threepenny opera

7/16/2019 Threepenny Opera

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A discussion with the director, cast and designers will follow the performance

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Friday, May 25, 7:30 pmLincoln Center – 417 West Magnolia Street, Fort Collins

A jazzy, grittycult classic!

The ThreepennyOperaBy Bertolt Brecht

Music by Kurt WeillTranslated by Michael Feingold

Contains some adult subject matter and language.

Suggested for students17 and older.

RESERVATIONS are Requested. Contact 970-484-5237 or [email protected]

For questions and information, contact OpenStage Theatre at 970-484-5237

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By Bertolt BrechtMusic by Kurt Weill

Translated by Michael

and by

The Fund for Our Children (Pennies From Heaven) and The Davidson Family Fund of

The ThreepennyOpera

PLAY GUIDE

The colorful, exotic musical saga of Mack theKnife, Polly Peachum and the grittyunderworld of Soho as seen through the

eyes of two 20th

century geniuses, TheThreepenny Opera is a revolutionary musicaltheatre masterpiece, first performed in Berlinin 1928. Brecht’s brittle, sardonic tale createsa world of beggars, thieves and prostitutes,and Weill’s jazzy, inventive score capturesthe ironic tone of the lyrics. Derived fromTheBeggar’s Opera, written by J ohn Gay in1728, The Threepenny Opera creates astunning, cabaret world that, eighty yearsafter its premiere, remains an outrageousand cunning satire of society.

Contains some adult subject matter and language.

Suggested for students

17 and older.

The

Thornton

Family Foundation

Grant Support for OpenStage Theatre’sStudent programming is provided by:

OpenStage Theatre’s 2006-2007 seasonis supported by grants from:

www.openstage.com



The Threepenny Opera

From the Director................................................................................................................ Page 1

The Play.............................................................................................................................. Page 2

The Plot.............................................................................................................................. Page 2

Productions of Note ............................................................................................................Page 2

The First Production of Threepenny Opera by Lotte Lenya (excerpts)............................... Pages 3-5

The Playwright: Bertolt Brecht............................................................................................ Pages 6-7

The Composer: Kurt Weill................................................................................................... Pages 8-9

Works by Bertolt Brecht...................................................................................................... Pages 10-11

Works by Kurt Weill ............................................................................................................Pages 11-12

Creating a Theatrical Production........................................................................................ Page 12

A Brief Overview of OpenStage Theatre & Company......................................................... Page 13

Theatre Etiquette................................................................................................................ Page 14

Table of Contents



From the DirectorThe best theater is timeless, allowing for continually updated interpretations. Such is the case

with Bertolt Brecht’s sexy, comedic and cutting satire,The Threepenny Opera. The play is based onJohn Gay’s 17

thcentury satirical musical The Beggar’s Opera, which Brecht and Weill reinterpreted

to mock the bourgeois political movement of pre-Hitler Germany. They set their adaptation in theslums of London during Queen Victoria’s coronation in 1838. Our production is also set in London’sgritty Soho district. However, it is a Soho viewed through the lens of the Berlin cabaret of 1928, theyear of The Threepenny Opera’s inaugural production. The style and the music are jazzy and gutsy.Brecht’s brilliant satirizing of issues such as social class and war remains as fresh now as when heconceived it.

One of Brecht’s primary beliefs was that the world will not change unless people consciouslychoose to behave differently. The thieves, beggars and whores inThe Threepenny Opera havechoices to make, yet their choices are the wrong ones. At the same time that we want thesecharacters to find a happy ending, we find ourselves appalled by their actions.

Audiences are passionate about this piece. Brecht does such powerful, sardonic work. The playwright’s darkly witty libretto is showcased to perfection by Weill’s jazzy compositions, whichare imaginative and innovative. It is no surprise thatThe Threepenny Opera has been a cult classicfor almost eighty years.

I have been energized by the exceptional talent of the artistic staff and cast. Music Director Todd Queen and Choreographer Eleanor Van Deusen have brought a wealth of style and expertise tothe show. The cast is truly phenomenal and the designers have created a stunning show. It has been a joy to tackle the rich challenges Brecht and Weill have presented to us. I hope our endeavors givedue honor not only to the creators and the material, but also to you, our audience.

Denise Burson Freestone Director

DENISE BURSON FREESTONE co-founded OpenStage Theatre in 1973 withher husband Bruce and serves as Artistic Director for the Company. During her extensive theatrical career, Denise has worked as an actress, director, producer,designer, technician and dancer and has directed and performed in numerousOpenStage Theatre productions. Her most recent work includes the roles of Rosemary in Picnic and Annabella Gotchling in A Bright Room Called Day; performing in the Bas Bleu/OpenStage/CSU collaboration of Angels in America;

directing The Women and Proof ; and performing as Charlotte in Moon Over Buffalo, Lady Macbeth in Macbeth and Professor Vivian Bearing in Wit , for

which she received Best Local Actress in the Fort Collins Coloradoan Best of Fort Collins and theOpenStage Theatre OPUS Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role. Under theFreestone's leadership, OpenStage Theatre has received the Governor's Award for Excellence in theArts, the Colorado Community Theatre Coalition's Distinguished Merit Award and specialcommendation from the Colorado Legislature and the Fort Collins City Council. Bruce and Deniseare the 2003 recipients of the prestigious Tree of Peace Medallion from Arts Alive Fort Collins.



The Threepenny Opera The Play

The Threepenny Opera remains the most famous and popular example of Brecht’s Brecht’s "epictheater." Inspired by John Gay’s rollicking Beggar's Opera (1728), The Threepenny Opera translated the tale ofthe villainous but irresistible Macheath and his marauders into the age of Queen Victoria. But the show's real

satiric targets were the middle classes of poverty-crippled, rudderless Germanyin the 1920's.

Using deliberately artificial techniques — painted signs, scene-settingtitles, spoken asides and musical-hall songs that often had little to do with theimmediate plot — the play was designed to sustain an intellectual distance, toallow audiences to see their own reflections in vicious thugs, whores, beggarsand policemen motivated by the same primal needs and instincts asthemselves. The music (by Kurt Weill), Brecht wrote, was meant to become"an active collaborator in the stripping bare of the middle-class corpus of ideas."An immediate, scandalous hit in Europe, Threepenny failed to generate the

same frissons when it first arrived in New York in 1933. Writing of itsBroadway premiere in The New York Times, Lewis Nichols described it as "agently mad evening in the theater for those who like their spades in the usual

nomenclature of the earnest." It wasn't until the fabled Off Broadway revival atthe Theater de Lys in 1954 with Weill's widow, Lotte Lenya, as the prostituteJenny that "Threepenny" achieved popular success in Manhattan. That

production used a translation by Marc Blitzstein that is probably still the best-known English version but isregarded by purists as a softened and sanitized interpretation.

