SDC Journal Fall 2022

FALL 2022

A DECADE OF EXCELLENCE

A COMMEMORATIVE DOUBLE ISSUE

Evan

OFFICERS

Yionoulis PRESIDENT

Michael John Garcés EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT

Ruben Santiago-Hudson FIRST VICE PRESIDENT

Dan Knechtges

TREASURER

Melia Bensussen

SECRETARY

Joseph Haj

SECOND VICE PRESIDENT

Casey Stangl THIRD

VICE PRESIDENT

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Laura Penn

HONORARY ADVISORY COMMITTEE

Karen Azenberg Pamela Berlin Julianne Boyd Graciela Daniele Emily Mann Marshall W. Mason

Ted Pappas Susan H. Schulman Oz Scott Daniel Sullivan Victoria Traube

SDC EXECUTIVE BOARD

MEMBERS OF BOARD

Saheem Ali

Christopher Ashley Anne Bogart Jo Bonney Mark Brokaw Donald Byrd

Rachel Chavkin Desdemona Chiang Hope Clarke

Valerie Curtis-Newton Liz Diamond Lydia Fort Leah C. Gardiner Anne Kauffman

Pam MacKinnon Kathleen Marshall D. Lynn Meyers

Lisa Portes

Lonny Price John Rando Bartlett Sher Susan Stroman Seema Sueko

Eric Ting Maria Torres Michael Wilson Tamilla Woodard Annie Yee

SDC JOURNAL MANAGING EDITOR Kate Chisholm

FEATURES EDITOR Stephanie Coen GRAPHIC DESIGNER Adam Hitt

EDITORIAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE

Melia Bensussen Joshua Bergasse Jo Bonney Noah Brody Desdemona Chiang Sheldon Epps Ann M. Shanahan

SDC JOURNAL PEER-REVIEWED SECTION EDITORIAL BOARD

SDCJ-PRS CO-EDITORS Emily A. Rollie Ann M. Shanahan

SDCJ-PRS BOOK REVIEW EDITOR Kathleen M. McGeever

SDCJ-PRS ASSOCIATE BOOK REVIEW EDITOR Ruth Pe Palileo

SDCJ-PRS SENIOR ADVISORY COMMITTEE Anne Bogart Joan Herrington James Peck

SDCJ-PRS PEER REVIEWERS Donald Byrd David Callaghan Jonathan Cole Thomas Costello Kathryn Ervin Liza Gennaro Baron Kelly Travis Malone Sam O’Connell Scot Reese Stephen A. Schrum

FALL 2022 CONTRIBUTORS

Lynn Ahrens Karen Azenberg

Andy Blankenbuehler

Father Gregory Boyle, S.J. Mark Brokaw

William Brown

Donald Byrd Desdemona Chiang Martha Clarke

Curt Columbus

Kristy Cummings

Graciela Daniele Zayd Dohrn

The Dramatist Brett Egan Sheldon Epps Charles Fee Stephen Flaherty

Richard Garner

Liza Gennaro Rebecca Gilman

Sam Gold Keith Huff

Thomas Kail Anne Kauffman

Jessica Kubzansky Nina Lannan

David Leong Gillian Lynne Taylor Mac

Davis McCallum

Jason Moore

Amy Morton Elizabeth Nelson James Nicola Sharon Ott Ron OJ Parson Laura Penn Nicole Hodges Persley Ben Pesner

Gina Pisasale

Lonny Price Harold Prince Robert Quinlan Mary B. Robinson Oz Scott

Niegel Smith Ted Sod Paul Tazewell Mei Ann Teo Tazewell Thompson Liesl Tommy Henry Wishcamper Evan Yionoulis

FALL 2022 SDCJ-PRS CONTRIBUTORS

Meredith Joelle Charlson

CHOREOGRAPHER, AMERICAN CONSERVATORY THEATER

Emily A. Rollie CENTRAL WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY

Ann M. Shanahan PURDUE UNIVERSITY

SDC JOURNAL is published by Stage Directors and Choreographers Society, located at 321 W. 44th Street, Suite 804, New York, NY 10036. ISSN 2576-6899 © 2022 Stage Directors and Choreographers Society. All rights reserved. SDC JOURNAL is a registered trademark of SDC.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Letters to the editor may be sent to SDCJournal@SDCweb.org

POSTMASTER Send address changes to SDC JOURNAL, SDC, 321 W. 44th Street, Suite 804, New York, NY 10036.

I hope this issue finds you, as I am, back in rehearsal, in a room with a great play whose investigation brings you rewarding artistic challenges and joy in collaboration.

Even in person, despite all our close work with actors and designers, directing and choreographing remain mostly solitary ventures. Although we enjoy seeing the fruits of each other’s labors, we rarely actually get to see each other work. SDC and the SDC Foundation aim to connect directors and choreographers with each other, through Union service and Foundation events, and also through the stimulation of reflection and conversation promoted by such ventures as this publication.

Celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, SDC Journal was created by the Union to further unite us by providing a glimpse into the work practices and artistic visions of our fellow directors and choreographers. It regularly features articles about the crafts of direction and choreography as well as interviews with Member practitioners from across the country who share their insights and artistry with its readers. Over the past few issues, I have dedicated a portion of my letters to the current moment and some to reflecting back—though, recently, mostly just back to March 12, 2020. This anniversary gives us an opportunity to consider a longer horizon.

The current issue brings together a collection of interviews and articles published since SDC Journal’s inaugural issue in 2012 and offers a sample of the kinds of inspiring pieces that have been the hallmark of the publication over the past decade, including interviews with the late Hal Prince and Dame Gillian Lynne and a feature which tackles the proverbial question: “What Does a Director Do?” There’s also Mary B. Robinson’s wonderful piece about the founding of SDC. The featured selections were chosen for their enduring resonance; some may also prompt you to consider how the context of our theatremaking has evolved since their first appearance.

SDC Journal was always intended to look ahead as well as to what came before. Then SDC President Karen Azenberg’s letter from September of 2012, published again in this issue, announced its purpose:

to give voice to an empowered collective of directors and choreographers working in all jurisdictions and venues across the country, encouraging Member advocacy and highlighting Member achievement. We hope you will find the new SDC Journal provocative and forward-thinking, as over time we will explore the full breadth of these two enigmatic crafts, examining various styles and approaches of creating theatre both in the past and present, and always with an eye to the future.

In looking ahead today, we find ourselves in a moment of cautious hope: that the recovery of our industry will proceed apace, and that the theatre will be able to help close the social distance of the past few years which has been so damaging to our nation’s psyche. It is a hope tempered by a recognition of the many challenges we face and the knowledge of the sustained effort that will be necessary on

multiple fronts to achieve the goals we have for ourselves and our communities.

Before the midterm elections, after surveying the Membership, SDC issued a voter’s guide with questions to consider in evaluating candidates. Arts and Culture was among the issues Members identified as most pressing in our current political moment, along with: Censorship, Climate Change, Gun Control Legislation, Health Care and Reproductive Rights, Human Rights, Organized Labor, and Racial Justice.

As you might recall, in July of 2020, following unanimous approval by the Executive Board and an overwhelmingly affirmative vote by Members Union-wide, for the first time in our 60-year history SDC endorsed a presidential candidate, Joe Biden. On September 30 of this year, President Biden issued an Executive Order on Promoting the Arts, the Humanities, and Museum and Library Service, setting forth initiatives to stimulate their advancement and deeming them

essential to the well-being, health, vitality, and democracy of our Nation. They are the soul of America, reflecting our multicultural and democratic experience. They further help us strive to be the more perfect Union to which generation after generation of Americans have aspired. They inspire us; provide livelihoods; sustain, anchor, and bring cohesion within diverse communities across our Nation; stimulate creativity and innovation; help us understand and communicate our values as a people; compel us to wrestle with our history and enable us to imagine our future; invigorate and strengthen our democracy; and point the way toward progress.

It is an honor to be a part of the community of workers in the art of theatre, seeking to have the impact President Biden so eloquently describes, and, with you all, to have the opportunity to practice the crafts of direction and choreography, which are so well celebrated in these pages.

In Solidarity, Evan Yionoulis Executive Board President

FROM

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Anniversaries provide opportunities for celebration. We pause to partake of the ritual of well-deserved congratulations, parties, toasts. Anniversaries can also provide opportunities for reflection, assessment, and consideration of the future. Ten years ago, the Executive Board determined to take the opportunity of the 50th anniversary of the founding of SDC to do some of this important work. In partnership with the Membership, we would consider where the Union had been and what had been achieved from the beginnings of this now-formidable Union that took shape over late nights at Sardi’s on West 44th Street in NYC. We would also take a hard look at where we had fallen short and consider how the Union might respond to the changes in crafts and community that were beginning to reveal themselves in the early years of the 21st century, if not before. We challenged ourselves by saying, “If the only thing we can look back on is a great party or two, we will have failed.”

One early, central decision the Board made was to fully embrace the national nature of SDC. Though founded by a tight group of Broadway directors and choreographers, where and how our Members made their work had changed, and as such, the Union needed to embed new practices into its short- and long-term planning. Threaded through all our conversations was the belief that too many of your collaborators, employers, and peers did not understand what you do, and our ability to fight for protections was directly connected to bargaining partners understanding the undisputable value of your work.

And because you should be known for what you do, we needed to find ways to share your stories, and weren’t we best positioned to capture those, the essence of your work, who you are, what drives you? We envisioned SDC Journal. A magazine about craft; Union business would be shared through other communications. This would be a place to honor you, to preserve your history, to introduce you to one another. Modeled on the DGA Quarterly and other leading industry publications, it would be substantial. Rigorous, well written, well produced, surprising. With guidance from the Board, at-large Members, and an Editorial Advisory Committee, we looked at design concepts, brainstormed names, tested willingness to participate, interviewed editors.

Editors. What is a magazine without editors? Editors who push and pull. Who are passionate and stubborn. Who fit this freelance gig into their busy, demanding professional lives. This issue of SDC Journal was curated by a small group of Feature Editors and Managing Editors who represent the span of work of the past decade.

Elizabeth Nelson was our first Art Director and Managing Editor. The magazine was her vision as much as anyone’s—she understood the need and the potential, and she was relentless in her belief that this could be a publication to rival magazines in our field. Features Editor Shelley Butler could distill the essence of a conversation like no one else. Her insight as an SDC Member, a director of skill and ambition, raised the bar. She was tenacious in her pursuit of excellence, her collaboration with the Advisory Committee, and her unwillingness to accept anything less than representation from

across the field. Features Editor Elizabeth Bennett is known by many across the country as one of the foremost dramaturgs; I am not sure there are many out there who love directors and choreographers the way Elizabeth does. Her passion and devotion to the story, her knowledge of the field, gave depth and breadth to our magazine; she took care with every interview, initial edit, and collaboration with guest contributors. And the delight, I would say, was constant—but from time to time the laughter turned to panic as Kate Chisholm, our Managing Editor, reminded us of deadlines. SDC first met Kate when she was with the Kurt Weill Foundation supporting SDCF programs. Some years later she applied to join us as Managing Editor and it’s a life sentence as far as I’m concerned. With love and uncompromising professionalism, without question she makes the Journal happen.

I think time has lost its meaning, or we have lost our ability to measure time given the madness of the past two-and-a-half years, but I can’t believe it’s been 10 years. I appreciate the passing of time a little differently now, reading the content between these covers. This double issue contains the past and the present and the future, all in one place. We build on the past, standing on the shoulders of giants even as we learn to do better, see our shortcomings, and experience the transformation that comes from inspiration. And through the past and present we see glimpses of the future. More than just glimpses.

COVID interrupted our rhythm, professional as well as personal. We managed to get a few issues out during the pandemic. The good news is we have figured out how to publish online and will continue to do so even as we prepare to publish more issues next year, as we incrementally build back. Easy for me to say but I feel SDC Journal should be required reading for students of theatre, regardless of their course of study or aspirations. (I have loved those moments when graduate students confess to kidnapping their professor’s issues, hoping to return them before they go missing.) Perhaps I’ll take that on as we move into the next decade, with hope and continued dedication to telling your stories.

In Solidarity,

Laura Penn Executive Director

PHOTO

Welcome

SUMMER 2012 VOL. 1, NO. 1

Karen Azenberg was the SDC Executive Board President from 2007–2013. This was her letter for the first issue of SDC Journal

It is with great pleasure that I welcome you to our inaugural issue of SDC Journal. In these pages we seek to share with our Membership and the wider theatrical community the art and craft of professional directors and choreographers.

Some of you may remember The Journal, published semi-annually by the SDC Foundation; it was a beloved publication that had at its center transcriptions of Foundation programs such as one-on-one conversations and panel discussions.

In 2009 we began a relationship with the American Theatre Wing and created Masters of the Stage, an online podcast series featuring more than three decades of exceptional conversations with many of theatre’s most seminal directors and choreographers. This online library has allowed us to distribute these invaluable programs more broadly and widely. As such, The Journal in its old form was less current, less in keeping with today’s trends and needs.

The new Journal—now called SDC Journal is designed to give voice to an empowered collective of directors and choreographers working in all jurisdictions and venues across the country, encouraging Member advocacy and highlighting Member achievement. We hope you will find the new SDC Journal provocative and forward-thinking, as over time we will explore the full breadth of these two enigmatic crafts, examining various styles and approaches of creating theatre both in the past and present, and always with an eye to the future.

In this issue you have the opportunity to eavesdrop on a conversation between Tony Award winner Dan Sullivan and Clybourne Park’s Tony-nominated (at press time) Pam MacKinnon. Director/Choreographer Susan Stroman shares with director Timothy Douglas the origins of her remarkable, and at times controversial, Scottsboro Boys Executive Board Member Larry Carpenter meets up with DGA director Gary Halverson and the immeasurably talented Bart Sher to talk about their collaboration at the Metropolitan Opera in that company’s wildly successful broadcast series. In addition you will hear from the exceptionally talented Rob Marshall about his career arc, while Sheldon Epps speaks with Phylicia Rashad about her new venture into directing. Additionally, each issue will feature an In Your Words section where we hope you will participate in the conversations and questions posed there.

I am thrilled that you are now reading our first issue, and I hope you will keep reading—whether you are an SDC Member, a member of a peer union or guild, or working in our industry or the entertainment industry at large. We welcome you to be a part of this ongoing and necessary conversation about our craft. Thanks for reading, and enjoy!

Azenberg Executive Board President (2007–2013)

Karen

BLANKENBUEHLER

IN A SECOND

INTERVIEW BY TED SOD

Andy Blankenbuehler rehearsing In the Heights with Lin-Manuel Miranda

FALL 2012 VOL. 1, NO.

2

There is no single path to becoming a choreographer for the Broadway stage. Many have started as performers; others have assisted, learning on the job. Andy Blankenbuehler arrived in New York in 1990, and successfully worked as a dancer/singer/actor, a teacher, 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 his shows. At the time of this interview, he had completely immersed himself in hip-hop, competitive cheerleading, and the Great Depression for shows as diverse as In the Heights, Bring It On, and Annie. In this interview, Andy recounts his early influences, sheds light on his process, and talks about the delicate balance of career and family life.

TED SOD | I’d like to start with your background. I read you’re from Ohio.

ANDY BLANKENBUEHLER | I grew up in Cincinnati.

TED | Can you tell us about your trajectory to New York, how you got involved in dance?

ANDY | 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.

TED | I read you went to St. Xavier.

ANDY | 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.

TED | Just like Disney!

ANDY | 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.”

TED | Which year was that?

ANDY | I moved here in 1990 when I was 20 years old.

TED | And you immediately got work?

ANDY | 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 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.

TED | Did you play Mike?

ANDY | 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.

TED | It sounds as if you were already thinking about becoming a choreographer.

ANDY | 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.

TED | It seems as if the jobs you got as a performer helped build your vocabulary as a choreographer/director.

ANDY | 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 after that I did West Side Story at Paper Mill Playhouse, which was a dream. I freaking love that show more than anything.

TED | And who was the choreographer on that West Side Story?

ANDY | 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.

TED | Was that The Most Happy Fella directed by Gerald Gutierrez?

ANDY | 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.

TED | Which jobs or experiences most influenced your identity as an artist?

ANDY | 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 Fosse-era 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 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.

and create a world that would do justice to Lin’s wonderful score. I learned more in the process of working on Heights than in any other time in my career. I studied Lin’s music and learned to relish the many influences that had made him the songwriter that he was. His music had so much authenticity to it, but more importantly, it had a driving personality that was unique to Lin. His music began teaching me how to approach my movement with humanity first rather than vocabulary. And his lyrics were the greatest teacher to me. The ingenuity of the lyrics and their glorious musicality inspired me beyond belief. My work changed. My way of working changed. My life changed because of the collaboration with Lin, Tommy, and [musical director] Alex Lacamoire.

TED | Do you have to create a specific vocabulary for every show and dance?

ANDY BLANKENBUEHLER

ANDY | 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 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.

TED | In 2006, things really started picking up for you as a choreographer, correct?

ANDY | 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. I knew that stylistically the show was way outside of my box, because I had very little experience with hip-hop or Latin styles, but I had confidence in my storytelling abilities. I believed that I could help develop these characters physically

ANDY | 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. I start to learn how my body reacts to the score, and I start to learn what nuances connect the world I’m envisioning. But then the parameters of the show really present the rules. If a scene is set in a swing club for example, I know the movement needs to be based in that style. So slowly the vocabulary starts to name itself. And it becomes clearer to me that this is how the character would need to move in this location, in this particular situation. Those rules exist within each particular show. And once I find those rules, then I’m in a safe place. But I don’t want those rules of authenticity to stifle my process, so I’m of the mindset, especially in contemporary theatre, that you can just throw all the paint against the wall to learn what the show needs. It doesn’t matter if it’s modern dance, contemporary dance, or the Charleston. I’ll explore those styles if it’s helping me to express something. If the show is set in 1920, I’m not going to do hip-hop, because it’s not correct (unless the show is completely anachronistic). But I might actually start by doing hip-hop steps until I say, “Oh, I love that rhythm! Now let me find out how I can incorporate that syncopation into stylings that are more period authentic.” So I kind of crosspollinate 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 energy I wanted to use in the other physical styles.

TED | Tell us about the genesis of Bring It On and how that came together. Who approached you to direct and choreograph, and why?

TED | You continued to perform after you recovered from your injury, correct?

I’m notthis crazytalent who can just go into a studio andwing it.

ANDY | 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.”

TED | What was the preparation like? Are we talking six to eight months? More?

ANDY | Oh, we’ve been working on it for about three years now.

TED | 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?

ANDY | 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.

TED | And they have to know how to sing!

ANDY | 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

Lin-Manuel Miranda and company in the Broadway production of In the Heights, choreographed by Andy Blankenbuehler

PHOTO Joan Marcus

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.

TED | You’re about to work with James Lapine on Annie. How did that job come to be?

ANDY | 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.

TED | What was your initial reaction to Annie as a choreographer? And how deeply are you into the process?

ANDY | 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 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 over-choreographed a moment and the little James Lapine on my

ANDY BLANKENBUEHLER

Andy Blankenbuehler, Jessica Lea Patty + Billy Griffin rehearsing an early workshop of Only Gold PHOTO Jeremy Davis

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.

TED | Do you work with an assistant to find the steps before rehearsals?

ANDY | 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.”

TED | How much time does that usually require?

ANDY | 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.

TED | Talk to me about dance arrangements. Are there going to be new arrangements for this?

ANDY | 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 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.

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

ANDY | 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.

TED | Which part?

ANDY | 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.

TED | They say that’s what Obama does.

ANDY | 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 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.”

TED | Do you have advice for young people who want to do the kind of work you are doing?

ANDY | 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.

TED | And it doesn’t get easier.

ANDY | It doesn’t get easier. In fact, it gets remarkably harder, which was surprising to me. I have friends who have nine-tofive 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.

ISSUES

SDCF SPEAKS WITH ANNE KAUFFMAN + JAMES NICOLA

FALL 2012 VOL. 1, NO. 2

SDC Foundation celebrates, develops, and supports professional stage directors and choreographers throughout every phase of their careers. By continually investigating how best to support directors and choreographers throughout their creative lives, the Foundation strengthens their influence and creativity; in doing so, it also enriches the field. In the Fall 2012 issue of SDC Journal, director Anne Kauffman and producer James Nicola spoke in separate conversations hosted by the Foundation about creating opportunities for renewal for freelance directors. (This year, Jim ended his tenure as Artistic Director of New York Theatre Workshop after 34 years at the helm.) Excerpts from those conversations follow.

QThere 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?

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 theatre makers, we have to be engaged in the world and graduate school needs to open up that world.

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.

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.

QOur culture lacks fluency in talking about or evaluating directing.

Critics don’t know how to write about what a director does. We don’t know how to talk about it ourselves. Why is that?

ANNE | People often don’t think of directors as artists unless someone is an auteur director. They think of us as facilitators or craftspeople, so there isn’t always that much interest in what we do. When you go see a show, it’s easy to point to what the writer, designers, and actors have done. It’s identifiable. But it’s more difficult to identify how the director has brought all of the elements together, and it is such a subjective process. How I bring things together is going to be altogether different from how another director pulls them together. You can’t touch directing, or see it. It’s an extremely individual process. As a culture, we’re pretty literal-minded. The scope of what we do as directors is not easily articulated, which does not mean that we as a community shouldn’t attempt articulation.

I believe that if people had a clearer understanding of what a director does, that criticism would be different. The funding world might also change. In response to those two channels shifting, the art form itself could potentially grow and change. It’s all about 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

I’mabigfanofyoung directors creatingtheirown companies.Theyare created and disbanded atthe speed oflightandmostprobably should be, butthey’re useful becausetheydemandthat young directors articulate whattheycare about.

ANNE KAUFFMAN

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.

JAMES | This reflects the lack of value of the role of the director and the art and craft of directing in our culture. It is not deemed worthy of being considered. The role of a director is not seen as being in need of discussion and evaluation. It goes back to the very notion of the art form as practiced and understood in our culture, which is primarily that it is a literary form as opposed to a performative form. The pride of place goes to the literary representative in the process of making a performance. I think we all participate in this. I hear directors talk about how their job is to serve a playwright. I don’t see how a creative artist—and I certainly include directors in that category— can be in the position of being both subservient and creative. You can’t tell your creative imagination to serve someone else’s agenda. I don’t understand this construct. Wouldn’t an artist, like a playwright, want a partner who doesn’t feel boxed in or submissive? Doesn’t everyone want an artist who is playing the same full-throated game? The director has to have a place and respect in order for the culture to develop any fluency around what he or she does.

QWhat about renewal and lifelong learning? There seems to be no place, literally or figuratively, for ongoing development or artistic renewal.

ANNE | We are a company country, or we used to be. There’s this myth that you reach a certain level within a company where you know what you’re doing, and you maintain that level or position in that company until you retire. That structure doesn’t actually exist anymore, but we still adhere to it; we still pretend it exists, or our expectations and desires are driven by it. And I think the financial necessity of having to take on a certain number of projects a year forces directors into this company-like mentality even though it was never their reality to begin with. Once directors get to a certain level, there’s a sense, I think, whether it’s conscious or not, that we need to keep doing the same thing in order to maintain whatever traction we’ve gained. We, as artists, become predictable and therefore the work becomes predictable.

There are places and monies and residencies for almost all types of artists except for directors (perhaps the all-toocommon perspective that directors aren’t

JAMES NICOLA

artists contributes to this 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.

JAMES | The idea that someone must maintain and tend and nurture a creative imagination over a long period of time is foreign to us. I believe the lack of renewal and ongoing development is endemic in the American theatre, not just for directors. It is partly to do with the overall impoverishment of how we practice here. There simply isn’t enough financial support for artists. There is not enough room for everyone to try a new idea or a new way of doing something. Directors keep being asked to direct the same play, set in a living room, with five to seven actors, one set, nice language, good ideas, interesting characters, but that is it. I am not picking on that particular kind of play but it is the accepted format. Certainly if there was some kind of center or entity that could be created—that was about the director and the art and craft of directing—that would be a big part of the task. I have had the great fortune to be around people like Joe Papp and Zelda Fichandler, but those opportunities for the next generation aren’t as plentiful as they used to be. And even if they were, we have a lot to overcome because of America’s obsession with youth, the young, and the new.

You must begin bybecoming masterfulatwriting,acting, anddesign.Therealartof directing is inthewaythose thingsarefittogetherbyone aesthetic mind. It is the waya medical doctor hasto learn chemistry, biology, and anatomy.

TELEVISION THEATRE

ROUNDTABLE WITH SHELDON EPPS, THOMAS KAIL + JASON MOORE

SPRING 2013 VOL. 1, NO. 4

In 2013, director Thomas Kail spoke with two colleagues, Sheldon Epps and Jason Moore, about their experiences directing for television and their aspirations to build a career that included both the live stage and the sound stage. Today, happily, all three directors move comfortably between theatre, film, and television. In this conversation, they discuss how the craft of directing for theatre provided them many of the essential tools necessary to tackle the challenges of what was then dominant in the medium—broadcast television.

THOMAS KAIL | Everyone has their own way of going from theatre to television. I want to ask how that came about for each of you.

SHELDON EPPS | It actually was through my work in the theatre, which is kind of wonderful and I hope inspiring to others who are interested in doing this. I was fortunate enough to have and still have a

relationship with the Pasadena Playhouse, and the television career started as a direct result of my doing a production at the Playhouse when Paul Lazarus was the artistic director. He quite generously said to me, “Have you ever been interested in directing for television?” And I said sure, knowing almost nothing about it, and I said if I could direct shows like Frasier I’d love to direct television, and eventually I did get to direct Frasier for a long time. Paul said, “Well if that’s something that interests you, I’ll get my television agents to come and see the play.” So they came, and those same people became my agents and have been my agents ever since—since 1991.

THOMAS | How about you, Jason? What

was the bridge for you?

JASON MOORE | I had always wanted to do both film and theatre, so when I finished college, where I had studied theatre, I came to Los Angeles to figure out what the film and television world was all about. I spent about five years working for a features director and trying to understand how things worked and how to get behind the camera. I realized that I really had no entry point and wondered if I had made the wrong choice and should have gone to New York instead. So I took a job in theatre on the musical Ragtime, which took me

back to New York. While I was developing new plays and musicals I was still always trying to figure out ways to get behind a camera. I tried to pursue soaps, late night television—all the things that were available in New York at the time. I got an opportunity through a playwright friend of mine who had gone out to LA and quickly moved into TV. I went down to North Carolina and observed on a full episode of their TV show, Dawson’s Creek, from top to bottom and wound up spending five weeks there to learn all the things I felt I didn’t know. As it happened, a director fell out, which gave me the opportunity to direct my first episode. From there I directed multiple episodes of that show and many other shows for WB Network.

SHELDON | And you, Tommy?

THOMAS | You know, it’s one of the sort of strange and wonderful things about the business, which is sometimes the telephone rings, and your life can change a little bit. A gentleman by the name of Michael Patrick King, who is a showrunner, created a show called 2 Broke Girls. Michael was an actor who wrote and performed and loves musical theatre. He had seen some of my work. He knew that In the Heights, which he had seen, was very specifically about a neighborhood and a place—as was 2 Broke

A

INTERVIEW BY THOMAS KAIL

ABOVE Sheldon Epps + Thomas Kail speaking with Jason Moore via Skype at the offices of SDC

Girls, which takes place in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. He asked me to come out and spend as much time as I could around the show. I was in the writers’ room and on set, and I had this incredible access with no guarantee of anything other than I knew it was an exceptionally worthwhile experience for me just to be absorbing. It ended up that the show did well and was picked up, and I was able to direct the first episode of the back nine. While I was out there, I had the good fortune to meet James Burrows, who had directed the pilot of 2 Broke Girls, and was over on Mike and Molly—he invited me to come over and watch. His father, Abe Burrows, had certainly worked in the theatre, and James himself had come from being a stage manager. One thing I asked him was, “Do you see it or do you hear it?” I can usually read a script and have an idea of what the rhythms are supposed to be in for performance, but I didn’t instinctively visualize camera positions for multi-camera. He said something very important to me; he said, “If you stage it right, the cameras work.” So I focused on staging, since that certainly translates cleanly from theatre.

SHELDON | That’s true. That’s the biggest lesson I learned, and that’s particularly true in multi-cam: if you stage the actors well, then everybody should understand what their assignments are before you even talk to them. You may have to talk to them if you want something quite particular, but in the broad general scheme of things, they should know where the focus should be. And the cameras are there to shift the focus, the cameras just become the audience’s eyes, and so you want to tell the camera where you want the audience’s eyes to be.

THOMAS | Can you talk more about the skills that were most useful when you first went on set?

SHELDON | I think it’s primarily a strong background with directing actors. All of us find when you go on the sets to do these things that there are a whole lot of people who know a whole lot of things that you don’t know, particularly when you start learning about cameras, and sound, and about editing, and all of those things which you come to learn. But in truth, you are often the only person who knows how to talk to an actor.

JASON | Yes. Having the language to talk to actors amidst all of the sometimes frantic energy is essential. There are so many time constraint considerations with writers and camera; I think that actors still always want interaction. So to be able to talk about character amidst all of the technical aspects is a skill that can single you out.

THOMAS | In terms of communicating with actors on a TV show, these actors have been living with their characters for a long time. You get there on day one with however much pre-production you’ve done, and the cast has shot possibly dozens of episodes. You inevitably have to play catch up, because they have been walking around in these characters for a couple years. How did you deal with this?

JASON | I’ve found that doing my research about where the character has been is the most helpful. If I could reference a couple significant moments of a character’s journey from an earlier season, that made the actor feel comfortable and confident that I understood their history. I think part of being a new director on a set is engendering that trust; that’s why I think they want directors to return, because you’ve created that trust with the actor and a knowledge of the show and its tone.

to me. I’ve found that the trickiest part for me in single camera was the idea that you could move the camera in 360 degrees in any direction. The change in perspective was the thing that I had to learn and catch up with the most in terms of blocking the actors in a realistic way that felt true to the scene and true to the rhythm of the scene. But also being mindful of how the blocking affected the camera positions and the lighting positions related to how much time we had to shoot it in. I couldn’t shoot the camera in four directions and light it in all those directions; so trying to find ways of using the staging techniques of theatre in terms of impulse and timing and comedy, but doing it in a way that didn’t feel like it was directed for proscenium, that made the world feel whole around them.

SHELDON | I think that Jason is absolutely right that the challenge of single camera is that it’s so non-rehearsal dependent. It’s about instincts and honing the actor’s instinct quickly, making adjustments quickly, and then praying that everything is going right technically so that when people nail it you also nail it; that you’re not having a sound problem or a truck doesn’t go by outside and ruin the take.

JASON MOORE

THOMAS | Another thing that became very clear for me is that if something doesn’t work, that studio audience will tell you so fast—and there is nothing like the feeling in your stomach when you know you have to fix it right now. There’s no “we’ll get it tomorrow;” it has to happen now. In multi-cam you have 300 new friends in that audience to let you know immediately what is or isn’t working.

SHELDON | You’re right; the tape night on a multi-camera show is a singular experience, because you’re filming in front of an audience. You are improvising the changes from rehearsal that are being made on the floor—first by the writers, then giving it quickly to the actors, and sometimes then having to restage the cameras as it’s necessitated by the change in the material as those 300 people are screaming in the stands. Never is equilibrium and cool more called for from a director than on multicamera tape night. There is an enormous and thrilling juggling exercise that’s going on.

JASON | I’m dying to do multi-cam, because I hear you guys talk about the experience of getting it right in front of an audience and merging the idea of being able to focus where people look, and to do it in front of a live audience is really exciting

THOMAS | If there are 24 episodes, you’re going in to make that one bead on the necklace. It needs to look like the other 23 beads, and if you inspect closely it might have its own particular detail, but the style and rhythm of the show have been set, and you’re trying to serve that. You’re serving the showrunner’s vision. In multi-cam, you do a table read on day one, and the next day you take six hours to stage the entire thing, script in hand, so you can run it for the showrunner and other producers at the end of the day. I think it’s very much the feeling I imagine a choreographer has on a musical, where they’ve been working in the room on a number, and the director comes in to say yes, that works, or, no, let’s re-examine that moment, or that character wouldn’t do that.

SHELDON | Right. That’s not telling the story at all, or why are you doing that?

JASON | I love the idea that directing television is like being a choreographer for a musical. I think that’s really true and is somewhat eye-opening—something to consider in how you think of your choreographer as a collaborator. I’ll keep that in mind the next time I do it. Right now I’m having the experience of working on a pilot. It’s more like working with the playwright in that you are so closely bound in making all of those early decisions together in terms of realizing the vision of

I love the idea that directing television is like being a choreographerfor a musical.

the writer for the first time. The experience of going through the pilot reminded me of doing a new play. You have someone to ask when you feel stuck and they feel they can ask you the same kinds of questions. I found it very satisfying.

SHELDON | Another big thing is you go and do a play, and you know that you’re going to be with those people for a number of weeks. If I use Jason’s comparison about a new play, if it’s a new play or a musical in New York, you have a long rehearsal period and then you have a long preview period before you open with that same group of people. If you’re not the lead director on a TV show, you could be with a whole different community every other week and every show, and like every theatre production, it has its own distinct personality. So not only do you have to absorb the new materials because it’s a new script every time, you also have to absorb the sense of that particular community and how that community operates. Some communities are very loud and party animals and touchy-feely and some are quite cold.

THOMAS | Whereas in theatre you’re the person—as the director—that determines the community to some extent. Because you’ve hired the designers, you’ve hired these actors. So much of it is about what energy you’re bringing into the room. So, Jason, in helping create the world of the pilot, did assembling that team also feel like putting together a play or a musical?

JASON | Yes, it did. We were collaborative in making all of the key hires for the pilot and part of that was, like you say, sort of defining the atmosphere. I was also aware that the single camera work I had done previously was all drama, and this

is a comedy, so I was thinking about how to construct a set that was conducive to people being loose to try things—to try to create the energy of making something fun. I think when picking your key hires you’re trying to define a set and set a tone for the kind of work that’s gonna be done.

SHELDON | I think in television, as in theatre, you don’t have to have every single answer about how to accomplish something, but you do have to be able to articulate the vision of what you want. After all these years in the theatre, I don’t know a Leko from a Fresnel, or whether we even use those anymore, but I know how to talk to a lighting designer about what I want to see. If you can be clear and articulate about your vision on a television set, there are people who will help you to get that vision on camera. I have seen and heard of stage directors go on television sets pretending that they know things that they don’t know, and starting to shout orders and scream at people and all of that, and in many cases that has been their first and last episode, because they haven’t allowed themselves to be helped. The healthy egos that we develop with success in the theatre you sometimes have to put to the side.

THOMAS | Right. How do I communicate this one thing to ten actors and five writers and the show runner, as well as a 50-person crew?

SHELDON | And also how to say, “How can I help you?” to the sound guy or to the camera guy. “Will it be better if I pull this down a foot? Will your shot be improved if I do that?” So it really is, again, the communication skills that hopefully we develop from working in the theatre that can serve us well in this other medium.

THOMAS | If you were able to go back to that early bright-eyed, bushy-tailed you when you were starting out, what lessons would you share that you’ve cultivated over these last few years?

JASON | I would tell myself to trust the basics of what we were talking about: character, storytelling, staging, acting. Because those values get transferred into every form, and then if you want to pursue different forms, just keep your eyes and ears open for every opportunity. One of my biggest theatre opportunities came when I was in Los Angeles, and then one of my biggest film opportunities came when I was in New York. So you know, it was being aware and sending as many messages as I could that I wanted to do both.

SHELDON | It can be enormously satisfying in a number of ways to do both, but it is really hard to balance. For those who are doing it, including you two gentlemen and others who will pursue it, I hope people will keep their passion for working in the theatre as well. In Los Angeles there are a lot of theatre people I know who have made very successful careers working in television. Some of them have not gone back to working in the theatre. As an artistic director who is trying to hire directors, I frequently approach some of those people, and they’ve lost their desire to work in the theatre. We’re good at working in television, because we’re good theatre artists. So I hope that people will keep that alive in their souls and in their hearts and minds, no matter how successful they become in other mediums.

THOMAS | Absolutely. There is a chance to do good work in TV and then bring that information with you when you go back home. One feeds the other in so many ways—and there was a pride in being someone who tries to make his living as a stage director being given a chance in TV. I felt like I was, in some way, representing something much larger than myself. We can all do this if somebody gives us a shot.

SHELDON | I think those of us who have worked in the theatre before we approach working in television or film hopefully have the benefit of the skills that theatre gives you. Obviously talking to actors, but the ability to communicate a vision, as I said before, and the knowledge of what it means to collaborate. Rather than having a new medium shut you down, you make sure that you take those skills into this great new adventure if you have the chance to do it. Those skills will serve you enormously well.

Jason Moore

IN RESIDENCE

DONALD BYRD / NEPAL An Agent of Transformation

BY DONALD BYRD

SUMMER 2013 VOL. 2, NO. 1

In this essay from 2013, Donald Byrd writes about traveling to South Asia for an arts residency—an experience that showed him how dance can bridge worlds and bring us closer in our shared humanity.

From February 21 through March 24 of this year, I was fortunate to have the opportunity to travel in South Asia to three countries I had never been to before— Nepal, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka. This was made possible by a unique public/private partnership between the United States Department of State and the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM). DanceMotion/ USA, as the program is called, states as its goal: “sharing American dance with international audiences to increase crosscultural understanding.” Since its pilot launching in 2010, it has sent 11 American dance companies along with technical staff and company managers to approximately 33 countries across the globe. Represented in this group have been SDC Members Ronald K. Brown, Doug Varone, Seán Curran,

as well as myself. Because my experiences in each country were so rich, it is impossible to include thoughts on each of them here, so I will focus on my first stop, Nepal.

My journey began when I, along with eight dancers, a technical director, and the company manager from my Seattlebased company Spectrum Dance Theater, landed at the airport in Kathmandu.

It is a boisterous, crowded, dusty, and exhilarating place, with an “aroma” unlike anything I have ever experienced. It felt as if we had been suddenly thrust smack-dab into the middle of an Indiana Jones movie. To mix movie references, we were clearly no longer in Kansas.

It is said that the first impression creates the lens through which all the following experiences are seen—and what a remarkable perspective was created with our first stop in Nepal. After 30 hours of travel and a few hours of sleep, early the next morning we had the first activity of our residency, or what the State Department refers to as “a program.” It was at a school in Lalitpur, one of the three municipalities that make up metropolitan Kathmandu (all in the Kathmandu Valley). We arrived at the school and were taken to a courtyard, where

large, tarp-like cloth mats had been laid on top of the dusty earth on which chairs had been placed, facing a small stage. There were children dressed in school uniforms, already seated and awaiting our arrival. Children dressed in various traditional costumes greeted us with flower garlands that they placed around our necks. We were then led down front and seated in places of honor. After a welcoming address by the principal of the school, a group of children, all dressed in traditional garb, came onto the stage and danced traditional Nepali dances for us. How beautiful they were with their smiles, eagerness, and enthusiasm. When they finished dancing, with a huge smile of my own and tears streaming down my cheeks, I applauded long and vigorously. It was a moving and exhilarating experience.

There was silence, and I realized that it was time for us to dance for them. Though exhausted from travel, without a warmup, and confronted with a small dusty concrete platform of a stage, the Spectrum dancers threw off their shoes and without prompting performed some of the most difficult excerpts from our repertory.

Inspired, I suspect, by the children’s spirit, they danced with such zest and zeal

Donald Byrd (top row at far right) with members of Spectrum Dance Theater in Nepal PHOTO DanceMotion USA/BAM

that I was surprised. The children oohed, aahed, and gasped with delight. When our presentation was over, they wildly applauded. Then I invited the children to come on stage to experience some of the movement they had just seen. They rushed the stage like it was a rock concert (surprising, because we had been told that in school settings Nepali children are often reticent when asked to participate). Together, we created a dazzling mix of colors, with the traditional costumes and the school uniforms swirling around the American dancers on the small stage.

What happened on that first day informed much of how we structured the remainder of our residency activities in Nepal. Working mostly with youth and young adults, our model became one of sharing and not just presenting, of exchanging perspectives, as opposed to “here is my American point of view, and you should pay attention.” We were simply trying to connect human being to human being.

What was most striking to me about Nepal was how important it was for the Nepali young people to share, not only their traditional culture and history with us, but also who they are becoming. The past was shared through the traditional dances, and the aspirational future was apparent from what they had assimilated from watching American movies, music videos, and especially clips on YouTube. There was wild enthusiasm over our hip-hop classes. Hip-hop has captured the imagination of and been embraced by youth all over the world (along with social media and Beyoncé), and Nepal is no different. It appears to be a mechanism through which they are able to express their sense of aliveness in the 21st century, as opposed to their traditional culture, where they often lack the voice or the means of expressing their individuality. But they were eager also to receive the new kind of dance we brought with us, contemporary modern dance. It was important for me to reveal through our contemporary classes and workshops that there are other ways to move, along with what they see on YouTube.

In fact, there are many ways to express oneself with movement. During the master classes and workshops that we presented over our 10-day residency, the experience was for them, it seemed, often new and startling. And the culminating performance of excerpts from my choreographies was exhilarating, challenging, and sometimes baffling—a good thing, I was told. My sense was they were excited by it all and eager to

do and to experience. There was such hunger and desires, to not only have these uniquely American experiences through the kind of dance we do, but also to have authentic and honest interactions and connections with Americans in general. To that point, with the older youth (late teens and early twenties), many would follow us to the different venues where we were teaching in order to have more encounters with us and experience what we were doing more deeply.

In many ways, the interactions before and after every event were just as meaningful and important as the event itself, and these were just the “formal” encounters. There were many informal interactions that also yielded meaningful connections. An example that stands out is the “omelet man” in the hotel restaurant. We saw him every morning at breakfast. He was so curious about who we were and what we did that the dancers gave him a ticket to

to listen. I now have lots of new Facebook friends and lots of email addresses.

The experience in Nepal was a complex, contradictory, moving, and deeply affecting one. From the lung-choking dust and horn honking of Kathmandu to the quiet magnificence of a sunrise high in the foothills of the Himalayas in Pokhara (second largest city of Nepal, situated about 200 km west of Kathmandu); to the beautiful, lively, alert, and attentive children in the schools we visited; to observing the cremation of the dead at the Hindu holy site Pashupatinath; from watching the throngs circle and circle the Buddhist stupa Boudhanath to observing the young Nepali dancers repeating over and over again the movement combinations that the Spectrum dancers had taught them; and to the audience’s screams of excitement and approval at our culminating performance when, as our encore, the Spectrum dancers performed a traditional Nepali dance they had learned from Nepali dancers.

the performance, and he rushed over to see it when he got off from work. The next morning he greeted each of us with an even bigger smile than usual, presented his program that he had brought to work that morning, and had each of us autograph it next to our names and bios.

Jokingly, I have said that as someone older, I felt obsolete in Nepal, because much of the meaningful communication seemed to happen dancer to dancer, young person to young person (the entire country seemed to be under 30 years of age). But there were many opportunities for me to share not only American values of individualism and self-expression but also the diversity of America—sometimes they would ask me, “Are you really an American?”—and to just share myself. This happened with not only the dancers that I met but also with others (again, the young staff in the hotel restaurant is a good example) who seemed so eager to share their aspirations with me. I was glad

I am still processing my experiences in South Asia, and they continue to resonate. But what I have taken away from the experience is a new commitment to three things that I had forgotten from years of being an “art-making machine,” churning out dance pieces and jumping from one theatrical project to the next. This was triggered when I was asked, “What is your dream?” My first response was the usual and very glib “I am living my dream; this is my dream.” But as I thought about it I realized the question required a much more thoughtful response. Today, as a result of my residency in South Asia, I know what my dream is.

I want my work to make a difference in the world—not just to a production that I am working on, but also to the regular Joes that encounter it. It is important to me that the kinds of productions and pieces I work on and create make people think—that they are encouraged by dance to consider their lives and who they are and how their actions affect the world in ways that perhaps they had not considered before. I want to be, through the work that I do, an agent of transformation, to affect people’s emotional, spiritual, and intellectual “DNA” and plant the seeds of transformation.

Big and very idealistic dreams, I know, but isn’t that what the theatre should do?

Nepali children dancing on stage following a presentation by Donald Byrd’s company PHOTO c/o Donald Byrd

WITH COSTUME DESIGNER

WINTER 2014 VOL. 2, NO. 3

One of SDC Journal’s regular columns, “Backstage,” focused the spotlight on colleagues and collaborators of SDC Members. In 2014—the year it was announced a new musical called Hamilton would premiere at The Public Theater—costume designer Paul Tazewell (who would go on to win a 2016 Tony Award for Hamilton’s Broadway run) answered questions about his career and process for collaborating with directors.

What led you to pursue a career in costume design?

Initially, I wanted to be a musical theatre performer—like Ben Vereen. I grew up in Akron, Ohio, and in order to pursue a performing career in New York, I chose to study fashion design at Pratt Institute. Well, I just fell in love with the process of design. I was drawn to design’s incorporation of the full spectrum of theatre arts: the literature, the research, the history, drawing and painting, working with my hands to create, to build, etc. The exploration of the complex psychology and emotional drive behind characters through design excites me. I also came to believe that I would be less marginalized as a designer than as a performer, where I would be cast according to my “type” as a person of color. Ultimately, this has been the perfect setting for me to thrive as a theatre artist.

How did you make the leap from acting to costume design?

After one year at Pratt, I transferred to North Carolina School of the Arts to complete my undergraduate degree in costume design. Then, while pursuing an MFA in costume and set design at NYU, Tazewell Thompson asked me to design his 1990 production of The Caucasian Chalk Circle at Arena Stage (coincidentally, we happen to share a name, but are not related). My work on Chalk Circle led to my eventually becoming Resident Costume Designer for Arena Stage. From there, my career really began to take flight and I worked with George C. Wolfe on The Public Theater’s 1998 production of On the Town, which transferred to Broadway. What characteristics do successful designers possess?

I think that all successful theatre artists must possess exceptional listening skills. I listen carefully to the director to glean the essence of their vision for a project. Designers must also be excellent detectives. I ask carefully chosen questions in order to better understand the director’s concept for a production. Then, I endeavor to layer the aspects of each individual costume to create a cohesive look that is believable within— and that corresponds to—this world we are creating. And, if I am successful in harnessing the director’s vision and communicating it through my design, the costumes are instrumental to the telling of the story.

In an ideal world, at what point do you meet with a director?

In an ideal world: as early as possible. In many cases, the director meets with the scenic designer first, in order to better understand the space in which the play takes place. But the sooner I am brought on board, the

PHOTO Yvonne Albinowski

better—because it increases the time I have to discuss and to contemplate my own design for the project. Also, I have more time to adjust in case a costume doesn’t quite work or if the concept shifts slightly.

What should a director know about a project before speaking with designers?

It is important that a director has, to some degree, developed their own point of view about the play. But it is crucial that he/she is willing to clarify that viewpoint through discussions with the design team. I find it very exciting when a director says, “This is how I feel about the play, but I’m not certain about the physical world yet.” I love when a director invites the designers to collaborate to discover the physical realm for a play. Anything that sparks discussion and helps the creative team arrive at a unified vision can lead to a successful production.

Which artists, including directors and/or choreographers, have had the strongest influence on you?

When I began to develop an interest in costume design, it was through the musicals of the late ’70s and early ’80s. Bob Fosse was a huge inspiration as his work always carried with it so much “style.” That was also the first time that I was exposed to the work of Willa Kim with her work on Dancin’ and I was (and still am) taken with her inventiveness with costume design. Peter Brook’s direction has also been a great influence, especially the way in which he presents the epic with great simplicity, accuracy, and grace. Through his focus on script analysis, my graduate design

instructor John Conklin taught me that design can be inspired and enhanced by a deeper understanding of the text. Geoffrey Holder influenced and inspired me through his love of fabric in movement and as an extension of the performer. Fashion designer Charles James opened my eyes to the possibility of clothing as sculpture. Also, John Singer Sargent for the illumination of character in his portraits—and his obvious love of light and fabric. And Rembrandt for the element of theatricality in his painting.

Which directors and/or choreographers have you most enjoyed collaborating with—and why?

The directors and choreographers I most enjoy working with are expert collaborators who have faith in my work and our collaborative process.

I have a huge amount of respect for Des McAnuff’s ability to craft a smart and complicated production and the control, dexterity, and insight that he has over the creation of a production from beginning to end. There is always an approach that is new and exciting and a territory of design that I have never explored when working with Des. I appreciate the tether he gives me as a designer and his discerning eye. George C. Wolfe is an extremely intelligent and challenging director to collaborate with. When I work with George, I always

feel that I am pushed beyond where I thought I could go. George forces his collaborators to investigate an idea from many perspectives. And the list goes on: Thomas Kail, because our work together is always smart and heartfelt. He makes me love people and what I do; Francesca Zambello for her straightforward, clear, and direct communication; Sergio Trujillo for his deep understanding of how clothing and fabric can inform character and enhance the sexiness of a production—a quality I truly appreciate in a director and/or choreographer; Kate Whoriskey, because there is always a lot of laughter with Kate, even in tragedy and pain. And isn’t that broad spectrum of the human experience what good theatre is about?

As a designer, what is one piece of advice you have for SDC Members?

Trust and develop loyal relationships with your designers. Know that we designers are on your side in supporting your point of view on a story. We can’t function without your direction. Our desire is to have a seat at the table. Also, keep in mind that designers, much like directors and choreographers, need not be cast to type in the same way as actors. With our faces hidden from view, smart designers are able to interpret any sex, race, and culture in an intelligent and thoughtful way.

Hamilton at The Public Theater, with costume design by Paul Tazewell PHOTO Joan Marcus

THE CHICAGO AESTHETIC

A Discussion on the Myths and Realities of Creating Theatre in the Windy City

SPRING

2014 VOL. 2, NO. 4

From Curt Columbus, Fall 2022: This conversation was recorded almost a decade ago, yet when I read it again, the day came into sharp focus like it took place yesterday. The folks gathered at the Goodman that winter day—directors Amy Morton, Ron OJ Parson, and Henry Wishcamper, and playwrights Zayd Dohrn, Rebecca Gilman, and Keith Huff—are some powerhouse theatre artists, still working in the field and at the top of their craft. They are also some of the warmest and most generous people imaginable, and that is the lasting impression that I get when I re-read their clear-eyed responses contained in this article. That is also the lasting impression I have of Chicago theatre and its practitioners—they are focused on making great theatrical art, sure, but they are also incredibly welcoming. Going to Chicago always feels like going home to me, in the best sense of that phrase. It still does.

Chicago directors + playwrights in the lobby of the Goodman Theatre. Clockwise, from top left: Zayd Dohrn, Henry Wishcamper, Curt Columbus, Keith Huff, Ron OJ Parson, Amy Morton + Rebecca Gilman PHOTO John Reilly Photography

INTERVIEW + NEW INTRODUCTION BY CURT COLUMBUS

that I have always contended that we don’t have a lot of pressure here about fame or fortune, so the work might as well be really good. That’s not meaning to say that work anyplace else isn’t, but it certainly is something that doesn’t particularly distract Chicagoans.

more ensembles, less pressure, and less competition. My experience here has been a warmer atmosphere of the camaraderie, of us all being a team, that we’re going to put something together, the collaboration of the director and the playwright.

CURT | I’m excited to bust the myth of Chicago being an aesthetically limited place, because that’s the perceived notion.

HENRY WISHCAMPER

RON OJ PARSON | Having lived in New York and then coming here, I’ve seen the difference in risk-taking, like Amy says; the pressure of a review might not kill my show because it’s still going to run five or six weeks, and you can have a bad review and good word of mouth and it still sells tickets. When I got here, I saw

HENRY WISHCAMPER | I can’t think of another place that has as much variety in the kind of work that’s being done. Every institution is so wildly different from one another in this town. What’s exciting to me about being here is the number of companies, the fact that almost everyone I’ve met here has some form of home within a company. Almost everybody here is a member of something, and in other places you’re hired freelance. I think that really radically changes the way people go about finding work outside of that home.

REBECCA GILMAN | I have found there are more ensembles here than anywhere in the world, which is crazy. It’s really sort of fabulous.

REBECCA | Henry and I were joking before this that, if we use the phrases “gritty realism” and “muscular naturalism,” we’d probably be all right—I think that’s the stereotype of the Chicago style. But it’s so much more diverse than that, and I think that there’s at least as much, if not more willingness on the part of audiences to let you try things out. If you fall on your face, they’re not fair-weather fans. People will stick with your career and sort of let you stumble around and try different things and light on things that work for you. I’ve had people tell me about their experience with all of my plays, and that makes me know that we have this kind of relationship. I’ve never worked long term anywhere else, but I know that that’s part of what I love about working here.

Almost everyone I’ve met here has some form of home within a company.

Peggy Roeder, John Mahoney, Tracy Letts + Mary Beth Fisher in The Dresser at Steppenwolf, directed by Amy Morton PHOTO Michael Brosilow

ZAYD DOHRN | I’ve only been here a couple years, but I can perhaps speak to part of the myth, which is to say that in New York there was a huge envy among playwrights about what they saw happening in Chicago. It has to do with having an artistic home and a do-ityourself environment. I don’t know if it’s an aesthetic; it’s just a practicality that in New York you need thirty thousand dollars to put on a show.

RON | And to be able to produce it here with a little bit of money at a storefront or however you’re going to do it. I think you find a lot of that here.

CURT | It’s interesting because I encountered both Keith’s and Rebecca’s work first in storefronts. And so you guys have definitely worked your way through that system as well.

KEITH HUFF | Yeah, I came in the late ’70s. So I actually saw the advent of Steppenwolf, but before St. Nicholas and Steppenwolf was Organic. Before that, it was sort of commercial. Richard Burton would come to town and go to the Ivanhoe and do A Man for All Seasons or something like that.

AMY | Yeah, it was a wasteland.

KEITH | I’ve just come back from L.A., and I am so thrilled because I’m working with Jeff Perry out there; he’s directing A Steady Rain right now at the Odyssey, a 99-seat theatre. I got to rehearsal on the first day, and there he is, the founder of Steppenwolf Theatre, setting up the tables and putting the coffee out. And I said, “You know, Jeff, if I hadn’t seen you do that when I first walked in, I would have been disappointed. He goes, “Well, yeah man, it’s all about the work.” And it was really heartening to see. I don’t mean to put it all on Organic and St. Nick and Steppenwolf, because something changed here when Richard Christiansen and the other critics said it’s worth going to those little theatres; there’s something special there.

CURT | Give major props to Richard Christiansen, the lead critic at the Chicago Tribune for decades.

AMY | And Glenna Syse.

CURT | And Glenna Syse, from the Chicago Sun-Times, the two founders of Chicago theatre in a lot of ways, right?

REBECCA | Richard saw everything.

CURT | Everything. There were these long, insightful reviews and clear indications that

he’d been following your work for decades. Glenna was the same way.

KEITH | Yeah, and that was the big difference I saw. I did some little productions in New York; you would get no support.

CURT | But in Chicago the work at Red Orchid can be as significant as the work at Steppenwolf.

REBECCA | I think among audience and critics, they are treated pretty much the same.

bring people in. Obviously Steppenwolf and these kinds of places that have an ensemble, where they also work with writers and are developing work from the ground up, probably don’t find it limiting; it’s probably freeing because you write for people and that can be exciting. But when you come in as a writer and it becomes a barrier, that can be sort of frustrating.

KEITH | I think it’s actually expansive. If you write for guerrilla theatre, the biggest asset for a playwright is the affordable talent. We didn’t have money for a big set like at the Goodman or Steppenwolf. So we rely real heavily on the actors.

AMY MORTON

CURT | The audience here goes to everything.

RON | I had a little company called Onyx. I was an unknown person, it was an unknown theatre, and Martha Lavey showed up because she had heard something about it. It’s also worth noting that the universities here, DePaul, Northwestern, these places are putting out good actors. I always encourage them to stay here for a few years.

CURT | The reason I moved here in the early ’80s was because I read a Time magazine article about Chicago theatre; it talked about Bob Falls, this young artist, buying a bunch of theatre seats and moving them into a space above a storefront. I go there and there’s Billy Petersen, this actor that I have great admiration for, hanging the fucking speakers in the grid. And I thought, I want to work here where the guy who’s the head of the company and the movie star hangs the speakers. Perhaps that’s the way in which the image of Chicago is borne out, because it feels more like real work here and less like star pursuit.

But it is known as a town that’s actor centered, partially because of the ensembles. Is that a limitation at all to directors and playwrights or not?

ZAYD | I do sometimes find ensembles to be limiting as a playwright. You definitely have experiences where you have a play and you have a conversation with a theatre and they say, “Not right for our ensemble,” or “Not enough parts,” or “Not the right parts.” And sometimes you wish you could

RON | I’m not a playwright, but because there is so much variety here, I would imagine you could get, “Well it’s not right for us, but let me give it to so-and-so; they have a little company,” and let them read it and then they might look at it and say, “Hey, we love it—let’s do this.”

CURT | It’s kind of like an ecology—its own ecosystem where work gets passed around and there are things that nurture other things, and it’s not just one monolith, which you can find in some other cities.

HENRY | I think what’s exciting about actors here is the percentage of the time that they’re on stage. The number of people I know who spend 30 or 40 weeks a year on stage in Chicago is way higher than anywhere else that I’ve ever been before. And a lot of them have been on stage for a long time with the other people in the cast. The dynamics that come out of that are so different from what you get used to as a freelance director elsewhere. I feel like you usually end up getting one or two extra weeks of rehearsal without having to be there, because everybody comes in ready to go essentially two weeks in.

CURT | That is the advantage of a standing company or ensemble, and here you have this whole city of people who have worked together.

KEITH | My sense with the actors in Chicago is that even if they’re performing at some small venue, they give it their all because audiences and the press support the smaller venues.

CURT | It’s like the Amy Morton quote that I use all the time: “We weren’t going to get rich and we weren’t going to get famous, so we just got good.”

AMY | I also think the work ethic here can be sort of insane. There’s that element of “do not get above your station; do not boast on yourself.” Sometimes when I’m

There’s a real psychotic nature to the work here, which I think makes it a little more interesting.

teaching…I see a student getting very excited about what they just did and you can see people in the room going, “Mm-mm.” And you kind of want to go, “Absolutely, celebrate yourself. Look at our winters; it’s just going to beat the shit out of you and beat out any joy you’ve got left.”

REBECCA | It’s like a Scandinavian mindset. They actually have a word for it in Swedish, I think, which means you don’t boast, you don’t put yourself forward. I think it is tied to the weather.

AMY | Which is just psychotic if you’re in our business, which is about promoting yourself and putting yourself forward. So there’s a real psychotic nature to the work here, which I think also makes it a little more interesting. Steppenwolf has a show running now and it’s amazing to me that even with this really bad winter, the house is damn near full.

ZAYD | [The temperature outside during] Rebecca’s opening last week was like negative 11, but it was packed.

CURT | There’s also a “slash” phenomenon here that is much rarer in other places: people who are playwrights/actor, actor/ director, director/playwright. There’s a lot of porousness. Bruce Norris, Tarell McCraney—I can name a dozen Chicago actor/playwrights.

KEITH | Tracy Letts.

REBECCA | Yeah, Regina Taylor.

CURT | Lydia Diamond. It’s unparalleled. And there are playwright/directors, Mary Zimmerman and more. Is there something here that accounts for that?

AMY | In the early days of Steppenwolf, it wasn’t that anybody particularly wanted to direct, but if somebody doesn’t direct it, we can’t do it. I’ll do it this time, but you’re doing the next one so I can be in it.

KEITH | I started a company in the ’80s and I was the playwright, the actors were the actors, the director was the director. And then our next show came; what do we do now? We’ve all got to do different things. If we wanted to sustain the company, we had to take on those other roles.

HENRY | I think there’s something healthy about people taking on other roles to make the work keep happening.

CURT | Right, because you’re a theatre artist as opposed to a particular kind of implementer.

AMY | I’ve witnessed this plenty of times that writers or directors have come to Steppenwolf with a project and have been told no for whatever reason, and they hear no from all the established theatres and get no enough and then they just go, “Fuck it, I’ve got to create my own work, so I’ll direct it.” And we’re lucky enough that we live in a town that you actually can do that and not necessarily break the bank. But then again, it’s always a double-edged sword. Actors aren’t getting paid enough in this town, there’s not enough Equity work, etc.

CURT | In a sense, I’m hearing that the storefront theatres are a great thing and they’re also a liability, which is to say, there’s like 200-plus storefront theatres, and they’re great because of the capacity and the way that it builds an audience for all sorts of stuff. They’re also a little bit of a liability because they’re financially limited.

REBECCA | You can be super successful as an artist working in black box theatres. You work constantly but you’re not going to make a living from it. You’re going to have to supplement your income with something. I feel like that’s true everywhere for almost everyone, and the difference is that you are working consistently in the theatre while you’re doing your day job.

KEITH | Yeah, remember when Tony Kushner had that article in the New York Times where he said, “I can’t make a living as a playwright.”

ZAYD | Yeah, that was scary.

KEITH | But as a playwright, it actually made you feel okay.

ZAYD | Yeah, he was talking about why he was also doing screenwriting. He was saying the plays themselves don’t—

REBECCA | Don’t pay him enough.

KEITH | It was almost like, it’s okay to go do TV and other things.

AMY | Oh yeah, you’ve got to.

CURT | It’s essential at a certain point. Or to do the other stuff that one does, teaching, etc.

KEITH | Teaching is a big “slash” in Chicago. Almost all the top-tier actors in the city teach somewhere.

CURT | And that originates with St. Nicholas, right?

AMY | I started there when I was 18. It was one of the only schools at that time in

town that wasn’t affiliated with a college. It was the only conservatory that I remember.

