God of Carnage

July 27 - Sept. 2, 2012
SAN DIEGO PREMIERE
Sheryl and Harvey White Theatre
Conrad Prebys Theatre Center

By Yasmina Reza
Translated by Christopher Hampton
Directed by Richard Seer

Two sets of parents gather in an upscale Brooklyn home to discuss a playground altercation between their sons.  At first civility is upheld, but as the conversation goes off track and the rum bottle opens, decorum flies right out the window and leads to a hilarious afternoon of name-calling, tantrums and tears.  Yasmina Reza’s Tony Award-winning comedy is a four-way prizefight that is not to be missed.


Publicity Photos
Tony Award-winning playwright Yasmina Reza. Reza's God of Carnage, translated by Christopher Hampton, runs at The Old Globe July 27 - Sept. 2, 2012. Photo courtesy of The Old Globe.
Christopher Hampton. Yasmina Reza's God of Carnage, translated by Hampton, runs at The Old Globe July 27 - Sept. 2, 2012. Photo courtesy of The Old Globe.
Richard Seer will direct Yasmina Reza's God of Carnage at The Old Globe, July 27 – Sept. 2, 2012. Photo courtesy of The Old Globe.
   
   
 
God of Carnage. Illustration courtesy of The Old Globe.
  


Cast and Creative Team

(click on image to download a high-resolution photo)
  Yasmina Reza (Playwright, God of Carnage) is a French playwright and novelist based in Paris whose works have all been multi-award winning, critical and popular international successes.  God of Carnage won the Olivier Award and the Tony Award for Best Play and a film version, Carnage, directed by Roman Polanski starring Jodie Foster, Kate Winslet, John C. Reilly and Christoph Waltz, has completed production.  Art won Olivier, Tony and New York Drama Critics’ Circle Awards for Best Play.  The National Theatre production of Life (x) 3 received an Olivier Award nomination for Best Play.  Other plays include Conversations After a Burial, The Passage of Winter, The Spanish Play and The Unexpected Man.  Those plays, as well as Art and Life (x) 3, have been translated into 35 languages and produced worldwide.  Her new play, How You Talk the Game (Comment Vous Racontez la Partie) was printed in France in March 2011.  Reza has written several novels, the last of which, Dawn, Dusk or Night (Knopf, 2008), has been translated worldwide.  Her first movie, Chicas, with Emmanuelle Seigner and Carmen Maura, ran in Europe in March 2010.
  Christopher Hampton (Translator) has garnered four Tony Awards, three Olivier Awards and the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for his plays, musicals and translations, while prizes for his film and television work include an Oscar, two BAFTAs and a Special Jury Prize at Cannes.  His plays include The Talking Cure, White Chameleon, Tales from Hollywood, Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Treats, Savages, The Philanthropist and Total Eclipse.  He wrote the book and lyrics (with Don Black) for the musicals Sunset Boulevard and Dracula and the libretto for the Philip Glass operas Waiting for the Barbarians and Appomattox.  He has translated extensively, including works by Chekhov, Ibsen, Molière, Ödön von Horváth and Yasmina Reza (including Art, Life x 3 and The Unexpected Man).  His screenplays include Chéri, Atonement (which won Golden Globe and BAFTA Awards for Best Picture), The Quiet American, Mary Reilly, Total Eclipse, Dangerous Liaisons, Carrington, The Secret Agent and Imagining Argentina, the last three of which he also directed.  His most recent film, A Dangerous Method (based on his play The Talking Cure), directed by David Cronenberg, will be released later in 2011.
  Richard Seer (Director) is the director of the Old Globe/USD Graduate Theatre Program production of Twelfth Night, running this month.  Seer is an award-winning director and actor and has directed and/or performed on Broadway, Off Broadway, on film and television and in over 70 productions at regional theaters in this country and Great Britain, including The Kennedy Center, Goodman Theatre, Stratford Shakespeare Festival, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Huntington Theatre Company, Playwrights Theater, San Jose Repertory Theatre, Studio Arena Theater, Edinburgh Festival Fringe and the Sybil Thorndike Theatre in England.  He originated the role of Young Charlie in the 1978 Tony Award-winning Broadway production of Hugh Leonard’s Da and received the Theatre World Award for his performance.  At The Old Globe, he has directed productions of Life of Riley, The Last Romance, The Price, Romeo and Juliet, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Trying, Fiction, Blue/Orange (San Diego Critics Circle Award), All My Sons, Da and Old Wicked Songs (Patté Award).  Recent directing assignments also include Third (Huntington Theatre Company) and Sonia Flew (San Jose Repertory Theatre).  He received his M.F.A. in directing from Boston University, where he was awarded the prestigious Kahn Directing Award in 1985.  In 1990, Seer was invited to return to Boston University’s School for the Arts as an Associate Professor of Acting and Directing.  He has been Director of The Old Globe/University of San Diego Graduate Theatre Program since 1993.  In 2010, he was awarded the Craig Noel Distinguished Professorship.