The Naked Stage Play Reading Series:

Arcadia by Tom Stoppard at Guild Hall’s Boots Lamb Education Center East Hampton, NY From January 15, 2008 May 6th, Guild Hall presents The Naked Stage Play Reading Series FREE at The Boots Lamb Education Center on Tuesday evenings at 7:30 PM. Check Guild Hall’s website http://www.guildhall.org for additional information on play readings or call 631 324-0806. The Naked Stage is composed of performing artists from the region who have joined together and dedicated themselves to the development of theater on the East End of Long Island. These experimental productions serve as an incubator and laboratory for actors, writers, directors, and producers to practice and explore their craft free from the constraints of production schedules, budgets, criticism and public performance. On Tuesday, May 6th at 7:30pm Guild Hall presents the FREE Naked Stage Play Reading of Arcadia by Tom Stoppard, featuring Tina Jones, Richard B. Watson, Kate Mueth, Rachel Viola , Gordon Gray, Nick Fondulis , Lydia Franco Hodges , Josh Gladstone , James Ewing, Josh Perl, and Joseph Brondo. Arcadia is the winner of the 1995 New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best Play and the 1994 Olivier Award. This play moves back and forth between 1809 and the present at the elegant estate owned by the Coverly family. The 1809 scenes reveal a household in transition. As the Arcadian landscape is being transformed into picturesque Gothic gardens, complete with a hermitage, thirteen year old Lady Thomasina and her tutor delve into intellectual and romantic issues. Present day scenes depict the Coverly descendants and two competing scholars who are researching a possible scandal at the estate in 1809 involving Lord Byron. This brilliant play moves smoothly between the centuries and explores the nature of truth and time, the difference between classical and romantic temperaments, and the disruptive influence of sex – the attraction that Newton left out – on our life orbits. Pure entertainment for the heart, mind, soul The best Broadway play for many, many a season. It is a work shot through with fun, passion and, yes, genius. – NY Post Stoppard’s richest, most ravishing comedy to date; a play of wit, intellect, language, brio and … emotion. It’s like a dream of levitation: you’re instantaneously aloft, soaring, banking, doing loop the loops…. The playwright is a daredevil pilot who’s steady at the controls. – NY Times In addition to his work for the stage, Tom Stoppard has written a number of screenplays including The Human Factor (1979), Empire of the Sun (1987), and Billy Bathgate (1991). His screenplay for Brazil (1985), which he coauthored with Terry Gilliam and Charles McKeown, was nominated for an Academy Award in 1985, and in 1999, he won an Oscar for “Best Screenplay” for Shakespeare in Love (1998) which he coauthored with Marc Norman. Tina Jones was last seen at Guild Hall in a staged reading of A Russian Romance and prior to that as Maggie in The Red Herring. Ms. Jones holds a Masters Degree from the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco . She has appeared in many regional theatre s across the country. Some of her credits include: Last Night at Ballyhoo at the Arizona Theatre Company, The Invisible Man at the Cleveland Playhouse, How I Learned to Drive at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, the title role in Sylvia at the San Jose Rep, The Winter’s Tale at Baltimore Centre Stage, The Rose Tattoo, Arcadia, The Cherry Orchard, and The Matchmaker at the American Conservatory Theatre, and Two Gentlemen of Verona and Henry IV parts I and II at the Idaho Shakespeare Festival. New York credits include The Real Thing on Broadway and The Lady and the Sea Off Off Broadway. Film and television appearances include Law and Order. Tina also works as a teaching artist for the Women’s Project an Off Broadway Theatre in New York City . Richard B. Watson was born and raised on the Outer Banks near Wilmington , NC . Richard’s last performance at Guild Hall was in Hamlet and Moby Dick Rehearsed (Tony Walton dir.). His New York City stage credits include Serendib, Shadow People, Made In Heaven, The Physicists, Penthesilea