Whistler in the Dark: One Flea Spare

"For two and a half hours, The Factory’s small, intimate space is charged with palpable, electrical tension, piercing performances, and improbable comic flourishes; the audience is transported.... One Flea Spare is as hot and urgent as any fever, a rivetting theatrical triumph." ~Killian Meloy, EDGEBoston

"One Flea Spare ropes you in with its premise, then doesn’t let you look away when it gets almost too hard to watch. Wallace gives us a self-conscious study in perversity and survival, and Whistler in the Dark makes it all feel true." ~Jenna Scherer, The Boston Herald

"Under Meg Taintor’s direction, One Flea Spare opens and closes doors to the human heart as the characters confront disease, death and — almost as heartbreakingly — survival. ... the entire play (an) infection that is painfully cleaned out with truths and revelations throughout its duration." ~Michelle Beeler, The Tufts Daily

“What are you doing out of your grave?
What happened to the Gentleman?
What happened to his wife?
Whose blood is on your sleeve?”

On the last day of their quarantine, a wealthy couple’s house is invaded by two strangers - a sailor and a girl who might not be what she seems. And so another month of quarantine begins. Watched over by their jailor, these four with nothing in common must find a way to survive both the plague and each other. Alliances and betrayal, bargains and games.

This searing and lyrical drama explores the politics of compassion within the shadow of the grave.

Winner of the 1996 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize,
the 1996 Fellowship of Southern Writers Drama Award,
the 1996 Kesselring Prize, and the 1997 Obie Award for Best Play.

