SDC Journal Fall 2012 by SDC Journal

FALL 2012

IN A SPLIT SECOND

ANDY BLANKENBUEHLER

STAGE MAGICIANS STEVEN HOGGETT + JOHN TIFFANY GOLDEN PARTNERSHIP

LEIGH SILVERMAN + DAVID HENRY HWANG

DANCE KEPT ME ALIVE MARCELA LORCA

PLUS

SHAPING THE STORY LISA PETERSON + DEVELOPING AN ILIAD

PING CHONG HOPE CLARKE PARKER ESSE JERRY MITCHELL FROM THE ARCHIVES

RICHARD FOREMAN: DANCING WITH THE CONTRADICTIONS FALL 2012 | SDC JOURNAL

SDC EXECUTIVE BOARD

Karen Azenberg PRESIDENT

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Larry Carpenter EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT

Leigh Silverman VICE PRESIDENT

Oz Scott SECRETARY

Ethan McSweeny TREASURER

HONORARY ADVISORY COMMITTEE

this space is for you... Published quarterly, SDC Journal is distributed to Directors and Choreographers nationwide and is available to industry constituents, theatre education programs of all levels, and the theatre-going public at large. SDC Journal’s mission is to give voice to an empowered collective of Directors and Choreographers working in all jurisdictions and venues across the country, to encourage advocacy, and to highlight artistic achievement.

Pamela Berlin Melvin Bernhardt Julianne Boyd Danny Daniels Marshall W. Mason Ted Pappas Gene Saks COUNSEL

Ronald H. Shectman

Laura Penn

SDC JOURNAL

Published by SDC | Fall 2012 | Volume 1 | No. 2 ART DIRECTOR

Elizabeth Miller FEATURES EDITOR

Lily Whitsitt CONTRIBUTORS

Timothy J. Bond DIRECTOR

Jade King Carroll DIRECTOR

Hope Clarke Stephanie Coen ASSOCIATE ARTISTIC DIRECTOR, TWO RIVER THEATER

Kristy Cummings SDC BUSINESS REPRESENTATIVE

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Julie Arenal Rob Ashford Walter Bobbie Joe Calarco Marcia Milgrom Dodge Sheldon Epps Michael John Garcés Wendy C. Goldberg Richard Hamburger Linda Hartzell Doug Hughes Moisés Kaufman Mark Lamos Sue Lawless Paul Lazarus Rick Lombardo Tom Moore Amy Morton Robert Moss Sharon Ott Lisa Peterson Lonny Price John Rando Susan H. Schulman Seret Scott Chay Yew

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

CHOREOGRAPHER

...make it your own.

MEMBERS OF BOARD

Lisi DeHaas

Richard Hamburger DIRECTOR

Adam Levi SDC BUSINESS REPRESENTATIVE

Jerry Mitchell DIRECTOR/CHOREOGRAPHER

Kim Rogers SDC BUSINESS ASSOCIATE

Ellen Rusconi SDCF PRODUCING DIRECTOR

Ted Sod DIRECTOR

SDC BUSINESS REPRESENTATIVE

SDC JOURNAL is published quarterly by Stage Directors and Choreographers Society located at 1501 Broadway, STE 1701, NYC 10036. SDC JOURNAL is a registered trademark of SDC. SUBSCRIPTIONS 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). Also available at the Drama Book Shop in NY, NY. POSTMASTER Send address changes to SDC JOURNAL, SDC, 1501 Broadway, STE 1701, NY, NY 10036. PRINTED BY Bayard Printing Group

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FALL

CONTENTS Fall 2012

FEATURES

Volume 1 | No. 2

Golden Partnership

Director LEIGH SILVERMAN + Playwright DAVID HENRY HWANG discuss the upcoming revival of Golden Child and their long-term collaboration.

INTERVIEW BY JADE KING CARROLL

Andy Blankenbuehler IN A SPLIT SECOND Director/Choreographer Andy Blankenbuehler on his trajectory from Dancer to Choreographer to Director/Choreographer.

INTERVIEW BY TED SOD

Dance Kept Me Alive

Choreographer MARCELA LORCA on her dance career—from life under Pinochet’s brutal regime to her artistic home at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis.

INTERVIEW BY LISI DEHAAS

TRANSITIONS

Shaping the Story LISA PETERSON on developing An Illiad.

Stage Magicians

A conversation on collaboration between Director JOHN TIFFANY + Choreographer STEVEN HOGGETT.

BY STEPHANIE COEN

SDC FOUNDATION

SDCF speaks with Director ANNE KAUFFMAN + NYTW Artistic Director JAMES NICOLA about current thoughts on support for directors, arts leadership, and creative renewal.

Critical Issues

FALL 2012 | SDC JOURNAL

IN RESIDENCE

Parker Esse @ Arena Stage

13 5

FROM THE PRESIDENT BY KAREN

FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR BY LAURA

IN YOUR WORDS

If You Do One Thing This Fall, What Will It Be? Our Members Respond

BACKSTAGE

With Sound Designer Darron West

ADVOCACY

Broadway Bares: A Labor of Love BY JERRY MITCHELL

PENN

Two Questions for Choreographer Hope Clarke CURATED BY SERET SCOTT

AZENBERG

OUR MEMBERS IN PRINT

Undesirable Elements Ping Chong’s new book on communityspecific theatre works.

FROM THE ARCHIVES

Dancing with the Contradictions AN INTERVIEW WITH RICHARD FOREMAN BY STEVEN DRUKMAN

AROUND THE COUNTRY

SDC Regional Reports

Northeast BY MELIA BENSUSSEN Southeast BY SHARON OTT

Central BY RON HIMES Northwest BY TOM KEOGH Southwest BY RICK LOMBARDO

THE SOCIETY PAGES IN PICTURES

COVER PHOTO

| Andy Blankenbuehler + Jessica Lea Patty rehearsing Only Gold Jeremy Davis | www.jeremydavisphotonyc.com

ABOVE LEFT | Parker Esse instructs young hopefuls at an open audition call for Arena Stage’s production of The Music Man in December 2011 COURTESY Arena Stage | ABOVE RIGHT | Ping Chong PHOTO Adam Nadel

| 1 David Henry Hwang + Leigh Silverman in rehearsal for Chinglish PHOTO Cheshire Isaacs Berkeley Repertory Theatre | 2 John Tiffany + Steven Hoggett in rehearsal for The Bacchae for the National Theatre of Scotland + Edinburgh International Festival in 2007 PHOTO Manuel Harlan 3 LEFT TO RIGHT Dieter Bierbrauer, Tyson Forbes, musical director Andrew Cooke + Marcela Lorca in rehearsal for The Secret Fall of Constance Wilde PHOTO Tom Sweeny | 4 Andy Blankenbuehler PHOTO Jeremy Davis PREVIOUS

COURTESY

1 2 3

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Jerry Mitchell + The “Mr. Abbott” Award Broadway Salutes SDC’s launch of SDC JOURNAL + TCG National Conference SDC’s Agnes de Mille

FROM THE PRESIDENT

In July my family and I left New York and moved to Salt Lake City, Utah, where I am now the Artistic Director of Pioneer Theater Company. As I unpack and begin to settle in, preparing to embark upon my first season here, I am that much more aware of the tremendous value of community among my fellow directors and choreographers working all across the country. I find myself, although in a different position, once again attempting to articulate what I do and how I do it, and then further explaining how others who practice this craft have their own ways of doing this work—although we have the same job, we are as different and unique as snowflakes. (Perhaps I am channeling my new environment a little too keenly?!?) As a Member now living and working in a smaller theatre community, I am even more curious about what my colleagues are doing and how they are doing it, what they are thinking about, and what is influencing them and their work. I am grateful to be a member of a union that so keenly values community as it allows us to tackle the challenges of our artistic livelihoods together. As I mentioned in the inaugural issue, SDC Journal’s mission aligns with that of the Union—to empower directors and choreographers by not only celebrating our craft, but by fostering deep discourse around that craft. Only through exploration—both idividually and collectively—can we learn to articulate for the world what it is that we do and therefore share the immense passions and talents that we have to offer. Response to the first issue has been beyond positive. The legendary Hal Prince said, “Enthusiastically I welcomed the first edition of the SDC’s quarterly. It is diverse, comprehensive, and most significantly, an important appreciation of the contribution of directors and choreographers to the art form that so many of us have dedicated our lives.” Paige Price, AEA 1st Vice-President and Artistic Director for Theatre Aspen, remarked, “How wonderful that this publication is available to an industry filled with thoughtful, creative people…Sharing the stories of these acclaimed directors and choreographers, who work all over America, and most often work alone, can only lead to more support and empathy for our art.” I couldn’t agree more. Our second issue continues to explore partnerships and unique collaborations, pose questions about professional development, and ponder ways to balance career and selfrenewal in today’s challenging economy. It’s an exciting issue, “A great way to stay in touch with the work of old friends,” says Neel Keller of Center Theatre Group, “to discover rising new talent and learn tricks of the trade from directors and choreographers you admire.” I hope that you will see yourself reflected in these pages, and that the stories here inspire conversations within your own artistic communities. “Our Union has gone a long way to restoring the sense of community I had feared we were losing,” said Mr. Prince. Now that we have found it, let us keep the torch burning. Let us keep it burning bright.

KAREN AZENBERG Executive Board President

KAREN AZENBERG has been a Member since 1989 | HAROLD PRINCE since 1963 | NEEL KELLER since 1998

FALL 2012 | SDC JOURNAL

FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR 1947 rehearsal of Allegro at Majestic Theater, NY Composer Richard Rodgers, Unknown, choral director Crane Calder, music director Salvatore Dell’Isola, Agnes de Mille + dancer John Laverty COURTESY Rodgers & Hammerstein: An Imagem Company

LEFT TO RIGHT

COURTESY

Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization

For this second edition of SDC Journal we feature a moment with Agnes de Mille on our final “Society Page.” What an extraordinary woman—who was as passionate and articulate with the spoken word as she was at setting bodies in motion. When the concept of establishing a union for directors was just taking shape, it was Ms. de Mille who went to Shepard Traube and made the case that choreographers must be included, and she prevailed. She knew then what we still know now—that choreographers, like directors, need an advocate to ensure protections and recognition for their work, a community and a place to explore boundaries of the craft. She went on to become President of SDC from 1965 to 1967—the first woman president of the Society, and at the time, the only woman in the country leading a union. While she led SDC, she was creating some of her finest work. It would be 27 years before another woman, Julianne Boyd, would lead the SDC Executive Board.

Agnes was tenacious in her work artistically and politically. She faced the world head on with grace and style and strength. She would become one of the country’s most influential arts advocates working with both President Kennedy on the precursor to the NEA and later with President Johnson as the agency was founded. And she was the first choreographer to move into the role of director/choreographer. She also believed deeply in a community of artists and understood what that meant in our world with all its joys and struggles. In a 1963 interview with Life magazine, she said:

“The artist never entirely knows. We guess. We may be wrong, but we take leap after leap in the dark.”

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Therein lies the challenge of sustaining an artistic career. With such inadequate funding in place, how does a director or choreographer, or any artist, grow, advance, consider? How, with all that it takes to get from one job to the next, do we find a place, literally or figuratively, where artists can be artists? A very close colleague of mine once pointed out that we are a faith-based industry. We imagine, believe, and have faith that audiences will show up, scenery will be in place, rewrites will be memorized, and the curtain will rise. The bigger the dream the more faith is needed, but even the smallest and simplest of dreams relies on a group of creative collaborators working hard and having faith that they can realize the vision. That vision might originate in the impulse of any number of artists— an author certainly, a director or choreographer, an actor, a musician, or a producer. Regardless of where the end game was first imagined, it is the director who is finally charged with making that vision a shared one. The director must make sure that everyone finds their way into the same production. Will it work? We never know until it does, or doesn’t. In our theatres across the country, we ask audiences and supporters to have faith, to believe that this “leap in the dark” will land and will transport, amuse and amaze. As I read the final proof of this issue, I found myself wondering what Agnes would think of theatre today and the work of its esteemed artists. I believe within these pages she would have discovered a gathering of professionals on the edge of an idea, living full and productive creative lives and having faith that it will work.

LAURA PENN Executive Director JULIANNE BOYD since 1978 | AGNES DE MILLE d. 1993 | SHEPARD TRAUBE d. 1983

IN YOUR WORDS Two Questions In Residence We Asked Our Members... Backstage Advocacy

CURATED BY SERET

SCOTT

for HOPE CLARKE

PHOTO

TWO QUESTIONS

Hope Clarke in rehearsal

Our Members In Print

When did you know you were a choreographer and director? What did the moment look like? Feel like? I actually never wanted to do choreography—I was a dancer and an actor—but I was in California and at the time I wasn’t doing anything and people said, “Why don’t you give it a try? Just give it a try. You have ideas!” I didn’t really want to be bothered, but then one time when I wasn’t working, I read a script I liked. It was Deadwood Dick Legend of the West. I said, “I will be able to do that!” Ideas came—staging and pictures. That’s how it began. I thought I was just making money to pay my bills. I hadn’t intended for it to make a change my life. Now directing. I became interested in directing, because I worked with George C. Wolfe. Working with him was like being in school. I watched everything that he did. Sometimes he didn’t feel like staging something, so he’d send me to do it. George speaks a language that few really understand, but I could do what he imagined on a physical level. I did more and more shows with him and then I started directing.

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 e-mail Letters@SDCweb.org. Include your full name, city + state. We regret that we are unable to respond to every letter.

NOTED

Gary Halvorson’s name was spelled incorrectly in The Craft of Capture in the Summer issue of SDC Journal.

If a mentor of yours were to see your work, where would they find themselves? I worked with Talley Beatty when he was at the top of his game, and also Katherine Dunham. They were influences, heavy influences. When I would choreograph, people would say, “That looks a little like Dunham.” And I’d say, “No, no, no. I worked with her, but she is only an influence.” Really choreographers must follow the director’s vision. I put onstage in movement what they perceive. A lot of choreographers aren’t doing that today, and all you see is dance. I say, “But what about the story? What about the vision?” I was also lucky to be influenced by strong directors with big visions like George and Michael Wilson— they absolutely know what they want choreographically. So I would say all four of these people were my mentors and have had tremendous influences on my choreography. Actress, dancer, vocalist, and choreographer HOPE CLARKE began her career performing in West Side Story. She has appeared in seven other Broadway shows, including Purlie, Hallelujah Baby, and Don’t Bother Me, I Can’t Cope. As a dancer she has toured internationally with Alvin Ailey and Black Nativity, and with the legendary Katherine Dunham. In addition to her choreography for Jelly’s Last Jam (for which she and co-choreographer and star of the musical, Gregory Hines were nominated for a Tony Award), she has choreographed such musicals as The Colored Museum and Caucasian Chalk Circle at the Public Theater.

Agnes de Mille and Hanya Holm were mis-identified in the Summer issue. Hanya Holm is on the far left of the page 6 image.

HOPE CLARKE since 1990 | GREGORY HINES d. 2003 | MICHAEL WILSON since 1993 | GEORGE C. WOLFE since 1984

FALL 2012 | SDC JOURNAL

IN RESIDENCE

PARKER ESSE

PHOTO Hoebermann

Photography

@ ARENA STAGE

Actors typically have the opportunity to find an artistic home, whether it’s a repertory company or regional theatre that they work with on a consistent basis. It’s more difficult for directors and choreographers. Arena has given me that opportunity, and I feel I’m blessed to have found an artistic home.

Parker Esse instructs young hopefuls at an open audition call for Arena Stage’s production of The Music Man December 2011 COURTESY Arena Stage PHOTO

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Recreating classic musicals like Oklahoma! can be a challenge. Many theatres may expect the choreographer to recreate Agnes de Mille’s iconic work, but when Molly Smith hired Parker Esse to choreograph her production of Oklahoma! at Arena Stage, she gave him the freedom to make the show his own. Smith approached her staging of Oklahoma! as a real “dirt under the fingernails” production and wanted Esse to bring his signature athletic and story-driven style to the show. “She said, ‘This is not your grandmother’s version of Oklahoma! Take that ballet and make it your own.’ She gave me full license to do my own work, which was a huge gift. It’s allowed me as an artist to grow and create my own style and not live in the shadow of Agnes’s work.” The same could be said about Esse’s relationship with Arena Stage itself. “Actors typically have the opportunity to find an artistic home, whether it’s a repertory company or regional theatre that they work with on a consistent basis. It’s more difficult for us as directors and choreographers,” Esse says. “Arena has given me that opportunity, and I feel I’m blessed to have found an artistic home.”

Esse’s association with Arena Stage began when, fresh out of NYU’s Tisch School, he auditioned for their production of Animal Crackers, which was choreographed by Baayork Lee. Esse had always looked up to Lee, and after that production he served as assistant choreographer and dance captain on South Pacific, Camelot, and Damn Yankees, all under Lee’s mentorship. “She took me under her wing and taught me the process of creating choreography that was taught to her by Michael Bennett.” After Lee and Esse worked together on Smith’s production of Mack and Mabel at Canada’s Shaw Festival, Smith offered Esse his first solo outing as a choreographer—on Christmas Carol 1941—and a collaboration was born. Esse has now worked with Smith on Arena’s productions of The Light in the Piazza, Oklahoma!, and, most recently, The Music Man. “We always continue to learn and grow from one another,” Esse says of his collaboration with Smith. “The beauty of our business and musical theatre is we can dream the dream and come up with new ideas, bounce them off each

MICHAEL BENNET d. 1987 | PARKER ESSE since 2008 | BAAYORK LEE since 1981 | MOLLY SMITH since 1996

WE ASKED OUR MEMBERS AROUND THE COUNTRY: If you do one thing this fall, what will it be?

other as collaborators, and bring them to life. She’s always fostered my growth and encouraged me to dream up new ideas.” Arena’s Fichandler Theatre is in the round, which can be difficult for musicals, but Esse finds the challenge thrilling. “Working in the Fichandler is a dream, because there is nowhere to hide, you are always on, and you have to continually develop your choreography to share it with all sides. I think it’s as close as an audience can be to witnessing real human behavior in theatre. It’s a four dimensional production, which is exciting and challenging for me. The wonderful thing about having grown at Arena is that I danced four shows in that same space, so I understand the relationship with the audience, how to keep it moving, how to keep it living, how to grow a number. Creating that storytelling and that life is something I learned as an assistant and associate choreographer.” Esse also helps train young artists with Arena’s Musical Theatre Academy, which he developed in 2008 with Anita Maynard-Losh, Arena’s Director of Community Engagement. The program is a two-week intensive study in singing, acting, and dance that culminates in a final showcase attended by members of Arena Stage’s artistic team. “I wanted to give these young performers insight into what to expect, to help them become successful working artists that we may someday hire.” Clearly, the program is working, as June Schreiner, who played Ado Annie in Smith and Esse’s Oklahoma!, is a graduate of the program. When asked what he felt was the most important thing Arena offers to the theatre community, Esse responds, “Arena fosters American voices.” This is seen in everything from new playwrights having the opportunity to bring their work and see it through from inception to production to the thought that goes into constructing the season each year. “Arena’s musicals and productions always convey a strong message which reflects current events in our nation. Arena continues to grow and reach out to every community. They offer a wide variety of productions, and they always impress me with their choice of material. They take great risks, and continue to excel. Molly is a fearlessly gifted leader and collaborator which is why every time I receive her phone call, I’m fortunate to be heading home to Arena.”

