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"She was a great man whose only fault was being a woman" -Francois-Marie Voltaire
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ARTHUR GIRON is the former Head of Playwriting at Carnegie Mellon University, where he won the Hornbostel Award for Teaching Excellence, and a founding member of the Ensemble Studio Theatre (EST). He has won numerous awards for playwriting and was named "one of our best contemporary dramatists" by critic Rosette La Mont, when his play EDITH STEIN premiered in New York. His plays have broken box office records at three different theaters in New York City and across the country. His BECOMING MEMORIES won the L.A. Critics Drama-Logue Award for "Outstanding Achievement in Writing." After its New York premier, his “incandescent” play FLIGHT went on to tour 120 U.S. cities. MOVING BODIES, starring Alfred Molina, broke EST box office records and in 2008 was recorded for NPR (with Molina). EMILIE’S VOLTAIRE received the first Alfred P. Sloan Galileo Prize in 2000, and has been recognized for funding from the EST/Sloan Foundation for LIA’s 2009 production. Giron is New York born of Guatamalan heritage. “My life is dedicated to developing new works that will keep our American Theater alive.”
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR
KEVIN CONFOY has directed the first productions of nine published plays including new works by Warren Leight, Kenneth Lonergan, Dan O’Brien and the Irish playwright Antoine O’Flatharta. He has directed the premieres of three new plays by Joyce Carol Oates and productions at the Cherry Lane, La MaMa and for HB Playwrights and Naked Angels among other theaters. Most recently Kevin directed The Framer by Edward Allan Baker in Los Angeles and at the Michael Weller Theater in NY. Before that he directed the NY revival of The Painting by Ionesco for the Phoenix Ensemble. For three years Kevin was Executive Producer of the Ensemble Studio Theatre. While there he produced new plays by Arthur Miller, Steve Martin, John Guare, Marsha Norman, Craig Lucas, Regina Taylor and Chris Durang among many others. Kevin produced Marathon ’94 which received the Village Voice OBIE Award for Outstanding Achievement off-Broadway. He also received a Drama Desk Nomination as part of the company of the 2006 revival of Horton Foote’s The Traveling Lady. Kevin has received production grants from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and from FLIK Funding. He was the Producing Artistic Director of the Theatre Program at Sarah Lawrence College for ten seasons. Kevin is the Program Director of the Playwriting Intensive through the Graduate Program at Sarah Lawrence and on the faculty there.
FRANCOIS-MARIE AROUET DE VOLTAIRE (1694 - 1778)
Voltaire, the pen name for Francois-Marie Arouet, was born in Paris on November 21, 1694. He was educated at the Jesuit College in Paris and wished to become a writer. His father, however, wanted him to study the law. After a scandal and a threat by his father to disinherit him, the young man acquiesced to his father's demands. Nonetheless, he continued in his writing. He used wit and satire in his oblique attacks on intolerance and fanaticism during the French Enlightenment. He spent a year in the Bastille in 1717, accused of penning two poems critical of the Regent of France. When his father died in 1722, Voltaire was able to control his own actions. His works continued to make him enemies, and he was exiled to England from 1726 to 1729. He spent several years in the 1750's at the court of Frederick the Great, during which time he wrote Candide. In his lifetime he produced some 80 volumes of writings. His influence on the thought of the 18th century lead some historians to refer to that century as the "Age of Voltaire." (From Lone Star College-Kingwood Library)
ABOUT MICHAEL MEDEIROS Medeiros has guest-starred as both defense attorney (“Embedded”) and serial killer (“Disappeared”) on Law & Order – which he considers a paradigm for most of his career. Recently, he was Selig in Joe Turner’s Come and Gone at Baltimore’s Center Stage and Feste in Twelfth Night for director, Jon Jory at Arizona Theatre Company. He has played the Public (Museum), Playwrights Horizons (Violet), Circle In The Square, CSC Repertory, McGuinn/Cazale, Primary Stages, Melting Pot and in regional productions: Long Wharf (The Front Page), The Kennedy Center (Outrage), Actors Theatre of Louisville, Seattle Rep., Syracuse Stage, etc. He has sung the title roles in Sweeny Todd and La Mancha and was in recent revivals of The Baker’s Wife at PaperMill and Goodspeed. In FILMS, Michael plays Eric in Charlie Kaufman’s, Synecdoche New York, and sings the 80’s pop classic, “On and On,” in Margot at the Wedding. He plays back to back lawyers in Nola and The Warrior Class and a freaked out crack head in the mob comedy, Under New Management. During stints in LA, he starred as Major Reno in Son of the Morning Star, played Catzo in RoboCop II, and co-starred in The Revenge of Al Capone, among others. In 2006, he wrote and directed the short film, Underground (trailer at www.bennettparkfilms.com) which played festivals internationally and found distribution with Mini-Movie Channel.
