Two Trilogies

Today, a double-bill of the first parts of trilogies. I go to see Tarrell McCraney's Brother/Sister plays at the Public with my friend Jenny Tibbels-Jordan (who I got to know during the Lincoln Center Directors Lab this past summer). We ran into another Lab alum, Garrett Ayers, while there, and had a great time talking together about this wonderful new play and the astonishingly theatrical direction.


Above on the right is my friend Jenny Tibbels-Jordan, Co-Artistic Director of the hot new NYC company Ruffled Feathers, next to another LCT Directors Lab alum. Jenny and I are in talks to develop a new play for her company for the 2010-11 season, to be written by Jason Williamson.


Above is LCT Directors Lab alum Garrett Ayers, with me. Garrett is currently assisting on a production of The Trojan Women at NYU's Experimental Wing.

We then meet up with Heather Alicia Simms, another Lab alum who is starring in the production. I end up walking around NYUville with Heather on various errands. Heather has just gotten married (congratulations to that lucky, lucky man), and checked in on her registry at Crate and Barrel, and then rushed to Chipotle to get her guacamole fix before getting back to the theatre for her evening performance.


Above, the wonderful Heather Alicia Simms, currently appearing in The Brother/Sister Plays at the Public Theater. She is nothing short of sensational in her roles in the plays. Anyone who is able to catch the shows is in for a real theatrical treat.

I then head off to Signature Theatre Company's production of the first three plays in the epic Horton Foote 9-play cycle, The Orphans Home Trilogy. This was alumni night, a special performance for all past employees of Signature, and always a great time to see old friends and make new acquaintances. I had managed to see a wonderful production of The Trip to Bountiful, starring the incomparable Lois Smith, at Chicago's Goodman Theatre (in a production that originated at STC), and have developed a real interest in Foote's work. It achieves both the epic scope and the precision that I identify great playwriting with, and I am just thrilled that New York will be able to see such a great deal of Horton Foote during his legacy season at STC. Michael Wilson's production was gorgeous, elegant, sophisticated - NYC is in for a Horton Foote feast this year, with six more plays joining the repertory. I cannot wait to see the rest - and then perhaps, an encore of the nine plays in one sitting during an STC marathon day in 2010!


Above, the 2009 Lincoln Center Directors Lab, on the first day. An incredible, enriching three-weeks of fellow directors who guide each other through their various paths, experiences and experiments in creating a career in the theatre and living a life in the arts.

(posted by Ed)

Catching Up on the Pier, Dramaturging and Fela!

Today is Saturday. I spent the afternoon catching up with yet another friend from school, Dan Amboyer. We end up hanging out at a pier on the river for several hours. Dan is in a period of great transition, and is in the process of signing with a new agent. It is always astonishing to me just how difficult it is to forge a career for oneself in the acting business, especially in New York. The two of us have admired each other's work tremendously, and we're committed to finding an avenue to work together.


Above, Dan Amboyer at the pier.

Then to a meeting with Greg VanHorn, my dramaturg, at my favorite 9th Ave. restaurant, Rice and Beans. Greg and I have worked together for several years now. We got to know each other through a production of Miss Julie at Carnegie Mellon, and have been inseparable ever since. He knows my taste and my aesthetic thoroughly, and is an invaluable partner in planning and in production. I value his opinion, and we trade our notes about the current draft of the play, as well as the various design ideas that are in motion. We start plotting the actor packet for the rehearsal process. Below, some production photographs on our Miss Julie, featuring the wonderful Kara Lindsay (currently in the starring role in A Little House on the Prairie, the Musical) as Julie and the astonishing Rich Dreher as John.





Then, off to Fela! with Michael Finkle, the movement director for the play. Michael is another colleague from Carnegie Mellon and a talented director in his own right. He will be helping me create a series of non-naturalistic physical sequences in the transition scenes of the play. I'm interested in incorporated movement and music into the production to engage the audience emotionally. We talk about various ideas and possibilities long into the night.