London Cuckolds, and most recently The Devil’s Disciple. He has appeared in the film P.S., I Love You and The Burg TV. This summer, Richard will play Professor Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady at Sacramento Music Circus. He was awarded his MFA from the Academy For Classical Acting – Shakespeare Theatre Company at The George Washington University. Richard is a proud SAG and AEA member. Kate Mueth has worked as an actress, director and choreographer in theatre , television and independent films in Chicago , Boston and New York City . Her recent stage work includes Germaine in Guild Halls production of Steve Martin’s Picasso at the Lapin Agile, portraying Molly Bloom in In the Room With Molly Bloom at the Manhattan Theatre Source, The Stage Manager in Orson Welles Moby Dick Rehearsed starring the late Peter Boyle and directed by Academy and Tony award winner Tony Walton, Gertrude in Hamlet, Varya in The Cherry Orchard, Missing Footage by Gen Leroy, and The Gleam by Eve Sawyer. Kate has also directed a fully designed staged reading of Joe Pintauro’s Beside Herself and has directed play readings for the Neighborhood Playhouse, The Children’s Museum of the East End , Bay Street’s YPP program and has appeared in, directed, or choreographed many local performances. She also is a theatre and movement teaching artist (New York State Council on the Arts, Ross School, Guild Hall and Bay Street Theatre, locally), voice over artist, joyful mom to awesome son August, and proud wife of Josh Gladstone , Theater Director of Guild Hall in East Hampton. Rachel Viola performed in the Guild Hall reading of Kristin Lowman’s “Time Will Tell” with Harris Yulin. Rachel has appeared on Comedy Central’s Chappelle’s Show and numerous independent films. Her stage credits include Brighton Beach Memoirs, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Dear Maudie, Kitchen Sink, Snow Angel and many others. Rachel earned her BFA from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, where she was awarded the Stella Adler Studio Award for Achievement in Acting. Gordon Gray has recently performed with the Naked Stage , in The Homecoming. He has been featured in numerous plays in New York theaters, including 365 Days/Plays, A Flea in Her Ear,Yoga Madness, Apocrypha, The Delicate Business, Three Sisters and The Best Intentions. Gray’s regional theatrical credits include Cabaret, Of Mice and Men, Little Shop of Horrors, Everything in the Garden, Leocadia, Born Yesterday. Gordon holds a BA in Drama and Engineering from Dartmouth College where he was a Warner Bentley and Henry B. Williams Theater Fellow. Nick Fondulis has performed in New York City at The Public Theater in Suzanne-Lori Parks ‘ 365 Days/365 Plays and at the Metropolitan Playhouse where he played Huck in the newly adapted play Huck Finn. Other credits include: Romeo & Juliet and Picasso at the Lapin Agile ( John Drew Theater ), M. Butterfly (Syracuse Stage), To Paul ( 45th St. Theater), Tale of the Pinkie Brown Mob (Sam French Festival), Little Tales (Manhattan Children’s Theater) and A Bard’s Day’s Night’s Dream (American Theatre of Actors). Nick currently performs improv at The Laugh Factory and Stand-Up NY with troupe Eight is NEVER Enough! He has also appeared on Comedy Central and in numerous commercials and independent films including, The Life After which premiered at Tribeca Cinemas and was an official selection in the 2007 Long Island International Film Expo. Lydia Franco-Hodges was last seen as Gwendolyn Fairfax in the Naked Stage’s reading of the Importance of Being Earnest and as Samia in La Calandra. Past stage roles include Heidi in Fuddy Meers, Annie Dankworth in The Housekeeper, Paulina in The Winter’s Tale, Lady Macduff in Macbeth, Angela in Channeling Angela Everyone and as the woman in her one woman play Habitat. Josh Gladstone is the Artistic Director of the John Drew Theate
