By alexandra petri | DIRECTED by lee mikeska gardner
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From the depths of Hell (AKA the Richard Nixon Library), the spirits of bitter rivals Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley Jr. are summoned to do… something. Debate? Fight? Save the soul of the country? They’re not sure—they just know they still hate each other.
Ayn Rand disparages Latin. Norman Mailer drops by; so does Vidal’s mom. It’s a reunion made in Hell.
Vidal summons Alfred Kinsey to defend his sexuality; Buckley summons his wife Pat to defend his love of peanut butter. Vidal’s long-time partner Howard makes a correction. Nobody has any idea who’s winning.
It’s a tie. Vidal worries about his one-liners; Howard worries about their dog. A visit from Truman Capote gives Buckley the edge. Vidal attempts a comeback, and invites a special guest to help…
James Baldwin eviscerates Buckley. Again. Sailing on Buckley’s yacht to Chicago towards the convention, the guys encounter sea creatures, admiring fans of the National Review, and worst of all, Truman Capote with more gossip. Again.
It’s the Chicago debate, finally. Digressions include Buckley’s harpsichord, American imperialism, and Bobby Kennedy. Vidal finally reckons with his and Howard’s relationship. Things are heating up.
Things heat way up. The quips come hard and fast and brutal, and when the debate is done, the guys find something like… respect? Connection? Then all Hell breaks loose.
Finale. As Hell begins to overlap with History, Buckley tries desperately to escape his fate.
About
Washington Post humorist Alexandra Petri’s pitched battle of bloviating wits revisits the televised Republican and Democratic Conventions of 1968 and the blistering nightly free-for-all between conservative pundit William F. Buckley and liberal author Gore Vidal. What ensues is a battle for history itself, in a no-holds-barred sesquipedalian brawl about another time when American politics was spinning toward entropy. A protean cast of Demons bring the likes of Norman Mailer, Ayn Rand, James Baldwin, and Truman Capote back to shine a bright light on these preening wordsmiths, wounded warriors on the battlefield of extreme partisanship.
Lead Underwriter: The Vradenburg Foundation
Part of Locally Grown Mosaic
INSIGHTS INTO THE PLAY
Mosaic sits down with Inherit the Windbag playwright, Alexandra Petri to discuss inspiration, creative process and how the events of that summer in 1969 changed punditry forever.
creative team
Alexandra Petri is a playwright, columnist, and author. Her satire appears regularly in the Washington Post, and has also appeared in McSweeneys and the New Yorker's Daily Shouts and Murmurs, as well as on the radio, and on TV. Her plays include the radio drama Equinox (Flying V Productions), ""to tell my story: a hamlet fanfic"" (The Welders, 2017) — Helen-Hayes nominated; Tragedy Averted (Capital Fringe), hook-ups (Panndora's Box Productions). She was a member of the second generation of the Welders playwrights collective, and is currently a member of the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Advanced Workshop. She apologizes profusely to anyone and everyone on whom she has inflicted Gore Vidal fun facts over the last two years. Up next: NOTHING IS WRONG AND HERE IS WHY, a collection of essays.