The fall always feels like school, so I will work on making my Russian more fluent while directing at the Bolshoi in Moscow. As long as I can stay away from too much caviar and blinis, I will be able to really enjoy the many acting troupes of the city. FRANCESCA ZAMBELLO since 2004 | New York, NY

I’m fortunate to have two exciting productions this September: the world premiere of Illegal Use of Hands, by James Still, which I’ll direct for Chicago’s American Blues Theater; then later in the month, my fabulous daughter’s wedding... which I will try not to direct! SANDY SHINNER since 2005 | Chicago, IL

I will get ready for the deep cold of the Alaskan winter by directing The Flu Season, by Will Eno. STEPHAN GOLUX since 1995 | Fairbanks, AK

One thing I plan to do this fall for personal pleasure and enrichment: deepen my passion for French culture by learning French via the Pimsleur Language Method. CYNDY A. MARION since 2007 | New York, NY

I will attempt to run up and down the hills of San Francisco on my days off from restaging the Broadway production of Normal Heart for ACT. Wish me luck! LEAH C. GARDINER since 2000 | New York, NY

I will make a significant dent in the ever-growing stack of new scripts on my desk. Actually, if I only get one accomplishment, it will be to defeat the marriage amendment in Minnesota. PETER ROTHSTEIN since 2006 | Minneapolis, MN

NEXT ISSUE If you do one thing this winter, what will it be? Respond via e-mail by November 30 for a chance to have your answer published. SDCJournal@SDCweb.org

FALL 2012 | SDC JOURNAL

BACKSTAGE with SOUND DESIGNER

DARRON WEST

What made you decide to embark upon a career in sound design? I had always been involved in bands when I was a kid—marching bands, rock ‘n’ roll bands, country bands, anything that made noise. Then, as a teenager, I worked at a music store in my hometown. Every day I would take pieces of gear home and hook it up to my stereo just to see what it would do. I was kind of “that” guy. The theatre department ended up doing a show that required extensive sound design. I was the only guy in the department that knew how to do it, so the job got hoisted onto me. After it was over, I thought, “Wow, this is actually a lot more fun than working in a recording studio and listening to the snap of a snare drum for hours.” And theatre was about being around people and collaboration, which was much more interesting to me. So, I fell into it. I ended up going to Williamstown Theatre Festival during my senior year in college, and I got to play with the big boys. I was sitting around the table with people that I’d only read about in theatre textbooks. After Williamstown, I worked at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival and then I got a job at Actors Theatre of Louisville (ATL), which was sort of the big moment in my life. I couldn’t believe Jon Jory actually gave me the job! All of my closest relationships in the theatre started there—Tina Landau, Oskar Eustis, Paul Walker. I was there for two seasons when I met Anne Bogart, and that relationship was instantaneous, like it was meant to happen.

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What was it about Anne Bogart as a director that drew you to her? When I walked into Anne’s rehearsal for Eduardo Machado’s In the Eye of the Hurricane for Humana Fest ’91 and saw her using sound cinematically, staging entire scenes to music in a straight play, I knew she was the director I had always been looking for. She returned to ATL to direct Picnic in 1992, and I made sure I was at her disposal. She told Jon that she needed the sound designer in the room with her. I was excited and moved all of my gear from the studio into the rehearsal hall, working every day with Anne and the actors. Anne is a very open collaborator who makes you feel very safe taking incredible risks. She’s interested in what you bring to a piece, which is liberating for any artist. We have collaborated on about 32 shows since that first one, and I have learned more than I can express from being in the room with her over the years.

How do you approach working with other directors? How does the collaborative process begin for you and how does it develop? The very first time I sit down with a director, I want to know about their conceptual idea of the play. I very rarely talk about the sound design. What interests me is how the director is approaching the play, what their interests are. For me, it’s about finding my role for that particular production, because every show is different. Sometimes the soundscape of a play is about moving the story forward, and sometimes it’s more about historical context. Or sometimes it’s about the sound receding into the background and being very subtle and specific. But I very rarely talk about the actual design, because sound is experiential; it is a bunch of waves in the air. So it has to be in the air to have a discussion about it. How do you describe “Rhapsody in Blue,” for example, or a Mahler symphony, to someone who has never heard them? They are almost impossible to put into words. But when you hear them, you know what they are, and then you can discuss them.

What types of collaborative relationships have you found to be the most rewarding for you? I prefer an approach that recognizes that we don’t know what we have yet and allows us to create this piece together. Even in situations where the director disagrees. Really good collaboration can sometimes be violent. It can be extremely difficult for a group of artists to reach a consensus. But when an entire creative team comes to an agreement on what the end result should be, the end result is inevitably going to be a better production.

Lastly, if you had advice as a sound designer for SDC Members, what would it be? Yikes! Well, this being the SDC Journal, you really want me to put it all out there, eh? Well, I’d have to say: demand more. Demand more time living with the sound design before you get to the theatre, more conversations about the soundscape’s potential for storytelling, and more involvement with the sound designer. I think sound design can sometimes be seen as simply a last-minute problem solver to cover noisy scenery. Of course, we’ll take care of that, too. But we want to participate; we want to contribute to making the vision of the show the most vibrant and exciting that it can be. Don’t ask us for CDs to take home or send you Dropbox invites with sound for you to listen to at your hotel, away from the context of this production we are creating. Evaluate the sound design in the room with the actors and dancers. Be adventurous and challenge us. And lastly, if we’re in tech and it’s “too loud” or “too soft”—believe me, we already know. Give us a moment. We’re juggling a lot of plates at the tech table. Give us at least one pass through before you give us a note.

DARRON WEST’s Tony and Obie Awardwinning sound design for dance and theatre has been heard in over 500 productions on and off Broadway, nationally and internationally. His accolades include the 2010 Bay Area Theater Critics Circle Award, 2006 Lucille Lortel and Audelco awards, 2004 and 2005 Henry Hewes Design awards, the Princess Grace, the Village Voice Obie Award, and the Entertainment Design magazine EDDY Award. He is the former resident sound designer for Actors Theatre of Louisville, and is the sound designer and a founding company member of Anne Bogart’s SITI Company. Currently his work can be heard on Broadway in Peter and the Starcatcher, directed by Roger Rees and Alex Timbers, with movement by Steven Hoggett. LEFT PHOTO Darron West at the SITI Company sound booth ABOVE With Anne Bogart

FALL 2012 | SDC JOURNAL

BARES ‘09 PHOTO BY Rex Bonomelli

ADVOCACY

BY JERRY

MITCHELL

BROADWAY BARES A LABOR OF LOVE I came to New York in 1980 as a dancer in the Broadway production of Brigadoon, choreographed by Agnes de Mille. Little did I know, only ten years later, I would have lost over eight of my best friends from college to AIDS. I had worked with Michael Bennett on Scandal, and when Michael died, I remembered him saying, “Don’t wait for someone to ask you to choreograph. If you want to choreograph, do it!”

This year on June 12, 2012, Broadway Bares XXII: Happy Endings, a fairytale evening of modern-day burlesque, featured 227 dancers and made history for the third year in a row, breaking through the $1 million ceiling and raising a record-breaking $1,254,176 to benefit Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. More than 6,000 people packed Roseland Ballroom for two sold-out performances. Broadway Bares has now raised more than $9.8 million for BC/EFA.

And so I did. I created Broadway Bares. I created Broadway Bares to give back to the community that I so loved and for the people I had lost. With the help of hundreds of volunteers, thousands of dancers, and MAC Viva Glam Cosmetics, we have raised over $9.8 million for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. I can’t thank the people of BC/EFA enough, especially Tom Viola and, most importantly, Michael Graziano, for giving me the opportunity to create something so fantastic that has touched so many lives.

PHOTO

Tomas Vrzala

Choreographing and directing for Broadway is a thrill, but nothing is as fulfilling as creating something to give back to the community that I so love. Broadway Bares has given more to me than I could ever possibly give to it.

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PHOTO

Aaron Epstein

Peter James Zielinski JERRY MITCHELL since 1990

OUR MEMBERS IN PRINT

PING CHONG Undesirable Elements “Every society should have a mirror held to it by the outsider,” says Ping Chong, internationally renowned theatre artist and creator of Undesirable Elements, a series of community-specific theatre works that examine the lives of people born into one culture but living in another, either by choice or circumstance. In the introduction, drama critic and professor Alisa Solomon writes: “In Chong’s extraordinary series of choral documentary dramas, bodies that had once been rendered ‘undesirable elements’ become—as bodies on stage always do, through the theatre’s magical mechanisms of empathy and display—emphatically desirable. The performers—who are not professional actors—live in the community where they are performing and, most important, they are telling their own stories. Through the act of naming themselves and recounting how they came to be here—quite literally here, now, in the theatre, as well as here in this town in the United States—they claim their place in the body politic. Theatre, like America, is a space of self-making. The Undesirable Elements series offers a distilled, elegant demonstration of that exhilarating and complicated process.” Each production grows out of an extended residency, during which Chong and his collaborators conduct interviews with members of the community, creating a script that explores their historical and personal narratives. Celebrating twenty years and more than forty Undesirable Elements projects, this volume collects four pieces: New York City (the original production, 1992), Children of War (2002), Anniversary Production (2006), and Inside/Out…voices of the disability community (2008). This volume also includes a section on methodology, interviews with collaborators, and a complete production history.

“[Ping] is a curious artist. He’s curious about culture,

SDC reached out to Timothy Bond, Syracuse Stage Producing Artistic Director and longtime collaborator of Chong, to hear firsthand about the experience of collaborating with him. “He’s a curious artist,” says Bond. “He’s curious about culture, about people, and he wants to tell their stories. He is disarming in his pursuit of the truth of people’s stories, and he’s very respectful of what they have been through. And he’s fearless.”

about people, and he wants to tell their stories...And he’s fearless” - TIMOTHY BOND

Bond first assisted Chong on Elephant Memories at La Mama in the early 1990s. “In the midst of all that I saw the original Undesirable Elements installation and thought the whole idea was incredible. He’s had a huge impact on my art, my understanding of being an artistic director, of collaboration, and of the importance of socio-political consciousness in the theatre and the world.”

PHOTO

Adam Nadel

Bond and Chong continue their collaborations with Cry for Peace: Voices from the Congo, a project they prepared for by traveling to the Congo in July 2011. Cry for Peace will be presented by Syracuse Stage and Syracuse University, in association with Ping Chong + Company and the Congolese Community of Syracuse, at Syracuse Stage in September; the show will transfer to La Mama E.T.C. in NYC in October 2012.

TIMOTHY BOND since 1998 | PING CHONG since 2001

Since 1972, Chong, who works as a theatre director, playwright, choreographer, and video and installation artist, has created more than fifty works for the stage, including 25 works in his Undesirable Elements series. He is the recipient of two Obie Awards, two Bessie Awards, and a Guggenheim Fellowship, and his work has been performed at major museums, festivals, and theatres throughout the Americas. Undesirable Elements, which is published by Theatre Communications Group, is available online and in bookstores this fall. To read the full interview with Bond about working with Chong, please visit: www.sdcweb.org/ue-interview-with-timothy-bond/ FALL 2012 | SDC JOURNAL

INTERVIEW BY JADE

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KING CARROLL

Golden Partnership

On the eve of beginning rehearsals for Golden Child, their first revival after a decade of collaboration, director Leigh Silverman and playwright David Henry Hwang talk with director Jade King Carroll. Leigh and David’s successful and dynamic partnership is widely recognized and admired. They have brought David’s new works to audiences across the country. Yellow Face had its world premiere at Mark Taper Forum in 2007 and ran at the Public Theater later that year. Chinglish, which premiered in Chicago and then moved to Broadway, is currently on tour and playing an extended run at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, which will be followed by productions at South Coast Rep and the Hong Kong Arts Festival. Golden Child will open at New York’s Signature Theatre in October 2012. It premiered at the Public in 1996 (directed by James Lapine) and moved to Broadway in 1998, winning an Obie Award and earning a Tony Nomination for Best Play. LS | Golden Child is my first New York revival in eight years. I am excited and a little bit anxious about it. After being in the newplay process twice with David, it’s wild to be here, where it feels like mostly a new play for me but a rediscovery process for him. DHH | I don’t have a lot of experience with revivals. I have experience going to see shows of mine in other productions, or in other cities, but I don’t go through the production process. I just show up, and maybe see a preview, and then I see the opening. So the fact that we are going to do these revivals, I was sort of dreading—on some level I am very grateful to have the opportunity—but do I want to hear my old plays? LS | People love this play. I am trying not to be too intimidated. I told James Lapine, whom I deeply admire and consider one of my favorite directors, that I’m just going to try my best not to tarnish everyone’s memory of his fantastic production. DHH | I keep wondering, if I don’t rewrite, what am I going to do in rehearsal? I’m still not sure. But I have to say, going into the audition process has been a lot more pleasant than I thought it was going to be, and it’s caused me to go, “You know, the scenes by and large are pretty good.” I think it really helps that I’m in the process with Leigh, whom I’ve worked with a lot and with whom I feel safe, and in a funny way, it’s even made it easier to go back to an old play. LS | When you are developing a new play there are many readings and rewrites and conversations—over years sometimes—and so you are deep in it, and you have a whole different relationship to the text. For Golden Child, the first time I heard the scenes out loud were in the auditions! It was a total revelation to me. With a revival, all your dramaturgical conversations happen much more around the casting and the design process. So dramaturgical questions happen, but the “how” and “when” are completely different. JKC | How did your collaboration begin? Did you know each other before the Public introduced you? LS | David and I were set up on a blind date by Oskar [Eustis]. David had just written a first draft of Yellow Face and needed a director. DHH | Yeah. We had a blind date, and it didn’t go so great on some level, and it went really well on another level. For one thing, I wasn’t sure if she really liked the play. Second of all, I didn’t know if she understood the play—there were some ways that she was referring to it that didn’t feel correct. Then when I went home, and I thought about it, the things that she didn’t understand about the play were the things that were not yet clear about the play. I appreciated that she was smart, honest, and, I thought, let’s try and do this together.

JADE KING CARROLL since 2007 | JAMES LAPINE since 1998 | LEIGH SILVERMAN since 2001

LS | Oh, it was clear to me that I was not getting the job. So the first couple of workshops we did of the play were a little bit of a nail-biter, because I wanted to work with David very badly, and yet I also felt like there was a very good chance that I wouldn’t end up working with him, ultimately. DHH | Really? LS | Oh yeah. DHH | You felt that at the workshop? Because I thought once we decided to work together… LS | I wasn’t sure. JKC | Leigh, is that something that happens? Separate from David. As someone who works on new plays, how do you go about establishing a relationship with an author you would like to have an ongoing relationship with? LS | Well, you just do the work. You can’t bullshit. You have to be who you are, and do your best work. Sometimes your style, your ability, and your aesthetic mesh, and sometimes they don’t. I try to be direct, because if it is not going to work out, it is better to find out sooner rather than later. That may be what David is referring to when he said he wasn’t sure if I liked the play. JKC | David, can you talk to me about the process for Yellow Face. Obviously, you found she did understand your work as you started to work together. DHH | So much of the script got rewritten over the course of the development process. And that’s very vulnerable for a writer, particularly with Yellow Face, because there was a character named after me. With Leigh, I always felt that I was getting not only good dramaturgical advice, but also I felt safe, even when we were in rehearsal and production. There are always going to be challenges, but I think that we found interesting places together, and we usually had fun doing it. I think there’s a lot to be said for having fun. JKC | Leigh, what was it like directing a play where your playwright was a character? LS | You know, it’s funny, because when I first met David, I had just directed Well, which was an autobiographical play about Lisa Kron and her mother, and Lisa Kron was in the play. But it was different with Yellow Face, because, obviously, it wasn’t really David in the play. It was my task to figure out what story we were trying to tell and the best, most theatrical way to tell it. And I don’t think we knew, or at least I didn’t know for a while, and it required a very soul-searching, sometimes harrowing process. The style and tone FALL 2012 | SDC JOURNAL

were elusive and hard to pin down. Part of what I love about Yellow Face is how stylistically ambitious it is. It starts as a farce—David skewers everybody, himself included—but then it moves into bigger political territory, and, ultimately, ends as a very moving story about David and his father. There is something so honest and vulnerable in the play, and we struggled with how to best let that emerge in the midst of the more comedic elements. DHH | It was a particularly challenging production situation, too, because the script was changing so much. Leigh had to design, with David Korins, a production where the drama was really shifting under their feet, because the script was really shifting. We ended up with a radically different production between the premiere of the play in Los Angeles, at the Mark Taper, and the production at the Public in New York. The script changed so much that the production had to be completely re-conceived. And Leigh and David and everybody—they embraced it, and they did it beautifully and smoothly. LS | Eventually. Oy. JKC | How do you start talking about a new project? I’m sure it’s different every time, but how do you start to talk about the new plays? Where does your shorthand start together? DHH | It’s hard to say if there’s a rule or if this is just how it’s worked out, but certainly now, with Kung Fu, I had this idea in my head a long time before I wrote the play. So I would discuss the idea with Leigh, and she would find a way to make me write it. JKC | And how do you find a way to make him write it? LS | Mostly I’m like, “That sounds incredible! Can you write it down so I can read it?” DHH | Well, you also schedule workshops. LS | Yeah, that’s true. I like deadlines. I believe once there’s an act one, there’s more of a chance of an act two. DHH | Here’s an example from this week. I’d written the first 40 pages of Kung Fu, and Leigh wanted to do a reading of it while I’m here in Berkeley [where they were working on the Chinglish tour at the time of the interview]. And, you know, I’m a little bit nervous about hearing something read for the first time; it’s a difficult moment. She kind of just forced me to do that, and it was really great. It went well; it was very encouraging. That’s how she gets me to write.

