Back from Boston and Finally Posting!

Hi Everyone – Here’s a belated final(ish?) blog entry – after the whirlwind experience of Directorfest, I headed to the A.R.T. to direct an early Tennessee Williams play (Stairs to the Roof) as part of Diane’s second half of the season, her “America: Boom, Bust and Baseball” festival. Our production was only maybe the fifth time the play’s been produced, and was the first time the A.R.T. had produced Williams ever. The production was also the first official collaboration between the A.R.T. Institute and Harvard College / The Office for the Arts at Harvard, so I was working with actors from both the Institute and the College, and had a wonderful team of assistants from the College (plus some fantastic designer collaborators I was able to bring along from YSD and WTF!). We had four weeks of rehearsal, which felt like a huge luxury after the breakneck pace of rehearsals for both NN at Playmakers and our own Directorfest pieces! We were also working in a space the A.R.T. had never produced in, and in an unconventional configuration at that (seating the audience on the stage, building the theatre out into the house, and then moving the audience to another space for the last 20 minutes, where they watched much of the final action unfold outside in a courtyard through windows). It was a challenging piece to work on – the script is very young, and very messy, but it has a fantastic heart and sense of hope / imagination / play. All in all it was a fantastic experience, and a successful production! For a review, check this out: http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2010/2/9/donahue-stairs-agassiz-institute/
It was also an incredible time to be at the A.R.T., with Diane’s first full season underway – in addition to being able to see Donkey Show again, I was able to see Janos work with the first years on a crazy adaptation of Alice in Wonderland – the spectacular ERS Gatz (which I had been waiting years to see!) – and the life-changing Sleep No More, this crazy phenomenal piece by Punch Drunk that took place in an old schoolhouse in Brookline in forty fully installed rooms that you ran throughout (while wearing masks) following the actors. The piece was about an hour long, but played 2.5 times per night, so you could follow different performers throughout the building, catching different storylines and discovering how they lined up – the entire event was just amazing. Now I’m back in NYC – I moved here in August, but have only actually lived here for about 7 weeks. I’m finally looking at being here for a while now, and it’s quite exciting – I’m currently in rehearsals for a new play called The Precarious Stool, which will be a part of the Third Year’s FREEPLAY FESTIVAL at NYU. After that, I’m headed back to Boston to stage The Animals, an electropop concert event at the A.R.T.’s Club Oberon – and I’m directing Chuck Mee’s Big Love with The Studio NYC at The Wild Project in April/May. After that, I’ll be prepping for a big opera I’m doing spring of 2011, and looking for the next round of projects! Dramaleague was a fantastic experience – and though I’m sad it’s over, I’m very much looking forward to what the next phase has to offer! -Mike

Final thoughts ...

Hi everyone,
It’s hard to write a “wrap-up” blog entry since I still feel very much in the midst of my Drama League activities. My main assisting assignment on The Addams Family is about to enter phase II. Our out-of-town tryout in Chicago closed successfully after record-breaking ticket sales and overall positive reviews. The producers have made some highly publicized changes, including bringing on renowned director Jerry Zaks as Creative Consultant. I am continuing on the show (as is Associate Director and DP alumna Heidi Marshall). We will begin Broadway rehearsals in early February, with previews set for March 8 and an April 8 opening night.
In the meantime, I have been the “Drama League Artistic Fellow” at Primary Stages, working with Artistic Director (and DP advisory board member) Andrew Leynse and Associate Artistic Director Michelle Bossy on various season planning and programming activities. I have also been a sort of “part-time” assistant director on the Primary Stages production of Lucinda Coxon’s Happy Now?, directed by Liz Diamond, which will run January 26 – March 6 at 59E59 (tickets here.)
I am also busy with two other projects – my first opera, at Metropolis Opera Project, a new translation of Cesar Cui’s Feast in Time of Plague, which will run next weekend (Jan 29-31 at 8pm). Tickets are only $10 and available here. I am thoroughly enjoying working with these unbelievable singers and musicians and excited to be taking on a new form. Not only is this my first opera project, it is a direct result of my Drama League fellowship – I met Metropolis Opera Project’s founding director Zachary James because he is playing Lurch in The Addams Family!
I am also directing a new play by Matthew-Lee Erlbach called Sex of the Baby, which will be presented by NYU Tisch as part of the 3rd-year MFA students’ “Free Play” series. Performances will be in the first week of March – details soon. Fellow fellow Mike Donahue also is directing a “Free Play” so we will once again be directing alongside each other.
(Interestingly, both the opera project and the NYU project were already cast before I came on board. Very unusual to be working with actors that someone else chose. Fortunately, in both cases that someone else had great taste so I’m not complaining. But it’s another reminder that flexibility is the key to a happy freelance career.)

Although I can choose to deny it a little longer (and keep “Drama League fellow” in my email signature) I suppose I will have to accept that I am now an alumnus of the program. The applications for next year are due in a few weeks, and the whole cycle will begin again. I’ve already gotten a few emails from future applicants asking how the program has impacted my life… Well, I hope the best is yet to come in terms of career impact, but the personal impact was significant. It was a great boost after a few years in New York – the “seal of approval” from a major career development program with a terrific national reputation. Plus, the fellowship components themselves – the Retreat, the Wonder Week, and of course, DirectorFest, were all both creatively stimulating and a lot of fun.

Also, I promise I will post some of the gorgeous production photos of Bekah Brunstetter’s Roberta Laughs (my contribution to DirectorFest) as soon as I can.

Best to all,
David

December

December was a whirlwind, in every sense. I felt as though I was constantly trying to wring 40 hours out of a 24-hour day.

I left Cambridge a few nights into previews of BEST OF BOTH WORLDS to come back to New York to move into my new apartment, have a few last production/design meetings, an almost immediately go into rehearsal for THE LOVER.

Working on Pinter's THE LOVER was a labor of love -- intense labor and intense love. There are A LOT of words in the piece, and the two main actors were required to bring the emotional journey of a marriage rocked off its foundation fully to life in the span of a compact one-act, while handling multiple dialects, a period piece, and a dense text. As insane as this all was, I never regretted choosing the piece, because I really loved it, and because the cast was completely dedicated to it and to each other.

There was one major bump in the road, when we realized the play was running several minutes too long. The designers and cast and I made some tough decisions about how to shorten the piece. In the end, we felt the piece was the stronger for it, even though the decisions to "kill our storytelling babies" (such as not having the actress change clothes on stage in stylized real time, but rather off-stage with a dresser) were agonizing at the time.

