"Maugham's joke is on love and what it can do to you, and on the inevitability of foolishness."- The New York Times
Many years ago, Lord Champion-Cheney's wife ran off to Italy with her lover. Bringing matters full circle, his son is involved in a love triangle of his own, as his bored wife is smitten with a handsome house guest. Is history destined to repeat itself? This scintillating comedy of manners, considered Maugham's wittiest play, is a seamless blend of romance and repartee.
Board of Trustees Production Sponsor: Helen Lee Henderson
Board of Trustees Production Partners: Judy M. Witt & Scott Phares
Corporate Production Partner: 
Gretchen Hall
Elizabeth
Off-Broadway: Saturn Returns (Lincoln Center Theater). Regional: Cymbeline (Shakespeare Theatre Company); Let There Be Love, The Importance of Being Earnest (CENTERSTAGE); Edward Albee Festival (Arena Stage); Brand New Festival: The Sprott Cycle (Hartford Stage); A Midsummer Night's Dream, Comedy of Errors (Shakespeare on the Sound); The Playboy of the Western World (Hangar Theatre). International: Pericles (The Continuum Company, Florence, Italy). Film: Almost in Love. Television: “Louie,” “Gossip Girl,” “Law & Order,” “Lipstick Jungle.” MFA Graduate Acting Program, New York University; BA in Acting, Fordham University.
John Horton
Lord Porteous
Broadway:
A Touch of the Poet;
Noises Off;
Kiss Me, Kate; Moby Dick; Photo Finish; Otherwise Engaged; Spokesong; Bedroom Farce; Amadeus; The Homecoming; Lettice and Lovage (national tour);
London Assurance; Golden Child. Off-Broadway:
The Language Archive; Allegro & Damn Yankees (Encores!);
Engaged; Rear Column; Close of Play; Love’s Labour’s Lost. Regional:
Quartermaine’s Terms (Williamstown);
Trying (Walnut Street, Philadelphia);
Heartbreak House (BTF);
Racing Demon (Guthrie). Film:
Shawshank Redemption; Thinner; Donnie Brasco. Television: “Law & Order: CI”; “New York Undercover”; “George Washington”; “One Life to Live”. As narrator, in concert & recording with Igor Stravinsky, Glenn Gould, and The Juilliard String Quartet.
Marsha Mason
Lady Catherine Champion-Cheney
Theater: Norman Mailer’s The Deer Park, Israel Horovitz’s The Indian Wants the Bronx, Neil Simon’s The Good Doctor, King Richard III (Lincoln Center); Night of the Iguana (Roundabout Theatre Company); Michael Christofer’s Amazing Grace, The Prisoner of Second Avenue (The Haymarket Theatre in London); Charles L. Mee’s Wintertime (Second Stage); Steel Magnolias, A Feminine Ending (Playwrights Horizons), and Impressionism. Film: Paul Mazursky’s Blume in Love, Cinderella Liberty (Academy Award nomination and Golden Globe Award), The Goodbye Girl (Academy Award nomination, Golden Globe Award), Chapter Two (Academy Award nomination), Only When I Laugh (Academy Award nomination), Audrey Rose, The Cheap Detective, Max Dugan Returns, Drop Dead Fred, Heartbreak Ridge (directed by Clint Eastwood), Nick Of Time, 2 Days in the Valley, and Miramax's Bride and Prejudice: The Hollywood Musical, (directed by Gurinder Chadha - Bend it Like Beckham). Television: Hallmark’s “The Long Shot”,” NBC's “Life with Judy Garland,” “Frasier” (Emmy Nomination), “Lipstick Jungle”, and “The Middle”. Ms. Mason’s recording of Prisoner of Second Avenue earned her and Richard Dreyfuss a Grammy nomination for Best Comedy Recording.
