Past Productions

The Slug Bearers of Kayrol Island Or, The Friends of Dr. Rushower

Enter the imagination of acclaimed cartoonist Ben Katchor in this delightfully off-beat new musical. Set against an animated landscape, THE SLUG BEARERS OF KAYROL ISLAND weaves together the lives of eight unlikely individuals in their journey from a New York penthouse to a tropical island of exploited factory workers. Featuring a striking indie-rock score by composer Mark Mulcahy, SLUG BEARERS is a darkly funny, politically sharp, and wildly original music-theatre event.

Awards

Winners
Lucille Lortel Award – Jim Findlay and Jeff Sugg, Outstanding Scenic Design
OBIE Award – Best Design
Henry Hewes Design Award for Notable Effects
Nominations
Lucille Lortel Award – Outstanding Musical
Lucille Lortel Award – Bob McGrath, Outstanding Director
Drama League Award – Distinguished Production of a Musical
Drama League Award – Distinguished Performance: Bobby Steggert
Drama Desk Award – Outstanding Musical
Drama Desk Award – Bobby Steggert, Outstanding Featured Actor in a Musical
Drama Desk Award – Bob McGrath, Outstanding Director of a Musical
Drama Desk Award – Ben Katchor, Outstanding Book of a Musical

Drama Desk Award – Outstanding Lyrics

Drama Desk Award – Jim Findlay and Jeff Sugg, Outstanding Projection and Video Design

Tagged with: • • • • • • • • • • • • •  

The Slug Bearers of Kayrol Island Or, The Friends of Dr. Rushower

January 25 - March 16, 2008

Libretto & Drawings by Ben Katchor
Music by Mark Mulcahy
Directed by Bob McGrath
With Stephen Lee Anderson, Tom Riis Farrell, Jody Flader, Peter Friedman, Matt Pearson, Bobby Steggert, Will Swenson
Enter the imagination of acclaimed cartoonist Ben Katchor in this delightfully off-beat new musical. Set against an animated landscape, THE SLUG BEARERS OF KAYROL ISLAND weaves together the lives of eight unlikely individuals in their journey from a New York penthouse to a tropical island of exploited factory workers. Featuring a striking indie-rock score by composer Mark Mulcahy, SLUG BEARERS is a darkly funny, politically sharp, and wildly original music-theatre event.

Awards

Winners
Lucille Lortel Award - Jim Findlay and Jeff Sugg, Outstanding Scenic Design
OBIE Award - Best Design
Henry Hewes Design Award for Notable Effects
Nominations
Lucille Lortel Award - Outstanding Musical
Lucille Lortel Award - Bob McGrath, Outstanding Director
Drama League Award - Distinguished Production of a Musical
Drama League Award - Distinguished Performance: Bobby Steggert
Drama Desk Award - Outstanding Musical
Drama Desk Award - Bobby Steggert, Outstanding Featured Actor in a Musical
Drama Desk Award - Bob McGrath, Outstanding Director of a Musical
Drama Desk Award - Ben Katchor, Outstanding Book of a Musical
Drama Desk Award - Outstanding Lyrics
Drama Desk Award - Jim Findlay and Jeff Sugg, Outstanding Projection and Video Design

Peter Friedman

Vineyard Theatre: THE SLUG BEARERS OF KAYROL ISLAND. Off-Broadway: THE TREASURER (Max Posner), AFTER THE REVOLUTION and THE GREAT GOD PAN (Amy Herzog), CIRCLE MIRROR TRANSFORMATION and BODY AWARENESS (Annie Baker, and her adaptation of) UNCLE VANYA, THE SHAGGS (Gregory, Lang, Madsen), FLY BY NIGHT (Connolly, Mitnick, Rosenstock), THE HEIDI CHRONICLES (Wendy Wasserstein), SUNDOWN, YELLOW MOON (Rachel Bonds), HER REQUIEM (Greg Pierce), THE NETHER (Jennifer Haley), END DAYS (Deborah Zoe Laufer), JACUZZI (The Debate Society), THE OPEN HOUSE (Will Eno), THE HATMAKER’S WIFE (Lauren Yee), A SOLDIER’S PLAY (Charles Fuller), THE LOMAN FAMILY PICNIC (Donald Margulies), THE COMMON PURSUIT (Simon Gray), AND A NIGHTINGALE SANG… (C.P. Taylor), HAMLET (Public Theater ’17). Broadway: RAGTIME, THE HEIDI CHRONICLES, TWELVE ANGRY MEN, THE TENTH MAN. Film: The Savages, Safe, Single White Female. TV: “High Maintenance,” “The Affair,” “The Path.” Upcoming: “Succession.”

