Divine Rivalry

July 7 - Aug. 5, 2012
WEST COAST PREMIERE
Old Globe Theatre
Conrad Prebys Theatre Center

By Michael Kramer with D. S. Moynihan
Directed by Michael Wilson
Scenic Design by Jeff Cowie
Costume Design by David C. Woolard
Lighting Design by Robert Wierzel
Original Music and Sound Design by John Gromada
Projection Design by Peter Nigrini
Casting by Telsey + Company
Stage Manager, Marisa Levy

Divine Rivalry transports audiences to 16th-century Florence, where two of the world’s greatest artists, Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, face off in a painting competition orchestrated by political mastermind Niccolò Machiavelli (The Prince).  This fascinating real-life contest forms the backdrop for an even greater battle as the leading minds of the Renaissance clash over political gain, personal riches and the immortality of art.
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Production Photos
(from left) Sean Lyons as Niccolò Machiavelli, Euan Morton as Michelangelo Buonarroti and Miles Anderson as Leonardo da Vinci in the West Coast Premiere of Divine Rivalry, by Michael Kramer with D. S. Moynihan, directed by Michael Wilson, July 7 - Aug. 5, 2012 at The Old Globe. Photo by Henry DiRocco.
(from left) Miles Anderson as Leonardo da Vinci, Sean Lyons as Niccolò Machiavelli, David Selby as Piero Soderini and Euan Morton as Michelangelo Buonarroti in the West Coast Premiere of Divine Rivalry, by Michael Kramer with D. S. Moynihan, directed by Michael Wilson, July 7 - Aug. 5, 2012 at The Old Globe. Photo by Henry DiRocco.
(from left) Miles Anderson as Leonardo da Vinci and Sean Lyons as Niccolò Machiavelli in the West Coast Premiere of Divine Rivalry, by Michael Kramer with D. S. Moynihan, directed by Michael Wilson, July 7 - Aug. 5, 2012 at The Old Globe. Photo by Henry DiRocco.
(from left) David Selby as Piero Soderini and Miles Anderson as Leonardo da Vinci in the West Coast Premiere of Divine Rivalry, by Michael Kramer with D. S. Moynihan, directed by Michael Wilson, July 7 - Aug. 5, 2012 at The Old Globe. Photo by Henry DiRocco.
Euan Morton as Michelangelo Buonarroti in the West Coast Premiere of Divine Rivalry, by Michael Kramer with D. S. Moynihan, directed by Michael Wilson, July 7 - Aug. 5, 2012 at The Old Globe. Photo by Henry DiRocco.
Sean Lyons as Niccolò Machiavelli in the West Coast Premiere of Divine Rivalry, by Michael Kramer with D. S. Moynihan, directed by Michael Wilson, July 7 - Aug. 5, 2012 at The Old Globe. Photo by Henry DiRocco.
David Selby as Piero Soderini in the West Coast Premiere of Divine Rivalry, by Michael Kramer with D. S. Moynihan, directed by Michael Wilson, July 7 - Aug. 5, 2012 at The Old Globe. Photo by Henry DiRocco.
Miles Anderson as Leonardo da Vinci in the West Coast Premiere of Divine Rivalry, by Michael Kramer with D. S. Moynihan, directed by Michael Wilson, July 7 - Aug. 5, 2012 at The Old Globe. Photo by Henry DiRocco.
(from left) Euan Morton as Michelangelo Buonarroti and Sean Lyons as Niccolò Machiavelli in the West Coast Premiere of Divine Rivalry, by Michael Kramer with D. S. Moynihan, directed by Michael Wilson, July 7 - Aug. 5, 2012 at The Old Globe. Photo by Henry DiRocco.


Publicity Photos
(from left) Director Michael Wilson and playwrights D. S. Moynihan and Michael Kramer. Divine Rivalry, by Michael Kramer with D. S. Moynihan, directed by Michael Wilson, runs July 7 - Aug. 5, 2012 at The Old Globe. Photo by Henry DiRocco.
Playwrights D. S. Moynihan and Michael Kramer. Divine Rivalry, by Michael Kramer with D. S. Moynihan, directed by Michael Wilson, runs July 7 - Aug. 5, 2012 at The Old Globe. Photo by Henry DiRocco.
Michael Wilson will direct Divine Rivalry, by Michael Kramer with D. S. Moynihan, at The Old Globe, July 7 - Aug. 5. Photo by Joan Marcus.
   
