Noël Pierce Coward (1899-1973, Playwright) was born in 1899 and made his professional stage debut as Prince Mussel in The Goldfish at the age of 12, leading to many child actor appearances over the next few years. His breakthrough in playwriting was the controversial The Vortex (1924) which featured themes of drugs and adultery and made his name as both actor and playwright in the West End and on Broadway. During the frenzied 1920s and the more sedate 1930s, Coward wrote a string of successful plays, musicals and intimate revues including Fallen Angels (1925), Hay Fever (1925), Easy Virtue (1926), This Year of Grace (1928), and Bitter Sweet (1929). His professional partnership with childhood friend Gertrude Lawrence, started with Private Lives (1931), and continued with Tonight at 8.30 (1936).

During World War II, he remained a successful playwright, screenwriter and director, as well as entertaining the troops and even acting as an unofficial spy for the Foreign Office. His plays during these years included Blithe Spirit which ran for 1997 performances, outlasting the War (a West End record until The Mousetrap overtook it), This Happy Breed and Present Laughter (both 1943). His two wartime screenplays, In Which We Serve, which he co-directed with the young David Lean, and Brief Encounter quickly became classics of British cinema.

However, the post-war years were more difficult. Austerity Britain – the London critics determined – was out of tune with the brittle Coward wit. In response, Coward re-invented himself as a cabaret and TV star, particularly in America, and in 1955 he played a sell-out season in Las Vegas featuring many of his most famous songs, including Mad About the Boy, I’ll See You Again and Mad Dogs and Englishmen. In the mid-1950s he settled in Jamaica and Switzerland, and enjoyed a renaissance in the early 1960s becoming the first living playwright to be performed by the National Theatre, when he directed Hay Fever there. Late in his career he was lauded for his roles in a number of films including Our Man In Havana (1959) and his role as the iconic Mr. Bridger alongside Michael Caine in The Italian Job (1968).

Writer, actor, director, film producer, painter, songwriter, cabaret artist as well as an author of a novel, verse, essays and autobiographies, he was called by close friends ‘The Master’. His final West End appearance was Song at Twilight in 1966, which he wrote and starred in. He was knighted in 1970 and died peacefully in 1973 in his beloved Jamaica.

Visit www.noelcoward.com for more information on the playwright.

Evan Yionoulis (Director) returns to Dorset, where she directed Alan Ayckbourn’s Table Manners. She has directed new plays and classics in New York, across the country, and internationally, including, last season, Adrienne Kennedy’s He Brought Her Heart Back in a Box for Theatre for a New Audience, where she previously directed Kennedy’s Ohio State Murders (Lortel Award, Best Revival), and Guillermo Calderón’s Kiss at Yale Repertory Theatre, where she was a resident director for 20 years, directing such plays as Richard II, Cymbeline, The Master Builder, and Brecht’s Galileo. Other credits include Richard Greenberg’s The Violet Hour (Broadway), Three Days of Rain (Obie Award for direction, Manhattan Theatre Club), and Everett Beekin (Lincoln Center Theater).  She’s directed at the Mark Taper Forum, the Huntington, NY Shakespeare Festival, the Vineyard, 2econd Stage, Dallas Theatre Center, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Denver Center, PlayMakers Rep, and Williamstown Theatre Festival, among many others.  She is a Princess Grace Awards recipient and serves on the Executive Board of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society as Secretary.  She is the Richard Rodgers Director of the Drama Division at Juilliard.

