Final Days

It's our last weekend in Ithaca, and we're keeping our energy up for the final push. The next few days are filled with wrap-up meetings, check-ins and packing.
Today was the final performance of my Kiddstuff show, Charlotte's Web. Working on this show was a magical experience. The designers, cast and crew all committed themselves fully to telling this story - and, in my humble opinion, we did a fantastic job. Here are some pictures from our trip to the Farm Sanctuary, as well as some production shots.

See you back in NYC!

Olivia (Mom, President and Baby Spider) making a new friend.

David (Templeton) snuggling.

Excuse Me...Coming Through...

Last week saw the opening of three Lab Company Productions - two new plays, LEARNING RUSSIAN and THE THING ABOUT AIR TRAVEL, in the Wedge and a Kiddstuff production, REELING, on the Neiderkorn stage. These two spaces share not only a wall, but also backstage and cross-over space. What it basically boils down to is - when these spaces are in tech at the same time (which is often) actors may be using the playing space of The Wedge to make an entrance into the Neiderkorn - and vice versa. We were all warned about this early on. Actors know to make their cross-overs quietly, causing minimal distraction to the other show.

While working on LULU during first rotation (and sharing backstage space with THE KID WHO TALKED TO PENGUINS), we never encountered this issue. We did have to hear "Do the Funky Penguin" through the wall quite a bit. But, never saw any actual actors. REELING is a completely different beast from PENGUINS. I think Corey would agree with me when I call it a beast. The show, a dialouge-less play based on Buster Keaton films, has 16 actors, a myriad of props and constant action.

While teching RUSSIAN, there was always a policeman or showgirl running through every so often. It was easy to get used to, and, after the first time, we didn't notice it all.

Until - the morning of the third day of tech. At a dramatic moment during our dress run, the center door to the Wedge opened and an actress dressed as an obese caterer - padding, silly hat and all - rolled in a giant fake turkey. Well...needless to say, nobody could keep a straight face.

Here is a photo snapped at the end of the turkey's exodus.
This quirky moment gives you a small idea of the joy that I feel here at the Hangar - working so closely with my fellow directors.

And, during this rotation, the joy of working with a playwright-in-residence! It was really a treat having Michael Mitnick here to work on LEARNING RUSSIAN. The whole company was inspired by working on such an innovative new play. It will be sad to close the show this Friday - but we've had so much fun. And, a write up in the Ithaca Journal!

I'll leave you with a production shot sans-turkey.

I've got this one in the bag

So here we are in Rotation #3. I just finished directing Howard Barker's "The Possibilities," about which I hope to have a fuller blog post eventually. I'm working on a wonderful new play called "The Thing About Air Travel," and it's my third show in a row (with almost no time in between). It is a beautiful, imaginative, and funny play that calls for some extraordinarily fun tricks and gags, including the following: throughout the entire beginning of the play there is a suitcase sitting on the stage, about fifteen minutes in, the bag unzips itself and a woman gets out, sits down and asks for a cough drop.

So one of the things I've learned this week is that most modern luggage is not built to hold normal-sized human beings. They either fit in it lengthwise or widthwise, but rarely both. And if they can manage those two, they don't fit in heightwise. After several failed attempts to squeeze my actress into various bags (probably one of the more demeaning things that can be done to an human being), I was nearly ready to give up and try to find another, not quite as wonderful, solution.

Almost every night, the four Drama League directors get together to talk about how our rehearsals went that day, what our frustrations are, what are discoveries were, and what is and is not working. We live together and have similar schedules, so this often happens informally over a dinner break, or after the last rehearsal of the day, while we are all trying to unwind. Yesterday, we decided that we wanted to go out, and so we went to the "Dryden Hotel," a local establishment that appears to be a sketchy dive bar and actually is what passes for a family restaurant in the town of Dryden. After much pizza was consumed (and pie--at the Dryden "Queen Diner"), we headed back to the dorms. It was at this point that I told the other directors about my baggage bind, my suitcase strait, my portmanteau pickle, my luggage labyrinth, etc... Ever eager to help another director, Lauren pointed out that she had a massive case she'd bought in NYC expressly for this summer. I asked to see it.

Still giggly on sugar and giddy on pie-stimulated endorphins, we decided that the best thing to do would be to see if I could fit into the suitcase. I hopped in without a problem. Corey had gone to dinner in another car, and on his way had stopped to eat ice cream, so I hid in the bag until he returned, and popped out immediately after he walked in the door. See the picture at left--me inside the bag.

Then Lauren and I began discussing how the actress could stay in the bag for that long a period. She decided she needed to show me another way to sit in the bag, and crawled in. This idea was perhaps not as brilliant as Lauren's ideas tend to be, and within moments of crawling into the case, she got herself stuck.

