
"Must not miss" --Pacific Sun
Fool For Love
By Sam Shepard
Directed by Will Marchetti
Starring: Charles Dean, Jeanette Harrison, Danny Jones, Matt Lai
Production: Logan Ellis, Stephanie Alyson Henderson, Janice Koprowski, Will McCandless, Mina Sohaa Smith, Andrea Weber, Selina G Young
A searingly intense and sharply humorous study of love, hate and the dying myths of the old West. Directed by the man who played the original Old Man when Sam Shepard directed the premiere.
“Sam Shepard's purest and most beautiful play." —NY Daily News
"A Shepard revival to Love from AlterTheater"—Marin Independent Journal
"Jeanette Harrison and Matt Lai put memories of Kathy Baker and Ed Harris to bed in AlterTheater's Fool for Love" —Pacific Sun
Added performances in San Rafael: 2/21-3/2
















The Cast & Crew

Will Marchetti
has been working in Bay Area theatres since he was a young man at Les Abott’s San Francisco Theatre Company. Over his career, he has performed in theatres all over the Bay Area from ACT to Marin Theatre Company where he was Artistic Director for many years. He directed many plays while there and also at the Gate Theatre when he was Artistic Director in the 60’s. He’s performed in regional theatres in Los Angeles, Seattle, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington D.C. and New York and won numerous awards for his acting. Most recently, he performed in The Bengal Tiger At The Baghdad Zoo at SF Playhouse. Will has been privileged to originate roles in many world premiere plays, including Dr. Stoner in The Psychic Life of Savages and the Old Man in the original production of Fool for Love. Will has done several world premieres for AlterTheater, including The Horses by Brian Thorstenson. As a playwright, he has had two of his plays – The Agreement (Phoenix Theatre) and Lil’ Darlin’ (San Jose Stage) – produced in the Bay Area to positive acclaim. Mr. Marchetti thanks his wife, Susan, and the rest of his family and friends who keep coming back for more. A big “thank you” to AlterTheater for the opportunity to direct a Shepard play after acting in quite a few of them!
Charles Dean

a veteran Bay Area actor, made his AlterTheater debut as George in The Dead Girl last spring. The previous year, he played Doolittle in the S.F. Playhouse’s long-running production My Fair Lady. In recent years, he has appeared at the Aurora Theatre, as well as S.F. Playhouse, The Magic, and M.T.C. He was a company member and associate artist at Berkeley Rep for nearly 20 years, and he played in 80 productions, including The Tooth of Crime, and Long Day’s Journey Into Night. In 2008, he was seen on Broadway in a limited run of Irving Berlin’s White Christmas as General Waverly. Other theatres he has worked with include A.C.T., The Old Globe-San Diego, Center Stage-Baltimore, The Alley Theatre, Dallas Theatre Center, Seattle Rep, Milwaukee Rep, The Alliance Theatre, and locally as well at San Jose Rep and California Shakespeare Festival.

Jeanette Harrison
was last seen onstage with AlterTheater in References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot. She is a co-founder of AlterTheater. She has worked primarily as an actor and a producer, shepherding more than 12 new plays to world premiere productions. She has worked in casting, theater education, and worked onstage, on-camera and off-camera in both the non-profit and commercial entertainment industry. She has worked with Cutting Ball (…and Jesus Moonwalks the Mississippi by Marcus Gardley, winner of Best Production and Best Ensemble from the Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle), Aurora Theatre, Marin Theatre Company, Magic Theatre, Berkeley Rep, Theatre Rhino, San Francisco Shakespeare Festival, Actors Theatre of Sonoma County, Sonoma County Rep, Golden Thread Productions, Woman’s Will, Playhouse West, and Combined Art Form Entertainment (C.A.F.E.), among others. With AlterTheater she appeared onstage in After the Fall, Owners, Intimate Apparel, References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot, and in the Bay Area premieres of Sex Parasite, Two Sisters and a Piano, and in the world premieres of Thirst, and A Man, his Wife, and his Hat (one of two finalists for the USA Pen Award, for best new play written west of the Mississippi).

Matt Lai
is delighted to make his AlterTheater debut with Fool For Love. Previous regional credits include: Voyage with Shotgun Players, On the Waterfront with San Jose Stage, Penelope’s Odyssey with Central Works, A Few Good Men with Hapgood Theatre, Witness for the Prosecution with Center REP, Incorruptible with California Conservatory Theatre, and Burn This with Dragon Theatre. Matt is also a member of San Francisco’s off-beat sketch comedy troupe, Hot Mess. Off-Broadway, Matt appeared in Friends with Pan Asian Repertory. Other New York credits include Pericles with Kings County Shakespeare, Judy Garland Slept Here with Curan Repertory and A Final Evening with the Illuminati with the Irish American Theatre Company. Matt also appeared alongside Gilbert Gottfried in several commercial bumpers for USA Networks Up All Night movie program. Matt was a 2010 BATCC nominee for Supporting Male Performance and studied acting at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York.