I learned so many lessons from working on DirectorFest. First, of course, to never underestimate the running time of a show. But it was also the first time in a LONG time I had worked with a full design team. Communicating effectively with them stretched a muscle that I simply wasn't used to using. Clearly and thoroughly articulating an idea early in the process is crucial. I learned really quickly that the designers could've used more information from me sooner, and I'm excited to put what I learned into practice on my next production. It struck me recently how few opportunities there are for directors to really direct -- not a reading or a workshop or even fringe show, but to manage a full production team, which is really a huge part of a director's job. I would have to say that the opportunity to do so is one of the greatest things the Drama League gave me.

In the end, I was proud of the production. The actors seemed to have real ownership of the work we had done, and the designers created a sleek and rich 1963 world. And I do think that the story I set out to tell was told. Most importantly, I forged relationships that I know will endure for a long time -- people with whom I can't WAIT to work again.

Beyond the production, DirectorFest meant tons of events! Brunches, drinks, meetings, hosting my Dad who was in from out of town -- lots of hand shaking, lots of follow-up e-mails, and finally...lots of opportunities to contemplate "What next." The last official days of our fellowship, we were lucky to spend some really good time together - Ed, Mike, David, and I, and even got to have a beautiful farewell dinner with Roger. I am amazed how close we've become in these several months, really. During the craziest moments of DirectorFest, I would bump into Mike, or David, or Ed in the hallway, and just fall into their arms for a big, understanding hug. (I think I got the best hugs since I'm the girl.)

We're now scattered geographically once again. David and I are still in New York. Ed is in Oregon for the next few months. Mike is in Cambridge directing a play, though I did get to see him last week. But we are all eagerly awaiting the next time that we're all going to be in the same city -- there's NO doubt we'll meet up to eat some really good food and instantly fall back into our rhythm.

(posted by Laura)

The Red Umbrella

The Red Umbrella has come and gone. This has definitely been one of the most exhausting and exhilarating three weeks I have ever experienced! The day after the Thanksgiving break, we launched into our an all company production meeting for the four DirectorFest productions, then six half days of rehearsal, a day to dry-tech the show, then two days of tech, dress and suddenly we were all on stage. We sold out every showing - apparently, this is the highest attendance that the event has ever had! - and met a ton of people in the very crowded lobby of the June Havoc Theatre at The Abingdon, and are now in the midst of e-mailing everyone who came to capitalize on the visibility of the event, thereby starting a conversation with various theatre professionals in New York that we hope will take us to the next level. Thank you, Drama League!

(posted by Ed)

Cast for The Red Umbrella

Jason Williamson’s The Red Umbrella is directed by Ed Iskandar and features Milena Govich (“Law & Order,” “Rescue Me”) as Angela.

Boy meets girl on a beach and falls in love, only to discover that she is Death. She promises him that he will find her again, but only when he sees a Red Umbrella. What follows is a bittersweet fairy-tale about the consequences of knowing your fate, the risks you must take to transcend it, and the losses you face if you fail. Part love story, part theatrical elegy and part celebration of life, this is the fable of a modern-day Everyman who undergoes an extraordinary emotional awakening as he searches for the one thing that can complete him.

Director Ed Iskandar has previously collaborated with playwright Jason Williamson on the first stagings of Ether Steeds, Goat Song for Asa Jacobs and BoyGirlBoyGirl. As Joint Artistic Director of Stanford Summer Theater, he produced festivals on Pinter, Friel and the Restoration, also directing The Collection, Translations, and Don Juan. He has staged over seventy productions regionally and at university, including Miss Julie, Lulu, Othello, The Taming of the Shrew and Hamlet. In 2010, he will be in his second season as Resident Directing Fellow at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Currently, he is developing a play with Pulitzer finalist Amy Freed.

Along with Ms. Govich, The Red Umbrella also stars Jonathan C. Kaplan as Peter and Paloma Guzman as Death.

DirectorFest 2009 runs from Thursday, December 10 through Sunday, December 13, 2009 at the Abingdon Theatre Arts Complex in midtown Manhattan (312 West 36th Street). Performances are Thursday, December 10 at 7 p.m.; Friday, December 11 at 8 p.m.; Saturday, December 12 at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m.; and Sunday, December 13 at 3 p.m.

DirectorFest 2009 offers an exciting glimpse into the future of American theatre by presenting four one-act productions helmed by four of the nation’s most talented young directors.

Tickets for DirectorFest 2009 are $18 each and are available by calling SmartTix.com at 212-868-4444. Each performance consists of all four one-acts presented in succession.

(posted by Ed)

Book Now for DirectorFest!

Rehearsals have now been underway for a week on the four DirectorFest productions. Get your tickets now while there are still some available (details in the e-flyer below).




(posted by Ed)

Pa'Tina Miller: Live in the Delfont Room

Pa’Tina Miller is the unquestionable darling of the West End. Her quick rise to stardom from humble beginnings has been an irresistible story to the London press. Her face literally dominates London’s cultural topography, because every Sister Act advertisement carries her image. Cameron Mackintosh’s Live in the Delfont Room series is a high-profile platform on the West End scene for newly-minted stars to make an “I Am” statement, introducing to the world the full story behind their choice to become an artist and showing off what they are and what they can do outside of the trappings of the role that made them famous. The great British stage actress Hannah Waddingham – excellent in the role of Desiree in Trevor Nunn’s revival of A Little Night Music, which will be portrayed in New York by Catherine Zeta-Jones – was another featured artist in this series on my last trip to London in July.


I first worked with Pa’Tina when she was an acting student at Carnegie Mellon. Even then, she had a few close calls with superstardom, making it to a final round tussle with Jennifer Hudson for the role of Effie in the Dreamgirls film. I directed her in BoyGirlBoyGirl, a play of Jason’s, and in Homemade Fusion, a song cycle created by two other frequent collaborators and friends, Chris Dimond and Michael Kooman. In the latter project, Pa’Tina created Random Black Girl, a song that was created to allow her to show off every vocal pyrotechnic in her considerable singer’s arsenal. The song was posted on YouTube, and quickly went viral amongst musical theatre fans online. The song cycle eventually made it to New York in a production I directed at The Zipper Factory (featuring Broadway stars Marty Thomas and Natalie Venetia-Belcon), for which Pa’Tina created another song, this time a duet with friend and classmate Anderson Davis.


In the two years since she has graduated from school, Pa’Tina has slowly but surely built an impressive resume of credits. She originated a role in Romantic Poetry, the John Patrick Shanley & Henry Krieger musical, was prominently featured as Dionne in Diane Paulus’s spectacular revival of Hair in the Park, did a stint on All My Children, and eventually won the role of Sister Deloris van Cartier in the West End production of Sister Act the Musical. It is already the kind of career that many actors dream of, but throughout the entire process, Pa’Tina has stayed grounded and thankful for the opportunities and doors that have opened for her. When I visited her in London in July, I found an actress determined to preserve her ability to perform and give the audience every cent they’ve paid for. She entered a state of vocal rest in between shows, went straight home when her obligations were done, and attended to the health of her physical and vocal instruments. I had found the experience of watching a dear friend play the starring role in a West End production utterly exhilarating, but watching her take such care to maintain her productivity and potential was deeply moving.


