NEW ENGLAND PREMIERE of THE EFFECT
features
Lindsay Crouse, Brad Hall,
Susannah Hoffman & Mickey Solis
Gloucester Stage Company continues its 38th season of professional theater on Cape Ann with the New England Premiere of Lucy Prebble’s The Effect from June 16 through July 8 at 267 East Main Street, Gloucester, MA. Lucy Prebble’s funny and moving look at medicinal trial and error explores the depths of attraction and attachment, and wonders at the limits of medicine and the ever-elusive rules of the heart. In The Effect Tristan and Connie, volunteers in a controlled drug test, fall in love, but is their chemistry real or induced? The GSC production features Sam Weisman in his Gloucester Stage directing debut and a cast led by GSC favorite Academy Award nominee and Gloucester resident Lindsay Crouse as Dr. Lorna James with GSC newcomers: Saturday Night Live alum Brad Hall as Dr. Toby Sealey; Mickey Solis as Tristan and Susannah Hoffman as Connie. Gloucester Stage is a reunion for Sam Weisman, Lindsay Crouse and Brad Hall. The three worked together in the 1995 feature film Bye Bye Love which was written and produced by Hall; directed by Weisman and starring Crouse.
Lucy Prebble’s The Effect comes to Gloucester after a premiere at the The National Theatre in London and a smash hit extended run at the Barrow Street Theatre in New York last year. Ms. Prebble won the George Devine Award 2004 for her debut play The Sugar Syndromefollowed by the TMA Award for Best New Play in 2004. She also won the 2004 Critics’ Circle Award for Most Promising Playwright. She is the creator of the television series Secret Diary of a Call Girl,starring Billie Piper in the main role. Ms. Prebble’s second play,ENRON, transferred to The West End and Broadway in 2010 after sell out runs at both The Royal Court and Chichester Festival Theatre. Sony has optioned the rights to develop ENRON into a film. ENRONwon Best New Play at the TMA Theatre Awards, and was shortlisted for The Evening Standard Award for Best New Play 2009.
Brad Hall makes his Gloucester Stage debut in the New England premiere of The Effect. His previous theater experience includes Practical Theatre Company, Goodman Theatre, Guthrie Theatre, St. Nicholas Theatre, Lincoln Center Theatre, Grange Court Theatre London, and the Huntington Hartford Theatre Los Angeles. Most recently, he appeared at Town Hall in NYC with Tim Robbins in the one night only event, The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved. For television, Mr. Hall has written, performed, developed, composed music for, directed, created or produced many shows; among them Saturday Night Live, Frasier, Brooklyn Bridge, The Single Guy, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Watching Ellie, Parks And Recreation and VEEP. Mr. Hall has written, produced and performed in motion pictures, often in happy partnership with Gary David Goldberg and The Effect director, Sam Weisman. Mr. Hall attended Northwestern University and is a co-founder of the Practical Theatre Co. in Chicago. It was at the Practical Theatre that Brad first met Julia Louis-Dreyfus, to whom he is married, and has two sons.
Lindsay Crouse was last seen at Gloucester Stage in 2016’s critically-acclaimed production of Lettice and Lovage. Academy Award nominee Lindsay Crouse made her Gloucester Stage debut in 2007 inThe Belle of Amherst; followed by a return to Gloucester Stage in 2008 in Going To St. Ives, in 2010 in Table Manners, in 2011 inLiving Together, in 2012 in Round and Round The Garden and in her award winning role in 2013’s Driving Miss Daisy. A long-time veteran of the New York stage, Lindsay Crouse has performed off and on Broadway, and has won the Obie and Theater World Awards. At the Geffen Theater in Los Angeles, she starred with John Mahoney in Conor McPherson’s The Weir, breaking the theater’s box office records. On television, Ms. Crouse has guest-starred on C.S.I.,Criminal Minds, Law and Order, E.R, NYPD Blue, Colombo,Murder She Wrote, Touched By An Angel, Hill Street Blues,Frasier, ARLI$$ and Alias. She spent a season as the infamous Professor Maggie Walsh on Buffy The Vampire Slayer. She appeared on all three television networks simultaneously playing recurring characters on Providence for NBC, Hack for CBS, andDragnet for ABC. She has played three different characters on Law and Order, and appeared as the formidable Judge Andrews on Law and Order SVU. A feature film veteran, some of Ms. Crouse’s best known films include The Insider, The Verdict, House of Games,Slapshot, Communion, All The President’s Men, Prince Of The City, Daniel, The Arrival, Indian In The Cupboard, Mr. Brooksand Places In The Heart, for which she received an Academy Award nomination. Ms. Crouse currently teaches around the country a class that is unique in the world, combining principles of Buddhism with principles of drama, creating a fresh approach to acting, writing and directing in all media. A longtime Gloucester summer resident, Ms. Crouse began spending her summers in Gloucester as a child and is now a full time Gloucester resident. Her parents began summering in Gloucester in the late 1940’s as an escape from New York City. Lindsay’s father playwright Russel Crouse found inspiration on Cape Ann. He often worked here with his longtime partner and collaborator Howard Lindsay. Their partnership of over 28 years is one of the longest in theatre history and responsible for such hits as The Sound of Music, Anything Goes, Life With Father and the Pulitzer Prize winning The State of the Union.