Danny Jones
is so excited to be working with AlterTheater on Fool for Love. Originally from Alaska, he made his way to Florida to get his MFA from the FSU/Asolo Conservatory for Actor Training and then continued on to New York. While in the big apple, among other projects, he produced and acted in Danny and the Deep Blue Sea by John Patrick Shanley with his theatre company The Night Shift. Being very new on the scene, this is the first production in the Bay Area that he is taking part in. He couldn't be happier to be working with such a talented director and cast on one of his favorite plays. Danny is a proud member of Actors’ Equity Association.
Selina G Young
is an Associate Artist with AlterTheater. Her designs include: American Whupass, Owners, Two Sisters and a Piano, A Man, His Wife, and His Hat, and References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot. She has designed the lighting for many Bay Area Theatre Companies including San Jose Repertory Theatre, TheatreWorks, San Jose Stage Company, and Marin Theatre Company. Some of her recent productions include Cabaret and Avenue Q (both for San Jose Stage), Hanging Georgia (Theatre First), and House of Blue Leaves (Jewel Theatre Company, Santa Cruz). After working in the entertainment industry in a multitude of positions on and off the stage, Ms Young has had the privilege to work with luminaries such as Eric Bogosian, Whoopi Goldberg, and Patrick Stewart. She is a member of Actor's Equity Association, IATSE Local 134 (stagehands), Theatre Bay Area, and Theatre Communications Group.
Stephanie Alyson Henderson
is the Production Manager for Crowded Fire Theater and seasonal Production Stage Manager for LEVYdance, and is proud to make her debut at Alter Theater. Previously, she has worked with companies that include Central Works, Cutting Ball, Joe Goode Performance Group, and Sidra Bell Dance NY. stephaniealyson.tk

Will McCandless
is a theatrical sound designer, composer, and audio engineer based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Recent design credits include the world premiere of Lauren Gunderson's I and You at Marin Theatre Company, A Winter's Tale, Lady Windermere's Fan, Blithe Spirit, Spunk, and Candida at California Shakespeare Theater, The Whipping Man at Virginia Stage Company and Marin Theatre Company, 4000 Miles at American Conservatory Theatre, and The Fourth Messenger produced by Tanya Shaffer at Ashby Stage. His designs have also been heard at Aurora Theatre Company, Marin Theatre Company, Magic Theatre, Center Repertory Company, Alternative Theater Ensemble, Golden Thread Productions, the SF Playhouse, Climate Theater, Brava! for Women in the Arts, LEVYdance, and the San Francisco Mime Troupe. McCandless has been a visiting artist at San José State University, Sonoma State University, University of San Francisco, St. Mary’s College, and Solano College Theatre. McCandless heads the audio department at Cal Shakes and is a former collective member of the San Francisco Mime Troupe. McCandless has received two Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Awards for sound design and he has been a recipient of the Eric Landisman Fellowship, a program of Theatre Bay Area.
Janice Koprowski
has been active in play production for over 50 years in Michigan and California. She holds a B.A. in Theatre Arts from Western Michigan University, and has designed costumes, makeup, or lighting for over 200 productions. Recent productions include All My Sons and The King and I for Douglas Morrisson Theatre; The Producers and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof for PCP; Doubt, Almost Maine, and Putnam County Spelling Bee for CCT. This is her 7th production for AlterTheater and she is delighted to be back.
has served as the Artistic Direction Apprentice under Loretta Greco at Magic Theatre, and currently serves as the Producing Artistic Director of Theatre Battery in Kent, WA and Associate Producer of Do It Live! Productions in San Francisco. Directing: The Firefly Project (Magic), dark play or stories for boys (Do It Live), Chatroom, Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom, Dog Sees God (Theatre Battery), Fat Pig and Far Away (Ithaca College). Asst. Directing: Alleluia, the Road (Campo Santo/Cal Shakes), Arcadia (ACT), Waiting for Godot (MTC), Bruja, Any Given Day, Jesus in India (Magic). BA Drama with Directing focus from Ithaca College.
Logan Ellis


