Marat/Sade

Peter Weiss (1916-1982) was a novelist, painter, film director and dramatist. Fleeing Nazi persecution in his native Germany in 1934, he became a Swedish citizen. His experimental prose (The Shadow of the Coachman's Body) and autobiographical novels (The Leavetaking) attracted attention from the German literati, but world-wide success did not come until the 1964 production of his play The Assassination and Persecution of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade (Marat/Sade). Following this Tony-award winning smash, a new play, The Investigation, dealing with the Auschwitz trials met with success on both sides of the Atlantic, winning a Tony Award in 1966. The press heralded him as the "new Brecht,"and his work grew increasingly Marxist with Trotsky in Exile, The Vietnam Discourse, and Hölderlin. His politics made him unpopular, however, and though he won the Büchner Prize, the Bremen Literature Prize, the De Nios Prize and the Swedish Theatre Critics Prize (all in 1982), his works were rarely performed outside Germany.

A.R.T.: The Seagull, Desire Under the Elms, Uncle Vanya, Marat/Sade and Mother Courage and Her Children. A.R.T. Institute: Spring Awakening, Alice vs. Wonderland (Moscow). He was the Director of the A.R.T. Institute and a faculty member from 2001–03. Theater work in his native Hungary includes Sophocles’ The Oedipus Cycle, Master and Margarita, Ghosts, The King Stag, A Streetcar Named Desire, Uncle Vanya, Baal, Mother Courage and Marat/Sade, among many others. He has directed several productions in Oslo, Norway and A Streetcar Named Desire for Arena Stage, Washington, D.C. His films include Opium (presented at various festivals in Europe and winner of several prizes), Woyzeck (Hungarian nominee for the Oscars), The Witman Boys (official selection of the Cannes Film Festival and winner of several awards), and Eyes of the Holocaust, a documentary film about the Hungarian holocaust produced by Steven Spielberg for the Shoah Foundation, presented at the Los Angeles Jewish Film Festival. He is a member of the European
Film Academy.

Prior to  Desire Under the Elms , Edit Szücs designed the costumes for the A.R.T.'s Uncle Vanya, Marat/Sade and Mother Courage and Her Children (2001 Elliot Norton Design Award). Her work includes Hungarian productions of Shakespeare's Hamlet and Titus Andronicus, Brecht's Mother Courage and The Caucasian Chalk Circle, Foster's Tom Paine, Ostrovsky's Tempest, Feydeau's A Flea in Her Ear, Bezeredi's adaptation of Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment, Brabal's Closely Watched Trains, Goldoni's Mirandolina, Bulgakov's Ivan the Terrible, Ödön von Horvath's The Return of Don Juan, and numerous plays by Hungarian playwrights for theaters in Budapest and other major Hungarian cities. Her work has been exhibited in Hungary, The Czech Republic, Germany, and France, and she is the recipient of design prizes in Hungary and abroad. She was a member of artist delegations to Romania and Serbia at the invitation of the European Theatre Union.

Lighting Designer John Ambrosone has designed over thirty productions for the American Repertory Theater, including Lysistrata, Absolution, Marat/Sade, Othello, Animals and Plants, Mother Courage (2001 Elliot Norton Design Award), The Doctor's Dilemma, Three Farces and a Funeral, Nocturne, Ivanov, The Cripple of Inishmaan, The King Stag, Boston Marriage, Charlie in the House of Rue, Valparaiso, The Marriage of Bette and Boo, How I Learned to Drive, Nobody Dies on Friday, Man and Superman, The Old Neighborhood, When the World Was Green (A Chef's Fable), Alice in Bed, Slaughter City, and Buried Child. On Broadway he designed The Old Neighborhood. Work in resident theaters includes the Alley Theatre, Long Wharf Theatre, the Coconut Grove Playhouse, Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), Walnut Street Theatre, Trinity Repertory Company, and Arena Stage. Mr. Ambrosone also has designed in Singapore, Moscow, Japan, Brazil, Taiwan, Mexico, Germany, and France.

