PORTLAND STAGE PRESENTS:
VIRTUAL READING MAY 20 | 7 PM | FREE
Madeleines
by Bess Welden Spanish translation by Christina Ruiz de Luque
Rose/Lilia.................................................................................................. Deborah Paley Debra..........................................................................................................Abigail Killeen* Jennifer............................................................................................................... Kate Levy* Director.....................................................................................................Annette Jolles^ Asst. Director, Dramaturg, Stage Directions............. Meredith G. Healy
Run Time
110 Minutes No Intermission Madeleines was developed by the Jewish Plays Project as a Finalist for the 11th Jewish Playwriting Contest.
About the Play
Spiced with poetry and smatterings of Yiddish and Spanish, Madeleines tells the story of a family of Jewish women grappling with how to love each other through haunted pasts, shared grief, and the solace of baking together.
*Member of AEA (Actor’s Equity Association), appearing through permission from Theatre Authority. ^Member of SDC (Stage Directors and Choreographers Society).
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Bess Welden (Playwright) is a theater-maker living and working in Portland, Maine, and longtime Portland Stage Affiliate Artist. She is a 2021-22 National Arts Strategies Creative Community Fellow – New England. Her play Madeleines is a finalist for the 2022 National Jewish Playwriting Contest (Jewish Plays Project, NYC) as well as for the 2021 Bay Area Playwrights Festival. Death Wings, her play with songs, won the 2020 Maine State prize of the Clauder Competition for New England Playwrights, was a semi-finalist for the 2020 O’Neill New Play Conference, and was workshopped with Fresh Ink Theatre at Boston Center for the Arts. Death Wings will premiere in multiple Maine locations in spring 2023 with support from the Maine Arts Commission and New England Foundation for the Arts. Her play Refuge Malja, winner of the 2020 Tel Aviv Jewish Plays Contest and a finalist in the 2020 National Jewish Playwriting Contest, premiered on Portland Stage’s mainstage in 2018. Her youth theater script, Magic in the Attic, has been produced around the country and Mergirl Saves the Waves, Bess’ feminist, environmentalist adaptation of The Little Mermaid, is in development with A Company of Girls. Her solo comedies The Passion of the Hausfrau (2009) and Big Mouth Thunder Thighs (2013) premiered in Portland Stage’s Studio Theater, and her collaborative play-project with live music and illustration, Legbala is a River, premiered at Mayo Street Arts (2017). In 2020 she participated as an invited writer at the National Winter Playwrights Retreat in Grand Lake, CO and was a member of Company One Theatre (Boston) PlayLab Unit. besswelden.com Kate Levy (Jennifer) Broadway and National Tours: Bernhardt/Hamlet; On Golden Pond (with Michael Learned and Tom Bosley), The Graduate. New York Theatre: Stalking The Bogeyman, NY Rep; The Memorandum, Tact; The Return of The Prodigal, and Soldier’s Wife, The Mint; Halfway Home, The New Group; Regional: The Niceties, Milwaukee Rep; Fingersmith, A.R.T.; Hay Fever, Florida Rep; Third, and The Other Place, Hartford TheatreWorks; (CT. Critics Circle and St. Louis Theater Circle awards for Best Actress); Snow Falling on Cedars, Hartford Stage; Well, Denver Center; A Sleeping Country, Cincinnati Playhouse In The Park; The Goat, Arena Stage; Outrage, Portland Center Stage; On Golden Pond, Cleveland Play House; Uncle Vanya, Denver Center; Present Laughter, Pioneer; Heaven, Yale Rep; Dinner With Friends, Alliance; The Real Thing, Alley Theatre. Also: Barrow St. Theater, MTC, Roundabout, The O’Neill, Merrimack Rep, Northern Stage, Theater Under the Stars, Florida Stage, Syracuse Stage, Indiana Rep, Clarence Brown, Philadelphia Festival for New Plays, BoarsHead. Numerous Shakespeare roles at various festivals. Television: Succession, The Deuce, Younger, The Sinner, Odd Mom Out, The Affair,