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LS | I’m pushy. That’s what David’s trying to say. JKC | Leigh, how do you personalize the plays for yourself—or is that even necessary? LS | Obviously, it’s helpful when there’s something in the play that moves me or speaks to me. But I actually don’t feel like it’s my job to make it about me. It’s my job to ask questions and to understand it, but I don’t feel that it’s my job necessarily to make it my own. That’s one of the great joys of directing. I am making the decisions about every moment in the play and every single thing that happens, imbuing it with my ideas and sensibilities, and yet I am channeling it through the writer, so I can be somewhat happily invisible. DHH | One of the things that has worked for me about our collaboration is that Leigh’s a very generous artist in that she doesn’t need to make it about her. And that her agenda, at least as I perceive it, is to realize what it is that I wrote. In a way, that’s very self-centered of me, but a) I feel that that’s appropriate for me as a playwright, and b) I think it’s particularly appropriate for me, because there’s a trap that I can fall into where I want to please the director, and sometimes I can get fuzzy about holding on to my own vision. Leigh is very rigorous about wanting to stay with my vision, so I get very rigorous about realizing my own vision, and that particular dynamic seems to be helpful for my process.

LS | However, my process for Golden Child has been different. Because it is a revival, I’ve conceptualized this production more aggressively. I don’t need to leave the same kind of creative “room” for rewrites, and I have felt more free to make bold choices, because we know, for example, what happens in act two. JKC | David, how involved are you in the design process of a production? DHH | I like to know what’s going on, but I’m not particularly visual. I create and conceptualize things formally, but someone who is visual, I think, can do really interesting things with it. I have an intellectual sense of the play. So I really need a director with a good eye, and good designers, and I’ve known that for a long time, and it was one of the things that I told Leigh when we first met. And, fortunately, she has that eye and can physicalize what I, kind of, conceptualize intellectually. JKC | David, you’re quoted as saying that when you were younger you were a little more promiscuous with your directors, but now you’ve found your partner. Can you talk a little bit about that? DHH | Well, the term I usually use is “directorslut.” It’s not that I’d had bad experiences with directors, necessarily. It’s just that in middle age I’m feeling like I’ve kind of settled down. Though, really, I don’t think it’s strictly a

function of me getting older. I feel it has to do with finding a director that I feel compatible with and that I can trust. Once you find that, there’s no reason to move on. Also, I saw that I could throw a lot of challenges, particularly formal challenges, at Leigh. With Chinglish, for example, the notion that you’re going to direct a play with super-titles that are in a language that you don’t speak….[They laugh]. Leigh really embraces those sorts of challenges, and is able to bring them to life. I have the concepts, and that’s kind of interesting, but, really, I have no idea how to make them happen. It’s been exciting to meet someone who is excited by those kinds of challenges and can make them happen in a way that I can go, “Yeah, that’s how I wanted it to be; at some level, that’s how I would see it myself.” JKC | Leigh, does he throw challenges at you? LS | I get really, really jazzed and a little afraid working with David, yes. JKC | How have you dealt with your disagreements in the past? DHH | I feel like the director and writer have to be going for the same goal. We have to have the same vision for what the show is. As long as that’s the case, if there are disagreements about lines, or about set choices, or acting choices, in the end those are all just choices. And we obviously have a lot of respect for each other, and we try it Leigh’s way, and then we try it my way, and I think if we both agree on the end vision of the show, then it’s actually pretty easy to decide which is the better choice.

LS | It’s just about the work. It’s always hard; there is always tremendous struggle and effort, and we have to manage our anxiety, but it just has to be about the work.There’s not a high degree of ego involved. It’s about trying to decide together what choice is best. I was just thinking about the constant restaging of the first monologue of Xi’s in Chinglish. When we were in rehearsal at the Goodman, I never liked it, and we couldn’t figure out what worked best, or if it was a production problem or a writing problem. It was hard to diagnose. However, the discomfort in those moments of disagreement is crucial to the process. I really don’t want someone who’s constantly saying, “Oh, you’re really great, that’s terrific.” I want someone who will weather those uncomfortable conversations, because wanting to make it work and disagreeing on how to do it, that energy and tension, makes creativity. DHH | The bottom line is that I always say that we’re on the same team. As long as Leigh’s on my team and I’m on hers, then the disagreements are really all about how are we going to get the ball down the field together. JKC | What else is unique about your collaboration? DHH | It’s like a creative marriage. It’s like any marriage, you know, what makes this one work? Will it work forever? Nobody knows for certain. We’ve tried to parse some of the factors that make us able to work together, but there’s part of it that’s kind of intangible. I think that being able to have a long-term relationship with a director, like we have,

PICTURED

where we both trust each other, allows me to be more efficient in a way, because there’s an element of trust. We definitely aren’t going to agree on everything, but I know that we’re likely to be in the same direction, which allows me to leave certain things—I don’t need to micromanage everything, ostensibly. And I can trust her, so I can have more time to write. Having this relationship has been very helpful in terms of being able to get more done in the global sense. LS | I remember when David said to me, it was really early on in our process for Yellow Face, “You know, I haven’t written a play in ten years.” And I remember thinking, how is that possible? He is a major force of the American theatre, and sure he should write for Disney and put his children through school, but he has got to write more plays, and I want to be there for it. DHH | It’s interesting to me that I got a second wind as a playwright, and Leigh is a big part of that. I guess my question is: what is the nature of our dynamic that’s made it possible for me to have this last growth as a writer? I don’t know that there is one answer to that. A lot of the things we’ve been talking about, in terms of how our dynamic works, could add up to chemistry. Sometimes I think, “If I didn’t have this relationship, would I have ended up producing this work at this point of my life?” I don’t know, maybe not. It’s incredibly important to me to have this kind of relationship. This fall, Leigh is directing a revival of David’s play, Golden Child, at Signature Theatre, where she will also direct his new play, Kung Fu, later in the season.

David Henry Hwang + Leigh Silverman in rehearsal for Chinglish at Berkeley Repertory Theatre PHOTO Cheshire Isaacs COURTESY Berkeley Repertory Theatre

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INTERVIEW BY TED

A ndy

SOD

B lan kenbuehler IN A SPLIT SECOND

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PHOTO

Andy Blankenbuehler rehearsing Only Gold Jeremy Davis | www.jeremydavisphotonyc.com

There is no clear-cut path to becoming a choreographer for the Broadway stage. Many have started as performers and worked their way up; others have done a lot of assisting, learning on the job. Since arriving in New York in 1990, Andy Blankenbuehler has successfully worked as a dancer/singer/actor, ateacher, a choreographer, and, most recently, a director. His work ethic, skill, and versatility—and his understanding of what makes popular entertainment—are evident in all of his shows. He has completely immersed himself in hip-hop, competitive cheerleading, and the Great Depression in shows as diverse as In the Heights, Bring It On, and Annie. In this interview with SDC Member Ted Sod, he recounts his early influences, sheds light on his remarkable process, and talks about the delicate balancing of career and family life. TS | I’d like to start with your background. I read you’re from Ohio. AB | I grew up in Cincinnati. TS | Can you tell us about your trajectory to New York, how you got involved in dance? AB | I went to a little studio in Cincinnati, and my mom sat outside and sewed while I danced. I had a very mathematical mind, and I could remember the steps, and I was very good at tap dancing, but I didn’t necessarily love it. I was the only boy and it wasn’t something I could really brag about or talk about. And then I started doing musicals in high school, and I just absolutely fell in love with what I was doing. TS | I read you went to St. Xavier. AB | I went to St. Xavier High School, a college prep school, and it was there that I started doing musicals. I did three musicals my sophomore, junior, and senior years. Junior year I actually choreographed the musical, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. I always grew up with the mentality that I was going to go into an academic field. I didn’t know anybody, men especially, in the business. I just assumed I was going to be an architect. I started applying to colleges. I got into some good schools for architecture and for visual arts. By that point in time, I was dancing constantly. I idolized Mikhail Baryshnikov and Gregory Hines. We converted a room in the house into a dance studio, and I would just practice. I would practice one step over and over and over again for hours. I changed my plans and reapplied to schools with dance. I’d gotten scholarships to NYU, as well as Point Park, but I wasn’t ready to move to New York City as an 18-year-old; I was daunted by the city. But somebody at NYU told me about SMU in Dallas, and said there was a really great jazz teacher named Max Stone there. So I flew down on a Tuesday to Dallas and was enrolled on a Thursday. Earlier that summer I had done my first professional job at Kings Island, a theme

park in Cincinnati. I was over the moon. I couldn’t believe somebody was paying me—I think it was like $149 a week for five shows a day. TS | Just like Disney! AB | That was my second job, the summer after my freshman year. I had a total ball dancing in front of the castle. My time spent at Disney was great, because I got to see how many thousands of people that kind of big entertainment affects. Those bold brushstrokes were really important for me to learn, in terms of what I would do in the future as a choreographer. I like commercial entertainment that has really strong brushstrokes; but at the same time, the more subtle, artistic side is very important to me, too. At the end of that summer gig, they offered me a job at Tokyo Disneyland for the coming year. I told my professors that I wanted to pursue this, and they actually said, “So you’re going to leave school just so you can go to New York and dance in some, like, touring chorus of Oklahoma!?” And I replied, “YES! That’s exactly what I want to do. I just want to dance.” TS | Which year was that? AB | I moved here in 1990 when I was 20 years old. TS | And you immediately got work? AB | Yes and no. I started taking three classes a day. I thought that I could continue my education here, while trying to be a professional dancer. What I believe now is that you can always keep improving, but as soon as you enter the work force, only some things continue to improve. Technique doesn’t necessarily improve unless you’re studying constantly. Your work savvy improves, your performance ability, the nuances of learning the business improves, but once you get busy auditioning, learning how to be good on stage, you slow down other parts of your learning. I auditioned for everything—my audition technique got better—and then a couple of months after

SCOTT ELLIS since 1991 | KATHLEEN MARSHALL since 1994 | ROB MARSHALL since 1988 TED SOD since 2003 | SUSAN STROMAN since 1987 | TWYLA THARP since 1985

I moved here I got offered an international company of Cats, and the same week I got offered a dinner theatre production of A Chorus Line. Rob Marshall was directing and choreographing it. So I passed on my dream show, Cats, to do A Chorus Line. TS | Did you play Mike? AB | I played Mark. [Laughs.] I know. I remember so specifically what Robbie did the first day of A Chorus Line rehearsals. He met with every person in the company individually to talk about how they felt about the show. As a director, now, it’s a reminder to me that it’s all about that relationship, it’s all about an open dialogue with your cast. A Chorus Line really set me up in a lot of ways, because I continued to work with Robbie and Kathleen [Marshall], his sister, who was his assistant. Through Kathleen I met Scott Ellis. Scott Ellis is how I met Susan Stroman. TS | It sounds as if you were already thinking about becoming a choreographer. AB | Even when I was 12 years old I was choreographing my own solos at dance school. For me, the battle has always been scale. I don’t remember the exact words, but the first chapter in Twyla Tharp’s most recent book talks about how different artists create on different scales—some people make really big pictures, and other people create tiny pictures. So for me, even from a very young age, I was always about trying to figure out how big of a story I wanted to tell, and most of the time, I bit off more than I could chew. TS | It seems as if the jobs you got as a performer helped build your vocabulary as a choreographer/director. AB | I loved the score of A Chorus Line because the trumpets, the percussion spoke to me as a dancer and as a choreographer. I feel accents and I feel rhythm. After I worked with Robbie on A Chorus Line, I spent a summer with him at the Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera. And FALL 2012 | SDC JOURNAL

after that I did West Side Story at Paper Mill Playhouse, which was a dream. I freaking love that show more than anything. TS | And who was the choreographer on that West Side Story? AB | Alan Johnson, whom I’ve become good friends with. But I got hurt in that show; I hurt my knee, and at that same time, I got my first offer for a Broadway show, the revival of The Most Happy Fella, and I had to turn it down. TS | Was that The Most Happy Fella directed by Gerald Gutierrez? AB | Yes. It came in from Goodspeed. I had this dark cloud over me, thinking, “This was supposed to be my avenue; why aren’t I dancing on Broadway?” But in retrospect it was actually good for me. You know in the movie The Matrix—how when he sees the numbers he understands how it works? During that time, I started listening to Ella Fitzgerald and Sammy Davis, Jr., music where the brass arrangements and percussion arrangements are so bold and so dynamic and intense, and I would listen to that stuff over and over on the exercise machines, and all of a sudden I felt like I was floating in that music. I felt like I understood it a lot more. From that point on, there was no looking back in terms of where I wanted to go stylistically with my movement. A couple of months later, I bounced back. I did a production of 42nd Street out on the road and then I booked my first teaching job at age 22. It was really good for me to use that as an opportunity to articulate my artistic impulses. Through teaching I learned to analyze what I wanted to do artistically. When I start to choreograph something, I sit down and write a document. My brain locks into, “Yes, I agree with that,” or, “No, I don’t agree with that.” I’m not this crazy talent who can just go into a studio and wing it. I have to think about what makes a person’s body language say that they’re shy or that they’re hurting inside. I have to think about that for a long time until I can roll the shoulders to the right place. I can’t just walk in the room and make a shy person. TS | Which jobs or experiences most influenced your identity as an artist? AB | I desperately wanted to do the Jerry Zaks revival of Guys and Dolls, and I took dance classes with Chris Chadman, who scared the hell out of me. I loved his stuff, the staccato nature of it all was exhilarating to me. It was like a more fuel-injected version of that Fosseera 1950s stuff that was so isolation based, and I just instantly loved it. He was really rough in the studio; he just knew what he wanted to see, and he put blinders on to get what he wanted from the dancers. But that didn’t put me off at all. I didn’t get the Broadway revival of Guys and Dolls. I got the national tour and

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toured with it for a year and a half, and then I went into the Broadway cast. That national tour was filled with an unbelievable group of male dancers—Sergio Trujillo, Chris Gattelli, Darren Lee, Jerome Vivona—all of whom went on to have careers as choreographers. Then while in Guys and Dolls on Broadway, I herniated two discs in my back and I was out for 18 months. That was a really hard time for me, because I was getting offers for new Broadway shows, and I couldn’t accept them. TS | You continued to perform after you recovered from your injury, correct? AB | Correct. I toured with The Music of the Night, working with Kathleen Marshall, Scott Ellis, and John Deluca. I got into Steel Pier with Stroman and Scott Ellis. I did Big for Stroman and On the Town in the park with Eliot Feld; I did the workshop of Parade with Hal Prince

I started listening to Ella Fitzgerald and Sammy Davis, Jr., where the brass and percussion arrangements are so bold, so dynamic and intense, and I would listen over and over; all of a sudden I felt like I was floating in that music. I felt like I understood it. From that point on, there was no looking back in terms of where I wanted to go stylistically with my movement. and Danny Ezralow; I did the workshop of Fosse. West Side Story and Fosse are the two biggest college courses you can take. My time with Fosse was great. One of the things Chris Chadman would do that Fosse did is he would hit a move fast enough so that there was a pause before and a pause after, and if the definition of the move was telling enough in that split second of a pause, the audience would take in what was meant. The audience could perceive character or a mood through what they were seeing physically. The pause before and the pause after was what made it happen for me. So more and more, as a performer and as a choreographer, I was moving ahead of the beat. So even if I was moving on the downbeat, I would attack the front of it with such energy that there would be a pause at the end of it, so the audience could take it in. Chris did that so well. TS | In 2006, things really started picking up for you as a choreographer, correct?

AB | In 2006, my agent, John Buzzetti, set me up on an interview for In the Heights. It was with Thomas Kail, the director, and Jeffrey Seller and Kevin McCollum, the producers. During the interview, Jeffrey said, “You’re not Latino, you don’t do hip-hop, why should I even consider you for this job?” And I didn’t want to manipulate him or anything [laughs], but I said, “Jerome Robbins was not Latino, and look at West Side Story.” Because I knew he idolized Jerome Robbins as much as I idolized Jerome Robbins. I said, “I know how to tell a story. I’ll figure out the language, I’ll figure out how to say it, but I know the story.” In the end, I didn’t get the job, but I felt I had a good showing and that I’d gotten closer to Jeffrey, and to Tommy and Alex Lacamoire and Lin-Manuel Miranda and these other people I admired. They moved forward with workshops, but eventually the position opened back up. They offered me the show, and then everything changed after that. TS | Do you have to create a specific vocabulary for every show and dance? AB | What I do when I first hear the music is dance like myself. And it’s usually not right. But it helps to figure out where I want to go. Then I might think, “This has to have a basis in swing dancing,” or, “This has to have a basis in whatever it is.” So slowly the vocabulary starts to name itself. And it becomes clearer to me that this is how the character would move in this location, and this is how they would move in a social club. Those rules just exist within each particular show. And once I find those rules, then I’m in a safe place, because I know what world that particular number exists in. I’m of the mindset, especially in contemporary theatre, that you can just throw all the paint against the walls. It doesn’t matter if it’s modern dance, contemporary dance, or the Charleston. I’ll put it in the show if it’s expressing something. If the show is set in 1920, I’m not going to do hip-hop, because it’s not correct. But I might actually start by doing hip-hop steps until I say, “Oh, I love that rhythm! Now let me find some Charleston steps, but I’m going to use that rhythm.” So I kind of cross-pollinate the dances. I started doing hip-hop steps to the Annie music. They’re no longer hip-hop steps, but the rhythms from those early hip-hop steps helped me find the rhythms I wanted to use in the other forms. TS | Tell us about the genesis of Bring It On and how that came together. Who approached you to direct and choreograph, and why? AB | I was approached because there was so much movement in In the Heights, and the producers wanted Bring It On to move. I’d never seen any of the Bring It On movies, and I knew nothing about cheerleading. I had a relationship with these producers and they

said, “Would you be interested in directing and choreographing it?” I’d never been offered anything as a director. And I was like, “Sure!” I was nervous about taking on a movie as a musical—I hadn’t done 9 to 5 yet. I was a little tentative. I knew, since I had no idea what I was doing as a director, that I had to be surrounded by people whom I could trust. Jeff Whitty, Alex Lacamoire, Tom Kitt and Amanda Green, Lin, the designer David Korins—I’ve worked with all of them before, so I felt safe with them. I said to the producers, “If you’re hiring me to direct this, you’re basically going to get a full-length ballet. I know how to choreograph, so I’m going to direct my choreography. I’m going to make a big dance show.”

