Playbill for A Fierce Kind of Love
(Cover images: two young women in a dance move looking toward each other with their arms extended and reaching forward so their hands touch. Also, Institute on Disabilities at Temple University logo)
A Fierce Kind of Love
A new play by Suli Holum
Directed by David Bradley
The Institute on Disabilities at Temple University
The Institute on Disabilities at Temple University is one of the sixty-seven University Centers for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities Education, Research and Service funded by the Administration on Developmental Disabilities, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Established in 1974, The Institute learns from and works with people with disabilities and their families in diverse communities across Pennsylvania to create and share knowledge, change systems, and promote self-determined lives so that disability is recognized as a natural part of the human experience. We believe in a society where all people are valued and respected, and where all people have the knowledge, opportunity and power to improve their lives and the lives of others. www.temple.edu/disabilities
The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage
The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage is a multidisciplinary grantmaker and hub for knowledge sharing, funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts, and dedicated to fostering a vibrant cultural community in Greater Philadelphia. The Center fulfills this mission by investing in ambitious, imaginative arts and heritage projects that showcase the region’s cultural vitality and enhance public life, and by engaging in an exchange of ideas concerning artistic and interpretive practice with a broad network of cultural leaders. For more information, visit www.pcah.us.
The Institute on Disabilities at Temple University presents A Fierce Kind of Love:
· A new play by Suli Holum
· Directed by David Bradley
· Sound Design Christopher Colucci
· Choreography Nichole Canuso
· Scenic Design Colin McIlvaine
· Lighting Design Lily Fossner
· Costume Design Rosemarie McKelvey
· Stage Manager Chelsea Sanz
· Producer Lisa Sonneborn
· Guest Producer Ken Klaus
Major support for A Fierce Kind of Love is provided by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage.
The videotaping and other video or audio recording of this production is strictly prohibited.
[logos: The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, The Institute on Disabilities at Temple University and Stage Directors and Choreographers Society (SDC)]
A Note from the Producer
Tonight’s performance is the culmination of a journey that began at a diner on Frankford Avenue-—The Trolley Car. Some of you have heard this story before. I was having breakfast with two friends —mentors really—who have taught me what it means to parent a child with a disability. As I listened, enthralled, to the stories of Dee Coccia and Maureen Devaney (mothers with about 80 years of disability activism between them) I blurted out, “We need to get these stories in writing before you die!” There, in that diner on Frankford Avenue, the Visionary Voices project was born.
The project has taken on a life I would have never expected—oral histories, archives, a photographic essay, audio interviews of people with disabilities living and working in segregated settings, and now a play—A Fierce Kind of Love. My esteemed colleague Sue Swenson lost her son Charlie several years ago. In a Listserv devoted to the inclusion of people with disabilities Sue was describing the love of a child with a disability. She described it succinctly—it’s a fierce kind of love. And the play was named.
The telling of stories is, in many ways, an act of faith. The teller invites the listener in and, by listening, barriers are broken down. A Fierce Kind of Love tells stories you may not know—stories of fierce advocates like Leona Fialkowski, Ginny Thornburgh and Roland Johnson among others. Stories of parents and children; brothers and sisters; teachers and friends. For forty years, these stories have belonged to the disability community; tonight they belong to us all.
Celia S. Feinstein, Co-Executive Director, Institute on Disabilities at Temple University
A Note from the Director
Here Now
We began making this play with two days we called “Listening Days.” Suli and I met parents and siblings of people with disabilities and self-advocates and long-time professionals who worked in the disability community. We were ready to ask lots of questions. But we only had to ask the first one. Everyone was that ready to share. We just had to listen.
Last month, another part of this project opened at City Hall—an exhibit of photographs and stories of people with intellectual disabilities who live in Selinsgrove Center or work at KenCrest Services. The exhibit is called, simply, “Here.”
Listen. Here. Here, listen. Listen—here.