If you've ever been stuck in a giant piece of luggage before, you know that once you are embedded, self-extrication is nearly impossible. And Corey was busy eating his ice cream (and didn't want to get ice cream all over the luggage). And I was busy taking pictures (after all, documentation is critical). So poor Lauren was left stuck in the bag.

It's all for the art folks, all for the art.

Changing Gears

With Lulu's closing performance this past Saturday, I am now fully and officially Madame Producer. This is a brand new role for me. I often produce for myself (as many of us emerging directors do), but producing for other artists is whole new game. I've got 2 phones, a barrage of emails and the most random "To Do" list of my life.

Adam offered me some sage wisdom heading into this rotation. He cited my wide range of professional assistant directing experience and said, "That's basically it. Approach it like that."

This was some genius advice on his part. Approaching producing with the mindset that I am simply doing everything I can to aid these directors in creating their best work, in addition to facilitating the most fully realized production possible, took the pressure off of having to get it "right." It has freed me to take ownership of this role and dispelled my fears. Though, I must admit, there is more math involved in producing than there is in assisting - and I'm always sure to triple check my math.

It's a busy week here at the Hangar. There are two shows up on the main stage right now (NO CHILD and BAD DATES), which means double load-in, tech and performances. It also means double opening night parties! No Child opened last week - showcasing powerhouse acting from Rachael Holmes, as well as gorgeous work from director Wendy Dann and her designers. I'm excited to see what Bad Dates has in store for us later this week!

In rehearsal at TC3 are two Wedge shows (Adam's Possiblities and Corey's Leonce & Lena), Lydia's Pinochoccio for Kiddstuff and the main stage production of Oklahoma. That's six shows all humming along. I've had a great time sitting on rehearsals, getting to see my fellow directors in action!

And, on Saturday, I'll get to see the whole company in action in our 24 Hour Play Festival, TC24. The company is spending the week in playwriting master classes - the only time our whole company actually gets to work in the same room together! On Saturday we'll mix up their roles - designers will act, actors will write - and see what we can come up with in 24 short hours. As you can see, we've got more than a few kettles on the stove here. Or is it irons in the fire?

I'll leave you with some photos from Lulu - my director's choice play for the Wedge - and the text from the program note.

Benjamin Franklin Wedekind was conceived in San Francisco, born in Germany and christened in honor of American democracy. He penned his most widely known work, Spring Awakening, in 1894 - at just 26 years old.

A year later, while strolling the Champs d’Ellyse, he was struck by an idea for a “gruesome tragedy.” Wedekind skipped dinner with friends that evening to write the first act. The result is Lulu, a play that was never fully produced in Wedekind’s lifetime. Its graphic depiction of vices in all forms and shapes, and his refusal to alter the text, kept Lulu relegated to the bars, cabarets and backrooms of Vienna.



It was at one such performance where Wedekind met his second wife, Tilly Newes. The nineteen-year old beauty was playing the role of Lulu. Wedekind, then 37, was playing the role of Jack. The line between art and life was thin in Wedekind’s world. He chose to write about the prostitutes and artists with whom he spent his time, shocking the German bourgeois with what they considered to be pure pornography. Nicholas Wright’s translation, recently produced by London’s Almeida Theatre, gives this classic the modern edge Wedekind intended.


In the eve of World War I, Frank Wedekind understood the timeless starving class struggle between the longings of one’s inner self and a world that offers a certain set of possibilities.

Penguins!!

So my KIDDSTUFF show--The Kid Who Talked to Penguins--opened on Wednesday. It feels like I just finished putting up a huge musical. The show has a big cast, quick-changes, magic, hundreds of light cues, wireless mics, the works. One of the great challenges of KIDDSTUFF is that you have to perform on the set of the currently running mainstage show. In our case, this was The Overwhelming--a play about the Rwandan genocide that featured a center platform in the shape of Rwanda. Which is not a very prettily shaped country, I'll have you know.

I'm exhausted. Right now, all I can do is look forward to my tiny, intimate, non-technical production of The Possibilities.

Until those rehearsals start on Monday, I have a blissfully relaxing few days. So here are a few photos of Penguins to get you started! I hope you enjoy!

Opening Night/Opening Day

Yesterday marked our first opening day/night as we attended the opening performances for all our rotation one shows—The Kid Who Talked to Penguin’s, A Rat’s Mass and Lulu. Pretty amazing day really. To finally see everyone’s work after hearing so much about Lauren and Adam’s visions for their shows and their process in their rehearsal rooms, was a total thrill. Penguins was such great fun! Adam’s charm had the kids enthralled from start to finish. He had such joy working on the Kiddstuff show (as I did watching it), so great for the creative heart and soul. Lauren’s Lulu showcased some powerhouse acting from the company—but I’ll admit my not-so-secret love for her talent with movement. I was floored by her stunning transformative, storytelling movement work.