r where he produces Guild Hall events throughout the year, including most recently Robert Wilson’s Persephone and the staged readings of Beside Herself by Joe Pintauro; Time Will Tell by Kristen Lowman , directed by Harris Yulin and starring Cynthia Nixon and Judith Ivey; and The Price with Harris Yulin, Eli Wallach and Alec Baldwin. He co-produced (with Playwrights’ Theatre of East Hampton) concert stagings of Murray Schisgal’s The Pushcart Peddlers and Regret starring Judd Hirsch, Lewis Stadlen and Estelle Parsons; Shaw’s Don Juan In Hell directed by Harris Yulin, starring Yulin, Paul Hecht, Edward Asner and Dianne Wiest; co-produced and appeared in a staged reading of Carter Lewis Golf With Alan Shepard directed by Dan Lauria and starring Jack Klugman, Charles Durning, Peter Boyle and Len Cariou; and directed Mercedes Ruehl in Murphy Guyer’s Russian Romance. Other co-producing credits include Yasmina Reza’s “ART” directed by Stephen Hamilton and Leftover Stories To Tell: A Spalding Gray Tribute starring Anne Jackson, Eli Wallach, Hazelle Goodman and Richard Gere. Additional John Drew producing credits include the Long Island premiere of The Exonerated starring Mia Farrow and Billy Dee Williams; Moby Dick Rehearsed by Orson Welles, directed by Tony Walton and starring Peter Boyle; a concert staging of Only A Kingdom starring Dina Merrill and Jo Anne Worley; and a staged reading of Diane Shaffer’s Viva La Vida starring Mercedes Ruehl and Jeffrey Tambor. At Guild Hall, Josh has directed and/or appeared in Picasso at the Lapin Agile, Hamlet, The Cherry Orchard, Julius Caesar, Channeling Angela Everybody, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, Don’t Dress For Dinner and Dracula (for Spindletop Productions), Ghouled Hall and The Naked Stage Marathon. He served as Executive Producer for Joe Pintauro’s What I Did For Love starring Larry Pine and Jenny Lyn Bader’s Manhattan Casanova starring Mercedes Ruehl . Regional credits include Brilliant Traces for Skymaker Productions in Sag Harbor; The Children’s Theatre Company, Minneapolis ; The Shakespeare Theatre, Washington, DC; Theater at Monmouth , ME ; Classic Theater International, Germany and four seasons as Artistic Director of the Hamptons Shakespeare Festival, which he co-founded in 1996. For Hamptons Shakespeare Festival, Josh directed, produced and appeared in Romeo & Juliet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, As You Like It and The Tempest. Josh studied at Colgate University and Broadway’s Circle in the Square, where he met the talented actress Kate Mueth. They live in Springs with their son August, who appeared earlier this season in Tom Stoppards Coast of Utopia at Lincoln Center Theatre. James Ewing works with the Hampton Theatre Company, acting, directing and producing shows at their theater in Quogue , NY . He is delighted to be involved with the Naked Stage where he last played the Stage Manager in their production of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town. Josh Perl has acted, directed, danced and written all over the place. He spent six exhilarating and exhausting years touring the world with The Pilobolus Dance Theatre. He also spent a summer doing Titus Andronicus at the Delacorte for the New York Shakespeare Festival’s Public Theatre. Two plays that Josh directed were nominated for Los Angeles Press theatre awards. As a writer Josh won two Steinbeck awards, one for his novel Irregular Joe, and one for his play Six Walls. Currently he teaches English, but hopes to get optioned one day soon. He adores working with Josh Gladstone at Guild Hall. Together they have run the group Josh founded while getting his MFA, The Naked Stage . TNS has entertained and enlightened thousands over the past four years while helping to foster a more engaged theatre community. Many of the readings have gone on to other lives, including Picasso at the Lapin Agile. He was first cast by Gladstone in the Scottish play, as Banquo, and has appeared in many productions and readings since, notably as The Ghost in Hamlet. If you’re lucky you may catch Josh making you laugh as one of the stalwarts of Just Say Yes, the funniest comedy improv troupe east of Montauk. But out of all these endeavors Josh most highly treasures his lovely and patient wife Jen, their long running co-production Josie, and he is the proud father of their twins. Naked Stage Play Reading of Arcadia by Tom Stoppard, featuring an ensemble cast. Tuesday, May 6, 2008 at 7:30pm Boots Lamb Education Center Free?