The Imperfect Road to Authentic Casting

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There’s a lot to learn from Howard Sherman’s post yesterday on his Arts Integrity Initiative blog, about the casting process for Porchlight Music Theatre‘s upcoming production of In the Heights and the way that the company and the Chicago Sun-Times announced the cast. I am inclined to agree that the Sun-Times reporter that Mr. Sherman quotes seems more behind-the-times than a big-city arts journalist for a major daily newspaper ought to be, and there’s no arguing with Sherman’s idea that “at a time when the conversation around race in this country is both heightened and often divisive, certainly the arts are one place where care and consideration can prevail.”

I do worry, though, that Mr. Sherman may be a bit overzealous in an effort to root out imperfections in a theatre company’s approach to a work such as In the Heights. The company apparently went to some lengths to find top-flight talent that’s appropriate for the show, but Mr. Sherman scolds artistic director Michael Weber for (among other things) seeming to be proud of that effort, and for needing to search for Latino/a performers instead of knowing them already.

Mr. Weber strikes me as a good guy (to the very small extent that I know him—his company is an internship venue for advanced students from the theatre school where I work, and he is one of my 1,500+ Facebook “friends”). I applaud Porchlight for doing Quiara Alegria Hudes & Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical, for working hard to cast it as well as they can, and for moving forward on other fronts as well. I’m disinclined to second guess their promotional language or their staffing choices, imperfect though they may be (perhaps this is partly because I know first-hand about the myriad challenges of running a mid-sized theatre company). I celebrate the good things they’re doing and I would encourage them to keep getting better and better. But maybe that’s just my style–and mine is obviously the privileged perspective of a white Anglo middle-aged man, so take it with a grain of salt if you think you should.

[I chatted briefly online with Mr. Sherman before posting this, and he didn’t provide me with a response to incorporate into this post.  I know he will feel free to comment or send me a statement to incorporate in this post if chooses to do so.  He did send me a link to this blog post by Dr. Trevor Boffone which provides a little more dimension–some of it disappointing–to the story.]

I am grateful to Mr. Sherman for teaching me some new vocabulary: he uses the words “Latinx” and “Latinao” in his article, and either one seems more elegant than “Latina/o” and more concise than “Latina and Latino,” so that’s helpful (although, as you can see, I’m not fully comfortable with the newer words yet).  [Dr. Boffone’s post uses another clever word I had not seen before: “Latin@.”]  Mr. Sherman also uses the phrase “people of color,” which is fine by me, but I remembered that the great playwright August Wilson had objected to the phrase “artists of color,” so I asked Mr. Sherman for a possible alternative.  He suggested the new adjective ALANA (African, Latino/Hispanic, Asian and Native American), which is intriguing, but he cautioned that it is not yet widely used and therefore probably not yet understood by many.

I do agree with Mr. Sherman’s point, that “there’s an essential need for everyone to step up their game,” and I continue to consider his advocacy invaluable. I hope his insights will help me and others to speed our journey toward equity, inclusion, and related virtues.

UPDATE (July 27): Mr. Sherman has posted a detailed follow-up to the post linked above.  He quotes at least two people who criticize the casting, in the central role of Usnavi, of an actor who is white rather than Latino.  There is significant balance in the rest of Mr. Sherman’s  exploration of the issues a theatre company such as Porchlight faces when diversifying its repertoire, though, and in his last paragraph he states that “Exploring a single situation at a small theatre in Chicago is not meant to vilify that company, but only to highlight how challenging it seems to be for so many to move to a place of true diversity and equity….”  If you’ve followed the story this far, I’ll bet you’ll want to read this new post in its entirety on artsintegrity.org.

Unkind Cuts

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Schere_Gr_99In December of last year I learned, via an important article in Howard Sherman’s invaluable blog, about a production of Jonathan Larson’s Rent at East Tennessee State University (ETSU).  Its opening had been delayed by Music Theatre International (MTI, the licensing agent for the amateur performance rights to the show), which objected to the cutting of some scenes.  The director, Patrick Cronin, had excised the scenes because he thought his cast was too small to make the stage look “interesting,” according to an article by Heath Owens in the school newspaper, The East Tennessean.  It stated that “Cronin apologized for the mistake” and he and his company quickly restored the scenes, but it seems that the director may have been surprised by MTI’s intervention, because he noted that “I have directed hundreds of shows, and made many cuts before.”

Legally the case is unambiguous: ETSU had a contract with MTI that specified that the script must be performed as written, which is the standard arrangement.  Theatrically it’s also an especially egregious violation; it’s unusual, I think–I hope!–for any director to cut an entire scene, let alone multiple scenes, without permission.  And whether we’re talking about a scene or a sentence, it’s the principle of the thing: writers (and their heirs) own their work and deserve our respect and deference when it comes to their plays

Still, when I read Prof. Cronin’s response (“I have…made many cuts before”), I had to think, with a cringe, “Me too.”  Perhaps part of the problem is that I’ve directed quite a bit of classical theatre.  I’ve actually boasted about how much of a Shakespeare play I had cut while keeping the storyline and tone and much of the glorious detail intact.  There seems to be a different standard for Shakespeare.  I have relatively little experience with new-play development and, although at least two of my closest friends (as well as my co-author, the late Louis E. Catron) are playwrights, I have worked closely in production with only one living playwright (that would be another close friend, the wonderful Barbara Lebow).  Whether it’s the result of a blind spot or my personal hubris or my sense of what was routine and widely accepted practice earlier in my career, I have to admit that I, too, have made cuts in plays that I was directing.

I was interested to learn a little more about Prof. Cronin.  He is a full professor of theatre at ETSU as well as a deeply experienced professional character actor (readers of a certain age may remember him, as I do, as Syd Farkus, the “bra guy” on television’s Seinfeld).  I take him at his word that he is also a seasoned director, and I suspect that his experience has mirrored mine in working with many directors that made cuts, always in pursuit of the best possible production (according to the director’s taste and judgement), and emulating that behavior in his own work as a director.  He doesn’t seem to be simply a dilettante that’s spent his career isolated at a little school in the middle of nowhere; I’m guessing that he was doing what he thought was not only routine but right, based on quite a bit of experience.

I don’t mean to defend Prof. Cronin’s decision, or my own past choices to make cuts.  I just think that times have changed–for the better.  It’s easier than ever for playwrights and their representatives to know what’s going on with their work and for directors to contact playwrights with ideas and requests for permission.  Playwrights are standing up for their rights.  And that’s a good thing.