The Threepenny Opera The Plot

Macheath (Mack the Knife), a notorious bandit and womanizer, runs afoul of Jonathan Jeremiah Peachumwhen he marries Peachum's daughter Polly in a ceremony of doubtful legality. Peachum's resolve to have Macksent to the gallows is complicated by the fact that Mack's old army buddy is the chief of police, Tiger Brown.Peachum and his wife commence a series of strategems to ensnare Mack: bribing prostitutes to turn him in,exercising their influence over the police, and ultimately threatening to ruin the coronation of Queen Victoria bhaving all the beggars in London (whom Peachum controls) line the parade route. Mack is imprisoned, escapesand is imprisoned again. When his hour of execution arrives, however, a mounted messenger appears with theQueen's reprieve, which includes a baronetcy and an annual pension of 10,000 pounds.

The Threepenny Opera Productions of Note

Opening Performance, August 28, 1928, Berlin, Schiffbauerdamm Theatre, Erich Engel, director, Ernest-Josef Aufricht, producer.

March 10, 1954, New York, Theater de Lys, Carmen Capalbo, director, Samuel Matlowsky, conductor.

February 9, 1956, London, Royal Court Theatre, Sam Wanamaker, director, Berthold Goldschmidt, conductor.

June 1983, Minneapolis, Guthrie Theatre, Liviu Ciulei, director, Dick Whitbeck, conductor.

May 15, 1996, Tokyo, a Japanese language version

May-November 2002, Stratford, Ontario, Stratford Festival, Stephen Ouimette, director, Don Horsburgh, conductor.

The Threepenny Opera Page 1

Inaugural production.Berlin 1928.



2006, New York, Studio 54 (see Play Review section).

The First Production of Threepenny Opera

By Lotte Lenya(excerpts

(NOTE: Lotte Lenya was married to Threepenny Opera composer Kurt Weill and appeared in the roleof J enny Diver in the play’s inaugural Berlin production in 1928.)

“It was Elisabeth Hauptmann, Bert Brecht’s secretary and vigilant shadow in the mid-twenties, who firsread of the great success in London of a revival of John Gay’sThe Beggar’s Opera.She promptly ordered a copy of the play and, as soon as it arrived, began a rough translation whenever she hada few free moments, giving the German text to Brecht one scene at a time. Brecht was busily engaged on a playof his own, a most ambitious one which was promised to a producer, but at this early stage in his career hehabitually kept a number of works-in-progress whirling around him (never throwing away so much as a scrap o paper on which he had scribbled two words). These bawds, bully boys and beggars of 18th-century London

were creatures to delight his heart: why not make then speak hislanguage in the fullest sense of the word? At odd intervals—for funfor relaxation—he began fiddling with this scene or that, keepingintact what suited him, boldly adding or subtracting as he saw fit.

This always has been Brecht’s procedure. As his admirershave it: to adapt, reinterpret, re-create, magnificently add modernsocial significance; or in his detractors’ eyes: to pirate, plagiarize,shameless appropriate—to borrow at will from the vanished great….Critical storms have crashed around Brecht’s close-cropped head for more than thirty years—some say the inevitable result of a singular talent, while others snort that they have been shrewdly provoked by acharlatan. “Why deny that Brecht steals?” said a Berlin friend lastsummer, “But—he steals with genius.” …

Whatever the exotic mixture of grist required to turn Brecht’screative mill, nobody doubts today that Elisabeth showed uncannyflair in turning up that copy of The Beggar’s Opera during that winteof 1927-28. Almost at once Brecht called in Kurt Weill and

announced that he had found a play for which Kurt might write“incidental music.” Obviously the original Pepusch score no longer

would do. Something as racy and biting, powerful and modern as Brecht’s own language was called for, withas wide and daring a range of reference. No rush, of courtesy, no deadline; time enough for that if a producer gave them the go-ahead after Brecht had shown around a few completed scenes.

This would be the second collaboration of Brecht and Weill, and their first complete play with music. Iwas Kurt who first had gone to see Brecht early in 1927 (as I remember). He had read poems by Brecht thathad stirred him deeply, and which said in words what he felt increasingly drawn to say in music. … Kurt had written three operas which had been applauded by the most austere music critics. … But Kurt felt strongly thaserious composers had withdrawn into too rarefied an atmosphere. He insisted that the widening gap betweenthem and the great public must be bridged at all costs. “What do you want to become, a Verdi of the poor?”asked his teacher Busoni. “Is that so bad?” Kurt had replied, deceptively mild. “

Their first joint project was “a cycle of songs about an imaginary city on Florida’s Gold Coast, called Mahagonny, to be sung by a mixture of real singers and straight actors, and tied together by a dramaticnarrative.” The work became Das Kleine Mahagonny. And no modern work outside of Stravinsky’s Le Sacre


Lotte Lenya on Broadway. 1954



du Printemps ever created such a scandal at its premiere, which occurred at the snooty Baden-Baden Festival.Half the public cheered madly, the other half booed and whistled—and Brecht had provided his cast with toywhistles so that they could whistle back. By the way I sang the prostitute Jenny at the insistence of bothauthors. Until then I had been a dancer and a straight actress, and had never studied singing. I couldn’t read anote—exactly why I was chosen.” …

“Early in 1928 we had not heard that a young German actor named Ernst-Josef Aufricht, deciding thathe wanted to become a producer, had rented the Schiffbauerdamm Theater. It was –miraculously, still is—awonderful old house, all read and white and gold, with plaster nymphs, tritons, and cherubs, adorablykitch. …