KEITH | Or Columbia, too, with Sheldon Patinkin.

AMY | But that was even later. That was later than St. Nicholas. He didn’t become the head of that department until the ’80s. So yeah, that was the first place where you could actually go learn how to act and not be affiliated with a college.

KEITH | And Northwestern. I was in the Ph.D. program in the ’90s. There was nobody there with an MFA. In fact, there was this sort of stigma. I actually had a production and I had to choose between continuing the Ph.D. program or going to do the production because they said, “You need to make a choice; you can’t be a practitioner and a scholar in the program.” It’s great to see the way that it’s evolved.

ZAYD | I was doing a Ph.D. at Columbia University and dropped it for the same reason—because I wanted to be a writer.

AMY | Doesn’t being a practitioner make you a better scholar?

CURT | Frank Galati is the perfect example of the practitioner/scholar who sets a particular tone and then has his students like Mary Zimmerman, Martha Lavey, who are practitioner/scholars as well.

KEITH | But even he had a battle with Northwestern to find a place.

CURT | But there is a tradition here, Keith, to your point of the practitioner/teacher. And that may be a big part of why there’s a constant churn—because you have people teaching new generations.

AMY | When I was young, there was something so exciting about being taught by William Macy and then that night seeing him in the play at St. Nicholas, or Lois Hall, or any of those people that started at St. Nicholas. I mean, that’s a whole different way of doing it than a classroom situation. And it makes you feel like if he can actually do that and I’m watching him practice what he preaches, oh then, oh my God, it’s completely accessible; I can do it.

CURT | And there’s a kind of investment or a porousness between the stage event and the audience and the supporters and the students. You feel like you can walk up to anyone and say, “Hey, that was a really good show.”

KEITH | I can’t help but think that that gives the people in Chicago an edge. I was telling Jeff that Steppenwolf taught me it’s okay to starve, it’s okay to just hang in for another two, three years, because the critics were coming to the small theatres; they were saying, it’s valued, it’s important. And anything that gives a theatre practitioner another extra year of courage to persist, that increases their chances of success.

RON | I also think many directors who had achieved a bit invest in their assistants. They’re not assistants that are going to get coffee. They’re assistants that you’re talking to about what you see, you’re getting feedback, and you’re getting help. That’s the way I look at it. And then they can go on and do their own thing because they learn as you nurture them.

That happened with me with Marion McClinton and Lloyd Richards when I had a class with him in the latter stages of his life. Some directors don’t even know they do it. Anna Shapiro did it to me just talking and offering advice.

CURT | How are playwrights nurtured in Chicago differently than other places or perhaps in ways that are the same?

REBECCA | Speaking for myself, there are accessible entry points for playwrights in Chicago. You can go to Chicago Dramatist and meet all the people you need to meet to get a production up, even if you’re doing it yourself. It’s not like some secret club where you have to apply for membership. My first play here was in Forest Park and my second play was at the Goodman. When you’re talking about that vertical trajectory, it’s like, whoa, all right then.

I think that people at every theatre try to be aware of what’s happening everywhere, and they look for people they want to work with and don’t really worry about whether or not they followed some preset trajectory.

CURT | It’s also important to note, Rebecca, that you went from Forest Park to the Goodman, and then back to Forest Park.

REBECCA | Yeah, absolutely, because I wanted to work with them again!

ZAYD | I would add this about being nurtured here. I was in New York for seven years. Even if things are going well, you maybe have a play produced. And then two seasons later you have a play, and then two seasons after that, maybe…if you’re really lucky. I came here and I had two plays produced in the same season, one at Steppenwolf First Look and one at a small storefront theatre. But there was no sense of waiting your turn for that other play, which was a nice feeling after feeling like there was a line you had to get in, in New York.

REBECCA | There’s an accessibility here. You can meet the people you see on stage, the directors of plays you like. You can introduce yourself and say, “I liked your work” and “Would you talk to me for five minutes?” and they will, generally.

KEITH | I did plays for 30 years before I actually made some money as a playwright. And when I look back I think, Yeah, Chicago really did support me in a way. If you do a play in New York or LA that is subpar or that the critics deem

Kareem Bandealy + William J. Norris in The Caretaker at Writers Theatre, directed by Ron OJ Parson PHOTO Michael Brosilow

subpar, there is no permission to fail. Your friends will run away because you have a stink on you and you have to start all over. This is Lloyd Richards’ thing at the O’Neill. He said, “I want to create a place where it’s okay to fail.” This whole city is like that. I mean, yeah, we can take a bashing in the press occasionally, but next time it’s a clean slate.

RON | What I found here in Chicago is that you can see the same play produced in several theatres, even around the same time, because there’s so many, and you’ve got such a different audience for each. I would imagine it would help the playwright to see a range of approaches. I do a lot of August Wilson, and one time August said he went to see a production of Ma Rainey and they did things he hadn’t really thought about but they were kind of cool. Granted, he’d seen some where he thought, What the hell are they doing that for? But in Chicago, small theatres, big theatres, you get an opportunity to have your plays done at different places with different visions.

ZAYD | That’s true. I’ve noticed that in New York it has to be a world premiere or a transfer of something that was a big hit. Here it’s about wanting to do that play at that moment, whether it’s been done a couple of times or never at all.

CURT | Can we talk a little bit about diversity in Chicago? One of the things that is visible to me now from a distance is that there are more women who run theatres here than almost anywhere else in the country. There’s a gender diversity that you don’t find other places. How do you all perceive the diversity of the people who are working in the field right now?

AMY | I think there’s absolutely a gender diversity that I don’t see in other places, which is really great for me. But I don’t know that I see what I would consider a healthy rate of other diversities.

RON | It has improved since I got here. Back then there was not much of anything. Now there are companies like Silk Road and efforts being made, like Steppenwolf for example, diversifying ensemble members. I don’t know if there’s a lot of growth in that area, but there are more theatres doing more plays about other cultures.

There’s also some nontraditional casting happening—not blind casting but really nontraditional casting, where plays are done with different racial makeup but it doesn’t change the sense of the play. I did

The Caretaker up at Writers Theatre, and we used two South Asian actors. Some people wondered how we could do that. It was written with two white guys, and for me it didn’t change the play; it made it deeper as far as what those characters were going through with this racist guy that they’re bringing into their world. There’s still a long way to go, but I think more theatres are looking to open up and consider ways to do it where they didn’t before.

least thinking that way, you’re going to be called on it.

CURT | Let me ask the two newcomers, Henry and Zayd: is there a new Chicago identity that you feel for yourselves since you moved here?

HENRY | I love New York and before I decided to move here, I thought I was exiting New York in a coffin. I don’t feel like I’ve been here long enough to call myself a Chicago theatre artist, but I do feel like the work I am doing since I moved here is different. And I find that to be exciting and I can’t imagine letting go of that right now.

RON

AMY | It’s frustrating because I think actors of other cultures will leave because you can’t get enough work here. Just simply as a director, I find it super frustrating that we have eight gazillion theatres in this town, but we can’t keep the Asian actors because there’s not enough work so they keep moving.

ZAYD | I don’t know if it’s Chicago-specific though. I cast a play with Asian roles in New York and it was impossible. We had to fly people in from LA. I think it’s really hard for some people to get enough roles to sustain a career.

RON | With nontraditional casting, sometimes they don’t think of Asian actors. They think nontraditional black and white. But I think more theatres are beginning to consider other ways they could do it. I didn’t go into The Caretaker thinking, Oh I’m going to do it with two South Asian actors. They came in for the audition and opened up.

AMY | That’s the key issue. It’s really important for casting directors and directors and artistic directors to realize there are three guys. You just need three guys. And guys, you need to see them all.

HENRY | There’s a conversation that I feel like is happening nationwide that feels very, very new to me. I’ve only been working here for seven years, but when we cast Animal Crackers nontraditionally, the conversations that felt new to me were not, I don’t think, new here. I do think that as institutions we’re aware that if you aren’t at

I had been an assistant in New York for about a decade and I started assisting a lot of Chicago directors, too. I assisted Bob and he basically gave me my first job as a director, which was directing Talking Pictures. The next year I got to do a Marx Brothers adaptation. Speaking about the diversity of the city, getting to do those two shows in one year made me think that this is the place I want to be.

ZAYD | I agree with all that. I’m just now finishing my first play that I started after getting here, so it would be hard to say whether my aesthetic or my identity had been changed. I do feel like I was welcomed. I had never had a play in Chicago in all my years in New York, and then I got here and right away felt like people were interested that I was here. It’s funny because there’s a family dynamic, which is great on the inside, and you can maybe feel insular if you’re outside of it. Once I got here, I suddenly felt like I was in a conversation with other artists in a way that was very productive and happy for me.

CURT | Turning that to you guys, Chicago identity now means something completely different because of your national and international careers as directors and playwrights, so is there still something that stays with you, as a Chicago artist?

AMY | You get treated differently.

REBECCA | I don’t know if it’s good or bad. Sometimes I feel like you’re a Chicago person and it’s like, “Oh, you live out there in the plains.” I’ve been lucky to have a lot of productions in New York, but I don’t know if my Chicago identity has worked for me or against me.

I was really surprised when my playwright friends in New York started telling me how hard they feel it is to break into Chicago. Maybe we all have that same perception. And I think the New York playwrights are right. I don’t know what it is for us

In Chicago, small theatres, big theatres, you get an opportunityto have your plays done at different places with different visions.

OJ PARSON

necessarily, but I have found that I’ve been handing plays to artistic directors for my New York playwright friends and they’ll say, “Thank you for getting me in the door.” Because maybe they feel like we’re more protective of our own or something.

HENRY | It makes sense in a way. Chicago artists don’t want to be importing all their work from New York. But when you’re in New York, you feel like, “But I could get along with you guys.”

RON | I think there’s respect, though. When I was in LA, a couple of times a few of the actors who auditioned said, “We Googled you and saw Steppenwolf on there.” So it added some respect.

AMY | When I started going to LA in the early ’90s, they’d look at your résumé and

go, “Oh, Chicago—you’re a real actor.” You’d get looked at a little differently.

RON | I can say with the few TV shows I’ve done here and out there, you get in a conversation with the director sometimes. You tell him you’re a Chicagoan and they know they are going to get something out of me; they think, “He’s probably trained” or “He’s probably done some Chicago theatre.” You feel good about it.

KEITH | I found that Chicago identity as a playwright has helped me in television. Because LA is full of journeymen writers who may not be rolling up their sleeves and creating anything from scratch, but they have the ability to mimic someone’s voice. It’s really opened a lot of doors, the Chicago credits, because they feel there’s a component that we don’t have on the team. They want to add that to the team.

CURT | There’s definitely a sense out in the world that Chicago has a kind of quality that follows you. And as we’ve been discussing, it’s also that there are these really great networks of people here. When you work here, you’ve basically over time worked with everyone. So when they’re out being successful, that transfers back. John Logan is a great example of somebody who started at a storefront theatre, then bam, he’s John Logan, and he continues to give back to Chicago in so many ways. There’s a sense that it all stays connected somehow, and I think that’s a really good thing.

RON | Love Chicago; that’s all I can say.

This article also appeared in the May/June 2014 issue of The Dramatist, the official journal of the Dramatists Guild of America.

(Clockwise from top) Ora Jones, Ed Kross, Joey Slotnick, Molly Brennan + Jonathan Brody in Animal Crackers at the Goodman Theatre, directed by Henry Wishcamper PHOTO Eric Y. Exit

It Starts with the

text

GRACIELA DANIELE IN CONVERSATION WITH LYNN AHRENS + STEPHEN FLAHERTY

SPRING 2014 VOL. 2, NO. 4

In fall of 2013, director/choreographer Graciela Daniele sat down with the songwriting team Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty in the offices of the Dramatists Guild in New York City. The following is an excerpt from their warm conversation, a “love letter” of sorts reflecting on a collaborative partnership that spanned three decades. “I’m delighted you’ll be publishing one of my favorite conversations with two of my favorite artists,” Graciela wrote when she learned we would be re-publishing this interview. Here, they discuss the joys of harmonious collaborative relationships between directors and writers.

STEPHEN FLAHERTY | I just think it’s marvelous that we’re here in this room today at the Dramatists Guild doing…it’s not really an interview; it’s a conversation. I feel like we know you so well, but there are a couple of things that I don’t know about you, which I hope we’ll find out. Should we give a brief history of how we came to get together in a room for the first time?

LYNN AHRENS | Yes. I was thinking about our history. We have done so many shows together that I really had to think back. I wanted to re-experience that first moment—it all began with our mutual agent, Howard Rosenstone.

GRACIELA DANIELE | Thank you, Howard!

LYNN | We had written a little show called Once on This Island

STEPHEN | Which was called Ti Moune at the time.

LYNN | We didn’t know what it was, we didn’t know where it should go, we didn’t know much about this show that we had written except that we thought Graciela Daniele would be the perfect director because you told stories with dance and movement and we were so intrigued by your work. And so we asked Howard if he would set up a meeting and he did.

STEPHEN | It was kind of a blind date, actually.

ABOVE Lynn Ahrens, Stephen Flaherty + Graciela Daniele in the offices of the Dramatists Guild in NYC PHOTO Walter Kurtz

GRACIELA | I remember that day like it was yesterday.

LYNN | I forget what you were working on.

STEPHEN | I know what it was. It was Eric Overmyer’s In a Pig’s Valise at Second Stage and it was your lunch hour.

LYNN | And you came to my loft wearing this giant white coat made of some insane kind of fur I’d never seen before.

GRACIELA | It was lamb, Tibetan lamb. A gift from my husband.

LYNN | You had only one hour. We sat you on a little chair, and we went to the piano and started singing our hearts out and playing. We were going quickly because we knew you had to get back and we said, “So, that’s all we’re going to…” and you said, “Oh, play me a little more.” So we played a little more and you said, “Oh, play me a little more,” and we started playing the whole show and you dissolved in tears, we dissolved in tears—

STEPHEN | It was such an emotional reaction for all concerned.

LYNN | A box of tissues.

GRACIELA | Do you remember what I said after you gave me the box of tissues? I said, “I don’t think I am the right director for you. I’m not clinical enough.”

STEPHEN | Right, you couldn’t be that removed emotionally.

GRACIELA | No, I couldn’t.

LYNN | It was just so fabulous. So that’s how we met and that’s how we came together. I remembered the first day of our workshop and how nervous I was. It’s terrifying when you’re handing over a piece that you’ve worked on for so long to somebody and you don’t know what are they going to do with it. But you just sat everyone down on the floor in a circle and you said, “What if we told it to a child?”

STEPHEN | Which was not in the script.

LYNN | And we said, well, sure, give it a try, and suddenly I remember my shoulders went down about five inches and I thought, “Oh, I see what it is. Now I see what it is.” You brought that to the show. The notion of telling it to a child was a huge dramaturgical gift.

GRACIELA | Isn’t that interesting, because I don’t consider myself a dramaturg at all, but when I went through it I felt very strongly that this story—being passed on as a torch

to the new generation—could be more powerful…

LYNN | …than breaking the fourth wall and telling the audience.

GRACIELA | Young and old audiences relate to a beautiful story told to a child.

STEPHEN | Well, that one suggestion was just brilliant because the piece is ultimately about storytelling and about making sense of what happens in our lives. It’s truly an ensemble piece about a group of people. It is a group energy and just that one suggestion underlined that and really informed everything that came after that. Luckily, that was the first sentence in the entire script! Everything that came after that first sentence was informed by your directorial choice, which was so spot-on. It surprised us because we thought we knew all the ins and outs of our little show. I’d soon find this would be the first time that I would feel that my music, combined with movement, your movement, could actually illuminate the text.

GRACIELA | It is the other way around.

STEPHEN | Well, not for me.

GRACIELA | You know, I am such an admirer of writers and composers. I can’t write a good letter in any of the four languages I speak and I believe it all starts there. It starts in the idea, in the storytelling, in the music, which are the structure and the soul of the piece. Without you, we don’t exist. Without us you could still exist. Remember that in Shakespeare’s time there were no directors.

LYNN | I’m putting it on my refrigerator.

STEPHEN | It starts with the author; it starts with the text.

GRACIELA | It starts with the author. It starts with the text. It starts with the music. And directors, we are interpreters. We are just interpreters.

LYNN | You know, that’s a very rare sentiment coming from a director, I have to say.

GRACIELA | Really?

LYNN | Maybe not as rare as I think it is, but rare in my experience.

GRACIELA | Isn’t that interesting?

STEPHEN | I think a lot of that comes from the fact of who you are, that you’re an incredibly generous person besides being a generous and inspired artist. I think also it comes from your sense of confidence.

You know, I honestly think a lot of directors aren’t confident and feel unless they get this billing or get this thing, it somehow diminishes them. I’ve never felt that with you.

GRACIELA | I don’t care about those things; I really don’t. I’m just a good housewife who happens to love the theatre…[laughter] I know it sounds rather ordinary but it’s true! Each play creates a family with all the problems we must solve together, hopefully, in loving collaboration. In a very short time, we must deliver a beautiful baby and be proud to be its parents.

STEPHEN | I even remember at Playwrights Horizons—I think it might’ve been the third day—and you know, this is clearly an ensemble piece, but some of our children within the family are being a little prickly—

GRACIELA | I remember that day. I went for coffee and you followed me.

LYNN | I followed her.

STEPHEN | Yes, and Grazie did a great acting job of doing a dramatic exit.

LYNN | She swooped on her white fur coat and went out of the building and—

GRACIELA | I don’t usually do that. Just once in a while, for effect.

LYNN | It was very effective.

GRACIELA | I know it was.

LYNN | I got so scared and I thought, “Oh my god, we’ve just lost our director,” and I went running down the street and I saw her sipping her cup of coffee very calmly and— GRACIELA | I said, “Don’t worry. I’ll be back soon. Let’s see what the children want to do by themselves.”

STEPHEN | That’s right, and I thought that was great parenting because had you not stepped in—

LYNN | You gave them a time-out.

GRACIELA | That’s right.

STEPHEN | “Now kids, you’ve got to learn to play together because we’re all part of this group.”

GRACIELA | And that was the problem. They were not being generous with each other.

STEPHEN | I also think that the amazing thing that I personally got from that experience is that you were so supportive

of everybody individually and also as a collective group of artists. I am loath to present any of my work unless I know that it’s polished and it’s exactly where I want it to be. I’d much rather stay in my little room until I get it right and that’s, in a weird way, the antithesis of collaboration. I remember we knew there was going to be an 11 o’clock moment, it was going to be a dance, and I had never written just dance music for dance’s sake; I didn’t know how to do it. So I was just sort of fretting and kind of nervous about that moment and trying to hide it, of course, and you were very supportive and then there was the moment where you just basically pushed me out of the plane and said, “Now you have to learn how to skydive,” and—

GRACIELA | And we did it together.

STEPHEN | And we did it together, you and I and Willie Rosario. I would hit a pencil on a Coke can and drum the piano. That was the way that we found the rhythmic blueprint of what that dance would be and then I added

music later and I had never in my life done anything like that or worked that way.

GRACIELA | I remember it very well because in the next room we had Mike Nichols rehearsing a play and every five minutes they would come and say, “Could you please be quieter?” Oh my god, Mike Nichols! We were having too much fun!

LYNN | And you know what else was interesting about that dance? We had a number that it replaced—

GRACIELA | It replaced my favorite song.

LYNN | We had a beautiful 11 o’clock song and we had an 11 o’clock dance and that taught me a lot. I realized—we don’t need that number. The audience is so far ahead of it by the time she’s singing it, the dance has already told us everything we need to know.

STEPHEN | And of course I was the last one in the building to realize we didn’t need the number.

GRACIELA | Well, because it was…it is an extraordinary song and so moving. When she sang it the first time, I cried like a baby. I do cry sometimes. I also laugh a lot.

LYNN | That’s why we’re sitting in this room.

GRACIELA | Yes, you are right.

STEPHEN | And the other memory that I have that’s so clear…we were working on a new song for Agwé, our God of Water—I had rough material that was not in my mind a song yet and Lynn said, “Oh, just play it,” and I said, “It’s not really ready to be played,” and Grazie said, “Oh, come on, just go to the piano,” and this was in your apartment downstairs.

LYNN | And Loy Arcenas was there.

STEPHEN | Yes, our set designer.

GRACIELA | And he was the one who came up with a great idea.

STEPHEN | So it was the classic scene in a movie where the composer goes to the

LaChanze + ensemble in Once on This Island at Playwrights Horizons PHOTO Martha Swope ©The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts

piano and starts playing the vamp, Lynn starts singing as the God of Water, and then Grazie starts dancing—

LYNN | And Loy goes, “I see umbrellas.”

STEPHEN | And so Grazie starts miming a samba…and all of a sudden from nothing, and from my incredible timidity, this beautiful number came alive in all of our minds in a moment. That’s why I wanted to say thank you on record for pushing me out that door, saying get to that piano, get to it, and it was…that was truly one of those magical, synergistic moments of the theatre.

GRACIELA | That’s the magic of collaboration.

LYNN | But how many of those moments there are…we’ve done I don’t know how many shows. I don’t want to jump away from Once on This Island because I could talk about it for an hour, but how about the moment in Ragtime when we handed you the script and we had written this wonderful opening number that was still evolving and in parentheses I had written “dance break” and Grazie laughed at us and put her hands over her head and said, “What’s that? What do you mean? Break from what?”

GRACIELA | Yes. Break from what?

LYNN | I had no idea how to write a scenario for dance. I had never done it.

GRACIELA | But that is not up to you. That is up to the choreographer.

LYNN | Well, now I feel I should give a hint.

GRACIELA | Well, if you have an idea, it helps.

LYNN | But what you came up with for that dance break in parentheses was I think one of the classic dance pieces in American musical theatre. I just do. You took the three tribes and you had, I think, pennies or bottle caps.

GRACIELA | Oh, with my assistant, yes. Well, there were so many people. You know, usually you have 15, 20, but I think we had 50. We kept on moving the pennies around—

LYNN | You kept on pushing the pennies around and I remember watching and going, “What is she doing?” and out came this dance—three “tribes” that swirled into one confrontation and then another confrontation. It was so amazing and brilliant.

GRACIELA | Well, I remember wondering what to do because the opening was so

brilliantly written, the music, the lyrics, the introduction of all the characters, that dancing seemed superfluous. Then, all of a sudden, I thought: let’s go to the seed of this piece. What is Ragtime about, the book? It tells the story of three tribes unable or unwilling to mix, always confronting each other, always with fear in their hearts. And that’s what we did. There was not one single dance step, but I believe we told the story.

STEPHEN | Well, the thing that really excited me, and this is again the movement off music, is that the way I sort of constructed the tune, where every time someone would sing the word “ragtime,” I would never go to a tonic. It would just be this little hole of nothing, this space. You took the hole of nothingness to be a group of people, groups and individuals confronting one another, like as you do on a subway or any time you’re put in a common space. You actually infused a half rest repeatedly with so much racial tension, and I thought that was so brilliant.

GRACIELA | But you wrote it in the music. STEPHEN | But I didn’t know that I had.

Myfavorite phrase in the theatre is: ‘What about if…?’

GRACIELA DANIELE

GRACIELA | Ah, see, that’s what I said. That’s what I’m talking about. Writers, composers… your canvas is totally blank and you start sketching on it. We might come in and put some colors on it, but like what Terrence said one time in Ragtime, when we were discussing what a book writer does in a musical: “We just put the foundation and build a firm structure and then all of you come in and make it a beautiful building.” I thought that was a great analogy.

LYNN | I don’t know if it’s unusual but I know it’s wonderful to work with somebody that you’re so comfortable with. I mean, we’ve been working together for 30 years. And 30 years with you. You’ve been in our lives for as long as we’ve been working together, there you’ve been, and we all know how to be so comfortable that we can jump up and do a samba…or do you remember we were sitting trying to figure out J.P. Morgan…?

GRACIELA | Oh yes, yes.

LYNN | It was this crazy moment in a little office and somebody said, “Well, what if the bridge moved and came down and what if he was on it and what if he crushed

the immigrants?” Everybody was sort of shouting out ideas. You can’t do that with everybody.

STEPHEN | No.

GRACIELA | That is the most wonderful and exhilarating moment in any creative journey.

LYNN | That’s right.

GRACIELA | Again, collaboration. Being free to express ideas even if they are wrong. Not afraid of being wrong. That “bad” idea might take you to a good one.

STEPHEN | Well, that was the beautiful thing about working on Ragtime because you and Frank Galati worked together seamlessly and he also believed the same thing: get a group of really smart people in the room together. Everybody working on that show was overqualified because you are an amazing director in addition to being a choreographer. Frank is also an author. Santo Loquasto, who did the costumes, also is a set designer. Lynn writes book as well. Everybody was looking at the same thing from not only what their job description was but from what their life experience was. It was free enough that you felt that you could say anything and it would always lead to some exciting idea, or if we got stuck, we would just sit in that room together.

GRACIELA | Oh, and we did sometimes.

STEPHEN | Yeah, there would be 10 minutes of silence and then something would bubble up and it was thrilling.

GRACIELA | Well, I only like working like that. I’ve had experiences working with directors, brilliant directors that I admire very much, but I didn’t enjoy it because there was not that kind of freedom of exploration. My favorite phrase in the theatre is: “What about if…?” I learned it from Wilford Leach, who directed The Pirates of Penzance many years ago at The Public.

LYNN | My version of that sentence is: “This may be stupid but…”

GRACIELA | Yes, yes, you say that all the time, even while giving a great note.

LYNN | Because then I’ve warned you, and if it’s good, I’ve surprised you.

GRACIELA | One of my favorite things about you is when you perform.

LYNN | Oh, it’s so sad.

GRACIELA | No, you are adorable. You make me smile, and you, Stephen, have become a great comic.

STEPHEN | I’m a ham.

GRACIELA | Well, I’d like to say something about you two that I don’t believe I’ve ever told you. Stephen, as a composer, you are a chameleon. You incarnate the soul of each piece with great respect to its period, culture and tone. Lucky Stiff, Once on This Island, Ragtime, Dessa Rose, Man of No Importance

LYNN | And The Glorious Ones

GRACIELA | And The Glorious Ones. I mean, every single one is like it’s written by a different composer, not just you.

STEPHEN | But that’s—

GRACIELA | Brilliant! Am I right or not?

LYNN | You’re totally right.

STEPHEN | That’s sort of the fun of it for me, though. I’m like the Meryl Streep of music. [laughs] You know, you joke about Meryl doing these different accents, but that was part of the fun about Ragtime because it was about three entirely different communities and trying to find your musical vocabulary and voice for each of them. Then when this group mixes with that and finding musically what happens, that was really exciting.

LYNN | When we’re looking for new ideas, which is oftentimes my job, you know, I’m surfing bookstores and that sort of thing. I always say to Stephen, “What do you feel like writing next?” and I know that whatever I find, if it’s a good story, he can do it if he can get into it.

STEPHEN | It’s almost never for me about subject as much as: what did I get to do on the last piece and what have I been yearning to do?

GRACIELA | Oh, that’s wonderful.

STEPHEN | Yeah, like with Once on This Island, it’s interesting. You would’ve thought that that would have been a music idea-first piece because it has such a strong musical language, but, in fact, we had just done Lucky Stiff, which was a farce, which was oddly very challenging, I think, but I said to Lynn, “Every bit of emotional music we had to cut,” because farce wouldn’t support that. And I said, “Whatever it is, I just want it to have some sort of an emotional center.” And then Lynn happened by total happenstance to find this little novel that was set on this fictional Caribbean island and it sort of gave me license to create my own world. At the same time, just for fun, I happened to be listening to world music, but I had never thought, oh, you could actually use those rhythms as the basis of a theatre score. So the music came second, which you wouldn’t guess.

GRACIELA | Another artist who had the same quality was Jerome Robbins. As a director/choreographer, he always served the piece, Gypsy, Fiddler on the Roof, West Side Story. I remember writing a “love letter” to him once, saying that what inspired me the most about his work was that I could never guess who had done it, except for the fact that it was perfect.

STEPHEN | You know, I think it confuses a lot of people because a lot of people might say, “Well, what’s your style?” and style often has to do with repetition. If you did this one thing here, oh, and then you do the same thing in the next piece, but you just alternate one ingredient—

GRACIELA | That’s right, you put your stamp on it, yes.

STEPHEN | And you do the same thing, too.

GRACIELA | I try because I admire that a lot, even though it’s so difficult to achieve.

LYNN | But you do do that because, with you, it’s always the story first.

GRACIELA | That’s correct. It starts from there.

LYNN | What is the story? Who are the characters? Who are they? What do they feel like?

GRACIELA | What do they need?

A collaboration that spans decades: an early photo of Graciela Daniele, Stephen Flaherty + Lynn Ahrens PHOTO c/o Lynn Ahrens

LYNN | What do they need? What are they telling you? What is that story—everything flows out of that. You do research into the world of the turn of the century or the Caribbean or Ireland or whatever it is and there it is; it just seems to lay itself out for you who those people are.

GRACIELA | And you write that way, too.

LYNN | Well, I try to be invisible.

GRACIELA | But you are not.

LYNN | I try to be.

GRACIELA | Let me tell you: you’re too brilliant and too pretty.

LYNN | No, no, if I read a lyric that I’ve written and it’s sitting on Stephen’s music beautifully and all that, but if I feel it’s too clever or I can hear a little proud moment for myself in there and it’s very obvious, I always change it. I can’t do it.

GRACIELA | I know. You write poetic images and heartfelt emotions, but never too complex or cerebral to distract us from what the character is thinking and, most of all, feeling.

LYNN | I’m very careful about it.

GRACIELA | Sometimes you change something and I wonder: why? It was so beautiful! But the change is always for the best, more human, more direct.

LYNN | You know, we just finished a show in Germany and I just mention it because it was a wonderful experience, fabulous experience, but I missed my internal rhymes so much. They don’t exist in the German lyrics. There are rhymes at the ends of the lines where they fall and all that, everything is correct, but there’s something about… what I love to do is roll those words around in my mouth until they just come out like ice cream. I didn’t have that in German words.

GRACIELA | Another gift you have, very rare in writers, is that somehow, when I start to prepare to tell you that you should, perhaps, take a look at this paragraph, you tell me, “Oh, I’ve already cut it.”

LYNN | I’m a good editor. I know.

GRACIELA | It’s, unfortunately, not a common virtue.

LYNN | Well, you know we’ve talked about this—

GRACIELA | It is hard to let go of moments we love in our work, but it is all for the sake of the play.

LYNN | Well, you’ve been so wonderful to me to let me whisper in your ear all the time. I mean, I always—

GRACIELA | I love that.

LYNN | I’m always on the verge of thinking, “Oh, I just have to get out of the room.” I’m such a pain, but I…that’s one of the things that I’ve always loved about our working process. I say, “Do you mind if I just sit here, and if I have any thoughts, can I tell you?” You’re so good about that.

GRACIELA | I want to hear what you have to say. And you are always respectful in when to say it. You never interrupt the process. And I believe two or more brains at work are better than just mine.

STEPHEN | Or me alone.

GRACIELA | Besides being a great writer, you understand theatre, Lynn. When I’m working with the actors, I’m inside of the play and can’t afford to stand back and see the detail or the whole picture until much later. Having your thoughts during that process helps me a lot.

LYNN | I’ve learned so much from you, I mean, on every show that we’ve done together—huge things and small things. For instance, on The Glorious Ones, we did that commedia workshop and I think that show would not have been as good as it was without it because I wrote for characters that were created in that room and I began to understand and see their physicality and their natures. That would never have happened if you hadn’t said, “I think we need that workshop,” and it was unbelievable. It was so much fun and so informative.

GRACIELA | Lynn, I think for a new musical, we all need a workshop.

LYNN | Yeah, but that was a special one, though.

GRACIELA | Oh yes, because it was a language that we didn’t know and we had to discover it in action, not just talking about it or reading about it; we had to do it. We had to act it.

STEPHEN | That was the trickiest thing, I think, about that show, because basically we were writing a piece about people that improvised, which seems an impossible assignment. In a certain way, it’s like trying to find out how you would physicalize it

and how these people would basically make up their own plays. Then after we would do that, we would kind of lasso what we learned and then that would go back on the page because it couldn’t fully be on the page to begin with; it was impossible.

GRACIELA | It was a wonderful experience. We had a great cast.

LYNN | Oh my gosh, John Kassir was worth the price of admission. You know, I’m still in touch with him and he just makes me laugh at every turn.

GRACIELA | He is so funny.

LYNN | All of the improvisational things that he did in his audition I wrote into the show. He’s going to pull a hand out of a suitcase and talk to the hand, he’s going to juggle, he’s going to do mime, and I made places for him throughout the show based on that workshop and based on his audition material.

STEPHEN | But the funny thing about The Glorious Ones for me is that it took 13 years to write it. You know, we did our very first reading of The Glorious Ones right after we had opened and closed My Favorite Year at Lincoln Center, and you were beginning your work at Lincoln Center, and we were working on this new piece and you said, “Let’s do a reading of this show.” Whenever people talk about how long did it take you to do it from the beginning to the end, I would just say, “Well, let me put it this way: in the first reading, Donna Murphy was the ingénue.” I actually think that was a blessing that it took us 13 years, because we were able to learn about each of those characters over such a long period of time.

LYNN | And then figure out what it was about because you can’t tell from the novel, you can’t, but over the course of those years, we realized that it was about the family of theatre, how we pass it on, the ingénue gets old, the leader of the troop gets old, the theatre itself changes. That show is very close to my heart.

GRACIELA | And to mine. I love talking to you both because we have shared so much of our lives together, and we still have something to say.

LYNN | Something to say, oh my god. I mean, there’s so much more.

This article was edited by The Dramatist and also appeared in the May/June 2014 issue of The Dramatist, the official journal of the Dramatists Guild of America.

The Alchemy of Summer Shakespeare

BY

ELIZABETH NELSON

SUMMER 2014 VOL. 3, NO. 1

Early in 2014, SDC Journal spoke with artists who worked with five different outdoor summer Shakespeare

across the country, taking a brief “snapshot” of their history, community impact, and artistic process. Nearly a decade later, these theatres are all in different places—at times literally. As of the 2022 Season, the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival has moved from its longtime site at Boscobel House and Gardens to a new permanent home, a 98-acre property overlooking the Hudson River. With a focus on ecological restoration and climate-smart investment in green design, this new home will feature the first LEED Platinum theater to be built in the United States, designed by Studio Gang and scheduled to open in the summer of 2025.

And, sadly, the season featured in the article was the last for Georgia Shakespeare, which closed after 29 seasons due to financial difficulties. Director and co-founder Richard Garner wrote in a recent email, “This article captured a summer Shakespeare company doing what it did best—bringing Shakespeare forward to commune with a 21st-century audience where they are today. If we are remembered for anything, I hope it is that.”

festivals

Lynn Robert Berg in the title role of Macbeth at Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival, directed by Charles Fee PHOTO Joy Strotz

MONTANA SHAKESPEARE IN THE PARKS

“There’s a place called Birney, MT. You spend 45 minutes on a dirt road to get to Birney, but that’s not where you’re playing. You drive up to the top of a butte—another half an hour on a dirt road—and from the top of that butte, there are no signs of civilization for 360 degrees. The first time I went up there as an actor, I thought, this is a joke!

Who’s going to come? So we set up—we travel with a sort of portable Elizabethan stage—and then a trail of dust appears in the distance and 250 people show up. It was astonishing.”

Director William Brown first joined Montana Shakespeare in the Parks (MSIP) as an actor in 1980. Thirteen years later, after embarking on his directing career, he was hired to direct The Comedy of Errors. His time spent on tour as a performer provided valuable insight and experience to his directing process for MSIP.

“I did three seasons as an actor,” he says. “I was still in grad school at the time, and

nothing really prepared me for the event of it because nothing can. We rehearse, and the costumes and sets are built in Bozeman, MT—that’s home base—then a group of actors pile into a van with a truck and a trailer and hit the road. We take care of everything—there’s no stage management, no technical support. It’s complete autonomy. We played all rural communities, border towns. In some of the bigger towns, we played to 2,000 people.”

Since 1973, when a group of students and community members joined to present a variety of Shakespearean scenes—touring them through seven cities, beginning in hometown Bozeman—MSIP has presented over 2,150 performances for nearly 75,000 theatregoers. Founded by Dr. Bruce Jacobsen, MSIP is a fully professional touring theatre program, traveling to approximately 60 communities each summer in Montana, northern Wyoming, eastern Idaho, western North Dakota, and eastern Washington.

Their mission is to bring the Bard and other classics to underserved, rural areas, the vast majority with populations less than 10,000. There is no charge for admission.

“It’s an astonishing journey, and something that is life-changing,” says Brown. “It’s been

34 years and I’m still a part of it, though not every summer. It’s important to me that I do, because…well, you have to have a lot of money to go to the theatre. [MSIP] is free. And you meet people who can talk to you about four different Twelfth Nights that they’ve seen, who can compare Malvolios. They are quite a sophisticated audience and that surprises some of the new actors that join us every year. You travel through some of the most beautiful country on earth. Sometimes you stop and jump in a waterfall and then get back in the van and keep going. You feel a little bit like an outlaw, in the best sense of the word.”

Following the inaugural summer, MSIP mounted two productions with a paid company and staff: The Taming of the Shrew and The Merchant of Venice, doubling the season to 26 performances in 18 cities. Today, the acting company consists of 10 professional actors and the performances have increased each year; in the summer of 2014, MSIP will perform As You Like It and Romeo and Juliet 75 times in 59 cities. After 5 weeks of rehearsal, the company embarks on a 10-week tour.

MSIP’s contribution to the performing arts in this region was recognized in 1991 with the Montana Governor’s Award for the

Montana Shakespeare in the Parks at Cooke City-Silver Gate, MT PHOTO c/o Montana Shakespeare in the Parks

Arts, the state’s highest honor for an arts organization.

In addition to the summer festival, MSIP runs two educational outreach programs: Shakespeare in the Schools (SIS) and Montana Shakes! Both programs speak to the rising interest in Shakespeare and performing arts throughout the state, providing valuable opportunities to bring hands-on education and firsthand experience into the classroom. SIS, launched in 1993, was designed to “expose [middle and high school] students to Shakespeare as he intended—in a live theatrical performance.” A fully staged 75-minute performance, complete with set and costumes, tours the surrounding communities for 10 weeks, serving more than 10,000 students each year. The performance is followed by postshow workshops to help students better understand Shakespeare’s language, themes, and relevancy to today’s culture and society. Similarly, Montana Shakes! introduces Shakespeare to younger students (kindergarten through fifth grade) through an interactive 30-minute performance followed by talk-back sessions and hands-on workshops with emphasis in design, verse, and stage combat/movement.

When asked about MSIP’s impact on the community, Brown replies, “You are aware of how frequently you are playing a venue where there are no other performing arts that are going to come to that town. I’ve had ranchers say to me, ‘We always have to decide whether to go to the Shakespeare or the rodeo, and we always go to the Shakespeare.’ You’re so humbled by that. As an actor and a director—any part you have in it—you will yourself to do your best work, because it’s important. I think sometimes we

can forget in the regional theatre who we’re playing to or what that connection to the audience is. You never forget it out there.”

Doing It Right

BY WILLIAM BROWN

I did All My Sons last summer here at American Players Theatre (APT) in Wisconsin, and understandably, in a Midwest town, All My Sons landed in a way that you would expect. Well, [right around closing], I got a call from some of the actors who had been touring The Recruiting Officer by Farquhar, which I directed for Montana Shakespeare in the Parks.

It’s an 18th-century English comedy, and I happen to think that there’s some great, extraordinary 18th-century English comedy that has far more depth than people will probably allow for. It’s about—like the title says—a time in Farquhar’s life when he took a job as a recruiting officer, went to rural communities in England, and did anything and everything to get boys to sign up for stupid, meaningless wars in Europe. Even used the same slogans [that are used today]: “Be all you can be,” “Find your destiny,” “Become a man.” All of those are in the play, and music and songs, and it’s not unlike recruiting right now. It’s very, very funny, but it ends with, “There they go. These boys are going off to war.” Which I think is a sobering image.

I told The Recruiting Officer cast this story, that not many years earlier, right at the height of the war in Iraq, I went to this tiny little town called Boulder, MT—if it has 500 people in it, I’d be surprised—and when I got out of my car, I looked up and on every pole up and down the street were plywood yellow ribbons. There were 26 of them. That town of 500 people had 26 soldiers in

Iraq. And you think, that’s how it gets done, isn’t it? There aren’t a lot of jobs there. Not much of a future. I told that to the cast and they heard me, and I think they believed me, but not down in their souls completely. And then they played Boulder, MT, later that summer, and this is when they called me [while I was at APT]. When they got out of the car, there were 92 yellow ribbons up and down the street.

It was so sobering to them that after the show the company manager came out, thanked everyone, and he told them that story. And this group, this community, which had laughed their asses off during the play, was suddenly moved to tears. And that’s the opportunity that something like Montana Shakespeare in the Parks gives to me, to actors, to audiences. It’s very special. You expect that from All My Sons. If you don’t get that, you haven’t done it right. Do you expect that from The Recruiting Officer? I was grateful for months after that.

HUDSON VALLEY SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL

Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival (HVSF) blossomed out of an outdoor theatre project aimed to raise money for historic Manitoga, a 75-acre estate and modernist home of industrial designer Russel Wright in Garrison, NY. Actress Melissa Stern, who had been charged by Manitoga’s board with organizing the fundraising effort, and director Terrence O’Brien produced the inaugural production, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, in partnership with New York

The Three Musketeers, directed by Christopher V. Edwards at the former home of Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival PHOTO William Marsh

City’s Twenty-Ninth Street Project in the summer of 1987. The audience consisted of 230 people. The following year, HVSF moved to another historic estate in Cold Spring, making Boscobel, an internationally recognized house museum with a leading collection of Federal-period furniture and decorative arts, its permanent home, and from there the company has continued to grow. As of 2012, the festival now presents for more than 39,000 people who travel from all across the region to enjoy Shakespeare set against the breathtaking views of the Hudson River Valley on 60 acres of manicured gardens and lawns.

HVSF is a professional resident Shakespeare company, and its productions are produced in repertory beneath a beautifully designed open-air theatre tent overlooking the Hudson River. “This site is spectacular,” says Davis McCallum, HVSF’s incoming Artistic Director. “One of the most unique things about the location is the way the actors can appear over the Belvedere at Boscobel House and Gardens. There’s a magical moment…when the actors come over the hill with the Hudson behind them and approach the audience across this beautiful lawn. It’s so thrilling that most of the time when actors make this longdistance entrance, the audience bursts into spontaneous applause; it’s the kind of thing that you can’t get anywhere else in the American theatre.”

After 27 years at the helm, founding Artistic Director O’Brien is stepping down, and McCallum, with an extensive career in text-focused work, is taking the reins. “I’m excited by what makes [HVSF] so unique, so special, which is this very electric connection between the acting company and the audience. Both are underneath this big, circular tent, and [the production] feels like a conversation. It creates a certain energy in the room that you don’t always have when you’re doing a Shakespeare play indoors on a proscenium, and you turn out the lights on the audience. When the play starts, everybody can see everybody—there’s no sense in denying that the audience is there, fully lit. And over the course of the play, as darkness descends, a kind of focus accumulates in the middle of the room as the story takes hold. It’s so beautiful, so true.”

The Festival boasts a number of education and community outreach programs, including a touring production through Access-Shakespeare, an artists-in-residents program called Free Will, and the Teaching Shakespeare Summer Institute. Designed to support New York State Learning Standards for the Arts, the focus of these programs

revolves around text, from engagement through action, exploration with dramatic techniques, and exercising of various creative interpretations. The Festival also provides a 17-week actor training program and a professional development program for elementary, middle, and high school teachers featuring workshops that aid educators in making Shakespeare more accessible in the classroom. “We have a huge impact all up and down the Hudson Valley through our education and outreach programs, which reach more than 40,000 kids every year,” says McCallum.

“We’re also one of the biggest economic drivers in our local area; restaurants, bars, hotels all see their business increase as soon as our audiences come for the [Festival] on Memorial Day through the summer.” McCallum hopes to strengthen this relationship with the local and surrounding communities and increase HVSF’s impact as he leads the company forward. “I hope that’s one of the things we can continue to build on in the future. One of our challenges is how do we take the magic—and that is the right word—that happens under the tent and continue to bring it into the community in the most impactful way the rest of the year?”

HVSF is less than an hour by train from Grand Central Station. “We’re only 50 miles from [New York City], and yet it feels like we’re a world away,” says McCallum. “Come in the afternoon, bring a picnic, enjoy a glass of wine, and then, as the sun is going down, come into the tent and enjoy a Shakespeare play. It’s a great summer afternoon.”

Totally Inspired

BY DAVIS MCCALLUM

My first experience with Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival was as an audience member, when I saw Terry O’Brien’s production of Hamlet in 2011. There’s a real challenge in doing that play outside in the summertime because the sun doesn’t set until an hour into the show, which means the ghost has to be on stage at minute six in the play in broad daylight. So, how are you going to communicate to a 21stcentury audience what would have been apparent to the Elizabethan audience, which is that this ghost [will forever be] in tortured limbo unless Hamlet acts to avenge his murder? You have to do something to make that palpable, not just an abstraction.

Terry’s solution, like everything at our theatre, was all about the actors. The “Ghost” was essentially played by two actors; one actor played the Old Hamlet and

another actor was behind him, costumed like some kind of tormentor, holding the first actor in a kind of strange, torture-like harness, almost like he was leashed in like a dog. The actor who played the dead King had black makeup on his lips and on his tongue so that when he tried to speak the words that Shakespeare’s given for the Ghost, his mouth kind of curdled. He had the impulse to express himself, but didn’t look like he was pronouncing. [The face of the actor behind him] was shielded by a kind of scrim-like headgear, and he was the person who spoke the lines into a body mic. So together, between the two of them, one person played the body of the murdered King Hamlet, and the other person provided the text.

It was simple and disturbing and extremely effective. Hamlet’s been performed for 400 years and I don’t think that’s ever been attempted in quite that way, and it worked beautifully. The choice was deeply embedded in the text. It wasn’t a directorial imposition. It just happened to be a totally inspired idea.

LAKE TAHOE SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL

On the northeast shore of Lake Tahoe stands a $2 million state-of-the-art facility— the Warren Edward Trepp Stage, home of Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival located in Nevada’s scenic Sand Harbor State Park. Established to enrich the performing arts culture of the central west, Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival has been delighting audiences with summer Shakespeare since 1972. During the company’s inaugural season, the New Shakespeare Company, as it was originally called, presented eight performances in the Ehrman Mansion on the west shore in Sugar Pine Point State Park. Two years later, the budding company expanded into Skylandia Park in Tahoe City, and then again in 1976 to Sand Harbor, where the company performed on a modest, hastily erected hand-built stage for approximately 500 people. Two names and three management companies later, Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival was officially christened, and in 1995 was incorporated as an “independent nonprofit organization dedicated to managing and improving performances at Sand Harbor.” More than 26,000 patrons attend the Shakespeare production each summer, enjoying the beach, sunsets over the lake, and gourmet

picnic fare from Shakespeare’s Kitchen, a dining area open before each performance.

Producing Artistic Director Charles Fee, who is also AD for two other classical repertory companies, Idaho Shakespeare Festival in Boise and Great Lakes Theater in Cleveland, has helmed the company since 2010 and describes his experience working at the lake as “absolutely extraordinary.”

“The space itself is utterly breathtaking. We sit on a giant sand dune on the shore of Lake Tahoe, and the audience looks across the stage out over the lake and into the mountains. Scenically, it’s one of the most staggering theatres that I have ever worked or seen shows in.” The majority of the audience filling the 1,000-seat theatre are first-time visitors enjoying the resort; the remaining 40% are local residents who visit Lake Tahoe each summer. “We have a really interesting audience dynamic because a huge percentage of the house is sitting there for the first time, and they may not even be people who see theatre on any regular basis. But they’re at Lake Tahoe and there is literally nothing like this experience. We’re the only theatre that sits on the shore of the lake, and the only classic professional theatre company in the whole state of Nevada.”

Each production rotates between the three companies, typically rehearsed and built in either Cleveland or Boise, depending on the space where they will first perform. The directors and creative teams design the shows with the different spaces in mind— the Boise theatre is also outdoors, but the indoor space in downtown Cleveland has a fly gallery and a hydraulic lift stage. “We’ve gotten very good at doing this because we’ve been doing it for a long time,” says Fee. “We augment the shows given the particular strength of each space; and we design shows that can be quickly and easily modified. So there isn’t a huge amount of change between one venue and the next.” The most radical change is lighting, especially between the indoor Cleveland space and the two outdoor theatres.

“I’ve been directing Shakespeare outdoors for 23 years. For me, where I notice the difference the most is directing indoors,” says Fee of his directorial approach to working at Lake Tahoe. “The technique that you need for large outdoor spaces is quite theatrical, and in a sense, presentational— which is a word that freaks people out—but all it means is that you have to recognize that we are here to engage this large audience in daylight in a text that is fairly dense. To do that, you really have to include that audience in your speaking; you have

to always be thinking about bringing that audience up onto the stage with you and into the language of these plays.”

Dedicated to educating and influencing future generations, Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival hosts two youth programs. The D.G. Menchetti Young Shakespeare Program enters its 13th season in 2014, and offers free interactive performances to children in the Reno, Tahoe, and Truckee regions. From February to May, InterACT Workshops are offered to schools and community centers in Nevada and California, providing hands-on activities that teach students many of the classic themes of Shakespeare’s work, as well as an appreciation for all live performance.

This summer Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival is presenting As You Like It, which will be performed 39 times from mid-July to the end of August. “In Lake Tahoe, you’re not competing with [the environment], but harmonizing with this breathtaking physical setting,” says Fee. “And Shakespeare’s plays lend themselves to the outdoors; they lend themselves to a very strong community experience. Come, bring a glass of wine and a picnic, watch a production, and enjoy not only Shakespeare but also this extraordinary site… We have an absolute blast.”

Theatrical Wildlife

BY CHARLES FEE

We don’t have as many animals coming into the theatre in Cleveland as we have in Boise and Tahoe. There are animals everywhere. We see every single night, without any exception in Boise, deer coming right up to the theatre. We have every kind of creature you can imagine, like wild peacocks. There were two of them that for two seasons would come and walk through the lobby all through preshow, come into the theatre during the show, fly up into the light rail during the show. Giant male peacocks. Absolutely bizarre and incredible and sort of crazily magical. We have all kinds of birds. Bats are around—they are incredibly friendly. They occasionally zip through, eating a few bugs. Lots and lots of geese. The honkers fly right over the theatre every single night in perfect formation, and you literally have to stop. They are so extraordinarily beautiful—and that no one is going to listen to the text for that 10 seconds anyway. So the actors simply hold and acknowledge it and then move on. In Lake Tahoe, we occasionally have bears. Bears are really awesome and really frightening. We do our very best not to let a bear into the theatre.

GEORGIA SHAKESPEARE

“For our first 11 years, we were an outdoor summer theatre only,” says Richard Garner, Director, Co-Founder, and Producing Artistic Director for Georgia Shakespeare. “We were based on Oglethorpe University’s campus and we worked under 300-400 person tents. Then we moved indoors to a 500seat space where we performed solely for a few seasons. But, I guess our roots were calling. So we started working [outdoors again] in Piedmont Park, which is Atlanta’s version of Central Park. In 2004, we started Shakespeare in the Park, where we do a performance that’s completely outdoors and free to the public.”

Georgia Shakespeare was founded in 1985 by Garner and two theatre friends, Kirby McLain “Lane” Anderson and Robert Watson, each with strong interests in the Bard and ties to Atlanta. Their first season opened in July of 1986 with The Taming of the Shrew and King Lear rotating in repertory. The two productions performed 25 times on Oglethorpe’s athletic field for 6,000 people. Today, Georgia Shakespeare presents four to five productions a season for more than 40,000 theatregoers, and is the resident professional theatre company for the university. From the beginning, Garner and his colleagues were committed to working with a company of professional artists and to hiring and nurturing local talent. They were also committed to making Shakespeare’s text “vibrant and accessible.”

“Sometimes, people call us asking to rent Elizabethan costumes, and I say we don’t really have any of those. Most people today update Shakespeare to make it more immediate, and that [is something] I felt a lot of freedom to do in this community. We embrace [the text] with a company of artists, designers, directors, and actors who focus on how to bring this material— whether it’s Shakespeare from 400 years ago or 20th-century American classics—to our audience today, rather than taking our audience back in time. And yeah, the first couple years we had people walking out because there were no pumpkin pants and tights on stage. But now we’ve found an audience.”

Georgia Shakespeare’s official home is the $5.7 million John A. and Miriam H. Conant Performing Arts Center, a 509-seat theatre with a modified thrust stage on the green campus of Oglethorpe University, who shares joint use of the facility. The two organizations are completely separate

nonprofits working in harmonized tandem.

Artists employed at Georgia Shakespeare regularly teach workshops, lead classes, and direct productions on campus.

The outdoor space where Shakespeare in the Park (SIP)—which is also called Shake at the Lake when the outdoor production is performed near Lake Clara Meer—performs one production each summer is located in historic Piedmont Park, a 53-acre expanse of green space two miles from downtown. “We wanted to geographically make ourselves available to a broader part of the population,” says Garner. “The nature of an outdoor performance is much more inviting to full families.”

Garner and his company were also concerned with the affordability of tickets. “Financial accessibility was a big goal, so we set out to make [Shakespeare in the Park] free, which means we have to get the production completely underwritten each year. It’s an expensive venture to set up a full LORT theatre outdoors, but our community, foundations, and corporations felt that it was important enough to fund.”

Each summer, as many as 2,000 patrons visit SIP in one night.

Georgia Shakespeare offers a number of performance-based education programs designed to develop audience members of all ages and instill an appreciation for and understanding of Shakespeare’s works. “The material wasn’t meant to be read. We use performance-based techniques in our teacher training and we work directly [with the students] in classrooms. So the logical next step…is the opportunity for them to actually see it in performance.”

These education programs include touring productions, Camp Shakespeare, No Fear Shakespeare Teacher Development, in-school workshops, and after-school residences, among many others. In 2002, Georgia Shakespeare received the ABBY Award for Outstanding Arts Education.

Garner is directing As You Like It this season, which will play for one week in the park before moving indoors, and his staging incorporates entrances through the audience, allowing actors to pick their way through picnic blankets. “Already, even

as I’m working on one show, I’m thinking about how it will play on two very, very different stages. It’s a wonderful feeling of looseness in an outdoor space—I was just working on the speech when Duke Senior arrives in Arden and is telling his brothers in exile, ‘Here we are.’ And he’s referencing all of nature. Indoors, your job is to play on the audience’s imagination, but when he talks about trees, all he has to do is point. It’s kind of great.” The actors are body-miced, affording the same intimate performance as the 500-seat indoor space. “That’s nice because our company focuses on the personal journeys of characters. It’s nice to know that we can still, even in our space with 2,000 people, have an intimacy to the work on the stage.”

A Story of Community

BY RICHARD GARNER

The best story of community was our very first night doing Shakespeare in the Park in 2004. It was a Wednesday night. We’d never done this before—brand-new experience for the whole community—and the weather

A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival, directed by Charles Fee

PHOTO Joy Strotz

was a little iffy that day, but a full crowd of people showed up. It started raining lightly about a half an hour before the show. We had rolls of clear plastic backstage. The crew starting cutting up these 10-foot squares of plastic and handing them out to the audience, and that was enough for a while, but then it started raining a little harder. So we’re kind of going among the audience, just checking, you really want to go? And they say, oh, no, we want to stay. We want to stay.

So we got these huge tarps—50 x 100 feet—[with which] we had to cover the entire stage, and we put two of them at the very front row where people were sitting on the lawn and they passed it back over their heads. And then, we got every broom, piece of pipe, and 2 x 4 we could find and gave them to audience members, and they used those as tent poles. It was the most remarkable experience of people literally holding up a tent over their fellow audience members.

We brought the actors in and put them under that tarp and did Act I of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It was amazing.

People would be standing there, holding up what would be the center aisle with a broom, and someone would come over from the picnic and offer them a glass of wine and then offer to trade out for them.

It was a stunning, stunning feeling. And then, of course, nature cooperated and the skies cleared up. We literally had this sort of event where we opened up, pulled the tarp off of everybody, and we did Act II on stage. By the end of that, even the stars came out.

ILLINOIS SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL

Thirty-six years ago, “Shakespeare in the Cornfields” erected a temporary stage on the tennis courts of Ewing Manor, a generous donation of property by the local philanthropic family of Hazel Buck Ewing to the Illinois State University Foundation. That summer, on July 6, 1978, a group

of 250 audience members sat in small, uncomfortable folding chairs to watch the first of 21 performances of a “futuristic, space-age Twelfth Night,” as described by the director, Dennis Zacek. The actors were college students, performing in less-thanideal circumstances—no dressing rooms, Port-A-Potties—but the evening marked the beginning of Illinois Shakespeare Festival (ISF) in Bloomington, IL.

Cal Pritner, Department of Theatre Chairperson for the university, had been dreaming of a Shakespeare festival— accompanied by music, singing, and puppetry—throughout the early 1970s. His vision came to fruition with the support of his university colleagues, specifically Don LaCasse, who joined the faculty in 1973. LaCasse became the general manager and took over logistical planning and management of the festival. Together they gained support from the dean of the College of Fine Arts, and with the dean’s assistance, gained audience with Tom Jacob, the President of Illinois State University Foundation, resulting in the final necessary funding to bring Pritner’s ideas to life.

Macbeth at the Illinois Shakespeare Festival, directed by Robert Quinlan PHOTO Pete Guither

Founded in partnership between the Illinois State University School of Theatre and Dance and the College of Fine Arts, the goal of ISF was to bring quality and accessible Shakespeare to central Illinois, and to produce new interpretations that explore the human condition.

“When I see a production there,” says director Robert Quinlan who has worked at ISF multiple times, “I always feel a sense of joy around the event of the play. Illinois Shakespeare Festival has a passionate and dedicated audience. It is the only professional summer theatre in the area, and the Bloomington-Normal public cherishes it for the engaging work that is produced, and also for the welcoming atmosphere. Many families picnic at Ewing Manor prior to the performance, and enjoy free jazz music and other entertainment as part of the overall experience.”

The festival was produced in its “temporary” open-air theatre until 1999, when its permanent home, a 430-seat Elizabethan-style theatre, was built on the wooded 6.5-acre grounds of Ewing Cultural Center. The company produces approximately 36 performances each season for 14,000 patrons.

Like with any large, outdoor venue, working at ISF requires an attention to scale. “I try to imagine the experience of those seated in the back row from the very beginning,” says Quinlan. According to Quinlan, directors are encouraged to use “original practices,” particularly direct address, live music, and a keen focus on clear, engaged storytelling. In 2013, when Quinlan directed Macbeth, he staged musicians in the “heavens” and the witches’ entrances from beneath the stage.

“We also added a gallery of onstage seating to encourage a direct audience/ actor relationship. The sun began to set around the time Macbeth committed his first murder, and we came back from intermission in total darkness to discover the witches around their cauldron. The outdoor setting added a magic to the entire experience that would not have been possible in an indoor venue.”

As with any outdoor venue, ISF is subject to the weather, and its Midwest location tends to leave the company vulnerable to erratic weather patterns. Director Jessica Kubzansky, who directed Two Gentleman of Verona in 2004, was sent into hiding in the basement of her summer housing by several tornado sirens. Aside from rained-out techs and storm warnings, much of the experience was marked by the clothes people wore—on and off stage—

throughout the process. “That’s one of the interesting joys about working in an outdoor Shakespeare festival when you get to outdoor rehearsals...it’s often boiling hot in the day and at night it’s freezing, and there are so many mosquitoes,” says Kubzansky. “You have to wear a million layers and have bug spray.” Both the temperature swings and accompanying insects affect other parts of the process as well, such as working with the costume designer. “I’ve had many conversations about layers, either the advantage or disadvantage of them. It could be so hot that characters who are supposed to be incredibly bundled up might die unless their garments are incredibly lightweight. Or, conversely, we might think, ‘Oh, it would be so great to see her in that slinky gown,’ and she’s going to freeze. The temperature extremes that happen over the course of an evening are part of what you have to take into account when you’re thinking about design.”

ISF hosts a variety of education and outreach programs including summer camps, school tours, and young audience productions. The eight MFA actors studying at the university make up the ISF Touring Company, which performs and tours 40-minute abridged plays and creates new work under the Illinois Shakespeare Festival name. These performances are booked in schools and community institutions during the spring semester. These same actors also perform as part of the company during the summer season. The Festival’s Theatre for Young Audiences Productions provides family-friendly shows on Wednesday and Saturday mornings on the grounds, free of charge. There is also an access program that serves under-represented and resourced populations called Sharing Shakespeare, which works with social services to determine groups that would benefit from 600 free tickets to main stage performances.

Rehearsal Tetris

BY JESSICA KUBZANSKY

A huge directorial challenge in most Shakespeare festivals is the Tetris of what and when you can rehearse—it’s a fun and hilarious daily negotiation. Most of the time actors are cast as a company, and a lot of times they are playing major roles in two shows and a minor role in a third. For instance, in the 2004 ISF season my Valentine was also Hamlet. And because we’re all rehearsing at the same time and all the plays go up within weeks of each other, there is a shocking math that people—who are not me, thank god—have already done

about which show gets primary rehearsal and which gets secondary. Nightly the PSM and each individual show’s stage manager get together and wrangle who gets to have whom when. I have such admiration for the people who figure out the schedule for us.

