Directing Retreat - Final Day

Well, it's been an unforgettable few days. The beauty of our surroundings, the generosity of the actors, the hospitality of Lloyd and Suzanne, and the support and guidance of Davis McCollum (our mentor director), David Adjmi (our playwright-in-res) and Roger have given the four of us immense room to experiment and grow. I have never been in a directing class or lab where I wasn't directing either other directors or acting students. the fact that we got to work with 8 professional actors who came out here purely to support our work was a gift. And, although it sometimes made us all a little panicky, being cut off from New York was essential. I can’t remember the last time I haven’t checked email or voicemail for 4 days (thank goodness for the vacation auto-responder).

Some parts of the week were certainly challenging -- we had to direct monologues and scenes in a very short amount of time, some actors had only been "cast" at the 11th hour and hadn't even read the play... plus our work was competing for our attention with the amazing surroundings, the food, and hanging out with the actors and other folks up there. (“I COULD work on my Arthur Miller pitch … or I could take a walk through the woods …”) But the supportive attitude of the group made me always feel like I could try anything.

We used every square inch of space at Stump Sprouts in our pursuit of the perfect environment for each scene. I directed Megan's Sam Shepard monologue in the basement of the farmhouse, surrounded by discarded logs and bits of insulation and under dense cobwebs -- one of the more unpleasant places I have been, but perfect for the scorched-earth setting in Cowboy Mouth. I also directed Susan in Daniel MacIvor's See Bob Run in a gravel pit by the main road -- an evocative choice since it is the actual setting of the play, and gave us the chance to creep up on the character and discover her mid-thought. Both Megan and Susan really trusted the experimentation, and we made some interesting discoveries in a few short hours.

For our scenes (we each did two from Adjmi's Marie Antoinette), the four of us went even further. It was fun, after spending a week getting to hear each other's "spiel" multiple times, to finally see each other's work. We set scenes in windows, on the roof, around the tractor, in a portable puppet theatre, running through fields, in a sauna ... We managed to create some compelling moments of theatricality with zero rehearsal, budget, or equipment except what we could get Lloyd to scrounge up from the toolshed. Some memorable moments -- Laura's final scene, lit by car headlights and performed partly on the roof of the shed, with the lights cutting out just as the guillotine dropped over Marie's head ... Ed's brilliant use of the stairwell landing in the barn as a multi-leveled performance space for Marie and her sheep/wolf persecutor ... and Mike's beautifully meta-theatrical staging of Marie's "hameau" fantasyland, in which the audience was the costumed (and scented) characters and Marie and Lamballe watched us from within a screened-in porch. My own finest moment, I must admit, may have been the sheep puppet I constructed, rigged, and operated using only a Coleman cooler, a plastic flower pot, and fishing line. It got exit applause.

(posted by David)