The Journey of the Fifth Horse

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.

A.R.T.: 119 productions, including R. Buckminster Fuller: THE HISTORY (and Myster) OF THE UNIVERSE (R. Buckminster Fuller), Cabaret (Fraulein Schneider), Endgame (Clov), The Seagull (Dorn), Oliver Twist (also at Theatre for a New Audience and Berkeley Repertory Theatre), The Birthday Party (Stanley), Highway Ulysses (Ulysses), Uncle Vanya (Vanya), Marat/Sade (Marquis de Sade), Richard II (Richard). Broadway: Jackie: An American Life (23 roles). Off-Broadway: Johan Padan (Johan), Big Time (Ted).  Tours with the Company across the U.S., with residencies in New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles, and throughout Europe, Canada, Israel, Taiwan, Japan and Moscow, and has recently been performing Julius Caesar in France. Other: I Am My Own Wife, Boston TheatreWorks; Approaching Moomtaj, New Repertory Theatre; Twelfth Night and The Tempest, Commonwealth Shakespeare Co.; London’s Battersea Arts Center; five productions at Houston’s Alley Theatre, including Our Town (Dr. Gibbs, directed by José Quintero); and many theatres throughout the U.S. Awards: 1994 Elliot Norton Prize for Sustained Excellence, 2000 and 2004 IRNE Awards for Best Actor, 1997 Los Angeles DramaLogue Award (for title role of Shlemiel the First). Television: Julie Taymor’s film Fool’s Fire (PBS American Playhouse), "Unsolved Mysteries," "Del and Alex" (Alex, A&E Network). Film: Mystic River (directed by Clint Eastwood), The Pink Panther II. He is on the faculty of the A.R.T. Institute, teaches acting at Harvard University and Emerson College, and is a graduate of the Yale School of Drama.

A.R.T.: Cherry was a founding member of the A.R.T. and has appeared multiple times on its stage, including: King Lear, Twelfth Night (with Diane Lane), Three Sisters, As You Like It, The Serpent Woman, Life is a Dream, The Caucasian Chalk Circle, Major Barbara, Love’s Labors Lost, Lysistrata. Broadway and Off-Broadway: Doubt (Tony Award, Drama Desk Award), The Heiress (Tony Award, Drama Desk Award), Pride’s Crossing (Drama Desk Award), Lincoln Center Theater; Angels in America; Imaginary Friends; Moon for the Misbegotten (Tony Award nomination); The Night of the Iguana; Our Country’s Good (Tony Award nomination); Faith Healer; Mrs. Warren’s Profession; The Baltimore Waltz (OBIE Award). Television: “24” (Emmy Award for role as President Allison Taylor), “What Makes a Family,” and most recently as Dr. Judith Evans in “Awake.” Film: Ocean’s Twelve, Cradle Will Rock, The Horse Whisperer, The Perfect Storm, Erin Brockovich, Signs, The Village, Mother and Child, Swimmers, Terrence Malick’s upcoming film Knight of Cups.

Tony Shalhoub most recently appeared at the American Repertory Theater in the role of Bobby in The Old Neighborhood, having appeared previously in eighteen A.R.T. productions over four seasons. His roles included He in Diderot's Rameau's Nephew (which he also played off-Broadway), Pozzo in Waiting for Godot (1983), Joseph Surface in The School for Scandal, Angelo in Measure for Measure, Solyony in Three Sisters, Spear in the premiere of Rundown, and The Son in Six Characters in Search of an Author. A 1980 graduate of the Yale School of Drama, he performed in seven productions at the Yale Repertory Theatre, appearing as Vince in Buried Child, and Crotch and General Laskey in Ubu Rex. Tony has appeared on Broadway in The Heidi Chronicles and Conversations with My Father (Tony Award nomination), in Zero Positive and For Dear Life at the Public Theater, and Richard III and Henry IV, Part I at Shakespeare-in-the-Park. Other resident credits include Progress at the Long Wharf Theatre, and Rum and Coke at Coconut Grove. Film credits include the highly acclaimed Big Night opposite Stanley Tucci, Searching for Bobby Fischer, Honeymoon in Vegas, Barton Fink, Longtime Companion, and Quick Change. On television, Mr. Shalhoub played Ian Stark on the NBC series Stark Raving Mad, and was a regular cast member on the long-running series Wings.  He has also appeared in The Equalizer, Spencer for Hire, and numerous TV movies including Day One, in which he portrayed Enrico Fermi.