Still, I found myself wondering if there is a threshold even today for making small cuts without the author’s consent.  What if limited production resources cause a line or sentence or even just a word to make no sense in a particular production?  What if a tiny textual tweak would clearly make a particular production better?  Do all playwrights want to get permission requests for all cuts, no matter how slight?  I asked a few of them for their thoughts.

Jack Heifner, author of the record-setting 1976 Off-Broadway hit comedy Vanities and the Broadway play Patio/Porch, among other works (he is also an extremely valued and trusted colleague at the university where I work), wrote back to me at length to say: No means no.  “A director does not have the right to change anything without permission,” he wrote.  “Playwrights do not put words on the page in an haphazard way. We often work on something for years.  If a director cannot figure out why a writer has written something, then the fault is usually with the director. I have closed productions when they have changed or cut things in my scripts. If a director contacts me and asks if they can cut something, then sometimes I will agree. Most of the time I will try to explain why the scene is there or what my intent is. Sometimes I agree with the director and I will let them try the production with their suggested changes. The point is that when someone asks, then I am much more inclined to discuss changes with them. If they do not ask, then they are in violation of the licensing agreement.”

Mr. Heifner elaborated to clarify the writer/director relationship in the new-play development process: “When working on new plays, directors always have much more input. The process involves more collaboration. However, they still are not allowed to cut  or change something without the writer’s permission. In the professional theatre, the director always turns to the writer and says, ‘Would it be okay with you if we try that scene without those lines?’ Never are directors or actors allowed to change anything without consulting the author, even if it’s an ‘if, and or but.’ It is the director and actors responsibility to interpret and say the lines as written and not change anything.  I am always shocked that actors paraphrase something with the author in the audience. It’s insulting to the writer.”  He elaborated on the topic of unacceptable changes (I’ll post his reply in full as a note at the end of this post) and cited the Dramatists Guild “Bill of Rights,” then concluded: “Playwrights own their own works and we work hard to protect our rights. The bottom line for me is that if a director has an idea they want to run by me, then fine. I will listen to them and consider their change. However, I have the right as owner of the work to say ‘no.’ And my decision is final.”

Scott C. Sickles, a close friend, award-winning television writer, and published playwright that has been produced at theatres throughout the U.S. and internationally, also responded with considerable vehemence (and wit): “To give you a little hint on where I stand on this in general, I will tell the actors (or have the director tell the actors) that if I didn’t put a pause in the script, don’t take one. Unscripted pauses are an unauthorized adjustment to the text.  …’a period is the end of a sentence, not the end of the world.’  This is not just control freakishness. I write very much with rhythm and pace in mind. The actors can explore and discover all they want, and if they find a pause is needed where I haven’t written it or if it’s in the way where I’ve put it, I want them to tell me.”

Mr. Sickles’ response was not quite so fervent throughout, however: “That said… it’s all about permission, communication and respect.  As most of my productions have been first or second developmental productions where I’ve been present, a lot of this is not a problem. But I’m also not at every rehearsal, so when I’m working with a director I trust, I’m fine with them making cuts and adjustments and asking my permission later. As long as they understand I have final approval over the text, that’s fine. And I’m not married to the way I wrote it; I want it to be the best play it can be and if that means losing and changing stuff, fine.  But I don’t want to be blindsided.”

He’s very much a realist, and a man of the theatre: “There’s also the fact that sometimes we don’t notice if you’ve changed a little thing.  But if there are changes, no matter how small, I want the director to discuss them with me before they’re finalized. (My directors tend to only worry about words, so the silences are up to me to suss out and be bothered by.)  I also realize that sometimes there’s nothing you can do and the actor will pause or say the line the wrong way every time and there are some battles not worth fighting.”

“If it’s a production I’m never going to see, I rely on the integrity of the theater,” he continued.  Then he surprised me by going further with this distinction between productions he will see and those he will not: “I don’t know if the productions in Indonesia or Lebanon were even in English.  Pauses, minor word changes, little adjustments in productions I’m not going to see… Do whatever you want to do; tell me if it works.  As long as the integrity of the play, the scene, and the moment are intact, I’m probably going to be okay with it.

“But sometimes there will be a line like ‘oh’ and someone will want to cut it — and that ‘oh’ is the moment where, say, the protagonist makes a huge realization and the course of the play changes on that one syllable exclamation.  If you’ve got a living playwright who you can reach, I think it’s important to at least reach out,” he wrote.

Mr. Sickles, who has been developing new plays since 1992, most recently as dramaturg (2002-2009) and artistic director (2009-2014) of the WorkShop Theater Company, concludes with a colorful comment on the hypersensitivity of a few of his fellow dramatists: “There are a lot of writers who are so much more precious about their words than I am. You know the ones: you suggest cutting half a page that’s grinding the story to a halt and then you get tears and a forty minute explanation of why it’s there and what it means and how it’s so important and even if no one knows that they do…. Shoot me now. Fuck that, shoot them and make the changes posthumously.”  He notes that no playwrights were actually shot during his time at the WorkShop.

I also chatted about this with Richard Strahle, another close friend; his top credit is a produced screenplay but he is also a produced playwright.  Mr. Strahle was considerably more open to the idea of cuts in service of an improved production.  He asks that directors communicate with him when it’s convenient, but he is open to learning about cuts later if he is not present for the rehearsals or performances.  He said that he has found actors in particular to be helpful “editors,” and that his main concerns are the best possible outcome for the production and the availability of all the best suggestions for potential improvement of the script.  He agreed, however, that it is too psychically painful for him personally to hear his work altered without permission if he is present.

Clearly the consensus favors communication: reach out (via the licensing agency or literary agent if you do not have direct contact information for the playwright) if you want to make a cut.  And yet still, I wondered: Do the busiest playwrights really want to hear from every director that wants (or thinks she needs) to cut a phrase, a word, a syllable?

Thanks to Jack Heifner’s Festival of New American Plays, a few months ago I found myself getting a bite to eat with Mr. Heifner and two additional New York playwrights.  One of them was John Cariani.  Not only is he the author of the most-produced American play of recent years, Almost, Maine, he stays even busier as one of the stars of the hit Broadway musical Something Rotten!  I told him about, ahem, a friend that recently directed a play by another busy and widely-produced playwright.  The director had worked to help a particular young actor make himself understood consistently in the production, but in dress rehearsals the actor was still unable to say a particular adjective-noun phrase clearly, so the director cut the adjective (without permission).  I asked Mr. Cariani if he thought the playwright really wanted to hear from every director in such a situation.  I saw him starting to shake his head “no,” when the other guest playwright spoke up from the far end of the table. Chiori Miyagawa, a leading figure in the Off-Broadway experimental theatre scene, said that she doesn’t know of any playwrights who think it’s acceptable for directors to edit their plays without permission (she later clarified for me that she was talking about premieres and regional productions mostly and that she could understand a playwright feeling somewhat differently about, say, a 25th college production).  Mr. Cariani did not contradict her.

