X’s and O’s

November 13–December 18

X's and O's
By KJ Sanchez with Jenny Mercein
Directed by Tony Taccone

Baltimore. Loves. Football.

And as the season kicks into high gear, Center Stage brings you a deeply moving, ripped-from-the-headlines play about our love for the game. Based on interviews with players, their families, and their fans, X’s and O’s delves deep into the questions that are being asked around dinner tables across the country: what are the dangers of the game? Should our children play? How do we balance our love for the sport with its potential risks? Co-commissioned by Center Stage and Berkeley Repertory Theater, and developed in part through Center Stage’s Play Lab series, X’s and O’s is a celebration of football that fearlessly tackles the sometimes tragic results of our passion for the sport.

“Like the game itself: some of the hits are so hard, they’ll make you uncomfortable, but you won’t want to stop watching.”—San Jose Mercury News (UK)

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Cast

Bill Geisslinger*
Frank, Rocky, Tough Guy

Dwight Hicks
George Coleman, Leon

Anthony Holiday*
Addicott, Ben, Tomas

Eddie Ray Jackson*
Eric, Terrell, BJ, Matthew

Jenny Mercein*
Kelli, Martha, Roberta

Marilee Talkington*
Physician, Giants Fan, Caroline

Baltimore Center Stage: X’s and O’s. UK—Birmingham Rep/Barbican London: Continental Divide (World Premiere by David Edgar, directed by Tony Taccone). Regional—As an acting company member at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival for 25 years he participated in more than 70 productions. Other theaters include Berkeley Rep: X’s and O’s, LaJolla Playhouse, Old Globe, South Coast Rep, Long Wharf, Denver Center, Huntington, Intiman, Mechanic, Virginia Stage, Merrimack Rep, Artists Rep, Portland Center Stage. Film/TV—Grimm (NBC); Cheers (NBC); St. Elsewhere (NBC); News Radio (NBC); Nowhere Man (UPN); Dead by Sunset (MSNBC); Ernie Kovacs: Between the Laughter (AMB); A Thousand Heroes (NBC); Imaginary Crimes (Warner Bros.); The Skin of our Teeth (American Playhouse).

Baltimore Center Stage: X’s and O’s. NY Theater—New Georges: Hillary, Keen Company: Good Morning, Bill. Regional—Berkeley Rep: X’s and O’s, Cincinnati Playhouse, White Heron Theater, Pioneer Theater, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Repertory Theater of St. Louis, Shakespeare Festival of St. Louis, Pennsylvania Shakespeare, Florida Studio Theater, Fulton Opera House, Seattle Children’s Theater. Film/TV— 30 Rock (NBC), Law & Order (NBC), Blue Bloods (CBS), Unforgettable (CBS), The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer (ABC), The Prospects (IFC). Education—BA Yale University, MFA University of Washington. KJ Sanchez and Jenny Mercein were awarded the 2014 Rella Lossy Playwright Award for X’s and O’s.

Baltimore Center Stage: X’s and O’s. Off-Broadway—Theater Breaking Through Barriers: The Middle Ages (Eleanor), Nervous Smile (Eileen); Off-Off Broadway—Ensemble Studio Theater: The Last Day, (Grace), The Great Dismal (Tricia), What’s his name (Sam); NYC Fringe: TRUCE (Solo show). Regional—American Conservatory Theater: A Christmas Carol (Mrs. Cratchit); Berkeley Rep: X’s & O’s (Physician, et. al.); Aurora Theater: Rapture Blister Burn (Catherine), Salomania (Sara, et. al); The Magic: Lily’s Revenge (Master Sunflower); Crowded Fire: She Rode Horses (Sara), The Taming of the Shrew (Catherine), The Secretaries (Dawn/Buzz), Gone (Proust, et. al.); BBC Radio 4: TRUCE (Solo show). Awards—MacDowell Fellowship, Carol Channing Trouper Award, TBA New Works Award, CCI Award, BATCC Award. Education—American Conservatory Theater, MFA Acting. UC San Diego, BA Psychology and Mathematics.

