Jumpers for Goalposts

05/13/15-06/28/15

WRITTEN BY TOM WELLS
DIRECTED BY MATT TORNEY
US PREMIERE

Hope springs eternal in the post-game locker room of Barely Athletic, an amateur soccer team competing in the five-a-side pub league in Hull, a Yorkshire fishing city that’s seen better days (as have these athletes). A hilarious and heartbreaking play about romance, resilience, taking chances, and moving on by the winner of Britain’s 2012 George Devine Award for Most Promising Playwright.

Play Name

Show Information

Runtime: This performance will run approximately 1 hour and 50 minutes with no intermission.
Casting by: McCorkle Casting, LTD
Pat McCorkle (C.S.A.)

Jumpers for Goalposts is generously underwritten
by Joan and David Maxwell.

With additional support from Rick Kasten
and Albert and Charmaine Horvath.

Multimedia

The Artists

Cast

Production Team

SET DESIGNER

Debra Booth

Debra Booth is Director of Design at Studio Theatre, where she has designed If I Forget, Translations, The Wolves, The Father, The Hard Problem, Moment, Constellations, The Apple Family Cycle, Jumpers for Goalposts, Belleville, Cock, Edgar & Annabel, Bachelorette, Moonlight, Blackbird, My Children! My Africa!, The Pillowman, and many others. Her international work includes premiere opera Marco Polo (Tan Dun/Martha Clarke) in Munich, Hong Kong, and New York. Regionally, Debra’s credits include Small Mouth Sounds at Round House Theatre; Richard III, The Collection, and The Lover at the Shakespeare Theatre Company; Marisol at Hartford Stage and The Public Theatre; Trying, The Illusion, and Happy Days at Portland Stage Company; the New York premiere of Angels in America at The Juilliard School; Broken Glass at Philadelphia Theatre Company (Barrymore Award nomination); and Moon for the Misbegotten at Yale Repertory Theatre. Debra is the recipient of the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities Artist Fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts Design Grant, and a graduate of the Yale School of Drama.

(As of October 2019)

LIGHTING DESIGNER

Michael Giannitti

Michael Giannitti was Resident Lighting Designer at Studio Theatre from 2006-2010; since 1991 he has designed 45 productions at Studio, including The Hard Problem, Jumpers For Goalposts, Water by the Spoonful, The New Electric Ballroom, American Buffalo, Reasons to Be Pretty, Rock ‘n’ Roll, The Pillowman, and Seven Guitars (Helen Hayes Award nomination). He designed lighting for the Broadway premiere of August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone. His Off Broadway credits include Cross That River and Sounding Beckett. He has designed extensively for Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, Dorset Theatre Festival, Capital Rep, Trinity Rep, Shakespeare & Company, and the Weston Playhouse. Giannitti has also designed for Arkansas Rep, Barrington Stage, Chautauqua Theatre Company, Virginia Stage, Indiana Rep, Portland Stage, George Street, Yale Repertory Theatre, Olney Theatre Center, and the Spoleto Festival. He has been on the faculty at Bennington College in Vermont since 1992. As a Fulbright Specialist, he taught in Romania and New Zealand, and has been a guest lecturer at the Guangxi Arts Institute in China.

(As of August 2018)

COSTUME DESIGNER

Kathleen Geldard

Kathleen Geldard returns to Studio Theatre after designing Cry It Out, Curve of Departure, Animal, Choir Boy, Jumpers for Goalposts, Tribes, and Invisible Man. Other recent regional credits include Macbeth at Shakespeare Theatre Company; Misery and Shakespeare in Love at Cincinnati Playhouse; and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime; and Humana Festivals 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018 at Actors Theatre of Louisville. Other regional credits include Arena Stage, Portland Center Stage, Huntington Theatre, Baltimore Center Stage, Signature Theatre, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Florida Studio Theatre, La Jolla Playhouse, Berkeley Rep, The Kennedy Center, Round House Theatre, Imagination Stage, and Folger Theatre. She is an artistic associate for Signature Theatre.

(As of January 2019)

SOUND DESIGNER

Kenny Neal

Kenny Neal returns to Studio for Straight White Men after having designed Jumpers for Goalposts and Choir Boy. Other credits include The Gulf for Signature Theatre; Floyd Collins, Old Wicked Songs (2016 Helen Hayes nomination for Sound Design), and Bat Boy for 1st Stage; Cancun for GALA Hispanic Theatre; Caesar & DADA for WSC Avant Bard; Over Her Dead Body, The Last Burlesque, and Bondage for Pinky Swear Productions; Cherry Smoke for Round House Theatre; and Happiness (and Other Reasons To Die) for The Welders. He regularly designs for Adventure Theatre MTC, The Smithsonian’s Discovery Theater, Signature in the Schools, Georgetown University, and American University.