In retrospect my ahem-friend suspects that his production would not have been materially hurt by leaving the adjective in and adhering to the letter of the contract that licensed performance rights for the play.  And, although he does not think his cut materially hurt the playwright or her play, he does regret modeling bad directorial behavior with his cast and staff.

He speculates that Prof. Cronin may also have learned something about the way that directors work with writers and scripts in the theatre of today.

Here in full, as promised, is Jack Heifner’s reply to my question about unauthorized cuts:

I am always surprised when directors know nothing about the writer of the play they are directing. Sometimes they don’t even know the writer’s name. I have always said to my students, if you want to know more about a play then find out about the writer. You will most likely discover why they wrote what they did and you’ll have a better understanding of the playwright’s intent.
A director does not have the right to change anything without permission. Playwrights do not put words on the page in an haphazard way. We often work on something for years.  If a director cannot figure out why a writer has written something, then the fault is usually with the director. I have closed productions when they have changed or cut things in my scripts. If a director contacts me and asks if they can cut something, then sometimes I will agree. Most of the time I will try to explain why the scene is there or what my intent is. Sometimes I agree with the director and I will let them try the production with their suggested changes. The point is that when someone asks, then I am much more inclined to discuss changes with them. If they do not ask, then they are in violation of the licensing agreement.
This has nothing to do with the design of the play. I have enjoyed many productions of my plays where I saw inventive sets, costumes and staging that brought new understanding to the work. What these directors did not do was change my intent or my lines. When working on new plays, directors always have much more input. The process involves more collaboration. However, they still are not allowed to cut  or change something without the writer’s permission. In the professional theatre, the director always turns to the writer and says, “Would it be okay with you if we try that scene without those lines?” Never are directors or actors allowed to change anything without consulting the author, even if it’s an “if, and or but.” It is the director and actors responsibility to interpret and say the lines as written and not change anything.  I am always shocked that actors paraphrase something with the author in the audience. It’s insulting to the writer.
Some directors think because they are in charge of a production that they are allowed to change or reshape a play it in any manner they please without asking permission.  In those cases, I think the director should go write their own play since they show very little respect for the author’s intent. I know of a writer who went to see his show and was horrified to find an extra character had been added to the play without his permission. Dialogue from others had been reassigned to the character. The show was closed. I closed a production of VANITIES when I found out they had decided to set all the scenes in bedrooms, which is clearly not what I intended. I have had directors call me and say they wanted to cut a scene because it did not work. I always tell them that the play has had other productions and has already gone through rewrites. I have no intention of cutting something that has worked in the past just because a director is not capable of making the scene work. I think the most glaring example of a director being out of bounds was the entire HANDS ON A HARDBODY experience for Amanda Green in Houston.
http://www.americantheatre.org/2014/09/17/hands-on-a-hardbody-creative-team-blindsided-after-unwarrented-changes-made-to-songs-dialogue/
I stand by the Dramatist Guild on all of this and I quote:
1. ARTISTIC INTEGRITY.
No one (e.g., directors, actors, dramaturgs) can make changes, alterations, and/or omissions to your script – including the text, title, and stage directions – without your consent. This is called “script approval.”
2. APPROVAL OF PRODUCTION ELEMENTS.
You have the right to approve the cast, director, and designers (and, for a musical, the choreographer, orchestrator, arranger, and musical director, as well), including their replacements. This is called “artistic approval.”
3. RIGHT TO BE PRESENT.
You always have the right to attend casting, rehearsals, previews and performances.
Playwrights own their own works and we work hard to protect our rights. The bottom line for me is that if a director has an idea they want to run by me, then fine. I will listen to them and consider their change. However, I have the right as owner of the work to say “no.” And my decision is final.

A Televised Masterclass

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AUSTIN_PENDLETON_backstage_August_2006I first became aware of Austin Pendleton, if memory serves, by listening to the original cast album of Fiddler on the Roof (he played Motel the Tailor in Jerome Robbins’ record-setting Broadway production of Harnick and Bock’s masterpiece).  I’d certainly seen him on screen–his IMDB page lists 136 acting credits since 1968–but for years I thought of him mostly as the mousy son-in-law of Tevye the Dairyman.

In recent years, although Pendleton has remained a busy actor (and has become a playwright), I’ve thought of him mostly as a director, as well as the last artistic director of the acclaimed Off Broadway Circle Repertory Company.  He has directed five Broadway shows, according to the Internet Broadway Database, with casts including stars as bright as Elizabeth Taylor, and many more productions Off Broadway, in regional theatre, and at London’s Royal National Theatre.  I’m ashamed to admit that I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything that he directed.

In 2009 and 2011 he directed a pair of Anton Chekhov plays for New York’s Classic Stage Company (CSC).  During the run of the latter production, of Three Sisters (for which Pendleton later won an Obie Award), he appeared on CUNY-TV’s interview program Theater Talk with the show’s producer, Susan Haskins, and New York-based theatre reporter Michael Riedel.  The resulting interview forms an unusually incisive 20-minute masterclass on directing.  The clip is from YouTube.

“These people [directors such as Jerome Robbins and Mike Nichols, who directed Pendleton early in his acting career], I mean they’re brilliant, but they’re into telling the story.” – Austin Pendleton

The second edition of the textbook The Director’s Vision is dedicated “To my teachers.”  They emphatically include that sensitive director of well-crafted and exquisitely detailed productions, Tom Whitaker, who made me aware of this interview.  Thanks, Tom.

 

Photo Credit: Weimar03 at English Wikipedia [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons

 

What Happened to My Blog?

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Here’s my first blog post of 2016.  Where has The Director’s Vision been for six months?

One easy answer is “on Facebook!” Throughout the time since my long-ago last blog post, I’ve kept posting links and other tidbits at facebook.com/thedirectorsvision. I hope some of you have enjoyed them and maybe even learned something. That’ll continue (God willin’ and the crick don’t rise, as my father used to say).