Creative Team

Tony Taccone
Director

Todd Rosenthal
Scenic Designer

Meg Neville
Costume Designer

Alexander V. Nichols
Lighting and Video Designer

Jake Rodriguez
Sound Designer

John Sipes
Movement Director

Gavin Witt
Production Dramaturg

Madeleine Oldham
Berkely Repertory Theatre Resident Dramaturg

Jenny Mercein*
Dance Captain

Amy Potozkin
CSA Casting Director

Kimberly Mark Webb*
Stage Manager

Baltimore Center Stage: X’s and O’s. Artistic director of Berkeley Rep. In Tony’s 19 years as Artistic Director, Berkeley Rep has presented more than 70 world, American, and West Coast premieres and sent 23 shows to New York, two to London, and one to Hong Kong. Tony has staged more than 40 plays in Berkeley, two of which transferred to London, (Continental Divide and Tiny Kushner), and two that landed on Broadway (Bridge & Tunnel and Wishful Drinking). Prior to Berkeley Rep, he served as Artistic Director of Eureka Theatre. There he commissioned Tony Kushner’s Angels in America and co-directed its world premiere. Regional—Actors Theatre of Louisville, Arena Stage, Center Theatre Group, Guthrie, Huntington, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, the Public Theater, and Seattle Rep. As a playwright, he debuted Ghost Light, Rita Moreno: Life Without Makeup, and Game On, written with Dan Hoyle.

Baltimore Center Stage: X’s and O’s, A Skull in Connemara, Death and the Maiden. Broadway—August Osage County (Tony Award), The Motherfucker with the Hat (Tony Award nom., Outer Critics Circle nom.), Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (Tony Award Best Revival), Of Mice and Men, This is Our Youth, Fish in the Dark. Off Broadway—Barrow Street Theater: Red Light Winter; Lincoln Center: Domesticated; Playwrights Horizons: Qualms; Manhattan Theater Club: Close Up Space; St. Ann’s Warehouse: Nice Fish. Set designer for 6 years for the Big Apple Circus. International—August Osage County (National Theatre, London, Sydney Theater, Australia); The Beauty Queen of Leenane (Theatre Royal, Ireland). Regional—Steppenwolf, Goodman, Lookingglass, Guthrie, Alliance, Mark Taper Forum, ART, La Jolla Playhouse, Arena Stage, Cincinnati Playhouse, Alley, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Awards—Laurence Olivier, Helen Hayes, Ovation, Back Stage Garland, Joseph Jefferson, Michael Merritt Award for Excellence in Design and Collaboration. Professional –Professor, Northwestern University. Education— Graduate, Yale Drama.

Baltimore Center Stage—X’s and O’s, Three Tall Women. Regional—Berkeley Rep: One Man, Two Guvnors; Party People; Tribes; The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures; Pericles; Ghost Light; In the Wake; Yellowjackets; Eurydice; tragedy: a tragedy; Suddenly Last Summer; Dinner with Friends; Closer; The Life of Galileo. Oregon Shakespeare Festival: Long Day’s Journey Into Night, The Cocoanuts, Taming of the Shrew, Ghost Light. Associate artist with California Shakespeare Theater, where she has designed numerous productions including Lady Windermere’s Fan, An Ideal Husband, Mrs. Warren’s Profession. Marin Theatre Company, the Cutting Ball Theater, American Conservatory Theater, San Jose Rep, Joe Goode Performance Group, Magic Theatre, Second Stage Theatre, Yale Rep, South Coast Rep, Atlantic Theater Company, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Chicago Opera Theater, NY Stage and Film, Hartford Stage, Kirk Douglas Theatre, Portland Stage Company, Dallas Theater Center.

