SDC Journal Spring 2013

JOURNAL SPRING 2013

A CONVERSATION WITH

ROB ASHFORD +

MICHAEL GRANDAGE

ENGAGED THEATRE/EXTREME CIRCUMSTANCES ROBIN LYNN SMITH + THEATRE IN PRISONS

TELEVISION + THEATRE SHELDON EPPS, THOMAS KAIL + JASON MOORE

ACCEPTING THE DIVIDE

A DISCUSSION ABOUT CAPTURING PLAYS IN SHORT FORM

+ THE HUNGER OF THE LENS

TRANSITIONS

VIVIENNE BENESCH IN RESIDENCE

KENT GASH FROM THE ARCHIVES

SUSAN H. SCHULMAN

SDC EXECUTIVE BOARD

Karen Azenberg PRESIDENT

Doug Hughes

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EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT

Leigh Silverman VICE PRESIDENT

Oz Scott SECRETARY

Ethan McSweeny TREASURER

HONORARY ADVISORY COMMITTEE

this space is for you...

Published quarterly, SDC Journal is distributed to Directors and Choreographers nationwide and is available to industry constituents, theatre education programs of all levels, and the theatre-going public at large.

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

Ronald H. Shechtman EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Laura Penn

MEMBERS OF BOARD

Julie Arenal Rob Ashford Christopher Ashley Walter Bobbie Joe Calarco Larry Carpenter Marcia Milgrom Dodge Sheldon Epps Michael John Garcés Christopher Gattelli Liza Gennaro Wendy C. Goldberg Linda Hartzell Moisés Kaufman Dan Knechtges Mark Lamos Paul Lazarus Rick Lombardo Tom Moore Amy Morton Robert Moss Sharon Ott Lisa Peterson Lonny Price John Rando Susan H. Schulman Seret Scott Bartlett Sher Chay Yew

SDC JOURNAL

Published by SDC | Spring 2013 | Volume 1 | No. 4 FEATURES EDITOR

Shelley Butler

SDC Journal’s mission is to give voice to an empowered collective of Directors and Choreographers working in all jurisdictions and venues across the country, to encourage advocacy, and to highlight artistic achievement.

ART DIRECTOR

Elizabeth Miller CONTRIBUTORS

Stephanie Coen

Thomas Kail

ASSC. ARTISTIC DIRECTOR,

DIRECTOR

DIRECTOR

TWO RIVER THEATER CO.

Adam Levi

Ted Sod

BUSINESS REPRESENTATIVE

ACTOR/DIRECTOR

Elana McKelahan

Michelle Sokolowski

Kristy Cummings BUSINESS REPRESENTATIVE

Alyssa Dvorak PUBLICATIONS INTERN

Nicole Herrington

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WRITER

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SDC JOURNAL is published quarterly by Stage Directors and Choreographers Society located at 1501 Broadway, STE 1701, NYC 10036. SDC JOURNAL is a registered trademark of SDC. SUBSCRIPTIONS Call 212.391.1070 or visit www.SDCweb.org.

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Union bug here

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SPRING

CONTENTS

FEATURES

13

TRANSITIONS

Glass Half Full Vivienne Benesch on acting + directing.

BY ANGELA

SANTILLO

14 Engaged Theatre/Extreme

Circumstances

Director ROBIN LYNN SMITH discusses working with underserved communities and the relationship between audience + performer.

17 Ph.D. in Solitude

18

n interview with Director RICHARD HAMBURGER A about his work with prison populations.

INTERVIEWS BY TED

SOD

SPRING 2013

20

Volume 1 | No. 4

COVER

Rob Ashford

EDITED BY STEPHANIE

A conversation on early theatrical experiences + career with MICHAEL GRANDAGE. PLUS Thoughts on current issues, inspirations + other pursuits.

COEN

28 Accepting the Divide An exploration of capturing plays in the short form, from televised awards programs to commercials.

BY MARA

ISAACS

30 NEA Work Samples

NEA’s Ralph Remington + Carol Lanoux Lee on filming work samples.

32 The Hunger of the Lens

Sandy Block of Scott Sanders Productions on capturing for promotion.

IN THE COMMUNITY

2013 Fred + Adele Astaire Awards

BY KRISTY

CUMMINGS

35 Television + Theatre

A roundtable discussion with SHELDON EPPS, THOMAS KAIL +

JASON MOORE on directing for television.

INTERVIEW BY THOMAS

KAIL SPRING 2013 | SDC JOURNAL

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5

FROM THE PRESIDENT

BY KAREN

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FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

AZENBERG

BY LAURA

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IN YOUR WORDS

Two Questions for Director Margaret Booker CURATED BY SERET SCOTT

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IN RESIDENCE

PENN

Kent Gash @ NYU’s New School on Broadway

BY ANGELA SANTILLO

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Why I Cast That Actor

KIMBERLY SENIOR on Casting Mark L. Montgomery in The Letters

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OUR MEMBERS IN PRINT

HowlRound: Crowdsourcing the Theatre Community D AVID DOWER on the explosion of the online blog

BY ELANA

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If You Do One Thing This Spring, What Will It Be?

Our Members Respond

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MCKELAHAN

BACKSTAGE

Allen Lee Hughes

of Lighting Design

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FROM THE ARCHIVES

Lighting Designer + Teacher

Susan H. Schulman: For the Love of Musicals

An interview with MELVIN BERNHARDT

41

AROUND THE COUNTRY

SDC Regional Report KCACTF Around the Nation with Gregg Henry

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THE SOCIETY PAGES Harold Prince + 25th Anniversary of

COVER PHOTO

| Rob Ashford on the set of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof CJ Maldonado | www.cirilojerome.com

ABOVE LEFT

| Margaret Booker in rehearsal with Jeffrey Wright

ABOVE RIGHT

PHOTO

Vince Scarano

| David Dower | 1 Reginald Andre Jackson + Marya Sea Kaminski in Cymbeline, Engaged Theatre Summer Tour PHOTO Chris Brush | 2 Director Vivienne Benesch works with actors on the workshop of Kate Fodor’s Rx at Chautauqua Theater Company PHOTO Mark Anderson | 3 Rob Ashford directing A Streetcar Named Desire at Donmar Warehouse PHOTO Marc Brenner | 4 Thomas Kail + Sheldon Epps speaking with Jason Moore via Skype at the offices of SDC PREVIOUS

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The Phantom of the Opera, 42nd Annual Theatre Hall of Fame + SDC’s Arthur Penn

SDC JOURNAL

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4 | SPRING 2013

THE FROM ENT PRESID C OF SD

T

here is a very clear desire for stories keenly focused on craft and interviews with directors and choreographers from all backgrounds and styles. You are asking for in-depth conversations about not just the success of particular artists, but about the struggles of our livelihood.

KAREN

Recently, a brief survey was sent to SDC’s Membership, affording our readers their first opportunity to respond to SDC Journal. We’ve been curious about your thoughts. Are you reading the magazine? What do you enjoy most? Do you feel represented, and how do you like receiving SDC Journal as old-fashioned snail mail as opposed to getting it more speedily in your overflowing inboxes? We want your opinions.

You are reading. More than three-quarters of the survey respondents—a meaningful sample of our Membership—read each issue cover to cover. The publication is popular, I’m happy to report, and it’s truly wonderful to see our work not only honored, but shared throughout the theatrical community, in New York and across the nation. And on paper, no less!

Nearly 60% of respondents say they prefer the printed publication. I suspect an online version will eventually follow, but in the meantime, we hope you enjoy the tangibility of the printed words and the ability to carry them to and from rehearsal and work without having to charge any one of your myriad devices.

I know some Members are sharing their copies, passing them along to nonMembers and colleagues, friends and those they are mentoring, like passing a torch. Thank you for sharing. Let’s keep it up!

I am also happy to report that articles from the past two issues have been reprinted online and in regional newspapers, including the Crawford Clipper in Nebraska, where a regional report featuring Member and Post Playhouse Artistic Director Tom Ossowski was run under Area News. University of North Carolina School of the Arts ran the Winter Transitions column about Carl Forsman on their website, and other articles have been requested for private distributions, sending our Members’ work and words out into our schools, communities, and social media outlets.

While success is sweet, we all know there is still work to be done. Half of you feel we represent our entire Membership well, which means that half of you do not.

We aim to cast wider and wider nets, capturing the untold stories of directors and choreographers working all across the country. Based on your answers, there is a very clear desire for stories keenly focused on craft and interviews with directors and choreographers from all backgrounds and styles. You are asking for in-depth conversations about not just the success of particular artists, but about the struggles of our livelihood, and there is a need for hearing about how others have dealt with inevitable obstacles in the industry. You can help determine these discussions. If you have an idea for a regional report, let us know. If something is happening in your hometown that you feel deserves a story, send us your ideas. We want to know what you are up to, personally and professionally.

This issue of SDC Journal marks the final magazine within the first volume of this new publication. I can hardly believe a year has come and gone. I still remember when SDC Journal—in its current, process-oriented form—was just an idea. Through this magazine, we set out to elevate the craft of stage direction and choreography, to get to know you—the practitioners of that craft—and to explore the processes by which you do what you do. SDC Journal is part of a larger strategy for outreach and education. It’s only one tool we are using to build community. Our craft is marked by its singular nature. Learning of one another’s experiences will serve the Union’s work and help support our role in the industry. We have more work to do, more artists to seek out and interview, more topics to discover and investigate, more regions to further represent. But we’ve taken that first step—proudly and with your support.

Happy Spring.

Karen Azenberg President of SDC KAREN AZENBERG has been a Member since 1989 CARL FORSMAN since 2001 | TOM OSSOWSKI since 2003

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FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Most of us want the work we do to make a difference, to contribute somehow to those we connect with today and those that follow. In our work here at SDC, we want to articulate and attempt to quantify the influence directors and choreographers have on the world around them. This influence is significant and intangible, illusive and apparent, all at the same time. SDC Journal is one way we share stories among peers, try to illuminate the alchemy of the crafts—for the benefit of the Members, of course, but also for the health of the industry, an industry that is critical in any civil society.

For generations, stage directors and choreographers have been striving for excellence, advancing their craft, and with it, theatre itself. They assume, consciously or not, that their own unique, relentless pursuit is a worthy endeavor. They believe deeply that the connection between artist and audience matters. How each of you came to your calling is a different tale, a fairy tale of sorts, filled with rites of passage, tall walls, and a seemingly endless maze that travels through dark valleys and scales steep mountains.

“The primary

challenge should be to produce plays that reach out to people and change their lives.”

ARTHUR PENN FOUNDING MEMBER, SDC

The Founders of SDC took to heart the responsibility of the Society to advance the craft.

They challenged directors and choreographers to ask the best of themselves in service to their own artistry and the field. Through mentorship, as well as through osmosis, our Membership today takes this charge just as seriously. It is your vitality as artists, as leaders, that called SDC into existence, and that vitality continues to require that we do our best work to support you.

Would it be easier if there were only one or three or six aesthetics? What if there were just seven paths that led to a career as a stage director or choreographer? These paths might reveal the twelve ways to successfully stage Romeo and Juliet, or the nine effective interpretations of Three Sisters, or five surefire ways to support a playwright bringing new work to the stage.

There could be a handful of ways architects were allowed to design theatres, and we could ignore advancing technology, thereby ensuring the production process remained consistent and always predictable. Directors’ responsibilities would be to block actors while choreographers only taught tap dances to chorus lines. Everyone would know who was who and what was what.

Alas, vision and passion rarely take well to such constraints. Inspiration defies boundaries, and rarely can someone retrace the steps of another to find the beginning of their genius.

represent the breadth of our Membership, their work, and their devotion to the theatre. We discover what inspires Rob Ashford and what drives Robin Lynn Smith. We gather some of our best directors to seek a solution to presenting moments of dramatic productions for award shows such as the Tonys. Another gathering of talented Members share their experiences of honing their skills, working back and forth between screen and stage.

Kent Gash teaches, David Dower challenges us, and we are called to action to participate more fully in the training of our next generation through the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival, and more.

While we decided early on not to have “theme” issues, I can’t help but notice in the final reading an underlying theme has emerged, literal and not, it’s one of impact, of making a difference. These Members direct and choreograph and dedicate themselves to making a difference in the world.

They direct and choreograph productions large and small that touch diverse audiences. They train young artists, validate the disenfranchised, build audiences of tomorrow, and create work that gives employment to hundreds, thousands of workers over time.

None of this is easy in a time of reduced resources where you are called upon to do more with less.

It’s not easy in a world where we now have a generation of digital natives born after the turn of the century who will never know a life without a swipe screen; they quite simply have the world at a fingertip! Our artists have become the social safety net in many communities; children’s theatres are our public schools’ arts specialists. Our Members, many of whom are artistic leaders, are called upon every day to make hard decisions designed to sustain artists and communities alike. While not ignoring these complexities, it is inspiring to read these pages and see directors and choreographers doing their part. They are finding a balance that allows them to grow as artists, to take risks, and to bring the next great work to audiences around the world.

This issue closes with Arthur Penn, a Founder of SDC and celebrated director of stage and film. Penn was never too shy to praise or criticize and had a passion for the theatre that drove him to relentlessly pursue excellence in his work. There was a piece spinning around the web last year that seems to have originated in 2006 during a conversation with Penn in New York. “No Friction, No Interest, No Play” is provocative to say the least. Provocation aside, in his closing, he says, “the primary challenge should be to produce plays that reach out to people and change their lives.” SDC Members strive to do this each and every day.

Laura Penn, Executive Director

In this issue—our fourth—we continue to strive to

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ROB ASHFORD since 2000 | DAVID DOWER since 1994 | KENT GASH since 1995 | ARTHUR PENN since 1959 | ROBIN LYNN SMITH since 1995

IN YOUR WORDS Two Questions In Residence Why I Cast That Actor Our Members In Print We Asked Our Members...

Backstage

8 CONTRIBUTE

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

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

CURATED BY SERET

SCOTT

for

When did you know you were a director? What did the moment look like?

Feel like?

When I graduated college I wanted to see the world and experience another culture firsthand. So with a Fulbright Fellowship to teach American literature, language, history, and government at the University of Stockholm (at the height of the Vietnam War!), I left for Sweden for two years.

I learned Swedish primarily by going to plays at the Royal Dramatic Theatre (Dramaten) and the City Theatre three to five times a week.

It was a golden era. Ingmar Bergman was directing both theatre and film. The great Bergman ensemble of actors was on stage for all to see, and they adopted me—the kid who came backstage and couldn’t get enough! Seeing them at work in great productions made me want to direct.

But how do you develop a solid skill set? I went to grad school at Stanford and returned several times to Dramaten to train with Bergman and Alf Sjöberg when the outstanding actor Erland Josephson was at the helm as artistic director. The Swedes encouraged me and gave me the space to try things and to fail. When I came back to the States, we moved to Seattle, where there were very few directing jobs at the time. Wanting to work with a company of exciting actors and hone my directing skills, I founded Intiman. Seattle became my artistic home and incubator.

NOTED | WINTER 2013

Member Alan Schneider, who was mentioned in “Jack O’Brien: Determination,” published a memoir entitled Entrances in 1986. The book was published by Viking and is available through Amazon.com SDC Journal misprinted the name of Member Bruce Heath in the Winter 2013 Society Pages.

Special thanks to Jim Knable for his assistance and research on Thornton Wilder’s Our Town for “This Play is Called Our Town.”

MARGARET BOOKER since 1975 | LLOYD RICHARDS d.2006 ALAN SCHNEIDER d.1984

If a mentor of yours were to see your work, where would they find themselves?

I’ve been blessed with several amazing mentors over the years—famed Swedish theatre and film director Ingmar Bergman, his mentor Alf Sjöberg, actor Max von Sydow, and director Lloyd Richards. Bergman shared his great respect for actors, his chamber music approach to ensemble acting, choreography in which each gesture had meaning, and a cinematic approach to staging, including a road map of stage pictures with plenty of room in between for actor input. Bergman would recognize the milestone/storyboard approach to staging and emphasis on tight ensemble in my current work. Special guidance also came from Alf Sjöberg for his technical expertise in staging large casts, Max von Sydow for his encouragement of a beginning director and objectivity about what worked and what didn’t on stage, and Lloyd Richards for exposing me to extraordinary actors of color, opening the exciting world of living authors at the O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, and introducing me to August Wilson, which led to one of the greatest experiences of my artistic life—directing August Wilson’s Fences in Chinese at the Beijing People’s Art Theatre in China.

MARGARET (MEGS) BOOKER has directed over 100 theatrical productions in the U.S., Europe, and Asia. She was the Founding Artistic Director of Tony Award-winning Intiman Theatre in Seattle, where she produced three international theatre festivals (Scandinavia, Germany, South America) during her 13-year tenure. She spent four years with the Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference developing and directing new work and has been the Artistic Director of the Asolo Theatre (Florida) and the Hartman Theatre (Connecticut). She received her B.A. from Stanford University, M.A. from the University of San Diego, and Ph.D. from Stanford University.

ABOVE In PHOTO

rehearsal at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center with Kate Burton Vince Scarano

SPRING 2013 | SDC JOURNAL

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IN RESIDENCE

KENT GASH @ NYU’S NEW SCHOOL ON BROADWAY

BY ANGELA

SANTILLO

From his days as an acting company member at ACT through his stints as Associate Artistic Director at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival and Atlanta’s Alliance Theatre, Kent Gash understands the benefits of having an artistic home. “They give you a strong foundation,” he says. “They give you a home base from which you can really jump out and soar.”

Gash’s current artistic home is NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, where he is the director of the New Studio on Broadway. In 2009, he was asked by former chair of drama Elizabeth Bradley and Dean Mary Schmidt Campbell to create a new program that focused on music theatre and acting. “I said ‘yes’ for a variety of reasons,” he says. “I was taught by extraordinary teachers. I wouldn’t have an acting career in the theatre if it wasn’t for acting teachers like Mel Shapiro. I wouldn’t have a career as a director if it weren’t for teachers like Michael McClain and Oskar Eustis. I wanted to create something from the ground up that would be superb training, similar to the great foundation training I received.”

Gash created a program reminiscent of his own artistic journey, which includes directing classics, musicals, and new work. His students are exposed to a wide variety of plays, with an emphasis on innovation, and they are encouraged to develop new ways of making theatre, from working with green screens to exploring acting in the digital age. “We’ve tried to be forward thinking,” Gash explains.

“How do we teach towards innovation, towards a theatre that may be just on the horizon? We try to teach with an eye towards the future, hence the name New Studio. But it is first, foremost, and fundamentally acting training. It is not a music and dance factory.”

Teaching innovation to the next generation of theatre artists at NYU has had an effect on Gash’s own directing career. “I would like to think and hope I am bolder,” he says, “that I am more fearless, because that is what I am always encouraging in our students, and I’m hoping their ferocity and passion about the work continues to inform and expand my own.”

His mission as director of the New Studio includes making opportunities for others, a task he takes very seriously. During his time at Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Gash recalls, he was one of the few African American directors given the opportunity to direct Shakespeare. “I feel like for every student who wants this profession, who wants to do this work, it’s one of the reasons why I became a director. I want to open up the conversation. I want to increase the participation of these artists who were being underused. I want to make opportunities for people and continue to make great work and try to make a contribution.”

Only one week into rehearsals of Nine at NYU and with freelance projects on the horizon, Gash looks forward to June 2014, when the New Studio’s first class of students with a full four years of training will graduate. “To my colleagues who are in the Union as directors, director/choreographers, keep an eye out,” says Gash. “I am hoping you will be delighted and excited by all that they bring to the table. We are doing our best to give them the best training that we are capable of. “

The Department of Theatre and Dance at UC Davis is seeking applicants for the prestigious Granada Artist-in-Residence, a one-quarter visiting professor position with a professionally competitive salary.

Applications are encouraged from directors, dancers, actors, choreographers, designers, and playwrights, with a reputation for working in any area of classical, contemporary and experimental performance.