If the show is set in 1920, I’m not going to do hip-hop. But I might start by doing hip-hop steps until I say, “Oh, I love that rhythm! Now let me find some Charleston steps, but I’m going to use that rhythm.”

TS | What was the preparation like? Are we talking six to eight months? More? AB | Oh, we’ve been working on it for about three years now. TS | I was impressed that there was not only dance and movement that was related to character, but there were full-on acrobatics. How did you enter that world? AB | When I attended my first cheerleading competition, I’d never heard any place as loud as that arena. The volume was UNBELIEVABLE. I watched what the competitors were doing. They were on the edge of their lives. They were happier than any teenager has ever been and if they fell or if they lost, they were destroyed. But what I noticed in the physicality was that they were doing really intense stuff. I instantly knew that I wasn’t going to be able to teach Broadway performers to do this stuff. I wasn’t even going to try. I made the decision that if we’re going to go the route of competitive cheerleading, we’re going to have to devise a show where half the cast can be professional cheerleaders. TS | And they have to know how to sing! AB | Yes. In a normal show, say you have ten ensemble members, five of those ensemble members are covering the principals, so they’re exceptional at those skills, but all ten of them are all musical theatre triple-threats. But in our show, five of those ten have never done a musical before, not even a first-grade play, so those other five have a whole other set of responsibilities. It’s kind of crazy. We decided in the development process to separate every element of the show. We worked on staging with just the actors to see if we liked the book; we worked on cheerleading just with the cheerleaders to figure out how that worked. We devised these systems whereby a person who’s done five Broadway shows can step in and learn the part. And the girl who’s been flying through the air for 15 years, is flying through the air; it’s not new to her. The only exception is our two principal women who also have to go up in the air.

Andy Blankenbuehler rehearsing In the Heights with Lin-Manuel Miranda FALL 2012 | SDC JOURNAL

Blankenbuehler + Jessica Lea Patty rehearsing Only Gold PHOTO Jeremy Davis

TS | You’re about to work with James Lapine on Annie. How did that job come to be? AB | A couple of years ago I said to my representation, “Here’s a short list of directors that I want to work with, because I know I have a lot to learn, so let’s pursue those people.” And James was on the list. I also wanted to do a period piece. And so when Annie came around, we started pushing for the job, and James was very open to me. You know what I love about him? James sat down and quizzed me and was very frank. He liked some of my work, but he had real problems with other parts of my work. And he wasn’t afraid to tell me that. We had four interviews. TS | What was your initial reaction to Annie as a choreographer? And how deeply are you into the process? AB | Annie really is a classic score. You hear the music and the emotion just rides straightforward. James and I started by having design meetings. By doing homework even before I came up with the dance steps, I started to know how I wanted the orphanage to move, how I wanted the kids to move, how I thought it could help with the storytelling. It’s still going to be a classic revival of Annie, but it’s going to move in a much different way. It’s going to move more fluidly from scene

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to scene. As far as process goes, it’s just like any other show. I put on the music. And then I create playlists. I listen at the gym; I listen to it on the subway. I improvise to it. I’ll go to the dance studio and warm up, and then I’ll improvise in the correct shoes. I have to be in shoes that feel like the show, I have to feel like I’m in the world. I can’t choreograph Annie barefoot. I usually see staging first. If there’s a great orchestration moment, I see vocabulary first, and I’ll find some cool ideas, like a recurring thumping stomp, and I’ll say, “Oh, I love this stomp. Let’s make this a motif in a section!” What I do is I chart the number. I follow where Annie goes. One thing that I realized recently was that I way overchoreographed a moment and the little James Lapine on my shoulder was saying, “Why the hell are they dancing?” I realized that they didn’t really need to dance. What was needed was the absence of movement. TS | Do you work with an assistant to find the steps before rehearsals? AB | I work by myself, trying to figure out how the staging works, starting to come up with steps. I videotape everything. I’ll improvise take after take after take, and then I’ll realize, “This is all bullshit! They’re just dancing people. But I love how my shoulders were there.” So it’s like adding little layers of paint. And then I’ll make

what I call the “core step,” and then when I get far enough along, I’ll bring my assistant in. And then, when we get a little further along, I’ll go in a room with six people and I’ll start working on a more realized version of it. I’ll bring people into the room to say, “Okay, I want the step to turn like this and stomp on count four.” TS | How much time does that usually require? AB | I do 75 percent of the work by myself, and another 10 percent with my assistant, and then I do the rest with a core group. TS | Talk to me about dance arrangements. Are there going to be new arrangements for this? AB | Yes. Dance arrangement is where it’s at. What I’ve found in the past few years is that if I don’t have the musical voice, I actually get paralyzed. And it got to the point last year where I was like, “I can’t work without Alex Lacamoire.” He’s such a musical mastermind that he can take the melodic structure that the composer has written, and if I say, “Now she runs up the steps,” he can change it so it sounds like she’s running up the steps. He’s a true dance arranger in that way. The thing about Annie, though, is that it hardly ever breaks open. I’m not much into dance breaks; I want the dance to be on the lyric. You know SHELDON EPPS since 1981 | PHYLICIA RASHĀD since 2012

what I’m saying? Like in Oklahoma!: it’s scene, song, ballet. But in today’s theatre, people don’t really have the patience for that, they want more concentrated storytelling. So I like to try to develop the number on the lyric instead of adding additional time to bring the dance out. That also comes as a result of the fact that most shows economically don’t have a dance ensemble anymore; everybody does everything. If you think about it, In the Heights only had three male dancers and three female dancers; those were the three same people who were singing in all the big numbers.

TS | They say that’s what Obama does. AB | It’s really important. I have this breakdown with my wife Elly every couple of months because I think maybe I’m taking on too much work or because I missed my kid’s first bike ride. People say to me all the time, “Is this business what you thought it would be?” And I say all the time, “I am very lucky, I have a really

It doesn’t get easier. In fact, it gets remarkably harder...The valleys can

TS | How do you juggle your family obligations and your career?

get really, really low, and I think

AB | You know, it’s intense. My family gets home today. They’ve been gone for almost a month. My mother-in-law lives in Italy and so we usually go to Italy for the month of July.

themselves for. The highs are higher

TS | Which part?

no desire to be in the middle.

AB | In a little beach town called Fano on the Adriatic. My son is almost six, and my daughter is three. I couldn’t go with them this year because of Bring It On’s schedule. Years ago I decided, “I’m going to have everything. I’m going to have it all.” I’ll admit, there are times when I think, “I’m an idiot! You can’t have it all.” Or at least you can’t have it all all of the time. But I know I’m going to keep trying to have it all. I do go home and have dinner with my family.

that’s what people need to prepare than you can imagine, but the lows can get brutally low. And I have

amazing life. I’ve gotten to know a lot of great people, family, friends, and all of those things are so important. The thrill of my work is only surpassed by my home life.” TS | Do you have advice for young people who want to do the kind of work you are doing? AB | Your discipline and your energy have to match your passion. And it’s really about

versatility. I dance, sing. I act. I tap. I can do hip-hop now. And you have to be able to do all those things, because if you put all your eggs in one tiny little basket, then you’re going to have very few opportunities. And I’m about a career; I’m not about a job. I’m about how can this translate into something that can sustain me and my family. If the dreams aren’t big, then you’re never going to sustain anything. I mean, the dreams have to be really, really big, and you have to be willing to go there, because it’s a lot of work. TS | And it doesn’t get easier. AB | It doesn’t get easier. In fact, it gets remarkably harder, which was surprising to me. I have friends who have nine-to-five jobs or whatever. I get so resentful of them and the time that they get to spend with their families on the weekends. I get envious that they leave work on Friday—they’re not trying to figure out eight counts or why the audience doesn’t laugh at a particular bit. They leave work behind. But the peaks and valleys that I have—I mean, the peaks! Most people don’t get the peaks that I get to have. The valleys can get really, really low, and I think that’s what people need to prepare themselves for. The highs are higher than you can imagine, but the lows can get brutally low. And I have no desire to be in the middle. And so sometimes I’m going to crash, sometimes I’m going to fly, but that’s the way it has to be. That’s what makes really stunning art.

SDC Members are eligible to join TDF and enjoy theatre, dance, and music performances in NYC at deeply discounted prices. For more information, go to: www.tdf.org/application FALL 2012 | SDC JOURNAL

STAGE MAGICIANS The team behind ONCE and BLACK WATCH discuss 25 years of friendship and a decade of collaboration. Steven Hoggett and John Tiffany met 25 years ago, when they were 15, at the Huddersfield Choral Society Youth Choir in West Yorkshire, England. They became inseparable. Part of what drew them together was their love of music, video, and pop culture—sharing a visceral, visual aesthetic that continues to inform their work today. Both Steven and John were active in amateur dramatic societies; at school, a teacher named Liz Haywood opened the door to a deeper appreciation of theatre-making. But neither of them envisioned a career in theatre. The two lads from West Yorkshire didn’t think that anybody had that kind of life. It wasn’t until they were at university—Steven at Swansea, in Wales; John at Glasgow—that things began to change. OPPOSITE TOP TO BOTTOM The

Straits COURTESY Paines Plough | I Speak Therefore I Am, devised work of American Repertory Theater’s Institute class COURTESY A.R.T. | Tiny Dynamite COURTESY Paines Plough

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JOHN TIFFANY since 2011

Assembly, making theatre pieces with a unique, highly physical style. Then, in 2001, two things happened: Featherstone invited John to become associate director of Paines Plough, and the company joined forces with Frantic Assembly to create a new piece called Tiny Dynamite. Although John and Steven were not yet working together as artistic collaborators, that piece would prove to be a turning point.

You both started to do work as serious theatre artists when you were at university—Steven as a performer, and John as a champion of new writing. What made you start to do the work that you were doing? SH | My work started from meeting a very political, hard-edged, physical theatre company in Swansea called Volcano. They were brutal onstage and off—incredibly brilliant, intellectual people with very hard political ideas that they transferred onto stage. I hadn’t known that theatre could be that contemporary. I didn’t think it was anything other than Shakespeare and red curtains, and Volcano was black studio floors and metal, and them being furious onstage with a very loud soundtrack. So it was the absolute antithesis of my understanding of theatre, and it was mindblowingly exciting. They really encouraged us to form a company as students, and that became Frantic Assembly. JT | There were two crucial moments for me. Glasgow was the European city of culture, and put a huge amount of work into bringing things in from all over the world, like Peter Brook’s The Mahabharata. A friend who was in theatre studies had a spare ticket to see something from Quebec, and I said, “Fine, whatever.” It was Robert Lepage’s Tectonic Plates, and there was a moment—we were in a library, then the light suddenly changed and the books became the Manhattan skyline—and I thought, I want to do that! I wanted to aim to do to people what he’d just done to me. And the second thing was meeting Vicky Featherstone, who was running a street theatre festival in West Yorkshire at the time.

JT | A real transforming moment in your work—not just as an actor, but as an artist—was Tiny Dynamite. SH | It was the show where we first worked with Vicky Featherstone, and actually it was the first show where we brought in a director. There was a huge learning curve; it was the first show where we started every scene knowing exactly what each line meant. We’d never had the resources to make work with that level of detail.

When we started making work together there was a sense of being really excited by it...that there was new territory to chart between us. Neither of us knew exactly what we were doing...we were still on very steep learning curves. It didn’t feel like we were relying on the friendship to get through the process—there was just too much to get done. And that made for a really exciting room. - Hoggett

Now the highly esteemed artistic director of the National Theatre of Scotland, Vicky Featherstone is a long-term collaborator with both John and Steven. In 1997, she became artistic director of Paines Plough, an acclaimed new-writing touring theatre company based in London. That year was John’s first as literary director of the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh, developing and directing new plays; Steven was acting and directing with his company, Frantic PETER BROOK since 1959 | JULIAN CROUCH since 2009

JT | And it was stunning. It was a stunning piece of theatre, a kind of Jules & Jim love triangle written by Abi Morgan—who has now written The Iron Lady and Shame, basically everything— and designed by Julian Crouch. It was a perfect piece of theatre, I think, and it was at that point I thought, “Oh, our worlds are getting closer.” It was after that production that we decided to do The Straits [a play by Gregory Burke, produced by Paines Plough in 2003].

SH | We weren’t going to force the issue of working together until it felt right. I guess there was such inevitability about it that we weren’t rushed. When we came to start making work together there was a sense of being really excited by it, and we were able to feel that there was new territory to chart between us. Neither of us did the show where we knew exactly what we were doing. Rather than me knowing everything about movement and John knowing everything about directing, we were still on very steep learning curves at the time. It didn’t feel like we were relying on the friendship to get through FALL 2012 | SDC JOURNAL

the process—there was just too much to get done. And that made for a really exciting room. JT | We’d also exorcised a lot of the pretentious demons that young artists have for the first few years. We’d exorcised them, and we’d seen them in each other’s work, and gone, “Whoa! Wow. Wow-tow!” [Laughs] You think what you’re doing is the most important thing in the world—and you have to—when you’re doing a piece in the Edinburgh Festival at 1:15 in the afternoon and you’ve got three people in the audience. You have to believe that this is the most important piece of theatre that’s ever been created; it’s only 25 years later that you go, “That was the biggest pile of shit that was ever created.” SH | You think you’re so innovative and so brand new and then you realize, no, using flour to suggest desolation is not new at all, and, in fact, every year some dumb-ass student company comes and does that. We were very good about seeing each other’s work and we were very supportive for all those minidisasters. So that helps: when you’ve exposed those public mistakes and you’re still talking to each other about the possibilities of art, then you’re onto something quite good.

and pieces of work. And ultimately, I think that’s what will keep us interested. Going from Black Watch to Once is completely clear in our minds, but looking at the actual work onstage, there’s a polarity to them. But I don’t think it’s extraordinary for us to think that way. Once you’ve made work to the level that you are—maybe not satisfied—but once you’ve put everything into that corner, then you don’t hang around there. What’s interesting, for the both of us, is the way the industry responds. After Black Watch, we were offered so many plays about war and the military that it kind of became a joke. And it’s the same with Once. Gentle, romantic stories with, you know, musicians walking around onstage will be what we get thrown the next couple of years. JT | Oh, you know what I got offered this week? No joke, this is how the meeting went: I sat down, and they’re like, we want to tell you about this project. “Right, John, you’re gonna flip for this.” And I was like, “Oh, how exciting, good!” “It’s an Irish actor/musician show about a romance. But they stay together.”

I think we’re very promiscuous people with our tastes. We’re very loyal to certain artists but we allow ourselves the right to fall in and out of love with art forms and pieces of work. And ultimately, I think that’s what will keep us interested. Going from BLACK WATCH to ONCE is completely clear in our minds, but looking at the actual work onstage, there’s a polarity to them. - Hoggett

Set in the early 1980s, The Straits looked at the rivalries between teenage gangs at the time of the Falklands War, placing their own struggles against the backdrop of the larger conflict. BBC News called it “well-written, well-choreographed, challenging…a fantastic piece of theatre. It is definitely worth going out of your way to see.” A collaboration was born.

I want to ask you about how you approach the beginning of things. When you start a project, especially now, ten years into a collaboration that has brought you awards and international recognition, how do you approach the way you are going to tell the story? JT | It has changed. It’s not really about us as artists going, “This is what we want to say about the world.” What excites us is to say, “Do we think we can do something with this story that will make it urgent and exciting and exhilarating for the audience?” It’s about finding stories that we can do in our way that we think will do something for an audience, or make them look at a story in a different way. SH | A lot of the time it’s about not quite knowing the answers. We haven’t been around long enough to have done four or five Shakespeares; we’ve been involved in new writing, the pair of us, so by its definition there’s something going to happen on stage that’s quite complex or tricky or theatrical to a degree. Also, I think we’re very promiscuous people with our tastes. We’re very loyal to certain artists but we allow ourselves the right to fall in and out of love with art forms

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Blackwatch Cast from 2010 Tour PHOTO Manuel Harlan

SH | Oh, my god. It’s called Twice! JT | Twice! People think you’re going to flip for that! SH | You did flip. Out of the room. JT | We start rehearsals on Monday. [Laughter] In 2006, John and Steven reunited with playwright Gregory Burke for the National Theatre of Scotland’s world-premiere production of Black Watch, a passionate, intensely physical drama based on the famous Scottish army regiment that was first formed in 1739. Drawn from interviews with former soldiers who served in Iraq, Black Watch enjoyed an international tour, playing to more than 200,000 people on three continents and winning 22 awards including, most recently, four Laurence Olivier Awards, including Best Director, Best Theatre Choreographer, and Best New Play.

There’s a really indelible, extraordinary moment in BLACK WATCH very early in the play. A group of young men are in a pub, and suddenly soldiers in combat fatigues are pushing through the pool table, and we are transported from Fife to Iraq. How did you come to that? SH | I remember this day. We tried everyone just marching in, and John said, “It’s not visceral. It’s not visceral to me.” And we were talking about the nature of them being human. Not just that scene, but throughout the entire process—what is it that makes them human? It’s the blood and guts of these people. We referred to Three Kings quite a lot at this time; there’s a brilliant bit in the movie about what a bullet does as it attempts to tear through flesh, and that had been a big part of what we were talking about that morning or the night before. And it was John who just went, “He’s coming through the pool table. He comes through the pool table.” Everything that we’ve just been talking about that we couldn’t quite nail—the visceral nature of it, skin, blood tearing through—all the answers just came through in that one split second. JT | It also came from all that time we spent interviewing those lads, the real soldiers, and just knowing that the dead were always with them. Whether they were in a rehearsal room with us or in a pub in Fife—they had to be in there already, somehow. SH | There is a sense of them being born, because they all come out with their limbs a certain way. We got nervous about that. “Can we do this? Can we present a show where we birth a soldier out of a pool table?” [Laughs] It was lovely to feel like that somehow landed. And at all times with theatre there’s always a degree of, “Did we get away with it?” We live by that.