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Elementary, All three Law & Order’s, Blue Bloods, Unforgettable, A Gifted Man, Royal Pains, The Good Wife, Gossip Girl. Film: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. BA, Tufts University; MFA, American Conservatory Theatre. Abigail Killeen (Debra) is an Affiliate Artist at Portland Stage and is delighted to be part of this year’s Little Fest. Other shows at PSC include The Clean House (Lane), Babette’s Feast (Martine, Off-Broadway transfer, NY Mag Critic’s Pick), Brighton Beach Memoirs (Blanche), Love/Sick (Meg/Celia/Sam), and A Christmas Carol (Ghosts/Mrs. Cratchit), along with a number of Little Fests, From Aways, and other festivals of new work. For PSC’s Studio Series she co-produced and performed in the solo show The Amish Project. Other Portland-based work: Sofonisba (Sofonisba, Dramatic Rep); The May Queen (Jennifer); Death by Design (Sorel) and Next Fall (Holly) at Good Theater; Uncle Vanya (Yelena) and Nina (Helen) at The Theater Project; and Macbeth (Lady Macbeth) with Fenix. New York credits include The Merchant of Venice and Everything That Rises Must Converge with Compagnia de’ Colombari, the NY International Fringe (Moritz von Stuelpenagel, dir.), and Naked Angels (David Dalton, dir.) Film: America’s Hidden Stories, Wayfair, Showers of Happiness. Abigail is a Professor of Theater and chair of the Department of Theater and Dance at Bowdoin College. Deborah Paley (Rose/Lilia) has been acting since she toured upstate New York grange halls at age ten, doing her standup routine. Since then, she’s studied acting at Columbia University, Playwrights’ Horizons, 78th St. Theater Lab, and HB Studios in NYC, and the Chekhov Intensive at USM. She has done looping on some major films, including The Muppets Take Manhattan and Scarface (you can hear her screaming). Recent projects in Portland include Mad Horse’s Life Sucks and One Flea Deborah Paley Spare and the Maine Playwrights Festival. Annette Jolles (Director) has created a diverse body of work as a director and producer for stage and television, receiving eleven Emmy Awards for shows ranging from the 9/11 Memorial from Ground Zero to Mitzi Gaynor: Razzle Dazzle for PBS. For Live from Lincoln Center, broadcasts include NY Philharmonic’s New Year’s Eve: La Vie Parisienne; Stars in Concert programs headlined by Sutton Foster, Leslie Odom, Jr., Cynthia Erivo, Norm Lewis and Patina Miller; 50 Years of Mostly Mozart; and three Richard Tucker Galas featuring opera luminaries. Stage work includes Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival for whom she directed Così fan tutte at Alice Tully Hall, the 2017 opening gala The
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Singing Heart at David Geffen Hall, and the world premiere of In the Name of the Earth at The Cathedral of St. John the Divine. She directed the Off-Broadway and regional premieres of Little by Little, That Time of the Year, Wallenberg, and The Jerusalem Syndrome, and for over twenty years was director/choreographer for The Little Orchestra Society. Prior collaborations with Bess Welden: Keeping the Word, The Handshake and Passion of the Hausfrau (including for Portland Stage’s LittleFest). For Symphony Space, she produced and directed numerous concerts, among them Project Broadway, Wall to Wall Bernstein, W2W Sondheim, W2W Cabaret, and Frank Sinatra at 100. Broadway producing: Jagged Little Pill, Mrs. Doubtfire, The Play That Goes Wrong, Fiddler on the Roof, China Doll, The Scottsboro Boys, The Anarchist, Looped. She has taught musical theater performance at Yale for the past sixteen years. Meredith G. Healy (Asst. Director, Dramaturg, Stage Directions) is a director based in Portland, ME, where she is currently a Directing and Dramaturgy Apprentice at Portland Stage Company. During her time at PSC, she has worked as the Assistant Director and Dramaturg for Native Gardens (dir. Jade King Carroll), Talley’s Folly (dir. Sally Wood), Searching for Mr. Moon (dir. Julia Gibson), Senior Living (dir. Judith Ivey), and Sabina (dir. Danilo Gambini and Daniella Topol). As a director who is passionate about the development of new works, Meredith is thrilled to be working with this team on Madeleines. Prior to moving to Portland, Meredith worked extensively with the Wilbury Theatre Group in Providence, RI and was their Director of New Works during the 2018-2019 Season. Meredith is a proud graduate of Wellesley College, where she was a double-major in Psychology and French. Special Thanks We would like to thank Anita Stewart, Cody Brackett, Todd Brian Backus, and Mical Hutson for making this reading tonight possible. We would also like to thank Robbie Harrison for his help with Spanish pronunciation.
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