Director Debera Ann Lund
Deb's recent directing credits
include “Twelfth Night” for PAE’s 33rd annual Shakespeare in the Parks
and “Rashomon” for Theatre
Vertigo. She is a 20 year veteran performer. She performed the role of Ursula/
First Watch in last fall’s production of “Much Ado About Nothing” (
Portland Center Stage). Debera has toured the west coast with
Master Magician “Dr. Wilderness” and she has performed in improvisational
comedy shows throughout Western Europe for the Department of Defense.
Recent roles include, Charlotte Malcom in “A Little Night Music”,
Mae Tuck in “Tuck Everlasting”, Catherine De Medici in “The King Has Gone
to Tennebrae”, and a multitude of characters on the Mt. Hood Railroad’s
Murder Mystery Train. She is also a member of the teaching staff at
Young Audiences, RACC
Sun Schools, Northwest
Children’s Theatre Academy and
The Northwest Academy.
About The Playwright
Noel Coward is considered the early 20th century's undisputed master of
the English stage. Born in Middlesex in 1899, Coward's was a musically gifted
family who helped nurture his natural virtuosity, instilling in him
a lifelong love of music. When he was young, his mother took him to the theatre every year on
his birthday, and as he grew older he found these junkets more and more
fascinating.
Coward began his professional career as a
child actor, appearing frequently on the stage. As a teenager he made his first
film appearance in D. W. Griffiths' Hearts Of The World
(1918), and by 1919 Coward was already writing plays. That year his play I’ll
Leave It to You was produced in the West End with Coward in the leading role.
Most critics agree that his finest achievements as a writer are five comedies --
Hay Fever, Private Lives, Design for Living,
Blithe Spirit, and Present Laughter.
Blithe Spirit may be Coward's most frequently revived play. He wrote
it in just six days during the spring of 1941, just weeks
after German bombs had blown his London office and most of the attached studio
apartment to bits. It's a comedy about death in which the dead refuse to stay
buried but return to haunt the living, who are not at all pleased to have
them back.
Blithe Spirit was one of the longest running plays in the history of
the London theater, with a total of 1,998 performances. In a time of national
tragedy Coward said that his goal was to write a "very gay, superficial" comedy,
and he clearly succeeded. After World War II, Coward fell from grace with many
critics, who regarded him as being past his literary prime. However, by the
late 1950s, audiences were once again in love with him. His plays, revues, and
nightclub appearances were extremely successful.
In 1970 Coward was honored by the queen as a knight bachelor for services
rendered to the arts. In the same year, he was awarded a special Tony Award by
the American theatre for distinguished achievement in the theatre. In 1972, he
received an honorary doctor of letters from the University of Sussex.
Coward died of a heart attack in Jamaica on 26 March 1973, bringing to an
end a career of more than sixty years in the theatre.
Sources:
Biography.com
The Utah Shakespeare Festival
PBS' Great Performances Series
The Iceberg.com
Director Debera Ann Lund
