The White Snake

February 24–March 26

The White Snake
By Mary Zimmerman
Directed by Natsu Onoda Power

A SPECTACULAR VISION IN A BRAND NEW THEATER

Mystery and magic intertwine in this fantastical tale brought to life in grand spectacle in the newly renovated Head Theater. Originating from the ancient Chinese fable, The White Snake tells the story of animal spirits White Snake and Green Snake, who take human form as a beautiful woman and her sly servant. White Snake soon falls passionately in love with a poor pharmacist’s assistant, but their relationship is reviled by a conservative monk and tragedy lurks behind their newfound happiness. Complemented by storytelling techniques traditional and new, The White Snake will be a can’t-miss event of the 2016/17 Season for the entire family.

Content Advisory: This magical tale based on a classic Chinese fable is well-suited for middle schoolers and older elementary school students who don’t mind special effects and the length of a full theatrical production.

“Zimmerman doesn’t simply fashion engrossing plays; she creates theatrical magic.”—Huffington Post

Approximately 2 hours and 11 minutes, including a 15-minute intermission.

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Made possible by

Miles & Stockbridge T Rowe Price

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Cast

Aimé Donna Kelly*
White Snake

Eileen Rivera*
Green Snake

Joe Ngo*
Xu Xian

Peter Van Wagner*
Fa Hai

Caitlin Cisco*
Ensemble

Samy el-Noury
Ensemble

Lucy Catherine Lavely*
Ensemble

Brett Messiora*
Ensemble

Pooya Mohseni*
Ensemble

Linden Tailor*
Ensemble

Damian Thompson*
Ensemble

Jeff Song
Actor-Musician/ Musician/Music Director/ Composer

Jason Kao Hwang
Actor-Musician/Composer (violin/viola)

Joshua Ziemann
Actor-Musician/Composer (marimba, percussion)

Yukio Tsuji
Actor-Musician/Composer (shakuhachi, percussion)

Baltimore Center Stage: debut. Off Broadway—Primary Stages: Exit Strategy (Sadie); Epic Theatre Ensemble: Macbeth (Witch), Othello (Bianca). Regional favorites—Philadelphia Theatre Company: Disgraced (Jory); Arden Theatre Company: Macbeth (Lady Macduff/Weird Sister); Orbiter 3: Moon Man Walk (Petrushka); InterAct Theatre Company: The Dangerous House of Pretty Mbane (Barrymore Awards Best Actress nomination), We are Proud to Present…(Black Woman); 1812 Productions: This is the week that is; Theatre 4 the People: Unsex Me Here (Cleopatra); Applied Mechanics: We are Bandits (Sharon); Delaware Theatre Company: The Exonerated (Georgia); Theatre Exile: The North Plan (Shonda). Film/TV—Iron Fist, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Education—The University of the Arts.

Eileen Rivera (Seneca/The Bishop) is thrilled to return to BCS where she performed in The White Snake and It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play. Other DC area: Tiger Style! at Olney Theatre Center, Vietgone at Studio Theatre. Off-Broadway (partial list): Beast (NYTW), Dogeaters (The Public), A Fable (Rattlestick Playwrights Co.), King Lear (Cherry Lane Mentor Project). Regional (partial list): The Hour of Great Mercy (Diversionary, San Diego), The Long Season (Perseverance; Juneau, Alaska), The Comfort Team (Virginia Stage Co.). Film: Mildred, Daughter of Venus; The Barrelman Caper. TV: Law & Order, Law & Order: Criminal Intent. Learn more at www.eileenrivera.com

Baltimore Center Stage: After the Revolution, Ah, Wilderness. New York—Roundabout: A Thousand Clowns; Lortel: So Help Me God!; The Public: The Chimes; 2nd Stage: The Notebook; Signature: Letters From Cuba. Regional—Yale Rep: The Cherry Orchard; Goodman: Huckleberry Finn; Huntington: Two Men Of Florence; Alliance: Mrs. Warren’s Profession; Rep. of St Louis: Twelve Angry Men; Long Wharf: Hearts. International—La Scala-Milan: West Side Story; Germany: Phantom (tour). Films—Annie, Tower Heist, Arthur, Hollywood Ending, Purple Violets. TV—He has guest starred on episodes of all the Law & Orders, The Good Wife, Unforgettable, Rescue Me, Third Watch and All My Children. Peter received a SAG Award for Outstanding Ensemble for HBO’s Boardwalk Empire.

