The lehman trilogy

BY STEFANO MASSINI/ADAPTED BY BEN POWER

DENVER CENTER, KILSTROM STAGE

2024

Directed by Margot Bordelon

Set Design: Reid Thompson

Costume Design: Raphael Regan

Lighting Design: Jiyoun Chang

Sound Design: Palmer Hefferan

Photographs: Jamie Kraus Photography

Actors: Matthew Boston, Tasso Feldman, Sasha Roiz

Stefano Massini’s 3 part epic play uses just 3 actors to tell the story of the rise of the Lehman Brothers banking empire from 3 immigrant brothers - humble Jewish fabric store owners - to a family of titans of American banking and industry and to the downfall of the company they founded in the 2008 banking collapse. Its a tour-de-force for the three actors who play scores of parts each, and tell a story that spans nearly 165 years of history from 1840’s to 2008. Playing in Denver Center’s 5 sided in-the-round Kilstrom theater, we wanted to keep the storytelling language simple, but also have enough to give the audience visual events and moments of heightened theatricality through the play. We installed a donut revolve in the theater, which was used throughout the play. A light ring - a portal of sorts - hung above the stage and could pull the eye upwards when lit. We also had light boxes around the fronts of the upper balcony that could All the locations of Part 1 were represented with a series of crates that the actors moved into place. The actors drew the signs that are so much a part of the play on the theater deck in yellow chalk. In Part 2 we introduced vintage wooden chairs and a board room table. In part 3 the chairs were modernized, and the crates replaced with cardboard boxes inspired by the famous images of Lehman employees leaving after the 2008 crash. We dropped items from the grid as a repeated gesture - black “ash” during the fire, cotton during the cotton fair, stock slips when the market crashes in ‘29, and finally gold mylar when Bobby Lehman dances the twist near the end.