   
 
Divine Rivalry. Illustration courtesy of The Old Globe.
  


Cast and Creative Team

(click on image to download a high-resolution photo)
Miles Anderson (Leonardo da Vinci) has been acting for stage and screen for many years.  His recent screen roles include Vishwaroopam with Indian director Kamal Hassan and an ongoing guest lead in “Doctors”(BBC TV).  He was seen in The Old Globe’s Shakespeare Festival last year as the highly acclaimed Prospero in The Tempest and Salieri in Amadeus.  His 2010 appearance as King George in The Madness of George III won him the San Diego Theatre Critics Circle Craig Noel Award.  His other credits include Macbeth, The Comedy of Errors, an Olivier Award-nominated performance as Sigismund in Life’s a Dream, Twelfth Night and Volpone (Royal Shakespeare Company) andWest End appearances in The Weir, Oliver! and The Rehearsal.  He is the recipient of three British Theatre Awards.  His film work includes Cry Freedom! and The Shepherd.  His television appearances include “Criminal Minds,” Dempsey in ITV’s “Ultimate Force,” Roger O’Neill in BBC’s award-winning “House of Cards” and Dan Fortune in the hit series “Soldier, Soldier.”  Originally from Zimbabwe, Anderson currently resides in Los Angeles with actor/acting coach Bella Merlin.  He has two sons: the actor Joe Anderson and Max, a chef and world champion streetboarder. 

Sean Lyons (Niccolò Machiavelli) is thrilled to be making his Globe debut.  His other regional credits include the world premiere of Ether Dome (Alley Theatre), A Christmas Carol, Eventide and A Prayer for Owen Meany (Denver Center Theatre Company) and Tartuffe and Hamlet in repertory (National Theatre Conservatory).  His international theater credits include Shakespeare’s R and J (Mainzer Kammerspiele and Neuss International Shakespeare Festival in Germany) and several shows in three summers at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.  His television credits include “Friday Night Lights.”  Currently in New York City, he writes and performs with the aMios Theatre Company and continues his low-flying trapeze training with Fight or Flight.  Lyons received his B.A. from Pepperdine University and his M.F.A. from the National Theatre Conservatory.

