The Hippodrome
presents

Lonely Planet

By Steven Dietz

with 

Traber Burns             Rusty Salling


SCENIC DESIGN           COSTUME DESIGN                  LIGHTING DESIGN
  James Morgan           Marilyn Wall-Asse               Robert P. Robins

SOUND DESIGN           PROPERTIES
   Rocky Draud          Lorelei Esser
STAGE MANAGER
Patrick Lennon

DIRECTED BY
Mary Hausch

LONELY PLANET was written for Michael Winters and Laurence Ballard,
and produced by A Contemporary Theatre, Seattle.
LONELY PLANET was originally produced by Northlight Theatre, Evanston, Illinois.
Playbill editing and typesetting by Rusty Salling & Laura Beth Hiers.
The Hippodrome is recognized by the State of Florida as a State Theatre/Cultural Institution and receives funding from the State of Florida through the Florida Department of State, the Florida Arts Council and the Division of Cultural Affairs. The theatre also receives funding from the City of Gainesville and the Alachua County Tourist Development Commission.

Lonely Planet

By Steven Dietz

DIRECTED BY
Mary Hausch

Cast

(in order of appearance)

JODY ............................................ Traber Burns*
CARL ............................................ Rusty Salling*

*Member of Actors' Equity Association,
the Union of Professionsal Actors and Stage Managers in the United States.

Time:

The Present.

Place:

Jody's Maps, a small map store on the oldest street in a large American City.

There will be one fifteen-minute intermission.

Director's Notes

When I sat down to read Lonely Planet, I had no preconceived notions about what was to come. I had heard brief inklings of absurdist comedy...Ionesco...Beckett...but no expectations. Before I knew it, the play knocked me off by feet, swept me away, transported me through a fascinating world, and left me thinking about isolation, community, family, fear, life, death, but especially about friendship. In Lonely Planet, Dietz takes us into the sometimes hysterical, sometimes touching but always absorbing world of Jody’s map store. Within these walls, Dietz allows us to approach a difficult subject of friendship and fear in the age of AIDS from a truly different perspective.
It is not a political play. It is instead an exploration of friendship in a myopic world. Dietz says it best in his author’s notes:
History, I believe, is not the story of grand acts and masterpieces. History instead, is the inexorable accumulation of tiny events -- footsteps and glances, hands in soil, broken promises, bursts of laughter, weapons and wounds, hand touching hair, the art of conversation, the rage of loss. So, what do we affect during our lifetime? What, ultimately, is our legacy? I believe, in most cases, our legacy is our friends We write our history onto them, and they walk with us through our days like time capsules, filled with our mutual past, the fragments of our hearts and minds. Our friends get our uncensored questions and our yet-to-be-reasoned opinions. Our friends grant us the chance to make our grand, embarrassing, contradictory pronouncements about the world. They get the very best, and are stuck with the absolute worst, we have to offer. Our friends get our rough drafts. Over time, they both open our eyes and break our hearts. Emerson wrote ‘make yourself necessary to someone.’ In a chaotic world, friendship is the most elegant, the most lasting way to be useful. We are, each of us, a living testament to our friends’ compassion and tolerance, humor and wisdom, patience and grit. Friendship, not technology, is the only thing capable of showing us the enormity of the world.
I would like to dedicate Lonely Planet to Karen who has made the message of friendship in the play very personal for me.
Mary Hausch

WHO'S WHO

TRABER BURNS (Jody)

Traber Burns performed in the Hippodrome's 1986-87 Season, doing Lloyd Dallas, the director in Noises Off and Harold in Orphans, and as Pridamont in this past season's The Illusion. He recently was in The Royal Hunt of the Sun and The Grapes of Wrath for the Clarence Brown Theatre, went to London with Delaware Theatre's The Trip to Bountiful, and appeared in New York Shakespeare's Henry IV Parts I and II as Owen Glendower. He was Marley in Ford's Theatre's A Christmas Carol and has also appeared at Olney Theatre, Center Stage, Oregon Shakespeare Festival and Tennessee Rep. His is a graduate of The American Conservatory Theatre's Acting Program in San Francisco, is a native of Louisiana, and currently resides in the Washington, DC area.

RUSTY SALLING (Carl)

Rusty has appeared in 69 productions at the Hippodrome, including this season’s The Sisters Rosensweig. Previous appearances include Broken Glass, Lost in Yonkers, Earthly Possessions, Marvin’s Room, Prelude to a Kiss, West Side Story, Lettice and Lovage, Accomplice, Rumors, Driving Miss Daisy, The Boys Next Door, Absent Friends, Noises Off, Season’s Greetings, Amadeus and The Elephant Man, as well as in the title roles in The Dresser, Macbeth, The Norman Conquests and Cyrano de Bergerac. For the past five years he has played Scrooge in the Hipp’s annual A Christmas Carol, after 12 years of playing Bob Cratchit. He toured the Southeast, including 11 Florida prisons, in Waiting for Godot and has appeared in two films: A Flash of Green and The Savage Hunt.

PATRICK LENNON (StageManager)

Pat appeared in last season’s Hippodrome productions of Beau Jest, A Christmas Carol and Tangled Tales. Past Hippodrome shows include Earthly Possessions, Prelude To A Kiss and Accomplice. He appeared in the Florida Players productions of Lone Star, Terra Nova, and The Lover. He has stage managed Hippodrome productions of Marvin’s Room, The Sisters Rosensweig, and A Christmas Carol, and co-directed the 1993 version the latter. Pat also serves as the Hippodrome’s Development Coordinator.

MARY HAUSCH (Director, Hippodrome Producing Director)

A Hippodrome founder, Mary has directed more than 70 and acted in more than 50 productions in her 22 years with the theatre. Directorial accomplishments include Broken Glass, Earthly Possessions, Marvin’s Room, Prelude to a Kiss, M. Butterfly, Lettice and Lovage, Other People’s Money, Steel Magnolias, Driving Miss Daisy, Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Little Shop of Horrors, For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf and True West. She also directed a PBS teleplay based on David Mamet’s The Duck Variations. She is a co-founder of H.I.T.T. (Hippodrome Improvisational Teen Theatre) for which she and her colleagues won the Margaret Sanger Award. Mary has served with the National Endowment for the Arts as a panelist/reviewer, with the Florida Professional Theatre Association as treasurer and with the Florida Division of Cultural Affairs as a panelist/reviewer. She was the recipient of the Gainesville Sun’s Star Business Award in 1991 and the Sun’s Arts Person of the Year Award in 1993.

JAMES MORGAN (Scenic Designer)

Jim returns to the Hippodrome after designing The Sisters Rosensweig. Other Hippodrome shows include The Sugar Bean Sisters, The Illusion, Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune, The World Goes ‘Round and Earthly Possessions. Designs for Broadway include Sweeney Todd (revival, Drama Desk nomination, Outstanding Scenic Design); Anna Karenina (American Theatre Wing Design nomination); Taking Steps; The Miser; Getting Married, and Zoya’s Apartment. Off-Broadway credits include Pacific Overtures, The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me (Also L.A., San Francisco, and Boston), Broadway Jukebox, Gay Divorce, Smiling Through. National tours: On the Twentieth Century, The Sunshine Boys. Regionals include Manhattan Theatre Club, McCarter Theatre, Virginia Stage Company, Chicago Lyric Opera, Asolo. Artistic Advisor/Resident Designer for Manhattan’s York Theatre Company, where he has designed over 80 shows. He is the only person ever to design for all the State Theatres of Florida. A Florida native and UF graduate (president of Florida Players ‘73-74), he now lives in New York City.

MARILYN WALL-ASSE (Costume Design)

Marilyn is a Hippodrome cofounder, Artistic Associate and the Costume Designer-in-Residence. She is a four time recipient of the Outstanding Young Women in America Award and received the Margaret Sanger Certificate of Appreciation in 1987. In 1989 she received a Governor’s Award as one of Florida’s Outstanding Artists and has designed and built costumes for more than 150 Hippodrome productions. Her Hippodrome acting credits include The Madwoman of Chaillot, Cabrona, Bedroom Farce, Robber Bridegroom, Crimes of the Heart and Season’s Greetings. Directing credits include Macbeth and Same Time Next Year and this summer’s Tangled Tales which she also co-authored. In the film world Marilyn has designed costumes and makeup for A Flash of Green, Shimmer, Ruby in Paradise and the yet to be released films Gathering Evidence and Hello, She Lied. At their local appearances, she has served as makeup artist to the famous faces of Phil Donahue, Al Gore and Bill Clinton.

ROBERT P. ROBINS (Lighting Designer)

Bob has been the Lighting Designer-in-Residence for eleven years and has designed lighting for over 130 shows and sound for 14. He also has stage managed, toured Hippodrome Mainstage and Theatre for Young Audiences productions and now engineers sound tracks for all productions. He has designed lighting for theatre, dance and industrials regionally in the southeastern United States, has been a faculty member for three years at the Tennessee Governor’s School for the Arts and has lectured at the University of Florida and Sante Fe Community College.

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