Aufricht optimistically began the search for a new play that would reopen his theatre in a blaze of glory. Heengaged Heinrich Fischer as dramaturg. Erich Engle as director, and Caspar Neher as stage designer, thenhounded publishers, pursued agents, … catching up with Bert Brecht. Yes, Brecht was deep in a play, but therwas still much to be done. Besides it was promised to another producer. Sorry—oh, he had another one, sixscenes finished, written with his left hand (the early draft of Three Penny Opera). Well, yes, Aufricht could take a look at it. … amazingly, they found themselves wanting it. And for an early fall production! Nomention, it would appear, of music. Aufricht told me last summer that it wasn’t until later, when Brecht brought in additional scenes, that he let it drop that there was to be incidental music by a certain Kurt Weill. …Well, that would be all right, he told Brecht. Secretly heengaged a young musician named Theo Mackeben to look up the original Pepusch music, which later could be

substituted for the Weill score.… A hurried consultation was held and it was

decided that the only way Brecht and Kurt could whip thework still ahead of them was to escape from Berlin. But towhere? Somebody suggested a certain quiet little FrenchRiviera resort. Wires went off for reservations, and on thefirst of June, Kurt and I left by train, while Brecht drovedown with Helen Weigel and their son Stefan. … The twomen wrote and rewrote furiously, night and day with onlyhurried swims in between. I recall Brecht wading out, pants rolled up, cap on head, stogy in mouth. I had been

given the part of Spelunken-Jenny (Aufricht now says itwas after my audition in the tango-ballad that he decided toforget about Pepusch), and Weigel was to play the brothelmadam, so we studied our roles. When we got back toBerlin, Brecht and Kurt had ready a nearly complete scriptfor Engel, the director. … The first rehearsal was upon us.

At no time in theatre history did a play draw near its opening in such an atmosphere of utter doom. Theword around Berlin was that Aufricht, poor benighted amateur, was stuck with the turkey of all time. Thedisasters multiplied. Carola Neher, the ideal Polly, had rushed off to Davos to be with her dying husband.After frantic phone calls she was replaced by Roma Bahn. The actor who was to play Mr. Peachum—could ithave been Peter Lorre?—backed out, and Erich Ponto was brought from Dresden. Harald Paulsen, our Mackie

from operetta, and Rosa Valletti, our Mrs. Peachum, a popular star in Berliner cabaret, shouted constant protests. Vallenti—of all people, with her gamy repertory!—screamed that she wouldn’t sing “those filthywords” in her “Ballad of Sexual Submissiveness” and on the last day of rehearsals signed a contract withanother producer, confident that she would be free within the week. Helene Weigel suddenly burst out with astartling idea for her brothel madam—to play her legless ala Lon Chaney, pushing herself around on a wheeled platform. She was stricken with appendicitis, and had to be replaced.

Paulsen, vain even for an actor, insisted that his entrance as Mackie Messer needed building up: whynot a song right there, all about Mackie, getting in mention if possible of the sky-blue bow tie that he wanted towear? Brecht made no comment but next morning came in with the words for the “Moritat” of Mack the Knifeand gave them to Kurt to set to music. This currently popular number, often called the most famous tune

Lenya and Weill




written in Europe during the past half century, was modeled after the Moritaten (“mord” meaning murder, “tat”meaning dead) sung by singers at street fairs, detailing the hideous crimes of notorious arch-fiends. Kurt notonly produced the tune overnight, he knew the name of the hand-organ manufacturer … who could supply theorgan on which to grind out the tune for the prologue. And the “Moritat” went not to Paulsen but to KurtGerron, who doubled as street singer and Tiger Brown.

… What was supposed to be the final dress rehearsal, the night before the opening, lasted until after fivein the morning. Everybody was completely distraught, shouting and swearing—everybody except Kurt Well.The brothel scene was torn apart, begun over—and still didn’t work. It was after five when I began singing my

“Solomon Song”—which was interrupted by the cry, “Stop! Stop! So that was cut; the show seemed to berunning hours too long. We heard that Aufricht was asking people out front if they knew where he could find anew play in a hurry. Respected Berlin theatre oracles slipped out to spread the word that Brecht and Weill proposed to insult the public with a ludicrous mishmash of opera, operetta, cabaret, straight theatre, outlandishAmerican jazz, not one thing or the other. Why didn’t they withdraw the work before the opening?

… my name inadvertently had been omitted from the program. For the first and the last time in his whole theatrecareer Kurt completely lost control … perhaps it was a blessing that I was the one who had to quiet him and assurehim that, billing or no billing, nothing could keep me fromgoing on.

… Up to the stable scene the audience seemed cold and apathetic, as though convinced in advance that it had come to a certain flop. Then after theKanonen song, anunbelievable roar went up, and from that point it waswonderfully, intoxicatingly clear that the public was with us.However, late the next morning as we were waiting for thefirst reviews, there persisted a crazy unreality about what had happened. Nobody quite dared believe in our success. Nor did the reviews confirm it for us—they were decidedly mixedAlfred Kerr, the most astute of them all, was greatlyimpressed, though he wondered if this was to be the new

direction of the Berlin theatre. Kurt and I read hurriedlythrough Kerr’s review to the last paragraph, which washeaded: “WHO IS SHE? With that lilt in her voice she must be Austrian…” He ended: “Watch her. Pretty soon she will be in the limelight.”

From that day Berlin was swept by a “Threepenny”fever. Immediately the “Brecht style” and the “Weill style”were slavishly imitated by other dramatists and composers.

And Alfred Kerr’s prophecy for me came true with dazzling speed. … Perhaps the strangest note of all is that people who scornfully had passed up that opening night began to lie about it, to claim to have been there, primed for a sure-fire sensation! … Why not, after all? Sometimes, remembering all that madness, even to

that blank space in the program, I’m not even sure that I was there myself.




The Playwright Bertolt Brecht

Brecht was interested in English writers and Chinese philosophers. He read Swift, Butler and Wells, and also Kipling. He … looked like some kind of engineer or car mechanic, always wearing a thinleather tie - without oil stains, of course. Instead of the usual sort of waistcoat, he wore one with longsleeves; the cut of all his suits were baggy and somewhat American, with padded shoulders and wedge-shaped trousers. Without his monkish face and the hair combed down on his forehead he might have been

mistaken for a cross between a German chauffeur and a Russian commissar.Georg Grosz In His 1955 Autobiography

Brecht was a superior poet with a command of many styles and moods. As a playwright he was an intensive worker, arestless piecer-together of ideas not always his own, a sardonic humorist, and a man of rare musical and visual awareness.As a producer he liked lightness, clarity, and firmly knotted narrative sequence; a perfectionist, he forced the Germantheatre, against its nature, to underplay. As a theoretician he made principles out of his preferences--and even out of hisfaults. His new ideas made him one of most prominent figures in 20th-century theatre. He turned the theatre of his timeinto a social and ideological forum for leftist causes by concentrating on ideas and didactic lessons rather than story. Hewould later realize the importance of story and real feelings, but his alienation effects still have current applications and have enriched theatrical techniques. 6)

Brecht was born February 10, 1898 in Augsburg, Germany. His father, a

Catholic, was a director of a paper company and his mother, a Protestant, was adaughter of a civil servant. Brecht began to write poetry as a boy, and had hisfirst poems published in 1914. He studied philosophy and medicine at theUniversity of Munich before becoming a medical orderly in a German militaryhospital during World War I. This experience reinforced his hatred of war and influenced his support for the failed Socialist Revolution in 1919. After thewar Brecht returned to the university but eventually became more interested inliterature than medicine.