the company
	Ben Chase graduated Tufts University this past August. Previous Boston credits include: Mister Roberts (New Repertory Theatre). Other Regional credits include: Julius Caesar (Shakespeare on the Sound). In addition to studying at Tufts, Ben studied acting at the Royal Academy of the Dramatic Arts. Favorite RADA credits include Timon of Athens and King John. Ben can be seen featured in the films Alice in Wonderland (2010) and The Last Airbender (2010). Thank you to Meg and Whistler for the opportunity to take on Naomi Wallace’s incredible play.
	Jeff Gill's recent credit include: One for the Road, 7 Blowjobs: Theatre on Fire (IRNE nomination One for the Road); As You Like It, Hamlet, Much Ado About Nothing, Macbeth: Commonwealth Shakespeare Company; Love Lies Bleeding: Way Theatre Artists; The Aristocrat: independent feature film; The Trial of One Short Sighted Black Woman, Roxbury Crossroads Theater; A View from the Bridge, Proof: TheatreZone; Patience of Nantucket, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone: Up You Mighty Race Performing Arts Co.; Anna Christie, The Night of the Iguana, The Iceman Cometh: American Voices Series; Dark as a Thousand Midnights, Ascension: African American Theatre Festival (IRNE nomination, Ascension); The Lepers of Baile Baiste: Boston Playwrights Theatre, and The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington, D.C. Jeff is also Manager and Creative Director of The Theater at Hollywood and Vine, a pub theater operating at The Vine Wine Bar, in Plymouth, Mass. Since 2005, more than 75 one-act plays have been performed at the venue.
	Curt Klump Whistler in the Dark Theatre: The Europeans and The Bacchae; Actors Shakespeare Project: A Midsummer Night's Dream (January 2010) Coriolanus; New Rep: Macbeth (Spring 2010), Mr. Roberts, and Lieutenant of Inishmore; Huntington Theatre Company: How Shakespeare Won The West; Zeitgeist Stage: The Kentucky Cycle and Sacred Hearts; Shakespeare Now!: Julius Caesar, Romeo & Juliet and A Midsummer Nights Dream; Shakespeare & Company: Hamlet, Julius Caesar, Romeo & Juliet, Much Ado About Nothing, and The Tempest. Curt is also the host of NewEngland.com’s New England TV. Curt trained at Shakespeare & Company in Western Massachusetts and spent several years there acting, teaching, and directing in their award winning education programs and has also taught for the New York Film Academy’s summer program at Harvard University.
	Lorna Nogueira is ecstatic to be working with Whistler in the Dark again. She has appeared in several other Whistler productions, including The Possibilities, Vampire, The Europeans and All This Flying, All This Tumbling Down. She also appeared recently in Apollinaire Theatre's The Thugs, Dark Play or Stories for Boys and The Wonderful World of Dissocia.
	Jennifer O'Connor (Morse) holds a B.F.A. in theatre performance from Salem State. Joining Whistler for their inaugural production of The Possibilities, she has been with the company ever since. For three seasons she was the company manager and an acting member of imaginary beasts. Other Boston area collaborations include Apollinaire Theatre, Insomouth Productions, and staged readings with Catalyst Collaborative@MIT and New Voices @ New Rep.
the playwright
	Naomi Wallace is from Kentucky. Her newest play, The Inland Sea, will have its world premiere in London this spring, produced by the Oxford Stage Company. The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek premiered at the 1998 Humana Festival at the Actors Theatre of Louisville, was produced in the spring of 1999 by New York Theatre Workshop, and by the Edinburgh Theatre in the spring of 2001. Her play One Flea Spare was commissioned and produced in October 1995 by the Bush Theatre in London. It received its American premiere at the Humana Festival and was awarded the 1996 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, the 1996 Fellowship of Southern Writers Drama Award, the 1996 Kesselring Prize, and the 1997 Obie Award for Best Play. Slaughter City was awarded the 1995 Mobil Prize and received its world premiere in January 1996 at the Royal Shakespeare Company. In the Heart of America received its world premiere at the Bush and was subsequently produced at the Long Wharf Theater and in Dortmund, Germany. It was published in American Theater magazine and was awarded the 1995 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. Her plays are published in Great Britain by Faber and Faber, and in the U S by Broadway Play Publishing Inc. Wallace was a 1999 recipient of the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship, the grant popularly known as the genius award.
the artistic team
	Emily Woods Hogue (Costume Designer) is new to Whistler in the Dark. Costume design credits include Romeo and Juliet, It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s Superman! (Boston Lyric Stage Company) Miss Julie, and The Wall of Water (Bennington College). Ms. Woods Hogue has also worked in the Costume Design Center at Colonial Williamsburg, and the Wardrobe Department at Plimoth Plantation. She is currently a senior at Bennington College, majoring in both Costume Design and History.
	PJ Strachman has recently designed Whistler in the Dark's The Bacchae, Blue Spruce's Hedwig and the Angry Inch, The Last Five Years and World Premiere of Portraits, FUDGE’s New England Premiere of Nevermore, Phoenix's World Premiere of The Superheroine Monologues, Way Theatre's The Memory of Water and East Coast Premiere of Love-Lies-Bleeding, Worcester Foothills' I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change and many other area shows. She is the regular designer for Chamber Repertory Theatre and Stonehill College, including two ACTF regional selections. PJ is also a guest lecturer with Boston Arts Academy, Gann Academy, and Stonehill College. Photos of her work can be seen at www.pjelex.com.
	Meg Taintor (Director) holds a B.A. in Theatre and Women & Gender Studies from Middlebury College. For Whistler, she has directed The Bacchae, Mary's Wedding, Vampire, All This Flying, All This Tumbling Down, The B File, and The Possibilities and performed in Howard Barker's A Hard Heart, Don't Exaggerate ( FeverFest 06), and in The Psyche Project (FeverFest 07). Meg has also directed for Mill6 Theatre and New Voices @ New Rep. Some of her regional theatre credits include the National Players, Rorschach Theatre, Olney Theatre Center, the Potomac Theatre Project and Washington Shakespeare Company.
	Melissa Barker (Assistant to the Director) studied theatre at Suffolk University. She has performed with local companies National Theatre of Allston and imaginary beasts. Melissa was most recently seen in New Exhibition Room's world premiere Shh, and worked with Whistler in their fourth season on The Bacchae.