(posted by Ed)

A Celebrity, and Callbacks

Today is Friday. The chief activity today has been a long day of callbacks. Dani is again running things for the day, but I am joined by my friend the playwright, Jason Williamson. He is eager to hear the text and to meet the actors we're interested in. At the top of the day, we have our first celebrity meeting with an accomplished Broadway and television actress who had expressed an interest in the play. The actress in question came in immaculately prepared. She had clearly spent a great deal of time with the play already, and engaged us immediately in a structural and character analysis of the play. We talked fairly informally, and it became obvious that this was a mutual meeting of minds. It was an incredible little moment for both Jason and myself, and we are very excited to see how this relationship will develop. Then on to callbacks, in which we saw actors in groups of three reading various sides from the play together. The differences in interpretation from actor to actor were great fun to observe. The process of hearing the scenes over and over again really helped open up the world of the play for us both. No play for me tonight - I realized I had spent the entire day watching my own play in motion, and I had no desire to prolong that engagement in the evening! Back to Astoria for a restorative evening with friends.

(posted by Ed)

Meeting Jason, Julia and Herb

Today is Thursday. I wake up thinking hard about the wonderful actors I had seen the day before, and where and how they might fit in the play. I realize of course that what I had been auditioning for the day before was a sense of an actor whose first instinct with the material aligned with mine. With a 6-day rehearsal period, there will be very little excess time, and we need to start from the same page. I love meeting and getting to know new actors - on some primal level, the most exciting thing about making theatre to me is the chance to collide with a group of people extremely intensely. Most theatre makers can attest that the bonds forged in the fire of the rehearsal room last forever - time and circumstance does very little to dull the connections that we make. I think we recognize ourselves in each other, and when we see a colleague walk down the street from a project we've done ten years ago, it is like no time has passed and we pick up where we've left off.

The first meeting of the day is with Jason Quinn, stage manager. Jason has a resume that is longer than my arm. We share a late lunch together at Vynl on 9th Ave., most of which I spent laughing at his various stories from the theatre trenches. He has a great sense of humor, and we seemed to get along - I am looking forward to working with him. Then, a face-to-face meeting with Julia Noulin-Merat, scenic designer, in her studio on 10th Ave. Julia and I have traded many an e-mail and phone conversation in the past month, so it was great to sit down with her and talk through the play. We worked through the story scene by scene, considering all scenic and prop elements and effects we wanted to use. Despite the low budget for the production, we're coming up with some great scenic ideas which will help create the fairy-tale world of the play and give the audience a little visual bang for their buck. The chief scenic design concept is a moving back wall which will embody Peter's mind. The journey the audience will be privy to is his attempt to wrestle memory and imagination into a cohesive whole. Props and items that figure in his consciousness will appear and disappear from drawers in the wall. Julia and I are at work trying to define what the visual aesthetic of the wall should be. One idea is to create a series of alternating cabinets. Another is to use the idea of waves, which to me is a closer representation of memory. By chance, Jason Williamson (the playwright) and I were walking down the road and walked past the below wall in the lobby of a 10th Ave. apartment building:


Clearly, it's come to the moment in the process when every part of my daily experience is beginning to inform decisions I have to make about the play! I love this moment - everything feels alive and full of possibility. The mythical blank canvas is beginning to fill itself, and I can begin to shape and manipulate the colors and shapes that are appearing.

Then, I meet up with ex-DL board member Herb Blodgett to watch Doug Hughes' production of Oleanna, which we discussed at length over dinner at Sardi's afterwards. A thought-provoking and compelling production, featuring a very controlled and surprisingly sympathetic performance from Julia Stiles. Something I love about Doug Hughes' work is that he fully uses every transition to further the telling of the story. He and scenic designer Neil Patel have come up with an extremely simple and powerful visual metaphor for this play - metallic blinds automatically close in on the protagonists of the play at the beginning and end of each scene, immediately conveying a sense of imprisonment and entrapment.

