Back by audience and cast request: Illusion Theater remounts BILL W. & DR. BOB

“A textured, truthful telling of [Alcoholics Anonymous’] story…Inspiring!”
— Boston Globe

(Minneapolis; January 12, 2011) – When audiences repeatedly request a beloved play, theaters may try to comply within a few years or so. But when the BILL W. & DR. BOB cast told Director Michael Robins that they would "make their schedules work" if Illusion Theater would remount the 2009 show, Producing Directors Bonnie Morris and Robins knew they had to bring back the inspirational production.

Opening February 4 and running through March 6, 2011, Bill W. & Dr. Bob returns to the downtown Minneapolis theater just 14 months after the show’s area premiere in September 2009. The original cast of the award-winning play about a friendship that changed the world – Phillip Callan (Bill W.), Beth Gilleland (Anne Smith), Angie Haigh (Woman), Terry Hempleman (Dr. Bob), Michael Paul Levin (Man) and Carolyn Pool (Lois Wilson) – remains intact. Michael Robins will again direct.

A universal human story of the dangers of isolation and the healing power of fellowship, Bill W. & Dr. Bob is told with passion, humor and authenticity. In 1929, famous New York stockbroker Bill Wilson crashes with the stock market and becomes a hopeless drunk. Dr. Bob Smith, a surgeon from Ohio, has also been an alcoholic for 30 years, often going into the operating room with a hangover. Through an astonishing series of events, Bill W. and Dr. Bob meet and form a relationship, helping to keep each other sober. Written by Stephen Bergman and Janet Surrey, this is the amazing and often amusing account of the two men who pioneered Alcoholics Anonymous, as well as the story of their wives, who founded Al Anon. (This work does not imply affiliation with nor approval or endorsement from Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc.)

Facilitated audience discussions were an important part of the original run, and will continue to follow each performance of Bill W. & Dr. Bob. In addition, to make the show available to as many people as possible, each Sunday evening performance will be designated “Pay-What-You-Can.”

"When we first produced Bill W. & Dr. Bob, we were all so moved by how much our production touched people's lives. There were comments, testimonials and, some nights, complete audiences that stayed after to talk. During one of the discussions, a guest remarked that social historians have said that the founding of AA was one of two or three seminal things to happen in the 20th Century to change the world. Pretty heady stuff, but it seems consistent with what this play shines a light on and what these two men accomplished," said Robins. “It is a pleasure to bring this immensely talented group of artists back together to find new depths, nuances and surprises,” he added.

Ticket & Address Information
Tickets for Bill W. & Dr. Bob are $15-$30. Group discounts are available for groups of 10 or more people. Pay-What-You-Can performances will be offered on Sundays, February 13, 20, 27 and March 6, 2011. Tickets are available at the Illusion Theater Box Office at 612-339-4944 or online at www.illusiontheater.org.

The theater is located on the 8th floor in the Hennepin Center for the Arts at 528 Hennepin Avenue, Minneapolis. The building is on the corner of 6th Street and Hennepin Avenue, just one block from Metro Transit’s Hiawatha Light-Rail Line.

Public performances
Friday, Feb. 4 @ 8pm - Opening Night
Saturday, Feb. 5 @ 8pm
Friday, Feb. 11 @ 8pm
Saturday, Feb. 12 @ 8pm
Sunday, Feb. 13 @ 7pm - Pay-What-You-Can Performance
Thursday, Feb. 17 @ 8pm
Friday, Feb. 18 @ 8pm
Saturday, Feb. 19 @ 8pm
Sunday, Feb. Feb. 20 @ 7pm - Pay-What-You-Can Performance
Thursday, Feb. 24 @ 8pm
Friday, Feb. 25 @ 8pm
Saturday, Feb. 26 @ 8pm
Sunday, Feb. Feb. 27 @ 7pm - Pay-What-You-Can Performance
Wednesday, Mar. 2 @ 10am
Thursday, Mar. 3 @ 8pm
Friday, Mar. 4 @ 8pm
Saturday, Mar. 5 @ 8pm
Sunday, Mar. 6 @ 7pm - Pay-What-You-Can Performance

About Illusion Theater
Illusion Theater was founded in 1974 and presents its season on the 8th floor of the Hennepin Center for the Arts in downtown Minneapolis. Since the beginning, Producing Directors Michael Robins and Bonnie Morris have led Illusion Theater in illuminating the illusions, myths, and realities of our times and in using the power of theater to catalyze personal and social change. In 35 years, Illusion has generated over 500 plays, developed thousands of artists, and created ground-breaking educational works. Plays developed at Illusion have been produced in theaters throughout the world. Illusion’s work has catalyzed conversations in living rooms, kitchens, coffee houses, and board rooms, and has led to transformations in policy, in organizations, in students, and in individuals.