Irina Nikolayevna Arkadina in The Seagull. A.R.T.: founding member, sixty-six productions including Elena Ceausescu in The Communist Dracula Pageant, When It's Hot, It's Cole, Luisa in Cardenio, Margrethe Bohr in Copenhagen, Kitty Farmer in Donnie Darko, A Marvelous Party!, Mrs. Bumble in Oliver Twist (also at Theatre for A New Audience and Berkeley Repertory Theatre), Island of Slaves, the Nurse in Romeo and Juliet, Estelle in No Exit, Ellen in Olly's Prison, Anna in Dido, Queen of Carthage, Madamoiselle in The Provok'd Wife, Frosine in The Miser, Meg in The Birthday Party, Hippolyta/Titania in A Midsummer Night's Dream, several roles in Highway Ulysses, Kalonika in Lysistrata, Simonne Evrard in Marat/Sade, Emilia in Othello, the Duchess of Gloucester and Duchess of York in Richard II, the title role in Mother Courage, and Madam Yelena Popov/Nastasya in Three Farces and a Funeral. She has also appeared as Paulina in The Winter's Tale, Translator/Ursula in Full Circle, Zinaida in Ivanov, Anaïs Nin in The Idiots Karamazov, The Maid in Charlie in the House of Rue, Eileen in The Cripple of Inishmaan, Enone in Phaedra, Margaret Brennan in The Marriage of Bette and Boo, Female Interviewer in Valparaiso, Beline in The Imaginary Invalid, the Chorus Leader in The Bacchae, Mrs. Darling in Peter Pan and Wendy, Mrs. Pierson in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Gena in The Wild Duck, Smeraldina in The King Stag, Karen in Six Characters in Search of an Author, and in Big River, School for Scandal, and Baby With the Bathwater. New York: Roundabout Theatre, Second Stage, Playwright's Horizons, and Actors' Playhouse. Regional: The Misanthrope (Arsinöe, Berkshire Theatre Festival), Infestation (Mother, Boston Playwrights Theatre), Twelfth Night (Maria, Commonwealth Shakespeare Company), The Beauty Queen of Leenane (Maureen) and The Last Night of Ballyhoo (Boo, Vineyard Playhouse), Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf (Martha, Elliot Norton Award) and Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune (Frankie, Merrimack Repertory Theatre), As You Like It (Rosalind, Shakespeare & Co), Shirley Valentine (Shirley, Charles Playhouse). Other: Alley Theatre (Company member), the Goodman Theatre, the Wilma Theatre, Long Wharf Theatre, Geva Theatre, Syracuse Stage, Buffalo Studio Arena, Cincinnati Playhouse, Philadelphia Festival of New Plays.

Paul Benedict (Hirst in No Man's Land) began his theater career in Boston in 1961 at the Image Theatre on Charles Street, followed by six seasons at David Wheeler's Theatre Company of Boston from 1963 to 1968 before he headed for New York. Favorite Broadway roles include Charlie Hughes in Eugene O'Neil's two-character classic Hughie (opposite Al Pacino) at Circle in the Square; Mayor Shinn in Susan Strohman's revival of Meredith Willson's The Music Man at the Neil Simon; off-Broadway he appeared in Jules Feiffer's Little Murders and Feiffer's The White House Murder Case and Terrence McNally's It's Only a Play, among others. He has performed at many of the country's resident theaters and was seen at the American Repertory Theater as Chulkaturin in Journey of the Fifth Horse and as Freddy in Steve Martin's Picasso at the Lapin Agile. His numerous directing credits include Frank Conroy's Any Given Day on Broadway; Terrence McNally's Frankie and Johnny in the Claire de Lune and Cathy Najimi and Mo Gaffney's The Cathy and Mo Show off-Broadway; and many productions in resident theaters. Film credits include The Freshman, The Goodbye Girl, Waiting for Guffman, The Addams Family, and Taking Off, as well as many television appearances.

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.