Andrea Weber
is a certified Associate Instructor with Dueling Arts International and has directed violence for theaters around the SF Bay Area. Fight direction credits include Macbeth (SF Shakespeare), An Affair of Honor, and Bat Boy! among others. A certified associate instructor with Dueling Arts International since 2006, Ms. Weber teaches beginning levels of single rapier, broadsword, rapier and dagger, small sword, quarterstaff and unarmed. Please visit DuelingArtsSF.com for upcoming classes.
Sam Shepard
spent his childhood on military bases in the United States and Guam before his family settled on a farm in Duarte, California. Shepard worked as a stable hand on a ranch in Chino from 1958 to 1960 and studied agriculture for a year at Mount Antonio Junior College. In 1963, Shepard moved to New York City, where he worked as a busboy at the Village Gate in Greenwich Village and began to write plays for the emerging experimental underground theater scene. He made his debut at Theatre Genesis on October 10, 1964, with the double-billed COWBOY and ROCK GARDEN. In 1965 he presented UP TO THURSDAY and 4-H CLUB at Theatre 65, DOG AND ROCKING CHAIR at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club, CHICAGO at Genesis, and ICARUS’S MOTHER at Caffe Cino. Although many mainstream critics were baffled by his raw, chaotic, almost Beckettian pieces, he was soon hailed by the "New York Times" as “the generally acknowledged ‘genius’ of the [Off Off-Broadway] circuit.” In 1966, RED CROSS, CHICAGO, and ICARUS’S MOTHER earned Shepard a trio of "Village Voice" Obie Awards. In 1967 and 1968, Shepard wrote LA TURISTA, his first full-length play, MELODRAMA PLAY, and FORENSIC AND THE NAVIGATORS, all of which also won Obie awards, and COWBOYS #2, which premiered in Los Angeles. In 1969, Shepard began a stint playing drums and guitar with the cult “amphetamine rock band” the Holy Modal Rounders. He continued to write plays, completing HOLY GHOSTLY and THE UNSEEN HAND in 1969, OPERATION SIDEWINDER and SHAVED SPLITS in 1970, MAD DOG BLUES, BACK BOG BEAST BAIT, and COWBOY MOUTH (written with poet/musician Patti Smith) in 1971. He left the Rounders in 1971 and moved to England, where he lived for the next three years. Two notable plays of this period—THE TOOTH OF CRIME (1972, Obie Award) and GEOGRAPHY OF A HORSE DREAMER (1974)—premiered in London. In 1974 Shepard returned to the United States and became the playwright-in-residence at the Magic Theatre in San Francisco, a position he held until 1984. Plays from this period include ACTION (Obie Award, 1974), KILLER’S HEAD (1975), ANGEL CITY (1976), and SUICIDE IN B-FLAT (1976). Beginning in the late 1970s, Shepard applied his unconventional dramatic vision to a more conventional dramatic form, the family tragedy, producing CURSE OF THE STARVING CLASS and BURIED CHILD in 1978 (both of which won Obie Awards) and TRUE WEST in 1980. The three plays are linked thematically in their examination of troubled and tempestuous blood relationships in a fragmented society. Shepard achieved his warmest critical reception with BURIED CHILD, which also won the Pulitzer Prize for drama. Shepard began a new career as a film actor in 1978, appearing in “Renaldo and Clara” and Terrence Malick’s “Days of Heaven.” He also began collaborating with Joseph Chaikin on TONGUES, a stage work with music that was heavily dependent on the theories of Antonin Artaud. Shepard and Chaikin would also collaborate on SAVAGE/LOVE (1979), WAR IN HEAVEN (1985), and WHEN THE WORLD WAS GREEN (A CHEF’S FABLE) (1996). Throughout the 1980s and into the ’90s, Shepard continued to write plays—FOOL FOR LOVE (1983) won Obie awards for best play as well as direction, and A LIE OF THE MIND (1985) garnered the New York Drama Critics Circle Award and Outer Critics Circle Award for outstanding new play—and expand his work in film. As writer/director, he filmed “Far North” and “Silent Tongue,” in 1988 and 1992, respectively. Shepard’s play STAGES OF SHOCK premiered at the American Place Theatre in 1991, and SIMPATICO transferred to the Royal Court Theatre after its premiere in 1994 at the New York Shakespeare Festival. A revised BURIED CHILD, under the direction of Gary Sinise, opened on Broadway in April 1996 and earned a Tony Award nomination. EYES FOR CONSUELA, based on a short story by Octavio Paz, premiered at Manhattan Theatre Club in 1998. The Magic Theatre premiered THE LATE HENRY MOSS, starring Sean Penn and Nick Nolte, before it was moved to the Signature Theatre in New York in 2001. Shepard’s projects also include the short story collection “Great Dream of Heaven” (2002); the plays THE GOD OF HELL (2005) and KICKING A DEAD HORSE, which premiered in Dublin, Ireland, in March 2007 and had its New York premiere in July 2008 at The Public Theater; the films “Black Hawk Down” (actor, 2001), “Don’t Come Knocking” (his second collaboration with Wenders, writer/actor, 2006), “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” (actor, 2007), and “Descending from Heaven” (actor, with Pamela Reed). Shepard is considered one of the foremost modern American playwrights. The Signature Theatre devoted its entire 1996–97 season to his plays. In 1985 he was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, which awarded him the Gold Medal for Drama in 1992. In 1994 he was inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame.