SDC Journal, Summer 2015 Issue

JOURNAL SUMMER 2015

MAKING A STATEMENT

SNEHAL DESAI

CONNECTION + COMMUNITY

LIFE AS A THEATRE ARTIST IN LOS ANGELES

NEW PEER-REVIEWED SECTION

DIRECTING + CHOREOGRAPHY IN THE ACADEMY + THE PROFESSION: A FORUM + MORE

WITH

JULIETTE CARRILLO BART DELORENZO AMEENAH KAPLAN NEEL KELLER OANH NGUYEN KEN ROHT

NANCY KEYSTONE AT HOME IN THE CITY SHE LOVES SUMMER 2015 | SDC JOURNAL

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SDC EXECUTIVE BOARD OFFICERS

“

Ours is an upbeat, a hurried, hasty beat.

It keeps pressing us to go farther, to include everything so that we can savor everything, so that we can know everything, so that we will miss nothing.

Partly it’s greed, but mainly curiosity.

We just want to experience it.

And we do.

”

AGNES DE MILLE

Susan H. Schulman PRESIDENT

John Rando EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT

Leigh Silverman VICE PRESIDENT

Oz Scott SECRETARY

Ethan McSweeny TREASURER

COUNSEL

SDC Foundation sustains directors and choreographers in their quest to know and to make. With professional development, community forums, fellowships, observerships, and awards, SDCF offers opportunities to learn and to work, to establish connections between generations of artists, to create a future together.

WE LAUNCH, REINVIGORATE + INSPIRE. SDCF is committed to showcasing the vital artistry of stage directors and choreographers, but it takes dollars.

Our individual donations are the frontline of support for SDCF and, by extension, each other. Please consider making a donation today –– no gift is too small.

Ronald H. Shechtman EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Laura Penn

www.SDCFoundation.org/get-involved/donate

Julie Arenal Christopher Ashley Anne Bogart Mark Brokaw Joe Calarco Larry Carpenter Marcia Milgrom Dodge Sheldon Epps Michael John Garcés Christopher Gattelli Liza Gennaro Wendy C. Goldberg Linda Hartzell Anne Kauffman Dan Knechtges Mark Lamos Paul Lazarus Pam MacKinnon Meredith McDonough Robert Moss

Robert O’Hara Sharon Ott Lonny Price Seret Scott Bartlett Sher Casey Stangl Michael Wilson Chay Yew Evan Yionoulis HONORARY ADVISORY COMMITTEE

Karen Azenberg Pamela Berlin Melvin Bernhardt Julianne Boyd Danny Daniels Marshall W. Mason Ted Pappas

SDC JOURNAL

Published by SDC | Summer 2015 | Volume 4 | No. 1 FEATURES EDITOR

Elizabeth Bennett ART DIRECTOR/DESIGNER

Elizabeth Nelson EDITORIAL COMMITTEE

Walter Bobbie Sheldon Epps Graciela Daniele Liza Gennaro Thomas Kail Robert O'Hara Leigh Silverman Evan Yionoulis CONTRIBUTORS

Anne Bogart SDCJ PEER-REVIEW ADVISORY BOARD

Julianne Boyd DIRECTOR

FUEL THE CURIOSITY

MEMBERS OF BOARD

Peta Coy EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT

Elina de Santos

Sheldon Epps

Ted Pappas

DIRECTOR

DIRECTOR/CHOREOGRAPHER

Anne Fliotsos

Ruth Pe Palileo

CO-EDITOR PEER-REVIEWED SECTION

SDCJ PEER-REVIEW BOARD

Liza Gennaro

James Peck

SDCJ PEER-REVIEW BOARD

SDCJ PEER-REVIEW ADVISORY BOARD

Margaret Gray

John Rando

FREELANCE ARTS JOURNALIST

DIRECTOR

Joan Herrington

Susan H. Schulman

SDCJ PEER-REVIEW ADVISORY BOARD

DIRECTOR

John S. Sebestyen

Seret Scott

SDCJ-PRS BOOK REVIEWER

DIRECTOR

Neel Keller

Ann M. Shanahan

DIRECTOR

CO-EDITOR PEER-REVIEWED SECTION

Sari Ketter

Megan Wrappe

DIRECTOR

SDC JOURNAL INTERN

Kathleen M. McGeever SDCJ PEER-REVIEW BOARD

Erin B. Mee DIRECTOR

Laura Paone WRITER

DIRECTOR

SDCF is a 501(c)3 nonprofit and a separate entity from SDC. All contributions are tax-deductible to the extent the law allows. | SDCF Programming in 2014-2015 is made possible in part by the National Endowment for the Arts; the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature; by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council;The Kurt Weill Foundation for Music; IATSE; Local One IATSE; Pryor Cashman, LLP; Theatrical Teamsters, Local 817; Theatrical Wardrobe Union, Local 764; Treasurers & Ticket Sellers Union, Local 751; Stage Directors and Choreographers Society; and many generous individuals.

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SDC JOURNAL

| SUMMER 2015

SDC JOURNAL is published quarterly by Stage Directors and Choreographers Society, located at 321 W. 44th Street, Suite 804, NY, NY 10036. SDC JOURNAL is a registered trademark of SDC. SUBSCRIPTIONS + ADVERTISEMENTS Call 212.391.1070 or visit www.SDCweb.org.

Annual SDC Membership dues include a $5 allocation for a 1-year subscription to SDC JOURNAL. Non-Members may purchase an annual subscription for $24 (domestic), $48 (foreign); single copies cost $7 each (domestic), $14 (foreign). Purchase online at www.

SDCweb.org. Also available at the Drama Book Shop in NY, NY. POSTMASTER Send address changes to SDC JOURNAL, SDC, 321 W. 44th Street, Suite 804, NY, NY 10036.

PRINTED BY Sterling Printing

FEATURES

24

COVER

13 Snehal Desai

Nancy

performer on his career, making new traditions + immersing himself in regional theatre.

INTERVIEW BY

MARGARET GRAY

18 G reek Tragedies at

Home at Los Angeles’s Getty Villa

irectors ANNE BOGART, CAREY D PERLOFF, TRAVIS PRESTON + JON LAWRENCE RIVERA describe their experiences working at the Getty Villa.

BY SDC JOURNAL INTERN MEGAN WRAPPE

Keystone

AT HOME IN THE CITY SHE LOVES

MAKING A STATEMENT

The rising director, playwright +

38 NEW PEER-REVIEWED SECTION

The LA-based director shares

memories of student life in Los Angeles + the role that city has played in her artistic development.

INTERVIEW BY

Directing + Choreography

in the Academy + the Profession: A Forum A thought-provoking discussion

concerning the relationship between the academy + the profession.

EDITED BY ANNE FLIOTSOS

+ ANN M. SHANAHAN

JOHN RANDO

29 Connection + Community 46 FROM THE ARCHIVES LIFE AS A THEATRE ARTIST IN LOS ANGELES

Speaking a Thought

in the World

PART II: GARLAND WRIGHT ON RICHARD III

A roundtable discussion with five

LA-based directors + choreograpers.

MODERATED BY

NEEL KELLER

A detailed study of Wright's thoughts + writings while directing Richard III.

34 Theatre Training

BY

SARI KETTER + ERIN B. MEE

THE NEXT GENERATION

SUMMER

Leaders from three influential

education programs in Los Angeles + the surrounding area explore what entices students to study theatre in southern California.

CONTENTS Volume 4 | No. 1

BY

ELIZABETH BENNETT

SUMMER 2015 | SDC JOURNAL

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THIS PAGE

Board, staff + construction at The Plant in January 2015

5 FROM THE PRESIDENT

23 A Theatre Town?

Without a Doubt!

BY SUSAN H. SCHULMAN

6

FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

BY LAURA PENN

7

IN YOUR WORDS

What I Learned...

Ted Pappas

CURATED BY SERET SCOTT

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hy I Cast That Actor W Elina de Santos

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BACKSTAGE

Jared Mezzocchi

Projection + Multimedia Designer

10 MEMBERS IN PRINT + MEDIA

Paul Lazarus’s SlingShot

+

Tom

Moore’s The Flight Fantastic

BY LAURA

PAONE

SDC JOURNAL

| SUMMER 2015

THE SOCIETY PAGES CONTINUED

Theatre Hall of Fame

Fred + Adele Astaire Awards

BY SHELDON

45

SDCJ-PRS BOOK REVIEW

SDC Tony Toast

The Cambridge Introduction to Theatre Directing By

Tony Awards

Christopher Innes + Maria Shevtsova REVIEW BY JOHN S. SEBESTYEN

In Memory of Gene Saks

BY JULIANNE

52

THE SOCIETY PAGES

Members-Only Preview

+

Industry Open House

Gilbert Cates

Milton Katselas Award for Career Achievement in Direction SDC Boston Area Steering Committee Los Angeles Membership Information Session One-On-One Conversation with Tom Moore + Annette Bening Semi-Annual Membership Meeting

4

EPPS

2014-2015 IN MEMORIAM

BOYD

Nancy Keystone + Jesse Shao during The End Times for New Works Festival at University of Southern California School of Dramatic Arts in May 2014 PHOTO Craig Schwartz COVER

Bart DeLorenzo, Neel Keller, Juliette Carrillo, Ken Roht, Oanh Nguyen + Ameenah Kaplan PHOTO Craig Schwartz PREVIOUS

SDC's Industry Open House tour of the roof deck at The Plant in NYC PHOTO Walter McBride ABOVE

Serving as SDC President has provided me the opportunity to get to know more and more of our Membership. Through Membership meetings, conferences, Board meetings, and travel, it has been a privilege to experience firsthand the breadth, depth, and diversity of SDC Members working across the entire country. While SDC has been a national union for quite some time, it feels as though in the last several years we have taken significant leaps forward in our national scope and presence.

Tangible evidence of this expansion includes SDC’s support of the establishment of the SDC Foundation Zelda Fichandler Award in 2009, which annually recognizes an outstanding director or choreographer making an exceptional contribution to the national arts landscape through theatre work in a particular region. To date, the award has honored the work of Jonathan Moscone (Orinda, CA), Michael Halberstam (Glencoe, IL), Blanka Zizka (Philadelphia, PA), Bill Rauch (Ashland, OR), Charles Newell (Chicago, IL), and most recently Joseph Haj (Chapel Hill, NC).

FROM THE PRESIDENT

Other confirmation of our growth can be found in our Executive Committee, which is no longer solely based in New York. You heard from Secretary Oz Scott on this very page a couple of issues back. As a resident of Los Angeles, he brings his regional and unique perspective to our conversations and decision-making processes. We have also seen the continued development of the regional representative positions on the Board. Our regional representatives are connecting in each of the five regions of the country to support the needs of our Members who work in a particular area. In addition, our tireless staff and Board continue to travel the country, attending the annual TCG Conference, the Association for Theatre in Higher Education Conference, many of the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festivals, and visiting Members and theatres in various cities. In the last year alone, we traveled to Portland, Seattle, Chicago, Boston, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, and Washington, D.C. As we lend a focus to our Membership in Los Angeles throughout this issue, I want to share my experience from my travels there on union business last December. I was so impressed by the passion and desire of our L.A. Members to engage, both with one another and with SDC. It was truly invigorating to be in a room with more than 50 Members from the Los Angeles area who wanted to be more involved and heard. I was aware of their enthusiasm but to witness it in person was quite remarkable. It confirmed the need for the Los Angeles Ad Hoc Committee, which we established in fall 2014 to focus on growing the L.A. Membership and raising the profile of SDC in the L.A. area. This committee is led by co-chairs Art Manke and Casey Stangl and includes Matt August, Dan Bonnell, Larry Carpenter, Douglas Clayton, Tim Dang, Elina de Santos, Sheldon Epps, Neel Keller, Janet Miller, John Rando, and Oz Scott. I applaud these Members who have been doing marvelous work to achieve their goals, including organizing a grassroots-style Membership drive through personal outreach to nonMember colleagues.

We have already seen an increase in our L.A. Membership base and have many more interested and in touch with SDC. The L.A. Ad Hoc Committee was also charged with guiding the formation of the negotiating committee for upcoming talks with the Theatrical Producers League of Los Angeles/Intimate Theatres. These talks mark a historic moment as the new contract created will be SDC’s first new multi-employer bargaining agreement in 20 years.

There is no doubt that the result of this negotiation will greatly benefit our Members working in Los Angeles. I thank this committee wholeheartedly for their efforts and service!

MATT AUGUST since 2002 DAN BONNELL since 1987 LARRY CARPENTER since 1981 DOUGLAS CLAYTON since 2008 TIM DANG since 2010 ELINA DE SANTOS since 1998 SHELDON EPPS since 1981 JOSEPH HAJ since 2004 MICHAEL HALBERSTAM since 2006 NEEL KELLER since 1998 ART MANKE since 2001 JANET MILLER since 2000 JONATHAN MOSCONE since 1997 CHARLES NEWELL since 1990 JOHN RANDO since 1995 BILL RAUCH since 1999 SUSAN H. SCHULMAN since 1981 OZ SCOTT since 1991 CASEY STANGL since 2003 BLANKA ZIZKA since 2000

While the Los Angeles Membership is unique in many ways, its fervor must be contagious as we are feeling similar surges of energy from other pockets of Membership as well, particularly in Boston and Chicago. The SDC staff and Board are determined to keep up with our energetic and active Members and will continue to allocate our resources carefully in order to do so.

We remain committed to serving and strengthening our current Membership as well as welcoming new Members to our ranks. Have a great summer.

In solidarity,

Susan H. Schulman Executive Board President

SUMMER 2015 | SDC JOURNAL

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FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR When I began at SDC in 2008, I asked the staff and Executive Board leadership for a list of those I should meet in my first six months.

Talk about a glorious and terrifying list, but what a great six months. Good food, mostly.

Amazing stories, almost all. A few secrets I will never tell, and so much wise counsel that I would need two lifetimes to make use of it all.

Gil Cates was on that list, and I feel truly blessed to have had his guidance. He was legendary for his shrewd but fair negotiating skills, and many have said that, as lead negotiator for the Directors Guild of America, he set the bar for the entertainment industry. I soaked up every bit of wisdom he was willing to pass my way. Although I only knew him briefly, his love of theatre and those who created it, most specifically directors, was very real. A New Yorker by birth, he was uniquely at home in LA, and it was through Gil that I was first introduced to the dynamic of the LA theatre scene. I remember sitting in his office at the Geffen Playhouse and hearing about 99-seat theatres and the ecosystem as he experienced it from his perspective, which he knew was privileged. I was struck by the passion with which he spoke about the larger LA theatrical environment.

It wasn’t long before my own understanding of the LA community began to grow. As a LORT manager, I certainly knew the “big houses” (if you will), and I had actually spent my childhood in the Valley. I love Southern California—the sunsets, the ocean—and I have loved getting to know the work of our Southern California Members. With each trip west, I understand more fully the opportunities and challenges of making theatre in this environment, and I understand how the region shapes and is shaped by the work of SDC Members.

This issue of SDC Journal features a suite of articles attempting to provide a glimpse of the Southern California theatre community in all its sprawl and glory: a roundtable moderated by long-term Southern California Member Neel Keller, a look into the dynamics of studying theatre in the midst of this film and television mecca, working at the Getty with all its beauty and challenges, and a conversation with one of the city’s leading generative directors, Nancy Keystone, as interviewed by Executive Vice President John Rando. (John himself attended UCLA, and I have heard him speak of the deep admiration he has for the Southern California artists who contribute to the distinct theatrical landscape in their region.)

As I write this column, SDC has staff members heading to Cleveland for the TCG conference, and we are making plans for a delegation to attend the National Black Theatre Festival in Winston-Salem; some will visit Chicago for the Carnaval Festival of Latina/o Plays. I’m going to the Dramatists Guild Conference in La Jolla, and we have a trip to Montreal scheduled to launch the new SDC Journal Peer-Reviewed Section with our friends and colleagues of the Association of Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE). (See page 38 and special thanks to Ann M. Shanahan and Anne Fliotsos for their leadership in this exciting endeavor!)

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As summer sets in, I have been thinking about this past spring and all that has transpired. At the Semi-Annual Membership Meeting in March, with President Susan H. Schulman on Skype from Stratford, EVP John Rando addressed the Members, marking the significance of our move into the new office at 321 West 44th Street with a primer on SDC history. Briefly, his remarks included: In 1959, Shepard Traube, Ezra Stone, Agnes de Mille, Bob Fosse, Jerome Robbins, and others signed on for the creation of SDC. After two years, they gathered some 60+ colleagues to sign a strike pledge.

This pledge stated that if the Broadway producers refused to recognize the Union (then SSDC) by April of 1962, they would stop working.

In February of 1962—just weeks before the deadline—Fosse, who was set to go into rehearsal for Little Me, refused to go. He knew someone had to take a stand, and he did it. The producers immediately signed Fosse to an SSDC agreement, and the League of Broadway theatres agreed to negotiate.

In March, a meeting was called of the SSDC Membership to prepare to negotiate with the producers. At that meeting on March 14, 1962, at 11 p.m., upstairs at Sardi’s in New York City, the following telegram from Ezra Stone (who was likely in LA that day) read: Victory is near. To make it lasting and meaningful, let us hope all Members will help govern instead of merely being governed; will respect and aid each other and sister theatrical Unions; will have the vision and incentive to provide a haven for all directors, choreographers, and their assistants in every form of theatrical stage enterprise—professional, educational, and communal—in the United States and Canada; will arrive at just contract demands only after consideration of their effect on the general welfare of the entertainment industry; will appreciate those who sacrifice the most to bring this society from dreams to reality. Star calls for our President, Officers, Directors Council, staff, and especially Bob Fosse, our first man shot into the Great White Way. Fraternally, Ezra Stone, co-Chairman 1st Constitution Committee, First Elected Secretary Ezra Stone connects LA and this infamous night, historically tying the two coasts together. We were national even then, even when the regional theatre movement had barely been imagined. (And surely theatre training programs must have been little more than a glimmer in someone’s eye.) Yet, here we are, SDC—lasting and meaningful with a big heart and bigger determination to represent and support directors and choreographers, wherever, whenever, and however they ply their trade.

Laura Penn, Executive Director

GILBERT CATES d.2011 AGNES DE MILLE d.1993 BOB FOSSE d.1987 NEEL KELLER since 1998 NANCY KEYSTONE since 2000 JOHN RANDO since 1995 JEROME ROBBINS d.1998 SUSAN H. SCHULMAN since 1981 ANN M. SHANAHAN Assc. since 2014 EZRA STONE d.1994 SHEPARD TRAUBE d.1983

On the set of Pittsburgh Public Theater’s production of As You Like It

WHAT I LEARNED… TED PAPPAS CURATED BY SERET SCOTT

BY

IN YOUR WORDS What I Learned...

Why I Cast That Actor Backstage Members in Print + Media

8 CONTRIBUTE If you wish to contribute to IN YOUR WORDS, would like to respond to any of the articles, opinions, or views expressed in SDC Journal, or have an idea for an article, please email Letters@SDCweb.org. Include your full name, city + state.

We regret that we are unable to respond to every letter.

Early in my career, I had the good fortune to see some thrilling productions that revealed a world of possibilities to me: The Royal Family, directed by Ellis Rabb; Sweeney Todd, directed by Harold Prince; Nicholas Nickleby, directed by John Caird and Trevor Nunn; and A Chorus Line, with the original cast, directed and choreographed by Michael Bennett, to name a few. Every great production that I could get a ticket to, whether on or Off-Broadway, at the opera house, or the ballet, influenced me in ways that still amaze and inspire me as a director.

I stalked geniuses. If Martha Graham or George Balanchine created a new work, I was there. The same with Jerome Robbins. If Stephen Sondheim was willing to write a musical about the opening of Japan to the West, I would buy a ticket and let the magic overwhelm me. The same with anything created by Bob Fosse. Or Mike Nichols. Or any performance by Jessica Tandy or Ethel Merman.

Later, I became a teammate of two bona fide geniuses: Gerald Gutierrez (as his associate director and choreographer) and Hal Prince (as his choreographer). In some ways, they were polar opposites as men and as artists. But it’s the similarities that informed and guided me then, and today: Discipline. Imagination. Courage. Exuberance balanced by technique. Strong opinions. Flexibility, when called for. Boundless curiosity about the theatre and the world. Historical perspective.

Knowledge of architecture, art, dance, music, and literature. Wit. And, above all, splendid taste.

Whenever I encounter these qualities, or at least a handful of them, in a director, designer, or actor, I pounce and immediately invite them to join the Pittsburgh Public Theater family of artists. And I continue to be moved and enriched by a brand-new generation of thrilling writers, actors, directors, and choreographers. We never stop learning.

TED PAPPAS is beginning his 16th season as Producing Artistic Director of Pittsburgh Public Theater. He has directed 50 productions for the company, including the works of Sophocles, Shakespeare, Schiller, Shaw, and Sondheim. His career as a director and choreographer has taken him on adventures from coast to coast, throughout Europe, on Broadway, in opera houses, nightclubs, and television studios. He holds degrees from Northwestern University and Hunter College. Ted served on the Executive Board of SDC for fifteen years, including three years as the Union’s president.

JOHN CAIRD since 1982 | BOB FOSSE d.1987 | GERALD GUTIERREZ d.2003 | MIKE NICHOLS d.2014 | TREVOR NUNN since 1982 | TED PAPPAS since 1981 | HAROLD PRINCE since 1963 ELLIS RABB d.1998 | JEROME ROBBINS d.1998 | SERET SCOTT since 1989

SUMMER 2015 | SDC JOURNAL

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WHY I CAST THAT ACTOR

ELINA DE SANTOS On casting Richard Fancy

Wonder why directors use the same actors over and over?

How does the first time happen? For me, it went like this…

Once upon a time, I was a casting director in Philadelphia.

My practice included seeing almost every stage production in the city and its suburbs. One Sunday matinee, I took my four-year-old daughter, Megan, to see Villanova University’s production of Shakespeare’s Henry V. She loved the play so much she insisted that I take her to see it again; in particular, she wanted to see the riveting actor Richard Fancy in the title role. He wasn’t a student. He was a guest Equity artist from New York. His Henry was alive with an ardent zeal, rousing rhetoric, and unprecedented resource. The adolescent Hal of Henry IV became the man who persuaded men and a queen to follow his resolute lead. Richard was the king! My daughter recognized it instantly, and I, too, was captivated by his uncanny ability to win his followers on and off the battlefield.

Soon after Henry V, I was casting Richard in film and television in Philadelphia and New York. He won nearly every role I sent him in for, from Sam Adams in the George Washington Mini-Series directed by Buzz Kulik (his first credited television role) to a lead role in PBS’s American Playhouse film The Silence at Bethany, directed by Joel Oliansky.

The persistent determination, charisma, and ruthlessness that attracted our attention seeing him win the battle at Agincourt and seduce Katherine translated into an extremely castable actor for all media. What I saw in his auditions and performances made me remember him for each next role.

By some wonderful turn of fate, both Richard and I had opportunities to work in Los Angeles around the same time.

Richard was cast in Broadway-bound Light Up the Sky at the Ahmanson, and I got a job casting for Steven Bochco on Doogie Howser, M.D. By 1990, we were both settling our families in Santa Monica. As much as Richard was successful in film and television, he craved working in the theatre. He found a small repertory company in Venice called Pacific Resident Theatre Ensemble. It was highly regarded and worked under the 99seat plan. This allowed him to “make a living” on screen while crafting roles on stage. He often told me, “I do television to support my theatre habit.” Along with casting and teaching, I began to fuel my own “theatre habit” by directing plays in a tiny garage that I converted into a theatre and teaching space.

In 1993, Pacific Resident Theatre Ensemble asked me to direct a workshop production of Clifford Odets’s Awake and Sing!

Immediately, I thought of Richard Fancy for Moe Axelrod. He was already recurring on Seinfeld as Mr. Lippman and guest starring on numerous other shows. I wanted this actor, who craved stage work, to be our Moe in the 1935 masterpiece. It wasn’t only his ability to handle the poetic language but the essence that I had seen in his portrayal of Henry 10 years earlier. I wagered that this would serve Richard in creating the proud and determined Moe Axelrod. “Baby, if you had a dog, I’d love the dog!” and “I got a

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yen for her, and I don’t mean a Chinese coin” were meant to be said by Richard. His Moe stunned and delighted audiences, and the six-week workshop found its home eighteen months later at the Odyssey Theatre for a nine-month, sold-out, award-winning run. He was Moe Axelrod as much as he had been Henry.

This was the beginning of “why I cast that actor” over and over.

It was followed by more than 20 years of theatre collaborations with Richard Fancy. Again and again, I cast him in plays that I directed. Among them, Sterling in Theresa Rebeck’s Mauritius, Joe Keller in Arthur Miller’s All My Sons, Robert in David Auburn’s Proof, Mr. Prince in Clifford Odets’s A Rocket to the Moon, Galileo in Bertolt Brecht’s Galileo, Rabbi Saul Mortera in David Ives’s New Jerusalem, Deano Goretti in the world premiere of John Pollono’s Razorback at Rogue Machine Theatre, and Willy Loman in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman.

For each of these roles, he’s had the crucial ingredients to play the part. As different and as challenging as each one of these roles is, at the core, each character is unstoppable in pursuing that thing that would make him great (or die trying). That thing was the what four-year-old Megan and I saw on that Villanova stage some 30 years ago, the reason why I cast that actor.

Fancy + Sharron Shayne in Death of a Salesman at Pacific Resident Theatre in 2006 PHOTO Gar Campbell ABOVE Richard

ELINA ETHAN DE SANTOS HEARD since 1998 2013

BACKSTAGE WITH PROJECTION + MULTIMEDIA DESIGNER

JARED MEZZOCCHI

How did you get involved with projection and multimedia design?

I grew up loving theatre and always wanted to be in it, but more from an actor’s standpoint than a director’s. I also had a love for numbers and patterns, so when I discovered what projection and multimedia design could do, that kind of wrapped it all up into one inspiring package for me. I got my MFA at Brooklyn College’s Performance and Interactive Media Arts while simultaneously touring with Caden Manson’s Big Art Group as their software programs designer.

So it all sort of just clicked at once.

You teach at the University of Maryland. What do you focus on with your students?

Storytelling tactics with technology. I teach my students what it means to maintain an effective story while using new technologies.

Story must always come first, though. The technology simply allows us to enhance the magical ways in which we tell those stories for an audience of the next generation.

How do you incorporate storytelling into your own work?

I write out my ideas without thinking about the technology afforded to the show. I think conceptually and broadly about the images and visuals that make up the ideal imagined world. From there, I ask how I can make that possible with the technology afforded to us. I find it easier to hold onto the initial, inspiring seeds of the work. I then try to offer as much as I can in that process. It’s a lot of experimentation in the rehearsal room. As everyone is rehearsing, for me, it’s about defining the character of “media” as a part of the storytelling.

Are there certain types of projects or subjects that you like working with the best?

ABOVE The

History of Invulnerability, directed by Mark Clements, at Milwaukee Repertory Theater PHOTO Todd Ivins MAY ADRALES since 2010 | MARK CLEMENTS since 2001 DEREK GOLDMAN since 2014 | JOHN VREEKE since 1984

I love doing shows where the media is interactive with the actors, not just backdrops.