(posted by Ed)

First Audition Session, and Quartett at BAM

Today is Wednesday, and the first day of casting. I am oddly nervous. I did not sleep the night before, which I initially blamed on the deadly combination of cocktails and jet-lag. But I know deep down that the time had come to start translating the play in my head into something accessible and real. Dani Super (casting director) had already booked a day full of auditions, and I was able to see a variety of actors for each of the roles in the play (Peter, Angela and Death). She provides a great range of looks and ages for the roles, and also knows the background of each actor intimately - a great resource for me as I try to figure out the essence of each character. Hearing the text aloud is a real defining moment in the play's journey. By the end of the day, I have figured out certain acting habits that come out of specific training programs! We peg our favorites, and set up callbacks for later in the week. I determine to call people back in companies of three (one choice per character in the play) so that I can see how a full cast might interact with the material.

Tonight’s play outing had been planned for some time. The moment BAM released their Next Wave schedule for the fall, I snapped up tickets to Robert Wilson’s production of Quartett. This is a figure that had been discussed in almost every class in grad school, and it is one of my ambitions to have seen at least one live production of every director that has this kind of universal impact. I invited my three best friends from grad school to come to the Wilson experience with me (Kathleen Amshoff, my fellow director; Jason Williamson, the playwright with whom I’ve worked almost exclusively for five years, and Chris Dimond, another incredible playwright on the verge of breaking through).


It was a pretty extraordinary evening - unlike anything any of us had experienced before, and it provoked a lively discussion afterwards. What ended up on stage was almost exactly what we had studied and discussed in class, although the variable was the experience of watching it all unfold live, rather than having the comfort of flipping through pictures at one’s own pace. The production was able to completely create its own sense of time and space, and kept deliberately jarring the audience with unorthodox interludes (our favorite being the half-naked old man who insisted on doing some kind of clown jig during the major scene changes). 90 minutes of stage time felt like an eternity of provocation and contemplation. Watching each other watch the show was as much a part of the experience as the show itself, particularly during Isabelle Huppert’s show-opening four-minute monologue, delivered rapidly and in monotone - a novel solution indeed! We discuss the production and each other at Scopello's, a lovely Italian restaurant two blocks up from the Harvey that has become our BAM retreat. It is always so good to be with old friends. The process of finding out what has happened to one another is so very reassuring – proof positive that we are not at all alone in forging these paths ahead, and we do have people who understand and support our journeys.


From left: Jason Williamson (writer of The Red Umbrella), myself, Chris Dimond and Kathleen Amshoff post-Quartett at Scopello's

(posted by Ed)

On Costuming and Vibrators

With "Midsummer" open, I spent a week in New York in pre-production meetings and casting for The Red Umbrella (the short play I am directing as part DirectorFest). After a late Monday night arrival, I meet with Whitney Locher (costume designer) the following afternoon. We broke the play down into a distinct set of looks for every character, talked about progression of color and came to an agreement on key costume moments in the story. We're using a very specific color design to make the actors pop from Julia Noulin-Merat’s set, which will embody the world as Peter sees it through a sterile, insular box of monochromatic white. To achieve the maximum amount of changes and to take up the least amount of stage time, we’ve decided on multiple layers for every character for the actors to manipulate into different looks by taking off or modifying the different items. The key color element of the play is of course the Red Umbrella. This will be the only red item in the play, and it will be the most saturated of all the colors we include. The appearance of Red will be a visual keystone that will tie together all the other colors on stage into a unified painting.

Research images for two possible looks for Death:



I try to see a play a day whenever I am in New York, and I combine this with socializing and catching up with friends old and new. On this night, I had made a date with Barrett Davis and Allison Byrnes, two wonderful actors and dear friends, to watch Les Waters' stunning production of the new Sarah Ruhl play, In The Next Room (or, The Vibrator Play). We had a sense that this was going to be a production we would want to talk about after seeing it. Without a doubt, this is the play that everyone will be talking about this season! A must-see, especially for the rhapsodic final wordless scene, which had the three of us literally breathless, swooning and tearing up at the same time. I took a directing class with Les as an undergrad at Stanford, and he remains a seminal influence and inspiration. I have been deeply affected by the brilliant, passionate, image-drenched productions of new plays he has found over the years – Doris to Darlene: A Cautionary Valentine, Eurydice, Fetes de la Nuit and The Pillowman to name a few – and I look eagerly forward to what seems to be the golden summer of his vibrant career.


Above (from left): Barrett Davis, currently appearing in Mary Poppins, and Allison Byrnes, who is based in Los Angeles.
(posted by Ed)

The countdown begins!

Hi everyone,
Greetings again from ADDAMS FAMILY tech here in Chicago.
It has been TWO months since our first official NYC rehearsal, and still FIVE months before our April opening on Broadway, but we are about to hit a major milestone -- our first public performances!
Today is Tuesday, and our first audience (an invited dress) is Thursday night! By Sunday night, we will have had the invited dress and four previews, which means that we will have played to almost 10,000 people (the Ford Center/Oriental Theatre seats over 2200, and we are selling well). Someone, please check my math.
My time in Chicago has continued to be exciting and illuminating. Like the other fellows, I am in the theatre for long hours every day (usually 12-hour days, even if the cast is only called for 8 of them) and my responsibilities vary constantly. With two directors plus an associate director (former Drama League fellow Heidi Marshall), new script and score pages coming constantly, rehearsal needs, tech and actor notes, creative and investor meetings, press appearances, and more ... there is always something to do.
We have been in costume, hair, and makeup since last week, and the design work is stunning. (For a sneak preview -- pick up a December issue of Vanity Fair, which ran a photo of our Family Portrait. Or, you can follow this link to see the same photo on Playbill: http://www.playbill.com/playblog/?p=2363).
A few days ago, we had our sitzprobe (the first rehearsal with cast and orchestra, usually in a rehearsal studio rather than onstage -- Generally the first time the cast hears all the orchestrations) last week. It was a terrific moment for everyone, particularly our composer/lyricist Andrew Lippa, who is making his official Broadway debut with this production. I can only imagine what it must feel like to hear Nathan Lane and Bebe Neuwirth (and the rest of the talented cast) singing your songs with a full orchestra under them.
The buzz in Chicago has been very positive, and our team is eager to open to this audience first. (Many comparisons have been made to Nathan Lane's last big musical hit -- The Producers -- which also opened in Chicago.)
I am particularly excited about watching director/designers Julian Crouch and Phelim McDermott go through this experience. I am learning constantly.

Wish us luck as we undergo the next phase of this long process -- out-of-town previews!
best,
David

It's a Hit!

"A Midsummer Night's Dream" has opened, and audience reception has been wild and rapturous. The play has survived 400+ years of theatrical experimentation, so perhaps it is not a huge surprise that it should once again work its charms on an audience. However, Kevin Moriarty's production of the play is so completely engaged in giving the audience a fully immersive, environmental experience, that they have been delighted and startled by a "Midsummer" they have never encountered before.

There is some formidable directorial artillery on display. First of all, the play is staged on all three levels and on all three sides of the new Wyly Theatre in its thrust configuration, eliminating any separation between performer and audience. For instance, Helena takes refuge inside the audience stalls when Hermia declares war on her in the woods. The fairy world is also realized in a way that uniquely engages with the theatrical space. Moriarty was inspired by the artist Keith Haring in implementing the metaphor of chalking as fairy magic in the world of the play. As soon as they enter the story, fairies run around the entirety of the theatre chalking icons and tags, their equivalent of releasing spells of mischief and love around the house.

A sample icon (this one belongs to Puck, the mischief-maker of Love):

By the end of intermission, the entire theatre has been transformed into a gorgeous tapestry of chalk graffiti, living embodiment of the audience's engagement with the play.