Artistic Director of The Nora Theatre Company in Cambridge, MA where she directed Cloud 9 (May/June 2019,) Les Liaisons Dangereuse, the world premiere of The Midvale High School Fiftieth Reunion (with Gordon Clapp), Journey to the West, Her Aching Heart, Grounded, Saving Kitty (with Jennifer Coolidge) and Arcadia. Lee spent her formative years in the Washington, D.C. area as an Artistic Associate for ten years at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, directing a show a season, earning Helen Hayes nominations for direction for After Ashley, Life During Wartime, and Goodnight, Desdemona, Good Morning Juliet. As an Associate Artist with 1st Stage, Lee directed Blithe Spirit, The How and The Why, Humble Boy and Fuddy Meers. Lee served as the Managing Director for Washington Shakespeare Company for five years directing shows including the world premieres of Caesar and Dada and Learning Curves, both by Allyson Currin, as well as A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Other favorite directing projects include Oklahoma! for Wheatland Theatre Company, Across the Wide and Lonesome Prairie at The Kennedy Center; Angels in America (Millennium Approaches and Peristroika) at Signature Theatre; T.S. Eliot’s The Cocktail Party for the Washington Stage Guild (Theatre Lobby Award); Golden Boy and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? with the Keegan Theatre, The Butterfingers Angel…, Thom Pain (Based on Nothing), Stones In His Pockets and Three Tall Women at Rep Stage, where Lee also served as Managing Director for two years. Lee spent seven years as Associate Artistic Director with the Shenandoah Playwrights’ Retreat working on plays in development. Also an actress, Lee has performed at the Nora as Olympe de Gouges in Lauren Gunderson's The Revolutionists, Brodie in Precious Little, Tess in Marjorie Prime, Emilie in Emilie: La Marquise du Châtelet Defends Her Life Tonight (Elliot Norton award for Outstanding Actress, Small Theatre) and Carla in the IRNE nominated Chosen Child at Boston Playwrights’ Theatre. In the greater D.C. area, Lee performed at most theatres including Arena Stage, Signature Theatre, Woolly Mammoth, Roundhouse, Washington Shakespeare Company, Mill Mountain, Baltimore Theatre Festival, Rep Stage, Olney Theatre, Potomac Theatre Project, and the much missed Consenting Adults Theatre, Freedom Stage, The American Century Theatre and Source Theatre. Favorite roles include Terry in Sideman (Helen Hayes Nomination for Outstanding Actress) and Florence Foster Jenkins in Souvenir at 1st Stage, Elizabeth in The Crucible and Mary in A House in the Country with Charter Theatre (Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Actress), and Claire in The Two-Character Play at Spooky Action. Lee has earned an additional three Helen Hayes nominations for performance.As an educator, Lee has taught or served as a Guest Artist at Colleges and Universities across the nation including Emerson, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, UVA, Charlottesville, University of Maryland, College Park, and Middlebury College. Lee has a B.F.A. in the Performing Arts from George Mason University and an M.F.A. in Acting from The Catholic University of America.
Paul Morella: After the War (Mosaic Theater); Orpheus Descending, All My Sons (Arena Stage); Richard III, Macbeth (Folger); Angels in America, God of Carnage (Signature); Cherokee, After Ashley, Grace, Big Death & Little Death, Quills, Christmas on Mars, Watbanaland (Woolly Mammoth); King John, Julius Caesar (Shakespeare Theatre); If I Forget, Two Sisters and a Piano, Conversations With My Father, Imagine Drowning, North Shore Fish, Romeo and Juliet (Studio Theatre); Broken Glass, The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife, The Accident, Either Or (Theater J); A Christmas Carol, The Diary of Anne Frank, The Crucible, Mary Stuart, The Tempest, Rancho Mirage, Dinner with Friends, A Passion for Justice, Over the Tavern, Rabbit Hole, Brooklyn Boy, Sight Unseen, The Laramie Project, ‘Art’, Becket, Broken Glass, M. Butterfly, The Rivals, Coffee With Richelieu, Private Lives, The Time of Your Life, Night Must Fall (Olney Theatre); Midwives, Life X 3, Snakebit, The Threepenny Opera (Round House); Sight Unseen, Shooting Star, A Passion for Justice (Everyman); Underneath the Lintel, Ghost Writer, Sidney Bechet, Speed-the-Plow, Burn This (Metrostage).