It could be that I subconsciously panicked when my last post went quasi-viral, having been linked from TCG’s American Theatre magazine site.  I certainly wasn’t used to having thousands, rather than maybe dozens, of readers, and I did get gently scolded about something in my “journalism” (I didn’t set out to be a journalist, but it’s true: if you’re blogging, you’re doing journalism).  So maybe, without consciously intending to, I went into hiding for the first half of this year.

I think mostly, though, I just had too many other things rise high on my list of priorities.  For example, I was invited to start a new role at the university where I have a “day job,” and learning about it while gradually starting to take on some of the new responsibilities has sent me running this way and that.  I also had an amazing opportunity last month to participate in a top-flight leadership development opportunity: it was incredibly intense and I hope I learned some things that will be relevant to what we’re talking about here on The Director’s Vision blog.

Anyway, it’s a long holiday weekend now and all of my excuses have vanished, so I promise a substantive post within the next few days.  Looking forward to writing for you again, and hoping you’ll join in the conversation!  In the meantime, happy Independence Day to my American readers and anyone else that’s celebrating along with us Yanks.

Oh, and thanks for your patience.  I’m grateful that you’re back.

 

An Actor Exits

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Broadway World reported yesterday that the Tony Award-winning actor Tonya Pinkins had resigned from the cast of the current Off-Broadway production of Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children at Classic Stage Company (CSC), directed by CSC artistic director Brian Kulick (who is in his final months at the helm of that theatre company).  Pinkins’s statement about the reason for her departure, printed in full today on Playbill.com, is crucial reading for any director or student of directing that’s interested in the many recent and current conversations about equity, diversity and inclusion in theatre, directorial authority, and more.  For directors especially, it is also very interesting to read Kulick’s response to Pinkins’s decision.

What issues does this situation raise about who should be producing and directing what, who should be making what decisions, and how the actor-director collaboration is affected by issues including white supremacy, stardom, patriarchy, and the director/producer phenomenon?  Did Kulick handle this as well as possible in the best interests of the theatre company, the production, and his directorial vision for it?  What else does the Pinkins departure and the Kulick response bring up in your mind?  Thoughts (and other questions) are welcome in comments here or on The Director’s Vision Facebook page.

UPDATE: In a clarifying status update on Facebook, fellow Mother Courage actor Michael Potts wrote: “While I won’t talk publicly about our process on Mother Courage, I do feel compelled to correct the record on a particular statement made in [the] broadwayworld.com article before an actor’s reputation is ruined. AT NO TIME did any actor threaten ‘to kill’ Tonya. The actor said IN REHEARSAL, that as his character (an armed, enemy soldier), if Mother Courage made such a move, the truth of the scene would dictate that he kill Mother Courage. This was the script we were using and had been rehearsing with Tonya for 5 weeks. Again, this was said to Tonya in rehearsal with other actors present. NO ONE threatened the life of Ms. Pinkins.”  That’s what I understood from Ms. Pinkins’s statement, but perhaps Mr. Potts is correct to go out of his way to avoid any possible misunderstanding.

AND ANOTHER (January 1, 2016): Michael Potts has published a more lengthy update on his Facebook feed.  In it he strongly supports Tonya Pinkins’s declaration on race and gender in theatre, but offers a differing perspective on the rehearsal and preview-performance process behind CSC’s Mother Courage:

“I’ve tried to avoid this, but I see things spiraling out of control. Two issues are being conflated. The first, ‪#‎BlackPerspectivesMatter‬, in which she is completely correct and I wholeheartedly support. The polemic she sets forth in her incredibly well composed statement on race and sex in the theater, is spot on. The second, the Mother Courage rehearsal process is pure hyperbole.

“The question of Mother Courage being delusional (inelegantly put by the director, for certain) was brought up during our very first week of table work. The director was referring to Brecht’s own writing about the character. As he put it in more elegant fashion and repeatedly stated during the entire rehearsal process, Mother Courage is a tragic character because she never learns. War teaches her nothing.

“Actors know very well that there is nothing incongruous about a director holding one view of the character and the actor holding a different view. Directors normally defer to the actor in nearly all cases. Hopefully, out of this creative tussle, something transcendent appears. Such was the attempt in our production.

“Make no mistake, Tonya ran our production from the start. She was Momma Courage, yes ‘momma’, her request and everyone complied including the Brecht estate. Throughout the rehearsal period, when she wanted to make a change, any change, it was allowed.

“Also, actors are aware that even during technical rehearsal and previews, performances are still evolving and subject to change. However, we also hope by that time, after weeks of rehearsal (4 weeks in this case), certain things are beginning to set up. Though, it’s still possible, wholesale changes in blocking and script are normally less frequent at this stage. Therefore, it is also expected that when an actor decides to make a major change in dialogue and/or blocking that involves fellow actors, that there’s a little friendly heads up if not rehearsal given to those actors. Unfortunately, Tonya didn’t get around to doing that. Still, every actor rolled with it. The director wishing to protect the whole has the job of addressing the situation for the sake of everyone involved in telling the story.

“Allow me to address the ‘fur incident’. This was in the script from day one of rehearsal. There were no problems or questions about this part of the scene through 4 weeks of rehearsal. None. We move to the theater. Costumes are added to the technical process of mounting the play. The scene proceeds and only then is there a conflict about a fur. Tonya states her intention to take the fur and explains it’s what Brecht wrote. This is true…in another translation,-not the one we’d been rehearsing for 4 weeks. The actor wearing the fur defends his position grounded in the text we’re working from. Tonya again asserts it’s what Brecht wants and that she intends to take it. The actor defers to the director. Compromises are immediately offered to resolve the issue. None were suitable to Tonya. The debate is tabled and both Tonya and the other actor confer with the director privately. The decision is reached to do the scene as written. During that evenings performance, Tonya takes the fur. The actor has no choice but to let it stand. She is Mother Courage, after all. Too long a story, shortened, both director and actor acquiesce to Tonya’s choice. Tonya takes the fur for two additional performances then announces that she won’t do it anymore. No explanation. Why was it so essential that a week and a half debate was required? Why after 2 performances, was it now ‘suddenly’ not essential? Was it really about Brecht’s intention? What was this conflict/demand really about? Such was the process of this Mother Courage. I witnessed time and again our director bend over backwards, to the point of spinelessness to try to appease Tonya.

Anyone who has worked with Tonya knows that no one silences her. ‘No one puts baby in the corner!’ Tonya is a force. Her brilliance is clear, her intelligence evident by her release referenced in this post.

“Of course, there were honest creative differences as in any other creative endeavor. However, no one was ever muzzled, rebuked, rebuffed, made voiceless or enslaved.