(Pa'Tina's gruelling 8 time a week schedule has also given her legs to die for!)

The dramatic concept behind Pa’Tina’s cabaret was to take a journey through all the influences that shaped her as a musician and a performer. The set list was diverse, and musical director James Sampliner arranged each song to showcase a different style of music in order to put Pa’Tina’s signature upon some well-known songs.


The highlights for me were a funk cover of Alanis Morissette’s You Oughta Know, a jazz ballad version of Grandma’s Hands and a sensational gospel song, Thank You, that had the crowd on its feet. In between the songs, she followed the American tradition of telling her life story in a series of concise intimate confessionals.


(Above, Billy and the Black-Ups)

The Delfont Room was packed to the rafters (well beyond the legal limit, but who’s counting), and the audience ranged from acclaimed stage actor Jonathan Pryce to Scarlett Strallen, recently seen on Broadway as Mary Poppins (below), to the entire nun ensemble of Sister Act the Musical.


Industry hawks and fans alike enjoyed a unique one-woman show that heralded the emergence of a true sensation. We celebrated the overwhelming success of the venture well into the morning.


I was quite touched by Pa’Tina’s vulnerability throughout this process. Despite (or because of) the amount of industry attention that has been rightly lavished upon her performance in Sister Act, she negotiated the rehearsal process with some trepidation and insecurity. She second-guessed herself as an actress and a musician, despite her overwhelming natural gifts. I remember being puzzled as to why the process proved so difficult for her, given the fact that she is already the star of a West End show.


I realize now that of course, when the focus is you, and only you, the prospect of appearing on stage and sharing yourself with the crowd assembled can feel like allowing the masses to gaze at your naked body! I certainly feel some of my own trepidation at the upcoming rehearsal process for The Red Umbrella. It sunk in only this week that this will be a huge calling card for me in New York, that I must not skimp on getting in contact with everyone in the industry that I want to know about my work, and that I must not second-guess my instincts in the rehearsal room. Easier said than done, but I will have the example of my dear friend Pa’Tina to hold myself against. Her perseverance, preparation and grace under pressure will stay with me throughout the weeks to come. Thank you for letting me share this incredible journey with you, Pa’Tina. Til the next one.



(posted by Ed)

Complicit with Complicite

The last time I was in London (this past July), I was lucky enough to get a day seat at Sean Matthias’s production of Waiting for Godot, starring Ian McKellen, Patrick Stewart and Simon Callow. I was surprised and somewhat wary to discover another Beckett play was on the West End boards, but the combination of the artists and the work was irresistible: a Theatre de Complicite and National Theatre production of Endgame, starring Simon McBurney (who also directed) and Mark Rylance.


I had loved McBurney’s production of All My Sons on Broadway last season (Katie Holmes and all), and have admired Rylance for many years for in diverse performances ranging from Cleopatra, Hamlet, the Duke in Measure for Measure, Boeing Boeing and most recently, the protagonist of Jez Butterworth’s astonishing new play Jerusalem at the Royal Court (soon transferring to the West End, after Endgame finishes its run). I am accompanied once again by Billy Porter, and also by Ioli Andreadi and Rachel Grunwald, two colleagues from the Lincoln Center Directors Lab.


Ioli (left) is a PhD candidate in Fire Rituals in Performance at King’s College, London, with whom I am going to collaborate on a project based on the Prometheus myth.


Rachel (above) is a London director whose production of a new J. T. Rogers’s play will soon be touring the U.S. as part of "The Great Game," plays about Afghanistan (originally produced at The Tricycle Theatre).


The production carried the all-immersive nature that is the trademark of Complicite's work. The aesthetic evoked opera (the set did not feel dissimilar to Duke Bluebeard’s Castle), and the lights and sound were used almost continuously to engage and construct the audience’s experience of the play throughout the evening. The actual staging was very simple – Mark Rylance’s chair-bound Hamm stayed mainly center stage while Simon McBurney’s Clov shuffled around him and Nagg and Nell popped up and down from the infamous Beckett trash cans, down stage left.


The focus therefore was purely on the spoken text. I aspire in my own work to ensure that every moment in a production is active – that is, that every line of text is spoken to make someone do something. For me, action defines the event. What McBurney was able to accomplish in rendering inactivity active was quite staggering. The opaque, impenetrable text seemed natural and effortless, and the production concisely communicated the metaphorical subtext of the play (that we are all in inescapable rooms of our own making with people in our periphery gradually disappearing as we move inexorably toward death). Rylance and McBurney were also able to capture a deeply emotional relationship between Hamm and Clov, so that the final moments in which Hamm descends into a physical and spiritual nothingness while Clov looks on silently are incredibly moving.


Rylance has been criticized by quite a few of London’s big critics for a self-indulgent performance. Having seen him in previous productions, I could certainly identify certain vocal, physical and technical tricks that he used, but it did make sense within the context of the production, which reads Hamm as self-obsessed and selfish. It will be interesting indeed to see how the essence of his character translates into the kind of universal interpretive articulation of great actors like Dame Judi Dench, Sir Ian McKellen and Kevin Spacey (amongst others), all of whom essentially play variations of themselves in all the characters they tackle. With his recent Tony win for Boeing-Boeing and the upcoming West End (and perhaps, Broadway) transfer of Jerusalem, Rylance is poised to achieve the kind of mainstream profile as Great Actor of His Generation that will test the elasticity and universality of his essential character.


Above, I am flanked by Ioli Andreadi and Rachel Grunwald.

(posted by Ed)

He is What He Is

I went to see La Cage aux Folles today for the first time, again accompanied by my new comrade-in-arms, Billy Porter. Billy is at a huge transitional cross-roads in his own career. Having flared brightly in the theatre and the recording industries in the eighties and nineties, he is now pursuing a career as a maker of theatre as well as a performer. He looks at work both as someone who might eventually direct the piece, as well as someone who might play a suitable role within it, which gives our conversations a really specific focus. The role of the ageing diva Albin is of course one of the great theatrical vehicles of musical theatre, and one which Billy has developed a great desire to portray.