Applicants are expected to create one production and teach one associated course. application deadline May 1, 2013 for more information visit theatredance.ucdavis.edu/aboutus/jobs.aspx Photo: © Antoine Tempe; Qudus Onikeku, Granada Artist-in-Residence

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DREW FRACHER since OSKAR 2001EUSTIS | JASSON since MINADAKIS 1997 | KENT since GASH 2008 since | BRIAN 1995 ISAAC | MEL SHAPIRO PHILLIPS since 1969 2011

Mark L. Montgomery + Kate Fry in the 2012 Writers’ Theatre production of The Letters, directed by Kimberly Senior PHOTO Michael Brosilow

WHY I CAST THAT ACTOR

KIMBERLY SENIOR On casting MARK L. MONTGOMERY in The Letters at Writers’ Theatre in Glencoe, IL Casting is always such an elusive process.

There are the tangibles, the requirements of the script. But then there are the intangibles, the metabolic response I will have to an actor, or what I often refer to as “fluency”—when an actor can really speak the language and music of a play.

Casting John Lowell’s The Letters provided some unique challenges. The time is 1931; the place is Soviet Russia. The director of a political committee charged with censoring material calls a functionary into his office without disclosing his agenda. This taut, 70-minute two-hander unfolds in real time— two characters engaging in a metaphorical chess match with their lives at stake.

The playwright provides the following description for the character of DIRECTOR: “—a strong, bluff man, anywhere from 40 65. He is an actor of superb natural talent.

He controls his voice, manipulates his words, moves his body with extraordinary skill, all in the service of himself and the Soviet State.

He believes in his cause deeply and sincerely, and he will use, and feels entitled to use, whatever means he has to solve a serious problem that threatens himself, ANNA, and perhaps even the future of the Ministry. He KIMBERLY SENIOR since 2010

may seem to be a bully, he may even act cruelly, but he is not a villain.”

Big shoes to fill. He is 40 – 65. Physically and mentally agile. A bully but not a villain. A man we can get behind and believe in, even if we don’t agree with his politics. We have to like him for the play to work, yet believe him to be the bully he is. And with this play, as with so many, it wasn’t casting the actor, it was casting the play. It wasn’t finding the right guy; it was finding the perfect pair. The other role, the role of ANNA, had already been cast. The Chicago treasure, Kate Fry, was unparalleled for the role, able to embody the period to perfection and maintain the ideal levels of mystery and certainty. I knew their chemistry was key and hoped to find an equal sparring partner for Kate—to help ratchet the tension slowly and make the outcome even more enticing and abstract.

We brought Kate in to read with about 30 men—a broad range of fantastically talented actors, all men I could see in the role. We had a great time reading all these men, learned so much about the flexibility of the play and just how important the dynamic

between the two actors was. Then in walked Mark Montgomery, and instantly the room felt fantastic. And I knew that the offstage dynamic was important too, since the show was scheduled to run for nearly five months in Writers’ Theatre’s bookstore space, which seats only 50. A long winter if you don’t like your scene partner!

As they began work on the scene, I immediately sensed the respect these two actors had for one another. The play moved beyond “a superior calls an underling to his office” and into people of comparable intellect and wit battling it out, using every tool they’ve got—status, sex, humor, and more. Mark met the requirements of the script, falling within the age range, and seemingly elastic both in body and mind. Beyond that, his bullying belied a vulnerability, and his charm masked a menace that bordered on seduction. Most exciting was that his audition felt like a rehearsal, the three of us already digging into the play. That effortlessness carried into our process and has continued throughout the run. Audiences are kept on their toes, living in the space between the characters where the true tension and chemistry lies.

SPRING 2013 | SDC JOURNAL

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OUR MEMBERS IN PRINT HowlRound: Crowdsourcing the Theatre Community

BY ELANA

“I rarely come with all the answers,” says David Dower of his directing process, “and I never hide my questions.” He is discussing his approach in the rehearsal room, but he might as well be describing his career philosophy.

From guiding San Francisco-based Z Space and emerging as a community leader in new play development to helping create HowlRound, an online “theatre commons,” as Arena Stage’s associate artistic director and pioneering the Center for the Theater Commons at Emerson College, David’s career has been driven by a fearless desire to build a conversation around the American theatre community’s most intimidating questions.

Judging by HowlRound’s explosion—since its inception in 2011, it has evolved from a passing idea into a thought catalog read by 225,000 unique visitors—the theatre community is eager to explore this territory.

“Polly Carl [director of the Center for the Theater Commons at Emerson College] created HowlRound,” explains Dower. “The growth of HowlRound has surprised us in several directions. This was less about anything we did to grow it and more about connecting to a broad desire for a space of conversation that could be open, accessible, and immediate.”

HowlRound’s success, according to Dower, stems as much from its form as its content.

“We didn’t know we were creating something that would thrive as the peer-to-peer process

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SDC JOURNAL

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that has evolved—the journal and blog are curated, yes, but the ideas are sourced from the participants,” he explains. “Same with the livestream channel, where content is generated by our peers, and the map, which is totally a wiki concept data project. So, with all these platforms, we found we were managing a groundswell of urgent interest rather than reaching out to build an audience.”

“The thing about all the platforms at HowlRound,” continues Dower, “is that they are open and participatory. People are so used to waiting for permission in our business, of hoping to be picked—for the job, for the MFA program, for a review or an award—that many of our peers seem conditioned now to need to be invited to contribute. And they wait, hoping we’ll pick them. But the participating people and topics are picking themselves. There’s room here.”

“There’s room here” is another careerdefining philosophy for Dower. As director of artistic programs at ArtsEmerson, Dower sees firsthand that theatre magic can come from anywhere. “It doesn’t so much matter the model of new play development,” he explains. “What matters is the artistic fire in the relationships. It has more to do with the potential for specific collaborations to release the best of the artistic energy in the room.” Dower embraces diversity and resolves to support artists pioneering new ways to

MCKELAHAN

collaborate. “My focus is on creating the environment, circumstances, and resources for individual artists to create their vision.

I’m going to bring together the necessary resources for all the people that I’m working with to succeed.”

While Dower has focused primarily on playwright advocacy, he is eager for directors and choreographers to take up the mantle in their fields. “We’re not going to fully address the problems for the freelance artist until some community of directors and choreographers says, ‘We have to tackle directly the system as it’s currently structured, and we’re going to work on a policy and advocacy level and be strategic about interventions that we can make.’ SDC can’t do it on its own.”

According to Dower, HowlRound is a platform that can help build this community. “I would love to see someone pick up the role of creating a regular conversation with and for choreographers and directors,” he explains.

“The way for HowlRound to become a space where choreographers and directors are more regularly in conversation is simply for directors and choreographers to more regularly converse there. Every piece of writing or live event you see there came about because the author suggested it and took responsibility for producing it. Write articles, curate a series on choreographers in new work, or directors

JOHN DOWER RANDO since 1995 DAVID 1994

working with prison populations, or the role of the union in smaller communities, or stream your conference—whatever is important to you and seems, as yet, unrepresented in the conversations there.”

WE ASKED OUR MEMBERS AROUND THE COUNTRY:

This sense of engagement and communal responsibility guides Dower’s advocacy philosophy as well. “What interests me is directors and choreographers seeing themselves and their challenges as part of the whole system and working together to advance the relevance and presence of theatre in the daily lives of our neighbors. Directors and choreographers are uniquely positioned to see the constraints and challenges in our field from their particular perspectives, and focusing on advocating for the health of the whole from the uniqueness of that position is what interests me.”

Take better care of myself. As the artistic director of a new company, it is hard to not work 24/7. My partner Scott often calls himself a “Theatre Widow” since he has to make plans around my crazy schedule. So spring is a welcome sight, because it reminds me that summer is just around the corner, and that’s when my homeland, the Coachella Valley of California, gets unbearably HOT (115 degrees in the shade), and the theatre season slows down. Ahh, a bit of a break for me and my staff… I am lucky and grateful to be in this position, but directors need to have personal lives too, with family and friends. So if I do one thing this spring, it’s to make plans to see my partner and my friends and family more, and plan a fabulous summer vacation!

“A common complaint is that the system of freelance productions at regional institutions is broken when it comes to directors and choreographers,” he continues. “It grinds people up, pulls them in impossibly far-flung directions, and inhibits both excellence and real community connections and relationships.

What interventions in that system might yield results—for the health of the whole field—that directors and choreographers can organize around to solve for the betterment of the whole?” For example, he says, “What would multi-year residencies for choreographers do— like we now see happening for playwrights— beyond provide opportunity for a handful of choreographers? How would our impact, community engagement, and financial health improve as a field if we had such programs?”

Dower’s capacity to empower artists to both embrace their field and change it points to his unflappable optimism. “I love this energy that we’re feeling now, particularly through HowlRound,” he says. “It’s been exhilarating to watch us coming to understand ourselves as a field outside the given structures of our field.

That’s why we’re calling it a ‘commons.’ There’s a sense of community and a shared sense of mission and resources that make me think we’re going to see something exciting and new over the next ten years that we can’t quite feel yet.”

David Dower is Director of Artistic Programs at ArtsEmerson. Before joining ArtsEmerson, he was the Associate Artistic Director at Arena Stage, where he planted seeds for HowlRound: A Center for the Theater Commons. Prior, he founded The Z Space (a theatre development center focused on Bay Area artists) and was a founder of its predecessor, The Z Collective, in San Francisco. He has directed over 25 world premieres, including productions at Arena, Berkeley Rep, Intiman, Magic Theatre, and on tour internationally. David’s fifth collaboration with monologist Josh Kornbluth, A Sea of Reeds, will open at Shotgun Players this summer.

SUSAN H. SCHULMAN since 1981

If you do one thing this spring, what will it be?

RON CELONA since 2002 | Rancho Mirage, CA With all the time I have focused on shipwrecks and defining the hues of love in this year’s production of Twelfth Night, I will take a sun-soaked trip with my amazing family to warm sandy beaches and bathe in the love of an amazing wife and beautiful children. (I need it, BAD!) BRANTLEY M. DUNAWAY since 2011 | Louisville, KY Take a day off. Susan Schulman once told me the best thing I could do was to cross out days in the calendar (when we still had calendars) and use them to recharge. I like saying yes to new projects, so it’s always a juggling act.

This year, I’m writing two new musicals and a television movie for Disney and directing several projects in the U.S. and the U.K. While the mix of ideas is energizing, I find that the woolgathering days are as valuable as the workdays. Whether it’s a museum, a movie, or a visit to a place I’ve never been, these are the days that feed the subconscious and the spirit, cultivate your inner artist, and keep you sane!

GORDON GREENBERG since 1997 | New York, NY Having no formal religious education—aside from the requisite theology class in college—and no traditional religious upbringing, I’ve never been forced or felt the need to read the Bible. I figure, since it’s apparently the greatest story ever told, it’s about time to see what all the fuss is about. So if there’s one thing I do this spring, it’s get through that behemoth.

DAVID RUTTURA since 2007 | New York, NY If I do one thing this spring it will be to visit my cousin, who has a small farm in the tiny village of Yarnscombe in Devon, England. I haven’t been there in a dozen years and have such sweet memories of the place: a postman who comes by and has his “elevenses” with you; the incredible clotted cream; the one telephone booth at the hub of seven small farms; the two border collies who work harder than just about anyone else; and, of course, my cousin, who tells me tales of nearby Clovelly, where pirates sailed into the coves and hid their treasures. It’s like visiting Middle-earth, Wonderland, and Treasure Island all at the same time.

JOANN YEOMAN Associate since 2004 | Bogota, NJ

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SPRING 2013 | SDC JOURNAL

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BACKSTAGE with What attracted you to becoming a lighting designer for the theatre?

I have always been fascinated by the theatre. As an only child, I learned to keep myself entertained with activities like playing the piano and lip-synching to the cast recording of South Pacific. Eventually, I gave performances for my parents and their friends.

During grade school, I worked backstage and also tried my hand at acting, playing such roles as the title character in a community theatre production of The Wizard of Oz. My other passion was for books. As a teenager, I volunteered at my neighborhood library and eventually would have become a librarian. During college, I had limited time for extracurricular activities and was forced to choose between my library job and continuing my theatre exploration. I chose the theatre.

One summer, I became an apprentice in summer stock.

As an apprentice, I gained experience in almost every job in the theatre, including lighting design. Once I began experimenting with lighting, I was hooked on the unique ways in which light contributes to storytelling by defining and highlighting spaces.

What is your approach to storytelling through design?

I believe that designers are an extension of the director. When you have different artists reading a script, they may each develop their own unique vision of how the story should be told. The possibilities for telling a story are limitless, and each artist’s vision is just as valid as all of the others. The director helps the design team arrive at a single vision that is right for this theatre, for these artists, at this time in our history, for this audience. Once a unified vision has been decided upon, my job is to contribute to the clarity of that particular vision through my design.

How does the collaborative nature of the relationship between director and designer begin?

The first time I meet with a director, I prefer to have a conversation in order to learn about each other as artists and as people. These initial meetings are a

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learning process for both parties. They are more about developing understanding and mutual respect for each artist’s creative process. One of the reasons directors tend to stick with the same design team is the discovery of shared values that can occur while forging these types of bonds. You can, in effect, create a type of shorthand based on what you may have learned from each other during earlier collaborations. And the beauty of this business is that you are constantly in the process of learning from others, not only about theatre and design but also about people and relationships.

What types of directors do you gravitate towards?

I develop strong relationships with directors who bring a sense of truth to their projects and inspire designers to seek out truth in their own work. For instance, director Pam MacKinnon is a brilliant storyteller who, through her detailed work with actors and designers, truly brings her vision of the story to life. I’m also very proud of my collaborations with Zelda Fichandler and those on musicals with director Doug Wager, who is an expert at highlighting truthfulness through song. What I mean by “truthfulness” is a commitment to uncovering the facts laid down on the page by the author(s). Once they are uncovered, a designer is then charged with responding to these facts and creating cohesive production elements that complement them.

Lastly, if you had advice as a lighting designer for SDC Members, what would it be?

I think it is critical to encourage artists to respond creatively at all times, even during technical rehearsals.

For example, continue to speak to a lighting designer in terms of storytelling and not in terms of dimmers/ lighting levels. This helps everyone to stay enveloped in process—not product—and ensures that we all remain focused on the unified vision of this particular version of the story.

Allen Lee Hughes Lighting Designer and teacher; BA, Catholic University; MFA, New York University. Broadway credits include Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Clybourne Park, Having Our Say, Mule Bone, and Once on This Island, which earned him a third Tony nomination. The Broadway production of K2 brought his first Tony nomination, an Outer Critics Circle Award, and the Joseph Maharam Award. Other design work on Broadway includes Strange Interlude, Accidental Death of an Anarchist, and Quilters.

New York credits include designs at Roundabout Theatre Company, New York Theatre Workshop, Playwrights Horizons, New York Shakespeare Festival, and Lincoln Center Theater and Off-Broadway. He is the recipient of the USITT Distinguished Achievement Award in Lighting Design for 2003. Mr. Hughes is the recipient of the 1997 Merritt Award for Excellence in Design and Collaboration. He is the recipient of two Helen Hayes Awards in Washington, D.C., and nominated eight other times. His work has been seen at major theatres throughout the country.

ZELDA FICHANDLER since 1987 | PAM MACKINNON since 2001 | DOUG WAGER since 1984

Vivienne Benesch is thinking about what she should say next. It is a cold night in Providence, and after a full day of guest teaching at Brown University, she sits at her computer for a chat via Skype about her transition from acting to directing. “Actually,” she finally says, “if you want to go all the way back, the truth is all my life I’ve done both.

I’ve been a director and an actress since the sixth grade, which is when I directed my first piece.” (That first piece being A Gorey Halloween, with 15 children performing for 30 parents crammed into her mother’s living room.)

Even her decision to attend New York University’s Graduate Acting Program was a way to develop both interests. “When I got out of undergrad at Brown,” she reflects, “I thought, ‘I can’t decide between the two.’ That’s when my mentor said, ‘Go train as an actor. You already have a natural instinct as a director, and you’re going to be an actor’s director, so go learn that vocabulary.’” After graduation, her passion for acting took precedence, and she spent six years performing at New York venues like the Public, Lincoln Center, Primary Stages, and Roundabout Theatre Company, and at regional theatres like the Guthrie, the Alley, and the Long Wharf.

In 2001, when Rebecca Guy, mentor and then Artistic Director of Chautauqua Theater Company (CTC), asked her to direct The Skin of Our Teeth, Benesch was intrigued. The production renewed her interest in the craft of directing. “When I would direct, my attitude was one of my glass being half full rather than half empty,” she explains. “It always felt like a full plate, like a full meal. The collaborative part of directing fulfilled a very different part of me than acting did.”

While her acting career flourished, including an Obie Award for her performance in Lee Blessing’s Going to St. Ives, she pursued directing opportunities at the Juilliard School of Drama, at the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, and at CTC, where she was named co-Artistic Director with Member Ethan McSweeny in 2005. (McSweeny moved into the role of Resident Director in 2012.) At first, managing her multiple roles as actor, director, and producer was a challenge. As an actor, she focuses on her specific part in a production, as opposed to taking responsibility for the production as a whole, let alone an entire season. “I really have learned when to put my director hat on and when to take it off! When it’s appropriate and when it isn’t. I learned some important lessons early on, because as an actor you need to be smart but not step outside. You need to trust the director on the other side.” But she also realizes that her strengths as a director come from her experience as a performer. “The vocabulary VIVIENNE BENESCH since 2012 | ETHAN MCSWEENY since 1998

I use is instinctive and not prescriptive,” she says. “It is definitely about identifying impulses—psychological, visual, and aural— and then encouraging them and guiding them into a story.”

Now approaching her ninth year as CTC’s artistic leader, Benesch finds herself in the middle of a shifting career. “It’s only in the past few years that I realized I have a lot to say and offer as a professional director in the regional as well as the New York theatre scenes,” she says. Recent regional credits include In the Next Room (or the vibrator play) and Red at PlayMakers Rep, and she is currently preparing for her largest production to date, The Romeo and Juliet Project, at the Chautauqua Institution. This multi-disciplinary retelling of the classic tale of star-crossed lovers, envisioned and directed by Benesch, is a collaboration between the various performing arts companies in residence at the Institution, including dance, opera, symphony, and theater. Set to open this July in their 5,000 seat amphitheater, the production will incorporate the works of Shakespeare, Prokofiev, Gounod, Berlioz, Tchaikovsky, Ellington, Bernstein, and, she adds, “a little bit of Dire Straits.”

To support her burgeoning directing career, Benesch recently became a Member of SDC. Already a member of AEA and SAG-AFTRA, she jokes, “I belong to too many unions and I was like, ‘Oh my God. No!’ But I realized that if my directorial voice was going to enter the landscape more significantly I wanted it to happen in the company of the remarkable artists who make up SDC.” Benesch is unsure where the second half of her career in the theatre will take her, but she will continue to act and is eager to pursue directing opportunities and take on more artistic leadership roles. She hopes to return as a director to some of the theatres where she has performed and to explore both classic plays and new works that offer opportunities for “psychological storytelling that I can translate onto the stage.” She confesses, “I used to fear becoming a ‘jack of all trades, master of none.’ But now I feel that the texture of my career—in doing all these things—is enriched, and the work is richer too. I feel really lucky and honored.”

Before the Skype session ends, Benesch takes a moment to think if there is anything else she would like to add. “As an actor, you spend so much time not doing the thing you love.

Whereas when you are directing, even if the project is six months away, you are constantly engaged. George Bernard Shaw said, ‘I want to be thoroughly used up when I die. For the harder I work the more I live.’ I want that to be my motto.” She pauses and adds, “That way the glass is definitely more than half full.”

TRANSITIONS

Vivienne Benesch GLASS HALF FULL

BY ANGELA

SANTILLO

“I really have learned when to put my director hat on and when to take it off.”

VIVIENNE

Vivienne Benesch directing a workshop of Kate Fodor’s Rx at Chautauqua Theater Company PHOTO Mark Anderson

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ENGAGED T H E AT R E EXTREME CIRCUM S TA N C E S INTERVIEW BY

TED SOD

Based in Seattle, Freehold Theatre Lab Studio is a forum where artists can challenge themselves, take risks, continue their education, and deepen their exploration of the transformational power of theatre.

The company encourages young, emerging, and established artists to experiment and clarify new ways of working in the theatre, as well as develop strategies for reaching underserved communities and strengthening the relationship between audience and performer. Director/actor TED SOD spoke with ROBIN LYNN SMITH, Founder and Artistic Director of Freehold, in a conversation about the company’s Engaged Theatre Program.

