small opportunities and took a chance on them if they did well. Joan Vail Thorne worked as Zelda’s assistant until Zelda hired Thorne to direct in the 1954-1955 season. “It was an act of faith,” Joan remembers in To Repair the World. When Douglas C. Wager was Zelda’s assistant stage manager for An Enemy of the People, she gave him the job of staging the transitions. “That was my first official paid directing job,” he recalls. Wager would go on to a successful directing career and eventually become Zelda’s successor as Arena’s Artistic Director.
Miriam Silverman, Adam Green + Robert Prosky in Awake and Sing!, Zelda Fichandler’s final production at Arena Stage PHOTO SCOTT SUCHMAN
actor Casey Biggs recalls, “Liviu Ciulei, Lucian Pintilie, Doug Wagner, Garland Wright— these incredible directors.” For James C. Nicola, who first came on board at Arena as a directing fellow in a now-defunct NEA program, that was a major attraction of working for Zelda. “The remarkable thing that really drew me to Arena in the first place was the wisdom she had about bringing in directors from other cultural traditions.” Zelda knew how to let a director have their own space. “When she believed in you as a director, there was another layer of comfort that you knew she would offer. There was always a sense of ‘It’s going to be your production,’” Joe Dowling remembers in Robinson’s book. “The notes she gave were not based on what she would have done with the play, but always based on what she knew I wanted to do with the play.” Dowling,
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who is Irish, credits Zelda for his success in the United States. “I’ve spent the last 30 years now more in America than in Ireland. That came because of Zel.” Zelda’s leadership style, in the rehearsal room and in the halls, made an impact as well. “I completely wanted to model my directing style after her,” John Rando says. “The generosity of spirit, the intelligence, the magnanimous way of creating a very safe and playful environment in the rehearsal hall—all those things really added up for me.” Playwright Cheryl L. West thought of Zelda as tough, demanding, and sartorially sharp. “When you see a woman like that, you think perhaps I could do that too. Or I could have my own sense of strength.” Zelda was a similar influence on, and was a mentor to, many young directors over the course of her career. She often gave them
Zelda kept an eye on the people she hired and recognized their talents. Sometimes this was life changing. When Ted Pappas was hired to choreograph at Arena, she took him aside. “It’s very interesting watching you work,” she told him, “because you speak to [the performers] as a director, not as a choreographer…you don’t talk to them about steps; you talk to them about why they’re doing it. You’re a director.” Pappas agreed, and went on to a career as a directorchoreographer and artistic director. She also passed on other lessons. What stayed with Nicola “most deeply and profoundly from Zelda was the significance of continuing relationships—artistic collaborative relationships.” Benny Sato Ambush, another mentee, was impressed by Zelda’s artistic identity as “a globalist. I picked that up from her—it started my interest in a universal perspective, in addition to the Black experience.” As Robinson points out, while Zelda was not always a proactive supporter of female directors (only six women, besides Zelda, directed at Arena in the 35 years she was its artistic leader), she nonetheless had a profound effect on women in the field. Director and writer Emily Mann’s two big