About the Playwrights
Playwright Stephen Bergman is a doctor and, under the pen name “Samuel Shem,” the author of the medical novels The House of God, Mount Misery and The Spirit of the Place. Janet Surrey is a clinical psychologist widely published in the field of substance abuse, relational psychotherapy, and Buddhist practice. The husband and wife team discovered a biography of Bill Wilson and knew that this powerful story of healing was the one they wanted to tell. They also recognized that only a live stage play would capture the “aliveness” of an AA meeting. Drawing on their backgrounds of working with alcoholics and addicts, as well as doing extensive research, they set out to write a great play that would reach and enthrall anyone, not only people in a recovery program.

About the Performers
Philip Callen (Bill W) – Philip returns to Illusion's stage, having last appeared in Bill Corbett's piece in Northern Lights/The 9/11 Plays. Philip has also been seen at the Guthrie Theatre in 1776 and Pen, at the History Theatre in Wellstone! and Farm Boys, and many other Twin Cities’ stages including the Minnesota Jewish Theatre Co. (Never The Sinner, The God of Isaac, The Substance of Fire, and And Then They Came For Me), Park Square Theatre (The Left Hand Singing and June Moon), Falsettos for Outward Spiral Theatre, and many plays with Thirst Theater. He recently completed workshops of two new projects in New York City — RUNWAY 69, a new musical about the infamous Times Square strip club by Erin Kamler and Carson Kreitzer at New Dramatists, and Behind The Eye, a play by Carson Kreitzer based on the life of photographer/journalist Lee Miller. 

Beth Gilleland (Anne Smith) – Beth is an Alumna of the Playwrights’ Center and an Artistic Associate at Illusion Theater.  She has written and performed for American Public Radio’s Good Evening with Noah Adams, The First House on the Right, NPR’s All Things Considered, BBC Scotland via the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and toured extensively with her one-woman show, Whistling Girls and Crowing Hens, which was initially developed and performed at Illusion.  Beth was a long-time company member at Dudley Riggs’ Brave New Workshop and has worked at most Twin Cities’ theaters.  Beth is a past recipient of a Jerome Study/Travel Grant, a Minnesota State Arts Board Career Opportunity Grant, and was a finalist for The Jane Chambers Playwriting Award.  Recently, Beth helped write and develop Cirque de Guerre, a theatrical look at the idea of Just War for Every Church a Peace Church, and she has been in residence at The Anderson Center for Interdisciplinary Arts in Red Wing, Minnesota.

Angie Haigh (Woman) – Angie has appeared at the Illusion in the award-winning My Antonia, Good ‘N’ Plenty, Lloyds’ Prayer, Kuwait, Famous Amos, Six Steps: Part Deux, Act A Lady, and various educational shows. Other theaters she’s worked with include The Jungle, Park Square, Emigrant, and Pillsbury House Theatre. 

Terry Hempleman (Dr. Bob) - Terry’s local credits include The Master Butchers Singing Club, His Girl Friday, Gem of the Ocean, and Lake Hollywood at the Guthrie, Huck Finn, Amber Waves and Anon(ymous) at Children’s Theatre Company; Last of the Boys, Same Time Next Year, and Orange Flower Water at the Jungle Theater; Cyrano de Bergerac, Carousel and The Most Happy Fella with Ten Thousand Things; Dinner with Friends at Eye of The Storm; Frozen, Midsummer Night’s Dream and Of Mice and Men at Park Square Theatre; and Thirst at Joe’s Garage.

Michael Paul Levin (Man) - Michael has appeared in the Illusion Theater productions of Autistic License, Festival of Lights, Denial, The Cocoanuts and Death Valley Scotty. He has appeared at Park Square Theatre in The Odyssey, The Sisters Rosensweig, Spider’s Web, The Chosen, Born Yesterday, You Can't Take It With You and Gershwin the Klezmer, which also toured to the San Diego Rep and the Coconut Grove Playhouse in Miami.  He has appeared in numerous other theaters throughout the Twin Cities including History Theater, New Classic and Actors Theater of Minnesota.  He is one of the co-creators of We Gotta Bingo!, currently St. Paul's longest-running theatrical event.

Carolyn Pool (Lois Wilson) – Carolyn’s other Illusion appearances include the 2010 Fresh Ink Series which featured a workshop of 2 Sugars, Room for Cream, a show she wrote, produced and performed with Shanan Custer, and Zanovia in the Illusion/Florida Stage production of Jeff Hatcher's Mercy of a Storm. Other roles include Jean in Dead Man's Cell Phone, Curley's Wife in Of Mice and Men, Pfeni in The Sisters Rosensweig, Catherine in Proof at Park Square Theater, and Vivien Leigh in Orson's Shadow at Gremlin Theater, winner of the 2008 Ivey Award for Outstanding Acting Ensemble.