Albert's Bridge an early radio play by Tom Stoppard

EXIT Stage Left July 6 - July 28, 1999 Home / also playing @ the EXIT / to email us

Directed, Set Design by Jas Ries Costume Design, Stage Manager Melissa Nakama, Light Design Bart Grady, Score/Sound Design by Andrew Kelsey & Matt Lavin, All assisted mightily by Jacquie Blackman CAST (in order of appearance): Bob/George Aaron Treat, Charlie/Dave Jason Craig, Dad/Fraser David Groen, Albert Alec Duffy, Chairman Nick Sholley, Fitch Gary F. Barth, Mother/ Father Matthew M. Gardner, Kate Gillian Brecker

Cast & Crew Information

Gary F. Barth (Fitch) is a San Francisco based actor and improviser who was most recently seen as Zak in Antero Alli's Hungry Ghosts of Albion at the Theatre of Yugen. Gary also has the great good fortune to be a member of Bay Area TheatreSports' (TM) Thursday Night Troupe, Bats in the Belfry, where he is a regularly-featured performer.

Gillian Brecker (Kate), last seen in the Absurdist's Season's production of Like & Murder Cake, is happy to be back at the EXIT. Since earning her BA in Theatre from SF State, she has continued her studies at various times with Rob Reece, Madeline Abel-Kerns, Mary Sutton, and the SITI workshop. She has spent time with Art Street Theatre acting, teaching and committing dramaturgy in AST workshop Projects and in the company's productions of Little Extremes, R& J and Bang!

Alec Duffy (Albert) recently moved to SF from North Carolina where he earned a B.A. in drama at Duke University. He wishes to thank his mother and father for their unending love and support.

Jason McCann Craig (Charlie, Dave) is a founding member of Bad Break-Up Productions, which lived up to its name after one performance of Mac Wellman's The Bad Infinity, playing Ramone Guzman at Theatre Alexis in Oakland. He has also been the in-house playwright/player for Popcorn Anti-Theatre for the past year, producing new work in outdoor urban settings. Other credits include Goldberg in Pinter's The Birthday Party and B in Samuel Beckett's Play Without Words. Many thank-yous to Jessica and all my Czech friends.

Matthew M. Gardner (Mother,Father) is delighted to have the opportunity of appearing in Albert's Bridge at EXIT Stage Left and to participate in another production in the EXIT Theatre's 1999 Absurdist Season. He recently appeared as numerous characters in Eugene Ionesco's The Killing Game across the hall in the EXIT Theatre. He is a recent graduate on the Bennett TheatreLab.

Bart Grady (Light Design) has spent many days here at the EXIT hanging from the rafters and sitting in a small, dark room. Sometimes, he even gets to dictate the actions he takes there! These occurances have been named A Shayna Maidel, and Happy Days here at EXIT Stage Left, Digitally Yours at Theatre Rhinoceros and Suddenly Last Summer at the Shelton Theatre.

David Groen (Dad, Fraser) is pleased to be performing with a cast once again. He just finished doing his hugely successful one-man show Chicken Butt- One Boy's Journey into Manhood for which he received the prestigious Standing Titanium Plinth award. Prior to that you may have seen David as Buddy in Golly, I'm Well Liked with the Cauterized Highway players, or as Coked up Junkie #1 in LIVE: The Tenderloin Means Easy Street with Pimps Theatre Co. David has done several Industrials such as, The Trauma of HMO Choices, 128 steps of Data Encryption, Willie says, Touché' with Papier Maiche, and the CD-ROM Choose you own adventure: Mystery of the Dutch Immigrants to rural South Dakota in which he originated the roll of Hans Christian Aryan. He would like to dedicate this show to Flea Aunts - the small women of the night.

Andrew Kelsey & Matt Lavin (Sound Design) share this as their second project as a sound design team. Among other musical credits, Matt and Andrew recently did sound for the EXIT Theatre's Hamlet. These future rock stars are to be seen jammin' about the city in local band Nun-More-Black. Keep your eyes and ears peeled for this band because, "this one goes to eleven."

Melissa Nakama (Costume Design/Stage Manager) works her multi-task oriented jobs with a mixture of passion and distaste, not a bad bargain in the long run. She thanks the incredible cast and crew for their patience and humor, congratulating them for pulling off quite the absurd play. There are a few or more plays under her belt, but who's counting? She dedicates this show to her soon-to-be-husband, Jason Arquin, for his unconditional love and showing her doors leading to the great beyond.

Jas Ries (Director/Set Design) wears a number of hats. All of them make him look undesirably sexy... Ah HA! You thought I was going to say "silly" didn't you?

Nick Sholley (Chairman) includes among his most recent credits the die-hard loyalist Londoner in Never in My Lifetime, 28 versions of the all-American male in the Vietnam era in A Piece of My Heart, and the irascible yet devout Emperor Otto III coming down with a case of Y1K blues in Demon Pope. His last absurdist role on par with the Chairman was in Unconditional Theatre's The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, in which he played the Narrator and the dogmatically doomed Dogsborough.

Tom Stoppard (Playwright) began writing as a newspaper journalist in 1954 after he quit school at the age of seventeen. His first plays followed in the 1960s with A Walk on the Water and he won his first critical acclaim with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead in 1965. Since then he has written many television scripts, radio plays, short stories, film scripts (including Brazil, The Russia House, Billy Bathgate, and Empire of the Sun) and over forty plays. Stoppard's latest major success was a 1999 Best Screenplay Oscar for Shakespeare In Love. His play Indian Ink played to full houses when staged by A.C.T. in San Francisco earlier this year.

No contemporary playwright has been as successful as Tom Stoppard in creating what have been termed "serious comedies" -- funny plays that deal with important ideas. His efforts have been recognized and rewarded with many awards for playwriting, including three Tonys on Broadway. He has received quite a number of honorary degrees and was recently honored with a knighthood in the United Kingdom.

Aaron Treat (Bob, George) studied improvisational theatre and acted in Mac Wellman's Sincerity Forever and Len Jenkins' American Notes, produced on the mainstage at Laney College in Oakland. Aaron is one of the founding members of I've Just Had a Very Bad Break-Up Productions, with which he produced, directed, and acted in the company's first and last project, Bad Infinity by Mac Wellman. Aaron is one of the founding members of The Popcorn Theatre/Anti-Theatre Theatre Company. Most recently, he traveled the east coast in a van playing Scrooge for kids and childish adults with Traveling Lantern Theatre Company.

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