I worked with director Natsu Onoda Power in D.C., and we did Astro Boy, where it was interactive media that was cue based off of the actors’ actions, as if they were the equivalent of a prop. I’ve also worked with other directors, like Mark Clements, May Adrales, Derek Goldman, and John Vreeke, on multiple shows where the work was more nostalgic and archival. Even in those shows, however, the media was referenced and augmented by the characters telling their story.

Does new technology make an impact on your work or teaching?

Sometimes, though I try and hold back from using new, updated versions of software in shows without having ample time to experiment with it outside of the theatre.

I’ll get the updates and bring them into a classroom and say, “Hey, there’s this new software/hardware that just came out. Let’s investigate it.” But until I

know how every function of the update works, I feel uncomfortable asking that it be embedded into an effective story.

What advice would you give to future multimedia projection designers or people who want to look into it more?

It’s such a new field, so the more voices there are, the higher the standards can be and the more conscientious directors will be on how to use it. Try and figure out how it fits for you—where it doesn’t fit into stories—because certain shows don’t need it. Most importantly, if you feel like you are the only person on Earth who could design that show in that way, do it. It may be really challenging, and it may be really exhausting, but it will be worth it.

What has been your experience working with directors throughout your career?

It varies, and it actually grows and evolves.

I love working multiple times with directors on different kinds of shows, and I have a core community of directors that I really love SUMMER 2015 | SDC JOURNAL

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working with at this point. This is certainly not exclusive, but I find myself returning to the same directors and finding that my work as a designer, when I work with them, is embedded in their voice. My work is very different depending on the director that I’m working with, which I like. I try and decipher what the visual voice of the director is and try to find how my work and abilities can unlock that.

What would you like directors to know from a designer’s standpoint?

See our work in other shows and see how it varies from show to show (or doesn’t). Ask visual questions and avoid technical ones.

Dream the big dream and ask us to bring in demos of what we think you are talking about. Always demand to see the work, see the demo, see the example…don’t just talk about ideas. Use actual work in the field as reference points. Be inquisitive about multimedia productions you’ve seen and have conversations about them with your designer. I’m always showing directors as much as possible during the process so that people can respond to it. You really have to be able to have that kind of dialogue because it’s tough and deceiving to simply talk about it and not look at it. The more we can get out of our technical conversations and the more we can all become dreamers, the more we can show those dreams throughout the process, the stronger the end collaboration will be.

IN PRINT + MEDIA

PAUL LAZARUS'S SLINGSHOT

Any final thoughts?

Multimedia is new, but we all need to get over that. It’s just another paint on the canvas. We need to demand a higher standard of showing the ideas in the preproduction process. We must, as a team, ask: “What are the most effective ways of exploring the core of our ideas prior to tech?” The problems I’ve encountered in productions have always been because I should have shown specific parts of the work earlier, no matter how preliminary it is. We cannot depend on tech rehearsals to finally approach an idea.

That’s the implementation period, not the presentation period. There’s so much we can explore on smaller scales (dramaturgically, compositionally, aesthetically, rhythmically, etc.), and so I hope, as readers and practitioners, we no longer shy away from the intimidations of a “new form” and instead demand more throughout the process while remaining communicative and flexible as to what those viewings actually are. I believe it is at that point that we truly can unlock the potential of what pixels can actually and magically do to unlock a story.

While the world water crisis is no secret, few are aware of advances that have been made to solve the problem. One of these advances has been made by inventor Dean Kamen.

Director Paul Lazarus’s SlingShot follows Kamen’s water purification system, inventing process, and efforts to ensure clean water is accessible all over the world.

How did you get involved with this documentary? What drew you to Dean Kamen?

Over the last couple decades, I’ve done many short films with Dean. We’ve done numerous pieces about his Segway transportation device, and he has asked me to make several short documentaries about his first robotics program, which is aimed at getting kids excited about science and technology. So we had a lot of experience with each other as filmmaker and inventor. In 2006, he told me about his work on the world’s water crisis. I was very conscious that this might be the biggest thing he’s ever taken on. Oftentimes no one gets the story of technology until after it’s completed. So I asked him at the time: what if we were to turn the cameras on, start watching the development of the SlingShot technology, MEMBERS IN PRINT + MEDIA BY

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LAURA PAONE

and see what it is like to go from an idea in your head to reality?

In your own words, can you describe what makes Dean extraordinary?

I’ve met very few people in my life that I would compare to Dean Kamen. He is a remarkable human being who is quirky as anybody of his stature might be. What makes him so unique is that he will look at things that most people look at and he will have a completely different response. It’s his way of perceiving the world that separates him and makes him the inventor that he is. Take, for example, how he approaches a wheelchair. Everybody else is trying to get disabled people a way to move around, and Dean says, what disabled people really need is dignity, so they need to be [at] eye level with the people they are talking to. How do I get a disabled person to be [at] eye level? Dean asks different questions and sees the world differently. He also has the technological know-how to tackle these problems.

In what way is Dean’s attitude and approach to life reflected in the film?

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TOM MOORE'S THE FLIGHT FANTASTIC

BY OLIVIA

CLEMENT

People wanted the movie to be either a biography about him or a linear approach to his technology. Dean just isn’t like that. He is all over the map; his mind jumps from one subject to another; he is endlessly on the move. Dean takes a vacation by switching from one of his projects to another. He goes from his SlingShot device to his dialysis machine to his wheelchair to his energy machine. I wanted the movie to be reflective of that. So the movie jumps around and purposefully puts you on your heels. You never quite know what’s coming next and whether it’s going to be about the machine, about him, or about science and technology in general. By allowing it to be unexpectedly connected, the movie is hopefully interesting and more like Dean.

As a director, what were the challenges of taking on this project?

There were so many, but the funding of it, getting people to recognize it had value, was extremely difficult. It was challenging to figure out how to tell the story without it being boring. We got tons of advice that we were approaching it incorrectly. I didn’t agree with most of the helpful suggestions that were coming at me, so that made it very difficult because I had to keep going. Dean is always very concerned with how he spends his time, so getting access to him was tough too. This movie was challenging on almost every front.

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Tom Moore + Richie Gaona

Tom Moore’s The Flight Fantastic follows one of the most prominent families of trapeze artists ever, the Flying Gaonas. The documentary chronicles their success in the circus in the latter half of the 20th century and their current work with children, highlighting their passion and dedication to their art, as well as their legacy in the trapeze world that lives on today.

How did you get involved with this documentary? What drew you to the Flying Gaonas?

I was introduced to them through the sport of trapeze. During a time of turmoil with my career and wanting some new passion, I discovered the flying trapeze and started participating in it as a flyer. I was taught by Richie Gaona, who is the youngest flying son of the Flying Gaona family, and it developed from there. It was inspiring, exciting, and thrilling, and it became a huge part of my life. I got to meet not only the Gaona family but a number of the other famous flying families. I was so thrilled by the warmth and generosity of those groups that I felt I needed to combine my passions and my skills and put this to film.

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PAUL LAZARUS since 1981 | TOM MOORE since 1972

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FLIGHT FANTASTIC CONTINUED FROM PAGE 11

What is the difference between directing a play or TV show versus directing a documentary?

In your own words, can you describe what makes this family extraordinary?

There are so many differences, but ultimately, I think it all boils down to storytelling and communicating your story to an audience.

Whether you’re in the theatre, you’re doing a TV show, or you’re doing a documentary, you still have to communicate with an audience and tell a story. The challenges of all three are to engage, entertain, and elevate while at the same time finding that really rich storyline.

A documentary on some level is maybe the hardest because there’s no script. You are flying without a net half of the time, and the script is happening as you’re doing it.

What do you hope people learn or do after seeing this documentary?

We have three clear goals, and we adhered to them and tried to realize them from the beginning. One: help disseminate and make people aware of the technology itself, understand what SlingShot does, is, and why it’s necessary. Two: promote the notion of science education, the value of science, technology, engineering, and math in society and in the world, particularly among kids.

We think that when anyone encounters Dean Kamen, that happens. Three: perhaps the most important goal on some level is to make people aware of what is really going on with water in the world and spread awareness of how large the actual crisis really is. I think the movie fires on all those goals.

Is there anything else you want readers to know about you, about Dean, or about the film?

We really want people to see it. Change comes from awareness, and you don’t have any change until people are aware that there’s a need for it. It starts with people. We take it for granted. We go to our sinks, our bathrooms, our laundries, or our toilets, and we don’t have any idea what potable water means. We don’t care that that same water could sustain life in other parts of the world. I think it’s hard to understand until you see something like SlingShot. It’s not the only one, but it’s a good start. So the main thing I want to do is to get people to see it.

LEARN MORE ABOUT SLINGSHOT: www.slingshotdoc.com www.facebook.com/slingshotdoc

They are extraordinary in terms of their skill and the beauty of their work. The thing that has always amazed me about circus families is their generosity and their desire to help you accomplish something. I don’t think, in our world, we always find that to be the case. They will go out of their way without ego to help you achieve your goals. A number of years ago, I also met the mother of this clan, Teresa.

She was one of the most fascinating people I’ve ever met, and I began to understand how the warmth of this family was created. The skill of this family was created because of their demanding but skillful and entrepreneurial father, Victor.

Having experience as a trapeze artist yourself, why do the Flying Gaonas stand out? What is their “legend and legacy on the flying trapeze”?

They were superheroes during a period of time in the 1970s and ’80s when trapeze artists and the circus itself were national obsessions. They were immediate darlings, especially because of the charisma and performance level of the superstar at their center, Tito Gaona. The New York Times and all television outlets in New York used to cover the circus every time they came to town. Personality was paramount, and people came to see them perform. No performing group on the trapeze or in the circus, perhaps, had ever been any greater than the Flying Gaonas.

How did the work of these individuals influence your work?

Their attention to detail, to craft, and to form influences me in every way. It’s their philosophy that if you’re not having fun, there is no point in doing it at all. That is the way they were taught, that is the way they still teach, and that was the way they live their lives.

Their first act, their superstar career, is dazzling, but what is even more important to me is their second act, that point in life where you move beyond the center ring and start living another life. They have done that by teaching, coaching, and working with kids with cancer, kids with drug abuse problems, using the trapeze as an empowerment tool. I find that inspiring because they bring the same energy and joy to that as they did when they were working with 20,000 people at a clip.

As a director, what were the challenges of taking on this project?

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There were so many. I decided to make this documentary without full understanding of the implications that lay ahead. If I do a work of film or television, I’m used to having a crew of 100 at the minimum. This would end up SDC JOURNAL

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sometimes being three and sometimes being one. It was a very lonely process. Because it’s a passionate project, it’s something you have to keep pushing forward at all times yourself. One of my favorite parts of the process is working with the editor. That took over a year because we had so much archival film. The only way to find the story was to edit all scenes we shot and only by that point did I understand what the full story would be.

What is the difference between directing a play or TV show versus directing a documentary?

First of all, you start with the difference between fiction and documentary. With fiction, whether it is film, television, or a play, I’ve always started with the script. The script is the crucial starting point. In this case, we had to create that script as we went. When you’re working in fiction, you’re also working with trained actors who, with the right direction and the right words, will give you something pretty phenomenal. In this case, you’re working with real life, which is totally unpredictable and sometimes chaotic. It’s thrilling because you never know what you’re going to find until you find it. Sometimes the miracle was that something extraordinary would happen as you are working that would make the scene.

In drama you know the dramatic moment, you know the important characters, you know all of the conflicts and how it goes together. The same thing is true in documentary except it is happening by chance rather than by plan.

What do you hope people learn or do after seeing this documentary?

I hope it inspires people to take new chances, to do what they want to do with their life, and to always feel that there are new possibilities.

Reinvention is the name of the game. I’ve always tried to reinvent myself in my career and for me that means doing things I’ve not done before, and this was certainly a big step in that direction.

Is there anything else you want readers to know about you or about the film?

One of the things I’ve loved about my career is that it’s been very eclectic. It’s hard to put me in a category. I’ve done Broadway, I’ve done comedy and tragedy, and I’ve done television and film; there is simply no easy place to put me. I would hope that this film complicates that even more because it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense in a linear progression, but it makes all the sense in the world in terms of my life.

LEARN MORE ABOUT THE FLIGHT FANTASTIC: www.theflightfantasticfilm.com www.facebook.com/theflightfantasticfilm

SNEHAL DESAI

MAKING A STATEMENT

INTERVIEW WITH MARGARGET

SNEHAL DESAI may have been moving against the current when he left New York for Los Angeles to take a job in the theatre. But this rising director, playwright, and performer, who currently serves as both literary manager and Artistic Associate of East West Players, downtown L.A.’s venerable Asian American theatre company, has never let traditions hold him back. He prefers to create new ones.

As an undergraduate at Emory University, Desai majored in political science and planned to go to law school as his parents expected. But upon graduation, he enrolled instead in the MFA program in directing at the Yale School of Drama.

Desai has been a member of the prestigious Lincoln Center Directors Lab, held a directing internship at the Royal Shakespeare Company, and was the inaugural recipient of the Drama League’s Classical Fellowship for Directors of Color at the Old Globe in San Diego. He used these opportunities to learn from a wide range of contemporary directors while exploring his own interest in site-specific, immersive theatre.

When he joined the staff of East West Players in 2013, Desai was ready to immerse himself in the inner workings of a regional theatre, with the long-term plan of running his own someday. He has taken on a variety of responsibilities— audience outreach, artistic development, creation and management of artistic partnerships, among them—while directing productions, including a spring 2015 production of The Who’s Tommy that featured a diverse cast. He also continues to work around the country as a freelance director, with a fall 2015 residency at James Madison University and a production at Boom Arts in Portland, OR, next winter. On a warm spring afternoon, he spoke about his career with arts journalist Margaret Gray.

SNEHAL DESAI since 2014

GRAY

GRAY | What made you choose theatre as a career?

DESAI | When I went to Emory University, my parents told me, “You’re going to go to law school,” and I said, “Okay.” I was a polisci major, and I kind of just plowed into it and finished very early, but I didn’t want to leave college yet. So I started to stealthily take some theatre classes and move into the theatre studies department. I acted a little bit, I did stage management, design, directing.

Initially I went in as an actor. I was in 1776.

GRAY | Who did you play?

DESAI | Josiah Bartlett of New Hampshire.

As an actor, I was enjoying it, but I wasn’t necessarily getting cast. I remember one audition where I went in and they said, “We would love to cast you as the kid, but then we’d have to find Indian parents.” That was in the late ’90s, before colorblind casting.

In my junior year, I took a directing class with Vincent Murphy, who also ran Theater Emory, and that’s where things really clicked for me.

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Michael Palma

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With every classic, I always want to explore why this piece has lasted for as long as it has. I want to investigate and hold on to that while creating a world where someone like me could also exist.

I still took the LSAT and applied to both law schools and theatre programs at the same time. I told my parents, “If I get into a directing program, I’m going, and if I don’t, then I’ll entertain these law school notions.” But then I got into the Yale School of Drama (YSD).

GRAY | At Yale, while studying directing, you found time to create a solo show, Finding Ways to Prove You’re Not an al-Qaeda Terrorist When You’re Brown. How did that happen?

DESAI | I enjoyed my time at Yale but felt like I was studying a fixed canon that I already had been exposed to in undergrad. I wanted to experience a wider field, and we weren’t quite getting that in the curriculum. There was definitely a void, and so I was encouraged to start writing.

One day I came to our directing practicum with a bunch of monologues and just sat down and started reading them. People really took to them, and I felt that they were the purest and cleanest expression of what I wanted to say. Richard Nelson was the playwriting chair at the time, and Lisa Kron was there, and I was encouraged to work with them and take some playwriting classes.

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I hadn’t envisioned myself performing the monologues, but we didn’t have any other [Indian] actors. So I started to perform them.

GRAY | At Yale, you founded the Yale Southasian Theater Collective. What prompted you to create that company?

DESAI | After I wrote my first solo show, I wanted to continue to tell stories, and I didn’t want to just be me. The writer me hates the actor me because the actor me does not remember the lines well and ad-libs. In film, you can act and direct, or even act, write, and direct. You can’t do that in theatre. You can write and direct. But you really can’t do all three.

I wanted to direct and write rather than act, so I formed a collective of students from all over the university who were interested in creating South Asian work. As South Asians, we all get grouped together. But, of course, Japan and Thailand and North Korea and Vietnam are all very different. North India is very different from South India and Pakistan.

Even as a South Asian collective, none of us spoke the same language. Some were adopted, some were born and raised here,

some immigrated. I worked with people from the medical school, from undergrad, from the School of Forestry. So even our reference points weren’t as close as people thought.

It was really an opportunity for me to find community I wasn’t necessarily finding at YSD. GRAY | Did you have any mentors at Yale or in other places who strongly influenced your work or guided your career?

DESAI | I’ve been so lucky. Vinnie [Murphy] in Atlanta really pushed me to find my identity as a director. He just said very simply, “You’re a director.” Sometimes it’s those little statements that are so empowering.

Liz Diamond was a huge influence while I was at Yale. She helped me understand that it was okay to take time to figure out who I was.

Growing up, I was always the outsider because I was gay and Indian in a small white town.

So much of my journey was about wanting to fit in. And then, at YSD, I’m watching all these people who don’t want to fit in, who are struggling to make themselves unique artists.

For a while, at the beginning, I would think, “Oh, I want to be like…” but then I realized,

ELIZABETH DIAMOND since 1989

TOP LEFT Desai

in rehearsal for The Who's Tommy PHOTO Michael Palma

MIDDLE LEFT + THIS PAGE The PHOTO

Who's Tommy Michael Lamont

“No, this is the place where I should be proud of my unique voice and own it.”

And at this stage, Tim [Dang, Artistic Director of East West Players] has been a huge champion and great mentor for me. I’m particularly interested in one day running a theatre, and he’s been really wonderful with training me on those ropes. If you want to run a theatre, you should know about fundraising.

GRAY | You’ve assisted many distinguished directors. What are some of the creative or life lessons you’ve learned from working with them?

DESAI | Oftentimes it’s just different ways of structuring the room. I’ve assisted two British directors, Ron Daniels and Les Waters, and what I learned from them is if you have an accent, you can get away with anything.

I assisted Les on Eurydice at Yale Rep. He overlaps scenes: as one scene is ending, another scene comes on and builds itself around it. It was something I’d never done as a director and never even seen that often.

Scenes don’t need to be neat. They can bleed over from one to another.

I didn’t assist Anne Bogart, but I did an amazing workshop with her. In the middle of it, she started screaming, “Structure frees!

Structure frees!” It sounded like Orwellian doublethink. And then I just thought, “Yes.” As a director, the more you can set the rules of the world, the more freedom you actually are giving people. So that was a wonderful

ANNE BOGART since 1990 | TIM DANG since 2010 | RON DANIELS since 1991 | LES WATERS since 1987

moment that I’ve still held onto almost a decade later.

Liz [Diamond] used to talk about “blood on the floor” in terms of what is being expended during the course of a theatrical event. We traffic so much in vulnerability. So, as an artist, you need to make sure, at the end of the night, that you’re leaving blood on the floor. Not SUMMER 2015 | SDC JOURNAL

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literally! But is a part of you being exposed and laid out there? Unless you do that, it’s what I call “plastic theatre.” You’re, like, “Oh, that’s nice,” and you leave and you forget about it.

For me, it’s about creating that experience that will stick, that will impact change, that will reverberate in people’s lives. If you put something out there, the audiences are going to put something out there, too. They’re not going to trust it until you make that exchange.

DESAI | It goes back to the “structure frees” thing. I’m in this box, if you will. What can I do?

How can I make this interactive or immersive or engaging in a different way? How can I create something where, if nothing else, the audience isn’t sitting back passively? They’re leaning forward, they feel free to shout out, to engage. I have to make sure that whatever we set up, we give performers and the audience that permission early and invite them in.

GRAY | Was there a particular production you did that changed the course of your work or that you feel was particularly important or meaningful for you?

Audience interaction is always a delicate balance. I tell people all the time, “I love creating audience interaction, but sometimes I don’t really love it when I’m in the audience.”

It’s that fine line. Sometimes it’s as simple as you just hand me something or you pick something up or you hit something back.

DESAI | There’d be two. In college, for my thesis, I did José Rivera’s Marisol. I staged it in an abandoned mental hospital. It was owned by the state of Georgia and they just left it.

The charts are still there. The straps are still on the tubs. The play is about a crumbling New York under attack, and so, for me, it was about all of us grappling with 9/11. Creating this landscape for people to go through was so cathartic. That was my first time doing something site specific and immersive.

Then I did Peregrine at the Old Globe in San Diego. The theatre is in Balboa Park, which has beautiful fountains everywhere. Everyone goes there for their prom and wedding pictures. I really wanted to see a woman in a big, heavy wedding dress run across the park and jump in a fountain, like, “I am done.”

I commissioned playwright Lauren Yee and myself to write two pieces inspired by the park. I told Lauren and the dancers, “This is going to culminate with five of you in wedding dresses in a fountain. What happens before that, I don’t really care.” We recorded them as MP3 files and sent them to everyone’s smart phone. Everyone met in the park at a certain point. I worked with 12 dancers and staged them throughout the park. People listened to either Lauren’s track or mine as they wandered. I loved the slow blurring of the lines. You didn’t know what was staged, what wasn’t. Gradually the dancers and the actors wove in with the text that you were seeing, and both paths would coalesce at the fountain, and everyone jumped in.

I would talk to people, and they’d say, “No, I’ve never seen anything at the Old Globe,” or “I can’t afford it.” And now here they are, seeing theatre, and they can also jump into the fountains with the performers and play. It changed the air of the park.

GRAY | Do you find having to work in a traditional theatre constraining at all?

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GRAY | Yet you have a lot of classical theatre in your professional experience.

You were the inaugural recipient of the Drama League’s Classical Fellowship for Directors of Color at the Old Globe in San Diego. What draws you to the classics?

DESAI | A friend once asked me, “Who’s the most produced playwright in this country?

Shakespeare.” The thing about Hamlet is, we know it works. With every classic, I always want to explore why this piece has lasted for as long as it has. I want to investigate and hold on to that while creating a world where someone like me could also exist.

But I’m also interested in expanding our ideas of what a classic is, who determines that, and what other classics are out there that we’ve closed ourselves off from. We have a very defined canon, predominantly white male, predominantly Western, Eurocentric.

Shakespeare moves along with the trajectory of your life, who you are, your attachments to plays at various stages. That’s the beauty of someone like him. But I want to explore other ideas and forms of storytelling that do that. East West has a partnership with A Noise Within, and I recently directed a reading of Hayavadana by Girish Karnad there. One of my dreams is to do a Mahabharata adaptation, a new one.

GRAY | Are you still writing?

DESAI | I am. So many of the people I admire, like Robert O’Hara and George C. Wolfe, have written and directed their own pieces.

Three years ago at East West, I presented my second solo show, Trials with Brownies. In it, I excavate the history of Indians in this country, who have been here since colonial times.

I’m also writing my epic, a trilogy called Sita/ Sati. It seeks, almost in the August Wilson vein, to tell the history of South Asians in America over the last 200 years. I feel like there’s no particular South Asian theatre established here. Black theatre is identifiable. You have Suzan-Lori Parks, August Wilson. Latino theatre has a magical realism element and some iconic figures. East Asians have David Henry Hwang. But South Asians don’t have our own iconic dramaturgy. Western theatre is text based, while a lot of Eastern theatre, particularly in India, is dance based and movement based. So in each play in my trilogy, I’m interested in exploding form, so that by the third play we’ve created our own form.

GRAY | How do you prepare for rehearsal when you’re directing? Do you have a routine, or do you change it up every time?

DESAI | There are three things I do for every show as I head into rehearsals. One is compile three or four images that, when lined up, represent the journey of the play or musical. The images don’t have to be real or literal—sometimes it’s just a color—but they force me to focus on what the story is, whose perspective I am telling it from, and the overall dramatic arc. Often one of these images will stick with me enough that I will find a way to translate it on stage. For The Who’s Tommy, I was taken by a sand sculpture of a dragon curling up around a ball, which inspired a little shadow play we have at the top of the show.

I also create a mixtape of songs or snippets of music that I believe capture the rhythm, tone, or mood of a scene. Sometimes I share it with my designers or actors, but most times I don’t. It’s music that I listen to before I go in to stage the scene to help me figure out the momentum and drive.

Finally, I create a detailed scene breakdown in which I list locations, scene numbers, and characters. I give each scene its own title to convey what I believe is the action of the scene and how I approach it. This helps me identify recurring motifs.

GRAY | Here at East West Players, you’re the Artistic Associate and also literary manager. It sounds as though you wear a lot of hats. What are your responsibilities?

DESAI | On the literary manager side, I oversee our writers. We have the David Henry Hwang Writers Institute, and I’ve really tried to fashion it as a program where you can start as an emerging writer and build up to someone we would love to see on our stage. Giving artists, particularly minority artists, a new way of access.

ROBERT O’HARA since 2005 | GEORGE C. WOLFE since 1984

I also oversee our biannual playwriting competition. This year’s theme is “2042 See Change.” The year 2042 is when we’ll become a majority-minority nation, when there will be no one ethnic majority. We have Japanese or Korean or Indian plays.

But we don’t have a lot of plays where Indians talk to Koreans or Indians talk to Japanese. So that’s what we’re looking for: minorities on the stage talking to each other.

And we’ve had a tremendous response.

I oversee the development of the plays we’ve commissioned or are looking at. On the Artistic Associate side, there’s a big push for diversity.

We have artistic partnerships with Pasadena Playhouse, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and La Jolla Playhouse. I oversee those programs.

I’m one of the co-organizers of the 2016 National Asian American Theater Conference.

I produce our gala. And I also direct plays.

GRAY | How many hours do you work each day?!

DESAI | A lot! But I had been a freelance director for a long time, and the experience of working in a theatre day-to-day is what brought me out here. It’s a different perspective. When you have to program a season, a show opens and you’re on to the next one. You have a subscriber base that you have to engage with. Everyone wants to write serious pieces, which is great, but we can’t program all trauma. It’s just very, very different.

GRAY | How did your work with the South Asian Theater Collective lead to the work you’re doing here at East West?

DESAI | For a long time, my identity as a South Asian didn’t play a prominent role in my work, maybe because of what I was exposed to or where I was interest-wise.

At Yale, when I saw a predominately white, Western canon again, I wondered, “Where is my place in this?” So it really made me really embrace all parts of myself, not only being gay but also being Indian. It made me not be afraid to acknowledge who I am.

GRAY | East West Players is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. What’s it like to be part of the company at this time in its history?

DESAI | It’s an amazing time to be here. For a theatre of color, the question becomes, “What is our mission now for the next 30, 40, 50 years?” So much of the mission has been about visibility and giving opportunities to Asian American artists.

But that’s changing now. I think all theatres of color are dealing with that question as we become a more assimilated culture.

We’re creating a documentary about East West’s founders, and hearing those stories and getting that history has been so wonderful. So much of my own writing is about displacement and belonging. I’m a U.S. citizen, born and raised in this country, but I don’t necessarily always feel welcome or at home. If I go to India, I’m a foreigner there. So many of us who are first or second generation are dealing with questions of home and identity.

I found that the way to get by that is realizing you have deeper roots than you think.

There have been South Asians in this country for 200 years. It’s just a matter of finding and connecting to their history. And as a theatre artist, it’s feeling a part of a larger community and saying, “I’m committed to the work of East West’s founders. I’m connected to that lineage as we move forward.”

GRAY | Your production of The Who’s Tommy is a first because it has a multicultural Asian cast. How has that impacted the story?

DESAI | On the first day of rehearsal, I was talking to the cast about what it means to do this musical here at East West. I’m not interested in making it message-heavy about race. But I’m also not interested in doing it race blind. I don’t believe in colorblind casting in that way. Because that’s another type of denial of who I am. By making me colorblind, you’re saying that I don’t exist. But there weren’t a lot of Asian workers or minorities in general in the 1940s. So we’ve just pushed it up a little bit, time-wise, to a period when Asian Americans would have more visibility.

GRAY | L.A. County is one of the most diverse counties in the U.S. Do you feel that in your work, and do you see it reflected in the theatre work you see around L.A.?

DESAI | I definitely see it in my work! Do you know about Tim [Dang]’s 51% plan for diversity? He pitched it at the TCG conference, and it’s become a national initiative. He’s basically saying that for a theatre to call itself diverse, it should have either 51% of its staff or 51% of what’s on its stage be people of color, women, or people under 35. If you don’t have any of those, you have to stop saying you’re diverse. Start matching the rhetoric with the numbers.

GRAY | What are some of the joys and challenges of working in Los Angeles?

DESAI | L.A. has a very vibrant, robust, and large theatre scene, but theatre isn’t necessarily top dog. There’s a larger industry out here. So no one here just works in theatre primarily.

When they do theatre here, it’s usually not for the money but because they love it.

GRAY | Do you feel that your process is influenced by particular conditions or aspects of Los Angeles?

DESAI | L.A. is such a spread-out city that theatre has to be worth the drive and the parking and the hassle. We’ve had a lot of interesting audience development conversations. I had to learn who the East West audience is and how they get here. In New York, you walk. In L.A., there’s so much more involved in the decision to go to theatre that you have to make it worth people’s time.

GRAY | Where do you find a sense of artistic community in L.A.?

DESAI | East West has a wonderful artistic community, and they’ve been so welcoming. So I’ve definitely found it here.

I’m still very connected to the New York community because so many people are bicoastal. I just directed a workshop for one of Carla Ching’s plays. She used to run [the Asian American theatre company] 2g in New York. She’s out here writing for Graceland, so she and I were able to connect, and we’ve already collaborated on two things. I haven’t had to leave any of my community behind. It’s just grown. And I think that will continue to happen.

Margaret Gray has an MFA in dramaturgy and dramatic criticism from the Yale School of Drama. She lives in Los Angeles, where she writes about the theatre and books for the Los Angeles Times.

For me, if you do a show that’s all white now, that’s a conscious decision. People of color are coming out of the training programs; they have the experience. You can’t use those traditional excuses. Now it’s jarring to me when I do see a single-race cast. It’s a choice.

You’re making a statement as a director.

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GREEK TRAGEDIES AT HOME AT LOS ANGELES'S GETTY VILLA Located in sunny Malibu, California, overlooking the Pacific Ocean, the Getty Villa’s Barbara and Lawrence Fleischman Theater welcomes more than 8,000 audience members each summer. The 450-seat outdoor theatre, modeled after ancient Greek theatres, is one of two beautiful venues, its campus complementing the Getty Center in Los Angeles.

Home to the J. Paul Getty Museum Collection, the Getty Villa is an education center and museum housing approximately 44,000 Greek, Roman, and Etruscan artifacts dating from 6,500 B.C. to 400 A.D. Its mission is to “inspire curiosity about, and enjoyment and understanding of, the visual arts by collecting, conserving, exhibiting and interpreting works of art of outstanding quality and historical importance.” To foster this vision, the Getty Villa produces an annual outdoor theatre production with the goal of offering a view into the “social, cultural, and political realities of life in ancient Greece and Rome,” the adjoining galleries and visiting exhibitions serving to “deepen the connection between modern audiences and the mythical stories underlying the tragedies and comedies on stage.”

The Getty Villa maintains a reputation of presenting these annual Greek tragedies in both traditional and contemporary styles, allowing for carefully curated artistic adaptations. As a part of the Getty Villa’s mission to foster an appreciation for and understanding of Greek tragedies, workshops and theatre labs are offered regularly, and the Getty provides extensive assistance during a production’s development. Selected plays may date as far back as 415 B.C. and are often adapted to more fully connect with current audiences, who range in age from students to seasoned audience members. A number of plays that complete the process are then selected to be presented on stage, a considerable stamp of approval.

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Structured in the round with tall columns flanking the stage and seats, the Barbara and Lawrence Fleischman Theater immerses audiences in a replicated setting of Greek theatre.

Directors and their creative teams are given exclusive access to pieces in the museum’s art collection, encouraging the artists to study artifacts relating to the production’s subject matter and time period. The theatre’s connection to the museum is a helpful resource but does pose unique challenges, such as limited rehearsal and tech time in the theatre due to the functionality of the museum. Strict sound regulations are in place, limiting enhanced amplification so as to not violate a sound level ordinance posed by the surrounding community.

In Los Angeles, there is no other space like the Getty. Its offering of both Greek art and theatre has given artists and audiences a rare space where traditional theatre can thrive in an area surrounded by Hollywood. It has become one of the major theatres in the Los Angeles environment highly praised by directors. Audiences are significantly affected by seeing live performance in Getty Villa’s unique setting, allowing patrons to see drama in its intended environment and making the Getty Villa responsible for fostering the next generation of classical theatre enthusiasts.

SDC Journal interviewed four directors—Anne Bogart, Jon Lawrence Rivera, Travis Preston, and Carey Perloff—who have worked at the Getty Villa, exploring their experiences and directorial processes as well as the challenges and rewards of working at this West Coast cultural icon.

BY SDC JOURNAL INTERN

MEGAN WRAPPE ANNE BOGART since 1990 CAREY PERLOFF since 1995 TRAVIS PRESTON since 1984 JON LAWRENCE RIVERA since 2004

picture of a scene we were working on that particular day—an artifact from 450 B.C.— which is extraordinary! So, of course, we were influenced by the art in the museum.

Persians by SITI Company PHOTO Craig Schwartz

Did you work at outdoor theatres before you worked at the Getty?

I’ve done a lot of site-specific work. My work with Annie Hamburger back in the ’80s and ’90s in New York City was all outdoors.

ANNE BOGART, Co-Artistic Director of SITI Company in New York City, directed Aeschylus’ Persians for the Getty in 2014. Other SITI Company productions that have been in residence at the Getty Villa under Bogart’s stewardship are retellings of Antigone, Trojan Women, The Bacchae, and Ion. How did you come to direct at the Getty?

I was invited to come out and look at the theatre, and meet with the person who ran the performances. We got along, and it seemed like a good thing to do, especially to direct ancient Greek drama.

What were the differences between the three shows that you’ve done at the Getty?

The Persians is the oldest extant play in Western literature. Directing that production was really about examining the birth of theatre.

I asked the question: What happened in that moment where someone stepped down from the chorus and started embodying character?

That was new to the history, since the play revolves around the notion of the chorus and the birth of character from the chorus. The subject matter in my Trojan Women was very different. It was about the Trojan War, but also, of course, about Iraq and about every tragic detritus left behind from war and destruction.

How did you approach your scene design and adapting your work for the Getty’s unique space?

You don’t build a set on top of a set. In other words, the Getty is already a set, and it could not have a more beautiful setting. I could not imagine a more gorgeous setting. You have to start from the architecture and decide how you are going to relate to that architecture— not just try and hide it. At most theatres, you

come in and it’s a blank page, and you have to decide what kind of setting you want to create. But at the Getty you have a full-blown set already.

Did working in that space inform your directorial process?

I’m always informed by the architecture of a space, but that specific architecture is so compelling! For example, if there is an entrance of Odysseus coming from the sea, from the audience’s perspective, the Pacific Ocean is on the right. So, of course, he would actually enter from that direction and actually look like he is coming from the sea. If someone comes from the house in a Greek play, we used the two amazing double doors leading into a museum that is full of ancient Greek artifacts that are somehow about what we are doing. Of course, you open those double doors and have the characters come out of the building. I’m always inspired by the architecture.

What were the challenges working in the space?

Every single time you do a play in any theatre, there are restrictions. You can’t do everything everywhere. There are restrictions of height, restrictions of depth, and restrictions of brightness. The Getty is a museum; it has very particular restrictions. All you have to do is ask, “What are the restrictions of this house? What can we do and what can’t we do?” But if you stress and try to change what you can’t do, it is a waste of energy. I found the staff there and the support system incredibly helpful. It was nothing but a joy. We felt very well taken care of there. As for the restrictions, you just have to work with them.

Did you incorporate the museum’s art collection in anyway?

We were given amazing tools by the curators who would actually take us to a vase with a

Is there a difference between directing for an indoor production and for an outdoor production when it comes to audience engagement?

It’s all about the architecture. I remember as a young director I created a lot of site-specific work because I couldn’t find a theatre and no one would let me work in their theatre. So I would stage something at a space called the Bell Tower in downtown New York. Now, you couldn’t get a set designer or a budget that would allow you to work with it. These kinds of challenges allow you to work with real circumstances, and it teaches you how to work with not only architecture but how to work with audiences, and how you bring audiences into that.

How did the Getty compare to other theatres you’ve worked at?

It is a museum, so its mandate is not about regularly producing theatre. The Getty Villa does one show a year, and it does the best it can to support that. But, mostly, it’s thinking about antiquities. Its reason for wanting a play is to have an ancient work embodied in flesh.

The motivations behind why they’re doing theatre is different than most theatres. It’s about making the ancient history palpable to audiences through living form.

Is there anything else you’d like our readers to know about the Getty?

It is extraordinary to make ancient Greek art when you have a team of curators, historians, and archeologists who are there to support you. That’s amazing!

JON LAWRENCE RIVERA, the Artistic Director of Playwrights’ Arena in Los Angeles, directed Euripides’ Helen at the Getty Villa in 2012 and Oedipus el Rey at the Getty Villa Theater Lab in 2008.

How did you come to direct Euripides’ Helen at the Getty?

The production was in September of 2012. In 2010, Norman Frisch, who was in charge at the time, asked if there was anything I would be interested in pursuing. I was really drawn to SUMMER 2015 | SDC JOURNAL

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Helen PHOTO Craig

Schwartz

Helen’s story, especially Euripides’ version of it. We started working on a translation and a workshop of one of the translations they sent me. Based on the workshop, they said they wanted to pursue it for the outdoor space.

At that point, I had a conversation with them about the mission of my theatre company, Playwrights’ Arena: we do new works by L.A. playwrights. I felt that all the translations I had received were old. The most current one, which we used for the reading, was from England and didn’t sound modern enough. I asked [playwright] Nick Salamone to write one, and between 2010 and 2011, it was really a matter of getting a draft that the staff at the Getty Villa liked and believed was a good [enough].

Once they approved it, we had a whole year of preparation where we discussed the set and how we were going to do things. We had another workshop that spring before the September production and continued working on it before we started rehearsals for it in August of 2012.

Were there specific requirements for your production?

No, the conversation really wasn’t about needing to follow Euripides’ story line; there weren’t any rules we had to follow. I think some of the things that came up in our conversation when we were developing the

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script were from the curators asking us how were we going to use the chorus and how were we translating it into modern times. We set the production in ’50s and ’60s Hollywood.

[They wanted to ensure that] it had enough of Euripides’ story in it.

They just kept asking questions until both parties were happy with the adaptation. It wasn’t a hard sell at all; I don’t remember having any conflicts in any of our meetings. It was just making sure that the story was being told and had the characteristics of the story that Euripides wrote.

What was unique about working in the space at the Getty?

Here’s the thing: it’s a museum, not a theatre.

They have certain hours that the public is there, so you can’t just go out and block a scene and rehearse when the museum is open until 5 p.m. And literally, no matter what happened, we all had to be out by 10 p.m. Not “let’s just pack up and leave at 10.” We had to be going down the hill by 10; otherwise, the neighbors complained. And packing the show was kind of complicated because we used video and we had all these special effects with us.

You also could really only rehearse it at night because it was summer and didn’t get dark till 8 p.m. So we had two hours of tech, and then we had to stop and come back the next day again. That part was hard, but they did have an indoor rehearsal space that was a theatre. We were in there most of the time.

Because it’s a big space, one of the challenges was figuring out how to get the story out to the people in a theatre where there is no ceiling. Actors really had to have the right tools to get their voices out there and be heard.

We’re so used to small or indoor theatres, and sometimes even indoor theatres mic actors.

Had you worked in outdoor theatres before this show?

I had not, and I had a really amazing time working on this show. The actors that I assembled were troopers, so it was really a great experience. Everyone rose to the occasion. I would always sit further back in the

auditorium during rehearsal because I didn’t want to be too close to them and have them think I could hear them perfectly. And we had to make sure that all the nuances that needed to be expressed in the play were done in a way that the audience could understand them correctly. It was a lot of figuring out the right balance so it wasn’t too broad or too little, and making sure everyone understood the story.

Is there a difference between directing for an indoor production and for an outdoor production when it comes to audience engagement?

We had hoped to move this production from the Getty straight to the Los Angeles Theatre Center and put it indoors. We had some gorgeous music written for the show that played beautifully outdoors, but we wanted to see what it would be like in an indoor setting.

But the cost of moving the production was too much for us. I think indoor theatre has a lot of control over sound, temperature, and light, which you can get in an outdoor setting, but there will always be an airplane flying, dogs barking, wind blowing, or all these other elements that are a part of it. I asked my actors to embrace that moment as it happens to be solemn or serious, and if the dogs bark, don’t ignore it! What I don’t want in an outdoor setting are things are going on as if the actors don’t hear them.

The Getty is surrounded by homes, and there is a certain sound level that you can’t play past.

When you have thunder or a special effect, you want the seats to roar, but you can only play it so much. In the outdoor setting, the neighbors will complain if it gets too loud, so we had to follow a certain guideline. Those kinds of things come into play when you’re outdoors.

Did working in that space inform your directorial process?

The thing that worked out best for Helen was that we embraced the architecture of the museum. Our set duplicated the columns that they have and extended the space out to the audience instead of avoiding the architecture.

At the time that we were there, they had a great piece from Italy that was almost dropped into the center of the museum, so we lit it up and made it a part of the scenery of the palace.

Is there anything else you’d like our readers to know about the Getty?

Outside of the one summer production, they have a yearlong commitment to developing translations of Greek and Roman plays.

They have a continuous flow of work that is presented to the public, and every year there are four to six companies they invite to create adaptations or translations. Not necessarily writing them from scratch, but finding a translation they like and presenting.

Prometheus Bound PHOTOS Craig Schwartz

arm of the California Arts Performing Center, and we thought it would be a powerful association, and it was. After several years of discussion, we finally decided on Prometheus Bound.

The Getty Villa is a pretty unique space.

It is an amazing space. It is an outdoor amphitheatre that is modeled on an ancient Greek theatre. I say modeled because it is, of course, its own architecture. One of the things that made the relationship work so well was the fact that CalArts is located in reasonable proximity to the Getty Villa. We were able to have two very developed workshops during the process of creating the entire show.

Did the space pose any specific challenges for your production?

I think we knew those challenges going into it. It is an outdoor stage, and we had seen a number of productions there; we were very familiar with the theatre, and we understood what the challenges would be. That is what allowed us to do something as spectacular as what we did. We had a design enabling the entire cast to be on an enormous wheel; that could not easily happen in any other circumstance. What we tried to do was view the characteristics of the space as our friend.

The space is big and wonderful, and we sought to exploit it as majestically as possible.

TRAVIS PRESTON is Dean of the CalArts School of Theater and Artistic Director of the CalArts Center for New Performance, the professional producing arm of California Institute of the Arts. He directed Aeschylus’s Prometheus Bound at the Getty Villa in 2013.

What brought you to the Getty Villa?

The Getty Villa and the CalArts Center for New Performance had been looking to do a new production together for a long time, and they had asked me to direct the project. It was very obvious that the two institutions would be a powerful combination. CalArts Center for New Performances is the professional producing PETER SELLARS since 1997

How did the Getty compare to other theatres that you’ve worked at?

I found the [museum’s] team to be enormously supportive. There are, of course, concerns they have because they are a functioning museum, and they want to have the theatre component function smoothly together with their museum operations. So there is always a conversation about how much one might interfere with the museum-going public. Our design was seeking to accept the exterior environment, and that worked well with the piece because the literal setting for Prometheus is outside. For us, the strategy was to really embrace as much of the environment as possible, and that worked out beautifully for us.

Is there a difference between directing for an indoor production and for an outdoor production when it comes to audience engagement?

The audience at the Getty in particular comes with a great sense of anticipation. There is one production a year, and it is a magical place.

Its location is very beautiful and it takes some energy to get there. When people come, they are poised for a special experience, and that certainly impacts how they perceive the work.

Is there anything else you’d like our readers to know about the Getty?

It is very important that the Getty Villa and the Getty Museum as a totality have a dramatic

impact on the theatre in Los Angeles. It has become a very important venue, and it has supported the work of some very interesting artists. I think it is one of the major theatres in the Los Angeles environment.

American Conservatory Theater’s Artistic Director, CAREY PERLOFF, directed Sophocles’ Elektra at the Getty Villa in 2010.

How did your production of Elektra come to the Getty?

I had known Norman Frisch, who was the arts programmer at the Getty, for a long time. I think I originally met him through Peter Sellars, and I liked him very much.

He knew that I had a background in the Greeks, and we had been talking for a long time about a variety of projects. When I decided that I wanted to work with [British playwright] Timberlake Wertenbaker on a new translation of Elektra, he got really excited, and we co-commissioned the translation and developed it together.

You have experience with Greek tragedies.

Yes. I trained as an archeologist studying ancient Greece, so that’s kind of how I got into the theatre, actually.

How did this production compare to others that you have directed?

What was thrilling about being at the Getty— even though it’s very, very challenging to work there because it’s a museum and the work rules are tricky—is that you finally, in a very deep way, understand why Greek tragedies are structured the way they are. They are outdoors, in full view of an audience that is surrounding the stage and serving as a jury to the dialect that is going on on the stage. The relationship of the actors to the audience is extremely muscular when you’re in that kind of setting, and that’s really the way Greek tragedy was invented.

Elektra was also at Classic Stage Company.

In a different translation. I had done Ezra Pound’s version—which is very, very different but fascinating—very early on in my time at CSC. So I knew the play very well, but I worked on a closer translation of the text [at the Getty].

What were differences between the two?

CSC is a small, intimate space, and Pound’s translation is ironic and sort of subversive in some ways; it worked well in a small space. Timberlake’s version is much more monumental, and we did that translation the way we did because we knew it was going to be outdoors. The language has to have SUMMER 2015 | SDC JOURNAL

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Elektra PHOTO Jeff Ellingson

incredible rigor and poetry and muscle and carry to the back of that space.

Was it ever difficult working at the Getty?

Very challenging! I so appreciate the problem, but I wish they had come up with other solutions early on. The neighbors in Malibu did not want that theatre used as a theatre. There’s a sound ordinance. You have to stop your tech rehearsal at 9:30 p.m. at night. Imagine that it’s the summer in September and it’s light out until 8 or 8:30 p.m. You get one hour of tech a night in darkness. That’s incredibly difficult.

There’s also a rule that there is no amplified sound. We had a live cello for music, but you can’t mic the musicians, and the museum staff went around constantly measuring the decibels. Meanwhile, the museum is open all day, so you can never rehearse in the space.

You have to rehearse in a basement room and imagine that you’re outdoors. And you can’t make a set that’s permanent because the plaza, on which you are doing your play, is the entrance to the museum. The scenery has to be able to be taken down. There are immeasurable challenges to make this work. In the end, it was thrilling, but it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done!

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Is there a difference between directing for an indoor production and for an outdoor production when it comes to audience engagement?

It is a different set of challenges. What is interesting is when you do, let’s say, Shakespeare in the Park, you really have to wrestle with how you put language out there because it’s not exactly how it was intended. With the Greeks, what I realized at the Getty was that the relationship of actor to audience in an outdoor space, in that size of space, is exactly how those plays were written to be performed. So, in a sense, it fits like a glove. I spent my whole career on the Greeks, and I felt like I finally understood the essence of those plays as performance pieces when I got out there.

Did working in that space inform your directorial process?

Very much. For example, the centerpiece of Elektra is an incredible, combative scene between the mother and the daughter. The question the play asks is whether Clytemnestra was a criminal for killing Agamemnon, or was she justified in doing it because he killed her daughter? When you do that in front of an audience, what you realize is that it is not like the contemporary physiological drama, where the mother is trying to persuade the daughter, and the daughter is trying to persuade the mother.

They both know what the other one is thinking.

The people they are trying to persuade are the chorus, and by extension, the jury or the audience. They had to be aware of the audience as the jury at all times; that was what they were trying to accomplish. So that makes the argument have much higher stakes.

Did you incorporate the museum’s art collection in any way?

At the time we were doing our production, there was an exhibition of representations of drama in ancient Greek art. They had all these face paintings of this material, so if you wanted to look, for example, at a gesture of mourning, you could go upstairs in the Getty and look at images from fifth-century Athenian vases and see exactly what it should look like. That’s an incredible thing. It makes you realize that these plays were completely topical and current in their own time, and woven into the fabric of democracy.

Do you find it difficult for today’s audiences to connect with Greek tragedies?

What is amazing is they wrestle with the big issues of our own time. They are so archetypal, so whether you’re interested in the nature of justice, what happens to people who have turned to other forms of justice when they feel like they are not getting justice from their own government, gender disparity, or role playing, all of it is embedded in Greek tragedies.

Thematically, the plays still have incredible resonance. If the translation is great and you really confront the notion of the chorus, then I think it’s quite thrilling, particularly for contemporary audiences. They really relate to them.

Is there anything else you’d like our readers to know about the Getty?

I think the Getty Villa provides a way for contemporary audiences to actively participate in ancient drama. It was absolutely packed every single night. I think that is because people are hungry for that kind of experience, particularly in Los Angeles because there isn’t much opportunity to see classical theatre.

In that setting, you’re not hidden as an audience member. You are there as part of the city surrounded by your fellow citizens experiencing this drama.

I think for L.A. it is a great thing that the Getty exists. There are ways they could make it much more user-friendly for artists, and maybe they will over time. It goes to a point that exists in our field anyway, that museums are interested in performance but they’re not set up as performance spaces. It’s a question of getting the two cultures to work together, and when it works, it’s really rich.

As part of SDC Journal's mission to foster appreciation for and deepen understanding of the crafts of stage direction and choreography, the quarterly provides regular opportunity to emerging writers and arts journalists. To that end, some of SDC Journal’s articles are researched and written by intern writers. This piece was written by Megan Wrappe, a 2014 graduate of Appalachian State University in Boone, N.C. She now lives in New York City.

A THEATRE TOWN? WITHOUT A DOUBT!

Martin Benson, among others! That is the community I discovered early on. That is the community that I’ve been so very proud to be a part of since then. I’ve been even more pleased to watch it grow, evolve, and solidify. In many ways, I have watched this community become proud of itself…and justifiably so!

BY SHELDON EPPS

The very debate that is going on at this very moment about contractual issues in some of the smaller theatres in L.A. is a significant sign of the energy and vivacity that fuels those who make this their theatrical home base. Though sometimes contentious and disturbing, the debate is born of a passion for the work and a deep desire to keep theatres and performing venues ALIVE! Only in a theatre town. Only in a city where artists, producers, directors, and critics are genuinely passionate about the art form, eager to have the chance to work, and genuinely concerned about finding the best ways to keep our vibrant community wide ranging, diverse, and thriving.

What are the elements that make for a great theatre town in America? Passion for the art form.

A rich community of artists eager to sharpen their skills and exhibit their talents. Devoted and loyal audiences. A diversity of theatrical experiences ranging from classical work to new plays, experimental fare to the celebration of the great American musical. And perhaps a fair degree of pride among both those who create the work and those who help to keep it alive as donors, supporters, and ticket buyers.

If, in fact, one can begin to define a city as a place that is justifiably considered a great theatre town, then my city certainly qualifies. I use the term “MY city” with a good degree of the aforementioned pride. I was born here sometime in the last century. In a year that I would rather not remember or reveal, I saw my first professional theatre production at the very theatre that has now been my artistic home for nearly two decades (I saw the divine and glorious Ethel Waters in one of her last stage performances here at the Pasadena Playhouse in a production of A Member of the Wedding—a pretty good way to begin a blessed lifetime of theatregoing). I have heard it oft repeated for more than those 20 years that my town is not a theatre town. All too often those words are spoken by people who have never been here! I used to rail against those words with fierce intensity. At this point, I find that notion pretty laughable. Now I merely nod and think, “How little you know.”

After that initial experience with Miss Waters, I returned to direct in L.A. for the first time in the early ’90s. At that time, I was based in NYC and may even have had some of those inaccurate notions about this community in my own head. What I discovered then, and have celebrated ever since, is a city that is blessed with great talent in every area. True, many of the artists based here came to this town to pursue work in other arenas. But believe me, their hearts and souls are still passionate about the theatre. I discovered physical performance spaces, including this one, that are beautiful, inspiring, and rich with history.

I met and came to know some of the very founders of the resident theatre movement whose institutions provided both models for building this theatre once I became its artistic leader. Not to mention the fact that the work that they produced has fed theatres all over the country, including Broadway and New York’s theatres, for many years. Thank you Gordon Davidson, Craig Noel, Jack O’Brien, David Emmes, and

I have another reason to feel as strongly as I do about the theatre in my city. And that is the warm and gracious comradeship I enjoy with my fellow directors here. As a longtime SDC Executive Board Member, as the host of the Directors Lab West, and as one who has the good fortune to work with and support guest directors here at the Playhouse, I am fortunate to have frequent exposure to and time with the gifted directors and choreographers who make L.A. their home. I’ve tried to make it a priority to “cast” directors for our productions with members of this community as often as possible. I am always pleased to see how many Members eagerly attend Membership meetings and Foundation events on this coast (frequently in greater numbers than I have seen at East Coast meetings, frankly). Once again, I celebrate this as a sign that our Members here are eager to come together in support of each other, to explore the craft of what we do, and to work together and in connection with SDC to bring focus and respect to our craft.

Suddenly I recognize that I am beginning to sound like an overly enthusiastic cheerleader here. If so, as mentioned before, it is not out of defensiveness but rather genuine pride and great enthusiasm for my theatre town. It is rich in creativity, strong in numbers of gifted practitioners, blessed with devoted, smart, and intelligent audiences, and much to be admired and celebrated. Jointly, “We are such stuff as dreams are made of…” And great dreamers make for great theatre, I believe. Along with so many others in this wonderful theatre town, I intend to dream on!

SHELDON EPPS is the Artistic Director for Pasadena Playhouse in California and an Executive Board Member for SDC.

