SAN ANTONIO, TX (January 13) 100A Productions presents Talley’s Folly. This mid-season fully staged offering transports us to an ornate Victorian boathouse in the Midwest where we join two “lame ducks” as they explore the importance of imagination and lyricism in navigating past reality on their way to finding wholeness in each other. The show runs for two weeks in the Carlos Alvarez Studio Theater from February 12th – 23rd.
Rick Frederick, Producing Artistic Director for 100A Productions shares, “We are incredibly fortunate to have such extraordinary San Antonio talent both on stage and behind the scenes, making every moment resonate with authenticity and heart. David Connelly, who directed our inaugural production of The 39 Steps, returns alongside the brilliant designer Karen L. Miller to create the perfect environment for Eva Laporte and Mark Stringham to return to the stage after many years away. This truly is a special project for all of us!”
Tickets are on sale now and can be purchased online at tobincenter.org, via phone (210) 223-8624 or in-person at The Tobin Center Box Office (100 Auditorium Circle, 78205). Box Office hours are Monday-Friday 10a-6p and Saturday, 10a-2p. Tickets start at $35.
TALLEY’S FOLLY
by Lanford Wilson
Directed by David Connelly
Featuring: Mark Stringham as Matt Friedman and Eva Laporte as Sally Talley
“Talley’s Folly” is presented by special arrangement with Broadway Licensing, LLC, servicing the Dramatists Play Service imprint. (www.dramatists.com)
“In “Talley’s Folly,” he (Lanford Wilson) introduces us to two wonderful people, humanizing and warming them with the radiance of his abundant talent. “Talley’s Folly” is a play to savor and to cheer.” – Mel Gussow, New York Times
“The play is a valentine to a classic romantic ideal: two lost souls finding in each other a respite from loneliness. And, as Matt puts it right up front in that frank opening monologue, “Valentines need froufrou.”- Charles Isherwood, New York Times
CREATIVE TEAM
Set Design by Karen L. Miller
Properties and Set Dressing by Jeremiah Teutsch
Lighting by Chuck Drew
Costume Design by Agosto Cuellar
Sound by Eric Montoya
Construction by Edward Diaz
Crystal Carter, Production Stage Manager and Technical Director
BIOGRAPHIES
Mark Stringham, Matt Friedman – (he/him) Mark is the current Chair & Producing Director of Theatre Arts at the University of the Incarnate Word. He has worked extensively with credits in San Antonio and across the country. Regional: A Christmas Carol, Mr. & Mrs., The Tens, Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure, My Fair Lady, Pizza Theology (Actors Theatre of Louisville), My Fair Lady(Cleveland Playhouse), Runway 69, Antony and Cleopatra (RSC/New Dramatists, T. Alvin McCraney Dir.),Bellwether (Public Theatre, NYC), The Rose Garden(Atlantic Theatre Company), Illyria the Musical, Macbeth(Virginia Shakes), A Flea in Her Ear, How to Succeed…(Cape Cod Critics Circle Award), The Fantasticks, Taming of the Shrew (Monomoy Theatre) Local: Altered State Bar, Princess Bribe (Ethics Follies), Our Town, Merchant of Venice, Lion in Winter, Bound by Truth (Classic Theatre of San Antonio), Footloose (San Pedro Playhouse). Education: MFA-Ohio U. BA-UIW. All my adoration & gratitude to Candice: A too.
Eva Laporte, Sally Talley – (she/her) is a theatre artist from CA and has returned to San Antonio after working around the country. She holds an acting degree in theatre from the University of Northern Colorado and studied with the National Theatre Conservatory, National Theater Institute at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, Royal Shakespeare Theatre Academy, and the Moscow Art Theatre.