Sound designs by David Remedios have been heard in Sexual Perversity in Chicago/The Duck Variations, Romance, Trojan Barbie, Endgame, The Seagull, The Communist Dracula Pageant, Let Me Down Easy, When It’s Hot It’s Cole, Cardenio, Julius Caesar, Copenhagen, Donnie Darko, A Marvelous Party, No Man's Land, Oliver Twist, Britannicus, The Onion Cellar, The Island of Slaves,  Orpheus X, Romeo and Juliet, No Exit, Three Sisters (2005), The Keening, Amerika, Olly's Prison, Desire Under the Elms, Dido Queen of Carthage, The Provok'd Wife (original music and sound), The Miser, A Midsummer Night's Dream (2003), Snow in June, Lady with a Lapdog, The Sound of a Voice, Pericles, Highway Ulysses, Uncle Vanya, Lysistrata, Absolution, Marat/Sade, Stone Cold Dead Serious, Enrico IV, Othello, Animals and Plants, The Doctor's Dilemma, Mother Courage and Her Children, Three Farces and a Funeral, Antigone, Nocturne, How I Learned to Drive, and Man and Superman. He has also toured regionally and internationally with the A.R.T.  Other credits include Farragut North and Yankee Tavern (Contemporary American Theater Festival), The Merchant of Venice (Actor’s Shakespeare Project), Ah, Wilderness! (CenterStage Baltimore), The Diary of Anne Frank (New Rep), The Scottish Play (La Jolla Playhouse), Leap (Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park), Daughter of Venus, Action Jesus and Dressed Up! Wigged Out! (Boston Playwrights’ Theatre), Sideways Stories from Wayside School, All of a Kind Family and The Fabulous Invalid (Emerson Stage), Samson Agonistes (92nd St. Y), Our Town (Boston Theatre Works), Far East (Vineyard Playhouse), Only You (Efron Entertainment). Dance soundscapes include works for Concord Academy Dance, Snappy Dance Theater Company, and Lorraine Chapman.  Awards: 2007 Connecticut Critics Circle Award (No Exit, Hartford Stage), 2001 Elliot Norton Award (Mother Courage and Her Children, A.R.T.), seven Independent Reviewers of New England Award nominations.

Composer Richard Peaslee (A Midsummer Night's Dream, Marat/Sade) has composed for stage, screen, and concert hall. Symphony orchestras from Buffalo to Philadelphia offer his concert works, while his jazz pieces have been performed by William Russo's London Jazz Orchestra, the Chicago Jazz Ensemble, and the Stan Kenton and Ted Heath Orchestras. Numbering among his many compositions for the stage in New York, London, and Paris are Peter Brook/Royal Shakespeare Company's A Midsummer Night's Dream, Antony and Cleopatra; Peter Hall's Animal Farm at the National Theatre; and scores for Joseph Papp's New York Shakespeare Festival. He has composed several musicals for family audiences—The Green Knight, The Snow Queen, and Tanglewood Tales among them. In dance, his pieces include Touch for David Parsons (at the New York City Ballet) and collaborations with Elisa Monte, Lar Lubovitch, and Twyla Tharp. As for television and film, he orchestrated the Bill Campbell/Bill Moyer series The Power of Myth as well as Claudia Shear's Blown Sideways Through Life for American Playhouse. He counts among his many awards The National Academy of Arts and Letters Marc Blitzstein Award; Obie and Villager Awards; and several NEA and NYFA Fellowships.

Composer, The Communist Dracula Pageant. A.R.T.: [I Am] Nobody's Lunch, Lysistrata, Marat/Sade, Idiots Karamazov, The Merchant of Venice. Composer/lyricist for the Civilian’s This Beautiful City, [I Am] Nobody’s Lunch, Gone Missing, and Canard, Canard, Goose? Also wrote music and lyrics for Saved, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, In the Bubble, The Brand New Kid, God’s Ear, and The Blue Demon. With Steve Cosson, he is the co-author of Paris Commune. New York: Playwrights Horizons, Public/NYSF, NYTW, Roundabout, Second Stage, Soho Repertory, Theatre for a New Audience, Signature, and the Acting Company. Regional: Hartford Stage, Humana Festival, Kennedy Center, Berkeley Repertory, Williamstown Festival. International: London’s Soho and Gate Theatres, and the Edinburgh Festival. Founding associate artist of the Civilians. Artistic associate at New York Theatre Workshop, MacDowell Fellowship, and a Princeton University Hodder Fellowship. 2007 Obie Award for sustained excellence.

Csaba Horváth (Marat/Sade, choreographer and assistant director) created the choreography for Mother Courage and Her Children last season. One of Hungary’s most imporant choreographers, he is the artistic director of the Central Europe Dance Theatre in Budapest, and has participated in many Hungarian and international festivals including Edinburgh (where he received the Herald Angel prize), Krakow, Sarajevo (top prize of festival), and Cairo (Best Director award). Recently he produced a soundless version of Bartok's ballet The Miraculous Mandarin for the Hungarian Spring Festival, which received the Hungarian critics' Best of the 2001 Theatre Season award. He is also the recipient of Hungary's Best in Dance award for 2001.