Program for RACHEL CARSON SPEAKS

Dorothy Freeman and & Rachel Carson

RACHEL CARSON SPEAKS

A play adaption by Frank Farrell of a 1963 lecture by Rachel Carson:

The Pollution of Our Environment

and several scenes from the play In the Garden of Live Flowers

by Attilio Favorini and Lynne Conner

Directed by Frank Farrell

CAST & Company

Rachel Carson - Tiffany Browne-Tavarez

Maria Carson and Marie Rodell - Ann K. Grippo

Roger (4 years 0ld), a Waiter and William Shawn - Bobni Das

Dorothy Freeman - Kalliopy Paleos

Sound by Ben Masterton

Music by the musical duo Magpie

Scenes from the play In the Garden of Live Flowers by Attilio Favorini and Lynne Conner performed with permission by The Dramatic Publishing Company and Lynne Conner.

Time and Locations

1963 lecture for the Kaiser Foundation Hospitals and Permanente Medical Group in San Francisco at their annual symposium.

Flashbacks

1915 at the Carson Farm, Springdale, PA

Early 1950s, Southport Island in Maine.  A tide pool.

1953 at the beach.

1955, Christmas time at the Algonquin Hotel in New York City.

June 1962, editor William Shawn's office at The New Yorker magazine.

Summer 1962, the ocean front deck of Rachel's cottage on Southport, Maine. 

This online program courtesy of the First Flight Theatre Company http://www.firstflighttheatreco.com

WHO’S WHO IN RACHEL CARSON SPEAKS

Rachel Carson (1907 – 1964) was an American marine biologist, writer, and conservationist whose lyrical and scientifically rigorous works, including her Sea Trilogy and the groundbreaking Silent Spring, helped ignite the global environmental movement. Her research on the dangers of synthetic pesticides spurred policy changes, a DDT ban in the U.S., and inspired the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Tiffany Browne-Tavarez (Rachel Carson) Originally from Southwest Virginia, Tiffany moved to New York City over 20 years ago to pursue a career in acting. Since then, she has worked in several independent films, true-crime reenactment television shows, and has recently returned to the stage after rediscovering her passion for theatre. The last production she was in, Suite Sappho by James F. Broderick, completed a successful run the latest New York Theater Festival. She is truly honored to be portraying Rachel Carson in such an important and currently relevant work. Her favorite pastimes are hanging out with her husband Francisco and cat Sophie, as well as drinking coffee and thrifting unique fashion finds.

Bobni Das (Roger & William Shawn) is originally from Minnesota and has been living in New York City for over two years, slowly finding his footing. He is excited to be part of this piece and has previously performed on stage at The Theatre for the New City and Caveat during the latter half of last year. Outside of the stage you can find him taking Dance Studio classes or slowly exploring New York, one section at a time.

Ann K. Grippo (Maria Carson & Marie Rodell) What started off as a casual glance through The Bergen Record's classifieds, and seeing an "Audition" notice, I was immediately hooked! From portraying such amazing characters as a homeless woman, all the way to a first Lady, Ladybird Johnson...the journey has been thrilling. Now to have the opportunity to be in this very important piece, especially as we celebrate Earth Day. I want to thank Frank Farrell for inviting me along on this journey. May we all appreciate and respect the work of Rachel Carson, and this amazing planet that we were given. With love always.

Kalliopy Paleos (Dorothy Freeman) is truly privileged to be a part of this talented, dedicated cast which is portraying such a vital voice of our times. Sharing this message with the community is an honor and a pleasure. Other recent performances include Helen in First Flight Theatre’s production of “Night of the Living Dead” as well as Theseus in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” with Old Library Theatre. Much heartfelt gratitude for all cast and crew!

Frank Farrell (Adaptor & Director) in August 2025 directed Little Jewel at the Theatre for the New City in NYC. In 2024 he co-produced and directed Walt Kelly’s Songs of the Pogo as part of the New York City Fringe Festival, produced Hamlet on the Run at the Tank Theater and co-produced and directed Tongs and Bones Shakespeare at the Theater for the New City, he directed Little Women, Poe: An Evening of Mystery and the Macabre and Dickens Presents A Christmas Carol for the Hermitage in New Jersey. Frank produced and directed Shakespeare’s Ladies at Tea and Shakespeare’s Deaths as part of the Little Shakespeare Festival in NYC in 2023. He was an actor in Chicago for 40 years receiving four Joseph Jefferson acting nominations and returned to NYC and New Jersey in 2016. While in Chicago he directed and produced plays for the Free Shakespeare Theatre Company, Temporary Theatre, Shakespeare’s Herd, Steppenwolf Theater, Raven Theatre, Equity Library Theater Chicago, the North Lakeside Players, Citadel Theater, and Theatre-Hikes. Frank has formed seven theater companies including the Free Shakespeare Theatre Company (Chicago’s first year-round Shakespeare theatre company), Theatre-Hikes, the Pigeon Creek Shakespeare Company in Grand Haven, Michigan and in 2019 the First Flight Theatre Company. For FFTC he directed and produced 2022’s production of Maxwell Anderson’s play Valley Forge. Frank has published six plays by Anderson from the 1920s: What Price Glory, First Flight, The Buccaneer, Outside Looking In, Gods of the Lightning and Sea-Wife all available at Amazon.com.

