Apollo

written and directed by:
Nancy Keystone

created in collaboration with:
Critical Mass Performance Group

original music/sound design: Randy Tico

2005 Premiere of Parts 1 & 2 at Center Theatre Group/Kirk Douglas Theatre
2009 Premiere of Full Trilogy at Portland Center Stage

Awards

Backstage West’s “Garland” Awards for Playwriting, Sound Design, and Lighting
Design. “Critics’ Picks” for Best Production, Directing, Ensemble, Scenic Design, and
Video Design. “Pick of the Week,” L.A. Weekly , “Top Ten Plays of 2005,” by LA
Alternative Press. Portland Drammy Award for Scenic Design.

The project is prominently featured in the book, The Creative Spirit by Stephanie Arnold.

About

A trilogy told through a collage of text, image, movement, music and projections,
APOLLO is an epic narrative of America, exploring the U.S. space program, it’s
relationship with Nazi rocket scientists, and the surprising intersection with the Civil
Rights Movement. It ranges from the U.S. Civil War, to Nazi Germany, to the American
South of the 1960s, to the reaches of Outer Space, focusing on America’s century of
progress, the legacy of slavery, and the moral cost of human aspiration.

Part 1: Lebensraum
Part 1 explores the relationship of the Nazi rocket scientists and the U.S. space
program; the contrast between the “innocence” of America’s post-war love affair with
technology and space flight, and the development of that rocket technology in Nazi

Germany’s slave labor camps during WWII. We follow Werhner von Braun, the Boy
Wonder of rockets, who suavely sells the same bill of goods to Hitler, Walt Disney and
President Kennedy. It’s a bright gold fantasia of rocket history, escaping Earth’s gravity
with dazzling velocity, to reach all the way to the moon with the breath of collective
aspiration..

Part 2: Gravity
The shiny, happy surface of Part 1 is pulled away in Part 2 to expose the underbelly of
that history through the case of Arthur Rudolph. Rudolph, a colleague of Wernher von
Braun and one-time top NASA Project Manager for the Apollo rocket program, is tainted
decades later by revelations of his Nazi past as production manager of Hitler’s V-2
rocket. While investigating the war crimes of this old man, Eli Rosenbaum, a young U.S.
Justice Department prosecutor discovers the post-war crimes of his own government in
its fevered ambition to become a world power. 3000 file boxes on stage contain dark
secrets, memories and desires as individuals, excavate the past to discover the ethics
of the contradictory impulses contained in each soul.

Part 3: Liberation
The Nazi Rocketeers are sent to work on the Apollo program in Huntsville, Alabama
during the 1960s, in the midst of the civil rights struggle. Exactly 100 years after the
conflagrations of the Civil War and the long struggle of Black Americans for freedom,
Huntsville is the epicenter of two pathologically divergent impulses in the nation: the
maniacal will to achieve the impossible goal of landing men on the moon, and the
savage resistance to the equally impossible goal of integrating a lunch counter.
Featuring David MacCadden, a young, Black rocket engineer, and played on a vast field
of cotton, this story is the fulcrum of two heretofore separate histories of America—the
space race and the Civil Rights struggle—as they collide to reveal larger meanings
about our intentions as a nation and shine new light on its perilous and exalted coming-
of-age.

Reviews

L.A. Times
“Soars thrillingly high…” –Steve Oxman

Willamette Week
“…unapologetically innovative, mesmerizing, affecting…excellent writing and some of
the finest moments of stagecraft I’ve ever witnessed…essential viewing.”
—Ben Waterhouse

The Oregonian
“…resonant, allusive imagery, fascinating historical detail, a rich tableau of vivid
characters and a broad sweep of ideas…conceptual ambition and technical execution
that sets it apart…
—Marty Hughley

Fin Kennedy Blog
[Apollo] represents the very best of its country and culture; fiercely intelligent, morally
attuned, unflinchingly questioning and motivated by a quiet rage at its identity having
been hijacked for so long…it fizzed with big ideas and grand historical narratives…witty,
moving, mind-expanding and heartbreaking. I haven’t seen such an exciting, satisfying
piece of theatre in a long, long time. —from the UK blog of Fin Kennedy

L.A. Weekly “Pick of the Week”
“…evocative montage of dance, spoken-work, documentary film and old-fashioned
interrogation scenes…echoes with the moral indignation of Arthur Miller…In her
sparkling, poetical production, Keystone is like a lonely, outraged Jesuit, questioning the
cost to the soul of blood-stained accomplishments, however lofty.”
—Steven Leigh Morris (short review)

Variety
“…ebullient, visually oriented and choreographically inventive…Keystone has a gift for
tapping into new ways of illuminating events…”

—Joel Hirschhorn

Flavorpill
“…truly dynamic production…talented cast…Keystone…exerts her phenomenal
theatrical aesthetic through taut staging and seamless integration of movement and
text.”
—Allen Moon

reviewplays.com
“…a remarkable achievement…world-class theatre…amazing actors…(Keystone’s) is a
gargantuan gift, evoking images of Orson Welles, Fellini, Julie Taymor, and even a
dollop of Chaplin…this is an important piece of unstoppable and courageous theatre.”

Ocean Park Gazette
“…deft use of humor, music and choreography…daring and risky and successful…the
Apollo cast become a symbiotic unity, slipping in and out of roles that run a gauntlet of
theatrical style…Apollo deserves to be seen…”
—Robert Grand

Easy Reader
“…full of brilliance…formidable…cuts open your mind and heart and digs in, you leave
the theater knowing that you have been reactivated as a living and breathing human
being.”
—Deanna Alisa Ableser

Ensemble (2009)
Angie Browne, Russell Edge, Ray Ford, Richard Anthony Gallegos, Brandon Ford
Green, Lorne Green, Andy Hirsch, Jeffrey Johnson, Nick Santoro, Christopher Shaw,
Valerie Spencer, J.Karen Thomas

production stage manager:
Winnie Lok (KDT)/Mark Tynan (PCS)
scenic design: Nancy Keystone
lights: Justin Townsend
costumes: Erin Julie Tavin (KDT) /Jeff Cone (PCS)
video design: Austin Switser (KDT) /Jeff Teeter (PCS)

Support: The project was generously supported by grants from A.S.K. Theatre

Projects, Flintridge Foundation, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, National Endowment for the
Arts, Association of Performing Arts Presenters/Doris Duke Foundation, Theatre
Communications Group/Pew Charitable Trusts, Durfee Foundation & Sharon Robinson.
Heartfelt appreciation to the many fine actors who participated in the development of APOLLO
between 2002-2008:  Roy Abramsohn, *Hugo Armstrong, Peter Aylward, *Kelly Boulware,
Joshua Wolf Coleman, Tim Cummings, Brian Dance, Patrick Dizney, Matthew Elkins, Brian
Finney, Kereem Ferguson, Stephanie Gaslin, Joe Grimm, *David Heckel, Kevin Jones, Guy
Killum, Dion Luther, Matt Miller, John Prosky, Quigley Provost-Landrum, Dean Purvis, Michael
James Reed, James Saidy, Judith Scott, Scott Alan Smith, Roslyn Tate, Kenneth Springs,
Daniel Taylor, Tim True, Matthew Weedman, Andrew Wheeler.
*part of the cast of 2005 production of Apollo [Part 1]: Lebensraum at the Kirk Douglas Theatre.

photos: Efren Delgadillo, Jr., Nancy Keystone

Video