WINNIE LOK
Facing pages of the professional world By Stacey Wang Rizzo
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GRADUATING COLLEGE can often be a scary time for students as they transition from classroom studies to the real world. But for alumna Winnie Lok, being a professional stage manager wasn’t a stretch from what she encountered as a student at the USC School of Dramatic Arts. “I feel like I came out of school not being too surprised,” the BFA Stage Management graduate says. “Even though it is a conservatory program, the School treats you like a professional. It prepared me for what stage managing is like in real life.” Since she graduated in 2001, Lok’s work has been both continuous and fulfilling. She is currently production stage manager for the Manhattan Theatre Club’s world premiere of The World of Extreme Happiness by Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig, which opened Feb. 24, and recently stage managed Olivier Award-winning playwright Katori Hall’s new play, Our Lady of Kibeho, which closed at the Signature Theatre in December. Lok’s credits have spanned Broadway (Outside Mullingar, The Big Knife, An Enemy of the People, Venus in Fur) and dozens of off-Broadway productions — including her favorite playwright August Wilson’s How I Learned What I Learned and the Pultizer Prizewinning The Piano Lesson, as well as at regional theatres like Center Theatre Group and The Theatre @ Boston Court. “I’m very lucky to keep working with great people and great theatre companies,” she says. “When you freelance, sometimes you don’t know when the job is coming so it’s good to go from show to show.” Lok is also co-producer of Facing Page Productions, which creates new theatrical experiences from classical works and themes, and serves as a creative outlet for her outside of stage managing. The New York-based production company most notably hosts the annual Company’s Marathon, a nonstop, 85-hour reading of Shakespeare’s canon that was first created by director-playwright Gordy Hoffman in 1996. Facing Page revived the beloved marathon in 2013 and received an overwhelming response with hundreds of writers, actors, theatre lovers and Shakespeare fans participating. At the inaugural event held two years ago, Lok read for 11 plays — doing midnight to 8 a.m. shifts after stage managing, then slept for three hours before heading back to work for a matinee or understudy rehearsal. “It has really rekindled a love of Shakespeare,” she says. “Anyone can sign up and perform. If you’ve never read Shakespeare or anything out loud, it’s okay. We don’t correct you. It’s just about having fun and listening to the bard out loud.” 6
The Hinge Collective
Lok’s passion for performance began as a child, from ballet to painting to violin lessons to drama classes. And although her parents were instrumental in exposing her to the arts, it was the applause that drove her to keep with it. “I knew the applause was something I was not going to get away from and I didn’t want to get away from. … In high school, I did acting and in college I thought to get a bachelor of arts in theatre,” Lok says. While at USC, after working as an assistant stage manager on her first show, she realized stage management was a perfect fit. “Winnie was a terrific student. Her paperwork was top notch. Her interest level was high and she contributed to some very interesting discussions. I was impressed with her,” faculty member Mary K Klinger says. As a student, Lok experienced theatre outside of the academic realm, shadowing Klinger and former professor Jonathan Barlow Lee, production manager at the Mark Taper Forum, as they stage managed shows for Center Theatre Group. “Winnie and all my students shadowed me at one time or another,” Klinger says. “I bring them to whatever show I am doing that semester to watch techs or to watch me call a show (I am usually able to put the students on headset with me), and some students have been invited to sit in on rehearsal. We then discuss in class what was witnessed.” “A lot of the USC faculty are working. They’re working in the city, they know people and it’s really great that they can ease the transition into the professional world,” Lok says. “The paperwork, tech, calling a show — we had exposure to that instead of it being all on the page.” After graduating, Lok was hired by Klinger as a production assistant for Topdog/Underdog, directed by George C. Wolfe, at the Mark Taper Forum. Klinger remembers having to leave the show during intermission due to a family emergency, and assistant stage manager Michelle Blair (BFA ’99) and Lok stepped up to the task. “Michelle went to the booth to call the second act and Winnie took over on the deck. It was such a gift. I was able to leave knowing my show was in really good hands,” Klinger says. Since Lok’s days studying at USC, the former studentteacher pair have not only become professional colleagues, but friends. And although they work on opposite coasts, Klinger proudly says: “I would work with her again in a minute.” ■
J. August Richards CONTINUED FROM FRONT PAGE
“The program was exceptional,” says Richards. “Once you have had to play a Russian aristocrat in 1854 and you have to make his wants and needs your own, you can do that with anything. I feel like a good portion of my work has been in the science fiction genre because of Chekhov, because of Shakespeare, because I had to take these words and circumstances and make them my own.” Dayna Lynne North, a cinema alum, remembers walking into a rehearsal hall as Richards was rehearsing a performance for an evening of soul and being struck by a monologue that Richards was delivering before she even set eyes on him. “I was already kind of star struck by this guy I hadn’t even met,” says North, who became a longtime friend and would work with Richards both at USC and as a TV writer and producer. “He wasn’t a star at 18, but he has continued to grow and flourish as an actor and as a director. I continue to be impressed by him.” As his college career was drawing to a close, Richards remained on campus an extra year serving as a resident hall advisor in on-campus housing. During that extra year, Richards auditioned, but did not book a single job. Just as his tenure as an RA was ending, he booked a gig on a touring educational science show called Chemipalooza. “That kind of boosted my confidence and I sort of started working ever since,” Richards says. His breakthrough role — and the one that allowed Richards to pay off his student debt — was a four-season run as street warrior Charles Gunn on Angel, the hit spin-off to Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Gunn had the actor doing a range of new things including juggling on camera and playing two different characters at the same time. Late in the show, Gunn became a lawyer which Richards feels must have been gratifying to his mother, who had always hoped her son would become a doctor, attorney or priest. Richards, who has ended up playing several lawyers, even took a law course from the late USC School of Law professor Charles Whitebread at USC. “We had such great chemistry that at the end of the semester, he told me, ‘Richards, when you’re done with that acting (stuff), give me a call.’” Needless to say, Professor Whitebread’s phone never rang. ■
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