Archive

Identifier: REALTHING2014

Inclusive Dates: 2014

Extent:

Production Files documenting the 2014 production of Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing at the American Airlines Theatre.  Directed by Sam Gold, with set design by David Zinn, costume design by Kay Voyce, lighting design by Mark Barton, sound design by Bray Poor and hair design by Tom Watson.  

The production starred Ewan McGregor as Henry, Maggie Gyllenhaal as Annie, Cynthia Nixon as Charlotte and Josh Hamilton as Max; with Ronan Raftery as Billy, Madeline Weinstein as Debbie and Alex Breaux as Brodie. Rebecca Brooksher, Nick Dillenburg, Rae Gray and Matthew Greer acted as understudies.

 

Stoppard explores more personal depths with The Real Thing, his most commercially successful play. He started with the idea of a play where the first scene is written by a person in the second scene, and he wanted to work with repetition. These constructs naturally led to his characters being a playwright and an actress. There are many correlations between Stoppard and Henry, the playwright character. They were both at similar stages in their careers and started as journalists, both are publicly wary of writing about love, both were happily married to a woman they had an extramarital affair with, both enjoy cricket, and both much prefer pop music to opera. The Real Thing ran for more than two years in the West End and won five Tony Awards® on Broadway in its original production. [Roundabout Theatre Company Study Guide]

Production Files consist of one Hollinger box with 2 folders, opening night gifts, the stage management archive on CD, 2 versions of the Playbill, and marketing flyers.

Digital holdings on the Archive 1 server include the following folders:
Audience Services (Pdf of On Sale memo only)
Education (Lecture Series and Upstage study guide)
Media
Opening Night Photographs (200 jpeg files)
Performance Reports (also includes House Reports)
Playbill
Press (Press agency-supplied pdfs)
Press Photographs (17 jpegs from press events)
Production Photographs (309 jpeg files)
Props Photographs (Archive-produced photographs of props in the collection, plus images provided by Bobby Dowling of the rehearsal room and backstage preset)
Script (includes digital copies of stage management blocking and calling scripts)
Show Art
Stage Management (includes calendars, scripts, reports, contact sheets, etc)
The Real Thing Hiptix
The Real Thing Wine Series

Access Restrictions: Open and available to approved researchers by appointment only. See folder details for specific restrictions.

Preferred Citation: The Real Thing 2014, Roundabout Theatre Company Archive