La Turista a play in two acts by Sam Shepard

EXIT Theatre July 6 - July 28, 1999 Home / also playing @ the EXIT / to email us

Directed by Val Hendrickson Sound Design by Keith Dunwoody, Set Design by Sasha Oaks, Light Design by Jason Ries, Costume Design by Prem Lathi, Stage Manager Pete Heitmann & Vilma Huertas CAST: Kent Peter Kepler, Salem Molly Norton, Boy Desi del Valle, Doctor William Boynton, Son Matthew Chavez, Doc William Boynton, Sonny Matthew Chavez

Cast & Crew Information

William Boynton (Doctor/Doc) began the Absurdist Season in Marowitz's Hamlet as the King (Claudius). Other roles include Lucifer in The Bearer of the Light in NYC, and dancing "sky-clad" in the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Co.'s Last Supper at Uncle Tom's Cabin at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. After attending Bard College, he toured the U.S. as a puppeteer, did a lot of children's theatre and is now the Arts Education Manager of the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival. He enjoys living here in Fog Town with Annette, Topaz, and his pet turtle Wing Fat.

Matthew Chavez (Son/Sonny) has graduated from NYU in 1996 and subsequently studied at ACT. He appeared last fall in Titus! at Yerba Buena Gardens.

Desi del Valle (Boy) has performed in numerous independent films including Some Prefer Cake, Costa Brava and Mod-Fuck Explosion. Desi originates from the South Bronx and is represented in SF by The Mitchell Agency. Desi's performance in La Turista is dedicated to Nello Carlini.

Keith Dunwoody (Sound Design) has designed for numerous Bay Area productions including plays by Shepard, Ionesco, Shakespeare, and the Café Plays directed by Mr. Hendrickson. Keith has enjoyed working with Val on various projects over the last several years. He is also a singer/songwriter in his copious spare time.

Pete Heitmann (Stage Manager) is an actor/musician who played Bertram in Shakespeare's All's Well That Ends Well. He currently studies at ACT and is still in love with Fiona.

Val Hendrickson (Director) has been staging the plays of Sam Shepard on both coasts for 20 years. In NY: The Unseen Hand, Killer's Head, Savage/Love, Curse of the Starving Class, and an award winning production of Action that played for over 4 years. For Netless in Santa Cruz: Fool For Love, his first collaoration with his wife Lorraine Olsen. In SF: an original jazz adaption of Suicide in B-Flat which had successful runs at Slim's and Justice League and won an SF Weekly Black Box Award for Best Traditional performance. Other notable non-Shepardian SF productions include Shylock on Valencia Street and Café Plays. Currently running at the Dean Lesler Regional Center in Walnut Creek is Italian American Reconciliation and opening next month is Signal Theatre Co.'s Acts of Providence at the Phoenix II in SF.

Vilma Huertas ( Stage Manager) is an electrical engineer in the silicon valley. She's finally decided to follow her childhood dream of getting into theatre. Previous roles include Alice in Alice in Wonderland. This is her first step back into theatre after a few drama classes in college.

Peter Kepler (Kent) was last seen in Inherit the Wind at the Willows Theater in the East Bay as Bertram Cates and, previous to that, Misalliance as Johnny at the center for regional arts in Walnut Creek. Some favorite, recent credits are No Exit, A Few Good Men, Little Family Secret, and the british farce Move Over Mrs. Markham. Peter has also been the voice for many tv and radio ads for, as well as the on camera spokesperson for Silicon Valley Co.'s such as Oracle, Intel, Hewlett Packard, & Cisco. He's been acting in the Bay Area for 15 years and holds a B.F.A in Acting from St.Mary's College. He's very pleased to have an opportunity to work with director Val Hendrickson here at the EXIT Theater in La Turista.

Prem Lathi (Costme Design) studied at SF State. Her field has allowed her to do many number of things from designing hats for local stores to working on Independent films such as The Kiss. She would like to thank her childhood friend Jonathan Gonzalez for his faith in her designs for this show. It's been a great pleasure working with the EXIT Theatre.

Molly Norton (Salem) is very pleased to be working with EXIT's artistic family and one of her favorite playwrights. She was last seen as Suzie in Silence Cunning Exile for which she received an SFBG Upstage/Downstage award. She is a transplant from Dallas where she was a company member with the Undermain Theatre and worked with such greats as Erik Ehn, Octavio Solis, John O'Keefe, and Jonathan Moscone.

Jason Ries (Light Design) simply can't have nice things around here, CAN HE!?!

Sam Shepard (Author) has written more than 45 plays, 11 of which have won Obie Awards, and has appeared as an actor in 16 films. In 1979 he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Buried Child, and in 1984 he gained an Oscar nomination for his performance in The Right Stuff. His screen play for Paris, Texas won the Golden Palm Award at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival, and he wrote and directed the film Far North in 1988. Other plays by Shepard include Simpatico, Curse of the Starving Class, True West and Fool For Love. In 1986 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and in 1992 he received the Gold Medal for Drama from the Academy. In 1994 he was inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame.

 

Director's Notes: To afficianados of Sam Shepard, La Turista is an important transitional work, widely read and admired but rarely seen. Written when he was 23, it was Shepard's first foray into the two-act form and it was also the first play he ever re-wrote, extending thematic ideas that would continue into his later works. It opened March 4, 1967 at the American Place Theatre in New York with Sam Waterson as Kent.

La Turista is performed here uncut and largely faithful to the young Shepard's emerging stagecraft and imagery. We have endeavored to capture the spirit of its era but we present it to you not as a period piece but rather, as a timeless allegory still retaining its power to provoke and stimulate.

What is singular to this production is scoring the play with the music of Charles Mingus. Why have I done this? Well, there is a connection both artistic and personal. To quote Shepard: " I happened to accidently go to high school with Charlie Mingus' son, who I had never heard of at that time. And out there, near the desert, nobody had heard of him either. But I knew he was a jazz player and then, when I got to New York, I just happened to see that he was working at the Village Gate so I got up with him and he got me a job there [as a busboy]." Later, the playwright would share an apartment with Mingus the younger and drummer Dannie Richmond, affording him access to many of the Mingus band's gigs. "I was stunned by his sense of polyrhythm - rhythm on top of rhythm. I was fascinated by the idea of merging that with writing, seeing if there was a way of evoking the same kind of collage in the writing of plays. I started thinking about the kind of structure jazz has, the kind of life it implies, and I decided to see if I could be a playwright myself with what I learned from them."

The selections are from the Charles Mingus albums, "New Tijuana Moods," "Cumbia and Jazz Fusion," and "The Clown." Buy the CDs today.

So, enough information. Enjoy the ride.

Val Hendrickson
July 1999