“Put simply, Tonya wanted to move in an entirely different direction once the show was already rehearsed and set. It was too late in the game to re-rehearse a concept.

“Unfortunately, these statements have led people to conclude that the play is a complete mess, that those of us still involved are left with something lesser and by extension we are lesser actors and a director and theater company’s reputation are being unfairly trashed. I’ve read people already conclude that the director is a racist and sexist. You would be mistaken on all counts. Though, there are justifiable critiques of this production, none of them rise to the level of what’s being insinuated.”

THE LATEST (THAT I’VE SEEN–January 2):  At the risk of appearing to propagate a squabble, I want to continue to give the fullest picture I have of this discussion.  I do so because I don’t think it’s just squabbling; I think Tonya Pinkins has kick-started a very important conversation, it has become quite public (at least among theatre-makers), and additional shadings in understanding of her perspective may be valuable.

Ms. Pinkins responded to Michael Potts’s longer statement with this comment: “It deeply saddens me that my wonderful costar feels he must defend, The establishment.  Michael, you know nothing of what was communicated between myself and the producers and anyone else. You simply saw the fallout. I’ve been working on this production long before you were even considered.  I don’t believe any of the men would have treated me the way I was treated if I was a White woman.  Believe me if I had ‘run’ the show , there would be a finer product.”

Mr. Potts then wrote: “Tonya, the show is a fine product. YOU are a wonderful Mother Courage. You are made for the role. No, I do not know what transpired privately between you and the producers. I can only and was only speaking to what transpired in my presence.”

To which Ms. Pinkins replied: “You speak to your perspective as a man in the room. The patriarchy always thinks it can tell a women what to think and feel and interpret when her No is a ‘Yes’.”

ANOTHER COUNTRY HEARD FROM (January 2): Broadway World reported that author and activist Larry Kramer had chimed in on his Facebook profile on New Year’s Day in support of Tonya Pinkins, and published his statement about the situation.

Morgan Jenness posted Michael Potts’s longer statement for Mr. Kramer to read.  Mr. Kramer responded: “morgs, i’m afraid i find potts’ response petty and simple-minded and not dealing with the main issues. first and foremost how dare kulick cut an hour from this script and what was left after this castration, which no doubt tonya was troubled by, as she should have been, and potts should have been too. as rehearsals continued and previews too it sounds like tonya was just doing what any great actress would be doing if reaching for even higher levels — trying to work things out emotionally and as is often the case still learning after the curtain comes up. so tonya didn’t tell all the actors what she was thinking, or suddenly found herself trying, or told them too pointedly, hurting the pooor baby’s feelings. haven’t they worked with great actors before? I have. glenda jackson did what the fuck she wanted, thank god because ken russell was incapable of helping her, which sounds a lot like kulick not being able to help tonya and her knowing it, thus increasing her frustration factor. i had the privilege of watching rehearsals involving such as kim stanley, geraldine page, ralph richardson, the great olivier, and was friends with the great luise reiner. they all had and did and reacted just as tonya did.”

I post Mr. Kramer’s comments not to endorse or validate them, but because his very strong point-of-view may provide additional matter for the discussion at hand, especially as it relates to the role of the director.

IN THE INTEREST OF BALANCE (January 2): I think I should mention that Mr. Potts has received more than 75 comments, more than a few of them from high-profile theatre professionals, thanking him and/or expressing support for his longer Facebook post.

THE LATEST NEWS: All comes courtesy of colleague Matt Saltzberg.  First, the role has been re-cast: http://www.broadway.com/buzz/183344/kecia-lewis-steps-in-after-tonya-pinkins-abrupt-departure-from-mother-courage-and-her-children-off-broadway/

And, the composer for the production, Duncan Sheik, gives an interview: http://www.americantheatre.org/2016/01/04/duncan-sheik-on-cscs-disputed-mother-courage/

ANOTHER UPDATE: American Theatre magazine just posted a podcast that includes an interview with Ms. Pinkins.  “I think that actors do not realize how powerful they are,” she says late in the interview.  “We’re not treated like we’re powerful.  But I want to inspire actors to take that power.”  That should be heard in context and is excerpted just to pique your interest!  Click here to listen (the Pinkins/Mother Courage section starts right around 12:40, but the news that precedes it is interesting too).

THE PRODUCTION CONSIDERED: Charles Isherwood’s review in The New York Times calls Mother Courage, now with Kecia Lewis in the title role, “terrific,” “searing,” and “by any measure the finest of [CSC]’s Brecht cycle.”  He says Ms. Lewis’s performance (given partly with script in hand) is “commanding,” “powerful, complex and persuasive.”

Directions to a Blog

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cropped-directorspeaktall

Just a quick post today to direct you to another cool blog (see what I did there?).  New York-based director Cat Parker has assembled an impressive array of sharp interviews with colleagues she calls “NYC’s Indie Stage Directors.”  They make for insightful, informative, interesting reading, and I recommend them to fellow students of directing.

I hope you’ll visit Cat’s blog, DirectorSpeak.

A tip of the hat to the great Regina Taylor for making me aware (on Facebook) of the existence of Cat’s blog.

Another Curtain Speech

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Anton Chekhov, politely refraining from use of a mobile device

Anton Chekhov, politely refraining from use of a mobile device

In an effort to limit or eliminate the use of mobile phones during a production she had staged, a directing-focused student at the university where I teach decided to try a live curtain speech, as I had done before each performance of the last play I directed.  Her show was a Chekhov one-act in an 80-seat “black box” theatre arranged in a thrust stage configuration, so the circumstances were different from those surrounding my spiel about six weeks earlier.

Her speech was somewhat different too, at least when I heard it–certainly it was far shorter.  Its main similarity to mine, beyond asking the audience to keep their mobile devices off during the performance, was her statement that an audience member could spoil the experience of the play for others by using a phone.  She said this far more concisely than I did.  She didn’t embellish with thoughts about potentially distracting the cast or hurting their feelings, or with discussion of the two-way communication that makes live performance unique.

The director reported that giving the speech “was a little awkward for me,” especially at the opening performance when the lighting for it was not what she was expecting. “Honestly though it was easier than having to schedule a time to record a [pre-show announcement] since I could just work on [preparing for the curtain speech] on my own,” she wrote.

The results were good.  I saw no phones in use at the matinée I attended, and the director reported that “I didn’t notice anyone on their cell phones and I haven’t heard anything in the contrary from any of the ushers or actors or anyone else” at any of the three performances.  She said that at other productions she had attended as an audience member in the same space she had been distracted by students turning notebook pages as they took notes for assigned reviews.  “I didn’t notice a problem” with that, she wrote, leading me to wonder if her speech had increased some audience members’ overall consideration for others seeing the play.