The critical buzz on the Menier Chocolate Factory production of La Cage aux Folles is that it is a stripped down version focused on establishing a more emotionally credible relationship between the central couple (Albin and Georges) in order to focus on the people behind the drag masks, rather than on the drag spectacle itself. The current Albin is John Barrowman, who is hugely loved in England as the star of Torchwood and is himself a queer artist who is publicly open about his sexuality, but has successfully carved a “straight” leading man image and appeal. He was sensational in the role, capturing the drag queen who revels in dramatics, the “second wife” who struggles to conquer insecurity in her role as mother, the ageing artist who fears that change means extinction and the inner strength that drives him to understand and assert that “I Am What I Am,” in the musical’s signature song.


I must admit to a skeptical attitude toward musicals. The mythical moment when a character has run out of words and simply MUST burst into song has remained just that for me – mythical. The transition between scene to song and back again remains an elusive, strange suspension of disbelief that I maintain and resent. Recently, however, in the spirit of this production of La Cage aux Folles, productions have begun to treat musicals as plays with music. Sam Mendes of course is the most easily identifiable figure in this tradition, given his dramaturgical approach to Cabaret, but the Menier Chocolate Factory seems to be hiring directors who work in the same way, such as Sam Buntrock, whose immaculate production of Sunday in the Park with George was recently seen in New York, and Trevor Nunn, whose production of A Little Night Music is currently in rehearsals (featuring Carnegie Mellon alumnus Hunter Herdlicka as Heinrich). This production's approach to La Cage aux Folles certainly allowed us to re-evaluate a text that is now seen as inherently camp and fluffy and see that without textual modification, the book contains the possibility of great depth and sincerity. The final and most stunning reveal of the musical is of course the appearance of Albin at the end of the play in plainclothes – the drag queen that we have watched throughout the play and seen try and fail to impersonate a “straight man” comes out in a plain button-down white shirt with rolled up sleeves and a pair of black slacks, walking and talking without a trace of affectation or performance.


Albin still manages to surprise, and I was rather surprised that seeing a representation of a gay man on stage who can embrace the full spectrum of who he is and can also simply be a man achieved such an emotional effect. This was of course, immediately trumped by another, even more emotional moment: Albin and Georges come toward each other and simply, sincerely, unfussily kiss one another – an expression of love so understated and so universal and yet still so foreign and shocking. I am anxious indeed to see the American reception to this production in its upcoming Broadway transfer, and anticipate with unusual eagerness directing a production of the future starring the great Billy Porter, who embraces more than anyone I know being what he is.


(posted by Ed)

Triple Billying

A London triple-bill today with Billy. First up, Our Class at the National Theatre, followed by Bartok’s rarely produced opera Duke Bluebeard’s Castle and a contemporary dance interpretation of Stavinsky’s Rite of Spring, both at the English National Opera. One of the great pleasures of assisting great artists is the one-on-one time that we end up spending with them. Getting to watch a day of theatre with someone also means a day filled with conversations reacting to the pieces, examining the work going on in our own current rehearsal room, and also examining the particularities of each experience in context of who we are as artists and creators. It’s a form of connection that feels like a privilege – the relationship we are building feels like it is being informed and filled by mutual experiences in rehearsal, in performance and in life, and we are constantly aware of each other and responding to all the new information we are consciously and subconsciously sending. It is a more intense way to get to know someone new than the norm; we are exposing ourselves to each other for long hours on a daily basis. I think this is why relationships forged in the rehearsal room are so long-lasting. The process of making theatre is as revealing about the very relationships we look to document and examine on stage.


Above, Pa'Tina and Billy, in a quite moment in rehearsal.

(posted by Ed)

First Bill: Our Class

From the plays I have seen on this London trip and my previous one (this past July), the National Theatre has three main strands of focus in its programming. There are rigorous investigations of classic plays such as Phedre and All’s Well That Ends Well, premieres of new English plays such as The Habit of Art (see the previous post) and The History Boys, adaptations of foreign-language plays such as the play we were at this afternoon, Our Class. There is an astonishing range of cultures and experiences on display – not only through the material itself, but also through the overlapping ensembles that have been assembled to make theatre happen. Three theatres running multiple productions in repertory: at the National, it really does begin to feel like All the World’s a Stage.


Our Class is a grueling three hour examination of a group of people linked by circumstance as they grow from kids in class, to teenagers who undergo rites of passage, young adults who become aware of the social and political changes happening around them, men and women who mark each other with love and tragedy, parents who give everything to their children, widows and widowers who find second lease in life, grandparents who start to withdraw from the families they have built and lost, and lonely souls who confront the final transition into the great beyond.


The unique sociohistorical lens of 20th-century Poland as a setting means of course that the play is a ruthless inquiry into the effects of the Soviet invasion, then the Nazi “liberation,” then the Holocaust, and then the aftermath of war on a common group of people. These are class mates who support, betray, save, murder, manipulate, rape, protect and destroy each other, and at the end of the play, are left to silently confront what it is the world has made them do to one another as they sit on the chairs that signify their graves in a final tableau recalling the great last act of Our Town. The natural dramaturgical subtext is nature versus nurture: are we who we are made, or are we what we’ve made of ourselves? For this particular author, the one experience that eludes the entire group of people is that of self-knowledge and therefore, self-determination. We see that we are creatures who are blindly reacting to personal, political and karmic stimuli, that our choices are dictated by life and by necessity, that our actions are inherently reactions, and all that is left in the end is the silence of reflection. The overbearing pressure of lived experience was embodied in a stunning scenographic moment, in which a large and previously immobile steel roof hanging over the playing space is slowly lowered onto the actors beneath them. This is a daring and devastating new play, and one that I hope will find its way across the Atlantic to us.


(posted by Ed)

Second Bill: Duke Bluebeard's Castle

Bartok’s only opera – Duke Bluebeard’s Castle – is an unsettling, strange one-act work. Bluebeard’s new wife Judith journeys into his castle, insisting on opening each and every one of the seven locked doors she discovers inside. At each entrance, she discovers a treasure, and blood. As the treasures grow greater and the blood starts to flow, we prepare for the inevitable worst: the dead bodies of the previous wives that must surely be behind the final door. We are in for a surprise: the wives behind the final door are very much alive, and ready to do Bluebeard’s bidding. In a stunning reveal, Bluebeard sings that their blood is what keeps the castle alive. One takes a step back and realizes that the mythic frame is an elaborate metaphor. The unrelenting tyrannical patriarch bleeds dry everything he touches, transforming love into empty, hollow corpses. The coup de grace of this production by Daniel Kramer is the reveal behind the fifth door, in which Bluebeard sings of the riches and wealth of his kingdom. As he sings about gold and treasure, he reveals a vast cabinet dormitory of children. This of course makes blatant the hidden subtext of the work. It felt somewhat manipulative and jarring at the time, but some time after seeing the performance, I realize that it is what allowed me to understand the construct of the story. I am reminded that creating an exact experience for an audience is the highest form of our craft.


