HARPUR perspective
Food for fellow writers
M
aria Mazziotti Gillan was thrilled to receive the 2010 Barnes & Noble Writers for Writers Award — given to authors who help other writers and enrich the literary community — and not just because a fellow recipient was the well-known Maria Mazziotti Gillan earned the Barnes John Grisham. & Noble Writers for “It was the Writers Award for her justification of lifelong work helping everything my authors. parents tried to teach me about reaching out to other people and helping,” says the professor of English and director of both the creative writing program and the Binghamton Center for Writers. “They each did it in their own way, my mother through food, my father through all the help he provided. And I’ve done it by helping other writers and setting up programs.” It’s been a theme throughout Gillan’s career, starting when she established a poetry center in Paterson, New Jersey, one of the toughest cities in the country. People told her it was impossible, but she’s kept it vibrant for 30 years by bringing in virtually every famous poet America has produced in that time. Still the center’s executive director, she also started the Allen Ginsberg Awards, the Paterson Literary Review and the New Jersey Poetry Calendar. “Pass it on,” she says and uses a Biblical allusion: “It’s bread cast on the waters. If somebody opens a door for you, then you need to open a door for 10 people.”
Fall 2011
Joe Costa
in. On his last day, he said, “I’m going free a “channel,” which unlocks tensions now” and never came back. in the jaw, tongue and soft pallet so “So the sense of the family got built,” the voice can travel freely. There’s also Brady says. “When he no longer came to emphasis resonator work to open up rehearsals, the actors still had memories of different spaces that sound and voice him. There were pictures of him around can travel through. And, of course, it the room.” addresses articulation. One of Brady’s most uncommon “Through all of this, it’s about productions was Three Penny Opera, allowing the actor’s truth to be in which she partnered with Duoc revealed,” Brady says. “So you’re not Universidad Católica in Santiago, Chile. trying to go for a beautiful voice. You’re The international production of Bertolt trying to free whatever this person Brecht and Kurt Weill’s 1928 musical has to say and free text through them. had Brady Skyping with coOther techniques are director Sebastian Dahm to very muscular. This is “It is not just talk about ideas and themes. based on relaxation and our bodies Then Brady and music liberates breath, sound and and our voices Professor Tim Perry took five emotion with imaginative that are lead actors and four ensemble exercises. That’s why I atrophying, members from Binghamton think it’s perfect for actors but our University to Chile to work because they rely on their connection to with Dahm and five leads and imagination to go into a our emotional several more ensemble actors play’s circumstances.” life and from Duoc. They rehearsed Brady uses many to others. in Santiago four weeks before innovative techniques to performing the play eight connect actors to the text, times. helping them explore the The production was then moved to worlds it contains. When she directed Binghamton University, where it added Charles Marowitz’s A Macbeth, a four more cast members from Binghamton disjointed play based on Shakespeare’s before rehearsing with a new student Macbeth, Brady skipped the customary orchestra on a very different stage. first read and, instead, had a team “It was a terrific experience,” Brady mutter the text to actors, thought by says. “Our students learned a lot from thought, without stress, intonation or going down there and making friends and interpretation. This allowed the actors working with a different culture. Basically, to connect with their breath, their we were all after the same thing. I was imagination, the words and their scene surprised how easy that was.” partners without worrying about or Brady says these kinds of experiences knowing what was coming next. and experiments, along with her When Brady directed David Lindsayexploration of voice, movement and Abaire’s Rabbit Hole, which is about a acting techniques, help her be a stronger husband and wife grieving the death artist and better teacher. of their 5-year-old son Danny, who “I am always exploring new ways of was killed in an automobile accident, teaching and new exercises for physical she cast a 5-year-old boy in the part and vocal release and expression,” she of Danny, though the character never says. “Whether I am teaching voice or appears onstage. The boy came to movement or acting, I desire to liberate rehearsals and played games, had picnics the creative self in each student, to and took pictures with the cast and awaken their curiosity and deepen their crew. Halfway through the rehearsal ability as actors to tell a story.” process, Brady stopped bringing Danny
Harpur College of Arts and Sciences
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