We go there, because they have survived extraordinary, difficult circumstances that we can only imagine.

ROBIN ABOVE Director Robin Lynn Smith watches from among the crowd of inmates PHOTO Mark Harrison, The Seattle Times

TED | What is your Engaged Theatre Program, and who are your audiences?

ROBIN | We tour productions of Shakespeare. We play in women’s and men’s prisons. We also play in psych wards. We play in housing projects. We play for guys on the street and homeless shelters. For vets at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, a juvenile detention center, and a place out in White Center called New Futures, which is a housing project community center. We play for people who are living through extreme circumstances.

TS | Why Shakespeare?

RLS | I think the stories have to be multi-dimensional enough to meet these audiences. One of the things we found with Shakespeare is that, because the characters and the stories are complex, people can see themselves.

When we took The Winter’s Tale into the men’s prison, they had never had a play come there before. We set up in a ball field. I said to the ensemble, “Man, I don’t even know if people will watch the play. We’re going to do it, and we’ll see what happens.”

So the inmates started watching, a little bit leery of us. But the music was awesome, the production was very physical. About 250 men sat on the grass and watched a two-hour version of the play from start to finish. And they were cheering, talking back to the characters and weeping at the end when the statue of Hermione comes alive. This guy walks over to me as we were striking the set, and he says, “I never saw a play before. I thought it was going to be really lame, but it was pretty cool. Has this guy written anything else?” That alone made me want to do more.

TS | Was it the performance that affected this particular audience or the fact that they were watching something that reflected their own lives?

RLS | Both. When we took Othello into the women’s prison, I was concerned, because it’s intense when Desdemona gets murdered. I thought: how is this going to fly with these women? We had a talkback

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ROBIN LYNN SMITH since 1995 | TED SOD since 2003

afterwards, and this one woman said, “It’s so sad.” And I said, “Why should we tell stories like this?” And she said, “Because it’s true. We’re not alone.” This work has been teaching us about the power of these stories. In playing for these audiences, I find that we have to up our game. We have to be more present. We have to be more honest. They’re not going to suffer fake shit. Because they are so engaged with us, we’re going to give more of our heart and soul than we do when we are in some other situations.

TS | Is that how you found the name Engaged Theatre?

RLS | Our intent is to engage, yes.

TS | So, let’s break it down a bit. You are touring productions of Shakespeare in prisons and at other venues.

RLS | Yes. We’re doing this in women’s prisons for the ninth year, and we’re going into the men’s prison for the fifth time.

TS | Do you cast the plays with students or pros?

RLS | Pros.

TS | And do you direct all of the shows?

RLS | I have directed all of them so far.

TS | Do you act as dramaturg as well? And do you have to worry about length?

RLS | Yes, I do. And I work with other company members. I’ve worked with Reginald Andre Jackson, who is one of our lead actors. We cut Othello together, but we don’t use any words except Shakespeare’s.

TS | And you do workshops and residencies?

How are these structured?

RLS | Yes, for residencies, we work with inmates who want to participate in creating their own play. We ask them what they want to do and what themes are of interest to them. We’ve generated material through improvisation, poetry, movement, choreography, and writing.

We do work with spoken word. They’re generating their own responses to some of the themes from the play they’ve seen. And then we shape that writing into something and we rehearse it. They perform it for other inmates and for their families and visitors.

You can’t believe what goes down in these performances. Their stories are really funny and so honest. The other inmates go crazy watching this stuff, weeping and laughing and hollering. Their families come, and at one of the talkbacks, an inmate’s sister stood up and said, “I couldn’t forgive you for what you did until I saw this play.”

TS | How much time is involved in each residency?

RLS | They can stretch out, because it’s about when we can get time scheduled to get back into the prison. We started in mid-December this year with the women’s prison. We’re going once a week, and we will do that until the end of February. We’ll rehearse in March, and they will perform in April. That’s about three months.

TS | And when you go in once a week, how long do you work with them?

RLS | About three hours.

TS | Do you select the participants, or do they self-select?

I am more than the sum of my mistakes.

FEMALE INMATE TS | How many artists are working with the inmates?

RLS | Anywhere from five to ten artists in the residencies, 10-18 in the productions, participate at some point along the way.

RLS | It’s a combination. They have to be a certain level of infraction free to be able to do this. So that, in part, is their self-selection.

I love these men and women. Someone will come, and they’ll get through the first half, and then they’ll mess up. They’ll get in a fight, and they get pulled, because they get an infraction.

They have to stay infraction free for the entire time. They have to commit to this work.

TS | How do you pay for all this?

TS | And how many are in each residency or workshop?

TS | You’re paying your artists, I would imagine.

RLS | The first time we performed The Winter’s Tale, nobody was signed up for the workshop in advance. So, I said, “Marjorie, we’ll show up anyway. We’ll bring the actors in, and we’ll be ready to go.” We got into this classroom, and there were 50 guys waiting. It was awesome.

TS | Marjorie is your conduit to the prison?

RLS | Yes, she is what they call the community partnerships coordinator. The facilities have someone coordinating, because so much work is done by volunteers. The Department of Corrections has no money for these types of programs.

TS | And how many inmates participate in the residencies?

RLS | We might have 20 women writing, and we might have 15 perform. There is some overlap. We’ll get anywhere between 20 and 40 women participating in that whole thing. We have people that like to sew, so they work on the costumes.

TS | Are their own shows fully produced with lights and all of that?

RLS | No, we perform in a gym, and the acoustics suck. We bring in a sound system, so we can get some of the dialogue on area mics. And then we usually have a backdrop that we hang off the volleyball wires. We make costumes.

RLS | We raise money. We cannot charge any of these populations anything. We get some money from the NEA. We get a lot of the money from individual donations. We get grants from the arts councils. We go to private foundations. We patch it together, and we make it work.

RLS | We are paying the artists, yes.

TS | So, on a practical level, are you doing all of this fundraising and the art as well?

RLS | No, no, our staff at Freehold and part of our board work with us to fundraise and administer the program.

TS | Can you talk to me more about the residencies? What happens at the beginning, middle, and end?

RLS | At the beginning of the process, the women need to feel safe to take risks. For them to talk about subjects that matter to them takes a lot of guts and trust. We spend time building an ensemble. We all know when we do theatre in conventional venues that the ensemble is going to take care of itself by the time we’re performing, because we all depend on each other. In the prisons, we’re getting them to trust. We’re getting them to get up and improv with each other. We work on storytelling using the story circle exercises.

We are setting up the group dynamic as extraordinarily respectful of each other. You can have very different points of view in a group. There are people from every ethnicity; there are people from different faiths, too.

And for some, the idea of respectfully being in the room working with someone who they would not normally listen to or even be near is, I think, one of the challenges. They’ll get up and say, “I hated so-and-so every day. But SPRING 2013 | SDC JOURNAL

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now she’s my sister.” They completely get into collaborating and becoming an ensemble.

So after we’ve started to get the ensemble to work with each other, we get them to generate material. About six weeks into the process, we look through all their notebooks.

We’ll say, “Carissa, we love what you’re writing about your little brother. Would you consider developing that a little further?” We ask them what they want to develop to be included in the play, and we start to put a shape to it. Last year, we had a Native American woman in the ensemble who was writing about an initiation that happened on the side of a mountain, and that became the structure for all the other stories to go inside.

Finally, we go into rehearsal with it, and a lot of times we take new people into the ensemble at that point. And you know, just like with any population that is not in control of their freedom, they sometimes get moved. All of the sudden, they’re shipping out. We had a woman who developed this amazing character two years ago that didn’t speak. This was her creation. It was just awesome. And one day, she came in crying. She said, “They’re moving me tomorrow to Mission Creek.” And I said, like, “Oh, shit. Okay, we’re going to send you a copy of the play. We’re going to send you a t-shirt. You are awesome. Your work is going to hit people and be important to the people who see this.” You can’t keep your cast together sometimes. You know what I mean?

TS | Sure.

RLS | In rehearsals, because stuff happens, we won’t have a run-through with everybody there until the day before we have an audience. So the faith that we put in them, and the faith that they have to have in themselves to do this, is another big, big thing. They say, “You got us to do stuff that we didn’t know we were capable of.” And I think that they do that to us, too.

They get us to do things that we didn’t know we were capable of.

TS | What else have you learned personally and professionally?

RLS | I am astonished by how much we need to hear the stories of people that are marginalized. Not just because it’s a good thing to do or because of some PC liberal bullshit, but because they actually have things to teach us about our humanity, about the way that our world is working. It gets us to come out of our comfort zone. We take people sometimes who’ve never been inside a prison. And they go in, and they see these stories, and they are blown away by the warmth, humor, and depth of these stories.

That interchange has got to happen more— and it’s not just between people who are

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marginalized and the general public. I’m trying to work towards something where there are more mixed audiences. I’m trying to figure out how to get this to happen on the outside. Art, really, is a way for us to break down barriers.

And it’s not therapy. It’s art. We do art with these inmates. And that art has power, because people are using their imaginations, because we’re having them collaborate, because they are taking risks. There’s a communion that happens, and that communion is what I want to work toward in all the theatre that I do now.

This is what I want to teach people how to do.

There’s a truth in this work.

TS | What’s keeping more of the well-endowed organizations from doing this kind of work?

RLS | You know, I can’t speak for people, but I can tell you some of the challenges that we encountered. There’s not enough money, okay?

So people work for less than they would on another kind of contract to do this. I drive the fucking semi-truck—I drive a 24-foot truck.

I mean, we all have to be willing to jump in in ways that we never do in other kinds of situations. And I think that’s one reason why people are a little scared of it. Also, I think people are wary of being in situations where you cannot control the response to what you’re doing.

TS | What is it that makes you want to do this work?

RLS | Two things. One is that the courage and truths in these audiences teach me about the way we have to tell stories. It challenges me as an artist to do better work. And the second thing is that it gives me faith that human beings can evolve.

TS | Do you feel like you’ve given some of the participants skills that they can use in everyday life?

RLS | There was a woman who had participated in a residency about three times, and she wrote me a letter at Freehold. She said, “Robin, I’m in county. I am going to die in here. I fucking hate it in here. These people are awful. Everybody wants to fight. The only thing that’s saving me is I’m writing. Every day I’m writing. I’m writing stories. I’m writing poetry. I’m writing. I’m writing. I’m writing.” I thought, God bless her.

So I think that for a lot of us, artistic practices save our lives or saved us from some horrific fucking addictions. I can only speak for myself, you know? And teaching people a way to have a practice is something that we can leave with them. The other thing I would add is that they realize they have power through their imaginations, and they learn what they can create. I worked with a woman the first year we did this work, and she was really shy, but she was totally present. And she said, “Robin, what

you have taught me by taking us through this process is that I am more than the sum of my mistakes.”

I mean, that’s the thing: these inmates have learned how to survive horrific events. I tell them, “You have humor. You are being honest and facing yourself in ways that a lot of middle-class people that I know have trouble with.” I let them know that they bring something to the table that is really of value for the whole community.

TS | Do you feel like you are giving them permission to use their imaginations in ways that they haven’t before?

RLS | I think it gives them a certain kind of validation.

TS | Are there archival tapes available or is that not possible, given the restrictions of prison?

RLS | We have records of the writing, and we made a book. We made two different books of their writing several years back. And now we’re thinking that the better way to go is to do a radio thing. So after we do the residency this year at the women’s prison, we will go back in with professional radio people, and we will be creating a podcast.

It’s restrictive, and we’re trying to learn how to work with what the DOC needs—but also to get something that can really get their voices heard.

TS | I would imagine that when you work with pro actors outside of the prisons that you are able to see through bullshit a lot quicker. Is that true?

RLS | You know, I think I try to have compassion for someone who feels like they need to bullshit, and then I try to help them not to have to bullshit whether they’re professional actors or students. But I don’t have a lot of tolerance for narcissism.

TS | Let’s say our Membership is reading this and someone thinks: I want to do this kind of work. What do you think it takes?

RLS | We go there, because they have survived extraordinary, difficult circumstances that we can only imagine. And we have something to learn from the wisdom and insight they cull from these experiences. I feel going in with genuine respect for the experience that the population you work with is going to bring is probably the most important thing. You will certainly encounter logistical problems, but if your desire to engage and interact with courage and truth is sincere, then I think that you can find ways to make those partnerships work.

PH.D. IN SOLITUDE

AN INTERVIEW WITH RICHARD HAMBURGER INTERVIEW BY

TED SOD

How did you start working with prison populations?

In May of 2010, Richard Hamburger began a workshop for Rehabilitation Through the Arts at the Green Haven Correctional Facility, a maximum security prison, in Stormville, New York.

With the goal to “establish a more demanding rhythm of writing,” Hamburger directed three months of sessions, allowing the inmates to partake in creative expression in a safe and guided environment. At the end of the interview is a brief excerpt from one of the pieces created during the workshop, which is included in the anthology of inmate writings entitled Beneath the Mask.

I have always been interested in how we can use theatre for growth and change. Early on, when I was an actor at Williamstown, I was part of a company that went into prisons. I always promised myself I would go back. When I came to New York City after more than twenty jam-packed years of running regional theatres, I had the opportunity to implement a few ideas about ways theatre might help at-risk populations. I ended up contacting a remarkable woman named Katherine Vockins, Executive Director of Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA). I went through a brief training process, and I observed several workshops. I started working at Green Haven, a maximum security facility for men, about two hours from New York City. Originally the idea was to have workshops once a week, but I really wanted as many sessions as possible so that there would be a rhythm and intensity to the process that might create a lasting impact. So we worked twice a week for three months.

What type of workshops did you conduct with them?

The focus shifted from performance to an emphasis on personal writing. I wanted the inmates to end up with a body of work to call their own. We worked through guided theatre exercises, personal memories and dreams, improvisation, inclass writing assignments, stream of consciousness assignments, journal entries, and then, ultimately, writing dialogue. The goal was to help them tap into their individual stories.

Given the chance, people can really develop their voices in ways that go beyond what they initially think is possible. The work showed a tremendous talent for the music of the American vernacular.

The way the prisoners actually think, see, and observe things—and their human knowledge about things—was profound, but they needed ownership of it. They needed to know that their individual mode of expression is legitimate.

We did exercises to explore the nature of time in prison, because time is different there. One of the most destructive things about prison is that the mind-numbing routine makes the days blur together. The incarcerated often can’t delineate one day from another, and it’s very scary to see years go by. Where do you find hope when you know you’re going to be in prison for possibly the rest of your life or you’ve got a 30-year sentence and you’re a young man? We discovered that the

RICHARD HAMBURGER since 1987

walls of their sentences occasionally disappeared through the power of art, expression, and transformation.

I started out thinking it was going to be a performance workshop, but I realized that what we were doing, in a sense, was antithetical to performing. We ended up putting together a revealing anthology, and the guys decided to call it Beneath the Mask. They wanted others to know there is vivid and tender life beneath their protective masks.

Do you feel like you were doing drama therapy?

Someone once said, “You’re kind of a therapist.”

I balk at that, because I’m not trained to be a therapist in any way, shape, or form. And really, it was about developing artistry and artists. I was helping them to be very, very specific about their experiences and hopes, to constructively listen to and help one another, and to hone their powers of observation. Turns out they’re sublimely good at observing and helping each other.

Can you talk about what you’ve learned on a personal and professional level from doing these workshops?

I relearned that there are many ways of making theatre, of telling stories, and intervening in your own life. There are aspects of theatre that have intrinsic value for communities, helping us get to know each other and shattering stereotypes. Many of these inmates are immensely gifted. They’re born storytellers. They have Ph.D.’s in solitude, and they can be extraordinarily eloquent. So, ostensibly, I went in to share and teach and guide, but in the end, it was about learning, listening, observing, and taking my cues from them.

What do you think it takes to do the kind of work you’ve been talking about?

You make the work about them and not about yourself. I’m not sure I’d consider any of the workshops I’ve done successful. I’m still learning.

One needs to have a willingness to learn in order to teach. Openness. You guide by providing a point of departure, but then the prisoners need to take the baton and run with it, incorporating their thoughts, their feelings, and their own use of language. Don’t go in with a sense that you know more than they do. It’s also important to listen to the folks at RTA who have a lot of experience running workshops. Follow the rules of the prison so you don’t endanger the program, because the SPRING 2013 | SDC JOURNAL

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continuation of workshops for inmates is far more important than any single workshop or teacher.

Artists have a tremendous amount to offer this population, particularly about how to organize and commit and follow up on things, and the participants have something to offer workshop guides that can be liberating in terms of exploring where theatre’s power really resides.

This brief excerpt is written by a KoreanAmerican inmate sentenced to over 30 years in prison. He describes his departure from Korea as a child to join his parents in America, where he became a member of a gang.

We head to the waiting area which is full of little restaurants, gift stores, telephones lining the walls and vending machines that sell stamps. My cousins and I begin running around and playing our favorite game of Mr. Froggie. Soon I will be somewhere that is not here—a place where sounds, smells, tastes and feelings will be strange. I breathe in deep and try holding in something familiar as long as I can and when I can’t hold my breath any longer I exhale, hoping that some part of me will remain here for my return.

My grandfather announces that it is time. We walk to a glass door that only I can pass through. Someone begins to cry. Maybe it’s more than one person. I become detached, but my grandmother’s voice brings me back. She says, “Babo ya, da-eum yuh-keum eh da-shi norlo orl ten de, weh oor lu? Stupid child, you’ll be back to visit next summer. Why are you crying?” I hadn’t noticed that I was.

A young lady takes my hand and leads me towards a large gate. So this is where I will board the plane.

I turn to her and ask, “What is America like?”

She answers, “It’s what you make of it.”

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IN THE COMMUNITY

2013 FRED + ADELE ASTAIRE AWARDS

BY KRISTY

CUMMINGS

The Astaire Awards’ mission is simple: Excellence. Fred and Adele Astaire represented excellence. Their dedication, passion, and artistic vision brought dance on stage and in films to new heights. Our mission is to continue that vision by not only celebrating the superb achievement of each nominee but by toasting the immeasurable talents and passion of each choreographer and dancer who continues that tradition of excellence.

This June, the 31st Annual Fred and Adele Astaire Awards will be presented to celebrate excellence in dance and choreography on Broadway and in film. Each year, awards are presented for Outstanding Choreography, Outstanding Male Dancer, and Outstanding Female Dancer on Broadway, as well as for Outstanding Choreographer of a Feature Film and Outstanding Director of a Documentary. SDC spoke with Patricia Watt, producer of the Astaire Awards and daughter of awards co-founder Douglas Watt, to learn more about the history of the awards and this year’s honorees.

The Astaire Awards grew out of Broadway producer Kathleen Raitt’s association with the Anglo American Dance Society. “Kathleen had seen Fred Astaire at industry events but then met him more personally when she was having lunch at Trader Vic’s in Los Angeles with her husband, Broadway actor John Raitt,” Watt explains. “Kathleen spotted Astaire at a neighboring table and whispered to her husband, ‘Look who that is!’ John then called out, ‘Hey Fred, come on over, someone wants to meet you,’ and a friendship began.” Kathleen had been working with the Anglo American Dance Society, and each year they chose someone to honor at their annual benefit; in 1982, Kathleen suggested Fred Astaire. The society thought it was such a great idea that they decided instead to honor the legendary dancer by naming the awards after him. Nominees and winners of the Astaire Awards would be chosen by a committee, whose members included Douglas Watt, theatre and dance critic/writer for the New York Daily News and The New Yorker, Clive Barnes, theatre and dance critic for the New York Times and the New York Post, and Jack Kroll, drama and film critic for Newsweek.

Over the past 30 years the awards have evolved. When Watt and Fred Astaire’s daughter, Ava Astaire, took the reins, the awards became known as the Fred and Adele Astaire Awards. “Ava felt it was extremely important to include both of them, especially considering that between Fred and Adele, Adele was actually the one who worked more often on Broadway,” Watt says.

The awards have three goals: to honor Fred and Adele Astaire; to honor the choreographers and dancers working on Broadway today; and to provide vital access to dance therapy to children with autism.

Each year the members of the nominating committee see all of the Broadway musicals and films that contain dance and select their top choices in each category. Once these votes are tallied, the five nominees are announced, and an awarding committee meets to choose the winners. Past Broadway winners include Best Choreography recipients Ronald K. Brown for Porgy and Bess, Susan Stroman for The Scottsboro Boys, and Bill T. Jones for Fela!; Best Female Dancer recipients Lisa Nicole Wilkerson for Porgy and Bess, Sutton Foster for Anything Goes, and Nicole Chantal de Weever and the female ensemble for Fela!; and Best Male Dancer recipients Leslie Odom, Jr. for Leap of Faith, Norbert Leo Butz for Catch Me If You Can, and Charlie Neshyba-Hodges for Come Fly Away. For Outstanding Choreography in Film, recent winners include The Artist, Pina, Fame, Every Little Step, and Mao’s Last Dancer.

Watt and Astaire also present the Adele Astaire Scholarship, the Douglas Watt Lifetime Achievement Award, and, for the first time this year, the award for Outstanding Achievement in the Preservation of Musical Theatre. Established in 2011, the Adele Astaire Scholarship awards $15,000 toward the college education of a male or female dancer. “Ava and I felt very strongly about supporting their further education in addition to training,” Watt says.

“Furthermore, young people and their education were paramount to Adele Astaire, which is why the scholarship is in her name.” Corey Snide and Shannen O’Neill, who are currently pursuing their studies at Juilliard and New York University respectively, were the first two recipients of the Adele Astaire Scholarship.

RONALD K. BROWN since 2003 | BILL T. JONES since 2006 | SUSAN STROMAN since 1987

perform a Bob Fosse number arranged

by Scott Jovovich at the 2012 Astaire Awards

TOP Dancers

Mikhail Baryshnikov presenting the Douglas Watt Lifetime Achievement Award to Liza Minnelli with Tony Danza

BOTTOM LEFT

2013 AWARD RECIPIENTS

The 2013 recipient of the Douglas Watt Lifetime Achievement Award is MARGE CHAMPION. Ms. Champion began her dance career with Walt Disney as the live action model for Snow White, the Blue Fairy in Pinocchio, and the Hippopotamus Ballerina in Fantasia. She also appeared in The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, on Broadway as the Fair Witch in Dark of the Moon, and in Beggar’s Holiday. She is best known for her collaborations with her former husband, Gower Champion. Together they staged the dances for the Broadway musical revues Lend an Ear and Make a Wish. Their films include Mr. Music with Bing Crosby, Show Boat, Lovely to Look At, That’s Dancin’, and That’s Entertainment, Part II, and they appeared on TV’s Toast of the Town, The Dinah Shore Show, and The Marge and Gower Champion Show. The Champions were awarded the 2002 Career Achievement Award at the 8th Annual American Choreography Awards.

Ms. Champion was the choreographer for Whose Life Is It Anyway?, The Day of the Locust, and Queen of the Stardust Ballroom, for which she received an Emmy Award. She appeared with Donald Saddler in a six-month run of the Broadway revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Follies in 2001. “I have wanted to honor Marge Champion for such a long time,” Watt says. “She is so deserving of this award due to her exceptional contributions to the field and is a perfect fit, as she is one of the few living artists who actually performed with Fred Astaire.” Previous honorees include Liza Minnelli, Jacques d’Amboise, and Kenny Ortega.

The inaugural recipient of the Outstanding Achievement in the Preservation of Musical Theatre is THEODORE S. CHAPIN, President and Executive Director of Rodgers & Hammerstein: An Imagem Company.

This award honors someone on the business side of the industry, thanking them for their longtime support of musical theatre and dance. In his role at R&H, Mr. Chapin has spearheaded over 20 awardwinning Broadway and London revivals, as well as several film and TV movie remakes and numerous recordings. He is past-chairman of the Board of Trustees for the American Theatre Wing and was chairman of the Advisory Committee for New York City Center’s Encores! series from its inception. He serves on several boards, including Goodspeed Musicals, New Music USA, and New York City Center. Mr. Chapin has served as a Tony Awards nominator for two seasons and is currently a member of the Tony Administration Committee. He served as musical director for the National Theatre of the Deaf, associate director of the

National Theater Institute, producer of the Musical Theatre Lab in New York and the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and as an associate to Alan Arkin. He held numerous positions as both production and directorial assistants on Broadway shows and wrote the award-winning book, Everything Was Possible: The Birth of the Musical Follies, about his observations working on the original production of the Stephen Sondheim/Harold Prince musical.

“Ted is a friend to all of us who create for the theatre,” says Stroman, “and his knowledge of musical theatre history is unmatched. What is so wonderful about Ted is that’s he is always ready with helpful advice and information. He understands very clearly the relationship between music and choreography, and what happens when a choreographer revisits an older work. When I was choreographing the 1999 revival of Oklahoma! at London’s National Theater, Ted was instrumental in winning the approval of the Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization to create new dance arrangement for the show, which allowed me to open up the score and create more dance. He knows how important it is that an artist be given that freedom to explore so the piece can truly come alive.”

With their shared commitment to dance and theatre, the Astaire Awards have a strong relationship with SDC. SDC Member Susan Stroman and Executive Director Laura Penn have served as consultants to the awards since 2011, and work together to shine a spotlight on the craft of choreography and provide a platform for the dance community. “I want the dance community to be served as best they can through these awards,” Watt says. “I want to encourage more choreographers to attend and invite their dance captains and dancers to attend with them. I feel a great responsibility, because we are the only dance awards for Broadway and therefore must encourage everyone to get involved and celebrate as a community.” SDC is thrilled to be a part of such an important event.

Stay tuned! Nominations will be announced on Monday, May 6th, and the 2013 Astaire Awards will be presented on Monday, June 3rd. Watt and SDC hope you will join them in honoring these incredibly hardworking artists. For more information or to purchase tickets to the event, please visit www.fredandadeleastaireawards.com

ALAN ARKIN since 1966 | GOWER CHAMPION d. 1980 | MARGE CHAMPION since 1988 | BOB FOSSE d. 1987 KENNY ORTEGA since 1983 | HAROLD PRINCE since 1963 | DONALD SADDLER since 1962

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ROBMICHAEL ASHFORD GRANDAGE IN CONVERSATION W/

From Broadway gypsy to Tony Award-winning director/choreographer, ROB ASHFORD has worn many hats while rehearsing in studios from NYC to LA, London to our nation’s capital. In this interview with director MICHAEL GRANDAGE, Rob discusses his early theatrical experiences and career. Michael first encountered Rob’s work in the London production of Thoroughly Modern Millie, after which he invited Rob to choreograph the Donmar Warehouse’s production of Guys and Dolls. From that first project, they became deep collaborators and close friends. In the second half of this feature, Michael and Rob’s conversation evolves into musings on current issues and inspirations, as well as life and other personal pursuits.

EDITED BY

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STEPHANIE COEN

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ROB ASHFORD since 2000 | MICHAEL GRANDAGE since 2007

MICHAEL | I’m going to start at the very beginning. Where were you born?

ROB | I was born in Orlando, Florida. But we only lived there until I was one, when we moved to Beckley, West Virginia, a little coal-mining town where both of my parents had grown up, in southern West Virginia.

M | And when did you see your first play?

R | Not until I was in high school. There was an annual outdoor musical drama that played in the summer in Grandview State Park, which was about 40 minutes outside of Beckley—a historical retelling of the family feud between the Hatfields and McCoys. It ran in rep with Honey in the Rock, which was about how West Virginia separated and broke off from Virginia during the Civil War. M | I’m always interested in the moment for artists when they know they could not do anything else. Did you know then, or was it not yet as obvious as that?

R | I think it was—that sense that there was another world, and it would be thrilling to be part of it. I joined our high school acting troupe, the Thespians, and I became vice president. Then, just before I graduated, I asked for a meeting with John Benjamin, the Artistic Director of Theatre West Virginia, which put on the outdoor dramas. It was a bold thing for me to do, but I said, “I would like to be in the outdoor dramas this summer. I’ll do anything you want.” And he appreciated my enthusiasm and hired me as an extra, for $15 a week.

M | And at that time, was there anything else you thought you might pursue as a career?

R | Well, I had planned on being a lawyer since second grade, because we had career day, and I had to choose my career. I chose lawyer because I knew they had money and nice houses, and even in the second grade, I thought, “That will give you a livelihood, being a lawyer.” Then I just stuck with it after that, and I carried that idea all the way through when I went to college and signed up for the pre-law program at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia. But my advisor there said, “To be a good lawyer, you should either major in English or theatre.”

Having just done the outdoor drama, which I loved, I knew that there was something about theatre people that was special and exciting and accepting. You are accepted no matter what, on your own terms. And so I said, “Great. I’ll major in theatre.” We had a small theatre department at college, and I think the “official” theatre bug bit somewhere between playing Polonius at age 20, and then designing the costumes for another show, and being the stage manager for something else. It all just started coming together.

M | And how did that segue into dancing?

ROB + MICHAEL ON... …DIRECTING THE DANCE M | When I asked you to choreograph Guys and Dolls, it was the first time I’d worked with a choreographer who approached the material, well, differently than we often do in England. You were interested in characterbased choreography. I’ve never forgotten the moment when Jane Krakowski, who was playing Miss Adelaide, asked you about a particular move you had given her in the overture.

R | Yes. We wanted to have her cross over in the overture and to do a sneeze. The sneeze started her journey, and it actually started the dance itself.

M | She was looking for motivation. “Where am I going, what am I doing, why am I here?”

R | And I said, “Well, you’re on your way to the doctor. You’ve got a cold, and you sneeze, and that’s where you get the book.”

M | It struck me that you were having a dialogue with dancers and actors about acting.

It wasn’t a dialogue about dance, it was about intention. Did you see yourself as directing (as opposed to choreographing) the dance?

R | I just thought that’s what a choreographer should do. I saw it with Rob Marshall on Kiss of the Spider Woman, and Susan Stroman in Crazy for You, and Kathleen Marshall on Kiss Me, Kate. All of their dances were based on character, and it felt like, absolutely, this is the way you do it: who are these people, what’s their class, how would they move, what are they trying to say with their movement, and so on.

R | I went back and did the outdoor drama while I was in college, three summers in a row.

And the third summer, on the first day of rehearsal, they came up to me and said, “I know you’re not a dancer, but one of the dancers hasn’t shown up. Could you try to fill in? We need to make some calls and find someone who’s available.” I’d been in the show the previous two years, and while I didn’t know the dances, I understood them—it just came naturally, and it was thrilling for me. I loved it. They didn’t hire another guy; they didn’t even make the call.

…TURKEY LURKEY TIME

The dance captain said, “I think you could be a dancer if you wanted to be.” She had gone to Point Park College in Pittsburgh, and she invited the head of the jazz division there to see the show and teach a class, which he did. He saw me in the show, he worked with me in the class, and he offered me a scholarship to Point Park. And that was it. I called my folks and said, “I’m not going back to W&L to be a lawyer, I’m gonna go to Point Park College in Pittsburgh.” They were worried, of course, like any parent would be.

M | [laughter]

M | Are there any other theatre people in your family?

R | No. None.

M | When you were growing up, what were your interests and observations about growing up in West Virginia? Were you an observant child?

KATHLEEN MARSHALL since 1994 | ROB MARSHALL since 1988

M | Now that you’ve worked in both the U.K. and the U.S., do you notice any differences culturally between the two countries?

R | Yes, there are differences. I think because you’re so much older.

R | No, not you. The country. Because you’ve been doing it so long. One of your greatest writers is Shakespeare, who is always reinvented and reinterpreted and set in this time or set in this place. And you’ve been doing that for so many, many, many years. Our drama is younger.

M | By definition it is, yes.

FOLLOW THIS CONVERSATION THROUGH THE GRAY BOXES. SPRING 2013 | SDC JOURNAL

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I knew that there was something about theatre people that was special and exciting and accepting. You are accepted no matter what, on your own terms.

ROB R | I feel like English theatre is much more willing to reinvent something—to allow reinvention—and appreciate it.

M | I agree. When I did my very first set of auditions here in the U.S., I asked the actors what I always ask any actor when I meet them: “What’s your ambition as an actor?” And I was very struck by virtually all of the actors in this country saying, “I’d love to create a role.” You never hear a Brit saying that.

R | Yeah, that’s true.

M | And yet it’s the most wonderful ambition, to be the first person to play a part. What a joyful ambition to have. But partly, it has to do with what you said; we’ve spent several hundred years recreating roles so, for want of a better word, “revival” isn’t in any way seen as anything other than something that is trying to

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R | I was very observant. I played the piano at my church growing up, and I think the music and the idea of performance prepared me. You rehearse, you practice, and you perform on Sunday mornings. I think that was a part of my growing up, and I have to say I liked being up there. Up there in the church.

M | Can you tell me more about that? Look at where you are now and where you were then.

How much of growing up in any kind of church environment, as actively as you were, has stayed with you and played any kind of important part in your adult life?

R | Absolutely. It was a big part of my foundation, certainly, and I think that music and also a lot of the shows that I’ve worked on have had that element. Some of the first shows, like Parade, for example, have had such a religious element that my experience was very useful to me. Plays as well. Anna Christie and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof – there’s an element of religious belief and religion in certain times and cultures that have actually been helpful, I think, just because it’s just like life. It’s just what you know. If you’d been a farmer and you understand that, and you do a production of Grapes of Wrath, somehow that’s gonna come in and help you. It gives you a good base somehow.

M | Has your faith diminished from the boy who was playing a piano, and if it’s still there, how much of it do you use to get you through what you do now?

PREVIOUS

invent something new again.

LEFT Ashford

R | I feel like here we often get caught up in what’s right. There is something about “that’s not the way that’s to be done.”

Rob Ashford directing A Streetcar Named Desire at Donmar Warehouse PHOTO Marc Brenner rehearsing with Daniel Radcliffe, John Larroquette + ensemble members on the 2011 revival of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying PHOTO Ari Mintz C/O Broadway Across America Rachel Weisz as Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire, directed by Ashford at Donmar Warehouse PHOTO Johan Persson FOLLOWING

R | I was ambitious to be a part of it. The idea of a community, and having this small community inside this large city, felt so important. I remember walking by the Shubert Theatre, where A Chorus Line was playing, and they had all the dancers’ names out in front— names of people like me. I wanted to be in the middle of it, to get my name up on that board, to walk out of that stage door. To do that, and then get the next Broadway show and the next great Broadway show and keep moving.

M | Were you a Broadway performer full stop, or were you a dancer, a singer-dancer, or a performer who sings, dances, and, if the right thing comes along, acts?

R | I was a Broadway dancer—a gypsy. I sang well enough to get in shows, but that was never a strong suit of mine; I was always a dancer.

M | Does the life of a Broadway dancer stop at a certain age?

R | I do use it. I use it all the time. Not as defined and specific, maybe, as I did in my younger years, but it certainly is a part of my daily life, there’s no question. When you’re a kid, and you’re going through all the things you go through as a kid—growing up, bullying, or any of those things you go through—there was a scripture that said the Lord would not give you more than you could bear. The Lord will not give you more than you can bear. And that’s something that I think religious people and normal people and working people and people who have hard lives can use to help get through. And that’s something that I’ve always known, and it helps today. It helps every day.

M | Talk to me a bit about when you came to New York first as a dancer and were in shows; what were you ambitious for in those early days?

R | It’s physically very hard to keep up eight shows a week, show after show, week after week. I worked 13 years as a gypsy, or as a chorus dancer, and by the end of that, my body was feeling it, that’s for sure. But I think I was fortunate that I was kind of analytical. I was 25 or 26 when I did my first Broadway show, Anything Goes, and they made me assistant dance captain. Even on my first show. They saw I had the patience to teach, and I could sit out in the front of the house and see a bigger picture. So I was the assistant dance captain, and a swing. I was often a swing, which is about having a certain kind of skill set that allows you to fill in for all these different people, but it is also something about seeing the bigger picture.

M | Would it be fair to say, during this period of time, that you were thinking, “Well, one day, when I am too tired, or when this doesn’t go on, I would like at some point to start transferring my skill set into actual choreographing?”

R | Sort of. All I ever wanted to do was dance in a Broadway show. But being a dance

M | So that means you set rules?

R | I know with musicals particularly, with YouTube and all of that stuff, there’s such a specific following of certain shows, whether they are good or bad. When I was going to do Promises, Promises, one of the most-asked questions was, “Are you going to do the figure eight in ‘Turkey Lurkey Time’?” Nearly all shows have a small core group of devoted followers who are outraged that you’re not going to do the figure eight in the Turkey Lurkey.

M | [laughter] Yes. Are they what we call purists?

R | Maybe. Maybe they’re purists!

M | I love that you can be a purist over something like the Turkey Lurkey.

…CHOREOGRAPHING HERE + THERE M | We have good choreographers in England, but nowhere near the tradition of producing choreographers like Broadway. What do you see is the reason for that? Is it just the cult of the American musical and the fact that this city and Broadway is founded on something different than what English theatre is founded on? Is that all it is?

R | It might be. I think that’s a big part of it.

I also think that just by the nature of us— America—everything is so much bigger. I think there’s more of a crossover in London of contemporary choreographers doing musical theatre or ballet choreography. I feel that dance in England, just like theatre, is more a part of the whole culture. Here, I think, it’s very specific, very rarified. You’re a ballet choreographer, you choreograph ballets. I don’t think there’s as much crossover, because if your niche is “I’m going to be a Broadway choreographer,” or, “a theatre dance choreographer,” then you focus on that alone.

That’s your focus. So therefore, potentially, you can get more experience and hone it and refine it.

…“WHY CAN’T I CHOREOGRAPH A MUSICAL?" M | We should talk about the crossover from choreographer to directing. You’ve directed quite a few plays in the U.K., and you’ve directed your first play on Broadway. So you can sit opposite me talking about directing plays in the same way you can talk about SPRING 2013 | SDC JOURNAL

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choreographing musicals. I’m curious to know what you think the biggest difference is, because I’ve never done the two.

R | I feel like it’s the same set of muscles somehow, just with a different focus. It feels the same, except just with a different…

M | Is it less technical? Directing a play when you’re talking to Scarlett Johansson or Rachel Weisz? The language must surely be different in talking to, say, one of your great leading dancers who you’re placing a new routine on or an actor in a straight play. Is it?

R | Actually, not a lot.

M | Then why can’t I choreograph a musical?

It must be different in some way.

That’s the joy when you have a great designer... suddenly, they bring that world to you.

You’re thinking, Oh my God, that’s better than I ever imagined.

ROB

R | When you create a dance, when you’re in the studio and prepping for a dance, while you do create a basic idea, ultimately you need to put that on the dancers.

For example. I go into a room with Michael Berresse and Charlotte d’Amboise, two of our greatest Broadway dancers who are also actors, playing the role of the Governor and Mrs. Slaton in Parade at the Mark Taper Forum. There was a big showoff dance. I have the idea in my head, and I start to put it on them, and through that process I realize things like, “Oh, that leg’s better for her.” Or, “They like this grip better for the lift.” Or, “It works so much better if he’s on the other side of her for those spins.” And then, “Her back is so amazing, why don’t we do a big dip at the end of that?” “Well, let’s do the leg up on the dip.” You put your basic ideas and your basic steps on them, let them do what they do best, and that’s how they look good and you look good.

So, why wouldn’t you do the same with the play? You have a basic idea of how the play’s going to be, how it’s going to move. What these characters are going to be, and how they’re going to embody this space. And then you start putting it on them. They bring other things to it, and suddenly, “Oh my God, it’s so riveting when she just stays on that bed.

When she just hangs there, and let’s that be her cage.” And in being able to see that that is actually more valuable than maybe looking out the window, which I had originally thought would work for that section, that speech—it’s very easy to adjust. It doesn’t ever feel like you’re compromising anything, because you’re putting the play and your ideas on the actors. So that part, I think, is helpful. It feels very natural.

…STANDING ROOM ONLY M | You are now at the top of your career in New York, the top of your profession. What

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PETER DARLING since 2008 | MICHAEL LANGHAM d.2001

captain does end up putting you on the other side of the table at times, especially with replacements. I was the dance captain on Victor/Victoria for Rob Marshall, and when Liza Minnelli came into the show, when Raquel Welch came into the show, the show was adjusted to feature them and their particular skills and talents. Working with Rob and his associate to see how that worked—to see how a choreographic mind works in that way— was very exciting for me.

But the biggest event in that regard was being the dance captain for the tour of Kiss of the Spider Woman, again for Rob Marshall. When they did the show in Buenos Aires, Rob wasn’t able to go restage it, so he sent me to restage his choreography, and that meant that I was solely responsible for all of the dancing, as well as communicating to these people in another language the intention behind all the choreography. But I didn’t have to choreograph a step. So it took the pressure off. “Can I do this? Are the steps good enough to tell the story?” I knew the steps were good enough to tell the story, so I could solely work on that teaching completely, and I fell in love with that.

M | And that’s a key thing you just said: the dance steps tell the story.

R | Exactly. The little bit of choreography I’d done before that—like the Gypsy of the Year competition—had always been about the steps. Doing Kiss of the Spider Woman in Argentina made me start with the intention behind the steps. And that is something that I do today when I’m choreographing. You’ve got to figure out what the intention is of the dance, the intention of each musical moment, and then you put the steps in. The steps are last.

M | So how did the first choreographic experience in your own right come your way?

R | It wasn’t something that I planned. It happened, because I was a swing in Victor/Victoria, and it got to the point where I was physically so tired, and I wasn’t enjoying performing anymore. I decided that I needed to think about what would be next, and I knew I did not want to be an actor and play roles. So I went to Hal Prince, because as director of Spider Woman he had been in Argentina with me for part of the time, and he is the best mentor I could possibly have had. I called his office and asked for a meeting, and I just said, “I think I want to be a choreographer. What should I do?”

M | And what did he say?

R | He said, “You need to choreograph something and you need to show me.” What he was really saying was “show yourself,” but he was being much smarter about it for this pretty scared guy sitting there saying, “I think I want to be a choreographer.”

M | How many times did you work with Hal Prince?

R | I was the dance captain for the tour of Kiss of the Spider Woman, which was his production. Then I restaged it in Argentina and in Tokyo for Rob, but with Hal present in both places. And then he asked me to be the assistant choreographer on Parade—first on a workshop in Toronto, and then the actual production at Lincoln Center.

M | He is a towering figure in the history of musical theatre. Was he your first mentor?

R | Well, he was certainly the first person I idolized. His body of work and the shows that he did were some of my favorite shows ever to listen to before I even started my own professional career. And dream about, I guess you would say. Great classics like A Little Night Music and West Side and Fiddler and Cabaret. To be in Argentina and be able to ask him questions was just the most amazing master class. And he was very generous with his support.

But even more than that, all the new things he did, the unorthodox ideas that became these amazing shows—Kiss of the Spider Woman and Parade—those were the shows that I wanted to do. That was the kind of material I wanted to be associated with.

M | What happened when he encouraged you to go and do this showing, for yourself and for him?

R | Actually putting myself out there and saying, “I’m a choreographer,” is the hardest thing I have ever done. But I got together a group of dancers that I had worked with, dancers from Victor/Victoria and Spider Woman, and I did two pieces. One I’ll call a ballet, but I MICHAEL BERRESSE since 2005

are you doing about that next generation?

What do you feel your contribution is, and how do you help cultivate a relationship with audiences—specifically younger audiences?

R | I think it’s very important to mentor people and to teach them along the way—to try to help anybody you can. It’s hard when you’re running a full-on career. But I think there’s another way to do it, something that isn’t intentional but just happens. When you work on shows like How to Succeed in Business with Dan [Radcliffe], and then Darren Criss replaces him and then Nick Jonas, young people come to the theatre. So many young people in the audience; so many came to see Harry Potter, and they left having seen their first musical.

M | Which is an important thing, that they’re actually engaged with the form.

R | It is important. Even right now, with Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, we have Scarlett Johansson in the show, and the line for the rush seats for the day of is huge.

M | Because people want to see a great star in the show.

R | Of course.

M | But they might be coming to the play for the first time.

R | You never see anybody that’s over 25 years old in that line.

M | Really, that’s interesting.

R | They’re all young people. And I can’t help but think that this is certainly the first time they’ve seen Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Probably the first time they’ve seen Tennessee Williams.

Maybe the first time they’ve seen a play, and maybe the first time in the theatre. Who knows about that? They come to see Scarlett, and they leave having seen Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. I think that’s thrilling.

…FEAR M | Do you have any fears?

R | Just the normal ones. Just like the everyday ones. [Laughter] The biggest fear is fear of not continuing to grow. Not to stretch myself and push myself or discover new things and somehow bring that to my work. Also, the fear of lack of balance. In life.

M | Do you mean the work-life balance?

R | Yes, the work-life balance. I think as I get older, and have more great opportunities, I’m also just beginning to realize how much balance helps the work. Over the last year or so I’ve really seen that time and experiences SPRING 2013 | SDC JOURNAL

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don’t mean ballet like “balletic.” It was a story piece about a girl who lived with her father in the hills of West Virginia, done to gospel music—it was a totally made up narrative, but a world that I knew.

The story was about a girl who lived with her father in the hills of West Virginia; they were very isolated, and her only contact with other people was church on Sunday morning. The preacher’s son was this beautiful boy that she was in love with, but she had never spoken to him; she saw him every Sunday morning in church. And what she would do is escape into these little fantasies. She had a way of freezing everyone in the church—freezing them in motion—and she’d be able to leave her pew with her strict father and go to the boy and look at him and sit beside him and hold his hand. There was some humor in this part of it, which I hadn’t realized I was going to find; I hadn’t ever thought of myself as finding humor at all. I still don’t think of myself as a funny person; I think of myself as more dramatic than funny.

M | I’ve never heard this before. What happened next in the story?

BELOW Directing

Parade at Donmar Warehouse

A Streetcar Named Desire at Donmar Warehouse PHOTOS Marc Brenner FAR RIGHT Directing

R | One Sunday the boy noticed her, and they go on a date, for a walk in the woods—again, all set to gospel music. And there was a moment of him being abusive to her. He tried to attack her—it wasn’t what she dreamed. In the moment he was on top of her, she froze him like she did in the church, and she pulled herself out of it. The music we used for this was a hymn called “There Is a River,” which is very uplifting, and she pulled herself out of it, and all the people from the church and her community came and embraced her and took care of her. And there was a big finale where they dance in the water and run their hands through the water, and she becomes a member of the community, and she’s, in a way, saved by the community.

M | I was astounded by your work on Thoroughly Modern Millie. How many years is that between choreographing that dance and Millie?

R | A year and a half, maybe two years later.

M | And is that because the director of that production had heard there’s a really interesting young choreographer that’s come about because of this showing?

R | Hal came to the presentation. He gave me some good notes. He liked it. And when Michael Mayer was auditioning for a choreographer for Millie, I asked Hal if he wouldn’t mind calling him or sending a letter are just as valuable as doing another job.

M | One of the fears I have most of all is becoming cynical. I suppose the cynicism fear is because we’re in a profession where you could easily get a little bit cynical about it all, and, just by a small shift, you could end up doing something else that isn’t quite true to you but is true to the new, slightly more cynical view.

R | Yes.

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They had just signed their choreographer for Millie, but Michael said, “Well, that’s not available any longer, but I am working on this play at the Vineyard, and there’s a number or two, and I’m happy to meet with him.”

That worked out, and I was in the middle of doing the play with Michael, and I was assisting Kathleen Marshall at Second Stage on Sondheim’s Saturday Night. We were in tech when the choreographer fell through for Millie, so Michael asked me to put something together to audition—I had a week. And I was doing two things at once, but it was like, “Absolutely I’ll do it. I’ll do it. I’ll do it.”

M | It’s so interesting that on your very first outing to demonstrate creatively something you want to show the world, this big step in a new direction for you, you didn’t choose something from your current narrative in New York. You went right back to your roots and West Virginia.

R | Yes. When I was growing up, I knew there had to be more for me than this small town. I didn’t appreciate all the colors and things that I was experiencing and learning, which now I wouldn’t trade at all.

although when I think about projects, I try to contribute in some ways. I’m on the Board of Trustees at the Joyce Theater, which is a New York City-based dance theatre company. The same with SDC. I’m on the Executive Board, and I work to help in any way I can when I have that extra time. It’s important to try to make a difference.

…THE FUTURE

M | I think fighting that is important.

M | So you’ve got all of these experiences still ahead of you and maybe other things I don’t even know about. Do you ever worry that—

R | I agree. I totally agree. You have to fight it.

R | That I don’t have enough time?

M | And keep fighting. Do you ever think you’d like to change society, run for politics?

Together we have discussed frequently that one of our jobs in the creative industries anywhere is that we can reach out and touch people’s lives—help society to look at itself.

But do you ever want go politically into any other arena?

M | I’ve discovered that, from my personal point of view, I feel time is running out.

R | I don’t know about politically. I do think that’s one thing that artists in America don’t think about as much as you do in London,

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of recommendation or something. And he did. “Here’s this kid who just showed me some stuff, and he’s been our assistant on Parade, and I think you should take a look at him. You should give him a chance to audition for you.”

R | Well, you do feel time is running out, but it only helps. It’s motivating. When I came to New York and I wanted to be in a Broadway show, I was already 25. Most of the dancers I knew were 22, and I was like, “Shoot! I’m behind.” But I don’t particularly wish it happened earlier, because I don’t know that I would have been able to handle it. I didn’t start dancing until I went to Point Park; I was

MICHAEL MAYER since 1992

Sutton Foster + ensemble performing in the 2002 revival of Thoroughly Modern Millie, choreographed by Ashford PHOTO Joan Marcus

20 years old when I did my first demi-grand.

That’s late for dancing—except it was perfect for me, because the academics were all under my belt. I understood how to do research. I wasn’t also trying to grow up. I was just trying to learn how to be a dancer.

M | Apart from more plays to direct, doing more musicals, going into opera, possibly looking at films, what else do you dream about? Is becoming an artistic director possibly a future dream?

R | The idea of an institution and what an institution stands for—how it’s programmed, how it’s supported financially, how it makes a more permanent mark—I do find intriguing.

I think that it would be a huge challenge in a great way. So, yes, the idea of being part of an organization and to keep doing what I’m doing, but on a bigger or more permanent scale—I find that an interesting challenge.

Putting myself out there and saying, I’m a choreographer, is the hardest thing I have ever done.

ROB

PODCAST Visit American Theatre Wing SDCF Masters of the Stage to download a podcast of the 2010 One-on-One between Ashford and Grandage, moderated by Laura Penn. www.americantheatrewing.org SPRING 2013 | SDC JOURNAL

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Acc

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ow that we are well ensconced in the second decade of the 21st century, the inherent divide between live theatre and television and video is a well-worn topic. Not only do we live in an age where our culture seeks more and more of its information from digital media, but there is an increasing demand on theatre practitioners to share and promote our work by these same methods. Commercial and nonprofit theatres regularly engage social media tools (Twitter, Facebook, web trailers) to entice potential audiences; news outlets of all kinds are regularly producing web content in the form of videos and slide shows when they feature theatrical productions; and in the longer form, the Metropolitan Opera and the National Theatre of Great Britain have mastered the art of capturing a theatrical work in its entirety for a video-viewing audience with their live broadcast programs.

However, there is an inevitable tension in representing work that was not conceived for the two-dimensional forms of television, video, and the web. The very nature of theatre—its reliance on the live and immediate relationship between performer and audience, the requirement for suspended disbelief in a setting based on artifice— demands at its core entirely different rules of engagement than television, film, and even the interactive haven of the Internet. In order to capture the attention of potential audiences, we now look to shorter formats through live television events like the Tony Awards, video trailers, and other short samples, but often with unsatisfactory results.

Without the benefit of context that the long-form live broadcasts offer, the media divide in shorter form appears particularly unbridgeable, especially when it comes to straight plays. With musicals, there is general consensus that music and choreography translate more naturally to the broadcast form. For example, a song from a musical can be taken out of context more easily than a scene or monologue from a straight play, dance offers visual and staging opportunities for multiple cameras, and the musical elements of both benefit from enhanced sound capabilities in the broadcast format that are less forgiving for spoken dialogue.

So how can straight plays more effectively translate into this short-form landscape?

To help explore this question, I turned to four stage directors whose experiences straddle

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T

here is an inevitable tension in representing work that was not conceived for the twodimensional form. The very nature of theatre demands entirely different rules of engagement.

he D

ivid

both nonprofit and commercial theatre, and who each bring a unique history and perspective to the discussion: Kwame Kwei-Armah, a British playwright and director who recently became the Artistic Director at Center Stage in Baltimore; Gordon Davidson, a pioneer of the regional theatre movement who, during his 37-year tenure as founding Artistic Director of the Mark Taper Forum and Artistic Director of Center Theatre Group in Los Angeles, sent several productions (including some that he directed) to the Great White Way and beyond; Tony Taccone, Artistic Director of Berkeley Repertory Theatre, where many significant new works have been launched to national and international acclaim during his tenure; and Alex Timbers, whose directing accomplishments are many, including Tony nominations for Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson and Peter and the Starcatcher.

Since his arrival at Baltimore’s Center Stage in 2011, Kwame Kwei-Armah has been actively using video technology to communicate with his audiences. We began our discussion by examining why the use of video mattered and what techniques he employed to convey his message. “When I had left London and come to Baltimore, I wanted to make sure that people in England and people around the country could access what I was doing, access what this theatre in Baltimore was up to. More importantly was: how do I reinvigorate Center Stage’s national image?

Had I arrived ten years before, I would feel that the only way that one could go about it would be to use the rather 20th-century fashion of producing a new work or a classic, getting that on the road around the country, it lands on Broadway, and then people know that it originated at your theatre. And that’s a wonderful method, of course. But it happens once every, you know, 2,000 shows, if you’re fortunate. I thought that the best way to do that would be to use modern technology.”

e

BY

MA

RA

ISA Consequently, AC Kwei-Armah and S his staff at Center Stage created the My America series: 50 short monologues by 50 leading American writers, written expressly for video broadcast on Center Stage’s website, in celebration of the theatre’s 50th anniversary. Although they hired an independent filmmaker to film each monologue, Kwei-Armah describes the underlying conceit, “that this was still theatre, and not film. Now, there lies the conundrum that you raised earlier. How, in a two-dimensional form, do we replicate the three-dimensionality of the theatrical experience? And my sense is that we don’t have to.” Kwei-Armah continued, “It is how we use the camera to be the human eye, but not necessarily in the way that we do when we are expecting to see a film or a movie, but also not the kind of one-stop camera that you have in the back of the room. It’s about how inventive we want to be with that artist who sits between genres, the genre of theatre, the genre of film. It is that sensibility that I try to task the director with, how to serve both mediums and be true to both.”

The one area where there was general consensus that both mediums are being served, and faithfully so, is in the live HD broadcasts from the Metropolitan Opera and the National Theatre of Great Britain.

Gordon Davidson was initially a reluctant viewer of the Met live broadcasts, but after his wife Judi reported on her own experience with enthusiasm, he decided he needed to see it for himself. “So I went next time,

GORDON DAVIDSON since 1969 | KWAME KWEI-ARMAH since 2012 | TONY TACCONE since 1997 | ALEX TIMBERS since 2007

loaded with cynicism. And it was wonderful!” He went on to qualify his response, highlighting the work of a generation of opera directors like Bartlett Sher and Robert Lepage, who come out of a theatre tradition that is built on a strong visual and storytelling sensibility and who are able to draw dramatically satisfying performances out of opera singers that translate to the intimacy of the screen.

Kwei-Armah, who was on the board of the National Theatre when they hatched their plan for live broadcasts, describes their process. Having studied other attempts to record theatrical events, including the successful Lincoln Center Library archival recordings, they understood the fundamental importance of the multi-camera technique. But unlike the archival recordings of theatre performances, the live broadcasts are rehearsed to play not just for a live audience but for the cameras, “as if they were somewhere between television and theatre. So it takes an extra couple of days in order to do it. But it is a highend broadcast, multi-camera shoot, with a director that is not necessarily the theatrical director but a television and film director, who sits in rehearsals, early on in rehearsals, to make sure that they capture the essence of the play.”

Davidson also probes the technical aspects of the live broadcasts. “If I analyze it, scenically it’s flat, beautiful color, but it’s two dimensions, no depth, no real depth, which sometimes can be breathtaking [in the theatre]. But the plus is, the sixty-fourthousand-dollar plus is, the cameras. And the cameras are remote control. They are going in on you and you’re beginning to learn a little bit to accept the camera. I saw tears coming down Placido Domingo when he never has cried.” And the ability to switch from multiple cameras enhances the control of the storytelling, “because you’re singing to this person, or maybe a trio, and before you could never quite figure out who’s singing when.”

As Tony Taccone points out, some of the very elements that make the full-length live broadcast format so thrilling actually work against the plays when they are placed in another context, like the Tony Awards, marketing reels, and other work samples. The nature of the Tony broadcast inherently limits the scope of any individual production, which must be reduced to a short form to fit within the overall program.

Gordon Davidson adds, “During a broadcast you wait for the moment the play is awarded, not the representation of the play. It’s pretty damn hard to capture a dramatic production, maybe near impossible to do without raising another set of questions.” He continues, “I know that from a personal and artistic point of view the representation of a play in the form of scenes or monologues, or some other thing, rarely works unless the play has something about it—a charismatic actor or a magical monologue—that you can’t forget.”

Alex Timbers, who received a 2012 Tony nomination for Best Director for Peter and the Starcatcher, was in a more optimistic mood and reflected on the nature of theatre practice today, immediately connecting our conversation to the relationship between theatre and popular culture. “I’m always trying to answer, in the pieces that I take on, how theatre dialogues with popular culture, and how you take the kind of comedy and music and visuals and dramatic themes that are actually interesting right now in 2013 and actually find a place for them in the theatre. We all know that theatre ends up feeling rarified and disconnected, and that’s often why theatre gets a bad rap. Too often theatre ignores what’s going on, and it doesn’t dialogue with the other popular mediums, and so it just sort of argues for its own irrelevance. When I look at the Tony performance for Des McAnuff’s Tommy, it looks like an MTV music video. It’s one of the most exciting things you’ve ever seen, and it doesn’t feel like something from the Tony Awards, and that’s because Des just inherently thinks about theatre in terms of its dialogue with all the other interests he has.”

I asked each director to imagine the challenge of representing plays on the Tonys as their problem to solve, and here the conversations began to build. Gordon Davidson began by reflecting on his own experiences. “Well there are two components: one is the idea, and two is how that idea intersects with the real event, which is a television show. It’s really this push and pull, and hard to satisfy. I certainly have worried personally when we had a production on: what do we present? It’s the television show more than the play or playwright, which is the guiding thing, because that’s what they’re putting together.”

DES MCANUFF since 1985 | BARTLETT SHER since 1996

A LITTLE BIT OF TONY HISTORY

O

ver the years, there have been varying approaches to the representation of plays on the Tony Awards. Creative impulses often run up against the realities of producing live television.

When commercial breaks are taken into account, a three-hour Tony broadcast translates into approximately two hours and fifteen minutes of actual awards broadcast. Out of 26 Award categories, the Tonys present somewhere between 12 and 14 awards on air. Each award presentation takes approximately three minutes from the moment the nominees’ names are read to the acceptance of the award for a total of approximately 40+ minutes. (We would like all the awards to be presented on air, although it is worth noting that the Grammys have recently reduced their on-air awards to nine categories out of 70.) The pressure to provide enough entertainment value to warrant primetime placement—in addition to representing musicals currently running on Broadway—translates into more musical numbers. In recent years we have seen the inclusion of past musical productions that have become part of the fabric of popular culture. These musical numbers often fill 45 minutes or more. So, the highlighting of plays has been inconsistent as artists and stakeholders on both sides of the camera attempt to find an answer.

The first effort on record took place in 1969, when the Tonys featured scenes from two of the nominated plays (Lovers with Art Carney and The Great White Hope with James Earl Jones).

Nominated plays weren’t featured again until 1986, when a handful of actors read famous lines from each of the 39 previous best play winners, creating a historical snapshot, though no connection to current work. In 1987, live scenes were presented from each of the nominees, and this technique would be repeated on and off over several years. The effects were wildly varied, depending largely on the charisma of a particular performer and the nature of the play, with comedies tending to fare better than dramas.

The 1990 broadcast celebrated “The Year of the Actor,” with several actors performing famous monologues from Shakespeare and O’Neill. In 1993, there was an attempt to open up the process by looking at each nominated play by reenacting the essential stages of mounting a new production—audition, table read, rehearsal, and performance. Some years presenters read a synopsis of each nominated play, or introduced pre-recorded clips from performances, or described scenic elements and other behindthe-scenes perspectives. In 2007, the edited trailer was introduced, but it was not uniformly applied to all of the nominated plays. There are variations upon variations, and while some efforts have been more successful than others, there has yet to be a “Eureka!” moment in which the form has been cracked.

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Davidson’s perspective extends well beyond the Tonys. He is also on the artist committee of the Kennedy Center Honors, and when the occasional playwright is recognized, the Kennedy Center Honors are faced with a similarly daunting task of representing the writer’s work in a way that is true to its theatrical nature but also succeeds in the television format. In crafting an approach, he asks, “I wonder whether some hard thinking shouldn’t be given to what is the question as opposed to what is the answer. What is it that really is important given the amount of time that’s really allowed for this kind of thing?”

Alex Timbers initially proposes a behind-the-scenes perspective.

“A sense of what the visual world is, showing a little clip of the lead actor in rehearsal, collaborating with his fellow actor, the director, something like that, where it gives you more of a sense of the energy of the piece, rather than the actual dramatic literature of it.” But his brainstorm evolves as he realizes, “That doesn’t quite seem fair to the playwright. Perhaps there’s a way to take the dramatic poetry of the text and juxtapose that with something that’s much more visually dynamic, and gives you a sense of the fuller picture than just 50 seconds of an Edward Albee play.”

Tony Taccone draws the conversation back to the work we are each doing at our respective theatres, developing content for the web that engages audiences in the work on our stages, and the thread of a solution begins to emerge. The notion of creating a mini-documentary—part interviews, part pre-recorded production footage—that captures the essence of the theatrical experience but is conceived, filmed, and skillfully edited with a television audience in mind. This idea gets traction with others but they acknowledge the irony embedded in it—that to effectively translate our live art into a television broadcast, we would need to prepare a highly edited piece ahead of time that loses any sense of spontaneity within a live television program.

“I certainly wouldn’t be averse at all to shooting the scenes ahead of time. I would pursue that vigorously to see if there’s something there to just make the thing better,” Taccone says. “You’d almost have to have the director of the broadcast, or a film director, come in and work it and say, ‘Okay, here’s what we’re gonna do.’”

Timbers also warms to the mini-documentary idea. “It’s more about the full experience and access to backstage process as well, I think it’s the best way to sell a show, because ultimately, that’s what the Tonys are about—selling the different plays, whether it’s selling tickets or

NEA WORK SAMPLES W

hen seeking funding from the National Endowment for the Arts—the largest annual arts funder in the United States— arts organizations apply through a detailed application process, submitting their application to a panel of creative peers. Part of this application process includes submitting a work sample that showcases the exceptional artistic ability and quality of the artist or company, and for theatrical productions this work sample is typically a video.

Ralph Remington, NEA Director for Theater and Musical Theater, and Carol Lanoux Lee, NEA Theater and Musical Theater Specialist, spoke with SDC Journal about these work samples and the challenges inherent in capturing theatre on film, specifically such a short segment of live performance.

When did the NEA begin requiring work samples?

CLL | The NEA Theater and Musical Theater office started requiring work samples about five years ago, around 2008. Prior to that time we reviewed applications with site reports. The NEA sent site reporters who lived all around the country to see productions and then meet with the leadership of the theatre and conduct an interview. Then they would write up a report in a codified format and send it back to us. We used three years’ worth of these reports with each application in the panel review. As you can imagine, that process was very costly and eventually became cost prohibitive.

RR | Site visits are a great thing. If we could still afford to have site visits, we would love to. However, they were costing $400K annually, just for theatre, and that is a lot of money. So we depend on work samples and on the panelists, who bring to the process their examinations and experiences from across the country. I don’t think anything can replace site visits. Obviously, if someone can be there in person and have a firsthand account of what that organization is all

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about, that’s the best thing that can happen.

But work samples are a great follow-up.

That said, even site visits have problems. No system is perfect. Having been an artistic director, I can understand – I had site visitors when I was at Pillsbury House Theatre – and I think there are pluses and minuses with that system as there are with any system.

Opera, theatre, and musical theatre were the last disciplines to stop using site reports and begin using work samples. We were a little bit later than the other disciplines in transitioning to video work samples.

What other components are required?

CLL | There are several required documents, including organizational background, a project narrative, detailed budget, and a financial information sheet that gives an overview of an organization’s operating budget for the last three years. We require a statement from the artistic director about the project, as well as one from any pertinent creative artists; we ask for three years of programming history and a board list – basic things.

How do work samples of theatre productions compare to those of other art forms?

CLL | It’s hard to answer that question, because we have single discipline panels who only ever see work samples of theatre competing with other work samples of theatre. In Theater and Musical Theater, we don’t have multi-disciplinary panels in which a slide of a visual artwork would be next to a video of a theatre production. In that way it’s good, because everyone is on the same page and has the same tools at their disposal in order to tell their story and to convey the excellence of their work.

I think there are some differences between the use of work samples in theatre and the types of samples that come in for other disciplines. Primarily, if you are a museum seeking support of an exhibition, you can show us slides of the work that you plan to include in the exhibition. But with theatre, artists are very often seeking support for a production on which no work has yet begun. They don’t know yet what it’s going to look like. So the only thing they can do to convince a panel of their ability to produce high-quality work is to show us examples EDWARD ALBEE since 1974

representing them in the best light possible, so that they celebrate the achievement of the writer and the performers.”

Gordon Davidson’s response is more tempered. “I’m not against it, but it seems so partitioned and has to be hand-crafted for each one, and they don’t get that kind of time. You can have a beautifully shot and edited scene from each of the best play nominations, which somehow takes your breath away, but that would only give an indication of the work that Mike Nichols did, or Jack O’Brien, or Emily Mann. I don’t think that gets at the heart of the issue. Do you?”

Kwei-Armah says, “I find myself more interested in capturing the action of what the playwright was trying to create when he created that monologue or created that speech. What I do think is interesting, and I know that they’ve done this, is looking at the playwright speaking. If there is a documentary-style thing, which I think should be very brief; it could be about why the playwright’s written what they’ve written. I personally am more interested in the primary creator, what it is that they’re trying to do.”

It is clear from all of these conversations that the questions about representation of dramatic works in television and video are complex and elusive, and that there is no obvious one-size-fits-all solution. But of the many directions each discussion pursued, everyone came back around to the notion of a thoughtfully produced video that features

of work that they have already produced.

Sometimes the samples are very similar to what they are asking for; in other cases it may not be. I think work samples function a little differently in our discipline than they do for others in the agency.

In addition, our panels are made up of theatre professionals who make their own work samples for their own applications. (Note: At the NEA, conflicts of interest procedures forbid a panelist from reviewing an application with which they have a current professional affiliation.) They are aware of the limitations. I think a lot of people have concerns that their production looks a lot better live than on video – that part is pretty obvious – and the panelists understand. They know that viewing theatre on film is very different from viewing it live.

How do work samples for musicals differ from those for dramatic productions?

CLL | Theatre and musical theatre are combined in one discipline at the NEA. With musicals, in addition to a video of produced work, they often include audio samples of either a work that is in process or other works by the same composer, which is helpful. Each organization can choose what they want to submit and what they think will be most informative to a panel in judging the project they are seeking funding for.

How many cameras are typically used in filming the samples?

RR | It depends. Some places actually film work for their own archives and use multicameras; others use single camera. We’ve

at its core the notion of craft and the original voices of the generative artists—be they the playwright, director, actors, or designers. In the words of Tony Taccone, “I just think we have to accept it as a movie, you know, while claiming it is theatre.”

Bridging the media divide will no doubt be a field-wide challenge for the foreseeable future. The key to fitting into the short-form digital landscape may be an acknowledgement that the theatrical form cannot be successfully replicated in two dimensions. By accepting the fact that plays do not translate naturally to television or video, especially in the short form, we can liberate practitioners on both sides of the camera, encouraging them to consider the intentions of the theatrical work in order to communicate its essence, but in a way that is not just a facsimile of the original. Accepting the divide may be the solution for ultimately dissolving it.

Mara Isaacs has produced over 100 plays and musicals on Broadway (Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, Translations, Anna in the Tropics, Electra), Off-Broadway (The Brother/Sister Plays, Crowns, The Laramie Project), and at regional theaters around the country and internationally. She is Producing Director at McCarter Theatre, and also produced new play programs for the Mark Taper Forum. In 2013, Mara launched her creative producing and consulting company, Octopus Theatricals, LLC.

seen some of the smallest organizations have some of the best video samples. It really doesn’t depend on economics. And because of today’s technology, you can do a lot with very little.

CLL | We don’t have any requirements about how things are filmed. We see a variety of styles, as vast as the applicant pool.

What advice or guidelines do you offer for theatre artists and their work samples?

CLL | You can have two samples that can be up to two minutes long, which isn’t a lot of time. You want to look at the entirety of the production from a director’s standpoint and think about the moments that really characterize a production.

RR | The sample doesn’t need to be highly produced or slick. Rather it needs to give us a clear and concise example of the quality and excellence of their work. And it’s helpful if the work sample starts at a high point or close to the climax of a scene. The panelist should get what the work is about quickly and clearly.

Stay away from montages and B-roll. You should submit something where the panel can see the anatomy of a scene.

CLL | While montages can be good for marketing purposes, they seldom contain any continuous footage long enough to get the rhythm of a scene. A lot of times they have music over them or titles zooming across the screen. It’s all very slick and good for marketing purposes, but it doesn’t allow a panel to peer into what that production actually looks like on stage.

EMILY MANN since 1980 | MIKE NICHOLS since 1963 | JACK O’BRIEN since 1969

We offer project support, not general operating support. The NEA is not assessing the quality of entire seasons. So when we ask people to put forth a project, we’re asking them to put forth what they are most excited about doing, and the hope is that that excitement will translate through their application. The work samples are a tool, a piece of information, however subjective or imperfect, that the panel can use to determine whether or not a theatre has the ability to execute a project at a level of excellence. We emphasize that the work samples are used to help gauge if the final product has the potential to be artistically excellent.

Ralph Remington is responsible for the grantmaking processes for theatre and musical theatre, developing partnerships to advance the theatre field as a whole. He is a visionary artistic director with a proven record of leadership and innovation in eclectic theatrical environments. He has directed, produced, and acted in over 50 plays. He served as artistic associate and director of community engagement with Arena Stage, was the executive director of the Media Artists Resource Center in St. Paul, and founded Pillsbury House Theatre out of the settlement house tradition of community collaboration.

Carol Lanoux Lee has served as a Specialist for Theater & Musical Theater for the NEA since 2000. She holds an MFA in Theatre for Youth from Arizona State University, and BA and BFA degrees in Cinema and Theatre Studies from Southern Methodist University. Prior to coming to the NEA, she acted and worked as a grant writer for regional theatres.

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THE HUNGER OF THE LENS CAPTURING FOR PROMOTION

S

andy Block, Producer and VP of Theater for Scott Sanders Productions, talks with SDC Journal about the art and craft of advertising, specifically as it relates to positioning the promotion of live theatre on video and film. During his 25 years with New York-based Serino Coyne, Sandy developed marketing campaigns for Broadway hits like Jersey Boys, The Book of Mormon, and The Lion King. Over the years his extensive experience creating advertising campaigns has often been done in close collaboration with SDC Members. In the following interview he shares his informed opinion about what makes a successful short-form capture, when to use montage vs. a singular excerpt, and how sometimes no capture at all can lead to the best representation of a theatrical production.

Can you articulate some of the challenges of capturing theatrical productions— especially dramatic theatrical productions—on film or video for promotional purposes?

One of the earliest challenges with all theatre advertising, as compared to film and television advertising, is that shows usually have to start promoting themselves before they exist. You want to be putting something out into the ether two or three weeks before you begin performances, when there’s nothing to film. As opposed to film, where you don’t cut a movie trailer until the movie is done or at least has a good amount of footage in the can.

So that’s the first challenge. Your marketing people have to invent, either from photography or graphics, some concept that is fabricated simply to evoke something about the mood, the tone, or just the hard facts of the piece. Who’s in it? What kind of event is it? Is it a comedy? A drama? Is it a romance?

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We start to communicate those things with elements that are simply made up out of thin air. Then after opening, once you have video to use, how do you capture the essence of a play? You don’t. You can only sample it; you can make it clear that you’re seeing some refraction of the experience. Unlike a musical with lights and sequins and dancing, there’s not enough eye candy in most non-musical productions.

Are you familiar with the commercial that was done for Gemini in the late ‘70s, early ‘80s?

Sure, I remember it growing up. I can still quote lines from that commercial, and I was probably 16. “People shouldn’t have children.

Trees should have children,” I think is a line from that commercial. “I’m not hungry. I’ll just pick,” which was their big blowsy, blonde— this big extreme character—over a pile of spaghetti.

And was that B-roll or the equivalent at the time?

I don’t think anybody was doing B-roll at that time. That was definitely a commercial shot for that purpose. That was an incredibly longrunning play.

It’s different when you’re trading on a whole lot of time and word of mouth, and you’ve gone through your various concentric circles of audiences, and you’re going, at that point, for the really broad audience of television. At that point they were probably very pleased to sell it with an almost sitcom kind of nature with a few zingy one-liners that could be “sticky.” And they were; I still remember them. That’s one really good example, but it’s probably the exception to the rule. The show had a handful of lines that could give you a smile out of context.

What about a campaign like the recent one for Death of a Salesman?

Yes, I worked on that. All the advertising materials from that were type and graphics with a little musical underscoring. But there you had three or four worthy star names in one of the best known plays ever. In that case you’re simply conveying the facts. Philip Seymour Hoffman, Andrew Garfield, Linda Emond, Death of a Salesman, Mike Nichols, Telecharge. There’s nothing else you need to know. Figure out how to string those facts into a couple of detailing sentences and put them on TV. So if you don’t have stars or celebrities or…

Or a famous title?

Yeah. What is most important?

There are so many more media outlets now that can accommodate longer forms online.

Whether you can get people to see them or not is another story. TV advertising is still more of a push medium, in that it comes to you when you haven’t asked for it, versus most of the online digital stuff which is more pull, and people have to seek it out. But for the early, early audiences that might be hungry for information, you simply need to put something on television that’s provocative and/or informational enough for a potential theatregoer to want to know more. They go to Google or YouTube, and you have something more explanatory waiting there for them.

Can I pique your interest? If I can, then I can absolutely satisfy your interest with more information online where you’re not paying by the second the way you do on television.

So limitations are your friends.

Television advertising might not really matter for an unknown play, because that’s not a good avenue to advertise on, anyway.

Right. But, again, this is all within that window of early preliminary communications before the show exists, when you’re really talking to the hardcore theatregoer. Now you get into the area that’s the real dilemma, which is Broadway being addicted to stars, and Broadway doesn’t manufacture stars the way it used to. That has to do with the breadth of media, the fact that there are so many other avenues for entertainment that it’s just not as unique a niche anymore. So it’s a catch-22. If you give me a great Broadway performer that nobody’s heard of outside of the theatregoing loyalist, I don’t know that any show can manufacture interest in that person until there are reviews and word of mouth.

And then if you happen to be a theatre outside of New York that’s even more difficult.

Yes. So if you’re not producing the latest Broadway hit, how do you communicate to your audiences that your show is great?

For one thing, you don’t want to say “the latest Broadway hit,” because one of the things some shows have encountered when they go out on tour too soon is that the show hasn’t resonated across the country as much as we might think when we’re headquartered here. I’ve had too many shows that I’ve worked on over the years where we’re all sitting here in Times Square saying, “Well, by now, everybody’s heard of this. We just have to tell people it’s coming,” and they haven’t heard of it yet.

At that point, necessity can be the mother of invention, absolutely. Depending on your show. Say it’s not a known title or actors. A lot of logic would say, “Then don’t go on television in that early stage, because you’re spending money to reach more people than will be interested at that point.”

Why is that?

The people who are watching Good Morning America or Late Night with David Letterman or Mad Men are probably not the ones who are going to get excited by solid New York playwrights or actors that they haven’t heard of yet. It doesn’t mean you won’t need to create some video, but you don’t have to worry about that 15- or 30-second limitation, because if you go on Playbill.com with something that has a really good theatre actor talking about the show, or even just announcing him, you’re talking to a smaller sphere of people who might actually care and respond.

Yes. What I’m hearing is, in all but rare instances, you don’t use the capturing of the actual work to market it. Looking at what’s on the air right now, The Book of Mormon is another example of a musical that doesn’t use any captured footage.

PHILIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN since 2001

Because our little echo chamber is relatively small. It probably needs to be a hit that’s two or three years old. We’re talking about two things simultaneously here: advertising and media strategy.

Book of Mormon is probably also an exception to the rule, but you can still talk about the show as an event, versus talking about the show’s content. Let me give you another example. When I was working on Urinetown…

There’s your first obstacle: the title.

The title was there before we started. The cast, while good-looking and phenomenally talented, were not dressed fancy, and out of context imagery of the show reinforced the potential misconceptions that we were trying to combat. People might say, “Wow, I wonder if a show called Urinetown looks skunky, because it’s called Urinetown?” Well, we could either circumvent that challenge, or we could show them an image that would confirm their worst suspicions.

One of the things we did was resist the impulse during the entire run to show a single frame of footage. I remember every three or four months, the publicist would say, “Okay.

I can’t book anything else on television if I don’t have footage.” And we said, “Well, we get your challenge, but at the same time, we’re afraid that if you do show footage, it won’t do us any good. It will do us harm. So don’t knock yourself out.” It seemed the media was hungry for the footage, but the footage was not going to make the right impression.

There was never B-roll for that show, because there was nothing that we could show that wouldn’t confirm their worst suspicions.

In that case, we had to play on the mystery.

We had to play on the sense of humor. We talked about it from the outside, as opposed to from the inside. The same is true with Mormon. We’re talking about The Book of Mormon as a phenomenal show you should see, not The Book of Mormon as a show about two missionaries in Uganda. It’s talking about the event of the show, the fact of the show, more than the content. Whereas if you look at something like Jersey Boys, for example, it has more going on than people would presume.

So Jersey Boys has had B-roll on television since opening night and has probably not gone four months without being on television all these years.

They use lots of video.

Absolutely. With Jersey Boys we knew that people might think it was purely a concert, a sort of recreation of Beatlemania. The Jersey Boys video has always featured a very high proportion of dramatic book scenes to show that it’s actually a book musical, a play with songs, and that it has drama, not just four guys singing in front of microphones. There are fights and kisses and violence and drama, all to say, “This show has more in it than you might have pre-supposed.” Whereas with something like Book of Mormon, a visual takeaway might have been a disservice.

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When you use images or video, what tends to work better, a montage or an excerpt?

There’s always that debate. Whether you’re talking about an awards show appearance, about a commercial, or about a video clip, there’s always that debate between using a montage or an excerpt.

For example, even though a production’s Tony Awards appearance might be a live performance, it is actually creating the show for video, because it’s much more for all the people watching at home than it is for the couple of thousands of industry people watching in the theatre. In those cases, you have to decide whether to do 25 seconds of four numbers and show off all the actors and as many costume changes and visual variety as possible and make a sort of kaleidoscope of the show—or do you just do one number and land it, give a sample of what happens in the show? That’s a really hard, deep question for every production, and that’s the first big crossroads. A lot of productions used to just show excerpts from six numbers in a musical, or even six scenes of a play, for the press or for online audiences. Then we started to do a montage. If you have a really good song that might represent the overall spirit and feel of the production, you cut 60-70 seconds together that is nothing but a kaleidoscope of fragments. Now every show does a montage. Every play does a montage.

But sometimes it doesn’t add up. Looking at bits and pieces is not telling much of a story.

A viewer coming in cold may not be able to piece them together.

But returning to your first question, “How do you capture the essence of a production on film?” The first thing you have to do is decide, “Do we try to encompass everything that the show has, or do we try to explain what this show particularly needs?” With a big musical, I want to show you that this will appeal to you if you want to see dancing girls, tap numbers and kick lines, the leading man kissing the leading lady, and all that.