GABRIELLE ÉMILIE Le TONNELIER De BRETEUIL, MARQUISE Du CHÂTELET-LAUMONT (1706 – 1749)
The birth of Gabrielle Émilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil, Marquise du Châtelet-Laumont came on December 17th, 1706. As her long formal name suggests she was born into an elite aristocracy, a French woman, for whom marriage was the only way one could find a secure place in society. Her father, Louis-Nicolas, Baron de Breteuil, owned land in Touraine and an extravagant house in Paris. Louis-Nicolas was a favorite of the court, from which he retired upon the death of Louis XIV, in 1751. Émilie was studious and disciplined, rash and spontaneous, attributes which led to her recieving a much more serious education than most females of her time. She took to mathematics and the sciences On June 20th, 1725, at the age of 19, Gabrielle Émilie was married to Florent Claude Chastellet (the spelling Châtelet was introduced by Voltaire). Florent Claude was a military man, his ancestors could be traced to Charlemagne and the like. The couple inherited the estates of Cirey from Florent Claudes mother, an estate which would eventually house Émilie and Voltaire. This is where they would cultivate some of their finest works. The Marquis, Florent Claude, and the Marquise Gabrielle Émilie were also given the government of Semur-en Auxiois in Burgundy, where the Marquis was a frequent visitor. Gabrielle gave birth to a daughter and a son in 1726 and 1727 respectively. She also gave birth to a third child in 1733. The Marquis was frequently absent in military duty and the Marquise consequently lived in his townhouse in Paris where she engulfed herself in an extravagant social life. Still, Madame du Châtelet was evidently more interested in preserving the marriage than her husband, and it is said when he wanted to end it she actually faked a suicide though apparently no harm was done. They separated and she then surrounded herself with many men. Her relationship with Voltaire endured for the remainder of her life. The Marquise spent most of the time with Voltaire at Cirey. She studied day and night. This is where all of the experiments that led to her Newtonian works were conducted. In January, 1749 Mme du Châtelet told Voltaire she was pregnant. Though the pregnancy was by Saint-Lambert with whom in her later years she had fallen in love, Mme du Châtelet, Saint-Lambert and Voltaire plotted to make it appear as if the Marquis du Châtelet was the father. It worked. On September 4th she gave birth to a daughter. Six days later she died and soon after so did the child. (From Oregon State University)
ABOUT AMY LYNN STEWART
AMY LYNN STEWART (Emilie) NY: Rattlers (Flux Theatre Ensemble), An American Book of the Dead (Collective Unconscious), Defenestration of Prague (Ars Nova), Wood (Working Man's Clothes), Obstruction Plays (Slant Theatre Co.) Regional: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (English Theatre of Frankfurt, Germany), Fiction (Florida Studio Theatre), Intimate Apparel (Indiana Rep/Syracuse Stage), Beauty (La Jolla Playhouse), Hazard County (Actor's Express) Film: Jesus, Maria (Crimson Wolf Productions) MFA, UCSD
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