tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-71075122240005739472024-03-13T00:25:02.012-07:00Direct and to the PointA blog about directing for the theater: a study of what works and what doesn't and why, a place for inspiration and reflection, and a toolbox for the moments where you don't know what else to try.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger46125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7107512224000573947.post-39579203292346716102017-12-15T12:08:00.000-08:002017-12-15T12:08:24.369-08:00Inspiration #3, Seth Godin (Twice Over)Seth Godin is an absolute gem of a human being and I continue to be truly grateful for the blog posts he puts out into the world on a daily basis. The following two posts were ones that particularly resonated with me. The full text is below. The original posts can be found <a href="http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2017/12/speaking-up-on-behalf-of-failure.html" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2017/12/rules-for-working-in-a-studio.html" target="_blank">here</a> respectively. Risk give and give generously.<br />
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<b>Where Would We Be Without Failure</b><br /><br />Failure (and the fear of failure) gives you a chance to have a voice....<br /><br />Because failure frightens people who care less than you do.<div>
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<b>Rules For Working In A Studio</b><br /><br />Don’t hide your work<br /><br />Offer help<br /><br />Ask for help<br /><br />Tell the truth<br /><br />Upgrade your tools<br /><br />Don’t hide your mistakes<br /><br />Add energy, don't subtract it<br /><br />Share<br /><br />If you're not proud of it, don't ship it<br /><br />Know the rules of your craft<br /><br />Break the rules of your craft with intention<br /><br />Make big promises<br /><br />Keep them<br /><br />Add positivity<br /><br />Let others run, ever faster<br /><br />Take responsibility<br /><br />Learn something new<br /><br />Offer credit<br /><br />Criticize the work, not the artist<br /><br />Power isn't as important as productivity<br /><br />Honor the schedule<br /><br />You are not your work, embrace criticism<br /><br />Go faster<br /><br />Sign your work<br /><br />Walk lightly<br /><br />Change something<br /><br />Obsess about appropriate quality, ignore perfection<br /><br />A studio isn’t a factory. It’s when peers come together to do creative work, to amplify each other and to make change happen. That can happen in any organization, but it takes commitment.</div>
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Thoughts? Comments? Questions? Post them below. The more, the merrier.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7107512224000573947.post-73362662738664964102017-09-21T20:54:00.000-07:002017-09-21T20:54:17.417-07:00A Venture Into Producing...No lengthy essay this month. My husband and I welcomed our first child into the world and life has been a bit topsy turvy. I hope to return to my regular, rambling posts soon. In the meantime, here's a photo from our first day together.<br />
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Thoughts? Comments? Questions? Post them below. The more, the merrier.</div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7107512224000573947.post-2674995875877018732017-08-23T10:17:00.000-07:002017-08-23T10:17:29.601-07:00The Question of RiskI recently received an appointment for an audition. I am currently about 8 months pregnant, so at this point, my pregnancy is evident to anyone who looks at me. The contract for this job would have started a month after my due date and would ended before my husband finished his paternity leave. Meaning it would have been a whirlwind for me and my family, but it would have been possible. When I went in for my audition, the female artistic director immediately reacted by saying "Well, you're not available for this contract. There's no way. Why are you here?" I explained that if they felt like I was a great fit for the role, I thought it was workable (and explained why). If they didn't feel like I was a match for the role, then this audition was just a further opportunity for us to continue to develop our relationship. This explanation did not seem to satisfy her in the least, but I was allowed to continue with my audition. There's nothing like knowing someone is not interested in hiring you to help bring out your best work. (For further irony, the play itself was about the feminist movement that occurred in conjunction with the French Revolution.)<br />
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I understand that this was a small theater and its resources are limited. I understand that for something like this there are no understudies - meaning that if someone had to miss a performance or suddenly has to back out of a contract, that creates significant problems for the theater. But the reality is, I am no more of a risk to this production than any other performer would be. It's just that the reason why I MIGHT be a risk, is much more evident than it might be for other candidates. If I had cancer, or a drug addiction, or was a man who was about to be a first time dad, they would never have known that information from just looking at me and there wouldn't have been any question about my ability to fulfill the contract. Additionally, because there is such a stigma about being pregnant in this industry (and being written off because of it) they probably would have earned my undying love and devotion for being an ally rather than an adversary. Nothing short of an act of God would have kept me from missing a performance.<br />
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But instead of asking the question about whether or not it was possible for us to figure out a way for it to work, a decision was made that it wasn't feasible. The decision completely excluded half of the conversation (me) and was made before any other possibilities were even considered. Which seems like a shame for both of us. If you thought I was right enough to be given an appointment, isn't it worth considering ways to make it work? If you don't, at the very least, ask the question, you're selling everyone short. What if I was planning to put the child up for adoption? Or what if I was planning to exclusively use formula and could therefore be away from it for the duration of the contract? I wasn't planning on doing either of those things, but I was never even asked. And what I could have done was pump and have my husband there to care for our child for the entire process. Something that would have been easy for the theater to accommodate. But other options were never legitimately considered.<br />
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Seth Godin recently wrote a wonderful post about risk. He writes:<br />
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The gulf between "risky" and "feels risky" is huge. And it's getting bigger.<br />
It turns out that value creation lives in this gap. The things that most people won't do (because it feels risky) that are in fact not risky at all.<br />
If your compass for forward motion involves avoiding things that feel risky, it pays to get significantly better informed about what actually is risky.</blockquote>
It's my job as artist to take risks. Making your voice heard, saying something new, being honest and vulnerable - these are some of the most valuable take-aways from art and some of the "riskiest" things to do in society. It's why public speaking terrifies us as much as it does. Taking risks as an actor is essential, but it is even more necessary as a director. It's my job as a director to navigate what the actual risks are verses the perceived risks, so that we don't miss the opportunities that are only available among the perceived risks. It's also my job to ask "how can we make this work?" You have to be able to not only take on your own risks, but also encourage everyone else on the team to take the risks that will lead to their best work.<br />
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I was listening to an interview a few years ago with someone who was a show runner for a popular TV show at the time. (For the life of me I cannot remember who it was!) The interviewer brought up the fact that one of the writers who had been hired for the writing room had a sizable prior commitment which would make them unable to write for the show for a good portion of the season. And the show runner's response was fantastic. He said "this person is one of the best writers I know. Who cares that I can't have them writing on my show for the entire season? Why wouldn't I bring them in for whatever amount of time I can get them for?" Obviously, this specific solution isn't one that works for well for many theater scenarios, but it's a great example of not being scared off by a perceived risk or a perceived cost. We often have more to offer (which doesn't require a significant out of pocket investment) than we we realize. It could be offering up some office space during a performances so that a sitter can babysit a actor's child at the theater. It could be working to set up a rehearsal schedule that allows someone to care for a sick parent. It could even be as simple as volunteering the use of the performance venue on dark nights for the cast and creatives to work on other projects they might be developing.<br />
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We do theater. It's a place for community and creativity. The time, the money, the resources will always be in short supply. Being a responsible director puts you at the crossroads of the logistical requirements and the emotional dreams. But those things don't have to be mutually exclusive. Asking what's possible and tapping into the resources that are available to us are how we make our productions the best that they can be. Why wouldn't we use those same questions to make our working conditions as generous as they can be? I always tell myself "my job is to ask". I might not get the answer that I want, but at least I've asked the question. It's possible that the perceived risk of asking the question has far fewer consequences than not asking the question. When we assume there is no solution, we are sure not to find one.<br />
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Thoughts? Comments? Questions? Post them below. The more, the merrier.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7107512224000573947.post-28164458042350677432017-07-31T17:56:00.000-07:002017-08-01T06:02:27.932-07:00Midsummer Night's Dream<div dir="ltr">
This post is inspired by the production of <i>A Midsummer Night's Dream</i> directed by Lear deBessonet that's currently playing at The Delacorte. Like any of any of Shakespeare’s works it has elements that are challenging to pull together. And some of the most successful moments occur where the expression of the text has been hyper personalized. My specific reflections are as follows:</div>
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<b>Theseus and Hippolyta</b></div>
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- Every time I see this show, I have the same reaction to these characters, which is "why are these people here?!" To a certain extent, they seem like an odd layer of middle management - presiding over the lovers and mechanicals but not quite as powerful as the Fairy lords. The fact that their lines open and very nearly close the play makes them feel structurally important. But from a storytelling perspective, there is nothing of interest for the audience to track. As such, I wonder if you could start the play with Egeus' grievance regarding Hermia and shift the Theseus/Hippolyta lines about their upcoming nuptials to later in the scene. It might not be possible, but if you could make that shift, it would introduce to them as serving a function in the story rather than being characters to pay attention to. I saw a bit of commentary about how Hippolyta standing up to Theseus would have been unusual for the time. I would love to see more made of this, especially given that Theseus offers Hermia the option of becoming a nun (rather than being put to death for not marrying her father's choice of suitor). Presenting this dynamic is also interesting to me given that Theseus and Hippolyta are of higher social stature than the Lovers, meaning their behavior presumably becomes the standard to some extent.<br />
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<b>The Lovers</b><br />
- I absolutely loved what Annaleigh Ashford did with her interpretation of Helena. It's easy for Helena to come off as desperate and clingy. But that comes from a place of weakness and isn't terribly likable. Additionally, I don't think it makes a whole lot of sense in the context of her actions. She actions strike me as plucky not desperate. In this production, Helena was portrayed as being determined and incredibly turned-on, and it was fantastic. What made this even better was that her determination then had to escalate to absurd levels, allowing for authentic, need-based comedy. I would have loved to see the other three lovers rise to this level of need. Part of the comedy to be had with regard to the Lovers is in watching the fluctuations in absurdity and the attempts to temper that absurdity. But you only get that payoff if their absurdities are solidly based in need AND their absurdities reach extreme proportions.<br />
- That being said, you have to be careful with how that absurdity is expressed for the gents. You want to avoid the absurdity tipping over into something that might be read as dangerous. Danger is not funny. Perhaps their determination to win Helena could be channeled towards trying to look sexier than each other, or out dance each other or something like that. The important thing is to steer clear of anything that relies on force. When it finally escalates to them fighting with each other, I would try to make their battle as ridiculous as possible. Maybe one of them tries to rip up a whole tree (but can't do it), then a whole tree limb (but still can't do it) and finally goes to battle with a tiny twig (or droopy flower). While the other one tries to use his shoe as a weapon. Something that clearly highlights that they've completely lost their minds and aren't even thinking coherently enough to do any harm. After all, when it comes to the gentlemen, their absurdity is result of a faire prank. An accident prank, but a prank nonetheless. The resulting action should be tonally on par with Titania falling in love with an ass.</div>
