A new distillation of Molière’s The Misanthrope
By Matt Minnicino
Directed by Megan Behm
May 30 to June 30, 2019
Gunston Arts Center Theatre Two
Opening night: Tuesday, June 4, 2019, 7:30 pm.
A Misanthrope is a brisk, biting comedy about a cynic who thinks insincerity is a sin. But the joke’s on him when he falls for an ingenue who’s more than his match. Matt Minnicino’s A Misanthrope distills Molière’s best-known farce into quippy rhyming couplets. And it pokes social flattery with a hot take on the absurdity of modern hot airs. Hypocrisy has never been more hilarious. If we got snarky tweets from 17th-century France, they would sound something like this.
Matt Minnicino is a playwright, actor, teacher, and incorrigible tale-teller based in Manhattan. His work has been developed around the U.S. (and in Ireland). Along with Molière, he has adapted Chekhov (three times), Strindberg, Ibsen, Gorky, Genet, Shakespeare, Aeschylus, Euripides, Sophocles, Homer, The Book of Genesis, poems by Rilke, art by Magritte, and more. He is an alumnus of Pipeline Theatre’s PlayLab, the Great Plains Theatre Conference, and SPACE on Ryder Farm and is the winner of the Arts & Letters Prize. MFA: Columbia.
Megan Behm (Director) is delighted to be making her Avant Bard debut! Previous directing credits include To Tell My Story (Helen Hayes Nomination, Best Original Adaptation) and Switch (The Welders), 45 Plays for 45 Presidents (NextStop Theatre), Cymbeline (Virginia Shakespeare Festival), Safe as Houses (Pinky Swear Productions), The Comedy of Errors (Lean & Hungry Theater), The Campsite Rule (The Washington Rogues), Minus You and Edward Cullen Ruined My Mother’s Love Life (The Source Festival), A Midsummer Night’s Dream and According to Shakespeare (InterAct Story Theatre). Training: College of William & Mary, LAMDA, Studio Theater Conservatory. www.megan-behm.
CAST
Elliott Kashner: ALCESTE, a misanthrope
Jenna Berk: PHILINTE, his friend
Matt Sparacino: ORONTE, his rival
Hannah Sweet: BASQUE, Celimene’s servant
Thais Menendez: CELIMENE, Alceste’s girlfriend kinda
Patrick Joy: CLITANDRE, a fop
Tendo Nsubuga: ACASTE, une autre fop
Chloe Mikala: ELIANTE, a nice, smart girl
Sara Barker: ARSINOE, a prude
Hannah Sweet: DUBOIS, Alceste’s valet, fast
Erik Harrison: Oronte Understudy
CREATIVE AND PRODUCTION TEAM
Set Designer: Megan Holden
Costume Designer: Alison Samantha Johnson
Lighting Designer: Elizabeth Roth
Sound Designer: Kevin Alexander
Properties Designer: Liz Long
Stage Manager: Abigail Wasserman
ADVISORY
A Misanthrope contains some themes risqué,
Some subjects sordid, words one shouldn’t say.
Much as we’d love to mitigate your fears;
Such syllables wouldn’t suit the youngest ears.
—The Saucy Author
Click here>> to read what the wit who wrote the play has to say about “Adapting Molière When You Don’t Actually Like Molière. At All.”