The weird challenge of festival rehearsals is that you don’t get rehearsal every day, or it’s every day but you can’t really put a scene together that you need to rehearse for a couple of days. There are forced breaks when another show is in tech. It makes rehearsal time precious. Shakespeare festivals are where I first learned to type notes—even though I much prefer to give notes face-to-face. It takes me about an hour to give a run-through’s worth of notes talking to the cast directly, and it takes me three-and-a-half hours to type my raw notes into a communication that is clear and actor-friendly. It’s a huge amount of work, but I realized that when I gave notes verbally, I used up much of my valuable time in the room, and if I typed my notes and the actors had them before we started rehearsal, then I had the entirety of that time to work. I have to say that this skill has stood me in good stead ever since.

Conjuring Magic

BY ROBERT QUINLAN

One performance of Macbeth underscored the devotion of the ISF audience to outdoor theatre. The policy at the festival is to play through light rain. During one July performance, rain began to fall during Duncan’s murder and continued to increase in strength through the death of Banquo. The audience pulled out their umbrellas and very few people left the theatre. During intermission, the crew worked to dry the stage and used dozens of towels to soak up the water in the pit beneath the stage. The second act began with the witches conjuring apparitions from the trap for Macbeth, as the rain and haze caught the beams of theatrical light to create a truly mystical experience. Stage management stopped the show before the sleepwalking scene as the storm increased its strength. The audience remained through a 15-minute hold, and the performance resumed. Actors worked backstage to modify the fight sequence for a slippery deck floor, and the play reached is thrilling conclusion. At the end, the sense of community between actor and audience was palpable. That night, the outdoor setting amplified the power of the live experience.

HAROLD PRINCE In Conversation with

INTERVIEW + NEW INTRODUCTION BY LONNY PRICE

Lonny Price + Harold Prince photographed in Prince’s office for SDC Journal

PHOTOS Walter McBride

SUMMER 2014 VOL. 3, NO. 1

From Lonny Price, Fall 2022: I just re-read the interview I did with Hal Prince in 2016, when Hal was 88. He died three years later at the age of 91. I was walking my dog on a hilltop in Maine on the morning of his death when I got the call from his wife, Judy. As soon as I saw who it was from, I knew. Not that he’d been sick, but when friends are in their nineties, it’s always somewhere in the back of your mind. I cried, and Judy reminded me what a terrific life Hal had. He lived the life he wanted. And of course, it’s true. Hal dreamed of the life he created for himself. His legacy is staggering. Many of the staples of the musical theatre simply wouldn’t have existed without him. There’s the famous story of Hal reading an evening of George Furth’s one-acts about marriage and suggesting to George and Stephen Sondheim that he thought this material would be better served as a musical. Hal would produce and direct the show, which of course, became Company. It simply wouldn’t have existed without him. Follies started as a murder mystery in a theatre that was to be torn down. Enter Hal, who re-shaped it, and the rest is, as they say, history. Hal often would say he was lucky to be born in the time he was born to do what he loved. There was so much opportunity—it didn’t cost as much for shows to get on. When you read this article and realize how much work he was able to do, it’s really unprecedented. He produced 12 Broadway shows before he started directing, then directed 23 Broadway shows in addition to producing and directing an additional 13. And it’s not just the numbers, it’s the quality, the daring, the audacity of the work. And since he was invited into the theatre by George (Mr.) Abbott, he never forgot how important access is for a young artist. Though he was there for me for more than 40 years in a variety of ways, the most significant thing he did was open the door to the world I longed to be in and say, “Come on in.” Being Hal-adjacent as a young man gave me the courage to believe in myself—if Hal thought I belonged, maybe he was right? I am so grateful to have had him in my life. His influence is everywhere, and I miss him.

Hal Prince is my hero. There, I’ve said it. Here’s why—when I was a kid, I saw three shows that knocked me out—Company, Follies, and A Little Night Music. I was 14, attending the High School of Performing Arts here in New York (now La Guardia), and I wrote Hal a letter about how much I loved his work and wanted a job in his office. He invited me up to his Rockefeller Plaza office, which he shared with his mentor, George Abbott (Hal still has his office there), and said I could hang around. And, I did—after school every day, and for a summer while he was prepping Pacific Overtures. When the show opened, I had the run of the Winter Garden Theatre, attended the recording of the album, and lived my fantasy. Eight years later, he fulfilled my greatest fantasy, giving me a part in Merrily We Roll Along. We have remained friends ever since. I have seen (I think) every show he has directed since the mid-’70s, and unlike many directors, particularly in the musical theatre, his references are not show business, but world theatre. Kabuki and Noh theatre for Pacific Overtures, Grand Guignol for Sweeney Todd, German expressionism for Cabaret, etc. He has brought techniques to Broadway that one would have had to travel many miles to see (or maybe BAM?), and were, for me, my education. He also worked with the finest musical theatre writers of the time —Stephen Sondheim, Kander and Ebb, Bock and Harnick, Strouse and Adams—and gave many of them their first jobs. His work is always provocative and intelligent, and, may I say, beautiful. The truth is, there is not a great work of the musical theatre Hal didn’t produce, direct (or both) or inadvertently influence. His work continues to inspire me. And I can’t wait for the next one!

Years ago you said to me that your shows that I love would never get made today.

Absolutely.

Tell me why? What did you mean by that?

You wouldn’t be able to raise the money to do them. If you had to describe the show—for example, a show about a bunch of kids in street gangs, Puerto Ricans and Caucasians, gangland fights—you couldn’t raise the money.

Right.

You couldn’t raise money for a musical about the rise of Nazism in Germany, not for a second. You can raise money for revivals of all those shows, but new shows that are as daring today wouldn’t be able to raise their money.

There is a dangerous diminution of material that is really challenging, and, yet, I think a group of us have proven that those kinds of shows can work and do very well.

I don’t actually think you could raise money for a story about Tevye’s daughters, but

look how many times it’s been revived successfully.

Right.

The only way you can do something that they would not normally support for commercial theatre is to do it first in a noncommercial setting. Doesn’t have to be out of New York; it could be Off-Broadway. And if they respond to it—the critics and the public—then you can move it to Broadway and it has a run. Like Once, for example. That had to see the light of day somewhere else first and then it came in and it paid off. Spring Awakening, same thing. But those are the exceptions. The Lion King, the first 20 minutes of which are…

Thrilling.

Thrilling. And Wicked, which is certainly exploring very famous literary characters from a very famous children’s book and wildly successful film. I think that for 15 years now, the whole subject of branding has almost taken over the theatre, the industry, and now I think there are some second thoughts about branding. Not

everything that was a great brand as a novel or as a film will necessarily be a great brand on Broadway.

Perhaps it has something to do with the quality of the writing?

I think it’s probably more quixotic than that. I can’t pretend to understand why, but I do know comfortably from my own position that you’re better off creating a brand. Phantom wasn’t a brand before we did the show. It became a brand and that’s healthy. That’s better.

And that’s the hardest thing to do.

You know, I can’t talk retrospectively about what’s hard or easy. Phantom of the Opera is a show I wanted to do because when Andrew mentioned it, I thought, “That’s a swell idea,” and I wanted to do a romantic musical. I was stunned at how few romantic musicals have ever been done. West Side is sort of one.

South Pacific

South Pacific is the most. The King and I is a strange romantic musical, but romantic.

There are very few and Andrew and I wanted to do one that was profoundly, potently romantic.

Phantom represented a great deal of preparatory work. For almost two years, Maria Bjornson designed the scenery. She designed the costumes very quickly. In two weeks, actually. She literally said, “Oh, I think I have about 500 costumes. I can do 20 costumes a day.” And she did! But the scenery took 18 months. I had countless trips to London, a few trips to New York, and as far as I’m concerned, all the real pressure was before we went into rehearsal.

By the time we went into rehearsal, it was being put in the theatre. Tech rehearsals were hard because it’s technically very complex. But the material was so polished; it was where we thought it should be. I started rehearsing at 10 o’clock in the morning and stopped at 1 o’clock in the afternoon, and Ruth Mitchell, who was my assistant, would drill them and choreographer Gillian Lynne would choreograph. And I would not return until the next day.

I’d work from 10 to 1 for four-and-a-half weeks and never in the afternoon because it was so prepared. I could take a halfinch model and do the entire show for you before we went into rehearsal. After

those four-and-a-half weeks, we had a run-through for everybody. At lunchtime I said, “Well, I’ll see you all in the theatre next Monday.” And one of the kids in the company interrupted, “I want to ask you a question on behalf of everybody here. What do you do in the afternoons?!”

During previews, we didn’t change a thing. The first preview was the show that’s playing on Broadway right now. Not a single significant change.

That’s all? That’s extraordinary.

And that’s true of Evita. Not a single change after the first preview.

When do you get the physical idea of what the show should be and how early do you involve your designers?

Well, Lonny, you were there the only time in my life when I couldn’t figure out what a show should look like, and that was really bad news for that show. That was Merrily We Roll Along

Right.

It drove me crazy. Eugene Lee was on that show and he’s brilliant, but neither of us could figure it out. And I called the whole

staff at my office and I said, “I don’t know how to visualize this. The only thing that makes me comfortable and would solve the show is that you’d walk into the theatre and see an empty stage. And pipes of clothes would be rolled in from the wings and we would tell the entire story with rehearsal chairs and tables. But are we going to charge people Broadway prices for that? Are we going to charge them to see no scenery and costumes?”

And the office said, as one, “If you think that’s the way it should be done, you should do it.”

But I couldn’t do it. It’s probably not the first time I’ve ever run scared. But, after thinking for a day, I decided that I cannot charge people these prices to see something that opens on a bare stage with no production value. And so I didn’t do it. And, of course, I wish I’d done it.

Years ago, you quit the League of New York Theatres and Producers. Why?

I would rather answer your question with a question. Are the interests of the people who produce and the interest of the people who own theatres the same? What you’re looking at right now is limited engagements

selling out. I went to see LBJ last night. I saw a Tennessee Williams revival.

Right, Glass Menagerie.

They open for 12 to 14 weeks and then they go bye-bye. That’s fine by the theatre owner’s standards because he has a long list of plays to go into that theatre. And it certainly serves the purpose of the movie stars and television stars who are available for only a limited engagement. And, as for the producers, it probably guarantees a return of investment and a small profit.

When I was a producer, I insisted actors sign for 18 months. In the case of stars, two years. Hell, Mary Martin and Ethel Merman, the two greatest stars of the musical theatre, stayed with shows until they closed. Often three years. And then sometimes they went from the three years to the road and played. Carol Channing knew that, too.

I stopped producing because I did not want to raise $10 million. I’m not sure I could and I wouldn’t want to make the effort.

I think that you should never say to an investor, “You’re going to make money out of this,” because it’s very probable that they won’t. What you should say is, “You’re investing in an experience. You’re investing

in a work of art. You’re investing in something that will make you proud, and, then, perhaps, you’ll make some money.”

Actually, my record belies that. Forbes magazine once put me on its cover because it figured two-thirds of my shows had paid back their investments and showed a profit.

That’s a huge amount.

But I’ll tell you what. Follies did not return its investment. At the time, it was the biggest musical ever done, costing $800,000. (Imagine that!) And it lost all its money. But it made history. And everybody who invested in it is proud that they were part of Follies. An even better example is Pacific Overtures

I invested in it.

Everybody who put money in that show was told by me, “Don’t expect to get your money back.” It’s a piece of history about American incursion on an isolated culture: Japan. Strange subject for a musical. But Steve [Sondheim] and John [Weidman] wrote a beautiful show.

Of course, the investment was lost, not only because of its subject, but it was directed in the Kabuki and Noh styles and with men playing women’s roles. Could I be doing anything more—

Less commercial.

—dangerous than that? No. Still, those investors were so proud to have been part of it.

And it was beautiful.

Because I am a pragmatic fellow, and, to protect my relationship with investors, Steve and I always spoke of trying to alternate the probable flops with the potential hits. So, A Little Night Music followed Follies

And, as I mentioned before, Fiddler was not a surefire musical idea. But, as of now, we have returned 3,000+% on the investment.

Wow. And your investors stayed with you.

Oh, sure, they stayed with me right up until I quit producing. There were 175 of them.

I did 11 backers’ auditions to raise the money for Pajama Game. I never did a backer’s audition again. I would send a letter to the investors and say I’m doing a musical about gang warfare in New York. Leonard Bernstein’s writing music, Stephen Sondheim, whom you may or may not have heard of, is writing the lyrics, and Arthur

Laurents is writing the book. And there will be no stars in it.

We were pressed to get into rehearsal because we picked it up from another producer, so the potential investors had to answer within 72 hours. Within 24 hours, I had raised all the money. No one ever got to read a script. In fact, I’ve never had an investor read a script.

HAROLD PRINCE

How beholden did you feel—when you were directing, not producing—to the money?

I wanted to work the way I’d always worked. And only once was I subjected to eight pages of single-spaced notes from a clutch of producers, their wives, and their families. It blistered me. I ran cold. I said thank you very much and I will read them all and see what I can do.

And, at that point, I thought I have to find a different way to work now. I have to work with people who trust me. And I’m very easy to talk to. If you’re smart, if you’re intelligent, I want to hear what you say.

I believe I was always diplomatic, when I was an assistant and when I was a young producer. On the very first show I produced, Pajama Game, there were all sorts of things that I questioned during the rehearsal period. And I would make a long list of all of them, but I would not say anything to George Abbott, the director. I would watch every day and I knew enough about directing to know you can’t do it all at once. You have to do it a little at a time.

And I would come back the next day and cross off the things that he’d done. And, finally, when we were almost ready to open the show in New York, I’d find I’d have 2 things left out of 100. And then I would discuss them, and then we’d see.

Right.

For example, with Pajama Game, the only thing on my list that I couldn’t bear was

Because I am a pragmatic fellow, and, to protect my relationship with investors, Steve and I always spoke oftrying to alternate the probable flops with the potential hits.

the very end of the show. It seemed to go against the grit of the material. It seemed like kind of a revue-like ending and not what this show is about.

The show, in a way, is Richard Bissell’s autobiography and he was from Iowa. It had a real Mark Twain Middle-West thing, and almost everybody had an accent. When we got to the finale, it was very slick and smartass and I thought, “This is really wrong.”

The show was a giant smash in Boston, but I still couldn’t stand the last five minutes. So I approached George (Mr. Abbott, at the time) and I bitched about the finale.

He sent for Jerry Robbins, saying, “Look, Jerry, Hal’s really stubborn about this. Tell him what you have to say.” And I said, “I hate the ending of the show.” And Jerry said, “It’s a smash, for God’s sake.” I said, “I still hate it.” And I made my case. I wouldn’t give in. It was the beginning of how well Jerry Robbins and I would get along in the future.

Finally, he said, “Well, there’s one more rehearsal day on this show. Next Sunday, I’ve got three hours. I’ll do something else at the end if you want. Do you know what you want?” I said, “Yes, I want a party in Hernando’s Hideaway for the people who just won seven-and-a-half cents.”

A celebration.

He said, “I’ll try it, but I don’t believe in it.” And, of course, in three hours he’d done it. It was perfect and it has been in the show forever.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, you have to be diplomatic. You talk when people can listen, and when they’re not able to listen, you keep your mouth shut. I also utterly believe, even more now when the cost of a musical is $10 or $12 or $15 million, that you should prepare until you think it’s perfect.

What do we do here with the producing landscape—is it going to get any better? What’s going to happen here?

I haven’t a clue. I think the problem is not the absence of composers, lyricists, book writers, and directors. None of that. Their only problem is they don’t get to work as much.

Yeah.

I was able to do a show every year. One year, John Kander and Fred Ebb wrote Flora the Red Menace, which George Abbott directed. I knew it wasn’t working. However, I said to the fellas, “Guys, we open tomorrow night, I want to see you the next day.” The morning after the opening, instead of worrying about the reviews we got, we had a meeting in my office.

I said, “I’ve got a show to offer you,” and it was Cabaret. In a year, Cabaret opened. If a musical failed, the writers still got a second chance on Broadway the next year. Not as much today.

How does that change? What do you think makes a good producer?

A good producer is someone with taste, who doesn’t direct, act, design, or compose. But he has taste and he has the ability to put all those people together, the ones who can do it. And that becomes creative.

When I was a young wannabe, I could go to any Broadway theatre and if you erased the name of the producer—the one producer over the title—by looking at the stage, I could say, “Oh, that’s a Feuer and Martin show. Oh, that’s a Gilbert Miller show. Oh, that’s a Cheryl Crawford show. Or that’s the Theatre Guild.” I could tell you right away who produced the show because they were expressing their artistic choices on the stage.

Not so anymore?

No. There’s no consistency. The only place where this is possibly true is Disney.

You once said you didn’t think people grew up.

Well, I haven’t grown up. That’s for sure. I hope I have all the energy that I ever had. I feel about 40 years old. I forget names, but I think I’ve always forgotten names.

So what are you working on now?

I’m nursing a couple shows now. One is based on an Israeli film called The Band’s Visit. It’s about a group of Egyptian musicians who go to Israel to concertize in an Arab village and get lost. They spend almost 24 hours in a Jewish settlement, discovering how to interact with the “enemy.” The book is being written by Itamar Moses and the score is by David Yazbek. And I’m working on it right now with the designer, Tim Mackabee.

The other show is Prince of Broadway, a retrospective on my entire career, which, as you know, was initially rejected by investors in New York. But we were working with Japanese investors and, the minute the show became available again, they called within 24 hours and picked it up as producers. They’re wonderful. We’ll rehearse it in New York and then take it to Tokyo. It will play six weeks in Japan and then return to open on Broadway in the winter of 2016. So, there’s a lot to look forward to.

THEATRE MEDIUM

AN INTERVIEW WITH DAVID LEONG

BY KRISTY CUMMINGS

SUMMER 2014 VOL. 3, NO. 1

If all artists contain multitudes, the truism is embodied by fight choreographer and movement director David Leong, one of only 19 Certified Fight Masters in the United States. Over his 40+ years in the entertainment industry, he coached and choreographed hundreds of fights and battle scenes for theatre, film, and television; he currently coaches leaders and managers on how to tell stories and serves on the VCU School of Business Executive Master of Business Administration faculty. In 2014, SDC Journal spoke with David about the course of his career, the kind of theatre that inspires him, his major influences, and the connections between the many different facets of his work.

AS ITS OWN

Let’s begin with your fight and movement work. How did you get your start?

I was a gymnast from the age of 6 until I was 20. I had won a lot of medals in state gymnastics competitions in high school and also in New England regional competitions. Then I was on the gymnastics team as an undergraduate at the University of New Hampshire. One day I happened to be walking by a nursery school and I saw some children listening to a story, and it sparked my interest in storytelling. I thought, oh, that’s kind of cool. I went over to the theatre department and took a class in children’s theatre. In that class, people found out about my background in gymnastics and that I could move. From that time on, any time physical action was needed in a theatre production, they called me. If it was a stair-fall, if it was a punch, if it was a sword fight, if it was out of the world of traditional ballet, jazz, or modern, (although I had taken a lot of modern at that time, too, and a lot of contact improv), they would say, “Just get Leong to do it.” They just assumed that I could do those things because I could move well. And so, sort of blindly like we do when we’re very young, I just said, oh sure, I’ll do it. I didn’t know how much I

didn’t know. My younger years were about exploring, because sometimes, the more you know, the more you feel trapped by boundaries.

I have read that you were originally selftaught. Now you hold the distinction of Certified Fight Master. What training did you eventually undertake in order to progress in your career?

When I was an undergraduate at UNH, I started taking workshops with members of Tony Montanaro’s mime company.

Tony was a student of Marcel Marceau’s and he created a company in South Paris, Maine. Mime and gymnastics were my two movement disciplines. I brought those to my theatre work. What I liked about the theatre was that there was specific meaning behind every gesture, every movement, and even stillness itself. It was more than just an aesthetic thing. As a gymnast, I grew tired of movement for the sake of movement. There is no story or feeling to that story. It’s merely a physical discipline. Aesthetically, it’s beautiful, but my mind and body grew tired of that. So when I discovered the world of theatre, I became excited about the stories beneath and within the movement.

ABOVE David Leong teaching a fight choreography class PHOTO Glynn Brannon

Then there was a person from England that came upon my work. I can’t even remember his name. He wasn’t a fight master, but he had a lot of skill and after seeing my work, he said, “You know, David, what I notice about your work is you tell nice stories, you have some nice shapes and I like what you’re doing, but you have no technique.”

And I said, “Okay.” I didn’t fall apart when I heard that. In retrospect, I’m surprised I didn’t, but I guess he said it in a very gentle way. I sought out Patrick Crean, fondly known as Paddy. He was the founding father of modern-day fight directing, having choreographed over 50 films and 500 stage plays in Europe and America. He choreographed [for] many of the greatest British actors, including Alec Guinness, Donald Wolfit, and Ralph Richardson, and also doubled and choreographed several Errol Flynn movies. Paddy came over from London to be the resident fight director at the Stratford Festival in Canada in the ’60s, where he stayed for 25 years. Paddy influenced everyone who is anyone. All the fight masters in London and in the U.S. studied with Paddy.

I wrote to him, and I said, “Paddy, can I come work with you?” And he said, “Sure.” I spent three summers with him and we worked day after day. Every morning we had a ritual. We’d sit down and have tea

and he would tell me stories about when he was working and how he solved a particular problem. He taught me about life and how to work with actors in these daily conversations. Then in the afternoon, he would say, “Pick out a script from my library”—he had a collection of all the scripts he had worked on. I would select one and we would walk through the fights in that play or film. For instance, we walked through the 1954 Hamlet movie that he choreographed for Olivier. He would explain to me why he did little things here and there. He taught me things that no one even teaches now, like the rhythm of the sound that is made when blades engage and what it means when there’s a pause here, what it means when you’re pressing on a blade and you’re creating this kind of sliding sound. He taught me how rhythm translates into emotion. He taught me so many nuances that are completely overlooked in the theatre today. At the end of each day, he told me to go to the post office and make a copy of the script we had worked on for myself. I did that on and off for over three summers. I got to walk through the greatest fights done by the greatest actors. That was my formal fight training. I learned from the best person, walking through the best footsteps in the modern-day era of stage and film. And in my opinion, that was the best way I could’ve

learned. I learned the art of staging action and movement from multiple points of view, including the stage director, film director, editor, and, most importantly, from the point of view of the audience.

I also underwent very specific training for a production of Shogun Macbeth, produced in New York City by Tisa Chang because the fights involved Samurai swords. I had basic skills in that discipline so I studied intensively with Dale Kirby, who was a three-time national weapons champion with the Samurai sword and was on the World Cup team. I called him up and I said, “Dale, I studied Japanese sword work, but it’s really, really rough. Will you train me this summer?” And he said, “Sure, come live with my wife and me for the summer.”

I went down to Nashville, Tennessee, and trained very hard. Dale’s Samurai expertise combined with the sword skills I learned from Paddy Crean prepared me for that production, which then jumpstarted my career in New York City.

Do you have a certain style or aesthetic when it comes to choreography?

My craft developed from a very personal place for me. I had kind of a tough childhood. Sure, there were the classes I took in painting at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts (my father was a painter and

A battle scene in the Broadway production of The Civil War, with fight choreography by David Leong PHOTO Joan Marcus

architect) and also I studied the clarinet, piano, and guitar for about 10 years. But those early years were also filled with anxiety and fear, so I covered my pain with a steady TV diet of Robin Hood, Zorro, and Errol Flynn. You see, there was a lot of violence in my home. I saw some really ugly things happen. I saw everything you can imagine and some things you don’t want to imagine. Then when I got into the medium of fight choreography, there were standard moves that I thought were too cliché, so I said to myself, it doesn’t actually look like this in real life. I really know what violence looks like up close. I then started developing a whole way of creating what I then called “contemporary violence.” And that style sort of became the norm.

It was also during this time that I learned a lot about myself. In the early 1980s, I was directing the play Extremities at Northern Kentucky University, where I was teaching acting and movement. In this play, a man breaks into a house and he tries to rape a woman and she turns the tables on him. She ties him up and physically tortures him until he admits what he had planned to do. I choreographed the violence with a very high level of realism and people reacted to it with incredible interest. It was during this time that I devised a whole set of contact improvs that would allow me to create the violence from an organic place yet retain the look of out-of-control frenzied violence. I invited my therapist to come see it. After seeing the production, she said, “David, I know exactly why you’re doing what you do and why you’re good at it.” And I said, “Why?” She said, “Because this is your way to work through your stuff because you get to write the story of the violence, you get to control it, you get to teach it and know that it’s ultimately safe for the actors. You know exactly with almost breathtaking realism what this looks like, yet you know it’s fake.” And I said, “Oh my God.” It kind of scared me.

I also found the more I worked through my personal history with violence, my work on stage changed, too. My work started out very romantic after studying swordplay with Paddy; I then discovered the frenetic look of contemporary violence and, after healing the pain of a childhood filled with domestic violence, I developed the ability to make my choreography more conceptual. That’s when I started being asked to choreograph in a much more stylized and elegant way. I’m many years past my final sort of big discovery there, and now I can move in any direction. So what happened to me personally truly changed my work. It was a really big part of how my work evolved.

First of all, I’ll research big-time. I’m a huge researcher. I research, read the script, read everything about it. I travel to the location if I can and learn about it. When I did Napoleon in London, I went to Paris; I went to the Napoleon Museum. When I worked on The Civil War on Broadway, I went to Gettysburg and visited many of the battlefields. I read, read, read. I find out what the iconic images were at the time.

them. Sometimes it stays the same and other times it completely changes.

How do you approach working with the other members of the creative team?

DAVID LEONG

I also spend a lot of time talking with the director. My degree was a mix of child drama, music, art, and directing, so I always think about the work from a director’s point of view, a storyteller’s point of view. If the playwright is alive, I obviously want to talk with them as well. I want to know the dramaturgical reason for why a particular fight or movement sequence is where it is. I want to get inside the playwright’s point of view, as well as the director’s. I want to find out what’s important about that event, and learn why it’s needed at that point in the script. Sometimes when I’ve worked on new plays, through conversations with the playwright and dramaturg I’ve discovered there’s not a strong reason for a particular fight sequence. In those cases, I have actually tried to talk them out of including it.

I’ll also do a workshop with actors if I can. I want to play it out. I just did this with director Molly Smith for Mother Courage at Arena Stage. We did two workshops at Arena Stage and then another two here at Virginia Commonwealth University. I try to workshop everything I can because I like to find it organically with actors. This way I can bring in ideas and play them out to see what works. And then, even when I go into rehearsal for the show, it’s not all preplanned. It’s very organic. I don’t work from the outside-in; I work from the inside-out. I take all of that, my research, the workshops, and my conversations with the director and playwright and then kind of start over. I then say, “Now let’s talk about you, the actor.” Then I create it again with

First of all, I like to get inside the head of the director in terms of what the story is about for them. Then I like to create a common vocabulary that we’ll use. To create this vocabulary, I start with the question: “On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being the most realistic, 10 being the most conceptual or stylized, where do you see this sequence taking place?” Then the director, the choreographer (if there is a traditional dance choreographer as well), and I, together, have the conversation about whether that shifts throughout the show. We also discuss if certain moves are more in the world of the dance choreographer or the movement person or if certain things are more in the world of the director. Sometimes it’s all three of us together. I like that kind of relationship. I’m not an ego-driven person—I love collaboration; it’s so much better. I’m not a person who likes to work alone at all. It frustrates me. I don’t think I’m nearly as creative or imaginative.

Are there certain qualities you look for in your collaborative partners?

Well, for me it’s very important to work with very open people. Molly Smith, she just said it best—I quote her all the time. When we go into a production meeting, her first words are, “Listen, we’ve got a great collaborative, creative team here. I just want you to know the best idea wins. We’re all here together.” I like to work with people like that. If it’s not like that, it’s really hard for me to want to work on that project.

What draws you to a piece of theatre?

Well, two things. Number one, is it going to be challenging for me? I like to do something different. I like to work on projects I haven’t done before and on projects that scare me. The more challenges I’m confronted with, the more excited I am. If it’s almost impossible to do, if you say to me can you make these horses fly and can you turn this insideout, etc., that’s a project that I’m going to jump on board with. For instance, when I worked with Francesca Zambello on Napoleon , we had to stage an avalanche and the Battle of Waterloo. I’m always going to point in that kind of direction, because I’m most attracted to what scares me most. That’s number one. Number two is the people. Are they collaborative? Do they want to create something new? I’m not a person who comes and plugs

What is your artistic process for creating stage violence and movement?

I always think about the work from a director’s point of view, a storyteller’s point of view... I want to know the dramaturgical reason for why a particular fight or movement sequence is where it is.

in a fight. I’m not Mr. Fix-It. I have turned down a lot of that kind of work.

So you’re usually involved from the beginning?

Yes, very much so.

As with Amazing Grace, the new musical you’ve been with through its development. It started at Goodspeed and now it’s opening this fall in Chicago, with hopes for a New York run to follow?

Yes, we’ll see what happens after the Chicago run. They are hoping for a New York venue to open up. It’s being called a pre-Broadway run, but we’ll see what happens.

Can you talk about your role in the development of that piece?

Yes. I was actually introduced to the piece through the costume designer, Toni-Leslie James, who works on my faculty at VCU. When she read the script and was in conversation with Gabriel Barre, the director, she said, “David, this has your name written all over it!” I asked, “Why?” She said, “Because it’s epic—there’s a sea battle, a shipwreck with a storm at sea, and a slave rebellion—this is you.”

So I went and met with Gabe. We had a great rapport. The creative team actually did a workshop of the piece for a week at VCU, which was the first step. Then, we went to the Goodspeed. We did a workshop production there, which was very well received. We then returned to VCU for another workshop. And actually Gabe is in residence here at VCU right now directing Arabian Nights, so he and I are spending a lot of time working on the project now. Christopher Gattelli is the dance choreographer and he’ll be doing a workshop of the dance choreography in late April/early May in NYC.

When you workshop pieces at VCU, do you use students?

Yes, we workshop with undergraduate and graduate students.

What a great opportunity—I am sure they jump at the chance to participate.

Oh, they love it. It’s great professional experience for them, and exposure. It gives us an opportunity to work with people that are young and raw. That energy plus the facilities provide the opportunity to really just dig in.

Since 1996, you have been the Chair and Producing Director of the Department

of Theatre at Virginia Commonwealth University. Prior to that, you held other faculty appointments at various colleges and universities. When and how did you first start teaching?

I actually started teaching right after graduate school. I was only 24 years old when I was a full-time university instructor—it scared the hell out of me!

I hardly knew what I was doing. As I was finishing graduate school, the thought of working professionally never even crossed my mind. I found out about a teaching job, I interviewed, and I got it. This is back in 1975. You know, now people plot out so many things, I am going to do this, then this, and I’m going to do that down that road. Back then, most of us went to college just to stay out of the Vietnam War. Teaching sort of fell into my lap.

For me, teaching was a way of affirming that I knew what I was doing. I taught all levels of graduate and undergraduate acting, directing, movement, and child drama and worked at Montevallo, Maryland, and Northern Kentucky University. By that time I was also working a lot professionally. I started thinking, hmm, you know what? I’ve been teaching for 12 years. I’m a tenured associate professor at Northern Kentucky University. Before I feel like I can teach again, I need to prove to myself that I can do this professionally full time. And like a blind fool, I quit my tenured job and moved to New York unemployed. Who is going to do that now? Who is going to give up a full-time salary with benefits? The head of the program tried to convince me to only take a leave of absence, but I felt the stakes wouldn’t have been high enough. I asked her permission to resign and she agreed. I think to myself now, who in the world would do that?

With that move to New York, did your professional career really begin to take off?

It was already put in motion before I left Northern Kentucky University. I was brought in as a kind of show doctor to make sure everything was safe on a nearby production of The Empress of China. The actors told me they were doing a show in New York City that fall, Shogun Macbeth, and Tisa Chang was producing it. They told me I should talk with her about choreographing the fights. So I flew to New York and I met with Tisa Chang. We had a great conversation and she hired me. It ended up being a rave hit and I got a one-line mention in the New York Times. It was pretty insignificant, but because of that line, Joe Papp at the New York Shakespeare Festival noticed me. At

the same time, I choreographed Romeo and Juliet at the Shakespeare Theater in Washington, D.C., directed by Michael Kahn, and I got a write-up in the Post. So I had two reviews, one in the Post and one in the Times, that were pretty much back-to-back. I was teaching a movement class and one of the student secretaries walked in to tell me I had a call. I told him to take a message and he said, “No, you should go get this call— it’s The Public Theater. Estelle Parsons wants to meet you, because they read about you, and they want you to come to New York to talk to her about choreographing a show.” It actually didn’t end up working out, but that was another prompt for me to move to New York and be a professional fight choreographer full time.

For 10 years I was very fortunate and worked regularly. I averaged about 23 shows a year as a fight choreographer/ movement director. I had to do a lot of projects just to pay my bills. I was determined not to teach at that time, because I wanted to prove to myself I could do this. My very first Broadway show was the Christopher Plummer and Glenda Jackson Macbeth. I worked on Broadway and Off-Broadway and in all the major regional theatres in the U.S. Sometimes I was doing multiple shows in one day. I remember one morning I had a rehearsal at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis and then I flew to New York in the afternoon and had a rehearsal for a Broadway show at night. And I was thinking, this is crazy!

What led you back to the world of education and to your current position as Department Chair at VCU?

Through my professional work, I had developed a very strong relationship with Michael Kahn, who was head of the drama school at Juilliard at the time. He invited me to teach there and I said absolutely. By that time, I was married and had one child who was three years old and very articulate. I came home from rehearsal late one night and he looked at me with those beautiful eyes and said, “Daddy, thank you for coming home tonight.” And I said, “Oh, boy.” I’ve been so busy proving to myself that I can work at the highest level so now I need to devote way more time to parenting my child. I know I can compete and now it’s time for a change.

I decided to go back to the world of higher education, but I didn’t really want to teach full time and I wanted to continue to work professionally. I interviewed for a couple of jobs, including the Head of the Movement program and Chair of the Department of Theatre at VCU. In the end, I wanted that

position, because they were looking for someone who knew the professional world and was still active, but also someone who knew the field of higher education. It was a perfect fit.

Do you feel that your role as an educator enhances your craft?

You know, they both complement each other very well. I wouldn’t, I couldn’t do one without the other. The thing is, when I’m working professionally, I’m always a teacher because often the work I’m called upon to do, whether it be to stage a shipwreck or a sword fight, most people don’t have that expertise. So actors of the highest level of skill and training will let go of their egos and say alright, help me with this. I am always teaching, coaching, and directing. I’m lucky—I teach and mentor graduate students here at VCU and work with professionals both here on campus and on professional productions. So I have my feet in both worlds, but honestly there’s no difference for me.

At VCU you initiated a collaborative program between the Department of Theatre and the medical school. Can you tell me about this unique piece of work?

It all started when I was reading the New York Times Sunday Magazine and there was an article about how doctors and nurses had lost their ability to really build

rapport with their patients. Patients felt that doctors weren’t listening or didn’t understand them. I was curious, so I went to Dr. Richard Wenzel, a world-renowned doctor of epidemiology at the VCU medical hospital and asked if this was a problem. And he said, “Absolutely, it is a huge problem.” I explained that in theatre, we teach actors how to listen well. We teach how to listen for subtext, how to listen for underlying meaning and intention. We also teach expressiveness and presence. I asked him if he would like to put together a team and study whether we could apply these teaching methods to doctors.

We received two grants to conduct our study. Now, we didn’t do theatre with doctors. The last thing doctors want to do is theatre—when they think of theatre exercises, they think of being asked to pretend they’re climbing a tree, pretend they are walking through peanut butter, that kind of stuff, which they would never want to do. We extracted exercises that are used to train actors and reconfigured them with medical terminology. Through these exercises, we taught doctors how to build rapport with their patients. We published the results in the Journal of General Internal Medicine and the program exploded at VCU. We were being asked to go into the surgery, dentistry, psychiatry, and nursing departments as well, to teach empathy, problem solving, and teamwork utilizing the fundamental principles of communication.

In addition to doing the work here at VCU, we also now travel around the world to conduct workshops on this kind of training.

The other part of this collaboration is the Standardized Patient Training Center, which provides simulation-based training for faculty, medical students, and staff. VCU was building a new medical school and they asked my colleague Aaron Anderson and me if we would head up this program. It now occupies two floors of the medical hospital and is a major part of the medical training here at VCU. We have about 75 people who are employed at the hospital as standardized patients. Some are actors from the Department of Theatre, but many are people from the community who have had some theatre training. They work anywhere from a few hours every other week to 30 hours a week. We received the VCU School of Medicine Award for Educational Innovation in 2008, and the program continues today as a fully funded formal agreement between the Department of Theatre and School of Medicine now housed in the Center for Human Simulation and Patient Safety.

You also work with the National Association of Schools of Theatre (NAST), which is an association of schools of theatre, primarily at the collegiate level, that establishes national standards for undergraduate and graduate degrees in theatre. It is also the national accrediting

David Leong rehearsing a flying angel sequence from The Miracle Theatre at Pigeon Forge with Tiza Garland in flight PHOTO Paul Dennhardt

agency for theatre and theatre-related disciplines. How did you become involved with NAST and what are your primary responsibilities?

I worked with the site evaluators when they came to VCU and was instrumental in getting our accreditation for the theatre training program. I found the process fascinating. Site evaluators visit theatre programs across the United States to determine if they meet the standards set by the accrediting body. Extensive reports are then submitted to NAST for review and accreditation.

The whole idea of making sure that standards are met interested me. After helping our department go through the process, I then went through the training to become a site evaluator myself. I learned how to assess them and help them gain accreditation. I then moved up another step when I was nominated to be a member of the commission. The commission is a group of 16 to 20 people that read all of the site evaluators’ reports and vote on which institutions gain accreditation. That is a mind-boggling event. Every year we sit for one week in a room with these huge tomes of books piled up, and we sift through these reports and talk about programs. Literally, hundreds of programs are talked about each year. That, for me, was and still is a major eye-opener.

It has been such a great process. First of all, I travel all over the U.S. to see training programs. For my own education, it helps me as a chair and as a leader, and it also helps me understand where our theatre department lies across the U.S. And it helps me as a professional to see the different points of view as to what is considered important and how quality training at one institution differs from quality training at another institution.

Having reviewed and evaluated many theatre programs through your experience with NAST, what qualities make a strong directing program stand out?

Speaking specifically of MFA directing programs, I find there are four essential components that make a program stand out. The first is mentorship. One-on-one mentorship is essential. You have to have very small classes, admitting only one or maybe two people each year. The second is that the faculty mentors are working professionally as directors in the real world, and hopefully working at all different levels and in different arenas—including both commercial and not- for-profit jurisdictions.

The third component is that a program provides opportunities. Directing students need to direct; they have to be directing all the time and at least one full-length show every year. There are a lot of directing programs where students only get one mainstage thesis—this is not enough. They also need to be directing in a wide variety of styles, including plays with elevated text, new plays, classics, etc. The fourth component is that the coursework must be substantive. A program must include courses in collaboration, leadership, actor coaching, actor/director relationships, working in different styles, and the differences between teaching and coaching. The coursework needs to reflect those things a director will need once they step outside of the classroom. Programs that succeed do these four things really well. The ones that are not successful, they need to work on these areas of training.

I also have to mention that in addition to MFA programs, I think there are a number of really strong directing programs that are not connected to universities but revolve around mentorship. For instance, in several regional theatres, they have a directing fellow who is mentored and then given the opportunity to direct smaller productions and they progress from there. Mentorship is so key—many of the great directors today did not go the MFA route but rather were mentored and moved up through the ranks that way.

You also have your own business working as a personal coach to executives for public presentations and also to theatre professionals for auditions and for interviews for positions in higher education. What inspired you to take on this additional endeavor?

First of all, when I was applying to graduate school back in 1973, I didn’t know how to interview well. I didn’t know how to promote myself on paper and in person. And through the years, I know I have mastered that process of how to interview and how to sell yourself while continuing to be authentic and real. Additionally, I have been on hundreds and hundreds of search committees for faculty, dean, and president positions, so I have sat on the other side of the table as well. I’ve had some help in my life. I’ve had some people that have taken me by the hand and said, “David, let me show you how to do this.” And so, probably 15 years ago, I decided to give back and coaching is my way of doing that.

I think I have a skill. I can really coach you on putting together a résumé, sending it out. I can coach you on interviewing for a particular job or presenting a 20-minute

sales pitch. I have a passion for that as much as I do for anything else in life. I love that as much as creating something in the theatre. I actually find the coaching is a comfort zone for me. I’m probably more comfortable doing that than anything else, actually.

Who do you consider to be your mentors?

Paddy Crean was my chief mentor. He passed away a while back, but he taught me about life. He taught me about professional life and personal life. He gave me a sense of artistry. Then there are three others that have heavily influenced my work who I would also consider mentors. The first is Molly Smith because of her overall leadership and her ability to convey the human experience on stage and off. The next is Michael Kahn because of his sense of what theatre is; that had a big impact upon me. He helped me understand that theatre is its own medium. You can borrow and combine and kind of turn something inside-out and look at it a different way, but theatre is its own medium. JoAnne Akalaitis is the final one. She was a tremendous influence on me and I’ll tell you exactly what she gave me. One day we had a conversation and she said, “David, I love the way you work. But you don’t have to think in a linear way. You can go from A to K to L to M to D and back to Z. You can do it that way, as long as by the time it all adds up in the end, we know.” And I thought, bingo! I get that now. Those three were my biggest influences, and are still. They have been very important to me in my life.

Is there a common thread that connects the many facets of your career?

To a lot of people, it seems like I wear 25 different hats. But for me, it’s all the same. If you said to me, David, you can only do one of these things, I’d say, I can’t. The fact is, I love to do all of these things. I can’t do just one. They’re all about how you package something and how you put it together. It doesn’t matter whether I’m doing a piece of movement design for a sea battle or helping you put together a presentation for a board of directors. It’s all the same for me: the preparation, the research, the followthrough, the designing of the material. They’re all about connecting people. They’re about telling stories. You see, if I’m coaching you on a job interview, there’s a story you have to tell and I help you shape it. I help you get it on its feet. I’m helping you design it from start to finish, just like I do in the theatre or in the classroom. It’s about collaboration. It’s about the human experience and that’s what pulls it all together for me.

WINTER 2015 VOL. 3, NO. 3

A founding member of the pioneering dance company Pilobolus, Martha Clarke has created works that straddle the worlds of theatre and dance, synthesizing modern dance choreography with text to create image-rich narratives full of power, beauty, and imagination. As the late critic Stanley Kauffmann wrote, her work “epitomizes everything that is unique” about the theatre, “its grace, its capacity for inspiring awe.”

In September 2014, Martha Clarke was on the verge of re-staging Chéri—a hybrid work featuring text by playwright Tina Howe based on Colette’s controversial novella and music by Debussy, Ravel, and Poulenc—at the Kennedy Center, leaving for work in Argentina, and enjoying a residency at Signature Theatre in

LOVE, SEX DEATH

The Nuances of Martha Clarke’s Psyche

BY BRETT EGAN

Manhattan. Soon it would be announced that she had won the Joe A. Callaway Award from SDC Foundation.

Clarke made time to sit down with Brett Egan, president of the DeVos Institute of Arts Management, for an interview with SDC Journal. Egan and Clarke met when he was a Directing Fellow with the Princess Grace Foundation. His fellowship was sponsored by Music-Theatre Group, which was teaming up with New York Theatre Workshop to produce Clarke’s groundbreaking production, Vienna: Lusthaus. Egan worked as Clarke’s assistant director on Vienna and later supported her work on Belle Epoque at Lincoln Center Theater. They remain close to this day. His most vivid memories of their time in rehearsal together are of her “contagious, endearing laugh,” which was constant during their interview as well.

MARTHA CLARKE | I grew up in Pikesville, Maryland—just outside Baltimore—with a nice, middle-class Jewish background. My mother was a good pianist, my father was an attorney. He had been a jazz musician, and he even wrote for Fats Waller. My grandfather was a limited partner of Merrill Lynch, but he had live string quartets at his house every Thursday night. So I grew up in a kind of German-Jewish culture.

BRETT EGAN | Did your parents want you to be a musician?

MARTHA | I quit piano because my mother pushed me. She also wanted me to be good at sports. I did a lot of competitive diving till I hit my head on the board, and I’ve never been the same. [laughs]

I was a student of ballet at the Peabody Conservatory of Music. I played the king in Rimsky-Korsakov’s Le Coq d’Or, which is The Golden Cockerel, when I was 10; I got boys’ parts in the yearly recitals because I was a

INTERVIEW

Martha Clarke photographed for SDC Journal PHOTO Walter McBride

good jumper. And from a very young age, I was shipped off to various lessons like art classes and eurythmic dance classes.

BRETT | Whose idea was it to put you in ballet classes?

MARTHA | All little girls took dance classes in my milieu. I think it was just kind of a thing if you were born in the ’40s, postwar, and you were from a certain kind of middleclass family; you were supposed to be versed in the arts as well.

BRETT | And through high school and college you continued to dance?

MARTHA | I met my wonderful modern dance teacher, Dale Sehnert, at Peabody Preparatory when I was 12. He had danced with Martha Graham, and he took a real interest in me. I remember in ballet class, when I was starting to learn the French terms, my mind would wander. And when I took my first modern class with him, I think the freedom was great for me. I think the musicality of modern dance is different from the kind of metric counting we were doing in ballet class. It was freer and more imaginative. I felt like I didn’t have to be in a cookie mold but could be who I was.

When I was 13, he brought me to New York to see Martha Graham’s work, to see her perform and Paul Taylor, too. We went to see Lotte Lenya in The Threepenny Opera as well, which was the highlight.

BRETT | It’s curious to me that that stands out. What do you remember about that piece?

MARTHA | I don’t remember the production. I remember the colors of the production, but it’s on the record album so I’m not sure if it’s my memory or familiarity with the record. I don’t look like Lenya, but I probably saw a woman who was a singer, dancer, and comedian. I identified with her.

I thought I wanted to be in musicals, so I started to learn the scores of musicals. I saw West Side Story when I was quite young. Carousel stole my heart. I imagined I might be a musical comedy actress, a dancer on Broadway. As it turns out, I’m too weird. [laughs]

BRETT | You went to a well-known theatre camp in Colorado, is that right?

MARTHA | I went to the Perry-Mansfield School when I was 13. It was a horseback riding camp with very good theatre and dance programs. A renowned choreographer named Helen Tamiris was in residence. She was mounting a production

of Walt Whitman’s poems, and she was looking for a child for “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking.” She chose me, and the die was cast.

BRETT | Animals figure so prominently in your work. Did your love affair with horses start then?

MARTHA | No, I started riding at the age of three with my mom. I’ve always loved animals. I think the way horses stand in a field is often really good staging. They never make a wrong move. The same with birds. You learn a lot about space by observing nature.

BRETT | Was there a particular role that you felt, as a young dancer—beginning to develop your own ideas about dance, your own ideas about theatre—that helped you move through a body of ideas? Where you said that this was something where you might want to move from being asked to do something on stage to creating your own work?

you think about the work that you’re doing now?

MARTHA | Anna’s work was the most profoundly moving. When I went to Juilliard, I came very much under the influence of Antony Tudor, who is a great English choreographer. I was not technically a Tudor dancer, but spiritually I was. He was a great storyteller, and he was the first choreographer to use emotional subtext in combination with classical ballet vocabulary to tell very gripping stories on stage. In a sense, I had Sokolow and Tudor as my choreographic parents.

BRETT | Did you study theatre as well?

MARTHA | I never studied theatre. I had a boyfriend when I was in college who loved the theatre, and he took me to see a lot, but that was a later development for me. Now it’s probably my passion. That and film. I went to hear Charlie Mingus. I went to see Martha Graham. I saw Peter Brook’s Marat/ Sade and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I think they were seminal experiences for me.

Looking back, the greatest influences on me at Juilliard were an incredibly broad musical education, the classes of Louis Horst and of Antony Tudor, and meeting Anna Sokolow. She took me to Israel when I was in my third year to be an apprentice to her company in Tel Aviv.

BRETT | Are there elements of your work today that you would attribute in some way to Anna’s influence?

MARTHA CLARKE

MARTHA | It didn’t happen until I went to the American Dance Festival. I was 15 and in a choreography class taught by Louis Horst, who was Martha Graham’s mentor. In my class were Trisha Brown and Lucinda Childs. I was the youngest, and 15 was young to go away and be with other college students. Louis took a liking to me, and I guess it was through Louis that I came to Juilliard. But I didn’t really want to make things until I went to Juilliard.

While a student at the American Dance Festival, I saw the work of Anna Sokolow. What drew me to her work was her very overt sense of theatricality. Her work was very sociopolitically oriented, which I’m not, but the intensity and the sparseness of her vision was very influential on me as a young choreographer.

BRETT | Were there other women in your life growing up that influenced the way that

MARTHA | I think that the “less is more” ideology is, for me, fundamental. If you don’t need it, don’t keep it. Her work was extremely Spartan and spare.

She terrified me. I was not that happy working in Anna’s company because she did not have a sense of humor. I thought, I’m not making any money, I might as well be having fun and getting a few laughs. I quit dancing when I was 23 because I felt there might be another way. But at that point I had no idea I wanted to create work of my own.

BRETT | How did you transition from that work to finding the group of people that you would create Pilobolus with?

MARTHA | I married a few months after I graduated from Juilliard to Philip Grausman. He is a sculptor. We moved to Italy, and I had a son, David, who is a jazz musician. Philip was asked to be an artist-in-residence at Dartmouth. I met the Pilobolus group there. The boys all took modern dance classes. Robby Barnett was a student of

Language [in mywork] was new for me, and it was something I initially had trepidations about. Text obviously opens up dramatic possibilities, and working with wonderful writers and patient actors supported my learning curve.

Philip’s, and through Robby I met Alison Chase, who was their teacher. We became friends. Alison and I kind of flirted our way into the male quartet. And the rest is history. [laughs]

BRETT | You described it as four jocks and two chicks.

MARTHA | It was four jocks, two chicks, shiny leotards, and nudity!

BRETT | That’s a pretty radical shift of context, going from dancing with Anna Sokolow to dancing with four jocks, creating a highly jovial, acrobatic, completely abstract, completely apolitical type of movement. Two different worlds completely.

MARTHA | Oh, it was crazy.

BRETT | Was there any line between the work with Anna and the work with Pilobolus?

MARTHA | Not really. Our first work, Ciona, was very abstract. Then we did Monkshood’ s Farewell, which was based on bizarre, medieval imagery. We did a piece called Untitled where Alison and I had naked men under our skirts who could grow quite tall, like Alice in Wonderland

Over the seven years, the work became more and more specific in its imagery and in its storytelling. I think that was our influence as women and also the direction I wanted to move in. Robby and I collaborated on work that had less to do with piling up bodies and incredible shapes.

BRETT | Was this a lab for a type of work that would emerge more fully in later years as you came to create work that has the imprint of Martha Clarke?

MARTHA | I think one of the things I couldn’t explore in Pilobolus was romanticism. Sensuality could be explored fully because of the nature of the movement. Often I found that we would come across a resonant poetic image, but I would be frustrated and say, “What does that mean, where is it going?” I’ve learned in the years of making work that it’s easy to fall in love with a beautiful image or movement, but if it isn’t integral to the entire meaning of the work, I tend to not allow myself to be seduced.

BRETT | What set the stage for turning the page into the next chapter away from working with Pilobolus?

MARTHA | The six-way collaboration became exhausting, and obviously the men outnumbered the women.

BRETT | Before your larger works with multiple people or players on stage, you were working as a soloist for a while.

MARTHA | While I was with Pilobolus, I started creating solos to preserve my sanity. Nocturne was pivotal. It’s a dance to Mendelssohn about aging. I played an old crone. Another solo, Vagabond, was about someone on stage, blanking out, nothing to say. It was probably a self-portrait. I think for many years my work actually represented my life.

Then I co-founded the dance trio Crow’s Nest. I met Félix Blaska, who became my partner in 1978. Félix was a very famous French dancer, and Pierre Cardin, who had produced Pilobolus in Paris, invited him to join us for dinner. He didn’t speak any English, and my French was terrible, but I drew a picture of two stick figures on the back of an envelope of him and me with our little webbed fingers joined. He performed in New York a year later, and I went backstage to see him. He was having a tough time, and he decided to leave his company. He came and lived with me in

Connecticut. Robby Barnett joined us, and Crow’s Nest was formed. We toured for three years, mostly in Europe.

BRETT | What were the three of you trying to do with Crow’s Nest?

MARTHA | Good music, storytelling. It was still collaborative, but I knew what I wanted to say. Collaborating with two men was easier than collaborating with five.

BRETT | As a soloist working with two men, were there boundaries that you encountered in those types of work that led to a desire to keep solo work in your life for a long time?

MARTHA | It’s very difficult to make solos. In Pagliaccio, I used buckets as props. I probably sat in an empty bucket for a week, trying to figure out an interesting way to get out of it. It was too lonely doing solo work.

BRETT | Having gone deeply into solo work, what was the next tree branch after Crow’s Nest?

Martha Clarke with her horse, Mr. Grey, at the Glimmerglass Festival, where he appeared in her 1992 production of The Magic Flute PHOTO c/o Martha Clarke

MARTHA | It was the Lyn Austin decade. I created six plays Off-Broadway for [producer and founder of Music-Theatre Group] Lyn, who I had met when I was still in Pilobolus. Lyn became a surrogate mother, and a lot of work I created for 12 years was under Lyn’s generosity and aegis.

The first was Elizabeth Dead, a play I made with Linda Hunt. George Trow wrote the text. Linda and I had gone to Paris to work on my first duet with Félix. She was not a well-known actress then. When we flew back, she said “I want to play Elizabeth I.” So we called Lyn Austin, and I said, “I’m going to make a piece for Linda,” and eventually she played Mary, Queen of Scots and Elizabeth I in a nightgown standing on a chamber pot. And it didn’t go so well. Then the next year I collaborated with Jeff Wanshel on A Metamorphosis in Miniature. A wonderful actor named David Rounds played Gregor Samsa, and Linda Hunt played his sister, Greta, and all the other characters on a stage that was eight feet wide. That won an OBIE for Best New American Play in 1982.

I made Garden of Earthly Delights, Vienna: Lusthaus, Kafka’s Hunger Artist. These all won OBIEs. Miracolo d’Amore was produced by Joe Papp with Spoleto USA, followed by Endangered Species, which was the first time that the volcano erupted and I got burned by the lava of the press. [laughs]

BRETT | This was at BAM?

MARTHA | Yes. It starred Flora, an African elephant. When I was at Spoleto with Miracolo, David Balding’s Circus Flora from St. Louis was also in town. I was not having an easy time, and so I would escape to the circus. I befriended Tony the Monkey, and this led to a collaboration with Balding. Endangered Species was a really interesting piece that suffered from taking on way too big a subject—man’s relationship with animals, the Civil War, the Holocaust. Frank Rich hated it.

BRETT | The trajectory that starts after Crow’s Nest through Endangered Species is a series of major works, several of which are extraordinary collaborations with some very important playwrights and introduce text in a really significant way. What shifted for you in thinking about the introduction of text into your work?

MARTHA | Language was new for me, and it was something I initially had trepidations about. However, directing opera and working with libretti helped bridge the verbal, nonverbal, and music vocabularies. Text obviously opens up dramatic

possibilities, and working with wonderful writers and patient actors supported my learning curve.

BRETT | Tell us about a couple of processes with playwrights that stand out for you as being particularly challenging, exciting, rewarding.

MARTHA | They’ve all been interesting. I really enjoyed my work with Alfred Uhry. He came to me with the idea for Angel Reapers, a show based on the founder of the Shaker movement. It’s one of my favorite pieces.

BRETT | In a scenario such as Chuck Mee with Vienna: Lusthaus, how does the script evolve?

MARTHA | Chuck was a historian and editor at Horizon magazine when I met him. Joe Papp introduced us. We went to lunch, and he wanted me to direct his Investigation of the Murder in El Salvador. I didn’t really understand it, which I said. And he said, “What are you working on?” and I said, “A show about Vienna at the turn of the century,” and he said he’d love to write it, and I said, “But it doesn’t have any words.” And he was handsome, so I said okay. [laughs]

BRETT | Sensible basis for a working relationship.

MARTHA | So we did Vienna. He’d write pages without any character names and in no particular order. Then I would go into rehearsal with no particular order and no particular characters. I had four actors and some dancers, and all the actors would try the words. It took months to organize.

BRETT | In Vienna: Lusthaus, the dance evolves as a response to those pieces of text. So you had two trains running for a while that somehow you brought together.

MARTHA | In the beginning it was incredibly awkward. I go for a seamless interplay between text and image. Rather than calling it dance, it’s image making. I think some dance critics would say there’s not much choreography.

I’ve been deeply influenced by film, and there are many great screenplays where text is obviously a necessity, but film is a visual language. Since I’m confined to the stage, I tried to make living film.

BRETT | I’ve been around you when you’re preparing for a piece. You’re a voracious consumer of photographs, stories, ephemera, film, music from a period. This certainly would have influenced the way you would have worked with someone like

Chuck Mee, providing him with elements that you felt began to come together to create an environment.

MARTHA | We worked separately, and then I mixed them.

I think the strongest, most elemental signature in my work is atmosphere. I make a world in which language can be woven throughout. But I think, as a creator, the first thing I strive for is a kind of architectural atmosphere or atmospheric architecture. It’s getting a sense, like smelling lavender, making an atmosphere in which all kinds of detail can then be arranged.

BRETT | And you use this atmosphere, you convey it to dancers, to the designers? You’ve had a few longstanding, seemingly productive relationships with designers. Bob Israel and Chris Akerlind come to mind.

MARTHA | Jane Greenwood, Donna Zakowska. The collaborators with whom I have had long-term relationships have a deep mutual understanding with me. You just find your people.

BRETT | Let’s talk for a minute about producers. I recall very clearly a story you told me about Lyn having mortgaged her house once to make sure that a piece of yours would make the stage. What, in your view, is the key ingredient? What makes a great producer?

MARTHA | Belief and support. Lyn had an uncanny instinct about me, about things I didn’t know about myself. She always encouraged me. When Lyn would back someone, it was literally until death do us part. We genuinely cared a lot for each other. I always thought of her as my second mom. She was crazy, intuitive, instinctive, and she could be destructive, but never with me.

Joe Papp was also another wonderful mentor. He produced Miracolo d’Amore with the Spoleto Festival in Charleston. One day he said, “I don’t know if this is genius or shit, but let’s keep going.” I’ve never forgotten that. I said, “Do you have notes?” He said, “How am I going to give you notes?”

I’ve had a wonderful relationship with Jim Nicola from New York Theatre Workshop; he’s a great listener. And now I’m thrilled to be in the home of James Houghton at the Signature Theatre.

I think a good producer is absolutely keen on making good work. And sometimes it’s just showing up with a box of Kleenex or a little pat on the back and a glass of wine after a tough rehearsal. But I think it is the marriage of common sense, economy, and

creativity. It’s always scary to make work, and it’s good to have someone to talk to.

BRETT | What differences have you found between working with dancers and working with actors?

MARTHA | Dancers are intuitive, not particularly cerebral. They feel with their skin and their cells and their muscles. With actors you usually have to front-load your communication with thought and analysis. It’s like yin and yang. My experience has been when you have dancers and actors in a room they admire each other’s craft and inspire each other in very special ways.

BRETT | What are you looking for in dancers?

MARTHA | I’m very intuitive about my selection of people to work with, and I’m very specific. A lot of what comes out on stage is a result of picking a wonderful performer and collaborating with who they really are.

BRETT | There appears to be a very, very fine line, or no line at all, between the work that you’re doing in the studio and the relationship that you develop with people that you work with outside of the studio. You’ve referred several times to having this kind of innate understanding with these individuals. There’s something that envelops the relationship that you have with individuals that almost extends beyond the work. Is that fair?

MARTHA | Yes, it’s very intense. I would say that outside of a few old friends, my deepest affections in life are for the people I work with. And my best friends are people I work with. I value and love them and like to laugh together and have a good meal together and gossip about who’s driving us crazy. Working in the theatre and working with dancers is a little bit like being in love. It’s a heightened experience when it’s good. It’s also painful when it’s not going well.

BRETT | If you were to look back at your work, what stands out for you as

commonalities and themes that you have tried to expose or work through?

MARTHA | Love, sex, and death. [laughs] The nuances of the psyche. My work has been compared to dreams.

I’m interested in a feminine point of view without being feminist with capital letters. In different decades of my life, the emphasis of my work was on pain or love, and that’s less interesting to me now. When I did Chéri, it was about an older woman and a younger man, and an older woman who has to accept her age and let go. So the subject matter as I’ve aged reflects kind of where I’m at. Also, I have a certain distance as my personal life is less dramatic. Different subjects interest me for different reasons, whereas I think probably a good 20 to 25 years ago I was working out of my own demons.

As you get older, there’s less distance between the highs and lows. Less drama, probably more contentment. And I think it’s possibly the only thing that aging has to offer.

Angel Reapers at the Signature Theatre, directed and choreographed by Martha Clarke PHOTO Joan Marcus

BRETT | Let’s talk about Chéri for a minute. Chéri is a nuanced love story written by Colette. I’ve seen you as you move in toward text. It’s a complicated mating dance. The text sends you signals, you respond over a period of time, thinking about colors and sensations and people. The ultimate experience as an audience member was informed by only the slightest use of actual text in the piece. You selected a few stanzas that were spoken, but the remainder of the work was communicated through movement, through an atmosphere only “indicated” by the text.

MARTHA | And much less of the kind of movement that’s usually associated with me.

Making Chéri with Alessandra Ferri and Herman Cornejo has been an extraordinary experience. I was working with two of the really great ballet dancers of our time, so I threw myself in the direction of what their technical abilities were. However, none of it is bravura. The technique was sublimated for the acting in combination with their technical ability. It was about the storytelling.