MARTIN BENSON since 1986 GORDON DAVIDSON since 1969 DAVID EMMES since 1979 SHELDON EPPS since 1981 CRAIG NOEL d.1982 JACK O’BRIEN since 1969

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Meet + Greet for Center Theatre Group’s production of Apollo at the Kirk Douglas Theatre in 2005 PHOTO Craig Schwartz

INTERVIEW BY

JOHN RANDO

NANCY KEYSTONE AT HOME IN THE CITY SHE LOVES

The 1980s were a good time to be a theatre artist in Los Angeles. It was a decade in which world premieres by Marsha Norman, Neil Simon, Lanford Wilson, JoAnne Akalaitis, and Jon Robin Baitz made their debuts on L.A.’s stages. In 1984, the Los Angeles Olympic Arts Festival presented more than 400 performances by 146 theatre, dance, and music companies from 18 countries around the world. Late in the decade, South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa was honored with the highest recognition in regional theatre, the Tony Award for Distinguished Achievement.

With that energy, along with the perpetual lure of Tinseltown, Los Angeles drew many young artists who bucked the conventional route of making a theatre career in New York City. Some have stayed; others moved on to break new ground elsewhere. Recently, SDC Journal asked Tony Award-winning director John Rando (MFA, UCLA, 1988) to interview longtime Los Angeles-based director Nancy Keystone (BA, UCLA, 1985). They shared their memories of student life in Los Angeles and the role that the city played in their development as artists.

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JOHN | UCLA had an exciting and vibrant atmosphere filled with great young artists and students. I am very curious to hear your thoughts about the undergraduate atmosphere and who were your mentors.

NANCY | Michael McLain and Michael Hackett were brand-new professors at UCLA when I came in. They decided to kind of blow things up. Those were really my mentors, McLain especially. It was such a fertile time for learning. They both had come from working and studying in Europe and had direct, firsthand experience with that kind of stuff. Michael McLain had worked with Alan Schneider and there was that legacy. Also, you know, when I was there, William Melnitz was there, and he had worked with Brecht.

JOHN | It was a place where you could truly be immersed in learning both the avant-garde and the classic theatre. How specifically did your teachers inspire you?

NANCY | Hackett and McLain put a lot of energy into me. I’m a very eager learner and a good student. I want to do what my teachers say, and I really got a lot out of that.

One thing that I thought was really fantastic about the training at UCLA was that it’s very holistic. Everybody had to do everything. You had to take a class in each sub-discipline: a directing class, a makeup class. The thing that was really amazing is that they had a one-act play program. I don’t know if it was still there when you were there.

JOHN | Oh, yes. It was an extraordinary baptism by fire and proving ground for directors.

NANCY | To me that was it: it was completely student produced, directed, and designed from top to bottom. Each quarter, three times a year, six published one acts and six student-written one acts. It created a company and people who really had to understand how to make this work happen. We didn’t get very much in terms of resources; it was also about how to scramble. It created a group of very scrappy, very resourceful people who have a pretty broad skill set.

That wave of people lasted about 10 years and went out and created companies in the city.

One of the first companies to be created was the Actors’ Gang, which came out of a student

JOANNE AKALAITIS since 1985 | NANCY KEYSTONE since 2000 | JOHN RANDO since 1995 | ALAN SCHNEIDER d.1984

production of Ubu the King. Tim Robbins directed it. It blew my mind. It blew everybody’s mind. Then, that summer, they moved it to a little 99-seat theatre in Hollywood and it ran for a long, long time.

JOHN | I remember the Olympics being a huge influence on everyone in L.A., not only in the academic world but in the professional theatre world as well. It had a significant impact because there was so much to see. It was a very special time and some truly great theatre came through.

NANCY | There were some major productions of world theatre that came to Los Angeles.

Ariane Mnouchkine’s Shakespeare cycle and Peter Brook’s The Mahabharata were there that year and completely shifted the way people thought about theatre. Those methods and that kind of ensemble sensibility really infiltrated the community here.

JOHN | Needless to say, these special productions, such as Mnouchkine’s or Brook’s, must have had great impact on you as an artist.

NANCY | I think Ariane Mnouchkine and Théâtre du Soleil are at the very top of the list of my strongest influences.

JOHN | Did you study with them or see a production of theirs and thought, “I have to do that”?

NANCY | I did not study with them. I’ve probably seen five of their productions, some in France, some in Montreal, and some in New York. I have studied pictures and books of their productions. I’ve seen their films. When they came to Los Angeles, I was still at UCLA, and so I became very aware of the company: their practice, this idea that they would develop work over a long period of time. The idea that they transformed their space for every production. The political agenda. Working toward a very explosive theatrical form, hypertheatrical. And the very intense performances that the actors were getting. So, a combination of all of that really struck me.

I was also influenced by Peter Brook and Tadeusz Kantor. Those were touchstones for the ensemble aspect, the training aspect, the focus on performance, and a kind of political agenda that was also matched by a very strong aesthetic.

JOHN | And now, you lead your own ensemble—Critical Mass Performance Group.

I’m really curious about what led you to form your theatre company. Can you describe for us what Critical Mass is, exactly?

PETER BROOK since 1959 | CHRIS COLEMAN since 2000 MICHAEL KAHN since 1966 | BRIAN KULICK since 1997 CAREY PERLOFF since 1995 | TIM ROBBINS since 2004

NANCY | Critical Mass Performance Group is an ensemble committed to longterm development of new, devised work and reinterpretations of classic work and performance in those traditional and alternative spaces.

From the time I took Michael Hackett’s yearlong theatre history class and we learned about all the European ensembles, starting with Meyerhold and then Grotowski, Brook, and Mnouchkine, I knew that was what I wanted to do. I wanted to make a company and I wanted it to be really focused on longterm work. I was really interested in this idea of a permanent ensemble. That was my goal from the time I was about 20 years old.

I made an independent production of Brecht’s Baal at the end of my senior year at UCLA, and that was really a breakthrough for me.

It’s a very difficult play. A UCLA friend, Brian Kulick, was assigned to mentor me on that project, and he was tremendously helpful in illuminating how to dig into that kind of work. I don’t know, objectively, how good the production was. But for me, it felt as though I started to understand some things, started to develop a method with the actors to develop character, metaphoric ideas…to dramaturgically see the play and then articulate it. I consider that the beginning of the company. Even though I went to grad school after that, I wanted to come back and keep working with those actors and in that way. So that’s what I did after I went to grad school.

JOHN | What happened after you finished grad school at Carnegie Mellon?

NANCY | I joined the Directors Project at the Drama League. I worked with Michael Kahn at the Shakespeare Theatre and Carey Perloff at Classic Stage Company. I did a Lorca play for my director’s showcase. That would have been the moment to move to New York and launch a career there. They really set you up; they introduced us to everybody.

But I felt in my gut that I didn’t want to battle New York. I didn’t want to battle the city; that’s not where I wanted to put my energy.

It felt as though the trail had been blazed there. California felt much more open to me: economically open, open-minded about what could happen, easier. And I really wanted to continue working with the actors that I had been working with at the end of my time at UCLA. So I moved back. I did not move directly to Los Angeles. My family lived in Santa Barbara, so for a number of years I commuted back and forth. That was the beginning of when I really started to work with the company. We rehearsed weeknights in Los Angeles, and then

people would come up to Santa Barbara and stay at my parents’ house—10 people sleeping on the floor. I’d get some rehearsal space and we’d rehearse all day, all night, Saturday and Sunday. And then everybody would go back to L.A. That was how it happened in the early days.

I was really interested in classics, big plays.

It was great to understand the dramaturgy of those plays and how those playwrights grappled with big ideas, and what the challenges are for staging. Those plays also allow you to do things in a “poor” way, without resources, which was definitely our position.

JOHN | What was the first significant or milestone production for you?

NANCY | Well, two things happened. First, I met Chris Coleman when we were in grad school, and he started a theatre in Atlanta called Actor’s Express. He started hiring me to direct there, and he gave me tremendous opportunities to work as a freelance director and designer. That’s when I started designing.

For a number of years, I was fortunate that Chris just asked me what I wanted to do and then let me do it.

Hamlet was one of the plays I wanted to explore. That production was a turning point in terms of my ability to really dig in. Certainly, it was flawed, and I’d love to tackle it again. But for me, at that time, I was able to articulate an idea or series of ideas in a way that I hadn’t before.

When I directed these classic plays, I would create a prologue at the beginning to compress the main theme in a really poetic way and lay things out for the audience, such as the conventions of the production and the main ideas and themes, things to watch for.

I usually loved working on those sequences even more than the actual play. After making that particular production and prologue, I thought, “I want to do a whole play that’s just like a prologue, that works more on a metaphoric level with nonverbal, movementbased work.”

It took several years, but the first time that I did that with my company was a [on] piece called The Akhmatova Project. It was about the Russian poet Anna Akhmatova, and the text was almost all poetry. It was very choreographed, trying as much as possible to tell a story through movement. We worked on it for about two and a half years. That was also a milestone: it was the first time that the company devised a piece like that in a lengthy development period.

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Ameryka Patti McGuire

MAIN PHOTO TOP

Keystone in rehearsal for Ameryka at University of Redlands PHOTO D Sanders

MIDDLE Keystone (background), Richard Gallegos (on floor) + Nick Santoro (standing) rehearsing a workshop of Ameryka with Critcal Mass Performance Group, which involved choreography based on a sequence in the film High Noon PHOTO Casey McGann

PHOTO

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OPPOSITE Alcestis Montica Pes, Pesfu Pictures

I LOVE LOS ANGELES. I THINK IT’S A FASCINATING PLACE AND A VERY INSPIRING PLACE. NANCY KEYSTONE

create some material, and then we would show the work in progress to try to get feedback and also to try to build momentum for the project.

That’s the way we got all of our funding and support, building an audience for the two and a half years.

We did a particular workshop to reach out to the Russian community. That sort of broke open that door for us. We were terrified about being interlopers and appropriating someone else’s culture. The Russian community shared their personal stories and gave us really very valuable feedback, which told us we were on the right track. That opened the door to the larger Russian community in Los Angeles.

About a third of that audience was Russian.

JOHN | You work at regional theatres and you also do your work with Critical Mass. What is the difference in your preparation process for a piece that you create with Critical Mass from how you might work on an established text for regional theatre? How is the process different, or maybe it’s the same? I’m just curious.

NANCY | There are both similarities and differences. When I work on a show for regional theatre, it’s a scripted piece, generally.

I don’t think I’ve done a premiere of a new play. They’ve all been done before, and there’s a production history.

I’m an obsessive researcher, so both processes involve a ton of research. But I also do the play preparation that I learned as an undergraduate director. It’s very academic and involves teasing out the text line by line. That generally takes me a couple of months. So that’s one of the main things that I do that is very different from Critical Mass work. But I feel that I just have to do that preparation. And then, on the first day of rehearsal, an actor will say something that I’ve never thought of and I think, “Oh my

God, you know, how could I not have thought of that?”

Sometimes it’s found text, sometimes I’ll write stuff, sometimes a combination of both.

I try to share a reasonable amount of research with the actors in regional production, but I don’t want to overwhelm them. I feel like the relationship is very different or somewhat different when you’re working with a group of actors that you don’t know. There’s a lot of “getting to know you” stuff.

It’s very, very fluid. Very open. Nobody has a part assigned to them. Different people might try the same part. And everybody’s there all at the time kind of hashing it out. And as we go along, slowly, slowly, it becomes a little bit more concrete, and we start working more on narrative and on characters and things like that.

Then you’re working with the theatre, within the parameters of that organization. You know what that’s like. You have three-and-a-half weeks, and then you have to be done. I use every second of the time, all the preview days and everything, right up to opening night.

When we get into shape, our first run-through after tech is usually horrible. Then the show gets much better that following week. But it’s a very prescribed kind of a thing.

When I’m with my company, I’m the writer of the piece and the director and the scene designer. It’s all happening at once. I do all the research. I do about six months of research on my own and then the company almost seminars it: I just give them piles and piles of research, and we sit around and talk about it.

We have guests come in and speak. We see movies. We eat food. We listen to music and look at images. We do as much as we can to fill up on the subject in as many ways as possible.

Then we start working in a laboratory situation.

There’s no script. We really don’t know what we’re doing at all. What I tend to do is spend all day writing the evening rehearsal, which is, for me, trying to construct exercises or improvisations that will get inside this more academic work that we’ve done. Trying to find a way for the actor to find “the head stuff” in their muscles. We work nonverbally a lot at first. Then slowly we start adding text.

We work for about five weeks and then we’ll have a presentation of the work in progress.

The first presentation that we ever do for a project is really a series of the exercises sort of strung together. Maybe we’ll figure out some very thin narrative thread. It’s a way for us to think about not just exploration but what would be the outcome. What are the more important things we want to try to put forth?

And after we share the work, we get feedback, and then we do the whole process again.

Research starts each laboratory process—the workshop process—and things get more and more concrete as we go along. Right now, we’re working on a piece that’s been in development for five years.

JOHN | What’s the title or the subject?

NANCY | It’s called Ameryka. It’s spelled the Polish way: A-M-E-R-Y-K-A. It is really about the bizarre relationship America has to the idea of freedom. It’s an exploration of the promises and betrayals of democracy and looking at that through the lens of our relationship with Poland, which is actually very long and interesting. It’s kind of a historical epic. There are lots of characters, and it moves very fast, over 250 years back and forth, nonlinear. It’s performed in a very eclectic mix of genres.

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We’re almost finished with the development process; we have about two hours and 15 minutes of material. So now it’s very surgical, like, “Okay, what’s missing or what isn’t working?” and “I have to write three themes that do X, Y, and Z.” Totally, totally different from the beginning work where anything’s possible. Now we’re trying to make it work. As opposed to just seeing what it might be.

JOHN | The plays that you do with Critical Mass usually take place in nontraditional sites.

NANCY | I like to use nontraditional places. A lot of these places where we do the works in progress are big warehouse spaces, the kind of spaces that have been made into a theatre or a dance studio. We don’t produce very often because we take so long to make each piece. I’d love to find a big industrial space to premiere Ameryka.

I love the energy of certain spaces and I would love to have more freedom to do that. I think 20 years ago it was easier. Especially in a place like Los Angeles, it was much easier to find a space and just do something. Now it’s more locked down, it’s more expensive. There are more regulations, more permits required. One of our earliest productions was Dr. Faustus, which we did in a bar in Santa Barbara, and we had actors walking on top of the bar and performing all over the place. We did a production in a house. We did a production in an old locker room at the Hollywood Rec Center. We did a Suzan-Lori Parks 365 Plays Project production at the old military barracks at Angels Gate Cultural Center in San Pedro.

JOHN | I’ve heard about a piece called “Pose” where you carried a chair for 10 hours or something like that.

NANCY | That was a piece that Allan Kaprow, a conceptual artist who did the “Happenings” in the ’60s, created. The Museum of Contemporary Art here in Los Angeles held a retrospective of his work called Allan Kaprow: Art As Life. They invited different artists and organizations to reinvent his Happenings.

People had Happenings all over the city, all over Southern California, really, and this went on for many months.

I was really intrigued by a piece called “Pose.” I think Kaprow originally did it in San Francisco.

He and a couple of friends carried a chair around and they would sit in it and take a Polaroid picture of themselves sitting in it.

They would leave the picture so there was a little piece of evidence of something that had happened there and move on.

I really loved that they were interacting with the city. I love Los Angeles. I think it’s a fascinating place and a very inspiring place.

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I love Sunset Boulevard, how it goes for 22 miles through lots and lots of different neighborhoods through the city, all the way down to the ocean. So we started at Cesar Chavez Avenue, where Sunset Boulevard begins. We basically walked and took the bus all the way down to the ocean over the course of the day with this chair. We would stop every once in a while and choose a location and put our chair down and invite people to sit in it and have their picture taken. Then we’d leave the pictures. So that’s what that was. It was really fun.

We occasionally do these short, one-off projects in addition to the longer-term work.

We just spent four days working on a fiveminute response to a contemporary Polish play, in an exchange between Polish and American artists—it was the International Digital Play Festival sponsored by Stage Raw in Los Angeles, and the Adam Mickiewicz Institute in Warsaw. There were Polish plays and then American plays. Artists in each country chose a play and then wrote a fiveminute response to that play. The responses were performed and streamed live back and forth over the course of a couple hours. We got to see Warsaw’s responses to the American plays, and they saw our responses to theirs.

Things like that are a lot of fun.

JOHN | You were just saying how much you love Los Angeles. You’ve chosen to base your career and life in L.A. What are the joys and what are the challenges? What do you love about it and what do you still struggle with in terms of doing the work that you like to do?

NANCY | I think L.A. is a very open place. You can essentially do anything here. There is a lot of theatre happening. It’s really interesting work. People are very committed to doing it, very committed to ensembles, and it’s a pretty close community.

It’s also incredibly diverse, which I love. I think there are [more than] 200 languages spoken here. There’s this phrase: “the western edge,” which is starting to come into vogue. I can’t remember who coined that phrase, but it aptly describes this place where a lot of people are meeting from all over the world. It’s very eclectic, and I love the eclecticism of it in every way.

The biggest challenge, I think, is getting anybody to really care about the work. Once you put it up, it’s very difficult to get an audience. But really getting people to care, getting the funding…from the government, the film and television industry, which benefits a great deal from this enormous pool of talent that’s just sitting here, waiting to get seriously paid work. They don’t do a lot to support it. I think that’s the problem. The sense of building

a community and building a culture in the community of Los Angeles is lacking.

The Los Angeles Philharmonic is actually one of the exceptions to that. It’s a pretty extraordinary organization. I’m directing a piece with them, a concert for middle and high school students. It’s very exciting: a totally different venue, different organization, different culture.

I think also there’s a lot of energy in visual arts.

But theatre is much, much harder, and also it’s sidelined by New York; there is definitely a bias against the West Coast, which I have discovered late in life. Finally, it used to be a lot cheaper to live and work here. It’s become way more expensive, which has become much more difficult.

JOHN | I have such admiration for your work and the career that you’ve built in Los Angeles, and your decision to stay there. I made the decision to move to New York. It’s great that directors have options about where they can live and work. But, of course, times change.

So with that in mind, what advice do you offer emerging directors in Los Angeles now compared to when you started?

NANCY | I don’t know that I have different advice now. When I came out of grad school, I thought, as we all do, that we’re going to take the world by storm and we’re going to have a career in five minutes. It did not work that way at all. It was very, very hard to get a foot in any door. So I think relationships are supremely important. I believe that my relationship with Chris Coleman is the reason that I have a career. Even with that, there’s so much rejection, as we all know. And especially early on, each time I was rejected by the “official system,” I chose to do my own work instead. And then what happened was more momentum was created with my own work, and I became less and less interested in having a career in regional theatre.

I think that the theatre, the culture [of theatre] is changing. The models are changing—have been changing for a long time—and I think that that’s good. I think that people are taking more control over their careers. The bigger institutions are less and less viable in a way because of shrinking audiences and shrinking funding, and they still have the same physical plant to maintain. Young people need to come into it with new ideas.

For younger artists, I would say: you can’t wait for anyone to give you anything. You have to just do it. I would not have been able to do what I have done if Los Angeles’s 99-Seat Plan hadn’t been available, if we hadn’t been able to work in that way. Get the people together that you want to work with and do something.

That’s all I can say. Don’t wait.

Connection & Community LIFE AS A THEATRE ARTIST IN LOS ANGELES INTERVIEW BY NEEL

KELLER

Theatre artists living outside of L.A. wonder what life and work is like in a city so diverse and geographically spread. In March 2015, SDC Journal invited Neel Keller, Associate Artistic Director at Center Theatre Group, to moderate a conversation with five Los Angeles theatre artists, each of whom has made his or her own path in very different ways. In this condensed edit of their conversation, Juliette Carrillo, Bart DeLorenzo, Ameenah Kaplan, Oanh Nguyen, and Ken Roht share their experiences of life and work in Los Angeles and where they see the city’s artistic life going.

Juliette Carrillo, Bart DeLorenzo, Neel Keller, Ken Roht, Oanh Nguyen + Ameenah Kaplan PHOTO Craig Schwartz

JULIETTE CARRILLO since 2005 | BART DeLORENZO since 2007 | NEEL KELLER since 1998 | OANH NGUYEN since 2008 | KEN ROHT since 2011

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NEEL | How did you find your way to L.A. and did you come here for work or did you find the work once you got here?

BART | When I was coming out of graduate school at A.R.T. in Boston, I didn’t want to stay there. I had spent some time in Chicago and didn’t want to go back. I had spent some time in New York, and I didn’t want to go there.

Ken Roht

Juliette Carrillo

My family had gone on a lot of vacations in this area when I was a kid, and I always liked it. So I thought I’d try it out here. I wanted to do theatre, and I heard that you could make your own thing out here. And they were right. I wanted to get a real body of work, and L.A. was great for that. So I stayed.

AMEENAH | I came out here from New York, primarily for acting. I had a similar thing like Bart: I wanted to make my own work, and I heard that it was easier out here and that the Equity Waiver plan allowed for that. So I came here and started acting in theatre first.

Oanh Nguyen + Ameenah Kaplan

To be really honest, I was going broke. I had to focus on acting that paid the bills, but I wanted to stay connected to theatre.

I started choreographing for theatre and was simultaneously writing my own work.

OANH | My family came here during the evacuation from Vietnam in ’75.

I was two or three, so I pretty much grew up here and had no choice.

NEEL | Where did you start working?

Where did you start to find your work?

OANH | I founded my own company.

That’s really where I started, and it kind of branched out from there. My company just expanded into a larger space, so that’s where most of my focus is these days.

Neel Keller

KEN | I’m from here. I started in song and dance at 18 years old with Young Americans and through that started auditioning for musicals. At the same time, I was learning how to make industrial entertainment, so I went through the Young Americans and used them as a model.

I started my own production company, doing industrial work while auditioning. The first job I got was playing David in a musical adaptation of Lisa and David in a little tiny theatre right next to the freeway on Santa Monica Boulevard. I started creating my own more progressive theatre pieces. I’d met Reza Abdoh and started working with him here.

Bart DeLorenzo Craig Schwartz

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NEEL | How many years did you work with Reza?

KEN | Seven years total, but not consecutive years. I took two years off when they moved to New York. I didn’t want to starve in New York. That’s a harder place to start.

NEEL | Juliette?

JULIETTE | My first show was actually a Cornerstone show soon after I graduated from Yale. I came out here to do that and feel out the L.A. scene. Not long after, I was hired by South Coast Rep to direct one of the Hispanic Playwright Project workshops. A few years after that, I was asked to run the program. So South Coast lured me with a job, and I stayed on staff at South Coast for several years and then started working with Cornerstone, which is kind of my home base, but I freelance all over.

NEEL | Are there aspects of L.A. that you feel are unique to creating theatre here that are different than other places you’ve lived or work?

AMEENAH | Definitely. For me, it’s the weather.

I rehearsed my first show in my friend’s backyard. You can rehearse year-round.

BART | I’d say it’s the quality of the actors.

The best actors in the world live here and are interested in doing interesting things. I think also that there are fewer expectations out here. You don’t have to do things the normal way. You don’t have to climb any ladder or hierarchy. You can just make something out here. I think everyone looks for that here more than in a lot of other places in the world.

KEN | I didn’t grow up anywhere else. I didn’t feel the abilities or my career anywhere else. It is a great place to just go from one situation to another, one theatre to another, and see who I was as an artist.

NEEL | And Juliette, is the work you make here very different from the work you make in other cities?

JULIETTE | I feel that I’ve been very lucky in that I’ve had a home here with Cornerstone or South Coast. It’s enough of a home that I feel I have a place to go but also a lot of freedom to go to other places. That’s made a huge difference. The freelance work that I’ve done in other cities has been at regional theatres, so that’s not making my own work.

I spent some time in New York when I first graduated, and I loved it. It was a great cultural workout. You’re exposed to all the arts all the time, and, as someone just coming out of school, it was perfect. I remember thinking,

“How will I ever move?” Once you move to New York, it’s hard to move out.

you’d have to raise a lot of money yourself to be able to produce.

But life circumstances took me back here.

I’m a California girl, was born and raised in California, so I feel much more comfortable out here. I think I need that ease to feel comfortable and to do my work in a relaxed way because the more relaxed I am, the better the work is. That’s not true for everybody. Some people need to be on edge. That’s not how I work, so it’s better for my personality to be in the sunshine.

Here in L.A., you don’t have to. In other parts of the region, you can only get 10 or 12 performances. Here, you can get a full run; you can get reviews; you can build a reputation on that. That’s very different.

NEEL | Do you feel you have strong community here in L.A., or do you feel a lack of community? Is it a theatre-making community, or are there other communities you feel you’re really a part of in L.A.?

BART | There’s no “a” community up here.

There are lots of different ones. When I was the Artistic Director of the Evidence Room and we were producing many, many times a year, I felt the pulse of the city more. I felt that, as an artist, I was in a daily conversation with other artists in the city.

Working as a freelance director, you don’t feel that as much because you’re parachuting into new situations all the time. Yet I would say I still feel very close to the artists I was working with when I first started working here, and a lot of the artists that I’ve continued to work with.

All hands are on deck regarding the changes to AEA’s 99-Seat Plan. It has brought the community closer together. It’s where we’ve all connected. Even though I work less in those theatres at the moment, I love working in those theatres. That’s really where we all met, and I think that’s where the sense of community in Los Angeles emanates.

NEEL | This point of community is crucial.

The network of small theatres in this town, the amount of activity that those theatres generate, the amount of shows that we all participate in or go and see, and the people we see year after year is the thing that led me to feeling there was a community here.

It’s hard to imagine the landscape in the theatrical community without those theatres and without that amount of production.

KEN | It is one of the differences between working in L.A. and other places. As Bart was saying, you have access to some of the best actors in the world. But you have access because of that 99-Seat Plan, right? In other regions, it would be much harder to get a job as a director or to get a production together with Equity actors because the production budget would be so much higher. So you either have to earn that job in some way, or

AMEENAH | From where I’m sitting, the issues over the 99-Seat Plan have caused a huge schism in the community. There is a chunk of people who have a different opinion, who are not siding with Equity but who have not benefited from the Equity Waiver plan.

I do physical theatre and it’s very difficult to do it in a storefront. You have to have a theatre with floors and beams that work so the performers are safe. Performers are spinning on their elbows and heads, and they’re hanging from apparatuses. They need to get paid to get in the air and risk their lives like that. This requires a little bit more money.

I had to find my own path because I wanted to make a living at the theatre. I could not make a living doing theatre under the waiver model.

I think there are a lot of people who feel like I do. We are people who don’t have day jobs, for whom this is the only thing that we do. When I set about to create my show, I didn’t create it to be free. I’m not trying to get rich. I want to pay my performers a living wage. I don’t see anything wrong with trying to pay people for what they do.

NEEL | I think it’s one of the tricky parts of that agreement. It’s somewhat unknown what the new plan means for the future. Will it develop a new level of midsize companies that pay more than the current 99-Seat Plan? There’s certainly a lot of fear that it will lead to a real decrease in the amount of production. No one knows for sure.

KEN | Except that they’ve been using these other plans in other regions and it seems to be working in other regions. It’s done that way in the Bay Area, Chicago, Seattle. They don’t have the 99-Seat Plan in those areas, so there are more midsize theatres. There are also lots of small, 99-seat, non-union theatres. They’re doing wonderful work and have a different process and find different ways to pay their artists or find different ways to satisfy those artistic needs or those financial needs. It’s happening everywhere else except for L.A.