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Stephen Lee Anderson

(George Klatter) Broadway: Julius Caesar starring Denzel Washington; Wicked; Fiddler on the Roof; Life (X) 3; The Crucible starring Liam Neeson; The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; Footloose; The Capeman; the Pulitzer Prize-winning play The Kentucky Cycle; The Who's Tommy (National Tour). Off-Broadway: Violet; Floyd Collins (Playwrights); Luck Pluck & Virtue (Atlantic); Juno (Vineyard); Groundhog (MTC). Regional: Signature Theatre; Long Wharf Theater; Denver Center Theatre (seven seasons); Kennedy Center; New Jersey Shakespeare Festival. Film/TV: The Treatment starring Ian Holm; One Life to Live; Law & Order; Autopsy V for HBO. Training: Graduate, Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art, London. MFA, National Theatre Conservatory, Denver.

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John Carrafa

(Choreography) Recently: Alls Well That Ends Well (Yale Rep). Broadway: Urinetown (Tony, Drama Desk, & Outer Critics Circle nom's, Lucille Lortel, Dora, & OBIE Awards); Into the Woods (Tony nom.); Dirty Blonde; Love! Valour! Compassion!; Dance of the Vampires; Good Vibrations (also dir.). Off-Broadway: plays by Wendy Wasserstein, Terrence McNally, A.R. Gurney, Paula Vogel, Christopher Walken. City Center Encores!: The Pajama Game, Out of this World, On a Clear Day You Can See Forever. Regional: A Little Night Music (Kennedy Center’s Sondheim Festival). Film: over 20, including The Thomas Crown Affair and The Polar Express. TV: Sex and the City. Opera: Richard Wagner's The Ring (Kennedy Center).

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Russell H. Champa

(Lighting Design) Current and recent projects: PICKED, TIMON OF ATHENS (The Public Theater), THE GRAND MANNER (Lincoln Center Theater). Broadway: IN THE NEXT ROOM OR THE VIBRATOR PLAY, Julia Sweeney’s GOD SAID “HA!”. NYC: Manhattan Theater Club, 2nd Stage, New York Stage & Film. Regional: ACT, Berkeley Rep, The Mark Taper Forum, Wilma Theatre. Thanks J + J. PEACE.

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Tom Riis Farrell

(Butler, Pilot) Broadway: Coram Boy; Dirty Blonde (Helen Hayes Award, Joseph Jefferson nomination); Wrong Mountain; 1776. Other New York stage: Mary Rose (Vineyard); Arturo Ui (National Actors' Theatre); Li'l Abner (Encores!). Regional: Rag and Bone (Long Wharf); Once in a Lifetime (Williamstown). Films: Trust the Man; The Stepford Wives; Almost Famous; Bringing Out the Dead; The Out-of-Towners; Devil's Advocate; Sleepless in Seattle; Scent of a Woman. Television: Brotherhood; The Black Donnellys; NYPD Blue; Spin City; New York Undercover; five guest leads on Law & Order and/or Criminal Intent; and the TV movie The Deliverance of Elaine with Chris Cooper.

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Jody Flader

(GinGin) Jody Flader is thrilled to be making her Vineyard Theatre debut. Off-Off-Broadway: Alice in Wonderland; The Selfish Giant (Manhattan Children's Theatre); 127 Cups of Coffee; Jack! (Looking Glass Theatre). Regional: Love Song (Marin Theatre Company); American $uicide (Encore Theatre Company); A Christmas Carol; The Tosca Project workshop (American Conservatory Theater). Jody is a 2007 graduate of the American Conservatory Theater M.F.A Program. She received her B.A. from Harvard University.

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Brett Jarvis

(Sound Design) Recent projects: Speech and Debate (Roundabout); Revolution (Joyce); Kiki and Herb-Alive on Broadway!; Two Trains Running (2007 Audelco Award Nomination); Landscape of the Body (Signature Theatre); The Trip to Bountiful (Signature Theatre); Best of Both Worlds (Women's Project Theatre). Other selected works: People Be Heard (Playwrights Horizons); Bill Irwin's Mr. Fox: A Rumination; The Regard Evening; Harlequin Studies (Signature Theatre); Avenue Q (Lucille Lortel Award 2003); The Karaoke Show; Lypsinka! As I Lay Lip-Synching; Vineyard Theatre’s Eli's Comin', Swimming with Watermelons and Brutal Imagination (Lucille Lortel Nomination 2002, co-design); Running Man (Music Theatre Group); Mark Dendy's Dream Analysis; and the long running hit The Donkey Show. Dance credits: National Tour of Donald Byrd; Duke Ellington's The Harlem Nutcracker; Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre; Dance Theatre of Harlem; Ivy Baldwin Dance; Maureen Fleming's After Eros and Decay of the Angel. Mr. Jarvis is also currently working on a dance musical adaptation of Dante's Inferno with CircleNine. He holds a degree in Sound Score Design from The North Carolina School of the Arts.