BRETT | Let’s spend a bit of time on film. You mentioned earlier in our conversation that you think of much of your work not as dance but as moving images, and called on your self-stated obsession with film as an influence. Are there filmmakers you have a particularly strong affinity for that you find to be particularly instructive?

MARTHA | I think Ingmar Bergman, Fellini… BRETT | We’ve watched Tarkovsky together.

MARTHA | I also love Robert Bresson, Cocteau, Da Sica, Visconti, Rossellini. Not so many Americans, oddly enough. I really love the Italian neorealists. I just adore them. I like Fritz Lang and some other very early filmmakers from the ’20s through the ’60s. I’m a great follower of HBO. I loved Deadwood

BRETT | You’ve mentioned earlier in our discussion wanting to put a toe in the world of film. In your view, what’s possible in the world of film that hasn’t been possible on stage? What draws you to that?

MARTHA | I think it’s the close-up. The way one sees. It’s also about light. I think being in an editing room is really fascinating.

BRETT | You’ve indicated that part of your attraction to the idea of film is the ability to create something permanent that can be referred to again and again. The challenge is collecting your work in a way that could be re-staged at a future point. Recording

American Ballet Theatre principal dancer Herman Cornejo and prima ballerina assoluta Alessandra Ferri in Chéri at the Signature Theatre, directed and choreographed by Martha Clarke PHOTO Joan Marcus

it in a way that would allow someone 50, 100 years from now to re-stage it. Should a Vienna: Lusthaus or an Endangered Species be available for a future generation to restage? Or does the work of Martha Clarke end with Martha Clarke?

MARTHA | Oh, dear. The New York Public Library has filmed Belle Epoque, Garden of Earthly Delights, and I think smatterings of other things. Things of mine that were filmed in the ’80s have all melted away because it wasn’t digital and it was hard to preserve. Life is ephemeral, art is ephemeral. It’s hard to know or even if it’s important to know if one’s work is relevant for the future. My work is about me living in the time I’m living. Its relevance is for future generations to decide. It’s not up to me.

BRETT | I’ve been around you when you’re creating several pieces, and you have a scavenger-like energy during that time. A pile of books in the corner, piles of films on the table, all of which start to come together in what you call an atmosphere, which you then convey to your collaborators to create a piece. Can we talk about your relationship with stealing for a minute?

MARTHA | With what?

BRETT | Stealing. How do you think of your relationship with these influences? As Stravinsky famously said, “Lesser artists borrow, great artists steal.”

MARTHA | Martha Graham said it as well. Yeah, sometimes if I’m in the beginning of making something, if I’m a week or two into it, I can look at anything and see material. But the blood’s got to be boiling. I will see something on the front of a newspaper and use it. I’ll watch somebody across the street and use it. But it means my brain has been tuned to plucking things for the appetite at hand. I trust the process, and when I go empty, I don’t freak out about it anymore.

BRETT | So how do you know an instinct is worth pursuing? What’s the decision point where you know you’re ready to make a piece about a subject?

MARTHA | A check. [laughs] Sometimes I’ll go in for a meeting, and I’m seized with enough passion to push it through. And then, of course, I have to deal with the reality of making it.

BRETT | We met when I was fresh out of college, and you put a wing around me. You’ve had relationships with a number of younger people in your career, people

who have assisted you, who have supported your process. What advice do you have for younger people trying to move into the field?

MARTHA | Go to law school. [laughs] I would only say you have to really love it, to adore it, because there’s great exhilaration that comes from collaboration with wonderful, interesting artists. There’s also frustration in trying to raise money and have the opportunity to see one’s dreams fulfilled. I think for a young person going into the field, it isn’t getting any easier. You have to really know you’re ready to walk through fire. And you will.

BRETT | You’ve worked with a number of students in the university context. What is interesting about great students? What does it look like when a student is inspiring to you?

BRETT | Yes, at some point. But how is that decision made?

MARTHA | I think when no one wants me anymore. [laughs]

BRETT | You live in an astonishingly beautiful part of the world, in Connecticut, in Arshile Gorky’s home. And nature has played a variety of influences in your work. What role has leaving the city played in your process? What is the role of nature in your work or in your process?

MARTHA | I have preferred the quiet and, in a sense, the emptiness of living among trees. It’s a little bit like a bear in hibernation in terms of creative thinking. I find too much constant stimulation of going to things and seeing things and keeping up with things allows less time for my own narcissist bulb to put in roots. That the quiet and reflective time, even if it’s not very reflective but is just quiet, is very important to my own truthfulness. Also, I think there are different times in your life, like when you’re younger, [when] assimilating an enormous amount of energy and input is exciting and thrilling, and that is as it should be.

MARTHA CLARKE

MARTHA | Oh, you feel renewed when you are a person of a certain age and you’re working with someone who is young and hungry and full of vitality and imagination. It’s like opening a window in a dry-aired apartment.

I find really wonderful students provocative and inspiring. However, my advice to students, as it was to you, is don’t get overeducated. Go out and practice your craft and learn on the road.

BRETT | Who are the younger people who have been influenced by you? Who has stolen well from you when you look at their work?

MARTHA | I think I was an early influence on Shen Wei. Sophie Bortolussi, who just choreographed Red Eye at the [New York Theatre] Workshop. I’ve had the pleasure of working with Rachel Dickstein and Lear deBessonet, who are both doing very well. And Brett Egan, who I love and am very proud of. [laughs]

BRETT | How does Martha Clarke retire?

MARTHA | With gratitude. [laughs] Penniless and with gratitude. You mean, can I see giving it all up?

As you get older, you strip away. Living simply, and not needing to be involved with everything. I know what turns me on.

BRETT | That’s beautiful. I’d like to ask, finally, 50 years from now, 75 years from now, 100 years from now, what would you hope people would look at as Martha Clarke’s contribution to this field?

MARTHA | Her love of Pomeranians. [laughs]

BRETT | [laughs] You’re not getting off that easily. What does it add up to?

MARTHA | You know, cross-discipline is a very catchy phrase now. Inter-discipline, cross-discipline. I think when I started being trained as a dancer and doing work and moving into theatre and being neither one thing or another, I made my own work. I think I made my own DNA.

I’ve had a terrific, creative life. Sometimes I think retiring gracefully is kind of appealing. I don’t want to stay on too long at the fair, creatively. Peter Brook’s 89, and he’s got a play that’s just opened in New York. Martha Graham kept it up until she was 94. I don’t believe I have that kind of drive, but I wouldn’t say never. I’m about to go to rehearsal today.

It isn’t an easy life. There are great highs and there are great lows. And that’s a good ending.

As a creator, the first thing I strive for is a kind of architectural atmosphere or atmospheric architecture.

AGNES DE MILLE A PIONEER ON STAGE + OFF

BY BEN PESNER

SPRING 2015 VOL. 3, NO. 4

Over the past decade, SDC Journal has periodically included articles on the Union’s role in protecting its Members—as well as articles

how Members have shaped the Union. Ben Pesner’s comprehensively researched article on the

is simultaneously a marvelous evocation of that tough and tenacious woman, and a history lesson—one that encompasses

law and dance, the founding of SDC, and how we understand the role of choreography in telling a

As the original choreographer for Oklahoma! and Carousel, Agnes de Mille earned heaps of acclaim and secured a place of honor in the history of the Broadway musical. What she didn’t receive was ownership of her work. She never achieved a financial return consummate with the impact her Broadway choreography made on the musical theatre nor with the

revenue her shows generated for their producers and authors.

Instead, she got angry—and set about changing the ground rules that governed the business end of show business. She did this not just for herself but for all other choreographers as well.

This is the story of an artist who channeled her outrage into activism. She successfully lobbied Congress to extend copyright protection to choreography and helped establish SDC. It’s a story of reconciliation with an organization that once seemed indifferent to her cause, which eventually came to champion—and document—her groundbreaking work.

on

pioneering choreographer Agnes de Mille

copyright

dramatic story on stage.

Agnes de Mille in rehearsal for Allegro PHOTO Photofest

Agnes de Mille was born in 1905 to a family with deep roots in the theatre. Both her father and grandfather were playwrights, and her celebrated uncle, Cecil B. DeMille (who changed the capitalization of the family name), became synonymous with big-budget Hollywood epics. Agnes was a relatively unknown choreographer and dancer when she became a charter member of the American Ballet Theatre in 1940. Though she remained associated with the company for the rest of her career, a piece she created for the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo to music by Aaron Copland became her greatest early triumph. Rodeo debuted at the Metropolitan Opera House on October 16, 1942, with de Mille herself dancing the lead role. It received 22 curtain calls.

Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II were in the audience that night. They were scouting for a choreographer to work on a show they were writing for the Theatre Guild, a musical adaptation of Green Grow the Lilacs. It was a play about cowboys and farmers in the Oklahoma Territory. They signed de Mille, and Oklahoma! opened on Broadway the following year. The musical was a box-office dynamo and established Rodgers and Hammerstein as the most successful partnership in Broadway history. Never before had a Broadway musical so thoroughly integrated music and dance into the storytelling or used choreography to tell the story in so sophisticated a manner. This was due in no small part to de Mille’s famous 15-minute dance sequence at the end of Act I. The ballet probes hidden feelings and desires, and is regarded as the first “dream ballet” in the Broadway musical canon.

De Mille returned to work with Rodgers and Hammerstein on their next show, Carousel (1945), which was another hit, and again on Allegro (1947), which was not. She staged the book for Allegro in addition to creating the dances and achieved a notable milestone in becoming the first woman to supervise a major Broadway musical as both director and choreographer. In their final collaboration with de Mille, Rodgers and Hammerstein hired her to adapt her dances for the movie version of Oklahoma!

Though Allegro was a disappointment to all of its creators, de Mille had by then become a mainstay on Broadway and in the dance world. She received many accolades and honors over her long career, including a Tony Award for her work on Brigadoon (1947). She wrote numerous books, appeared frequently on television, and toured the country extensively to perform and lecture on dance.

In her 1958 memoir, And Promenade Home (one of several she would pen throughout her lengthy career), de Mille wrote in considerable detail about her financial relationship with Oklahoma!: “When I signed my contract for Oklahoma! I was unknown on Broadway. I had neither union nor precedent to help me. I made what terms I could. They were not good…I cite them because they represent the common lot of any beginner in the business, then and now.”

Like other up-and-coming choreographers, the young de Mille entered into contracts that today would be considered substandard. The deals she signed with the Theatre Guild were typical of the era and she had received the going rate, plus small royalties or none at all, and maintained no ownership stake in the dances she created. The exception was Brigadoon, for which she began collecting royalties after threatening a lawsuit in 1963, 16 years after its premiere. Later, she achieved more and more success on Broadway and in the ballet world and found herself in a position to negotiate better deals, though, according to her biographer Carol Easton, she complained that her best contracts were for her least successful shows, which generated hardly any income.

Oklahoma! became an economic juggernaut, playing on national tour more or less continuously until 1954. There were also productions in London and across the globe, and a successful Hollywood adaptation. Yet the deal de Mille initially received from the Theatre Guild yielded her a pittance in relation to the show’s huge financial success. “I signed for $1,500 cash and no royalties,” she wrote. “I was to get an extra $500 when costs were paid off. My contract stipulated no royalties at all, but after the out-of-town triumph, the Guild granted me $50 a week.” De Mille asked for an increase to $75 per week, but the Guild’s Lawrence Langer refused, citing his obligation to the show’s backers. De Mille reported that Langer’s concern for the backers bore fruit; by 1953, an investment of $1,500 in the show would have returned $50,000.

De Mille eventually received a small royalty for the U.S. touring company but had to sign away other rights. “There were no rights and royalties for any of the stockcompany or summer-opera performances of [Oklahoma!],” she wrote in And Promenade Home. “But my dances, or a version of them, are nearly always reproduced.”

By the mid-1950s, Rodgers and Hammerstein had bought out the Theatre Guild, purchasing the rights to the three

shows de Mille had collaborated on. The authors assumed control of the musicals and all the work that went into them, including de Mille’s choreography, which they now owned.

De Mille’s relationship with Rodgers and Hammerstein had begun well. She was particularly close to Hammerstein, whom she turned to as a “big brother” on many occasions. “The relationship grew to be one of the joys of my life,” she wrote. But then, in de Mille’s account, barriers arose between the authors’ ambitions and the interests of their collaborators. She didn’t mention Rodgers and Hammerstein by name in her memoir, but it’s not hard to guess to whom she was referring: “Many authors and composers consider the plays the uncomplicated creation of their own imaginations and they buy the services of choreographers, designers, orchestrators outright, sometimes with authorship credit as well, as though these were services like plumbing or upholstery.”

Fifteen years after their premieres, Oklahoma! and Carousel were generating huge profits for the Rodgers and Hammerstein partnership, which was then a global producing empire. But what of the collaborator who, by her calculation, was responsible for “twenty-six minutes’ worth [of stage time], dramatic and lyric invention not specified or even suggested in the original script” of Oklahoma!? And who had created a lengthy Act II ballet for Carousel that “entailed a real job of dramatic invention, close to playwriting”? De Mille began to direct her anger at the authors. In her view, the choreographer who had played an integral role in creating the material was left out in the cold with little recognition of her contribution and even less compensation for her work. What’s more, as she wrote in And Promenade Home, she saw her choreography being widely replicated without any reward for its creator:

During the last fifteen years, many managers—in point of truth, too many and in all countries—have hit on the scheme of engaging dancers to reproduce whatever choreography they have been performing. By this means, all legitimate choreographic royalties are avoided…There is sometimes, not always, legal sanction for this. The ethics seem undeviatingly clear. Dancers, who are more frequently loyal than not, loyal to the point of starvation, will not easily lend themselves to this practice. Alas—there are some who will…The choreographer is glued immobile as a fly in a web and must watch his own

pupils and assistants, suborned to steal his ideas and livelihood.

De Mille began publicly airing her grievances to showcase the conditions her fellow choreographers, all except a few marquee names, were bound to struggle against. “Choreography has become, in short, a desperate profession,” she wrote. She knew what was needed: “The answer is plainly copyright and unionization.”

De Mille set out to achieve both. She joined other artists in establishing the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers (now SDC) in 1959 and led the successful fight to apply the legal principle of copyright to choreography.

Modern dance legend Hanya Holm was the first choreographer to successfully receive copyright protection for her dances in the U.S. She used Labanotation to record her work on the 1948 Cole Porter musical Kiss Me, Kate and submitted the documentation to the U.S. Copyright Office on microfilm. In 1952, she received notice that the work had been registered as a “dramatic-musical composition.”

This changed the playing field for choreographers. Before then, it was unclear whether choreography was eligible for copyright protection. In fact, previous attempts to protect work had failed. But this was only a partial victory; the next step would be to convince Congress to update

the federal copyright laws to specifically include choreography.

It’s hard to understate the significance of copyright for artists because it protects the creator of a work of art against its unauthorized exploitation. It furnishes the copyright holder with the exclusive right to control its reproduction, sale, distribution, and—this is especially important for dance—performance.

Copyright guarantees the potential for an artist to generate income from their work (the disruptive changes wrought by the Internet notwithstanding). Our founding fathers considered the concept of safeguarding intellectual property rights so fundamental that they enshrined it in the Constitution. Language that has come to be called the “Copyright Clause” authorizes Congress to “promote the Progress of Science and the useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writing and Discoveries.”

Early copyright legislation enacted by Congress, however, applied only to printed matter. During the 19th century, Congress gradually expanded the laws to cover other categories including musical compositions, paintings, and more, but choreographers were left without protection. In a history of copyright law and dance, Nicholas Arcomano points to an 1892 lawsuit involving Loie Fuller, one of the groundbreaking “mothers” of American modern dance, as an example

of the inadequate protection provided by the laws of the time. Fuller sued another dancer, Minnie Bemis, for the unauthorized performance of her innovative “Serpentine Dance.” Despite having registered a detailed description of her choreography with the U.S. Copyright Office, Fuller lost the suit. The court ruled that “a stage dance illustrating the poetry of motion by a series of graceful movements combined with an attractive arrangement of drapery, lights, and shadows, but telling no story, portraying no character and depicting no emotion is not a dramatic composition within the meaning of the Copyright Act.”

The registration of Holm’s work on Kiss Me, Kate was therefore a significant step forward. Still, the U.S. Copyright Office insisted that to be registered for a copyright, a ballet had to “tell a story, develop a character or express a theme or emotion by means of specific dance movements and physical actions.” You might be able to copyright a narrative ballet, but not the foxtrot or the Lindy. A choreographer would have to characterize the dance as a dramatic work to receive the benefits of copyright, and abstract pieces that didn’t tell a story of some kind were left out in the cold. Choreography would have to be recorded in some tangible medium to receive protection, but Labanotation was a difficult and costly process, and filming was both expensive and impractical.

Furthermore, by considering Holm’s work a “dramatic-musical composition,” the U.S. Copyright Office was squeezing a square

Lawrence Langer, Richard Rodgers, Agnes de Mille + Oscar Hammerstein in rehearsal for Allegro PHOTO Fred Fehl c/o Billy Rose Theatre Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts

peg into a round hole. It still didn’t consider choreography eligible for copyright in its own right but only as part of another published work (in this case, a musical).

That’s where matters stood in the late 1950s. Choreographers and other artists, de Mille prominent among them, urged Congress to expand and update the law. That would take nearly two decades, but stirrings of change were in the air. The Senate Judiciary Committee instructed the U.S. Copyright Office to study the question of copyright for choreography. The office sought input from interested parties and produced a report in 1959. De Mille contributed a forceful, passionate essay to the study. One excerpt reads:

Choreography is neither drama nor storytelling. It is a separate art. It is an arrangement in time-space, using human bodies as its unit of design. It may or may not be dramatic or tell a story. In the same way that some music tells a story, or fits a “program,” some dances tell stories—but the greater part of music does not, and the greater part of dancing does not. Originality consists in the arrangements of steps and gestures in patterns; the story may or may not be unique.

I think further there is no profit in trying to define art or creative choreography as opposed to ballroom or folk steps in respect to their difficulty, simplicity or familiarity. The exact problems pertain to music. There is in both fields an enormous body of inherited material, some simple and most familiar; in music a melody or composition can be copyrighted if [a certain number of] bars of music are unique and can be proven to be so. In this way arrangements or transcriptions of folk material can be copyrighted as original with the composer. In the same manner, all inherited folk steps, classic ballet technique, basic tap devices, are public domain. But their combination, good or bad, can be deemed to be original.

It is not the province of the law to judge whether a dance, even the most trite and commercial, has creative original value. No one could think the majority of tunes of tin-pan alley creative achievements. Such as they are, however, they can be protected. The protection is based on a time measurement—not more than eight bars can be duplicated without infringing authorship rights. An equivalent measurement could be worked out for choreography. I see

no reason why the inventor of special ballroom steps or patterns cannot avail himself of these rights if he so chooses.

Eventually all good creations, in whole or in part, go into public domain. But that does not mean that the choreographer alone of all creators should not reap while he lives the rewards of his talents and efforts.

It may seem baffling in retrospect, but de Mille’s position was controversial. Among those who felt differently was New York City Ballet co-founder Lincoln Kirstein, who wrote to the committee in direct response to de Mille:

Agnes de Mille [in And Promenade Home] makes her complaints against commercial exploitation of work… However, [this] does not pertain to the dance, but to her rights as a director of dancing, similar to a director of stage action, for which she could have obtained royalties, had she thought of it at the time, or had her reputation, before Oklahoma! was first produced warranted her commanding such a contract, which it did not. At the present, any commercial choreographer, like de Mille, is guaranteed a weekly percentage of the gross of a show, if they can convince the producer they are worth it; this has nothing to do with the protection of the actual steps, which are not useful to anybody else, except out of context.

De Mille was well aware that achieving copyright protection was only half the battle, along with achieving unionization. Still, she argued that copyright protection was an equally essential tool in protecting the work of a choreographer from its unauthorized replication. Because the original choreographer did not typically own her own work and because it wasn’t protected by copyright, choreographers lacked the legal basis to control who could restage their work and under what circumstances as well as to prevent unauthorized reproduction of their dances.

It would be necessary to “fix” a work of choreography and record it in some tangible medium to achieve a copyright. This was preposterous to Kirstein. “Even ballet masters forget their own works within a few years,” he wrote to the committee.

“A ballet, or choreographic composition, is very often altered from season to season, sometimes radically, and although the name remains the same, the choreographer will utilize changes in the cast, new dancers to their advantage. Hence, it can hardly be

established in a court of law what is the real original piece…If [the choreographer] can’t recall it, it’s unlikely anyone else can in its integrity.”

De Mille herself pointed out that choreography is a fluid form. Like many of her peers, she continually adapted her work to fit the circumstances of a particular event. This presented a challenge that still exists for choreographers, but de Mille was confident that the underlying principle was sound: that choreography was worthy of copyright protection in its own right, on par with literature and painting. In her letter to the committee, she reported that the only two means of making a tangible recording of a choreographer’s work are Labanotation and films. The latter she described as “extremely perishable.” She went on to remark:

The making of films is at present blocked by various union requirements; but, with the formation of the Choreographers’ Society, we have confidence that these difficulties can be compromised and resolved. In any case, they should have no bearing on the formulating of a law. Give us some chance to protect our basic rights and we will settle all other difficulties ourselves.

That’s exactly what came to pass. A union, de Mille argued, could negotiate a standard agreement guaranteeing fair minimum standards for all choreographers. It could address how to record the dance by making arrangements with producers and other theatrical unions. Since no existing union would agree to represent choreographers, she and her colleagues joined together to form the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers, now SDC. De Mille served as its president from 1965 to 1967 and was then the only female head of a national labor union. SDC would eventually negotiate standard contracts and better provisions to protect choreographers (and directors) working in the theatre.

Finally, Congress passed an expansion of the copyright law that specifically embraced choreography. The Copyright Act of 1976 holds that “[c]opyright protection subsists… in original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression, now known or later developed, from which they can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or device. Works of authorship include…pantomimes and choreographic works.”

A sea change had occurred for choreographers, thanks in no small part to the eloquence and tenacity of Agnes de Mille.

* * *

Despite the passage of time, de Mille remained unhappy with Rodgers and Hammerstein. “De Mille was angry at them, and had been for years,” Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization (R&H) President Ted Chapin said during a recent conversation. They owned the dances she created for Oklahoma! and Carousel. The shows were produced many, many times across the globe each year, often featuring her choreography (or a version of it). But her contributions to the musicals, which she regarded as authorial, generated little credit and no royalties.

The authors’ heirs had brought Chapin on board to manage their theatrical properties. Early on, he made an effort to rebuild relationships with the surviving artists who had collaborated with Rodgers and Hammerstein over the years. This meant mending fences where needed. In the case of de Mille, serious repairs were in order.

The thaw began when David Gockley, then general director of the Houston Grand Opera, was preparing a production of Carousel for its 1989–90 season. Chapin put him in touch with de Mille, who by then was in her mid-eighties. She had survived several health crises, including a devastating stroke a decade earlier, but she had recovered enough to write five books and create several new dances. With de Mille’s consent, Gockley engaged wellknown répétiteur and frequent de Mille

collaborator Gemze de Lappe to restage her original choreography.

Chapin had experienced de Mille’s dances before, but Houston was different. “I had never seen them so extraordinarily well performed,” he wrote. “They were a revelation. I realized their uniqueness: every step, every move was totally character-driven.” A lightbulb went off. “I understood completely what de Mille was talking about in terms of her choreography coming out the drama of the show,” Chapin told me. “Her dances told pieces of the story that hadn’t been told in any other way in the show.” Chapin realized that what de Mille had been saying was absolutely true: “There was a certain amount of authorship in her contribution.”

He set out on a two-pronged mission: to make amends with de Mille and to enlist her participation in ensuring that her work would be preserved for future generations.

He wrote to de Mille and soon received an invitation for tea at her home in Greenwich Village. “She was a very, very tough customer,” said Chapin, “but I was there on a peace mission. I proposed that R&H give her what she had always wanted, which was an ongoing royalty. In exchange, she would document the dances for us for future generations.” De Mille hadn’t been able to document her work; perhaps R&H could. Chapin’s idea was to make an instructional video that would guide choreographers and directors working on future productions of the shows.

De Mille consented, and a suitable opportunity soon arose. The Nashville Opera was about to stage Carousel, with de Lappe again recreating de Mille’s choreography. R&H arranged to videotape

the dances, which were performed by members of the Nashville Ballet. De Mille agreed to watch the tape and give her comments on camera.

The result is The Dances of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s “Carousel,” a 90-minute video that provides “hands-on help with steps, attitude, and technique” for anyone staging Carousel using the show’s original choreography. The video captures the musical numbers as performed by the Nashville troupe to piano accompaniment on a bare stage. There is no singing and almost no dialogue.

Later, at a Manhattan rehearsal studio, de Mille gives notes on the Nashville performance on video. She speaks of the motivation behind specific gestures and their roots in the characters and the script. She expounds on many aspects of the dances, from the position of the dancers’ limbs to how they should breathe. She even critiques the costumes. De Lappe is on hand to demonstrate specific steps, with an assist from dancer Michael Phillips.

While it’s not a measure-by-measure documentation of every step, the video captures the essence of de Mille’s work, along with a plethora of details, directly from the last surviving member of the show’s creative team. In the video, a particularly delicious moment comes when de Mille recoils at the ending of “June Is Bustin’ Out All Over.” The number culminates in a series of steps that, in retrospect, needs adjustment. “Let’s fix it!” she says. And she does, on camera, guiding de Lappe and Phillips to craft a new sequence to end the number.

According to Chapin, de Mille was pleased with the video and looked forward to collaborating on a companion piece about Oklahoma! Unfortunately, she died in October 1993, shortly after the Carousel video was completed.

R&H produced The Dances of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s “Oklahoma!” in 2009. De Lappe guides the viewer, giving casting, costume, and staging tips while introducing clips of her own restaging for the North Carolina School of the Arts. She narrates archival footage of the dream ballet and other numbers from the original production. The video also includes clips from the Oklahoma! film for which de Mille adapted her original choreography, tailoring it to suit the requirements of the camera and the talents of the dancers she cast. The footage also shows de Mille talking about her work in master classes, interviews, and television documentaries.

The original Broadway production of Oklahoma!, choreographed by Agnes de Mille PHOTO Photofest

Taken together, the two videos provide a remarkable look at an artist and her work. They are full of insight on how to recreate de Mille’s dances—or, more accurately, detailed tips for adapting the choreography to the specific skills and talents of the performers while maintaining the integrity of the work.

In the Carousel video, Mary Rodgers says, “To do Carousel without the de Mille dances is kind of like reading a great book with one of the characters missing.” Without them, Rodgers warns, you can’t stage a “true” production of Carousel

This turns out to be more of an advisory note than a precondition for producing either show. “The de Mille dances are available, but we don’t make them a requirement,” Chapin told me. “We have long coordinated with people who worked with Agnes, and with Jerome Robbins in the case of The King and I, through the years, and hopefully they will keep passing it along to another generation.” R&H is working on another video that captures Robbins’s choreography for The King and I. However, Chapin added, “We don’t have enough people readily available who can put up the dances as they were originally staged.” For that reason, R&H offers the de Mille choreography for Oklahoma! and Carousel as an option for producers who license the shows at no additional cost. “I don’t want to dictate how it’s done,” said Chapin, “but I want to provide the best tools possible so that producers can do the best production possible.”

* * *

As part of the rapprochement with de Mille, R&H carved out a new financial arrangement for the choreographer based on the same terms she had eventually negotiated for Brigadoon. “We sign royalty checks every quarter to the Agnes de Mille estate,” Chapin said. “I’m glad that I could play a little part in documenting what she did for Rodgers and Hammerstein so that she didn’t die angry about that.”

In addition to the royalties for de Mille and the videos documenting her work, Chapin pointed to another dividend that accrued from her dispute with the authors. “If out of it came her anger, which led to SDC being formed, and copyright for dances, then everyone benefits.”

As for de Mille’s artistic legacy, perhaps it’s best to let de Lappe have the final word. On R&H’s Oklahoma! video, she remarks: “When people tell me Agnes’s work is old-fashioned, I know it’s not. It’s just that nobody knows how to do it. When young actors and dancers really see this choreography and really see the motivation behind every step and gesture, they’re fascinated by it and very excited to do it. I have found they are very hungry for learning how to incorporate acting into dance, and they really work at it. Agnes de Mille put literature, poetry, storytelling, and human relationships into dance in a very theatrical and commercial way. It was high art, but when it is done correctly, the general public always likes it…We need to have faith in these masters of the musical theatre. You just have to know how to do the dances with honesty and integrity, and then they stand up forever.”

COPYRIGHT LAW + DANCE: A TIMELINE

1789 The U.S. Constitution’s Copyright Clause (Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8) empowers Congress to grant rights and protections to authors and artists.

1790 Congress enacts the Copyright Act of 1790. The law protects only maps, charts, and books but is gradually expanded over the next century.

1892 Loie Fuller sues another dancer for the unauthorized performance of her “Serpentine Dance.” Fuller loses when courts find that the Copyright Act does not protect choreography.

1905 Agnes George de Mille is born in New York City.

1909 The Copyright Act of 1909 extends protections for many works of art but does not cover dance.

1928 The invention of Labanotation creates a system to permanently document choreography for the first time.

1943 With choreography by Agnes de Mille, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! opens on Broadway. The show is subsequently produced across the globe and tours the U.S. continuously for the next decade.

1945 Rodgers and Hammerstein work with de Mille for a second time on Carousel

1947 De Mille directs and choreographs Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Allegro, which is a Broadway flop, and Lerner and Loewe’s Brigadoon, which earns her a Tony Award.

1952 Hanya Holm becomes the first choreographer to secure an American copyright for her dances in Kiss Me, Kate

1955 The film version of Oklahoma! features de Mille’s dances, which she reinterpreted from the stage for the camera.

1959 The Copyright Office solicits comments about protection for choreography from de Mille and others. The Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers is founded.

1962 The League of New York Theatres recognizes the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers (now SDC) as a bargaining agent. The Union successfully negotiates an agreement covering direction and choreography on Broadway.

1963 De Mille begins receiving royalties for her work on Brigadoon

1976 The Copyright Act of 1976 grants full copyright protection to works of dance.

1993 Shortly before her death, de Mille collaborates with the Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization on a video documenting her dances for Carousel and begins receiving royalties for Carousel and Oklahoma!

2009 The Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization creates a video documenting de Mille’s choreography for Oklahoma!

The of

Art

Theatre Togethernessis

DAME GILLIAN LYNNE, DBE

BY NINA LANNAN

SUMMER 2016 VOL. 5, NO. 1

From Nina Lannan, Fall 2022: Gillian died on July 1, 2018. She was fortunate enough to have lived to see a theatre in London named after her and to attend that naming ceremony on May 1, 2018. It is the first West End theatre to be named after a nonroyal woman. Her achievements are legendary, and I appreciate them even more now that I am about to turn 67 and think of all the great work she made while in her 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s. Her energy was amazing and inspiring. I was fortunate to have known her.

For more than seven decades, Olivier Award winner Dame Gillian Lynne has delighted audience members while thrilling and challenging dancers with her choreography and direction for theatre, film, and television. Shortly after Dame Gillian’s 90th birthday, Nina Lannan—General Manager and former Chair of the Broadway League— sat down with Ms. Lynne on behalf of SDC Journal to talk about an extraordinary career that has spanned dancing with Sadler’s Wells Ballet at Covent Garden during World War II to choreography for some of the world’s best-loved musicals, including Cats and The Phantom of the Opera. The two have been friends since 1981, when they worked together on Cats, and they shared reminiscences and reflections on Ms. Lynne’s life and how to live.

NINA | A few months ago, you gave me your wonderful autobiography, A Dancer in Wartime. It is a brilliant book and covers when and where you were born and grew up, and then through World War II, up to when you were about 20. In this book, your mother takes you to a doctor’s office, and he analyzes you as being a born dancer.

GILLIAN | It all came about because Mum used to say, “I can’t control my child. She’s always fiddling, she’s always jumping up and down, she’s naughty at school, and I don’t know what to do.” I was known as “wriggle bottom” at home because I could not keep still. The doctor had been watching me very closely, and he said, “Mrs.

PHOTO Walter McBride

Pyrke, can we talk outside for a moment?” He got her outside and, of course, the minute they’d gone, I started to dance. I leapt on his desk and leapt on his settee and leapt all over the place. The doctor said, “Mrs. Pyrke, this child is not sick. There’s nothing wrong with her attention syndrome, really. It’s just she’s a born dancer. Take her to class.”

How he knew that by watching me fiddle around, I don’t know. I hadn’t started to dance.

NINA | When you started to dance, what are your earliest memories of music—of that feeling of what music did to your body?

GILLIAN | I really felt I’d come home. The minute I got to dance, the minute I heard the music, the minute I was taught how to use my body and begin to think how I could do it myself, I felt at home.

NINA | Did you like the discipline of learning how to dance?

GILLIAN | Loved it. I’ve always loved discipline. To this day, I do, which means I’m quite tough to work for.

NINA | Yes, because you expect it in everyone else around you.

GILLIAN | I do.

NINA | So, you felt you belonged, and that has stayed with you through your whole life?

GILLIAN | The extraordinary thing is, it has. I’m lucky because I’ve done so many things. I’ve done classical ballet, I’ve done modern. I went into repertory to learn to act. I went to the London Palladium, where I had to learn to hold a massive house of 2,160 people. You have to hold that house. You have to give it every inch of your performance. And I became their little dancing star.

That whole thing was an absolutely amazing new feel to life. I began to smell other bits of the theatre, other than the ballet.

NINA | You started dance lessons, and then at some point, you moved to London and joined a company. You had the opportunity to see professional dancers at work, and you became immersed in the ballet world, yes?

GILLIAN | I was immersed in the ballet world when I started. Then, when I was 14, I was dancing, and a wonderful woman called Molly Lake, who had worked with Anna Pavlova, saw me dance and thought, “That girl’s got talent. I want her in my company.” I was too young to go to her company,

but she used to have me up to London for special performances, all classical. I got used to the classical world and classical dance early on.

NINA | How did you make the transition into other types of dance?

GILLIAN | Well, because I went to the Palladium and I started to, as I say, smell other things, and I could always…

NINA | The Palladium had an in-house dance company?

GILLIAN | No. They built a little company around me. In the Palladium, you did two shows a day and three on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Nine a week. So today, when the kids say to me, “I’m tired,” and all that, I say, “We’re only doing seven performances a week!”

I was always mad about jazz as well. I used to give jazz classes.

NINA | You were immersed in the classical world, but then how did you learn jazz and, moreover, end up teaching it?

GILLIAN | I don’t know. Somehow it must have been in my body. When I was a kid, my mother, with three other women, was killed in a most ghastly car crash when their baby Fiat skidded into a petrol tanker. All of them were killed very cruelly and immediately. I went to stay with an aunt because I had nowhere else to go. She and my uncle were deeply into music of every kind and had a marvelous jazz pianist who was a friend who used to come and play. I learned instinctively.

Robert Helpmann—who got me to the Palladium—was a wonderful actor, dancer, and he worked with Olivier a lot. He wasn’t a jazz dancer, but he tried everything. He acted. He sang. He did straight stuff, comic stuff. He got me absolutely interested in everything. “Try this, look at this, go and see this.”

NINA | I was going to ask you about your early influences and your mentors, and you’re telling me some of them. So, Robert Helpmann was very important in opening you up to other types of dance.

GILLIAN | He did a lot of plays as well as being the star dancer of the Royal Ballet. He introduced me to a lot of other people.

NINA | He was your bridge to the theatre world.

GILLIAN | He really was. He liked my work, and he could see that I could act. He helped

me all along the line, sort of pushing me to find different interests.

NINA | In your book, you mention Ninette de Valois.

GILLIAN | She was important to the whole world of dance and was one of the great women of all time. She ran the Royal Opera House for the ballet. That woman, she was a diplomat. She was a wonderful choreographer. She was a hard teacher. Oh, how hard! She also was always looking for new, interesting people. She was just a special person.

She was married to a doctor. She always made us laugh because she used to say, “Right, now Arthur, my husband, says we aren’t eating enough.” We didn’t have any food then! I’m talking about the war. He said we had to have beetroot—greens and things. But those of us who grew up in the war didn’t have any food. We never had meat at all; it was unheard of during the war. There was a little restaurant near Covent Garden, and they used to get a shipment of meat about once a month to every two months. They would send someone to the stage door to say, “Some came in today.” We would all just run. If you were first, you got some. If you were fourth, you didn’t. That’s how dire it was.

NINA | So, Ninette was important to you on the classical front, and then Robert Helpmann helped you transition and exposed you to other work.

GILLIAN | And both of those choreographers did unusual works. She did The Rake’s Progress wonderfully. She did Job. She did The Prospect Before Us. She did lots of witty, unusual stuff. He made a few ballets, but they were all to do with drama. So, it was much more interesting than a lot of work that we were given.

NINA | Please explain: was there a fluid exchange between dancers who worked in ballet and dancers who worked in the West End or on Broadway?

GILLIAN | No. I was the first. I really was.

The Palladium Theatre went to Robert Helpmann and said, “Look. We need someone who can hold the theatre, is fast, and whom we can build ballets around. Who do you have? Do you have someone with a big personality and strong technique?” Well, he thought I had both those, and he suggested me. I went along to meet them, and I was there for three years. They built things around me. I learnt so much.

NINA | So you were the only, the first, to go from the ballet world into the West End, more theatrical world.

GILLIAN | You asked me how much rapport there was between the two of them. There wasn’t a lot. Musicals were not as good as they were here [in the United States], of course, but they had their own merit. The dancers who worked in musicals didn’t have classical techniques. They like to do jazz, which was dreadful in those days. That’s what made me want to grapple with it because I thought it’s got to be better than this. So I worked really hard at it.

I used to give classes on matinee days. I used to do the matinee at the Palladium, then rush to a wonderful studio in the middle of London in my makeup, give classes for two hours, and rush back and do the second show. It gave me a lot of stamina very early on.

NINA | So, now we understand a bit about your transition into dancing outside of the classical world. I read that, in 1962, you were dancing in a revue, and the choreographer fell out.

GILLIAN | That’s how I started. Literally, I was in the revue, and Tutte Lemkow, a mad Norwegian, was the choreographer, and he had a fit. He lost his temper.

NINA | Beware of fits in the theatre.

So, when this mad Norwegian choreographer fell out on this revue, everyone looked in your direction. You were one of eight performers, and suddenly all heads turned in your direction and said, “What do we do next?”

GILLIAN | They did. And I said, “Why me? Why me? I’m in it. I’m a performer.” But the cast insisted, so I did it, and without realizing it, I was thrown in at the deep end and started as a choreographer.

Then, a lovely woman, who owned Western Theatre Ballet, said, “Gillian, I want you to make a jazz ballet for me. Nobody’s done a jazz ballet in England. You must do one.” I said, “But why me? I’m just grappling with it. I’m making myself go to lessons. I’m not really there yet.” “No,” she said. “I’ve talked to the critics, and they say you’re the one to do it. Will you have a go?” I said, “What about the music?” She said, “Well, I’m talking to Dudley Moore.”

Do you remember Beyond the Fringe? They were Jonathan Miller, Dudley Moore, Peter Cook, and Alan Bennett. They were Off-Broadway or in London, either or, as

brilliant, brilliant comics. They had this revue, which was wonderful.

So Dudley Moore and I did a jazz ballet with him writing the score about “The Owl and the Pussycat.” He was a brilliant jazz pianist. It was the first choreography I’d ever done. It wasn’t what I call very good. It had promise. It was quite new because no one was doing jazz ballets, but I wouldn’t say anybody said, “Oh, this is brilliant.” But it was enough to get everybody talking. And then Dudley and I stayed great, great friends.

Everybody came to see it because of Dudley, really. Dudley’s name was wonderful. The other people in the revue were well known in that world, which was very big in England. I don’t think you’ve ever had it really here, have you?

the choreographer. I was dropped in the pot.

NINA | And you made your way. Obviously, there must have been a real need, in the revue world, for a choreographer.

GILLIAN | Yes. There were plenty of balletic choreographers. There were about four choreographers in musicals, but our musical theatre hadn’t got to where it went once it got Andrew Lloyd Webber. It was much more amateur. There was a dearth of choreographers. There were fairly good people, but in the ballet. There wasn’t anything in between that was original. And that turned out to be me.

NINA | That’s fantastic.

GILLIAN | It is amazing, isn’t it? I just have no idea, to this day, how people could say to me, “Who taught you?” and be amazed when I say, “Nobody.” That’s why I’m dead against people having scholarships and a degree for choreography. I think it’s something that’s either in you or not.

NINA | So you have to get out and do it.

GILLIAN | In the end, I think it has to be within your soul.

DAME GILLIAN LYNNE

NINA | We had a stronger tradition of vaudeville here.

GILLIAN | And wonderful musicals. You got there long before we did. And film. I was lucky because while I was at the [London] Palladium, the Warner Brothers casting man, John Redway, saw me, and then he asked me to do the film The Master of Ballantrae with Errol Flynn, which I did the choreography on too, but he was a great teacher and a great friend, and I had the most wonderful time and learned a lot.

NINA | Agnes de Mille was working at this time.

GILLIAN | She was a goddess to me. I would fall to the pavement.

NINA | Did you meet her?

GILLIAN | Yes, I did eventually. Once I’d become established, I met her. I adored her.

NINA | So you jumped right into choreography.

GILLIAN | I jumped right in. The extraordinary thing is that, from that, I never stopped. One minute, I wasn’t a choreographer, and the next minute, I was

NINA | Let’s talk about that. Do you have a set process when you start work on a new musical? Where do you find inspiration for your choreography? Do you look at visuals? Do you look at books or listen to the music, or what do you do when you start work on a new musical?

GILLIAN | It depends on several things. The most important is the composer. I always steep myself in the music. The music is the first thing. I either love the music or I don’t.

If it needs a lot of reading, then I do it. Often it doesn’t. It needs you to have a feel for the subject. You have to just become one of the people in it. I don’t really go away and study it, prepare that, and do that, and for this bit and that bit. I’ve either got it in me or I haven’t.

I’ve never had any trouble, not even with Cats, which was, after all, a mammoth task. But it was a brilliant writer—Andrew—and another brilliant writer—T. S. Eliot. That’s all I need, really.

NINA | How do you work with a director when you start working on a new piece?

GILLIAN | I’m very much independent. I become very close with the dancers. I believe in that strongly. When you talk about preparing, I believe you have to find out who it is that’s going to be in your piece

The minute I got to dance, the minute I heard the music, the minute I was taught how to use my body and begin to think how I could do it myself, I felt at home.

or your musical. You have to feel their pulse as well as yours. You have to feel who they are and get to love them. Love is important.

NINA | What qualities do you look at when you are casting dancers?

GILLIAN | Line. NINA | Line?

GILLIAN | Line, number one. The line, be it a classical line, a jazz line— across-the-board, line! Some people, even major dancers, have a born, glorious line. And some people have not much else. Line is essential: it’s the way a body just drops into positions. So, I look for line.

I look for friendship. I always try to see who a potential cast member is as a person. I have a few silly things I do to make them laugh. And music. I would never willingly hire someone who is so pleased with themselves and so aware of their own look that they weren’t really listening. I like to find a person.

My choreography always has acting in it. It’s never just a beautiful line, 40 million pirouettes, a great arabesque, a leap across the stage. It’s always, “What is their soul saying, what is their body saying, how is their mind reacting to the music?” I like when there’s a thought process going on and not just dancing. A thought process of “where am I, who am I, what is this music telling me to do?” I like to go into that in depth. Not just the technique, not just the steps.

NINA | Has that changed since you started? Do you look for different things now? Or did you look for these things right from the beginning?

GILLIAN | I don’t know. I think they just happened to me. I think that’s what I did. Now, don’t ask me how I learned that. In our profession or any profession, some people were born with a certain tenacity

or leaning. Other people have to learn it. I didn’t have to learn it. I had the luck to fall on my feet amongst a lot of brilliant people and, I suppose, learn just by being there.

NINA | Let’s talk about film and television because you’ve also worked in those areas. How does the interplay of storytelling and dance change, and how have you been able to move between these different mediums?

something for them! I think they’re wondrous creatures, wonderful.

NINA | I am wondering how you approach dance in film and television and if the storytelling changes or not.

GILLIAN | Well, I am a television director. For years, I danced in it. April Olrich and I became sort of “names on everybody’s lips” in England at one point because we were a little duo, dancing twice a week on British television.

Then, I became a soloist and danced in a lot of big concerts and unusual shows on television. Without knowing it, I learned how to shoot television. I learned about angles, about the movement of cameras, and the relationship between the cameras themselves. It just happened because I was always on it.

I was either just going to be natural and play at it or really take interest. I did the latter so that when I started to direct, I was ready. I never went to a school for television directing. But I had been, as I say, dancing so much, and I had been watching what the directors were doing, and when you’re watching a lot, if you’ve got any talent yourself, you’re either critical or you’re applauding, but you’re shaping what you would do. So, then you teach yourself.

GILLIAN | I’m very lucky because I’ve worked in every medium except the circus. I missed out.

NINA | No. There’s still time. I read that they’re getting rid of the elephants for Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. There’s probably room for some more dancing now that they don’t have the elephants.

GILLIAN | I thought those were beautiful creatures. Wouldn’t I have loved to do

I was sent for by David Rose, the head of Channel 4. I had done four years at the Royal Shakespeare Company, whose brilliant composer was Guy Woolfenden, who sadly died in April this year but with whom I had the great luck to do Comedy of Errors at the RSC. He and a friend, John Fletcher, wrote an extraordinary musical for television called The Various Ends of Mrs. F.’s Friends. David Rose said to me, “Two of our wonderful writers have given me this extraordinary musical, although I think it’s a bit mad, but I think we’ll have a go at it. We’ll do it. And when I said, ‘Who do you want to direct it?’ they both said, ‘We want Gillian Lynne.’”

I, excitedly, nearly fell under the carpet. I thought “Fame!” because they knew me.

In the studio for The Look of Love, directed + choreographed by Gillian Lynne in January 1990 PHOTO c/o BBC

They knew me as the person who did all the staging at the RSC. But they were now talking about Channel 4, which was very, very renowned. I thought, “Why have they done this? Why do they see that in me?” David looked at me piercingly because I think he thought to himself, “She hasn’t directed.” He said, “Can you do it?” I thought, “I’m going to say yes because now or never.” So I said, “Of course, I can do it. I can’t wait to start. How thrilling. How wonderful.” And off I went.

NINA | You didn’t show him one bit of nervousness or wobbliness. You just said, “Of course, I can do it.”

GILLIAN | And he was thrilled because I think he was thinking, “Who am I going to get to do this because, if I find a director, then I’ve got to get a choreographer, and it’s a weird piece.” He was relieved that I said yes.

NINA | You solved two problems for him all at once.

GILLIAN | And it was a success.

Within a year, we did Cats and Phantom, and I directed Cabaret—the musical, not the event. I directed five huge productions for the BBC. So one minute, I wasn’t a director…

NINA | Well, the same thing as when you started choreographing. One minute, you were a dancer, and then, when you became a choreographer, boom, you were

choreographing one thing after another. And so the same thing happened in TV.

GILLIAN | That’s why I always say, when I have to give lectures—which, as I’m a Dame now, I seem to have to do—I always say, “Never say no.”

NINA | Never say no. That’s very good advice.

GILLIAN | Never say no.

Before I started choreographing, I acted a lot in rep, in plays, on television. I didn’t really have any acting training either, but I was always observant and had a million ideas myself. So I was being trained without knowing it. I went off and did those plays, huge parts. And then, suddenly, I met Dudley, and we formed a company that made a wonderful production, Collages, in the Edinburgh Festival in ’63, which took all the plaudits. Then, I was really a choreographer because I got three movies and Broadway.

David Merrick, who was a wonderful producer, who to this day—forgive me, all producers who are reading this, but for me, there’s only ever been one absolutely brilliant producer, and that was David Merrick. He was in London with a man called Binkie Beaumont, another wonderful producer. For one week every year, Binkie would come to New York and see everything in town. David would go

to London and see everything in town. Binkie was reading the papers, and he said, “This is extraordinary. We know this girl. She’s a very fine dancer, and she’s a good choreographer. But suddenly, she has made a show, a totally different show with words and music as well as dance. You’d better go and see it.” So David came up to see

Collages

And it was a collage. It had jazz. It had classical. It had modern, as we called it then, but now you call it contemporary. It had some words. So it was words, music, jazz, classical, contemporary, and a lot of mime.

NINA | I was next going to ask about partnerships. I certainly know about the work you’ve done with Andrew Lloyd Webber and Jerry Herman, and one of your earliest partners was Dudley Moore. By working with him, David Merrick was able to see your work and then bring you over here, and one thing led to another.

GILLIAN | It absolutely did. And when I look back at it now, I think to myself, how on earth did all this happen? But it sort of flowed along like a river.

I met Andrew when I was doing some special work for Cameron Mackintosh— with whom I worked all the time—on his production of Oklahoma!. I was putting in a new Ado Annie (the girl who played her is now one of my best friends and married to Tom Selleck!) when the stage manager rushed onto the stage and said I had to take a phone call from Cameron. I said, “I can’t talk to him now! I’m in the middle of rehearsing his show!” Eventually, I was given a message: “Tell her to get on the 5:50 train from Bristol to London. Get off at Newbury and Andrew Lloyd Webber will be waiting at the station for her to drive her to his house to play her his score for Cats.” And that’s the first I heard of it.

So my first introduction to Andrew was sitting in his house in the country, each of us with a glass of white wine, while he played me the score of Cats. I found out later that night, when I finally managed to get home to my newlywed husband, that Andrew wanted me to do the show with him!

NINA | When you think about Dudley Moore or Andrew Lloyd Webber or Jerry Herman, what makes a good collaboration work?

GILLIAN | In the case of Andrew, I saw immediately that he has a seam of sadness in him and in his music. If you feel that, you’re into his music very easily. I think if you miss it, you miss an essence of him. I

Rehearsing for Cats, 1985

PHOTO Louanne Richards

think it’s essential that you feel the inside part of someone.

Andrew is a funny creature. He’s difficult, he’s brilliant, he’s very dear. He’s a very cuddly person. I felt at ease with him, right off from the first show, which was Cats

Then there’s a wonderful writer, David Heneker, a fantastic man. I worked a lot with him because I choreographed the film of Half a Sixpence. And that’s where I did my first big directing on a movie. The director of Half a Sixpence, George Sidney, said, “We’re not going to do ‘Flash, Bang, Wallop!’” Well now, “Flash, Bang, Wallop!” is one of the big songs in that musical. Everybody knows “Flash, Bang, Wallop!” It’s a very important number, and it’s a gift because it’s such comic relief.

And the lead actor Tommy Steele looked at me and said, “But Gillie, if we don’t do ‘Flash, Bang, Wallop!’, the film won’t work.” So we leapt on a plane and went to see Paramount Studios and said…

NINA | In Los Angeles? You flew from London to…?

GILLIAN | We did. We said, “What are we to do? We respect George, we love him, but we need to do it.” They said, “Go ahead and do it.” Well, that’s all very well to say. So George said to me, “Well, I don’t understand it. You direct it.” So that was my first bit of lone-wolf directing. It was easy for me.

NINA | That was your first. What an introduction.

GILLIAN | I learned a lot with that.

NINA | I have to ask, because certainly some wonderful women like Molly Lake and Ninette de Valois mentored you early on. But it seems that most of these partnerships and collaborations in the business have been with men. I wonder what it was like for you, as a woman, working in a very maledominated, male-centric environment.

GILLIAN | Well, darling, you know what? It’s tough. I found it difficult, but I’ve got an awful lot of energy, which helps. And I’m very determined. I won’t give up, and I’ve got a lot of ideas. I never said, “Well, let me go home and think about that.” I can always go on in the moment if I have to. I don’t know where that came from because I didn’t have any training for it, as we said. It was just a little bubble inside.

I think it’s much less today. There are wonderful women film directors, some pretty marvelous theatre directors. However,

I do think we are, as a race, all aware of the fact that we’re not always popular.

NINA | So, to young female choreographers, you would say that you got through by just being determined, full of ideas, and never giving up.

GILLIAN | Full of ideas. If everybody’s going sideways, I can always say, “Well, what if we did so and so?” And usually, they say, “That’s good.” That’s one.

Always being ready with a solution, even if you then have to change it. Never say you can’t do. I think it’s important that you are prepared to listen to every word that is said, ready to dive in at a difficult moment.

NINA | I think your life and the discussion we’re going through offers a lot of instruction as to how to live in this business.

GILLIAN | I think the most important thing of the lot is: never say no.

a big kiss and, once the lights were down, we ran to the bar for a stiff drink. We were down there, and we were all worried sick. We hadn’t gotten the money for the show. Suddenly, somebody said, “Listen,” and we heard shouts. We crept nearer the stage and heard enormous applause. The first theatre we were in, the New London, had those vomitoriums so you could creep up and watch and listen without being seen. We crept up, and it was clear right off that we had a hit.

NINA | But when you were creating it…

GILLIAN | We had to wait for it to get under way and feel the public love it. We couldn’t believe it.

NINA | But from that first show, you saw people loved it, and then it went on. And Phantom?

GILLIAN | Phantom was different because Phantom is Andrew’s offer to Sarah Brightman, his lover at the time. It was, “I have written this for you.” It was in wonderful condition. It sort of somehow gelled with itself. And then we had the brilliant Hal Prince, the brilliant Maria.

NINA | How was it working with Hal Prince and Maria Bjornson?

DAME GILLIAN LYNNE

NINA | You can do anything.

GILLIAN | You can do anything. I think, as a woman, you have to be prepared not only to listen, but also don’t hang back. Don’t hang back. Be there eagerly. Even if you make a suggestion and it’s foolish, at least you’re not sitting there like a powerless human being.

NINA | Right. Jump in.

GILLIAN | Jump in, and I think then you learn. When you jump in, it might not work, or it might. But either way, you’re going to learn and go on a step.

NINA | You’ve worked on so many productions and, of course, directed the first “working class” musicals in England; The Matchgirls and Love on the Dole and in so many different disciplines. Cats and Phantom are the longest-running shows and the most beloved in the world. Were you aware, when they were first being created, that you were making history or a part of something special?

GILLIAN | We were so nervous at the first preview of Cats in London. We gave the kids

GILLIAN | It was extraordinary. Hal and I had wanted to work with each other for about 20 years. In fact, his opening gambit at my first meeting with him, he opened the door and said, “You don’t mean after 22 years we’ve got a chance to work together.” He and I hit it off right away. I don’t know why. We both admired each other at a distance, and we got on like a house on fire right away. That whole team did. Maria, Hal, Andrew—Andy Bridge, the lighting man— and Andrew himself. Somehow or other, we all gelled. You know when a show opens, there’s always some reporter who says, “Oh, tell us the inside story. I bet you’ve had a lot of dreadful rows, getting something as good as this up.” I always say, “You’re totally wrong. This was the most wonderful moment from almost the first day. It just happened.”

NINA | Well, with your ballet background, I don’t think there could have been a better person to choreograph Phantom. It was like it was written for you. Maybe Andrew did write it for you.

Your original work on Phantom and Cats was fantastic. Those shows became phenomena and generated many, many companies. You and I saw every Cats company that was out on the road. I remember you would come out and talk to

Jump in, and I think then you learn. When you jump in, it might not work, or it might. But eitherway, you’re going to learn and go on a step.

all of the dancers. You kept the connection between all of those various touring companies and the original company.

GILLIAN | Kristen Blodgette, the lovely musical director, and I were talking the other day. We were saying that David Caddick, the musical director, and Kristen and I worked together for about two days each year—sometimes even more—of really tough polishing. I used to ring Bernie Jacobs—the wonderful theatre owner, producer, and mentor at the Shuberts— and say, “Bernie, I’m giving the kids such a hard time. Can we have some wine and sandwiches?” He always said yes.

NINA | Maybe wine and sandwiches are the key to maintaining the choreography of a show.

GILLIAN | Well, yes. It was a relief after you’ve given your all.

NINA | I think there is a point to that, to taking care of a company and looking after them.

GILLIAN | I knew they appreciated that I came over and looked after it. But I think they really liked that the producers looked after them too—that they knew I’d ask for it. But not every producer does that, as you know.

NINA | How do you maintain and look after multiple companies of a show? Particularly as an artist, you’ve created something really special that first time. What happens when you have to put a second and a third and a fourth and a fifth company out? Doesn’t that get diluted?

GILLIAN | Well, you’re very lucky. Let’s face it. You have wonderful assistants. But in the end, what you have to do is, you have to do your own special polish.

NINA | So you can rely on an assistant to put the show up, but you have to come in for the casting and to do the polish.

GILLIAN | You don’t have to, but it’s much better if you do. And that’s it, I think. Not everyone is prepared to do that at all.

NINA | You told me you just came back from a five-hour rehearsal yesterday at Phantom here in New York. What does it feel like to go back and revisit artistically something you did 30 years ago?

GILLIAN | It’s quite self-disciplining. You look at it and think, “Why did I do that bit there? I could have done that better.”

NINA | Well, you’ve moved on as an artist, haven’t you? You’ve learned things in the intervening years.

GILLIAN | I always whip it in. I was doing that difficult “Masquerade” the other day. I never liked the number. I don’t feel terrible about saying this because everybody else likes it, and I told Andrew to his face: it doesn’t sound like the foyer of a French opera house on opening night. It sounds like a cowboy riding down the range, whirling his hat. Andrew said, “Oh, you are so sweet.” We were all sweeter then, I guess. He said, “Well, Gillie, I’ll go and sit where I can do it.” And he went away. Two days later he came back and said, “I’ve tried, but I have, by now, woven that tune into the little monkey’s theme. It goes all through the show. I can’t change it.” I said, “Then it’s up to me.” So I made two attempts at that number. I still—every time I see it—change something. I’ve never been satisfied.

NINA | So, in revisiting something 30 years later, or 10 or 15 or 20, you can’t resist the impulse to change it a bit.

GILLIAN | I can’t. I know I’m quite rare in that. I want to get to work immediately because I’m a workaholic. But also sometimes you get a lovely surprise.

NINA | What do you wish stage directors knew about working with choreographers, since you’ve been on both sides of the aisle there?

GILLIAN | I think they should be prepared give more and then listen more. In other words, they should say, “Look. This is what I want. I don’t know what to do, but this is what I sort of see.” And then take interest. Come and have a look, and go out again. Sometimes what happens is they’re there, you’re here, and…

NINA | They’re in different rooms.

GILLIAN | I think there should be more rapport between the two. You watch the artists’ performances growing differently in each, differently in the staging of the musical numbers, and what they’re doing in all the scenes. You can learn so much how each role is coming up.

NINA | Each process informs the other process.

GILLIAN | It does. What’s more, you can learn so much because, if you come to see what I’m doing and you’ve had trouble with somebody in a scene and you see them doing something else, you think that’s it. Likewise, if you go and see the progress of the plot, it’s very good if you then go back

and look at your own work and think, “I missed that. I must get that in.”

I think they should always have a big martini together once a week and go through it. A big martini once a week and crisscross discussion.

NINA | The business of creating theatre seems to have changed a lot during your career. What are the biggest changes you’ve noticed, and have these changes or the changed environment—the technology— affected how you approach your work?

GILLIAN | Because of the iPhone, the electronic takeover, a lot of heart has got lost. More and more, I miss the feeling of a company, the feeling of togetherness in productions. It’s all sort of bigger and bigger, and crueler, in a way. I don’t know if I should say this, but I don’t think kids now work quite as hard.

NINA | I agree with you about the togetherness during the production period. In the old days, when we didn’t have headphones, people were always yelling. So you knew what was going on. Now, everyone has headsets on, and there’s all this silence, and you sit and wonder, “What’s going on? We’re waiting for something to be finished.” Everybody is working. We’re just not all in the process together.

GILLIAN | Not in the process and, if you’re standing on the stage doing something and you look into the stalls, all you see is a sea of machines.

NINA | A sea of machines and tech tables, yes.

GILLIAN | We never had that. We had our little crew. We had the lighting and the orchestrator, and we were like a group. We used to go out to lunch and talk, didn’t we? There’s a lack of heart and togetherness and, of course, darling, there’s such a width of things to do, other than the theatre, which I think it’s all right, but it doesn’t…

NINA | You mean the competition from other forms of entertainment pulling on both the performers and audiences?

GILLIAN | I do. I find that sad. And also, where in the midst of it—and I’m always saying this to Cameron [Mackintosh]— where in the midst of it are they finding the new Hammerstein and Rodgers, the new wonderful writers? Because they are not writing what we’re talking about…

NINA | …for the theatre. They’ve been pulled into other disciplines.

GILLIAN | There are some wonderful people, but I think the writing of the sort of musicals that we’ve been talking about— that really embrace theatre and bind it together and run for a long time—I’m not sure where that is. It looks to me as if it’s gone out of the window a bit.

NINA | I was going to ask what attributes interest you most or what do you think writers should be writing about in musical theatre these days.

GILLIAN | I certainly think they should be writing about human beings. I mean, they always write about everything, but we are still human beings. We still have to go through illness and love and hate and joy. I think, more than ever, if they could write about love and combination and sticking together and creating together.

NINA | What binds us together.

GILLIAN | And what binds us together. But it isn’t like that now because everyone wants to be very clever and very technical and just make a mark for not the right reasons. But I think, if they could really stick together and make wonderful productions together…It’s so much what I feel. There we all were, in the stalls, with our own little bit of technology, but therefore we were much…I was more aware of you, you were more aware of me…In the end, the art of theatre is togetherness.

NINA | The art of theatre is togetherness.

GILLIAN | I think so.

