Educating Rita
Bag & Baggage Productions, The Venetian Theatre, Hillsboro OR, June 4 - June 20, 2010
Director: Patrick Spike
Stage Manager: Karen Johnson
Asst. Stage Manager: Paige Lamb
Scenic Designer: Alan Schwanke
Costume Designer: Allison Dawe
Lighting Designer: Nick Gearhart
Sound Eng./Designer: James Veber
Prod. Manager & Head of Props: Audra Petrie Veber
Master Builder: Demetri Pavlatos
Maggie Chapin as Susan White (Rita)
Tracy Conklin as Dr. Frank Bryant
Photography by Casey Campbell. These photos are the property of Patrick Spike, please do not duplicate, download, copy or print without expressed permission. Thank you.
The Buzz
Oregonian Review:
Director Patrick Spike's production sharply focuses on the issues. While there may be suggestions of a possible romantic bond connecting the play's characters, this production is not side-tracked by love interests.
Conklin conveys much with a look. A frozen, stunned smile captures Frank's astonished fascination ... Conklin is particularly strong when playing Frank during a late scene in which he appears stumbling drunk. He adeptly portrays the character's lack of control...
Maggie Chapin does a fine job of delineating the character's growth... Her explosive entrances and broad playfulness nicely complement Conklins's restraint. Chapin demonstrates a finely tuned sense of timing...
"Just HAD to email you to tell you I was blown away by this production! I was lucky enough to get a ticket for the last performance yesterday afternoon. From every aspect this was superlative. What great production values you have!!" - Pat via email
"Educating Rita was AWESOME!!!!!! We enjoyed a wonderful evening with dinner and drinks to start and then the show. Thank you so much!!!!" - Stacy on Facebook
"Wonderfully executed... you're hooked on every word."- Willamette Week PICK!
"Great show! Well worth the jaunt out to Hillsboro!!! Have a great run." - Patron on Facebook
"Congratulations on a phenomenal opening night! hope the rest of the run is equally impressive. Rita is AMAZING!" - Patron on Facebook
Director’s Notes for playbill
Today we all seem to be seeking gurus to teach us how to be better people; to live our fullest lives. These self-help experts have all sorts of trendy ways to achieve our fullest potential. We scoff at some. We put others on a pedestal. But we continue to search, and we continue to try, and we as a culture seem willing pay huge amounts to do it.
At the same time however, we seem to want to stifle our original gurus; the teachers of our children and our schools, and we can't ever seem to find the money to support their efforts in educating our own children. We restrict what they can teach and how they can teach it. We impose curriculums and stifle creativity in teaching methods, and we standardize tests to try to gauge success. Now we even reward the teachers and schools that excel on standardized tests, and we threaten to fire teachers and close schools that don't do as well. But what does this mean for the students?
We know that different people learn different ways, and we each express ourselves differently. Some students fit into the mainstream, while others, just as intelligent and valuable, don't. We've proven time and time again that the arts boost learning of everything from math to reading to science, and yet we've cut most every arts program, taking away the place that the less mainstream students can find alternative methods of expressing themselves and of excelling in school. Exceptional kids and unique teachers can fall through the cracks of a standardized system that forces less than creative thinking...
What I learned during my various experiences in different learning institutions, is that it all comes down to the individuals, and the relationships. I think all of us can remember the few teachers who really made a difference to us. While a school can have an exceptional reputation, if the specific teachers you're working with don't care, aren't passionate or don't engage and enjoy the interaction with the students, it's not ultimately going to be successful. The opposite is also true. A school can be obscure, unknown, tiny... but if you find the specific people within it that you connect with, magic of learning and amazing changes can happen in our minds and lives.
In 'Educating Rita', Willy Russell speaks to the value of what the individual brings to the learning process. Regurgitation of facts and quotes and dates is fine, as a framework, but it's the connections between us and our ability to filter the facts, to interpret the ideas, and relate those pieces to ourselves and our relationships that really emerge as the success of education. Rita is seeking learning as a way out of her world which she sees as less than valuable. Frank sees in Rita an authenticity and insight that are rare in his encounters within the educational institution. He wants to protect that uniqueness within her, but the system wants to force it out of her. They are a rare pairing of teacher and student, from different backgrounds, that bond and complement each other, but also risk destroying each other at the same time. Either way, it is obvious that they will each change the other. Perhaps you will be able to reflect back on a special teacher in your own past that had a profound effect on you... Or perhaps you were the teacher.