That’s a pretty good way to enter into the audience of A Fierce Kind of Love. No matter how you got to this room, or where you came from, or whom you are with, or who or what you know in regards to this play, we celebrate that you are here. Now.
No matter how you listen—with ears, or eyes, or whole body—and whether you know some of these stories from before or are hearing them for the first time, we’re grateful for your listening.
We’ve thought of A Fierce Kind of Love as an “event” as much as a “play.” The event of this diverse cast. The event of names like Eleanor Elkin or Leona Fiakowski taking center stage. The event of personal stories—some triumphant, some painful—shared for the first time. The event of people who speak with voices and people who speak with hands, people who move on legs and people who move on wheels all making something.
In making this play, way more than any other play I’ve done, I’ve become conscious of the wildly varied ways we live in the world. Each of us with our abilities. Each of us with the things we struggle with. Each of us with a fierce capacity to shut people out or let people in. And how hard it is to embrace the event of being here, together. That’s all part of this story.
This is a story about all of us. It’s happening right now. Thanks for listening. We’re glad you’re here.
David Bradley, Director
Cast
(in alphabetical order)
· Shawn Aelong
· Charlie DelMarcelle*
· Lee Ann Etzold*
· Michael McLendon
· Lori McFarland
· Erin McNulty
· Marcia Saunders*
· Cathy Simpson*
· Brian Anthony Wilson*
*Member of Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers
Actors’ Equity Association (AEA), founded in 1913, represents more than 50,000 actors and stage managers in the United States. Equity seeks to advance, promote and foster the art of live theater as an essential component of our society. Equity negotiates wages and working conditions, providing a wide range of benefits, including health and pension plans. AEA is a member of the AFL-CIO, and is affiliated with FIA, an international organization of performing arts unions. The Equity emblem is our mark of excellence.
www.actorsequity.org
(Actors’ Equity Logo)
About the Artists
· Suli Holum, Playwright
Suli Holum is an award-winning director, performer, choreographer and playwright based in Brooklyn, NY. She is Co-Artistic Director of Stein | Holum Projects (SHP) with playwright Deborah Stein. SHP projects include: Drama Desk nominated solo show Chimera, developed at HERE, premiered at Under The Radar and toured to The Gate, London; Movers and Shakers, recipient of the Loewe Award from New Dramatists and developed at UCSD; The Wholehearted commissioned by ArtsEmerson, developed at FringeArts and supported by the New England Foundation of the Arts National Touring Project; and Man Camp, currently under construction. Holum was a co-founder of Pig Iron Theatre Company, developing original work between 1995 and 2006 including as a creator/performer in Shut Eye with legendary director Joseph Chaikin, and playwright for Gentlemen Volunteers, awarded a ‘Spirit of the Fringe’ Award at Edinburgh Fringe and published in Pig Iron: 3 Plays (53rd Street Press). Her first solo show, The Lollipop Projects, was developed through an Independence Foundation Individual Artist Fellowship and a Shell Fellowship in Drama from the National Institute of Education, Singapore. Her other recent work as a devising writer of new performance includes Wandering Alice with Nichole Canuso Dance Company and Oedipus at FDR with Emmanuelle Delpech, Fighting for Democracy at the National Constitution Center, and One Beach Road with RedCape Theatre, UK. Her work has been supported by Workhaus Collective, The Playlabs Festival at the Playwrights Center, NACL, Perry Mansfield New Works Festival and Actors Theatre of Louisville, the Swarthmore Project, the Creativity Fund at New Dramatists, ArtsEmerson, New Georges, Clubbed Thumb, and Playwrights’ Horizons. She teaches at Pace University.