Baltimore Center Stage—debut. Off/Off Broadway—The Maids (Madame, dir Ben Gunderson); NYMITF & SAIPAF: Death of a Persian Prince (title role, written/dir Dewey Moss); Fringe NYC: Touch of Forever (dir Michael Tartaglia). Regional—Kansas City Rep, reading of Man in Love (Bernice, dir Marissa Wolf). TV/Film—USA Network/Amazon Prime: Falling Water (Dr Duria/Recurring Guest Star); CBS: Madam Secretary (Season 1, dir Eric Stoltz); Award—Academy Award finalist Columbia University Grad thesis: Day 39 (dir Jesse Gustafson, avail on Vimeo). Writing—Medium.com: “I was born a Girl in a Boy’s Body”; Stageandcandor.com: “The Privilege of Passing”, “Trick or Trans”; Advocate.com: “Living Trans, from Iran to New York City”, a biographical article by Mitch Kellaway about Pooya’s journey as a transgender woman and artist, from her home in Tehran to New York City. Education—Maggie Flanigan Studio; The PIT, FIT.

Baltimore Center Stage: debut. Regional (acting)—Boston Playwrights’ Theatre: Memorial (Hideo Sasaki); Wheelock Theater: Pinocchio; Company One: Astro Boy and the God of Comics; Emerson: Gunplay; American Repertory Theater: Wild Swans. Original Music for Theater—Astro Boy and the God of Comics; Pinocchio. Tour—Bassist for Ute Lemper: Montreux Jazz Festival, Istanbul Jazz Festival, L’Opéra de Vichy, Palermo Festival Di Verdura. Music Festivals— San Francisco Asian American Jazz Festival, Knitting Factory’s What is Jazz? Festival, Chicago Asian American Jazz Festival, CSPS New Music Festival, Boston Asian American Jazz Festival, New York Jazz Festival, CreAsian Festival of the Arts. Recordings—Over a dozen recordings on various labels; original music featured on radio, TV, the Children’s Museum of Manhattan. Grants/Awards—New England Foundation for the Arts; Edwin S. & Ruth M. White Humanities Scholar (BU). Education—New England Conservatory of Music; Boston University.

Baltimore Center Stage: debut. Jason has created works ranging from jazz, “new,” and world music. Recent—Recently he released the CD VOICE and his octet Burning Bridge, premiered his composition blood at Edgefest (MI). Awards—In 2012, National Public Radio selected Burning Bridge as one of the year’s Top CDS and the Downbeat Critics’ Poll voted him “Rising Star for Violin.” In 2011 and 2012 the critics’ poll of El Intruso voted him #1 for Violin/Viola. In 2010, the NYC Jazz Record selected Commitment, The Complete Recordings, 1981-1983, from a collective quartet that was his first band, as one of the “Reissued Recordings of the Year.” Violinist—worked with Will Connell, Jr., Butch Morris, Pauline Oliveros, Wadada Leo Smith, William Parker, Anthony Braxton, and Yoshiko Chuma.

Baltimore Center Stage: debut. Regional—As musical theater pit musician: Wellesley Theater Project, Nobles and Greenough School, Liars and Believers, Boston University, F.U.D.G.E. Theater Company, and many others. As music director, conductor, and accompanist: Winthrop Playmakers, Vokes Players, Back Bay Repertory Theater, Riverside Theater, Curry College, Boston College High School, PAC Metrowest, and Rhode Island School of Design. Other—Improv comedy pianist at Improv Asylum and Laugh Boston. Founding member and percussionist for contemporary music group, Zyzzyx, and drummer for psychedelic-funk-rock band, Instant Shawarma. Professor at Bunker Hill Community College. Josh is an ASCAP member and Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art grant recipient. Recent performances—Equilibrium Concert Series, Rhode Island Pride, Make Music Boston, Outside the Box Festival. Education—Illinois Wesleyan University, Boston Conservatory at Berklee, and Longy School of Music. joshuaziemann.com

