stage Design at Yale School of Drama. Mr. Yeargan has designed extensively in American resident theatres and on Broadway, and for opera companies throughout the U.S. and Europe, with designs for the Welsh National Opera, Scottish Opera, and Covent Garden, Frankfurt Opera and Australian Opera. His U.S. credits include the Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Dallas Opera, and Houston Grand Opera.

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Costume design by

William Ivey Long

Lighting design by

William Armstrong

Music directed and conducted by

Gary Fagin

Cast

Dr. Nakamura

John Bottoms

Dr. Nakamura

John Bottoms

Bob Marker

Max Wright

Bob Marker

Max Wright

Max Wright (Spooner in No Man's Land) was seen in A.R.T.'s first production, A Midsummer Night's Dream, in The Inspector General and in Happy End. He is best known for his role as Willie Tanner on the television series Alf.

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Johnny Flint

Stephen Rowe

Johnny Flint

Stephen Rowe

Stephen Rowe (Tito Belcredi in Enrico IV) is a founding member of the A.R.T. company whose work includes A Midsummer Night's Dream, As You Like It, LuluMan and Superman, The Wild Duck, and his one-man show Albee's Men (which opened the 2002 season at the Berkshire Theatre Festival). His Broadway credits include The Nerd, Some Americans Abroad, Serious Money, and Spoils of War. New York Shakespeare Festival audiences have seen him in The Tempest, Macbeth, Coming of Age in Soho, A Private View, and The Normal Heart. His extensive working relationship with Edward Albee includes The Zoo Story and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf at Vienna's English Theatre, the international Albee Directs Albee project, and last season's Tiny Alice Off-Broadway. Since his last A.R.T. appearance in Full Circle, he has performed in Mark Lamos's School for Scandal and in Emily Mann's Romeo and Juliet, both at the McCarter Theatre; and in Defying Gravity at the Merrimack Repertory Theatre. Mr. Rowe has performed at Yale Repertory Theatre, Hartford Stage, Williamstown Theatre Festival, A Contemporary Theatre in Seattle, and has received the Bay Area Theatre Critics Award for his performarnce in Berkeley Rep's Sight Unseen, and the DramaLogue Award for So Many Words at South Coast Repertory in Los Angeles. He has been seen on television in Law and Order, E.R., Cheers, Wings, L.A. Law, Beverly Hills 90210, and Law and Order: Criminal Intent, and in the films Attack of the 50 Foot Woman and Basic Instinct.

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Sam Wurlitzer

Jeremy Geidt

Sam Wurlitzer

Jeremy Geidt

A.R.T. Senior Actor, founding member of the Yale Repertory Theatre and the A.R.T. Yale: more than 40 productions (including The Seagull). A.R.T.: 100 productions including The Seagull (three turns as Sorin), Julius Caesar, Three Sisters, The Onion Cellar, Major Barbara (Undershaft), Heartbreak House (Shotover), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Quince four times, Snug once), Henry IV (Falstaff), Twelfth Night (Toby Belch), The Caretaker (Davies), The Homecoming (Max), Loot (Truscott), Man and Superman (Mendoza/Devil), Waiting for Godot (Vladimir), The Threepenny Opera (Peacham/Petey), Ivanov (Lebedev), Three Sisters (Chebutkin), Buried Child (Dodge), The Cherry Orchard (Gaev) and The King Stag (Pantelone). Teaches at Harvard College, Harvard’s Summer and Extension Schools and at the A.R.T/MXAT Institute. Trained at the Old Vic Theatre School and subsequently taught there. Acted at the Old Vic, Young Vic, The Royal Court, in the West End, in films and television and has been hosting his own show “The Caravan” for the BBC for five years. Came to the U.S. with the satirical revue The Establishment and acted on and off Broadway, at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival and at the Lincoln Center Festival. Lectured on Shakespeare in India and the Netherlands Theatre School. Received the Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding Boston Actor and the Jason Robards Award for Dedication to the Theatre.

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Jimmy Dexter

Richard Grusin

Jimmy Dexter

Richard Grusin

Miriam/Barmaid

Grace Shohet

Miriam/Barmaid

Grace Shohet

Bill Cracker

Kenneth Ryan

Bill Cracker

Kenneth Ryan

Lady in Gray

Elizabeth Norment

Lady in Gray

Elizabeth Norment

Cop

Eric Elice

Cop

Eric Elice

Lt. Lillian Holiday

Marilyn Caskey

Lt. Lillian Holiday

Marilyn Caskey

Capt. Hannibal Jackson

John McAndrew

Capt. Hannibal Jackson

John McAndrew

Sister Mary

Marianne Owen

Sister Mary

Marianne Owen

Marianne Owen returned to the A.R.T. this season to play Mrs. Sorby in The Wild Duck and The Mother in Six Characters in Search of an Author. She appeared in fourteen productions during the first four seasons at the A.R.T., and took part in its first European tour. Since that time she has worked at Playwrights Horizons, the New York Shakespeare Festival, the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, Actors Theatre of Louisville, the Guthrie Theater, Yale Repertory Theatre, the The Goodman Theatre, La Jolla Playhouse, and Arizona Theatre Co.; and has been a company member at the Seattle Repertory Theatre for the past nine years, acting in over twenty-eight productions. Her roles include Maggie in Dancing at Lughnasa, Grusha in The Caucasian Chalk Circle, Bananas in House of Blue Leaves, Betty in Landscape of the Body, Heidi in The Heidi Chronicles, and Frosine in The Miser. She also played Charlotte in the national tour of Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing with Brian Bedford.

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Sister Jane

Nancy Mayans

Sister Jane

Nancy Mayans

Brother Ben

Phillip Cates

Brother Ben

Phillip Cates

Maj. Halcyon Stone

Carmen de Lavallade/Barbara Orson

Maj. Halcyon Stone

Carmen de Lavallade/Barbara Orson

Members of the Fold

Christian Clemenson, John Drabik, Margaret Fleming, Peter Tamm, Maggie Topkis, Walter van Dijk

Members of the Fold

Christian Clemenson, John Drabik, Margaret Fleming, Peter Tamm, Maggie Topkis, Walter van Dijk