Susannah Hoffman’s regional theater credits include Baby Doll inBaby Doll, and Mary Debenham in Murder on the Orient Express at the McCarter Theatre; Cherie in Bus Stop at Centerstage; Elizabeth inHeartless and Abigail in A Discourse on the Wonders of the Invisible World at the Contemporary American Theater Festival;Sexual Perversity in Chicago and The Donkey Show at ART; Ophelia in Hamletmachine with the ART Institute; The Little Tragedies at the Moscow Art Theater; and Nina in The Seagull with Opera House Arts. Her New York credits include The Actress ininsignificance; Ophelia in Hamlet; Juliet/Mercutio/Prince/Balthasar in Empirical Rogue’s four-actor Romeo & Juliet; Morgan in Owned;Celine in …But the Next Morning; and Claire in L’Amour Fou. In television and film she has been seen in House of Cards andSpiderman 2. Ms. Hoffman received an MFA in acting from the ART/MXAT Institute for Advanced Theater Training at Harvard University.
Mickey Solis’ New York and Off Broadway credits include the American premiere of Ivan Viripaev’s Illusions at the Baryshnikov Arts Center; An Orestia with Classic Stage Company; God of Carnage at Engeman Theater; White People at Ensemble Studio Theatre; Night Over Taos at INTAR, directed by Estelle Parsons; The Master and Margarita at the Fisher Center; Beckett at 100 (at the 92nd St. Y with Alvin Epstein and Bill Camp; Error of Their Ways atHERE Arts Center; and Private Moments in Central Park directed by David Levine for Creative Time. Regionally he has worked at the Yale Repertory; American Repertory Theater; Dangerous Ground (Brooklyn); Triad Stage; Appalachian Summer Festival; New College Theater; Moscow Art Theater; Epic Theater; Shakespeare on the Sound; Kentucky Shakespeare Festival. Other performances include the Susan Marshall Dance Company, The Japan Society, The Ohio Theater, Wang Center for the Performing Arts, The Berkshire Playwright’s Lab, Playwrights Horizons, The Actors Studio. A screenwriter as well as an actor, his film and television experience includes: michigan (writer), Lament for the Artist (co-writer), and as an actor: Fall North, Man With Van, Law & Order, Law & Order: SVU, Person of Interest, Blacklist, Blind Spot, Mysteries of Laura,and Girls. He has taught acting at NYU’s Tisch School for the Arts and The Florida State Thespian Festival. Mr. Solis studied comparative religion at Western Michigan University and earned his MFA at The ART/MXAT Institute for Advanced Theater Training at Harvard University.