Rachel Pickup (Amanda Prynne) Dorset Theatre Festival debut. Selected credits: Broadway: Present Laughter,(St James); Merchant Of Venice, (Lincoln Centre Festival). Off Broadway : Intelligence (NYTW); Home Place, Dancing At Lughnasa, Air swimming, Beckett (Irish Rep); King Lear, (TFANA), Explorers Club, (MTC). London / International: RSC multiple seasons, including: Julius Caesar, MSND, Two Gents, Troilus and Cressida; West End: 39 Steps, (Criterion); Julius Caesar, (Lyric), Bedroom Farce, (St Martin’s Lane); King Lear, (Old Vic); Barefoot In The Park, (Jermyn St); Dr Foster,(Chocolate Factory). Shakespeare’s Globe, Portia, Merchant of Venice, (London, NYC/ world tour; Sir Peter Hall Season, Rose Theatre: Miss Julie, (Best Actress nomination); REGIONAL US /UK/ TOURING: Shakespeare Theater DC, Hartford Stage, Primary Stages; Folger; Edinburgh International Festival, (multiple); Chichester Festival; Sheffield Crucible, Royal Exchange, (Best Supporting Actress award Time And The Conways); Birmingham Rep. Film: Wonder Woman; Chronic (winner Cannes 2015); Schadenfreude; Basil, AKA. TV selected: Grantchester; Madame Secretary; Dietland; Elementary; No Bananas, Holby City, Doctors Training: RADA. Member of Actors Center NYC. Volunteer at 52nd St Project NYC.

Shawn Fagan (Elyot) is thrilled to make his Dorset Theatre Festival debut. Favorite roles include Hal/Henry in The Making of a King: Henry IV, Parts 1&2/Henry V (Playmakers Rep), Frank/Franz in Appropriate (Westport Country Playhouse), Angelo in Measure for Measure(Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival), Bose in The Petrified Forest (Berkshire Theatre Group), the Stage Manager in Our Town(Portland Center Stage), Caleb in The Whipping Man (Cleveland Play House), Christy in The Playboy of the Western World(Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival), Edgar in King Lear (Utah Shakespeare Festival), Hamlet in the World Premiere of Wittenberg(Arden Theatre Company), Mercutio in Romeo & Juliet (Shakespeare Theatre of NJ), Texas in Intimations for Saxophone (Arena Stage), and Hugh in The Voysey Inheritance (Denver Center). Other regional work at the Shakespeare Theatre (DC), Dallas Theatre Center, American Players Theatre, and Delaware Theatre Company. New York credits include Hotspur in Henry IV, Part One, Philinte in The Misanthrope (Pearl Theatre Co.); James Whelan in the U.S. Premiere of Wife to James Whelan (Mint Theatre); Peninsula (Soho Rep); Freakshow, Dearest Eugenia Haggis (Clubbed Thumb); and Milk ’n’ Honey (Lightbox/3LD). Shawn will be appearing later this summer in Avalon at Opera House Arts in Stonington, ME. More info at www.shawnfagan.net.

Anna Crivelli (Sybil Chase) is a California Bay Area native that has worked most recently at the 43rd Humana Festival of New Plays at Actor's Theatre of Louisville in How to Defend Yourself.  Her other Regional Theatre credits include Once Five Years Pass and Dental Society Midwinter Meeting at Williamstown Theatre Festival; Appropriate at Westport Country Playhouse; Steel Magnolias at Geva Theatre Center. Off-Broadway: A Doll's House Part 3 as a part of the Exponential Festival, Drink with Death at La Mama. Film: Playing with Matches. Additional Credits: Anna received her M.F.A. from the Yale School of Drama and her B.A. from Fordham University Lincoln Center

Dee Pelletier (Louise) Theatre: August: Osage County (Broadway), Women Without Men (The Mint Theater Company), The Soap Myth (Laura Pels Black Box), BUG (Barrow Street Theatre), The Baroness (Scandinavian American Theater Company), Third (Hangar Theatre), Good People (Geva Theatre & Indiana Repertory Theatre),Grace, or The Art of Climbing (The Denver Center), Cymbeline, Hamlet, Hedda Gabler (Shakespeare Theatre Company), Behind The Eye (Cincinnati Playhouse), The Syringa Tree (Kitchen Theatre Company & Vermont Stage Company), A Street Car Named Desire (VSC) TV: “Orange Is the New Black,” “Instinct,” “Star Trek: Discovery,” “Madam Secretary,” “Elementary,” “Girls,” “Law & Order.” Training: Trinity Rep Conservatory. Member of The Actors Center.