(posted by Ed)

Third Bill: Rite of Spring

The opera was paired with a modern dance interpretation of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. Getting to hear this symphonic masterpiece performed by a full orchestra is a treat in and of itself, but seeing it spill all over the stage through bodies and movement invited fullest engagement with the music. The action as I read it was simple: an old woman, embodying winter, wanes in power as three young girls of spring take over the action of the stage. They invoke the excitement of a large, somnambulant group of men, who transform from workers into savage beasts in unison and compete with each other to have their way.


The elderly are cast aside, the weak are destroyed and the most virile are left standing; but the old woman returns, and with her re-appearance, the men retire into a deep sleep. The dance was really quite ravishing. Human gestures and animal movements combined to create a contemporary dance vocabulary of dynamic impact.

(posted by Ed)

Post-Bill

I was deeply struck today by how extraordinary theatrical moments are usually non-textual. I suppose they are textual in the way that a director or theatre maker is translating an idea taken from a text or a score into visual form, but the deepest moments usually happen without speaking or singing. In Our Class, the image of a steel roof slowly and inexorably falling was unbelievably moving.


The reveal of the children in Duke Bluebeard’s Castle was unexpected and redirected the focus of the story quite radically. The opening image of the Rite of Spring communicated the metaphor of winter with an old woman smoking a cigarette while snowflakes cascade upon her (and only her). I have been thinking about this a great deal in my own work. We spend so much time trying to wrestle the text into a comprehensible shape, and yet, the moments that offer the audience a way in are likely to be non-textual. I am determined that I will address this in the rehearsal process for The Red Umbrella. I will find a way to get the story across clearly, but also to fully explore the potential in the piece for non-naturalistic and non-textual story-telling through scenery, movement, sound and lights.

(posted by Ed)

Our Habit of Art

Alan Bennett’s new play The Habit of Art is currently in previews at the Royal National Theatre in London (above), and is already sold out through March 2010. An extension has already been announced! This, despite the last minute withdrawal of Michael Gambon, who was cast in the lead role of the poet W. H. Auden and dropped out because of poor health. The replacement actor is Bennett regular Richard Griffiths!


This of course reunites playwright and actor with director Nicholas Hytner, who is also the current Artistic Director of the National and, on the night I was there, dutifully taking notes during the preview.


Also appearing in the play is the inimitable Frances de la Tour, completing the reunion of the core artists behind The History Boys.


On the evidence of the crowd’s full-hearted applause and the first wave of critical acclaim, they are poised for a repeat of that play’s worldwide success.

The Habit of Art is a great valentine to the theatre. Other recent plays in this genre include Jeff Whitty’s The Further Adventures of Hedda Gabler and Bill Cain’s Equivocation, both of which were premiered by Bill Rauch, who I will be assisting on a production of Hamlet in the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s 75th-anniversary season next year.

As the audience enters, a lone figure paces between a corner table and what looks like a ramshackle set within a set. The play begins with the arrival of several actors and a stage manager, immediately establishing that we are assembled to watch a play within a play. All the familiar archetypes are present: the ageing diva actor, the easily threatened playwright, the new boy, a child actor and his stage mother, and of course the long-suffering stage manager. The conceit of the play is that we are to watch a run-through without a director in attendance. Insecurities surface, egos flare and walkouts ensue, but of course the great power of theatre to hold its community together toward a common purpose prevails, and at the end, we are left with the devastating image of Ms. de la Tour’s stage manager, alone in the rehearsal room long after the rest of the company has disappeared.

The genius of Alan Bennett’s play lies in the invisible divide he draws between artifice and reality. Even as the play maintains that nothing is remotely real about the situation that we are observing – going so far as the insert ridiculous interludes of objects that talk to the poet while he is alone on stage – we find ourselves suddenly observing moments of profound truth and honesty. Some of this is due to the skill of a first rate ensemble of stage actors, but the real credit goes to the playwright for asking an audience to watch the credible illusion of a reality that maintains it is not reality (the rehearsal room), which then becomes an even further removed fiction (the play-within-a-play), shuttles furiously back and forth, and somehow reaches a level that sublimes all the fiction into universal observations about what it is to be human.

The question one comes to at the end of the night is whether or not the rehearsal room really is universally acceptable as a microcosm of the world at large. I of course regularly fall in love with plays that are living proof that the life I have chosen for myself is worth living, and brings worth to others. But can a play like this – endlessly filled with backstage double entendres, in-jokes and witty wordplay – actually connect to a tourist teenager who happened to decide on a whim to see what the RNT is all about? Time, and the inevitable Broadway transfer (check out the NY Times advance review), will tell.


Above, Alan Bennett

(posted by Ed)

En Route

(my typical Tuesday morning view, from the window of Bolt Bus -- also, the speed with which life is moving right now!!)

Hey Everybody! I'm writing from the Bolt Bus -- thank goodness for its wireless internet! I've been frequeting this bus a lot; going back and forth from American Repertory Theatre in Boston to NYC, where I've had design meetings, casting, and have hunted for, applied for, and now moved into a new apartment (what's up, Battery Park City!), all on my one day off a week!



BEST OF BOTH WORLDS is going full speed ahead, and we start tech tonight. I haven't worked on a new musical for a long time, and have never been involved this closely with one of this size. The rewriting process is rigorous and intense; a change in the show affects not only the book and libretto (which I have been charged with updating), but the score, vocal arrangements, band, and rotating volunteer choir of 30 people the show will feature each night. Diane, Randy, and Diedre, the authors, make edits swiftly and smartly, and it is a real challenge to keep up with them! The end result of working this way though, it seems to me, is that the show is getting stronger and stronger each day. The show is based on THE WINTERS TALE, and it's amazing to see how as I get deeper and deeper in to the musical, the themes and very powerful story of the original play become more fully illuminated for me. The story of one man's redemption is brought onto the stage with the force of a full gospel choir, and the cathartic climax of some exquisite music -- so that, we hope, the audience will really feel Ezekiel's (Leontes') transformative and magical experience of getting a second chance at happiness.

[Side note: my 99 cent Complete Works of Shakespeare iphone app has come in handy more than I can say, as has my new tiny netbook computer, which I can balance on one hand while flipping through multiple drafts of the script with the other. Two tools I'll never AD without from now on!)