NINA | I agree. You have to come together to celebrate a piece of theatre. None of us want to sit alone in a theatre and watch a

show. We want to sit alone in front of our TV, but not a theatre piece. We want a house of people around us so we can feel together.

GILLIAN | If we’ve been able to grow up and rehearse and tutor together, then there’s a rapport that grows, which we can’t do without, really. And if we’re not careful, with all the electrical side of things and the television and the this and the new iPad and the new that, we’re going to lose that rapport that does make a beautiful piece of theatre.

NINA | I’m going to close by asking you just a few questions. We have a program here, Inside the Actors Studio. James Lipton moderated it and would interview performers and directors. He had a list of 10 very short questions, and I’m going to ask them of you.

What is your favorite word?

GILLIAN | Well, I was going to say love because I can’t live without love. Warmth.

NINA | Warmth. What is your least favorite word?

GILLIAN | I was going to say “fuck,” but that’s not my least favorite word at all because it represents a lovely thing. Stupid.

NINA | What turns you on creatively, spiritually, emotionally?

GILLIAN | Music will always be the thing that gets to me.

NINA | What turns you off creatively, spiritually, or emotionally?

GILLIAN | Creativity and spirituality for the sake of cleverness with no heart that doesn’t take us anywhere.

NINA | What sound or noise do you love?

GILLIAN | The sea. I’m a Pisces, you see.

NINA | What sound or noise do you hate?

GILLIAN | It has to be jazz that has absolutely no tune of any sort, but merely sounds.

NINA | Jazz sounds, did you say?

GILLIAN | Sounds that aren’t making something.

NINA | Sounds without a melody. What is your favorite curse word?

GILLIAN | Oh, I’m not allowed to say it, I don’t think.

NINA | Well, you can say it, or don’t. GILLIAN | “Asshole.”

NINA | What profession, other than your own, would you like to attempt?

GILLIAN | Piano.

NINA | Composing or playing the piano?

GILLIAN | Playing, because I know I would compose if I could only play. When I was a kid, my very first term at school, my parents let me learn piano. But I had an absolute fiend of a teacher, who was so cruel. She got hold of my cheek with such strength that a tooth fell out.

NINA | She pulled your cheek, and the tooth fell out?

GILLIAN | I ran home, and I had the most wonderful parents in the world, and the only criticism I’ve ever had on them is that they didn’t then say, “Darling, you’ve got to grow—it’s a cruel world, it’s full of discipline. We will speak to that woman if we must, but you’ve got to keep going.” They let me give up the piano. All of my life, I’ve regretted it.

NINA | Two more questions. What profession would you like not to do?

GILLIAN | I don’t think I could stand to be just a cook. I love cooking, but like a cook stuck in a factory or somewhere, I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t stand that.

NINA | And then the last question. If heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say to you as you arrive at the Pearly Gates?

GILLIAN | Go back and try again.

Nina Lannan + Dame Gillian Lynne, DBE PHOTO Walter McBride

TAZEWELL THOMPSON THE WORK I MUST DO

WINTER/SPRING 2017 VOL. 5, NO. 3

Tazewell Thompson directed his first opera in 1985, but his love for the form began when he was a child. In a moving Q&A with SDC Journal, Tazewell—who has now staged operas for companies all around the world, and in 2019 wrote the libretto for the acclaimed opera Blue with composer Jeanine Tesori—spoke about his personal and professional engagement with music and stories sung through.

One of your earliest successes was with a production of the Aaron Copland opera The Second Hurricane. Could you tell us a bit about that production?

In November 1985, I directed my first opera, The Second Hurricane, in New York City—my hometown. It was part of a month-long celebration of Brooklyn-born Aaron Copland’s 85th birthday. There were performances of Copland’s work all over the five boroughs, from Lincoln Center to Carnegie Hall to schools, churches, and basements, and other venues large and small. I had heard about this event two years earlier. I had found and purchased a recording at the Strand Bookstore of the opera and became obsessed with wanting to stage the piece somewhere.

I approached the organizers of the Copland celebration and Boosey & Hawkes—the publishers and owners of the copyrights— for permission to produce and direct, and I negotiated the rental fees. I was given permission to be a part of the Copland festival—provided I raise funds and find a space on my own. I began a campaign of contacting friends and associates of Copland and librettist Edwin Denby to create the props and backdrops and furniture pieces for the opera. They included Willem and Elaine de Kooning, along with Red Grooms, Robert Wilson, Larry Rivers, John Cage, Alex Katz, Pat Steir, and others. They came forward to honor their friends and supported the production by contributing artworks, scenery, and props for the opera. I wrote letters to large and

was my first venture into producing. Con Edison gave $500; the NEA’s Opera Division gave $20,000. Willem de Kooning donated a painting toward the fundraising.

In my research, I discovered the opera premiered in 1937 as a concert at the Henry Street Settlement in Lower Manhattan. I was able to rent the Settlement and give the opera its first fully staged production. I restored an aria and a ballet cut from the original and was permitted to rewrite the libretto. The production was a major success. It was also my introduction to directing opera and meeting with and working closely with Aaron Copland.

At his home and studio in Peekskill, New York, I was granted close-up observation as Copland demonstrated on his piano the stories and ideas behind segments and scenes and arias from the opera. He talked of his special fondness for The Second Hurricane and how he hoped the opera for young voices might gain new popularity. He was excited by the fuss of the citywide celebration for his 85th birthday. “I am a native New Yorker. From Brooklyn. Nice to have a big party in my backyard,” he said.

PHOTO Walter McBride

We spoke at great length of The Tender Land, his only other opera. I directed that at Glimmerglass in 2010.

Please describe for us the process you have in preparing for an opera. Is that different from your preparation for a play?

Endless hours of listening to the score and rereading the libretto over and over. Research! I always collect stacks and piles of visuals. I do the exact same approach when I direct a play: I find music that I can associate with wherever the play’s environment is set. That music becomes my listening device feeding my imagination as I read the play and develop images.

When you’re directing opera, are you led most by the music or the libretto?

Both. They are symbiotic. The music provides the emotion, the setting, the atmosphere, the soul of the composer, and the temperament of the characters. The libretto provides the concrete meaning of the language of the opera, the narrative.

Unlike directing a play, I spend no time around a table discussing character and motivations and meanings underneath the libretto. During the first couple of days, I

interject during the maestro’s sing-through rehearsal my impressions, and then we are on our feet no later than the third day of rehearsal.

In my rehearsal hall, research of photos and artwork overwhelms the walls, and I refer to them often in the staging. I reinforce and demonstrate what the singers already know from the music in terms of how a psychological gesture or movement can express so much.

I love big operas with large choruses. I enjoy movement in unison with big groups and telling stories through the subdivisions of groups, bringing out and encouraging individual moments from the chorus as they continue to remain connected to the whole. More intimate scenes are treated no differently than I would approach a two-or three-hander in a play.

The time to rehearse an opera is much shorter than for a play. Understandable. Singers report on the first day “knowing their lines,” the score, by heart. A day-afterday rehearsal schedule of singing needs to be confined and carefully planned out; otherwise a singer will have very little to give vocally as the stage and orchestra rehearsals approach. Today’s singing artist is called upon to do so much more: act their

roles convincingly; dance; learn combat; perform from impossible heights and depths on outrageous scenery, wearing sometimes outlandish costumes; all the while singing at the top of their unamplified God-given lungs in all kinds of languages over the gigantic sound of a great orchestra.

In addition to Copland, you’ve directed operas written by a huge range of wellknown modern composers, from Poulenc to Benjamin Britten to Philip Glass. Are there particular qualities or issues that you are drawn to in the work you choose to direct?

Great stories. Unforgettable characters. Brilliant music. Operas that have contemporaneous relevance. An ability for me to find something new and compelling with the telling and presenting of the opera that hopefully will captivate and leave a lasting impression on an audience.

You’ve explored the Gershwin opera Porgy and Bess in multiple stage productions as well as directing a televised version of your production. What most appeals to you about that particular piece?

A community that I recognize personally and culturally. A humble people loving

Brandy Lynn Hawkins, Eric Owens + Makudupanyane Senaoana in Lost in the Stars at the Glimmerglass Festival, directed by Tazewell Thompson

PHOTO Karli Cadel/ The Glimmerglass Festival

and living and thriving and surviving; a community of hope and pride and determination. And, of course, that impossibly timeless, magnificent, memorable, classic score full of great standards recorded by a variety of great musicians. It is a supreme masterpiece.

For opera houses at the box office, it is what A Christmas Carol is for theatres across the country. Always a sellout, deservedly so.

What are the joys and challenges of directing an opera with the kind of verbosity as Gilbert and Sullivan’s Patience?

No challenges. Only great joy. I’m not a fan of comic opera. But I love Gilbert and Sullivan. I love everything about the wacky cloud-cuckooland, Theatres of the Absurd & Ridiculous, outrageous world of G and S, the thrilling patter songs, hilarious language, and the memorable melodies. Patience —a blatantly clever, ever-enchanting, and fantastically silly satire of the Aesthetic Movement—was extraordinary fun to rehearse. I cannot remember a time when a rehearsal hall was filled with constant laughter and delicious carefree experimentation and practical jokes. I so wish to direct more Gilbert and Sullivan.

We wanted to ask you about the experiences you’ve had with directing operas that had particular resonances

with the locales in which you were working. When you directed Porgy and Bess for the New Orleans Opera Association in 2010, was there a different resonance in that city, given that it was still recovering from Hurricane Katrina?

The city was in recovery. The audience was aware of the parallels of the great hurricane in the opera. However, like the denizens of the opera, the resilient spirit of the people in the city is what I recall most. There was an involvement from an audience that was not merely holding tickets. Not eavesdropping or gawking, but attending and witnessing truth. Their truth. Their experience. They surrounded the event unfolding on stage in a very personal, meaningful way.

And with your 2011 production of Kurt Weill and Maxwell Anderson’s Lost in the Stars in Cape Town? What was the impact or meaning for you of directing an anti-apartheid opera in such a historic place? How did audience members react to it there?

It was one of the great experiences of my life as an opera director. Imagine directing Lost in the Stars in the place and all the settings and circumstances that inspired it—South Africa—with South Africans! It is a work about deep and wide racism— apartheid—that unfortunately speaks to us [as] vividly today as it did in 1951. A great work of social and historical significance

carried aloft by a masterwork score. The work is a shattering, gut-wrenching, intimate tale of the struggle of the quest of two fathers to recognize, know, and accept each other in the difficult chasm of the apartheid system, with themes of personal heartache and pain, compassion and understanding, reconciliation and forgiveness, and moral transformation—all set against Kurt Weill’s magnificent score.

Many members of the company had experienced firsthand the cruelties of the apartheid system. They knew this tale personally. They were passionate to tell the story. The audience was unlike any audience I’ve ever experienced in opera or theatre. People stood up and shouted at moments of conflict. Waved handkerchiefs at passengers leaving on an ill-fated train trip. Sobbed openly at the trial scene. Laughed at moments of deception and irony. Cheered loud and long at the ending. Unforgettable. I must also add: to be in Africa, the land of my ancestors, was particularly and personally special and moving to me.

You’ve had some strong influences in your life who were associated with performing. What are the different ways that these people in your life led you to the path you’re on now?

I was made a ward of the state of New York and sent to the cloistered confines of a

Kenneth Kellogg in Blue at the Glimmerglass Festival, with libretto and direction by Tazewell Thompson and music by Jeanine Tesori PHOTO Karli Cadel/ The Glimmerglass Festival

convent when I was eight years old; taken from my parents, deemed unfit to care for me. My father played alto saxophone. I hardly remember his playing. My paternal grandmother had dreams of a musical stage career. So I suppose deep in the marrow of my bones, while I was an egg in my mother’s belly, was an unbeknownst wish to express myself in the world through the arts somehow, some way, some day.

My greatest childhood influence came from the nesting, nursing, nurturing, protective, and loving guidance of the good sisters of Saint Dominic’s Convent in Blauvelt, New York. I had many “mothers” during my seven years’ stay. It was the nuns who very early on, like any mother would discover in their child, realized that I had artistic leanings. I was entwined with music constantly, on a daily basis. Everything was sung: morning prayers at rising, at meals, and, of course, during daily Mass. I was a choir boy and an altar boy. I read music very easily. Through life at the convent, I entered and won oratorical contests citywide and statewide. I knew all the great hymns and Gregorian chants. I was soloist for the great feast days of Christmas and Easter. I know practically every song written to honor Saint Patrick!

Then, of course, there was Latin. I was an altar boy responding in Latin to Father Farrell’s prayers in Sunday Masses and all other events at the altar; separate advanced religious instructions with reading, writing, and Latin in conversation! The roots of Latin were an incredible kick-starter for me in directing opera some 25 years later in foreign languages.

I was encouraged to elaborate on the stories I made up to entertain my “siblings.” I never performed in the plays because I was a natural comedian and caused chaos at rehearsals when I disrupted the proceedings by showing off with impressions of the nuns and volunteer workers and breaking up the casts with laughter.

Many years later, my dearest friend and mentor and new mother figure, Zelda Fichandler, brought me to Arena Stage in 1987 as an Associate Artistic Director. I attribute solely to Zelda everything I know about the work of a director with actors and designers and how to unlock the puzzle inside of a play on the page and in the empty space. Among the many bouquets Zelda threw my way, I caught, grasped, and devoured the reading list of plays and authors I should want to know.

For almost 30 years, wherever I was in the world, Zelda advised and guided me

through my career with tender and tough love. I will remember, love, and miss Zelda forever.

What was the first opera you heard or attended a performance of?

I heard many an opera at the convent. Sister Benvenuta, who possessed a beautiful voice, played long-playing records of the warhorses: Carmen, Aida, Madame Butterfly, The Magic Flute, and others. It was literally “Greek to me,” but oddly seductive and thrilling. Wherever I am in the world and I hear certain operas, I am immediately transported back in time to the memory of hearing Sister Benvenuta’s wonderful scratchy Longines Symphonette longplaying records opera series.

The first opera I attended was the famous John Dexter production at the Met of Dialogues of the Carmelites, where the curtain rises and dozens of nuns are spread out on the floor in the form of a cross. I had a standing-room ticket five levels way up, behind the family circle. I burst into tears at the image of the cross and the true story of the 16 Carmelite nuns of Compiegne and their courageous act of sacrifice and martyrdom, for refusing to denounce their vocation during the French Revolution Reign of Terror. It left an indelible mark on me. It is my favorite opera.

In 2002, I directed my own production at Glimmerglass Opera, and subsequently at New York City Opera and later Vancouver Opera. I never tire of the piece. It always leaves me weeping, shaken, inspired, and enthralled.

What continues to draw you—as a creator and audience member—to the form of opera?

The assault and explosiveness to the senses from astounding music and the fun challenge of making a world and inventing visuals and adding real dimension to sometimes outsized human beings.

Over the last 10 years, an increasing number of opera companies have hired directors thought of as theatre artists to helm opera productions. Why do you think this is? What do you think the crossover brings to both forms?

It’s the smartest, most innovative move that opera companies have made in a decade. Opera is theatre. Who better to interpret the form but directors from the world of theatre?

So often, audience members—and artists!—draw lines between theatre and

opera. What do you feel the similarities are? How do you feel about the recent shifts in the forms that seem to be bringing them closer together?

No difference to me at all. Never has been.

You’re continuing to expand your experience with opera as well as your artistic skill set and are writing a libretto! Are you comfortable describing the Glimmerglass Festival commission to us?

I can say this: Francesca Zambello, artistic leader of both Washington National Opera and the Glimmerglass Festival, commissioned me to write an original opera. My own story. Not an adaptation. It involves a Black family and community torn apart by the shooting of an unarmed teenager by a police officer. It will have its world premiere summer 2019 at Glimmerglass. Jeanine Tesori, the most prolific and honored female theatrical composer in history, will write the music. I will also direct.

What are the different modes of thinking employed when you are writing an opera compared with directing one? Or is the director in you helping to write the libretto, too?

The director in me is playing a very strong key role. The writer is constantly editing and being tough and ultra-precise about locating the exact words needed to get my point across.

At times it feels like I’m trying to get through an overdue term paper, but most of the time the work is extraordinarily fulfilling. Lots of fun; a great new disciplined way of working; and for never a moment do I not realize how fortunate I am to have this opportunity.

Do you have any advice for artists who want to pursue careers as directors, librettists, and composers for opera?

Have an absolute: “I cannot live another day unless I do the work I must do as an artist in the world of opera.”

Listen to recordings. Read the librettos. Rent DVDs of opera. Attend opera productions if you can afford it. Assist directors. Write something every day. Distill it the next day. Keep a journal of images. Adapt a one-act play into a libretto.

Light candles for your journey forward as a flash on the road ahead and a hope that the flame will reach a higher source that guides and watches over you. I’m wishing you my own good luck.

WHAT DOES A DIRECTOR DO?

BY FATHER GREGORY BOYLE, S.J.

FALL 2017 VOL. 6, NO. 1

In 2017, SDC Journal asked 16 people—some theatre-loving, others theatre-making—to answer a question: “What does a director do?” One of the essays was written by Father Gregory J. Boyle, S.J., the founder of Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles—the largest gangintervention, rehabilitation, and re-entry program in the world—which was the recipient of the 2020 Hilton Humanitarian Prize. In 2014, President Obama named Fr. Boyle a Champion of Change. In 2017, he received the University of Notre Dame’s Laetare Medal, the oldest honor given to American Catholics. His most recent book, The Whole Language: The Power of Extravagant Tenderness, was published in the fall of 2021.

What do I know from directing? For 30 years, I’ve worked with gang members and currently run the largest gang intervention, rehab, and re-entry program on the planet. I suppose I’ve dabbled here and there. I’ve been connected to Café Vida, the Cornerstone Theater Company project, modeled on our own Homegirl Café. It was thrilling to watch our homies and homegirls perform in that production and inhabit another layer of their own goodness and truth.

In a previous life, almost 40 years ago, I directed high school students in productions of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and a non-musical version of Candide I suppose I know some of the mechanics of

directing. But for nearly half of my life, I’ve been privileged to walk with many thousands of gang members as they seek to redirect their lives. It’s safe to say the day won’t ever come when I am more noble, have more courage, or am closer to God than these men and women.

I think that just about everything is counterintuitive. That if you want some result, you address something completely and seemingly unrelated. Then the result that you desire turns out to be a byproduct of your other effort. If, for example, you want to stem gang violence, you don’t address the violence head-on but rather the lethal absence of hope that undergirds it.

A good director, I suppose, shapes the production, guides the staging, and blocks the movement. But a good director with actors finds a way to return people to themselves. After all, we are all called to be enlightened witnesses who, through our kindness, affection, and focused, attentive love, return folks to themselves. A good director doesn’t hold up a bar and ask an actor to measure up but rather holds up a mirror so that the person (actor) can discover the unalloyed truth of themselves, devoid of mask and posturing.

Anything worth doing will be relational. The fostering of these relationships happens in a community of tenderness. Tenderness is the highest form of spiritual maturity. If love is the answer, community is the context, but tenderness is the methodology. Without it, love stays stuck in the air…or in your head… or even in your heart. Unless it becomes tenderness, there is no connective tissue that joins us to each other.

The director who berates and humiliates his actors doesn’t achieve what one would ultimately hope for. It is tenderness that gets us to make friends with our own wounds. If we don’t welcome our wounds, we will be tempted to despise the wounded. The best performances come from those who can be at home with their own brokenness.

Thich Nhat Hanh speaks of the need to “keep your loneliness warm.” This is to say, keep your wounds close by, because you will need them. Not just to deliver a good performance but to possess a compassion

that can stand in awe at what the poor have to carry rather than in judgment at how they carry it.

Jermaine, a 30-year-old gang member, stepped into my office, having made a discovery that day. He was only in his third month with us at Homeboy Industries. In this community of tenderness, he was finding training and therapy, and acquiring the skills to leave us after 18 months. But today, he retrieved a long, buried memory and needed to tell me about it.

He is nine and watching TV. His mother enters the room and she stands silently with her arms outstretched. He brings his focus to bear on her and discovers that she has deeply and profoundly slit her wrists. Blood is coursing onto the floor. Then, she says quietly to her nine-year-old, “See what you made me do?” The next day, he is taken from her care and placed in a foster home. Most tellingly, his two older siblings were left in her care. At 13, after multiple foster home placements, he joins a gang. At 17, he is raised the rest of the way by incarceration.

Now he’s sobbing in my office, unable to speak until he can finally articulate the insight born of this retrieval. “I discovered today that I had always preferred my rage to my shame.” And because he made this discovery, he was finally able to forgive his mother for having been mentally ill. And to forgive himself for having once been a nineyear-old boy.

What do I know from directing? I suspect that part of the task is to create a community of tenderness where folks can safely find their truth and passion and pain. A good director helps actors keep their loneliness warm. After all, you’re going to need it on stage and in the world we inhabit.

WORKING with ARTISTS with DISABILITIES

20 QUESTIONS WITH SAM GOLD

of the directors that were at the meeting, this was a newer conversation than any of the other conversations about diversity and inclusion that they’ve been involved in. I think the disability community has been slower to get a voice heard in the theatre community than some of the other underrepresented communities.

Why do you think that is?

It’s a reflection of cultural norms. When we have conversations about diversity and inclusion in our culture, disabilities are at the bottom of the list.

In The Glass Menagerie, the character Laura Wingfield is described as having a limp due to a childhood illness. How aware were you about the lack of disabled actors in high-profile productions prior to your revival?

I was completely aware. I think the whole community became very aware when Ali Stroker was cast in Spring Awakening on Broadway, and there was a little factoid that went out that she was the first wheelchairuser on Broadway. I found that to be a very shocking fact.

Did you then intend to cast an actress with a disability for the role of Laura from the very beginning, or did you reach that decision later on in the casting process?

when I opened up the casting process, found an actor to collaborate with— Madison Ferris—and she and I worked together to bring Laura to life.

How did you work with the casting director on this decision?

The producer, Scott Rudin; the casting director, David Caparelliotis; and I saw a lot of actors for the part. It was clear to all three of us that we were only interested in looking for an actor who had a mobility disability. What that mobility disability would be was totally open-ended. In the play, the word “crippled” is used, and we wanted to take that word back in some way and let an actor who lives with a disability have the chance to own that part. So we were all on board with that. We saw a lot of actors. Madison came in and did a beautiful, beautiful audition, and she won the part because she is a brilliant actor.

Did you need to encourage the producers to consider nontraditional casting?

On this project, it was part and parcel to the project, so I didn’t need to convince them. I think everybody was really excited about the idea.

Most theatres have outdated and inflexible infrastructure when it comes to accessibility. How did you work around the theatre’s construction?

Recently, you gathered a collective of your peers to explore casting practices in regard to actors with disabilities. Taking that experience and your casting choices on The Glass Menagerie, what needs to happen to change the narrative around working with actors with disabilities?

It’s very simple. When directors hold auditions, they should audition actors with disabilities for all roles. It’s a simple adjustment in thinking. There’s a great community of actors with disabilities, and as directors, we don’t often get to know them, get involved in the community, or get to see what they have to offer. If directors started seeing them for any role where it’s not explicitly inappropriate for some reason, you would start to see directors inspired by this community.

How was your gathering similar to or different from other diversity and inclusion conversations around casting?

They are all really important conversations. I can’t speak for everybody, but for a lot

The idea of this production from the beginning was to explore that play in collaboration with an actor with a mobility disability.

Was The Glass Menagerie the first time you worked with an actor with a disability?

No. In fact, in Othello, the show I did directly before The Glass Menagerie, I cast a wonderful actor named Anthony Lopez, who happens to have a leg prosthetic.

Why was exploring a mobility disability in your production important to you?

Historically, disabled characters in art and literature are often used in very limited ways, and one of those limited tropes is a character who induces pity—that we are to pity this character. That limited emotional transaction feels offensive to me. When I reread The Glass Menagerie, and I saw the fullness of the portrait of Laura, I felt it was important to show an audience a complete portrait of that woman and a portrait that did not rely on pity. I became interested in that character’s agency in fighting for more, in taking a fuller look at who she is. That’s

Broadway is not accessible, but the challenge is more for the audience; for example, there are Broadway theatres that don’t have an accessible bathroom for the audience. For me, for the production, and for Madison, it wasn’t so much of a challenge. It involved installing a couple of ramps and putting some care into some of Madison’s mobility issues. But it’s important for directors to know that it doesn’t take a lot to make a production accessible for an artist with a disability. These artists have been living their whole lives in a world that’s not set up conveniently for their disability, and they persevere, and they figure out how to maneuver their lives. And theatre people are creative people who solve problems. I had much more challenging problems putting The Glass Menagerie on Broadway than figuring out how to make it accessible for the actor I cast. It’s not that hard. People should just do it.

Building on that, how did you work with designers to address accessibility?

With the minutiae of the set design, there were issues relating to mobility; there was a staircase, and we worked to make it to specifications that were workable

PHOTO

Atisha Paulson

WINTER 2018 VOL. 6, NO. 2

In 2018, SDC Journal sat down with Tony Award-winning director Sam Gold to discuss his work with artists in the disability community.

for Madison, and she was involved in the decision making on the staircase. So there was some back-and-forth between the set designer, me, and the actor. But again, I’ve done that in many circumstances for many actors who are not disabled. All actors need some kind of collaboration and accommodation, and I don’t think we should focus on what’s challenging about working with an artist who has a disability. It’s no more challenging than working with anybody else.

Did you consult with any advocacy groups while working on this production?

Yes. I love the staff of Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts (inclusioninthearts.org). I worked closely with that organization as we worked on the production. They were extremely helpful both in casting and in providing artistic advice and advice about language and advocacy.

What did you want audiences to take away from Laura’s portrayal?

Madison and I collaborated on her version of Laura, on who that woman was in the 1930s, what she means to us now, how to portray her in a way that rung true both to the time it was written in and to the world we live in now, post-Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). And we tried to think of Laura as an independent-minded, intelligent person who had an overbearing mother and specific complicated relationships with her mother, her brother, and the world around her. We tried to make a detailed portrait of who that woman was and not make assumptions about what her limitations were.

What is the most powerful lesson you took from this directing experience?

I was shocked by the amount of cognitive dissonance I encountered from the audience and from the press, especially, in regard to seeing a disabled body on stage. There’s so much work still to be done to bring people with disabilities into a cultural spotlight so their stories can be better understood.

Along with The Glass Menagerie, more high-profile productions are beginning to cast more actors with disabilities (Deaf West’s 2015 production of Spring Awakening, Manhattan Theatre Club’s 2017 production of Cost of Living, to name a few). What do you think this reveals about the industry?

As identity politics and identity rights movements push forward, we make progress, but there’s still a lot of work to be done. And you can name a couple of productions where artists with disabilities had opportunities, but the opportunities are limited. Until we make much larger changes, the audiences are denied access to a lot of artists with a lot of interesting perspectives.

What other work are you doing to challenge casting practices at the moment?

I’m talking with the Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts, and I’ve been talking with the Lark theatre laboratory (larktheatre.org) and the Apothetae theatre company (theapothetae. org) about some advocacy work they’re doing. I’m also continuing to talk to theatres about accessibility and talk to directors and casting directors about inclusion. And as an

artist, I’m looking for projects where I can continue to be inspired by the collaborators I’ve met in the disability community.

What resources do you recommend for directors and choreographers who want to open up their casting pools? Where should they start?

Contact the casting director they are working with and ask to see actors with disabilities. If the casting director does not have the tools necessary, direct them toward the Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts.

Do you think a role for a disabled character should always be cast with a disabled actor?

I never think it’s a good idea to tell other directors what to do. And to make blanket statements. But I think the theatre community will get stronger, more interesting, and more vital the more we create opportunity for the most inclusive pool of talent possible. And what better place to start than to make the commitment to give actors with disabilities a chance to bring their talent to roles they have unique perspectives on and haven’t historically been given mainstream opportunities to engage with?

What specific challenges do directors and choreographers face in regard to working with disabled actors?

One of the main challenges is that there are still a lot of institutions that aren’t physically accessible, and our theatres need to make a commitment to accessibility. It’s closed-captioning, it’s all sorts of things. In a nonprofit institution, its mission is to support artists, and artists are limited if they can’t work with artists with disabilities because of the physical limitations of a building or an institution. It’s the obligation of these institutions to make capital investments in accessibility to make it possible for the artists to achieve their vision.

How do you encourage your fellow directors and choreographers to face these challenges?

The thing I keep wanting to reiterate is how I didn’t find it very challenging. Theatre is really hard to make, and there are a lot of challenges to producing and directing. Working with actors with disabilities is a pleasure, not a challenge. And as soon as the director thinks, “I should open my vision up wider,” then a whole new set of people— artists—will present themselves to the director. It’s an exciting opportunity.

Finn Wittrock + Madison Ferris in The Glass Menagerie on Broadway, directed by Sam Gold

PHOTO Julieta Cervantes

As the Tide Rises, You All Rise Together

AN INTERVIEW WITH DESDEMONA CHIANG

BY GINA PISASALE

SPRING 2018 VOL. 6, NO. 3

Desdemona Chiang is a Taiwan-born American director and writer based in Seattle, WA, and Ashland, OR. She works in a variety of genres, including new plays, Shakespeare, and musicals. Desdemona is known for her visceral, no-nonsense approach to theatre, with her distinct point of view as an immigrant and Asian American woman, and an interest in using storytelling to spark social discourse. She is the recipient of numerous awards, most recently the Sundance Institute / The Asian American Foundation Fellowship, which aims to improve AAPI representation in the film and television industries.

In 2018, Desdemona spoke with her longtime friend and former Oregon Shakespeare Festival colleague Gina Pisasale, a dramaturg who is now Director of Equity and Organizational Culture at McCarter Theatre Center.

GINA PISASALE | If you were in a room full of people that you just met, how would you identify yourself?

DESDEMONA CHIANG | My leading edge is I’m a theatre director. My job is completely wrapped up in my identity. I can’t divorce what I do from how I move

through the world, because my work is influenced by my life experiences. As I eat a particular food or watch a particular film, there’s an unconscious part of me that always wonders, “How is this food or film going to impact the next show I’m doing?” And so, I’m a theatre director.

GINA | If we shifted to a theatre context, how would you identify yourself?

DESDEMONA | I feel that I take on whatever chameleon identity serves the need of the moment. Whenever it’s useful, I will sometimes lead with “director of color,” “female director,” “Asian director,” “director of new plays,” or “director of classical plays.”

A lot of that has to do with what is necessary to create the community in that moment. When I went to the CAATA (Consortium of Asian American Theaters & Artists) conference last year, I was an Asian American director doing Shakespeare. Or an Asian American theatre director at the LORT level.

GINA | I keep thinking about how we enter the room. The context is so important.

DESDEMONA | Don’t you do that with an eye toward what the room is asking of you? That’s often how I think about it. What does the room need of me right now? Whenever I go into a conversation, I feel that there’s always an agenda in the room. We conduct community experiences with a sense of

purpose. So how am I functional in that purpose?

GINA | Because all the people in the room matter. I would imagine that, as the director, orchestrating that is also part of that equation.

DESDEMONA | I think it may be because I’ve been conditioned by the ideology of new play development. It’s always about serving the higher purpose. What does the room need? What is this play asking? What is the community asking, and why are we doing this play? Every project is different. And sometimes you do a play because of the people in the room making the play, so it’s important that these folks get to tell the story.

GINA | That’s a generous mode of presenting and entering. When did you find yourself comfortable enough to enter with that kind of generosity without having to establish yourself first?

DESDEMONA | That was one of my shortcomings when I first started directing—that I had a hesitation to establish myself. When I was in grad school at the University of Washington, Jon Jory was my mentor. I remember when we were starting our first project, Jon turned to me and said, “Desdemona, when are you actually going to start directing the play? You’re in the room, but you’re just sitting there, and you’re letting the actors

PHOTO Chris Bennion

flounder.” I was mortified. I bluffed and said, “Well, I’m letting them figure it out. I’m being generous.” And his response was, “But you’re not leading.”

It took me three years to figure out how to lead a room while still honoring my own impulses to not barge into places. Even though, secretly, I have all these opinions. I want to say all these things. Even now, I still feel that hesitation. I don’t know how much of that is deeply programmed in me as an Asian person. That’s some deep therapy stuff we may not need to get into.

GINA | No, this is exactly how I feel, but from a dramaturg’s perspective.

DESDEMONA | I also don’t know how much of that is about being a woman and how I’ve been socialized to behave. I would look at my male colleagues and think, “Wow, they have no problems coming in and telling people what to do.” But it never felt right for me to tell people what to do without listening to them first.

GINA | Where do you think that came from? I’m wondering about how your ideas of directing originated and then evolved.

I know from past conversations that you came to theatre via molecular and cellular biology with an intent to enter medical school.

DESDEMONA | Because science demands that you be a skeptic, I always go into the room asking, “Okay, what about this is a bad idea?” As opposed to “This is a great idea. Let’s do all this.” That’s probably why I enter with some caution.

GINA | What were your hopes and dreams as a biology major? What did you want to be when you grew up?

DESDEMONA | It sounds terrible, but I wasn’t from the kind of family that supported the idea of dreaming big. We’re in this country. We’re going to need to make some money, and you’re smart and you like science. It never occurred to me to think of anything else other than science. It wasn’t like there was a Michelle Obama in my life and I wanted to be like her. Once I got into high school, biology was the thing that I was really good at. And my mom said, “Oh, thank God. You can be a doctor.”

Whoops!

GINA | Do you feel as though you jumped ship and, having gone from pre-med to the theatre, are in a totally different mode of existence?

DESDEMONA | As far as my curiosities around why I chose either field, I don’t think they’re that different. Chemistry didn’t appeal to me—maybe because it wasn’t a living, cellular thing. There was something more interesting about biology. I used to think, “Oh, maybe it’s the fascination with life.” In any case, molecular cell biology was just a means of getting to med school, because what I really wanted to be at the time was a gynecologist.

I remember being a teenager and going to my first exam and, of course, it was a male doctor. I thought, “Oh, this is terrible. We need more women doing this.” So even then, in my teens, I was unknowingly thinking about representation, who gets to do what and why.

GINA | In the trajectory of your directing career, did you enter in that same kind of mode? Thinking, “There needs to be more representation?”

Annie Yim, Ray Tagavilla, Mikko Juan + Mi Kang in The Journal of Ben Uchida: Citizen 13559 at Seattle Children’s Theatre, directed by Desdemona Chiang PHOTO Elise Bakketun

DESDEMONA | That’s something I didn’t intend until much later in my career. This idea of visibility and representation didn’t click for me until my first season at OSF (Oregon Shakespeare Festival) in 2010— where I met you!

Prior to that year at OSF, I wasn’t thinking about the value of who does and doesn’t get to be on stage. But then I remember attending an artistic representation meeting one day where you read out loud from an article that you wrote about the invisibility of Asian people. And I thought, “Holy shit, that is profound.” That summer at OSF completely changed my mind about how curation happens on stage—who gets to choose it and who has to execute it.

In a generic way, no one can argue with the fact that we need to see more underrepresented people on stage. But the deliberate and careful curation of who gets to play what role, and why we somehow always end up seeing certain folks relegated to certain roles? I never interrogated that part. I feel like the years since that season at OSF have led to more questions around why and how, and the value of and the way that I took these things for granted.

GINA | Do you think that’s because of your own growth of awareness? Or do you think it’s because of a larger cultural conversation that has been evolving?

DESDEMONA | I’m not sure. It could be timing of both these things coming together—2010 was two years into the Obama presidency, and then a few years after, we would have Black Lives Matter. It could be one of those zeitgeist things that happened. I feel we’re constantly in one of those at any given moment, where there is a thing we need to talk about. Representation is the thing that is occupying a lot of space in our conversations right now. But it was so strange that I went through so many years not thinking about it, and now suddenly I’m constantly thinking about it.

GINA | What were you directing in undergrad? Was directing your focus then?

DESDEMONA | Most people get their start in theatre with acting, right? Acting was the first thing I did, because it was the easy “A” class that lured me into the theatre department. I would audition for school plays and never get cast. And then I got involved with an improv troupe for a couple years. I was not good, but it was very liberating.

Directing just kind of happened. I took a class, and it all made so much more sense. This is the job where I read the paperwork

and get to decide what this thing is about. Directing appealed to the science-oriented part of me because I realized that directors are problem solvers. Here’s this play, and it is full of problems. What does it look like? Who are the people in it? Who, what, when, where, why, how? All those questions are present in a play, and your job is to solve all of them while making it interesting and relevant and exciting to watch.

GINA | At that point, did you know that you were going to pursue theatre as a career? Or were you still applying to med schools?

DESDEMONA | By junior year of college, I had realized that med school was not for me. All the things that science was preparing me for theatre was undoing.

I had a pivotal moment in human anatomy class. I went to Berkeley, and in that human anatomy class, there were two cadavers in your lab that you get to more or less dissect. I remember walking in that first day, and the first thing I see are these two body bags in the middle of the room. My first thought was, “Oh my God, there are humans in there.” They were nude and cut open, and you could see all their bits and pieces. Right next to the bodies were the death certificates. It was all very clinical. But for me, it was also very humanizing.

I stood there, looking at this death certificate. This man was African American. He was 67 years old, died of kidney failure. I started constructing narratives in my mind about how he got kidney failure. And that is not your job. Your job is to examine the kidneys and inspect the renal cells and not think about this as a person who had a soul. It’s a specimen. It’s a vessel. Meanwhile, in theatre, we’re talking about hopes and dreams, and intimacy and life, right? So all these feelings of vulnerability that the theatre was stirring up, medicine was saying, “No, no, no.”

It was really hard for me to do these human dissections without wanting to cry. I was most successful in anatomy class when I shut the vulnerable part of myself off. Don’t think about the people. Don’t think about the life part of it. Think about the functionality part of it. It made me realize that there are people out there who can manage to see the humanity and hold all the ugliness and suffering that comes with working in medicine. I applaud practitioners who can do that. I found it so hard. So, medical school was out.

After undergrad, I got a job as a project manager at a company called Sparkart. At the time, it was the beginning of internet

tracking technology, web 2.0, and the early stages of what would eventually become social networking. Our company’s job was to build websites for bands and track the number of clicked links or how long people listened to a song before closing a window. We would sell Warner Brothers the backend data, and they would use it to figure out their next marketing strategies.

GINA | Was that job just a paycheck for you?

DESDEMONA | It was mostly just a job. But what I found interesting was the tracking of human behavior and social economics. Why people do things and how large amounts of data can reflect population behavior and social trends.

GINA | How did you get back into the theatre?

DESDEMONA | I did that tech job for a couple years and ended up being really miserable because people in that industry are not kind. You and your design team work really hard on a concept, present the product to the client, and within five minutes they’re like, “This is shit. Do it over.” That taught me that I had to value collaborators. You have to value their time and the fact that they spent hours of their creative energy crafting an idea for you. When a designer gives you a design, it may not be right, but you have to figure out how they got there.

While I was working at Sparkart, I started doing a little self-reflecting and some therapy. I remember thinking I was happiest and felt most productive, connected, and engaged when I was doing theatre. But I was afraid of changing paths because I didn’t think I could do it full time and still make a living. But then I thought, “Well, there is this guy down the street named Tony Taccone who is running Berkeley Rep, and he has a career doing it. So, I should be able to do it, right?”

I kept on with my day job. I joined Theatre Bay Area, which is the local support organization for theatre workers. I started to audition for plays again, but I couldn’t get cast in anything because I was a terrible actor. But I managed to get a tiny, tiny role at Impact Theatre in Berkeley. Melissa Hillman was directing Macbeth, and she gave me the part of Lady Macduff, who had about six lines and an incredible fight scene. And I was like, “Sweet! I’m doing theatre again.”

I did that play in the basement of a pizza parlor, where we had strawberry jam and a lot of red syrup for blood and brains. There

were machine guns and people wearing camo. It was the most exhilarating, crazy time. Looking back, I can’t remember if the show was any good. I just knew that I had such a great time working on it, and everyone was so generous. It was like being part of a big family, and I felt connected again after that.

After Macbeth closed, I emailed Melissa and said, “I so loved working on this show. But really what I want to do is direct. So can I assist you on anything?” Melissa wrote back, said, “Well, I’m directing Othello next year. Do you want to assist me on that? I can’t pay you.” I said, “I’ll do it for free. I don’t care!”

So, I would do my new media day job and then run across town to work with Melissa. The following season, she offered me my first directing gig in that theatre and I was a member of Impact for a number of years. That was my first artistic home and my first understanding of company.

GINA | What did you learn from Melissa that you still hold in your own practice?

DESDEMONA | She was very much about accessibility from a financial perspective. I had never met an AD who was adamant about staying small. She would say, “Our place in the ecosystem is the small basement theatre. I don’t want to be like Cal Shakes. I want to be the small, gritty place where young folks go to cut their teeth.”

A large number of the Bay Area’s greatest talents had their start at Impact. The challenging part is that this model becomes financially unsustainable; you’re dealing with constant departure and turnover. People come, and then, when they get fancy, they leave. So your return on investment is very low. I kept coming back for as long as I could until I moved to Seattle for grad school, and then I just couldn’t come back anymore. Eventually, after producing shows for 20 years, they had to close, and it was heartbreaking.

But Melissa is such a force in the theatre community. She’s an insightful voice when it comes to what things are being talked about politically, socially.

GINA | One of the first things that impressed me when I was working with you in 2010 was that you had such clarity in owning your identity and your place in the world, and making things from there. Are you settled in your identity as a freelance director? Or are you interested in being a resident director or an artistic director?

DESDEMONA | An artistic director position is definitely something I’m looking toward. I know there’s a paradigm shift happening now. I can feel it—the shifting of leadership within the theatre landscape. I’m definitely interested. [Ed. Note—Since this article was published, Desdemona’s views have changed; she is no longer interested in institutional leadership.]

But when I’m being emailed job postings that say, “This theatre is looking for an AD,” I think, “I’ve never been there. How could I run a theatre in a community that I’ve never lived in?” If you had said San Francisco or Seattle, or Chapel Hill, NC—places where I’ve worked, where I feel like I have some context and agency—I might feel more confident in applying. Agency is something you have to earn. And, granted, I may technically be qualified for the job, but part of what being qualified means for me is the ability to understand the community. At what point do you earn that ability?

I also need to take my quality of life into consideration. There are a variety of things that play a role in how I define my quality of life and career: location, salary, culture of the city, the nature and values of the institution. Then again, is my caution causing me to pass up opportunities that are actually good for me? I don’t know.

GINA | Speaking of locales and cultures, do you feel more comfortable entering spaces in Seattle than you do in New York or elsewhere on the East Coast? Is there a sense of home in regional terms?

DESDEMONA | Seattle is the closest thing to an artistic home for me right now. I think that’s because I just happen to have spent, in the last 15 years, the most number of hours in Seattle area ZIP codes.

I enter a room in Seattle with more certainty than I do when I enter a space in a new city with a new theatre, a new ensemble, and a new staff. I have more anxiety and anticipation entering a new space because I’m encountering and mixing with unknown personalities. It’s like I found all these great

Joseph Ngo + Khanh Doan in The King of the Yees at ACT, directed by Desdemona Chiang PHOTO Chris Bennion

little kittens and I’m going to put you all in the same box now. Quick, let’s see how well you play together. It’s about the right alchemy of assembling the group dynamic. And it just so happens that in Seattle, I have more certainty around which kittens play well with other kittens.

GINA | When you’re looking for your team of designers and other collaborators, what kinds of characteristics or qualities have you found to be the most useful?

DESDEMONA | I like collaborators who aren’t afraid to contradict me. My preference is to have designers who— again—lead with skepticism as opposed to enthusiasm. Also, designers who are good dramaturgs who ask, “How does this fit, and in what ways does it not fit? And how does this complicate things?” We can always get behind an idea we’re all excited about. But where is it not working?

GINA | I know that there are directors who come with teams that they’ve worked with before, because there’s trust that you build over time. Do you have a team that you’ve developed over the years?

DESDEMONA | I don’t have a team, but I have people that I like. Christine Tschirgi, for example, is a designer in Seattle who is my “go-to” for costumes.

GINA | Is it because of that quality of questioning?

DESDEMONA | She’s the first person who will say to me, “I don’t understand why you’re doing that. I don’t think that’s a good idea.” She’s also all about the excitement of the story and not about the size of the paycheck. She has never turned down a project because of budget limitations. She designs critically, with a social justice edge and, as a queer designer, thinks a lot about representation. She’s also a teacher and a parent, so she cares about the narratives that we put on stage and whether they are helping or hurting what we teach our kids.

GINA | Thinking about how to hold the excitement and mission of the work first and foremost, I was thinking of how we met through the OSF FAIR program— Fellowships, Assistantships, Internships, and Residencies—and the value of those kinds of opportunities to meet people that are in the same place in terms of career.

DESDEMONA | I think cohort-building is huge. When I look around at various working partnerships, I see folks who went to undergrad together. Or folks who went to grad school together. Or folks who met as interns. That’s kind of what happens. As the tide rises, you all rise together. When you’re in your twenties, it can be frustrating because you’re not getting the work you want. Then as you hit your thirties and forties, you suddenly realize, “Oh! All of my friends are at regional theatres, and I’m getting hired now.”

I’m now seeing colleagues of mine who are women and people of color getting executive-level jobs in the theatre. And this plays a key role in how my career continues to develop. Because, at the end of the day, people hire their friends. That’s the thing we don’t really talk about, but I suspect that’s how it works. We hire the folks we’re interested in, the folks who value what we value, and the folks who are our friends.

GINA | But in most cases, our friends become people that we respect artistically, too.

Aisha Keita + Cindy Im in Measure for Measure at Seattle Shakespeare Company, directed by Desdemona Chiang

PHOTO John Ullman

DESDEMONA | They’re also the people I find intellectually curious and politically active. They are the folks from whom you can ask hard things.

GINA | Was that part of your impulse when you founded Azeotrope, your company in Seattle?

DESDEMONA | Azeotrope started the year after I finished grad school at UW. One of my classmates, Richard Nguyen Sloniker, and I became friends because we were the two Asian people in the program together at the time. Of course, when you see another Asian person in the theatre, there’s a natural awareness and gravitation toward each other.

GINA | That’s crazy, but it’s true.

DESDEMONA | It’s as though your radar goes off from across the room. “Asian person! We should talk!” So, Richard and I became pals over the course of our training there. One day, we were talking about graduation and fear of the real world. He tossed out this idea of starting a theatre company. I told him, “Ugh! I don’t want to run a theatre.” There’s a lot of overhead work I was not interested in doing. I wanted to direct.

Then he said, “I really want to find a way to keep working together.” So we came to this agreement. We won’t call it a company. We’ll call it a kind of partnership/ consortium. We won’t have a season.

We’ll only produce a play if we both find it compelling and necessary enough. That’s how it started.

We said, “Okay, well, no one is hiring either of us yet. We’re fresh out of grad school, we’re both young and don’t have a whole lot of experience. We’ll hire ourselves! And as long as it’s not an obligation to do an ongoing season, we’ll figure it out.”

We decided to produce Adam Rapp’s Red Light Winter—a gritty, dangerous, sexy play (and looking back on it now, perhaps a bit misogynistic and problematic). The show was a huge success.

GINA | Is there an appetite for new work by a brand-new company in Seattle?

DESDEMONA | I think so. People always have an eye toward the training programs to see who’s coming out. The training-toprofessional-work pipeline, with UW and Cornish College, is pretty strong. There’s always a new class of designers, directors, and actors who are ready to enter the field every year.

But, inevitably, there’s always a number of people who don’t stay around for long. Some folks who feel like they’re not getting the work they want might go to L.A. or New York. That can be a result of issues around diversity. I’ve had conversations with artists of color who feel like they’re not being represented in the working opportunities here, so they’ve considered moving

somewhere else. It’s all those things that complicate whether people do or don’t stay in town.

GINA | I was wondering about training audiences to come to see edgy work. Or is the audience the community that is coming out of those institutions?

DESDEMONA | I don’t know what the Seattle audience appetite is for work by emerging companies. We did our first show at Theatre Off Jackson, a local presenting house, and they already had a subscriber list to which we had access. Richard was a known entity—he had local acting experience prior to grad school—but I was a new director. A lot of the folks who came were largely friends, family, and a handful of strangers. We magically got the Seattle Times to come, and they gave us a great review, which I think helped launch our presence into the community. Critics and theatre bloggers in Seattle have a big impact on the consumers and makers that make up this contained ecosystem.

GINA | If we mark that as the beginning of your professional work in the theatre, where do you think you are in the arc of your career?

DESDEMONA | I feel that I’m now starting to take on some kind of national visibility. Going up and down the West Coast between California and Washington has felt really easy. But for some reason, getting across that Mississippi River over to the East

Richard Nguyen Sloniker + Amy Thone in The Merchant of Venice at Seattle Shakespeare Company, directed by Desdemona Chiang PHOTO HMMM Productions

Coast has been surprisingly challenging. I feel that I’ve been swimming upstream.

GINA | What do you think are the pros and cons of that national reach? I was reading some articles where you described Seattle as a really wonderful artistic city that allows people to go elsewhere and then come back to reinfuse new energies into the artistic community. Is that part of this current as well?

DESDEMONA | The Northwest is so proud of its localism. I feel that most of the theatre companies here want to support our own— which I completely applaud. But I also believe in exchange. There has to be some kind of balance.

It’s like putting together a new design team: bring a person you know, and then meet a bunch of other people. I think that makes for a really useful collaboration. The problem is it’s not reciprocal. We’ll shop in folks from New York, but I rarely hear a New York company say, “Oh hey, let’s shop in some Seattle people.” So I understand why Seattle is holding on and not making space for outside folk.

However, I do see a desire for exchange between Seattle and other regions. I’m seeing designers from Austin and Minneapolis—non-New York regional designers and directors—working here. I feel optimistic that the artistic directors of regional theatres are willing to shop in directors from other regions. I get shopped out: I’ve worked in Chapel Hill, New Haven, and the Bay Area. I’ll be doing shows next season in Pittsburgh, Minneapolis, and Baltimore.

That’s a healthy exchange, but it definitely does ask the question: why isn’t New York participating? Maybe because they don’t feel they have to? Or maybe they are, and I’m not seeing it.

GINA | Considering the conversations about people of color in the arts and representation, are you finding that you’re being increasingly asked to do Asian American projects? How do you feel about that kind of work or those opportunities?

DESDEMONA | Fortunately, I don’t feel pigeonholed at all where I am. I think that’s largely because I had a foundation of non-Asian directing before I directed my first Asian American play, which was Ching Chong Chinaman by Lauren Yee in 2008. Prior to that, I had been assisting on Shakespeare and directing new plays by non-Asian playwrights.

Initially, I was so touchy about that idea of being pigeonholed that I actually resisted taking Asian plays for a while. Looking back, I think, “Ugh. That was not great.” Whenever an Asian play comes up, I’m usually on the shortlist to direct it—and that’s fine. But as companies are actively looking to diversify their hiring practices, I’m seeing more and more Asian directors enter the field, regardless of whether or not the play itself is Asian or Asian American.

For every King of the Yees that I get asked to direct, I’m also being asked to direct a Merchant of Venice. I’m doing The Journal of Ben Uchida at Seattle Children’s Theatre right now, which is an Asian American play about Japanese internment. But my next shows are Harvey, Pride and Prejudice, and The Comedy of Errors

contrary side of “the Other.” Which is why I completely sympathize with villains; I really sympathize with antagonists.

Like Leontes from The Winter’s Tale . I remember very much thinking, “Why does everyone think he’s a bad person? He’s not a bad person, he’s misunderstood.” He does some really shitty things, but he is not in control of himself.

My tendency to see the less-represented is always with me in the room. Maybe you can attribute it to my Asian-ness or my immigrant-ness or feelings of foreign-ness. Those things are a part of it. And that’s for whatever play I do.

GINA | I’m curious about what it means to bring you into the room. What are institutions valuing when they see you as an Asian American female director, especially when we’re talking about expectations of how you’re engaging with the art? What kind of identity markers or communities do they assume you represent when you’re coming into the room? Does it matter that I’m a Korean adoptee and you’re a Taiwanese immigrant?

DESDEMONA CHIANG

What’s interesting is how quickly I became known as a Shakespeare director. That’s fascinating, right?

GINA | Do you think that has anything to do with your perceived identity as an Asian American director? For me, that’s part of my anxiety. Yet I’m still fine entering through that threshold—that the reason I’m here is because I’m Asian American, and we’re working on Shakespeare.

DESDEMONA | There’s a tiny part of you that feels discomfited by your Asian-ness and the value of your perceived “interesting take” on the Shakespeare play. Yeah, I see that.

GINA | So when you enter a room, especially as a person of color working on a Western classic, what does it feel like? Can you ever really drop that feeling?

DESDEMONA | The Asian-ness feeling?

GINA | Yeah.

DESDEMONA | That makes us ask, “What are we talking about when we talk about Asian-ness?” Are we talking about the optics of Asian-ness? Because of this feeling of Other-ness? For sure. That’s always with me.

My tendency when approaching a Shakespeare play is always from the

DESDEMONA | It’s hard to get into the minds of institutions when it comes to questions like this, because I don’t ever truly know what a company’s intentions are when they hire me. I sometimes assume it’s about needing someone who has the optic markers of whatever they need to message out for a particular show (Asian American, female, or simply non-white). And even though I know identity markers are inescapable, I also fret about doing institutions a huge disservice by assuming that they have a reductive lens on me. It can become maddening and a bit ugly when I get into the mindset of gauging my value in the eyes of others. I try to make a point of distinguishing myself in whatever way I can, because we’re not all the same.

GINA | Because then we get to think about what stories we can tell versus what histories we each have access to.

DESDEMONA | And also how we can support each other when we’re being asked to represent histories that we don’t have access to—which happens quite a lot! I’m also interested in what we are not seeing. What are the opportunities for different narratives? Because there’s more than what history has told us. There’s more than what personal experience tells us. What are the things that exist that we don’t have access to because of life circumstances, willful ignorance, or lack of exposure? It’s a really fascinating question.

Mytendencywhen approaching a Shakespeare play is always from the contrary side of ‘the Other.’

OPENING THE PATHWAY

LIESL TOMMY IN CONVERSATION WITH OZ SCOTT

OZ SCOTT | So...let’s start.

OZ | So when you came here...

SUMMER 2019 VOL. 7, NO. 3

Liesl Tommy has demonstrated a remarkable range in her directing work, from new plays to Shakespeare and world-premiere devised theatre to reimagined classics. She has mounted productions in regional institutions, on Broadway (including her Tony-nominated direction of Eclipsed), and at Disneyland, and gracefully made the leap from stage to television. At the time of this interview, she was newly announced to direct the Aretha Franklin biopic Respect, which marked her film directing debut in 2021.

SDC Journal invited Liesl to discuss her craft and how she has navigated a career across disciplines with Oz Scott, whose decades-long directing career encompasses dozens of stage productions (including the original production of Ntozake Shange’s for colored girls who have committed suicide/when the rainbow is enuf) as well as hundreds of television episodes, movies for television, and feature films. A former Secretary of SDC’s Executive Board and a member of the Directors Guild of America since 1978, Oz was honored by the DGA’s African American Steering Committee in 2022.

LIESL TOMMY | I feel like I should be interviewing you. You’re so fancy.

OZ | Oh, please. I was reading a lot of your interviews, and I said, “Okay, she’s talked about all this.”

LIESL | Say all the same shit over and over again.

OZ | You’ve talked about this before, but let’s start with South Africa. I love South Africa. I love Cape Town. I had a great time when I was there.

LIESL | Cape Town is one of the best places on earth, isn’t it?

OZ | Yeah.

LIESL | I’m biased, obviously.

OZ | You grew up in Cape Town.

LIESL | Yeah.

LIESL | I was a teenager, and it was still during apartheid. I’d never really spent time with white people, to be frank. And then suddenly I was surrounded by them. I grew up in a pretty poor “colored” township, where we had a handful of outfits that we wore. You had your school uniform; you came home and changed into your after-school outfit. Then you had an outfit for Sunday and then maybe another one. That’s what we packed when we came to America. And suddenly you’re in a school where students wear different clothes every day and people are judging you on those clothes.

Looking the way I look and having this accent and claiming to be African was confusing to a lot of people. It was a rough transition. And then, the one Black teacher

ABOVE Liesl Tommy + Oz Scott photographed for SDC Journal PHOTO Genevieve Marie

came up to me in the hallway and said, “Would you like to be in a play?” I was like, “Sure.” She said, “We’re going to do an hour-long version of for colored girls who have considered suicide/ when the rainbow is enuf.”

OZ | What character?

LIESL | I did Lady in Brown, the Toussaint monologue. Which is perfect for a young girl. I so related to it, being from South Africa, being a political person. It was like someone gave me a gift to end all gifts. That teacher came and saw a production I did at the Huntington of A Raisin in the Sun. She brought a busload of 60 people! I ran into her outside, and we fell into each other’s arms. It had been more than 20 years since we’d seen each other. At the curtain that night, I dedicated the performance to her. I talked about just how meaningful it was for someone to reach out and create opportunity. What I ended up doing was, every Black History Month at that high school, I would direct something. Sometimes it was a period’s worth of poetry by Black poets. I was experiencing racism in the theatre program at the high school in terms of what roles they would let me do and so on. But that window was when I could do whatever I wanted. Even though I went on to be an actor for a long time, that was the beginning of directing for me.

OZ | You were directing throughout college too?

LIESL | College was different because my father, being a very typical immigrant, didn’t want me to study theatre or acting. He thought it was insane, a crime against humanity that I would want, after all the sacrifices, to come to this country and do something like acting. A group of teachers tried to convince him that I had a lot of potential. He said, “Fuck potential.” I was so mortified that he cursed in front of them. He said, “Potential is for white students, for white people. We cannot afford potential. We have to succeed.”

I had to find the courage to go against him. It was hard because I was a very obedient and a good child that way. You don’t do that. But it was impossible for me to not pursue it.

OZ | And he came around?

LIESL | Of course he did. Now he’s the proudest person, the biggest fan. Both my mother and my father.

OZ | My father was a minister, so I always say I carried on the tradition of entertainment. But I think our parents give

us a lot that we draw from that they don’t even know. Where do your influences come from?

LIESL | My father, from my youngest memory of him, had a camera. He was always taking photographs and teaching himself. I grew up sitting on the ground in front of bookshelves looking at photography books. He used to have these books about photographers who had chronicled the Civil Rights Movement in America and who’d chronicled unrest in Europe in the ’60s. My mother also had this super-fly style, which I found very inspiring.

My father ultimately became an urban planner and my mom worked for architects, so there were a lot of design books around the house because they were trying to educate themselves as they were thrown into these worlds and these lives and these conversations.

So there were all these books and magazines that represented a life that we didn’t live, but I absorbed all the images. I honestly think that everything I know about composition I picked up from these books. An understanding of how to frame and how to stage. I didn’t go to directing school. It came from a passion for images that began really early. I enjoy collaborations with designers because I always have a vision for all that stuff.

OZ | Listening to what you’re saying about that process makes me think about when I was at NYU [for a master’s in directing]. I said, “Okay, I’m here. I want to do film, too.” They said, “We don’t do crossover.” I had

a friend whose boyfriend was the advisor for the first-year graduate film program, and he told me I could audit the entire first-year program. So I was doing both. I was taking a theatre design class, a dance class, acting classes. All sorts of stuff. But then I was taking sound and editing. And shooting my first-year graduate film—I was cinematographer for a classmate’s film.

LIESL | I so envy that immersion in both worlds because, of course, each one informs the other.

OZ | One of the things I want you to talk about too is bringing your culture into this. I remember when we took for colored girls to Australia it was a shock because the first audience we played for—we were working. We got nothing, absolutely nothing from them. The entire piece. We got to the end—“i found god in myself & I loved her.” And the audience erupted. We were like—

LIESL | Oh, you’re with us!

OZ | Because culturally it’s different. What do you think you bring from your South African experience?

LIESL | I have a style of directing; I tell a lot of stories. I tell stories the way an African person tells stories. That oral tradition is a huge part of how I was raised and taught and how my moral center was grown. And I trust it. I don’t ever feel like I’m taking time. It always pays off. I can always see when it drops in, when they understand what the story I’m telling is and how it relates. I don’t even know how not to do that.

Corey Allen, Kimberly Scott + LeRoy McClain in A Raisin in the Sun at Huntington Theatre Company, directed by Liesl Tommy

PHOTO c/o Huntington Theatre Company

And the other thing is, I’ve done a lot of plays here in the U.S. that touch on the Civil Rights Movement, around the Black Panthers or the revolutionary movements in this country. I guess it’s because it’s the closest work to my life, in that I actually grew up with “whites only” signs. So that period of American history feels very close to me. It’s not just history; it’s actually a lived experience.

What it feels like to take to the streets in protest, I know what that is. What it feels like to have police come at you when you’re a child, when you’re a teenager, I know what that is.

I remember in directing The Good Negro where I felt like we were in a place where all the research had happened and all the grueling work, and the performances had become a little bit intellectual. So I gave this big speech about what it actually feels like to be told, “No, you cannot come in here because you are not white.” I fucking went for it. I opened up a part of myself that I had kept pretty much locked down for a very long time. Everybody listening— stage managers, actors, crew—they were all bawling. My voice was shaking, but it was time. That’s the thing about directing, there’s always that moment where you have to take the leap, too. It’s all in previews where you realize they have gotten as far as they can get if I don’t go there with them.

OZ | Would you like to go back to Cape Town to direct something?

LIESL | Born a Crime, the movie I’m doing based on Trevor Noah’s memoir, will most likely partially shoot there. I’m psyched.