James Joseph O’Neil
Butler
Broadway: Present Laughter (directed by Nicholas Martin, Roundabout Theatre Company). Off-Broadway: Look Back in Anger (Classic Stage Company); The Hired Man (47th Street Theatre). Regional: Ajax (American Repertory Theater); Six Degrees of Separation (Williamstown Theatre Festival); The House of Blue Leaves, iWitness (Mark Taper Forum); Doubt (South Coast Repertory); Present Laughter, A Month in the Country, Heartbreak House (Huntington Theatre Company); King Lear, She Stoops to Conquer (Baltimore’s CENTERSTAGE); Antony and Cleopatra, As You Like It, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, The Taming of the Shrew, Henry IV Parts 1&2, Dancing at Lughnasa, Mister Roberts (Old Globe Theatre); Hamlet, Much Ado About Nothing (Alabama Shakespeare Festival); Bus Stop, West Side Story (American Stage Festival); Anna Christie (Long Wharf Theatre). Film/TV: Fair Game, Zodiac, Acts of Worship, “Law & Order: CI,” “24,” “Veronica Mars,” “Numb3rs,” “Charmed,” “Law & Order: SVU,” “Sex & the City,” “Third Watch,” “Law & Order.” MFA/USD, BFA/Adelphi University.
Bryce Pinkham
Edward Luton
Broadway: Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson; Knickerbocker Holiday with Kelli O'Hara, Victor Garber and the American Symphony Orchestra (Lincoln Center). Off-Broadway: The Orphans’ Home Cycle (New York Drama Critics' Circle Best Play 2009); Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson (Public Lab). Regional: Our Town (director Nicholas Martin), A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Beyond Therapy (Williamstown Theatre Festival); A View from the Bridge (Guthrie Theater); A Woman of No Importance, All's Well That Ends Well (Yale Repertory Theatre). Bryce proudly collaborates with Theater of War, bringing theater to military audiences; his most recent trip was to Guantanamo Bay. BA Boston College, MFA Yale School of Drama (Oliver Thorndike Acting Award). Bryce teaches clown and physical comedy at NYU and The Studio New York.
Christina Rouner
Mrs. Shenstone
Westport Country Playhouse: Dancing at Lughnasa. Broadway: Coram Boy (Lady Ashbrook). Off-Broadway: The Duchess of Malfi, Tom Ryan Thinks He’s James Mason…, Halfway Home, Three Tall Women (and National Tour). On Tour: The Laramie Project, The Laramie Project: Epilogue. Regional: Tartuffe (McCarter Theatre); The Black Dahlia, Tartuffe, Romeo and Juliet (Yale Repertory Theatre); Pera Palas, A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Long Wharf Theatre); Vita and Virginia (The Globe Theaters); Spinning Into Butter (Alliance Theatre); Hamlet, Hedda Gabler (Guthrie Theater); Continental Divide (La Jolla Playhouse); Death Takes a Holiday, Ad Wars, Inherit the Wind, Marat/Sade (Williamstown Theatre Festival); Cymbeline (PlayMakers Repertory); Permanent Collection (Baltimore CENTERSTAGE); Three Tall Women (Kennedy Center, Mark Taper Forum); Amy’s View, Communicating Doors (San Jose Repertory); As You Like It (Shakespeare on the Sound); The Importance of Being Earnest (Portland Stage Company), and many more. Film: MacGruber, Taking Chance, Fur, The Skeptic, Crazy Like a Fox, Winter Solstice, Herman U.S.A. Television: “Sex and the City,” “New York Undercover,” “All My Children,” “One Life to Live,” and a recurring role on “Law & Order.” Christina received her bachelor’s degree from Yale University and is a graduate of The Juilliard School.