Baltimore Center Stage: X’s and O’s. Broadway—Wishful Drinking; Hugh Jackman, Back On Broadway; Nice Work if You Can Get It. Off-Broadway—In Masks Outrageous and Austere, Los Big Names, Horizon, Bridge & Tunnel, Taking Over, Through the Night, In the Wake. Regional—American Conservatory Theater, Mark Taper Forum, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and La Jolla Playhouse. International—National Theatre of Taiwan. Dance—resident designer for Pennsylvania Ballet, Hartford Ballet, American Repertory Ballet; lighting supervisor for American Ballet Theatre; resident visual designer for the Margaret Jenkins Dance Company since 1989. His designs are in the permanent repertory of San Francisco Ballet, Boston Ballet, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Hubbard Street Dance, Hong Kong Ballet, Singapore Dance Theatre, ODC/SF, and the Royal Winnipeg Ballet. Recent projects include the museum installation Circle of Memory, a collaboration with Eleanor Coppola, recently presented in Stockholm, Sweden.

Director of Dramaturgy and Associate Director Gavin Witt came to Baltimore Center Stage in 2003, after nearly 15 years in Chicago as an actor, director, dramaturg, translator, and teacher—and co-founder of the classically based greasy joan & co theater. Among his translations and adaptations are a half-dozen Shakespeare plays, including a Jeff-nominated version of Pericles and the BCS production of As You Like It; Jeff-nominated translations of Beaumarchais’ The Barber of Seville and Ionesco’s Macbett; and the BCS adaptation of The Voysey Inheritance. A graduate of Yale and the University of Chicago, he is currently on the Humanities faculty at Peabody Conservatory, having previously taught at the University of Chicago, DePaul, and Towson; has served on the advisory boards of several theaters; and spent more than a decade as a regional vice president of LMDA, the national association of dramaturgs, before recently joining its board.

Baltimore Center Stage: produced First Look reading series and headed its young audience initiative. Berkeley Rep—Director of The Ground Floor: Berkeley Rep’s Center for the Creation and Development of New Work and the resident dramaturg. She oversees commissioning and new play development, and dramaturged the world premiere productions of The House that will not Stand, Passing Strange, and In the Next Room (or the vibrator play), among others. Other— She was the literary manager at Seattle Children’s Theatre, where she oversaw an extensive commissioning program. She also acted as assistant and interim literary manager at Intiman Theatre in Seattle. Madeleine served for four years on the executive committee of Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas and has also worked with ACT (Seattle), Austin Scriptworks, Crowded Fire, the Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center, the Kennedy Center, New Dramatists, Playwrights Center, and Portland Center Stage.

Baltimore Center Stage: X’s and O’s. Other Regional—ACT (Seattle), Arizona Theatre Company, Aurora Theatre Company, B Street Theatre, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, Dallas Theater Center, Marin Theatre Company, the Marsh, San Jose Rep, Social Impact Productions Inc., and Traveling Jewish Theatre. Film—Conceiving Ada (starring Tilda Swinton) Haiku Tunnel, Love & Taxes (both by Josh Kornbluth); Beyond Redemption (by Britta Sjogren). Education—MFA from Brandeis University, where she was also an artist in residence. Awards—Artios Award nomination for Excellence in Casting for The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures.

*Member of Actors’ Equity Association

In the Press

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Reviews

“Vibrant.”— The Baltimore Sun

“A well-timed conversation starter.”— The Baltimore Sun

“Powerful… terrific.”— Broadway World DC

“Well-acted, tightly constructed, thought-provoking.”— City Paper

“Fascinating and unflinching.”— Bmore Art

“TOUCHDOWN!”— DC METRO THEATER ARTS

In the News

11.22.15: DC Metro Theater Arts — ‘X’s and O’s’ at Centerstage
11.30.15: BmoreArt — Not Playing Ball
12.01.15: Broadway World Baltimore — X'S AND O'S - Center Stage Presents a Play About Football
11.26.15: The Baltimore Sun — Informative and engaging 'X's and O's' at Center Stage warns...
11.24.15: City Paper — 'X's and O's' offers a thought-provoking examination of our football conundrum

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