Until 1924 Brecht lived in Bavaria. From this period date his first two plays, Baal written in 1918 and produced in 1923, Drums in the Night writtenand produced in 1922, and Jungle of the Cities in 1923. His poems and songswere collected and published Die Hauspostille in 1927 (later published in

English as A Manual of Piety in1966). His first professional production, Edward II , was performed in 1924. During this time he developed anadmiration for Wedekind, Rimbaud, Villon, and Kipling and a violentlyantibourgeois attitude that reflected his generation's deep disappointment in thecivilization that collapsed at the end of World War I. Brecht's association withCommunism began in 1919, when he joined the Independent Social Democratic party. Among Brecht's friends weremembers of the Dadaist group, who aimed at destroying what they condemned as the false standards of bourgeois artthrough derision and iconoclastic satire. In 1920 Brecht was named chief adviser on play selection at the MunichKammerspiele. As a result of a brief affair with Fräulein Bie, Brecht's son Frank was born. In 1922 he married the actressMarianne Zoff.

In 1924 Brecht was appointed a consultant at Max Reinhardt's Deutches Theater in Berlin. From 1924 to 1933 heworked briefly for directors Max Reinhardt and Erwin Piscator, but mainly with his own group of associates. A Man’s a

Man was written in 1926. In 1927 Brecht collaborated with composer, Kurt Weill, to produce the musical play, Mahagonny. They followed that with an adaptation of John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera titled The Threepenny Opera.Brecht wrote new lyrics and moved the action to Victorian times. Instead of mocking the pretensions of Italian grand opera, his adaptation attacked bourgeois respectability. Kurt Weill provided new music. The play reflects Brecht’sgrowing belief in Marxism. The man who taught him the elements of Marxism in the late 1920s was Karl Korsch, aneminent Marxist theoretician who had been a Communist member of the Reichstag but had been expelled from theGerman Communist Party in 1926.

Brecht married his second wife, Helene Weigel, in 1928. Brecht started to study Karl Marx's Das Kapital and by1929 he had become a Communist. At the Schiffbauerdam Theater he trained many actors who later became famous onstage and screen, among them Oscar Homolka, Peter Lorre, and Lotte Lenya, Kurt Weil's wife. With Hanns Eisler Brechtworked on a political film, Kuhle Wampe, the name referring to an area of Berlin where the unemployed lived in shacks.




The film was released in 1932 and forbidden shortly afterward. Brecht's politically committed play, with music by Eisler,The Measures Taken (1930) reflected an anti-sentimentality and directness even the Communist Party found hard. In the play a young Communist is murdered by the Party. The lesson is that the freedom of the individual must be suppressed today so that in the future mankind will be able to achieve freedom. In the 1930s as Hitler was coming to power, Brecht´s books and plays were banned in Germany and performances were interrupted by the police or summarily forbidden.

In 1933 he went into exile in Scandinavia until 1941, mainly in Denmark, and then in the United States from 1941 to1947. While living in Scandinavia he wrote anti-Nazi plays, notably The Roundheads and the Peakheads and Fear and Misery of the Third Reich. In theUnited States Brecht tried to write for Hollywood, but the only script that found

partial acceptance was Hangmen Also Die (1942). "The intellectual isolation here isenormous," Brecht complained. In Germany his books were burned and hiscitizenship withdrawn. In a brief period in Finland in the mid-30s he wrote Herr Puntila and His Man Matti. It was produced in 1948. Between 1937 and 1941 hewrote most of his great plays, his major theoretical essays and dialogues, and manyof the poems collected as Svendborger Gedichte in1939. The plays of these years became famous in the author's own and other productions: notable among them are Mother Courage and Her Children and The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui in1941,The Life of Galileo and The Good Woman of Setzuan (1943), and The CaucasianChalk Circle (first produced in English in 1948).

Brecht left the United States in 1947 after being forced to appear before theHouse Un-American Activities Committee. He spent a year in Zurich, working mainly on Antigone-Modell (a 1948

adaptation of Hulderlin's translation of Sophocles’ Antigone) and his most important theoretical work, "A Little Organumfor the Theatre" (1949). The essence of his theory of drama, as revealed in this second work is the idea that a truly Marxisdrama must avoid the Aristotelian premise that the audience should believe what they are witnessing is happening hereand now. For he saw that if the audience really felt that the emotions of heroes of the past--Oedipus, or Lear, or Hamlet--could equally have been their own reactions, then the Marxist idea that human nature isnot constant but a result of changing historical conditions would automatically beinvalidated. Brecht therefore argued that the theatre should not seek to make its audience believe in the presence of the characters on the stage, should not make it identify withthem, but should rather follow the method of the epic poet's art, which is to make theaudience realize that what it sees on the stage is merely an account of past events that itshould watch with critical detachment. Hence, the "epic" (narrative, non-dramatic)theatre is based on detachment, “the alienation effect”. This effect is achieved through a

number of devices that remind the spectator that he is seeing a demonstration of human behavior in scientific spirit rather than an illusion of reality. In short, the theatre is only atheatre and not the world itself.

In 1949 Brecht went to Berlin to help stage Mother Courage and her Children withhis second wife, Helene Weigel, in the title part at Reinhardt's old Deutsches Theater in the Soviet sector. This led to theformation of Brecht’s own company, the Berliner Ensemble, and to a permanent return to Berlin. Henceforward theEnsemble and the staging of his own plays had first claim on Brecht's time. In West as well as in East Germany Brecht became the most popular contemporary poet. Jean Vilar's production of Mother Courage in 1951 secured him a followingin France, and the Berliner Ensemble's participation in the Paris International Theatre Festival in1954 further spread hisreputation. In 1955 Brecht received the Stalin Peace Prize. In 1956 he contracted a lung inflammation and died of acoronary thrombosis on August 14, 1956, in East Berlin.