Euan Morton (Michelangelo Buonarroti), a native of Scotland, received an Olivier Award nomination for originating the role of Boy George in the musical Taboo.  He reprised the role on Broadway, earning Tony and Drama Desk Award nominations and the Theatre World Award for Outstanding Broadway Debut.  Morton also appeared in the Broadway revival of Cyrano de Bergerac and in Sondheim on Sondheim with Barbara Cook.  His Off Broadway credits include Howard Katz opposite Alfred Molina (Roundabout Theatre Company) and Measure for Pleasure (The Public Theater, Obie Award).  His other stage appearances include title roles in Tony Kushner’s adaptation of Brundibár (The New Victory Theater and Berkeley Repertory Theatre), The Who’s Tommy (Bay Street Theatre) and Caligula (New York Musical Theatre Festival, NYMF Award for Outstanding Individual Performance), in addition to Moisés Kaufman’s production of Into the Woods (Kansas City Repertory Theatre) and Chess (Signature Theatre Company).  Morton recently won the Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Lead Actor, Resident Musical for his portrayal of Leo Frank in Ford’s Theatre’s production of Parade and played Launce in The Shakespeare Theatre Company’s production of The Two Gentlemen of Verona.  On film he can be seen in the documentary ShowBusiness: The Road to Broadway.  He has recorded two solo CDs, NewClear and Caledonia. 
David Selby (Piero Soderini) is a veteran of stage, screen and television.  His Broadway productions include starring roles in The Heiress, The Eccentricities of a Nightingale and I Won’t Dance.  His Off Broadway roles include David Rabe’s award-winning Sticks and Bones (The Public Theater).  Selby has also appeared with numerous regional theaters.  He was directed by Michael Wilson in Long Day’s Journey into Night at Alley Theatre and Hartford Stage, where Wilson also directed him in the one-man play St. Nicholas.  For the Los Angeles Theatre Center, he starred in The Crucible and The Night of the Iguana, receiving Drama Logue Awards for both performances.  He was inducted into the Cleveland Play House Hall of Fame and received the Millennium Award from The Shakespeare Theatre Company, where he starred in Much Ado About Nothing.  He starred as Abraham Lincoln in both the critically acclaimed The Heavens Are Hung in Black, a play commissioned for the January 2009 reopening of Ford’s Theatre, and in the new play Necessary Sacrifices at Ford’s in January-February of this year.  His most recent feature film was The Social Network.  On television, Selby created the roles of Quentin Collins on “Dark Shadows,” Richard Channing on “Falcon Crest,” Michael Tyrone on “Flamingo Road” and Xavier Trout on “Soldier of Fortune, Inc.”  He starred in the HBO series “Tell Me You Love Me” and has guest starred on numerous series including “Cold Case” and “Mad Men.”  He recently starred in the TNT special Deck the Halls.  The author of seven published books, Selby recorded the voice of Commissioner Gordon for the upcoming animated video release of The Dark Knight and is a founding member of L.A. Theatre Works, which records plays before live audiences. 
Michael Kramer (Playwright) is an award-winning journalist.  As New York Magazine’s political columnist in the 1970s and 1980s, he covered local and national politics.  For a decade beginning in the late ‘80s, he was TIME Magazine’s political columnist, covering national and foreign affairs.  He was also chief political correspondent for U.S. News & World Report and managing editor of the New York Daily News.  He was the editor and publisher of More, the media magazine, and editor of Content, a short-lived magazine about the news business.  He is the coauthor of The Ethnic Factor, a book about minority voting patterns that became a standard text on the subject.  He also coauthored I Never Wanted to be Vice President of Anything, a political biography of Nelson Rockefeller that was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. He is a graduate of Amherst College and the Columbia Law School.
  D. S. Moynihan (Playwright) began her career in the press/marketing departments of New York’s Circle Repertory Company and Ensemble Studio Theatre.  She then became Literary Manager of the latter, where she worked closely with writers on the creation and development of new plays.  She received her M.A. and Ph.D. in Drama from New York University and taught theater at Sarah Lawrence College for five years.  She currently serves as Vice President—Creative Projects for The Shubert Organization..