To me this student seemed a little nervous giving her speech, as I’m sure I did when I gave mine.  Her bottom line assessment: “Overall, it was worth it!”  Which was the same as mine had been.

If you use or hear a similar curtain speech, I would love to hear about it–and about the results.  Please comment here or leave a message on The Director’s Vision Facebook page (facebook.com/thedirectorsvision).  Thanks!

This Director’s a Beast of at Least Four Nations

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Cary Fukunaga

Cary Fukunaga “Beast Of No Nation” at Opening Ceremony of the 28th Tokyo International Film Festival. By Dick Thomas Johnson from Tokyo, Japan

I was more than intrigued enough by the can’t-look-away-or-even-blink direction of True Detective‘s first season on HBO to become curious about the work of Cary Joji Fukunaga.  I was also delighted when he won an Emmy Award for his work on that gripping series.

When I saw Beasts of No Nation on Netflix, though, I felt compelled to learn more.  Beasts is the first film distributed from day one by Netflix, which premiered the movie simultaneously in art-house cinemas and  on its home video streaming service.

It  depicts the experience of a child forced into service as a soldier under the command (and under the spell) of a charismatic and depraved warlord fighting a fictional civil war in an unidentified west African country (it was shot in Ghana).  The movie is devastating in its authenticity, shocking, heartbreaking, and sickeningly violent, yet it is hypnotically beautiful, sometimes hallucinatory in its visual intensity, sometimes surprisingly funny, and maybe, just maybe, a little bit hopeful about the resiliency of the human spirit.  Somehow it ended up reminding me of Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, which for decades I have called the greatest movie I’ve ever seen.

Fukunaga not only directed but also wrote (dramatizing the novel by Uzodinma Iweala), produced, and lit the film as its director of photography.  When the camera operator pulled a hamstring, the director (after recovering from malaria) even shot the rest of the picture himself.

Fukunaga has said he hopes as many people as possible will see Beasts on a big screen, and I for one would love to, but I don’t live near a theatre that’s showing it.  It has been a complete disappointment at the box office yet millions have seen it in their homes.

Idris Elba, the formidable British star that plays the warlord, called “The Commandant,” is said to be a likely Oscar nominee, and the miraculous performance of novice actor Abraham Attah, who was 14 (but looked as young as his character, the happy-go-lucky 11-year-old Agu) when the film was made, has generated considerable speculation that he might become the youngest best-actor nominee in the history of the Academy Awards.  In a ten-nod Best Picture race I wouldn’t be surprised to see Beasts itself get a nomination, though perhaps Fukunaga himself is a longshot.

Having seen Beasts, I found myself at home sick one day last week, unable to get much work done but functional enough to watch a couple of movies.  I found that Fukunaga’s 2011 feature, Jane Eyre, filmed in the north of England and starring Mia Wasikowska, Michael Fassbender, Jamie Bell, Judi Dench(!), and Simon McBurney, with a script by Moira Buffini, was also streaming on Netflix, so I had a look.  In many ways it is very much in the tradition of other good recent adaptations of romantic novels (such as Joe Wright’s 2005 Pride and Prejudice), but it is redolent of its director’s distinctive, simultaneously dark-yet-airy style.  It is a very good movie, and it is unusually well acted.

Now on a mission, I next found Fukunaga’s first feature, the acclaimed 2009 indy Sin Nombre, on iTunes, and rented it.  It is an arrestingly strong directorial debut, winning a top award for him at the Sundance Film Festival. It too is beautifully shot and beautifully acted.  It was shot mostly in Mexico and most of the dialogue is spoken in Spanish, one of two additional languages in which the English-speaking, California-born-and-reared American Fukunaga is fluent (his father’s ancestry is Japanese, his mother’s is Swedish).

I thought I noticed several commonalities among these films (which are also present in True Detective).  The destruction of childhood at the hands of others (whose souls were perhaps also poisoned at a young age?) is a consistent theme (he is planning a film inspired by the suicide of Jadin Bell, a bullied gay teen).  Fukunaga’s worldview is hugely compassionate yet deeply haunted.  He has a truly extraordinary sense of place, conveying an expansive and highly specific sense of each world he explores/creates on screen, finding the terror that permeates remarkably beautiful landscapes and the beauty that radiates from remarkably terrible settings.

In a few cases Fukunaga has worked with some of the most acclaimed actors in the world (Dench, Fassbender, True Detective‘s Matthew McConaughey), but he is better known for drawing amazing work from fresh talents (Wasikowska) and complete neophytes (Attah and Sin Nombre‘s Edgar Flores).  I couldn’t help wondering how he elicits such deeply felt, nakedly honest performances from his casts.

My reading provided few clues, but what I did find was gratifying to me as a proponent of clear, economical storytelling–and respect for actors.  In Allen St. John’s interview with Fukunaga for Forbes magazine (Feb. 9, 2014) about True Detective, the director said:

I think I learned discipline on Jane Eyre. Charlotte Bronte’s dialogue, the intellectual duel between Rochester and Jane Eyre’s character is so compelling that you didn’t have to do much with the placement of cameras. It was up to the actors to do most of it.  The tete a tete they have by the fireplace I literally just put the camera over each actor’s shoulder and let them do their best work. At times it felt like I should be doing something else instead of just sitting there. But it was the right thing.

I knew that what was going on [when detectives played by Michael Potts and Tory Kittles were interrogating McConaughey’s character in True Detective] was going to be really interesting. Especially contextualized and juxtaposed with the past. So my idea was to be as simple as possible. No reason for shaky hand-held cameras. Just set the camera down and let the actors do their work.

Fukunaga is not above shooting his inexperienced actors without actually telling them that the camera is on.  This is him speaking to Jada Yuan for an interview on vulture.com (Sept. 30, 2015):

…a lot of times I would shoot without calling “rolling.” When you’re dealing with non-actors — and the same thing happens in America — they change as soon as you say, “Action!” There’s something about people just being people that feels much more authentic….  [W]e would start rolling scenes without people knowing, and then [Idris Elba] would start giving people an order. It looked more authentic because then people were living in the moment of whatever was happening.