Hudson Oznowicz (Victor Prynne) received his M.F.A. from the Yale School of Drama (‘19). Yale Rep: Scenes from Court Life, or the whipping boy and his prince, Twelfth Night (u/s), Imogen Says Nothing (u/s). Yale School of Drama: Slave Play, Sweat, Shakespeare’s “as u like it,” Trouble in Mind, The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, and Passion.

Lee Savage (Scenic Designer) New York City designs include: Somebody's Daughter (Second Stage),The Lightning Thief (Lortel), Satchmo at the Waldorf (Westside), Muscles in our Toes, Sunset Baby and Thinner Than Water (Labyrinth), Rx (Primary Stages), All-American (LCT3), The Dream of the Burning Boy and Ordinary Days (Roundabout Underground), Jack's Precious Moment (P73), Oohrah! (Atlantic), The Bereave (Partial Comfort), The Seagull (NAATCO), punkplay (Clubbed Thumb), End Days (EST), Go-Go Kitty Go! (NY Fringe Festival), West Moon Street (Prospect Theater Company), The Private Lives of Eskimos and I Heart Kant (Committee Theater Company), and Harvest (La Mama). Regional credits include productions at: American Conservatory Theatre, Alliance, Asolo Rep, Baltimore Centerstage, Berkshire Theatre Festival, Chautauqua, Dallas Theater Center, Delaware Theatre Company, Glimmerglass Festival, Goodman, Guthrie, Huntington, Long Wharf, Lyric Theatre of Oklahoma, Merrimack Rep, Old Globe, Shakespeare Theatre Company, Signature, Philadelphia Theatre Company, PlayMakers Rep, Trinity Rep, Two River Theater, Washington National Opera, Wilma and Yale Rep. Mr. Savage is the recipient of the NAACP Award (Satchmo at the Waldorf), Connecticut Critics Circle Award (The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow), Helen Hayes Award (Much Ado About Nothing, A Midsummer Night's Dream (nom), Richard III (nom), and has received nominations for the Irish Times Theatre Award (A Streetcar Named Desire) and the Suzi Bass Award (Smart Cookie). Mr. Savage is a founding member of Wingspace Theatrical Design. He holds a Master of Fine Arts (Yale School of Drama), a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Rhode Island School of Design), and currently serves on the faculty at Yale School of Drama and Rhode Island School of Design.

Katherine Roth (Costume Designer) is delighted to be working in this beautiful part of the country on costumes from the 1930s, one of her favorite periods in the history of clothing. Having worked with Evan Yionoulis on projects from Tom Stoppard and Howard Brenton plays to Evan’s own “Dread Pirate Project,” a piece about the modern Silk Road, Katherine is thrilled to be working with her now on Noël Coward. She has designed for Broadway, regional theatre, TV, film and even for a bronze statue of Thomas Jefferson which now stands in his garden at Monticello.  She graduated from the Yale School of Drama and lives with her wife Catherine Sheehy in Greenwich Village, NYC. 

Donald Holder (Lighting Designer) Broadway: Tootsie, Kiss Me Kate, Straight White Men, My Fair Lady, Anastasia, Oslo, M Butterfly, She Loves Me, Fiddler On The Roof, The King and I, On The Twentieth Century, The Bridges Of Madison County, Golden Boy, Spiderman- Turn Off The Dark, Ragtime, Movin’ Out, Thoroughly Modern Millie, and many  others. He has designed fifty-eight Broadway productions, is the recipient of two Tony awards (The Lion King and South Pacific) and thirteen Tony nominations. Opera: Rigoletto for the Berlin Staatsoper; Otello, Two Boys, The Magic Flute, Samson et Delilah and Porgy and Bess at the New York Metropolitan Opera; Carmen for the Chicago Lyric and Houston Grand Opera, many others. Television/Film: Recent projects include Smash seasons one and two (NBC Dreamworks), Oceans Eight (Warner Brothers Pictures). Mr. Holder is a graduate of the Yale School of Drama and the University of Maine, and Head of Lighting Design at Rutgers University.

