Buy Tickets | 
Join
Our Facebook Page | 
Follow
Woolly on Twitter | Donate
|
MEASURE FOR PLEASURE by David Grimm featuring company members Doug Brown, Kimberly Gilbert & Jennifer Mendenhall with Joel Reuben Ganz, Michael Goodfriend, Andrew Honeycutt and Kimberly Schraf May 26-June 29, 2008 NOTE: Contains lewd language and sublimely sexual situations.      About the Show:A period piece at Woolly? What’s going on? In David Grimm’s naughty Restoration comedy, Sir Peter Lustforth has had enough of his wife’s amorous ways and casts his eye on the virginal Hermione — setting off a series of chaotic chases and couplings among a womanizer, a transvestite, a puritanical dame and a helplessly romantic valet. Richly endowed with mistaken identities and abundant verbal delights, Measure for Pleasure is a saucy, silly, foul and filthy treat. “AKIN TO A DICTIONARY OF DOUBLE-ENTENDRES. Yup, there’s an orgy. In a cave. On Easter. It’s that kind of play.” – Washington City Paper “AN EXTREMELY STYLISH (AND EXUBERANTLY FILTHY) SEX FARCE” – Variety “DELIGHTFULLY BAWDY COMEDY WITH A SENTIMENTAL STREAK” – Associated Press CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS...
Who's WhoPLAYWRIGHT
DAVID GRIMM is an award-winning New York-based playwright and screenwriter. His plays include Kit Marlowe, The Learned Ladies of Park Avenue, Sheridan, or Schooled in Scandal, Steve & Idi, Enough Rope, Edgar and Killing Hilda, among others. He is working on commissions from the Roundabout Theatre Company and Hartford Stage and is a lecturer in Playwriting at the Yale School of Drama and Columbia University.
DIRECTOR
HOWARD SHALWITZ was co-founder of Woolly Mammoth in 1980, and for 28 years has led the company on a unique path, focused on new plays that ask hard questions, introduce fresh voices, and challenge theatrical convention. As a result of his vision and passionate advocacy, Woolly Mammoth is recognized as a major force in the creation of new kinds of plays for the American stage. Equally dedicated to the growth of the Washington theatre community, Howard has helped launch the careers of dozens of our region’s most successful actors (including members of Woolly’s renowned acting company), founded the “Outside Woolly” theatre program to reach out to kids throughout the city, and served as a founding Board member of the League of Washington Theatres and Helen Hayes Awards. Both a director and an actor, Howard is one of the few artists to receive multiple Helen Hayes Award nominations in both categories. He has directed for major New York and regional companies including Playwrights Horizons, Arena Stage, Seattle’s ACT, Milwaukee Rep, and Buffalo’s Studio Arena, and his world premiere production of Doug Wright’s Quills at New York Theatre Workshop received three Obie Awards. At Woolly Mammoth he has directed nearly thirty plays including She Stoops to Comedy, The Faculty Room, Big Death & Little Death, Big Love, The Day Room, The Dead Monkey, Goodnight Desdemona, Kvetch, The Psychic Life of Savages, and Fat Men in Skirts. He has performed with the Studio Arena, New Jersey Shakespeare, Soho Rep, Clarence Brown Theatre and many others, and at Woolly Mammoth appeared in The Gigli Concert, Lenny & Lou, Rocket to the Moon, The Chinese Art of Placement, and Christmas on Mars, to mention just a few. Howard attended high school in Kenmore, New York where he first started acting. He studied philosophy at Wesleyan University where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa, and received a Master of Arts in Teaching from Brown University before launching his theatre career in New York in 1975. CAST
DOUG BROWN (Sir Peter Lustforth) is a member of Woolly Mammoth’s acting company and has performed in Our Lady of 121st Street, Homebody/Kabul (co-production with Theater J), The Day Room, Fuddy Meers, Stop Kiss, The Last Orbit of Billy Mars and Starving, among others. His other notable local appearances include Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, The Colored Museum and Hambone (Studio Theatre), The Island (Metro Stage) and A Lesson Before Dying, Crumbs from the Table of Joy and Pantomime (Round House). Doug’s regional theatre credits include Gem of the Ocean (Milwaukee Rep and Everyman Theatre), The Piano Lesson and Jitney (Actor's Theatre of Louisville and Syracuse Stage) and The Crucible (Syracuse Stage). On TV, he has been seen in The Wire and Homicide-Life on the Street. 
JOEL REUBEN GANZ (Will Blunt) is thrilled by this first opportunity to join the Woolly team onstage. Most recently he was seen in Made in China (SolasNua) and Pangs of the Messiah (Theater J). His other local credits include The Death of Meyerhold and Take Me Out (Studio Theatre), Shear Madness (Kennedy Center), and The Dybbuk and Host & Guest (Synetic Theatre). Regionally he has appeared in Love’s Labors Lost (Virginia Shakespeare Festival), Arcadia (Warehouse Theatre) and numerous productions in Atlanta. He has performed internationally in Scotland, France and Corsica. Joel is a graduate of the Int’l. Theatre School of Jacques Lecoq in Paris and holds a B.A. in Theatre Studies from Emory University. He teaches movement and aesthetics, as well as creating choreography, and has taught for Woolly Mammoth, the Kennedy Center, the University of Pennsylvania, Emory University and American University. He would like to thank his friends and family for their support, Howard and the whole team at Woolly. 