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<b>The Mechanicals</b></div>
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- Strangely, with the Mechanicals, I feel like the challenge is try to find a unique presentation of these characters for your production. Because they are so well written, as long as the actors commit to their character's personality and needs it's rare for these guys to fall flat. So, while I usually enjoy these characters, I'm rarely surprised by anything in their interpretation. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but that would be my question during the design, casting and rehearsal process - to see if something different could be found in these characters and the journey they take (without taking anything away from what makes them wonderful).<br />
An exercise I find helpful with regard to thinking in a new direction is to take the essence of what you're looking at and consider where else in life you encounter that same essence. With regard to the Mechanicals, two qualities came immediately to mind. The first is that they are completely earnest. The second is that they are largely incompetent. With regard to the earnestness, other places where I have encountered that quality include children and people who are learning English as a second language. These are populations where the desire to understand and be clearly understood is of the utmost importance. If they can work in a joke, that is a huge accomplishment. But typically, the ability to be duplicitous or evasive is beyond them. With regard to the incompetence, the two examples that come to mind include the current administration down in Washington and the MTA. (Sorry MTA, but we both know things haven't been great for you recently.) Neither of those options seem like they would be a good idea to pursue. They feel like things that could quickly devolve into bashing organizations that are not functioning optimally. And frankly, I don't know that going in the direction of children or foreign speakers would be any better. But all four of those concepts are different from each other and are not the way the Mechanicals are typically conceived of. And while none seem like the answer, they might help generate an idea that would be terrific.</div>
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- Another thing I would mention about the Mechanicals is that it is tremendously important to keep the pace up throughout their performance of <i>Pyramus and Thisbe</i>. The ideal would be to keep it as funny as possible but also as tight as possible. Given that it takes place after virtually all of the other plot lines have been resolved makes it the "11 o'clock number" - something to thrill the audience and be done. Which is difficult to achieve, especially given all the asides by Theseus, Hippolyta and the Lovers. I would try to trim these down as much as possible and for the remaining interjections, make sure that there was always some business simultaneously going on with <i>Pyramus and Thisbe</i> - set change, costume change, dance number, something - as way to try to maintain momentum. </div>
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<b>The Fairies</b><br />
- One thing this production did that I particularly enjoyed was to have all of the Faires be older actors. As in, people who could have believably played grandparents. I appreciated this for several reasons. As a society, we tend to look through our senior citizens (which in this play, intersected well with the Faires being invisible to the humans). It also made sense to me that these characters were spirits of the earth who are responsible for the changing of the seasons and have been around for thousands of years. If they've been around for thousands of years, of course they're old. And of course they might be bored and find it fun to toy with the human. Plus there's something incredibly fun about a mischievous old person. So taking this approach to the casting made a lot of symbolic sense to me, but from a purely logistical standpoint, it made a clear visual distinction between the Faires and everyone else. Often I feel like productions try to establish this visual distinction purely with costuming. A sort of "that person is dressed in a glittery unitard, so I guess they must be of another world" kind of thing, which annoys me to no end. Dealing with "magical beings" is always challenging on stage. But I find that it is most effective when 1) you've defined what the rules are for these magical beings, 2) don't try to do what you can't (or don't have the budget for), and 3) trust that your audience will suspend their disbelief for you if you let them. For this play, the degree to which the Faires influence the humans is pretty clearly laid out in the script. The only thing that really needs to be created for the audience's benefit is that they exist in a different world. And by going in this direction with regard to casting, this production created that effect almost effortlessly.<br />
- On the subject of age, I also appreciated that this production had the child who Titania and Oberon are fighting over present on stage. Because it's only talked about in the script (and because it can be hard to cast a young child) many productions do not have this character appear. Which I totally understand. But it was really satisfying to see their bone of contention be made manifest.<br />
- With regard Titania and Oberon, I don't feel like they should be waging all out war over the boy. They are certainly squabbling over him, but they have made up by the end of the play, despite the fact that "ownership" of the boy has changed hands. To me this only makes sense if they are having a Cliff and Clair Huxtable type of disagreement. Meaning they are sincere about their differing positions and are going to be very active in trying to get their point across to the other party, but at no point do we as the audience ever think that they don't love each other or that they will not find a way to resolve this dispute. This production (and most other productions that I've seen) didn't go so far as to make it seem like Titania and Oberon were at war, but it also didn't make it seem like this was a small matter in the scope of their relationship. I think the distinction that I'm looking for here is that it be established when we initially meet these characters that they do truly love each other and this disagreement is not going to be the end of everything. This is difficult given their initial lines to each other, but if the lines were played as teasing (coming from a place where both of them feel secure within the relationship) rather than launching an offensive (where the underlying current is "I'm ready to end this thing right now") it might be possible. And it would make their eventual reunion make more sense to me. If that can be established, it also makes sense to me that Oberon finally calls for Puck to reverse the enchantment on Titania, because the prank has gone too far. If it's not a solid and loving relationship to start with then I don't know why Titania would amiably return to Oberon immediately after he took the child AND reveals to her that he made her fall in love with an ass.<br />
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<b>Dreaming...while onstage</b><br />
- The play seems to have an extremely high rate of people falling asleep on stage. Which is always kind of hard to make seem believable. I find the longer the window is that you can give actors to be falling asleep the easier it is to sell. I would want to look at the earliest point in the scene where I could have characters start to get drowsy and/or to see if there are moments where they can overhear or be drifting off during during the following scene.</div>
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Questions? Comments? Concerns? Post them below. The more, the merrier.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7107512224000573947.post-10458272489140362942017-06-16T12:24:00.000-07:002017-06-16T12:24:37.099-07:00The Can's and the Should's<div dir="ltr">
Just because you can, does that mean you should?</div>
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Periodically, an opportunity falls into your lap that seems like an absolute godsend. The prop that you had no idea how you would possibly find or create is suddenly being given to you for your production. The actor you were initially hoping to get for a specific role suddenly becomes available. A backer materializes for the project you've been dying to do. While all of these things sound like they would be nothing but a boon, it's worth taking a quick time-out to gauge their true impact. As is generally the case in life, even things that seem to be heavily weighted towards being beneficial have their downsides. </div>
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In the book <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Millionaire-Next-Door-Surprising-Americas/dp/1589795474" target="_blank">The Millionaire Next Door</a></i>, the authors illustrate how "free" gifts can often mask additional costs. For example, say you were given a free car. If you were previously without a car, this changes your situation in a number of ways. If you plan to drive the car, you will need to pay for the gas and maintenance (having it inspected, any necessary repairs, routine upkeep such as oil changes, etc.) for the duration of the time you have the car. You may also incur traffic or parking tickets. Even if you only plan to drive the car occasionally, you will have to pay to insure it. Additionally, you will need to have a place to store the car which (if you have not had a car up until this point and live somewhere without a garage or driveway) will mean finding a parking spot. All of which is to say that the "free" car actually comes with several obligations, both with regard to your time and money. Now, if that free car is replacing an existing car, then the degree of change is significantly less. But as a new element, the car creates quite a lot of change, some of which will be beneficial and some of which will be detrimental.<br />
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Similarly, it's worth trying to consider the various ramifications new opportunities can have. The bigger the opportunity (with regard to how much it costs or how much of a commitment it requires), the more seriously it should be weighed. One technique for doing this is something called a premortem. If you're working within a theater company, it's not uncommon to have a postmortem discussion, where you discuss how the process went - what worked, what didn't, etc. In a premortem you're having part of that discussion beforehand - imagining, in advance, that you took this "great opportunity" but it ended up being a terrible choice. So, with the example of the prop that you never thought you would find, perhaps agreeing to use it meant that the entire design had to become much more realistic in order to match. In "retrospect", you realize you would have been much better going in an absurd or abstract direction. Perhaps it ended up being impractical to use it (it was too heavy, too fragile, too small, etc.) but you felt obligated because you went to great lengths to get it. Which made the moments where it was being used look ridiculous and you had to scrap it at the last minute and scramble to replace it in the time and budget remaining. Which was stressful for your prop master (because they had to do a last minute search to find something else), your producer (because this wasn't in the budget), and your actors (because they then didn't have enough time to get comfortable with the prop before starting performances). This isn't meant to be an exercise in doom and gloom or to give you analysis paralysis. It's meant to help us consider other possible outcomes that could result from an impulsive decision, so that we're not completely blindsided if/when everything doesn't go perfectly. It's entirely possible that something that seems like a great opportunity actually IS a great opportunity. But it's also possible that it's not. And the act of considering the alternative can help us make a more measured decision.</div>
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Another way to re-contextualize this kind of decision is to push yourself to consider a handful of other solutions. Put another way, what if the opportunity that just became available to you, just as suddenly disappeared? If this option had never come along, what are some other ways that this problem could have been remedied? Try to come up with avenues that are distinct from each other, not just different shades of the same color. For example, with regard to the situation where the actor you were dreaming of became available to you, this would not mean having one or two other actors in mind who could do a decent impression of your first choice. This is about having completely different concepts around how the role could be played. Could the actor for this role be significantly older? Younger? Heavier? A different gender entirely? Could the role be approached from a more comedic lens? Could the role be played as more of an underdog? Maybe this role could be a puppet? Obviously, some roles have less flexibility baked into them than others. But what if (for reasons beyond your control) you had to go in a different direction with your casting? How can you make it work? I once heard about a production of <i>Midsummer</i> where the actor playing Oberon broke his ankle during the run, so they had him sit in a wheelchair upstage of everyone and recite his lines while another actor performed all of his physical business. (I'm not sure that was the best answer, but it was certainly another way to solve the problem.) Don't be afraid to consider options that seem completely off the wall. Sometimes crazy ideas have kernels of truth that can be turned into valid solutions you might not have thought of otherwise. Don't be discouraged if nothing comes immediately to mind. Often these are questions that your brain may need to think on. </div>