Baltimore Center Stage: debut. Yukio has collaborated on more than 200 productions. The house composer/musician at La MaMa for over 25 years, Yukio performed on Ellen Stewart’s Medea, Electra, Trojan Women, Seven and countless other productions since 1980. Broadway—Salome (dir Estelle Parsons, feat Al Pacino); Macbeth; Night Over Taos; Last Days of Judas Iscariot (dir Estelle Parsons); M. Butterfly (co-arranger and performer); Transposed Head (dir Julie Taymor). Film—Year of the Dragon (composer, performer). Other—Kei Takei’s Moving Earth Dance Company; Window of The City for the Shanghai Expo; 9 Acts: Tantalas (performer, dir Sir Peter Hall with The Royal Shakespeare Company); New York City Ballet: Watermill (directed by Jerome Robins). He is a member of SaraGalas Band based in New York.

Creative Team

Mary Zimmerman
Adaptor

Natsu Onoda Power
Director

Jeff Song
Actor-Musician/Musician/Music Director/Composer

Hana S. Kim
Scenic and Projection Designer

Nicole Wee
Costume Designer

Rui Rita
Lighting Designer

Alex Hawthorn
Sound Designer

Andrea “Dre” Moore
Puppet Designer and Constructor

Tommy Kurzman
Hair, Wig & Makeup Design

Sordelet Ink/Rick Sordelet
Fight Director

Stella Choi
Movement Coach

Deanie Vallone
Production Dramaturg

Stephanie Klapper
Casting Director

Larry Smiglewski*
Stage Manager

Alison Kochman*
Assistant Stage Manager

Mary Zimmerman is the recipient of a 1998 MacArthur Fellowship, the 2002 Tony Award for Best Director of a Play and numerous Jeff Awards (including Best Production and Best Direction). She is the Manilow Resident Director of Goodman Theatre, a member of Lookingglass Theatre Company and holds an endowed chair as a professor of performance studies at Northwestern University. Among the works Zimmerman has both adapted and directed are Metamorphoses (on Broadway at the Circle and the Square, Second Stage, Lookingglass Theatre of Chicago, Berkeley and Seattle Rep, the Mark Taper Forum, Arena Stage DC and Melbourne Theatre Company, Australia); Treasure Island (Lookingglass and Berkeley Rep), The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (Goodman, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Seattle Rep and Second Stage Theatre); Journey to the West (Goodman, the Huntington Theatre Company and Berkeley Rep); The Odyssey (Lookingglass Theatre, Goodman, McCarter Theatre and Seattle Rep and at Oregon Shakespeare Festival in summer 2017); Mirror of the Invisible World and Silk, (the Goodman); Arabian Nights (Lookingglass Theatre, Manhattan Theatre Club, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Berkeley Repertory Theatre and Kansas City Rep and Arena Theatre, DC); Argonautika (Lookingglass Theatre, Berkeley Rep, the Shakespeare Theatre Company of DC and McCarter Theatre); The Secret in the Wings (Lookingglass Theatre, Berkeley Rep, McCarter and Seattle Rep); Candide (the Bernstein musical at Goodman, Shakespeare Theatre Company DC, Huntington); Eleven Rooms of Proust (Lookingglass/About Face/Goodman co-production); The Jungle Book (Goodman and Huntington Theatre) and The White Snake (Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Berkeley, Goodman, McCarter, San Diego Globe and the Wuzhen Theatre Festival in China. She created a new opera with Philip Glass, Galileo Galilei, (Goodman, The Barbican in London and Brooklyn Academy of Music). In addition, Ms. Zimmerman has directed Shakespeare’s Pericles (Goodman and Shakespeare Theatre Company of DC) and Henry VIII and Measure for Measure at New York Theater Festival’s Shakespeare in the Park. She made her Metropolitan Opera directorial debut in 2007 with Lucia di Lammermoor, which she also directed at La Scala in Milan in 2014. Subsequent Met productions include Armida, La Sonnambula, and Rusalka, which debuted in February, 2017.