As impressed as I have been by the virtuosity of some of Fukunaga’s camera blocking, I am also inspired by his desire to serve the story, the actors, and the audience without foregrounding his own contribution.  Katey Rich wrote in Vanity Fair (October 18, 2015):

The single-take action sequence in the fourth episode of True Detective became famous, but Fukunaga says he doesn’t like shots—single takes or otherwise—that call attention to themselves. “You are, as a director, a sort of conductor of the whole thing, the orchestra,” he says. “You aren’t letting the music speak for itself. You’re like doing all this crazy shit, and everyone is looking at, you know, instead of listening to the music.”

I also sense that Fukunaga is a highly practical craftsman/leader, enormously prepared but also enormously flexible.  I’m impressed by his willingness to puncture the myth of the purist auteur in this quote, which is also from his chat with Yuan:

I compromise all the time. You find solutions. If anything, that’s probably my skill-set: trying to get what I want, but also making everyone else and the powers that be happy as well.

Everything I’ve seen and read makes me want to learn still more about Cary Fukunaga and how he does his consistently excellent work as a motion picture and television director.  In fact, writing this post has made me want to go back and watch the whole first season of True Detective again, and most of the movies as well.  I think he is an artist worth following, and I’m eager to see what’s next from this 38-year-old filmmaker.  Here’s Rich again in Vanity Fair:

“There are directors who are brands,” Fukunaga says. “People are going to see a Tarantino film, people are going to see a Fincher film. That’s very helpful.” How about a Fukunaga film? “Probably not yet,” he says. “Hopefully in a couple years, a couple more films, people want to see a Fukunaga.”

In this case, I guess, I’m an early adopter.  I want to see a Fukunaga.

Speak the Speech

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Costume designs by Angela Bacarisse, lighting design by Amanda Warren, scenic design by Tara Houston, choreography by Caitlin Parker. Photo by Hardy Meredith/Stephen F. Austin State University

Costume designs by Angela Bacarisse, lighting design by Amanda Warren, scenic design by Tara Houston, choreography by Caitlin Parker. Photo by Hardy Meredith/Stephen F. Austin State University

I resolved a few months ago to put my money where my mouth is, or rather put my mouth where my blog-tification was, and try out my theory about how we might make progress on the cell-phone scourge in our theatres.  So, before each performance of Mary Zimmerman’s The Arabian Nights, produced recently under my direction at the university where I work, I gave the speech I had previously said that I wanted to give.

As a rule we had been using signs at the auditorium entrance and a pre-recorded announcement before the opening curtain, and sometimes asking ushers to remind patrons as they presented their tickets and received their programs to remember turn off their mobile phones.  These had proven maddeningly ineffective as we observed a few audience members using smart phones with their blindingly bright screens in the middle of most performances, and we got complaints about this every time we took an audience survey at our Mainstage shows.

Photo by Hardy Meredith/Stephen F. Austin State University

Photo by Hardy Meredith/Stephen F. Austin State University

For The Arabian Nights my assistant director, who was also serving as house manager, was more diligent than ever about urging the ushers to remind every single patron to turn off their phones.  They apparently did this very reliably, but I noticed two things as I overheard their interactions with arriving patrons.  First, most of the student ushers seemed sheepish, as if tacitly apologizing for the request they were making; perhaps without realizing it they felt worried about coming off as bossy or un-cool with their peers and/or impertinent or disrespectful of their elders.  Also, upon reflection, I concluded that we were not requesting the right thing: when we asked audience members to turn off their phones as they arrived, they may have been thinking, “I’ll put it on silent mode,” or even “I’ll turn it off for now,” but what we really want is for them to leave their phones off and in their pockets–not just silenced but with the screens dark–until intermission and again until after the final curtain.

We didn’t use the cards described in my previous post on this topic.  We draw a substantial part of our audience from our Theatre Appreciation course as all of the students in the class are required to attend, and one colleague that had taught several sections worried that this strategy might backfire if some of the most resentful and impudent students decided to make a sport of collecting and showing off the cards.  So we tried out one experimental strategy at a time.

I continued to worry about latecomers that missed the curtain speech, but we took no extraordinary measures to ensure their compliance.  Each of them was personally reminded by the house manager to turn off their phones before entering the theatre, but they were not otherwise lectured, frisked, nor detained.

Photo by Hardy Meredith/Stephen F. Austin State University

Photo by Hardy Meredith/Stephen F. Austin State University

Thus, the main innovation was the pre-show speech, which I delivered personally each and every night.  I believed it would be more effective if perceived as extemporaneous, so its exact content varied a bit from night to night, but when I was most on my game it went approximately like this:

Good evening!  I’m Scott Shattuck and I directed the play you’re about to see.  I wanted to take a moment to welcome you and thank you for coming, and to say that we hope you enjoy the show.  We love all the feedback we get from audiences that seem to love our productions, but we also get one persistent complaint from the great majority of our patrons–about the very few theatregoers that use their mobile phones while the performance is in progress.  You might not think that just pulling out your phone briefly to see who sent you a message or even to check the time would bother anyone, but our audiences tell us that it really does: they’re distracted and disturbed by the bright screens on the phones we all use nowadays.  They also tell us that they’re annoyed by a ringing phone, of course, but also even the buzzing of a vibrating phone, I so I invite you now to power your phone all the way down [at this point I pulled out my iPhone 6 and actually did so] so it won’t light up or make any sound at all.

In addition to being polite to those around you in the audience, I want to ask that you respect the efforts of the performers on our stage tonight.  They can see and hear you, and they’ve worked literally hundreds of hours over many weeks to make this performance absolutely as good as it can possibly be for you.  When they’re giving their all up here and they look out and see someone looking down at a phone instead of at them, it hurts their feelings.

And it’s the the fact that they do see and hear you, that you’re communicating with them as they perform for you, that makes live theatre a unique experience.  I know it’s the most natural thing in the world now just to grab your phone and glance at the screen almost anywhere, and–believe me–I’m just as addicted to mine as any of you are to yours.  But I think this needs become perhaps the last screen-free place in our world.  It’s the two-way process of you giving your full attention to the actors as they give their full energy and concentration to you that makes this a such a special space.

So, please, just for the next hour-and-a-quarter until intermission, and then again for the forty-five minutes of the second act, leave you phone off.  We’ll make it worth your while.  We really do want you to enjoy the show, but we need you to play your part as well, so instead of inviting you to “lean back and relax,” instead I ask you to “lean forward and engage” with The Arabian Nights.  Thank you!

Yes, it was that long.  And yes, it was that blunt (although I tried to sound friendly and welcoming, as well as sincere, as I said it).  Oh, and that last part?  I totally stole that from the curtain speech I heard at Michael Halberstam’s miraculous Writers Theatre in Glencoe, Illinois (a lovely suburb right outside Chicago).

