The Apple Family Cycle

10/28/15 – 12/13/15

WRITTEN BY Richard Nelson
DIRECTED BY SERGE SEIDEN

The final plays in Richard Nelson’s Apple Family quartet explore the immediate present and evolving future of the United States. Over meals at the family homestead, the tensions and compromises, affections and resentments of the Apple family’s lives play out against a rapidly changing America. The Apple Family Cycle reunites the “generous, feisty ensemble of DC’s finest acting talent” (DC Metro Arts) from Studio’s 2013 production.

Sorry (10/28/15 – 12/13/15): It’s 5am on Election Day 2012. Obama’s bruised reelection campaign is almost won and the Apple siblings have gathered to move their ailing Uncle Benjamin into an assisted care facility. Over orange juice and cold Chinese food, they grapple with their unease about the paths they are taking, as a family and a nation.

Regular Singing (11/4/15 – 12/13/15): Late into the night, the Apple Family keeps vigil for a beloved family member on the 50th anniversary of JFK’s assassination and raise their voices together one last time—in discussion, dissent, hope, and song.

Explore the first half of The Apple Family Cycle in Studio's 2013-2014 season.

Play Name

Show Information

Runtime: This production of Sorry will run approximately 1 hour and 45 minutes with no intermission. Regular Singing will run approximately 2 hours with no intermission

Sorry is generously underwritten
by Stanley and Rosemary Marcuss.
Regular Singing is generously underwritten
by Joan and David Maxwell.

Studio Theatre is also grateful
to John Horman and Toni Ritzenberg
for their additional support.

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

Daniel MacLean Wagner

Daniel MacLean Wagner served as Resident Lighting Designer at Studio Theatre from 1984-1997, designing more than 50 productions. He recently designed The Apple Family Cycle (2015) in the Milton Theatre, Bad Jews in the Mead Theatre, The Apple Family Plays (2013) in the Milton Theatre, and 4000 Miles in the Mead Theatre. He has designed more than 400 productions at many other theatres, including Arden Theatre Company, Berkshire Theatre Festival, Boston Lyric Opera, New Repertory Theatre, Philadelphia Theatre Company, Portland Stage Company, Arena Stage, Shakespeare Theatre Company, The Kennedy Center, Signature Theatre, Round House Theatre, Theatre of the First Amendment, Horizons Theatre, Potomac Theatre Project, Rep Stage, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, and Olney Theatre Center. He is an eight-time recipient of the Helen Hayes Award, for which he has received 28 nominations. Recent designs include Awake and Sing! at Olney Theatre; Fool for Love, Seminar, and This at Round House Theatre; and Freud's Last Session at Theater J; upcoming productions include Freud’s Last Session at New Repertory Theatre. Mr. Wagner holds the rank of Professor Emeritus at the University of Maryland, where he served as Professor of Lighting Design from 1990-2014 and Director of the School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies from 2001-2012.

(As of October 2015)

COSTUME DESIGNER

Helen Huang

Helen Huang designs her 29th production at Studio with White Pearl. Her regional credits include Alice in Wonderland at Oregon Shakespeare Festival; The Great Leap at Guthrie Theater; Matilda the Musical at The Children’s Theatre, Minneapolis; and Miss Bennet and Christmas at Pemberley at Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park. DC area credits include JQA at Arena Stage; A Doll’s House, Part 2 at Roundhouse; Fences at Ford’s Theatre; Me…Jane at The Kennedy Center; and Fickle: A Fancy French Farce at Olney Theatre Center. She has received a Helen Hayes Award and an Ivey Award. Helen is a professor of MFA Costume Design at University of Maryland, College Park.

(As of October 2019)

SOUND DESIGNER

Palmer Hefferan

Palmer Hefferan returns to Studio Theatre after previously designing Moment, Sorry, Regular Singing, Bad Jews, and Edgar & Annabel. Other select DC credits include Baby Screams Miracle (Helen Hayes nomination), Guards at the Taj (Helen Hayes nomination), Women Laughing Alone With Salad, and Cherokee at Woolly Mammoth; Urinetown, Equus (Helen Hayes nomination), Absolutely! {Perhaps}, and 36 Views at Constellation Theatre Company; and Everything Is Illuminated, The Call, and Yentl at Theater J. Select Off Broadway credits include Charm and School Girls at MCC; Orange Julius (Henry Hewes nomination) at Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre; The Death of the Last Black Man… at Signature Theatre; Friend Art at Second Stage; Samara and Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again (Henry Hewes nomination) at Soho Rep; and Important Hats of the Twentieth Century at Manhattan Theatre Club. Select regional credits include Henry V and Henry IV, Part One at Oregon Shakespeare Festival; Romance Novels for Dummies at Williamstown Theatre Festival, Tiger Style! at Alliance Theatre and Huntington Theatre, peerless at Marin Theatre Company, Twelfth Night at Baltimore Center Stage. She has her MFA from Yale School of Drama.

(As of March 2018)

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)

PRODUCTION STAGE MANAGER

William E. Cruttenden III

William E. Cruttenden III has been stage managing in DC and across the country for ten years. The Apple Family Cycle was his first production at Studio. He recently stage managed Little Bee at Book-It Repertory Theatre in Seattle, WA. DC credits include King Hedley II, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (starring Malcolm-Jamal Warner) and The Mountaintop at Arena Stage; The Totalitarians, Detroit, The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity, Mr. Burns, a Post- Electric Play, A Bright New Boise, Bootycandy, Clybourne Park, Full Circle, BOOM!, Maria/Stuart, Measure for Pleasure, and No Child... at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company; Knuffle Bunny at the Kennedy Center; And the Curtain Rises, Sunset Boulevard, Chess, and I Am My Own Wife at Signature Theatre; Is He Dead?, Bad Dates, and Of Mice and Men at Olney Theatre Center; and Twice Upon a Time at Imagination Stage. Off Broadway credits include Perfect Harmony. Regional credits include The Will Rogers Follies, starring Tom Wopat, at Merry Go Round Playhouse; The Mountaintop at Alley Theatre, and Wild with Happy (workshop) at The Public Theater.

(As of October 2015)

Press

The plays, being performed in rotating repertory, are elegiac and are as warm as anything you can find on Washington stages now.
The Washington Post
A landmark, must see event for DC theatergoers
Broadway World

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