(As of October 2016)

DRAMATURG

Adrien-Alice Hansel 

Adrien-Alice Hansel is the Literary Director at Studio, where she has dramaturged the world premieres of  Queen of Basel, The Remains, No SistersI Wanna Fucking Tear You ApartAnimalLaughRed SpeedoDirtLungs, and The History of Kisses as well as productions of Cry It Out,Translations, Curve of Departure, The EffectWig Out!Straight White MenCloud 9Hedda GablerConstellationsJumpers for GoalpostsBad Jews (twice), The Apple Family PlaysInvisible ManSucker PunchThe Golden Dragon, and The New Electric Ballroom, among others. Prior to joining Studio, she spent eight seasons at the Actors Theatre of Louisville, where she headed the literary department and coordinated project scouting, selection, and development for the Humana Festival of New American Plays. She also served as production dramaturg on roughly 50 new, contemporary, and classic plays there, including premieres by Naomi Wallace, Gina Gionfriddo, Kirk Lynn and Rude Mechs, Rinne Groff, The Civilians, Anne Bogart and SITI Company, Jordan Harrison, and John Belluso. She is the co-editor of eight anthologies of plays from Actors Theatre and editor of eight editions of plays through Studio. Adrien-Alice holds an MFA from the Yale School of Drama. 

(As of April 2019)

DIALECTS

Gary Logan

Gary Logan‘s work for Studio Theatre includes dialects for Moment, Jumpers for Goalposts, The Wolfe Twins, Tribes, Belleville, The Real Thing, Venus in Fur, Frozen, and Crestfall. Internationally, he was the voice and text coach for the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Tantalus, and for several seasons was a voice and dialect coach for the Stratford Festival of Canada. Regionally, his work includes Lights Rise on Grace and Marie Antoinette at Woolly Mammoth; Pride in the Falls of Autrey Mill (with Christine Lahti) and Tender Napalm at Signature Theatre; Master Class (with Tyne Daly) at The Kennedy Center; Shenandoah (with Scott Bakula) at Ford’s Theatre; The Beaux’ Stratagem, Private Lives, and August: Osage County at Everyman Theatre; Love in Afghanistan at Arena Stage; Henry V and Much Ado About Nothing at Folger Theatre; and Othello, The Tempest, and Design for Living for the Shakespeare Theatre Company. Mr. Logan is a recipient of The Tyrone Guthrie Award and is the author of The Eloquent Shakespeare (University of Chicago Press).

(As of March 2016)

PRODUCTION STAGE MANAGER

Anthony O. Bullock

Anthony O. Bullock returns to Studio Theatre after previously being the Resident Stage Manager for two seasons. Prior Studio credits include The Hard Problem, Cloud 9, Hedda Gabler, Moment, Between Riverside and Crazy, Chimerica, Jumpers for Goalposts, and Laugh. Additional DC area credits include Signature Theatre, Arena Stage, Baltimore Center Stage, and Theater J, where he will be their new Resident Stage Manager for the 2019-2020 season. Other regional credits include McCarter Theatre Center, Barrington Stage Company, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Passage Theatre, and Shakespeare & Company, among others. He toured with The White Snake by Mary Zimmerman in association with the Goodman Theatre, as part of the Wuzhen Theatre Festival in Wuzhen, China. Anthony received his BFA from Oklahoma City University. He is also on the board of The Stage Managers’ Association as the Eastern Regional Director. He is a proud member of AEA. 

(As of April 2019)

ASSISTANT DIRECTOR

Nathan Norcross

Nathan Norcross is Studio Theatre’s Artistic Apprentice. He serves as the Assistant Director for each Subscription Series production as well as collaborating with the literary department. As a director, Mr. Norcross’ early professional career has spanned a variety of genres and forms—from large-scale musicals to intimate chamber pieces, from developing new plays with living playwrights to developing his own adaptation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Mr. Norcross has worked alongside a number of directors he now counts as valuable mentors, including Mark Lamos, Nicky Martin, Gary Griffin, Bob Moss, and Eric Rosen. He assisted Phylicia Rashad in directing a production of A Raisin in the Sun at the Westport Country Playhouse. Mr. Norcross is a graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts where he earned a BFA in acting, as well as Florida State University where he recently completed an MFA in directing.

(As of May 2015)

Press

A remarkable production! A delightfully intimate portrait of human vulnerability.
DC Metro Theater Arts
This excellent American premiere shows the full range of Wells’ sensitive, intelligent writing.
Theatermania
Touching performances and graceful writing. There’s a bashfulness to this tender play that makes you want to put your arm around it.
The Washington Post

Featured Writing