What do you look for in performers and actors? What do you need from them? SH | Play. Absolute play. JT | Courage. Fearlessness is a big thing. Idiosyncrasy. We like working with performers that have a kind of individual unique quality. And a real desire and ability to communicate something bigger than a moment, something bigger than just a line. Not in a Brechtian sense, necessarily, but an awareness that this is live, this is theatre. And not to disappear—you have to disappear into a moment in terms of finding truth— but not to disappear into naturalism.

Courage. Fearlessness is a big thing. Idiosyncrasy. We like working with performers that have a kind of individual unique quality. And a real desire and ability to communicate something bigger than a moment, something bigger than just a line. Not in a Brechtian sense, necessarily, but an awareness that

this is

live, this is theatre. - Tiffany It seems like there are demarcations in your work: directing, staging, choreography, movement, and a kind of gestural language. And I’m curious if you do see those as demarcations, and how much the actors you work with are involved in working these things out. JT | There are obvious kinds of areas of responsibility, just in terms of time management as much as anything—bringing on a creative team, getting on a casting schedule, leading a design process, all those things. We would do those things together, but we just don’t have time; we’re not in the same city for more than three seconds. So in terms of leading the process, I’ve tended to do those things, but only because of practicality. In terms of choreography, that’s absolutely Steven’s world, but then everything else is up for grabs, wouldn’t you say? SH | Yes, but even then I feel like the shaping of the choreography isn’t something that I’m responsible for solely. And in lots of ways that’s really exciting. I’ll be allowed to make a first pass at something that we’ll have talked about. But I don’t feel like I’m creating things in isolation. I’m being asked to create something that’s part of a bigger picture, and that’s much more interesting. In terms of the actors we use, we never ask them to come up with an idea for a scene or

sequence. It’ll always be something that the pair of us has talked through. But we will give them the responsibility of creating the literal physical material based on a task. We’re not going to let them flounder; we don’t want them to improvise for hours on end—it’s just not our world, so we take full responsibility for generating the ideas that will then go into the tasks. But we’ve always promised every company that we’ve ever worked with: this show is going to be made on your bodies, by your bodies, and if it was another company, the show wouldn’t look the same physically at all, because it’s about what you do. We’re very loyal to that idea, between the two of us. Once has been a great case in point: those people and those bodies made that piece of work. Adapted by Irish playwright Enda Walsh from the 2006 film of the same name, Once—winner of eight 2012 Tony Awards, including Best Musical and Best Direction of a Musical— follows the affecting relationship between an Irish street musician who has given up, and the Czech immigrant who inspires him to reclaim his music and open his heart. The actors, who double as the band, deliver emotionally resonant performances while navigating between musical performances, boisterous choreography, and a quiet gestural vocabulary.

One of the things that blew me away about ONCE was the stillness of it—there is so much movement and dance, and then these exquisite moments of virtually complete stillness. JT | When we were first approached about Once, you were very clear: “I can’t work on Once! It’s about a band. What on earth...” And I thought that was exactly why we should work on it. And you said there were certain numbers [from the film] that we couldn’t touch. That we just need to place. SH | The fact that we’ve worked together as much as we have made it so much easier for us to sit there and say, “Okay, that needs to sit still; that can’t have anything around it; that can have a little bit of something; that’s too much now; we need to pare that back.” In the first workshop we created some original material based on the idea that, between scenes, there would be a musical/ physical motif where you would see people meet, fall in love, and fall apart. It seemed like the key to creating a physical language, but just after the workshop we both knew it wasn’t going to work, and that we had to go into the making of the show knowing that we weren’t going to use our key element. On reflection, that was the point of liberation for the pair of us. We were able to be pure about the production in a way that we hadn’t allowed ourselves to be before, because we had been thinking of having to generate material and ideas and create that arc. Enda’s script was so straightforward, and without FALL 2012 | SDC JOURNAL

Steve Kazee + Cristin Milioti in Once PHOTO Joan Marcus

all the whistles and bells....And then when Martin [Lowe] created the orchestrations and they started singing those songs in front of us—if we needed any affirmation of what we were doing, we thought, “Well, that song is absolutely untouchable. It doesn’t need any embellishment.”

All of your work is so much about the way the audience is able to respond to the physical presence of the actors. How important are space and design to you both? SH | You got a sense of this at New York Theatre Workshop, but on Broadway the Once set [designed by Bob Crowley] is like a big pair of brown arms that wraps around you. It’s like a hug; it’s a set that just hugs you as soon as you look at it. To a degree, Black Watch was absolutely about the empty space and those boys, their bodies—their physical bodies were the things we were obsessed with. If it stops being a human story, we’ve had it. JT | What I think it is, as well, is that when you first start out directing you think, “Well, the designer will read the script and go away and design the set.” But what you realize is that that’s not fair on them, and it’s not fair on you, really. Then you go through a period

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where you say, “Oh, my God! Designers just take your ideas, and it’s really the director who designs the set!” And then you realize that both of those things are ridiculous and it’s an absolute collaboration. Your job is to come up with the ideas for the physical space, because you’re going to be the person to execute—or we’re going to be the people to execute—within that space. It takes you a while to realize that, and you go through a couple of years wondering, “What do designers do?” [Laughter] And then you end up working with people like Laura Hopkins or Bob Crowley or Miriam Büther or Christine Jones and you go, actually, what designers do is come in and say, “Tell me what physical space you need, and I’ll create it for you.” SH | We’ve had conversations over the last few months about shows that we’re going to do over the next few years, and the starts of those conversations have been about the space, and about your ideas for the space. So without even knowing it, it’s probably where we start, in lots of ways. If John has that conversation with me, I can then start to run with something. So it probably is quite key to how we develop ideas, or is in the moment, anyway.

Is there anything you can say about your upcoming projects? JT | There are about three projects that we’re working on after that, but we can’t really say what they are yet. The only one that’s announced is The Glass Menagerie, where Steven is working on the opening and ending sequences with me. And probably you’ll infect everything else. [The Glass Menagerie is scheduled to run February 2 - March 13, 2013, at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, MA, with Cherry Jones as Amanda Wingfield.] I think if it weren’t for Steven, I wouldn’t have the courage to do this play. Tennessee Williams and his whole Plastic Theatre philosophy are very inspiring to us—this idea that things are there, but they’re not. Tom comes on and says, “I’m the opposite of a stage magician,” and then he does a magic trick, where he literally creates these two characters out of thin air. It’s a gift for us to work on it.

TITLE PAGE Steven Hoggett + John Tiffany in rehearsal for The Bacchae for the National Theatre of Scotland + Edinburgh International Festival in 2007. PHOTO Manuel Harlan BOB CROWLEY since 2006

DANCE KEPT ME ALIVE INTERVIEW BY LISI

DEHAAS

JOANNE AKALAITIS since 1985 | LIBBY APPEL since 1990 DOUG HUGHES since 1986 | MARK LAMOS since 1986 MARCELA LORCA since 2001 | LISA PETERSON since 1992 DOMINIQUE SERRAND since 2000 | BARTLETT SHER since 1996 GARLAND WRIGHT d. 1998

“I believe stories we present on stage can provoke and allow us to foster empathy for different points of view. I think this is crucial. If we don’t do this now, we’re never going to survive.” Choreographer, director, and movement director at the Guthrie for 21 years, Marcela Lorca has been forging her own path since she left her native Chile as a young woman in the mid 1980s. At the Guthrie, she has worked on over a hundred productions with some of the greatest directors in the country, including Garland Wright, Mark Lamos, Dominique Serrand, Lisa Peterson, Timothy Bond, Libby Appel, Doug Hughes, Bartlett Sher, and JoAnne Akalaitis. Through years of working on the Guthrie’s massive thrust stage, she developed “Lorca Movement,” an integrated physical, acting, and voice technique that she teaches at the University of Minnesota/Guthrie Theater B.F.A. Actor Training Program, of which she is the founding Head of Movement. She created the technique and the curriculum out of a need to help actors perform confidently and effectively in the intimidating Guthrie space. Given the nature of the Guthrie stage, any play, whether it be classic or contemporary, demands heightened physicality and requires an empowered performer. Lorca is passionate about helping her students find this inner strength. “I believe in expression that is passionate, immediate, and generous. I believe in work that is rich in range and detail. I seek strength of depth and inspiration in performance, and believe in communicating clearly to an audience in order to evoke questions, provoke conversation, or strongly celebrate the human condition.” FALL 2012 | SDC JOURNAL

At the age of three, Lorca started practicing ballet in her mother’s ballet school in Chile. Her father worked for the World Health Organization in Guatemala, so she spent her high-school years there, “surrounded by the mythical presence of the gorgeous Mayan culture... [and] the complicated politics of the region.” She returned to Chile in the early 1980s for university, studying theatre design and joining Grupo del Centro, a modern dance theatre company. These were the years of Pinochet’s repressive military regime that “didn’t want anybody to dream or have direction.” One could not have ideas or talk politically. “They were very dark times...My dance kept me alive.” “People barely spoke to each other...There were no political discussions allowed, no critical thought. Rules were there to be strictly followed and silence reigned. Real conversations only happened in the deep intimacy of people’s homes, late at night...You often heard of people disappearing.”

and the deep pain injustice can cause.” When Grupo del Centro disbanded, she fled to New York. In New York, Lorca found the dance world highly specialized. There was the Cunningham technique, the Graham technique, the Hawkins technique, the Horton technique. While she respected the individual voices of these great choreographers, her time in Chile had fostered broader artistic interests and led her away from specialization. “I had trained in a lot of things. I came from an isolated country at the end of the world, so we grabbed whatever we could. It made me more of a generalist. Only at the Guthrie did it all come together—my interest in design, literature, and movement. It was a shoe that fit perfectly and allowed me to grow as a choreographer. It allowed me to apply a lot of what I’d learned in Chile to the work of the theatre.”

Lorca believes that there is “a large element of fate involved” in how she ended up at the Guthrie. In Despite these repressive and dangerous conditions, I talk about purposeful travel. the early nineties she had been touring with a small every evening Lorca went to dance rehearsal in a If what you’re doing with your international dance theatre company called Ralf studio apartment downtown, one block away from feet is connected to your acting Ralf, directed by Jonathan Stone. She was teaching a movement class in Minneapolis when, one day, a government building. Because Grupo del Centro’s work was movement based, they passed the strict intention, then everything is Bart Sher, resident director at the Guthrie, walked censorship rules and were not considered political. connected. You’re giving the through the door. He was scouting a movement coach at the behest of Garland Wright, the artistic The work was “physical, musical, theatrical, spiritual... audience a visual cue of what director at the time. Wright wanted someone to very passionate, reflective of the strong desire provide ongoing training to his resident company of to speak up and be seen. We were thirsty to feel you’re thinking and feeling... about twenty or thirty actors that had been working alive.” They performed in theatres and public spaces, together for several years. He envisioned a resident and although they were not making overt political company that would develop together and perform in repertory. Lorca statements, Lorca explains, “You learn in those circumstances that there’s immediately impressed Sher. They invited her to teach a three-week a deep communication in the power of gesture, energy, and motion. Its workshop. Twenty-one years later, she’s still there. full-bodied impact is sensual, emotional, and penetrating, and arrives like water to a dry, silenced, fearful, and isolated people.” Lorca describes Wright as her first mentor in America. Artistic director of the Guthrie from 1986-1995, Wright was celebrated for his visual and It was at this challenging time that Lorca witnessed a performance of imaginative productions. “I learned so much under his incredible wing... Pina Bausch’s renowned Café Muller in Chile, the homeland of Bausch’s Garland was a visionary. He had great instincts about the use of space, husband. She felt “struck by some powerful force. It spoke so directly music, and an unparalleled skill of creating dramatic and breathtaking about our reality at that time.” The next day Pina invited Lorca’s company images on stage. He was very specific about crafting the mood and to an open rehearsal, where they were running through their Rite of Spring. movements in intricate detail. He would basically sculpt the actor.” While “Words cannot describe the experience. Her dancers knew that the work not every actor appreciated being Wright’s clay, Lorca says that the “wise had a deeply personal cost, and therefore the rewards were huge—for ones” knew their work was better because of it. This heightened level both them and the audience. I felt more alive than I had felt in years.” Pina of specificity in movement is vital to Lorca. “The body is our instrument also invited Grupo del Centro to share their work. Lorca remembers Pina and must be developed in order to reach its expressive potential. It has as “present, curious, and very generous. Her humanity and depth were as the potential to engage others viscerally and emotionally, as well as evident in her work as in her person.” Pina’s work led Lorca to others, such intellectually.” as Graciela Figueroa in Brazil, and later in New York, the work of Maurice Béjart, Balanchine, Alvin Ailey, and more contemporary choreographers In addition to working with Wright, Lorca has worked with a long list of whose work Lorca still admires, such as Paul Taylor, Mark Morris, and what she calls “the best directors in America.” She speaks of them with Bill T. Jones. reverence as master teachers and claims that her work, as a choreographer and director, has been greatly influenced by every director with whom she’s These difficult years in Chile’s history were formative for Lorca. “If you ever worked: Dominique Serrand “loves imagination, poetic movement, were a passionate artist like me you had to find a little corner that kept you awake,” Lorca explains. “I learned a lot about surviving, about the and thrives on images that are physical, provocative, and sometimes nonpower of the arts to keep the human spirit awake and thriving, about the linear;” Mark Lamos “is masterful in his staging;” Joe Dowling “has such thirst for freedom and joy, about the wrongs of the abuse of power— attention to the detail of the text and the intentions of the writer;” Bart

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ALVIN AILEY d. 1989 | JOE DOWLING since 1990 | BILL T. JONES since 2006

Sher has a powerful “sense of adventure.” Lorca recalls a very bold production of The Rover, directed by JoAnne Akalaitis, for which she was the movement coach. The day of the last preview Akalaitis decided to restage a major transition. Lorca was uneasy. “Very few directors will dare to change things at the last minute. It’s very dangerous. But I knew she was right. We quickly orchestrated an effective change and it worked! It taught me not to be afraid of change, but to create an ensemble that is skilled and able, and to trust them to be flexible and adaptable.”

TITLE PAGE Elizabeth Grullon + Marcela Lorca in rehearsal of The Secret Fall of Constance Wilde by Thomas Kilroy for Guthrie Theater in 2008 PHOTO Tom Sweeny OPPOSITE Gregorio

Fassler + Lorca dancing in Obstinato as part of Grupo del Centro, c. 1983 PHOTO Ricardo Correa

THIS PAGE Gregorio Fassler, Lorca + Grupo del Centro company, c. 1983 PHOTO Ricardo Correa

of view and from a heart level, a head level, so you can convey something very specific. That’s the power of the theatre; it can transform an individual, not just entertain. It can profoundly inspire an individual and allow them to create change in their world. I’m always trying to provoke something in the audience.”

Lorca’s many creative collaborations with these great directors have honed her own vision as a director. After Joe Dowling took over as artistic director at the Guthrie in 1995, he invited Lorca to direct her first production there in 2001: a new translation of Federico Garcia Lorca’s Each summer Lorca is a master teacher and director in the Guthrie Blood Wedding, by Lillian Garret-Groag. After this came opportunities Experience program, a workshop for twelve graduate to direct/choreograph Thomas Kilroy’s The Secret Fall of Constance Wilde, Tony Kushner’s Caroline, ...On the flip side, if your traveling acting students established in 1997 by Kenneth Washington, Director of Company Development at or Change (which was later successfully restaged at Syracuse Stage), and Seamus Heaney’s The Burial at is all scattered, but you’re trying the Guthrie. She describes the last ten productions Thebes. “The fact that Joe has allowed me directing to portray something pointed, she’s directed for the program as some of the most opportunities has been crucial for me at the Guthrie. then the audience is getting a difficult things she’s done. Over five weeks the group devises, rehearses, and performs an original You get to the point where, if you’re going to continue to evolve, you need to be at the helm of the double message. It’s a simple production, usually focused on current events and production. I feel like I’ve been naturally, organically, thing, and occasionally they’re social issues of the moment: the Iraq war, Hurricane Katrina, the Gulf oil spill. Being an instigator delights and sometimes forcibly going in that direction.” She just instinctively connected, but Lorca. “In a democracy we are given the opportunity claims that sitting in on so many different directors’ processes taught her the importance of being bold sometimes it takes repetition to to wrestle with these issues, why not take it? When I work with young people, I encourage them to not and taking risks. “My room has a lot of risk. Playful master. only think of themselves as actors in the business, risk.” but as creative artists that have a voice and can carve their own work.” Of the process, she says, “It’s incredibly difficult to start with nothing and Directing at the Guthrie led to additional opportunities to direct around the have to arrive at a performance in five weeks.” She begins by asking the country and internationally: Blood Wedding at Kansas City Rep, Found and students questions to generate material. “I start with: where are we at? House of Spirits at Mixed Blood Theater, Caroline, or Change at Syracuse What do we need to say as artists and citizens? It’s work that really excites Stage, as well as numerous classics at the University of Minnesota. She me because of its civic aspect. It clearly states where young people are has also choreographed at Oregon Shakespeare Festival (The Winter’s today, and that’s a voice we rarely hear in the news and in public. I think Tale), the Shakespeare Theater in Washington, DC (The Persians), the Long it’s important that we hear these young artistic voices on political, social, Wharf Theatre (She Stoops to Conquer), the Goodman Theater (Light in the and intimate issues.” Piazza), and Theater for a New Audience at BAM (Pericles). “Going to work in other places is very healthy. You meet different approaches, cultures, When questioned about the politics behind her work as a director, communities, styles.” Perhaps because of her background, Lorca has a choreographer, and teacher, she says, “I think sometimes we’re afraid of unique perspective on her relationship with different communities. “I love this word: politics. But I think we have to be engaged citizens. I grew up in to really research the community I’m speaking to, and how the play I’m a culture where you couldn’t speak. It’s like living with a lid on your head. directing is going to land in that particular community. Every time I direct Once it’s off, it takes a while to trust it, but then it’s hard to forget...In terms a play I feel very privileged to know who I’m speaking to and why. When of leading people, I want to teach them to question for themselves, ask directing in a different place, I visit every public space. I get to know the them what do they want in the world? The world is theirs. They have the audience.” ability to create the world as they want it to be.” At her home theatre in Minneapolis, this relationship is also vital. “I spend a lot of time sitting with the audience and wondering what This fall Lorca is movement director for two Christopher Hampton plays at they’re thinking, feeling, and then go back to the actors to make small the Guthrie: Tales From Hollywood, directed by Ethan McSweeny, followed adjustments.” Given the size of the 1,100 seat Guthrie thrust, actors must by Appomattox, directed by David Esbjornson. In October she begins use all their tools effectively and move with a strong sense of purpose. rehearsals for Sarah Ruhl’s The Clean House, which she will be directing Lorca believes this specificity of movement is necessary, not only because at Juilliard. of the epic space, but also in order to communicate something more than mere entertainment. “I really believe in moving people from a gut point DAVID ESBJORNSON since 1987 | LILLIAN GARRET-GROAG since 1990 | TONY KUSHNER since 2002 | ETHAN MCSWEENY since 1998

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TRANSITIONS

Upon opening the program at a performance of An Iliad, one might be surprised to see Lisa Peterson credited as one of the writers. Wait a minute, isn’t Lisa Peterson a director? Yes, she most certainly is; but now, with the success of An Iliad, a commission from the Court Theatre, and a new musical project underway, her role in the theatre is expanding.