And while I'm heading into tech for BEST OF BOTH WORLDS, I'm getting ready to direct Pinter's THE LOVER for DirectorFest. Casting was a wonderful experience, and one that taught me a lot. Having never worked with a casting director before, except for readings(I was paired with the brilliant Stephanie Klapper for DirectorFest), I didn't know what to expect. I found that in the auditions, I had to be on my toes as much as the actors. After all, they were auditioning me, too -- if offered the role, they would need to decide whether they would trust me to collaborate with them on a very challenging play. I also found that the auditions taught me a ton about the play itself. It was the first time I had heard actors speak any of the text, and each person came in with a different approach to piece, which was immensely helpful. Managing my time in the room was tricky, as was making decisions about callbacks on the spot, and I have the sense that I'll get better at both with practice.

I've also been meeting with our fabulous designers; I have artistic crushes on all of them. I'm extremely grateful to the Drama League for giving me the chance to work at this level -- with professional designers and stage managers, a top-notch casting director, and an insanely talented cast. I just keep thinking -- when and how else would I be able to work at this level? Even if I spent half a year fundraising and self-producing (which is what I've done for most of my projects up to this point), I don't think I could pull together the resources to do something like this.

SO I have 12 days left in Boston, and two weeks until DirectorFest starts rehearsals. After that...well I must admit it's scary to think about the unknown, open-ended freelance existence. I have several leads on money-making gigs back in NYC (everything from tutoring to focus groups), and have a few projects that I'm looking forward to jumping in to. But exactly what this new chapter of my life will look like, or how exactly I'm going to pay the rent, is something I'm not able to predict. I do know that if I ever have a shot at making it work, it's right now, and with the support of the Drama League and its network of friends and alumni, most of whom who went through a similar transition at one point or another.

Alright, I'm siging off for now. David, Ed, and Mike, I miss you guys!!

(posted by Laura)

4 days away from opening 6.5 hours of theatre!

Hi everyone – apologies for my absence from the blog, it’s been non-stop since I got to Chapel Hill at the beginning of October (I’ve now lived in NC longer than I’ve lived in NYC!), but I’ve finally got a few hours to write a little bit about my experience here so far – and it’s been a wonderful one!

I’ve been at Playmaker’s Rep in Chapel Hill NC for the past six weeks assisting on a production of NICHOLAS NICKLEBY – the epic piece, by David Edgar, is a 6.5 hour version of the 9 hour production David did with RSC – it’s split into two parts, has 25 actors, over 650 costume pieces, and is being co-directed by the fantastic Joe Haj (who’s also the artistic director of playmakers) and the equally fantastic Tom Quaintance.

When I first talked to Tom and Joe over the summer about the possibility of working on this with them, they made it very clear to me that they were to be true co-directors – neither of them would function as the primary or lead director, and they wouldn’t be dividing the piece (ie one person taking the two-handers while the other does all the big crowd scenes). And I have to say, now that we’re a week away from our marathon opening, the process has been truly co-directed – from our first rehearsal in the room, the relationship between the two of them has been incredibly fluid, the actors seem to honestly have two directors in the room they can go to with questions – and both Tom and Joe, as planned, have taken their own pass more or less through every scene of the play (in fact many of the scenes have only ever been rehearsed by both of them simultaneously, as they both bounce back and for between what’s happening in the foreground, and what’s in the background).

Joe and Tom were upfront about saying this production of Nicholas Nickleby wouldn’t look like Joe’s production – or like Tom’s production – but that hopefully their combined efforts would make for a better production than the one either of them could have directed on their own. Joe and Tom are certainly different directors, and they see different things / have different ideas and aesthetics – but as they say, and it’s proven to be true, they fundamentally agree on what good acting is. And with that as a base-line, it’s been a remarkably smooth process working for the two of them (I’m the only AD, so I work for both of them – and yes, that means a lot of running back and forth between directors and rehearsal rooms, and it means I sit between them, taking notes for both of them at the same time, which has certainly been a challenge!).

People have asked if I’ve felt like I’ve been torn between them / put in the middle ever – but both Tom and Joe have been incredibly conscious not only with me, but with the entire team, of avoiding contradictory notes and always checking in with one another to ensure that they continue to remain on the same page. (Joe’s mentioned that he’s done more prep on this, not only because of the size, but because he’s co-directing, than on almost any other production he’s ever directed). They also both really trust each other (they’ve been good friends and collaborators for many years) – and – something else, which I think is key – they both continue to learn from one another – and enjoy doing so – which has been remarkable to be with in the room.

The production is split into two parts, both of which are being simultaneously produced – the first week, we read through the play (it took two days), did table work, rewrites (more on that in a sec), and explored some staging ideas – the second week, we staged and ran all of part one (~ 140 pages) – the third week we staged and ran all of part two (~ 170 pages) – the third and fourth week we did work thru’s and run thru’s of both parts – we’ve just done a week of tech and previews for Part One – and then sat Part One down for the current week while we’re teching and previewing Part II!. (Both parts open this Saturday, back-to-back, in an all-day marathon event!).

Playmaker’s is on the UNC campus (the whole town of Chapel Hill, even the fire trucks, are UNC blue!), and also home to a graduate training program – and the 25 actors in NN come almost entirely from the Playmakers Company (there are grad/undergrad faculty in the production, local community actors, all of the 11 current grad school students, a few undergrads, and two out of town actors, including the lovely Justin Adams, who’s playing Nic).

One of the things that makes this production an especially mammoth undertaking is that Playmakers is a relatively small company – I’m the only AD, we only have two stage managers on the show (no asm’s and no pa’s, even when running rehearsals in two rooms simultaneously), the sound-designer/composer is also the sound engineer and entire sound crew, there’s only one ME – and backstage, the crew is more or less entirely made up of undergrad students (we have things like quick changes for 10 actors who all have roughly 30 seconds to make a full change, including wigs, with only 1 professional wardrobe person and four undergrads) – so the production has truly been a test for the entire community, forcing the theatre to really stretch and challenge itself. (And indeed, that’s one of the reasons Joe chose to program NN in the season).

As assistant director, my responsibilities have changed throughout the process - from note-taking to auditioning understudies, from filling in and running a rehearsal or two to helping assign (and reassign) all of the massive amounts of character-less narration in the play, from trying to cast crowd scenes based on who’s available (and who might already have appropriate clothes from other looks etc.) to communicating with other departments the various changes being made in the room (especially because there are so few of us), from trying to figure out how we stage 170 pages in a week with as little overlap between rooms as possible (ie trying to limit how often we’re calling the same actor to be in both rooms simultaneously) to filling in for the undergrad actors when they can’t be in rehearsal because of class! All along, Joe and Tom have been incredibly generous with me, really opening up their process to me – they’ve been very active in asking for my thoughts / what I’m seeing, and they listen – and they seem to actively avoid ever asking me for things like coffee / food runs (which actually really threw me when I first started working for them!).

