Written by George Brant
Directed by Laura Kepley
Performances: November 9*, 14, 15, 16, 17 at 8:00 PM
November 11, 17, 18 at 2:00 PM
Oscar G. Brockett Theatre
Tickets: $16 adults, $13 UT faculty & staff, $10 students available online at www.utpac.org or by phone at 477-6060.
*Join us on November 9th for a post-show discussion with the playwright and director, as well as premier circus scholar, Dr. Janet Davis. Learn about the inspiration for the play, the development of the production, and why the circus is a useful lens for exploring social issues of race, gender, violence, and revenge.
Media and Resources:
- Cast List
- Director Information
- Playwright Information
- Costume Renderings by Jan McCauley
- Synopsis
- Press
Synopsis: Elephant's Graveyard is the true tale of the tragic collision of a struggling circus and a tiny town in Tennessee. Set in September of 1916, the play combines historical fact and legend, exposing the deep-seated American craving for spectacle, violence and revenge.
“The circus is a kind of mirror in which the culture is reflected, condensed and at the same time transcended; perhaps the circus seems to stand outside the culture only because it is at its very center.”
- Circus and Culture: A Semiotic Approach, Paul Bouissac
“You work dizzy, you work hurt, you work half-asleep. Half the time, I can’t remember what state…I’m in, let alone what town.”
- performer David Conners, on circus life
“We always went home wearied with excitement and dusty and fretful – but content…next day as we resumed work in the field the memory of its splendors went with us like a golden cloud.”
- author Hamlin Garlin, on seeing the circus
“I often wondered whether any of the others grasped that I had done it solely to avoid looking like a fool.”
- Shooting an Elephant, George Orwell
“The Railroad has civilized the Circus Man.”
- On the Road With the ‘Big Show,’ Charles Theodore Murray
George Brant is currently in his final year as a Playwriting Fellow at the James A. Michener Center. His work has been produced in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles and Austin. His plays have been selected for the Prop Thtr New Play Festival, the Circle Theatre New Play Festival and the WordBRIDGE Playwright's Lab, as well as been finalists for the Clauder Competition, the Bay Area Playwright's Festival, the Hangar Theatre Lab, the Herrick Theatre Foundation's New Play Competition and the Keene Prize for Literature.
Laura Kepley is the Artistic Associate and a Resident Director at Trinity Repertory Company in Providence, Rhode Island where she recently directed Sarah Ruhl's The Clean House. Other work for Trinity Rep includes Boots on the Ground which she co-created (with Deborah Salem Smith) and directed in 2006 and Some Things are Private (also co-created with Deborah Salem Smith), which she will direct in February 2008. Other directing credits: On the Threshold: Selections from New Plays (The Public Theatre), Falling Up by Trista Baldwin (Perishable Theatre), The K of D by Laura Schellhardt (The Kennedy Center and the Orlando Shakespeare Festival), Those Who Can, Do by Brighde Mullins (Brown/Trinity Playwright's Rep) and productions in the New York, Seattle, and Philadelphia Fringe Festivals. She received her MFA in Directing from the Brown University/Trinity Rep Consortium staging such plays as The Seagull, Top Girls, The Winter's Tale, Iphigenia and Other Daughters, Laura Schellhardt's Shapeshifter and Deborah Stein's Aerodynamics of Accident. Ms. Kepley served as the assistant to Oskar Eustis on the premiere of Rinne Groff's The Ruby Sunrise at Actors Theatre of Louisville and Trinity Rep. Ms. Kepley teaches acting and directing at Brown University.
The Town
- PREACHER – Neil Ames
- GUITARIST – James Betz
- MUDDY TOWNSPERSON – Lizzi Biggers
- HUNGRY TOWNSPERSON – Matrex Kilgore
- STEAM SHOVEL OPERATOR – Daniel Salmones
- YOUNG TOWNSPERSON – Shannon Schaefer
- MARSHAL – Tom Truss
The Circus
- RINGMASTER – George Brant
- BALLET GIRL – Anna Fugate
- TRAINER – Tim Longo
- CLOWN – Ben Schave
- STRONGMAN – Hunter Smith
- DRUMMER – Mark Smoot
- TOUR MANAGER – Shaun Tubbs
The Railroad
- ENGINEER – Keenan Zarling
Understudy for the production: JM Specht