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Which brings us one last bit of advice with regard to this kind of situation - determine how much time you can take before committing one way or the other. Being able to pause for a moment can provide you with the time needed to think about other solutions, but it can also help you get some emotional distance from a solution that might be too good to be true. When a solution suddenly presents itself, the rush of euphoria can feel like winning the lottery. But in the same way that we might not make the best decision when we're in a fit of rage, so too might our judgement be clouded in a rush of excitement (or our desire to make the problem go away). With the example of having a potential backer suddenly come into the picture, taking a little time can help you determine whether this is indeed a match made in heaven...or just someone who seemed appealing when you were at a low point. A relationship is a commitment calling for a significant investment of time and energy (and in this case, money). If you slow down long enough to the do the due diligence up front, you can save yourself a lot of heartache down the line. If it's at all possible for you to sleep on the decision before committing to it, do that. The mere act of waiting allows the mix of chemicals floating around in your body to return to a more neutral state, helping you can make a decision based on rational and emotional input - you're giving yourself the time to do further research about the opportunity, but also giving yourself the emotional space to think about what research needs to be done. Has this person been a backer before? Are they familiar with how the industry works? Can you talk to people who have worked with them in this context? How much creative input do they want to have? Why do they want to be involved in the project? (If it's so that their boyfriend can be the leading man, that might be a deal breaker for you. Then again, maybe their boyfriend is Idris Elba. In which case, game on.) If you can, talk to someone else who's had this kind of relationship before. What did they learn? What should you look out for? If that's not an option, talk to some of your more cautious friends or co-workers to ask what information they would want to know. You just want to be sure that you're able clearly evaluate what's at hand and not being led astray by rose colored glasses.<br />
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To do this for every decision would be exhausting and you would never get anything done. But for the big decisions, especially the ones where you can't easily change course if they turn out poorly, it's worth spending a little extra time thinking through them. It can't guarantee that whatever decision you make will work out for the best, but it can greatly improve your chances.<br />
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*For a great reference on how to navigate the decision making process, I highly recommend <i><a href="http://heathbrothers.com/books/decisive/" target="_blank">Decisive</a></i> by Chip and Dan Heath. </div>
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Thoughts? Comments? Questions? Post them below. The more, the merrier.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7107512224000573947.post-6140721224325181892017-05-29T09:02:00.000-07:002017-05-29T09:02:02.522-07:00Realized or Conceptual?When you set out to produce a show, one of the first things you will need to decide is whether or not the design for your production will be conceptual or fully realized. There are conditions that often lend themselves to one path or the other. Choosing an option that doesn't fit your script may result in you having to fight against the design in order to get your story across.<br />
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For our purposes we will be thinking of these elements primarily with regard to set and costumes. Lighting and sound can also be more or less realistic, but sets and costumes are often the areas where a conceptual design is most apparent. In a realistic design, everything is rendered in as much detail as possible, exactly as it would be in the world of the play. In a conceptual design the location and time period are suggested - so instead of the entire castle, you might see a throne and some suspended tapestries, enough to indicate where the scene is taking place.<br />
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As a general rule, I tend to be a fan of more conceptual designs. I feel like it gives me more room to play. I feel like it gives the designers more room to play. It can also add another layer with regard to how the play is interpreted. When well thought out and well utilized, conceptual sets and costumes can be incredibly imaginative and fluid. That being said it has to be a good fit for the way your script is structured. Script structure should be the main factor when you're deciding on the design direction. The structure dictates how the story should be told. If a script is laid out in a linear, continuous timeline, you may need to go with a traditional, realistic design. If it uses elements of heightened theatricality, they you may be able to think more outside the box.<br />
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For example with a classic comedy, especially farce, you are probably going to be better served by more traditional sets and costumes. Part of the fun in comedy is watching the train wreck. The events are strategically laid out to create a misunderstanding (which is then resolved). Comedy relies on the characters having no awareness of how the plot lines are being tangled while the audience remains completely aware. These plot points usually unfold chronologically in order to make sure that the audience can clearly follow what's going on at all times. (Note: Here we're referring to scripts that are structural comedies, not scripts that are comedic. <i>The Importance of Being Earnest</i> is a structural comedy. Whereas <i>Peter and the Starcatcher</i> is a play with comedic elements.)<br />
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Another example of when you might need to go with a more realistic design is when the set (or costumes) functions as an additional character. In these scripts, the design becomes central to the plot. The story is specific to that one location. It's possible that all of the scenes may even take place there. <i>Steel Magnolias</i>, for example, has to happen in a beauty shop. With <i>Clybourne Park</i>, the house is pivotal to the story - you have to see the house as it is in Act I and how it changes in Act II. For <i>Phantom of the Opera</i>, you have to have a mask for the Phantom, otherwise the character (and thus the show) doesn't make sense. These design elements are fundamental to being able to tell the story as it is written. On the flip side, Shakespearean plays, since they tend to be about more general themes and were written to have minimal technical constraints, often do very well with a conceptual design.<br />
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If the script is structured in a less linear way, that may allow you to go in a conceptual direction. Perhaps it jumps back and forth between different time periods or it has simultaneous scenes. Perhaps there's a dream sequence. Perhaps you're doing a lot a of double casting and for the overall flow of the piece your actors need to be able to transition instantly on stage from one character to the next. Sometimes the demands of the script necessitates a more conceptual approach. Perhaps there's an element of the script that you're unable to create realistically in a way that's satisfying. <i>War Horse</i> comes to mind as an example where the imaginative integration of puppetry (and other conceptual devices) gave the production substantially more leeway than they would have had had they tried to do a strictly realistic approach.<br />
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Plays with numerous locations can work well with conceptual sets because a conceptual set can allow you to quickly transition between those different areas. When you're going from one fully realized location to another, you have to wait for one group of physical objects is taken off and another is brought on. If you're able to simply suggest the location that can be a much less demanding physical change, and thus a faster transition. <i>Come From Away</i> does an exceptional job of this, using a bunch of chairs and small costume pieces to quickly shift between locations and characters - going from bus, to plane, to barroom simply by changing the orientation of the chairs and the way the actors interacted with them.<br />
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Going in a conceptual direction may allow you the freedom to create a greater variety of stage pictures. I remember sitting through a production which had chosen to go the more realistic route for a play that took place in two different time periods. The set for the scenes taking place in the present lived stage left, the set for the scenes in the past lived stage right. As a result, the staging became incredibly dull after the first half a dozen scenes because the set pieces severely limited where the actors could be staged.<br />
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Often productions end up somewhere in between, with some locations being fully realized and others being suggested. This approach can be a great compromise if it's executed strategically. If you're mixing these two options, you want to be sure either a) the conceptual elements are used often enough to feel like a regular part of the world (not something you defaulted to because you didn't have any other ideas) or b) the conceptual element is used only once, for dramatic effect, in a moment that is meant to be magical.<br />
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Depending on the concept, going in a less realistic direction could potentially be a means of staying within your budget. Obviously, if your concept becomes pyrotechnics and Armani suits, that's going to be more expensive, not less. But if the concept allows you to do something significantly simpler or use materials that you already have (or materials someone else is getting rid of) that can be a huge money saver. Again, this won't always be the case, but sometimes it's an option worth considering. The key is to make it look like you chose to design the show the way you did, and avoid making it look like you ran out of money.<br />
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The solution that fits your show has to balance what needed and what can be achieved. Embrace the limitations as your unique puzzle and see what the options are.<br />
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Thoughts? Questions? Comments? Post them below. The more, the merrier.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7107512224000573947.post-80060800430327588432017-04-30T19:57:00.000-07:002017-04-30T19:57:06.129-07:00Head True North<div dir="ltr">
Creating a new play can be a challenging process for any number of reasons. The first and most fundamental challenge revolves around shaping the script to tell the story that you want to tell. In my experience there are three key issues that can quickly derail this process - when a writer refuses to do any rewrites, when the writer is constantly rewriting, when the writer and the director are not on the same page with regard to what the story is or where it should go. </div>
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With the first of these, there can several valid reasons why a writer may be opposed to doing rewrites. They may have had experiences where someone bullied them into making changes that they didn't agree with or where listening to someone's feedback just made the script worse. They may not know how to fix what they don’t like about what they've written and so it's easier to pass off "making it work" to someone else. They may not have objectively investigated if what's on the page is actually telling the story they think it is. They may just believe what they've written is perfect. (This is NOT to imply that writers are arrogant. It is merely to acknowledge that some people - writers, directors, zookeepers, etc. - are arrogant and believe they can do no wrong.) Regardless, of why they are opposed to doing rewrites, I think the best results happen when the development of a new play is thought of as a collaborative process, where various interpretations, qualities, and insights may be discovered. If you've assembled a team that really works well together, the combined brain power of the group can yield ideas that greatly enhance the final product.</div>
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The other extreme, where the writer is making rewrites all over the place, can be equally frustrating. Again, this can happen for any number of reasons. There maybe an avalanche of chaotic feedback coming at them from the actors, designers, and director. There maybe seasoned industry people telling the writer the show can be a huge commercial success IF certain changes are made to the script. They may terrified that nothing they've written is working and trying to fix it by spraying "rewrite bullets" at anything that blinks. Writing a play is hard. Having it be put through the gauntlet of a reading or a production is even harder. If you're erring to this side of things, it can be particularly helpful to clarify for yourself what story you want to be telling. What are the basic plot points? What is the journey? What are the important relationships? What is the world like? If you have a clear understanding of what you want these elements to be, it will help you sort through the responses that you get.<br />