  Michael Wilson (Director) returns to the Globe where he directed Horton Foote’s Dividing the Estate this past winter. He is currently represented on Broadway by the Tony-nominated revival of Gore Vidal’s The Best Man. He received Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards for his direction of Foote’s three-part, nine-hour The Orphans’ Home Cycle in 2010. On Broadway, he has directed Dividing the Estate (Tony nomination, Best Play), Matthew Barber’s Enchanted April (Tony nomination, Best Play) and John Van Druten’s Old Acquaintance (Roundabout Theatre Company). His Off Broadway credits include the premieres of Eve Ensler’s Necessary Targets, Foote’s The Carpetbagger’s Children (Lincoln Center Theater), Tina Howe’s Chasing Manet (Primary Stages) and Christopher Shinn’s Picked (Vineyard Theatre) and What Didn’t Happen (Playwrights Horizons), as well as the New York premieres of Jane Anderson’s Defying Gravity, Tennessee Williams’ The Red Devil Battery Sign and the Roundabout revival of The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore. His resident theatre work includes plays and musicals at Alley Theatre, American Repertory Theater, Goodman Theatre, Guthrie Theater and Long Wharf Theatre as well as Hartford Stage, where he was Artistic Director from 1998 to 2011, when Divine Rivalry had its world premiere there, and where he commissioned and developed Quiara Alegría Hudes’s 2012 Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Water by the Spoonful. A recipient of the 2001 Princess Grace Statue Award, he is a Morehead Scholar graduate of The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His next project is the American premiere of Christopher Shinn’s Now or Later for Huntington Theatre Company.
  Jeff Cowie (Scenic Designer) received the 2010 Drama Desk and American Theatre Wing’s Henry Hewes Award for his design of Horton Foote’s three-part, nine-hour epic, The Orphans’ Home Cycle, Off Broadway at Signature Theatre Company.  On Broadway, he has designed Foote’s Dividing the Estate for Lincoln Center Theater. Off Broadway, he designed Foote’s Dividing the Estate and The Day Emily Married (Primary Stages) and The Carpetbagger's Children (Lincoln Center Theater), Tennessee Williams’ The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore (Roundabout Theatre Company) and The Red Devil Battery Sign, Chris Shinn’s What Didn't Happen (Playwrights Horizons), Eve Ensler’s Necessary Targets, Laura Wade’s Colder Than Here and Christopher Gorman’s A Letter from Ethel Kennedy (MCC Theater), Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (Drama Desk nomination) and Jane Anderson’s Defying Gravity (Laura Pels Theatre).  He has designed at theaters across the country including Actors Theatre of Louisville, Alley Theatre, Berkley Repertory Theatre, Goodman Theatre, Guthrie Theater, Hartford Stage (where he designed the world premiere of Divine Rivalry), Long Wharf Theatre, Mark Taper Forum, New York Stage and Film and Philadelphia Theatre Company, among others.  He has received an NEA/Rockefeller Foundation Award, Edward Albee Foundation Fellowship and two Connecticut Critics Circle Awards.  A painter and visual artist, Cowie is a graduate of Rhode Island School of Design and the Glassell School of Art.  His next stage design will be for the American premiere of Christopher Shinn's Now or Later at Huntington Theatre Company.
  David C. Woolard (Costume Design) has Broadway credits that include Lysistrata Jones, West Side Story, Jane Fonda’s clothing for 33 Variations, Dividing the Estate, The Farnsworth Invention, Old Acquaintance, Ring of Fire, All Shook Up, 700 Sundays with Billy Crystal, The Smell of the Kill, The Rocky Horror Show (2001 Tony Award nomination), Voices in the Dark, The Who’s Tommy (1993 Tony and Olivier Award nominations), Bells Are Ringing, Marlene, Wait Until Dark, Horton Foote’s The Young Man From Atlanta, Sally Marr…and Her Escorts, Damn Yankees and A Few Good Men.  His recent credits include The Orphans’ Home Cycle (Signature Theatre Company), The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore (Roundabout Theatre Company) and the opera Death and the Powers in Monte Carlo.  His selected additional credits include Lucy Simon’s musical Zhivago (La Jolla Playhouse), Horton Foote’s The Carpetbagger’s Children, The Stendhal Syndrome, The Day Emily Married with Estelle Parsons, The Donkey Show at American Repertory Theater, Così Fan Tutte and Madame Mao (Santa Fe Opera) and work at regional theaters including The Old Globe, Goodman Theatre, Arena Stage, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Guthrie Theater, Seattle Repertory Theatre and Opera Theatre of Saint Louis.
  Robert Wierzel (Lighting Designer) has worked with artists from diverse disciplines and backgrounds in theater, dance, contemporary music, museums and opera on stages throughout the country and abroad.  His Broadway credits include Fela! (Tony Award nomination and productions at the National Theatre in London and international and American tours) and David Copperfield: Dreams and Nightmares.  His Off Broadway credits include The Public Theater, Signature Theatre Company, Roundabout Theatre Company, Classic Stage Company and Playwrights Horizons.  His extensive regional credits include The Old Globe, American Conservatory Theater, CENTERSTAGE, Arena Stage, Chicago Shakespeare Theater, The Shakespeare Theatre Company, Hartford Stage, Long Wharf Theatre, Westport Country Playhouse, Goodman Theatre, Guthrie Theater, Alliance Theatre, Mark Taper Forum and Berkley Repertory Theatre.  He has designed for opera companies including Paris Opera, Tokyo Opera, New York City Opera, Glimmerglass Opera, Seattle Opera, San Francisco Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Washington National Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago and Chicago Opera Theater as well as Philip Glass’ Les Enfants Terribles (American Theatre Wing Award).  His dance work includes 26 years with choreographer Bill T. Jones (Bessie Awards).  Wierzel’s future projects include the new musical Superfly (Broadway, 2013).  He teaches at New York University Tisch School of the Arts and Yale School of Drama and holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from Yale School of Drama.