MICHAEL GABRIEL GOODFRIEND (Captain Dick Dashwood) developed a passion for goldfish as Ike in Woolly’s last show, Stunning. He frequents New York’s Irondale Ensemble (as Hamlet, Abbie Hoffman, Adolf Hitler and numerous other colorful characters). His other New York credits include Arrivals (Bank Street Theatre), The Orphan Singer (Symphony Space), Lincoln Center Lab, HERE, The Flea and La Mama. Regional credits include Sleuth (Triad Stage), Intimate Apparel (City Theatre; best supporting actor 2007: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette), Proof (Santa Barbara’s Ensemble Theatre), Three Musketeers (Madison Rep), Seven Angels and Yale Rep. He performed at the Fountain Theatre, East L.A. Classic Theatre, A Noise Within, the Getty Center and Playwrights Arena. Film and television appearances include First, The Commission, The Shrink is In, Monk, The District, Helter Skelter, To Serve and Protect and A Will of Their Own. Michael produces XM Satellite Radio’s Left Jab (www.leftjabradio.com). He has written several plays and screenplays and is a graduate of the Yale School of Drama. 
KIMBERLY GILBERT (Hermione Goode) is so honored to be directed by Howard again having last had the pleasure in 2004 in Big Death & Little Death. On the Woolly stage, she has performed in The K of D, Martha, Josie and the Chinese Elvis (Helen Hayes Award nomination) and Cooking with Elvis. She joined Woolly’s acting company in 2006. Her other DC credits include Bootleg Henry VIII, Bootleg Cymbeline, Let X, And Then it Faster Rock’d and Cardenio Found (Taffety Punk Theatre Company, where she is also a company member), A Light in the Storm (The Kennedy Center), Othello (Folger Theatre), By Tooth or By Tongue (Source Theatre) and Antony and Cleopatra Washington Shakespeare Company). Upcoming, in the fall, Kimberly returns to Woolly for Boom, directed by John Vreeke. She is a proud graduate of the 2001 class of The Shakespeare Theatre Company's Academy for Classical Acting. 
ANDREW HONEYCUTT (Molly Tawdry) makes his Woolly Mammoth debut in this production. A DC actor of three years, his recent credits include The History Boys (Studio Theatre), Mister Roberts (The Kennedy Center), Sleeping Beauty (Imagination Stage), Spunk (Tribute Productions/African Continuum Theatre Company) and the feature film Prince Among Slaves for PBS. Regionally, Andrew performed at People’s Light & Theatre Company in Twelfth Night. He is a 2004 BFA graduate of the North Carolina School of the Arts and a proud member of Actors’ Equity Association. 
JENNIFER MENDENHALL (Lady Vanity Lustforth) is so happy to be fooling around with Howard and this wonderful cast. A Woolly acting company member since 1987, her appearances include Dead Man's Cell Phone, Grace, Lenny and Lou, Homebody/Kabul (with Theater J), Cooking with Elvis and The Day Room. She has also been seen in Ambition Facing West, The Monument, You Are Here and Slaughter City (Theater Alliance), Major Barbara (Shakespeare Theatre Company), Crestfall (Studio Theatre), Teddy Roosevelt (The Kennedy Center), dark play (Humana Festival) and Cradle of Man (Florida Stage; Carbonell Award nomination). She received a Helen Hayes Award Award for Aunt Dan and Lemon, several Helen Hayes nominations and the Washington Theatre Lobby Award. Jennifer lives in Hyattsville with husband Michael Kramer and their children Henry and Vivian. In the fall, she will be working on A Beautiful View at Studio SecondStage. 
KIMBERLY SCHRAF (Dame Stickle) is tickled to be returning to Woolly in the company of old and new friends. Past Woolly appearances have included The Gigli Concert, Patience, Freedomland, The Gene Pool and Watbanaland. A proud DC actor for over twenty years, she has performed in Crestfall, Frozen, Skylight, The Women, The Bacchae and As Is at Studio Theatre; Redshirts, A Prayer for Owen Meany, Our Town, The Chemistry of Change, Better Living and The Misanthrope at Round House; A Christmas Carol and The Member of the Wedding at Ford’s Theatre; Going to St. Ives, Proof, Light Up the Sky and Fifth of July at Everyman Theatre; and The Women and Molly Sweeney at Arena Stage. She graduated from St. John’s College, Annapolis, and shares a happy home in Brookland with Craig and Storm. Schedule & Prices
Key:PWYC — Pay-What-You-Can preview performances
|
Kimberly Gilbert, photo by Stan Barouh
PHOTO GALLERY:
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