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A note about feedback: some degree of feedback will find you regardless of whether you are seeking it or not. It may be vague (seeing or hearing the audience laugh or cry) or specific (overhearing a pointed comment as the audience leaves the theater). My feeling is, since you're bound to get some degree of feedback anyway, why not actively participate in the interest of filtering that feedback towards the things that you want to know. (What happened in this play? How would you describe this character? What relationships seemed to be the strongest?) If you ask specific but open-ended questions you stand a better chance of being able to figure out whether you've written what you wanted to write. Sometimes when you've got your nose buried in the keyboard, it's hard to accurately tell what you've got. The things that are apparent to you may not be apparent to everyone else. If you find out what you think you wrote is not actually what’s being received, you may want to do some rewrites. Remember that one audience member's comment (good or bad) does not necessarily represent the experience of the entire audience. They remain just one person. As with any data set, before you draw conclusions (and make any changes) you want to collect a decent sample size. Likewise, the person who "loved everything about it" and the person who "hated everything about it" are statistic anomalies - their response are too far outside of the mean to be useful.</div>
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Perhaps most importantly, the writer and the director need to be on the same page with regard to what they hope to accomplish. Their agendas don't have to be identical, but they need to agree on the things that are most important. At the very least, they should agree on what story they are trying to tell. The same set of words and events can be interpreted in a variety of different ways. King Lear could be the story of how a man's favoritism ultimately destroys his family. Or it could be the story of one daughter's unconditional love. Or it could be the story of how unchecked jealousy destroys everything in its path. It's the same text and events, but leading to three different takeways. Once your play is published and out in the world for everyone to produce, you will likely need to come to terms with no longer being able to dictate how it takes shape. But in the stages leading up to that point, you have to be able to communicate to your director what this version is about. Ideally this would be the very first conversation you and your director have about the piece - hopefully while you're both still sussing out whether to move forward with the partnership. If the writer feels comfortable with the director, it then becomes the director's responsibility to decide whether writer's vision for the piece is one that they can be completely on board with. When the writer and the director can function as a united leadership team, it facilitates a clear and cohesive process for everyone else. One where the conversations in rehearsal are geared toward sharpening and clarifying the important elements. And where the choices that move forward with regard to performance and design continue to build on what was discovered in rehearsal. But in order for that to happen, the director has to have that in mind from the outset and writer has to continue to be available throughout the process. </div>
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The play is the point from which everything else springs. Find what true north means for this story. There will things that feel like they are pulling you off course. That is what happens when you leave the safety of the shore to embark on a voyage. Keep that as your reference point and make your adjustments according. Trust in the crew that you've assembled to get you safely to your destination. Godspeed.<br />
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Thoughts? Comments? Questions? Post them below. The more, the merrier.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7107512224000573947.post-17157030449769773902017-03-28T09:14:00.000-07:002017-03-28T09:14:52.477-07:00DetoursAs I write this, I am currently 16 weeks into my first pregnancy. And as excited as I am to start this next chapter of my personal life, I am equally terrified about what feels like the death of my creative life. Because here in the city that never sleeps, the mentality is if you're not constantly making yourself known, if you're not constantly working on your next career move, you might as well start over. (Which is not that far, psychologically, from "maybe it's time to just quit".)<br />
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But if we extrapolate this kind of thinking, what it ultimately says is that life should never come before our art. We should never take a step back to start a family, or care for a sick family member (or be sick ourselves), or work a desk job so we can make the payments on our student loans. And if that's truly the case, we are eliminating a whole crop of artists (and a variety of different voices) purely on the basis of circumstances. Obviously, the system is not set up to be a very nurturing one. Given that, we can wait and hope for the system to change or we can decide to believe in our own value and continue to find ways to be heard. Waiting has never been my strong suit.<br />
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In light of that, I keep focusing on two concepts.<br />
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The first is that the richer your life experiences are, the richer your storytelling will become. Ages ago, when I was in college studying theater, a fantastic actor by the name of <a href="http://mercykillerstheplay.com/about-michael/" target="_blank">Michael Milligan</a> came in to speak to us about life in the business. One of the things he said which has stuck with me through the years was "you can't play these legendary, three dimensional Shakespearean characters if you haven't lived a three dimensional life". It's important to study and have solid technique, But it's also important to participate fully in the human experience. That's not to say you should devote yourself to method-acting or unhealthy life choices. Please don't. However, our job as theater artists is to create representations of real life. So why would we regard those real life experiences as a detriment to our careers? Life is going to do what life will do. Embrace it as fodder for better future works.<br />
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The second idea that I'm trying to keep in mind is that every "no" is a detour saying "not this way - you need to go a different route". This is an idea that I've been encountering in some of the books I've been reading about Stoicism. But it really hit home for me when I was listening to this podcast with <a href="https://unmistakablecreative.com/podcast/the-neuroscience-of-goals-with-srini-pillay" target="_blank">Srini Pillay</a>. In it he talks about how, before you ever set out in pursuit of your goals, you should resolve to change course (instead give up) when things don't work out the way you hope they will (as they inevitably do). Which is what we do in any number of situations where the stakes are not nearly as high. If I'm at home and I want to have spaghetti and meatballs for dinner, but discover that I don't have any pasta, I don't give up and take that as a sign that I'm not meant to eat dinner. I adjust. Maybe I run out to the store. Maybe I make a peanut butter sandwich. Maybe I order something or go out somewhere. Just because the traditional path (or the most obvious path) ceases to be an option doesn't make the goal impossible. It just means you need to expand your thinking about the different ways you could achieve your goals - and perhaps clarify why you want those goals. If my goal of spaghetti and meatballs is just about eating something for dinner, than any old dinner option will do. If I am craving that and ONLY that will do, then success becomes a much narrower target and there may need to be some negotiating. Surely if we can adjust our dinner aspirations with such dexterity, then our life goals deserve just as much flexibility.<br />
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I don't mean for that to be trite. It's easy to adjust something like dinner for several reasons. For starters dinner is a fairly simple process - it's four or five steps from start to finish that you've done (and adjusted around) hundreds of times. Additionally, if dinner doesn't turn out as planned, life goes on without too much heartbreak. It's a significantly smaller scale. Whereas, a career often spans decades with numerous twists, turns, successes, and failures. Often, they become closely tied to our identity, making them seem even more urgent and precious, and leading us to feel like the prescribed path is the surest was to achievement. It might make us more anxious to adjust our thinking around the things that matter more in our life, but it's clearly possible (given that we do it without a second thought in millions of other smaller scenarios) and it's worth it.<br />
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Your stories are valuable and needed. Your perspectives are valuable and needed. You will not hear that message from this industry. You will not hear that message from this society. You will have to be the one to tell yourself that - over and over and over again. Stepping back from the nitty-gritty details of the business to life your life doesn't make you "rusty" at telling stories. If anything, it reconnects you to your humanity. As artists, we preach the value of creativity. Creativity is not just a luxury item to be let loose when conditions are perfect. Creativity is what gets us over, around, and through the difficulties and limitations that life throws at us. Onward.<br />
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Thoughts? Comments? Questions? Post them below. The more, the merrier.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7107512224000573947.post-34119246202861574932017-02-15T10:30:00.000-08:002017-02-15T10:30:57.685-08:00Always Be Storytelling <div dir="ltr">
As the director, you are responsible for guiding the audience through your story. That includes anything and everything about their experience that you can possibly be involved with. If you can be involved in with the discussions around marketing, do it. That's likely to be the very first point of contact your audience has with your show. If you can effect the atmosphere in the lobby or the house - with music, displays, decorations - do it. This is all part of your canvas. But at the very least, you must be an active participant in shaping everything happening on stage from "lights up" through to "end of play". </div>
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That seems like overly obvious statement, but many of the shows I go to see don't do this. Sure, the director has been involved with how the actors say their lines and where they move when, but they've abdicated their responsibility with regard to other elements. Every element of the production process is an opportunity for you to hone and clarify your story. The lighting design, the sound design, the costume design, the scenic design, the songs, the choreography (both for dance and fights) all need to contribute to the story you telling. This is not about being a dictation or a micro-manager. This is about leading the experience.<br />
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I have worked on musicals where the director did not direct any of the songs, saying that "was the music director's job". My guess is that this director felt like he didn't know anything about music and therefore wasn't qualified to weigh in on the process. I would argue that it doesn't matter what he knows about music, that his job is to have a constant eye on what story is being told. What does the text of the lyrics say? What emotional state is evoked by the music? Structurally, why is there a song at this point in the show? How is this moment supposed to inform the audience about the character that's singing it or what's going on in the story? Those are the questions that need to be answered in order to continue telling the story. The notes and the rhythms are for the music director to worry about. The storytelling is for the director to worry about. For the record, I am all for the music director weighing in on the storytelling. I know lots of brilliant music directors who bring tremendous perspective to the table. What I'm saying is that a director is shirking their responsibility if they skip over something because they don't feel comfortable with the details of it. </div>
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The same goes for choreography. If the choreography is not serving the story - regardless of how fabulous it is - you've got to work with your choreographer about changing it. It's great that your ensemble can do triple pirouettes and kick themselves in the head. If they're supposed to be working class laborers or dorky high school kids the physical vocabularies of those characters need to be maintained in the choreography. Meaning, it's unrealistic to me, from a storytelling perspective, that they would suddenly transform into superstar, Rockette-style dancers. Not only should the choreography fit within the reality of your world, you should be fully exploiting it to reveal and distinguish who these characters are. Is the character rigid and uptight or loose and cool? What they communicate through their movement should be as clear as (and aligned with) what they say with their lines and lyrics. If it's fight choreography, what kind of a fighter are they? Do they rely on their speed? Or their strength? Or their smarts? Is this their first fight or their ten thousandth? There's so much more we can communicate than just "they were happy, so they danced" or "they fought and this side won".<br />