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Ben Katchor

(Libretto & Drawings) Ben Katchor's picture-stories and drawings appear in The Forward, Metropolis Magazine, and The New Yorker. His weekly strips include: Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer, The Jew of New York, The Cardboard Valise, Hotel & Farm and most recently Shoehorn Technique. He was the recipient of a Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship (1995), a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship (2000), was a fellow at The American Academy in Berlin (2002) and the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library (2007). Katchor's libretto and drawings for The Carbon Copy Building, a collaboration with Bang on a Can and Bob McGrath of Ridge Theater, received an OBIE Award for Best New American Work in 2000. In addition to The Slug Bearers of Kayrol Island, Katchor and Mulcahy have collaborated on The Rosenbach Company, a sung-through musical biography of Abe Rosenbach, the preeminent rare-book dealer of the 20th century. The Rosenbach Company is currently touring. Katchor and Mulcahy's next show, A Checkroom Romance, is scheduled for workshop performances in the fall of 2008. He is an Associate Professor at Parsons, The New School for Design. For more information visit www.katchor.com.

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Bob McGrath

(Director) Bob McGrath is co-founder and Artistic Director of Ridge Theater. He has directed theater and opera at venues including The Brooklyn Academy of Music, Lincoln Center, The American Repertory Theater, Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall and Arts at St. Ann's. He has collaborated with composers and writers including John Adams, Gavin Bryars, David Lang, Michael Gordon, Ben Katchor, Susan Sontag, Mac Wellman and Julia Wolfe. Teaching: Virginia Tech (current), Sarah Lawrence College, NYU and as part of The Eugene O'Neill Theater Festival. Mr. McGrath is the recipient of three OBIE awards for his work with Ridge Theater.

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Mark Mulcahy

(Music) Mark Mulcahy is a composer and recording artist. He has released five solo albums and several others with the bands Miracle Legion and Polaris. He has toured the US and Europe and appeared on MTV and David Letterman. Mulcahy also composed and performed the music for the television series The Adventures of Pete & Pete and has written music for the films Spring Forward, The Crush, and A Matter of Degrees. Mulcahy is featured in the Nick Hornby collection, Songbook, and has worked with David Thomas and Michael Stipe. In addition to The Slug Bearers of Kayrol Island, Mulcahy and Katchor have collaborated on The Rosenbach Company, a sung-through musical biography of Abe Rosenbach. Mulcahy performs the role of Abe in the touring production. The next Katchor/Mulcahy show is A Checkroom Romance. Mark is currently working on his next solo album. You can find out more at his record label, www.mezzotint.com.

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Matt Pearson

(Samson) Regional: Sunday in the Park with George (Ravinia Festival); Swing! (Marriott Lincolnshire); Tick, tick…BOOM! (MetroStage); Lost Songs of Broadway (Signature Theater); The Little Mermaid (Chicago Shakespeare Theater). Northwestern University: Parade; Topdog/Underdog; Gypsy. TV: BET's Teen Summit; Broetry. Matt is a graduate of Northwestern University.

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Megan Smith

(Production Stage Manager) Megan Smith is thrilled to be back at The Vineyard after working on American Fiesta, Mary Rose and The Internationalist last season. Other credits include, Broadway: Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. Off-Broadway: Entertaining Mr. Sloane (Roundabout); Ephemera (SPF); Moonlight and Magnolias (MTC); Last Easter (MCC); Book of Days (Signature); Derelicts and Dreamers and Battle of Angels (Blue Roses Productions); Berkshire Village Idiot. Regional: David Copperfield, Finian's Rainbow (Westport Country Playhouse); Moonlight and Magnolias (Alliance); Berkshire Village Idiot (Williamstown); Seven Deadly Sins (Jacob's Pillow). Ms. Smith is also a Founding Member of Blue Roses Productions, a nonprofit theatre company dedicated to Tennessee Williams and New American Playwrights. Thanks, as always, to family and friends for their continued inspiration and support. Equity member since 1999.