Marc Vietor
Arnold Champion-Cheney, MP
Most recently: What the Public Wants (Mint Theater). New York includes: Present Laughter, The Molière Comedies (Roundabout Theatre Company); The Jew of Malta, The Merchant of Venice, King John (Theater for a New Audience); Edward The Second, The Revenger’s Tragedy (Red Bull Theater); Grey Gardens (Playwrights Horizons); Two Gentlemen of Verona (New York Shakespeare Festival); The Libertine (Hartshorn Theatre). Regional includes: She Loves Me (Huntington Theatre Company, Williamstown Theatre Festival); Company (Kennedy Center); Lady in the Dark (Prince Music Theater); The Lively Lad (Actors Theatre of Louisville); Rough Crossing (Old Globe Theatre); Mr. Marmalade (South Coast Repertory).
Paxton Whitehead
Clive Champion-Cheney
Westport Country Playhouse: How the Other Half Loves, Time of My Life, Relatively Speaking, A Bench in the Sun, The Crucifer of Blood. Broadway: The Importance of Being Earnest, Absurd Person Singular, My Fair Lady (Helen Hayes Award), Lettice and Lovage, A Little Hotel on the Side, Artist Descending a Staircase, Run for Your Wife, Noises Off (Drama Desk Award), Camelot (Tony Award nomination), The Crucifer of Blood, Habeas Corpus, Candida, Beyond the Fringe, The Affair. Off-Broadway: Bill Irwin’s Harlequin Studies, Suite in Two Keys, London Suite, One Way Pendulum, Gallows Humor. Also recently: All's Well That Ends Well (Helen Hayes Award nomination, D.C.), What the Butler Saw (Norton Award, Boston), A.E.H. in The Invention of Love (Jefferson Award nomination, Chicago). 1967-1977 Artistic Director of Canada’s Shaw Festival. Associate Artist San Diego’s Old Globe Theatre. Film: Kate and Leopold, Back to School, etc. Television: “Desperate Housewives,” “Mad About You,” “Frasier,” “The West Wing,” “Friends,” “Ellen,” “Third Rock from the Sun,” “Dinosaurs,” “Early Edition,” etc.
W. Somerset Maugham (1874 –1965)
Playwright
W. Somerset Maugham was one of the most prolific and varied writers of the twentieth century. Among his many works are Of Human Bondage (1915), The Moon and Sixpence (1919), The Painted Veil (1925), The Razor’s Edge (1944) and The Constant Wife (1927). Born in the British Embassy in Paris, Maugham was orphaned at age 10 and raised in Canterbury by his uncle, who made Maugham pursue medical studies although the young man fervently wanted to become an author. Continuing to write nightly, the success of his first novels convinced Maugham, who had qualified as a doctor, to drop medicine and embark on his 65-year career as a man of letters. He found literary success on stage with plays such as The Circle, but in part due to the startling popularity and financial success he experienced as a novelist, essayist and short story writer, Maugham abandoned his playwriting career in the early 1930s.
Nicholas Martin
Director
Westport Country Playhouse: The Substance of Fire, A Cheever Evening. Broadway: Present Laughter, Butley, Match, Hedda Gabler, The Rehearsal, You Never Can Tell. Off-Broadway: Christopher Durang’s Why Torture Is Wrong, and the People Who Love Them (The Public Theater); Observe the Sons of Ulster… (Drama Desk Award nomination), The Time of the Cuckoo, Chaucer in Rome, Saturn Returns, Paul Rudnick’s The New Century (Lincoln Center Theater); Fully Committed (Vineyard Theatre, Cherry Lane Theatre); Full Gallop (Manhattan Theatre Club, West Side Arts); Betty’s Summer Vacation (Obie Award, Drama Desk Award nominations), Sophistry (Playwrights Horizons); Bosoms and Neglect (Signature Theatre). Mr. Martin’s numerous regional credits include She Stoops to Conquer (McCarter Theatre), The House of Blue Leaves (Mark Taper Forum), Dead End (Ahmanson Theatre) and Macbeth (Old Globe Theatre). Mr. Martin is the former artistic director of the Williamstown Theatre Festival and of Boston’s Huntington Theatre Company. During his tenures at both theaters, he directed numerous classical and new plays.