This is a sample of the fairies' chalking - here presented on practice paper:

This is what the theatre looked like, post-intermission, when the brunt of the chalking (with audience help) takes place:

This yellow drop is revealed after four acts of monochromatic marbled black, symbolizing the impact of Love in a tyrannous court:

Moriarty plays his strongest suit at the end of the play, when the lovers' wedding night transforms into a full-on wedding celebration and the cast invites the entire audience up onto the stage to bless and celebrate their new home with them while they execute a full-on sung-through and choreographed top 40 hit parade. As the theatre shakes with dancing and delight, the audience also experiences a series of stunning reveals: first, the yellow painted drop flies out, revealing the entire backstage of the theatre, readied for a disco party; then, a stream of balloons releases from the roof while beach balls appear from the corners and join in the celebration; then, a curtain of bubbles descends upon the assembled crowd, and as they look up, the window shades of the theatre lift up and reveal the city of Dallas through glass walls.

The party from outside:

The party from inside:

The critical reception has been rapturous. The leading Dallas papers and blogs have embraced the show, commenting in particular on the immersive nature of the production, and on the connection that young theatregoers are finding through their experience of the show. You can bet Dallas audiences will be lining up for the rest of DTC's offerings in the upcoming season, their 51st, and the 1st in their new home. Here's to the next 50 years!

(posted by Ed)

Cambridge, MA

I am just wrapping up my second week in Cabridge, assistant directing BEST OF BOTH WORLDS at the American Repertory Theater. Is has been a whilrwhind! I find that assistant directing always takes over my life more than I expect, but this show is especially that way.

BEST OF BOTH WORLDS is a new gospel and R&B musical based on Shakespeare's THE WINTERS TALE. The music is by Diedre Murray and the book and lyrics are by Randy Weiner and Diane Paulus, who is directing. The musical has a cast of nine including a child actor, a four-piece band, a big car on stage 20+ songs that -- along with the book, choreography, and staging -- are constantly evolving, so there is a lot of work for everyone involved.

The cast is made up of some AMAZING performers, many of whom are Broadway or opera veterans. Hearing them sing this music every day is thrilling. One song, sung by Jeannette Bayardelle, makes me cry every time I hear it-- to the point that it's hard for me to write down the blocking!

My duties in rehearsal encompass a lot of different tasks. In general, I try to anticipate Diane's needs, to offer creative ideas when she invites them, and to help stage management stay on top of organizing and tracking rewrites, new music, schedules, and all the other paperwork and details in the rehearsal room.

Heres a "day in the life" for me right now.

8am Check e-mail for rewrites that come from the authors overnight, and forward to stage management to start making a plan with them on how to implement the changes.

9am Walk to the rehearsal space in Harvard Square. It is a beautiful 20-minute walk among elegrant old brick homes with a canopy of red and yellow leaves overhead(see the photo above). It is truly the perfect change of scene from NYC, where I have been for the past five years.

9:30-11 Prep for the day alongside stage management or attend some kind of design/production meeting -- such as visiting the car in the scene shop to find out what kind of flexibility it has for staging.

11-2 Rehearsal. During music reherasal, I double-check the lyrics in the book against the lyrics in the score. This is also when I accomplish a lot of paperwork and script updates with stage management. It's also the time when I sometimes run scenes with the actors who are not needed for music reheearsal for a particular song.

During staging, I sit near Diane and the choreographer. I write down blocking, take notes down for Diane, and sometimes jump up to walk someone's role or whisper a quick message in the music director's ear. Diane is an incredible leader. She works very collaboratively, but make decisions quickly and effectively. She moves fast and demands great focus and creativity from the actors. Keeping up with her is an exciting challenge, and getting to occasionally be another set of hands or ears for her is a treat.

2-3 Lunch. Which means more organizational work with stage management, pow-wowing with our choreographer, composer, and/or music director, running errands to the theater, and hopefully, eating something!

3-7 More rehearsal.

7-8 Some days, pow-wow with Diane and dramaturg about possible script changes. And every day, meet with stage management to compare notes about changes and help plan the schedule for the next day.