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Bobby Steggert

(Immanuel Lubang) New York: 110 in the Shade (Broadway, Outer Critics Circle Nomination for Featured Actor); Master Harold...and the boys (Broadway); Yank (Gallery Players); columbinus (New York Theatre Workshop, Drama League Nomination for Ensemble); The Music Teacher (The New Group). Other favorites: Juliet in Shakespeare's R&J (St. Louis Rep); Brighton Beach Memoirs (Pioneer Theater); The Cripple of Inishmaan (Milwaukee Rep). Film/TV: The Namesake; Kinsey; Game 6; For Richer or Poorer; and Sam Grey on All My Children. Bobby is a graduate of NYU and studied classically at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. Upcoming: Saved at Playwrights Horizons. Much gratitude to Liz Caplan.

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Will Swenson

(Psychiatrist, Dry Cleaner) Will Swenson was last seen in Central Park for the Public Theater's 40 Year anniversary production of Hair where he starred as Berger. Broadway: 110 In The Shade; Brooklyn: The Musical; Lestat. Off-Broadway and Tours: Adrift In Macao; Two Gentlemen of Verona; Miss Saigon; We Will Rock You; Fame. Will is also a filmmaker. His first feature film, Sons Of Provo (a fake documentary about a Mormon boy band he wrote and directed), was released in 2005 and can now be seen on DVD. Other Film: The Singles Ward; The R. M. TV: Six Degrees; All My Children; As the World Turns; Guiding Light.

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Jody Flader in THE SLUG BEARERS OF KAYROL ISLAND OR, THE FRIENDS OF DR. RUSHTOWER. Photo by Carol Rosegg.
The Slug Bearers 5
Peter Friedman in THE SLUG BEARERS OF KAYROL ISLAND OR, THE FRIENDS OF DR. RUSHTOWER. Photo by Carol Rosegg.
The Slug Bearers 6
Jody Flader in THE SLUG BEARERS OF KAYROL ISLAND OR, THE FRIENDS OF DR. RUSHTOWER. Photo by Carol Rosegg.
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Bobby Steggert in THE SLUG BEARERS OF KAYROL ISLAND OR, THE FRIENDS OF DR. RUSHTOWER. Photo by Carol Rosegg.
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Peter Friedman and Stephen Lee Anderson in THE SLUG BEARERS OF KAYROL ISLAND OR, THE FRIENDS OF DR. RUSHTOWER. Photo by Carol Rosegg.
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Peter Friedman and Bobby Steggert in THE SLUG BEARERS OF KAYROL ISLAND OR, THE FRIENDS OF DR. RUSHTOWER. Photo by Carol Rosegg.
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Peter Friedman in THE SLUG BEARERS OF KAYROL ISLAND OR, THE FRIENDS OF DR. RUSHTOWER. Photo by Carol Rosegg.
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Jody Flader in THE SLUG BEARERS OF KAYROL ISLAND OR, THE FRIENDS OF DR. RUSHTOWER. Photo by Carol Rosegg.
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Bobby Steggert in THE SLUG BEARERS OF KAYROL ISLAND OR, THE FRIENDS OF DR. RUSHTOWER. Photo by Carol Rosegg.
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Peter Friedman and Jody Flader in THE SLUG BEARERS OF KAYROL ISLAND OR, THE FRIENDS OF DR. RUSHTOWER. Photo by Carol Rosegg.
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Peter Friedman, Jody Flader, and Will Swenson in THE SLUG BEARERS OF KAYROL ISLAND OR, THE FRIENDS OF DR. RUSHTOWER. Photo by Carol Rosegg.
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Jody Flader and Matt Pearson in THE SLUG BEARERS OF KAYROL ISLAND OR, THE FRIENDS OF DR. RUSHTOWER. Photo by Carol Rosegg.
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Matt Pearson in THE SLUG BEARERS OF KAYROL ISLAND OR, THE FRIENDS OF DR. RUSHTOWER. Photo by Carol Rosegg.
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THE SLUG BEARERS OF KAYROL ISLAND... Review Quotes

"HYPNOTIZING! REAL ENCHANTMENT!

Slug Bearers is an answered prayer for anyone who dreams of crossing into a completely sustained alternative reality, which I assume means a lot of adventurous theatergoers."

Ben Brantley, NY Times

“A WILDLY INVENTIVE AND QUIRKY SHOW!

For anyone interested in musical theatre that stretches the form, Slug Bearers sings a m

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