Alexander Dodge
Scenic Design
Westport Country Playhouse: The Archbishop’s Ceiling. Broadway: Present Laughter (2010 Tony Award nomination), Old Acquaintance, Butley, Hedda Gabler. Off-Broadway: All New People, Trust, The Water’s Edge (Second Stage); The Understudy (Roundabout Theatre Company); Paris Commune, Measure for Pleasure (Public Theater); Antony and Cleopatra (TFANA); Observe the Sons of Ulster… (Lortel Award), Chaucer in Rome (Lincoln Center Theater); Force Continuum (Atlantic Theater Company). Regional: Alley Theatre; Arena Stage; CENTERSTAGE; La Jolla Playhouse; Long Wharf Theatre; Hartford Stage; Huntington Theatre Company; Gate Theatre, Dublin; Guthrie Theater; Mark Taper Forum; Old Globe Theatre; Paper Mill Playhouse; Shakespeare Theatre, D.C.; Stratford Shakespeare Festival; Williamstown Theatre Festival; Yale Repertory Theatre. Opera: Il Trittico (Berlin), Waffenschmied (Munich), Der fliegende Holländer (Würzburg), Lohengrin (Budapest). Training: Yale University.
Gabriel Berry
Costume Design
Gabriel Berry's work with Nicholas Martin includes the world premiere of Christopher Durang's Why Torture is Wrong, and the People Who Love Them (The Public Theater) plus Burn This and The House of Blue Leaves (Mark Taper Forum). Specializing in the production of new work, she has designed costumes for premieres of the works of theater artists ranging from Charles Ludlam and Mabou Mines to Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter to John Guare and Maria Irene Fornes. Notable recent theater premieres: Nick Jones's The Coward (Lincoln Center Theater’s LCT3); Brandon Jacobs-Jenkins' Neighbors, Richard Foreman's Idiot Savant (The Public Theater). Recent opera premieres: John Adams and Peter Sellars' A Flowering Tree, Osvaldo Golliov's Ainadamar, Douglas Cuomo's Arjuna's Dilemma. Awards include an Obie, a Bessie and a silver medal at the Prague Quadrennial for her contribution to experimental theater.
Philip Rosenberg
Lighting Design
Westport Country Playhouse: I Do! I Do!. Cactus Flower (off-Broadway); Liberty Smith (Ford’s Theatre); The Winter’s Tale (Guthrie Theater); Bus Stop, She Loves Me (Huntington Theatre Company); Summer and Smoke (Manhattan School of Music); Title of Show (George Street Playhouse); Sweeney Todd (Barrington Stage Company); Bach at Leipzig (Portland Stage Company); The Memorandum (TACT); The Lisbon Traviata (Kennedy Center); The Taming of the Shrew, Macbeth, Edward II, Amadeus, Cymbeline (Chicago Shakespeare); Knickerbocker (Williamstown Theatre Festival); Shanghai Moon, The Lady in Question (Bay Street Theatre). Over the past 12 years Philip has served as Associate Lighting Designer on over 35 Broadway and West End plays and musicals.
Drew Levy
Sound Design
Broadway:
The Importance of Being Earnest, Present Laughter. Off-Broadway: Why
Torture is Wrong and the People Who Love Them, Emergence-See!, Rainbow
Kiss, Rock Doves, Dutchman (AUDELCO Viv Award nomination), The Mistakes
Madeline Made. Regional: Our Town, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to
the Forum, Quartermaine's Terms, She Loves Me, The Corn Is Green, Crimes
of the Heart (Williamstown Theatre Festival); She Stoops to Conquer
(McCarter Theatre); Pirates!, The Corn Is Green, She Loves Me, Present
Laughter, The Cherry Orchard, Love’s Labour’s Lost, The Sisters
Rosensweig, Burn This, and the world premiere of Sonia Flew (Huntington
Theatre Company); Shipwrecked! (Long Wharf Theatre). Associate credits:
Rock of Ages, That Championship Season, Women on the Verge of a Nervous
Breakdown, Everyday Rapture (Drama Desk Award nomination), The 39 Steps
(Tony Award), South Pacific, Cymbeline, Happiness, Apple Tree, Adding
Machine, and the Metropolitan Opera's 125th Anniversary Gala. Drew holds
an MFA from Boston University.