Edited copy from http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/brecht.htm ; The Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1995, as quoted inhttp://www.cs.brandeis.edu/~jamesf/goodwoman/brecht_bio.html ; and http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAbrecht.htm




The Composer Kurt WeillAmong the men I have worked with in the theatre Kurt Weill was the closest friend and happiest companion.… His music was written with an intensity of concentration, and a rapidity of execution, that left a collaborator

breathless. When I gave him a lyric to set he sometimes played me three complete settings for it within a fewhours, and asked me to choose among them. And if was always a difficult choice, because they wereinvariably all good.

Maxwell Anderson

Kurt Weill was born March 2, 1900 in Dessau, Germany. The son of a cantor, Weill displayed musical talent early on.By the time he was twelve he was composing and mounting concerts and dramatic works in the hall above his family's quarters.During the First World War, the teenage Weill was conscripted as a substitute accompanist at the Dessau Court Theater. After studying theory and composition with Albert Bing, Kapellmeister of the Theater, Weill enrolled at the Berlin Hochschule für Musik, but found the conservative training too stifling. After a season as conductor of the newly formed municipal theater inLüdenscheid, he returned to Berlin and was accepted into Ferruccio Busoni's master class in composition. He supported himself through a wide range of musicaloccupations: playing organ in a synagogue and piano in a Bierkeller, tutoringstudents in music theory, and contributing music criticism to Der deutsche Rundfunk ,the weekly program journal of the German radio.

By 1925, a series of performances in Berlin and at international music

festivals established Weill as one of the leading composers of his generation. Alreadyat nineteen, he decided the musical theater would be his calling. Weill considered The New Orpheus (a cantata with lyrics from a poem by Iwan Goll, 1925) to be aturning point in his career; it prefigured the stylistic multiplicity and provocativeambiguity typical of his compositional style. In 1926 he made a sensational theatricaldebut in Dresden with his first opera, The Protagonist , a one-act with libretto byGeorg Kaiser. Modernist aesthetics are most apparent in his one-act surrealist opera Royal Palace (1926) again with a libretto by Iwan Goll and an incorporation of filmand dance. In 1927 he solidified these aesthetic with the opera buffa The Tsar Has His Photograph Taken with libretto by Georg Kaiser. By this time in his career Weill's use of dance idioms associated with American dance music and his pursuit of collaborations with the finest contemporary playwrights were essential strategies in his attempts to reform the musical stage.

In 1926 Kurt married Lotte Lenya, a marriage not destined to last but the basis of a friendship which continued until his

death. A commission from the Baden-Baden Music Festival in 1927 led to the creation of Mahagonny, Weill's firstcollaboration with Bertolt Brecht. Brecht’s writing captured Weill's imagination and suggested a compatible literary and dramatic sensibility. The success of a short version of Mahagonny encouraged them to continue work on a full-length opera Rise and Fall of the City Mahagonny. It premiered at Leipzig in March 1930. Exploiting their aggressive popular song-style,Weill and Brecht also wrote several works for singing actors in the commercial theater, including The Threepenny Opera and Happy End . They became major movers of the Weimar Republic's creative zeitgeist. In Brechtian theatre songs are oftenoutside the storyline, serving as commentary or telling a seemingly unrelated story in order to heighten the emotional pitch.Strong, dramatic, self-contained songs work best in that context and that was exactly Weill's forte.

They explored other alternatives to the opera establishment in a school-opera Der Jasager and in the radio cantatas Das Berliner Requiem and Der Lindberghflug. Increasingly uncomfortable with Brecht's restriction of the role of music in his political theater, Weill turned to another collaborator, the famous stage designer Caspar Neher, for the libretto of his three-actepic opera, The Pledge (1931), and again to Georg Kaiser for the daring play-with-music Der Silbersee (1932). In both herefined his musical language into what he called "a thoroughly responsible style," appropriate for the serious and timely topicshe addressed.

These later works outraged the Nazis. Riots broke out at several performances and carefully orchestrated propagandacampaigns discouraged productions of his works. In March 1933 Weill fled Germany. He and Lotte Lenya divorced soonthereafter. In Paris Weill completed his Second Symphony and renewed briefly his collaboration with Brecht for a 'sung ballet',Seven Deadly Sins. Its theme of two sisters attempting to make their fortune in a mythical America is political and executed with remarkable subtlety for such a fraught time. Despite choreography by George Balanchine, it was not a success, mostly

because Weill and Brecht could not be performed in Germany so the piece was played in German before audiences in Paris and London and they did not understood a word. Weill also wrote a number of cabaret chansons, as well as a score for JacquesDeval's Marie galante. When a German-language premiere of his Der Kuhhandel (libretto by Robert Vambery) seemed hopeless, Weill arranged for a London production of this operetta, adapted as a British musical comedy and retitled A Kingdom for a Cow. In September 1935 Weill went to America with Lotte Lenya to oversee Max Reinhardt's production of a biblical epic




by Franz Werfel. Weill had written an extensive oratorio-like score. After many delays, the work was finally staged in 1937 butin truncated form as The Eternal Road .

In the interim, the Group Theatre recruited Weill to collaborate with distinguished playwright Paul Green on a musical play loosely based on Hasek's Good Soldier Schweik . Weill's innovative and extensive score for Johnny Johnson established thecomposer on the American scene. Encouraged by his reception and convinced that the commercial theater offered more

possibilities than the traditional opera house, Weill and Lenya decided to stay in the United States. They remarried and applied for American citizenship. Weill followed the Group Theatre to Hollywood and completed two film scores, including FritzLang's You and Me (1938). But he found the motion picture industry hostile to the type of film-opera he envisioned and thereafter always considered Broadway home.