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OANH | It’s important to know what they’re not addressing here or anywhere else in parts of the country: they’re not addressing different kinds of processes. They’re not addressing ensemble-based processes.

That is something I think Equity needs to deal with, not just in L.A. but everywhere.

NEEL | Or certain kinds of work—physical theatre or work that involves a lot of digital performances and capturing.

AMEENAH | I was at a film festival, and people were talking about 4D theatrical experiences. These guys are responding to the fact that everyone can sit at home and watch Netflix now. They’re asking, “How do we get you to come back to the theatres to see a movie?” So now they’re going to take movies and build them into theatrical experiences. That’s what we do. We know how to do theatre, and we’re going to let them do it? Why aren’t we, people of the theatre, meeting them with that technology?

BART | I think it’s about community and it’s not about business. If everything goes and we have the walking dead outside, I want to be here, where I know a lot of people who are really contributing their hearts and souls to painting flats that have bubbles in it.

KEN | I’ve lived off of the Equity Waiver for 20 years. I don’t have a day job. I think many of us are in that position. It’s not a great living, but it’s a living, and I’m so grateful every day. It does empower me to feel a part of a community where I can be on fire on a daily basis. The quality has to be better. The paradigm has to change.

What Equity is suggesting is debilitating to a structure that is already in place that does have many wonderful things going for it.

OANH | It’s hard, I think, for us as directors to talk about this because we don’t have the favored nations of the New York showcase rules where if the actors don’t get paid, no one gets paid. We work in a community where the actors don’t get paid and we do get paid.

So it’s hard for us to stand up for or against because we’re on the side that’s getting paid.

BART | Thank God for our Union. I can work on a hundred different levels, and I’ve never had a project that I couldn’t approach our Union with and explain to them the situation and they found a way to make it work.

NEEL | I think there is going to have to be a compromise reached.

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I’m curious: living in this city, where there is so much emphasis on film and television, is it a draw for you all? Are you interested in working in it?

JULIETTE | Right now I’m working for NBC Universal, directing their diversity showcase.

So I’m doing the theatre thing and the TV world, which is paying me well. It’s just another way to make a living. I’ve danced around the film and TV world. It’s a very difficult world to break into, and it takes 100% commitment to really make it happen. Because my heart is in theatre, it’s difficult to crack that nut. But I still try. I have my pilot. I have my screenplays—like everybody in L.A. But it is an attraction for me.

I want to do everything. It’s why I’m here.

NEEL | Ken, you’ve made some films of your own. As a storyteller, are different technologies and different ways of storytelling appealing?

KEN | We’re here in a movie town, so make a movie for gosh sakes! My film, Perfect Cowboy, is much more exciting to me because it created community in 13 different cities all through California, working with UC Irvine’s musical theatre department, a clogging group up in Northern California, and a bell choir in Central California. The biggest rush I got was that it was such a beautiful community-oriented situation, getting to tell a story that was down-to-earth.

I’ve been a whimsical surrealist for so long.

I thought, “I think I do have real heartfelt stories to tell somehow. How’s that going to come out?” It seems to be coming out through film. It’s harder to make a movie, I’ll tell you that. But I love it. And I love to act in films, so if anybody’s making a film, I love to act in film. I love the magic of a camera.

AMEENAH | I went back to school five years ago just to get a film degree because I was experimenting with emerging film stuff. My movies were so bad. I didn’t know what was going on with the camera, so I went back to school expressly for that.

NEEL | I think, in addition to all the wonderful actors, of all the writers who have moved to L.A. to write for film and television. In my brief time in L.A., there has been a wonderful group of writers who have come out here and who do continue to write for the theatre and who love it and who have written some beautiful, beautiful plays. In many ways, that’s a great way we all benefit from the film and television industry.

Are there particular artists working in L.A.—in film, television, or theatre, dance—who you admire? Who you like to be in conversation with? Who you like to follow, to work with, whether you know them or not?

AMEENAH | Moses Pendleton, MOMIX, and Pilobolus. It’s like my therapy.

JULIETTE | Julie Hébert. She’s writing plays, writing and directing television, directing theatre, directing film. She’s kind of got it all. She figured it out.

NEEL | I certainly feel that all of you sitting around this table are people who I admire and whose work I am always excited to see. I just drove down to South Coast Rep last week to see one of Bart’s shows, and I’m always at Ken’s shows and Ameenah’s shows and Juliette’s shows when they’re around. There are people like Michael [Michetti] and Jessica [Kubzansky] at Boston Court whose work I follow a lot.

Through my kids, I meet a lot of people who are in very creative fields and have nothing to do with my work. They have been very inspiring to me. I love that about L.A. I met Jonathan Gold, the food writer for the L.A. Times, and his wife, Laurie Ochoa, who is an editor. Jonathan’s love for L.A., which is channeled through food and the people who make very different food around L.A., is refreshing to me.

In much the same way, I find it invigorating to get out in L.A. and explore different parts.

It’s so vast. Jonathan goes so far afield into different communities and experiences. I find inspiring his fearlessness about experience in this town and his love of it. It’s a wonderful town to meet these people even outside of our immediate sort of storytelling fields who are engaged in the city in exciting ways.

JULIETTE | The exciting thing for me about being at Cornerstone is that I get to go into communities that I would never go to. Ken and I spent some time in Pacoima. Who hangs out in Pacoima? We had such a blast.

BART | I saw that show. It was like a revolution up there.

JULIETTE | It’s All Bueno? It was so much fun: getting into the ’hoods of L.A. and exploring through a theatre company. The beauty of L.A. is also the diversity. To be able to experience that through theatre is remarkable.

NEEL | Do you find that that influences your work? Helps your work, creates opportunities, challenges? How do you feel you tap into that diversity in your work?

JULIETTE | It’s like exposure to anything: the more you know, the more you live, the more you breathe in different worlds, the better an artist and person you become. I know that’s general, but that’s really what it’s about. It’s about community. Community makes you a JESSICA KUBZANSKY since 2000 | MICHAEL MICHETTI since 1998

bigger, better person, and that’s why we all do theatre. The more you can diversify that community, the better person you are.

KEN | I’ve been having a brilliant time working with a group of high school kids who I choreographed Cabaret for. I love it so much.

They’re so brave and funny. They can really do what I’m hoping for. I think I’m going to costume a junior high version of Little Shop of Horrors. It’s interesting and different.

NEEL | Let’s talk briefly about overall feelings about L.A. What has changed in the city, in the theatre scene, in the time you’ve been here? Ken, you were talking about working with Reza. That seemed to be a very exciting time to be in Los Angeles. It was in that ballpark of time when Peter Sellars decided to settle in L.A. Peter talked very eloquently about his excitement about what was happening in this city and the move to the West Coast and Pacific Rim, which is where he thought the world’s focus was turning.

And it was around the time that Bill Rauch decided that Cornerstone, instead of being itinerant and traveling around the country making pieces, wanted to have a home base with many communities, and he also chose L.A. I wonder what you feel the changes have been since you all have lived here.

KEN | I’m pretty narrowly focused, so I’m not a good person to talk about the expansive horizon or landscape, but Los Angeles Theatre Center was amazing, creating all kinds of big shows that were as edgy as anything. Reza had big opportunities at LATC, and without that he wouldn’t have had a career. He had hundreds of thousands of dollars for his productions to do the weirdest, almost shock theatre, ever.

That part of downtown was really run down.

They were always trying to fix it up. I think that theatre was a catalyst for a sense of pride and power in the community. It was very exciting. But they couldn’t keep it up, and it had to disband. They had some time off, but it’s still very vibrant now.

NEEL | Anybody else? What do you see or dream of seeing in L.A. in 10 years if you’re still working and we’re all still making theatre?

BART | The hugest change is the Internet.

It has sort of drawn the strands of the country together so that everyone knows what everyone else is doing. I think it has taken a little bit away from local flavor. There are still lots of crazy great experiments.

L.A. is really ripe for things like that.

If you look at an issue of American Theatre magazine from 15 years ago, you’ll see the

BILL RAUCH since 1999 | PETER SELLARS since 1997

incredible diversity of plays and material that larger cultural institutions were presenting.

Nowadays, it’s the same six plays being done in every city in America because they had a good production in New York last season. I think it’s sort of sad. It’s the opposite of trying to make something here that will be great there. I hope that there is more local respect for local work. In my experience, by the time we get the tour from New York, there’s something that’s a little frostbitten from that show that’s been in storage. Or half the time I’ve already seen it when I was in New York.

Did you see the O-Lan Jones piece, Songs and Dances of Imaginary Lands? What a unique, special, crazy, “only in L.A.” event.

KEN | With a tram.

BART | With a tram and auto dealers and an abandoned warehouse. To my mind, that was so invigorating, exciting, and so true to her crazy, unique spirit. That’s the kind of work that excites me the most.

JULIETTE | I don’t know if you were aware of the Encuentro that was at LATC in the fall, presented with the Latina/o Theatre Commons. The Commons is an advocacy group that I’m involved with. It was packed; I was really excited to see that place buzzing. LATC was empty for a while, and it has completely blossomed. I’m excited to see what’s going to happen there.

I’m on a selection committee for a new play festival that we’re doing in Chicago. The work is getting better. I ran the Hispanic Playwrights Project, so I can see where it has come from and where it’s going. I’m excited about including the Latino community in this town because there are a lot of us. We need to get the visibility of those stories going in not only theatre but TV and film. I feel that’s going to happen in the next 10 years.

AMEENAH | I want to give a nod to the dance community that is huge in L.A. It has been enjoying a renaissance for the past 15 years. That’s largely because of the tours of pop singers that get cast out of here, partly because of TV and reality shows where they need dancers, and third because of Vegas, where you can still be a live performer and make a living.

There is a group of kids who came out of the physical theatre community—I think they were on a break from Cirque du Soleil—and they created an underground cirque. Over the last 10 years, I’ve noticed it getting more and more professional. The Midsummer Night’s Dream that was done at the Montalbán Theatre

a couple months ago was an immersive Midsummer done by an aerial company.

KEN | They had some trapezes and aerial stuff. You could see that these people have some very special talents.

I hope there are more midsize theatres.

I hope that, for the number of times we brought up New York without even being led that way, I hope there is going to be a panel in New York talking about L.A. that way. There’s no reason not to. I think we have such amazing artists here. There’s really no reason that we can’t build a really strong theatre where people can make a living.

NEEL | I think some of these site-specific pieces also benefit from all of these things that are specifically L.A. that we talked about.

I think of the weather. I think of some of the iconic architecture. I think about the Invisible Cities piece that was done at Union Station.

It was fantastic in terms of that piece being inside and outside at night at a piece of iconic L.A. architecture. There were people at the train station because they were coming to catch trains and had no idea they were in the middle of a performance. They had to piece together they were in the middle of a performance. Because of where and how it was staged, it took on L.A. almost as a character in a way that enlivened the whole piece.

BART | There’s an interest in adventure theatre in L.A. There are very few weird neighborhoods here. Where you go to see a piece of theatre, they’re all sort of equally weird. We’re used to going to some strange, unchartered territory to see something.

KEN | I want to go downtown more. I haven’t seen any theatre in downtown L.A. NEEL | Is there anything else anybody has to say about their life in L.A. or directing theatre in L.A. or wish was happening in L.A.?

BART | More jobs.

JULIETTE | More money.

NEEL | More adventure and more exploring the city. It would certainly be fantastic, over the next 10 years, to see more large-scale work and that sense of vitality that Ken talks about in those glory days of LATC. I think it is a town that has the potential to do very, very exciting work. This is a city where so much of its history is about telling stories, making up stories, making up your own story. I always feel it is an inspiring place to work, to tap into that. Thank you all for coming to chat around the table.

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For young theatre artists, choosing a training program is one of the most important decisions they will make. Whether the path followed is to earn a BA or BFA as an undergraduate theatre major or the pursuit of a master’s degree or PhD, the choice has the potential to determine every career decision that follows.

Thousands of students who enroll each year at colleges and universities in Los Angeles and the surrounding areas of Southern California find that their city of choice for theatre training is one that offers a diversity of experiences in the classroom and beyond the college gates. A breakdown in the dichotomies of the worlds of theatre, film, and television has led to a peaceful coexistence rather than competition. The more expansive approach embracing the art forms is one that has been embraced by educators training the next generation of artists—a generation that will possess a new vocabulary for how they work in different media and which faces career opportunities that didn’t exist before.

SDC Journal was keen to learn how theatre training in Los Angeles—a city where the television and film industries are so pervasive—differs from the experience to be had in other parts of the United States.

To gain perspective on theatre training in L.A., SDC Journal spoke with three highly regarded educational leaders: Travis Preston, the dean of the School of Theater at California Institute of the Arts; Michael Hackett, professor at the School of Theater, Film and Television at University of California at Los Angeles; and Dr. Stephen Barker, interim dean at the Claire Trevor School of the Arts at University of California, Irvine.

The California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) in Valencia has embraced new forms and means of expression since its founding by Walt Disney in 1961. Though the school is renowned for its film program, the School of Theater boasts alumni such as actor

Ed Harris, actor/director Bill Irwin, and directors Sharon Ott and Julie Taymor.

The theatre program is well known for encouraging student artists to use cuttingedge technology and experimental techniques to work in multiple disciplines.

CalArts is not part of a university; it is an art school that exists to train artists. The curriculum is production and project based, with the majority of the work taking place outside a traditional classroom setting.

The curriculum includes topics such as performance by design, in which MFA directors and designers work in collectives of four to five people to collaborate (much like a production team) on projects whose ideas are generated by students. The curriculum also includes new fields such as experience design and themed entertainment.

Travis Preston has been dean of the School of Theater at CalArts since 2010, following his tenure as guest director and head of the school’s directing program. Preston is proud that the program admits only two students each year and is among the most competitive in the country, in part because the students have available to them the resources of a dedicated faculty and these faculty encourage and help emerging artists to evolve their own voices. “We’re not looking to put out a cookie cutter artist,” says Preston. “There are skills that we hope they acquire when they’re working with us. When I’ve got these two directors working with me, I can very much tailor my observations to who they are, what their strengths are, what their weaknesses are, and what their aspirations are. I really celebrate the diversity of impulses in the students.”

Crossover between disciplines and art forms has long been a practice at CalArts.

The school’s rich history, particularly in the film and visual art programs, has made it a locus for cross-disciplinary conversation and practice. This kind of dialogue manifests in curriculum that enables artists to understand the origins and practices of another form and apply it to theatre. To teach devised work,

the School of Theater employs experimental filmmaker Lewis Klahr, who is famous for collage cinema and teaches students the elemental principles of collage. Preston describes this as a “fundamentally different way to address the idea of theatre direction,” but it is part of the CalArts philosophy of the lack of boundaries between art forms. “We are embracing all of the multiple expressions in which effective directing can happen,” Preston notes when stating his view that the hard dichotomy between directing for theatre and directing for other media is no longer a useful way to look at the field.

Central to the CalArts experience is work at the school’s professional producing arm, the CalArts Center for New Performance.

Established in 1999 as a forum for the creation of groundbreaking theatre, the Center brings seminal artists from around the world to develop work that expands the language, discourse, and boundaries of contemporary performance. “We felt it was necessary to create a professional producing structure that would be able to take the excitement and creativity of the general CalArts community and make a contribution to the larger landscape of American theatre,” Preston says with pride. Recent projects have included The Institute of Memory (TIMe) by Lars Jan, a multimedia performance about how memory is changing (the production includes 3D laser scans, environments created by a pioneer of “self-assembly,” and music composed by Marjana Sadowska) and Shelter: Una obra sobre travesias (A play about journeys), a project written by Marissa Chibas and directed by Martin Acosta that synthesizes theatre and documentary film to tell the stories of refugee children who pass through the U.S. deportation shelter system.

Preston is proud that the program’s graduates go on to apply their theatre training in a variety of ways, succeeding with conventional theatre, experience design at museums, and opera. “The truth is that people do a lot of different things,” he offers. “Most careers, as I see them,

TRAVIS PRESTON

Dean of the School of Theater at California Institute of the Arts

MICHAEL HACKETT

Professor at the School of Theater, Film and Television at University of California at Los Angeles

DR. STEPHEN BARKER

Interim Dean at the Claire Trevor School of the Arts at University of California, Irvine

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THEATRE TRAINING THE NEXT GENERATION

BY

ELIZABETH BENNETT

A member from the guest artist troupe Compagnie K채fig teaching at Claire Trevor School of the Arts at University of California, Irvine PHOTO Skye Schmidt

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are comprised of a lot of different elements and progressively so even more. Most of the subdivisions of métier in theatre are beginning to reflect what actors have had to do for a long time. There are very few actors who could create a sustainable career without interacting with media. I think one of the things that has been revealed to us is that CalArts’s dedication to adventurous work and experimental practices actually prepares students to engage in a multiplicity of challenges in an ever-changing environment. It used to be that I would say, ‘Oh, I don’t know what the field is going to be like in 10 years.

Honestly, I don’t know that anybody knows what the field is going to be like in five years.”

At the University of California, Los Angeles’s (UCLA) legendary School of Theater, Film, and Television, Professor Michael Hackett sees the current breakdown in dichotomies as something that UCLA has done since the department was founded in 1947. The dialogue for a full integration of disciplines became strained in the late 1970s, but with the arrival of Dean Teri Schwartz in 2009, the crossover between disciplines began anew.

Schwartz has encouraged dialogue about what is unusual in a school embracing theatre, film, and television and digital media, as well as what it means to be theatre people in Los Angeles. According to Hackett, the faculty is still thinking these questions through, but the result has been the creation of collaborative groups to throw off the old dichotomy of theatre and film being in opposition to each other. Alumni such as director Kristin Hanggi, actor/director Tim Robbins, and directors Wendy Goldberg, John Rando, and Nancy Keystone* all graduated under this collaborative learning model.

All freshman undergraduates (in acting, design, directing, general studies, musical theatre, and playwriting) take introduction to performance, design, tai chi, ballet, and critical analysis, which Hackett describes as “boot camp for the first 20 weeks of the first two quarters.”

At the graduate level, actors, directors, and playwrights all take an acting class in the first two quarters, along with classes in voice, movement, playwriting, and directing; this study is used to create original performance works and the legendary Francis Ford Coppola One Act Play Festival. In the second and third years, the directors collaborate with students in the graduate playwriting and design programs, direct a full-length play in the black box theatre, and direct a thesis production.

Directors are also assigned projects that can be accomplished in film, television, or digital media. The latter distinction is important, as the MFA in directing is now specifically referred to as an “interdisciplinary” program. MFA directing candidates have the opportunity to

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do internships at the Geffen Playhouse and the Los Angeles Theatre Center.

I think one of the things that has been revealed to us is that CalArts’s dedication to adventurous work + experimental practices actually prepares students to engage in a multiplicity of challenges in an everchanging environment.

TRAVIS PRESTON

A student has his or her own choice in L.A. They have to have a global consciousness.

It’s an imperative to have an international perspective.

If you focus primarily on traditional, East Coastdominated, European/ American traditional theatre, you’re missing out on the incredibly rich culture that we have here.

MICHAEL HACKETT

People are citizens first + artists second. Our students need to learn to be articulate, think critically, to write. I tell my undergraduate students that they are studying theatre as part of a liberal arts education. What they need to focus on while they are here is learning to be articulate people participating in a culture that requires them to be culturally literate.

STEPHEN BARKER

With the perspective of more than 35 years at UCLA, Hackett speculates that the range of possibilities and the diversity of the student body draw graduate students to the school’s MFA directing program. “What’s been exciting is being in a school of theatre, film, and television. It used to be that our theatre directors couldn’t do film and television, in part because learning the technical skills took a couple of years. Now you can make a film on an iPhone.” If anything, it’s the faculty who sometimes resist embracing the crossover in applying techniques appropriate for one genre to another. “For me, as a creature bent on classical theatre, it’s been exciting to go through a process of watching my directors take directing for the camera and join the actors in our newly created course of acting for the microphone,” Hackett says. “We’re offering acting for the camera and acting for advanced media, like green screen and motion capture. All of that is as available to our theatre directors as it is to film directors.”

Hackett himself has embraced a flexible application of directing approaches in his own career. Classically trained and with a teaching résumé that includes years at the legendary London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, Hackett has directed for a variety of unusual L.A. cultural organizations, including productions at the Getty Villa, radio plays for L.A. Theatre Works, and presentations for the L.A. Philharmonic and L.A. Opera. “You really have to be open-minded about the kinds of things you can do,” he says. “It requires hard work to keep your mind open. It’s a lot easier to be from a fixed tradition. It’s a lot less frightening. I think in L.A., the dialogue I’ve had to have in my own work, let alone with my students, is that you have to ask yourself all the time: what does theatre mean?

You’ve got to think about it, and that thinking is part of what makes it really exciting.”

Hackett observes that a lot of students respond to contemporary work without realizing its historical roots, and he wishes that more students would study theatre history. “I love immersive theatre,” he proclaims. “And I think our directing students should know that this was done in Russia in 1910. And it was done in the Middle Ages. I think education needs to be about becoming an urbane, educated person. It shouldn’t be just about acting or just about directing. You really do need to know the history of your art form. You need to know film history and film literature and theatre history. You should know a language or two, another culture, some art history. You should know about direction and design.”

Hackett believes that UCLA students have access to an array of artistic presentations that reflect the history of L.A.’s cultural diversity.

“We have a profound history of theatrical activity that goes back to the Spaniards and to the rich iterrelated traditions of Mexico,” Hackett explains. “We had things happening here that didn’t happen in the same way on the East Coast: performances from Asian actors and dancers in the 19th century, visits by performers from Kabuki or Chinese opera.

There’s a whole other tradition with the traveling companies that came from Mexico and South America. [And] Max Reinhardt came to Los Angeles and was creating a German theatre before WWII [happened].

“The musical tradition in Los Angeles is just staggering. The American premiere of Puccini’s La Bohème happened to be in Los Angeles. The film studios brought all of these musicians from all over the world to play here. Stravinsky lived here and tried out his ballets for Balanchine. There’s a very rich cultural alternate history.”

Hackett notes that in the contemporary arts scene of L.A., “Theatre just doesn’t come to you in traditional forms. You learn how sophisticated it is in terms of world theatre.

We’re as far away or as close to Tokyo or Kyoto as we are to London. There are more people here doing Kathakali Indian classical dance and drama than anyplace other than India. Or the Royal Cambodian dancers.” Hackett has been proud that his own campus has been host to groundbreaking experimental artists, such as Pina Bausch, Peter Brook, Robert Wilson, and Romeo Castellucci before and after their works went on to performances at Brooklyn Academy of Music and other legendary presenters around the world. UCLA students can attend productions as part of the public performance series and also have access to the artists who visit their classes.

“A student has his or her own choice in L.A.,” Hackett notes. “They have to have a global consciousness. It’s almost an imperative to have an international perspective. If you focus on primarily traditional, East Coast-dominated, European/American traditional theatre, you’re missing out on the incredibly rich culture that we have here.”

An hour south down Route 405, the Claire Trevor School of the Arts at University of California, Irvine is celebrating its 50th year of training student artists. The theatre program is housed alongside the school’s art, dance, and music programs. The drama program's undergraduate areas of study include musical theatre, stage management, acting, directing, design, and dramatic history/literature.

Graduate programs are offered in all those

areas except musical theatre, and the university offers a joint PhD with University of California, San Diego that regularly ranks among the top ten in the United States. Graduate students at UC Irvine enjoy opportunities to intern and train through productions at South Coast Repertory in nearby Costa Mesa, which is particularly well known for its new play commissions and development programs. Many of the school’s faculty and students also work at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and the Utah Shakespeare Festival.

Directors Stephen Burdman, Jim Knipple, and Rob Salas are all UC Irvine alumni.

Dr. Stephen Barker, interim dean of the School of the Arts, emphasizes that at the undergraduate level, the school trains “citizen artists.” “People are citizens first and artists second,” he explains. “Our students need to learn to be articulate, think critically, to write.

I tell my undergraduate students that they are studying theatre as part of a liberal arts education. What they need to focus on while they are here is learning to be articulate people participating in a culture that requires them to be culturally literate. And, by the way, you’re also an actor or designer or choreographer.”

Dr. Barker has created an “audacious tagline” for the direction he wants to see all four departments move in: “Reimagining Creativity for the 21st Century.” That approach entails a move toward interdisciplinary work and increased interaction among artists of all types—directors, choreographers, videographers, visual artists. “This is something that is going beyond the idea of preparing for film and television. It’s aiming at what the media requirements and opportunities are going to be in the next 20, 30, 40 years,” Barker declares with enthusiasm when describing the changes. Currently, Barker sees the crossover in disciplines happening more in other departments at the school; its new contemporary arts center includes a stateof-the-art motion capture studio with digital cameras and total body coverage. Dr. Barker is proud to be working on the development of an MFA emphasizing dance and new media. The new program is supported by the dance faculty, which is eager to explore the new possibilities of digital media and dance, particularly for choreographers. Students in the drama department also seek these possibilities, but their shift to a greater connection with digital media is encountering a slower process.

From Barker’s perspective, the drama department defines itself as “a preparer for people in live theatre” that is more oriented toward New York than toward the West Coast.

He is working with Dr. Gary Busby, the chair of drama, to change that orientation to embrace both worlds and the possibilities created

by new technology while still respecting traditional approaches. Barker notes that the students are looking at ways in which various media can be incorporated into traditional theatrical forms through projections and digital enhancements, resulting in multimedia productions. Barker feels an ethical obligation to offer students a training program that will enable them to work in other media, in part as a means of artistic expression but also because of the financial realities of employment prospects in today’s world.

Barker acknowledges the practical concerns of such an approach, including the expense of the technology needed to support mediabased training. As proud as Barker is of the motion capture studio at the school, he also notes that one camera cost $30,000. But the result will be worth the investment as students acquire new aesthetic and technological languages that cut across artistic disciplines.

With the expansion of camera and media possibilities for those studying performing arts at UC Irvine, what is learned in creating live theatre will still be applicable. Barker affectionately notes that if his students had “two flashlights, a bedsheet, and a couple of chairs, that’s what they’ll use.”

What will always be needed are creative, intelligent people with talent and skill who know how to collaborate. And that is just the experience that theatre offers.

What is clear from discussions with these dedicated educators is an excitement about exploring the possibilities that grow out of cross-pollinating forms. The essential elements of theatrical creation—collaboration, imagination, and dialogue—remain in place while their use is practiced in ways that could not have been dreamed of in sticking to rigid conventions. The result will be exciting theatrical expressions that will fill our minds with new ways of thinking about what theatre is and how we practice it. *SEE ARTICLE “Nancy Keystone: At Home in the City She Loves”

PETER BROOK since 1959 STEPHEN BURDMAN sunce 1995 WENDY GOLDBERG since 2001 KRISTIN HANGGI since 2004 BILL IRWIN since 1989 NANCY KEYSTONE since 2000 JIM KNIPPLE Assc. since 2010 SHARON OTT since 1980 TRAVIS PRESTON since 1984 JOHN RANDO since 1995 TIM ROBBINS since 2004 JULIE TAYMOR since 1996 SUMMER 2015 | SDC JOURNAL

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SDC JOURNAL PEER-REVIEWED SECTION

DIRECTING AND CHOREOGRAPHY IN THE ACADEMY AND THE PROFESSION: A FORUM INTRODUCED + EDITED BY ANNE

FLIOTSOS + ANN M. SHANAHAN

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n this issue of SDC Journal, SDC is proud to introduce a new peer-reviewed section, featuring academic articles and book reviews on the crafts of directing and choreography. With editorial support by directors, choreographers, and scholars representing the range of institutions of higher education across the country, SDC Journal will publish one academic essay and one book review per issue.

