Winner: 2002 Hopwood Award for Drama
Winner: 2002 Dennis McIntyre Award for Playwriting

From the director of Angels in America...

  BY
NATHANIEL WRIGHT

DIRECTED BY
BRANDON HAYES

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STARRING

BRIAN J. CHRISTIAN      TIFFANY DANPOLLO

SHARON EMEIGH      LIESEL LETZMANN      RYAN SPLAN

DAVID SPENCER      DAVID WARD

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Friday, May 7, 2004   8:00pm
Saturday, May 8, 2004   8:00pm
Sunday, May 9, 2004   2:00pm

Friday, May 14, 2004   8:00pm
Saturday, May 15, 2004   8:00pm

Hall B, Social Science Building
on the campus of the University of Michigan-Dearborn
4901 Evergreen Road, Dearborn


ADMISSION: $4 for adults; $3 for students & seniors
TICKETS AVAILABLE NOW

FAITH is a dark comedy.

Visit the Evangelical Armstrong family on a Middle-American Christmas Eve: Faith Armstrong, devoted wife and mother and homemaker; Dr. John Armstrong, loving husband with a dirty secret; Jedediah Armstrong, their gay son.  Then meet their guests:  Faith's Catholic mother, Jed's African-American boyfriend, his mother, and the dead mailman.

FAITH premiered March 7, 2002 in a Basement Arts production directed by Brandon Hayes at the Arena Theatre in Ann Arbor.  The Players' Club production will be a completely new staging featuring new material and an expanded script.

THE CAST

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THE PRODUCTION CREW

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Much of the production process of the Players' Club revival of FAITH will be filmed for a documentary film by award-winning amateur filmmaker, Adam Geffen, for Profoundly irrelevant Productions.  The documentary will likely premiere autumn 2004. 

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PLAYWRIGHT’S NOTE:

Faith is beautiful because it connects us to the world outside of our inner selves. A skeptic lives without a friend in nature or fellowship, trusting neither and afraid of both. From the dawn of consciousness, humans have striven to place ourselves on some sort of continuum with the universe in which we are forced to eat, sleep, reproduce and enjoy ourselves. We learn to trust first in our parents, then in our heritages, our institutions, our governments, and our gods. It is through faith that we connect our personal stories to those grander, epic struggles of tribe, nation and universe. It is faith that gives us art, culture, communion and the most elusive of all existential truths – love.

However, the blade has two edges. The faith that gives our lives meaning is eternally at loggerheads with the reasoning by which we arrive at faith – understanding. It is this dynamic tension – my will to believe in the historical singularity of my existence versus overwhelming pressure to give in to the logical chaos of life’s pointlessness – that fuels the ambition to learn, explore, experience and savor. When my belief outruns my reality, I substitute rationalization for rationale. Expectations lead to disappointment and adversity breeds fear, which is the ruination of all things pleasant and worthwhile.

Someone said life is a comedy to those who think, and a tragedy to those who feel. I tend to see it as an inseparable blend of both – like the mixture of faith and reason that flows through our brains, telling us all how to live, whom to love and when to die. My play is about faith and its evil twin, self-deception. My play is also about Faith, a woman who lives in my head and does not exist anywhere else in reality. Those who think life is a comedy might regard her as foolish. Those inclined to the tragic view will, I trust, be more sympathetic. To venture my own very humble (and in a postmodern sense utterly irrelevant) opinion, I stand in complete admiration of her for who she is, and I lament what she could have been but never was. Be your own judge.

Nathaniel Wright
December 24, 2001


DIRECTOR’S NOTE:

I was lucky enough to direct the original staging of Faith, and returning to this wonderful script two years later was both a challenge and a thrill.  The challenge was getting to know these characters again in a different way.  This new set of actors helped me meet the characters again for the first time.  In some performances, there are echoes of the Armstrongs and the Jacksons that lived in entirely different people two years ago.  In others, the characters have been completely transformed.

The thrill of returning to Faith was also sparked by transformation.  The cast, through their insightful questions and the thoughtful realizations of their characters have transformed the play.  Nathaniel was even inspired to add new dialogue for this staging.  Faith, I’ve discovered, is a work of art that does not immediately give up all her secrets or wisdoms.  Therein lies her richness.

Brandon Hayes
May 7, 2004

Canine Companions for Independence, a national nonprofit that enhances the lives of people with disabilities by providing highly-trained  assistance dogs and ongoing support to ensure quality partnerships.

Triangle Foundation, Michigan's leading organization serving the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and allied communities.