Baltimore Center Stage: debut. Playwright credits include—Georgetown University: Wind Me Up, Maria!, A Go-Go Musical; Forum Theatre: The T Party (writer/director); Company One Theater Boston: The T Party, Astro Boy and the God of Comics (writer/director; Elliot Norton Award, 2015); Synetic Theatre: A Trip to the Moon (writer/director/illustrator); Studio Theatre: Astro Boy and the God of Comics. Director credits include—Mosaic Theatre of DC, Theater J, Studio Theatre, Adventure Theatre. Set Design credits include—Company One Theater, Imagination Stage, Forum Theatre, Synetic Theatre, The Hub Theatre. Professional—Associate Professor in Georgetown’s Theater and Performance Studies program, where she has staged adaptations of non-dramatic texts, such as War with the Newts (Karek Capek), On the Origin of Species (Charles Darwin), The Omnivore’s Dilemma (Michael Pollan), and Madness and Civilization (Michel Foucault). Education—Ph.D. in Performance Studies from Northwestern University. Other—author of God of Comics: Osamu Tezuka and the Creation of Post World War II Manga, University Press of Mississippi.

Baltimore Center Stage: The Christians, The White Snake. Regional—Public Theater: Eve’s Song (dir. Jo Bonney); A.C.T: Sweat (dir. Loretta Greco); Geffen Playhouse: Untranslatable Secret of Nikki Corona (dir. Jo Bonney); South Coast Rep: Little Black Shadows (dir. May Adrales); Magic Theater: Gangster of Love, Grandeur, Dogeaters, Every Five Minutes (all dir. Loretta Greco). Opera—LA Opera: Wonderful Town (dir. David Lee); New York City Opera and Long Beach Opera: Fallujah (dir. Andreas Mitisek). Video Art Installation—Annenberg Space of Photography: Pearls of the Planet; Baryshnikov Arts Center in NY: Emille. Awards—Princess Grace Award in Theater Design, Helen Hayes Award, Theater Bay Area Critics Circle Award, StageScene LA Award, Stage Raw Award, Ovation Awards (multiple nominations). Education—UCLA School of Theater Film and Television. IG @hana.s.kim

Baltimore Center Stage: debut. Off-Broadway—Closer Than Ever (dir. Richard Maltby); Storyville (Henry Hewes and Audelco noms.—Outstanding Costume Design, York Theatre Co.); Fellowship for Performing Arts: Martin Luther on Trial; Emerging Artists Theatre: The Sensational Josephine Baker. National Tour—Fellowship for the Performing Arts: The Great Divorce. Regional—Lesher Center for the Arts: Back Home Again; Muhlenberg SMT: Crazy for You, Spamalot; Peterborough Players: I Do! I Do!; Boheme Opera NJ: Tosca; Florida Studio Theatre: Ruined (regional premiere, Best Costume Design: Best of the Suncoast 2010). Education—MFA: New York University.

Baltimore Center Stage: Lookingglass Alice, Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Wiz, Trouble in Mind, Tis Pity She’s a Whore, King Lear. Broadway—Trip to Bountiful, Velocity of Autumn, Present Laughter, Dividing the Estate, Old Acquaintance, Enchanted April, The Price, A Thousand Clowns. Off-Broadway—Second Stage: Happiest Song Plays Last; Roundabout: Just Jim Dale, Talley’s Folly, Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore; Signature Theatre: Piano Lesson, Horton Foote’s The Orphans’ Home Cycle; TFANA: Engaged (Obie Award), All’s Well That Ends Well; MTC: Nightingale, Moonlight and Magnolias; Lincoln Center: Big Bill, The Carpetbagger’s Children, Far East. Regional—Alley, ACT, Arena Stage, Center Theatre Group, Ford’s Theatre, Guthrie, Hartford Stage, Huntington Theatre, MacCarter, Old Globe, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Shakespeare Theatre Company, Two River Theater, Williamstown Theatre Festival.