OZ | I was shooting Fame up in Harlem, and I was back at home, and there were hundreds of people watching on one side. I was doing this big dance number in the middle of Strivers’ Row, and I heard somebody yell, “Ozzie?” I said, “Oh, boy. Somebody from high school.” It’s fun going home.

LIESL | When I was doing the press after the announcement for Born a Crime, I was doing a lot of South African radio. People were incandescent with joy that a South African person was finally going to be telling a South African story. It was so humbling because it’s what we always think and hope is true: that they understand that having a Black director telling a Black story actually does make a difference.

OZ | There was some criticism of Trevor Noah when he began on The Daily Show, that he wasn’t an American. I’m wondering your take on all of that.

LIESL | Listen, there’s always going to be criticism. And, really, it comes down to the work. Are you doing the job? Are you delivering the goods? Are you being funny? Do you have a political point of view that

resonates? The answer to all those things is yes.

But I also think that Americans can be quite xenophobic. Even so-called progressive people have a very insular worldview. If you look at what is programmed on American stages, how many international plays do you see? None, unless it’s British or Irish. Do you know how hard we had to push to get Eclipsed into the world?

OZ | Yes. It’s so hard.

LIESL | And that’s not even getting into the economics of it. As a theatre director, I feel like I’ve worked myself almost into an early grave, and I finally realized I need to move out of this studio that I’m living in, in Harlem. I could barely afford to pay my taxes. I’d never, ever take a vacation. This reality makes no sense. How hard I’m working, how well trained and qualified I am—any other field would equal way more money, to be crass. There’s a point where it doesn’t make sense anymore. I could have gone the artistic director route or the adding-teaching-to-my-workload route. I have worked regionally with designers who have to fly back to New York on their day off to teach their class. These people are working nonstop.

OZ | Nonstop.

LIESL | That’s a really intense reality. We just accept it. We’re so used to it. We just

Pascale Armand, Lupita Nyong’o + Saycon Sengbloh in Eclipsed on Broadway, directed by Liesl Tommy PHOTO Joan Marcus

assume that that’s success, right? Teaching gig and then a professional life.

OZ | I was talking to a playwright who teaches to make ends meet, and he says, “Oz, I can’t afford to go to a Broadway play. Sometimes I can’t afford to go to an Off-Broadway play unless I know the writer or know somebody.” I’m very concerned because back when I was growing up, my mother would take me to Broadway plays. My school would take me to Broadway plays. I saw the original Marat/ Sade

LIESL | Wait, your school took you to Marat/ Sade?

OZ | Yes, they did.

Let’s talk process. How do you decide which projects you’re going to do? Do you have a type of project that you feel you’re better at? I don’t limit myself necessarily, but it’s a question I sometimes ask myself.

LIESL | I’m asking myself this question more now that I’ve moved into the television realm. I worked very hard in theatre because I’m a woman of color. You’re told “no” more than you’re told “yes” in this life, in this business. I didn’t want to let myself be pigeonholed. So I have directed Shakespeare and new plays, musicals and new musicals. I have never taken any job where I didn’t feel really passionate about the material, because in the theatre, you’re not making enough money to be phoning it in.

OZ | Do you find they try to pigeonhole you?

LIESL | Not anymore.

OZ | But in the beginning they would do that a lot?

LIESL | Yeah. Some of the people offering me jobs, I didn’t really know them. They were just offering it to me because I’m Black. I have to tell them who I am; I can’t let them tell me who I am. If I do a season of deep regional Black plays, and they’re Black plays that I don’t necessarily know that I love, then I definitely will get pigeonholed as that. I’m happy to be pigeonholed as a person who directs Black plays. That’s not the issue.

OZ | No, I get it. I’ve had the same thing where you get offered plays and TV just because you’re Black and that’s what you must be good at.

LIESL | My agent would call those people up and say, “She’s not available for that, but what else have you got for her?”

OZ | Let’s talk about the rehearsal process. Some directors come on the set extremely prepared. And it’s not that I don’t think we should be prepared, but my question is how much freedom do you allow your actors? How much freedom do you allow your creators?

OZ | I had one actor who walked across the stage as blocked in rehearsal, and I yelled, “Stop. What are you doing? Why didn’t you kick the chair?” He said, “What are you talking about?” I said, “You wanted to kick the chair, didn’t you?”

LIESL | Following his body.

OZ | Yeah. He said, “How did you know?” I said, “It doesn’t matter. You’re up on that stage, I’m not.” It’s finding those things in the actors. I’ve seen some directors who want to block it immediately. I’m thinking, “I can’t block it if I can’t hear it.”

LIESL TOMMY

LIESL | It’s interesting. One of the great shocks to my system was when an assistant director told me, “The perfect world: you rehearse for eight minutes, we mark it, and you’re shooting in the first hour.” I’ve come to understand that the AD’s vision of life is not the same as that of the director or DP [director of photography]. But it was good to have a goal.

But in rehearsal for a play, for example, for that first move up from the table, I always let the actors do the first pass because I’m interested in seeing what they do physically, when they’re not in their head yet and they don’t know the rules of the space. I always have a plan, but part of the fun for me, in theatre at least, is seeing what they do.

In film and television, I know exactly how I want the frame to be, I know exactly the shots that I want. I have found when I would do my prep, the DPs would go, “Well, we’ll see what the actors do.” And I’d be like, “The actor’s going to do what I told them to do.” But I’m never going to tell a person to walk to the fridge and open the fridge and then stand and give a line for no reason. It’s always going to be motivated by the events of the scene, and that comes from my theatre background.

In television, there’s something fun about having that much control over the image. I don’t want that for theatre. I want there to be flow and space and life and for it to feel dangerous and un-choreographed. That’s my taste in theatre.

OZ | You keep it very much open. And I’ve watched Lloyd Richards do this too, where you sit back. I remember August Wilson telling me once that he wanted Lloyd to tell an actor to make an adjustment. Lloyd waved him off. Two days later, the actor did it, just like August wanted. He was like, “But Lloyd, you never told them.”

LIESL | Just opening the pathway.

LIESL | That’s right. It’s like I have to watch them live their life first, and then it reveals itself. This is the thing I tell young directors also: there’s a certain amount of trust you have to have in your collaborators in those early days of rehearsal. You have to open your eyes and see what is happening. You have to be as available, energetically, as you want them to be. You can’t come and sit behind your table and just play the chess piece. I mean, you can, of course—people do it. People are deeply successful doing it. But it seems to me that because it’s the live experience and there’s energy, that has to be created.

OZ | What was your experience like on Frozen?

LIESL | It was the first stage adaptation of the film. I did it at Disneyland at the Hyperion, a 2,000-seat theatre. It was enormously challenging for all kinds of corporate reasons. And enormously fulfilling because I had access to resources in terms of design that we don’t normally get in notfor-profit theatre. I was using technology that no one had ever used in a stage show before. And I was able to execute a really ambitious proposal because the high-level Disney executives responded so positively. I was like, “Oh, this is what it’s like when you’re working with a producing team that actually wants something that’s going to blow their minds.” The more bold I was in terms of the vision, the more they loved it. That was so fun.

One of the biggest struggles on that show was getting diversity outside of just the ensemble and into the principals. Historically, park production tended to replicate the film experience almost exactly. Finally, I was like, “I think I’m going to have to quit if I don’t get this.” One of the things for me has been always to ask myself: are you willing to walk away over this? Invariably, the answer is yes. They kicked it up to [Disney CEO] Bob Iger because he was the only one who could make the decision,

That’s the thing about directing, there’s always that moment where you have to take the leap, too.

and he said, “Yes, she’s right. We should do this.” When we opened, we opened with an African American Elsa, and we have had every color of the rainbow playing those principals. In the end, all of us were so proud of what we accomplished.

OZ | How about the crew? A lot of times I have to fight for diversity of the crew, too.

LIESL | The crew was actually very diverse because people who work at the parks are very diverse.

OZ | How did you prepare for Frozen, especially with technology you’d never worked with before?

LIESL | You spend a lot of time with the Imagineers in the beginning, and you get inundated with what the options are. And I chose designers who were at the cutting edge of the field, people who weren’t just doing theatre, who were also doing rock concerts, and who had access to more technology than a person who’s directing and designing only theatre. Because we really needed to have a different kind of vision to fill that space and make use of the opportunity.

There was a lot of educating me on the options and what this could achieve and the way we could save money with that. We used this kind of lighting where we implanted chips into the costumes so the lights found the actors and just followed them around. It halved our programming. We did a lot of video, and there were all these different kinds of materials, like invisible sheers that you can project on. You have to stage everything so it is connected

to the technology. But that also means you can’t change the blocking all of a sudden, because there’s $30,000 worth of technology that’s been put in that spot.

OZ | How long was the process?

LIESL | Two years of development.

OZ | How long was the rehearsal process?

LIESL | In that way, it was a very traditional musical. We did a series of workshops. We did a crafting workshop, and then we did a staging workshop, which was about a month and change. And then we rehearsed for a couple of months.

OZ | How has the transition been to film and television?

LIESL | Terrifying. One of the hardest parts of our business to break into, for some reason, is television directing. I had already started the process in 2016 of working with a television agent at my agency. We had started going on meetings. I’d planned on taking the fall of 2017 off and shadowing. Then the great Ms. Ava DuVernay offered me a slot on Queen Sugar. She saw Eclipsed on Broadway, and I knew her through Sundance. I panicked and I turned it down at first because I had theatre gigs.

And then I called around. Called Lynn Nottage, Tracey Scott Wilson, and other people, and they were like, “Do you know how hard it is, especially for people of color, especially for women? You have to do that television episode.” Also, Ava provided a safety net, saying, “The fact that this is your first time is not a liability. We are creating

an environment where you can succeed.”

So I did it. But I went there a month early and I shadowed [frequent series director] Julie Dash, and she was incredibly generous. [Director] Cheryl Dunye was also there. Ava was like, “Girl, you do not need to come out for a month. That’s crazy. You can come out for a handful of days and you’ll get it.” I said, “Listen, there is no way that I’m going to let you give me this chance and then in any world underperform or be underprepared.”

And it was great. There was a point where I thought, “Okay, I understand what that is.” I found all the parallels. There were moments of terror because it was literally vocabulary that I did not understand. I was Googling constantly while I was on set. I don’t know what person could have made this transition before the time of Google.

OZ | I’ll tell you how we did it. I sat there, and they said, “You want a star filter?” I said, “Absolutely.” No idea what I was talking about. They finally put it on, and I said, “Oh, wow. That’s neat. That’s cool.” It was bluffing.

LIESL | I mean, there’s a certain amount of that. Thank God I gave myself that month because I just accumulated so much vocabulary on set.

OZ | What TV shows would you be interested in doing?

LIESL | I love Master of None. I love Atlanta You know, this year I did a lot and it was my year to do the same thing that I did in theatre, which was create a body of work so that no one could say, “You can’t do that.” But one of the great reliefs for me

The Good Negro at The Public Theater, directed by Liesl Tommy PHOTO Joan Marcus

in the beginning of working in television was not being responsible for everything the way you are in theatre. And coming off of Frozen, a $30 million Disney endeavor, and then Eclipsed on Broadway, there was something refreshing to be like, “I’m just going to come in and I’m going to come out. I’m going to say some things to the writers about the script, but it’s not on me.”

I had been in that grind for so long in the new play premieres. It’s really, really stressful. When you do new plays, you take on some responsibility for the future of that play. If that play is successful, then that playwright gets it done all over the country and they can live off that.

OZ | How do you feel about dramaturgs? How do you see the position between the director and all the dramaturgical work?

LIESL | It’s got to be the right fit, and I have certainly been accused of running dramaturgs out of the room. But I also know that there are dramaturgs who’ve loved being in the process with me because if they’re the right fit and they know what they’re talking about, I will listen to and empower them.

OZ | So you like doing your own dramaturgical work?

LIESL | Yeah. I mean, if you’re doing new plays, you have to be a “dramaturgical director.” I understand from writers that not all directors are dramaturgical directors. I didn’t know that, actually. I thought that if you’re working on new plays, then you have to be a person who can do that.

OZ | That’s what I thought. That’s the way I was raised.

I want to get into the color issue. I know what I’ve gone through in this business. I think things have changed, but I’ve seen things change before and I’ve seen things go back. I’d love your opinion on all this. Where do you see yourself in here?

LIESL | I have been very fortunate this year in terms of the work that I’ve been able to do. I always, from the very beginning, set short-term and long-term goals for myself. That’s how I’ve stayed on track and kept my sanity. Because if you just float through this business, you lose your mind.

I’m looking forward to the film part of the next year, and I’m also looking forward to developing shows, being a producer on a show—coming in early and being part of the creation. It was a nice respite to just hop in and out of these television shows. But the thing that brought me into directing

was developing work from scratch, and I feel like that’s just who I am. That will have to happen again in the film and television realm. That’s one thing.

I feel like I have had access because everybody suddenly got slapped upside the head and presented the statistics and lawsuits. There’s this incremental change that’s happening, and I happened to be in the right place at the right time with the right credentials—and also the drive to make it happen. However, as a woman of color and an immigrant, I have never felt more unsafe than I do in this moment in this country. I have this feeling of impending doom at all times in my actual life, and then this thing where people keep telling me that I’m so lucky to be in this moment. I’m like, “Which is the real one?” One of these lines is a lie. It’s extremely stressful because I feel like I can’t rely on this thing that people who aren’t in the business keep telling me is happening, when you look around at how tenuous our safety actually is.

OZ | Oh, yeah.

LIESL TOMMY

LIESL | It’s a strange sensation, and I feel like I’ve got to take advantage of it while I can because I can’t trust it. At this point, I seem to have more access in the film and television world than I do in the theatre world, which is where I spent the bulk of my career. No one’s presented enough statistics and lawsuits to commercial theatre producers to make enough change there. You know?

OZ | Yes. Because we’re still struggling, still pushing.

LIESL | In 2016, I was the first woman of color to be nominated for a Tony Award for best direction of a play [for Eclipsed]. People kept asking me about that, and I would feel this rage that I wasn’t allowed to talk about process because I had to talk about that.

OZ | I did a movie for Disney in ’85, ’86, somewhere in there. Remember the Sunday night movies back in the day? My producer said to me, “Oz, we just found out that you are the first Black director that’s ever worked for Disney. Should we use this as

our publicity?” I said, “You know, I think it’s kind of embarrassing. If that’s true and I’m the first Black director that’s ever worked with Disney, let’s leave that alone because I don’t want to talk about it.”

LIESL | Yes. They just kept bringing it up, and I was almost like, “What do you want me to say? It’s an honor? In 2016??? NO! Look at yourselves.” It’s part of our work, as people of color. We have to do that, talk about that. But I always worry that we never get to talk about being artists, which is why I’m loving that you’re asking about process and diversity.

OZ | Where does color limit us? If I get stuck thinking about racism, I stop. But I have to find these workarounds. Lloyd Richards watched me one time get very angry at a writer who had a brilliant first act and I thought had lied in his second act. He said, “Oz, you’re a large Black man. You have to be very careful about losing it because you’re intimidating.”

LIESL | Workarounds. Yes. There are definitely times when I have found myself dialing it down a little bit.

I recently worked on a show; I walked in on day one, into the director’s office, and I still have my bag on my shoulder, and one of the producers came up to me and said, “You got a big episode. I usually direct these episodes. I also direct.” I was like, “Mm-hmm.” “It’s a big episode. I hope you can handle it.” I said, “Oh, I’m sure that as a group, we’ll all make it work.” Again, he says, “I usually direct these episodes.” I was like, “Yeah. I’ve heard that.” Then he said, “Well, we’re here for you.”

Then he leaves, and another one comes in. Again, I’m still standing in my room with my bag on my shoulder. He says, “You got a big episode.” I said, “Yes, I understand that.” He said, “You know, I directed your episode last season.” I was like, “Amazing.” He says, “I was supposed to direct this season, but you know, politics.”

OZ | Yeah. It reminds me of a guy coming to me and saying, “What does it feel like getting an episode just because you’re Black?”

LIESL | Someone dared to say that to you?

OZ | We teach our children to be fair, to have manners, to do the right thing, to be a credit to your race. I know it’s just stupidity we are faced with, but part of me is like, I’m tired.

It was myyearto do the same thing that I did in theatre, which was create a body of work so that no one could say, ‘You can’t do that.’

LIESL | It is exhausting. In terms of feeling like we have to be perfect, and it’s just not possible.

You know, after that, there was a series of events that I could only describe as sabotage. I would never say that word, but then somebody on the crew said it to me. “You are being sabotaged, do you know that? They want you to fail.” It was unfathomable, but it was so clearly what was happening. I thought, “I can’t complain. I can’t call the producers.” I had brunch with two brilliant Black women directors. I was like, “Ladies, I need you. I need advice.” One of them who’s been in the game for decades said, “It’s real, you’re not crazy. Simplify all of your blocking so you will make your day no matter what they do to you.” So I did.

They clearly wanted me to not be able to make my days. And then I did. I made my days. I got every shot that I needed. I did not complain. What I started doing is not giving a fuck. I didn’t watch my tone when I talked to people or asked for things. I was not afraid of being scary or intimidating. At that point, it didn’t matter anymore. They’d already decided the worst about me, that I was unqualified, I was a diversity hire or whatever. So I ripped the veil away, and I hadn’t done that ever. I just walked around that set how I wanted to.

OZ | What I’ve had to do sometimes is totally ignore, shut down, not say anything until I have something to say, which is not the way I like to work.

LIESL | No, of course not. But you have to protect your livelihood.

OZ | Yes.

LIESL | I just let my life force out. I was like, “Oh, this is what it feels like to be a white man in this world.” You just let it all out and you don’t worry about being called intimidating, and you don’t worry about not being grateful.

OZ | Right. That’s a big word, grateful. It’s interesting—I feel like I have a sense of responsibility. I want to do the right thing. Sometimes I’m sure I don’t. I think I’ve lived my life in fairness. There was a female director on a show I was working on, and the production designer was being cruel to her. She and I were talking. I was just a director. And I took it upon myself to go up to him and say, “No, you don’t do this,” in front of everybody.

LIESL | I’m the same in that way. You have to advocate for people who can’t advocate for themselves. As directors, we are in a

position of power, whatever our race or sex is. We are in charge. So we can’t let things like that happen. We have to call it out. I do know these directors who are so worried about their own territory that they don’t lead all the people they’re supposed to lead. They just lead for themselves.

OZ | They protect themselves.

LIESL | From very early on in my theatre career, when I didn’t have any collateral and I certainly had no business opening my mouth, I would ask for people of color on the design team. There’s always this leadership position that thinks, “Okay, she’s a young director. Let’s surround her with experienced designers.” And “experienced designers” means white men. If I’m working on shows that are political, that are about Black experience, and I’m surrounded by older white male designers, it’s a problem. So very early on, I would say things like, “You’re not going to surround me with white men only, are you?” They’d go, “Well, you know, we just want to make sure there’s a nice balance of experience.” I was like, “Let’s find some experienced designers of color then, or experienced women.”

I want to ask you—this is something that I’ve struggled with a lot. I was Associate Artistic Director at Berkeley Rep for a period of time. There have definitely been moments where I could have stepped into an artistic directorship role at a theatre. You’ve been affiliated with theatres. You’ve maintained your television career. I don’t

know how you would be able to run a theatre and then also pursue the television stuff in this day and age. Or go and shoot a film. Do you think that’s possible?

OZ | I think it is. But that’s me. I was shooting an episode of a show, and I was directing a play at night and on the weekends, and I was doing The Cosby Show, and I directed a play in Philadelphia.

LIESL | That’s insane.

OZ | It was insane. But it’s what we do. I think theatre has got to find a balance of these things that you’re talking about: being an artistic director, doing a film. We’ve got to create a new business format for theatre, a new paradigm that allows you to blend the art forms.

LIESL | Absolutely. I always thought that becoming an artistic director was where I was headed. And then other things happened. In my head, I thought, I’ll teach, I’ll run a theatre, and I’ll develop work. But the truth is that I like to be creative 100 percent of the time. I want to be directing all the time. It might change. In fact, it will change. There’ll be a point when I’ll want to produce, for sure.

OZ | I think the last thing I want to ask you is: are you happy?

LIESL | Very. The happiest I’ve ever been.

Liesl Tommy + Oz Scott

PHOTO Genevieve Marie

Building Spaces

+ NEW INTRODUCTION BY SHARON

OTT

SUMMER 2019 VOL. 7, NO. 3

From Sharon Ott, Fall 2022: As I look back on “Building Brave Spaces,” which was published in the summer of 2019, it seems almost a lifetime ago! Although I haven’t had the opportunity to chat with my three collaborators on the piece, Evan Yionoulis, Nicole Hodges Persley, and Liza Gennaro, I am certain that they all feel the same way. So very much has happened since that time; the pandemic, the racial reckoning that continues to re-shape both academia and the profession, and all the attendant changes that these two great seismic shifts have brought to our art form and to the training of young theatre artists. When this article was conceived and written, all of us were relatively new to our positions. We were just beginning to sense that the ground was profoundly shifting underneath us. Little did we know how massive those shifts would be! While some of our observations seem downright antique as I read them now, perhaps it is good to look back and see where we were three years ago. I think we know more now than we did about what it really takes to create those brave spaces.

SHARON OTT | While all of us have mixed our professional careers with careers in academia, most of us are new to our positions of academic leadership. As SDC Executive Board Members, Liza, Evan, and I have been dealing quite a bit with issues of workplace conduct. As professional directors, because of the #MeToo movement and general increased awareness, we’ve begun to redefine the rules of engagement between directors and actors. I think there are parallels in the academic world, particularly in relationship to professors and students. I am a member of the baby boomer generation and was a college student in the late 1960s and early 1970s. I was politically active in college, but I have come to realize that my sense of

political activism is much different from that of my students. This is not surprising to me, but I do find that I have to be careful to not just apply the norms that I remember from my twenties, but truly see the world through my students’ eyes.

EVAN YIONOULIS | Current students are much more attuned to issues of identity, and they’re asking questions that I don’t think people even 10 years ago asked. So many things are up for reexamination. How can we diversify the material we work on in class or present to the public? What is a classic? Who has the right to play certain characters? Do I need to learn an accent for characters I don’t ever think I’ll play? In actor training, we’re in the business of

asking our students to bring themselves to the work and also to transform. So, we’re right at that nexus between identity and transformation all the time. I think the things that are facing my students at Juilliard (and at other institutions of higher learning) are very much the same as those facing our industry as a whole.

You mentioned the #MeToo movement. At Juilliard—and at Yale, where I taught previously—we have developed very clear protocols about rehearsing material with sexual content, in the classroom and in the rehearsal hall—what happens when you have a director or professor in the room, what happens when you don’t. These protocols (which I’m certain are being

A CONVERSATION WITH LIZA GENNARO, NICOLE HODGES PERSLEY + EVAN YIONOULIS

MODERATED

SHARON OTT was Chair of the Department of Theatre at Virginia Commonwealth University from 2017–August 2021. She is now Associate Professor and Artistic Director at VCU. Previously, she was a professor in the Savannah College of Art and Design and served as the Artistic Director of the Department of Performing Arts. She was the Artistic Director of Berkeley Rep for 13 years and of Seattle Rep for eight years. Sharon has directed theatre and opera around the country.

LIZA GENNARO is Dean of Musical Theatre at Manhattan School of Music. She is a contributor to The Oxford Handbook of the American Musical, The Oxford Handbook of Dance and Theater, Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism, The Routledge Companion to the American Stage Musical: 1970 and Beyond, and the upcoming The Oxford Handbook of the Television Musical. Her book Making Broadway Dance was published in 2021. Choreography: Broadway and regional.

NICOLE HODGES PERSLEY is Interim Vice Provost of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging and a Professor in American Studies and African and African American Studies at the University of Kansas. She is a professional actor and director with credits in theatre, film, and television. An awardwinning artist-scholar and arts activist, Hodges Persley creates bridges between the entertainment industry and academia.

EVAN YIONOULIS is an Obie Awardwinning director and Juilliard’s Richard Rodgers Dean and Director of the Drama Division. She previously served 20 years on the faculty of Yale School of Drama and as a Resident Director at Yale Rep. She is President of the SDC Executive Board.

instituted by universities nationwide) mirror what is happening, or needs to happen, in the professional world.

SHARON | Nicole or Liza, do you find any points of similarity in your universities with what Evan is saying?

LIZA GENNARO | I absolutely find the same discussions arising. I’ve been dealing most specifically with issues of identity, gender, and authenticity. How students identify and how students intend to move forward in a profession that is in the process of transforming. How do we train actors to be transformative and versatile so they can work and make a living while honoring their individual sense of authenticity? That is a big challenge for me right now.

SHARON | I’ve been at VCU for a year and a half, and I would say there is a big difference around issues of identity between students at VCU and my former students at the Savannah College of Art and Design. I’ve pondered whether that has to do with being a public vs. a private university, or whether there has just been a real shift in the last few years.

LIZA | I began as Associate Dean and Director of Musical Theatre at the Manhattan School of Music in July 2018, and was at Indiana University for six years before that. I find that there has been a huge change in student attitudes in less than a year’s time since I switched institutions.

SHARON | There was a David Brooks article in the New York Times last year that posited that one of the underlying differences in the political worldview of the millennial generation vs. the baby boomers was that boomers were motivated by the cause of equal access and millennials were motivated by the concept of inclusion. I was working through a casting issue that had arisen with my production of The Wolves and a debate about whether the #12 character should be performed by a student who identified as lesbian, and I found this lens to be a helpful one as I examined my own assumptions in contrast to the assumptions of many of my students. Do you have thoughts on this, Nicole?

NICOLE HODGES PERSLEY | I am a Gen Xer, and so, from that standpoint, I think I’m part of the generation that helped start the conversation about intersectional positions of identity, whether that be from a scholarly standpoint or from an artistic

standpoint. We refuse the notion that we have to lead with one part of ourselves, whether that be our gender identification, sexual identification, racial identification. Positioning is always complex, always interesting, and always overlapping.

As a result, the children of my generation are a lot more equipped to have discussions about who they are in relationship to those various positionings. I think for the first time—in the academy and in the profession— you’re seeing actors who understand the disruption of binaries in a very different way and have a fluency about different identity positions. And the material that we’re teaching or the ways we teach that material hasn’t always caught up with that—nor have our colleagues in both academia and the profession.

I came to the University of Kansas (KU) in 2009 from California—a very progressive arts space—to a space very much needing to vacate some of its old ideas and practices. Now I am the artistic director of one of the only African American theatre companies in Kansas City. It’s very interesting to watch this Midwestern market catch up to movements like Black Lives Matter and #MeToo. Both have had a very big impact on the demand that the space can no longer hold the old ideas. At my university, the students won’t let things happen the way they have been happening, and at my theatre, the actors don’t want to rehearse in some of the ways they always have, don’t want to be cast the way they have been cast in the past. They welcome disruption.

SHARON | I want to talk a little more about a point you bring up, Nicole, about this “intersectional space,” and your students being able to live in that space and your faculty perhaps being not so easily able to do so. Then there’s the fact that your students, as you put it, just don’t want to put up with certain things anymore. The same way actors, I think, want a real change in the ways directors work with them. How are you all navigating this? It’s tough to do when everything is in such flux.

LIZA | We’ve come up against several challenges in terms of casting productions as well as classroom work. I’m meeting with faculty and doing a lot of research and trying to figure out some faculty guidelines because we’re at the very beginning of this process. I’m at the point right now where I really

don’t know what to think. I don’t think my instincts are necessarily correct. I’m leaning heavily on my diverse faculty. And, honestly, that’s not fair to them. I’m reading everything I can get my hands on—trying to understand how to proceed training students in a field where certainly the thinking, at least in terms of identity, was rarely considered before.

NICOLE | The idea of identity, and particularly race, ethnicity, and gender, are at the core of my practice as an artist-scholar. So what I see working at predominantly white universities, or working in a theatre company that is situated in a city as a “multicultural theatre company,” is that patience is what we will need if we are going to help allies that are interested in doing this work but may not have the tools or the language to be fluent enough to self-present in a way that feels confident to them. My goal is to be a bridge builder to help those colleagues, artistic and academic, really identify places where they can supplement or gain the tools they need. I always liken it to fluency when you’re learning a language that is not your own. You understand so much, you care so much, you have so many observations, but when you speak this new language, you feel like a child. That’s the frustration I’m watching manifest. People have so much to say, have so much they are feeling, but haven’t yet gained enough fluency to be able to articulate those feelings.

EVAN | I think one of the things is making space in the work for conversations in ways you never really did before. So that if you, say, cast an African American actor as Angelo [in Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure] and a white actress as Isabella, or a white Angelo and a Latinx Isabella, what is being read by an audience and what is being felt by the actors as they play those roles?

part of the group, and they don’t want to be marginalized, but nonetheless, they do have those discussions. So some of this is not shocking to me.

SHARON | I like your point, Nicole, that it is true that people of color, students of color, have had to negotiate these spaces for a long time, so it’s not shocking. It is a great thing that what has been suppressed is now debated openly.

So, casting is one point of discussion at our institutions. I would hazard a guess that the question of dialects in the pedagogy of voice and speech is another, right? Where does the traditional RP [received pronunciation] or the accent broadly known as “general American” fit into the world our students are inhabiting?

EVAN | Well, I think it’s great, that we’re—

SHARON | Questioning all that.

EVAN YIONOULIS

NICOLE | I see that with my students of color, that they’re always negotiating and having to reflect on these things when they’re being cast. Whether it be through colorblind casting or in texts that they culturally don’t see themselves in, ever. And so they are always having these debates. They may not have them publicly out loud with professors, because they want to be

EVAN | It’s about time that these discussions are happening and that we’re opening up the plays that we’re producing. I find that the practical struggle is finding material where students of many backgrounds can work together on projects. And I look forward to—one can’t dictate what writers write, but I think it will be wonderful when writers write plays where the possibility of a lot of diversity in casting exists without it being Shakespeare, you know?

In actortraining, we’re in the business of asking our students to bring themselves to the work and also to transform. So, we’re right at that nexus between identity and transformation all the time.

Students perform Two Gentleman of Verona at Virginia Commonwealth University, directed by Sharon Ott

PHOTO c/o Virginia Commonwealth University

SHARON | Right, I know exactly what you mean.

NICOLE | Yeah, but I want to jump back in about the RP note. I think it’s really important for us as artists and scholars not to put limitations on expectations, that RP applies across the board for most of the work that you might be hired to do. It’s a version of standard English, right?

SHARON | Well, according to my voice and speech colleagues, RP actually doesn’t truly exist regionally anywhere in the UK; rather, it is a class-based accent.

NICOLE | Right, but to not acknowledge the other variations of standard English as legitimate forms of accent and dialect work is what I find problematic. An African American actor might be just as often asked to do Idris Elba’s accent, for instance—a regional form of English—as they would RP. So I think it’s really important that the completion of what a body and the history that body is bringing is not assumed. I think we try to standardize language in a discipline or practice [where] we really have to look at how those standards are racialized.

EVAN | We’re teaching facility with dialects so that students can then pick up any

accent that they need. What I’m finding is that some students are limiting themselves. We grew up with colorblind casting, with the idea that “everybody should be able to play everything.” Now we’re practicing color-conscious casting. But that impulse— that arises, after all, from a desire for more mindful inclusivity—I hope won’t mean that students will now feel again that certain dialects are not for them, especially in our global world.

SHARON | I do find some of my students to be self-limiting. And, yes, if we’re teaching accents and dialects properly, we’re teaching students how to learn any accent or dialect. But students have to be persuaded that the world is a place where they should know that accent. Because it’s not necessarily where they want to live as artists.

NICOLE | That’s the hard part of having really honest conversations with young actors about that reality check that our business is not necessarily the wonderland of your dreams. We can try to reflect the realities that we wish were true and deflect the ones that we want to subvert. But if you have a solid RP accent, it will help you get into most of the festivals, because this is the language of the festival, not necessarily the world. Not to say that we should center the conversation that way, but it’s the truth.

SHARON | Liza?

LIZA | The issue of self-limiting is one of the challenges we’re having. We’re working with the musical theatre canon, so that also brings along its own baggage. But I agree with everything Nicole just said. And if I’m understanding you, Nicole, part of the struggle is we’re all very open to embracing student self-identification and making them feel safe in the rehearsal room and the classroom spaces, but where it becomes complicated is when we are asking them or they are choosing to take on specific roles or work on specific material. They may resist working on that material because of self-identification or pressure from their classmates who take issue with that choice of material.

It’s coming from every direction, and it becomes a question of, well, who has the right to have an opinion about what this person is doing? So that’s where a discussion is critical right now, and there aren’t really any answers I’ve been able to locate. I mean, there are many essays and articles, but the answers aren’t apparent. None of this is apparent. And since we’re at the early stages of grappling with these issues, I don’t think there can be any answers. I’m not really looking for answers, but I’m craving guidance.

Juilliard Drama students in class PHOTO Todd Rosenberg

SHARON | And maybe my institution is different than yours, but I bet not. It seems to be very hard to find the space to—I think Nicole used the word “patience”—to have the discussions that are truly necessary. And what often happens—just given the world, the way it is right now, and the students’ feelings that the world isn’t changing fast enough for them—is that things bubble up to a crisis point very quickly, and we don’t yet have the language to cope.

EVAN | Yeah. These conversations are just beginning to evolve. I think we’re all learning, and we’re trying to figure out how to learn together. The faculty have to learn from the students and the students’ experience of living in the world.

LIZA | It certainly happened for me in the first four months I was in my job. There have been issues that required intervention and full student body meetings and discussions that were complicated and difficult to resolve. As students’ issues and concerns arise, we have a wonderful opportunity and responsibility to teach and be taught. Open communication and a willingness to engage in hard topic discussion is essential.

EVAN | I’m finding that this has to be a daily practice. I’m used to just going into the classroom and saying, “Who’s your character and what do they need from the other person, and now let’s talk and listen through the scene.” And now there’s a lot more space that has to be made. I know that with every director or visiting faculty member who comes in, I have a conversation with them about the department’s feelings about equity, diversity, inclusion, and belonging,

and about things that I imagine might come up in the piece that they’re directing, and how we, as a community, want to be having these conversations so that we can have brave artistic spaces, where we can all venture out of our comfort zones without being unsafe.

just have an equity, diversity, and inclusion person talking about this.

SHARON | As we begin to wrap up this wonderful conversation, I want to talk about what is exciting about working professionally and in the academic world right now, because it is exciting, yes? I find it to be such hard work, such demanding work, and as Nicole said early in our conversation, sometimes I feel so awkward and clumsy learning this new language, but I also feel exhilarated and challenged in the best possible way. Where do you think this conversation will get us?

EVAN | It hopefully will get us to a more just world, where everybody can feel included and do their best work, and be challenged, and fly. And soar.

LIZA | That’s so good.

SHARON | I think we always wanted that, but now there’s an urgency about helping create the space for that.

NICOLE HODGES PERSLEY

I also talk about our protocols for rehearsing material with sexual content, and I discuss how they might approach these scenes not so that people are afraid to touch each other but so that people are free to touch each other. So, it’s a lot more work. But it’s important work, and as Nicole was saying, everybody in the community needs to be educated in the way to speak about all of this. The voice teacher, the movement teacher, the acting teacher—everybody. Because you can’t

EVAN | Yes, and I think that we thought everybody was soaring. And what we are hearing is that—

SHARON | —is that it’s not true.

EVAN | That it’s not true, and that people were suppressing parts of themselves, or that it wasn’t that space for everyone, and that people were leaving parts of themselves behind. And other people weren’t aware that they were.

At my university, the students won’t let things happen the waythey have been happening, and at mytheatre, the actors don’t want to rehearse in some ofthe ways they always have, don’t want to be cast the waythey have in the past. Theywelcome disruption.

A student production of Welcome to Arroyo’s at the University of Kansas, directed by Nicole Hodges Persley PHOTO /o KU Theatre

SHARON | Yes. And we’re finding in the academy and in the profession things of which we were not aware.

NICOLE | Actually, I would say people were aware—some people were aware. We are watching the fallout of the trauma people have been suppressing for years. Women suppressing who they are, putting themselves in particular frames or boxes in order to succeed. Now, it’s all being undone—people are refusing that. This is an industry that is struggling with its sexism, with its racism, with its homophobia. In order for us to actually work to heal our rehearsal halls, our classrooms, and make safe spaces for women, for actors of color, for the LGBTQ+ community to work safely, we need to continue to have this conversation out loud.

I think there’s an awareness, the fact that they—young actors and directors and producers—walk into their work from an inclusive standpoint. When it’s happening in a good way, it’s shaming people into action. It’s shaming people in a way that is positive because this is the generation that’s going to hold the keys to the kingdom.

SHARON | That’s right.

NICOLE | I think that this is a very bold conversation to be having, where folks can say, “Hey, I have a different position, a different standpoint. I’m from a different

generation, but I want to be inclusive. I want everybody to fly. What is my part?”

LIZA | It’s incredibly stimulating and fantastic to have the opportunity to look at, particularly in my area, musical theatre, to really be able to look at these shows in such different ways, with all the enormous amounts of possibilities available to us now to enliven these shows.

NICOLE | It would be really great to have an ongoing forum of people, when they do want to weigh in, to be able to have discussions or meetings about this work, as directors, choreographers, educators. Because having these discussions is how we change infrastructures, by listening to one another, and getting new ideas or new tips, or listening to someone’s challenge and helping to find a strategy.

LIZA | I really believe that this kind of coalition building is what helps us feel less alone and more supported. It’s about amplifying and supporting and helping one another, and not judging.

EVAN | Michael McElroy and Chanel Ward, who are working with us at Juilliard on matters of inclusion, talk about rather than calling people out, calling people in.

LIZA GENNARO

It’s exciting creatively. And learning from the students is an enormous piece of this, making sure they feel safe to express themselves and safe to ask for what they need from us, and then we’re challenged to figure out, “Okay, how do we actually keep this consistent? How do we stay aware?” I think that’s really where the challenge lies; how do we live within the world that is their world—and, as you say, will be their world?

NICOLE | I absolutely agree with the “call in.” That’s how we build coalitions. We need everybody.

Howdowetrain actorsto be transformative andversatile so theycanworkandmakealiving whilehonoringtheirindividual senseofauthenticity?

Liza Gennaro teaching at Manhattan School of Music

Nicole Hodges Persley + student at the annual KU Theatre Award banquet

SHEPARD TRAUBE AND THE FOUNDING OF SDC

LATE-NIGHT MEETINGS IN SMOKE-FILLED ROOMS

BY MARY B. ROBINSON

WINTER 2020 VOL. 8, NO. 1

Originally published during SDC’s 60th-anniversary celebration in 2020, Mary B. Robinson’s article brings to vivid life the hard-fought, sometimes precarious, and often thrilling founding of SDC as an independent labor union, and subsequent recognition by the League of Resident Theatres. Led by the indomitable Shepard Traube, SDC’s founders came together, Mary writes, “to serve a cause greater than their own individual careers.” So it remains today.

Shepard Traube PHOTO c/o Victoria Traube

“I wonder if it has ever occurred to you that the directors are the only group in the Broadway theatre who are unorganized.”

This query, the first sentence of a letter written in 1955 and sent to 40 directors, marks the first step toward the creation of what was to become the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society. But the enterprising writer of the letter, Shepard Traube, had recognized this lack several decades before.

In his 1936 book So You Want to Go Into the Theatre?, he informed the reader that, “If you come into the theatre as a director, you will be on your own, for better or worse.” Speculating that the reason there was no directors’ union might be because there were too few working directors to make that practicable, he concluded that successful directors were able to look out for themselves.

“Quaintly enough, the director’s best protective weapon is his talent,” he wrote. “He performs a highly specialized kind of work in the theatre and can always walk out on a play should the producer fail to pay him. As a result, a director who has both ability and a reputation is not likely to suffer much abuse.”

But in the early 1940s, around the time Traube produced and directed the hugely successful Angel Street on Broadway (later made into the movie Gaslight ), he concluded over a lunch with Elia Kazan that the time had come for directors to have a union.

It was well over a decade before he acted on this conviction. In the meantime, he made films for the Signal Corps during World War II and went out to Hollywood in the wake of his Angel Street success, working with producer Dore Schary and directing several movies. Blacklisted in 1950 because of the publication Red Channels, which listed suspected Communists, he returned to New York to resume working in the more hospitable world of theatre. Among other productions, he directed a Broadway musical called The Girl in the Pink Tights in the spring of 1954, collaborating with renowned choreographer Agnes de Mille.

“It was a great big turkey,” says his daughter Victoria (Vicky) Traube, who was eight years old at the time. “I loved it myself. I could sing you the score.”

Then, in February 1955, Traube contacted every director he knew, concluding his letter

with an invitation to come to a meeting at his apartment to discuss the creation of a Stage Directors’ Guild––or to let him know that he could count on their membership.

What had prompted him to finally take the step he had discussed with Kazan nearly 15 years before? “My father was a very political person,” says Vicky. “The Girl in the Pink Tights was a very bruising experience, and it was wonderful for him to have this kind of really important project to work on. He really felt he was creating something.”

Not every response to Traube’s letter was positive. “I’m afraid you’d better count me out at the moment,” replied Moss Hart, the director of My Fair Lady “I’m at work, and I also hate organizational meetings––I have them aplenty with the Dramatists Guild.”

“No, I no longer have that old zeal for organization,” wrote Hart’s writing partner, George S. Kaufman, who was a director as well as a playwright. “As to membership, I think I had better not commit myself. Let me kibitz for a while.”

Some were supportive, though reluctant. “Although I am never very keen on unions, I suppose in these days they are necessary to overcome abuses,” conceded British actor and director Cyril Ritchard.

But many were excited by the step he was taking. “I will be coming back from the road on that day but you can certainly count on me as a most interested member,” wrote Elia Kazan.

“Yes, it has often occurred to me that directors ought to organize, but I’ve never done much about it,” said Alan Schneider, director of the first American production of Waiting for Godot. “You have a damn good idea, and you can count me in.”

“Hurray!” wrote stage and television director Ezra Stone. “Five years ago I tried to stir some interest in this direction and met with little enthusiasm.” Stone went on to tell Traube that he’d had to threaten producers with litigation repeatedly and was still owed thousands of dollars for fees and per-diem expenses that had never been paid. This future stalwart of SDC ended his letter by thanking Traube for the invitation, “and your unselfish efforts in behalf of our colleagues.”

A memo that Traube wrote shortly before the March 20 meeting debated the central question of whether the organization

should be an actual trade union with the ability to bargain collectively and enforce minimum terms and conditions, or simply a community of directors along the lines of the playwrights’ Dramatists Guild. In the memo, Traube looked at the pros and cons, but argued in favor of the many benefits of forming a trade union––“unless,” he wrote, “the directors have psychological blocks about being identified with a union.” Clearly, some of them did.

“I think there was some trepidation,” says Vicky. “Totally not from him––he was proud to be a union organizer. I guess he thought some of his colleagues were too highfalutin.”

The meeting that was held on Sunday afternoon, March 20, 1955, in the Traubes’ duplex apartment on West 67th Street overlooking Central Park was attended by only four directors––Alan Schneider, John Stix, Ezra Stone, and John C. Wilson––but it was still highly productive. A wideranging discussion began with an attempt to define the word “director” and went on to include billing, royalty payments, subsidiary rights, the dismissal of a director, and the director’s involvement in the casting and replacement of a star.

“This was the beginning of five years of unremitting effort,” said Traube in an interview with SDC Journal in 1982. “I got the tiger by the tail and just couldn’t let go.”

“It was a huge job. Like herding cats,” says Vicky about her father’s years of uncompensated work on behalf of SDC, while supporting his family by directing commercials for television. “Directors are really their own people. They were men––they were all men at the time––and they all had very strong opinions. Wrangling them must have been really something.”

Traube began holding informal meetings in the Belasco Room upstairs at Sardi’s

at the after-theatre hour of 11:00 p.m. Directors would show up, Traube said in the 1982 interview, “and we would discuss our needs and requirements, and our plans for organizing––because we weren’t quite sure how to proceed at that point.”

There may have been uncertainty as to how to move forward, but the directors quickly discovered the solidarity that comes from having a shared purpose, as well as the joy of being part of a larger community. “I think some of the best talks I ever had were at those meetings,” Traube said. “The directors didn’t just discuss the theatre; they discussed economics in theatre, economics of living. It was a very full and complete canvas that we covered. It was also very rewarding, and we were excited.

“One night after a particularly enthusiastic meeting, six of us decided to go downstairs to the dining room and have a bit of supper,” Traube further recalled. “As we came in there was a stir in the restaurant, and we looked around, all puzzled to see what star had come in, and discovered that we had created the commotion. No one had ever seen six directors together before.”

Sometime between 1955 and 1958, Agnes de Mille approached him and suggested including choreographers in the future union. At first he didn’t think it would be a good idea to join forces, “but then,” Traube said in the interview, “I thought, ‘What the hell? But we’ll call it the Society of Stage Directors.’ But she said, ‘Oh no, we’ll

call it the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers.’ It’s a clumsy name! But I didn’t get my way. I could have. But I’m not made that way.”

“That was the thing about my father,” says Vicky, “he could think something over and change his mind. You know, my father was an early feminist––he had two daughters––and I’m sure that view is a large part of including the choreographers and including two powerful women [choreographer Hanya Holm as well as de Mille] among the founders.

“He had the greatest respect for her,” she says about her father’s work with de Mille, which had begun with their collaboration on The Girl in the Pink Tights. “They had been in the crucible together, because there’s nothing worse than a flop out of town.”

Events began to move more rapidly. In December 1958, lawyer Erwin Feldman, a close friend of the Traube family, was brought on board as counsel. In January 1959, the group’s organizing efforts were announced to the world. “Through the Society,” the press release stated, “we intend to establish for all stage directors and choreographers a standard of dignity and security long enjoyed by our colleagues in every other craft of theatre.”

At 11:30 p.m. on February 9, 1959, in the Belasco Room at Sardi’s, the first general Membership meeting of the Society of Stage Directors (still its name) was called to order. Thirty directors and choreographers

were in attendance, and Shepard Traube began the meeting by reading letters and telegrams from 50 more who were unable to attend but expressed their wholehearted support.

After statements from Traube and Feldman, the meeting was open to the floor, and a variety of concerns and issues were raised in the free-flowing discussion that followed. Directors generally felt that their fees were adequate, but they frequently weren’t able to collect all that they were owed from the producers. They wanted a union that could enforce their contracts, as well as standardize issues such as when a director’s work begins and what happens to it after a production opens. But choreographers felt that they were being taken advantage of at every turn. Agnes de Mille, citing her own low fee of $1,500 for choreographing Oklahoma! with no royalties or subsidiary rights, advocated for a union that could fight for higher fees, minimum royalties, subsidiary rights, and ownership of choreography.

In addition to these bread-and-butter issues, the theatre artists attending this historic meeting recognized that organizing as a union gave them an invaluable chance to form a community of people who usually work in isolation from each other, and to serve a cause greater than their own individual careers. There was talk of establishing standards or a code of ethics for directors and choreographers, of organizing seminars for the benefit of younger Members, and of creating an apprentice system.

De Mille thought there was a need to clarify the relationship between directors and choreographers, stating that it was sometimes ambiguous to the point that they were “friendly enemies.” She suggested that the choreographers should meet privately to define their challenges among themselves before presenting them to the Society as a whole.

Director/playwright Marc Connelly made a motion to put into effect what Traube and de Mille had already discussed: that the name of the organization should reflect all of the theatre artists who were a part of it. A vote was taken, and that evening, the new union officially became the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers.

Another motion was unanimously passed, stating that the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers was in existence as of that day, February 9, 1959. Counsel Erwin Feldman was requested to take the

Hanya Holm, Ezra Stone, Shepard Traube, Agnes de Mille + legal counsel Erwin Feldman witness as Judge Saul Streit (seated) signs the SSDC incorporation documents, April 24, 1959.

necessary steps to incorporate the Society under the laws of New York State.

A nominating committee was appointed to form a slate of interim officers and Members of the Board of Trustees, and another committee was tasked with drawing up a constitution and bylaws.

The last order of business voted on was an assessment of $25 for each Member, in order to give the new Union some funds to proceed with its work. (A week later, the dues of only five Members had been deposited in SDC’s Chase Manhattan account. A notice with a deadline was sent out to everyone, along with an envelope.)

This first-ever Membership meeting ended at 1:15 a.m. Without a doubt, it ranks as the most productive hour and 45 minutes in SDC’s existence.

SDC celebrates its anniversary on April 24 (instead of February 9) because on that day in 1959, Judge Saul Streit, Presiding Justice of the New York State Supreme Court, signed the incorporation documents establishing SDC as an independent labor union. The iconic photograph of this event, familiar to many thousands of Members over the years, shows him surrounded by Hanya Holm, Ezra Stone, Shepard Traube, and Agnes de Mille, as well as counsel Erwin Feldman.

“I always say, when I talk about my father, that he co-founded the Union with Ezra and Agnes and Hanya,” says Vicky. “Definitely, it was a team effort.”

By that time, Traube had been named SDC’s first President, with de Mille and Holm as First and Second Vice President, respectively, and Stone as Secretary. Letters had also gone out from the nominating committee to a number of other directors and choreographers, asking them to convey their willingness to serve on the Board by circling or checking the appropriate words in a sentence at the bottom of the letter, which read: “I (will) (will not) be able to serve on the Board of Governors of the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers.”

“Will nots” came back from Alan Schneider, and theatre and film director Sidney Lumet, among others, with handwritten notes expressing strong support but saying they were too busy; “wills” included choreographer Jerome Robbins, actor/director Hume Cronyn, and playwright/director Elmer Rice (author of The Adding Machine )—“if it doesn’t take too much time.”

One of the most thoughtful “will nots” came from one of the very few women directors in the new Union—Margaret Webster, who had staged a number of Shakespeare productions on Broadway, including the groundbreaking Othello with Paul Robeson in 1942. She had firsthand experience in getting a union off the ground: as a young actor in England, she had been a driving force behind the organization of British Actors Equity in the 1930s. Describing herself as “most honoured and flattered” to be asked to serve on the Board, she went on to decline, citing the fact that she was in London for the foreseeable future. “During this first formative period your meetings are likely to be intensive and all sorts of odd things will come up at odd times and there will be many smoke-filled rooms and you really MUST have people who are pretty constantly available,” she predicted. “Please could I just act as an unofficial consultant if and when anything arises on which you think my views would be of any use?”

But unless SDC could gain recognition from the League of New York Theatres— the organization of Broadway producers— and get them to the table to negotiate a contract, the Society would be a union in name only. (There was also a plan to organize Off-Broadway, but only after there was a contract with directors’ and choreographers’ biggest employer.)

In the fall of 1959, Traube wrote a letter to the League, pointing out that SDC represented 90 percent of the directors and choreographers working on Broadway, and

asking to fix a date to begin negotiating a contract. The League’s initial brief response said that due consideration would be given to his letter, “and we will advise you concerning the meeting you request.”

But two weeks later, the League’s lawyer slammed the door shut. Stating that “our investigation” had concluded that directors and choreographers were not employees, but instead were independent contractors, the law firm’s letter went on to say: “For this reason, we have advised our client that it is under no obligation to meet with, recognize or deal with your organization. Accordingly, the League has requested us to advise you that it has no intention of meeting with you for purposes of negotiation.”

For the next two years, Traube and his colleagues focused relentlessly on reversing this decision.

SDC petitioned the New York State Labor Relations Board for certification as a union. The League countered by claiming that the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), not the state, had jurisdiction. Because the NLRB prohibited supervisors and managers from organizing (which the state did not), and since its ruling would preempt that of the state, the question of which Labor Relations Board had jurisdiction was consequential. It took an entire year for the NLRB to weigh in, while Traube and his colleagues sent telegrams and made phone calls, trying to light a fire under a slowmoving process. When the decision finally came in early 1961, the NLRB’s claim of jurisdiction was a victory for the League.

Agnes de Mille wrote to Attorney General Robert Kennedy and the Secretary of Labor, protesting this decision. Making the point that directors in film, radio, and television had been permitted to unionize, she argued that “the failure to recognize our group

appears a gross miscarriage of justice” and asked for a meeting with members of this new administration, which had shown a genuine interest in the arts. She also stated that the NLRB’s claim of jurisdiction “will materially affect the right of our organization to be recognized without entering into a work stoppage against the producers of the New York Theatre.”

De Mille’s prediction that a strike might become the Union’s only recourse came to fruition later that year. After several more attempts to gain recognition from the League and bring the producers to the bargaining table, the SDC Board concluded in their October meeting that it was time to use tactics of compulsion. For the first time, there was serious talk about authorizing a strike. A vote on this was deferred because there wasn’t a quorum present, and the momentous question became the focus of the November 30 Membership meeting. There was concern among the Board Members that a strike would not be honored by the choreographers or the lessestablished directors.

But the Members of SDC rose to the challenge and declared themselves ready, even eager, to withhold their services until their Union was recognized. The decision was made at the Membership meeting to prepare strike pledge cards and circulate them to the Membership.

The following week, Members received in the mail a sheet of paper with the words “Strike! Strike! Strike!” across the top, followed by this announcement:

TO ALL MEMBERS!

In compliance with a vote at the General Membership Meeting held Thursday November 30th, your Executive Board met on December 6th and voted unanimously to take the following action:

Effective May 30th, 1962, no director or choreographer will make his or her services available to any theatrical producer of a first-class production until the League of N.Y. Theatres has recognized the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers.

Each of the undersigned members of the Executive Board was present and now calls on you to close ranks!

The 12 names that followed included Elia Kazan, Agnes de Mille, Harold Clurman, Robert (Bob) Fosse, and “Shepard Traube, President.” Below a dotted line was the request to “Sign and Return This Pledge Immediately!”

Ninety-five percent of SDC’s Membership signed the pledge, among them many highly sought-after directors and choreographers.

United Scenic Artists sent SDC a telegram expressing its hope that the Union could resolve its problem with the League by May 30, but “if not, you can count on the full support of our union.” ATPAM, the Association of Theatrical Press Agents and Managers, sent a statement recalling their own struggles to be recognized by the League as a union two decades earlier. “We understand and sympathize with the situation of the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers,” the statement concluded.

It took three struggling years to put us in business…I sometimes had the feeling during that period that Shep pretty much had to run things out of his hip pocket. But I remember informal meetings in the office of our pro bono attorney, Erwin Feldman, a hearty, opinionated, kind man, who kept us in smooth waters.

In attendance at those meetings, one time or another, I remember Shep, bossy and worrisome, Agnes, quick and commanding, Joe Anthony, gentle and smart, Hume Cronyn, reasonable and witty, Elia Kazan, low-key but incisive and sometimes rough-talking, Howard da Silva, positive and generous, John O’Shaughnessy, quietly direct, Philip Burton, rational and civil, Bill Ross, serious and humorous, Hanya Holm, high-minded and warm-hearted, Danny Daniels, upbeat and scrappy…alas, I must be leaving out other good men and women true.

– AARON FRANKEL, Founder

And the Council of Actors Equity went a step further, adopting a statement that not only recognized SDC but also advised its own members to only engage in productions directed and choreographed by SDC Members. And it said that they “should not accept any assignment as a Director or Choreographer which has been denied to a member of the SSDC [the Union’s acronym at that time] for the reason of his or her affiliation with that body.”

In early 1962, director and choreographer Bob Fosse was approached by the producing team of Cy Feuer and Ernest H. Martin about mounting a new musical entitled Little Me for Broadway. He declined to sign a contract unless the producing team recognized SDC and signed their agreement.

Though prepared to stand firm, Fosse privately called Traube with his worry that he was going to lose the show. Traube reminded him, as he later put it, that “you’ve signed an oath in sacred blood to stick by the rest of the Society, and this is our first big test.” Traube then called Feuer to try to persuade him to sign the agreement with SDC––not as part of the League, but as an individual producer.

Besides recognizing the Union, the agreement stipulated that Feuer and Martin engage only SDC Members for a period of one year, and that they observe the minimum fees and royalties prescribed by the Society in its proposed minimum basic agreement. Feuer had no problem with that, and “we won the battle right then and there,” according to Traube.

“I remember hearing about that at dinner,” says Vicky. “That was a very big deal, and Fosse was very courageous. Somebody important had to step up. And people are always so afraid of losing a job.”

SDC had won an important battle, but the larger war wasn’t over: there was still no recognition of SDC by the League. But having one producer on board gave SDC the ability to claim, in a memo about the strike to all established producers, that “several outstanding producers have already recognized the Society, including the distinguished producing firm of Feuer and Martin.” Other individual producers began to follow suit.

A terse note at this time from the League’s president Robert Whitehead to Traube gives a snapshot of the SDC-League standoff:

Dear Shep,

It’s interesting to see you are moving so effectively with the new union.

Don’t press me. I have a number of problems.

Good luck, Bob

A “Notice of Vital Strike Strategy Meeting” went out to all SDC Members, calling on them to come to the Belasco Room on March 14, 1962, at 11:15 p.m. The notice announced the “electrifying results” of the strike action and the recognition by other theatrical unions, and went on to say, “The meeting on the night of March 14th is a rally.”

On a typewritten memo headed “Strike Rally Agenda,” Traube made handwritten talking points: “On Eve of Victory,”“Important Actions Tonight,” and “Identify Yourself.” The agenda spelled out the successes of the strike so far and identified the few remaining director and choreographer holdouts.

At the rally, Traube read a telegram from Ezra Stone (who was in Los Angeles at the time) which began “VICTORY IS NEAR” and went on to suggest that “to make it lasting and meaningful, let us hope all members will help govern rather than simply being governed.” The telegram concluded by referencing the then-early space program in thanking “Bob Fosse, our first man shot into the Great White Way.”

Counsel Erwin Feldman told the Members that he had learned that the main obstacle to getting the League to the negotiating table was the Union’s demand for subsidiary rights, which the producers absolutely refused to consider. The choreographers in particular had been pressing for these rights as a way to boost their very low fees and royalties.

Agnes de Mille, the de facto leader of the Union’s choreographers, announced that they had caucused before the meeting and voted to withdraw the demand, as a way to get the process moving forward.

Hoping that meant that negotiations could now begin, the Board met at 1:00 a.m., after the Membership meeting ended, to nominate Members to serve on the negotiating committee. Among them were Lloyd Richards, Elia Kazan, Harold Clurman, Philip Burton (adoptive father of Richard Burton), and Agnes de Mille.

A report to the Members in early May stated that “exploratory” meetings between SDC and the League had finally begun. “The talks have been amiable with a clear indication by both sides that there is a real desire to come to an eventual agreement on a minimum, basic contract.”

But in a preface to her fellow negotiator Philip Burton’s memoir, written a decade later, de Mille describes a scene in the “acrimonious and quarrelsome” negotiations: “I have always flattered myself that I could handle men in a sort of workmanlike, easily forgettable manner, but here they were giving away or keeping chunks of property, residuals, rights, credits, royalties, working prerogatives, power. My charm thinned…They hollered and yelled until I, the only woman present, begged, ‘Please don’t scream. It unnerves me.’

Shepard Traube, Victoria, Betsy + Mildred Traube, 1958

PHOTO Dana Wallace c/o Victoria Traube

‘What?’ said a famous producer. ‘You, a theatre woman? Unnerved by shouting?’”

She then describes how Burton decisively changed the tone of the negotiations with his “quiet voice, his unequivocal diction,” as he articulated the case of each side clearly and fostered a much calmer and more civil debate.

But the League producers remained afraid that the question of subsidiary rights would rear its head at subsequent negotiations, and requested a clause in the contract that would prohibit any discussion of these rights for a period of 20 years. At a Membership meeting held on June 12, there was great concern expressed about this clause––but also about the possibility that the producers might walk away from the table if SDC kept refusing to include it. Counsel Erwin Feldman pointed out that if the League signed any contract at all it would be a huge victory for the Union. With reluctance, the clause was put into the agreement, and negotiations continued.

Two months later, SDC Members received a notice that was headed: “VICTORY! AND VITAL MEMBERSHIP MEETING!”

It invited the entire Membership to a meeting at the Belasco Room at 5:00 p.m. on Monday, August 6, to ratify the agreement that had already been approved by SDC’s Board.

A director’s Broadway fee was set at a minimum of $2,000, and a choreographer’s at $1,500. Twenty-five percent of the fee was to be paid when the contract was signed and the balance in three weekly installments

once the show had opened. Royalties for both directors and choreographers were included in the contract, and if a producer fired a Member, he was still required to pay the full fee plus royalties to that Member as well as to his or her replacement. Directors and choreographers were required to return occasionally to see their show during its run and to rehearse replacement casts.

The most discussed provision was the prohibition on bringing up the subject of subsidiary rights for 20 years, which still struck many Members as ceding too much power to the League. But Agnes de Mille, one of the choreographers who had most wanted them, reminded the gathering that it was SDC’s insistence on subsidiary rights that had kept the League from coming to the negotiating table in the first place.

The vote to ratify the agreement was 33 for and six against.

“Once we had our initial contract,” said Traube in 1982, “we knew and the League knew (it was one of the reasons they resisted us) that it was only going to be the beginning. Because with each annual negotiation we kept improving the terms and conditions for our Members.” * * *

The 60-year-old story of the founding of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society seems at times to look ahead to the concerns and dynamics of SDC today. Some of the issues fought over back then, such as ownership of work and subsidiary rights, are still very much in the mix all these years later. The stress of negotiations is familiar to anyone who has ever sat across the table from a group of producers or managing directors, as are the painful compromises that must sometimes be made. And the kind of admiration that Agnes de Mille had for her colleague Philip Burton’s skills as a negotiator has been felt many times in the ensuing years, by directors and choreographers who see their dedicated peers in a new light as they work tirelessly on behalf of SDC. The early discussions of having an apprentice system as well as seminars for younger Members have found their way into the formation and work of the SDC Foundation, whose programs today

enrich the lives of theatre artists of every generation.