CUMMINGS

Lisa has been a director for over 25 years, most often with a focus on new plays. Although “writer” seems to be a relatively new role for her, early in her career she worked on adaptations, including a musical version of The Waves, by Virginia Woolf. She adapted this piece with her friend and composer, David Bucknam, while an intern at the Hangar Theatre. James Nicola, Artistic Director of New York Theatre Workshop, saw their production and asked Lisa to bring it to his theatre. She considers that production her break in New York City and has since maintained a strong relationship with NYTW. Nevertheless, Lisa does not consider herself the writer of that piece. “It was all cut and paste.” She and David worked on a few other projects together, including a version of Dracula and one of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde. She admits to doing this kind of work much more freely when she was younger, but then she stopped. “David fell ill and actually died young. For many years I felt I had lost my collaborator, so I stepped away from the adapting role. I kept directing, both new plays and classics, and building my career, but had not done anything close to writing until recently.”

SHAPING THE STORY

BY KRISTY

Lisa Peterson

In 2003, Lisa felt the impulse again to create something from scratch, to do something different than respond to an existing play, which was her customary role as a director. Given the state of the country and the world, she wanted her piece to deal with war, which brought her to Homer’s The Iliad. She also recalled that a friend of hers taught The Iliad as a piece of theatre. “I had learned The Iliad as an epic poem in a literature class, not as a play, but this theory provoked me. I was also interested in the idea that Homer was not just one person but a whole tradition of storytelling. I thought, ‘What if one of the Homers still existed in the universe and was telling the story of the Trojan War the old way?’”

IN HER DUAL ROLE AS DIRECTOR + CO-WRITER, LISA DISCOVERED A NEWFOUND FREEDOM.

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As a director who frequently works closely with playwrights and thrives within that dynamic, it is interesting that Lisa chose an actor as her co-creator for this piece. “I have a great reverence for the act of writing, but something in me thought I would like to work directly with the storyteller, the person who would perform this, to see what would happen if we were the writers.” Lisa looked to her friend, actor Denis O’Hare. “I knew he was political and opinionated and that he was a natural storyteller. I had a gut feeling that if he was interested in the idea we would have compelling conversations as we developed the piece. I called him up and said, ‘Let’s have a cup of coffee.’” They began their creative process very casually, meeting from time to time to talk about being a country at war, discuss the content of The Iliad, and read different translations of the work aloud. They often met where they could, and were welcomed by NYTW once again. “NYTW was great about letting us use empty space to work. Sometimes it was the kitchen and sometimes it was Jim’s office, because he had left early that day.” One day Denis brought a video camera along and they began recording one another in conversation. Often, Lisa would take on the role of the interviewer and Denis, the interviewee. These improvisations were eventually transcribed and used in the piece. “I started to see how we could take the story of The Iliad and adapt it in the

I HAVE ALWAYS THOUGHT OF MYSELF AS A VERY TEXTORIENTED DIRECTOR. I LOVE LANGUAGE AND ARTICULATION, SO I’M ALWAYS ASKING ACTORS TO OBSERVE EVERY DETAIL OF PUNCTUATION, EXAMINE WHY A CERTAIN WORD CHOICE WAS MADE. I AM EXTREMELY TEXT BASED. BUT IN THIS CASE, I STARTED TO LOVE THE FREEDOM IF SOMETHING WASN’T WORKING TO SAY, ‘WHAT IF YOU SAY THIS?’

An Iliad had its first production at Seattle Repertory Theatre, went on to be produced at McCarter Theatre, and eventually premiered at New York Theatre Workshop. In her dual role as director and co-writer, Lisa discovered a newfound freedom, as she now had the right to change the words on the page while in the rehearsal room. “I have always thought of myself as a very text-oriented director. I love language and articulation, so I’m always asking actors to observe every detail of punctuation, examine why a certain word choice was made. I am extremely text based. But in this case, I started to love the freedom if something wasn’t working to say, ‘What if you say this?’ Even with Shakespeare you are allowed to cut at will, but you always feel like you are in dialogue with Shakespeare, with the expectations of an audience familiar with Shakespeare. And with a living playwright, it can be a very delicate interaction. While it is a director’s job to have opinions about how the story can be told, ultimately it’s the playwright’s vision.” With her co-writer Denis playing the role of the Poet, the only character in An Iliad, Lisa was often sitting alone in the theatre, a new situation for her as a director. “I have friends who are writers who have chosen to direct their own plays from time to time, and I can see why that situation is not always ideal. It is incredibly helpful to have someone else to bounce ideas off of, someone with whom you can dialogue. As a director of new plays, that’s the pattern I am used to; I am used to being in partnership. I guess that is why I can enjoy being the writer when I have a partner.” Once An Iliad started being produced around the country, and Lisa was not always attached as the director, she started seeing her work in someone else’s hands. “It’s been extremely fascinating to see how other directors envision the piece. Charlie Newell did this great production at the Court Theatre, with a wonderful actor

With An Iliad being licensed, published, and prepared to go on tour, Lisa is settling into her new role and already has two other projects in the works. One is what she refers to as “The Bible Project” which she is thrilled to be co-creating once again with Denis O’Hare. According to Lisa, it will not be a literal adaptation of the Bible, but based on it in some way. They will start writing this new piece in a workshop at the Court Theatre in Chicago this fall. At the time of publication, Lisa and Denis were in the early stages of development, inventing characters, working on possible storylines, and figuring out their methodology for creating this piece. Lisa felt they would develop a new way, that the system they used for An Iliad, with recorded conversations, would not work this time around. When asked whether she would now call Denis and herself writers, Lisa said, “I still have trouble calling myself a writer. I think we see ourselves as this funny team of a performer and a director who really like to think about things together and do end up writing together. Sometimes I think Denis and I have formed a theatre company of two.” She is also working on a new musical project based on the work of Wallace Stevens with composer Todd Almond. Reflecting on working in new ways, and perhaps because she has been living with Homer and An Iliad for quite some time, Lisa views her new role in terms of ancient theatre practice. “If you think about theatre in the ancient form, a line did not exist between the director, the writer, and the actor. Someone had an idea and you told a story.” Perhaps “storyteller” is the most fitting title for Lisa as she increasingly finds herself putting her pen to paper. Currently Lisa’s production of Pullman Porter Blues by Cheryl L. West, produced in association with Arena Stage, is showing at Seattle Repertory Theatre. She goes into rehearsals for another production of An Iliad this fall at Berkeley Repertory Theatre. PHOTOS

CHARLES NEWELL since 1990

Lisa Peterson + Denis O’Hare FALL 2012 | SDC JOURNAL

Rose Eichenbaum

Slowly, Lisa and Denis transformed into a writing team, particularly during their time at the Sundance Theatre Lab. They spent the mornings writing individually and came together in the afternoons to share their work. Of their progression to actual scene writing, Lisa notes, “It happened very organically, but always with a certain amount of trepidation. We weren’t really writers! When we started, the piece was probably 80% Fagles’ translation, a little bit of us. The end result was one third Fagles’ translation, one third transcriptions of our improvised riffs, and one third actual scene writing, which we did at our computers, like writers.”

named Timothy Edward Kane. They set it in a kind of abandoned swimming pool, and created some surprisingly theatrical stage pictures. At the heart, it was very much the same as what I’d been doing, but the details were completely different. As a director I found that especially intriguing.” Now Lisa and Denis are in the process of having An Iliad published, another new experience for this director. “As we head toward publishing the script, it’s interesting to think about where we’d like to leave things unexplained, so they are open to interpretation, and where we feel it’s important to determine the way something works by how it looks on the page. These are things that writers have to think about all the time, but it’s completely new to me, and gives me further insight into the writer’s process.”

PHOTO

way I was accustomed to from years ago. I took the content we wanted from the Robert Fagles translation and gave it a new structure. Then we inserted our improvised riffs and started creating our character of the Poet.”

SDC FOUNDATION

CRITICAL ISSUES

What experience makes a director? And how can we—as artists, as institutions, as a field—provide nourishment to those directors who are already established beyond the level of “emerging artist”? How does an artist stay fresh and alive when they are so often categorized and compartmentalized based on their past work? And in the field of directing, in which the task requires relentless focus on the work of every other artist—writers, performers, designers—how can we shift some focus to directors? Beginning in 2010, SDC Foundation began to devise new programs specifically to address the particular realities of mid-career directors in this country. From renewal to preparedness for artistic leadership to technical skills in electronic capture, SDCF—with SDC—continues to discuss the needs of established directors in addition to emerging artists. SDCF investigates how to best support directors throughout their creative lives, to strengthen their influence and creativity, and, in so doing, to enrich the field. In 2011, we learned that Jim Nicola, Artistic Director of New York Theatre Workshop, was thinking through many of these same questions, and we invited him to speak with emerging directors at the Foundation’s annual symposium. That same year, after having received the Alan Schneider Director Award from Theater Communications Group in 2010, Member Anne Kaufman came to SDC to explore how we might create opportunities for renewal for freelance directors. In this issue of SDC Journal, SDCF revisits Jim and Anne, asking them to share their current thoughts on issues critical to directors. They both inspire us to widen and deepen the conversation about the opportunities for directors as well as the obstacles that prevent the further advancement of these central artists and their craft.

ANNE KAUFFMAN I think stamina and the fight to become a director is really important. I went to graduate school and I am happy that I did, but mostly because I was exposed to ideas and literature and politics outside of what was, back then, my very narrow focus and my very limited interests. If we’re to be relevant as theater makers, we have to be engaged in the world and graduate school needs to open up that world.

There are many professional training programs of great stature in the U.S. Many have emerged in the past decades and many of our leading talents have passed through these programs, and yet the path to creating and developing a director is very complicated, time consuming, and resource demanding. What does it take to make a director?

I do think the model of an “associate artistic director” is a way of training on the job. It is one of the very few designated paths for an aspiring director. The position of an associate provides the crucial action of being thrown into the deep end while offering young directors a stable home. On the flip side, institutions come with aesthetics, and so young directors who become associates usually have to pay attention to the specific aesthetic of that theatre. I am not sure one can truly experiment and find one’s own voice in the setting of associate artistic director. I’m a big fan of young directors creating their own companies. They are created and disbanded at the speed of light and most probably should be, but they’re useful because they demand that young directors articulate what they care about and how they want to express what they care about. To build a company requires the scrappiness I espouse, the will to forge a path that defines who one is as an artist.

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JAMES NICOLA

The primary resource needed is time. You must begin by becoming masterful at writing, acting, and design. The real art of directing is in the way those things are fit together by one aesthetic mind. It is the way a medical doctor has to learn chemistry, biology, and anatomy. It all has to be put into the brain and become rote, second nature. Once you have full faculty over it, you can begin to focus on what it is to direct a play. You understand what it is to act in one, write one, design one, and maybe even produce one. Next you have to have opportunities to utilize the resources of time, money, and space to make productions. You must receive response to your work and candid assessments of where you are along the way. You need to have time with masterful directors to observe their work in an old-fashioned, journeyman kind of way. A certain degree of constancy. It takes a long time and a lot of input from a lot of people to make a really good director.

I experienced this during my time at Arena Stage as a young director. It was a wonderful environment in which to learn and grow, making my own work, participating in the making of other directors’ work, observing, and discussing with other directors at work. There was an overarching aesthetic with Doug Wager and Zelda Fichandler. Zelda and Doug put forward a kind of guidepost, a center point from which I could wander away or into which I could collide; I could reject it or accept it. It was a key part of my growth.

ANNE KAUFFMAN since 2005 | ZELDA FICHANDLER since 1987 | DOUGLAS WAGER since 1984

ANNE KAUFFMAN

JAMES NICOLA

Our culture lacks

This reflects the lack of value of the role of the People often don’t think of directors as artists director and the art and craft of directing in unless someone is an auteur director. They fluency in talking about or think of us as facilitators or craftspeople, so evaluating directing. Critics our culture. It is not deemed worthy of being considered. The role of a director is not seen there isn’t always that much interest in what we as being in need of discussion and evaluation. do. When you go see a show, it’s easy to point don’t know how to write It goes back to the very notion of the art form to what the writer, designers, and actors have about what a director does. as practiced and understood in our culture, done. It’s identifiable. But it’s more difficult to which is primarily that it is a literary form as identify how the director has brought all of the We don’t know how to talk opposed to a performative form. The pride elements together, and it is such a subjective about it ourselves. of place goes to the literary representative in process. How I bring things together is going Why is that? the process of making a performance. I think to be altogether different from how another we all participate in this. I hear directors talk director pulls them together. You can’t touch about how their job is to serve a playwright. I don’t see how a directing, or see it. It’s an extremely individual process. As a creative artist—and I certainly include directors in that category— culture, we’re pretty literal-minded. The scope of what we do as can be in the position of being both subservient and creative. directors is not easily articulated, which does not mean that we as You can’t tell your creative imagination to serve someone else’s a community shouldn’t attempt articulation. agenda. I don’t understand this construct. Wouldn’t an artist, like a playwright, want a partner who doesn’t feel boxed in or I believe that if people had a clearer understanding of what a submissive? Doesn’t everyone want an artist who is playing the director does, that criticism would be different. The funding world same full-throated game? The director has to have a place and might also change. In response to those two channels shifting, respect in order for the culture to develop any fluency around the art form itself could potentially grow and change. It’s all about what he or she does. transparency, right? I really love having non-theatre people attend my rehearsals, because they get to see what it is that a director does. They get to see how something is actually made, which in turn empowers them as audience members and impacts the way they watch and engage. I think there is a kind of secrecy in the theatre; we’re so protective of our precious process. Why? It isn’t necessarily to our advantage. I think a little transparency allows for the ability to demonstrate what it is that we do, as well as a much richer experience on an audience’s part.

You must begin by becoming masterful at writing, acting, and design. The real art of directing is in the way those things are fit together by one aesthetic mind. It is the way a medical doctor has to learn chemistry, biology, and anatomy.

-NICOLA

What about renewal and

The idea that someone must maintain and We are a company country, or we used to tend and nurture a creative imagination over be. There’s this myth that you reach a certain lifelong learning? There a long period of time is foreign to us. I believe level within a company where you know what seems to be no place, the lack of renewal and ongoing development you’re doing, and you maintain that level or literally or figuratively, for is endemic in the American theatre, not just position in that company until you retire. That for directors. It is partly to do with the overall structure doesn’t actually exist anymore, but ongoing development or impoverishment of how we practice here. we still adhere to it; we still pretend it exists, artistic renewal. There simply isn’t enough financial support for or our expectations and desires are driven artists. There is not enough room for everyone to try a new idea by it. And I think the financial necessity of having to take on or a new way of doing something. Directors keep being asked a certain number of projects a year forces directors into this to direct the same play, set in a living room, with five to seven company-like mentality even though it was never their reality to actors, one set, nice language, good ideas, interesting characters, begin with. Once directors get to a certain level, there’s a sense, but that is it. I am not picking on that particular kind of play but it I think, whether it’s conscious or not, that we need to keep doing is the accepted format. Certainly if there was some kind of center the same thing in order to maintain whatever traction we’ve or entity that could be created—that was about the director and gained. We, as artists, become predictable and therefore the work the art and craft of directing—that would be a big part of the becomes predictable. task. I have had the great fortune to be around people like Joe Papp and Zelda Fichandler, but those opportunities for the next There are places and monies and residencies for almost all types generation aren’t as plentiful as they used to be. And even if they of artists except for directors (perhaps the all-too-common were, we have a lot to overcome because of America’s obsession perspective that directors aren’t artists contributes to this with youth, the young, and the new. dearth). We need to invest in supporting directors’ continued development, and we, as directors, need to take responsibility for our own renewal. We have to shake ourselves out of the company mentality. I think there should be a place where mid-career and established directors can go to experiment, to get paid to exercise and expand their chops, because I do know that if it is satisfying creatively, it is rejuvenating as well.

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REGIONAL REPORTS | QUARTERLY SNAPSHOTS FROM AROUND THE COUNTRY In each issue of SDC Journal, the Regional Representatives of the Executive Board share opinions and profiles, news and events from their perspectives or that of Members they represent. Nominated to serve by a committee of peers living and working in their respective region, they have been elected to the Board by the full Membership to serve the whole, but with particular attention paid to the issues and needs of Members working in the regions. We hope these reports, over time, tell the tale of the national scene— highlighting successes while bringing forward lesser known artists and activities that contribute to the great breadth and depth of work across the country.