9-11 Eat dinner and review notes on staging / update out-of-town members of the creative team about progress/changes/questions from rehearsal.

These are full days!

It can be exhausting, but now that I've in settled into Cambridge and am getting to know everybody, it's easy to stay energized, because I am genuinely excited about this show and am eager to see it put in front of audiences here. Diane's enthusiasm and seemingly boundless energy is also infectious; you almost can't help being passionate about the work we're doing as soon as you walk in the door at A.R.T.

So all's well on my front. Happy Halloween, everyone! I hope to write more soon.

(posted by Laura)

It's Opening Night!

Today, the new Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre in the AT&T Performing Arts Center will officially be unveiled. The preview period for Kevin Moriarty's inaugural production of A Midsummer Night's Dream has been fairly epic. Preview audiences have been test subjects for both the play, and the building itself. While it is fairly simple to gauge whether or not a moment is clear and engaging via the audience response, figuring out the nooks and crannies of the building has proved far more tricky. Last night, we had a patron get locked into an elevator chamber for the duration of the play! The first clue that we had that anything was wrong was 911 showing up in the theatre lobby! But the entire company is absolutely engaged in the frantic drive over the finish line: light cues are being polished, special effects tweaked, and acting notes addressed. Tonight, the company will face the Dallas glitterati (audiences here sure know how to dress for the occasion), and tomorrow, the verdict will be delivered!

In the meantime, here are snapshots of the exterior of the brand new theatre, the first thing that audiences will see as they arrive.



Warmest congratulations to the DTC company of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" on arriving at this moment.

(posted by Ed)

Dallas in Magic Hour

The City of Dallas is going through a very visible process of progress and development. Somewhat unusually for the times we are in, it is chock full of ambitious construction projects and new additions to its richly textured cityscape. I found myself in a reflective mood yesterday, going into one of our final previews and anticipating the biggest theatrical opening night in Dallas history tomorrow, and so I took a long walk during my dinner break. I found myself confronted by a city of changing colors during a vibrant sunset. It quite an emotional experience, which I realized was because it is also the magic hour of the production process, in which everyone is journeying toward the final destination of the play. Everyone connected to the production process is profoundly affected by a sense of endings, and new beginnings, and the vulnerability that this brings on often gives rise to hidden layers still buried under the surface of the text. It is a pregnant moment, full of possibility and expectation. It is how I will remember the city of Dallas.






(posted by Ed)

Looking to Thanksgiving

We're in the midst of previews for "A Midsummer Night's Dream," and I find myself looking forward to a little holiday. Thanksgiving is my favorite U.S. tradition. We have nothing like it in Indonesia, or in the U.K., the two countries in which I grew up. The theatre to me is like the Thanksgiving table - it provides an event around which friends and family (and strangers) can congregate and share in a basic, fundamental human activity. For me, making a feast and making a play are two not so different things. My directing mentor in grad school watched me cook dinner for him and told me that he had diagnosed everything he needed to understand about my directing from my cooking technique. I was not entirely sure what he meant at the time, but the comment stuck in my head and I can now see a clear relationship between how I cook and how I direct! I love to use the freshest produce from the farmer's markets, and love to explore how an unexpected combination of meats might interact with one another. I have my stock ingredients that go into everything - garlic, ginger, organic soy, truffle oil, palm sugar, organic chicken stock, cilantro, chives and habanero chilli peppers - but I tend to mix, blend and cook them into the meal in a different way each time. I cook to taste, and never with a recipe. The food is a form of Asian fusion soul food - a reflection of all the different cultures I've been exposed to. Recently, I've become very interested in cooking each individual component separately, and finally mixing them all into the final dish by hand. It makes the contribution of each different element very distinct, but still cohesively blends together. That philosophical transition is clearly reflected in how I am approaching the different elements of the design process for The Red Umbrella! I am excited to see how my exposure to the culinary pleasures of Dallas will influence my theatrical aesthetic!