So a montage makes perfect sense. But if I have to explain to you what the production is, then maybe it’s better to show a scene that is provocative and interesting and makes you say, “Wow. That looks like a big intense performance. I wonder what that’s like?” I have to give you something you can sink your teeth into, as opposed to an overview.

Do you think creating montages for an awards show might work? Not just of the performance, but a moment in rehearsal, a moment where the playwright talks, a moment on stage. Something highly edited, of very high quality.

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One of the biggest traps for our industry is that there’s almost a checklist of things we feel we have to do. Instead, we should really consider each show carefully on a case-bycase basis. Going back to Urinetown. B-roll is a thing that every show does, but if you decide it’s not helpful, then don’t do it.

If you have the fabulous monologue from Fences and James Earl Jones, or if you have the fabulous monologue from On Golden Pond and James Earl Jones, you do that and not the montage?

Again, you’re picking super-bold examples, but they make the point.

Let me throw in one other—the Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? ad/commercial.

Mostly you feel a sense of the energy, the humor, the terror. It seems to both advertise and represent a production, without showing a singular moment from the play.

Some plays are more physical than others.

Virginia Woolf is a more physical play. Even though it has only one set and barely any costume changes, there’s a lot of physicality.

Other times, the hunger of the video lens forces an exaggeration of physical activity, because it’s more compelling for moving imagery. In plays that are mostly dialogue, you could find all the big gestures that you might put together, but then you’re distorting what the play is and possibly underselling it. Then you’re gonna have people coming in expecting physical fireworks, and they’re going to be disappointed.

How does a director participate in developing what represents the show, whether for an awards show or commercials?

If you hired the right experts, they know better. I don’t mean to insult directors, and I’m really not, but the assignment of how to communicate what the show is to an outside person is so different from creating the show itself. They are completely different assignments, and sometimes there can be a tendency for creative teams on a show to try to capture or encapsulate everything the show is about, as opposed to simply creating the right way in for a stranger.

Yes. Many directors feel that they should be consulted on the captured B-roll, and this is often more true for choreographers, but it also is true for stage directors. They might say, “Great, you captured him in that moment, but in that moment, what you should have captured is the person on the other side of the stage.” How

would you counsel a stage director or choreographer to help a film director find those moments?

Understand the opportunity to inform the video experts but not to instruct them. So explain what’s important, but just as there should be only one director for the play, there should be only one director for the video as well.

If a director says, “Now, pan left and get that,” you are handcuffing your video director.

Your video director should be as informed as possible, and he should do his homework.

This also goes back to the producers; they should make sure they’re giving the video people they hire enough notice and enough opportunity to do their homework, and then demand it of them. Don’t call Tuesday and say, “Can you shoot our show on Thursday?”

The video director should have seen your show two or three times with a script in their lap, marking, “Sudden entrance from stage right here, make sure we’re wide,” or “Have camera three stay on that actor for the entire scene, because his facial expressions will be important for cutaways.” They need to do their homework, and that might include some conversations and preparation with the director, but they are usually afraid of doing that, because the director will then start directing.

It is very tricky, and yet there are times when directors are completely caught offguard by the capture of their production, which might bear no resemblance to their own work.

True. The stage director also needs to understand that the thing being created is a promotional vehicle, not a record of their show. The video director’s and marketing people’s assignment is not to capture the show but to convey the show. I’ve seen this even with artwork design, where somebody says, “Yes, but the show’s so much more than that image.” Of course, but let us get the audience in the door, and then you transport them. It is not the marketing people’s assignment to capture everything the show stands for. It shouldn’t misrepresent, but it shouldn’t overrepresent either. That’s sometimes very hard for the creative team to understand, because they’ve been living and breathing this property for years. It’s hard to step out and say, “Okay. These promotional vehicles are not for the 700 people who have agreed to enter the theatre and say, ‘Tell me a story. I’ve agreed to listen.’” Those are the people who have already bought tickets. The assignment of the marketing and the video people is: what can we show that will make people want to see more?

Television + Theatre

A ROUNDTABLE WITH SHELDON EPPS, THOMAS KAIL + JASON MOORE INTERVIEW BY THOMAS

KAIL

Director Thomas Kail spoke with two esteemed colleagues, Sheldon Epps and Jason Moore, about their experiences directing for television and their aspirations to build a career that includes both the live stage and the sound stage. From how they each found their way onto a set to the lessons they’ve learned and brought back into the rehearsal hall, the three men discuss how the craft of directing for theatre has provided them with many of the essential tools necessary to tackle the challenges of broadcast television.

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

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

SE | 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.

TK | How about you, Jason? What was the bridge for you?

JM | 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

SHELDON EPPS since 1981 | THOMAS KAIL since 2005 | PAUL LAZARUS since 1981 | JASON MOORE since 2001

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.

SE | And you, Tommy?

TK | 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 SPRING 2013 | SDC JOURNAL

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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 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.

SE | 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.

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

SE | 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.

JM | 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.

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H

aving the language to talk to actors amidst all the frantic energy is essential. There are so many time constraints with writers and the camera...actors still always want interaction...to be able to talk about character amidst all of the technical aspects is a skill that can single you out.

JASON

TK | 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 preproduction 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?

JM | 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.

TK | 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.

SE | You’re right; the tape night on a multicamera 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 multi-camera tape night. There is an enormous and thrilling juggling exercise that’s going on.

JM | 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 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.

SE | 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.

TK | 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 ABE BURROWS d.1985 | JAMES BURROWS since 1984

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.

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

JM | I love the idea that directing television is like being a choreographer for a musical. I think that’s really true and is somewhat eyeopening—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 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.

SE | 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.

TK | 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?

JM | 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.

SE | 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

T

ape night on a multi-camera show is a singular experience... you’re filming in front of an audience. You are improvising changes from rehearsal—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.

SHELDON

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.

TK | 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?

SE | 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.

TK | 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?

JM | 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.

SE | 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.

TK | 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.

SE | 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.

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S

FROM THE ARCHIVES

usan H. Schulman

FOR THE LOVE OF MUSICALS In March of 1994, after her hit Broadway production of The Secret Garden, director/choreographer SUSAN H. SCHULMAN discussed her life in the theatre with director MELVIN BERNHARDT. In this excerpt, Schulman explains how she went from staging shows as a child on her family’s Brooklyn stoop to the unlikely circumstances of moving Sweeney Todd from a school gym to Broadway’s Circle in the Square Theatre.

M | How did you get interested in the theatre?

S | I was always interested in the theatre. I was born in New York, and I was exposed to theatre at a very early age. My father always took me into Manhattan for my birthday, and we saw a show. I presume something in that tipped off something in me, and it’s always what I wanted to do.

M | Tell us who was in the class.

When I was a very little girl, I used to direct shows on the front stoop of our brownstone in Brooklyn. It was a natural stage. It had that nice little door for entrances and exits, it was raised, people could sit in the street and watch.

It seemed a natural thing to do. No one in my family is in theatre, though my father was a traveling barber, sort of like the one in Man of La Mancha. He would often apply makeup and false hair to the traveling theatre groups. He tells me it’s because of him that I’m in theatre, but who knows?

S | Well, there was Eliot Feld and Michael Bennett and Louis Falco. Even as a young child, failure was not high on my list. So I switched over to the drama department, where Vinnette Carroll taught acting. I knew that she was also a director, so I was very fortunate to have, at an early age, a wonderful female role model who was a director. There were very few of them at that time. Vinnette was one of the only ones directing musicals. That must have put a bug in my head, because I did a lot of directing at Performing Arts, and then in college.

M | What was it about being there in the audience with all of this going on on stage?

Hofstra University in Hempstead, Long Island, had a very good drama department at that time, and I believe it still does. We were a competitive and very involved class. We liked instigating productions. I wrote, acted in, and directed plays.

S | Well, I liked the world on stage a whole lot better than I liked the real world. It was more organized. Things had been thought through; the costumes all matched, whereas in life, people stand next to each other, and they don’t match. They clash. The scenery was quite beautiful, and the colors were in control, and I’m a compulsive person. I liked all that control.

M | So what did you do about it, having decided that this was where you wanted to be?

S | Well, I didn’t exactly know what it was that I wanted to do. So, like every little girl, I decided to be a ballerina. I went to Miss Harriet’s

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School in Brooklyn, which was in a garage, and I started as a dancer. When I got into junior high school, I heard about all the specialized schools in New York, so the High School of the Performing Arts became my goal. I applied and auditioned and was accepted. I was the worst dancer in my class.

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I applied to Yale Drama School and was told by the then-head of the directing department that women were not accepted in the directing department at Yale, because they couldn’t mind their work; they really couldn’t concentrate. I had written a couple of plays while I was in college, so the chairman said, “Apply to playwriting. They have all the fellowships there.” So I actually got a fellowship to Yale, but in playwriting, which was kind of a ruse, actually. Once I got there, I wrote

only the requisite number of plays, because I hated writing plays. I hated being alone in a room with a typewriter. It was the antithesis of anything I wanted to do. I did everything else: I directed a lot, I acted a lot. They threatened to take my fellowship away from me, and we’d have big fights, but I remained at Yale and was graduated.

When I left Yale, it was pretty clear that what I wanted to do was direct, but there was absolutely no opportunity for it. Absolutely none. There were practically no women directing in commercial theatre at the time.

Regional theatre was just starting, and even then, all the artistic directors were men. Things have changed, and right now there’s a much better representation.

I accepted the first job that was offered me, which was to be a resident actress at the Studio Arena Theatre in Buffalo. While I was there, they lost a director for a production of The Wind in the Willows, and I said, “Please, please, please, I can do it, and I’m cheap,” and they were really in a bind, so they let me do it.

I was not a very good actress. There were certain things I did well, but the main thing I didn’t do well was mind my own business–and, as an actress, you really have to do that. I kept looking over my shoulder, wondering what so-and-so was doing, second-guessing the director. I was really a pain in the neck for any director, and I knew this wasn’t my future.

I came back to New York, but there was absolutely no work, so I got a job teaching theatre–actually, running a theatre program at a private school in Manhattan.

MICHAEL BENNETT d. 1987 | MELVIN BERNHARDT since 1965 | VINNETTE CARROLL d. 2002 | ELIOT FELD since 1997 | SUSAN H. SCHULMAN since 1981

The wonderful headmaster let me have time off whenever I needed it. During that time a friend of mine opened a dinner theatre on Long Island. She offered me a job directing shows there, and I directed eight shows in a row, which was great experience. I thought, now look at my resume; I’m going to come in to New York and get a job. I interviewed through Theatre Communications Group, but nobody would hire me. So I thought, okay, I’ll work for nothing. I sat outside the door of the executive director of Equity Library Theatre, which was the premier producer of showcases at the time in New York, until he agreed to see me. He said, “But you’ve got to direct something I can see.” Some people were getting together and doing a production of Look We’ve Come Through at what is now the Nat Horne Theatre. I did that production, and it was fortunate that Hugh Wheeler [the playwright), and the executive director of Equity Library Theatre, saw it. He gave me a chance to do a production of Arsenic and Old Lace the following season, and it got very good reviews.

I did Carnival the season after that, never having done a musical in my life, and not being able to read a note of music. Boy, what you do when you’re young and you have no fear!

Someone from Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera saw that production and offered me a season directing musicals at Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera. I had never directed in anything bigger than a postage stamp, and Pittsburgh Civic light Opera is a 3,000-seat house, with a 55-foot proscenium opening, and a complete union stage crew. The first show I did there (talk about baptism by fire!) was Mame with Dixie Carter.

She was wonderful. I bluffed my way through it. I had never managed anything that huge in my life. I went on to work there for eight years.

I was a very good bluffer. That was a great education. I did 50 full-scale musicals with large budgets.

M | That’s got to be something more than bluffing.

S | Well, I sort of liked it, too. Pittsburgh is a very sophisticated music-and-theatre town, and they encouraged me. The press in Pittsburgh liked my revisionist way of doing musicals– which I didn’t know was revisionist at the time.

It’s just that I had no background in it, so I took a new approach to them. I felt, why are we doing all these blackouts? They’re a pain in the neck. Who likes blackouts? So I just got rid of all of that. Everyone said, “Look at what you’re doing to South Pacific. It looks like a brand new show.” I was very, very fortunate.

I had just done my first Sondheim musical in Pittsburgh, which was Follies (that show was incredibly difficult, you never felt that you had finished working on it), when Hugh Wheeler appeared and asked me to do A Little Night Music for Equity Library Theatre. At this point I was in love with Sondheim’s music, so I did

Night Music in New York. Hugh Wheeler liked it very much, and called Stephen Sondheim and said, “I think you should catch the show.” And he did. He caught the last performance of it.

That was my first introduction to Mr. Sondheim; we barely met, just to say hi, congratulations, and that was it.

Then Janet Walker, producer at the York Theatre Company, asked me if I would do a production of Company that they were planning for the next season, and I said, okay, sure. Company was a great revelation to me. Mr. Sondheim saw it and was very pleased with it. We actually had a conversation about Company.

The following year I was asked to do Sweeney Todd, a kind of chamber version for the York. It was very successful, and moved to Circle in the Square. That production began in a gym, up at the Church of the Heavenly Rest. After every performance we had to strike the set, because it was used as a gym the next day. Because we had to deal with that space, we came up with a very inventive ground plan, and a spectacular set by Jim Morgan. We all decided that the show was going to move. No one had come and asked us to move it–it had 16 people in it.

Off-Broadway was definitely not a possibility.

Even the magnificent original production had lost a million dollars. So the possibility of this moving was absurd, but we all just decided that that was what we were going to say. So we said it. We decided we wanted it to move to Circle in the Square, because Circle had the same configuration, and we could keep the basic vision of the piece. Circle in the Square hadn’t even come to see the show yet, but we began to tell everybody that it was going to move to Circle in the Square.

The show had been reviewed by the Times–a very lovely review by Stephen Holden–and then Frank Rich came, totally without our knowledge at the time, and wrote a critics’ notebook on the show. I got a call at midnight one night from Janet Walker telling me to go out and buy tomorrow’s Times. I did, and when I opened it, there was an entire article about our production of Sweeney Todd. I was shaking. None of us knew that this was going to happen. Two days later, the people from Circle in the Square saw it, and it moved.

While I was teaching Sweeney Todd at Circle, I got a call from Heidi [Landesman], who asked if she could come and see me about something.

We sat in the theatre, and between light cues, she talked to me about The Secret Garden. She said, “Have you ever read the book?” I said, “Of course. Every girl has read The Secret Garden, and I love it.” That sort of brings you up to date.

M | That’s how it happened for you. What do other people do?

AGNES DE MILLE d.1993 | JOSHUA LOGAN d.1988 | JIM MORGAN since 2002

S | I’m still sort of a freak, you know, a woman who’s directing commercial theatre, musicals.

When I think back on it, the most important thing seems to be to work–to make work, even if it doesn’t exist. Even if you get a few people together and do it in someone’s loft, and you invite a couple of people to see it. And you’ve got to be willing to work for nothing. I know how hard that is, but you have to do it. It means you may need to be subsidized. If your parents would have paid for graduate school, let them help you out. Don’t be embarrassed by it. The arts have always been subsidized.

M | What do you want to say about the American musicals? You’ve done all of the great musicals in your years in Pittsburgh.

S | I have two things to say. First, I’m very happy that revivals are now looked upon in good grace. This is our heritage in theatre. Over in England, they revive straight plays continually– it’s part of the tradition of the theatre. I’m thrilled that revivals have won new respect.

At the same time, I would love to see some new musicals, and I think the problem is that we’re losing our most talented people to the other disciplines. Getting a musical produced commercially in New York has got to be one of the most difficult things there is to get accomplished. I think spending ten million dollars for a musical is absurd. If you’re going to spend ten million dollars, produce ten shows.

What musical theatre used to be about was making a pact with the audience about using their imaginations. This was the pact: we know there’s not a field behind you, but we’re going to say there’s a field behind you, and everyone is going to believe that there’s a great golden haze on the meadow.

It’s interesting that the Allegro that I just did– the poor little stepchild that came between Carousel and South Pacific–was a concept musical. Do you know who the “gopher” on that show was? Seventeen-year-old Stephen Sondheim. He got coffee for people and typed scripts. It was a very interesting, innovative musical. It tried to break new ground. It wasn’t just that it was ahead of its time; it was also very flawed. But it was wonderful to investigate where a lot of ideas for what we now call the “concept musical” have really sprung from– Allegro, and Agnes de Mille’s vision of the piece. And Agnes never got the credit for it. The following show, South Pacific–which Joshua Logan directed, using many of the ideas from Allegro–is the show that got all the credit for being innovative. Actually, most of the scenic ideas were from Allegro. I have it on Jamie Hammerstein’s authority that Josh Logan stood in the back of the house in New Haven and watched the out-of-town previews of Allegro.

He was fascinated by the use of space and the seamlessness of the production.

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M | What do you feel about the sung-through musical? You know what I mean. No book.

Everything is sung.

discussed them intimately. We collaborated on the whole way the show moved from scene to scene.

S | I think some work better than others. The ones that are closer to opera thematically are obviously the ones that work best. I get a little annoyed when the recitative comes in with, “Do you have a cup of tea?” “No.” “The cup of tea is in the other room.” “I’ll go get the cup of tea.” I always say to myself, ”Well, talk!” Rather than being a sung-through musical at all costs, if there’s some dialogue, it should be dialogue.

You just can’t sing about getting a cup of tea unless the cup of tea has poison in it. Then, you can sing about it.

M | Was there much collaboration between you and Sondheim on Sweeney Todd?

I much prefer directing a book musical. I love building the scene into the song. That’s what’s so wonderful­–what we did here in this country that nobody else did. That’s what the American musical really is.

Q FROM THE AUDIENCE | Tell us a bit about your collaboration with choreographers, especially in your early development.

S | I like to collaborate very, very early. On the new musicals–The Secret Garden and The Red Shoes–I collaborated very early with Michael Lichtefeld and Lar Lubovitch. What’s interesting is that I have to fight tooth and nail to include the choreographers. Because they are creating too—here at the beginning—and we need their vision. Also, so much storytelling in musicals is done through movement and dance. I am a firm believer in non-literal storytelling, and I believe that music and dance contribute as much to the storytelling as anything else does in theatre.

Q FROM THE AUDIENCE | How do you decide which songs should be choreographed and which should be blocked by the director?

S | Because of my background, I often work like this with a choreographer: the choreographer will do the wider shell, and I will come in and do the fine-tuning. Especially in shows like Sweeney Todd, where there’s no dance per se, we will often work in tandem. “More Hot Pies,” for example, which is the opening of the second act, we worked on simultaneously.

We had talked it through; we had done lots and lots of homework on it. That number is 20 pages long in the score, endless and complicated. Michael got it up on its feet, got its broad strokes going, and I would come in and do this little part, and then we’d switch over and do that little part, but because we had done the homework together, we weren’t at odds with each other. We knew exactly what the other person was doing, all the time. On the Broadway workshop for The Red Shoes, Lar and I collaborated on many of the numbers— not the ballet, but many of the numbers. We

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S | Stephen is the ultimate gentleman collaborator. He never intrudes on your territory. Decorous is the best word for it. “I’d like to come see a rehearsal. Is Tuesday okay?”

“No, we’re doing light cues on Tuesday.” “Oh, okay, Wednesday?” He’s very aware of what everybody’s job is and aware of what his presence brings to a rehearsal.

On Sweeney Todd—the first staging for the York—I had a very brief discussion with him over the telephone about what I was planning to do with it. It had to be revoiced for 15— that was the hardest thing to decide, because it was voiced for 30. How to shrink it and not lose the sound. And I decided on the quintet.

He agreed with that and said it was fine. Then we talked about synthesizers. I felt the show in that set of circumstances could not be acoustic, and we decided on three synthesizers. That was the extent of our conversation. He didn’t want to have anything to do with casting. He was very busy at the time doing the Oxford lectures in London, and he said, “Fine, I trust you.” (These words strike terror in my heart, because now I have major responsibility.)

The first time he saw the show was up at the church at one of the final dress rehearsals.