During the next decade he established himself as an original voice in American musical theater. He continued to enlistleading dramatists for the cause of musical theater, including the foremost playwright of the day, Maxwell Anderson. Their firstcollaboration, Knickerbocker Holiday, was a modest success, but it showcased Weill's first enormously popular "September Song," still an American classic. Weill's first real hit was Lady in the Dark , a musical about psychoanalysis by Moss Hart. IraGershwin wrote the lyrics, his first return to the theater after his brother's death in 1937. A daring experiment, with musicrestricted to the dream sequences (a technique analogous to the use of color in The Wizard of Oz), Lady in the Dark brokeBroadway records for production costs and recouped them all in its 777 performances. Gertrude Lawrence and Danny Kaye inthe starring roles were certainly a factor in the success of the show. Weill quickly acquired the reputation of being the finestcraftsman in the business, no less for his large-scale musical forms than his unique insistence on orchestrating his own works.

One Touch of Venus (1943) with book by S.J. Perelman and lyrics by Ogden Nash featured a star-making performance by Mary Martin and earned a place in the history of musical theatre for Agnes de Mille's groundbreaking choreography. Theshow’s popularity gave Weill the credibility to embark on a series of bold ventures. He was elected as the only composer-member of the distinguished Playwrights Producing Company. This company brought Elmer Rice's Pulitzer-Prize winning

drama, Street Scene, to Broadway as an American opera, the first real successor to Porgy and Bess. With lyrics by the HarlemRenaissance poet Langston Hughes, Street Scene garnered more favorable reviews than Porgy and enjoyed a longer Broadwayrun. Teaming up with Alan Jay Lerner for Love Life (1948), Weill used American musical idioms and a vaudeville frame tochronicle in non-linear form the impact of 150 years of "progress" on the marriage and family of Sam and Susan Cooper, whonever age. Now considered the first "concept musical," its first genuine successor was Cabaret (1965). Stephen Sondheim found Love Life "very useful" for his own work. Weill's last Broadway piece was noless daring: the musical tragedy Lost in the Stars, adapted by MaxwellAnderson from Alan Paton's novel, Cry, the Beloved Country. Starring Todd Duncan and directed by Rouben Mamoulian, it challenged Broadway and itsaudiences to a degree that would not be exceeded until the 1970s Sondheim-Prince collaborations.

During the forties, Weill contributed extensively to the American war

effort and created a series of Jewish and Zionist pageants. Most of theHollywood adaptations of his musicals mutilated his scores, but he enjoyed hiswork with Ira Gershwin on the original film musical, Where Do We Go from Here? (1945). He was also proud of his folk-opera Down in the Valley (1948).It resulted in hundreds of productions in schools and communities throughoutthe nation.

Weill was at work on a musical version of Mark Twain's Huck Finn and was planning another American opera (for baritone Lawrence Tibbett) when he suffered a heart attack shortly after hisfiftieth birthday. He died on April 3, 1950. In his obituary Virgil Thomson identified Weill as "the most original singleworkman in the whole musical theater, internationally considered, during the last quarter century... Every work was a newmodel, a new shape, a new solution to dramatic problems." His death came at a time when his German works were beingrediscovered. Maxwell Anderson prophesied in his eulogy that "Kurt will emerge as one of the very few who wrote greatmusic."

Certain common threads highlight his career: a concern for social justice, an aggressive pursuit of highly-regarded playwrights and lyricists as collaborators, and the ability to adapt to audience tastes no matter where he found himself. His mostimportant works are his Violin Concerto (1925), The Threepenny Opera (Bertolt Brecht, 1928), Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (Brecht, 1930), The Pledge (Caspar Neher, 1931), The Seven Deadly Sins (Brecht, 1933), Lady in the Dark (MossHart and Ira Gershwin, 1941), Street Scene (Elmer Rice and Langston Hughes, 1947), and Lost in the Stars (Maxwell Anderson1949).

Edited copy from http://www.kwf.org/pages/kw/kwbio.html; http://www.naxos.com/composerinfo/1478.htm; and http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A103417




Works by Bertolt Brecht

Baal, 1918, published 1922, translated 1964The Petitbourgeois Wedding, 1919, published 1953The Beggar, or The Dead Dog, 1919, published 1953) – He Exorcises a Devil, 1919, published 1953 Drums in the Night , written 1919, produced 1922 Light in the Darkness, 1919, published 1953 In the Jungle of the Cities; In the Swamp, 1921/1923, published 1927

Edward II (with Lion Feuchtwanger, based on Marlowe’s Edward II, 1594), 1923/1924 A Manual of Piety, 1927 - A Man's a Man, 1927The Elephant Calf , 1927Kalkutta, 4 Mai, 1927 (with Lion Feuchtwanger)The Threepenny Opera, 1928 (music by Kurt Weil, based on Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera ), film 1931, directed by G.W. Pabst; film

1963, directed by Wolfgang Staudte Happy End , 1929 (with Elisabeth Hauptmann) Lindberg's Flight , 1929 Rise and Fall of the City Mahagonny, 1929Saint Joan of the Stockyards, 1929The Didactic Play of Baden, 1930 He Who Says Yes, 1931 He Who Says No, 1931

The Measures Taken, 1931The Mother: Life of Revolutionary Pelegea Vlassova from Tver , 1932The Seven Deadly Sins/Anna-Anna, ca.1933, published 1959Versuche, Volumes 1-7, 1930-1933 Lieder, Gedichte, Chöre, 1934The Three-Penny Novel, 1934The Roundheads and the Peakheads, 1936 Señora Carrar's Rofles (adaptation of Synge's “Riders to the Sea”, 1904), 1937The Private Life of the Master Race, 1935/1938, published 1945The Exception and the Rule, 1937 The Horatians and the Curatians, 1938 -Gesammelte Werke, 1938 (2 vols.)The Life of Galileo, 1938-39, published 1955; film Galileo, 1974, directed by Joseph LoseyThe Good Woman of Setzuan, 1938-39, published 1953)

Svendborger Gedichte, 1939 Mother Courage and Her Children (based on Grimmelshausen's novel Simplicissimus, 1669), 1939, published 1949, film 1961,

Berliner Ensemble, directed by Peter Palitzsch & Manfred WekwerthThe Trial of Lucullus, 1940 Herr Puntila Und Sein Knecht Matti, 1940, film 1957, directed by Alberto Cavalcanti; film 1979, directed by Ralf LångbackaThe Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, 1941, published 1957The Visions of Simome Machard , 1941/43, published 1956 Schweyk in the Second World War (based on Jaroslav Haek's The Good Soldier Schweik, 1920-23), 1941/43, published 1956The Ginger Jar , written before 1944, published 1958The Caucasian Chalk Circle (based on the Chinese play The Circle of Chalk ), 1944-45, published 1949Selected Poems, 1947The Antigone of Sophocles (based on Hölderlin's translation of Sophocles' Antigone), 1947/48, published 1948Tales From the Calendar , 1948