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Malcolm Gladwell, in <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Tools-Titans-Billionaires-World-Class-Performers/dp/1328683788" target="_blank">Tools of the Titans</a></i>, had a wonderful reflection about his father. He noted that one of his father's greatest strengths was that he had no intellectual insecurity whatsoever, and so he always felt completely comfortable asking these questions that other people might shy away from for fear of looking ignorant. I think in the arts, where quality can be hugely subjective, it's easy to get caught up in worrying about what people think of you. Instead, find security in knowing that you are well versed in storytelling, expand your perception of the canvas that's available to you, and embrace your questions. And Always Be <strike>Closing</strike> Storytelling.<br />
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Thoughts? Comments ? Questions? Post them below. The more, the merrier.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7107512224000573947.post-8625779392680013312017-01-30T09:40:00.001-08:002017-01-30T09:40:15.968-08:00Slice and Dice<div dir="ltr">
If there's ever any issue around time (eg. being part of a larger evening and needing to fit within a certain amount of time, trying to run without an intermission, just being too darn long, etc.) do your cuts before you get into the room.</div>
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I didn't think I would need to remind myself of this, but I recently made this exact mistake. It fell into the category of "I thought it wouldn't be an issue, so I didn't worry about it." Admittedly, you can't worry about everything. There are only so many hours in the day. But this particular instance wasn't about a lack of time. It was laziness (and perhaps false security).</div>
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Script cuts are not something I feel comfortable doing on the fly. They can be emotional for the playwright, who worked very hard to make the lines sound just so, as well as the actors, who are working hard to memorize and shape them. When working on a new piece, my ideal scenario is that I think through the cuts by myself, then discuss with the playwright, then let the actors know what the new landscape is (and allow them to petition for anything that they feel strongly about). For an established script, any cuts should be done before the actors ever see the production version of the script.</div>
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Make the cuts that should get you where you need to be. Then take a second pass and make the cuts that will get you well beyond where you need to be. If you can make it work with the more severe version, go with that. This applies to any cuts you need to make regarding time or money. Cut early and cut hard. It's significantly easier to add things back. And once you've tried the lean route you'll have a better sense of what would be most beneficial to add back in.</div>
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Only taking action will get you the information you need. If you make the cuts, you'll learn whether they are too much. You'll learn what's crucial to this story. You'll learn what’s crucial to this production. Giving yourself the opportunity to think through those choices beforehand will help you make a decision about a direction to take. (Alternatively, being forced to make a choice in the moment forces you into guessing. Sometimes you make the right guess, but that's definitely not the lane I like to travel in.)</div>
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I will repeat. If there’s a possibility that time might be an issue, plan your cuts. If there’s a possibility that you might not be able to afford the production that you’re hoping for, plan your cuts. Maybe you won't need them. But if you do need them, you won't be guessing. You'll have a plan. Part of your job as the capital of the ship, is to anticipate and plan for what could go wrong. And time and money are reliably sparse in this business. </div>
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Thoughts? Questions? Comments? Post them below. The more, the merrier.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7107512224000573947.post-50366459919538740192016-12-16T13:00:00.000-08:002016-12-16T13:01:44.924-08:00Better Angels Of Our NatureLast week I saw a production of a new musical. It had a female director and a team of young writers, half of which were also female. I could not have been more disappointed. If you were to look purely at the main story arc, this show could have been written in 1950. As people who are creating and shaping cultural narratives, we need to take that responsibility seriously. One of the reasons I started directing was that I wanted to see women portrayed in a more three dimensional way on stage. I wanted to see more women represented on stage and I wanted to see them do something other than be a mother or a love interest. The world I experienced was much richer than the world I was continually seeing reflected back at me. In a previous post I talked about <a href="http://cottonwright.blogspot.com/2016/10/what-is-value-of-theater.html" target="_blank">how theater can be valuable</a> with regard to helping people their navigate emotional landscape in a healthier way. Another huge way that theater (and the other mediums for telling stories) can be hugely influential to the world around us is with regard to what they normalize. We've made tremendous progress since the 50's but that progress needs to be reflected in the stories we tell. One of the ways we can help move that progress along to an even greater degree is by shifting the narrative. Here are some things that this production could have done differently in order to be more interesting and serve as a better model for what normal could (should) be.<br />
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<b>Women Shaming Women</b><br />
Girl and boy break up. Girl is having a hard time getting over the break up and checks out boy's Facebook page. She sees him smiling in a photo with another girl. Girl responds by calling the other girl "a slut". I understand that girl is having an emotional outburst. I understand that her response is a laugh line. It's not necessary (what we need know is that he's moved on and she hasn't) and it's detrimental. Write a better joke. If anything she should be yelling at her ex-boyfriend for moving on. The new girl he's with is not at fault for anything. Women shaming other women - for the way that they dress, for how sexual they are or aren't - is something that just has to go. There's enough pressure from fashion and media around how a woman should look and behave. It shouldn't be reinforced in new works of theater. If her reaction has to go in that direction (and I maintain that it doesn't since it doesn't relate to her story line at all) I would rather that she called her "a bitch". At least that word does not carry the same shaming connotations.<br />
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<b>Beta Female</b><br />
The Girl does exactly what she's supposed to do and waits for her ship to come in. She bends over backward to please everyone around her. Finally, she lands a man. The Boy has been living the high life down on Wall St, but is fired after a corporate faux pas. He ultimately learns to follow his heart and do something meaningful. These characters are certainly still present in the modern world, but they are the low hanging fruit. They are the default, factory-setting positions for these characters. Unless there's something super unique about them or their worldview, it's really difficult to make them interesting. If, at the very least, you just switch the genders (making her a career driven alpha female and him a people pleasing artist) you're at least starting from a more interesting place. Additionally, the world needs more stories with <a href="http://www.racked.com/2016/12/14/13871472/sexism-retail-investing?curator=MediaREDEF" target="_blank">powerful women</a> and sensitive men. We are saturated with the reverse and it does not serve us as a society. We would do well do get to a point were a high powered executive is just as likely to be imagined female as male. Where the stay at home parent is just as likely to be portrayed male as female. If there are fewer societal stigmas separating genders, it allows everyone to find the lifestyle that best suits their skill set. Which in turn yields people who are happier and more fulfilled. Everybody wins!..But only if we shift the narrative around what's "normal".<br />
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<b>Woman As Conquest</b><br />
Boy is at a bar with some of his co-workers. His co-workers decide that he needs to "score" with a Girl and set about trying to help him "win" her. The co-workers know nothing about the Girl they think he should pursue. Boy also knows nothing about this Girl. (i.e. it's not a scenario where he's really gotten to know her and has just been too shy to ask her on a date). She has been seen and it is decided that she should be the evening's prize. Then follows a whole song and dance number about how to get her to go out with him. At the end of which she is cornered into engaging with him. This narrative (in addition to being about as boring as they come) in the larger context of our society is harmful for both genders. It reduces women to being viewed as objects and reduces a man's masculinity to his ability to "win" her. We would never believe a friendship or even a business partnership that was based on such a flimsy premise. We would expect the two parties to discover that they had something in common and something to gain from engaging with each other. But we would also expect both parties to opt in. You win the lottery, you win a game, you a court battle. You don't win another human being. With regard to this particular scene and song in the production, it felt like this resulted because the writers felt like they needed a song featuring the Boy's Friend. Which is completely valid. But in that case make it about how to appropriately and respectfully ask a girl out. Or how to put your best foot forward. Or how to build a relationship that lasts. Or any number of other relevant topics. There are numerous ways this concept could have been avoided and the effort needs to be made to do so. It's one that is overdue for extinction.<br />
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<b>Consent</b><br />
Boy and Girl meet at a bar. Which then progresses to a date - they leave the bar (and their friends) to go out for hot dogs. At the end of said date, he kisses her. Why not instead have her kiss him. That at least makes her an active partner in their courtship. Best of all would be before anyone kisses anyone (that they only just MET a few hours before), they say, "May I kiss you?" and wait for the response. The issue of consent is a huge cultural shift that is long overdue. This adjustment costs us nothing with regard to the story. It doesn't change the plot at all - what we need to understand is that they like each other, which we still get. It might add a line of dialogue, but it doesn't even have to be a stopping point. They don't have to have a whole conversation about consent. It's probably better for the overall flow of this piece if they don't. It's just a tiny blip that says "asking for someone's consent before you engage with their body is a normal thing to do." We need to allow the idea that characters can engage with each other as active and willing participants to be romantic. And steer clear of glamorizing the notion that it's somehow more meaningful if one character pushes themselves on another.<br />
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I don't think any of these examples were decisions that were made in an attempt to perpetuate these older, not-so-helpful narratives. I think they weren't decisions at all. I think they were defaults. The point is that if you are not conscious about what your work is saying, your work could be saying things that you wouldn't intend to say.<br />
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Be aware - it is the first part of the process. Think from your highest intelligence - there are so many other solutions that can be found once we recognize we're not going in the right direction. Take responsibility for what you create - the world is listening.<br />
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Thoughts? Questions? Comments? Post them below. The more, the merrier.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7107512224000573947.post-55611183534302835152016-11-01T09:42:00.000-07:002016-11-01T09:42:27.231-07:00Finding The FunnyThis post is the juncture of having just seen my first production of <i>She Stoops to Conquer</i> and having just read <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Brain-That-Changes-Itself-Frontiers/dp/0143113100/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1477335197&sr=8-1&keywords=the+brain+that+change+itself" target="_blank">The Brain That Changes Itself</a></i>.<br />
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First the production. The production I was good, but I walked away thinking it could have gone much further. Comedy is difficult to pull off successfully. Some comedies have additional meaning layer on top of the funny business. This script is purely in search of the laugh. That's not to say that the characters don't need to be grounded in truth. They absolutely do. The moment a character becomes aware of or comments on their part within the whole, is the moment that they stop being funny. The characters have to be singularly focused on their pursuit, so that we as the audience can laugh at what they are ignorant of and revel in the moment that it is revealed to them. In a comedy like <i>She Stoops</i>, a whole slew of outrageous events occur and it is the productions job to make it seems as though they were completely accidental - to make the artificial seem like a natural happenstance. The same must be done for each mini-moment of comedy added to the performances. The key is to stuff as many of these moments as you can sustain into the production. And in order to do that, it helps to have some comedians on hand.<br />