Some dishes I've encountered and loved during my time in Dallas:

(posted by Ed)

hitting the press

Greetings from Addams Family tech in Chicago.

We had a major meet-the-press event yesterday at the Oriental. Here is one of the articles that came out of it (including a cool feature showing different incarnations of the Addams Family through the decades).

http://www.suntimes.com/entertainment/weiss/1838279,CST-FTR-Addams22.article#

Also in Addams Family news, sadly, Vic Mizzy, the original composer of the Addams Family theme (buh-buh-buh-bumb, snap-snap) passed away at 93.

http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-vic-mizzy20-2009oct20,0,1713293.story

-david

First Day of Tech

Tomorrow is our first day of tech in a brand new theatre in a newly opened building. And this is what it looks like:

(posted by Ed)

Thoughts on Chicago...

Why being in Chicago with the Addams Family is so special...

Chicago is my hometown. I lived in this area until I was 18, and then again in my early twenties as a freelance director. Now I am back, as a Drama League fellow on the Addams Family, which is currently in tech at the Oriental Theatre (and I do mean "currently": I am sitting in the theatre right now.) Being back here "on assignment" is wonderfully weird. I am here for the first time, and I am coming home. I have been keeping a mental list of these surprises and contradictions:

... From my fabulous 29th Floor company-provided studio apartment, I can see the RR Donnelly building and the Merchandise Mart, places I temped as a starving artist in Chicago ...

... Adams Street in downtown Chicago, named for our 2nd and 6th Presidents and the street on which my father has worked for 15 years, now seems to be missing a second "D".

... I left Chicago to be a Luce Scholar in Vietnam ... so is it a coincidence that I am back to work on a project in the ORIENTAL Theatre?

I'll keep thinking of more. In the meantime, I just feel grateful to be here, excited for the cast to arrive this weekend, and looking forward to the next few weeks working on my first pre-Bway musical.

More updates to come.

David

All About The Red Umbrella

Pre-production is officially in full swing on DirectorFest. I am directing The Red Umbrella, a short play written by my long-time collaborator and friend, Jason Williamson. This marks our tenth collaboration; we've worked together on a range of material from his original plays to reshapings of classic text to new adaptations of foreign plays. We enjoy working together because we share the fundamental philosophy that the stage should be a place for stories that have to be told theatrically. For us, this means heightened language, theatrical spectacle, and stories that don't confine themselves to the kitchen sink and reach beyond the stars. What we both embrace in our work is the inherent artifice of theatrical representation. We do not seek to duplicate "reality." Anne Bogart compares truth with the sun; in order to really look at it, one must look slightly to the side. That is what we hope to do in any project we realize.

The greatest pleasure out of working together so closely and so often is that we've developed a very close relationship. We've spent so many nights dreaming together that any opportunity to create a new piece is simply another chance to push each other to a place we've never been to. As Jason is fond of saying, the history of great collaborations in the theatre is the history of great friendship.

Above, Jason and I on New Year's Eve at a beach in North Carolina, right after an impromptu countdown midnight swim!

The Red Umbrella is a love story between an Everyman and Death, who he meets on the beach as a young boy. Death prophesies that he will see a red umbrella at the moment of his dying. He journeys through life on a quest for the red umbrella that may reunite him with his beloved. The play is a whimsical, sad, funny fairy-tale; I hope to capture both the absurdity of the picture of the world it paints as well as the profound truths it contains in telling the story of a mortal man who reconciles himself to both fate and mortality. In the preliminary design conversations, I've asked designers not to consider any part of this world literally. I would like to find a way to create a visual language for the play that is rooted in poetic metaphor, without deviating so far away from a recognizable reality that the characters become ungrounded.

Below, some pictures of productions that Jason and I have worked on together:

Above, Agnes the preacher's wife is haunted by the Hawk in our adaptation of Ibsen's Brand.

Above is a Sea God comes ashore to romance a mute nymph in Jason's play Ether Steeds.