Baltimore Center Stage: The White Snake. Off-Broadway/NYC—Keen Company: Ordinary Days; Prospect Theater at 59E59: The Mad Ones; Playwrights Horizons: Fly By Night; The Civilians and the Public Theater: The Great Immensity; Acorn Theater: Straight; LaMaMa: My Heart is in the East; Theater Reconstruction Ensemble: Rhinebecca, NY, You On The Moors Now; NAATCO: A Dream Play; Associate Artist with Theater Mitu: Juárez: A Documentary Mythology, Death of a Salesman, Medea, DR.C (Or How I Learned To Act In Eight Steps), HAIR; Target Margin Theater: Old Comedy from Aristophanes’ Frogs. Regional—Engeman Theater, KC Rep, Ordway, People’s Light and Theater, Portland Centerstage; Broadway, as Associate—Aladdin, A Christmas Story, Chaplin, HAIR, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, In Transit, Memphis, Newsies, Once. Numerous concerts and live events, both nationally and internationally. AlexHawthorn.com IG: AFHawthorn

Baltimore Center Stage: debut. Off Broadway/Tour —The New Victory: Three Little Birds, Caps for Sale. International Tour—Singapore Repertory Theatre’s The Little Company/Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: Just a Dream – The Green Play. Regional Tour—Adventure Theatre: Big Nate, Three Little Birds, Five Little Monkeys. Regional—Olney Theatre Center: The Little Mermaid; Adventure Theatre: James and the Giant Peach, The Emperor’s Nightingale, Jumanji, Knuffle Bunny. Awards—League of Washington Theatres Offstage Award, 2009. Education—Virginia Commonwealth University, BFA – Crafts (Metalsmithing, Woodworking, Textiles). Other—Company member: Flying V Theatre; Member of the Society of Properties Artisan Managers.

Baltimore Center Stage: debut. Recent makeup design—InTransit, The King & I National Tour (LCT Production), NBC Live Upfronts, Long Day’s Journey into Night (w/ Jessica Lange), Bright Star, Fiddler on the Roof, Thérese Raquin (w/ Keira Knightley) on Broadway. Associate Hair Design (w/ Tom Watson)—The King & I (Tour & Bway), Falsettos, Bright Star, Fiddler on the Roof, Dames at Sea, The Sound of Music (2016 Tour). Opera—the Met Opera, Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Santa Fe Opera Theatre. Built and designed wigs for Broadway/tours—Wicked, Act One, Million Dollar Quartet, You Can’t Take It with You, Waiting for Godot/No Man’s Land, Annie, Rock of Ages. Built and designed wigs for Film/TV—NBC: Chicago Med, Showtime: Masters of Sex. Upcoming designs include—ART: The Night of the Iguana (Makeup/Assoc. Hair Design); WNO: Champion (Assoc. Hair Design); MTC: The Little Foxes (Makeup/Assoc. Hair Design; w/ Cynthia Nixon and Laura Linney).

Rick and his son, Christian Kelly-Sordelet, are the creators of Sordelet Ink. Baltimore Center Stage: Shakespeare in Love, Jazz, The White Snake, Les Liaisons Dangereuses. Broadway—72 shows including The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, Eclipsed. National Tours—Beauty and the Beast, Les Miserables. International—53 productions including Tarzan, Aida, The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, Ben Hur Live (Rome and European tour). Opera—The Met Opera: Cyrano(w/ Placido Domingo), Don Carlo(dir. Nicholas Hytner); The Royal Opera House; La Scalia (Milan). Film—The Game Plan, Dan in Real Life, Brave New Jersey, LIV, Hamlet. TV—CBS: Guiding Light (Chief Stunt Coordinator for 12 years); Kevin Can Wait. Instructor—Yale School of Drama. Awards—Edith Oliver Award for Sustained Excellence from the Lucille Lortel Foundation; Jeff Award for Outstanding Fight Director for Romeo and Juliet at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater. Author—Buried Treasure, Choices. sordeletink.com

