The Conversion Of Alice B. Toklas
by Carol Polcovar
Featuring Rosina Fernhoff*
Directed by Louis Lopardi**
Production Stage Manager Hailli Ridsdale
Costume Design by Kate Fulop
Sunday, July 13, at 7 pm
Wednesday, July 16, at 6:30 pm
Sunday, July 20, at 2 pm
* Actors Equity Association
** Society of Stage Directors & Choreographers
The shadowy figure of Alice B. Toklas, played by two time Obie award winning actress Rosina Fernhoff, comes alive as she examines her life and her desire to become a Catholic at the age of ninety-three.
The world knows Alice B. Toklas only as the “wife” of the famous and colorful experimental writer Gertrude Stein. Stein dominated her life and even wrote Alice’s “autobiography.” It is assumed theirs was a relationship that imitated the heterosexual model. In this play Alice has a chance to tell her about herself, her relationships, and other subjects – including the Nazi occupation of France which, while both Jews, they survived through the cooperation and help of their collaborating friends. A tale of two lesbians from wealthy families living in a time when their sexuality, their gender decisions and their ethnic affiliation put them in danger – “The Conversion of Alice B. Toklas” tells a story of relationship, love over decades, fear, and self-hatred.
Company Biographies
ROSINA FERNHOFF (Alice) is the recipient of an Obie Award for her performances of Gertrude in Fashion, and Betty/Anne in Geranium Hat. For almost three decades she has been touring nationally and internationally with 4 solo plays written and directed by her late husband Av Inlender. Other highlights of her career include Mrs. K in The Piano Teacher, Vera in The Quickening, Fanny in Painting Churches, Grace in Grace and Glorie, Amanda in Glass Menagerie, Lola in Come Back Little Sheba, Molly in In the Summer House, Emily in Our Town, Ophelia in Hamlet, Isabelle in Rendezvous in Senlis, and Juliet – in Romeo and Juliet – in Hebrew in Israel. Film credits include featured roles in the independent films Bobbie Dogs, Jinx, and Love Hunter, and Man of The House (Cannes 2012). She has directed 2 One-person plays: Susana Lei’ataua’s Through Windows and Glen Berger’s Underneath the Lintel. She studied with Lee Strasberg, George Di Cenzo and Sabra Jones of Mirror Rep., and is a graduate of the Drama Department of Carnegie Melon University. AEA
LOUIS LOPARDI (Director; Sound Design) is currently Artistic Director of the 30 year-old “A Company Of Players,” and Executive Director of “All Out Arts” – producer of the Fresh Fruit Festival. Equally at home as a Music Director and a Stage Director, he has directed such staples as Equus, Wozzeck, Three-penny Opera, Die Fledermaus, Don Giovanni, considerable Shakespeare, Fassbinder and Brecht, and Dutch, German, and Russian theatre & opera, including Dutch renaissance opera in the Netherlands. As a published poet and playwright he recently premiered part 2 of his ongoing Purgatory Project, and his new full length play: The Frankenstein Journals. At the Chekhov Theatre he has directed Bad Evidence, Lysistrata, Cyrano de Bergerac, Fassbinder’s Petra Von Kant, and his own play Visiting Grishka. He has received awards for Lighting, Sound Design, Original Music, Playwrighting, and Direction, and has been awarded by the Musicians Union for “promoting live music for the dance.” SDC
CAROL POLCOVAR (Author) is a published poet; a playwright whose plays have been produced Off Broadway and in Italy; a director of more than thirty shows; a producer whose best known production – Ray Fox’s Take It Easy had 103 Off-Broadway performances; and an Interfaith Minister. Since the 1970s Ms. Polcovar has been active in the LGBT and the Women’s Civil Rights Movement. She is Founding Director and present Artistic Director of The Fresh Fruit Festival, dedicated to fighting prejudice and homophobia through the arts.
HAILLI RIDSDALE (Production Stage Manager) is glad to be able to work for a company with such an amazing mission. She has a BTA from the University of Michigan (Go Blue!). Having recently relocated from the mitten (with a brief HOT stint in Florida in between) she’s excited to be making her way in NYC. She’s currently the resident Stage Manager for Beautiful Soup Theater, and owes her only NYC credits, Lift and Liliom, to them. When she’s not in the city, she’s jumping around to different opera houses around the country, stage managing whatever they’re producing at the time.
KATE FULOP (Costume Design) is a third-year costume MFA candidate at the University of Maryland. Costume Designer for Moliere Impromptu and Sharing a Dance with You (Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center), L’Enfant et Les Sortileges (Maryland Opera Studio), The Old Maid and the Thief (Maryland Opera Studio). Associate Costume Designer: Miss Nelson Goes Missing (Adventure Theatre). Assistant Costume Designer: Marie Antoinette (Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company), The Waiting Room, The Matchmaker (Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center), Die Fledermaus (Maryland Opera Studio), La Boheme (Maryland Opera Studio), 4,000 Miles (Studio Theatre). www.Katefulop.4ormat.com.