He came in, just back from London, and said, “Where do you want me to sit?” I said, “I want you right next to me, because the only thing worse than having you next to me is having you across the room and my having to watch you take notes.” He must have taken 300 notes.

Reams of yellow pads. I was a wreck.

The lights came up at intermission, and I thought, I can’t even turn around and look at him. I was devastated. He wasn’t saying anything, so I finally got up the courage to say, “So?” He said, “It’s swell. It’s just swell.”

I said, “If it’s so swell, what’s that?” It turned out that all those pages of notes were what he calls nitpicks—he’s so aware of where and why every breath is in the score, that the notes were literally about this rest being a sixteenth, and it’s a sixteenth for this reason, and so forth and so on. It turned out to be extremely valuable information. He also asked for two major cuts. He asked to cut the overture, the organ prelude, which he always disliked. I was only too happy to cut it. We had reinstated the tooth-pulling sequence, which followed the haircutting sequence, and though it was enormously funny, he felt it was gratuitous after the contest. He actually said to me, “See what you think about it. I think it works better if the scene is cut, but if you really want to

keep it, you can keep it. I would prefer it cut.”

I cut it. We had also reinstated the flagellation scene, which worked beautifully. I couldn’t imagine the show ever being done without it, because seeing that horrifying man, the Judge, go through this scene puts the audience so on Sweeney’s side. After we moved, Sondheim came again to one of the techs, and to the final dresses. He took 200 to 300 notes, mainly telling me what his intent was in writing a line a specific way. Basically what he was asking me was to come as close as I could to the original intent at each of these moments.

Q FROM THE AUDIENCE | How do you communicate to your designers?

S | The first thing I say to a designer is what I feel emotionally about the piece. On Sweeney Todd I said to Jim Morgan, “You know, the feeling I get about this piece is so claustrophobic. Nothing happens that isn’t watched by somebody. Fleet Street is so crowded.” I’ve been fortunate enough to have designers who bring me reams of research.

In this case, I got more lithographs of 1850 London Fleet Street than you’d ever want to know about in your life. We started looking at these lithographs and found this laundry that so many English tenements of the period had.

The laundry was like a maze. The streets were bisected by these diagonal lines of laundry.

There were hundreds of windows all over the place with people in them. Everybody was cramped in together. Those images, no matter what we looked at, kept reappearing and reappearing. That’s what the design all comes from.

M | Do you think that what you do with actors is the same on each show?

S | No, and it’s not the same with each actor.

If I have a technique at all, it’s to try to find out what works for that actor, and not treat them all like the same person. Everybody comes from a different background, and every actor works differently. Some actors want you to give them everything. It has nothing to do with talent; some vastly talented actors want the director to give them every inch of blocking. Others may want a little nudge in that direction, but that’s about it. You just don’t know until you start working with them. I try to sort of find out what they need from me.

The one thing I’m sure to do is an enormous amount of homework, so that when the time comes that the actor says, “I’m falling, I need help here,” I can supply the answers.

To hear the entire interview on podcast, visit SDCF’s Masters of the Stage series at American Theatre Wing. Please visit www. americantheatrewing.org/sdcfmasters

MICHAEL LICHTEFELD since 1984 | LAR LUBOVITCH since 1988

REGIONAL REPORT

KCACTF AROUND THE NATION WITH GREGG HENRY Started in 1969 by Roger L. Stevens, the Kennedy Center’s founding chairman, the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival (KCACTF) is a national theatre program involving 18,000 students from colleges and universities nationwide. The KCACTF has grown into a network of more than 600 academic institutions throughout the country. KCACTF is a year-round program in eight geographic regions in the United States. Since its inception, KCACTF has given more than 400,000 college theatre students the opportunity to have their work critiqued, improve their dramatic skills, and receive national recognition for excellence. More than 16 million theatregoers have attended approximately 10,000 festival productions nationwide. Excerpted from www.kcactf.org To begin, can you tell us about the history of KCACTF? KCACTF actually predates the Kennedy Center and was the brainchild of Roger Stevens, the founding chairman of the Kennedy Center. Originally it was sponsored by a number of the major corporations that had American in its name, such as American Airlines, American Express, and AMOCO Oil, but that’s just trivia. The first two national festivals were held in a tent on the mall, and were then moved to Ford’s Theatre, then to the Kennedy Center. Roger Stevens wanted to recognize and reward excellent work in colleges and universities. Our goal today is to make KCACTF about professional development for students and more of a bridge-building organization between higher education and the field. The program has now expanded to just about every discipline.

There are the regional festivals and the national, yes?

Yes, that’s right.

SDC is constantly thinking about its national identity. How do you create unification nationally while keeping the distinctive personalities of each region?

Well, that’s an important point, because each region does have its own personality. To begin, I think it’s important to emphasize that when the economy bottomed out in 2008, and the two years following that, the program took a significant hit financially. The U.S. Department of Education scaled back and focused on K through 12 education, and we lost all of our federal funding.

ELEANOR HOLDRIDGE since 2002 | DAVID MUSE since 2007 | BLAKE ROBISON since 2012 JEREMY SKIDMORE since 2009 | DANIELLA TOPOL since 2007

The whole Kennedy Center education division was affected, but it remained a priority that nothing pertaining to student professional development be affected by the cuts. We refused to change the regular contact with guest artists from the field or change the residencies that are awarded to outstanding students. We award students scholarship funds and we put them into a professional situation—a residency with a professional organization—so they can start networking with presumably future colleagues. That’s the key thing. What we did sacrifice was bringing full productions to Washington for the national festival.

The vast majority of participants in our organization participate on the regional level. Most of the students and faculty that participate in ACTF don’t come to Washington. We have maybe 150-160 people that gather for the national festival here at the Kennedy Center. But in New England, participation reached 950 this year. In the Midwest, Region 3, around 1385, and in Nebraska, Region 5, I think it was 1460. Those are significant assemblages of young artists and committed faculty. We have to keep our attention there—in the regions. The national festival is a cherry on top of a sundae, but I think the sundae’s pretty damn good without the cherry.

To be specific, the SDC fellowship program has become an important focus, because we want student directors to have a place to stretch their wings, to try things out, and get rigorous feedback in a very concentrated amount of time. Ditto with designers, dramaturgs, and playwrights. The majority of them won’t be coming to Washington.

What is the SDC fellows program?

Young directors are identified by their schools as directors of promise. These students select a scene from a common list that’s used nationwide and attend a regional festival where they participate in the fellowship program. If they receive the fellowship for their region, they attend the festival at the Kennedy Center, where they have master classes and conversations with a wide range of directors—Joy Zinoman, David Muse, Blake Robison, Jeremy Skidmore, Eleanor Holdridge, Daniella Topol are a few. The national fellowship recipient receives a cash award and a residency. Last year the winner spent a month at the Orchard Project. All finalists receive Associate Memberships to SDC. SPRING 2013 | SDC JOURNAL

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How are the scenes for student directors chosen?

We have a member at large on our executive committee who oversees the SDC fellowship program. That member collects input from the coordinators around the country, and with all that input, she develops a list of six or seven plays and scenes from those plays, ranging from basic naturalism and modern drama, like Neil LaBute, to something more open to directorial interpretation, like The Caucasian Chalk Circle. There’s a great range in there; this year we worked with Brecht, Naomi Iizuka, Kirsten Greenidge, Liz Flahive, Catherine Trieschmann, and Eugene O’Neill.

And so the directing students at a college or university work on these scenes, and the school decides whom they’re sending to compete? Who decides which directors go?

It’s a complicated process with specific criteria for participation and what the students must do in advance. They need a letter of support from a directing mentor on their campus, and they have to submit a research book and analysis of the whole play, then a section specifically focusing on the scene, in advance of coming to the regional festival. They submit the materials to the regional directing coordinator. By necessity, some regions have a winnowing process.

We see 18 to 20 students.

We struggle with making sure the experience for each director is not rushed. We try not to rush the process just to get to the final round and determine the finalists. Back to regional identities—I’ve been doing the SDC feedback sessions up in the Pacific Northwest for maybe four or five years now, and it’s a really well-run program. I think it’s very rich, because all 18 to 20 students stick around and see each other’s work. I think the interplay between the students is really quite terrific.

These directing students direct scenes and then receive feedback from professionals?

Yes. Typically from a panel of three.

Tell us a little bit about the response process. What are the responsibilities of those respondents?

In the ideal situation, the three panelists do not give notes. They’re not saying, “If you do this, this, this, and this, and fix this, then you will be a finalist, or you will win.” The important charge is to ask questions and make keen observations about what they see in the scene to help the students see their work with a different set of eyes, which can really open up the process. We’ll say, “If you disagree with us, we’d love to hear why. Tell us why you disagree.” If their ideas have sort of the solidity of bedrock behind them, I want to hear that personally.

We only give feedback to the directors; the actors are not in the room. We need to be able to talk about process with directors.

Sometimes we may have observations about a particular actor that we, as directors ourselves, suspect they had a challenge working with.

Director Blake Robison

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After this first feedback session the student will have time to go back in and work on it. Usually a directing teacher from back home is sitting in the room while we’re talking to their student. If it was a complex or difficult series of responses, they will help the student unpack, sift, and sort through everything they were given. I think where we sometimes run into trouble is when a directing teacher isn’t there, and the student doesn’t understand fully but tries to decipher the feedback on his or her own.

Who are the respondents?

They are directors. The goal is always to have at least one SDC Member. Sometimes, depending on the financial health of the region, they may or may not be able to make that happen, but the aim is to have a range of directorial interests on that panel. It’s people who perhaps are on the staff of a local regional theatre. For example, Evan Yionoulis did it a year ago up in New England, and she was on the panel with one of the regional chairs from another region. It was an interesting blend from the field and from an academic perspective.

What other professional organizations are involved in the festival, and why is that important to the festival?

What do you think the organizations get out of it?

I have found that our field is a very generous one. I think the capacity for caring and looking out for the next generation and the coming generations is something that everyone seems to be very willing to give their time towards.

Artists will ask, “What do you want me to do?” I say, “Think of three things you want to make sure the students hear from you that you think is essential.” You can base your whole residency at one of the festivals on that—the stuff that you wish people had told you sooner; what you wish you had had more of to build a foundation before you were thrown into the cold, cruel world. It’s enormously helpful to be given an opportunity to give back like that, to say to young people, “Look, this is what I encountered in the five years after I graduated college. Get yourself ready for this.”

I think when they’re given an opportunity to do that, they run towards us, as opposed to me having to lasso somebody and drag them in. We have a very strong relationship with the O’Neill Playwrights Conference and Music Theater Conference and Critics Institute. We have a strong relationship with the United States Institute for Theatre Technology (USITT) – when our technical students want deep professional development opportunities, the best thing is not to bring then to the Kennedy Center but to send them to USITT. We’ve also had an ongoing relationship with Actors’ Equity Association. Tom Miller, Director of Education and Outreach, has been attending every regional festival every year, having essential conversations about the union. For the actors and for the stage

NEIL LABUTE since 2001 | EVAN YIONOULIS since 1987

Director Joy Zinoman with SDC Fellows

managers that’s terrific and important and, actually, AEA sponsors one of the awards at the Irene Ryan Acting Scholarships. This is the second year of a partnership with Artists Striving to End Poverty (ASTEP).

What’s starting to happen with the ASTEP representatives at each of our regional festivals is that more and more schools are trying to figure out ways to use the ASTEP model to work in their own communities and get their student actors, designers, and playwrights to work with kids—to work with schools and after school programs.

That exposes young people to different, alternative career paths and also a place to really practice their craft and make a difference at the same time.

Definitely. Since I’ve been in the job, we’ve had a relationship with the Dell’Arte School out in Northern California to get actors thinking in a more collaborative way and take ownership of their work. We have a relationship with the Shakespeare Theatre Company, where one of our actors goes and spends a season with the company as an acting fellow. We’ve had a four-year relationship with Orchard Project—a theatre arts collective in residence at the Catskill Mountain Foundation—where we send one, sometimes two students to bang around with all of the dynamic companies and artists in residence there, which has been pretty thrilling. They get exposure to ten individual sets of progressive artists and ensembles. In fact, our SDC recipient last year, his residency was with Orchard Project.

I’m always looking for new relationships.

We don’t ask for these organizations to pay for anything. We try to find a way to send a student to work with an organization in a residency and we’ll cover the expenses.

We’re not saying, “We’d like to partner with you, please give us $50,000.” We cover hard costs and in return, they get an excited and committed young artist.

Can you tell us about your relationship with the Dramatists Guild? How do you two collaborate?

I think our relationship with playwrights has been a significant component of our organization, perhaps the most important thrust of our program in taking care of the new voices in the American theatre. All of our playwriting award winners receive memberships in the Dramatists Guild.

Gary Garrison, the Executive Director for Creative Affairs, and his team have sent a member of the council to at least four out of the eight regional festivals for a keynote address, conversation, and/or a one-on-one workshop/master class with the playwriting students and any other interested parties.

It’s just a very healthy relationship. Gary Garrison is a long-time KCACTF stalwart; he was our national chair of playwriting.

Gary and I formed the summer playwriting intensive. He and I are always just trying to hatch plots for what next, what else we can do for writers.

This summer, we’re going to try professional development for directors vis-à-vis new work through the MFA Playwrights’ Workshop that the Kennedy Center produces in association with the National New Play Network. We’ve been producing this program for seven years. These are playwrights nominated by the heads of the MFA playwriting programs around the country—about 85-90 in total.

There’s a pretty rigorous selection process and we typically invite six or seven. Number eight is the Kendeda prize recipient from Alliance Theatre. So we’ll have eight plays over an eight-day period in development with a director, dramaturg, and playwright, with a company of Equity actors from D.C. Also, we decided to weave in new play dramaturgy in an intensive way two years ago. There’s always been a student dramaturg there in the room to assist, but we formalized it. Mark Bly supervises this cadre of young dramaturgs who have their own mentor dramaturg working on the project. People like Amy Wegener, Madeleine Oldham, Gavin Witt, Celise Kalke, John Baker, and Miriam Weisfeld. They get to watch that person at work, and then they meet with Mark to talk about new play dramaturgy. He also helps the students unpack what they see happening in the room and rehearsal space.

Last summer we had an MFA director from UT Austin, Will Davis, who came in and assisted on a project by Andrew Hindraker.

He wrote a Howlround piece asking why aren’t there more development programs for young directors? Particularly as it pertains SPRING 2013 | SDC JOURNAL

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to the sensitivities in a new play situation. So I wrote to him, and I said, “That’s a great idea. You wanna help me run that?”

I took it as a gauntlet, but I think it’s an important thing, and I think, quite honestly, it is the logical next step in what we’re doing. I’ve invited the SDC fellows from our program to come in and assist the directors and watch, observe, be as helpful as they can be. But I’m thinking now we’ll formalize it a little bit more. We’re going to attach two student directors to each of the projects, and then there’ll be a throughline mentor who will have meetings with them outside of their rehearsal blocks and, again, try to unpack the process and discuss the challenges, the sensitivities of working with a playwright and in a room with that weird and wonderful triumvirate of playwright, director, dramaturg. That’s the next piece of the expansion puzzle.

How can SDC Members be more involved or be helpful to your work?

Director and Artistic Director of Arena Stage Molly Smith

I’m very interested in the students working with the people who are stars in the community, not necessarily in the newspapers. I mean, people who are the heroes of playwrights for the care with which they approach a new work. People like Lisa Peterson, like Annie Kauffman and Sam Gold. I mean, would it be a remarkable thing for the kids to spend an hour and a half with Hal Prince? Of course it would. Or Jerry Zaks or Julie Taymor?

But when the kids got to sit in a room two years ago with Laura Eason from the Chicago Lookingglass, I think their minds were blown. When they get some time with Eleanor Holdridge or Joy Zinoman, their minds are expanded.

We want students to encounter people who are actually cobbling together a freelance life. Not in an academic way, but really talking about how they prepped, how they navigated the process of directing a play or directing a musical. I’m a big believer in the horse’s mouth, in hearing from people who are doing it. Real conversation about working with the psychologies of six different, challenging actors in a room. How do you navigate that? I’m interested in issues like that. The directors who come in to work with us have the gratitude of hungry, exciting students. We would love to have the assistance of the SDC Membership.

8 Do you have an idea for a Regional Report?

Want to share provocative, groundbreaking theatre happening in your area?

Know an artist you believe deserves to be featured?

Let us know. E-mail RegionalReports@SDCweb. org. Include your full name, city + state.

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GREGG HENRY is Artistic Director of the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival, supervising the organization’s programs and forging educational partnerships with theatres and other organizations for professional development residencies. He has curated the Kennedy Center Page-to-Stage New Play Festival for 11 years. He produces the annual MFA Playwrights’ Workshop at the Kennedy Center in association with NNPN. Recent productions for Theatre Alliance and Hub Theatre: Wonderful Life, Kennedy Center: The Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg, Teddy Roosevelt and the Treasure of Ursa Major, Teddy Roosevelt and the Ghostly Mistletoe, Six Stories Tall, Dreams in the Golden Country, The Light of Excalibur, Round House Theatre: A Sleeping Country, WSC Avant Bard: Two-Headed and Scaramouche, Metro Stage: Girl in the Goldfish Bowl, Theatre Alliance: You Are Here. He has acted, directed, and/or staged the fights with the Colorado, Michigan, Oklahoma, and Wisconsin Shakespeare Festivals. He received his MFA in Acting from the University of Michigan.

For SDC Members interested in more information, contact Membership@SDCweb.org

LAURA EASON since 2011| SAM GOLD since 2007 | ANNIE KAUFFMAN since 2005 | LISA PETERSON since 1992 MOLLY SMITH since 1996 | JULIE TAYMOR since 1996 | JERRY ZAKS since 1982

THE SOCIETY PAGES SDC Members @ work + play

On January 26, 2013, The Phantom of the Opera celebrated its 25th Anniversary, making it the longest-running show in Broadway history. SDC Member Hal Prince, the director of the original production, celebrated this historic accomplishment with a special anniversary performance at the Majestic Theatre. Phantom is the largest employer and generator of income in both Broadway and U.S. theatrical history. Every performance employs 150 people; 39 of these employees, working on the crews, staff, and orchestra, have been with the show for the full 25 years.

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PREVIOUS TOP

Hal Prince speaking during the post-show finale of the 25th Anniversary performance of The Phantom of the Opera PREVIOUS BOTTOM

Hal Prince with Cameron Mackintosh, Sarah Brightman + Katherine Oliver receiving a proclamation from the Mayor’s Office for “The Phantom of the Opera Day” PHOTOS

Lyn Hughes Photography

TOP

Member Director + Theater Hall of Fame Inductee Michael Kahn with press agent Shirley Herz at the 2013 Gala Induction and Dinner for the Theater Hall of Fame BOTTOM

Trevor Nunn, who was also inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame, with actress Suzanne Bertish PHOTOS

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Aubrey Reuben

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On January 28, the Theater Hall of Fame held its 42nd annual ceremony in the Gershwin Theatre’s North Rotunda. The 2012 inductees included SDC Member directors Trevor Nunn and Michael Kahn. Other inductees were actors Betty Buckley and Sam Waterston, playwrights Paula Vogel and Christopher Durang, producer/director Andre Bishop, and posthumously, costume designer Martin Pakledinaz.

MICHAEL KAHN since 1966 | TREVOR NUNN since 1982

Director ARTHUR PENN, hailed by the New York Times as “a pioneering director of live television in the 1950s and a Broadway powerhouse in the 1960s,” was known for his outstanding ability “to capture an emotional moment in all its pulsing ambiguity and messy vitality.” Having directed numerous film and stage productions as well as live television, Penn had been nominated for two Emmy Awards, three Oscars, and won a Tony Award for Best Direction.

Penn advised John F. Kennedy in his watershed television debates with Richard Nixon in 1960, and directed the broadcast of the third debate.

“Theatre is not an event, like a hayride or a junior prom– it’s an artistic, emotional experience in which people who have privately worked out their stories share them with a group of people who are, without their knowledge, their friends, their peers, their equals, their partners on a remarkable ride.”

1922-2010

American stage + screen director Arthur Penn on the set of his 1985 film Target PHOTO Etienne George/Sygma/Corbis SPRING 2013 | SDC JOURNAL

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