John Lescault (William F. Buckley). Mosaic Theatre: Unexplored Interiors. International: Defiant Requiem (Prague), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Macau Arts Festival). New York: Handbagged (59E59/RHT), Le Deserteur (Opera Lafayette at Lincoln Center). Regional: Native Gardens, A Prayer for Owen Meany (Cincinnati Playhouse). DC/VA/MD over 100 professional productions including, (but not limited to): The Second City’s Twist Your Dickens, Love, Factually; and Opera Lafayette’s Sancho Panca; as Beethoven and Dvorak with the NSO (Kennedy Center), Arena Stage, Shakespeare Theatre Company, Folger Theatre, Round House Theatre, Signature Theatre, Ford’s Theatre, Studio Theatre, Olney Theatre, and Theatre J. Film/TV: Lincoln, The Day Lincoln Was Shot, Unsolved Mysteries (as John Wilkes Booth), Beautiful Something, The Fox Hunter, and Dakota. John has been a narrator of audiobooks for the Library of Congress’s Talking Books program and other commercial outfits for nearly 30 years. He is a graduate of The Catholic University of America.
Tamieka Chavis (Demon) is thrilled to return to Mosaic Theater after debuting in CHARM as Victoria. REGIONAL: Chesapeake Shakespeare Company (resident acting company): Macbeth (BWW Best Actress in Play 2019), Romeo + Juliet, Henry IV Parts 1 & 2, The Tempest, A Christmas Carol | Constellation Theatre Company: Caucasian Chalk Circle | Ally Theatre Company (company member): Clover, Rabbit Summer, Welcome to Sis' | NextStop Theatre: Eurydice, Middletown, Love Loss and What I Wore | Smithsonian Discovery Theater: Lions of Industry/Mothers of Invention, Mother Earth and Me | Imagination Stage: Sinbad The Untold Story (u/s) | The Kennedy Center TYA: She A Gem (u/s). TV: Anacostia (Daytime Emmy), The Wire, Psychic Detectives. FILM: Torn, The Henchman's War, Ex-Mas Eve. EDUCATION: Graduate of British American Drama Academy - Midsummer In Oxford (Oxford, UK) and National Conservatory of Dramatic Arts (Washington DC). PERSONAL: she/her/hers | NCDA faculty member, teaching artist, voiceover artist, producer. Up next: Lyle the Crocodile at Adventure Theatre MTC. @tamiekachavis | tamiekachavis.com
Stephen Kime (Demon) Mosaic Debut. REGIONAL: Annapolis Shakespeare Company: Hamlet (Hamlet), A Christmas Carol; Baltimore Theatre Project: Crusade; North Carolina Symphony: Pirates of Penzance; JAG productions; If This Be Sin;NEW YORK: Theater for the New City: Brittanicus; First Flight: Forgotten Soldiers; Fools and Kings: Pericles; Dixon Place: Blue Balls; FILM: This is for Horses; Tethered; TRAINING: University of North Carolina School of the Arts (BFA Drama) stephenkime.com
Production Manager
Lighting, Projections, & VFX
Dylan Uremovich is a lighting and multimedia designer based in Washington DC. Although this is his first time as lighting designer for Mosaic, his projections works has been seen previously in at Mosaic in Eureka Day, Theory, Native Son, and Shame 2.0. In addition to Mosaic Theater, he has had the pleasure of working as a designer with several arts organizations in the region including The Kennedy Center, Adventure Theatre, Imagination Stage, Dance Place, Pointless Theatre Co., Infinity Theatre Company, Choral Arts Society of Washington, and Xing Dance Theater. His twin artistic obsessions are telling amazing stories and creating interactive environments that respond to the movements and actions of both performers and audience. Check out more of his work at UremovichDesign.com.
Sound Design & Editor
David Bryan Jackson recently composed the music and designed sound for Cloud 9 and Les Liaisons Dangereuses at the Nora Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts; previous local productions include Bloomsday, Magic, The Apple Cart, The Cocktail Party, and Les Parents Terribles at Washington Stage Guild, Krapp's Last Tape (Keegan Theatre), Henry V (Washington Shakespeare Company), It’s Only A Play (Metrostage), The Supper (Scena Theatre), and Deep Cut (Consenting Adults Theatre Company). He has also worked as an actor at many D.C. area theatres and received a Theatre Lobby award for his performances in Intimate Exchanges at Source Theatre and Via Dolorosa at Theater J (the latter of which he reprised in Los Angeles and Boston, as well as more recently as part of Mosaic’s Voices From a Changing Middle East tour). His Song for the Earth can be heard on Zoe Ravenwood’s album The Problem Might be Me.