Oregonian Review:
Director Patrick Spike's production sharply focuses on the issues. While there may be suggestions of a possible romantic bond connecting the play's characters, this production is not side-tracked by love interests.
Conklin conveys much with a look. A frozen, stunned smile captures Frank's astonished fascination ... Conklin is particularly strong when playing Frank during a late scene in which he appears stumbling drunk. He adeptly portrays the character's lack of control...
Maggie Chapin does a fine job of delineating the character's growth... Her explosive entrances and broad playfulness nicely complement Conklins's restraint. Chapin demonstrates a finely tuned sense of timing...
"Just HAD to email you to tell you I was blown away by this production! I was lucky enough to get a ticket for the last performance yesterday afternoon. From every aspect this was superlative. What great production values you have!!" - Pat via email
"Educating Rita was AWESOME!!!!!! We enjoyed a wonderful evening with dinner and drinks to start and then the show. Thank you so much!!!!" - Stacy on Facebook
"Wonderfully executed... you're hooked on every word."- Willamette Week PICK!
"Great show! Well worth the jaunt out to Hillsboro!!! Have a great run." - Patron on Facebook
"Congratulations on a phenomenal opening night! hope the rest of the run is equally impressive. Rita is AMAZING!" - Patron on Facebook
Director’s Notes for playbill
Today we all seem to be seeking gurus to teach us how to be better people; to live our fullest lives. These self-help experts have all sorts of trendy ways to achieve our fullest potential. We scoff at some. We put others on a pedestal. But we continue to search, and we continue to try, and we as a culture seem willing pay huge amounts to do it.
At the same time however, we seem to want to stifle our original gurus; the teachers of our children and our schools, and we can't ever seem to find the money to support their efforts in educating our own children. We restrict what they can teach and how they can teach it. We impose curriculums and stifle creativity in teaching methods, and we standardize tests to try to gauge success. Now we even reward the teachers and schools that excel on standardized tests, and we threaten to fire teachers and close schools that don't do as well. But what does this mean for the students?
We know that different people learn different ways, and we each express ourselves differently. Some students fit into the mainstream, while others, just as intelligent and valuable, don't. We've proven time and time again that the arts boost learning of everything from math to reading to science, and yet we've cut most every arts program, taking away the place that the less mainstream students can find alternative methods of expressing themselves and of excelling in school. Exceptional kids and unique teachers can fall through the cracks of a standardized system that forces less than creative thinking...
What I learned during my various experiences in different learning institutions, is that it all comes down to the individuals, and the relationships. I think all of us can remember the few teachers who really made a difference to us. While a school can have an exceptional reputation, if the specific teachers you're working with don't care, aren't passionate or don't engage and enjoy the interaction with the students, it's not ultimately going to be successful. The opposite is also true. A school can be obscure, unknown, tiny... but if you find the specific people within it that you connect with, magic of learning and amazing changes can happen in our minds and lives.
In 'Educating Rita', Willy Russell speaks to the value of what the individual brings to the learning process. Regurgitation of facts and quotes and dates is fine, as a framework, but it's the connections between us and our ability to filter the facts, to interpret the ideas, and relate those pieces to ourselves and our relationships that really emerge as the success of education. Rita is seeking learning as a way out of her world which she sees as less than valuable. Frank sees in Rita an authenticity and insight that are rare in his encounters within the educational institution. He wants to protect that uniqueness within her, but the system wants to force it out of her. They are a rare pairing of teacher and student, from different backgrounds, that bond and complement each other, but also risk destroying each other at the same time. Either way, it is obvious that they will each change the other. Perhaps you will be able to reflect back on a special teacher in your own past that had a profound effect on you... Or perhaps you were the teacher.