The SDC Journal Peer-Reviewed Section is co-edited by Anne Fliotsos, PhD, Professor of Theatre, Purdue University, and Ann M. Shanahan, MFA, Associate Professor of Theatre, Loyola University Chicago, with an editorial board comprised of directors, scholars, and choreographers from around the country, several of whom are Members of SDC. Based on Membership surveys in 2013-14, SDC identified that over one third of its Members are working as teachers and/or artists in institutions of higher education. Executive Board Member and professor Sharon Ott and Executive Director Laura Penn approached Shanahan and her colleagues in the directing cohort of a national organization for theatre professors, to explore ways of supporting the unique needs of these directors and choreographers working professionally and in academia. Several of Shanahan’s colleagues had been interested in creating a directing-focused, peer-reviewed publication in order to provide additional publication opportunities for directors, deepen conversations about the craft, and strengthen the connection between training and the profession. Since SDC was also seeking ways to support its Members working in academia, this synergy seemed like a natural moment for collaboration.This peer-reviewed section of SDC Journal was one result, along with specified initiatives to support guest artists and observerships for academically situated directors and choreographers.

In addition to the co-editors, members of the the Peer-Review Board include book review editor Travis Malone, PhD, Associate Professor and Chair of Theatre, Virginia Wesleyan College; and associate book review editor Kathleen M. McGeever, MFA, Professor of Performance and Chair, Northern Arizona State University. The Senior Advisory Board includes: Anne Bogart, MA, Professor and Head of the Directing Concentration, Columbia University; Joan Herrington, PhD, Professor and Chair of Theatre, Western Michigan University; and James Peck, MFA, PhD, Professor of Directing, Muhlenberg College. Peer-Reviewers include: Donald Byrd, Choreographer; David Callaghan, MFA, PhD, Professor and Chair of Theatre, University of Montevallo; Kathryn Ervin, MFA, Professor and Chair of Theatre Arts, California State University San Bernardino; Liza Gennaro, MA, Assistant Professor, Musical Theatre, Choreographer, Indiana University; Ruth Pe Palileo, PhD, Current Theatrics, Centre for Immigrant Resources and Community Arts (CIRCA), Chicago Pintig Theatre Group; Stephen A. Schrum, PhD, Associate Professor of Theatre Arts, University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg; Scot Reese, MFA, Professor of Performance, University of Maryland; and assistant editors Thomas Costello, PhD, Instructor of Speech and Theatre, SUNY Dutchess, and Emily Rollie, PhD, Assistant Professor of Theatre, Monmouth College.

In order to introduce our new SDC Journal Peer-Reviewed Section (SDCJ-PRS), for our first issue we created a forum to provoke thoughtful discussion concerning the relationship between the academy and the profession. We invited members of the SDCJ-PRS Review and Advisory Boards to reflect upon any or all of the issues below in short essays. We hope this forum will extend the lively discussions that initiated this venture to SDC Journal’s broader readership. We asked: How does scholarly work inform or inspire professional creative work? What is the most fruitful relationship between our institutions of higher learning (colleges and universities) and the professions of theatre directing and choreography? How does academic training prepare

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directors to enter the profession? What professional realities need to be better considered in our academic training in these fields? In addition to training, how can the academy serve the profession? What problems can be addressed to generate a greater flow between the academy and professional work? How can the academy advance the profession—by offering opportunities to experiment with new production models or serving as incubator for creative work? What exchanges have been successful between the two arenas, and where might we go from here?

The responses from six of our members are included below, followed by a call for submissions. We hope this discussion will prompt ideas for future pieces authored by the several directors and choreographers who occupy this space of rich crossover between training, scholarship, and creative work. Submissions are now being accepted on a rolling basis for the 2016 issues. We invite you to participate.

ANNE BOGART

THE RECIPROCAL LINK BETWEEN ARTISTIC AND SCHOLARLY WORK

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n acting student at Columbia University once mentioned that her father, a surgeon, had a saying: “Study one, do one, teach one.” I instantly recognized that this formula, familiar to surgeons, “study one, do one, teach one,” is precisely the right equation for me as well. The ratio that allows me to be the best possible theatre artist is: 1/3 research, 1/3 directing, and 1/3 teaching.

If I do not dedicate enough time to research or if I teach too much or too little, my work as a director, as an artist, is compromised. The correct balance among the three activities is key. This ratio/equation is also crucial to the effectiveness of SITI Company. One third of our engagement is research and cultural exchange, 1/3 is spent making and performing new work, and 1/3 is engaged in teaching. This equilibrium is central to our well-being, productiveness and usefulness.

Research, or study, for me, includes reading, writing, reflection, analysis, and unconscious rumination. A successful process is both active and passive. After a certain amount of committed study, when the unconscious is sufficiently primed, the imagination must be left to do the necessary associative work.

The composer, conductor, and polymath Leonard Bernstein suggested that it would be technically possible for him to compose a short sonata within a few hours through sheer willpower, but the sonata would not be good.

In order for the work to have substance, he said, it needs to pass through what he called a trance-like state of unconscious processing.

“It cannot come from the made-up, thinking intellectualized, censoring, controlled part of my brain.” I did not study directing in graduate school; rather, in 1975 I entered into a then two-year academic Master of Arts program at New York University, now known as Performance Studies. Performance studies continue to impact my work in meaningful ways. Every time I approach a new production I pose the questions that I was encouraged to ask at NYU: What is a play?

How does a play function in society? What is acting? What is performance? What does it mean to the world to act or to perform?

What is a rehearsal? What is an audience?

These questions are anthropological and sociological. Performance studies initiated an appetite for theoretical inquiry that continues to this day to affect all my waking hours.

Teaching is also a key component to my work as a theatre director. If the arts were subsidized in the United States as they are in many European nations, I would probably not need to teach as much as I do. The extended rehearsal periods enjoyed in Russia, Germany, France, and the Scandanavian countries afford artists the deep exploration of subject matter that any serious theatrical endeavor demands. In these countries the development of training, the shared research, and the essential experimentation can be carried out within the context of rehearsal. In the United States, most of my work in developing technique and in investigating content occurs, alternatively, within the classroom. I study alongside my students at Columbia University and in the context of classes at SITI. The SITI Company actors also work to advance their personal and shared understanding of technique and form through their teaching at SITI and worldwide at academic and artistic institutions. The standard three to four-week rehearal schedule that is the norm in the United States demands that everyone must hit the tarmac running at top speed in order to stage the given play with courage and alacrity within the given amount of time. But where and when does the crucial preparation happen? It can happen in the classroom.

The university environment provides an alternative to the lack of arts subsidy in the United States. The collegiality of fellow academics, the enthusiasm of young artists heading into the field, and a quiet campus environment can offer a respite from the relatively cutthroat commercial and not-forprofit world. But there must be a lively and mutually beneficial interchange between the profession and the academy, otherwise the relationship will be perfunctory.

Finally, the give-and-take between artistic and scholarly work extends to the period following the première of any new production. After the many crises of rehearsal, after the obstacles and inherent challenges of bringing a new project to fruition, there is the opportunity to ruminate, analyse and ultimately share new, hard-won insights with others. This sharing can transpire via writing, conversation, practical workshops, or teaching. Thus, now full circle, the reciprocal link between scholarly and artistic work can begin all over again.

Anne Bogart is a prolific and award-winning American theatre and opera director. She is the Co-Artistic Director of SITI Company, which she founded with Japanese director Tadashi Suzuki in 1992, and a Professor at Columbia University where she runs the Graduate Directing Program. She is the author of five books: A Director Prepares, The Viewpoints Book, And Then, You Act, Conversations with Anne, and, most recently, What’s the Story.

JOAN HERRINGTON

TRAINING THROUGH PROFESSIONAL PARTNERSHIPS AND GUEST ARTISTS

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ith the hallowed halls of regional theatres becoming fewer in number, the traditional model of conservatory style training—the mainstay of the majority of theatre programs within the academy—is necessarily challenged. Thus, we must ask ourselves if we are teaching to and modeling for students our past, or their future. While we must take care not to jettison the basic training of theatre artists that is crucial regardless of the expanse of the form, we also must acknowledge that exposing our students to a broad array of theatre-making techniques is crucial to both their survival as artists and to the survival of the theatre itself.

While theatre professors often have the ability to bring to their students a range of theatre experiences, the opportunity to immerse college students in the work of professional companies offers extraordinary opportunity—and often, significant challenges.

Over the past decade, my theatre department has chosen to pursue such engagement, working with, for example, the SITI Company and The Tectonic Theater Project. We are currently working with Universes, reenvisioning their well-known theatre piece, Ameriville. In relaying these experiences— which both grew and frustrated students and faculty alike, I advocate for such engagement.

But there are inherent challenges. These partnerships are expensive. Each time we embarked on such a project, the need to raise funds became our first hurdle. Indeed, such partnerships often open up avenues of funding that might not otherwise be available—both through the prestige of the professional partnerships themselves and through the community engagement that such partnerships can create. Additionally, the visibility that accompanies hosting these artists on campus can attract funding from foundations with related missions, who welcome the exposure.

These partnerships require long-term planning.

Established professional companies often have full schedules and a theatre department must be able to accommodate a limited window of availability—and be prepared to be “bumped” when the Goodman or the Public Theatre makes a competing offer.

There must also be a fundamental willingness on the part of the faculty to embrace a methodology that may be far from the daily life of the unit. This multi-faceted willingness ranges from the welcoming of super-star artists to campus, to the ability to work in potentially new ways, from casting to technical production. And most importantly, for such partnerships to have lasting benefit, they require a willingness to engage with the work long after the guest artists have departed.

Each of the experiences has brought to us a new vocabulary, along with the challenges of using that vocabulary. They have also brought to the visiting artists new perspectives on their own work inspired by the generation that will follow them into the theatre. As Tectonic company member Kelli Simpkins noted: There are numerous benefits of partnering a professional company with an academic institution. When I came to Western Michigan University to introduce students to Tectonic Theater Project’s technique of “moment work” and to subsequently cast them in a company created project, I had no clear idea what the benefits would be.

But finding my voice as a leader changed me. The benefits included not only my own personal evolution, but learning from these students who quickly became my collaborators and teachers. Working with the best that the department has to offer, working with students who are being mentored by faculty, who are living fully in their training and yearning to put their incredible skills to use with an outsider, gave me new insights into this technique that I’d almost taken for granted. And it made me feel alive in the present moment in a way that the best theatre creation can do.

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Another fundamental challenge of devising new work with professional partners is the time required to complete the endeavor.

Recognizing the extraordinary potential of Viewpoints training as preparation for devising, two faculty members envisioned a project wherein the SITI Company was brought in to teach student actors who would later create an original work. Engagement spread over seven months; training on campus was followed by continued practice and further training off campus by the student company. Then devising began.

The wealth of time had tremendous benefit, as it allowed the work to have real presence in the department for an extended period, such that it began to positively infect many students not directly involved in the work. The production de- and re-constructed the text Women of Troy to include firsthand accounts of those who had experienced genocide in the second half of this century. The impact of the SITI training was clear: this new work startled both the campus and local community with its exceptional ensemble work, its unique staging, and its ability to bring to a classic play frightening relevance. While none of my faculty professes an ability to prepare students to work in the methods of the SITI Company, their return visits and the investment of performance faculty over time have enabled this work to live in our classrooms and to change the face of how we think about theatre long term.

Good Death is a devised work created by our students working in collaboration with two artists from Tectonic Theater Project, Simpkins and Leigh Fondakowski. It focused on the question of the right to die and was heavily drawn from the lives of people in our community and our state. The primary challenge was, again, the necessary duration of the project—how to accommodate a period of preliminary engagement to launch the work, an expansive period of research, and enough time to create the piece in a collaborative model. This was achieved through three separate residencies—two short and one seven weeks—for the artists on campus, singly and together. Still, director Simpkins clearly felt pressured: In terms of challenges: time was certainly one of the biggest. Usually these projects can take years to come to fruition. Creating a play from raw material and interviews in six weeks was something I’d never done before and it was a pressure that created much angst. In the end, the deadline focused the play but I wish we’d had more time.

Producing Good Death presented for faculty and staff the difficulty of working with professional artists whose process is very different. Chief among the challenges were:

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an ever-changing script that threatened our abilty to finalize designs in sufficient time for the shops to have comfort in their realization; frictions for technical personnel with unfamiliar methodologies; and a fluidity of “product” right through opening. But these are all challenges worth facing, provided that everyone in the exchange believes in the value of the engagement; with friction comes heat and creativity—a fundamental requirement for such professional partnerships. Simpkins noted: [A real] challenge was being the new kid on the university block. Yes, I came vetted because of the previous work that I’d done with Tectonic and that reputation is hugely important, but I didn’t know these students, nor did I know the faculty.

Everyone gave their all to this piece and fought to make it the absolute best it could be. But there were struggles because I was new to them and they were new to me.

Having shared all of the benefits and challenges, I would say that this experience was truly one of the most difficult and the most rewarding of my career. Taking time away from professional theatre to work in this university model made me a much better artist and collaborator.

And working with students who yearn to have complex experiences in which they feel ownership and responsibility enlivened my career and my techniques and gave me new skills and inspirations.

Both Women of Troy and Good Death were not only produced on campus but also went to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Electrified by new levels of engagement for artists and audiences alike, we felt compelled to extend the life of these projects—to both embed them more deeply at home and to share more broadly with the larger artistic world the lasting value from these partnerships.

Several years ago, I approached Steven Sapp of Universes to ask if he would be interested in collaborating with us on a production. It took us four years to find the finances to support the venture, along with a timeframe when Universes was available to be in residence.

We originally spoke of devising a new piece but given the constraints of scheduling, we decided instead to work with an established company piece—Ameriville—and to “adapt” the script, adding material that made it relevant to our community. We had learned through our experiences with Tectonic the tremendous rewards that come from such engagement. Bridging the town/ gown divide quite obviously changes the relationship between artist and audience in an extraordinary way—and it is also attractive to both foundations and donors.

While Universes will be in residence for eight weeks, the preliminary casting and design work required everyone on the team to limit face-to face time and to work more remotely—an approach out of our traditional process. And again, the rules of collaboration need to be continually re-examined. Ameriville has been successfully produced by Universes many times—and has been done largely the same way. If the project was to have value for our students, we asked that the cast of four expand to at least eight (they chose to expand it to fourteen) and that the production itself be reenvisioned so that our design students could engage with our guests. As we have moved forward on this project, we have the great joy that comes from watching our students stand with our guests on unfamiliar aesthetic ground, and in turn our artists be newly inspired by the ideas of their student collaborators. Universes company member Steven Sapp noted: I feel like these types of partnerships are beneficial for Universes because they give us an opportunity to look at the work through young and hungry artists who are excited about getting a chance to work on material with a professional company. It is a chance to teach our aesthetic in a rehearsal, performance environment, which is much more in depth than just a brief workshop exchange. It also introduces the students to new contemporary work, that is becoming part of the American theatre canon.

His thoughts are echoed by Simpkins who believes: “There is a benefit to being the only 'expert', but also a benefit in being open to learning the expertness and the openness of amazingly committed theatre students and how much they yearn to absorb and explore."

One additional challenge that sometimes applies is the working model for collaborative ensembles that operate without a singular director. Even in companies such as SITI or Tectonic with an identified “director,” the relationship between that person and her actors—or the relationship between that person and his designers—is often very different than those relationships in the academy, where we tend to work in a more traditional pyramidal structure, the director sitting clearly on the upper most point. While we have embraced a more egalitarian structure on many occasions, my tremendously openminded technical director still felt compelled to ask our guest from Universes—known for its collaborative ensemble building of all work—if one of them would be the “director” on our project together. We found a good compromise in this case: Steve Sapp will lead the work in rehearsal, and when he steps back onto the stage, a faculty member will lead the show through tech.

It is an excellent blending of methodologies and a great learning experience for us all.

These partnerships energize our community.

They open to our students and faculty new pathways for creating theatre. In many ways, it would be much simpler to continue to do the work that we know best and with which we are so comfortable. But how then would we all continue to grow?

Joan Herrington is Chair of the Department of Theatre at Western Michigan University.

She is a contemporary theatre scholar whose research is focused on the pedagogy and practice of theatre in the last thirty years.

She is the author of four books and over a dozen book chapters and journal articles that examine the creative process of playwrights and directors. The subject of her research has ranged from the work of August Wilson to the complex practice of the SITI Company.

JAMES PECK

HOW MIGHT THE ACADEMY SERVE THE PROFESSION? AND VICE VERSA

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his new section of SDC Journal aims to address productive exchanges, actual or imagined, between professional theatre and theatre in colleges and universities.

This inaugural group of essays, the editors suggested, might range across issues of training, the professionalization of young directors, or collaboration on production. Since a significant percentage of the Membership of SDC works in higher education, myself included, these pages are a promising place to explore such questions. One of the prompts offered by the editors asked: “In addition to training, how can the academy serve the profession?” This is an important issue, and one that I’ll briefly address. But writing from my particular experience as an SDC Member and a tenured professor recently named an associate dean at a liberal arts college, I feel it most urgent to also reverse the direction of that inquiry. I want to ask, in addition, “How can the profession serve the academy?”

“How can the academy serve the profession?”

Both theatre companies and the Arts and Humanities divisions of college campuses are in the midst of rapid, undesired retrenchment.

Budgets are being slashed and positions eliminated. In such a moment of financial precarity, figuring out ways to link the resources of the academy to the professional theatre is a good idea. It may mean creating conditions in which established theatre artists can make work and make a living, whether as long-term faculty or guest artists. It may mean

teaming with under-resourced companies to develop new projects. It may mean finding ways to share space, personnel, and budget in mutually beneficial ways. Many such collaborations already exist, and though it’s often tricky and occasionally uncomfortable to work out the details, they can be worked out. I hope this section of SDC Journal will in part provide a space to share examples of how such arrangements can and do work.

However, in answering the question “How can the academy serve the profession?” it’s vital to recognize that “the academy” is not monolithic, nor is “the profession.” Every academic theatre program needs to think hard and always about how its work, including the guests it employs and the partnerships it forges, aligns with the mission of the college or university to which it contributes.

I have taught for the last fifteen years at an undergraduate liberal arts college with a large and thriving theatre program. I teach directing, among other things, and for eight years chaired my department. And though I value the accomplishment and sustained commitment the word “professional” connotes, I do not think it my principal task to prepare young artists to enter the “the profession.” I do try to equip students who hope for a life in the theatre with a sophisticated repertoire of knowledge and practices to draw upon when they walk into a rehearsal hall or production meeting. But teaching in the context of the liberal arts, I have a prior commitment to provide them with opportunities and tools to mature into thoughtful, empathetic adults with a complex sense of the world, their place in it, and their responsibilities to it. For me, doing this is much more important than training people for jobs that barely exist.

It’s also much more interesting. In some twenty-three years of college teaching, I have found that directing classes, happily, provide a capacious space for people to develop aptitudes, sensibilities, and skills that enable them to shape themselves and their world in serious, effective, and big-hearted ways.

And here I want to ask the inverse question: “How can the profession serve the academy?”

The narrowest answers might emphasize the networks that emerge when artists primarily located in the professional arena work on college campuses. I’m of course grateful to the many artists who have circulated through our program and subsequently opened doors for my students. (If that’s you, and it might be, thank you.) But that’s a constrained and utilitarian notion of what accomplished artists bring to an academic context. I’d prefer instead to trumpet the kinds of knowledge that artists make uniquely possible. What can students know through study of the arts that they can’t know in other ways? I would argue that by

and large, the academy as a site of knowledge production is nervous about the body and overtly hostile to feeling. Binary oppositions such as Mind vs. Body, Thought vs. Emotion, Objective vs. Subjective, and Analysis vs.

Creativity abound in the academy, with the latter terms always subordinate to the former.

These arrangements of knowledge are at best limiting, at worst harmful, and whatever their ultimate effects, false. As an embodied, affecting, intellectually and socially complex art form, theatre is not well served by such attitudes. Neither, in my view, are people. I want good artists to work at my institution not only for the professional savvy to which they expose my students. I value their experience and am delighted when they share it. But in the end I’m much more compelled by the ways they expand what counts as complex, persuasive knowledge. Artists make sensate forms speak. Theatre artists demonstrate that profound social, psychological, and ethical insight arises in the concreteness of human doing. Directorial intelligence asserts itself in the rhythm of a downstage cross, the cut of a hemline, the timbre of a voice, the angle of a gesture, the count of a light cue, and on and on. The arts trust in the specific eloquence of the material world in ways that rub against the tendency of most academic disciplines toward disembodied abstraction and generalization.

I’m happy to be working at a liberal arts college that insists its arts majors grapple with science, social science, and the interpretive humanities. Artists need to take seriously the rigor, skepticism, and fierce intelligence of those disciplines. But the world of knowledge also needs the fierce intelligence of artistic assertion. And providing more of that is how I hope the profession can serve the academy.

I imagine it’s clear that I think an undergraduate theatre degree shouldn’t be valued solely (or even primarily) for preparing students to succeed in the profession.

The terms “succeed” and “profession” are so malleable and contingent anyway that ultimately everyone needs to define and redefine them for him or herself over the course of a lifetime. That said, many of my students do go on to get paid for their work as artists, a few of them as directors. I think that’s great. Many find or create positions as arts administrators or arts educators, and I also think that’s great. And many more build professional lives outside the arts but become devoted audience members. And that’s great too. A few graduates leave the theatre entirely behind. That saddens me, but to my surprise I’m okay with it. I have to believe that people equipped with the habits of mind, feeling, and action fostered by seriously studying the theatre for four years, whether or not they choose it for their profession or even keep it firmly in their lives, are apt to make SUMMER 2015 | SDC JOURNAL PEER-REVIEWED SECTION

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the world more humane. And I am ultimately less concerned that the theatre retain patrons than I am that humanity awaken.

James Peck is Professor of Theatre and Associate Dean for Diversity Initiatives at Muhlenberg College. He has directed over sixty productions of plays, musicals, and operas in professional and university settings.

He has published numerous scholarly articles and book chapters and is a former editor of the journal Theatre Topics. In addition to Muhlenberg, he has taught at New York University, the Playwrights Horizons Theatre School, and the Yale School of Drama. He is a Member of SDC.

LIZA GENNARO

SCHOLARLY WORK AS INSPIRATION FOR PROFESSIONAL CREATIVE WORK

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ne of the many advantages of being raised in a family of theatre artists is having access to an extensive library of art-related books. Some of my strongest childhood memories are of countless hours spent in my father’s study reading volumes of dance, theatre, art, and fashion.

These books were tools of my father’s, choreographer Peter Gennaro’s, trade.

Passages were underlined and sometimes I would find drawings that he had made to illustrate a text. My favorite, I still have it, is a sketch of Bill “Bojangles” Robinson’s dancing shoe – a very specific design with a wooden sole, particular to Robinson. Being surrounded by those books and now books of my own was then, and continues to be, a constant source of intellectual fascination, visual stimulation, and inspiration.

Jerome Robbins and Agnes de Mille, the ostensible parents of contemporary musical theatre choreography were both avid researchers. De Mille not only employed her extensive knowledge of dance to her musical theatre choreography, she also wrote several dance history books and a biography of Martha Graham. Robbins’ archives at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts contain extensive files of research material for each of his shows, including books and essays on Cambodian Dance (The King and I, 1951), articles and “How To” manuals for preparing to learn the Tango (High Button Shoes, 1947), and articles, essays, handbooks, and photographs demonstrating the Charleston (Billion Dollar Baby, 1945).

Discovering how and why people dance is an essential element of the musical theatre choreographer’s task and each proceeds

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to find answers in her own individual manner by examining a variety of sources, including historical accounts (biography, autobiography, newspapers, magazines, literature, oral history), art (paintings, architecture, fashion),film (documentary, biographical, entertainment), and music (recordings, scores). Scholarly writing offers additional perspectives to the creative process by employing insights developed through rigorous academic standards.

In my own experience I have found Jean and Marshall Stearns' book, Jazz Dance and Lynne Fauley Emery’s Black Dance: From 1619 to Today invaluable sources for understanding and examining African American vernacular dance; Nancy Lee Chalfa Ruyter’s The Cultivation of Body and Mind in NineteenthCentury American Delsartism is essential to understanding movement vocabularies associated with the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; Barbara Stratyner’s, Ned Wayburn and the Dance Routine: From Vaudeville to the Ziegfeld Follies, is important to understanding the Revue Era and precision line dance and Ballroom, Boogie, Shimmy Sham, Shake: A Social and Popular Dance Reader, edited by Julie Malnig, offers a thorough understanding of social dance trends in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

These examples relate directly to projects I have choreographed; however my research and inquiry, like those of my theatre colleagues, is not limited to specific projects. Keeping up with the prolific output of scholars is an exciting endeavor. Liz Wollman’s, Hard Times: The Adult Musical in 1970’s New York and Carol Oja’s Bernstein Meets Broadway: Collaborative Art in a Time of War are both inspiring and fascinating additions to my ever growing library. No creative artist that I have ever met lives in an isolated bubble. We are influenced and inspired by the world around us and scholarly work stimulates and enhances our creative ideas.

Liza Gennaro has choreographed extensively on Broadway, Off-Broadway, and in Regional theatres. She is a Member of the SDC Executive Board and in 2015 completed a threeyear term on the Tony Award Nominating Committee. Her chapter, “Evolution of Dance in the Golden Era of the American ‘Book Musical,’” appears in The Oxford Handbook of the American Musical and a new chapter, co-written with Stacy Wolf, “Dance in Musical Theatre” appears in the upcoming Oxford Handbook of Dance and Theater. She is currently on faculty at Indiana University in the Department of Theatre, Drama and Contemporary Dance.

KATHLEEN M. MCGEEVER

FUNDING AND PARTNERSHIPS IN PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS

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niversities are historically institutions of innovation and discovery. The environment has been one in which theatre artists can experiment without exclusive focus on profit or bottom line, and this experimentation can spark interesting new directions—both for the present, and the future through training the next generation.

While, sadly, financial support for higher education is fading with trends to cut funding regionally and nationally, from my vantage point as chair of Theatre in a large public institution, I still believe the academy can be fertile ground for directorial innovation.