I’ve only assisted a few times – but from the experiences I’ve had, I sort of believe that assisting and directing are two completely different things – I’ve realized that when I assist, I stop looking at work in the same way I would if I was directing it – it isn’t in my body in the same way as if I were making it. So when I’ve really been asked to make something as an assistant in the past, it’s actually been incredibly difficult – I have trouble giving myself permission to work from my impulses the way I can when it’s mine. However, I also get bored pretty easily – so I hate being in a room and not having anything to do – this process has been sort of the perfect balance – I’ve definitely been used, and kept busy, and in the ways I feel I can best, as AD, contribute to the process. And I’ve been able to meet a fantastic company who’s mission, and way of working, I really respect and enjoy – and I’ve gotten to see people working to put up big epic piece, which is definitely a passion of mine.

Here’s a sort of rough breakdown of the process / timeline up ‘til now:

WEEK ONE:
The first day I got in, having driven from NYC by way of lunch with Veronica Vorel (our sound designer for DirectorFest and a close friend of mine from YSD) in D.C.! I went straight to Joe’s house for drinks with Joe, Tom and David Edgar, to talk about the play and the plan for the first week. After that, I drove to the “actor house”, where I’ve been living since I got here – it’s a beautiful five bedroom house a fifteen minute walk from the theatre (a walk that takes me through the vine-ceilinged pathways of the campus arboretum), and a block off of Franklin Street, the main drag through Chapel Hill. For the first month, I was sharing the house with Justin, the actor playing Nic – now we’re also living with Tyler Micoleau and Annie Wiegand, our fantastic lighting designer and his lovely assistant. It’s wonderful – every morning I sit on the sun porch typing notes, drinking the free organic coffee we get from the theatre (Playmaker’s has a partnership with a great coffee roasting place, so we get free coffee every week), and watching the deer (there seem to be five deer who live in the neighborhood, and like to graze on our driveway).

The first week we split up the read through of the play over two afternoons, and then during afternoons for the rest of the week, we tabled through the show with the entire company and David Edgar. At night, we’d do exploratory staging work on some of the more challenging sections of the show, so Joe and Tom could get a chance to work options for different theatrical vocabularies with the actors on their feet – figuring out how to handle some of the massive sequences of narration in the play, some of the larger group scenes, what it meant to put some of the different worlds in the play on its feet. The combination of work on our feet and intensive table work seemed to be great (for David Edgar as well as the rest of us, for when he developed the show with RSC they never really as a company did that kind of really rigorous table work on the show b/c they were developing the material throughout the process). There definitely seemed to be a great balance between careful specific work and freeing exploration as early as day one, which I think allowed for a rehearsal process throughout that has remained incredibly calm and relaxed (especially given the scale of the project). (That first week, we also lost a few of our actors, including our Ralph and Kate Nickleby, because they were still in performances for the first PRC production of the season, OPUS – the first of many many scheduling challenges to come!).

The other big thing that first week, was having David Edgar in the room with us – and realizing how engaged he was with the material, decades late, and how invested he was in continuing to work on it – that week, we ended up working on several rewrites that he himself proposed – and it’s amazing to me that he was so generous with us / our production, was still so invested. Two of the biggest rewrites came about because we were doing a 6.5 hour version of what was originally a 9 hour play – so, essentially the second and third 3 hour plays had been cut together to make 1 three hour play. Part I and II in the 6.5 hour version are definitely very different plays – the first is much lighter, flashier – the second is much darker. One of the rewrites was to take an already existing scene and flesh it out as more of a party (for Nic, when he leaves the theatrical company he joins toward the end of part I), to create a bigger scene early on in Part II. And one of the others was to rework several scenes into something more streamlined, to accommodate the new two-part structure, eliminate some particularly rough costume changes, and streamline the plot. Both were great changes – (wow, what an opportunity to have David Edgar in the room with us! I still can’t believe it).

WEEKS TWO and THREE:
We staged ~140 pages in the first week – and ~170 pages the second week. (Or, roughly 40 pages a day for two weeks).

We were working more or less in two rooms simultaneously (sometimes having to stage things w/out all of the actors because they were called in both rooms). And then, for the last hour of every day, we’d all come back together to the bigger rehearsal room to run the sequence of scenes that had been staged that day. Figuring out the rehearsal schedule every day for those first few weeks was sometimes close to (a very exciting kind of) madness – trying to figure out what could be rehearsed against what, and what scenes could be rehearsed without which actors, so that everything could be accomplished – and trying to work off of breakdowns of scenes/actors that were constantly changing as narration was assigned and reassigned, as characters were taken out of scenes to accommodate quick changes, as others were added to beef up crowd scenes – and taking into account class schedules of the undergrads (I’ve done my fair share of standing in for missing actors over the past few weeks!) – and to accommodate fittings (our third week of rehearsals, there were 24 hours of fittings that had to be schedule into rehearsal time – there’s no ability to hold fittings before rehearsals since more or less everyone in the show and shop is in class until we go into rehearsals…). It sometimes felt close to chaos, trying to work off of paper work that couldn’t keep up with the amount of work being created each day b/c there were only two stage managers and myself running between the three rooms and noting everything – but – somehow – we did it – and on schedule – and with the exception of maybe one day during the staging of part II, we never actually seemed to be going so quickly that we couldn’t all keep up (the cast for this show was spectacularly prepared coming in, and everyone in the room, on both sides of the table, was able to work at more or less the same pace).

Also that week, I auditioned undergrads for potential understudies – now we’re fully understudied, and all 25 actors in the show are covered! Fingers crossed no one ever has to go on – it would be a massive undertaking for anyone to have to suddenly step in to the show! (Though we have some remarkably dedicated understudies!).

TECH FOR PART ONE:
Part one, which is actually the shorter play, received about five extra hours of tech than part two will… We began tech a week ago from last Friday night, had back-to-back 10 out of 12’s last Saturday and Sunday, had a few more hours of tech last Tuesday afternoon, an invited dress Tuesday night, and then Wednesday night we went into previews! We continued to have tech during the afternoons while in previews, but because the show is primarily crewed by undergrads, we have afternoon tech’s without full wardrobe crews etc. – so things like quick changes have to be figured out and perfected before we actually get into previews, because once we’re in previews we no longer actually have tech time with the wardrobe crew – and there are a LOT of EXTREMELY tight quick changes (actors exiting from one side of the building and returning from the opposite side, on a different level, seconds later, having made a full change of clothes and hair). It was very very fast – but we made it. And by the second preview, the company was really able to take full ownership over the piece. My favorite note from Joe and Tom was in response to the first preview, in preparation for the second: they told the cast that basically we were still working to size up to the room – but it wasn’t a question of volume – it wasn’t about reaching the back wall – it was about bringing the back wall closer. It was a great note – and sitting in the house for the second preview, I could really feel that shift in energy from the company.