Below, our most recent collaboration, an original adaptation of Schiller's Don Carlos. This scene sees Crown Prince Carlos importune his father King Philip for leadership of Spain's army.

(posted by Ed)

Wining and Dining

In non rehearsal room news, I have been enjoying exploring the culinary delights of Dallas. Remarkably untouched by the recession, Dallas is overflowing with a plethora of restaurants, bars, delis and markets. DTC Artistic Director Kevin Moriarty takes pains to encourage a communal culture around him, which means we have been taken on a culinary tour of the city over the meals that the artistic team has shared. I am a big believer that community is one of the precious gifts of the theatremaking process, so discovering this tradition has been one of the more joyous aspects of this assistantship. Sitting down to break bread together means that you continuously foster and affirm a sense of family, and it determines that everyone starts and ends their days on the same page. Thank goodness the guest artist apartments at DTC has a fully-equipped gym (and a fully-equipped gym staff ...).

Below, three prize-winning dishes from different eateries around town, ranging from the fancy schmancy to the downright hearty:

Smoked veal in a red wine reduction, served with potato two ways: custard filled potato pastry, and a hearty chive mash.

Spinach salad with smoked chicken, French blue cheese, caramelized onions, sweet pear slices, candied pecan nuts and a completely intoxicating maple vinaigrette. I ate one at the restaurant, and ordered one to take home!

Grilled meatloaf, served with fresh kernel corn and baked squash with onions and garlic, and a pitch-perfect heirloom tomato sauce. This is the dish I'll dream of late at night after I've left Dallas!

(posted by Ed)

Back to Acting

A moment of intense deja vu today! With a Dallas-centric cast of professionals and students, rehearsal conflicts have been a fact of life in the "Midsummer" process, although they have not been a burden thanks to the heroic efforts of stage manager extraordinaire Melissa Daroff. But, it does mean that I am falling frequently prey to that ultimate assistant director hazard: substituting for the missing actor in rehearsal and then catching them up afterwards with what they've missed. So far, I have essayed the parts of Duke Theseus, Amazon Hippolyta, wronged mother Egeus, knavish Puck and lover Lysander. But most often, I've been playing the spunky Hermia, which is a role I once played (as part of an all-male company I belonged to in my teens)! The lines and memories have been coming back in a flood, and I am once again reminded that you can never know what might come in useful at a later date!

Above, myself as Hermia, with Associate Artist Lee Trull's Lysander.

(posted by Ed)

In the midst of "Midsummer"

We're about half-way through "Midsummer," and have completed the initial draft of the play. All entrances and exits have been determined, and main playing spaces defined. The company cannot move into their new theatre (see pics from previous posts!) until tech, so we are simulating a multi-level groundplan in a one-level rehearsal room.

Try miming this without the ledge, or the pipe to hold onto!

Director Kevin Moriarty is making a conscious effort toward utilizing the entirety of the stage, backstage and the house in an effort to consecrate the whole building through this inaugural production, so there is a lot of humorous miming of going up and down ladders and sitting on top of each other going on in rehearsal!

Above, three actors seem to be occupying the same corner of the rehearsal room. In reality, they are on three different levels of the theatre. Tech is going to be fun!

Kevin has smartly chosen not to have any doubling, which means that he can be staging the Lovers while the voice and text coach prepares the Royals and the choreographer works with the Fairies and I review the Mechanicals. Four rooms on the go all the time!

(posted by Ed)

DirectorFest Line-Up Announced!

Mark Dec. 10 - 13 in your calendars now! DirectorFest is coming, and it will feature (not necessarily in this order!):

"The Lover" by Harold Pinter

directed by Laura Savia

"Roberta Laughs" by Bekah Brunstetter (premiere)

directed by David F. Chapman

"The Coupling Heuristic" by Lauren Feldman (premiere)

directed by Mike Donahue

"The Red Umbrella" by Jason Williamson (premiere)

directed by Ed Iskandar

See you there!

(posted by Ed)