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There is a difference between a comedian and someone who can be funny. A comedian is someone who is wired to continually look for (and play) the joke. For a comedian, finding the funny is a lifestyle. It's the filter that they view everything through. They talk about being in situations where they knew a joke wouldn't be well received, but they just couldn't resist telling it because the humor was there for the taking and they just couldn't resist. The performers in this production had the ability to be funny but it hadn't been run through the filter of enough comedians.<br />
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We talk about people as either being funny or not, a view which is not accurate or particularly helpful. Certainly some people are more skilled at it than others, but it's a skill just like any other. And the only way you get better at a skill is by practicing it. <i>The Brain That Changes Itself</i> details how the things that we think quite literally shape and change the way that our neurons fire. If we are continually looking for the comedy around you, your brain will become better at finding it. Most of the people we regard as funny don't lead lives that are significantly funnier than anyone else's. Instead they are better at noticing the incongruities and absurdities that surround us. They have worked at honing these observations their entire life. So, if we want to create a production that is as funny as it possibly can be, and we're not thoroughly versed comedians ourselves, we have to do every thing we can to compensate. The most fundamental of which being the way we view the world.<br />
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In order to up our comedy game, we need to eat, sleep, and breathe comedy. Watch comedy, read comedy, listen to comedy. When you're waiting in line at the grocery store, think about what the funniest thing (or assortment of things) you could purchase would be. When you're waiting for the elevator, think about who the funniest person to be on the other side of those doors could be. What if you went to your production meetings wearing Groucho glasses? The comedy doesn't need to be in the style of piece. It just needs to have you continually looking to exercise the funny circuits in your brain (and the brains of everyone involved). A coach who I really enjoy recommends writing the thing that you want to keep at the forefront of you mind on a rubber band and then wearing that rubber band on your wrist until you can train your brain to drift in that direction on its own. Try that. If you're a post-it fan, try that. The point is to do anything you can to sharpen your eye for comedy.<br />
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With regard to the rehearsal process, obviously if we can cast actor-comedians, that's helpful. But short of that, we can recruit the cast to be thinking in the same direction that we are and be on the lookout for moments where jokes can be added - not just when they're onstage, but at any point. Invite your stage manager, your designers, and anyone sitting in rehearsal to look for missed comedic opportunities. Every suggestion might not make the final cut, but the more you've fully explored the options, the better. You know the shenanigans that sometimes make their way into the last leg of a run - things like "work the word 'banana' into your dialogue" or "insert the Usain Bolt 'Lightning Bolt' gesture into one of your scenes", or other idiotic challenges? What if those were intentionally added to the rehearsal process so that the stumble through of Act One also involved passing a balloon animal around onstage as inconspicuously as possible?<br />
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Obviously, everyone has to be on their game in order to do this. You have to make sure that safety comes first. Everyone has to know their lines and blocking. You have to be able to be able to wrangle and structure the fun-times so that work is still being done and it doesn't just devolve into everybody goofing off. And you have to be able to edit out the bits that aren't working. But in a piece like <i>She Stoops</i> where the amount of fun that the cast is having only increases the amount of fun audience in having, fostering an environment where everyone can play fully and completely can reap great rewards. And having more options to play only adds more fuel to the fire.<br />
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Thoughts? Questions? Comments? Post them below. The more, the merrier.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7107512224000573947.post-12445573371636737492016-10-13T12:00:00.000-07:002016-10-13T12:00:31.201-07:00What is the Value of Theater?<div dir="ltr">
Last week I was up in Maine work-shopping a new play. Among the artists I was with, the presidential debates and the state of our nation were a frequent subject of discussion. A lot of questions came up. How can you engage people with different opinions in meaningful conversation? How do you change people's minds? How do you create impactful work? I don't pretend to have answers to those questions, but I think it's worth thinking about.<br />
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Many of today's issues are incredibly complex. They are issues that can barely be sufficiently understood in two and a half hours, let alone solved. Experts in these fields may spend their entire life studying them and still not know definitively how to solve them. So when we, as theater artists, try to tackle these issues head-on, I don't think we're having the effect we might desire. There is the argument is that these plays can generate change by starting the conversation. But my experience with this - purely as an audience member - is that, when I discuss these issues - where both sides have valid arguments, where the system is failing in multiple ways, where the thing that we thought would fix it has made it worse - I tend to spend some time batting ideas back and forth...and finally drop it after resolving that I don't know how to fix it. Which means that the needle hasn't moved much and the problem remains just as frustrating and unfixed as it ever was. And I think my response is a common one. Meaning the impact of a script about issues is questionable.<br />
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Furthermore, if we want to effect change, we have to avoid depicting characters who represent the opposing side as villains. The fastest way to a dead-end is to start off by saying "you (and everyone like you) are the problem". If we start off like that, the only people who might continue to listen to us are the people who were already in agreement with that viewpoint in the first place. At which point we're not changing any minds or starting any conversations. We're just stirring the pot and pinning it on a scapegoat. I genuinely understand the appeal of this - ranting is easy and it's so satisfying in the moment. But there is a difference between being right (or even justified) and being effective. If the objective is to be able to bridge the gap and make legitimate progress, we have to speak in a manner that doesn't put the other side on the offensive and we have to genuinely listen to their perspective.<br />
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Where I think theater can be very effective is with regard to emotionally educating people. Whether we'll ever reach the point where we can consistently respond in a way that's in keeping with our best intentions is anyone's guess. But right now, we're not there and art can be a powerful tool with regard to navigating emotional territory. The basic tenets of theater revolve around resolving conflict. The pieces of theater I have been most effected by are the ones that effect me emotionally. Persuasion is a long game. You don't change people's minds in one massive assault of reason. Most of the time facts will never change people's opinions. Opinions are emotional. Decisions are emotional. You have to allay to you opponent's emotional concerns if you want to win them over. This subtle, gradual shift isn't the kind of sweeping reform that makes headlines. This is the quiet trickle of water that with consistent effort eventually creates the path it desires.</div>
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We get just over two hours to connect with our audience and make an impression. Unlike TV and film, which can be rewatched over and over, most audience members will only see any given production once. Just because we can't force the world to immediately become what we would have it be, doesn't mean we can't take action to help it become what we wish it were. Rather than preaching about what's wrong or who's at fault, what if we used out time to model the responses we would like to see more of in the world? Can we be an example of how to override your fears? How to be more tolerant? More compassionate? Can we remind people of their humanity? Remind them that there is strength in vulnerability? Can we teach people to be at peace with themselves? We may not know how to fix the fix huge issues of our day. But if we can improve the conversations in our communities, that will not be for nothing. </div>
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Thoughts? Comments? Questions? Post them below. The more, the merrier.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7107512224000573947.post-13247614530127623382016-08-26T09:19:00.000-07:002016-08-26T09:19:19.378-07:00So, What Do You Do?There is value in defining for yourself what role you want to play in the grand scheme of a production. Research has shown that a large part of job satisfaction stems from finding meaning in what you do. So, for example, a janitor who sees himself as contributing to the overall function of an organization he believes in is significantly happier in his job than the janitor who's just taking out the trash and collecting a paycheck. The default job description may meet the minimum requirements, but if we want attract the right people and projects to our world and get the most out of our experience, taking the time to craft a more deliberate intention (even if it's just for yourself) is a great starting point.<br />
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As such, my job as a director boils down to four things.<br />
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<b>Establish what the story is. </b><br />
It bears repeating that the story is not the plot. The plot is strictly the events that happen. The story is how we interpret those events. I decide on a version of the story that I'm interested in telling. If it's a new piece or something where the playwright is accessible, I then broaden the conversation to include them. How does my interpretation jive with what they intended? What did I read on the page that they didn't know was there? What did they intend that I missed? If you can find common ground from the outset, you'll save yourself all kinds of headaches later on. There's nothing worse than having a playwright come in to watch a final run-through and disagree with the way everything is being done. Next that circle of conversation extends to my designers, and then my actors. This order of operations is purely based on the order in which these players typically come on board. The objective is simply to have a clear direction for the story that everyone understands and can work towards.<br />
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<b>Have an answer.</b><br />
Every production presents challenges. It could be anything from making something magically appear at a certain moment to not having any backstage space to making a character likable enough so that we continue to listen to what he has to say. My job is to scout those sticky spots out early and figure out some kind of solution - a solution that could implement all by myself if I had to. It may not be the right solution. It may not even be a good solution. But that way I know that there is some sort of solution. If nothing else, it's a starting point. And sometimes even bad ideas can develop into good ideas. What you cannot afford to do is say, "this is going to be a problem - I'm going to hope someone else will fix it" and look the other way. If you are the captain of the ship, you must take complete responsibility for the ship.<br />
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<b>Harvest the crop of answers.</b><br />
In the way that it's my job to have a solution. It's also my job to create an environment where everyone else is also coming up with solutions and where those solutions are being voiced. Designers and technicians, since they tend to have rather defined areas that they are responsible for, tend to be excellent at coming up with solutions. I often wish actors were better at it, especially with regard to thinking up solutions outside of the rehearsal room. Yes, wonderful things can happen in the room in the spur of the moment. But research seems to indicate that even better things (more ideas with more variance) result when people think about solutions separately and then come together to share them. Especially, if you (like me) tend to be more introverted. So if we're clear about where we're trying to get to and what we're up against, my job is to make sure everyone is held accountable for being part of the solution.<br />
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<b>Edit down the options. </b><br />