A Little Organum for the Theatre, 1949 Versuche, Volumes 7-15, 1949-1957The Private Tutor (adaptation of Jakob Lenz's Der Hofmeister, 1778), 1951 Report from Herrnburger , 1951The Trial of Joan of Arc at Rouen, 1431 (from Anna Segher's version), 1952, published 1959 Don Juan (based on Moliere's Don Juan, 1665), 1952, published 1959Coriolanus (adaptation of Shakespeare's Coriolanus 1952/53, published 1959Stücke, 1953-1966 (13 volumes)Turandot, or The Congress of Whitewashers, 1950-54Trumpets and Drums (adaptation of Farquhar's The Recruiting Officer, 1706), 1955 (with Elisabeth Hauptmann and Benne Besson)Stücke, 1956-59 (12 volumes)



Geschichten Vom Herrn Keuner , 1958

Flühtlingsgespräche, 1961Poems of the Theatre, 1961 Baal and Other Plays, 1964 Brecht on Theatre, 1964The Jewish Wife and Other Short Plays, 1965

Gesammelte Werke, 1967 (20 volumes)Collected Plays, 1971 Arbeitsjournal, 1973 Diaries 1920-1922, 1979Collected Poems 1913-1956 , 1980Short Stories 1921-46 , 1983 Letters 1913-1956 , 1990Poems and Songs from the Plays, 1990Grosse Kommentierte Berliner Und Frankfurter Ausgabe, Briefe 3, 1998Über Verfürung, Erotische Gedichte Mit Radierungen Von Pablo Picasso, 1998

Works byKurt Weill

Alabama Song (arr. Etlinger)All at Once (arr. Mason)Ballad of Magna Carta, The Bastille Music (Suite based on incidental music for Strindberg's play Gustav III )Berlin to Broadway with Kurt Weill (revue)Bilbao Song (arr. von Platen)Brecht-Weill Song Album (Songbook)Cello SonataConcerto for Violin and Wind InstrumentsCry, the Beloved Country (based on Lost in the Stars)Down in the ValleyEarly Songs for Voice and PianoEternal Road, The (Der Weg der Verheissung)Firebrand of Florence; The Firebrand of Florence: Suite of Italian Dances

Folksongs of the New PalestineFoolish Heart (arr. Weirick)Green-Up Time (arr. Mason)Happy End Happy End (English adaptation by Michael Feingold)Here I'll Stay (arr. Mason)Ho, Billy, O! (from Love Life)Huckleberry Finn (five songs) for voice and pianoHuckleberry Finn (five songs), arranged for voice and orchestraIntermezzo (for solo piano)It Never Was You (arr. Weirick)Johnny JohnsonJudgement of Paris, The

Knickerbocker HolidayKurt Weill: Broadway and Hollywood (Songbook)Kurt Weill, from Berlin to Broadway (Songbook)Kurt Weill Songs: A Centennial Anthology (Songbook)Lady in the Dark Lady in the Dark: Symphonic NocturneLife, Love, and Laughter (arr. Mason)Life, Love, and Laughter: Kurt Weill on Broadway (pops orchestra program) Little Gray House, The (arr. Mason)Lost in the StarsLost in the Stars: Vocal Selections (Songbook)




Love LifeMile after Mile (arr. Weirick)Mine Eyes Have Seen the GloryMy Ship (arr. Evans)My Ship (arr. Noeltner)One Touch of Venus

Pantomime (from Der Protagonist )Railroads on ParadeRiver Is Blue, TheRoyal PalaceSaga of Jenny, The (arr. Mason)September Song (arr. Mason)Sing Me Not a Ballad (arr. Weirick)Sonata for Cello and PianoSongplaySpeak Low (arr. Mason)Stay Well (arr. Mason)Street SceneStreet Scenes

String Quartet in B Minor(1918)String Quartet no. 1, op. 8 (1923)String Quartet, Two MovementsSuite for Orchestra in E Major Suite in the Old Style (formerly Divertimento)Suite of Italian Dances from The Firebrand of FlorenceSymphony no. 1Symphony no. 2Three Songs Arranged by Luciano BerioThreepenny Opera, The (English adaptation by Marc Blitzstein)The Threepenny Opera, Vocal Selections from (Songbook)Trains Bound for GloryTwo Movements for String QuartetTwo Worlds of Kurt Weill, TheUnknown Kurt Weill, The (Songbook)Unsung Weill (Songbook)Violin ConcertoWalt Whitman Songs, for voice and pianoWalt Whitman Songs, for voice and orchestraWar Play (suite based on Johnny Johnson)What Good Would the Moon Be? (arr. Weirick)Where Do We Go from Here?You and Me

List Of Available Recordings By Kurt WeillThe Eternal Road, Highlights from his OperettaMahaggonyStreet SceneSymphonies No. 1 and No. 2/Lady in the Dark Bolcom/Britten Cabaret SongsDivine DancersIn Celebration of IsraelLeaving Home – Orchestral Music in the 20th Century, Vol. 5Tango in BlueThe Singing Apes and Other Songs of War and LoveDreamer: A Portrait of Langston Hughes




Creating a Theatrical Production

By Denise Burson Freestone, Artistic Director and Co-Founder

From start to finish, it takes an incredible number of artists to create a theatrical production, and thegreatest productions are frequently realized by individuals who respect each others’ talents and abilities

and develop a strong sense of teamwork — camaraderie, dedication, and joy in the work beingaccomplished are often the first signs that an excellent work of art will soon be created. First, andobviously foremost, is the Playwright. In modern theatre, the vast majority of plays are in written scriptform. However, other types of plays are still developed today, such as scripts that are loosely based on a“scenario” or plot line and then improvised by the actors and director with no specific spoken lines everbeing formally written.

