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More Details About The Cherry Orchard

Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum

The Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum presents classic theater in the woods. This very lush outdoor setting is a wonderful get-away to enjoy an evening of fine theater.

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Website: http://www.theatricum.com/Season.htm

An old Southern family desperately clings to tradition in a newly updated version of The Cherry Orchard.  Anton Chekhov's poignant comedy, freely adapted by Heidi Helen Davis and Ellen Geer, opens on The Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum's outdoor stage in Topanga.  Davis directs, and Geer takes on the role of Lubov Andreyevna Ranevsky - "Lillian Randolph Cunningham" in this adaptation.

Re-set in 1970s Virginia during the aftermath of the civil rights movement, this new take on a familiar classic emphasizes the timelessness of Chekhov's themes about a rapidly changing world and a way of life on the brink of destruction.

"With great reverence for Chekhovs' work, I wanted to explore the relevance of this most excellent play to our beloved America," says Davis.

Funny yet heartbreaking, The Cherry Orchard is seen by many as Chekhov's finest play.  Written in 1904, the bittersweet and haunting comedy chronicles the decline of the Russian aristocracy at the turn of the 20th century through the story of one family's futile attempt to save their beloved family estate along with its famed cherry orchard.  Chekhov's story of the loss of a way of life, that of the leisurely landed gentry bolstered by serf labor, offers obvious parallels to the life of the social aristocracy In the Southern U.S., with its underpinnings of slavery.

The ethnically mixed cast of Theatricum, Botanicum's The Cherry Orchard includes Ellen Geer as Lillian Randolph Cunningham (Mme. Ranevsky); William Dennis Hunt as Gates Randolph (Lionid Gaev); Steve Matt as Lawrence Poole (Lopakhin); Jerry Hoffman as Parnell Sanford (Semyonov-Pischchik); Emma Fassler as Dolores Hughes (Dunyasha); Matt Van Winkle as Buck Yankins (Yasha); Melora Marshall as Carlotta Schmidt (Carlotta); J.R. Starr as Fred Jasper (Firs); Willow Geer as Anna (Anya); Tippi Thomas as Velina (Varya); Tyler Rhoades as Yancy Ogelsby (Yepikhodov); and Marc Ewing as Terence Moses (Petya Trominov).

Heidi Helen Davis celebrates her 20th production at the Theatricum with this new adaptation of The Cherry Orchard.  She is the director of last year’s much celebrated Long Day’s Journey Into Night, which was nominated for a Direction award and received a Lead Performance award for Ellen Geer from the Los Angeles Drama Critic's Circle.  Last season, Heidi also directed Song of Extinction at [Inside] the Ford, which was the recipient of 2008 Production of the Year Award from the LA Weekly; the Ted Schmitt Award for the World Premiere of an Outstanding New Play from the LADCC; and the largest national award for a new play, the Harold and Mimi Steinberg/American Theatre Critics Association New Play Award.  Other Theatricum directing credits include: You Never Can Tell; Watch on the Rhine; The Seagull; A Streetcar Named Desire; The Glass Menagerie; Sweet Bird of Youth; Lettice and Lovage; Our Town; and Harold and Maude, among others. She continues to teach acting at the Howard Fine Studio and East West Players; directing at the Los Angeles Film School; and acting and directing at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco.

Ellen Geer has guided The Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum repertory theater and educational academy since 1978.  She has directed over 40 productions, including the works of Shakespeare, Williams, Chekhov, Wilder and classics of Greek Literature, and has acted in over 30.  Her approach emphasizes ensemble work and integrates education into all aspects of the theater, and she annually teaches a Master Class in classical acting as part of Theatricum’s Intensive Shakespeare Seminar.  Ms. Geer is the recipient of many awards for her dedication to theater and education; most notably, she received the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for her performance as Mary Cavan Tyrone in last year’s production of Long Day’s Journey Into Night, and she received the LA Weekly Career Achievement Award in 1999.  Under her leadership, Theatricum Botanicum was recognized with the Margaret Harford Award for Sustained Excellence in Theater from the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle.  In addition to her work at Theatricum, Ms. Geer is a graduate professor of classical acting at UCLA’s Department of Theater, Film and Television and is a working actress.  Credits include numerous roles in film and television productions such as You, Me & Everyone We Know; Harold and Maude; Patriot Games; Clear and Present Danger; Phenomenon; and HBO’s Carnivale, to name a few.  Ms. Geer is a founding member of the Tyrone Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Woody Guthrie Foundation.

The beginnings of the Theatricum Botanicum can be traced to the early 1950s when Will Geer, a victim of the McCarthy-era blacklist (before he became known as the beloved Grandpa on TV's "The Waltons"), opened a theater for blacklisted actors and folk singers on his property in Topanga.  Since 1973, the Theatricum has presented Shakespeare and the classics in repertory in its scenic, outdoor amphitheater in rustic Topanga Canyon.