TECH FOR PART TWO:
Well, Friday night we had our third preview for part one – and Saturday we started teching an entirely new 3 hour full length play with it’s own set of locations, characters and quick changes! Part Two is the longer play – and there’s less tech time. We’ll finish teching through Part II tomorrow (which includes some of the most difficult technical moments in the show, like the hanging of Ralph, and some of the most brutal quick changes in the 6.5 hours piece) – and then we’ll have our dress rehearsal tomorrow night! We’ve got afternoon tech / evening previews for Part Two on Wednesday and Thursday – Friday we’ll do a light run of Part One in the afternoon as a brush up, have our third preview of Part Two that night (which means I’ll have notes from two directors on 6.5 hours of theatre to type up and organize Friday night – YIKES!) – and then Saturday we open both parts back-to-back! I’ve two friends coming to see it (one of whom is Drama League summer alum Kate Pines!) – then we drive back to NYC the next day, by way of FULL CIRCLE at Woolly Mammoth, which Veronica Vorel sound designed… and then Monday and Tuesday I have auditions and callbacks for COUPLING!!! (This has been my first experience working with a casting director - I’m working with Cindi Rush and her wonderful assistant, Michele – and it’s been a great experience, feeling so taken care of in the casting process, and having to be responsible for articulating what you’re looking for, but not for necessarily knowing where/how to find it).

NN has certainly been a once-in-a-lifetime wild ride – and a major part of what’s made the experience invaluable is the community. The Playmaker’s family has been incredibly welcoming – I already had some friends here coming in (Sarah Pickett, the resident sound designer/composer at the theatre this year, who’s designing NN, is a close friend and collaborator from YSD – and the managing director of the theatre, Hannah Grannemann, was also a classmate of mine at Yale) – but really the entire community, from the staff to grad/undergrad students and faculty have been incredibly warm, open, and generous – and I’ve really felt welcomed as a part of the community, from dinners out and in, bar nights, and birthday celebrations to the spectacularly designed Playmakers annual ball and actors in NN helping me out with readings of my piece for DirectorFest!

Perhaps the most challenging part of this experience has been trying to balance the considerable amount of work for NN with my other projects (while here, I’ve been working on five productions I’m directing between December and late April). I’m not sure I’ve figured out the answer – and I’m certainly thankful to have the work – but if I assist again, I’ll have to continue to work on figuring out that balance.

Of course, no blog posting would be complete without a little bit on the food – and Chapel Hill is certainly a great place for food. On the Sunday nights of our ten out of twelves, community volunteers cook dinner for everyone at the theatre – the first week, they did a shepherd’s pie cook-off (the one with cheese on top won by a landslide, though there was also a pretty great one with lamb) – and yesterday, we had (my first) North Carolina BBQ (which is vinegar-based, I learned – I also had my first hush puppy). I’ve also learned that the State Fair (which was on while I was here, though I unfortunately didn’t have time to go) is a mecca of fried food (fried caramel-apples, for instance – they also do chocolate-covered bacon); I’ve been to Time Out, the 24-hour Southern fast food place for chicken-biscuits, mac’n cheese and fried okra – I’ve had the frozen mint juleps from Crooks Corner – the (bacon) cheese fries from Lindas (the local bar everyone at PRC goes to – they even stay open late on Sunday nights when we have ten out of twelves) – the birthday cake shot from Top of the Hill (I had my 27th birthday here – and Sarah Berk, one of the lovely undergrads in our show, bought me the shot, which she assured me is a birthday tradition in Chapel Hill, albeit for your 21st birthday…) – the big thing left on my list: the chicken-biscuit from the biscuit kitchen – I’m going on my last morning here, on the way out (so I can’t be tempted to go back again). I’ve learned there’s a war between flakey and fluffy biscuits – I haven’t yet sampled enough to weigh in – but perhaps after the biscuit kitchen this sunday, I’ll be able to ;)

So – that’s the news on this, my last day off in Chapel Hill – more to come soon on COUPLING HEURISTIC once I’m back in NYC! And if you haven’t already, get your tix to DirectorFest!!!

Performances are at the Abingdon Theatre Arts Complex at 312 W. 36th Street, on the following days / times:

Thursday Dec. 10th @ 7pm
Friday Dec. 11th @ 8pm
Saturday Dec. 12th @ 2pm / 8pm
Sunday Dec. 13th @ 3pm

For industry reservations, call: 212-252-2103
For general tix: www.smarttix.com, or 212-868-4444

Hope to see everyone there!

Cheers,
Mike

(And if you’re interested in reading more about NN, Playmakers has been keeping a FANTASTIC blog since last spring – you can see pics from dress rehearsals, videos of Joe Haj and the designers talking about the production, notes (and sketches etc.) from staff, designers, dramaturgs and actors during all stages of the process – it’s GREAT – so check it out!)

http://playmakersrep.blogspot.com/

Rehearsing for Pa'Tina's Cabaret

Rehearsals are now in full swing for Pa’Tina Miller: Live in Concert. James Sampliner (below, conferring with Pa'Tina), Billy’s regular musical director, arrives from the U.S. in the morning and heads straight to rehearsal, double-fisting cans of Red Bull.


Billy is an outstanding musician, and a passionate, larger-than-life personality in the rehearsal room. He knows every lyric and every melodic part of every song on the set list, including each individual melodic line for the three back-up singers. This is the equivalent of coming into rehearsal on a straight play with every line memorized.


He coaches Pa'Tina through her solos, and immediately launches into teaching "the Black-Ups" their parts. I notice immediately that he is incredibly nuanced with his use of the back-up singers. This has the effect of really heightening specific moments in specific songs. There is a clear dramatic journey being built.


Landy, Asya and Kerry are all in the nun ensemble of Sister Act the Musical, so they are all rehearsing for the cabaret in their free time while running the show in the evening. Since Pa’Tina will be taking a week off the show, this means that Landy (on the left) will also be appearing on stage in the lead role while rushing back and forth to rehearsals to sing back-up for the cabaret. On the day of the show itself, she will have sung Sister Deloris for two shows before singing the cabaret!


I am just in awe of how energetic and passionate they are. Brits are known for being reserved and self-deprecating (a generalization, I know, but this was quite true of what I experienced during my own schooling here!), but the love and admiration that these girls have for Pa’Tina is immediately obvious. They - along with Billy and James - are totally in this to make Pa’Tina’s debut cabaret the very best experience and quality it can be.


By the end of the day, the leading lady is exhilarated, exhausted and excited. And I am alliterating!

(posted by Ed)