Eva has worked nationally on new play development with playwrights Edward Albee, Philip Dawkins, and Mark Medoff, among others. She has served as the mentor for the Young Playwright’s Festival at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center. Highlights as a director include The Surround Project’s Four Places by Joel Drake Johnson and 9 Circles by Bill Cain, Rebecca Gilman’s Dollhouse at Stages Repertory Theatre, and Post by Eric James. San Antonio’s directing highlights include Brilliant Traces** at the San Pedro Playhouse and Mary Zimmerman’s Metamorphoses at the Sheldon Vexler Theatre.
As an actor: 20% Theatre Co: Outside Agitators (premiere); Main Street Theater: Woof (premiere); Classical Theatre Company: Uncle Vanya, Ubu Roi; Stages Repertory Theatre: Auntie Mame; Texas Repertory Theatre: Crimes Of The Heart , Bus Stop , Moon Over Buffalo; Shakespeare Globe Centre of the Southwest: Romeo & Juliet ; Classic Theatre: The Glass Menagerie*; Attic Rep: Mr. Marmalade*, Just A Kiss (premiere)*; Church Theatre: Doubt , The Underpants*, You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown*: Sheldon Vexler Theatre: The Crucible, Taming Of The Shrew, Female Transport , The Clearing, A Company Of Wayward Saints, Chinamen/The Two Of Us*; San Pedro Playhouse: State Fair, The Women, Carousel, Intimate Apparel, Sky Girls, Lobby Hero. *Best Actress and ** Best Director, Alamo Theatre Arts Council.
After directing the inaugural staged reading of A Dog’s House for 100A Productions last year, she is thrilled to direct the upcoming San Antonio premiere of The Revolutionists here at the Tobin. Eva and her partner Zach Lewis operate a theatre project pop-up focusing on contemporary plays.
David Connelly, Director – David Connelly is pleased to return to 100AProductions after directing its premiere event, The 39 Steps. David began his professional theatre career in Chicago, working with the Steppenwolf Theatre Company (Chicago/Festival of Perth/Broadway), the Goodman Theatre, The Pointe Theatre Company, and the Famous Door Theatre Company. His San Antonio credits include directing and/or performing with Attic Rep and the San Antonio Public Theatre. He recently retired after 22 years teaching at the North East School of the Arts, where he established and taught the Acting curriculum in the Musical Theatre program, and directed over sixty productions. In 2014, the Hollywood Reporter included the NESA theatre program among the top ten of its national survey of high school drama programs. He was a finalist for the Excellence in Theatre Education Award at the 2019 Tonys.
ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT
Lanford Wilson (April 13, 1937 – March 24, 2011) was an American playwright. His work, as described by The New York Times, was “earthy, realist, greatly admired [and] widely performed”. Wilson helped to advance the off-off-Broadway theater movement with his earliest plays, which were first produced at the Caffe Cino beginning in 1964. He was one of the first playwrights to move from off-off-Broadway to off-Broadway, then Broadway and beyond.
Wilson was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in Drama & Performance Art in 1972. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1980 and was elected in 2001 to the American Theater Hall of Fame. In 2004, Wilson was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters and received the PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Award as a Master American Dramatist. He was nominated for three Tony Awards and has won a Drama Desk Award and five Obie Awards.
Wilson’s 1964 short play The Madness of Lady Bright was his first major success and led to further works throughout the 1960s that expressed a variety of social and romantic themes. In 1969, he co-founded the Circle Repertory Company with theatre director Marshall W. Mason. He wrote many plays for the Circle Repertory in the 1970s. His 1973 play The Hot l Baltimore was the company’s first major success with both audiences and critics. The off-Broadway production exceeded 1,000 performances.
His play Fifth of July was first produced at Circle Repertory in 1978. He received a Tony Award nomination for its Broadway production, which opened in 1980. A prequel to Fifth of July called Talley’s Folly (opened 1979 at Circle Repertory) opened on Broadway before Fifth of July and won Wilson the 1980 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and his first Tony nomination. Burn This (1987) was another Broadway success. Wilson also wrote the libretti for several operas.