Photo by Hardy Meredith/Stephen F. Austin State University

Photo by Hardy Meredith/Stephen F. Austin State University

And here’s the thing: It completely worked.  Over the course of five performances, we had just a couple of phones ring momentarily in the second act, but both were silenced promptly (we did use a recorded announcement to remind our patrons before the the show resumed, but apparently a couple of people still didn’t get their phones turned off again by the end of intermission).  And not a single person in an audience that numbered more than 1,000 over five performances was seen to turn on a smart-phone screen to check messages, Facebook, e-mail, or even the time.  As far as I know, this had not happened at five consecutive performances in our Mainstage theatre in years.

A couple of Theatre Appreciation instructors responded to my request for their assessment, and both expressed belief that the speech had done the trick (I had not found or made time to speak to any of their classes, I’m afraid).  Several audience members, some well known to me and some I had never met before, approached me after performances to offer support for the effort.  (And, by the way, the show went marvelously, with bigger houses and more enthusiastic crowds than I had dared to hope for.)

So, is this the secret?  I certainly hope so.  And I am happy to share the idea and the details of implementation freely and joyfully.  I hope that other educational theatres at all levels, community theatres, and professional companies–even those on Broadway, where as a theatergoer I can attest first-hand that these devices (no matter how handy elsewhere) are a blight on our artistic discipline–will make use of our experience.  Please consider enlisting your audience’s help in this or whatever way will work best with them, spread the word as widely as you please, and join me in thanking Patti LuPone, Bill Hoffman, Michael Halberstam, and everyone else that has made an inspirational effort to engage audiences intentionally and effectively in the elimination of theatre-killing distractions in our venues.

Photo by Hardy Meredith/Stephen F. Austin State University

Photo by Hardy Meredith/Stephen F. Austin State University

Team Dreamer

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In 2000, the great Australian director Michael Blakemore, who rose to fame in Great Britain, became the only person ever to win both the Tony Awards for directing–of a play (Michael Frayn’s Copenhagen) and a musical–in the same year.  His second Tony that evening was for directing the Broadway revival of Cole Porter’s Kiss Me, Kate, which remains to this day the best revival I have seen of a traditional mid-20th century book musical.

His acceptance speech also remains my favorite, for its modest charm but mostly for its honesty.  I wish I could link to a video recording of it or at least quote it precisely but I have not found it (if you do, please send me a link!).  I can closely paraphrase my favorite part of what he said, however, by cribbing from the detailed credits available at ibdb.com.

“The fact is,” he said (approximately), “when you have Robin Wagner designing the sets, Martin Pakledinaz designing the costumes, Paul Gemignani directing the music, Kathleen Marshall doing the choreography, and Ara Marx as your stage manger, directing a Broadway musical is quite easy.”  And, believe me, I’ve been there–most recently with Little Shop of Horrors in 2012.

In fact, I am one of those directors that just isn’t all that good at many of the various component art forms and crafts that go into an excellent production.  Now, if you count producing, I’ll take credit for some ability there, and I assume I could still act pretty well (from the neck up, anyway) if I could remember the lines, and maybe even sing a little.  But scenery, costumes, lights, sound, hair, props (I’m not even very good at shopping for them, let alone building them), projections?  Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope.

I could probably still put on my own makeup, but I couldn’t build a beard.  It’s been far too long since I’ve stage managed anything to know if I ever could again.

And dance–choreography?  Don’t make me laugh.  Music direction?  I can actually conduct a little (long story), but I can’t even plunk out a melody for the singers on a piano.  I was recently out to dinner with a talented colleague that teaches musical theatre at another university, and I felt for him when he complained that he always has to serve as musical director as well as director, but mostly I just felt jealous that I don’t have the chops to do the same.

So, especially when directing a musical, I sit in the rehearsal hall making self-deprecating jokes about having precious little to do and thanking everyone and everything for the team of knowledgable, skilled, creative people on the team all around me.  It’s axiomatic–a cliché, but not an incorrect one–that 50, 75, 90 or 99% of a production’s success can be ascribed to casting.  In my experience, it’s just as true that success depends on the group of “creatives” that come together to male the production along with the cast and director.

At the moment I’m heading into auditions and then immediately into rehearsals for a show that is not a musical but that involves a great deal of both music and dance, and even more creative movement to bring the storytelling to life.  As producer of my university’s Mainstage Series, I chose this play because it complemented other titles  that we wanted in the season for good reasons.  As a director I chose it for its thematic content (it’s a story about storytelling, and I can’t get enough of that stuff) and because, consciously or unconsciously or both, I wanted a challenge, and this play is very different from what I usually do–and what I feel confident doing–as a director.  It also depicts a world that I know little-to-nothing about.

What is all-too-characteristic of me is that I agreed to direct this play–indeed I picked it–with blind faith that the right team would come together to realize it for an audience.  Sure, I knew I would be working with faculty designers I know and trust and admire enormously.  And the idea of one of our most experienced, sharp, and dedicated student designers joining us was a no-brainer.  We’ve got a first-rate student stage manager.  A student that I trust (because I’ve worked closely with him recently in the classroom and rehearsal hall) asked to assist me and he’ll do a great job, but he doesn’t fill any gaps in my expertise.

Then began the small miracles upon which I rely far too completely (I hope I’m not jinxing anything by writing this prematurely!).  I asked the student that had assisted with the dances in our last musical if she would choreograph and she grabbed the project by the throat–she’s already way out ahead of me on research and specific ideas.  We have new faculty arriving; one recently served as dramaturg for a different production of this play and the other served as movement coach and fight director at yet another school: I will pay visits to their offices soon, I’m sure, on bended knee.

Most of all I was really sweating the need for a composer/music director.  I begged a brilliant colleague I’ve known for decades to lend a grad student from his composition studio that could do it (“I have no plan B!” I confessed).  He found one!  Hooray!  The student could not schedule it.  Oh, no.  He changed his schedule and got free!  Hooray-hoorah!  And he is bright and enthusiastic and collaborative and has high standards and is flexible, and we have begun.

The whirlwind of meetings and approaches and sketches and schedules and inspirations is underway and, as ever, it is exhilarating.  In the real world of jam-packed calendars and chaotic comings-and-goings, the director’s role emerges: I’m the one that everyone most needs to talk with, making me wonder if perhaps I won’t be useless after all.

But, oh, what gratitude I feel to have such a team to collaborate with.  I certainly couldn’t do this show without them, but with them perhaps I’ll end up, like Mr. Blakemore, saying it was all “quite easy!”