Even the notes from directors and choreographers who were too busy to serve on the board 60 years ago—but wanted to help however they could—haven’t changed appreciably; the occasional challenge of getting some Members to send in their dues and assessments hasn’t either.

Theatre artists no longer have “psychological blocks about being identified with a union”––that has clearly evolved since the late 1950s, as has the propensity for holding late-night meetings in smokefilled rooms.

But the strength that the Members of the young Union drew from each other, and the solidarity they discovered, is something their successors have felt for the last 60 years. An essential and deeply fulfilling aspect of SDC Membership is the chance to be a part of something larger than our own individual spheres of work.

As Shepard Traube said, it was “very rewarding, and we were excited.” It still is, and we still are.

And although SDC has had many heroes in its time, none quite rises to the level of its indefatigable founder, Shepard Traube, whose vision, generosity, and determination literally willed SDC into existence.

“Those of us who knew him were lucky,” wrote director Ed Sherin in an introduction to a 2009 reprinting of Traube’s book So You Want to Go Into the Theatre? “Those thousands of others who came after and are following in his footsteps have simply had a better life in the American Theatre because of Shepard Traube.”

This article was written with background information from a 1974 PhD dissertation entitled An Historical Study of the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers through 1973, by Thomas Colley, Wayne State University, as well as correspondence from the SDC Archives from 1955 to 1962.

Agnes de Mille + Shepard Traube PHOTO c/o Victoria Traube

CULTURE WARS AND THE TRANSFER OF INFLUENCE

SPRING 2020 VOL. 8, NO. 2

The Spring 2020 issue of SDC Journal centered around the theme of “dangerous art” and included a range of articles about bold and uncompromising artists and freedom of expression in the theatre. In an expanded version of her Letter from the Executive Director, Laura Penn wrote about the NEA Four and America’s culture wars. The piece exemplifies the Journal’s commitment to looking at the lives of directors and choreographers within the larger ecosystem of the field.

Fall 1997, well past midnight: I was sitting with my fellow members of the Theater panel in the National Endowment for the Arts offices at the Old Post Office on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC. We were reviewing applications submitted to the federal government’s agency that funds the arts nationwide. The heat wasn’t working—or maybe a government shutdown was responsible for the chill that hovered over us. We had been there all week. It seemed we might never leave.

Those of us who had been friends and colleagues developed deeper bonds as we forged meaningful relationships with those we had only met a few days earlier. Frustration and confusion were mixed with dismay at the brilliance of the applicant pool in comparison to the meager dollars available to distribute. Theater Program Director Gigi Bolt and her staff deftly guided us as we attempted to understand the new “Creation and Presentation” category; the structure seemed cumbersome.

Rumor of our struggles had made their way to the chair’s office: Jane Alexander— who had been appointed by President Bill Clinton—appeared after hours for a visit. She offered gratitude for our service

and words of encouragement to help us carry on, not only during that panel but to continue the good fight in the theatre communities where we did our daily work. We were all a little starry-eyed and insisted on a photo.

Once upon a time, we supported artists for their potential or where their body of work might next take us. But no longer. Organizations were no longer able to apply for general operating support: they were required to present a project. Artists were now only a component of grants subdivided into category titles such as “Heritage and Preservation” and “Creation and Presentation.” Applications were now submitted by organizations. As panelists, we were instructed to focus on the value of the project before us and the applicant organization’s capacity to fulfill that project. A company unable to articulate fully a specific level of detail on that project might be set aside.

Earlier in the decade, the political far right, the Christian Coalition, the fallout from the NEA Four, Andres Serrano’s Piss Christ photograph, and the Mapplethorpe exhibit had taught us about censorship. So, on that fall night in 1997, my fellow panelists and I wondered how many of the grants before us were the result of a different kind of censorship: self-censorship.

Were theatres applying for projects that they felt would not offend? How many of us were unconsciously gravitating toward a safe path to funding? Now we could do it to ourselves, to save ourselves.

To paraphrase David Byrne: Well, how did we get here?

In 1987, a $75,000 NEA grant supported the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Arts (SECCA) in Winston-Salem, NC, for the seventh year of AVA (Awards in the Visual Arts). This was a traveling exhibition featuring the work of 10 artists, including Andres Serrano. AVA-7 opened in Los Angeles in the spring of 1988 and included

BY LAURA PENN

Serrano’s Piss Christ, depicting a urinesubmerged crucifix.

Also in 1988, the Institute of Contemporary Arts in Pennsylvania received $30,000 from the NEA for The Perfect Moment, a retrospective of photographs by Robert Mapplethorpe, whose work in black and white captured intimacy, strength, and vulnerability in male and female nudes and invoked classical Greek lines of beauty in still lifes. But his work provoked controversy as well. A group of works that would come to be known as the “X Portfolio” depicted “deviant” behavior, such as gay BDSM and urophagia. Mapplethorpe died of AIDS in March 1989, just four months after The Perfect Moment opened in Philadelphia.

By the spring of 1989, a virulent new form of family values was taking hold. The American Family Association, the Christian right, Jesse Helms, Alfonse D’Amato, and 22 senators demanded a review of the NEA’s grants. In July, Senator Helms had inserted language now known as the “decency clause” into the bill reauthorizing the agency. It stated that the NEA could not use funds to support any work that was deemed obscene or indecent. Even so, Piss Christ and Mapplethorpe didn’t appear to be enough to bring down the agency; the Senate reauthorized the NEA with no reduction in funding, although it did allocate $250,000 for an independent commission to study the agency’s grantmaking.

On June 29, 1990, John Frohnmayer— appointed NEA Chair by President George H.W. Bush—announced that he had confirmed consent from the National Council on the Arts to withdraw grants to individual artists Karen Finley, John Fleck, Holly Hughes, and Tim Miller. These were performance artists whose work explored sexuality and identity; they were brazen, visceral, naked, and angry, without compromise. They provoked.

These fearless artists would appeal Frohnmayer’s decision, challenging the grant rejections as illegal and claiming the

decision was based on political standards rather than artistic excellence. From that moment forward, Finley, Fleck, Hughes, and Miller would become known as the NEA Four. Performance artists were easy prey for the conservative right, the Christian Coalition, and the censors. Working in the underground scene or performance art world, many solo artists had latitude and could often be found exploring themes of LGBTQ identity and communities, sexuality and the human body, and the objectification of women. These four artists became the lightning rods for what had begun with the NEA’s grant for AVA-7.

The decency clause was taking hold. Going forward, the clause insisted that the NEA must consider not just artistic merit but “general standards of decency and respect for the diverse beliefs of the American public.” In other words, the NEA could deny funding based on the subject matter alone.

As theatre artists and administrators, we were outraged, confused, righteous—and in need of the precious funding provided by the NEA. As grant recipients, if we accepted funding, we were accepting the conditions of the decency clause. Joseph Papp

famously rejected funding for The Public Theater, while managers, artistic directors, and boards across the country wrestled with what to do. Many (maybe most) accepted the new mandate. Some sorted through the options and felt they had to comply despite their objections. Others felt they could do more good with the grant than without it. And some felt the work of their theatres actually aligned with general standards of decency within their communities.

The NEA Four won an out-of-court settlement in 1993 that awarded them amounts equal to the grants they were to receive. In late 1997, they filed suit in federal court to litigate the decency clause. Ruling in the 1998 case NEA vs. Finley, the Supreme Court upheld the decency clause even while declaring that the language was “advisory,” meaningless, and did not interfere with First Amendment rights. Although the courts ruled the clause had no real teeth, it was here to stay.

The culture wars for my generation had begun.

If you research “culture wars,” you may find yourself, as I did, on a fascinating

trip back to Germany in the late 1880s. The term first appears to describe the ideological struggles between religious and cultural forces of that time. The first U.S. reference to culture wars was in the 1920s, when social and political conflicts divided communities as values shifted in response to the ways in which modernization was changing our social and moral codes. It seems that from decade to decade over the course of the past 150 years, you can find scholars and historians staking claims to a new culture war. A common thread: every battle in every culture war is influenced by artists—because it dramatically impacts their lives.

Public funding for the arts has always been fraught. It’s easy to get distracted by the hyperbole of any point in time. At times, political leaders have even taken advantage of the power of the arts. With the WPA work programs, the arts were a central cog in an economic engine. During Nixon’s presidency, the NEA budget grew from $8 million to $161 million. Nixon felt that the arts served a purpose—propaganda, if you will—in the Cold War as the U.S. positioned itself as the “land of the free.”

KAREN FINLEY

The government wants art to be propaganda for the state, and we’re not willing to do that.

Karen Finley performing We Keep Our Victims Ready at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, 1990 PHOTO c/o Walker Art Center

Some attribute the culture wars of the ’90s to the success of the gay rights movement, the increased presence of women in leadership and politics, and the glimmers of what an increasingly racially diverse society might mean in the 21st century. It’s also likely that Senator Helms was simply lying in wait for artists like Serrano, Mapplethorpe, and the NEA Four. In 1974, he had lashed out at the NEA and its chair, Nancy Hanks, after learning that Erica Jong—who had just published Fear of Flying, with its uninhibited portrayal of female sexuality—had been an NEA grantee. Helms was not successful in rallying support at that time. But 15 years later, he did.

By 1993, Frohnmayer was forced to resign because of the continuing onslaught of controversies. The NEA budget was gutted, reaching a low of $99.5 million from its peak of $169 million in 1989.

The culture wars hit hard at the regional level, playing out in communities across the country through intense struggles over content and funding. Angels in America stunned American theatre audiences in all the right ways, even as productions pushed through the pressure of community censors. Just hours before the opening night of the 1996 Charlotte Repertory Theatre’s production, Superior Court Judge Marvin Gray instructed that no members of the cast should be arrested, as nudity in the play “appears to constitute artistic expression” and was “not properly the subject of criminal prosecution.” Soon after, $2,000,000

was cut from the local arts and science council. Community members were going to be sure that no public money would go to groups that offer “exposure to perverted forms of sexuality.”

American theatres rose to the occasion to defend themselves against these threats to their core funding and artistic decision making. I experienced these events from the frontlines at Seattle Rep and later as Managing Director at Intiman Theatre. My fellow managers and I produced fact sheets for subscribers, urging them to make calls to representatives; we made visits to “the Hill,” with service organizations TCG and American Arts Alliance, dragging board members from office to office with those same fact sheets that, by that time, they had memorized.

We did delicate dances with individual donors whose political leanings were not always easy to decode. We had conversations with corporate sponsors as they became more strategic in their giving, less philanthropic, and more interested (or concerned) with how a particular project might impact their brand.

Partnerships were forged with our colleagues in dance, symphony, and opera companies as we embraced our commitment to young people and education programs. (Simultaneously, arts programming in public education was being gutted.) We began to focus on rural arts and the underserved.

We touted the economic impact of the arts and insisted the NEA was necessary. And we courted our neighborhood Republican leaders to keep the NEA alive. In 1997, after considerable lobbying on behalf of the arts, Slade Gorton—a Republican senator from Washington state—proposed a symbolic increase to the agency, stating, “I have polled the members of the subcommittee and I don’t find any sentiment on the committee to end the endowment. I think it’s much more likely than not that the agency will survive.” (Tangled up in the same appropriation bill, though, was Gorton’s ultimately unsuccessful challenge to Native American tribes’ sovereign immunity and rights to basic federal operating funds for reservations.)

Many believe that NEA Chair Jane Alexander saved the NEA. She reframed the narrative and, out of necessity, the programs, by embracing the agency’s service to the public and communities. (Some claimed this would be done by shifting the agency’s focus away from artistic excellence and toward arts education.) By the turn of the millennium, peer panels would still exist but were organized around new categories of Creation and Presentation, Heritage and Preservation, Education and Access, and Planning and Stabilization. Site visits: gone. Grants to individual artists: gone. General operating support to theatre companies: gone. Today, the agency soldiers on from appropriation cycle to appropriation cycle, providing critical support where it is able

THE CULTURE WARS: A CHRONOLOGY

1965 Sept. 29: Congress creates the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) as an independent federal agency that “funds, promotes, and strengthens the creative capacity of our communities by providing all Americans with diverse opportunities for arts participation.” American Ballet Theatre receives the first NEA grant.

1966

The NEA awards the first two Laboratory Theatre Project grants to Trinity Square Repertory Company in Rhode Island, under the direction of Adrian Hall and John McQuiggan, and Repertory Theatre of New Orleans, under the direction of Stuart Vaughan.

1971

In the fifth year since the NEA’s founding, 26 grants made through the Theater program total $559,000.

1985

Tipper Gore (wife of Senator Al Gore) co-founds the Parents Music Resource Center with the goal of increasing parental control over lyrics in popular music. The committee seeks to limit access that children have to violent, drugrelated, or sexual content.

1989

Two NEA grants come under political scrutiny and attack. The Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania’s Robert Mapplethorpe retrospective The Perfect Moment ,

President Lyndon B. Johnson with Agnes de Mille after signing the Arts and Humanities Bill calling for the creation of the NEA

PHOTO c/o LBJ Library

as its tenacious program staff advocates for our artists and our theatres.

While the drama of the ’90s culture wars has faded and the economic recession of that decade recedes into distant memory, we have not seen any restoration of support across contributed income sources. In fact, we have seen a steady decline.

Whether consciously or not, funders appear to have followed the NEA’s lead. Corporate support was the first to become projectbased, and foundations incrementally migrated away from general operating support to funding projects and special initiatives that all too often required new programs and additional operating expense to produce. Last to conform to new contributed income norms were individuals who, at one time, loved theatres and believed in their inherent value to communities. Individual philanthropists were beginning to sponsor a production or an education program that spoke directly to their interests. Many funders continued to support theatre from one year to the next, and yet one could start to wonder what might happen if your next season didn’t include a play that had a special kind of resonance. The lack of general operating support has contributed to the structural deficit facing many of our theatre companies. The burden remains very real and has contributed unrelenting stress to our theatres.

TIM

which included homoerotic photographs; and the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Arts (Winston-Salem, NC) for its funding of Andres Serrano’s Piss Christ photograph of a crucifix submerged in urine. Piss Christ draws the wrath of Republican Senators Jesse Helms and Alfonse D’Amato and prominent conservative figures Pat Robertson and Pat Buchanan. On the Senate floor, D’Amato rips up the catalogue featuring the Serrano photograph.

June 13: In Washington, DC, the Corcoran Gallery cancels the Mapplethorpe exhibit The Perfect Moment, afraid that it would anger conservative politicians.

July: John Frohnmayer becomes Chair of the NEA. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) initiates the first of many proposals to defund the agency.

Nov. 8: Frohnmayer revokes a $10,000 grant to Artists Space for Witnesses:

Against Our Vanishing (a visual art exhibit about AIDS) because of a catalog essay by David Wojnarowicz that angrily denounces Cardinal O’Connor, Jesse Helms, and other right-wing politicians.

1990 February: Rohrabacher sends letters to all House members condemning NEA support for Wojnarowicz’s retrospective. Simultaneously, the NEA Solo Performance peer panel unanimously recommends funding 18 artists, including Karen Finley, Tim Miller, John Fleck, and Holly Hughes.

April: The Perfect Moment opens in Cincinnati. Museum director Dennis Barrie is indicted for pandering obscenity and “illegal use of a minor in nudity-oriented material.”

May: The National Council on the Arts (an advisory group) convenes to discuss the grants.

June 29: NEA Chairman John Frohnmayer,

acting on the NCA’s recommendation, rescinds the grants made to performance artists Karen Finley, Tim Miller, John Fleck, and Holly Hughes.

September 27: Finley, Miller, Fleck, and Hughes—who become known as the NEA Four—sue the agency for the amounts of the grant award recommendations. They cite political reasons as the cause of being denied grant funding.

October: Congress passes legislation introduced by Senator Pat Williams (DMT) that includes the “decency clause”— requiring that the agency only fund works that meet “general standards of decency and respect for the diverse beliefs and values of the American public.” This law was the first content restriction that Congress had ever placed on the NEA.

PHOTO Dona McAdams

We got our butts whipped in the culture wars. Not necessarily the [NEA Four] in particular, but this incredibly rich landscape of alternative art spaces that existed all over the country. They are almost all gone now. They have almost all been starved by…years of antiart hysteria in this country.

MILLER

And now, some 30 years out from the NEA Four battle, we are in another culture war. Perhaps one that has broken out on two fronts.

Externally, we are threatened by political and societal forces that are challenging the very nature of our civil society, wreaking havoc on our lives while placing unprecedented pressure on a deeply undercapitalized nonprofit arts sector and the volatile, high-risk, rarefied proposition that is the commercial arena. While daunting and discouraging, this battlefield is not unfamiliar.

Less familiar is the other front, where we are struggling in our relationships with one another as we respond in real-time to the long overdue recalibration of our culture. Like 100 years ago, our values and habits are shifting. Cultural and political conflicts divide our communities while many theatre practitioners are responding as best they can—under the watchful eye of ever-expanding and volatile social media realities.

We are in the midst of a transfer of influence. We are reckoning with the fact that a life in the theatre has too long been the exclusive purview of a select few. Not just a field where jobs have been dominated by a single demographic but a craft whose very expression has been too often limited to a single cultural perspective. Artists of color are no longer willing to accept a career that would mean primarily working on smaller stages, on projects limited to their own race or ethnicity, and little, if any, access to the commercial sector.

In the late 1980s, I was introduced to the Hudson Institute study “Workforce 2000: Work and Workers for the 21st Century,” a report that gave insights into the major demographic shift in the workforce at the turn of the century and called for careful policy development to prepare for the change. Without preparation and changes in policy, the U.S. position as a global economic force would be at risk. The study’s predictions were manifest: more women would be entering the workforce, with minorities representing an even larger share, and immigrants would represent the largest share of the increase in the population and the workforce since World War I. The theatre would be no different. Change would infuse our companies with new possibilities; it was inevitable. Prior knowledge for those of us who were familiar with its predictions has not necessarily given us the tools we need.

Simultaneously, our culture is demanding we all be held accountable for our actions and behavior. We are being asked to evaluate and adjust our practices and relationships, to reconsider the work we make and the way in which we make it.

Impatience can be a good thing. It can drive overdue change. Some 80 years into the nonprofit theatre movement, impatience is pressing many of our well-established companies to embrace new values for a new century, and while some can pivot, others lack the agility to evolve fast enough. Can we find that place between pressure and support, so they can become new versions of themselves, born of systemic transformation, becoming vibrant homes

for a new generation of theatremakers? Can we find the place between pressure and support for one another?

This current cultural moment is as thrilling as it is terrifying. Many of our artists are drawn to the theatre to contribute to building an informed citizenry, to lighting the imaginations of our friends and foes as the lights go down in theatres across the country night after night. How do we balance our internal commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusion so that all voices are heard—while also remaining united to hold our ground as external forces threaten our vital role in our communities?

All the while, the decency clause remains in place: “general standards of decency and respect for the diverse beliefs of the American public.” What does it mean today? If we didn’t know the story of the NEA Four, how might it read? At first glance it might seem innocuous, or perhaps a reasonable standard to strive for. Decency and respect are values many hold dear, but we must remember the insidiousness of this phrase as it set out to silence our most daring artists. To protect our future, we must braid learning from the past into the present. Remembering how we got here may better equip us to chart a course through the battles we find in our communities today—and those that we will meet in the future.

1992

John Frohnmayer resigns from the NEA.

1993

June: The NEA settles out of court with Fleck, Hughes, Miller, and Finley. The artists receive the grants that were denied to them previously. They decide to continue fighting against the decency clause, which will result in the 1998 Supreme Court case Finley vs. NEA.

1994

NEA Chair Jane Alexander stops all grants to individual artists.

1995

House Speaker Newt Gingrich resurrects the idea of dismantling the NEA, the National Endowment of the Humanities, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. While

this motion isn’t enacted, budgets for the agencies are cut and particular grants are denied funding.

1998

April: The Supreme Court hears arguments about the decency clause.

June 25: In Finley vs. NEA, the Supreme Court upholds the decency clause—while declaring the language “advisory” and meaningless. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor expresses the opinion of the court when she states that “the First Amendment protects artists’ rights to express themselves as indecently and disrespectfully as they like, but does not compel the government to fund that speech.”

2017

When President Trump unveils his first federal budget proposal, it includes elimination of the National Endowment for the Arts.

2019

For the third year in a row, President Trump proposes a federal budget that would eliminate funding for the NEA.

2020

The NEA budget is announced as $162 million, a $7.25 million increase over 2019. This marks the largest increase for the NEA since 2013.

RAISING A joyful hell

SPRING 2020 VOL. 8, NO. 2

This article is from SDC Journal’s last issue published before the pandemic and the industry shutdown in March 2020. The Fre—a play written by Taylor Mac and staged by Niegel Smith inside a ball pit—ran through previews at The Flea before becoming a casualty of COVID-19.

When Niegel Smith was named Artistic Director of New York City’s The Flea Theater, the New York Times quoted him as saying, “I’m hungry and I have something urgent I need to say right now.” The North Carolina-born, Detroit-raised, Dartmoutheducated, Bessie Award-winning director and performance artist had a lot to say long before his tenure at the Flea began in 2015. Smith’s creative mission to create provocative, rigorous works that incite dialogue is one he has been true to all along, whether assisting directors such as Jo Bonney, George C. Wolfe, or Bill T. Jones, or through works created at HERE Arts Center or the New York International Fringe Festival, the Goodman Theatre, Magic Theatre, or The Public Theater.

Over the last few years, Smith has collaborated with director/actor/singer/ performance artist Taylor Mac on trailblazing projects, including Mac’s play Hir, a surreal comedy that broke new ground for transgender characters and actors; co-direction of the sprawling and stupendous A 24-Decade History of Popular Music, which defies theatrical conventions, audience expectations, and physical stamina, and challenges its audiences to think deeply and enjoy; and a new Macpenned play called The Fre that premieres at The Flea in March 2020.

Amid Fre auditions and just before embarking on a Berlin run of 24-Decade History, the friends and artistic partners made time to talk about Smith’s career, their work together, and the shared sensibility of being queer, activist artists.

TAYLOR MAC | What does it mean to be an activist artist in the 21st century?

NIEGEL SMITH | To never sleep.

TAYLOR | To never sleep…

NIEGEL | To never sleep. This question is funny. The first thing that comes to mind is, “How do I care for myself?” Maybe it’s my age. In my twenties, to be an activist artist meant every time a thing happened, I asked, “What is our artistic response?” For a while,

response to the crazy shit that happens.

TAYLOR | How can we respond tomorrow— and not have to go through a year of submitting plays through literary offices, artistic directors, and the new play development process, and by then, the issue is over?

NIEGEL | Absolutely. A shooting or an incident would happen; we would email this list and get together in two days. We asked, “How do we create a batline, or more quick way to respond, and get folks together who wanted to do that kind of work?” Part of our practice was that we would design and execute a response within a week of that meeting. Get in, do it.

How can we actually embody—as a theatre and performance—embody, empathize, and be there in the space of all the folks who are really touched by that tragedy? It took an incredible amount of work to find other folks who wanted to engage and practice. Willing Participant came out of that need. We had the energy of youth at that time and it took us a long way. Now I need to sleep, too.

The other thing I think about is that I don’t see a lot of nuance in the public discourse around culture and political identity. One of

Taylor Mac + ensemble in A 24-Decade History of Popular Music at St. Ann’s Warehouse, co-directed by Taylor Mac + Niegel Smith PHOTO Teddy Wolff

NIEGEL SMITH IN CONVERSATION WITH TAYLOR MAC

I had a company called Willing Participant with a dear collaborator, Todd Shalom. Our mission was to react with a poetic

the things I love about this play you and I are making, The Fre, is that both audience members and the characters in the play have to make space for different worldviews. I get a lot of potential projects—scripts— that are polemics. There’s only one right way, there’s only one vision. Taylor, how do you allow space for multiple visions, but not elevate visions that denigrate humanity or humanism?

TAYLOR | How do you invite everybody to the party but not let them be in charge of the party that you’re creating?

NIEGEL | Yes, yes, yes! That’s a brilliant way of putting it. I think a lot about that in my work. We have a responsibility to be careful and respectful and inclusive, but to not water down the critique.

TAYLOR | And not to equate. Oftentimes, because it’s polarized, there’s an assumption that there are two equal sides fighting each other, and that is not actually what’s happening. They’re not the same thing and they don’t all have equal power.

NIEGEL | I’m really trying to figure that out in my practice. I haven’t gotten there yet, but I think the next step is with audiences outside of New York. And I think about dialogue and exchange.

TAYLOR | Being an activist artist in the 21st century is sometimes figuring how to get outside of the liberal bubble.

NIEGEL | Yes. And to allow your work to be pushed on from other spaces. How do I go back to North Carolina, where I grew up?

TAYLOR | Do you have any ideas about how to manifest that?

NIEGEL | I go to the walk first. That’s a form I know really well: the walking form.

| Why don’t you explain what the walks are?

NIEGEL | The walks are poetic responses to our everyday space. The idea was to offer a handful of people a different way of seeing and interacting with their world. There’s this core belief that everyone is a creative person. We are creative when we’re intentional, so it’s about creating moments of intentionality in public spaces.

An artist takes a location or theme and builds a durational work where people go from one space to another. They do a series of prompts that relate to the theme. So, for instance, if we’re looking at poetry and found environment, we might take found objects along the way and create visual poetry out of that. We might take found words that we see on the buildings around us and create poems off of that.

There’s a walk I do around public sculptures and public monuments that exist—and ones we hope will exist—that we make with our bodies. There’s a moment where we dance with sculptures: “Oh, I’m moving through space. The shape, the ovals in this piece are actually manipulating my body.” There’s a moment where I might take that in. Whether I do a full dance, or I just let it linger on me as I pass by. Being intentional.

TAYLOR | Even the inanimate is a scene partner.

NIEGEL | There are these scripts all around us. It might not be text, but if I’m walking down the street and all I see are statues of people of a certain gender, class, and time, that is scripting value onto my world. If I’m intentional, if I’m aware of those things, I can be in conversation with it.

TAYLOR | The Confederate soldier statue alone is telling one story. The Confederate soldier statue with a young Black woman

dancing around it tells a totally different story.

NIEGEL | Yes. That’s the hope. Don’t take it for granted. Be intentional about this space around us.

I did a walk in a downtown Detroit plaza about 10 or 12 years ago. This was right after the financial crisis. We offered to carry people’s baggage for them, asking, “What can we carry for you today?” We had little note cards where they wrote down what they wanted us to carry for them.

TAYLOR | We’re talking metaphorical baggage or actual baggage?

NIEGEL | Metaphorical baggage. We opened with a poetic phrase that made someone go—

TAYLOR | Just a person walking by?

NIEGEL | Just a person walking by, or groups of two.

TAYLOR | And would people do it?

NIEGEL | Oh, yes. Dozens of people stopped and then shared moments, like: “I don’t know how I’m going to pay my child’s college tuition.”

TAYLOR | How do you carry that for the day, other than just the gesture—simply in the asking, that you’re helping to carry?

NIEGEL | The first part is to say someone’s actually asking and caring. The second is that we created visual sculptures with our bodies in the plaza.

It’s not social practice work. I think the work is to consider and reconsider—in question form. I don’t offer solutions in the work form.

TAYLOR | I’m hearing that it takes going to Detroit or North Carolina. You don’t have to deal with the pressure of the history of “Theatre A” accepting your project, and what communities have been invited into that theatre. You can just go and do it wherever you want to do it, and in spaces where everybody feels welcomed. That’s the other good thing about getting out of the bubble.

That’s what activist art is about. I go to street protests all the time. I think protest is self-care, so I show up with the community. March through the streets. I don’t expect anything politically to change; I’m too cynical for that. But I feel better just hanging out.

NIEGEL | “Here we are together; we’re in community with it.”

TAYLOR

Niegel Smith + Taylor Mac at a table read of The Fre, directed by Niegel Smith PHOTO Adventure We Can

TAYLOR | People chant things like, “Tear down the wall.” At the queer one, it was something about ICE and they rhymed it with, “We’re not being nice.” I thought, “But aren’t we? Aren’t we being nice? We’re just marching through the street politely and shouting, but it’s all organized, we have the right paperwork, and we’re not actually tearing down ICE.”

NIEGEL | We’re not going to the Federal Reserve and taking the money and redirecting it ourselves.

TAYLOR | Right. So in that way, rallies and political marches don’t feel like direct action, but they do feel like self-care.

NIEGEL | I think it’s poetic. Part of our role as makers of culture is to help shift people’s perspectives on the questions they’re asking.

TAYLOR | When did social consciousness or social justice start to play a role in your artistic life?

NIEGEL | Social justice was always part of my life. I can’t speak for all Black Americans, but my earliest memories are ones of being aware of the folks that worked so hard and sacrificed so much so that I could be seen as a full citizen. Family reminding me of Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks and the people inside of my family who have wrestled with authority and with being demeaned. Learning, very early on, that there were only certain jobs that were available to people in my family.

I had an academic gift, and my family glommed onto that like the second coming of Jesus. They said, “This is your way out. This is how white society is going to

affirm your humanity.” How fucked up is it that, thank god, I had a gift and that was something I could latch onto, but to be born isn’t enough to be human? That was the lesson. To be born was not enough to be seen as equal.

TAYLOR | Something in your brain or your sensibilities had to click with what white institutions have deemed appropriate for your family to say, “This is your way out.”

NIEGEL | Yeah, it’s nasty. It’s a feeling of ugliness. Recently, I took my partner to the town where I grew up. There’s a little town park and I said, “On this side, the white people park. Then on this side, the Black people park.” When I was in first grade, some Mexican families moved to the city and they parked at the end of the Black section. There was an inherent selfsegregation going on.

I saw these things and I noted them. So, as a younger artist, I found myself attracted to works that were wrestling with what looked or felt like the ugliness I saw out in the world.

American Black cultural tradition is theatrical. At the core of most of our performance tradition is the need to move the body, to shout, to ring out, and to call out in a way that acknowledges the listener to be aware that the performer is indeed performing. We have a music tradition that gives way to fully bodied, neck-craning gospel and, later, the bards of hip hop—the MCs whose hands move like gods and cue the entire crowd. Social dances, that began in ritual circles, later coopted by minstrelsy and revised by block parties and juke joints. Our comedy, acutely aware of stinging

our listener while they are doubled over in laughter. There’s this well-rehearsed craft, always being seen, always knowing that you are being known as Black, never being able to leave the performativity of self of race that leads to a phenomenal, theatrical craft.

My first theatre was Pentecostal church. There’s this one-room church, Colston Street Church of God, which is still there in rural Albemarle, North Carolina.

TAYLOR | Do you go to it when you go back home?

NIEGEL | No, I don’t go to church anymore.

TAYLOR | Do you miss that?

NIEGEL | There’s a part of church that I miss. One of the things that was amazing about the Church of God is that you didn’t know what was going to be sung each Sunday. You got to church and whatever Sister McCray wanted to sing, the congregation would start singing it and the pianist would join in.

TAYLOR | And you knew all the songs, or you just kind of faked your way through it?

NIEGEL | Everyone knew them. You learned them. Think about slave culture. It’s oral tradition, so a lot of Black American culture is oral tradition.

What was fun about going to church on Sundays was for six hours, sometimes for two hours, we were in it. We were singing to God; it was the narrative of “You’re all equal in God’s eyes, you’re all God’s children, you’re all here to sing whatever song you need to sing, or catch the spirit when you need to catch the spirit, or tell the story you need to tell.” Suddenly, there’s an equalizer.

TAYLOR | It was improv theatre, with structure!

NIEGEL | Totally with structure. The same thing I love about theatre—structured reflection.

TAYLOR | Was there a moment where you thought, “I miss this thing and I’m drawn to theatre because of this,” or was it all subconscious?

NIEGEL | It was subconscious until a point. My cousins and I would make up all kinds of games in our backyards. We played church and college. I remember standing in my grandma’s yard—five-and-a-half, six years old—and thinking, I want to be a preacher man because the preacher had everyone’s attention. In middle school, I was the drum major in marching band. I was like, “I’m here. I want to be seen. I want to wear the big Poobah hat.” It was so cool. So that hooked me.

Ben Euphrat + Nancy Opel in Hir at Magic Theatre, directed by Niegel Smith PHOTO Jennifer Reiley

When we moved to Detroit, that love of leading the band and making stories led me to think, “Oh, theatre. They’re doing things over there. They’re making up stuff.”

TAYLOR | Do you have a memory of discovering the theatre department?

NIEGEL | Yeah, the first week of my all-boys Catholic high school. There was a theatre in our school: we had two shows, and the girls’ school across the parking lot had two shows, so we were doing four shows a year. I was just drawn to making, creating. It was part of my DNA.

TAYLOR | Were you in the shows, or what did you do then?

NIEGEL | I was the assistant director. I got to give notes. I had been on stage and I thought, “But I have opinions about everything.” I thought, “I want to sit out there.” I went to Mrs. Ayrault—I love her— and said, “Can I assist you on your next show?” She said, “Sure, let’s do this.” It was fabulous. Suddenly I understood why the lights turned on, all that stuff.

TAYLOR | Yeah, but you took the agency for that. She didn’t say, “Hey, Niegel, why don’t you assist me in this?” You were like…

NIEGEL | “I want to do that. I want to be in that chair.” The first play I felt an urge to direct was The Zoo Story. We were reading

Edward Albee in English class. I directed it at a coffee shop. I did that and David Ives. Those are the plays that landed in my lap.

TAYLOR | It’s all about the white canon. It was for us too.

NIEGEL | That’s what they gave us at that time.

TAYLOR | One of the topics SDC Journal is covering in this issue is the impact of the culture wars in the early ’90s. Do you recall how it was that you first learned about the culture wars and the NEA Four?

NIEGEL | I first became aware of it in a performance studies class in college. I was like, “What? That’s bullshit.” Then, when I found out Jesse Helms was involved, I thought, “Oh god,” because I grew up in North Carolina, and Jesse Helms…

TAYLOR | He was your senator!

NIEGEL | I was aghast. I didn’t quite understand it, but I sort of understood because I understand divisiveness and the “othering” of things we don’t quite know. When someone sees a piece of art that challenges their worldview, the first thing they want to do is destroy it. Not walk away from it, not co-center it, but destroy it— make it cease to exist in the world.

I think my Achilles heel is that I have empathy for the oppressor. My first thought is, “Oh my god, how do we help them?”

TAYLOR | That’s a rough Achilles heel. We talk about it in 24-Decade History, where our duty is to forgive the oppressor but vilify the outsider. That’s the historical technique that has been used over and over in U.S. history, always having to forgive the oppressor.

NIEGEL | It was a survival technique. I didn’t come from a community of revolutionaries. No one in my family grabbed a gun or armed themselves or said, “We’re going to demand.” I come from a stock of people that said, “We’re going to try.” My dad said you have to be 110 percent; you have to outdo them. Very different trauma-coping mechanism.

With the NEA Four, I was inspired to think, “I want to make work that’s so provocative that people want to stop funding it.”

TAYLOR | Well, certainly funding for the arts is being used as a tactic to rally conservative opponents…

NIEGEL | And has been a great strategy for the conservative movement.

TAYLOR | Everyone always says theatre is so liberal.

Bernard Gilbert, Nicole Michelle Haskins, Tyrone Phillips + Jaime Lincoln Smith in Father Comes Home from the Wars at the Goodman Theatre, directed by Niegel Smith PHOTO Liz Lauren

NIEGEL | It’s the most conservative art form.

TAYLOR | Almost every single thing I see feels really conservative.

Ultimately, with the NEA Four, the narrative got changed on what was actually progressive theatre. Now Hamilton is progressive theatre and, yes, it is to some degree, but it’s also about capitalism and how great capitalism is.

NIEGEL | There’s no federal funding for individual artists. There was federal funding for individual artists, the NEA Four happened, and since then, there hasn’t been any funding for individual artists. Institutions are what’s funded [for projectspecific purposes]

TAYLOR | Right. That is so messed up

NIEGEL | Institutions by their nature have to be conservative because we are thinking about the survival of the institution. If the institution is to have lasting impact and serve artists, managers, and audiences over years and decades, we have to make decisions that keep it fiscally thriving while culturally relevant. The artists who are most in the position to push us forward and expand what these institutions do, and therefore what the culture does, aren’t being funded. That’s a loss.

I find myself thinking, “Maybe I’ve just been lucky, you know, to just do the work I want to do.” But I’ve also sacrificed a lot. As a young director—a young performance maker—I thought, “You don’t have to make a living from this.” I removed my vocation from my profession and made an intentional choice at an early age: I was going to direct and make the work that I most needed to make, and I would find other ways to make a living.

TAYLOR | Now that you’re getting a salary from an institution and you’re running an institution, has it changed?

NIEGEL | It’s still the same. To be totally honest, that was part of the plan. Early on, I worked at the Gap overnight, walked some dogs. Then there was my assistant-directing work. All along the way, I was taking fellowships and staff positions in artistic leadership because I knew you can make a living in leadership in American theatre.

TAYLOR | You see being a leader in an organization in some ways as a day job.

NIEGEL | It’s a day job. I’m going to be totally honest. I’m a cultural leader, so I’m also helping to shape what the cultural conversation is, but it’s my job.

TAYLOR | But you’re so good at it.

NIEGEL | I’m passionate. I love it.

TAYLOR | When you became the Artistic Director of The Flea, did you come in with a new mission statement that you wanted to build? Or did you say, “What’s the mission statement of the theatre, and can I work within that mission statement?”

NIEGEL | I came in enthused about what was already The Flea’s mission: “Raise a joyful hell in a small space.” Whoa.

we’re making our art as well. My day job is applying for grants. Yours feels ethical.

NIEGEL | What’s unethical about redistributing the wealth towards art?

TAYLOR | That’s true. What has been the most dangerous territory that you ventured into professionally?

NIEGEL | For me, danger is always when my queer sex life enters my work.

TAYLOR | And you’re supposed to be asexual if you’re going to lead an organization.

NIEGEL SMITH

TAYLOR | That is a good mission statement.

NIEGEL | Mac Wellman wrote that.

TAYLOR | Of course he did.

NIEGEL | I’m interested in community and community practice. In our work, we talk not just about making the show but what community we’re building, what the values are.

TAYLOR | The process becomes part of the art, not just the product

NIEGEL | Yes. The art starts as soon as you talk about it with someone else. It starts in the room: how we’re making it and putting it together. I knew that I wanted it to be part of a mission but to expand. I came in talking about how we widen the tent of the kinds of works that The Flea supports, and to further the diversity of the artists in the room.

TAYLOR | Further what a joyful noise could be and sound like and look like.

All the plays that happen here are plays of ideas and consequence. I think it’s kick-ass. I guess if that’s a day job, quit the art job and do the day job, because it feels like it matters more to some degree. I don’t know if that’s actually true—and I don’t want you to quit your art job—but you know what I mean? Maybe that’s just me being down on art.

NIEGEL | It’s a little bit being down on art. Making the art: that’s such a special place. What’s so satisfying about rehearsals is that we’re solving problems and making things—and the whole time we’re considering what it is we want to put into the world. What do we want the audience wrestling with, what experience do we want? It’s a similar job to artistic directing.

TAYLOR | I don’t know…we all have our day jobs, our survival job that we do while

NIEGEL | What a strange, unnecessary thing. I’m deeply interested in sex and sexuality. It’s a deep place of pleasure and curiosity and performance. I love the performativity of sex, particularly queer sex. There can be lots of identity play inside of it. Sex makes people so squeamish.

I think my fear becomes, “Oh, am I not going to get the grant?” Someone will say, “You can’t be a leader because you dealt with sex. You’re dirty.”

But it’s part of our life; it’s part of our art. When it comes to me—my work—sex will always feel risky, too scary. There’s so much around power and power dynamics that that does feel risky.

It took me a long time to feel comfortable in my queerness in public space. Even though I came out very early—I was out at 14—I still thought, “The queer in public space: it’s dangerous, it’s volatile, someone might hit you. Someone might throw words at you. Someone might throw an egg at you.”

TAYLOR | I wonder about that with The Fre I’m writing an all-ages play, but it’s primarily for kids. I wrote it for the queer kid, for my young, queer self that would have loved to have seen something like this. But in reality, it probably would have made me really uncomfortable.

NIEGEL | Because you think, “Someone might find out that I actually like this moment here…Oh my god, I want to go up there and join them. Yes, I want to play in the mud!” One of the things I love about our work is we give permission. We create space for audience members to say, “Yes, I can be part of the art today too.” But would our young selves have been too terrified to take that opportunity?

TAYLOR | Is there anything more we can do when we invite those young, queer kids into this space? Is there something more we can do to help them?

The art starts as soon as you talk about it with someone else.

NIEGEL | Look at what the invitation is. Is there something more we can do?

TAYLOR | I don’t know. It’s something to think about.

NIEGEL | People say theatre is a judgmentfree zone. It’s not true, though.

Last year, I went to What to Send Up When It Goes Down, which is a piece for Black folks—but everyone is invited—at the Movement Theater Company. After the bows, the Black folks were invited to stay if they wished and everyone else was asked to leave the room. I thought that that was a huge risk. To actually say that there are times and moments for segregation. That’s a risk.

TAYLOR | Yeah, but that doesn’t feel like something that can’t be done. We did it too, to a degree, in 24-Decade when we asked the white people in the center section of the audience to sit on the sides and let the people of color take the prime seats. We get judged for it but also celebrated, and we continue to do it.

What’s something in theatre that you can’t do without getting shut down? Maybe actual violence—though for me, personally, I wouldn’t want to see actual violence.

NIEGEL | Absolutely not. I don’t care if it’s consensual. I don’t want to see it.

TAYLOR | I’m even getting tired of seeing pretend violence on the stage, especially against women. I’ve seen so much of it I just don’t think it’s useful anymore.

NIEGEL | And the glorification of a kingpin—someone who uses violence to get their work done in the world, to be at the top. I’m done seeing those stories.

TAYLOR | In some ways, it’s not the most outrageous thing that is dangerous anymore. It’s actually the thing we’ve seen too much of.

NIEGEL | I don’t need to. I want to see someone use song and dance to change my mind. Maybe that’s why I like musical theatre. You can change hearts in just a dance.

TAYLOR | You can: music will change everything.

Have there been any instances when you’ve been at work on a production and felt you faced censorship of a choice because the producer or artistic director felt it would be controversial? Have you ever adjusted your materials, self-censored?

NIEGEL | That’s not who I am.

TAYLOR | That’s not who you are. You’re more of the person who’s aware that somebody wants to censor. You’re aware that it’s dangerous, but you do it anyway.

NIEGEL | I feel I’m very up-front. “This is what the work is going to be.” I’m not afraid of how my work is received.

TAYLOR | In the rehearsal room, I never find you afraid to provoke actors or designers.

NIEGEL | That’s a place where I feel very sure. I only make my work for three people.

TAYLOR | For three people? Who?

NIEGEL | My mother. I want my mother to be able to grab something from it. I use my mother because I love her to death. Working-class woman, didn’t get to go to college. I want her to have cultural references or narrative markers that she can hold on to. I don’t want it to be over her head.

I make it for me. I want to be surprised by the work.

TAYLOR | Every time you see it?

NIEGEL | Every time I see it. I know that I’ve made work I’m not satisfied with if I come and I’m not surprised. That means I’ve held the reins too hard, or I haven’t let people create and be creative and bring their full selves to it.

And then there’s an aesthetic god. It’s probably my ego.

TAYLOR | Somebody that you think is outside yourself. Or looking down on you going, “Is this cute? I don’t know.”

NIEGEL | “That hem’s not high enough.” “Those colors are too tame.”

TAYLOR | They’re all those people that are saying, “Have you put yourself out enough aesthetically?” Oh, that’s fun. The consciousness in doing that.

There are so many works you’ve created that break boundaries or traditional definitions for theatre or performance. Let’s talk about us and our collaboration.

NIEGEL | What I love about us is that everyone is honored for what they’re bringing. When we’re on tour with 24-Decade History, the person downstairs who is preparing the food is just as important and interesting, and I want to know them.

TAYLOR | This is what I’ve seen you do: you want to know what their craft is and how you can take the craft to the larger piece and find a way for that person to enter. Or that Dandy Minion—that person who has

got one little walk-on. How can they bring their own special thing into it?

NIEGEL | That’s it. There are many codirection models. With 24-Decade History, you made stuff before I came in. I wasn’t around when you made one-hour or twohour versions. Maybe we talked a little bit about it. Then I would show up and we would have a conversation, because I was able to sit on the outside.

TAYLOR | I just did a reading with Bart Sher, and he said, “It’s weird to give you notes on your own verse.” I said, “But that’s the job, right?” Which was sweet. I was happy he acknowledged the awkwardness. It’s a reality, but it is something I’ve also always depended upon you for. You know that I’m figuring it out too, so it’s not like you’re just giving me notes.

NIEGEL | There are moments that make me nervous, like whenever you’re up in the air and you ask, “What pose is the right pose?” I am conscious that I don’t want to tell you that you have to hit a certain image every time: I don’t want you to have to think about that every time. But at the same time, I say, “If your leg goes down and the other comes up, the aesthetic god will be happy.”

TAYLOR | “The aesthetic god will be happy.”

NIEGEL | We were doing auditions today, and hearing you talk to the actors gave me language and conceptual frames I need in order to direct the play.

TAYLOR | What’s funny is that with a different director, I wouldn’t have felt comfortable saying anything. But with you, I know that you can handle it. It doesn’t hurt your ego. It’s not like that with everyone. Some people get very territorial. It’s easier with you. You make that environment where people feel free to talk and wonder together.

When I try to describe how we co-direct in 24-Decade History together, I feel like you’re looking at the stage and I’m looking at the audience, so in some ways I’m taking care of the audience and you’re taking care of everyone on the stage.

NIEGEL | Totally. I know.

TAYLOR | Do you freeze your shows when you’re not working with me?

NIEGEL | I often set limits. One of the things that infuriates my staff at The Flea is that there are always places in my plays that I don’t stage. They know because it’s not the same.

TAYLOR | I love it. So you just let it be different. Do the actors find their way to the

same thing every night and you have to go in and tell them, “Hey, I didn’t stage that, so don’t you stage it?”

NIEGEL | That has not yet happened, but I think I’m clear about what the thing is. I say, “You’re going to find this every night. This is your place to play.”

TAYLOR | That’s what I think pauses are. When I write a pause in the script, it’s my little present to the actors to not just sit there and do nothing. It’s like a present. Invent something

You’re in the viable position of leading a theatre known for cutting-edge material, but you have finances to worry about and a board to answer to. As an artistic director, do you consider artistic risk when choosing the season?

NIEGEL | Absolutely. That’s the majority of what I consider. You know, “Is this artist taking a risk, in the content or in the form?” Luckily, I’m at a theatre where the board embraces artistic risk. During my first season, I had individual lunches with all the board members, and one said to me, “If you’re not doing things that make me uncomfortable, you’re not doing your job.”

TAYLOR | That’s the best board member that you want!

NIEGEL | Absolutely.

TAYLOR | Do you feel comfortable talking about what happened last year?

NIEGEL | We can talk about that. The Flea did a whole season of plays that tackled race. It was called “Color Brave.” It was a risk.

TAYLOR | What’s not a risk for us is a risk for other people, so it’s so strange.

NIEGEL | Yeah. I had a major donor say, “Why am I giving money so you can do a whole season about just this?”

TAYLOR | About people of color.

NIEGEL | People of color.

TAYLOR | Do you first say to them, “Well, what you just said was racist and perpetuating white supremacy?” Do you say that and ask, “Do you want to change?” Or do you just say, “Bye. I’m done with you.”

NIEGEL | No, you say, “I want you to be part of this project. You’re going to face these things that you have biases around. We’re going to engage those directly, and you’ll be okay.” I’ve had meetings with stakeholders where we’ve done that. At the end, people say, “Wow. Thank you for that.”

It’s interesting because when we’ve taken a big risk like that, the reward has been so deeply personal. A younger version of myself would have shirked that opportunity to engage someone directly. But that’s leadership.

TAYLOR | Is it galvanizing to do that, or exhausting, or both?

NIEGEL | In the moment, it’s exhausting. When you hear from them later and someone says, “Thank you,” then it’s galvanizing for the next time. It is a lot of work. I think we tell a good story about what we’re doing. For the most part, people know what they’re signing up for.

A board in a not-for-profit theatre is, to me, the biggest cheerleader. One of the ways they show their cheer is through their donations—whether that’s time or money or resources. Those people have to be on board with what your project is. If you’re honest and up-front about what it is, then at the end, they’re going to say, “Oh yeah, that’s what you said we were doing.”

TAYLOR | I can’t help but feel we have a responsibility towards not allowing people who traditionally have the money and the culture to run the culture. I always come up against that when thinking about boards.

NIEGEL | They should not be in the position to dictate the work. Our board doesn’t approve our seasons. They approve the budget. We say, “This is the work we’re doing.” They approve it if we have a good financial model for producing that work.

I create space in board meetings to talk about impressions and reception of the work. This is not a time to tell Niegel, “Oh

you shouldn’t program…” or, “I don’t like that…” but to say, “When I was there, I experienced…” and “What I found about it is…” It has helped me understand the things that they value and look at inside a piece of art but also gives me a chance to talk about the work and deepen their engagement and appreciation around things that might be new to them.

TAYLOR | Yeah. We assume that we have to go to North Carolina to help the culture, but actually it’s fucked up right here too.

NIEGEL | I’ve chosen to run a theatre that has a resident company of young artists. Everyone tells me I’m crazy. In New York, the value is the headline artists, the person who has established their career, or their fame. “Yes, we’re going to go out tonight and have a really lovely, expensive meal and see them and go to work tomorrow and say, ‘I saw them. Them.’”

We have work to do here in New York to say, “Yes, we want to see them, but then who are all the artists and voices that need our support?” There’s work that can happen right here.

I think it’s incumbent upon all artists, but particularly theatre artists, as we move from building to building to building. Our job is to get inside of these spaces and expand what those spaces are trying to dictate.

TAYLOR | Yeah, absolutely. That’s all we’re trying to do.

NIEGEL | Joyful hell in a small space.

Adesola Osakalumi, NSangou Njikam + Nuri Hazzard in Syncing Ink at The Flea Theater, directed by Niegel Smith PHOTO Joan Marcus

I WOULD NOT BE HERE WITHOUT YOU

BY MEI ANN TEO

2021 VOL. 9, NO. 1

In 2021, SDC Journal published a special digital issue on the theme of “Influences and Inspirations.” In a range of essays and interviews, more than 30 directors and choreographers discussed how their paths were shaped by a person, production, or process that marked a turning point in the discovery of their own artistic voice and vision. The magazine included this feature by Mei Ann Teo, a queer immigrant from Singapore making theatre and film at the intersection of artistic/civic/ contemplative practice.

You, high school drama teacher, who shared with this 17-year-old about how you and your wife have a pact. Sure, you’ve been together for 25 years with two kids—but at any point in time, for whatever reason, either person is allowed to say, “I’m done. Thank you.” And leave with grace and no explanation. That is still my definition of love and liberation.

Thank you, John Lofthouse. I would not be here without you.

You, college choir conductor, who showed me how to score breath in order to shape a phrase, so that music can float meaning. You were my first directing teacher.

Thank you, Genevieve Kibble. I would not be here without you.

You, college film professor, who screened Atom Egoyan’s The Sweet Hereafter, the first work of art in which I could see the multiple layers of meaning, dancing in their complexity, creating the giant art hole in my soul. You were the first to call me “director,” to call me into being before I knew what that actually meant.

Thank you, Victoria Mukerji. I would not be here without you.

You, theatre dad, who taught me that if there are 16 people in the room, it is on us to learn 16 different languages. You also taught me how, when going through a breakup, to look at it with levity, right in the eye, and say, “NEXT.”

Thank you, Tony Taccone. I would not be here without you.

You, theatre mama, way before you taught me in grad school, gave this ingredient in Composition class in SITI training in Saratoga: a moment we knew we had made it. That was the first of many questions/ prompts/catalysts you offer that swiftly shift consciousness and help me define my very purpose for breathing.

Thank you, Anne Bogart. I would not be here without you.

You, founder of the DAH Teatar, who through the history of your city of Belgrade taught me the layers upon layers of seeing and that our greatest strength is also our greatest weakness. You taught me the power of the theatre in times of crisis. Standing with you and the Women in Black while neo-Nazis yelled at us, I practiced resistance against fascism in action. And then we laid a thousand roses down, and the poetic act still resonates through my whole body.

Thank you, Dijana Milosevic. I would not be here without you.

You, Italian auteur at La MaMa Umbria, for teaching me about the power of sound and the eye of god, by inviting us to offer our nakedness to a wall and a horse in a field under the moon. I understood, finally, the primal choke of original sin. Though also, when I asked you if you had experienced it too, if you had offered your nakedness to the horse, you shook your head like—why would I?

Thank you, Romeo Castellucci. I would not be here without you.

You, kind teacher, taught me to change the frame—to multiply the dimensions of the paradigms that we in our pithy conceptions have set up. Oh yes, and that moment at

the end of Dog Days, when, because there is no more water left, she wipes her mother’s dead body with her own urine as a last sacrament. You taught me to relentlessly pursue revelation and to love to the ends of the world.

Thank you, Robert Woodruff. I would not be here without you.

You, assistant director, when the stage manager walked out 15 minutes before our final dress rehearsal and all I could think about was MY SHOW—THIS IS FUCKING UP MY SHOW, and you whispered in my ear, “This is what she wants to do with her life— being a stage manager is who she is. What must she be going through?” I still hear you as the voice of compassion.

Thank you, Monica Santana. I would not be here without you.

You, student in my first class as a professor at Hampshire College, who, when I expressed the worry that I hadn’t shared my work in the class, said with such alacrity, “But Mei Ann. Your LIFE is a work of art.” That is what I strive to live up to.

Thank you, Snem DeSellier. I would not be here without you.

You, goddess of shining black light, when you were a guest artist at Hampshire College and everything you did was to lift everyone else up. And then everywhere else, you show up to shine brightly upon others. You model where there is no fear, only immense love.

Thank you, Daniel Alexander Jones. I would not be here without you.

You, former monk and beyond saint, who led the Hemera Contemplative Fellowships Retreat and asked us to tell our life story to each other—all 17, thus curing me of any attachment to the story I tell myself of who I am. And then asking us to move a rock wall over six feet and back—and though for a while I did curse you in my mind, at some point I was present with each stone…the weight and coolness and color…and then one became their gravestone….the one I hadn’t known how to mourn…until you gave

SPRING/SUMMER

us that space and I could find a stable nook for that grief.

Thank you, Ernesto Pujol. I would not be here without you.

You, Singaporean older sister, for always making time to remind me to never give up on being an artist—’cause why else did we immigrants leave our country? And that wildfire may tear through forests, but blue fire cuts through steel. And to not direct being in love—to let go and find wonder. And I know I should quote your much bitchier and more hilarious sayings, but to be honest, your Oprah is where you get me most.

Thank you, Chay Yew. I would not be here without you.

You, living ancestor performance maker, whose very life and work has charted through each path I long to take. You show me the limitless possibilities of the imagination, and I am deeply inspired by your unrelenting curiosity and passion.

Thank you, Ping Chong. I would not be here without you.

You, family, for life and an exemplary model of how to be a good person.

Thank you, Bob Teo, Lan Teo, and ShanMae Teo. I would not be here without you.

And you. For creating worlds to enter into, each one generously opening up a way forward into understanding the complexity of our humanity.

Thank you, Madeline Sayet, Nia Witherspoon, Troy Anthony, Jillian Walker, Diana Oh, Raquel Almazan, Shakina Nayfack, Stefani Kuo, Rebekah Sangeetha Dorai, Ruth Tang, Vichet Chum, Amy Berryman, So Mak and Bex Kwan, Colin Goh, Yen Yen Woo, Du Yun, Christine Chia Yueh Chin, Jeremy Tiang, Chloé Hung, Jessica Huang, Carol Tsui Lyn Ho, Jean Tay, Jue Wang, Christopher Chen, Jon Bernstein, Marnie Breckenridge, Lauren Yee and team of Labyrinth, Dustin Chinn, Stan Lai, Jian Yi and cast of This Is How We Begin and Fei, Celine Song, Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig, Wei Yu Chia, Kate Mulvany, Erik Ehn, Leah Nanako Winkler, Eugenie Chan, Bryonn Bain, Bryan Quick, Alice Holst and cast of My Alice, John McDowell and cast of ClayFeet/WireWings, Eryck Chairez and cast of Red Books: Our Search for Ellen White, Bertolt Brecht, Thorvald Aagaard, Rebecca Gilman, Jerry Bock , Joseph Stein, Sheldon Harnick , Sholem Aleichem, Thomas Gibbons, Edward Albee, Tom Stoppard, Jean-Baptiste Molière, Anton Chekhov, Charles Mee, William Shakespeare, Thornton Wilder, Samuel Beckett, Euripides. I would not be here without you.

Mei Ann Teo, Lan Teo, Bob Teo + ShanMae Teo

Chay Yew, Mei Ann Teo + Lauren Yee

Romeo Castellucci

PHOTO Kenneth Lee

Mei Ann Teo + Robert Woodruff

Mei Ann Teo + Anne Bogart

Mei Ann Teo + Daniel Alexander Jones

Victoria Mukerji, Jagdish Chowgule + Mei Ann Teo

Dijana Milosevic + Mei Ann Teo

LOOKING BACK, LOOKING FORWARD:

THE HISTORY AND FUTURE OF THE SDC

JOURNAL PEER-REVIEWED SECTION

BY ANN M. SHANAHAN + EMILY A. ROLLIE, EDITORS

INTRODUCTION

This issue marks SDC Journal’s 10th anniversary, serving as a vital mode of community for SDC Members. While directors and choreographers regularly work in collaboration with others, the roles can also be solitary and sometimes lonely; SDC Journal offers a venue for connection amongst Members, a means to learn how colleagues innovate practices, as well as a necessary space for dialogue about socio-cultural events that inform artists’ work and the larger fields. In keeping with the theme of SDC Journal for this issue, the Peer-Reviewed Section joins the retrospective spirit, to consider the history, development, and future of the SDC Journal Peer-Reviewed Section.

HISTORY AND MISSION OF SDCJ-PRS

The section has enjoyed seven years in the pages of SDC Journal First published in Summer 2015, the section grew out of work of members of the Directing Program of the Association of Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE) who were seeking to create a peerreviewed publication in directing to serve the many artist-scholars working in both higher education and the profession. Around the same time, SDC was considering Membership surveys from 2013-14 and identified that over one third of its Members were working as teachers and/or artists in institutions of higher education. Executive Board Member and professor Sharon Ott and Executive Director Laura Penn then approached Ann Shanahan and colleagues in the Directing Program of ATHE to explore ways of supporting the unique needs of these directors and choreographers working professionally and in academia. One of those interests was a peer-reviewed publication specifically focused on the practice, theory, and pedagogy of directing. Thus, members of the Directing Program and SDC formed the SDCJ-PRS to provide a publication that supports the work of the hybrid scholar-artist by breaking down the binaristic separation of theory and practice, explores in more depth the scholarly study and artistic crafts of directing and choreography, and shares best practices in teaching and training directors and choreographers in higher education and professionally. Chief to the successes of the section has been the labor of three outstanding managing editors of SDC Journal: Elizabeth Nelson, Marella Martin Koch, and, with the greatest longevity, the marvelous Kate Chisholm.

The intersections of theory and practice provide space for important critiques of and revision in the fields and training methods, as well as the overdue calls for racial equity, reparations, gender equity, access, and inclusivity. These pages have been and continue to be dedicated to exploring critiques and demands advocated by

movements such as We See You, White American Theatre and Not in Our House, documenting and exchanging tools to advance equitable and safe work practices, and investing in antiracist theatre principles and consent-based, trauma-informed approaches to creative work. Additionally, during the pandemic, teacherpractitioners in higher education engaged in innovative digital means of training artists which have led the profession forward; likewise, the pandemic has prompted changes in the profession that require changes to training models, development of new skills for teachers, and incorporation of new technologies and training in higher education. All of this is possible in the potent crossovers between scholarship and artistic practice that form the mission of the PRS: to “focus on practice and practical application and exemplify the sorts of fruitful intersections that can occur between the academic/scholarly and the profession/craft” (SDCJ-PRS webpage). Thus, the SDC Journal Peer-Reviewed Section intends to connect practice and theory, the profession and higher education, in order to train, encourage, and empower student artists who will forge the future of the fields.

In this edition we include brief summaries of each issue since the first in Summer 2015, with links in the online version to the nowdigitized magazine. We invite Members to read, or perhaps re-read, the essays featured over the past seven years; we hope to inspire contributions to the PRS and advancement in the fields.

SDCJ-PRS ISSUES AND SUMMARIES

Past issues are available at www.issuu.com/sdcjournal

SUMMER 2015 (Vol. 4, No. 1)

“Directing and Choreography in the Academy and Profession: A Forum”

• Anne Bogart, “The Reciprocal Link Between Artistic and Scholarly Work”

• Joan Herrington, “Training Through Professional Partnerships and Guest Artists”

• James Peck, “How Might the Academy Serve the Profession? And Vice Versa”

• Liza Gennaro, “Scholarly Work as Inspiration for Professional Creative Work”

• Kathleen M. McGeever, “Funding and Partnerships in Public Institutions”

• Ruth Pe Palileo, “The Scholarly Director/Choreographer: Visiting the Archive to Revitalize the Repertoire”

In the inaugural issue of the SDCJ-PRS, SDC announced that the section would publish one academic essay and one book review per issue, supported by editorial guidance from directors, choreographers, and scholars representing the range of institutions of higher education and theatre organizations. The first co-editors were Anne Fliotsos, PhD, Professor, Purdue University, and Ann M. Shanahan, MFA, then Associate Professor, Loyola University Chicago, with an editorial board comprised of directors, scholars, and choreographers from around the country, many of whom were Members of SDC.