Costume Designer
Brandee Mathies has been Studios Theatre's Costume Shop Manager since 1994. He has designed "Mother Struck, Constellations, This Is Our Youth, The Year of Magical Thinking, Stoop Stories, Rimers of Eldritch, A Number, The Syringa Tree, and Comic Briefs" for Studio, as well as "Terminus, Moth, Contractions, A Beautiful View, Crestfall, and Polaroid Stories" for Studio 2ndStage. DC area credits include Vicuna, Satchmo at the Waldorf, Hooded for Dummies, Blood Knot & A Human Being die that night at Mosaic Theater Company "Anything Goes and Spunk" at Howard University; "The Wiz" at Duke Ellington School of the Arts & "Black Nativity" at The Kennedy Center, & "Black Nativity" Theater Alliance.
Original Set Designer
Emily is a freelance designer based in Washington DC and a Helen Hayes Award Nominee for Outstanding Scenic Design for Princess & the Pauper - A Bollywood Tale at Imagination Stage. Recent credits include Little Shop of Horrors and The Wiz at ArtsCentric, The War Boys at Ally Theatre Company, Matilda at Nextstop Theatre Company, The Diary of Anne Frank and Dracula at the Chesapeake Shakespeare Company, Elephant and Piggie: We Are In A Play at First Stage, and Always...Patsy Cline at Milwaukee Repertory Theater. Recent assistant credits include How To Catch A Star and She A Gem at The Kennedy Center. For more information on Lotz's work please visit her website at www.emilylotzdesign.com.
Original Properties Design
Willow Watson has designed the properties for a number of Mosaic Theater productions, including Oh God, The Vanguard Trilogy, Paper Dolls, Vicuna, The Devil's Music: The Life and Times of Bessie Smith,The Return, Blood Knot, A Human Being Died That Night and When January Feels Like Summer. However, she has had a particular affinity and deep connection for the Voices from a Changing Middle East Festivals at both Mosaic and Theatre J. During Mosaic's first two seasons, she collaborated with Israeli artists on both the props and costumes for Ulysses on Bottles and After the War; and for The Admission, Return to Haifa, Pangs of the Messiah, Mikveh, and Accident at Theatre J. Other productions that she found to be particularly meaningful were A Class Act and The Life of Galileo for Studio; Arcadia and Hamlet for The Folger; Camille and Glengarry Glen Ross for RoundHouse; Two Bit Taj Mahal for Theater of the First Amendment; Jitney for Ford's; Assassins for Signature. H er t heatrical w ork h as a lso i ncluded costume crafts, scenic painting and sculpture. She studied fine arts at Corcoran Gallery of Art, Cornell University and City College of New York.
Director of Photography
Chris Wren is a director, cinematographer and theatre artist originally from Spring Green, Wisconsin. He is a founding member of Capital City Theatre and Origin! Theatre Company and holds a Bachelor of Arts in Theater from Edgewood College and an Associate of Arts in Graphic Design and Video Production from Madison College. Chris has over a decade of experience in video production and marketing with a focus on theatre and non-profit performing arts organizations. He is also a proud member of SAG-AFTRA with acting credits that include MTV, CBS, FOX and Hyundai USA in addition to regional theater work. www.theatrevideo.com
Video Editor
Karim is a theatre artist, educator and content creator originally from Cairo, Egypt. Karim holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Acting from Towson University and an Associate of Arts in Theatre Performance from Montgomery College. Karim also has over 8 years of experience in video production and has produced digital content for theatres, colleges, and non-profit organizations. Through his work, Karim aims to bring awareness to social and global challenges facing our current and future generations and cross language and cultural barriers to empower people regardless of who they are, where they come from, or what they believe in, to be part of the solution!
Dramaturg
*Appearing through an agreement between Mosaic Theater Company of DC and Actors' Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States.