Ben Masterton (Sound Design) has composed and arranged music for dozens of Shakespeare productions, in Chicago with the Shakespeare Festival of Chicago, Free

Shakespeare, and others, and in Florida, New York, and of course, Idaho.  With Frank Farrell Productions, Ben has composed music and designed sound in New Jersey for A Christmas Carol: The Musical, Night of the Living Dead, and musicalized an evening of the writings of Edgar Allan Poe. Frank and Ben also produced the Songs of the Pogo

franchise, including the Songs of the Pogo Podcast, the film, and the theatrical stage show in New York City. Ben has written over a hundred and fifty songs and currently resides in Gainesville, Florida.

Magpie (Music) Since 1973, Terry Leonino and Greg Artzner have brought their unique sound and remarkable versatility to audiences everywhere, featuring traditional and vintage Americana to contemporary and stirring original compositions. They are Magpie.

Lynne Conner (In the Garden of Live Flowers Playwright) Lynne Conner's plays and adaptations have been commissioned and produced by the Pittsburgh Playhouse, Pitt Repertory Theatre, Prime Stage, Gemini Theatre, Quantum Theatre, The Three Rivers Shakespeare Festival Young Company, the Pittsburgh Chamber Music Society/Unseam'd Shakespeare Company, Gateway to the Arts and the Heinz History Center. In the Garden of Live Flowers (written with Attilio Favorini) won the 2002 Kennedy Center/ATHE David Mark Cohen National Playwriting Award and a Jane Chambers 2002 Honorable Mention Award. Her play Nina was included in the Smith College New Play Reading Series in March 2002, won the Gemini Theater New Play Festival competition and was named a finalist in the Dorothy Silver Playwriting Award and the Oglebay Institute Towngate Theatre Playwriting Contest. As the founding director of the Heinz History Center's Stages in History professional theatre company, she wrote over 50 one-act plays, monologues and short scenes, including the one-act play, John and Sarah: Scenes from a Love Story, which received the Pennsylvania Federation of Museums Award of Merit/Outstanding Museum Programs in May 2000. Dr. Conner is assistant professor in the University of Pittsburgh's Department of Theatre Arts. She has received grants in support of her playwriting from the Pennsylvania Humanities Council, the Pittsburgh Foundation, the Alcoa Foundation, the Howard and Nell E. Miller Foundation and the Hewlett-Packard Foundation.

Attilio Favorini (1943 – 2022) In the Garden of Live Flowers Playwright) Attilio Favorini is the recipient of a Playwriting Fellowship from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. Of his five plays, Steel/City (written with Gillette Elvgren) was named on the Ten Best List of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in 1976 and as Best Production of the Year by the City Paper in 1992. Steel/City was further honored by an invitation to the Smithsonian Institution's Festival of American Folklife. Scenes from the play were performed at the 1992 National Convention of the United Steelworkers of America. The play has been published by the University of Pittsburgh Press. Hearts and Diamonds is a quasi-documentary representing the intersection of two women's lives in Pittsburgh early in the 20th century; Willa Cather and Lillian Russell. Bones, a postmodern suspense drama based on the events of the "Piltdown Man" hoax, was presented in a staged reading in the City Theatre's TNT (Tuesday Night Theatre) series. In New York, it was directed in a staged reading by Roger Simon and featured Fritz Weaver in the main role of Arthur Conan Doyle. Yearbook, which contrasts the high school experiences of students in the 1950s and 1990s, was commissioned by Generations Together and toured high schools and senior citizen centers in Western Pensylvania. In the Garden of Live Flowers (written with Lynne Conner) won the 2002 Kennedy Center/ATHE David Mark Cohen National Playwriting Award and a Jane Chambers 2002 Honorable Mention Award.

Special Thanks: Reverend Sarah Lenzi, Ann Pareti, Joanna Davis-Swing, Carol Wolf, Anita Young, Glenn McAnanama and the Environmental Justice Team at the Unitarian Society of Ridgewood, Christine Blaystock and The Hermitage, Claudia Egli, Cathy Ann McGlinchey, Rick Young and Lynne Conner.

“Only within the moment of time represented by the present century has one species -- man -- acquired significant power to alter the nature of the world.”

                                      ― Rachel Carson, Silent Spring