The Effect director Sam Weisman worked for ten years as an actor before making the transition to directing. Mr. Weisman’s theatre work has received much recognition, including multiple Drama-Logue and LA Weekly Awards, and Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Best Director honors for the West Coast premieres of Harold Pinter’sBetrayal (starring Ian McShane and Penny Fuller) and Simon Gray’sThe Common Pursuit (featuring Nathan Lane). Other West Coast theatre credits include James Lapine’s Table Settings, Moliere’s The Misanthrope at USC’s Bing Theatre, and an acclaimed production of Sam Shepard’s Buried Child (starring Ralph Waite and Nan Martin) at South Coast Repertory Theatre. Mr. Weisman was also the director and co-creator of Lies And Legends: The Musical Stories of Harry Chapin, which premiered in Chicago, and then opened in New York at the legendary Village Gate. The show went on to be a major hit in Toronto at the Centre Stage, and in Los Angeles at the Pasadena Playhouse and the Canon Theatre, where it was honored with a Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle award for Best Ensemble. At The Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater, Mr. Weisman directed Kenneth Lonergan’s Lobby Hero, and the world premiere of John Kolvenbach’s Gizmo Love. He has earned directorial credits in film, television, as well including the feature films, George of the Jungle(which received a British Academy Award nomination for Best Children’s Movie); The Out-Of-Towners (starring Steve Martin, Goldie Hawn, and John Cleese); D2: The Mighty Ducks, and Dickie Roberts (starring David Spade, produced by Adam Sandler). He also was Co-Producer of the feature film, DAD (starring Jack Lemmon, Olympia Dukakis, and Ted Danson). Mr. Weisman has directed or produced over 200 television episodes, for such shows as Family Ties, Brooklyn Bridge, Moonlighting, L.A. Law, Seventh Heaven(Pilot Episode), Law and Order, Monk, In Plain Sight, and The Bernie Mac Show. Other television credits include the PBS American Playhouse production of Breakfast with Les and Bes, starring Dick Van Dyke and Cloris Leachman. Mr. Weisman’s television work has received three Emmy Nominations, multiple Humanitas Awards, two Golden Globe Nominations, and a Golden Globe Award. His Pilot of the critically acclaimed series, Brooklyn Bridge, was honored by TV GUIDE as one of the best television episodes of all time.
Recent work includes developing several feature film projects, such asThe Miracle of St. Anthony, a Walden Media film based on the New York Times best-selling book of the same name. In addition, he is the co- creator and Executive Producer of THE SING OFF, NBC Television’s a cappella singing competition. In 2005 Mr. Weisman returned to acting, playing Polonius in Commonwealth Shakespeare Company’s Hamlet on the Boston Common, opposite the Hamlet of Jeffrey Donovan.
Mr. Weisman served as Chairman of the Executive Boards of the Massachusetts Sports and Entertainment Commission, and in 2008 he was honored as the “MVP of the Massachusetts Film Industry” for his work in the passage of the State’s successful Film and Television Tax Incentive program, which has brought over $1 billion in production to the Commonwealth in five years. Other teaching work includes semesters at Deerfield and Emerson College, as well as guest lectures at The University of North Carolina School of the Arts, USC, Boston University, NYU, Rhode Island School of Design, Duke University, and Yale. He has been elected three times to the East Coast Council of the Directors Guild of America, and is a voting member of the Directors’ Branch of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
A graduate of Deerfield Academy and Yale (B.A. Music History), Mr. Weisman received an M.F.A. in Acting and Directing from Brandeis University’s Department of Theatre Arts, where he is a Fellow of The University. He has taught and directed at Brandeis University and the American Repertory Theatre’s Institute for Advanced Theatre Training at Harvard University, where he is Director of Professional Development.
The New England premiere of Lucy Prebble’s The Effect runs June 16 through July 8 at Gloucester Stage. Performances are Wednesdaythrough Saturday at 7:30 pm; Saturday and Sunday at 2:00 pm with a special Wednesday matinee performance on Wednesday, July 5 at 2:00 pm. Following the 2 pm performances on Sunday, June 25 and Sunday, July 2 audiences are invited to free post-show discussions with the artists from The Effect. Single ticket prices are $32 to $42 with discounts available for Preview Performances, Cape Ann Residents, Senior Citizens and Patrons 25 years old and under. In addition to regular reserved tickets, Pay What You Wish tickets are available for the Saturday, June 17 matinee at 2 pm. Pay What You Wish tickets can only be purchased day of show at the door. All performances are held at 267 East Main Street, Gloucester, MA. For more information about Gloucester Stage, or to purchase tickets, call the Box Office at 978-281-4433 or visit www.gloucesterstage.com.
Good Morning Gloucester 