projects
WELLSTONE!
A play by Mark Rosenwinkel, with music and lyrics by Larry Long. Directed by Matt Sciple
Starring Mark Rosenwinkel and composer Larry Long, this highly acclaimed play takes audiences from the first days of Paul and Sheila Wellstone’s marriage through their tragic plane crash during the 2006 election. Funny, powerfully moving, and highly provocative, Wellstone! will inspire his passionate followers as well as his harshest critics.
September 2, 2008 : After a sucessful run at the History Theatre in 2006, Wellstone! is returning to the stage this Fall at the Sabes Jewish Community Center. Larry wrote the lyrics and songs for the play and will again be involved in the production.
CLICK to download a PDF postcard for the event.
Minneapolis—The Robert and Janet Sabes Center for Jewish Arts and Humanities in Minneapolis is pleased to open its 2008-2009 Performing Arts Professional Season with Wellstone!, a play by Mark Rosenwinkel, directed by Matt Sciple. Performances run from September 2-21, 2008. Tickets are $20 for non-members/general public, $18 for members, and $16 for students and senior citizens, with group rates available. This production of Wellstone! will take place at the Sabes Jewish Community Center, located at 4330 S Cedar Lake Road in St. Louis Park, MN, 55416, and is open to the public. For information and tickets, please visit www.sabesjcc.org or call 952.381.3499.
THE PLAY: Wellstone! is a carefully researched play that spans the 19-year career of Paul Wellstone, the Minnesota Senator who died in a plane crash in October 2002, just weeks before the election for his third term in the U.S. Senate. It is a play about a public servant, living and working through a set of core values that were often in conflict with the institutions he served. It profiles an influential Jewish politician from Minnesota whose passion and tenacious personality led him to a life in service to the underserved. Wellstone! tracks his life as a young Jewish man, son of Ukrainian immigrants, who began his career as a student at the University of North Carolina. The play takes us through his days as a professor at Carleton College, his advocacy for farmers during the famous power line fight for Minnesota farmers, his failed run for State Auditor, and his 12 years in the Senate. The play will star playwright and professional actor Mark Rosenwinkel in the title role of Paul Wellstone. Composer and lyrist, Larry Long will also perform in the production as the troubadour. Appropriate for children ages 13 and older.
The production of Wellstone! opens during the Republican National Convention, which will be hosted by the Twin Cities September 2 – 5, 2008. “We decided to open the production during the Republican National Convention when people’s interest in politics is heightened,” said Steve Barberio, producer. “The production was successfully produced by the History Theater in Saint Paul in 2006 and was very well received. Over the past two years many people—Republicans and Democrats—have told me either how much they loved the show or how sad they were to have missed it. This is a great time for audiences to explore their own politics and stimulate discussions,” said Barberio, who directed the world premier at the History Theater.
THE PLAYWRIGHT: Mark Rosenwinkel is a Core Member of the Playwrights' Center of Minneapolis, a past recipient of their Jerome Fellowship in playwriting, and a participant in their annual Playlabs reading series. His plays have had productions, readings and workshops with numerous theaters around the country, including: The Temptation of Kilroy - Theater of the Open Eye, NYC; Parlor Games - Le Pensee Theater, Seattle; Germinal - University of Alabama New Playwrights' Program; Hie Away Home, Foothill Theatre Company, CA; and Orchard - Asolo Theatre, Sarasota, FL. He has also written many plays for young audiences, most notably his adaptation of Moby Dick which was chosen as the North American representative to the International Assn. for Theatre for Young Audiences (ASSITEJ) Festival in Russia, 1996. A Resident Artist with Stages Theatre in Hopkins, MN, he has had many plays produced there, including Dreams of A Bird Woman, Jairus and the Wonder Shop, and Stone Hearts, a play drawn from first-hand experiences of victims of the war in Bosnia. His play, Sanctus, was named winner of the 2002 Writers' Digest Literary Award, and was recently featured at the 2005 New Play Series at the Jungle Theatre in Minneapolis.
In addition to playwriting, Mr. Rosenwinkel has acted professionally in the theatre for nearly three decades, including work locally with the Guthrie Theatre, History Theatre, Park Square Theatre, Mixed Blood Theatre and Penumbra Theatre. At the Guthrie, Mark has starred in 1776, The Merchant of Venice, His Girl Friday, She Loves Me, Merrily We Roll Along, Antony and Cleopatra, A Christmas Carol (three productions since 1989), To Fool the Eye, Sweeney Todd, Measure for Measure; Tours: The Stuff of Dreams. Other credits include Chanhassen Dinner Theatres: West Side Story, Singin' in the Rain, Brigadoon, Guys and Dolls, Crazy for You, Phantom, Camelot, The Music Man, Groucho: A Life in Revue; Mixed Blood Theatre: The Grapes of Wrath; Penumbra Theatre: Tracers; Illinois Shakespeare Festival: The Taming of the Shrew, Hamlet, Henry IV; Park Square Theatre: Medea, Romeo and Juliet; Great American History Theatre: Sisters of Swing, Hiding in the Open. Rosenwinkel has extensive experience as a teacher of acting, improvisation and playwriting, and holds an MFA in acting from the Asolo/Florida State University Conservatory for Professional Actor Training.
THE COMPOSER: Larry Long, called “a true American Troubadour” by author Studs Terkel, has made his life work the celebration of American stories and heroes. Larry Long’s hundreds of ballads readily capture the American history of our time, while embracing our common humanity with stories about those history makers who are known and those who are unknown. He has worked in urban communities combining Latin, Somalian, African-American, and Scandinavian students. He has worked in southern rural communities combining black, white, Native American and Latin stories. In the mid-1980s he assembled the first hometown tribute to Woody Guthrie in Okemah, Oklahoma, which today has evolved into a large, free festival with an array of established and upcoming artists. Throughout the nation, his work has sought to celebrate our diversity and joint community.
Now a Smithsonian Folkways recording artist, Mr. Long has sung at major festivals, concerts and events throughout the country, in Europe, Russia, Brazil and South Africa. Long is a recipient of the prestigious Bush Artists Fellowship, the Pope John XXIII Award and In The Spirit of Crazy Horse Award for his work in forgotten communities. The demand for Long’s work sparked the creation of a non-profit organization, Community Celebration of Place. Community Celebration of Place works with communities to use music, performance, art and oral history to bring together children and elders, and people of different backgrounds – economic, faith, racial, and cultural—to honor and celebrate our commonalties and differences.
Who: Robert and Janet Sabes Center for Jewish Arts and Humanities
What: Wellstone! – a play by Mark Rosenwinkel, with music and lyrics by Larry Long; Directed by Matt Sciple
When: September 2-21; Thursdays at 7:30 p.m., Saturdays at 8 p.m.,
Sundays at 2 p.m.; Monday, September 8 at 7:30 p.m.; Tuesday & Wednesday, September 2 and 3 at 7:30 p.m.; and Fridays, September 12 and 19 at 10 a.m.
Where: Sabes JCC, 4330 S Cedar Lake Road, St. Louis Park, MN 55416
Tickets: $20 non-members, $18 members, $16 students/seniors; Group of 8+: $12