Once there's a good mix of options on the table, my job is to start trying them out and decide what works - what's sustainable for the course of the run, what's practical, what gets us closest to what we need. Don't get stuck waiting for the perfect answer. Just pick a lane and try it. If the option you thought would be brilliant turns out to be wrong, try the one you thought would never work. You have to be willing to try the wrong option in order to discover the right one.<br />
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When I write it all out like that, it seems like piece of cake. Obviously, it all becomes much more complicated in the execution. But in terms of broad strokes to aspire to, I like it. </div>
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Thoughts? Questions? Comments? Post them below. The more, the merrier.</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7107512224000573947.post-81106693517444846482016-07-08T12:56:00.002-07:002016-07-08T12:56:16.453-07:00Taming Of The Shrew<div dir="ltr">
The post is inspired by the all-female production of <i>The Taming of the Shrew</i>, directed by Phyllida Lloyd, which was just recently at the Delacorte. I was not planning on doing a post about this show, given that it's not a play that I particularly love. But ignoring it seemed foolish. Shakespeare only wrote so many plays and this play is far more likely to be produced many of his histories. And if someone offered me the chance to direct it, I would be thrilled...and then I would be like "oh crap, how do I make this a story that I can stomach watching." So in the interest of thinking along those lines, here we go.</div>
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I've said it before and I'll probably say every time I see it. I love seeing all these ladies playing roles they never get to play. I absolutely love it. In this production, the ladies who were playing male roles were costumed as men. In Ms. Lloyd's all-female production of Henry V which I wrote about <a href="http://cottonwright.blogspot.com/2015/12/ladies-all-ladies.html" target="_blank">previously</a>, the women were not actually costumed to look like men. Instead a masculine quality was suggested through their physicality. I prefer just making use of the physicality because it allows them the best of both worlds - being able to remain women, but take on characteristics that are traditionally viewed as male such as authority, aggression, bravado, etc. But, on the other hand, having them costumed as men, as they were in this production, did eliminate the friction around the question of what does gender mean when a play written for two distinct genders that's now being performed by only one.<br />
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The Times did a feature <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/19/theater/shakespeare-the-taming-of-the-shrew.html" target="_blank">article</a> inspired by this production, asking whether or not we should continue to bother with producing this play. For it they interviewed Ms. Lloyd, Julie Taymor and Tina Packer (from Shakespeare & Company). Thoughts on the play seem to range from "it's important to tell because of the present day misogyny that continues to exist" to "this is a love story between an atypical woman and her equal." I agree with both of those view points to a degree. This production, by using the framing devise of a beauty pageant, suggests that life for women is one unending Miss America contest, which is valid but not exactly a story that I'm excited to tell. I do think this is a story about keeping up appearances. Every character except Kate is trying to convince us (and the people around them) that they are the picture of propriety. I'm interested in Kate learning (more appropriately, being forced to learn) how to play the game...so that she can undermine it. I'm more interested in saying "you have to be playing the game in order to change the game." Which I think could be difficult to chisel out of this piece, but might be possible.</div>
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<b>Kate.</b><br />
Whenever I've heard people talk about casting an actress for Kate, they talk about casting an actress who is strong and feisty. Which is the right answer. First and foremost we have to believe that Kate is a spitfire. But to some degree I wonder why any actress exhibiting those qualities would want to play Kate. For this production it felt like Kate spent the first third of the show spunky and spirited but the remaining two-thirds begging and pleading. Which is a valid rendering of what's in the text. But if you're trying to adjust what's in the text for a contemporary audience I think you want to do whatever you can to keep the last two-thirds of her story from being pitiful. That spark shouldn't be extinguished (or tamed), but rather should be channeled into different outlets. Without that spark, she ceases to be the woman that Petruchio actually loves. </div>
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<b>Petruchio.</b><br />
Petruchio has to be different from any of the other men in this world. While he agrees to woo Kate primarily because of her dowry, I think he falls truly and unexpectedly in love with her because of her spirit. Petruchio is not interested in declawing the Tiger and rendering it harmless. If you declaw the Tiger then anyone can wield control over it. If you befriend the Tiger, then it maintains its power and you are in the unique position to be able to influence it. That is the more impressive feat. And in this world, where virtually all of the other men are strutting around trying to prove how impressive they are (in order to win Bianca's hand), Petruchio can distinguish himself to Kate in their first scene by his sincerity. Granted the moments where he can do that are fleeting, but I think it can be done. Kate is the outcast of her society and the way to infiltrate an outcast is to say "I see who you really are, I understand you and I value you". (This akin to the "you have never been satisfied" moment between Angelica and Alexander in <i>Hamilton</i>.) If Petruchio can communicate to Kate that he respects her and views them as equals, that's something she can neither ignore nor run away from. Where Kate and Petruchio differ is that he is a master at playing the societal game, and he uses that knowledge to cheat the system. This is what he must teach Kate. In this production, Petruchio seemed to disregard societal norms entirely which I don't think ultimately serves their relationship nor Kate's arc (at least not in the way I'm interested in telling it). in my ideal world, the message that he communicates to Kate is "I get this world and I get you and I'm the bridge that's going to enable you to say 'buzz off' the way you've always wanted to." It's admittedly a tall order based on what's in the text, but I think it might be possible.</div>
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<b>The Taming. </b></div>
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In order for this play to be palatable to me, I'm looking for three main things with regard to the "taming" of Kate.<br />
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<li>I need to believe that Kate and Petruchio are legitimately the perfect match for each other. For my money, their first scene together is when this has to happen. I've mentioned that Petruchio needs to be different from all of the other men in this play. Likewise, Kate needs to respond to him differently than she does to everyone else. Not that she doesn't revert to tactics that she's successfully used before (she does), but he gets under her skin (and into her brain) the way no one else is able to. And we need to see that difference. Additionally, any time either of them gets a rise out of the other, is a point for whoever stayed calm and a demerit for whoever got angry. To get angry is to admit that you’re losing ground. If you’re winning an argument, you're not angry, you’re delighted. So, both sides want to avoid that as much as they can.</li>
<li>I need the actual taming to seem as equitable and as necessary as it can be. Which is tricky. It can be helped if we see that Petruchio is suffering the ailments he's inflicting on Kate as much as she is (i.e. neither one of them are able to sleep or eat and it's miserable for both of them). Additionally, the distinction between behavior in public vs. behavior in private needs to be well established. In public, Kate needs to behave in a manner that suits her society. In private, when it is just her and Petruchio, she can be herself. I would love to try to establish that Petruchio only insists that she comply with his every command when they are in public - when there is at least one other character present on stage. This feels like a bit of a stretch, but the theme of keeping up appearances that is present, it might be possible to goose that. If this abusive behavior can be put in that context I think it can seem like less of something that Petruchio asserting his dominance and more about Kate learning how she has to play the game. I was struck in this production by the way that the "kiss me, Kate" moment occurred in private. As such, that moment has the potential to be about Petruchio asking for her affection in a really vulnerable way. And it's a moment where Kate can discover (and reveal) that she actually is attracted to this person, contributing to this private standards vs. public standards, especially if this is only the second time that we've seen them be alone together (the first being the "bonny Kate" scene) and it is the first moment of real intimacy that we see between the two of them. In this production I wasn't sure if Kate and Petruchio had slept together after the wedding ceremony, and that is a big deal. The societal expectation is that they would (and I think it's important that we see Kate expect that), but if that were to happen at that point in their relationship, in light of how Petruchio just kidnapped her from her own wedding and is about to deprive her of food and sleep, it becomes too violent an act to get past if we want to establish the possibility of a genuine relationship between the two of them. It's better for the story of their relationship, that we don't think they have slept together until we can believe that Kate is a willing participant.</li>
<li>I need some kind of interpretation of that final speech that allows me to believe Kate has not become a Stepford Wife. In this production, the groveling way in which Kate delivers this speech ends up winning her the beauty pageant which she has unknowingly been part of this whole time, which shocks her back to her senses and prompts her to reject everything she has previously said. I think that's a valid interpretation (and gives its own spin to the Induction), but it's not the one that I find most interesting. I'm more interested in treating the story as reality and trying to find a solution to how Kate and Petruchio can exist together afterward. Certainly, there are things that can help this last speech. It helps that in this moment Kate gets to throw Bianca and the Widow under the bus for their churlish behavior. Additionally, it's also reasonable to say behaving like a jerk (even if it's justified) only serves to make life miserable for everyone (yourself included). And if we've done what we can to establish a solid and loving relationship (or at least the foundation for one) between Kate and Petruchio, there is merit to saying "this is a partnership and in a partnership each party has certain responsibilities". That being said I would likely look to trim some of the language about women being soft and husbands being demi-gods. </li>
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Thoughts? Questions? Comments? Post them below. The more, the merrier.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7107512224000573947.post-11028528235402480512016-06-24T13:09:00.000-07:002016-07-08T12:56:42.475-07:00What You KnowEarlier this month I was in London and had the pleasure of seeing <i>In The Heights</i>, directed by Luke Sheppard and playing at King's Cross Theatre. I left with a mixture of feelings. On the one hand, it was a tremendously fun, vibrant, and heartfelt production - which is exactly how that show should feel. There were some choices that I didn't think really served the story telling, but that's to be expected. You're never going to like all the choices all of the time. However, I felt the show lacked an authentic New York feel. This feels like an unfair comment to make. It's being performed in London, for a London audience, by a primarily British cast - all of that impacts the final product. And only if you're very familiar with New York would you notice that this show didn't have that feel.<br />
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Advice that we frequently hear for writers is "write what you know." Which is not to say that you can't write a story that happened long ago and far away. But it is to say that if you're a 20-something white man who's grown up in Connecticut, you might not have the best perspective on what it's like to be an African American woman living in Alabama in the 1960's. That particular writer would need to do a significant amount of research into what her world was like in order to get his interpretation of her life to be close to what her actual experience was. If he doesn't do his homework incredibly well, he runs the risk of it ringing false to anyone who is closer to that experience than he is. On the flip side, for the writer who's personal experiences are closer to that woman's world, it can less about doing research and more about telling a story about someone you're well acquainted with.<br />
