Sarasota's Players Centre seeks ‘Proof’ with Pulitzer Prize-winning play
Though she has been busy directing at other area community theaters, Kelly Wynn Woodland said she is overjoyed about returning to the Players Centre for Performing Arts after many years to direct one of her favorite plays, David Auburn’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “Proof.”
The play, which opens Jan. 12, is about a young woman named Catherine, played by Vera Samuels, whose father, Robert, was a mathematical genius and college professor who struggled with mental illness until his death. One of his former graduate students is going through Robert’s notebooks and discovers a proof about prime numbers that could be revolutionary. One mystery is whether that proof was actually developed by Catherine, who fears she may suffer the same problems as her father.
Woodland last directed the play in 2003 at Venice Theatre, shortly before the death of her mother, Maralyn, who was a math teacher. “That was the last show of mine that she saw. It was personal, with all the math kind of things.”
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The play is personal again following the death last year of her father, Robert C. Wynn, who in 1959 started the baseball program at what is now State College of Florida. The school’s baseball field is named for him.
“It hits me. My dad was a very prominent figure in the college, and we went through a similar situation with what Catherine goes through with him being a major figure and the declining years and what the child goes through,” Woodland said. “And then there’s a sister from out of town, who doesn’t understand any of that stuff and tries to come in and take over. It’s really personal to me in a lot of ways.”
In addition to Samuels, Woodland is directing a cast that features her husband, Mark, as Robert, Patrick Mounce as the grad student, Hal, and D’ariel Barnard as Catherine’s sister, Claire.
Working on it again, Woodland said it becomes more obvious why the play won the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 2001. “It is concise. The language is absolutely perfect, the scenes, the dialogue is mathematical. We spent a full week studying the text. It’s setting up a proof and proving it in a very mathematical way and it’s fascinating to explore that.”
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And you don’t have to know or understand anything about math. Woodland laughs before saying, “If you look at me and the cast, you know this is not a math bunch. But if you do know math, it’s obvious that the playwright knows what he’s talking about.”
She also is enjoying the challenge of staging the play in the round in the new seating arrangement at the Players Centre with audiences surrounding the stage. “The biggest challenge is that when Robert’s on stage, he can’t move a whole lot and his character is very intense,” she said.
“Proof”
By David Auburn. Directed by Kelly Wynn Woodland. Runs Jan. 12-22 at The Players Centre for Performing Arts, The Crossings at Siesta Key, 3501 S. Tamiami Trail, Sarasota, Suite 1130. Tickets are $28-$30, $13 students. 941-365-2494; theplayers.org
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This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Players Centre stages Pulitzer Prize-winning play ‘Proof’ in Sarasota
