Before I Leave You | Huntington Theatre Company

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TOUCHING AND UNIVERSAL! We appreciate the grace notes and shrewd insights of Alfaro's writing. The Huntington production represents a late-in-life breakthrough for the 72-year-old Cambridge resident.— The Boston Globe

PROFOUND AND VERY FUNNY! A perspective we've not seen before about love after 40 years — how you sustain a marriage, facing losing loved ones, and facing your own mortality." - WGBH's "Morning Edition" with Jared Bowen

BE TRANSPORTED by Before I Leave You. Alfaro makes the case that it's never too late to start anew." — BroadwayWorld.com

In a blink, Emily's Harvard Square world falls apart. Her husband Koji suddenly embraces his Asian roots. Her friend Jeremy's work on his novel gets interrupted by a health scare and his sister Trish moving in. Four longtime friends face too much past and too little future in this moving new comedy.

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Before I Leave You: What Audiences Are Saying

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A Scene from Before I Leave You

Trish (Karen MacDonald), Koji (Glenn Kubota), Emily (Kippy Goldfarb), and Jeremy (Ross Bickell) meet for dinner at the Royal East restaurant in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

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A Love Story For Grownups: Before I Leave You

In BEFORE I LEAVE YOU, playwright Rosanna Yamagiwa Alfaro play tells a beautiful, seldom told middle-age love story with the freshness and smart sensibility of a young independent filmmaker. While the characters might be older, the humor and the heart of the story are for everyone.

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Behind the scenes of Before I Leave You at the Huntington

Go behind the scenes of the world premiere of BEFORE I LEAVE YOU at the Huntington, with playwright and Huntington Playwriting Fellow Rosanna Yamagiwa Alfaro, director Jonathan Silverstein, and cast members Ross Bickell, Alexis Camins, Glenn Kubota, and Kippy Goldfarb.

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Peter DuBois on Before I Leave You

Charles Haugland, Artistic Programs and Dramaturgy, speaks with Huntington Artistic Director Peter DuBois about the world premiere of Rosanna Yamagiwa Alfaro's Before I Leave You at the Huntington, and the importance of supporting local writers.

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Audio

Before I Leave You on The Emily Rooney Show on WGBH

WGBH's Emily Rooney invites Before I Leave You playwright Rosanna Yamagiwa Alfaro onto the show to discuss her new world premiere, and what the theme of aging has to do with it.

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Articles

5 Ways To Be a Theatre Locavore

Director of New Work Lisa Timmel offers a few tips on exploring your own theatrical backyard.

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A Harvard Square Story: Longtime Cambridge Resident Rosanna Yamagiwa Alfaro Brings Her Work's Focus To Home

Playwright Rosanna Yamagiwa Alfaro's career surged recently. "This year, at the age of 72, I became a Huntington Playwriting Fellow, received a Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Fellowship, and was given a slot in the 2011—2012 Huntington Theatre Company season," Alfaro shares. "My son Pablo said, 'It sounds like the beginning of a brilliant career.'"

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Unexpected Cambridge: An Interview with Rosanna Yamagiwa Alfaro

Playwright Rosanna Yamagiwa Alfaro has been writing plays from her home in Harvard Square for over forty years, a fact that comes in handy since her latest is set there. She recently talked with us about writing, her town, and the surprises it holds.

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New Plays, New Chapters: A Cambridge Playwright Tells a Story of Rediscovery

A new play can spark from anything — an idea, an evocative image, a single line of text. Cambridge writer Rosanna Yamagiwa Alfaro's new play Before I Leave You started with a tumble.

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Explore a map of Harvard Square

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Press Reviews

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TOUCHING AND UNIVERSAL! We appreciate the grace notes and shrewd insights of Alfaro's writing. The Huntington production represents a late-in-life breakthrough for the 72-year-old Cambridge resident.— The Boston Globe

PROFOUND AND VERY FUNNY! A perspective we've not seen before about love after 40 years — how you sustain a marriage, facing losing loved ones, and facing your own mortality." - WGBH's "Morning Edition" with Jared Bowen

BE TRANSPORTED by Before I Leave You. Alfaro makes the case that it's never too late to start anew." — BroadwayWorld.com

More Reviews

Features

A GREAT ACTRESS COMES HOME: CFA ALUM STARS IN HUNTINGTON'S BEFORE I LEAVE YOU
BU Today, October 26, 2011: "For Karen MacDonald, working on Huntington Theatre Company productions the past few seasons has been a homecoming of sorts. . . ."

HOT NEW PLAYWRIGHT TACKLES OLD SUBJECT
Wicked Local, Oct. 22, 2011: "If you're wondering if your life has a second act — or a third, fourth or fifth act — then heed the lessons of Rosanna Yamagiwa Alfaro's late-in-life story. . . . "

BEFORE I LEAVE YOU: A PLAY FEATURING - AND FOR - THE "HARVARD SQUARE TYPE"
Weekly Dig, October 12, 2011: "Much has been written about the inspiration for ideas and art. These stories communicate how the artist or thinker came to a realization. Often these stories are apocryphal, but they do explain where the artist was coming from. For Rosanna Yamagiwa Alfaro, the 72-year-old playwright of Huntington Theatre Company's upcoming Before I Leave You, it was taking a tumble in the kitchen. . . ."

THREE STAGES: ROSANNA YAMAGIWA ALFARO
ArtSake, Oct. 12, 2011: "In Three Stages, we ask Massachusetts artists to shed light on their art-making process by focusing on three stages in one work of art. Here, Rosanna Yamagiwa Alfaro traces her new play Before I Leave You from its inspiration, to its challenges, to its culmination in this month's premiere at The Wimberly Theatre in the Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts, produced by the Huntington Theatre Company. . . ."

Artists

(in order of appearance)

Kippy Goldfarb Emily Kippy Goldfarb Emily
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Kippy Goldfarb

Emily

Kippy Goldfarb has performed a wide range of characters including Vivian Bearing (Wit), Regina (The Little Foxes), Linda Loman (Death of a Salesman), Miss Maudie (To KIll a Mockingbird), and Sharon (Book of Days).
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Ross Bickell Jeremy Ross Bickell Jeremy
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Ross Bickell

Jeremy

Ross Bickell has previously appeared in the Huntington's productions of Before I Leave You (2011), To Kill a Mockingbird (1996), The Merry Wives of Windsor (1990), Remembrance (1987), Jumpers (1987), and Saint Joan (1986). His Broadway credits include Noises Off, The Iceman Cometh, and A Few Good Men.
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Glenn Kubota Koji Glenn Kubota Koji
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Glenn Kubota

Koji

Glenn Kubota previously appeared in Before I Leave You (2011) at the Huntington. His recent New York credits include The Secret of Osono (Pan Asian Repertory Theatre) and Japanoir (The Ensemble Studio Theatre).
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Karen MacDonald Trish Karen MacDonald Trish
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Karen MacDonald

Trish

Karen MacDonald has appeared at the Huntington in Ryan Landry's "M", Good People (2013), Before I Leave You (2012), Bus Stop (2011), All My Sons (2010), and A Civil War Christmas (2010).
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Alexis Camins Peter Alexis Camins Peter
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Alexis Camins

Peter

Alexis Camins previously appeared in Before I Leave You (2011) at the Huntington. He has New York credits that include Resurrection (Diverse City Theater Company); Hamlet (New York Classical Theatre); Japanoir (Ensemble Studio Theatre); and Killing the Boss (Cherry Lane Theatre).
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Rosanna Yamagiwa Alfaro Playwright Rosanna Yamagiwa Alfaro Playwright
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Rosanna Yamagiwa Alfaro

Playwright

Rosanna Yamagiwa Alfaro is a Huntington Theatre Company Playwriting Fellow and a 2011 Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Fellow in Playwriting. Her play, Before I Leave You (2011) has been produced by the Huntington.
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Jonathan Silverstein Director Jonathan Silverstein Director
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Jonathan Silverstein

Director

Jonathan Silverstein Off Broadway credits include The Temperamentals (Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Ensemble); Lemon Sky, The Dining Room (Drama Desk Award Nomination for Outstanding Director; Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Ensemble).
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Allen Moyer Scenic Designer Allen Moyer Scenic Designer
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Allen Moyer

Scenic Designer

Allen Moyer previously designed the set for The Cocktail Hour (2013), Betrayal (2012), Private Lives (2012), Before I Leave You (2011), Educating Rita (2011), and Pterodactyls(1994) at the Huntington. His Broadway credits include The Lyons, Lysistrata Jones, After Miss Julie, Grey Gardens (Tony and Drama Desk Award nominations, Henry Hewes Award), Thurgood, The Little Dog Laughed, and The Constant Wife. Mr. Moyer is the recipient of the 2006 Obie Award for Sustained Excellence.
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Michael Krass Costume Designer Michael Krass Costume Designer
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Michael Krass

Costume Designer

Michael Krass designed costumes for A Doll's House (2017), A Confederacy of Dunces (2015), Awake and Sing! (2014), The Rivals (2005), The Rose Tattoo (2004), A Month in the Country (2002), and Dead End (2000) — among many others — at the Huntington.
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David Lander Lighting Designer David Lander Lighting Designer
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David Lander

Lighting Designer

David Lander previously lighting designed Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead(2019), Ether Dome (2014), Before I Leave You (2011), and Carry It On (formerly titled A Long and Winding Road) (2009) at the Huntington.
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David Remedios Original Music/Sound Design David Remedios Original Music/Sound Design
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David Remedios

Original Music/Sound Design

David Remedios has previously composed music and sound for Ryan Landry's "M" (2013), The Luck of the Irish (2012), Before I Leave You (2011), and Prelude to a Kiss(2010) and sound for Invisible Man (2013), Now or Later (2012) and Circle Mirror Transformation (2010) for the Huntington.
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Carola Morrone LaCoste Production Stage Manager Carola Morrone LaCoste Production Stage Manager
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Carola Morrone LaCoste

Production Stage Manager

Carola Morrone LaCoste has previously worked on The Who & the What (2017), August Wilson's How I Learned What I Learned (2016), Becoming Cuba (2014), Ryan Landry’s M (2013), Now or Later (2012), Luck of the Irish(2012), Before I Leave You (2011), Educating Rita (2011), Vengeance is the Lord’s (2010), Prelude to a Kiss (2010), Becky Shaw (2010), All My Sons (2010), Boleros for the Disenchanted (2008), Two Men of Florence (2009), and Pirates! (Or, Gilbert and Sullivan Plunder'd (2009) for the Huntington.
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Ryan A. Anderson Stage Manager Ryan A. Anderson Stage Manager
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Ryan A. Anderson

Stage Manager

Ryan A. Anderson previously worked on the Huntington's productions of Before I Leave You (2011) and The Miracle at Naples (2009). His regional credits include The Blue Flower and Ajax (American Repertory Theater); Love Song and Island of Slaves (Orfeo Group); The Drowsy Chaperone (SpeakEasy Stage Company)...
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