Jane Shaw (Sound Designer) Dorset Theatre Festival: Baskerville, Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill, Round and Round the Garden (directed by Evan Yionoulis), All in the Timing (original music), Whipping Man, Boeing Boeing, Pavilion, Fallen Angels. New York: I Was Most Alive With You (Playwrights Horizons, Lortel & Drama Desk Nominations), Measure for Measure (Theatre for a New Audience), Rattlestick, Women's Project, New York Theater Workshop, Clubbed Thumb, Page 73 and over 30 productions at the Mint. Regional: Oo-Bla-Dee (Two River Theater), They Promised Her the Moon (Old Globe), Sweat (Cleveland Play House), Northern Stage, Cincinnati Playhouse, Milwaukee Rep, Mark Taper Forum, Triad Stage, American Repertory Theater, ACT, Shakespeare Theatre Company, Asolo Rep, Williamstown Theater Festival, Denver Center. Recipient: Drama Desk, Connecticut Critics Circle, NEA/TCG Career Development Program, Henry Award, Premios ACE 2012 Award, Bessie. Nominations: Lortel, Henry Hewes, Eliot Norton. Graduate: Harvard College, Yale School of Drama.

BH Barry (Fight Director) In his fifty-year career he has created fight sequences for theater, film, TV, ballet, and Opera. He is the recipient of an Obie, a Drama Desk and a Tony for consistent excellence in the theater. Credits include: Movies; The Addams Family, Mulan, Glory. Broadway; Crazy for You, Noises Off, City of Angels. TV; 18 Years on All My Children. Opera; 40 years at the Metropolitan Opera.

Patricia Norcia (Dialect Coach)

Chandalae Nyswonger (Stage Manager) Broadway: Anastasia. Off-Broadway: Merrily We Roll Along (Roundabout), Twelfth Night (Classic Stage Company), Jesus Hopped the “A” Train (Signature Theatre), Somebody’s Daughter (Second Stage), Fiorello! (Berkshire Theatre Group). Regional: Hamlet, Reverberations, Rear Window, Romeo and Juliet (Hartford Stage); Hair, At Home at the Zoo, The Mystery of Irma Vep, Oklahoma! (Berkshire Theatre Group); A Civil War Christmas, Wild With Happy, dance of the holy ghosts (Center Stage).

Ashley Houck (Assistant Lighting Designer) Ashley Houck is from Red Bank, New Jersey. She is a third year Lighting Design BFA studying under Don Holder at Rutgers University: Mason Gross School of the Arts. Previous design credits include Vinegar Tom, The Other Shore, A Happy Journey to Trenton to Camden, Kismet, The Crucible.

Community Partner Night

Thursday, June 27

6:30 PM Reception in the Dorset Playhouse Cafe
7:30 PM Performance

Sponsored by The Bank of Bennington

Community Partner Nights are pre-show receptions to honor our local heroes. Featuring food donated by local eateries and live music, the community gathers at the Dorset Playhouse to thank our corporate sponsors and celebrate our Giving Back Program.

Our Giving Back Program underwrites free and low-cost tickets for local firefighters, farmers, police, EMS workers, Habitat for Humanity volunteers and families, and all military personnel and their families.

Click HERE to learn more!

Post-Show Talk Back

Sunday, June 30

Talk Back will immediately follow the 2 PM Performance.

Talk about the play! Learn more about the production and the actors by joining Artistic Director, Dina Janis, as she leads a talk-back discussion with select cast and creative team directly after the performance.