Louis Colaianni
Dialect Coach
Broadway: Vocal coach, You’re Welcome, America, with Will Ferrell. Regional: Voice and text director, Oregon Shakespeare Festival; voice, text and dialect coach, Utah Shakespearean Festival, Milwaukee Repertory Theater, Arizona Theatre Company, Shakespeare Santa Cruz, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Kansas City Repertory Theatre; dialect coach, She Stoops to Conquer, Nicholas Martin, director, McCarter Theatre. Film: Dialect coach, Little Red Wagon (2012). Television: You’re Welcome, America, HBO. Author: The Joy of Phonetics and Accents (Drama Book Publishers), and How to Speak Shakespeare (Santa Monica Press). Adjunct Associate Professor of Acting Classics at The Actors Studio MFA program at Pace University.
Jason Kaiser
Production Stage Manager
Favorite credits include: Arjuna's Dilemma (BAM); the U.S. tour of Start Up! (German Theater Abroad); Much Ado About Nothing (Shakespeare Santa Cruz); the world premieres of Athol Fugard's Coming Home and Have You Seen Us? (Long Wharf Theatre); The Magic Flute, conducted by Victor Borge; two European tours of Jesus Christ Superstar; Le nozze di Figaro (Glimmerglass Opera, San Antonio Opera); and installing "The Gates" in Central Park. Resident PSM of Jennifer Muller/The Works dance company. Upcoming: Dark Sisters, a new opera by Nico Muhly and Stephen Karam.
Kevin Robert Fitzpatrick
Assistant Stage Manager
A Christmas Carol (Ford’s Theatre); Bus Stop (Huntington Theatre Company); Surf Report, The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later, Creditors, Assume the Position (La Jolla Playhouse); The First Wives Club, Sight Unseen, Cornelia (Old Globe Theatre);The Revenger’s Tragedy, Camino Real, The Laramie Project (UC San Diego); Little Monsters (Brandeis Theater Company with Primary Stages); Almost, Maine; Parade; Caroline, or Change; Take Me Out, A Man of No Importance (SpeakEasy Stage). Mr. Fitzpatrick holds an M.F.A. from UC San Diego and a B.A. from Emerson College.
Janet Foster, C.S.A.
Casting
Westport Country Playhouse: Beyond Therapy; The Diary of Anne Frank; I Do! I Do!; Happy Days; Dinner with Friends; She Loves Me; The Breath of Life; That Championship Season; tick, tick... BOOM!; Around the World in 80 Days. Broadway: The Light in the Piazza (Artios Award nomination), Lennon, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Taking Sides (Co-Cast). Off-Broadway: Lucy, Close Ties, Brundibar, True Love, Endpapers, The Dying Gaul, The Maiden’s Prayer, Dream True, Trojan Women, A Love Story. Playwrights Horizons: Floyd Collins, The Monogamist, A Cheever Evening, Later Life and many more. Regional: Intiman Theatre, Seattle Repertory Theatre, A Contemporary Theatre, California Shakespeare Theater, Berkeley Repertory, Dallas Theater Center, Pittsburgh Public Theater, Yale Repertory Theatre, Goodman Theatre, Steppenwolf Theatre, Old Globe, CENTERSTAGE and ART. Film/TV: “Cosby” (CBS); “Tracy Takes on New York” (HBO); The Deal by Lewis Black; and Advice from a Caterpillar. Radio: BBC World Services "The Day that Lehman Died," a recent Peabody Award winner, directed by John Dryden.