Baltimore Center Stage: debut. Professional—Fairfax Chinese Dance Troupe: Asst. Director, Choreographer, and Instructor. Regional—National Cherry Blossom Festival, National APA Festival, International Children’s Festival, National Theatre, Kennedy Center, Smithsonian Institution, Wolf Trap, National Cathedral, Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. International—Taiwan, Grenada, Trinidad & Tobago, and London.Choreography—Washington Metropolitan Miss Chinese American Beauty Pageant, Pacific Miss Asian American Pageant, Miss Vietnam DC, Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade, National Independence Day Parade, National Cherry Blossom Parade, 2012 London New Year’s Parade & Festival that marked the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II and London’s Olympic Year; movement choreographer: The Emperor’s Nightingale (world premiere, dir Natsu Onoda Power). Education/training—National Dance Association of Taiwan; plus ballet, Chinese dance, modern dance, dance kinesiology, and a medical degree. Other—Founding member, performer, and choreographer of Dance Asia Alliance. Awards—Chinese Culture Institute Community Impact Award (2017); Migrant Heritage Commission’s Most Outstanding Migrant Award (2013); among others.

Baltimore Center Stage: That Face, The White Snake, The Secret Garden, Herzog Festival (4000 Miles and After the Revolution), It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play, Next to Normal, Vanya and Sonia…, Stones in His Pockets, dance of the holy ghosts, …Poe, The Whipping Man, A Skull in Connemara. Selected credits include: Broadway—Bronx Bombers; A Christmas Story, The Musical; Dividing the Estate; Bells Are Ringing; It Ain’t Nothin’ But the Blues. Off Broadway—Daniel’s Husband; That Golden Girls Show!; Fade; Exit Strategy; The Roads to Home; Informed Consent; The Winter’s Tale; The Glass Menagerie; Billy Porter’s While I Yet Live; The Model Apartment; Emotional Creature; Karen O’s Stop the Virgens!. Regional—Many theaters including: Asolo, Canadian Stage Company; Cincinnati Playhouse, Capital Rep, Ford’s Theatre, Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival; Kansas City Rep, Milwaukee Rep, Berkeley Rep, Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Oregon Shakespeare Company, Old Globe Theatre, Actor’s Theatre of Louisville. Film/TV—Another Dance With Death; Poor Behavior; Stag; Alice Jacobs is Dead, Roberta, Feast of the Goat; Sidewalk Stories. TV—Lazytown. Member—Casting Society of America and League of Professional Theatre Women.

Baltimore Center Stage: debut. Off Broadway/NYC—Cagney, Sex Tips…, Ragtime on Ellis Island (w/ Brian Stokes Mitchell), All Female Jesus Christ Superstar concert (w/ Shoshana Bean), Gypsy (w/ Sally Mayes). Tour/International—White Christmas (National Tour), The Sound of Music (Chinese Tour). Regional—The MUNY: Mamma Mia!, The Wizard of Oz; Dallas Summer Musicals: The King and I (w/ Rachel York). Professional—4 years as an Assistant Professor of Theatre; Stage Management, Directing, and Musical Theatre (Sam Houston State University, West Chester University). Education—MFA: Directing (University of Houston), MS: Education (Mercy College), BA: Theatre (Marymount Manhattan College).

*Member of Actors’ Equity Association

In the Press

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Reviews

“Vigorously acted, smoothly directed, and vividly designed…delivers with flair and charm.”— The Baltimore Sun

“Beautifully directed by Natsu Onoda Power.”— Broadway World

“Amazing! Fun and engaging from the start.”— DC Metro Theater Arts

“An enchanting production.”— WYPR

In the News

03.04.17: DC Metro Theater Arts—Review: ‘The White Snake’ at Baltimore Center Stage
03.05.17: MD Theatre Guide—Theatre Review: ‘The White Snake’ at Baltimore Center Stage
03.07.17: The Baltimore Sun—Theater review: 'White Snake' charms at Center Stage
03.07.17: DC Theater Scene—A captivating White Snake re-opens the Head Theatre at Baltimore Center Stage
03.08.17: Broadway World—BWW Review: THE WHITE SNAKE at Center Stage
03.09.17: WYPR—Rousuck's Review: "The White Snake" At Baltimore Center Stage

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