The academy is a place to dream, explore, and stretch in ways one might not be able beyond its walls. Universities are a place to risk; production aesthetics can be explored fully. While those of us who work in higher education might complain that a “short” 6 to 8 week process is not enough to explore and reflect as we would desire, still it is significantly more time than the typical professional rehearsal process in this country. Doubling rehearsal time means more exploration, which can foster increased discovery and innovation. Working in the academy can foster development of new directing methods, and the opportunity to identify and grow new talent. My personal directing style, developed by combining and adapting various techniques to meet the ever-changing needs of the young actors in my undergraduate institution, has served me well, both in the academic context and professionally. Many major directors and choreographers have found a home in both worlds, including Anne Bogart, Sharon Ott, Mark Lamos, and Susan H. Schulman, to name a few. One of the most important things we do as teachers is light a spark in a student who had not considered directing or choreography, but has aptitude there. If it hadn’t been for Dr. Kjell Amble (who in the stereotype of the directing professor came to class everyday in his rumbled tweed jacket with patches on the elbows, smoking a pipe) I am not sure I would have taken the director’s path. Dr. Amble encouraged and inspired me to explore directing because he saw something in me I did not know was there, and that he helped nurture. Later, as a directing student, I remember learning from choreographer Donald McKayle, who was an advocate of Laban work. The opportunity was provided

by The California Arts Project (TCAP), funded through the Board of Education. I immediately found the work valuable to the development

of my directing style; the cross-pollination of dancer and director, professional and student, and the environment of trial and error coupled with adequate time, created a vibrant and creative working relationship.

Professional/educational partnerships such as TCAP have a long history within the academy, and are an excellent way in which directors and choreographers can work together to inspire one another, and develop new ways of creating. In the changing economic landscape we must find new ways to create these partnerships. In the past these have been more common for private institutions, which have more abundant donor dollars at their disposal. One possible model for both public and private institutions is a brand of "public/private partnership," or PPPs (as they are called in a business context). PPPs have been featured in press surrounding the state of public institutions of higher education since the 2008 recession. Rising stresses in the university, including higher demands for student success and career readiness, along with shrinking funding, have prompted increased consideration of PPPs. I am not arguing for using these partnerships as a quick fix, cure-all for higher education's budget woes, but rather as opportunity to foster deeper artistic collaborations that forge a path, not only for a new generation of artists, but for new audiences as well. This change in funding can be looked at as a rich opportunity, through which the educational and professional worlds of theatre might find new, meaningful, and lasting opportunities to collaborate. When considered in this light, the possibilities for continued innovation are many.

In her 30-year career, Kathleen M. McGeever has worked professionally as director, actor, educator, arts administrator, dramaturge, and playwright. She has directed over 50 plays in a variety of genres, from new plays, to Commedia dell’ Arte, absurdist, classical, and puppetry. McGeever is an Associate Member of SDC, and has served as Chair of the Northern Arizona University Department of Theatre since 2007.

RUTH PE PALILEO

THE SCHOLARLY DIRECTOR/ CHOREOGRAPHER: VISITING THE ARCHIVE TO REVITALIZE THE REPERTOIRE

I

n her book The Archive and the Repertoire: Performing Cultural Memory in the Americas, Diana Taylor asks, “If…we were to reorient the ways social memory and cultural identity in the Americas have traditionally been studied…and look through the lens

of performed, embodied behaviours, what would we know that we do not know now?

Whose stories, memories and struggles might become visible?”(xviii). To use a scholarly lens on professional directing and choreography projects is to illuminate the stories, memories and struggles involved in these projects. Too often, the hard-won lessons a professional director/choreographer gleans from a given project are as ephemeral as the project itself; the show closes, and the stories unique to the project are gone. And though there may be records—or as Taylor defines it, the “archive” of the work—such as an occasional recording, review, or blog, these records do not constitute what Taylor calls the “repertoire” of the work, that “vital act” of dialogue between the work and its audience in which “social knowledge, memory and a sense of identity” are transmitted (2). When a scholar revisits the work, however, the project can be reoriented and revitalized because the scholar again engages the work in dialogue—placing the work in discussion with a different social knowledge, memory, or sense of identity.

The “archive” of the closed project is thus reinvigorated as “repertoire”—engaging in a second vital incarnation with a second audience, those who read the scholarly work.

Thus, directors/choreographers who have academic training are given the skills to 1) record or document their own “archive” and 2) engage their own work and the work of others as “repertoire.” Academic training for “scholarly directors” allows them to inform their creativity with research and to re-engage professional work with an academic lens. Such scholarly directors also learn how to complete their work within strict deadlines and how to review and refine the work so that it is better viewed within well-defined parameters.

These skills serve the professions of directing/ choreography and, in return, academia provides scholarly directors a wider network to inform their work and a wider audience to engage in dialogue with their work.

Take for example, scholarly directors studying the works of Shakespeare as used in prisons.

A director in such an environment must keep the archival work confidential to some extent because it is potentially dangerous. Because of this, directors working in this field feel an inherent isolation. The scholarly response for alleviating such isolation includes Michel Balfour’s work Theatre in Prison: Theory and Practice and a conference at University of Notre Dame in 2013. Of course, academic research into “Shakespeare behind bars”1 would not be possible without the archive of Shakespeare Behind Bars, the title of Jean Trounstine’s writings about her directing project at a women’s correctional facility in Massachusetts and of a documentary about the work of director Curt Tofteland at

the Luther Luckett Correctional Complex in Kentucky. In turn, Baz Kershaw, an academic at the University of Lancaster who also directed at Lancaster Farms for young offenders, cites the influence of scholars Michel Foucault and Slavoj Zizek on his directing work.

Thus William Shakespeare’s archive informs the repertoire of Trounstine and Tofteland, whose work then becomes the archive that informs the repertoire of scholars Balfour and Kershaw, which relies on the archive of scholars Foucault and Zizek, and so on around the world, transforming the isolation of directing in prison to a lively dialogue.

This circular exchange between scholarly work and creative work can also often be found in the relationship between dramaturg and director/choreographer—such as the relationship of Heidi Gilpin and choreographer William Forsythe. Gilpin worked as an editor for Copyright and Parallax, a journal of cultural criticism, which Forsythe read. He initiated “endless conversations” with Gilpin that eventually resulted in her working as a dramaturg with Forsythe from 1989 to 1996. This in turn, led to further essays

by Gilpin about Forsythe’s work. Again, “archive” initiates dialogue with “repertoire” which leads to “endless conversation” between the two. Examples such as these illustrate the types of successful exchanges between academia and creative work.

“Endless conversations” do take time to build, however; this is one of the difficulties in moving from archive to repertoire and back again for the scholarly director/choreographer.

Often, the professional timeline of preparing a show within a month or two leaves little time for the studied, measured research and reflection which make the strongest academic work; the two types of work happen at different speeds. Moreover, the professional reality is that when one is working to complete a project for the “archive,” it is difficult to keep open the idea of a future “repertoire” engagement; most director/choreographers are more focused on their audience, the “repertoire” of the present. The “archive” priority is to create and complete the work while the “repertoire” priority is to receive and analyse the work; the two types of work happen with different priorities. Therefore, resources which support a scholarly director/ choreographer in moving between the two stages would create a greater flow between the academic and professional work. What if there were retreats made available to a director/choreographer upon completion of an interesting project so that she would have time to record and reflect upon her process? What if there were assistant directors/choreographers whose particular purpose was to annotate the production in a scholarly manner? What if a scholar were able to fund a directing or SUMMER 2015 | SDC JOURNAL PEER-REVIEWED SECTION

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choreography project by researching and preparing an academic “proposal” first? This model from the sciences, in which a grant proposal lays out the hypothesis and describes the methodology for testing it has much to offer the scholarly director/choreographer.

Such early academic research and preparation into the hypothesis of a professional project, into discovering the critical artistic question that a given project asks2 will certainly clarify her vision of the professional work.

Ruth Pe Palileo is a director/producer for Current Theatrics in Las Vegas and a director/ playwright for Pintig Cultural Group in Chicago. In 2014, Ruth adapted and directed the award-winning time travel novel The Anubis Gates for an audience of 1,300 in London. A documentary about Ruth’s site-specific production of The Passion of Christ for the Church of Ireland airs yearly on Irish television RTE. Ruth received her doctorate in Theatre and Performance from Trinity College Dublin, Ireland in 2010. Her current production, David Mamet’s A Life in the Theatre, is on tour in Phoenix.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Gratitude to Laura Penn, Sharon Ott, Mark Duncan, Elizabeth Nelson, Miriam Mills, Lewis Magruder, Scott Shattuck, Lionel Walsh, Mark Lococo, Henry Bial, Patricia Ybarra, Harvey Young, Laura MacDonald, Becky Prophet, R. Michael Gros, and members of the Directing Program Electronic Journal Task Force.

NOTES

1. “Shakespeare behind bars” appears to be used as a nickname for this particular practice of prison drama. It is also the name of the oldest US program currently practicing such theatre and of a documentary about that program.

2. In his book The Art of Dramatic Writing, Lajos Egri argues that each dramatic work asks at least a single question of its audience and that all further engagement with a given work depends from an understanding of that critical question.

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WORKS CITED

Egri, Lajos. The Art of Dramatic Writing. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2004. Print.

Emery, Lynne Fauley. Black Dance: From 1619 to Today. Princeton: Princeton Book, 1989. Print.

Kershaw, Baz. “Pathologies of Hope in Drama and Theatre.” Theatre in Prison: Theory and Practice. Ed. Michel Balfour.

Portland: Intellect, 2004. 35-53. Print.

Lebovits, Susan Chaityn. “Shakespeare Goes behind Prison Bars.” Boston Globe.

15 July 2007. Web. 13 Apr. 2015.

Malnig, Julie, ed. Ballroom, Boogie, Shimmy Sham, Shake: A Social and Popular Dance Reader. Carbondale: U of Illinois P, 2008. Print.

Oja, Carol J. Bernstein Meets Broadway: Collaborative Art in a Time of War. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2014. Print.

Ruyter, Nancy Lee Chalfa. Cultivation of the Body and Mind in NineteenthCentury American Delsartism.

Westport: Greenwood, 1999. Print.

Sapp, Steven. Personal interview with Joan Herrington. 19 May 2015.

Shakespeare in Prisons 2013 Conference.

University of Notre Dame, n.d. Web. 13 Apr. 2015.

Simpkins, Kelli. Personal interview with Joan Herrington. 26 May 2015.

Stearns, Marshall and Jean Stearns. Jazz Dance: The Story of American Vernacular Dance.

2nd ed. Boston: Da Capo, 1994. Print.

Stratyner, Barbara. Ned Wayburn and the Dance Routine: From Vaudeville to the Ziegfeld Follies. Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 1996. Print.

Taylor, Diana. The Archive and the Repertoire: Performing Cultural Memory in the Americas. Durham: Duke UP Books, 2003. Print.

Trencsényi, Katalin. Dramaturgy in the Making: A User’s Guide for Theatre Practitioners. New York: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2015. Print.

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS Published quarterly by Stage Directors and Choreographers Society (SDC), this new peer-reviewed section of SDC Journal serves directors and choreographers working in the profession and in institutions of higher learning. SDC’s mission is to give voice to an empowered collective of directors and choreographers working in all jurisdictions and venues across the country, encourage advocacy, and highlight artistic achievement.

SDC Journal seeks essays with accessible language that focus on practice and practical application and that exemplify the sorts of fruitful intersections that can occur between the academic/scholarly and the profession/ craft. For more information, visit: www.sdcweb.org/community/sdcjournal/sdc-journal-peer-review Anne Fliotsos (Co-editor SDCJ-PRS) In recognition of her scholarly activity, Fliotsos has been named a Purdue University Faculty Scholar for 2013-2018. Her research is primarily in theatre pedagogy, women directors, and 20th-century Broadway Theatre. Edited and authored books include Teaching Theatre Today, American Women Stage Directors of the Twentieth Century, and Interpreting the Play Script: Contemplation and Analysis, and International Women Stage Directors.

Ann M. Shanahan (Co-editor SDCJ-PRS) is Associate Professor of Theatre at Loyola University Chicago, and serves as Graduate Program Director of Women’s Studies and Gender Studies. She has directed over 50 productions in academic and professional venues. Her recent scholarship on gender and space in directing is published in Theatre Topics, Theatre Journal and Text and Presentation, and a forthcoming anthology entitled Performing the Family Dream House: Space, Ritual, and Images of Home (U of Iowa). Shanahan is an Associate Member of SDC.

ANNE BOGART since 1990 | PETER BROOK since 1959 DONALD BYRD since 2005 | DAVID CALLAGHAN Assc. since 2010 THOMAS COSTELLO Assc. since 2011 | AGNES DE MILLE d.1993 Trounstine, Jean. Shakespeare Behind Bars: LEIGH FONDAKOWSKI since 2005 | LIZA GENNARO since 1991 The Power of Drama in a Women’s Prison.

PETER GENNARO d.2000 | R. MICHAEL GROS since 2007 MARK LAMOS since 1986 | MARK LOCOCO since 2007 New York: St. Martin’s, 2001. Print.

TRAVIS MALONE Assc. since 2015 | DAVID MAMET since 1992 SIMON MCBURNEY since 1998 | KATHLEEN M. MCGEEVER Assc. since 2014 Wollman, Elizabeth L. Hard Times: The DONALD MCKAYLE since 1964 | SHARON OTT since 1980 Adult Musical in 1970’s New York City.

RUTH PE PALILEO Assc. since 2013 | JAMES PECK since1997 New York: Oxford UP, 2012. Print.

SCOT REESE Assc. since 2006 | JEROME ROBBINS d.1998 EMILY ROLLIE Assc. since 2014 | SUSAN H. SCHULMAN since 1981 PETER SELLARS since 1997 | ANN M. SHANAHAN Assc. since 2014 ROBERT WILSON since 1986

SDCJ-PRS BOOK REVIEW

THE CAMBRIDGE INTRODUCTION TO THEATRE DIRECTING

BY CHRISTOPHER INNES + MARIA SHEVTSOVA REVIEW BY

JOHN S. SEBESTYEN,

Trinity Christian College

CAMBRIDGE: CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2013; PP. XI + 283. $24.99 PAPERBACK.

The Cambridge Introduction to Theatre Directing is not another attempt at a comprehensive, practical “how-to” text for stage directors. In a field already saturated with that type of book, this publication is a welcome arrival. The authors, Christopher Innes and Maria Shevtsova, aim to chart the history and development of theatrical directing for the stage over the course of the 20th century. The book maintains a delicate balance of conducting a substantial investigation into specific directors and directing approaches while also working within a concise economy of space for the scope of the project. There is certainly more to be discovered about each director and directing style investigated in the book; yet, the information which Innes and Shevtsova have selected to include here is significant.

The book has a seven chapter structure, plus an introduction. The first chapter, “Traditional Staging and the Evolution of the Director,” addresses the history of directing, beginning with a brief history of classical staging (Greek, Roman, Medieval) and moving through successive generations leading to the cusp of the 20th century (with the development of the actor-manager in 19th-century Europe).

Despite the large scope of such an overview, this chapter offers interesting details about the history of directing, and even theatre more broadly considered, that move beyond basic information often found in introductory textbooks of theatre history. The authors establish the context for the emergence of the theatrical stage director in a way that is not only well-researched but also lively.

This emergence is charted in the second chapter of the book, “The Rise of the Modern Director.” In this chapter, Innes and Shevtsova explore in interesting detail the names which generations of theatre practitioners have identified as the earliest stage directors of theatre: Georg II, the Duke of Saxe-Meiningen, Emile Zola, Andre Antoine, and Konstantin Stanislavsky. This chapter also includes investigative portraits of the contributions to directing by operatic composer Richard Wagner and by theatrical lighting designers Adolphe Appia and Gordon

Craig. However, despite the ubiquity of these names in other textbooks of theatre, Innes and Shevtsova avoid predictability or cliché in the information presented about these directors. There is a sense of freshness instead of redundancy in how the information in this chapter is presented, which is a testimony to the ability of Innes and Shevtsova to situate these canonical names within a broader conversation about directing.

Chapters three through seven do not follow a linear timeline of directing throughout the 20th century and into the 21st. Instead, the authors recognize that developments in theatre directing are not easily compartmentalized into containable epochs. Rather, there have been several different approaches to directing since the time of Stanislavsky; and, since most of these approaches continue to be represented on today’s stages (having been championed by theatrical pioneers throughout the past few generations), the authors shift here from a chronological approach to a topical one.

Specifically, Innes and Shevtsova highlight the following approaches to directing, in chapters three through seven, respectively: “Directors of Theatricality” (including Vsevolod Meyerhold and Ariane Mnouchkine), “Epic Theatre Directors” (including Erwin Piscator and Bertolt Brecht), “Total Theatre: the Director as Auteur” (including Max Reinhardt, Peter Brook, Robert Wilson, Robert Lepage, and Peter Sellars), “Directors of Ensemble Theatre” (including Giorgio Strehler, Peter Stein, Katie Mitchell, and Declan Donnellan), and “Directors, Collaboration and Improvisation” (including Jerzy Grotowski, Eugenio Barba, Elizabeth LeCompte, and Simon McBurney).

The names included here parenthetically are representative names, not an exhaustive list of directors included in each chapter.

In fact, Innes and Shevtsova are careful to include in each chapter at least one example of a contemporary director who is currently implementing that particular approach or style to their theatrical directing.

Throughout the course of these final five chapters (3-7), which comprise the bulk of the book, the authors are clear in charting the common development in contemporary staging away from text-based productions and toward movement-based, idea-focused, devised productions. While other writings on directing might explore the political and social commentaries implicit in such a shift more deeply, Innes and Shevtsova do not elide such considerations altogether. Instead, they make it clear that these directors are making artistic choices that are borne out of particular ideologies about how aesthetics can connect with, and comment on, everyday life.

The Cambridge Introduction to Theatre Directing would make a strong addition to an undergraduate theatre classroom; not only could it be used effectively as a study in directing styles, but it could also be used

to great effect in other theatre courses due to the fact that directing, by its nature, necessarily addresses issues of acting, design, dramaturgy, and production in general. There are some limitations of the book. Despite the richness of its content, it lacks serious exploration into directing styles and history outside of Europe. A few directors from North America are included (Wilson, Lepage, Sellars, and LeCompte), but many of these directors are known for their work in major European cities. Early in the book, Innes and Shevtsova acknowledge the Eurocentric approach of their work, and specifically recognize the lack of their own investigation into Asian directing styles. While the book does appropriately spotlight vital theatre companies in Eastern Europe, it seems an oversight that directors such as Anne Bogart and Tadashi Suzuki are omitted altogether.

Augusto Boal is mentioned once in a passing reference. Also, the book would benefit from including more female directors; Mnouchkine, Mitchell, and LeCompte are mentioned, but a greater diversity of gender in the featured directors would serve to strengthen the text.

Additionally, the book lacks a strong conclusion. A few summarizing paragraphs, or perhaps a speculative preview on the future of directing based on recent developments in the field, could be useful in reinforcing the vitality of the various threads of contemporary directing approaches. Or perhaps it could be a place to include brief representations of some of the important figures in directing mentioned above who were not included in the scope of the book.

Despite these limitations, this book is an important addition to the library of any professor of theatre directing. Professional directors may find it useful or inspiring to more fully identify their own approaches to directing within specific historic traditions or contemporary trajectories in directing for the stage, although the book may be more suited for academic purposes. The book is a well-researched, intelligent, accessible work; it is both rigorous and readable. It can also serve as a resource for further research on any of the directors included in the work; the text is peppered with links to photographs and videos of some of the significant productions of these important directors. Even though the book omits certain important figures, the information included in the book is quite valuable. Throughout the book, Innes and Shevtsova honor and promote the interdisciplinary nature of theatre, both with other disciplines and within the art form of theatre itself. The book can help provide a historical context and a cultural connection for theatre directors to function as facilitators of this interdisciplinarity, learning to address important issues through their work with their actors, collaborators, and audiences.

SUMMER 2015 | SDC JOURNAL PEER-REVIEWED SECTION

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FROM THE ARCHIVES

SPEAKING A THOUGHT IN THE WORLD PART II GARLAND WRIGHT ON RICHARD III

BY SARI

KETTER + ERIN B. MEE

Garland Wright said: “I tend not to choose plays. Plays end up in my consciousness, and I find that ultimately I have to do them to get rid of the noise they make inside my head.”1 On the first day of rehearsal for the Guthrie Theater's 1988 production of Richard III, Wright articulated his reasons for choosing the play: Richard III has been spinning inside my head for about two years now…Why Richard III?…It’s a play about acting, and most people who know me realize that’s something which interests me. It’s a play about whoever acts best—gives the best performance—gets to be king, or gets to be closest to the king. And I don’t think that’s just an inside joke for the theatrical community. In point of fact, that reverberates very strongly for me in world equivalents. We live in a world where evangelists and lawyers go to acting school; in a world where the Democratic party is quite clearly going through an “auditioning process” to try to find someone who will fit the “role” of presidential candidate. We live in a world of “performance,” and I don’t think it should go without being noted—we live

in a world where an actor (Ronald Reagan) is president. And we live in a world where virtually everything about our existence is viewed through “style” or “image.” So “public presentation” itself is an issue that reverberates for me. So when I say it’s about acting, I don’t mean it’s about actors. In point of fact, I think the world right now is a very large theatrical event…

It’s also a play about deformity. And I think in choosing that historically inaccurate fact—that Richard was physically deformed—Shakespeare actually nailed a beautiful metaphor. It’s about a sort of moral or spiritual deformity and how the act of living gets misshaped when values are misplaced. Richard is not the only deformed character in this play…

in certain ways because they are basically good or bad. I think they behave in certain ways because all people know that some people can get away with it. In any given game, one can see who’s winning, and if it turns out not to be you, you have to make a choice whether to play right or play to win.

To me, silence in the face of corruption is a great—I’m going to use this word—sin.

It makes one an accomplice. The theater should speak of this.

(Wright 1987)

FIGURE 2.2

“It will be lit in a sort of 1930s expressionistic style.”

Richard III on the balcony.

I should also say that it’s a play about complicity. Silence in the face of evil (a subject I’ll come back to) equals acquiescence—complicity. This is a particularly important issue for our times; and in the play, I would like to explore this.

Many characters in this play are mum. Most of them die. I don’t believe people behave

FIGURE 2.1

Richard III (Byron Jennings) kneels to the Prince in clothing that has “been in [his] trunk for three centuries” PHOTO

Joe Giannetti

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SARI KETTER since 1982 | GARLAND WRIGHT d.1998

“LET ME TALK A LITTLE ABOUT THIS PRODUCTION” Rehearsals began with the Meet and Greet, which brought together the entire company— actors, designers, and administrative staff—for introductions, coffee, and design presentations.

Wright explained his reasons for choosing the play and articulated his vision for the production: Let me talk a little about this production. I always get into hot water here because my productions are totally instinctive, and now I will try to talk to you about it as though it were deeply intelligent. I do know reasons for it; I will try to give them, but take them as echoes in a large hall that contains a lot of information…The set…is actually the Guthrie stage opened in its entirety. It’s all painted like concrete—which amuses me because it all is concrete. As all sets are, it’s basically a machine that operates the play.

If you want to know what I think of when I look at it or what I was thinking when Doug [Stein, the set designer] and I arrived at it—I had in my mind a “performed” piece, but not “performed” in the sense of being about “the theater.” I wanted the actual characters performing their actual lives, performing them with a style that is individual. I wondered what the space for that would be. What if Erich von Stroheim actually went to the real people—the real Margaret, the real Hastings, the real Richard III—and said: “I’d really like to make a movie about your lives. I can’t imagine doing it without you, you’re the only person that could play this part. I’d like you to wear your own clothes, I realize they’ve been in a trunk for three centuries, but I’d like you to meet me in the studio just outside Berlin. We’ll rehearse for four weeks, and then we’ll film it.” FIGURE 2.1 And at some point in that sequence, you arrive at the lighting rehearsal before they go on location. That rehearsal is what this production will look like. It will be lit in a sort of 1930s expressionistic style.

FIGURE 2.2 + FIGURE 2.3

It will be acted, I hope, in a highly accentuated style. FIGURE 2.4 Don’t be nervous about that. It’s performed in period clothes, but in point of fact, the clothing is actually based on a 19thcentury view of period clothes. They’re not quite accurate historically. It’s an idea that perhaps someone pulled these things from stock somewhere in Europe.

You probably shouldn’t ever think about that after this moment in which I have to explain my theatrical gestures. FIGURE 2.5

As Wright looked at the set with the cast, he said: When I am looking at the set, it reminds me of large rooms and stone castles, it reminds me of great open spaces, it reminds me of a movie studio, and it reminds me of a prison. Some specifics about the set—this large screen wall is steel. Actually it’s expanded metal. You can think of that as a large industrial elevator door. I call it the guillotine wall.

The wall itself flies up and down, and the door within it flies up and down, like a blade. Clearly, you can see through it. All the existing traps in the theater simply have the wood taken out of them and the same type of metal put into them. There are entrances through the traps; you can come up out of the floor. FIGURE 2.6 There’s a large concrete column to one side which will be made to represent an architectural column, not a decorative column—structural. We call that the blood column. I didn’t want to deal with blood in a realistic sense, but in point of fact, I didn’t want to let the audience off the hook about the fact of blood. The classical theater more than any theater is responsible for having numbed our sense to the actuality and reality of death, particularly of murder. Theater as an act of thrills has reduced death to dramatic climax. In this play, people are killed.

Characters go to breakfast and decide who is going to be killed; then these people are killed; then the characters go to dinner.

This has to be real for us to understand the stakes, the level at which these games are played. So I didn’t want to either reduce blood to stage blood or to remove it entirely and make some stylistic gesture about the fact that this wasn’t real. So that blood column arrived. Any time anyone is killed, the amount of blood in a human body (10 pints) will be poured down into the base. When I say “blood column, that’s what I mean. FIGURE 2.1 + FIGURE 2.7 (NEXT PAGE) There is also a very large drop out of some sort of theatrical muslin or gauze that falls just behind that screen wall, which I call the shadow drop. That’s just so we can project lurid shadows from the floor onto the back wall—bodies in interesting shapes that loom large. FIGURE 2.2 + FIGURE 2.4

FIGURE 2.3

“It will be lit in a sort of 1930s expressionistic style.”

Richard III in front of the shadow curtain.

FIGURE 2.4

“It will be acted, I hope, in a slightly accentuated style.”

Richard III + his throne.

FIGURE 2.5

“Perhaps someone pulled these things from stock somewhere in Europe.”

The Council Scene.

FIGURE 2.6

"On the Battlefield"

There is—as you can see on the front of the model—a group of rolling platforms and stairways that can be rolled into various configurations if we need to get high or if we need to climb. FIGURE 2.2 Behind that large slit in the back wall is a floor-toceiling light box, which illuminates the SUMMER 2015 | SDC JOURNAL

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FIGURE 2.7

“Any time anyone is killed, the amount of blood in a human body (10 pints) will be poured down into the base.” The battlefield.

entrance upstage center, and which can also go away.

The properties in the play are real; the situations in the play are real. I’m not doing a production in which actors know that they’re in a movie or know that they’re doing a play. I will be working with this information, but you shouldn’t. As I said, it’s as if Mr. von Stroheim asked the actual people to play the parts. I would also not like you to think: “Oh yes, we’re playing the memory of the events that actually happened in real life.” The events happen now for the first time. Forget all this Pirandello-sounding stuff. (Wright 1987) After all this, Wright paused. He then said: “I even hesitate to say this next phrase. Are there any questions?”