NORTHEAST

SOUTHEAST

NE | Members = 316 Associates = 99

SE | Members = 163 Associates = 78

(Does not include NYC)

BOB MOSS, SDC’s Northeast Regional Rep, joined the Board in 2011. For this issue, Melia Bensussen, director, professor, and chair of the Performing Arts Department at Emerson College, discusses the ways teaching benefits one’s own craft.

what matters most BY MELIA

BENSUSSEN

Boston is primarily known for its colleges, for its universities. It’s a beacon of intellectual pursuit, the city on the hill of various visionaries, a place of thinking and scholarly research. And for many years, or at least in my youth, which seems a very long time ago, it was not considered a theatre town. Boston wanted to be Chicago. It even wanted to be Philadelphia. For me the archetypal resident of Boston might be Atul Gawande, the doctor, writer, and frequent contributor to the New Yorker, who combines a professionally accomplished life with avid intellectual pursuits. Last year he wrote about the importance of lifelong coaching: no matter where you are in your career, you can gain from having someone beside you watching and commenting on how you can improve. There is no doubt that a career as a director means engaging in lifelong learning—each production has its own challenges, reading lists, and required skill set. But the assumption is that after a certain professional point, we are self-taught. I moved to Boston 12 years ago, thinking I’d be here for a couple of years and then move back to NYC. I’d always assumed I wouldn’t live anywhere besides NYC. I also always assumed that I wouldn’t teach theatre—I would be too busy doing it as my life’s work. These assumptions, I think, reflect how we all thought about a career in the theatre in the late 80s/early 90s, when I know I was thinking more about a career, and less about a life. But looking around my current professional directing scene, I think something special about this region is the shift towards Gawande’s perspective. It has struck me over the last few years how many theatre directors in this town teach, including myself. In fact, I can only think of a couple of SDC directors who work principally in Boston and don’t make the majority of their income as teachers of directing. And the principal producing organizations in this area are college affiliated: ART with Harvard, Huntington with BU, ArtsEmerson with Emerson College. This doesn’t mean we are all teaching all the time, or that the theaters have an educational mission as their primary goal, but it does lead to a culture of mentorship and a more fluid hierarchy of learning. I’m sure I’m not alone amongst mid-career directors (are we ever NOT mid-career?) looking over the internship or residency opportunities offered by SDC. Could I go observe a master director? Could I travel as part of a new residency or international grant? By and large I find the younger generation of directors to forward those opportunities to, but of late I’ve come to realize it is not only due to logistics (I live with two teenage children, and though escape may be desirable, it is not currently practical), but also because I have found another way to continue to learn in this profession. It’s not new to say we learn by teaching, but I haven’t until recently thought about it also in career terms: that we can grow as artists and rebuild or transform our careers by teaching a next generation. By mentoring and articulating our values to our students, perhaps we learn to refocus ourselves on the work that matters most to us.

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SHARON OTT, SDC’s Southeast Regional Rep, has been a Board Member since 2002 and has represented the SE since 2010. Living and working in Savannah, GA, she has worked ceaselessly to promote the needs of directors and choreographers working in the Southeast. For this issue, Sharon reached out to directors in Florida to hear about the specifics of working in that part of the Southeast Region.

working in florida BY SHARON

OTT

When I was appointed the SDC representative for the Southeast, one of the first things I did was get a list of all the SDC Members and Associates who lived in my region. One of my big surprises was how many SDC Members lived in Florida—60 on the current list—making Florida the most “populated” of the states in the Southeastern region (with the DC metropolitan area coming in second with 49 Members). So, as we begin to reach out to our national Membership through the magazine, I thought it would be a good idea to see how artistic lives are proceeding in the land of the “hanging chad.” SDC Members and Florida residents, Kate Alexander, Robert Cacioppo, Greg Leaming, and J Barry Lewis, answered some of my questions about living and working in the great state of Florida. Florida has the largest number of SDC Members of any state in the Southeastern region. What’s it like to make a living as a director in Florida? CACIOPPO | I think it is a thrill and blessing to make a living anywhere as a director! However, living in Florida, for me, over the last 25 years (first on Sanibel and Captiva Islands, then in Ft. Myers) has been great. My wife (AEA actress Carrie Lund) and I have been able to own a home, raise a family, and have a truly wonderful life. The (relatively) inexpensive real estate market and no state taxes are an obvious draw.

LEWIS | I came to Florida nearly 20 years ago, when I served as the associate artistic director of a small, emerging company in West Palm Beach—Theatre Club of the Palm Beaches, later to change its name to Pope Theatre Company and even later to Florida Stage. I had previously been in New York freelancing but was looking for a creative home. The mission of Florida Stage was to produce new work by emerging as well as established playwrights. I found this to be an exciting and challenging opportunity. The greater south Florida area has emerged as a theatre community similar to Washington, DC and Chicago. There are theatre artists in all these areas who have chosen to live in the community and make a career in theatre. Actors make up the largest group, directors the smallest. Most theatre companies have their key artists whom they continue to work with over the years. It is possible to freelance and work at one of those theatres, but not on a regular, sustaining basis. Most directors, you will find, are connected to specific organizations. What’s the general environment like now in the state for theatre? What city or cities have really “hot” theatre scenes? LEAMING | Florida has a vibrant arts community, with the Tampa Bay region in particular having a large number of theatres. The larger theatres seem to be located in the Orlando/Tampa Bay/Ft. Myers triangle, but even within that region, most theatres are not members of LORT. There are quite a few young companies in the Tampa/St. Petersburg area. The number of theatres makes for a very active arts community, but the situation does have two drawbacks: audiences in the area rarely seem to understand the difference between professional companies and community theatres or non-pro companies; and, because of the size of these theatres, it’s extremely difficult to keep body and soul together as a freelance artist in this area. Most professional directors I know of in the area are either on the staff of local organizations or do most of their work on the road. LEWIS | The southeast coast of Florida—from Jupiter to Miami—is a core of work, from the Maltz Jupiter Theatre Company to several professional companies in the greater Miami area, including the Actors’ Playhouse of Coral Gables. The 75-mile stretch houses a series of companies with a wide range of audience impact. However, we are, much like the rest of the country, experiencing an evolution in the status quo of the business. In the last decade, we have lost a major orchestra, an internationally renowned ballet company, and a critically acclaimed modern dance troupe, as well as a modern art museum. In the past year, we have lost two major theatres: Florida Stage closed their doors last May after 27

years, and, more recently, the Caldwell Theatre Company ceased operations after 30 years. Both companies were a primary source of employment for many artists.

What about the communities in which you work? Do they conform to the stereotype of the state having so many retired people? And do directors retire to Florida?

CACIOPPO | We are flourishing here at Florida Rep, with 10 out of 12 years in the black, a 22% increase in audiences, a second space being renovated as we speak, and, in 2011, the Wall Street Journal called us “one of America’s top repertory theatres!” South of us, in Naples, Gulfshore Playhouse and TheatreZone, and freeFall in St. Pete, are new theatres that are doing well. North of us, Asolo Rep, American Stage, Florida Studio Theatre, Orlando Shakespeare, and the Hippodrome all seem to be thriving. So, I’d say the west coast of the state is doing well, all things considered.

ALEXANDER | Sarasota has a thriving theatre community made up of residents, retirees, and snowbirds who travel here from cities rich with theatre: Chicago, New York, London, etc. They expect a high caliber of theatrical performance. But one thing that is very surprising to artists and audiences alike is the deep sense of “community” we have here. I recently directed the play, Talley’s Folly, by Lanford Wilson, at Florida Studio. The actors had a great first preview with most of the audience standing up at the curtain call. When it was time for the second preview, I told the actors, “The second preview is much tougher. They will be tougher to make laugh or cry, and it will be harder to feel them as well. They are more reserved as a whole.” The actors (cast from New York) were stopped dead in their tracks by that statement. Dominic, the actor playing Matt, said, “You know what the audience is like?” It was a new thought to him. Yes, we do. We know our audiences. We see and feel them. This is one of the wonderful experiences of working in the regions, working in a city over time. The audience becomes your community. This does not mean they will automatically like everything you do. In fact, in our experience, they are more vocal and more demanding, more outspoken, much as you would be with a family member. For me, working in one community, bringing the best artists in the country here to work, has been a rich, rewarding experience. It was why I gravitated to the theatre in the first place, to make a difference!

What about the theme parks? How do they affect the work? LEAMING | The younger acting talent in Florida find the most consistent work with the theme parks. I can’t think of the last time I auditioned for a local production where actors brought in didn’t have substantial theme-park credits on their resumes. The difficulty here, of course, is that theme-park work tends to require a very broad, flat performance style, and any length of time working there seems to result in the gradual erosion of subtler performance techniques. ALEXANDER | I do think there is work “crossing over” to not only theme parks, but the cruise industry and other fields as well. I still think artists are quiet about working in these industries. Although the jobs can be lucrative, and the entertainment industry hires really good talent, there is still a prejudice on the legitimacy of it all, which can be unfounded. Crossover can also be found in innovative ways. I have a training program that I developed for the Ringling College of Animation called the “Art of the Gesture.” Disney and Pixar and other producing companies found that young animators needed theatre training to enhance their understanding of emotion and gesture. The student animators do not want to be actors, but need to know how to access a breadth of emotion and psychological truth—if they are animating a squirrel, a tea cup, or even a book! We use teams of actors in the training. This has been an exciting crossover.

LEAMING | Seems to me we face the same situations here that are faced in any other part of the country. But I do notice that, whereas in New England we used to complain about the age of our audiences, I’ve discovered that their parents make up the audiences down here!

CACIOPPO | Rarely at Florida Rep do we use theme-park performers, but I know the theatres in Orlando like Orlando Shakespeare, Orlando Rep, and Mad Cow regularly use them. Jim Helsinger (AD at Orlando Shakespeare) often adjusts his rehearsal schedule to accommodate the actors while they continue their gigs in the theme parks. FALL 2012 | SDC JOURNAL

NORTHWEST

And retiring as a director to Florida? CACIOPPO | I believe the Asolo has benefited from the great Frank Galati and his partner, Peter Amster, retiring to Sarasota. Then again, I don’t know how “retired” Frank and Peter are; they seem awfully busy and in demand! LEWIS | A retired director? I am not certain what that is!! No such animal. If we are fortunate, we will direct until we drop! As you know, the great George Abbott lived in South Florida for years and continued to direct past 100. We should all be that fortunate!

The highly skilled craft of fight choreography and the critical role these artists play in theatrical production is particularly interesting to Northwest Regional Rep LINDA HARTZELL. Seattle writer Tom Keogh interviewed fight choreographer Geoffrey Alm for this issue of SDC Journal.

fight choreography in seattle INTERVIEW BY TOM

Seattle is serious about fight choreography.

CENTRAL

AMY MORTON, SDC’s Central Regional Rep, was elected in 2004 to the Board and became the Central Region Rep in 2007. Since that time she has worked with the staff and Board to heighten SDC’s presence in the Midwest. Working within her region is Ron Himes, Founder and Producing Director of the St. Louis Black Repertory Company. In this issue’s report, Ron discusses the process of developing new work at his theatre in the Central Region.

familiar worlds BY RON

HIMES

It was more than six years ago that Steve Broadnax and Michael Bordner began work on SMASH/HIT!, their play about African-American men pursuing the American Dream—and being pursued by American nightmares. Steve had been working as an actor with the Black Rep for several years before, and when he shared SMASH/HIT! with me, I recognized the potential the script had for our theatre company. One of my goals working with new plays is to give the playwright the space to write and rewrite, without the pressures of anticipated commercial success. We were able to bring Steve in for a three-day workshop to work with actors and Aristides (DJ Super) Nova to develop the important music for the show, as well as collaborating on language and character, in preparation for a staged public reading of the play. The evening included an audience talkback, which further enhanced the playwright’s understanding of the story and the impact of his script. Soon after, I decided to include SMASH/HIT! in The Black Rep’s 36th season, with a March 2013 world premiere, which I will direct. The playwrights and I will be in regular communication as we move towards production, and they will continue rewrites up to and probably through the production process. Our goal: to arrive at a final script that will tell the story as clearly as possible in order to take the audience into the world of these characters—a world the audience may not want to look at, but one that they’re all too familiar with. Working on any new script is an exciting, challenging venture and hard, hard work. When it’s a new script with the power and immediacy of SMASH/HIT!, the work becomes a joy.

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KEOGH

SDC Member, fight choreographer, and Seattle native Geof Alm can attest that fight choreography is a well respected craft in the Seattle area. Having worked at Seattle Children’s Theatre, Seattle Repertory Theatre, 5th Avenue Theatre, Intiman Theatre, A Contemporary Theatre, Seattle Shakespeare Company, and Seattle Opera, Alm is grateful that these organizations take fight choreography seriously and hire professionals to stage the violence in their productions. Alm considers himself lucky, as often the challenges and complexities of staging a fight are underestimated. A common misconception is that fight choreography is simply a punch here and a stab there. In some instances a professional is not hired to do this work, but the actors and directors are left to figure it out on their own. Even when a fight choreographer is hired, time is a factor, as it is sometimes thought that he or she can quickly insert fights into a scene. Alm remembers a past job where the time given was extremely limited: “I was called in to sort out a 40-person fight in the opera War and Peace. They didn’t have a fight choreographer, and people were getting hurt right and left. When I got there, the director said I could have 90 minutes to fix it!” Alm does believe that conditions are improving as he encounters experiences like the one above less and less frequently. Now on fight-heavy shows, he is involved from the first meeting and takes part in rehearsals as soon as the actors leave the table. Alm explains his multi-layered creative process: “I like to work in a very collaborative way. I don’t just impose fight choreography. I meet with the director and discuss his or her ideas about how the violence fits into the overall concept of the show. This meeting is crucial. Some

directors have very strong ideas about what they see, and others completely hand it over. I then gauge the skill level of the actors and discuss their characters’ motivations with them. I also share what I have observed about the piece. Finally, we create something that fits their experience and reflects what they are trying to convey overall.” Fight choreographers are incredibly passionate about the work that they do, prioritizing, of course, the actors’ safety while performing their fights. They continuously work to educate others about the importance of involving a fight choreographer when stage violence is needed. SDC is currently working with the Society of American Fight Directors (SAFD), an organization of which Alm is a member, to raise the profile of fight choreography. SAFD is an internationally recognized non-profit organization dedicated to promoting safety and fostering excellence in the art of stage combat. (For more information you can visit their website www.safd.org.) Having the support of a performing arts community like Seattle is crucial in this process. It is clear that Seattle recognizes and understands the various layers and intricacies of fight choreography. By hiring professionals like Alm to stage their fights, these organizations do the performers, directors, and audiences alike a just service.

SOUTHWEST

Arizona | California | Hawaii | Nevada New Mexico SW | Members = 342 Associates = 78

RICK LOMBARDO, SDC’s Southwest Regional Rep, joined the Board just last year in 2011. Rick is a 20-year Member of SDC and is Artistic Director at San Jose Repertory Theatre. In his tenure as Regional Rep he has already traveled up and down the California Coast and welcomes the chance to get to know the full Membership in the Southwest. For this issue of SDC Journal, Rick reached out to some of his colleagues for their thoughts on the craft of directing new work.

an individual approach BY RICK

LOMBARDO

In recent years, a significant amount of important new work was developed in the Bay Area. I spoke via email with three artistic director colleagues, Robert Kelley, Carey Perloff, and Tony Taccone, asking them to share some quick thoughts about their individual approaches to the directing of new work. When looking for new work to direct, what are the qualities in a text that excite you? TACCONE | Language, imagination, courage, intelligence, heart. PERLOFF | I look for theatrical juice, for a script that really asks to be staged, not read, for compelling, contradictory, surprising characters, and for rich ideas. KELLEY | I like a play that, no matter how specific, intimate, epic, political, intense, or funny, is actually reaching for the big picture of life.

TACCONE | Hang out. Have a meal. Have them read the play out loud if they’re up for it. How do you use the workshop process in developing new work? KELLEY | Reading isn’t enough. I need to see it to understand it. And so does the author. TACCONE | Identify what the play needs and focus the workshop on that while staying open to surprises. Keep the workshop atmosphere relaxed and fun. PERLOFF | A workshop seems most valuable when the writer knows what questions he or she really wants to wrestle with. It’s great to go into the process with a sense of what you’re trying to discover or to learn about the script. How do rehearsals for a new play differ for you from staging an established work? PERLOFF | No matter what, the rehearsal impulse always stems from the script, but when it’s a new play, everyone has to stay flexible and fluid for much, much longer, because that “favorite” moment or important hook may disappear tomorrow. A really hard thing about new plays is sorting out the tone, since it’s unknown territory, and mapping out transitions that are never obvious in a reading but can kill a play in production. KELLEY | One is like conducting a symphony; the other like herding cats—but secretly. In one, the comfortable needs to become new; in the other, the new needs to become comfortable. TACCONE | Ulcers, headaches, intestinal issues.

When you’re directing a new work by a writer you haven’t collaborated with before, how do you develop trust and intimacy with her? PERLOFF | I try to read everything else they’ve written, to get a sense of their preoccupations and obsessions, and then to keep the room as light and open as possible, so everyone feels free to ask questions, but the writer isn’t on the spot to “deliver” immediately. KELLEY | Coffee, laughter, honesty, coffee, a fierce belief in the play, and a confident sense of history. All great writers have a sense of history.

8 Do you have an idea for a Regional Report? Want to share provocative, groundbreaking theatre happening in your area? Know an artist you believe deserves to be featured? Let us know. E-mail RegionalReports@SDCweb.org. Include your full name, city + state. ROBERT KELLEY since 2004 | RICK LOMBARDO since 1989 | CAREY PERLOFF since 1995 | TONY TACCONE since 1987

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FROM THE ARCHIVES

RICHARD FOREMAN

Dancing with the Contradictions On April 9, 1997, STEVEN DRUKMAN interviewed RICHARD FOREMAN of Arts Connection. The event was co-sponsored by the Drama League Directors Project and the SDC Foundation. CURATED BY RICHARD

HAMBURGER

SD | To talk about your directing we have to talk about your playwriting, because so often it’s said that the subject of your staging is the writing process itself. RF | When I was a young person, I got into theatre because I was very shy and it was a way for me, as an actor, to live a life in which I could relate to other human beings. Then, because I also painted, I became a scenic designer. When I got to Brown, friends of mine were writing plays and I would read them. I said to myself at one point, I can do this as well as they can. So I started writing plays, and that gave me total control. When I went to Yale as a playwright, I copied Arthur Miller one year, Brecht the next, Giraudoux another, you name it. When I first came to New York, I remember sitting in my apartment thinking, “No, wait a minute, this is silly. If I went to the theatre tonight, what would I really like to see happening on stage?” The answer was something, a kind of tension between two people, a kind of moment that then made me think, “Oh, this is the way that I will write my plays.” In those early days, I would start a play, but it would take me about six months of false starts. I’d write a couple of pages, it wouldn’t work, I’d throw it out. Finally, after six months the play would write itself. Then I started realizing that the false starts were interesting. Why couldn’t I stage all the false starts? Because they’re really coming from the same psychological place in me. So I started doing the complete contents of these notebooks in which I would start play after play. I’d go from page 20 to page 50, and that would be the play, with no changes.