· David Bradley, Director
David Bradley is a director, producer and teaching artist whose work includes making plays, leading a range of boundary-crossing artistic collaborations and exploring civic and community themes through the arts. A long-time company member at People’s Light, his more than 30 productions include Row After Row, Of Mice and Men, The Crucible, A View From the Bridge, Young Lady From Rwanda, Doubt, The Giver and three holiday pantos. David is Founding Director of LiveConnections, which creates innovative, collaborative music programs for adults and youth out of partner venue World Cafe Live. He’s Artistic Director of Living News, in its 10th season of dramatizing Constitutional issues at the National Constitution Center, where he also directed the exhibition/theater hybrid Fighting for Democracy, written by Suli Holum. He’s a frequent collaborator with Philadelphia Young Playwrights, leading a range of multi-generational collaborations, including directing The Lost Hour at the Kimmel Center for the 2013 Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts. David is a participating artist with Outside the Wire, which creates theater projects addressing public health and social issues, and has led and facilitated projects for them at conferences and military bases across the country and in the Middle East. He teaches at Arcadia University and has taught at University of the Arts. David is a graduate of Yale University. He lives in West Mt. Airy with his wife Margaret and sons Jacob and Noah. For Michele and her parents, with love and appreciation.
· Lisa Sonneborn, Producer
For over twenty years, Lisa’s documentary film and video work has been used to promote social action in the disability community. As producer of the Institute on Disabilities’ A Fierce Kind of Love and Visionary Voices projects, Lisa works to preserve the history of Pennsylvania’s Intellectual Disability Rights Movement through oral history interviews with the Movement’s leaders, the preservation of archival documents significant to the Movement and public performance. Lisa hopes you’ll enjoy this unique telling of a largely untold civil rights story. She has fierce love for this gifted group of artists and for all those who shared their stories. For my family and for my father—love you most.
· Shawn Aleong, actor, is excited and humbled to be making his debut with A Fierce Kind of Love. Shawn is a graduate of Davison High school, where he was the Valedictorian of his class. While at school, he was very involved in the music program, playing the xylophone for school concerts and performing with the school choir. Shawn currently attends Temple University, where he is studying law. He is involved with many campus organizations including Temple Student Government, Temple Black Law Association, and the NAACP where he serves on the State Board as Juvenile Justice Chair. He also serves on the board of the ARC of Philadelphia. He is passionate about advocating for the rights of people with disabilities.
Shawn would like to thank his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for this amazing opportunity, his mother Janice, his step-father Ivy, his family and friends, his Sharon Baptist Church Family, the Institute on Disabilities, and his Temple University family. Special thanks to Celia, Lisa, David and Suli.
· Charlie DelMarcelle, actor, has appeared at: The Walnut Street Theatre, Pig Iron Theatre Company., Theater Horizon, Delaware Theatre Co., Inis Nua, The Lantern Theatre, Azuka Theatre Collective, EgoPo Classic Theatre, Commonwealth Classic Theatre, Delaware Shakespeare Festival, Shakespeare in Clark Park, White Box Theatre, and Amaryllis.
He is so very pleased and incredibly honored to have been part of this process. Special thanks to Lisa, Suli, David, John, Chris, Colin, Chelsea and this incredibly supportive cast and crew. Lee Ann Etzold, actor, is a Philadelphia-based theatre artist who has worked in the UK, Spain, France, Czech Republic, and regionally in the US. She is a founding member of OBIE award-winning physical theatre company, New Paradise Laboratories, and has also created original work independently, and with Pig Iron Theatre Company, Headlong Dance Theatre, Lucidity Suitcase Intercontinental, Charlotte Ford, and Tony Award winner, Bill Irwin (Barrymore Award Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Play). A Virginia Tech grad, she studied clown in Paris, completed the Lincoln Center Theater’s, Director’s Lab, in New York, and is a member of the Young Vic Directors Programme in London. She is a teaching artist and has also directed new works for Philly Young Playwrights, 1812 Productions, Brat Productions, Brian Sanders’ JUNK, and is creating neighborhood art in South Philadelphia. So thankful for her loving family, this beautiful cast, and this fierce project.