Video
Watch a clip of Marsha Mason on Good Day New York
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Reviews
Behind the Curtain/Hartford Courant
By Frank Rizzo
“...splendid, stylish production, cast superbly and directed with impeccable taste, timing and tenderness by Nicholas Martin... pitch-perfect ensemble...Funny, smart and gorgeous, Westport's "The Circle" offers a splendid night out for wives, husbands and lovers. The 2011-12 season has just begun and already there's a show that I am Tweeting my friends as a must-see... a marvelous ensemble cast of seasoned pros and younger finds. This production deserves a future life.”
BroadwayWorld.com
By Sherry Shameer Cohen
“...brings elegance and wit at WCP...well-paced direction...”
WNHU
By Karen and Bob Isaacs
“...a delight...You will love this production. Go see it.”
Susan Granger’s Entertainment Commentaries
By Susan Granger
“...a delightful drawing-room comedy of manners...witty, satiric, insightful observations about the status of women and their choices in life resonate today...deft direction...fresh and funny.”
TheaterMania.com
By Sandy MacDonald
“...a first-rate production...”
WMNR 88.1 Fine Arts Public Radio
By Rosalind Friedman
"...elegant, entertaining production...this exploration of marriage, infidelity, and love in all its machinations, is a revelation: fun but never trivial.”
Middletown Press
By Bonnie Goldberg
“...witty comedy of society... delightfully charming... Nicholas Martin directs this scintillating scandal of a comedy with aplomb.”
Norwalk Hour/Wilton Villager
By David A. Rosenberg
“...sharp wit... incisive and amusing.”
Hartford Arts Examiner
By Andrew Beck
“...lively, vivid and funny...The Westport Country Playhouse is to be commended for selecting this early 20th century play.”
TalkinBroadway.com
By Fred Sokol
“...brisk, witty, and relevant... a very strong and adept ensemble... quite polished... vigorous and crisp... immediately engaging. Inviting and thoughtful...”
Newtown Bee
By Julie Stern
“...witty, ironic, and totally delightful... Westport has assembled a high-powered cast... truly entertaining, old fashioned theater of the best kind.”
Elm City Newspapers
By Tom Holehan
“...sophisticated writing that still resonates today...”
Scarsdale News
By Jackie Lupo
“...one of the best-crafted of all “weekend in the country” plays. ...top-notch, from the stellar cast, headed up by Marsha Mason and Paxton Whitehead, to the perfect pacing under the direction of Nicholas Martin, to simply beautiful production values.”
Press Releases
June 2, 2011
Westport Country Playhouse Offers Special Events and Opportunities during the Run of
W. Somerset Maugham's Comedy of Manners The Circle
June 1, 2011
Westport Country Playhouse Posts The Circle Behind the Scenes Video
May 17, 2011
Marsha Mason and Paxton Whitehead Head Cast; Nicholas Martin to Direct:
Westport Country Playhouse Stages Comedy of Manners, The Circle, by W. Somerset Maugham
Articles
June 11, 2011
WestportNow.com
Opening Night Curtain Call for The Circle
Photo by Helen Klisser During
June 11, 2011
WestportNow.com
The Circle Opens Tonight at Westport Country Playhouse
Photo by T. Charles Erickson
June 6, 2011
WestportPatch.com
Westport Country Playhouse Stages The Circle
by Karen Dydzuhn
June 1, 2011
Playbill.com
A First Look into The Circle at Westport Country Playhouse (Video)
by Michael C. Gioia
May 26, 2011
Wilton Villager and Norwalk Hour
Somerset Maugham's The Circle Up Next at Westport Country Playhouse
by Gloria Cole Sugarman
May 26, 2011
Westport News
Next at Westport Country Playhouse: The Circle
May 17, 2011
Theatermania.com
Marsha Mason, Marc Vietor, Paxton Whitehead, et al. Set for
Westport Country Playhouse's The Circle
By Andy Propst
May 17, 2011
Playbill.com
Marsha Mason and Paxton Whitehead Will Complete The Circle at Westport Country Playhouse
By Adam Hetrick