Cast members in the Ontological-Hysteric Theater production of Richard Foreman’s Permanent Brain Damage COURTESY The Journal, Spring/Summer 1998

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In directing those plays, I felt that my task was to x-ray the text—to add absolutely nothing to the text, to just do it as a kind of geometrically controlled series of conversations where people, my non-actor actors, would move very woodenly and do a variety of things. Then at one point, purely by accident, Kate Manheim, who is my wife and was my leading actress for many years, came into one of my plays as the last-minute replacement for somebody who quit. RICHARD FOREMAN since 1976 | RICHARD HAMBURGER since 1987

I wasn’t really a minimalist. I really was a closet Romantic, and wanted a kind of rich, complex texture...I started adding a lot of props and elaborating upon the text in rehearsals, trying to interfere with the text...If somebody was supposed to cross the room, I’d make it difficult for him by tying a chair to his ankle, and somehow that would make you notice to a heightened degree what was really happening on the stage.

Over the next ten years, she did two things. She developed a technique of her own that was very unique, that the other non-actors could not match. And she kept saying, “Oh, Richard, all this boring, dry, academic stuff I want to do more jazzy things. Come on, write some scenes where I do this.” And I’d say, “Okay, okay, don’t bug me; I’ll give you some scenes like that.” That certainly pulled the plays—both the writing of them and the directing of them—into a more theatricalist mode, as opposed to the kind of minimalist mode that they were in at the beginning. Kate forced me to show onstage what I always basically knew—that I wasn’t really a minimalist. I really was a closet Romantic, and wanted a kind of rich, complex texture. I was exercising a moral obligation when I did page 30 to 50 in my notebook, not adding any theatrical embellishment, trying to x-ray the text. Then, (it would take too long to discuss why) I began to realize—this is nonsense. I have the right to change any of this material and just do whatever I want with it. I started adding a lot of props and elaborating upon the text in rehearsals, trying to interfere with the text. Instead of x-raying the text I wanted to invent. If somebody was supposed to cross the room, I’d make it difficult for him by tying a chair to his ankle, and somehow that would make you notice to a heightened degree what was really happening on the stage. It also provided opportunity for the text to go off in different directions. For the past twenty years I’ve written plays by typing up the pages of the notebooks and putting them in a big stack. When I get neurotic, as I usually do, and say, “My God, what am I going to do two years from now, when I don’t have any material?” I’ll go to that stack of pages and select what seems to be an interesting one, look for other pages that relate to that, and sort of collage a text that has a thematic center, even though when writing it I was not thinking of writing a play. After I’ve collected 20 pages, 30 pages, I’ll then rewrite them. In the beginning I felt a

moral obligation not to rewrite anything. I felt, this is evidence of where my mental state is at that present moment, do not touch it. Do not try to make it stronger. Accept it as it is. Now, as any of my actors will tell you, I spend eight to twelve weeks rehearsing 40 pages, changing everything under the sun. We go through so many permutations that people wouldn’t believe it. Up until about 15 years ago I worked with some very excellent designers, but it was never really quite what I wanted. Now I find it much more productive to work myself with these pieces of cardboard, cut them up, put colored paper on them and change them and change them and change them. My first job as a director is to figure out what the space is in which these words are going to reverberate. You notice how I put it: in which these words are going to reverberate. My plays are underlined by continual music. This music consists of loops of little one- or two-measure sections I take from all kinds of music. By the time we finally do the play, I can’t remember anymore where they all came from. I amass hundreds and hundreds of these loops. My next job as a director is to sit there in my loft and read the play casually while I’m playing different loops. I get something that I think will work. When we actually get into rehearsal, that choice of music often changes radically. Then we cast the play. I’m not very good about casting. If I work at The Public, or some theatre like that, I have to do what every director does; sit there week after week seeing all these people, and if you’re lucky, once a day you find somebody that you think might be right for the play. I can’t do that for my plays. I try to work with people I know or have seen, or who have been in some of my other plays. The play is somehow cast by me calling up people and mumbling, “Well, I know you’re probably... I mean, it’s a long commitment but, well you know, would you like to be in a play?”

SD | I want to talk about your visual style. Do you ever feel trapped by your semiotics? RF | I do feel trapped. For 20 years I’ve been saying, “In this play there’s going to be no string, or in this play there’s going to be no music.” But invariably I do get drawn back into what simply seems right to me. For many years I have resented people saying, “His style is always the same. ” I think that Kabuki theatre is always the same, but within that tradition, if you’re a connoisseur of Kabuki (which I’m not particularly), there is all the variation that you would want. Think of the painter Francis Bacon. He always paints these smeared faces and twisted bodies, but my goodness, the interesting thing is to see a 101 variations played on the possibilities latent within that vision. That is an artist’s task. I’ve always tried to make theatre as one would paint a painting. What is interesting in art is to see what the world seems like to one other human being sitting out there. I don’t know what it’s like in your head, so I have wanted to be very perverse, very selfish, and make plays that reflected, for better or for worse, what my anguish is, what my hunger is, what my delight is. So I’m not being true to myself when I start out saying, “No, this play is going to be totally different. It occurs to me, as we talk about the variations that my plays go through: would the rest of the audience notice it if we did version number one? Have you seen those books that show the seven stages in Picasso painting his adaptation of a Courbet painting? I know something about art, but I must confess, when I see the 27 versions of Picasso’s copying a reproduction of Delacroix or Courbet, I can’t tell which is better. I have no idea why he had to reject number 15, which looks pretty good to me. He had to keep going until he ended up with number 27. Then he said, “Ah. That’s it.”

FALL 2012 | SDC JOURNAL

Cast members in the Ontological-Hysteric Theater production of Film Is Evil, Radio is Good COURTESY The Journal, Spring/Summer 1998

SD | So the ideal spectator for a Richard Foreman play is Richard Foreman? RF | Perhaps. I can only be as truthful as I can be about creating on stage the paradise, the particular rhythm, the particular compositional music, that I feel is lacking in my life. There’s something very big lacking in my life. I can only assume that I’m a human being and maybe there’s somebody out there who can be fed by the same thing that feeds me. I know after all these years that there are some people who are indeed fed by that, and I know that there are a lot of other people who gag and want to vomit that back up and aren’t fed at all. But to me, that’s all that art is about at this moment in the twentieth century. SD | I’m glad that you bring up feeding and gastronomic imagery, because food is important in your plays. Where do these images come from? RF | My theatre is a result of a fairly sophisticated aesthete, working on the primary source material that underlies all of our lives. What is more basic than food? SD | Sex? RF | A certain kind of sexuality. There’s another element that occurs all the time in my plays, which is blindness or not being able to see. I don’t know if that’s an Oedipal reference, but it certainly has to do with feeling. Why

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do you go to the theatre? You want to see something. You want something answered. You feel in a certain sense blind, you know? I want to see more. But the food is infantile. My theatre is a theatre of infantile impulses. Perhaps my interest in reading certain fairly esoteric French or German philosophers is still analyzable as an infantile need to say, “How are things put together?” I don’t know. It’s like a little kid taking apart a watch or his toy train. Whatever we make is the result of sublimating and recasting infantile impulses. You know, the baby playing with his shit learns that it’s not supposed to do that. Instead it becomes a painter, a doctor, a lawyer. That’s how culture is built. I want to show the building blocks of the culture and arrange them in such a way that you realize that there are other ways to construct a culture, a perceptual system. I want to take these building blocks and show that they don’t always have to end up with the middle-class intelligence of an Arthur Miller play. That doesn’t have to be the world you live in. In fact, the world that Arthur Miller constructs is much like the world I grew up in, and it’s a world I hate. I don’t mean to put down Arthur Miller—I respect the man, but I hate his plays. I hate them because they reinforce my imprisonment that has cut me off, and cut all of us off, from all kinds of exciting possibilities that you can’t normally entertain in this world.

SD | Do you see your style, or your method of staging, as political? RF | Yes, at least in the American context. The enforcers of reaction in America are people whose character structure is such that they want to know what’s black, what’s white, what’s good, what’s bad. I believe in John Keats’s notion of negative capability, not to reach irritably at reason and logic at all, but to learn how to live with real lucidity, with real clarity and happiness, amid all the contradictions without trying to resolve them, but just to register them clearly and learn how to dance with them. Learn, in a sense, how to surf on this ocean of mess and complexity. SD | Would you then ever want to stage a more overtly political or polemical play? RF | I have. The last overtly political play I staged was Václav Havel’s play at the Public, Largo Desolato. I was killed by Frank Rich in the New York Times, who said, “Here’s Foreman doing all his techniques, putting these buzzers in.” Of course, Havel is one of those people who calls for very specific things, and I was doing what Havel asked for in that play at every moment. Even though a lot of New York press didn’t like it, I got lots of letters from people telling me it felt exactly like what was still happening behind the Iron Curtain. Directors from Middle Europe wrote to me and Joe [Papp], saying, “This is what it was like. It was a great production. It gave

us the feeling of being in Czechoslovakia, in Hungary.” That Havel play was the only play I’ve ever done, including classical plays, that in the final analysis I didn’t like too much. I like dealing with things that are finally unscannable, untouchable, that finally elude the total ability to conceptualize. In the Havel play, everything in it was clearly there, and there was no real mystery. There is mystery in Don Juan, which I directed several years ago and which I think is the greatest play in the West, as there is in The Threepenny Opera, which I did many years ago at Lincoln Center. SD | Often your directorial aim seems to be the opposite of what most directors set out to do, which is take the written text and have the production illuminate that text to an audience. Do you get feedback from playwrights? RF | I’ve done maybe 20 classical productions, and fortunately I’ve only worked with three live authors. But I’ve never had any problems. They’ve all said that they were very happy with what I was doing. I am concerned with staging the collision between my sensibility and the play. Now in order to do that, the play really has to be there, or there’s no collision. I would never try to deconstruct a play. In a strange sense, I always try to be true to the author’s voice, speaking through the play. That’s what interests me about plays. In Molière I know what’s going on theoretically between Don Juan and everybody else. You can have different takes on it, but somehow it’s the music of the author’s voice, and finding a way to make the lines resonate with the environment, the set, the lights, and the other actors, to make that spoken thing resonate, as the body of a violin is there to make the string resonate. That’s what interests me about doing plays. SD | You’ve gone from minimalism to maximalism—these things shimmering off one another. When did that change happen? RF | It’s hard to say. It had something to do with reading some of the French thinkers who were talking about those things. At the beginning my work was so simple and so minimal because I said, “wait a minute, I’ve got to start from the ground up.” I was barraged by theatre in America that was trying to reach over the footlights, that was manifested on the stage by performances that were winking at the audience all the time. These minimalist plays were attempts to cut down and give me a place to begin. I began with very basic physical sensations in the body, and my plays were about things as simple as: I’m sitting

RICHARD GARNER since 2001 | HOWARD SHALWITZ since 1997

here. My name is Richard. I come through the door but my foot is heavy. This would go on for hours with very little movement. I felt that the jump into ideas, into personalities, into any kind of manipulation of the other person seemed totally phony, seemed part of the theatrical tradition that bore no relation to real life. I started out saying, “What is basic?” SD | When you were talking about The Cure once, you said, “Jung believes that at age 40 a man confronts who he’s going to be. He either digs in and retrenches and ossifies, or he goes back to the roots and really does a process of self-exploration.” That was how you described your path at age 40. Now, you’re about to turn 60; what’s the next exploration? RF | How many explorations? How many transitions can you have in life? Death is going to be exciting. SD | It’s 20 years after 40. You can’t keep examining yourself. RF | Jung didn’t say examine yourself. He said that you have to make contact with archetypal roots with those rivers that are really not the self, in a sense. SD | Are you still a Jungian? RF | I don’t think so. You know, maybe you reject what is closest to you; that’s certainly possible. But officially, no, he belongs to the wrong team. SD | I knew you wouldn’t admit it if you were. Where do you go now? You’ve threatened to leave the theatre. RF | I’ve always had a very ambivalent feeling about the theatre. But I’ve always had the feeling that maybe my theatre is a closet spiritual theatre. I’m concerned with the evolution of my consciousness, which certainly hasn’t gotten very far, and I’m trying to document some of that stress and strain in my plays. Maybe I’m just a coward, in that I haven’t gone out and found a guru and achieved something or other. I’m too lazy to do that. I wonder if this isn’t just me kidding myself. The reason I stay in the theatre is because I’m sort of a hermit—I’m not antisocial but I’m asocial. Left to myself, I would never leave my apartment, I would just sit there and be a very lethargic person. I’ve produced quite a bit, I guess, but I don’t know how it happened. When I’m not producing I feel like I can hardly lift my hand to take another book out of the bookcase. Then I sleep a lot during the day. On the other hand, I’ve always felt that l’m a very energized director. When I’m talking I

seem like a fairly energetic person. But it’s the lethargic part of me that lies on the couch, scratches, and writes ten lines of dialogue, that produces more original, adventurous work. SD | Do you go to see films? RF | Always. Up until ten years ago I’d seen every film ever made, including underground films and classical films. Nowadays I think films are too much in the camera and editing, and that doesn’t interest me. I prefer John Ford, these classically staged, balletic, great moments. I saw a theatre production of Othello in France that was great. It was by a young director who was also an actor, and it was set in an Italian hotel in the Fascist period, with marble walls on either side, and the actors spent a lot of time leaning against those walls and doing things. There was one great moment when Othello slapped Desdemona. She was surrounded by her retinue. Desdemona just held her cheek, but on the slap, six people around her fell back to the ground. That was a great moment. SD | If I were to see that I would say, “That’s a rip-off of Richard Foreman.” Do you see other directors who have taken the imprint of your style? RF | I see that there’s a certain relation to me. But I think that I’m making the most logical choices in the world, so if I see other people making some of those choices, I assume they’re making them out of the same emotional necessities that I did. Whether they’re influenced by me, I don’t have a clue. I’d love to think I have influenced a whole generation of theatre artists, but whether I have or not, I really don’t know, and it’s not from any false modesty on my part. It’s very hard for me to tell. Everybody I’ve ever known, myself included, is basically foolish and very defective. That’s the material that you have to deal with on stage, and then you can create a world where all that foolishness and defectiveness and failure interacts and creates some sort of suggestion of energy that transcends that.

To hear the entire interview on podcast, visit SDCF’s Masters of the Stage series at American Theatre Wing. A collaboration with ATW, Masters of the Stage offers free downloadable podcast recordings of SDCF events. Since 2008, more than 250,000 programs have been downloaded. New programs are added twice monthly. Please visit www.americantheatrewing.org/ sdcfmasters

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THE SOCIETY PAGES | SDC Members at work + play

Jerry Mitchell Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation (SDCF) will honor acclaimed Director/Choreographer Jerry Mitchell with the 2013 “Mr. Abbott” Award for his outstanding artistry and creativity and breadth of his 30-year career. The award will be presented at a gala event in spring ‘13.

The “Mr. Abbott” Award is named in honor of renowned Director George Abbott and is presented to a director or choreographer in recognition of lifetime achievement. Past recipients of the award include Hal Prince, Bob Fosse, Mike Nichols, Agnes de Mille, Michael Bennett, Trevor Nunn, Susan Stroman, Graciela Daniele + the 2011 recipient, George C. Wolfe. “George Abbott was a man of incredible range and influence. With the ‘Mr. Abbott’ Award, we salute those directors and choreographers who have, over the course of a career, moved the art form forward through artistry, imagination, and dedication. It is our privilege to honor Jerry Mitchell with this year’s ‘Mr. Abbott’ Award. Jerry is remarkable in the depth and breadth of his career, his versatility and sheer imagination as an artist, as well as his deep philanthropic commitment to the community,” remarked Karen Azenberg, President of SDCF and SDC. Joy Abbott, the widow of George Abbott, is delighted with this year’s selection of Jerry Mitchell. “Jerry was in Mr. Abbott’s production of On Your Toes at the Virginia Theatre from 1983 – 1984. Even then, George recognized his talent and thought Jerry had great potential. I’m a fan of both Jerry and his work, and I’m pleased that he has made his mark on Broadway as an award-winning choreographer. It’s always gratifying to learn of the achievements of those who worked with George and performed under his direction. I know George would be especially pleased that Jerry is to receive the ‘Mr. Abbott’ Award.”

PHOTO

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John Ganun

GRACIELA DANIELE since 1976 | MIKE NICHOLS since 1963 | TREVOR NUNN since 1982

TOP RIGHT

TOP LEFT ‘12 Inductees Costume Designer William Ivey Long + Director Walter Bobbie Times Square Jumbotron featuring Broadway Salutes’ Inductees | BELOW LEFT SDC’s Executive Director Laura Penn with ‘12 Inductees Mauro Melleno, SDC Dir. of Contract Affairs + Director Melvin Bernhardt | BELOW SDC Dir. of Member Services Barbara Wolkoff pinning ‘12 Inductee Director William Martin BOTTOM RIGHT Hal Prince, ‘12 Broadway Salutes Emcee PHOTOS Walter McBride

COALITION OF BROADWAY UNIONS & G U I L D S MELVIN BERNHARDT since 1965 | WALTER BOBBIE since 1993 | MARTIN CHARNIN since 1972 | WILLIAM MARTIN since 1975 | JACK O’BRIEN since 1969

FALL 2012 | SDC JOURNAL

In June, SDC attended the Theatre Communcations Group National Conference in Boston, MA, networking with Members, non-Members, and industry peers. Members such as Benny Ambush (TOP LEFT), KJ Sanchez, Blanka Zizka + Kristen van Ginhoven (BELOW) had the opportunity for a sneak peek at SDC Journal. Also in June, SDC officially launched its new quarterly at Angus McIndoe’s in New York City. Dozens of Members attended the event, celebrating the launch of this special publication. Featured on this page are Thomas Kale + Evan Yionoulis (CENTER LEFT), and Stephen Nachamie, Michael Barakiva + Wendy C. Goldberg (BOTTOM LEFT).

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“The truest expression of a people is in its dance and in its music. Bodies never lie.” Legendary Choreographer + Founding Member of SDC

AGNES DE MILLE

courageously pursued a career as dancer and choreographer, transforming the world of dance. Agnes holds the distinction as SDC’s first Director/Choreographer. 1905-1993

FALL 2012 | SDC JOURNAL

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