These first two rotations we are getting to do our “director’s choice” plays – which for me I decided to take to heart what I heard over and over to go for a play that would push me creatively. So I chose, A Rat’s Mass, by Adrienne Kennedy, a writer I have wanted to work on for quite some time. So it was a fantastic experience to finally get to wrestle with a complex, fascinating, intense material and flex my imagination on this classic avant-garde piece.

When I first saw the Wedge, my brain immediately began to fire images that I could see living in the space—ways that I hadn’t even dreamt of before. It’s a blessing to have a space that forces a director to explore use of space. When I first started grad school I learned that I saw things as flat images in my head. Thus I had to work hard to visualize moments/scenes/plays in 3 dimensions. Working in the Wedge was like taking the next step. I realized that was capable of seeing the play in 3D but it was always a proscenium space. Now I realized I could go further and conceptualize the play in 3D without limitations. What if I thought “Oh yes! that moment should happen in the air above ground!” or “We should be seeing this moment upside down!” Freeing and utterly thrilling. I feel really fortunate to have this time and space to grow artistically, and this is only week three!—I’m excited to see what other new discoveries lie ahead in the rest of the summer.

Hey, Mr. Producer

The positioning of who would produce which rotation was the absolute last consideration in our process of programming the season. As it fell, I'm the producer of the first rotation, and I have to say that I'm so glad things fell out this way. 

First, it's been a real luxury to have some "free" time to put toward working on the adaptation of the script I'll be directing (starting in a week...eek) for rotation 2; finalizing a working text based on conflating/writing from 4 different translations, going back in to work in elements of the interpretive adaptation I'm doing, and getting time to work with my designers and let them act as dramaturgs through their work are all things I would not have had as much time for had I been directing on the rotation. (But I bet I'll be ready for a break after 2 straight months of directing...)

But more to the point, I've had the privilege and pleasure of getting to watch my FF's (fellow Fellows...) work. I've seen runs of all 3 shows and am really impressed by the diversity of perspectives, styles and techniques each has employed, both in rehearsal and production. Adam is a model of efficiency--he (and our great KIDDSTUFF SM Jeannine) run a tight ship, but the energy in the room is always positive and fun. Lydia has done great work immersing her cast in a physical style and a style of play very new to most. SHe has put them through the proverbial paces (lots of Suzuki, slow movement, integrating visual research into what I call 'living mask' work) and they and Adrienne Kennedy's play are the better for the experience. Lauren has done a very clear cutting of a longer text and done exciting work using movement (think Bill T. Jones) to give a classic piece both a sexy contemporary edge, and a dramaturgical clarity.

I also feel like I've got a better grasp on how to  plan my rehearsals and think about the coming work. I feel like I've gotten a sneak preview' of the actors' work both in rehearsal and on stage. Ditto for the endlessly surprising WEDGE space and the Niederkorn MainStage, where my KIDDSTUFF show will be. I know more about how these spaces work, and how to work with these actors in rehearsal.

That said, there have certainly been challenges, too. Any time of change is overwhelming, and the challenges presented by the extraordinary amount of work and daring demanded of everyone in the Lab Company has understandably overwhelmed some people. One of my goals for myself this summer is to 'push myself and others' to limits that allow the best work to emerge; it's been a good experience for me to help allay the fears and frustration of my company members, while at the same time helping these young artists to understand the requirements and challenges inherent in this demanding profession. Giving notes to my FF's has also bee a great exercise for me--it forces me to think with a real clarity and perspective about storytelling, the directors' intent, the actors' work and potential in given roles and limited time, etc. It's a terrific exercise in 'being in it and out of it' at the same time--an essential skill for a director.

I'm now play producer on our first day of tech, me and my laptop shoved in a corner on the upper level with my feet tangled in cables and cords and my butt going to sleep on a really uncomfortable plastic folding chair. Ah, the glamorous life. But it does make me think about an interview with Tom Hulce that I read in The New York Times about a year ago. He was talking about producing Spring Awakening (directed by DL alum Michael Mayer...), and the interviewer had asked him what he likes about producing. His response was something to the effect of 'acting is a task where you're responsible for one very important but very specific piece of the whole. As a producer, you get to roll around and get dirty in all of it." I've certainly gotten dirty--from people's tears to transportation to teaching to tech troubles--and it's been surprisingly fulfilling. 

I'm just glad I don't have to fundraise...