In addition to the co-editors, members of the initial Peer-Review Board included book review editor Travis Malone, PhD, then Associate Professor, Virginia Wesleyan College; and associate book review editor Kathleen M. McGeever, MFA, Professor, Northern Arizona State University.

The founding Senior Advisory Board for the Peer-Reviewed Section included: Anne Bogart, MA, Professor, Columbia University; Joan Herrington, PhD, Professor, Western Michigan University; and James Peck, MFA, PhD, Professor Muhlenberg College. Peer reviewers included: Donald Byrd, Choreographer; David Callaghan, MFA, PhD, Professor, University of Montevallo; Kathryn Ervin, MFA, Professor, California State University San Bernardino; Liza Gennaro, MA, then Assistant Professor, Indiana University; Ruth Pe Palileo, PhD, Current Theatrics, Centre for Immigrant Resources and Community Arts (CIRCA), Chicago Pintig Theatre Group; Stephen A. Schrum, PhD, Associate Professor, University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg; Scot Reese, MFA, Professor, University of Maryland; and assistant editors Thomas Costello, PhD, Instructor of Speech and Theatre, SUNY Dutchess, and Emily Rollie, PhD, then Assistant Professor, Monmouth College.

The first issue featured a forum of short essays intended to provoke discussion concerning the relationship between the academy and the profession. We invited members of the SDCJ-PRS Review and Advisory Boards to reflect upon the following issues: How does scholarly work inform or inspire professional creative work? What is the most fruitful relationship between institutions of higher learning (colleges and universities) and the professions of theatre directing and choreography? How does academic training prepare directors to enter the profession? What professional realities need to be better considered in our academic training in these fields? In addition to training, how can the academy serve the profession? What problems can be addressed to generate a greater

flow between the academy and professional work? How can the academy advance the profession—by offering opportunities to experiment with new production models or serving as incubator for creative work? What exchanges have been successful between the two arenas, and where might we go from here?

BOOK REVIEW

The Cambridge Introduction to Theatre Directing by Maria Shevtsova and Christopher Innes, reviewed by John Sebestyen

FALL 2015 (Vol. 4, No. 2)

“The (Long-Running) Path Unwinding: How Directors and Choreographers Maintain Long-Running Musicals on Broadway and Beyond” by Laura MacDonald

After the opening forum on “The Relationship between the Academy and the Profession,” the editorial board invited leading international scholars writing on the arts of theatre directing and choreography to provide our initial essays. MacDonald’s essay about the legacies of several key Broadway directors and choreographers offered an example of practice-based scholarship, focusing on historical trends in practice and application of technique and theory in the field.

BOOK REVIEW

Creating Musical Theatre: Conversations with Broadway Directors and Choreographers by Lyn Cramer, reviewed by Catherine Weidner

WINTER 2016 (Vol. 4, No. 3)

“Sustaining Black Theater” by Harvey Young

The third issue of the PRS featured a second invited essay by Harvey Young, prominent scholar writing on theatre and race and Black theatre in America. Then Chair and Professor of Theatre at Northwestern University, President of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE) 2016–2018, and now Dean of the College of Fine Arts at Boston University, Young’s essay offered an excellent example of scholarship focusing on important topics in the fields of directing and choreography.

BOOK REVIEW

Shakespeare for Actors and Directors by Aaron Frankel, reviewed by Christina Gutierrez-Dennehy

FIG. 1. ¡Papa Caliente! (i.e. Hot Box Nightclub) in a Latinx-inspired Guys and Dolls (Theatre Under the Stars) PHOTO Melissa Taylor

SPRING 2016 (Vol. 4, No. 4)

“The Star Director: Exploring the Dynamics of Musicals When Their Biggest Stars Work Behind the Scenes” by Mary Jo Lodge

Having published invited essays in the two previous issues, the Spring 2016 issue offered the first peer-reviewed article. In the article, director and musical theatre scholar Mary Jo Lodge delved into the shifting conceptualization of the “star” in musical theatre, entertaining the notion of the director or director/choreographer as a behind-the-scenes star to replace the actors of the past. Tracing the star phenomenon through recent history, Lodge investigated the increased power and intertextuality resulting from the combined roles of director/choreographer and the rise of the megamusical as potential factors leading to this new star status for directors of musicals.

BOOK REVIEW

Jerzy Grotowski’s Journeys to the East by Zbigniew Osinski, reviewed by Andrea J. Anderson

SUMMER 2016 (Vol. 5, No. 1)

“A Forum on Training in Directing + Choreography: Sources from Leading Women”

• James Peck, “Joan Littlewood”

• Christine Young, “Women Artists Bring Depth and Breadth to the Curriculum”

• Mark Lococo, “Practical Application of the Theories of Katie Mitchell and Anne Bogart in the Directing Classroom”

• Liza Gennaro, “Books about Women Who Dance”

• Kevin J Wetmore, Jr, “Favorite Teaching Materials: Women Leading”

• Emily A. Rollie, “Standing on the Shoulders of Giants: Using International Women Stage Directors in the Directing Classroom”

• Brian Foley, “The Poem Plays of Ruth Krauss”

• David Callaghan, “A Director Prepares as Inspiration in Teaching Advanced University Directing Students”

• Kathleen M. McGeever, “Joanne Akalaitis: An Inspiration in Class and Rehearsal”

• Melanie Dreyer-Lude, “Teaching Young Directors to Signify”

With the Journal’s overall focus on women’s leadership in Summer 2016, the PRS initiated a second forum, inviting members of the board and others teaching in various types of institutions around the country to write about texts that they use in their classes, sources by or about women directors and choreographers. In addition to the forum essays, the PRS also created and included a nonexclusive, complementary list of sources by and about women directors and choreographers, primarily composed of books and scholarly journals. Because of their influence on practitioners, we included a handful of texts by feminist theorists in performance as well. It should be noted that at that time women of the global majority and transgender women working in the two fields were even less equitably represented in print, and women working in fields such as children’s theatre and devising also deserve more thorough coverage.

SPECIAL BIBLIOGRAPHY

“The Source List: Theatre Directing and Choreography – Selected Sources by and about Women”

FALL 2016 (Vol. 5, No. 2)

“Early Modern to Postmodern Shakespeares: Three Approaches to Staging Romeo + Juliet” by Janna Segal with James Keegan, Baron Kelly, and Doreen Bechtol

The Fall 2016 piece emerged from a plenary session at the Comparative Drama Conference in Baltimore, MD, in March 2016, organized by Dr. Laura Snyder of Stevenson University. The format for the plenary, helmed by Dr. Verna Foster and the article’s author, Dr. Janna Segal, gathered teachers and artists together to apply scholarly work to practice and exchange ideas, actively demonstrated. Scholar-artists James Keegan, Baron Kelly, and Doreen Bechtol each took a different approach, ranging from Meisner to original practices to staging the balcony scene of Romeo and Juliet with actors.

BOOK REVIEW

Directing in Musical Theatre: An Essential Guide by Joe Deer, reviewed by Tom Smith

WINTER/SPRING 2017 (Vol. 5, No. 3)

“A Case Study of Directorial Courage: An Iranian Director’s Subversive Production of Lorca’s The House of Bernarda Alba” by Joie Miroux and Peter Zazzali

In the PRS, we pursue SDC’s mission to further knowledge of the crafts of directing and choreography in the U.S. and globally. The Winter/Spring 2017 issue offered insights into the practices of a courageous experimental theatre director in Iran. Despite the strict censorship of the Iranian government, Ali Akbar Alizad directed a production with explicit social-political themes, creating his own subversive approach to Lorca’s The House of Bernarda Alba. As the essay and production photos testify, Alizad’s production, as described by Joie Miroux and Peter Zazzali, powerfully critiqued political tyranny, oppression of women, and censorship in Iran as well as engaged in a complex, covert cultural exchange with Western directing practices.

BOOK REVIEW

The Unity of Music and Dance in World Cultures by David Akombo, reviewed by Amile Wilson

FIG. 2. The House of Bernarda Alba (Entezami Theatre, Tehran, Iran, 2014) PHOTO Hanieh Zahed

SUMMER 2017 (Vol. 5, No. 4)

AGA Collaborative: Walking in the Academy” by Jeanmarie Higgins

Artist-scholars working in higher education face challenges meeting research requirements for tenure and promotion, particularly in universities that cling to traditional models of scholarship. In this issue, Jeanmarie Higgins, an associate professor at Penn State University, examined the work of AGA Collaborative, a performance group composed of three dancers of universities that are geographically dispersed; she offered their long-distance collaborative work as a model of creative research that is not only tenure worthy, but expands both academic and artistic norms in important ways. By applying Marxist and feminist dramaturgical strategies, Higgins positioned rigorous, theory-based creative research as a practice of resistance—one that allows artists in the academy to “make a new path” which values collaboration and collegiality, and thereby enhances definitions of research in and out of the performing arts. We published this piece to promote the development of additional models for artists working collaboratively over distance, in addition to those seeking to expand conceptions of research as creative endeavors within the academy.

revolution—dismissed only a few years prior for their connection to what many argued was the demonstrated failure of larger Marxist projects—enjoyed new attention in university classrooms with the reinvigoration of socialist revolutionary politics. In this issue’s essay, Bill Gelber at Texas Tech University described his process connecting the practices and theories of Brecht in teaching and production. Using the more recent status techniques of British director Keith Johnstone, Gelber documented his successes teaching even the most complex of Brecht’s aesthetic theories, such as Haltung and Gestus, for use by actors in performance.

BOOK REVIEW

FALL 2017 (Vol. 6, No. 1, edited by Ann M. Shanahan)

“What Is Your Status: Using Keith Johnstone’s Exercises with Bertolt Brecht’s Concept of Haltung in the Classroom + Rehearsal Hall” by Bill Gelber

In the political climate surrounding the 2016 U.S. presidential election and its wake, the plays of Bertolt Brecht were produced in professional and university theatres with renewed energy in 201718. Plays such as Brecht’s The Threepenny Opera, Mother Courage, and the lesser known The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui gained new attention in professional venues for the relevancy of their critique of Hitler’s rise to power in Nazi Germany. As teachers, the editors noticed university students’ interests piqued when Brecht’s aesthetics were connected to his political goals, or connections were made between his theories and related contemporary concepts of performance. Even, and perhaps especially, Brecht’s aims of

BOOK REVIEW

The Art of Rehearsal: Conversations with Contemporary Theatre Makers by Barbara Simonsen, reviewed by Anne G. Levy

WINTER 2018 (Vol. 6, No. 2, edited by David Callaghan and Ann M. Shanahan)

Editorial Forum: “SDC Support for Directors + Choreographers in Higher Education”

• Ann M. Shanahan, “The Gender Politics of Spectacle in Staging Sarah Ruhl’s Adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s Orlando and ATHE 2018: Theatres of Revolution”

• David Callaghan, “Still Signaling Through Flames: The Actor’s Body as Spectacle in Spring Awakening and ATHE 2018”

• Kathleen M. McGeever, “Magic in Plain Sight: Staging Jeffrey Hatcher’s Adaptation of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Protest as Performance”

• Emily A. Rollie, “Directing the Spectacular: Utilizing the Spectacle of Imagination in A Year with Frog and Toad and SDC/ATHE’s Roles in Training Directors”

At the ATHE 2017 conference in Las Vegas, the PRS celebrated its second full year in print, toasted new authors and members of the peer-review and advisory boards, and extended hearty thanks and welcome to outgoing and incoming editors. The current editors, all academics and Associate Members of SDC who regularly present together at ATHE conferences, undertook a forum on the ongoing informal relationship between SDC and ATHE, and more broadly, on the ways SDC supports its Members working in higher education. Each year past and current members of the PRS board gather at ATHE and reflect on directing work in academia and professionally,

Directing Shakespeare in America: Current Practices by Charles Ney, reviewed by Travis Malone

FIG. 3. hours, lawns, and in-between (AGA Collaborative, 2014)

PHOTO Chris Record

FIG. 4. Mother Courage and Her Children, directed by Bill Gelber (Texas Tech University) PHOTO Tif Holmes

generating a (rare) directorial dialogue. The forum reflected our work together in Las Vegas around the theme of “Spectacle” and looked forward to 2018, both as editors of the PRS and as members of the planning committee for ATHE’s next conference in Boston, MA, centering on the theme “Theatres of Revolution: Performance, Pedagogy, and Protest.”

SPRING 2018 (Vol. 6, No. 3)

“Rethinking the College Summer Intensive: A New Model for Collaboration” by Amanda J. Nelson and Richard Masters

Musical theatre training programs in higher education continue to grow and evolve, with many formal degree programs now operating with faculty and staff voice teachers, accompanists, and more, who are totally separated from counterparts in music programs. However, despite differences between disciplines and pedagogy, many colleges and universities, especially those with a liberal arts model of arts training, often produce a collaborative musical that integrates the talents, resources, and training approaches of faculty and students from both music and theatre. In this issue’s essay, Amanda Nelson and Richard Masters explored the traditional pros and cons of collaboration among faculty artists from different fields, offering a fresh perspective. Given the current trend at that time of declining summer enrollments at many colleges (students increasingly seeking online options outside regular semesters), Nelson and Masters’ summer musical theatre intensive was conceived in response to a university charge to boost on-campus enrollments. Nelson and Masters examined how their course allowed students from both departments, none of whom had extensive musical theatre training, to rehearse and perform a lesser-known, historic musical for audiences drawn from the campus and local communities. The hope was that the model might prove inspirational for arts programs and directors seeking to expand programming, training opportunities, and audiences within an intensive summer experience.

BOOK REVIEWS

SUMMER 2018 (Vol. 6, No. 4)

“The Movement’s Voice” by Assaf

Benchetrit

The avant-garde theatre of the 1960s saw a shift away from conventional approaches to playwriting and characterization, toward emphases on movement, live sound, and ensemble acting as new ways to create performances, often involving improvisation and even audience participation. In the 1970s and 1980s, many artists turned to formal experimentation, incorporating technology, film, recorded sound, and other elements in tandem with text, movement, and choreography. In “The Movement’s Voice,” Assaf Benchetrit explored past advancements in the field as well as more current practices and innovations in dance using computer science and technology as well as improvisation in his work as a choreographer. In this essay, he shared his discoveries, positing that his system offers new possibilities of creating dance and engaging dancers in rehearsals, with implications for traditional dance as well as theatrical forms that utilize dance, movement, music, and technology.

BOOK REVIEW

Documenting Performance: The Context and Processes of Digital Curation and Archiving edited by Toni Sant, reviewed by Jeanne Tiehen

FALL 2018/WINTER 2019 (Vol. 7, No. 1)

Editorial Forum: “SDC & the Directing Program of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE): Celebrating a Long and Growing Relationship”

• Ann M. Shanahan, “Directors and Choreographers at ATHE 2018 Boston”

• David Callaghan, “SDC-Sponsored & Supported Events”

• Emily A. Rollie, “Directing the Revolution: Notes and Reflections from the ATHE Directing Program

• Karen Jean Martinson, “Performance Review of The Fall: A Lecture Performance”

Focusing on the strength and follow-through of both ATHE and SDC and their Members in the five years the PRS had been published, the issue also recapped the 2018 ATHE Conference, which included several editors, peer reviewers, and founders of the PRS on the planning committee, and involved SDC leadership, chiefly Laura Penn, in plenaries and roundtables.

The 2018 ATHE Conference Committee assembled a series of plenaries, workshops, performances, and special events around the theme “Theatres of Revolution: Performance, Pedagogy, and Protest.” Drawing on the city of Boston for its historical significance in the American Revolution and its legacy of both academic excellence and artistic innovation, the events, performances, workshops, and presentations explored revolutions at the intersections of politics, theatre education, and professional practice. A curated Excursions and Performances Series explored how contemporary and historical enactments of U.S. foundational stories perform race and gender—as well as erasure of the land’s history before colonization—raising complex questions about representation and revolution. In a culminating roundtable, participants discussed how these questions resonated with casting practices, season planning, performance practices, and pedagogies, as well as contemporary trends in theory and scholarship, and the keynote address from sisters Quiara Alegría Hudes and Gabriela Sanchez discussed their Latinx Casting Manifesto and their work as activists and artists (the transcript for which was published in American Theatre and Theatre Topics). Much like the goals of the SDCJ-PRS, the plenaries aimed to further dialogue between leaders in higher education and the profession as well as to advance fights for justice through concrete action steps. Activism also infused performances from History Matters/Back to the Future, History Alive from Salem, MA, and Sister Sylvester (which was highlighted in a special performance review by Karen Jean Martinson included in this issue).

SDC presence at the ATHE conference matured and grew in 2018 through generously sponsored events, advertisements in the conference program, and SDC speakers on panels and roundtables. The 2018 PRS issue thus featured a shout-out to the fruits of that ongoing ATHE/SDC collaboration, including SDC’s Associate Membership category and new Academic Initiative co-chaired by Melia Bensussen and Marcia Milgrom Dodge. We hoped then, as now, to inspire readers of the Journal—both those working in academic settings and those not—to consider how bridges between the academy and the profession can richly serve both groups, especially in vital moments of transition and revolution!

BOOK REVIEW

Contemporary Adaptations of Greek Tragedy: Auteurship and Directorial Visions edited by George Rodosthenous, reviewed by Tony Tambasco

Stanislavsky and Yoga by Sergei Tcherkasski & How to Read a Play: Script Analysis for Directors by Damon Kiely, reviewed by Dennis Sloan

SPRING 2019 (Vol. 7, No. 2)

“A Play by Play of the International Black Theatre Summit: Breaking New Ground Where We Stand, the 20th Anniversary of ‘On Golden Pond’ at Dartmouth College” by Nicole Hodges Persley and Monica White Ndounou

The essay in this issue by Nicole Hodges Persley and Monica White Ndounou chronicled their leadership of the historic International Black Theatre Summit in September 2018, which commemorated the original 1998 “On Golden Pond” conference organized by August Wilson and colleagues at Dartmouth College. Both Professors Persley and Ndounou, along with SDC’s Laura Penn, had participated in a main plenary of the 2018 ATHE conference focused on “Revolutions in Pedagogy and Practice,” addressing the many revolutions underway and needed in the teaching of theatre in higher education. This plenary event was part of a larger project led by Monica White Ndounou called “Overhauls in Theatre Training,” which included work with TCG, Black Theatre Network (BTN), and the summit event covered in this issue. The PRS was honored to highlight this important summit and deeper investigation of the topics of the plenary; this was additionally meaningful for the section m since Harvey Young’s inaugural PRS piece discussed the original 1998 summit.

a production staff to re-conceive such material. In this issue’s essay, Julio Agustin explored the intentions, value, and reception of helping to create a new production of Guys and Dolls at Theatre Under the Stars in Houston with a Latinx-featured cast and reconceived setting for this well-known classic.

BOOK REVIEW

A Director’s Guide to Stanislavsky’s Active Analysis by James Thomas, reviewed by Patricia J. McKee

FALL 2019 (Vol. 7, No. 4)

“‘In this borrow’d likeness’: Casting, Race, and Religion in Early Modern and Contemporary American Productions of Romeo and Juliet” by Janna Segal

An earlier version of this paper was presented for the McElroy Shakespeare Celebration at Loyola University Chicago in 2017, with Janna Segal as invited guest lecturer. The lecture framed scenes from productions of Romeo and Juliet at Loyola University Chicago and DePaul University (directed by Cameron Knight) in 2017. Both productions made color-conscious casting choices and cast actors who identify as women in the roles of Romeo, Juliet, and several other key roles. This lecture was followed by a talkback moderated by Professor of English Verna Foster with the author, the two directors, and invited guests including Henry Godinez (Goodman Theatre; Northwestern University) on race, gender, and ethnicity in casting Shakespeare.

BOOK REVIEW

Embodied Philosophy in Dance: Gaga and Ohad Naharin’s Movement Research by Einav Katan, reviewed by Annette Thornton

WINTER 2020 (Vol. 8, No. 1)

“Re-Feel: Reviving Anna Sokolow’s Trois Morceaux for Elon’s Posthumous Premiere” by Artemis Preeshl

Issues of how to approach reconstructing and/or reviving a classic work are complex, raising questions of how much fidelity to original text, staging, score, etc. should be maintained by creative and producing teams. In this essay, director and choreographer Artemis Preeshl engaged her personal exploration and ultimate choices in

BOOK REVIEW

Disability Theatre and Modern Drama: Recasting Modernism by Kirsty Johnston, reviewed by

SUMMER 2019 (Vol. 7, No. 3)

by Julio Agustin

In our fields, lively debate continues about whether productions should edit or even produce certain older, Golden Age musicals that contain material that is offensive within our current cultural context. Certainly, many revivals and new productions engage this material from a contemporary lens in hopes of making them more resonant and timelier for new audiences. Casting is an arena that can allow

FIG. 6. Dancers share a breath together in Anna Sokolow’s Duet of Trois Morceaux (Elon University) PHOTO Jennifer Guy

FIG. 5. Naomi Agnew, Professor Stephen V. Duncan, Lydia Diamond, Kathryn Bostic, and Dr. Nicole Hodges Persley at the International Black Theatre Summit PHOTO Dr. Monica White Ndounou

Amy Lynn Budd

“Braving the Challenges of Re-Envisioning the Classic Musical for a New Audience”

reviving dances by legendary choreographer Anna Sokolow with a public performance for a new audience at Elon University.

BOOK REVIEW

Physical Dramaturgy: Perspectives from the Field edited by Rachel Bowditch, Jeff Casazza, and Annette Thornton, reviewed by Rebecca Whitehurst

SPRING 2020 (Vol. 8, No. 2, edited by Ann M. Shanahan and Emily A. Rollie)

“Aesthetics of Oya in Reading, Casting, and Staging Lillian Hellman’s The Children’s Hour” by Omiyẹmi (Artisia Green)

In this issue of the Peer-Reviewed Section, Omiyẹmi (Artisia Green) offered a new framing of a modern American classic: The Children’s Hour by Lillian Hellman. While acknowledging the play’s problematic elements, Omiyẹmi uniquely employed an African spiritual lens in her direction. Using the aesthetics of the Yoruba Ọya, a spirit of wind and storms, death and rebirth, the author prompted audiences to consider elements of plot and character in The Children’s Hour through lenses that pose death as rebirth and offer new perspectives on characters’ behavior. Coupled with close comparisons of source material and Hellman’s revisions of the play, Omiyẹmi’s fresh direction of the play followed Hellman’s initial aims of repentance through revision with this controversial play.

BOOK REVIEW

New Directions in Teaching Theatre Arts edited by Anne Fliotsos and Gail S. Medford, reviewed by Joelle Ré Arp Dunham

FALL 2020 (Vol. 8, No. 3)

“Special Issue Forum: University Theatre Responses to COVID-19 and the Movement for Black Lives”

• Nicole Hodges Persley, “Time for a Brave New Theatre”

• Kevin Abbott and Joan Herrington, “Context and Creativity”

• Ruth Pe Palileo, “Theatre Seasons in the Age of COVID-19”

• Anne Fliotsos, “A Time for Telepresence”

• Henry Godinez, “The Evolution of Theatre in the Time of COVID-19”

Special Issue Essay: “A Lamp, A Bridge, A Ship” by Megan Sandberg-Zakian

The Peer-Reviewed Section was honored to contribute to the wider forum of the Journal’s special issue on the intersecting impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and the powerful resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement and fights for racial justice occurring across the U.S.. The forum reflected a variety of factors—the historical and material circumstances contributing to this important and unprecedented moment of reckoning and change. Whether the pieces dealt primarily with the impact of the racial justice movement or innovations in response to COVID-19, or were a mix, we framed them as related. As Monica White Ndounou wrote on May 31 in an op-ed piece for The Burton Wire on the silence of white theatres on anti-Black violence at that time: “COVID-19’s destructive impact on the theater industry presents an opportunity to rebuild with greater equity and empathy in funding and operations.” The disruption required by the COVID-19 pandemic offered time to pause— to examine and dismantle the mechanisms informed by white supremacist culture that pervades academic and theatre production and training systems, as they do U.S. culture. The intersection of these factors made and continues to make for a long needed,

overdue opportunity to listen and learn, reform and innovate in work to build antiracist practices of education and theatremaking. In the spirit of the statement issued by the Yale School of Drama announcing the suspension of their 2020-21 production season–“the state of our nation and field calls us more urgently than ever to continuous work toward anti-racist pedagogy and practice, in order to prepare our graduates to lead in a more just and joyful profession for which we must altogether take responsibility now”– we offered these responses and a special essay from leading directors and educators around the country, looking to build together a truly just and joyful future ahead.

SPRING/SUMMER

BOOK REVIEWS

2021 (Vol. 9, No. 1)

Contemporary Women Stage Directors: Conversations on Craft by Paulette Marty, reviewed by Niki Tulk

Directing Shakespeare in America: Historical Perspectives by Charles Ney, reviewed by Nathanael Johnson

Following the special issue that included the forum and special essay in fall 2020, the Peer Reviewed Section featured two book reviews in the Spring/Summer 2021 issue, recognizing the key role that book reviews and on-going professional development opportunities play in the work of directors and choreographers. The two book reviews featured in the PRS offered insights into Paulette Marty’s Contemporary Women Stage Directors: Conversations on Craft and Charles Ney’s Directing Shakespeare in America: Historical Perspectives. Both texts offered examinations of the working practices and methods of directors, with Marty’s text building off numerous interviews with women stage directors based in the U.K., U.S., and Canada and Ney’s volume offering a glimpse into the practices of key directors of Shakespeare from the 1870s to the 1990s at various American festivals and venues such as the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and more.

FIG. 7. Nell Gwynn, directed by William Lewis (Purdue University) PHOTO Melodie Yvonne

“Risk, Resilience, and the Essential Experience of Being Seen: Helping Actors Move from Self-Care to Deep Freedom with the Alexander Technique” by Jennifer Schulz

The most recent issue of the PRS offered readers a specific practice and technique to further support the creation of brave spaces in which actors can holistically work and explore their artistic impulses and agency. Featuring insights from certified Alexander Technique instructor Jennifer Schulz, the essay provided directors and choreographers with specific tools and exercises to incorporate into rehearsal and learning spaces to foster resiliency, creativity, and freedom when working with actors of all levels.

BOOK REVIEW

Milton: A Performance and Community Engagement Experiment by PearlDamour, reviewed by Megan Sandberg-Zakian

LOOKING FORWARD

As described above, the PRS emerged from conversations with the Directing Program focus group of ATHE in collaboration with SDC leadership, and the most recent ATHE conference in July 2022 continued to fuel the work of the PRS, particularly in regard to the conference’s focus on access and authentic inclusion within the fields. Current President of the SDC Board, Evan Yionoulis, along with SDC Executive Director Laura Penn, and Valerie CurtisNewton, Northwest Regional SDC Representative, attended the conference, finding moments of community, connection, and camaraderie with ATHE members, many of whom are also SDC Members. Throughout the 2022 ATHE conference, many panels considered techniques for incorporating more consentbased practices in our work and asked key questions about the on-going need for actionable antiracist work and, importantly, accountability in those efforts.

A key focus of the ATHE conference was “reparative creativity,” a term identified by Dorinne Kondo in reference to strategies by artists of color to use theatre and performance as a mode of repair. This takes its shape in intentionally centering and amplifying the work of artists of the global majority while also redressing harm and attempting to move the work forward, toward a stronger, more inclusive field in theatre and performance studies. Playwright Dominique Morisseau’s conversation with the hosts of HowlRound’s Daughters of Lorraine podcast, Jordan Ealey and Leticia Ridley, was particularly forthright and galvanizing in these conference-wide conversations about reparative creativity as Morisseau discussed her work and “Practice of the Possible” (Daughters of Lorraine, “Writing Detroit,” HowlRound Theatre Commons). As an artist not only raised in but deeply informed by Detroit and the arts culture there, Morisseau discussed the way her work has been and continues to be both inspired by and accountable to her community, including elders and young artists. Throughout the conversation (available in transcript and audio form via HowlRound’s Daughters of Lorraine podcast website), Morisseau offered deeply provocative and powerful questions that she and, by extension, artist-scholars in the field must consider, including “How do we hold people accountable that we also love? Is there a way to both love and say no more?” And “How do we respond to these times? What is our role as artists and how do we stay visible when the world is coming undone?” The conference also centered a community plenary forum: “Casting for Liberation” facilitated by Lizzy Cooper Davis of Emerson College and Daniel Banks of DNAWORKS. The event was designed as a community conversation drawing on the expertise, knowledge,

and desires of the participants, followed by break out groups to articulate commitments to ground their work going forward. The Detroit-based ATHE conference, following a robust Black Theatre Network conference held there just days earlier, asked what artists can learn from the history and present community of the majority Black city—how we can more actively address and dismantle white supremacist culture in theatre and higher education.

The conference also brought an exciting new collaboration for the Peer Reviewed Section. The editors were approached by Karen Jean Martinson, Vice President of Advocacy of the Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas (LMDA) about a desire to collaborate with the PRS on pieces about directors’ and dramaturges’ work together. Dramaturgy is at its essence concerned with equity, diversity, and belonging in the theatre— vital to the directors, choreographers and all theatre artists. We are thrilled by the further growth this potential offers the section and its readers.

Speaking of growth, future, and readers, the PRS needs you. We invite you not only to read the past work included in this issue, but to consider submitting your work that articulates and deepens understandings of the intersection of directorial and choreographic practice and theory, including your work with dramaturgs, and to submit it to the PRS. The call for papers is below, with the fuller information on the SDC website.

These are exciting times; our field is more necessary, our work more potent and meaningful than ever. Invigorated by this reflection on the past, the elemental creativity of the artists represented in SDC, we look with courage and excitement at our futures on stage and in these pages, together.

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

Published by Stage Directors and Choreographers Society (SDC), the Peer-Reviewed Section of SDC JOURNAL serves directors and choreographers working in the profession and in institutions of higher learning. SDC’s mission is to give voice to an empowered collective of directors and choreographers working in all jurisdictions and venues across the country, encourage advocacy, and highlight artistic achievement. SDC JOURNAL seeks essays with accessible language that focus on practice and practical application and that exemplify the sorts of fruitful intersections that can occur between the academic/scholarly and the profession/ craft. For more information, visit: http://sdcweb.org/sdcjournal/sdc-journal-peer-review/

BOOK REVIEW

Making Broadway Dance

by Liza Gennaro

Oxford University Press, 2022. 256 pp. $39.95 Hardcover.

Making Broadway Dance by Liza Gennaro—choreographer, SDC Member, and Dean of Musical Theatre at Manhattan School of Music—focuses on musical theatre dance “as a unique, distinct genre” that merits scholarly acknowledgment and criticism (3, 218). Through in-depth movement analyses, focused reviews of Agnes de Mille and Jerome Robbins, and attention to how Broadway dance reflects and informs America’s cultural landscape, Gennaro illuminates musical theatre dance as a substantive and multifaceted practice and field of study. Gennaro’s selection of archival photographs featuring the artists and dances referenced offers a visual treat for the reader. The book covers fascinating topics such as how choreographic work is credited, miscredited, appropriated, and/or stolen, and the connection between Freudian psychoanalysis and “dream ballets” designed to expose characters’ subconscious, including sexual desires, to the audience (41). The book’s many scholarly entry points foster intriguing, new understandings of choreographic processes and Broadway history that will inspire artists and practitioners alike for further study.

The book is divided into seven chapters that span Broadway from the 1920s to the present. The first chapter examines 1920s dance training, jazz dance on Broadway, and George Balanchine’s contributions to musical theatre through shows like On Your Toes (1936) and Courtin’ Time (1951) An intriguing idea from this chapter is how racism impacted tap dance’s use onstage in the early to mid-twentieth century as seen in Balanchine’s 1938 production The Boys from Syracuse. In one adagio, Balanchine choreographs the internal conflict of a man in love with two women; one woman tap dances to express “steamy carnality” while the other dances ballet en pointe to express the “delicacy of conjugal love” (12). Gennaro argues that this juxtaposition reflects the broader, racist cultural perception that ballet is pure, high art while tap is sexual and low, implying that ballet is associated with whiteness and tap with Blackness (12).

Chapters 2 and 3 review choreographer Agnes de Mille’s career, granting particular attention to the 1943 production of Oklahoma! These chapters are focused and insightful. Gennaro describes how Oklahoma! exemplifies the trend amongst American dance makers of this period to seek a uniquely American dance style. Gennaro cites Catherine Littlefield’s Barn Dance (1937) and Martha Graham’s Appalachian Spring (1943) as examples of concert choreographers incorporating American themes of democracy and independence, as well as country-dance vocabulary, into their creative works. Gennaro also credits de Mille’s legacy of establishing an individualized chorus made up of actor-dancers and her ability to use dance to tell women’s stories onstage.

Chapters 4 and 5 are devoted to Jerome Robbins and include examinations of On the Town (1944), High Button Shoes (1947), Peter Pan (1954), and West Side Story (1957) Gennaro’s examination of West Side Story includes coverage of her father Peter Gennaro, also a Broadway choreographer. Robbins, with his ballet training,

choreographed for the Jets while Peter Gennaro, with his Latin dance training, choreographed for Chita Rivera and the Sharks (127). Gennaro describes how the co-choreographers’ contrasting styles allowed them to physically distinguish the gangs onstage; however, significantly and sadly, Peter Gennaro’s role as Robbin’s co-choreographer is often uncredited (123).

The final two chapters focus on influential Broadway artists following Robbins and de Mille, including Bob Fosse, Gower Champion, Donald McKayle, Michael Bennet, Graciela Daniele, Bill T. Jones, and Camille A. Brown. In these chapters, Gennaro presents Broadway’s stark gender disparities, citing the 2018-2019 SDC statistic that women are contracted as directors and choreographers on Broadway at a rate of 11.43% (187). Gennaro also discusses race and Broadway, stating that Black choreographers have historically been pigeonholed to choreograph what Gennaro refers to as “Black Musicals,” examples of which include The Wiz (1975), Ain’t Misbehavin’ (1978), and Jelly’s Last Jam (1992) (164, 213). The arguments made in this chapter are important for understanding the ongoing discrimination and biases that exist on Broadway in regard to choreographers. The discussion and context may inspire readers to examine these issues further.

Gennaro covers in depth how musical theatre choreographers undergo a learning curve as they transition from concert dance choreography to that of musical theatre. This topic is so interesting and substantially addressed that it could have been an excellent standalone chapter. Some choreographers, such as Donald McKayle, begin their careers as Broadway dancers, then are promoted to dance captains, next to associate choreographers, and finally to choreographers (165). Other choreographers, such as de Mille, Robbins, and Jones, began as concert choreographers before entering the musical theatre arena. Gennaro provides a thorough description of those difficult transitions. Collaborating with directors, producers, writers, costume designers, and set designers is initially challenging for those used to having more artistic control in creating a concert work. Gennaro describes how, even on Broadway, choreographers are not consistently privy to casting decisions, meaning they may not be working with trained dancers. Additionally, tight rehearsal schedules can minimize or prevent a choreographer’s ability to experiment with movement during rehearsals (35). Gennaro describes how choreographers such as de Mille learned to set boundaries and ask for what they needed— requesting private dance rehearsals, for example—and how becoming both director and choreographer is an effective means of eliminating the potential for conflicts over artistic vision (106).

Making Broadway Dance achieves Gennaro’s goal of substantiating musical theatre dance as a distinct genre worthy of study, and Gennaro provides many entry points through which scholars may continue critical exploration and analysis. The book’s structure requires an investment from the reader to connect themes across time periods and artists, which may be unfamiliar to those used to single chapters on artists or topics. However, Gennaro’s structure succeeds in reinforcing how pervasive racism and sexism have been throughout the history of this practice and in highlighting a wide range of artists. Gennaro’s close analyses of Broadway dance numbers, combined with her fantastic selection of photographs, effectively demonstrate how musical theatre dance can augment storytelling onstage. Making Broadway Dance introduces an oftoverlooked subject and whets the readers’ appetites for further exploration.

MEREDITH JOELLE CHARLSON

FROM THE SDCF PRESIDENT

The program provides extraordinary access while positioning artists of color for advanced opportunities to lead. Benefits include an award of $40,000 per year, access to health insurance, and assistance for housing and travel.

• The Callaway Awards recognize excellence in directing and choreography in New York City and are the only awards given by peer directors and choreographers for work on a single production. This year’s winners are Saheem Ali (Direction) for Fat Ham at The Public Theater, and Josh Prince (Choreography) for Trevor: The Musical at Stage 42. The finalists for Direction are Knud Adams (English), David Cromer (The Case for the Existence of God), and Rebecca Frecknall (Sanctuary City). The Choreographer finalists are Danny Mefford for Kimberly Akimbo and Sergio Mejia for ¡Americano!

• Seattle-based choreographer Donald Byrd is this year’s recipient of the Gordon Davidson Award. Named in honor of the founding artistic director of Los Angeles’s Center Theatre Group and one of the visionary leaders of the resident theatre movement, the Gordon Davidson Award recognizes a director or choreographer for lifetime achievement.

Founded in 1965, Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation (SDCF) celebrates, develops, and supports professional stage directors and choreographers throughout every phase of their careers. We work to build a theatrical community that reflects the cultural, racial, and gender diversity of our nation by creating opportunities for artists of all backgrounds to bring their full, authentic selves to their work as creative leaders in the theatre.

In the following pages, you will see the names of the many hundreds of directors and choreographers whose lives and careers have been touched over the past 10 years by the Foundation’s programs, which focus on the professional development of artists in service of a stronger and more creative theatrical landscape.

In addition to our professional development programming, SDCF recognizes excellence in the crafts of stage direction and choreography, awarding individual artists around the country for noteworthy achievement. On behalf of my colleagues at the Foundation, and with thanks to all the theatre-makers and theatrelovers who served on selection committees, I want to celebrate all previous awardees, and I am pleased to share the recipients of some of our 2021–2022 awards:

• Director and multi-disciplinary artist Kendra Ware has been selected as the 2022 Lloyd Richards New Futures Resident Artist at Actors Theatre of Louisville in Louisville, KY, where she will work with Executive Artistic Director Robert Barry Fleming. This program supports mid-career BIPOC directors or choreographers who are interested in artistic leadership through a year-long residency at a regional theatre, where they will work with forward-thinking artistic directors; a meaningful role at the theatre and a production in a subsequent season are guaranteed.

• The Denham Fellowship has been awarded to Colette Robert for her upcoming production of The Cotillion, a play with music that will be produced by New Georges/The Movement Theatre Company in 2023. This annual Fellowship is granted to an early or mid-career female-identifying director to further develop her skills through fee enhancement on a production she is directing.

• The Fichandler Award recognizes directors and choreographers who have demonstrated great accomplishment to date with singular creativity and deep investment in a particular community or region, and is named for Zelda Fichandler, the founding artistic director of Arena Stage in Washington, DC. The award is presented annually, with a focus each year on a different region. We are very pleased to present this year’s award to Chicagobased director Ron OJ Parson and to recognize finalist Lili-Anne Brown, also from Chicago.

Mark Brokaw President, SDCF

Please join me in congratulating all the winners and finalists!

A DECADE IN REVIEW

Over the past 10 years, SDC Foundation has supported thousands of artists at every stage of their careers. Here is an overview of the major programs.

OBSERVERSHIPS

Each year, the Observership Program provided professional development opportunities to a full class of early- to mid-career artists. Once accepted in the program, members of the class were invited to apply for competitive, paid opportunities to observe experienced directors and choreographers working on Broadway, Off-Broadway, and at regional theatres across the country. Listed below are the Observers who received such opportunities, along with the productions they worked on and their mentors.

2019–2020 (full class: 89)

Banji Aborisade, Soft Power, Sam Pinkleton

Nehprii Amenii, for colored girls…, Leah C. Gardner

Tatiana Baccari, Vietgone, Pirronne Yousefzadeh

Michael Baugh, Girls, Raja Feather Kelly

Lindsay Bednar-Carter, Macbeth, Victor Malana Maog

Inés Braun, How I Learned to Drive, Mark Brokaw

Sharifa Yasmin, New Englanders, Saheem Ali

Talia Feldberg, Company, Marianne Elliot

Victoria Gruenberg, The Alchemist, Jesse Berger

Kari Hayter, The Unsinkable Molly Brown, Kathleen Marshall

Molly Rose Heller, The Crucible, Eric Tucker

Danny Kapinos, The King’s Speech, Michael Wilson

Ann Kreitman, Once, Mark Cuddy

Alyssa Natale, Tina, Anthony Van Laast

Sophiyaa Nayar, Soft Power, Leigh Silverman Ambika Raina, for colored girls…, Camille A. Brown

2018–2019 (full class: 150)

Rebecca Aparicio, Gloria: A Life, Diane Paulus

Britt Berke, Fabulation, or The Re-Education of Undine, Lileana Blain-Cruz

Adam Coy, Mojada, Chay Yew

Caitlin Davies, The Sound of Music, Rick Dildine

Kimberly Fitch, The Music Man, Patti Wilcox

Emma Gassett, Marie, Susan Stroman

Ryan Graytok, Sweeney Todd, Karen Azenberg

Dan Hasse, Julius Caesar, Ethan McSweeny Cara Hinh, Hadestown, Rachel Chavkin

Mary E. Hodges, Slave Play, Robert O’Hara Leda Hoffman, Lady in Denmark, Chay Yew Yojiro Ichikawa, Toni Stone, Pam MacKinnon David K. Kahawaii IV, Christmas in Hell, Bill Castellino Margaret Lee, Once, Marcia Milgrom Dodge Ashley Malafronte, Mac Beth, Erica Schmidt Steve Mazzoccone, Long Lost, Daniel Sullivan Graham Miller, South Pacific, Michael Rader Melissa Mowry, Lights Out: Nat “King” Cole, Patricia McGregor Callie Nestleroth, Diana, Christopher Ashley Rani O’Brien, Skylight, Emily Mann Peter Petkovsek, Little Women, Sarna Lapine Katharine Quinn, Tootsie, Denis Jones Gaby Sant’Anna, Dionysus Was Such a Nice Man, Dominique Serrand Anna Strasser, Much Ado About Nothing, May Adrales, and Cymbeline, Davis McCallum

Erin Thompson, Scotland, PA, Josh Rhodes Tai Thompson, The Color Purple, Timothy Douglas Renee Yeong, Continuity, Rachel Chavkin Jonathan Zautner, Scotland, PA, Lonny Price

2017–2018 (full class: 150)

Pablo Andrade, Kings, Tommy Kail Rebecca Aparicio, Desperate Measures, Bill Castellino James Blaszko, The White Chip, Sheryl Kaller Kristy Chambrelli, Children of a Lesser God, Kenny Leon Sophia Deery, 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Marcia Milgrom Dodge

Eddie DeHais, Macbeth, Robert O’Hara

Jennifer Delac, Beast in the Jungle, Susan Stroman Will Detlefsen, Fellow Travelers, Michael Wilson Rachel Goldman, Pretty Woman, Jerry Mitchell

Jasmine B. Gunter, Nina Simone: Four Women, Timothy Douglas Charlie McGrath, Shrew!, Art Manke

Antonio Miniño, Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train, Mark Brokaw

Maggie Monahan, School of Rock/Tour, David Ruttura

Pat Moran, Quixote Nuevo, KJ Sanchez

Richard A. Mosqueda, Soft Power, Leigh Silverman

Peter Petkovsek, Boys from Syracuse, Jonathan Cerullo

Betsy Effie Nkrumah, As You Like It, Laurie Woolery, and Gem of the Ocean, Kent Gash

Natalie Novacek, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, Karen Azenberg

Paige Parkhill, The Pajama Game, Parker Esse

Jane Skapek, Angels in America, Marianne Elliott

NaTasha Thompson, He Bought Her Heart Back in a Box, Evan Yionoulis

Alex Tobey, Tartuffe, Saheem Ali

Lillian Wooten White, Heroes, Steven Hoggett, and Only Gold, Andy Blankenbuehler

Annie Yee, Soft Power, Leigh Silverman

2016–2017 (full class: 133)

Cristina Angeles, Party People, Liesl Tommy

Lyndsay Burch, A Thousand Splendid Suns, Carey Perloff

Adriana Colón, Bathing in Moonlight, Emily Mann

Alexis DeVance, Venus, Lear deBessonet

Benita de Wit, The Moors, Mike Donahue

Angela Harris, Little Dancer, Susan Stroman

Camille Hayes, Othello, Eric Ting

Katie Lindsay, Bella: An American Tall Tale, Robert O’Hara

Jason Luks, Falsettos, Spencer Liff, and Mrs. Miller Does Her Thing, Josh Prince

Natalie Malotke, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Joshua Bergasse

Ann Noling, Little Foxes, Dan Sullivan

Nirvania Quesada Ortiz, Proof, Timothy Douglas

Jon Royal, Party People, Liesl Tommy

Julia Sears, Fulfillment Center, Daniel Aukin

Jess Shoemaker, The Monster-Builder, Art Manke

Arianna Soloway, Intelligence, Daniella Topol

Tyler Spicer, Twelfth Night, Kwame Kwei-Armah

David Strickland , Gypsy, Marcia Milgrom Dodge

Susan Toni, Kid Victory, Christopher Windom

Leta Tremblay, Lost in the Stars, Anne Bogart

Emma Rosa Went, Measure for Measure, Simon Godwin

Michael Witkes, Jesus Christ Superstar, Joe Calarco

2015–2016 (full class: 112)

Adrian Alexander Alea, The Odyssey, Lear deBessonet

Chari Arespacochaga, Dot, Susan Stroman, and Single Wide, Jeff Whiting

Courtney Buchan, Breaking Through, Sheldon Epps

Christopher Burris, Baby Doll, Emily Mann

Amanda Connors, girlstar, Eric Schaeffer

Dennis Corsi, The Ruins of Civilization, Leah Gardiner

Evan T. Cummings, Clarkston, Davis McCallum

Phillip Fazio, West Side Story, Matt Gardiner

Morgan Gould, Empire, Marcia Milgrom Dodge

Alex Hare, School of Rock, Laurence Connor

Candis Jones, The Comedy of Errors, Kwame Kwei-Armah, and Mothers and Sons, Timothy Douglas

Michael Landman, untitled workshop, Anne Kauffman

Rebecca Martinez, Daphne’s Dive, Thomas Kail

Megan Minutillo, It Happened One Christmas, Karen Azenberg

Alex Perez, Runaways, Sam Pinkleton

Hutch Pimentel, Hillary and Clinton, Chay Yew

Brandon Powers, Bandstand, Andy Blankenbuehler

Cait Robinson, Some Brighter Distance, Tracy Brigden

Makiko Shibuya, Allegiance, Stafford Arima

Rachel Black Spaulding, Hughie, Michael Grandage

Ian Fields Stewart, Women Laughing Alone with Salad, Neel Keller

Andrew Williams, The Odyssey, Lorin Latarro

Amile Wilson, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Matt August

Diana Wyenn, Grey Gardens, Michael Wilson

2014–2015 (full class: 195)

Jacob Basri, Antony and Cleopatra, Emily Mann

Michael Bello, Dr. Zhivago, Des McAnuff

Regge Allen Bruce, Desire, Michael Wilson

Teresa Campbell, How Water Behaves, Gordon Greenberg

Nikki DiLoreto, First Wives Club, Simon Phillips

Sam Godfrey, Intimate Apparel, Mary B. Robinson

Max Hunter, Zorba!, Walter Bobbie

Amanda Joshi, Fiddler on the Roof, Marcia Milgrom Dodge

Julianne Katz, Little Dancer, Susan Stroman

Susan Stroman at the 2018 SDCF Awards PHOTO Walter McBride

Jamil Jude + Kenny Leon at the 2019 SDCF Awards PHOTO Walter McBride

Justin Lucero, Peter and the Starcatcher, Art Manke

Emily Lyon, The Tempest, Michael Greif

Cassie Nordgren, On the Town, Joshua Bergasse

Eliza Orleans, The Way We Get By, Leigh Silverman

Sarah Scafidi, A Trip to Bountiful, Michael Wilson

Kimberly Schafer, Lady! Be Good, Randy Skinner

Sarah Jane Schostack, Smart Blonde, Peter Flynn

Illana Stein, Tamburlaine the Great, Parts 1 & 2, Michael Boyd

Sara Stevens, Living on Love, Kathleen Marshall

Abigail Strange, Cagney, Bill Castellino

Amy Taylor Rosenblum, Heisenberg, Mark Brokaw

Shaun Patrick Tubbs, King Hedley II, Timothy Douglas

Amy Uhl, Amazing Grace, Gabriel Barre

Dina Vovsi, The Winter’s Tale, Davis McCallum, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Eric Tucker

Michael Whitney, Little Shop, Wendy Seyb

2013–2014 (full class: 229)

Clare Cook, Bullets Over Broadway Lab, Susan Stroman

Bethany Elkin, Secondhand Lions, Scott Schwartz

Hannah Greene, The King and I, Marcia Milgrom Dodge

Graydon Gund, Clybourne Park, Davis McCallum

Taylor Haven Holt, Hand to God, Moritz von Stuelpnagel

Lori Wolter Hudson, Taking Care of Baby, Erica Schmidt

Jennifer Jancuska, I’m Getting My Act Together…, Kathleen Marshall

Nathanael Johnson, Henry IV Parts 1 & 2, Michael Kahn

Cassey Kikuchi Kivnick, A Christmas Carol, Joe Calarco

Amber Mak, Big Fish, Susan Stroman

Michelle Maurer, The Gospel of Lovingkindness, Chay Yew

Charlie Marie McGrath, A Time to Kill, Ethan McSweeny

Jonathan Musser, The Old Friends, Michael Wilson

Marshall Pailet, Bright Star, Walter Bobbie

Rory Pelsue, The Figaro Plays, Stephen Wadsworth

Katharine Pettit, Bullets Over Broadway, Susan Stroman

Dani Prados, Mountaintop, Peter Flynn

Jason Rost, The Seagull, Max Stafford-Clark

Patricia Runcie, Vanya & Sonia & Masha & Spike, Sheryl Kaller

Nick Salvidar, Faust, Thomas Kail

Robert W. Schneider, Sweeney Todd, Lonny Price

Kelly Shook, A Night with Janis Joplin, Patricia Wilcox

Felicity Stiverson, Tartuffe, Dominique Serrand

LA Williams, Appropriate, Liesl Tommy

2012–2013 (full class: 152)

Zi Alikhan, Under My Skin, Marcia Milgrom Dodge

Paula Morello Bennett, Cabaret, Joseph Haj

Hunter Bird, Hughie, Doug Hughes

Patrick Boyd, Pippin, Chet Walker

Andrew Britt, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Sean Mathias

Sydney Chatman, The Trip to Bountiful, Michael Wilson

Walid Chaya, Sleepless in Seattle, Sheldon Epps

Rachel Dart, Talley’s Folly, Michael Wilson

Ryan Domres, R&H’s Cinderella, Mark Brokaw

Christian Flemming, Storyville, Bill Castellino

Joshua Chase Gold, Three Musketeers, Art Manke Taylor Haven Holt, Murder Ballad, Trip Cullman

Kevin Hourigan, Caucasian Chalk Circle, Brian Kulick

Shelby Kaufman, Nobody Loves You, Mandy Moore Pilar Castro-Kiltz, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Rob Ashford Michael Kinnan, Clybourne Park, Timothy Douglas Amber Mak, Big Fish, Susan Stroman Kathryn Moroney, A Delicate Balance, Emily Mann Kristen Parker, Choir Boy, Trip Cullman Lindsay Hope Pearlman, All in the Timing, John Rando Michael Rader, South Pacific, Igor Goldin Joshua Sobel, Hamlet, Michael Halberstam Felicity Stiverson, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Mark Cuddy and Skip Greer

Abigail Strange, Guys and Dolls, Dan Knechtges Jenna Worsham, Picnic, Sam Gold

2011–2012

Kevin Bigger, Close Up Space, Leigh Silverman Anthony “Tony” Curtis, Stick Fly , Kenny Leon Ryan Emmons, Ghost, Matthew Warchus Pat Golden, The Convert, Emily Mann Elyzabeth Gorman, RX, Ethan McSweeny

Daniel Gwirtzman, Shlemiel the First, David Gordon Lavina Jadhwani, Noises Off, Michael Michetti Candis Jones, The Brothers Size, Timothy Bond Stephen Kaliski, Evita, Michael Grandage Dorit Katzenelenbogen, Painting Churches, Carl Forsman Neal Kowalsky, Next to Normal, Karen Azenberg Dylan Levers, The Real Thing, Michael Halberstam Katie Lupica, Godspell, Daniel Goldstein Marti Lyons, Oedipus el Rey, Chay Yew Jimmy Maize, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, John Rando Jessica Rose McVay, The Best Man, Michael Wilson Lindsey Hope Pearlman, Leap of Faith, Christopher Ashley Vincent Scott, Changes of Heart, Timothy Douglas Courtney Laine Self, Big Fish, Susan Stroman Paul Takacs, Once, Steven Hoggett Ryder Thornton, Galileo, Brian Kulick Lorna Ventura, Nice Work If You Can Get It, Kathleen Marshall Scott Weinstein, Cabaret, Marcia Milgrom Dodge Jenna Worsham, Private Lives, Maria Aitken Sidney Erik Wright, Ghost Brothers of Darkland County, Susan Booth

RESIDENCIES AND FELLOWSHIPS

Lloyd Richards New Futures Residency

The Lloyd Richards New Futures Residency is a yearlong residency for mid-career BIPOC directors and choreographers interested in artistic leadership.

2021 Shá Cage, Cornerstone Theater Company, Michael John Garcés Elizabeth Carter, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Nataki Garrett

2011 – 2012 Robert Barry Fleming, The Music Man, Molly Smith

Denham Fellowship

Recognizes an early- or mid-career female-identifying director to further their directing skills.

2019 – 2020 Arpita Mukherjee, Islands of Contentment and Running

2018 – 2019 Michelle Bossy, There and Back

2017 – 2018 Shirley Jo Finney, Runaway Home

2016 – 2017 Diane Rodriguez, The Sweetheart Deal

2015 – 2016 Hannah Ryan, Every Path 2014 – 2015 Bridget Leak, The Complete Tom: 1. Adventures 2. Huckleberry 3. Abroad 4. Detective

2013 – 2014 Pirronne Yousefzadeh, And If You Lose Your Way, or A Food Odyssey

2012 – 2013 Rachel Alderman, Freewheelers

2011 – 2012 Kathleen Amshoff, Swell

Harold Prince/Kurt Weill Fellowship

Nurtures an early-career director or choreographer annually by placing them as an associate on a stage work of Kurt Weill or Marc Blitzstein.

2019 – 2020 Noam Shapiro, Love Life , Victoria Clark

2018 – 2019 James Blaszko, The Cradle Will Rock, John Doyle

2017 – 2018 Anna Michael, Mahagonny Songspiel, Die Sieben Todsunden, and Pierrot Lunaire, David Pountney

2017 – 2018 Rachel Goldman, Pretty Woman, Jerry Mitchell

2016 – 2017 Rhonda Kohl, In Transit, Kathleen Marshall

2015 – 2016 Mandie Black, Tuck Everlasting, Casey Nicholaw

2014 – 2015 Sara Stevens, Living on Love, Kathleen Marshall

2012 – 2013 Patrick Boyd, Pippin, Chet Walker

Sir John Gielgud Fellowship

Supports early-career directors to study the craft of directing classical plays by assisting an experienced director.

2018 – 2019 Katie Lupica, The Odyssey, Roger Danforth

2017 – 2018 Flordelino Lagundino, Richard II and The Heart of Robin Hood, Davis McCallum

2016 – 2017 Nathan Singh, Electra, Seret Scott

2015 – 2016 Chika Ike, Macbeth, Dan Sullivan

2014 – 2015 Tlaloc Rivas, Iphigenia in Aulis, Charles Newell

2013 – 2014 Tyne Rafaeli, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Julie Taymor

2012 – 2013 Desdemona Chiang, King Lear, Bill Rauch

2011 – 2012 Elyzabeth Gorman, Strange Interlude, Michael Kahn

Mike Ockrent Fellowship

Supports an early-career director to assist a director on the creation of a big-budget Broadway musical or play.

2018 – 2019 Ilana Ransom Toeplitz, The Prom, Casey Nicholaw

Charles Abbott Fellowship

Allows an SDC Member or SDC Associate Member the opportunity to be mentored by a director who is also an artistic director during the production of an American musical classic.

2020 – 2021 Marina Montesanti, 1776, Diane Paulus

2019 – 2020 Alex Hare, Emma, Barbara Gaines

2017 – 2018 Christine O’Grady, West Side Story, Joseph Haj Julia Locascio, Ragtime, Curt Columbus

2016 – 2017 Joshua Chase Gold, South Pacific, Charles Abbott

2014 – 2015 Christian Fleming, Kiss Me Kate, Darko Tresnjak

2013 – 2014 Natalie Malotke, Sweet Charity, Karen Azenberg

2012 – 2013 Brandon Ivie, Hello, Dolly!, Eric Schaeffer

2015 – 2016 Jenny Bennett, Lost in the Stars, Tazewell Thompson

2014 – 2015 Shaun Patrick Tubbs, The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, John Fulljames

2013 – 2014 Paige Kiliany, The Threepenny Opera, Matthew Gardiner Michael Leibenluft, The Threepenny Opera, Martha Clarke

Shepard and Mildred Traube Fellowship

Supports the development of future Broadway artists by providing members of the SDCF Observership Class the opportunity to observe an experienced director or choreographer on a Broadway production.

2019 – 2020 Ines Braun, How I Learned to Drive, Mark Brokaw

2016 – 2017 Seonjae Kim, Amélie, Pam MacKinnon

2015 – 2016 Cassey Kivnick, Gotta Dance, Jerry Mitchell

2013 – 2014 Paula D’Alessandris, No Man’s Land / Waiting for Godot, Sean Mathias

2011 – 2012 Alex Lippard, Bonnie & Clyde, Jeff Calhoun

George C. Wolfe Fellowship

Offers professional directors and choreographers the chance to explore an area of interest, and thereby add another weapon to their artistic arsenal to be used to help shatter the perceived boundaries restricting their career.

2012 – 2013 Imani Douglas and JoAnn Yeoman

Shá Cage

Elizabeth Carter

AWARDS

The “Mr. Abbott” Award

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.

2020 Joe Mantello

2019 Victoria Traube – Honorary “Mr. Abbott” Award

2018 Julie Taymor

2017 Kenny Leon 2015 James Lapine

2013 Jerry Mitchell

2011 George C. Wolfe

The Barbara Whitman Award

The Barbara Whitman Award recognizes a female, trans, or non-binary early-career director.

2021 NJ Agwuna

2020 Sharifa Yasmin

2019 Taibi Magar

2018 Raja Feather Kelly 2017 Lee Sunday Evans

2016 Ed Sylvanus Iskandar

2013 Ruben Santiago-Hudson (Dir), The Piano Lesson

Marlo Hunter (Chor), Unlock’d

2012 John Tiffany (Dir), Once Steven Hoggett (Chor), Once

The Gordon Davidson Award

The Gordon Davidson Award recognizes a director or choreographer for lifetime achievement and distinguished service in the regional theatre nationally.

2021 Emily Mann 2020 Seret Scott

2019 Lisa Peterson 2018 Oskar Eustis

The Zelda Fichandler Award

The Joe A. Callaway Award

The Joe A. Callaway Awards recognize excellence in directing and choreography in New York City. They are the only awards given by peer directors and choreographers for work on a single production.

2020 Danya Taymor (Dir), Heroes of the Fourth Turning Travis Wall (Chor), The Wrong Man

2019 Kenny Leon (Dir), Much Ado About Nothing Jeff & Rick Kuperman (Chor), Alice by Heart

2018 Anne Kauffman (Dir), Mary Jane Susan Stroman (Chor), The Beast in the Jungle

2017 David Cromer (Dir), The Band’s Visit Rachel Rockwell (Chor), Ride the Cyclone

The Zelda Fichandler Award is SDCF’s first award devoted to the regional theatre and is given to a director or choreographer who has made, and who continues to make, a significant contribution to their community through extraordinary work in theatre.

2021 Mark Valdez, Western/Los Angeles

2020 Kamilah Forbes, Eastern/New York City, The Apollo Theatre

2019 Marcela Lorca, Central/St. Paul, MN, Ten Thousand Things

2018 Loretta Greco, Western/San Francisco, Magic Theatre

2017 Vivienne Benesch, Eastern/Chapel Hill, NC, PlayMakers Repertory Company

2016 Lisa Portes, Central/Chicago

2015 Tim Dang, Western/Los Angeles, East West Players

The Breakout Award

The Breakout Award is given to a director or choreographer for a production or selection of work that signals a shift in a career and the beginning of critical recognition—a “rising star” moment.

2021 Jon Rua

2020 Jenn Rose

2016 Sarah Benson (Dir), Futurity James Walski (Chor), Trip of Love

2015 Mike Donahue (Dir), The Legend of Georgia McBride

Alex Sanchez & Lainie Sakakura (Chor) Red Eye of Love

2014 Martha Clarke (Chor), Chéri John Rando (Dir), The Heir Apparent

2014 Joseph Haj, Eastern/Chapel Hill, NC, PlayMakers Repertory Company

2013 Charles Newell, Central/Chicago, Court Theatre

2012 Bill Rauch, Western/Ashland, OR, Oregon Shakespeare Festival

Jon Rua

Sharifa Yasmin

Marcela Lorca + Lisa Peterson at the 2019 SDCF Awards PHOTO Walter McBride

James Lapine presenting the 2018 “Mr. Abbott” Award to Julie Taymor PHOTO Walter McBride

LEGACY

Maureen