TABLE WORK Actors who have worked with Wright have marveled at the way he introduced his extensive pre-production work into the room while simultaneously giving the actors the feeling they owned the play. He did this largely through table work: an in-depth investigation of the text, and the relationships between characters. On the first day of table work (usually the second day of rehearsal), he began by “sketching through” the play— asking general questions about the play as a whole and the events in each scene. He always worked through the play in order, and for the first pass-through Wright allowed 30 to 45 minutes for each scene. This was enough

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time to raise general questions, discuss any assumptions the company might be making, and orient them to his interpretation of each scene and his thoughts about character. It was not enough time to get attached to details—Wright wanted the company to take the ideas away and let them marinate.

For example, Wright’s statements about the Tower gave the actors a more detailed understanding of the world their characters inhabited: We all have to get it into our heads the eternal reality of the Tower. It’s like detention. You could die; you could also be released in five minutes. Probably Clarence has been sent to the Tower before. Think of it as being benched.2 Much of what Wright said about the play in general asked the actors to imagine very specifically the physical and emotional world they inhabited, and to begin thinking about given circumstances.

We need to treat the beginning like a coffee break at IBM. It’s usual to see guys in and out of the Tower. Clarence’s dream is the first departure from this…Everyone should think about being Catholic. There will be a high visibility of priests in this production. God is still a real issue. (The political reality is that you own most of the priests.)…Dignity is not big castle behavior: they live actual lives. If they’re the King, then they also run countries…

One trap in the play is to know too much— to make general assumptions. Nobody

likes Richard. But one of the ways he works is that most people haven’t caught on to him. People have to find where they figure Richard out. And do they discover it by surprise?…How many people know Richard is acting? How many other people are acting?…How does Clarence’s death affect everyone?…In the council scene (III.4) Richard enters the room not knowing how Hastings will vote. Possibly Stanley hasn’t been told that Catesby sounded Hastings out, so he’s unsuspected. Don’t play tremolo double bass yet. Perhaps they are all desperate executives with brandy and cigars telling jokes while signing a merger. Richard probably thinks he’ll get the crown…Who is surprised by the outcome of the meeting?…Always think of loyalty to the throne, to the crown, loyalty to crown transcends friendship…

No one is significantly safe—bonding is very important…Everyone in this play gambles—they’re all jockeying for better position. No one wants a status quo.

Wright’s statements about individual characters invited the actors to begin thinking about vocal and physical choices, and where they would place themselves on the stage.

For example, when Wright said: “Catesby has developed dropping-by to an art,” the actor playing Catesby began to play with shoulder movement that appeared casual, partially hid his face, and made him look like he was walking sideways—he never walked up to anyone directly, but circled around from the side, leading with his shoulder. In production he often positioned himself behind corners and in the shadowed semi-offstage areas of the set, pretending not to listen until he “entered”—seemingly out of nowhere.

Wright’s other statements included: Hastings truly believes that justice will triumph. It’s his tragic flaw. Richard understands ethics are changeable; Hastings believes morality is absolute…In the scene between Anne and Richard over the corpse, everything Anne has been bred to do has just been taken away…This is the first time anyone has told Anne they love her…It’s important that Anne makes the choice to go with Richard. She’s letting him win. What is winning? Who wins what? She’s not a victim in the end. Or: she is a victim, she chooses which victim to be. Even if the choice is a bad one, it’s one she has made…Richard says: “I didn’t kill your husband” as if he’s trying it out. If it doesn’t work he’ll try something else…

Margaret is the only character in the play who speaks only truth. She has a direct line to God. Everything she says happens.

She is a fortune-teller—and not a fake: a seer, a prophet. Not all of it is bitter…

Margaret won’t leave the play until she’s passed on her legacy of cursing…It’s not until later in the play that anyone pays attention to Margaret. That’s their stupidity…Stanley and Hastings are very close. Stanley’s a little wiser than Hastings, more cautious. Hastings finds that caution amusing. Stanley is superstitious…There has to be a place where Richard feels trust in Buckingham…Buckingham has to protect Richard from his own impulses, has to step in before Richard does…

Catesby is an errand boy, but he knows a lot about everyone. He knows about skeletons…Richmond is the golden boy.

He’s been in France to keep safe. He’s been bred and protected to be a king. Lately he understands his destiny. He’s naïve—he doesn’t have real experience of what it’s like. He’s shrewd to surround himself with good fighters. Best board of directors.

He’s deeply ambitious and shrewd about running a company. He knows how to motivate people, he knows how to share his trust of them and need of them.

Wright’s comments about relationships invited the actors to begin thinking about their interactions with one another: Edward IV and Elizabeth have a suburban relationship. They don’t care anymore, but they act it out. He watches TV all day.

He’s not in operational mode. When he wants to have sex, someone is brought in…Anne and Richard grew up together.

This isn’t getting to know you, it’s “fuck off, I know your tricks.”…There have to be places where Richard is in Buckingham’s debt—he’s Richard’s first and only friend…

They are both people alone, who are making a first bond…They’re the only two people who can make each other laugh intentionally (Richard laughs at everyone, but they don’t know why)…These two people, as depraved as they are, take a great deal of pleasure in each other…

It’s necessary to have a little warmth and humor, and it comes in their relationship.

Other comments asked actors to think about time frame: “How much time has passed between these two scenes? It may seem as though they follow one right after the other, but some time has to have passed for the characters to be treating each other in this way.” Much of the table work asked actors to fill in what happens offstage between scenes.

On the third day of rehearsal, Wright began a second pass through the play, asking more detailed questions about each scene and focusing more specifically on the details of the text. For example, in Margaret’s curse:

With both Elizabeth and Richard, the curse is to live and experience and suffer. With everyone else it’s to die an ugly death.

With those two it’s that she wants them to suffer the consequences of what they do…

“Painted Queen” refers to painting, not harlotry—Elizabeth is a prop…Margaret is the first one who refers to Richard as a hog…Margaret’s intention is the impulse.

You don’t have an intention and then act on it. Everything is on the surface…There has to be some pleasure, some irony in “gentle villain”—he sees you…Make “die” and “youth” important words in cursing the Prince of Wales…Use the word “worm,” which is a real description of what’s going on in here…She’s heading for “Richard”— she doesn’t stop at the end—it gets on a roll and “Richard” is the worst name she can call him.

“LET’S SKETCH SOME MOVES” Six days into rehearsal Wright began blocking.

He began by explaining the stage and its dimensions, and then said: “Let’s sketch some moves.” For the Prologue, Wright walked through the scene very casually, mumbling so that actors knew he wasn’t focused on delivery of text at the moment, script in hand, with Byron Jennings (who played Richard III) following. Then Jennings went through the scene with Wright, adding a few things as they went through, and making small changes. Wright once said that he liked to “lay in fence posts” to give the actors a structure within which to work, to give them certain “landmarks” in the scene. Connecting the fence posts was for a later blocking rehearsal.

In the scene between Richard and Anne, Wright went through the scene line by line with the actors, again mumbling. He took the actress playing Lady Anne (Gina Franz) through her entrance with the corpse, orienting her to the space, while saying: “We’re just sketching.

This is slow, with music underneath.” They went through the scene a few times, with Wright adding in a few details each time: You can even hug the corpse. It’s not so much that you love it, but that it’s the only thing left. Treat it like there’s an ounce of breath left…Release the tears on the kneel. The sadness leads to anger and cursing. Cursing isn’t what she intends.

Deep rage takes over. Let the sobs go, then curse. I know you can’t do that right now, but think on it…The kiss itself has no effect; the fact that he does it does. “The sonofabitch is going to kiss me.” Smack…

After the second kiss, which feels more like a kiss, then the question remains: “Who is Richard to do this, and who is the Anne who can do this?”

After laying in a few basic moves, Wright let the actors block the scene themselves, interjecting additional ideas here and there.

“IF THE KING DOESN’T ENTER FROM UPSTAGE CENTER, THERE HAD BETTER BE A GOOD REASON” In crowd scenes Wright always knew who entered where, and he had very specific ideas about when and where they moved. Wright’s blocking demonstrated his knowledge of how to get, hold, and use the audience’s attention. Human beings are hardwired to follow movement, and Wright always said that the best way to get an audience member to hear a piece of information was to highlight it with movement. Every important piece of information in Richard III was followed by at least one character crossing to another—in protest, in search of an ally, or to put distance between themselves and another character.

FIGURE 2.10 (PAGE 51)

Wright also used the fact that, when there are more than seven items in a visual field, the brain begins to “group” what it sees according to (among other things) color and proximity. Wright “grouped” the Woodville family together by dressing them all in shades of green so spectators would perceive their familial alliance visually and see them as a group; he then placed them together on stage.

FIGURE 2.8 (NEXT PAGE) He placed certain characters center stage and others on the periphery— literalizing their closeness to or distance from power by placing them in the center of the spectator’s visual field or on the periphery.

FIGURE 2.9 (NEXT PAGE) And of course he moved them in and out of those spots based on the political jockeying within each scene. In this sense, Wright was always choreographing the spectator’s eye as he blocked actors, and in choreographing their eye, he choreographed their understanding.

TECHNICAL REHEARSALS Wright did in tech what most directors do: he focused on transitions, on spacing, and on changes that needed to be made based on the new information he received from seeing the actors in costume on the set. At the Guthrie he always sat at a table across the center aisle from the stage manager, where he could hear the conversations between the stage manager and lighting designer, talk to the costume designer and set designer, and hear the sound while at the same time being far enough away from the hubbub to have his own view of the stage and to take in what he saw and heard.

He kept a pad of yellow paper nearby on which his assistant wrote all his notes. At the end of the day, during the daily production meeting, he would give all the notes for tech SUMMER 2015 | SDC JOURNAL

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FIGURE 2.8

“The Woodville family, grouped stage left in various shades of green.”

things that had not been fixed and ask all of his questions. Here are a few of his notes: *Add a sound cue for “the gentle Duke is dead.” *To himself: In the battle, I hate where the ghosts are, but maybe I can fix that. *To himself: Add candles to Edward’s death. *To all: We have to put intermission after “Richard Prays” [his nickname for III.6b] and before “Elizabeth at the Tower” [his nickname for IV.1—all the scenes had nicknames] *SM/Sound: Add a sound cue for entrance of Richard’s army: “Who saw the sun.” *Costumes: Two actors are allergic to wool.

Wright continued to take acting notes during tech. His assistant director delivered these to the actors so Wright could stay focused on the technical aspects of the show while not ignoring changes the actors needed to make.

A number of the notes he took in technical rehearsal for Richard III were for the 15 “extras” who were, according to Equity rules, allowed a very limited number of rehearsal hours prior to tech. His notes range from large notes about the stakes in a scene to notes that address the minutiae of gesture and text: *Margaret: Duchess is not supposed to be turned, let her turn herself (when Margaret grabs Duchess). *Duchess: Cut the spit at Richard. *An actor: What are the stakes of what you have come to say? *An actor: Don’t wave goodbye. *Catesby: Enter from the SL vom into those shadows. *Extras: The pounding of the pikes has to be in synch. *Richard: You have to exit DR because of the drape. *Lady Anne: Get further DS before you say “set down.” *Hastings: Cut “fuck you” gesture. *Actor: You can’t drag sword around on grating. *Lovell: Warrant is two syllables.

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FIGURE 2.9

"Coronation of Richard III"

*Richard: Have to be higher up on steps for entrance “what is your grace’s pleasure?” *Extras: Don’t applaud Richard “on him I lay”— there is a reaction there, but not that loud.

PREVIEWS In previews Wright listened very carefully to what the audience understood and where they seemed lost; he paid close attention to what the audience responded to, and what they seemed bored by. On January 4, 1988, Wright felt the production was too long, and he was trying to figure out what to cut.

Clarence’s scene: cannot be cut for moral reasons—it’s his only scene. Elizabeth at the Tower: we can’t cut it because you need to see Dorset gone. The Women: the scene is unnecessary, but I won’t cut it. “Hasting’s Head: [III.5]” this is possible to cut, and the only information we would lose is the Mayor to Guildhall which could be a complete scene in and of itself.

“Hastings Head” was cut on January 13.

Wright said to the cast: I’m cutting “Hasting’s Head” because it’s the same routine as “Richard Prays,” and the play hinges on “Richard Prays.” We’ve only kept what’s necessary for the plot.

Both scenes are duplicates, and they involve the same people, so to have one follow the other diminishes both. It’s the same gimmick. We’re transforming the scene from being a show to being a lie, and we save the show until the next scene.

As previews went on, Wright’s notes became more and more general. On January 10, 1988, he began to focus on pace and tempo: “We’ve been working so hard to make sure Act I is clear that the audience is ahead of us. I think all the problems can be solved by tempo.

The precipitous nature of the play is how it operates.” Once again he focused on the sense of lines and words: “Speak all the way to the end of the line. The last syllables of words and the last words of lines are being lost. I’m missing consonants.” Of course he was also talking about keeping the energy flowing through to the end of the thought. “Better to be focused and specific with your words rather than trying to stress every sentence. Loudness won’t compensate for meaning.”

On January 12, 1988, Wright continued to focus on pace and sense: “If we’re thinking a thought clearly, the language will transmit— even antique language—and the audience will get it. We can remove minutes from the production if we play through to the end of lines (while still playing the intentions with full intensity).” He also said: “Act III works like gangbusters. I can’t explain why. It’s thrilling to not know why.”

After the show on January 13, 1988, Wright said the show felt a little stale: “The actors have figured out a lot of stuff and it feels liked oiled machinery.” In rehearsal on January 14, 1988, he said:

the priesthood—one gives one’s life to something that is greater than oneself in the hopes that you’ll transmit myth and religion. Speaking a thought in the world has an effect, and it’s important to speak those thoughts.

FIGURE 2.10

Blocking notation from the rehearsal script of Erin B. Mee PHOTO

c/o Erin B. Mee

“THE THEATER IS MY UNIVERSITY” “In the theater, I found a way to ponder and ask questions about life—both as I experienced it and as I saw others experience it,” Wright said in speech at St. Olaf College.

In the theater, I found a way to understand history as a story of human progress in which I actually played a part…In the theater, I could imagine worlds and times other than mine, enter into them, try to understand them, and through this metaphoric experiment come to understand complexities that eluded me when I read them in philosophy books…In the theater, I could learn to accept contradictions and paradoxes that seemed so absurd and confusing in “real life.”…In the theater, I came to understand politics and theology as well as the dangerous impasses that arise when ideologies become rigid and calcified…And in the theater, it was even possible to glimpse into the recesses of the human heart, with its infinite capacity for love and compassion as well as hatred and violence…I believe (for it has been my own experience) that the theater has a unique capacity to unleash curiosity in people…and that by arousing simple curiosity, one paves the road that leads to the more complex task of learning and understanding…The theater has been, and continues to be, my university.”3 Last night I realized that I was seeing the jangling nerves dissipate and that the show was running smoothly because you were accustomed to it. But be careful. It shouldn’t run so smoothly that you’re not surprised when things happen. Act ignorant each time you do the play. The play should operate like a medieval machine— it works, but it’s a little jerky. Something about the world of the play is dangerous, not safe, rough, crude. In fact, everything about the play is a little crude—the sound, the language, the costumes. The play is from a young playwright: it’s exuberant, rough, jangling. Let it all be as blunt as it is.

The play is about a dangerous world, and the production has a sense of danger, and every night the play has to fall off a cliff.

This play has to make me nervous while I’m watching it. I’ve seen the play many times, so you have to take that with a grain of salt, but I’m just pointing out that it has to feel potentially dangerous.

“OPENING NIGHTS ARE A FALSE PHENOMENON” On January 15, 1988, Wright gave an opening night speech to the cast: Opening nights are a false phenomenon.

It’s a ritual whereby we celebrate accomplishment. I’d like to congratulate you on this. It’s an astonishing evening, and has a power that is difficult to explain.

It’s gratifying to me because I rehearsed it in bits and pieces, and I didn’t know if I would recognize it. It turns out to be greater than I had ambitions for. It’s good to remind ourselves of how mystifying this thing is that we do. It’s alchemical. It’s searching for the philosopher’s stone. We don’t give ourselves enough credit for the fact that it’s the work of a magician. But its power is there. The not-for-profit theater is a rude way to term this. We don’t do anything without profit. The theater is like

SARI KETTER is a freelance stage director, coach, and adjunct instructor of directing, and recently relocated to NYC. She was Garland Wright’s assistant/associate from 1983 until he passed away in 1998. www.sariketter.com ERIN B. MEE is a freelance stage director, scholar, and professor of dramatic literature at NYU. She was a directing intern at the Guthrie Theater in 1988 and Resident Director from 1989–1991. www.erinbmee.com REFERENCES 1 Mee, Erin. Notes from Garland Wright’s speech to cast on first day of rehearsal.

2 Unless otherwise noted, all quotations of Wright in Richard III rehearsal are taken from Erin B. Mee’s rehearsal notes, which were verbatim transcriptions of what he said.

3 Wright, Garland. Speech at St. Olaf College. n.d.

IMAGES Joe Giannetti (unless otherwise noted)

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THE SOCIETY PAGES SDC MEMBERS @ WORK + PLAY

On April 9, 2015, SDC Members + Associates gathered for SDC’s Members-Only Preview of the new office, located at 321 W. 44th Street, The Plant.

On May 11, 2015, SDC welcomed more than 100 theatre community colleagues, friends + Members for the Industry Open House at the new office in New York City. The event served as the SDC’s official office warming.

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OPPOSITE TOP

Casting director Bernard Telsey, Executive Board Member Bartlett Sher, Executive Director Laura Penn + casting director Will Cantler OPPOSITE MIDDLE

Member David Hilder + Director of Contact Affairs Mauro Melleno OPPOSITE BOTTOM LEFT

Executive Board Members Anne Bogart, John Rando + Leigh Silverman OPPOSITE BOTTOM RIGHT

SDC Journal writer/former intern Laura Paone + Communications Manager Elizabeth Nelson TOP LEFT

SDCF Director Megan Carter, Associate Member David Alpert + Executive Board Member Michael Wilson in SDC's lobby MIDDLE LEFT

Industry Open House visitors enjoy the cafĂŠ BOTTOM LEFT

Members Sidney Erik Wright, Melanie Sutherland with Director of Member Services Barbara Wolkoff + Executive Board Member Evan Yionoulis TOP RIGHT

2015 Barbara Hauptman Fellow + SDC Member Kappy Kilburn with Business Rep Kristy Cummings PHOTOS Walter

McBride

DAVID ALPERT Assc. since 2007 | ANNE BOGART since 1990 DAVID HILDER since 2007 | KAPPY KILBURN since 2012 JOHN RANDO since 1995 | BARTLETT SHER since 1996 LEIGH SILVERMAN since 2001 | MELANIE SUTHERLAND since 1987 MICHAEL WILSON since 1993 SIDNEY ERIK WRIGHT Assc. since 2013 EVAN YIONOULIS since 1987 SUMMER 2015 | SDC JOURNAL

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On April 7, 2015, the SDC Los Angeles Ad Hoc Committee hosted a Los Angeles Membership Information Session for non-Member colleagues to learn more about SDC. The event was hosted by Director of Member Services Barbara Wolkoff. Following the LA Membership Information Session, SDC Foundation held a One-On-One Conversation with Tom Moore + Annette Bening who shared insights into their creative processes + the director-actor collaboration.

MIDDLE

Linda Kerns, Robin Larsen, Art Manke, Sheldon Epps + SDC Foundation Director Megan Carter BOTTOM LEFT

Annette Bening + Tom Moore

On March 16, 2015, the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle presented the Milton Katselas Award for Career Achievement in Direction to SDC Member Robin Larsen. (TOP LEFT) On April 6, 2015, the SDC Boston Area Steering Committee + SDC Executive Director Laura Penn hosted an informal gathering at the home of Melia Bensussen in Coolidge Corner, Massachusetts.

TOP MIDDLE

Judy Braha, Kate Snodgrass + Benny Ambush

SDC held its Semi-Annual Membership Meeting on April 13, 2015, at the Lark Play Development Center in New York City. Members attended in person and by live stream.

OPPOSITE TOP

Executive Director Laura Penn addressing Members OPPOSITE MIDDLE

Executive Vice President John Rando OPPOSITE BOTTOM

Member Peter J. Kuo during the Q&A

TOP RIGHT

Executive Board Member and NE Regional Rep Robert Moss + Lisa Rafferty

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BENNY AMBUSH since 1993 | JUDY BRAHA since 1988 MELIA BENSUSSEN since 1992 | SHELDON EPPS since 1981 LINDA KERNS since 2015 | PETER J. KUO Assc. since 2014 ROBIN LARSEN since 2011 | ART MANKE since 2001 TOM MOORE since 1972 | ROBERT MOSS since 1982 LISA RAFFERTY Assc. since 2014

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On May 4, 2015, SDC Members Marshall W. Mason + Susan Stroman were inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame at the Gershwin Theatre in New York City.

TOP LEFT

Marshall W. Mason + scenic designer John Lee Beatty TOP RIGHT

Bill Henderson + Susan Stroman

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On June 1, 2015, the Fred + Adele Astaire Awards hosted their annual gala celebrating the 2015 season's outstanding dance + choreography on Broadway + film at the NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts.

Joshua Bergasse (On the Town) + Christopher Wheeldon (An American in Paris) tied for Outstanding Choreography on Broadway.

OPPOSITE MIDDLE

XiaoChuan Xie, Peta Coy, Grace Pavloff, Laura Penn, Marcia Milgrom Dodge + Natasha Milgrom Dodge OPPOSITE BOTTOM LEFT TO RIGHT

Warren Carlyle, Kathleen Marshall, Christopher Peterson, James Gray + Jeff Whiting TOP LEFT

Joshua Bergasse

On the Friday before the Tony Awards, June 5, 2015, SDC hosted its annual Tony Toast honoring the SDC Member Tony nominees.

At Studio 54, SDC welcomed the 2015 Tony Award nominees. This year’s nominated SDC Members included: Joshua Bergasse (On the Town), Bob Crowley (two Best Scenic Design noms + two Best Costume Design noms), Stephen Daldry (Skylight), Marianne Elliott (The Curious Incident of the Dog at NightTime), Scott Ellis (You Can’t Take It With You), Christopher Gattelli (The King and I), Sam Gold (Fun Home), Jeremy Herrin (Wolf Hall Parts One & Two), Steven Hoggett (The Curious Incident of the Dog at Night-Time), Craig Lucas (Best Book, An American in Paris), Casey Nicholaw (Something Rotten!), John Rando (On the Town), Bartlett Sher (The King and I), Moritz von Stuelpnagel (Hand to God) + Christopher Wheeldon (An American in Paris).

THIS PAGE

SDC Members at Studio 54 LEFT

Steven Hoggett, Greg Zane + Christopher Gattelli

On June 7, 2015, the Tony Awards were celebrated at Radio City Music Hall in New York City. Marianne Elliott won for Best Direction of a Play, Sam Gold won for Best Direction of a Musical, Christopher Wheeldon won for Best Choreography + Bob Crowley won for Best Scene Design of a Musical.

Member Tommy Tune was recognized with a Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre.

BELOW

Marianne Elliott, Sam Gold + Christopher Wheeldon

JOSHUA BERGASSE since 2001 WARREN CARLYLE since 2000 BOB CROWLEY since 2006 STEPHEN DALDRY since 1993 MARCIA MILGROM DODGE since 1979 MARIANNE ELLIOTT since 2003 SCOTT ELLIS since 1991 CHRISTOPHER GATTELLI since 2000 SAM GOLD since 2007 JAMES GRAY since 2015 JEREMY HERRIN since 2015 STEVEN HOGGETT since 2009 CRAIG LUCAS since 2002 KATHLEEN MARSHALL since 1994 MARSHALL W. MASON since 1966 CASEY NICHOLAW since 2001 BARTLETT SHER since 1996 SUSAN STROMAN since 1987 MORITZ VON STUELPNAGEL since 2010 TOMMY TUNE since 1969 CHRISTOPHER WHEELDON since 2001 JEFF WHITING since 2011 GREG ZANE Assc. since 2008 SUMMER 2015 | SDC JOURNAL

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IN MEMORIAM JUNE 22, 2014 - JUNE 22, 2015 Paul Barry

Mike Nichols

Sheldon Patinkin

DIRECTOR Member since 1966

DIRECTOR since 1963

DIRECTOR since 1970

Lance Hewett DIRECTOR since 1991

Geoffrey Holder DIRECTOR/CHOREOGRAPHER since 1962

James Hoskins DIRECTOR/CHOREOGRAPHER since 1977

Brian MacDonald

Donald Saddler

DIRECTOR/CHOREOGRAPHER since 1997

CHOREOGRAPHER since 1962

Dan Mojica

Gene Saks

DIRECTOR/CHOREOGRAPHER since 1991

DIRECTOR since 1963

PJ Paparelli

Ike Schambelan

DIRECTOR/CHOREOGRAPHER since 1997

DIRECTOR since 1977

Robert Livingston

Fontaine Syer

DIRECTOR since 1963

since 1995

DIRECTOR

IN MEMORY OF

GENE SAKS

BY JULIANNE

BOYD

I was saddened to read of the death in March of Gene Saks, SDC’s President from 1986–92. I was on the Executive Board during those years and served as Executive Vice President during his second term. The Board was very different then. There were 13 Members and 2 alternates: a small group of directors and choreographers who had the responsibility of guiding the entire Union. We all became very close, serving on a myriad of committees and negotiating teams.

Gene was pure joy to work with; he had a wicked sense of humor, which he generally underplayed for full effect. He was not a man of many words—he could end an unpleasant or foolish conversation with one quiet, well-timed sentence. He moved on and you had to move with him.

Gene was at the top of his career during those years, directing a multitude of Neil Simon plays, but he was there for SDC, at meetings and negotiations. He had a profound understanding of the importance of the Union—the kind of understanding that comes from one who remembers when there was no Union.

For those of you who did not know him, you missed a very special, passionate, and dedicated Member of SDC.

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“

My art is my Activism.

”

GILBERT CATES 1934-2010 One of SDC's founding Members, Gilbert “Gil” Cates, was a champion of the entertainment industry, dedicating his career to supporting the work of directors. Born in the Bronx in 1934, he studied at Syracuse University. In addition to directing on Broadway, his eclectic contributions include working as a stage manager, fight choreographer, and finally as a producer. He produced the work of directors such as Arvin Brown, Arthur Storch, and Alan Schneider, including Alan's celebrated production of I Never Sang for My Father. He is perhaps best known as the longest-running producer of the Oscars, transforming the live telecast of the Academy Awards ceremony into the spectacle it is today. Cates was a founder of the Geffen Playhouse in Westwood, where he served as producing director for 15 years and staged David Eldridge's Under the Blue Sky, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and Jeffrey Hatcher's A Picasso. Cates served two terms as president of the Directors Guild of America, where he was an active member for more than 50 years. In November 1996, he was the recipient of the Jimmy Doolittle Award for Outstanding Contribution to Los Angeles Theater. He received the 1999 Ovation Award for best play for the Geffen production of Collected Stories, starring Linda Lavin and Samantha Mathis.

ARVIN BROWN since 1969 ALAN SCHNEIDER d.1984 ARTHUR STORCH d.2013 SUMMER 2015 | SDC JOURNAL

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SDC MEMBERS + ASSOCIATES...Joseph

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