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The Naked Eye

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Take a photographer modeled on Robert Mapplethorpe (only funnier), stir in his lesbian assistant who rages at people who use bad French, mix with an uptight senator campaigning for President, his socially prominent wife, his finishing-school daughter, and his gorgeously vacant mistress (a former Playboy, Miss August), and you get The Naked Eye—a farce for the ’90s about the collision of art, sex, society and politics. Part comedy of manners, part over-the-top cartoon, The Naked Eye is the latest work by one of this country’s most admired young playwrights, best known for his hugely successful comedies I Hate Hamlet and Jeffrey (recently released as a major motion picture).

Credits

Creative team

By

Paul Rudnick

The Naked Eye playwright Paul Rudnick is also the author of Jeffrey, which has been performed all over the world and for which he won an Obie award, an Outer Critics Circle Award, and the John Gassner Award. His other plays include I Hate Hamlet and Cosmetic Surgery. His novels, Social Disease and I'll Take It were both published by Knopf. Mr. Rudnick's film work includes Addams Family Values and the screen version of Jeffrey. His work has appeared in Vanity Fair, Spy, the New York Times, Vogue, and Esquire. He lives in New York City.

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Directed by

Christopher Ashley

Directed by

Christopher Ashley

Christopher Ashley's recent projects include Nine Armenians at the Intiman Theatre and I Hate Hamlet in Chicago. He directed Paul Rudnick's The Naked Truth (the previous version of The Naked Eye) at the WPA Theatre in New York and Claudia Shear's one-woman show, Blown Sideways Through Life (and the film version for PBS's American Playhouse). He also directed Mr. Rudnick's Jeffrey off Broadway, on Broadway, and in Los Angeles and San Francisco, as well as the feature film. Other New York credits include Das Barbecü; Anna Deavere Smith's Fires in the Mirror at the New York Shakespeare Festival; The White Rose, The Night Hank Williams Died, and Buzzsaw Berkeley at the WPA Theatre; Dario Fo's Eve's Diary/Story of the Tiger; and A Breath of Fresh Air at New York Theatre Workshop, among others. Resident credits include the Philadelphia Theatre Company, where he directed Miss Ever's Boys; Lips Together, Teeth Apart; Haikin; and The Cocktail Hour (also at Cincinnati Playhouse, Philadelphia Theatre Company), and Story of the Tiger at Los Angeles Theatre Company. Mr. Ashley is the recipient of Obie, Lucille Lortel, and Dramalogue awards for Jeffrey and Fires in the Mirror.

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Set design by

Derek McLane

Set design by

Derek McLane

Derek McLane has designed over a dozen sets for the A.R.T., including Waiting for Godot, What the Butler Saw, The Caretaker, Heartbreak House, Hedda Gabler, Misalliance, The Homecoming, Twelfth Night, and The Father. He has collaborated with directors including Edward Albee, Gregory Boyd, Robert Brustein, Michael Engler, Michael Kahn, Mark Lamos, Nicholas Muni, Charlie Newell, Lisa Peterson, Jackson Phippin, Peter Sellars, Andrei Serban, Stephen Wadsworth, David Wheeler, and Stan Wojewodski. In New York he has designed for The Acting Company, Playwrights Horizons, LaMama/ETC, and the Juilliard School. Outside New York he has designed for Scottish Opera in Glasgow, The Taganka in Moscow, Canadian Opera, Alley Theatre, Arena Stage, Center Stage, the Guthrie Theater, Hartford Stage, Seattle Repertory Theatre, The Shakespeare Theatre in Washington, D.C., and Yale Repertory Theatre.

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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

Donald Holder

Lighting design by

Donald Holder

Don Holder is celebrated for his innovative lighting design in projects and productions ranging from opera to experimental theater to Broadway. Based in New York, he is on the faculty of the California Institute of the Arts (Valencia, California) where he is Head of Lighting Design. His opera credits include Grendel (L.A. Opera and Lincoln Center Festival, NY), The Magic Flute (NYC Metropolitan Opera), Salome (Kirov Opera), Moby Dick (world premiere: Dallas Opera) and The End of The Affair (Houston Grand Opera). A selection of his acclaimed Broadway productions includes South Pacific (2008 Tony Award, Henry Hewes Award); Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark (Fall 2010); Promises, Promises; Come Fly Away; Oleanna; The Lion King (Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle awards); Ragtime, Movin’ Out, Les Liasons Dangereuses, Gem of The Ocean, A Streetcar Named Desire, Juan Darien (all Tony nominated); Cyrano de Bergerac; Radio Golf; The Little Dog Laughed; Thoroughly Modern Millie; and The Boy From Oz. Holder has also designed at resident theaters across the United States. He is a graduate of the Yale School of Drama.

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Sound design by

Christopher Walker

Sound design by

Christopher Walker

Christopher Walker has composed music and designed sound for We Won't Pay! We Won't Pay!, Phaedra, Beckett Trio: Eh Joe, Ghost Trio, and Nacht und Traüme, and An Evening of Beckett, and designed sound for The King Stag, Loot, The Idiots Karamazov, Ivanov, The Cripple of Inishmaan, Charlie in the House of Rue, The Merchant of Venice, Valparaiso, The Taming of the Shrew, The Bacchae, The Wild Duck, Woyzeck, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, The Wild Duck, Alice in Bed, Slaughter City, Buried Child, Ubu Rock, The Threepenny Opera, The Accident, Demons, Waiting for Godot, The Oresteia, Hot 'n' Throbbing, The America Play, A Touch of the Poet, The Cherry Orchard, What the Butler Saw, and Those the River Keeps at the A.R.T. Previously he composed music and designed sound for productions at the Intiman Theatre, the Bathhouse Theatre, and the Alice B. Theatre. He also scores for dance and has composed for the Allegro Dance Festival, the Bumbershoot Festival, and On The Boards.

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Music composed and coordinated by

Mark Bennett

Projections by

Wendall K. Harrington

Nan Bemiss Mary Beth Peil
Mumbali Keefer Pamela Hart
Alex DelFlavio Neil Maffin
Katrin Dowling Francine Torres
Marcus Dowling Thomas Derrah
Pete Bemiss Jeremy Geidt
Sissy Bemiss Darnley J.Smith Cameron
Lynette Cheryl Kenan