  John Gromada (Original Music and Sound Design) has composed music or designed sound for more than 30 Broadway productions including this season’s Gore Vidal’s The Best Man (Drama Desk Award), Clybourne Park, Seminar, Man and Boy, The Road to Mecca and The Columnist, in addition to Next Fall, A Bronx Tale, Prelude to a Kiss, Proof, Sight Unseen, Well, Rabbit Hole, A Streetcar Named Desire, Twelve Angry Men and A Few Good Men.  His other New York credits include Measure for Measure last summer in Central Park, The Orphans’ Home Cycle (Drama Desk and Henry Hewes Awards), By the Way, Meet Vera Stark, Olive and the Bitter Herbs, The Screwtape Letters, Shipwrecked! (Lucille Lortel Award), Secrets of the Trade, The Singing Forest, Julius Caesar, Skriker (Drama Desk Award), Machinal (Obie Award) and many more.  His regional theater credits number more than 300, including the La Jolla Playhouse productions of A Dram of Drummhicit, Surf Report and Unusual Acts of Devotion and the Geffen Playhouse production of Next Fall.
  Peter Nigrini (Projection Design) has designed projections on Broadway for Gore Vidal’s The Best Man, Fela!, 9 to 5: The Musical and Say Goodnight, Gracie.  His other designs include The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity and Wings (Second Stage Theatre), Notes from Underground (Yale Repertory Theatre) the Grace Jones Hurricane Tour and Rent (New World Stages), Sweet Bird of Youth (Williamstown Theatre Festival), Der Ferne Klang (Bard SummerScape), Haroun and the Sea of Stories (New York City Opera), Blind Date (Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company), Fetch Clay, Make Man and Sleeping Beauty Wakes (McCarter Theatre Center), The Orphan of Zhao (Lincoln Center Festival) and Biro (The Public Theater).  For Nature Theater of Oklahoma he has designed No Dice (2008 Obie Award), Romeo and Juliet (Salzburger Festspiele) and Life and Times, Episodes 1-4 (Burgtheater, Vienna), among others.  Nigrini’s upcoming projects include Here Lies Love (The Public Theater), Far from Heaven (Williamstown Theatre Festival) and the Broadway production of Flashdance.
  Telsey + Company (Casting) has cast the Broadway productions and Tours of Annie, Chaplin, Bring It On, A Streetcar Named Desire, Evita, Gore Vidal’s The Best Man, Newsies, The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess, Godspell, Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, Sister Act, Memphis, Rock of Ages, Wicked, The Normal Heart, Million Dollar Quartet and The Addams Family.  Their Off Broadway credits include Dogfight (Second Stage Theatre), Rent, Atlantic Theater Company, MCC Theater and Signature Theatre Company.  For film they have cast The Odd Life of Timothy Green, Friends with Kids, Joyful Noise, Margin Call, Sex and the City 1 and 2, I Love You Phillip Morris, Rachel Getting Married, Dan in Real Life and Across the Universe.  Their television credits include “Smash” and “The Big C.”
  Marisa Levy (Stage Manager) has Broadway credits including Dividing the Estate and Off Broadway credits including February House (The Public Theater), Me, Myself & I (Playwrights Horizons), On the Levee (Lincoln Center Theater), The Orphans’ Home Cycle (Signature Theatre Company), Dividing the Estate and Adrift in Macao (Primary Stages) and Single Black Female (New Professional Theatre).  Her other credits include The Furniture Fire (The Drama League), The Crucible, Gem of the Ocean, Divine Rivalry, The Orphans’ Home Cycle, Dividing the Estate and To Kill a Mockingbird (Hartford Stage), The Acting Company, Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival and Barrington Stage Company.
  Erin Gioia Albrecht (Assistant Stage Manager) previously worked on the Globe productions of Dividing the Estate, August: Osage County, Jane Austen’s Emma – A Musical Romantic Comedy, Brighton Beach Memoirs, Broadway Bound, The Madness of George III, The Taming of the Shrew, King Lear, Cyrano de Bergerac, Twelfth Night, Coriolanus, Working and Bell, Book and Candle.  Her regional credits include Hands on a Hardbody, Milk Like Sugar, Creditors, The Third Story and No Child… (La Jolla Playhouse).  Her New York credits include The Third Story (MCC Theater), Marvin’s Room (T. Schreiber Studio), The Great American Desert (78th Street Theatre Lab) and The Chekhov Dreams (Manhattan Theatre Source).  Albrecht obtained her M.F.A. in Stage Management from UC San Diego.