For OpenStage Theatre, the plays to be performed in a given season are selected by the Artist icDirector , with a great deal of input and recommendations made by the Company’s regular directors andkey Company Members. Once the season is chosen, the Artistic Director then selects the individualDirectors for each play. Each spring, OpenStage holds auditions for all of the shows to be produced thefollowing season, which runs from August through the following J une. The Directors cast their plays fromactors and actresses who are new to the Company as well as those who have worked with the Company

previously (some for as long as thirty-four years).Each production rehearses for six to seven weeks, four to five times a week, usually for three

hours per rehearsal. During the rehearsal process, the Assistant Director helps the Director in numerouscapacities, including recording stage blocking, making notes for the Director, communicating necessaryinformation to the performers and designers, etc. Prior to the beginning of rehearsals, the Director meetswith the Design Team, which is composed of the Set Designer , Costume Designer , Lighting Designer Properties Designer/Set Dresser , Sound Designer , Hair Designer , and Make-Up Designer . TheDesign Team determines all of the physical design elements for a production, from how an individualcharacter’s hair is styled to what quality, intensity and hue the lights will have during individual scenes. Allof these elements—set, costumes, hand properties, furniture, set dressing, lights, sound, make-up, hair,and special effects (if needed)—must be coordinated so that they work together to actualize the Director’svision in the best possible way. The Design Team continues to meet throughout the rehearsal period, andtheir expertise in visualizing the final physical product of the play is a vital element for the play’s success. The Producer orProduction Manager oversees all of these efforts, as well as the realization of thedesigns—such as set construction, costume construction, etc. This realization may be accomplished bythe Designers or by Theatre Technicians, such as Master Carpenters , Seamstresses , Master Electricians, Sound Engineers, Hair orMake-Up Stylists, etc. Other Theatre Technicians vital tomounting a finished production include the Stagehands, who run the show backstage, the Lighting andSound Board Operators, and, most importantly, the Stage Manager , who is in charge of all aspects of the play once the design aspects and the acting are merged together. This “merging” occurs when theplay “sets in,” or moves out of the rehearsal and construction space and into the performance space fortechnical rehearsals and dress rehearsals, which usually last one week. The Stage Manager makes surethe stage is set appropriately, that all equipment is operating correctly, that all performers are present for

their entrances, and “calls” all the cues during performances by telling the Board Operators andStagehands when to execute a change in lighting, sound or stage setting.

All of these individuals are vital to the final product and, in essence, are present on the stageduring the performance through their artistic contributions. They create the world the Actors and

Actresses reside in during the actual performance. But all of these efforts would be meaningless withoutthe Audience. The following quote, from the play The Dresser by Ronald Harwood, captures the truepurpose of theatre:

“ I had a friend once said, ‘Norman, I don’t care if there are only three people out front, or if the audience laugh when they shouldn’t, or don’t when they should, one person, just oneperson is certain to know and understand. And I act for him.’ That’s what my friend said.”




A Brief Overview of OpenStage Theatre & Company

Founded in 1973, OpenStage Theatre & Company has committed itself to a professional orientationfor the serious theatre artist. The organization’s goal has always been to establish a nationallyrecognized theatre in Northern Colorado. Excellence, discipline and artistic integrity are the principlesthat continue to guide the Company, as evidenced by the Company receiving the 1997 Governor’sAward for Excellence in the Arts. OpenStage Theatre has been actively producing and promoting liveperforming arts in Northern Colorado since its inception, making it one of the longest practicingtheatrical producers in Colorado. The Company has grown steadily and consistently and is a strongmember of the statewide arts producing community. The Theatre produces shows for a wide range of audiences, including adult and family fare in both the contemporary and classical genres, and

supplements its six regular season shows with challenging and original works through openstage etc and original radio drama through Rabbit Hole Radio Theatre. The Company has produced comedies,dramas, histories, grand operas, musicals and original works and has toured regionally. OpenStage Theatre continues an ambitious policy of community outreach and development, providing materials,personnel and professional advice to schools, government and social service agencies, businesses,and other art producers. The Company is an active partner in the planning efforts of Arts Alive FortCollins, the Chamber of Commerce, the City of Fort Collins, the Downtown Development Authority,the Convention and Visitors Bureau, the Colorado Council on the Arts and the Colorado TheatreGuild. OpenStage Theatre & Company is committed to the development of Fort Collins as animportant and viable cultural center for Colorado. Its reputation for quality and consistency has beenbuilt through years of hard work and with the talents of many fine performers and theatre artists. The

Company has been paying honorariums to actors and technicians since 1977. In numerousinstances, the training and experience acquired through OpenStage have provided individual artistswith the expertise to launch successful professional careers. During its history the Theatre hasproduced over 400 theatrical productions, and the caliber of its shows has been compared withprofessional companies in Chicago, Houston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Denverand…yes…even New York.

“OpenStage Theatre Company – the trailbreaker, the stalwart, the adventurer, almost all things toall theater people in Northern Colorado for [over] thirty years...” Loveland Reporter Herald

“OpenStage ...can easily take its place among Colorado’s best companies...” The Denver Post

“OpenStage productions rival anything to be seen in Denver...” Greeley Tribune

“Northern Colorado does not have a Radio City Music Hall, a Metropolitan Museum of Art or aRockefeller Center. But it does have OpenStage Theatre & Company, a premiere performing artsorganization whose caliber of professionalism makes Fort Collins theatre-goers feel like they arein New York City...Whether you’re looking for an evening of theatrical professionalism or non-traditional innovation, OpenStage Theatre & Company is a sure bet for quality entertainment.” Scene Magazine




OpenStage Theatre is delighted to have you experience theStudent Night Performance

at the Lincoln Center!

THERE ARE, HOWEVER, SOME THINGSYOU WILL AND WON’T WANT TO DO

AT THE PERFORMANCE!

THESE DOs AND DON’Ts ARE COMMONLY CALLED…

Theatre Etiquette

• DO dress up a bit. You don’t have to be fancy, but don’t wear shorts. Absolutely no hats are

allowed.

• DO enjoy the performance. Listen, laugh when appropriate, applaud!

• DON’T embarrass yourself by yelling out, whistling, clapping at inappropriate times, or acting

as if you were at a sports game instead of a theatre. Don’t, above all, fall asleep!

• DON’T bring food! This is not like a movie theatre, so food is totally inappropriate. No eating at

any time.

• DON’T talk to your f riends dur ing the performance. If you don’t understand something or

wish to make a short comment once or twice, that’s fine, but constant conversation is the

ultimate in rudeness.

• DON’T leave the performance unless you feel ill. Stay in your seat during the play and

during the blackouts between scenes.

• DO focus on details, listen and watch carefully, and take some memories of the

performance with you!

• If necessary, you will be asked to leave the theatre, which could be embarrassing.

threepenny opera

Documents