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As an actor, it's crucial to have some aspect of the character's emotional being that you can relate to from the core of your being. So that you can say, "I may not understand every choice this character makes, but I <i>get</i> this driving force behind there actions." From there, the core energy behind the character can be completely honest and you can "act" all the other details that layer in on top of it. It's still valuable to do your research - the research helps you avoid making choices that are completely wrong - but an emotional tie-in (and being true to the text) opens up the spectrum of <i>other</i> choices that might be possible (and unique to your production).<br />
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Directing, being at the intersection of the text and the performance, has to be somewhere in the middle. I was listening to a podcast with Lisa Kron and she had a great comment about the difference between the story and the plot. The plot of <i>Fun Home</i> is a Lesbian graphic novelist who's remembering what it was like growing up in a Funeral Home run by her closeted gay father who eventually killed himself. This is not something that's terribly relatable. But the story of <i>Fun Home</i>, that of a child who is reflecting on the humanity and fallibility of her father, is enormously relatable. You have to be able to connect to the emotional story that you're telling and you have to also understand the universe where the plot is unfolding.<br />
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So with regard to the production of <i>In The Heights</i>? I think the emotional connection was solid, which is a huge accomplishment. This show lives or dies according to the amount of heart and soul that is visible on stage each night. And this production had that in spades. But the universe where the plot unfolds could have been better established (better researched?) by the creative team. On the general level, this place didn't feel like New York. New York is a urgent, gritty and dense. New York is like a hungry dog in pursuit of its next meal. The pressure of that environment, scraping by for every nickle and dime in a city that's constantly trying to pull them away from you as fast as you can make them, is part of what Usnavi is trying to escape from. This production didn't feel like it had that edginess to fight against. <br />
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On the more detailed level, there were a few props that weren't quite accurate. On such prop were the sheets of paper. In the US, we use paper that's 8.5x11 inches. In the UK, they use A4 - it's not as wide and slightly longer. You can get a ream of either size fairly easily through your preferred office supplies retailer. It's a small, but specific prop which sticks out like a sore thumb if you know what you're looking at. One that wouldn't have occurred to me if I was in a similar situation. I could easily see myself assuming that I knew what contemporary London was like, owing to the fact that I live in New York. I left thinking about what kind of research I would need to do (that might not occur to me to do) if I were to direct a similar story set in London.<br />
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All of which is to say, find your emotional connection. And then do your research. And keep doing your research. Even when you think you don't need to. TV and Movies are a great way to do research for tone and feel, especially if they've been shot on location. Assume you are going to have blindspots. Assume there will be questions that you don't know you need to ask. If there are large areas where your personal experience and the details of the story overlap, make a point to see where those paths diverge. If at all possible, drag someone who's closer to the story into your rehearsal process (even if it's just a friend doing you a personal favor, even if they're not in involved in theater in the least). The devil is in the details.<br />
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Thoughts? Questions? Comments? Post them below. The more, the merrier.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7107512224000573947.post-87905448712266118842016-05-31T20:50:00.000-07:002016-05-31T21:01:19.703-07:00Taking The Leap to Kill Off Your DarlingsAs a director it is your job to have a vision for the piece - to have an idea about what you want to communicate and how to get there. This is the phase where everything is a possibility for you. After that it's your job to actually get everyone there, safely and within the allotted restrictions of time and budget. Often this means a lot of thinking, planning, and dreaming well before any of the physical components are in place.<br />
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However, once those physical realities start taking shape, you will need to kill off some of your dreamy darlings, and the faster the better. Because until you move on, no one else can either. It's only once we move on that we can start figuring out what will work. Too often we waste time clinging to one magical vision that we have about the way we think a moment should go or the way we think a set or costume should look like. Sometimes those ideas get dragged all the way to opening night, never quite achieving what they were meant to. Prompting the response we weren't willing to see, that it wasn't the right choice for our production. The story of the Emperor's New Clothes is not that the Emperor was fooled, but rather that the Emperor was too afraid to see what was in front of him.<br />
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In any given process, what are the things that we can't fix? What are the things that we can't change? (This is kind one step beyond the notion of <a href="http://cottonwright.blogspot.com/2015/09/play-cards-you-have.html" target="_blank">playing the cards you have</a>.) Is there a structural pillar in the middle of your playing space? Figure out a way that you can incorporate it. Find the possibility. Can it become a tree trunk? Or the post of a front porch? Or a telephone pole? Or a place to hang props? How completely can you integrate what you can't change into the world of your? What if your options for lighting are spartan (at best) and you were longing for something to rival last year's Super Bowl? Time to shift directions. Rob Lowe in his book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Love-Life-Rob-Lowe/dp/1451685734/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1464753399&sr=8-3&keywords=love+life+book" target="_blank">Love Life</a> talks about how it's always the one line in the script that he hates, that he doesn't initially know how to deliver truthfully, that eventually unlocks the whole character for him. While you're focused on what you can't do, someone else is figuring out how to work with the exact same thing. The unique challenges that you face will point you in the direction of solution that is unique to your production.<br />
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We are in the business of blending reality and fiction. Taking fictional characters and making them relatable. Taking true events and crafting them into compelling narratives. When we ignore our physical realities, we can't possibly a fictional world that allows our audience to suspend their disbelief. When we build those realities into our narrative, suddenly everything makes sense. Accept what you can change and exploit it to the best of your ability.<br />
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Creativity is born out of limits. There are a multitude of ways to tell any given story. If there weren't, scripts would only ever be produced once with one cast . There's an anecdote I heard at some point where some famous innovator basically said, "what do I care if someone 'steals' one of my ideas, I have millions of ideas and I make more every day." (I cannot for the life of me remember who it was about. Maybe it was about Disney? Tesla? Edison? Someone prolific. Google has not turned up anything to help me pinpoint it. Which ) Regardless, it's great reminder.<br />
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Musicians spend years drilling scales, dancers spend years at the barre - honing their technique, so that when it comes time to perform they can forget all of that minutia and trust in their instrument. You must do the work of dreaming and planning, so that you can let it all go and trust that new dreams will come. There are no short cuts. But unless you leap, there's also no reward.<br />
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Questions? Questions? Comments? Post them below. The more the merrier!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7107512224000573947.post-66154542429751861442016-04-08T13:56:00.000-07:002016-04-08T13:56:00.315-07:00Specifically SexyIn any given system, the better the input, the better the output. You ask the right questions, you get the right answers. You give the right note, (in theory) the better the actor is able to implement it. Now granted, when you're trying to communicate something you may think you've described it with absolute clarity but your recipient may have no idea what you're talking about, so a dialogue between both parties is clutch for ensuring that the message you think you've sent is actually the message that's been received. This whole process works better if we are specific with our language.<br />
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One particular concept which might feel specific but is actually incredibly vague is the word "sexy". This includes any note like "do you have anything sexier?" (with regard to audition material), "she needs to be more appealing", "can you seduce him more?". (This is just one example. The word "funny" is another. I'm sure there are many. But for this post I'm going to focus on "sexy".)<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG-fhstLtLMnhy2xs4GQNu8Gae0ItSXjMrM2WCYAefGnOC2jj_S8WQIODH0df-0LmnhQrGpztSCGLrpDRJG2WlsOc7XOx0OztYuuBBwciEtaoQmUhfwlyFiSOZHuvcNty27ziQVZu9D_M/s1600/zoolander.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG-fhstLtLMnhy2xs4GQNu8Gae0ItSXjMrM2WCYAefGnOC2jj_S8WQIODH0df-0LmnhQrGpztSCGLrpDRJG2WlsOc7XOx0OztYuuBBwciEtaoQmUhfwlyFiSOZHuvcNty27ziQVZu9D_M/s400/zoolander.jpg" width="270" /></a>There's no one set way to be sexy. If there were, we would all just do that and everyone would sexy to everyone all the time. Which sounds kind of fun until you realize that this would mean your husband/wife now finds that person you can't stand equally as attractive as you. Suffice it to say, sexy comes in many different forms. When the feedback that goes into the system is solely "be sexier", it often results in attempting to do our best imitation of someone widely considered to be sexy. Maybe we speak a little lower or we make our voice a little breathier. Maybe we twirl our hair, or make more eye contact, or smile more. But those are general attempts, rather than a specific embodiment.<br />
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I would argue that people are not sexy. People exhibit certain qualities which we as the viewer (or the scene partner) then find enticing. If you've read Robert Greene's <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Art-Seduction-Robert-Greene/dp/B0056XSMMO/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1460147514&sr=8-2&keywords=art+of+seduction" target="_blank">The Art of Seduction</a></i> (not as steamy as it sounds, but very interesting food for thought), this is largely what he's talking about. Sexy is the result, but not the cause. It results because of other characteristics. Perhaps the character is sexy because of their confidence, or their innocence, or their intelligence, or some kind of impressive skill. They can be sexy because they're the life of the party or they can be sexy because they're dark and brooding and just out of reach. So when we're looking to arrive at a desired destination (sexy), we need to provide directions on how to get there. We can tell someone "bring me my pogostick" and let them hunt for it or we can say "bring me my pogostick - it's at the back of the closet by the front door". How to find the pogostick is crucial information. If we can articulate how a character is sexy, then achieving that becomes significantly easier.<br />
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I would also argue that sexy is a defined relationship, similar to a chemical reaction, where are parties are in agreement with regard to what the triggers are. If you pour vinegar on baking soda, there will be a reaction. You'll see the foam bubble up instantly. If you pour vinegar on powered sugar (something that looks a lot like baking soda), all you'll get is a really gross mess. But that doesn't mean something was wrong with the powered sugar (or the vinegar). It just means we haven't paired up the right chemicals to create a reaction. So, if we're not getting the desired "sexy" effect, perhaps it's not because the actor (male or female) is doing it wrong but because we haven't agreed on what the make up of "sexy" should be within the given world. It has to be equal parts what-one-character-is-doing and how-the-other-character-is-responding. Both parties have to be on the same page with regard to what sexy means specifically. We want to create a situation, which is true to the text and suited to the actors, that tells the story of two characters being drawn to each other.<br />
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If you're getting general output, refine your input. God is in the details.<br />
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Thoughts? Questions? Comments? Post them below. The more the merrier!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7107512224000573947.post-23404132241069076232016-03-28T10:26:00.000-07:002016-03-28T10:29:39.654-07:00I've Got The Power<div dir="ltr">
A clear understanding of the dynamics of power are a huge asset in storytelling. After all, it's the dissonance between two forces (and the power they hold) that creates dramatic tension. Yet often these power dynamics aren't as clear as they could be. With theater being a collaborative art form and America being a culture which values the idea that all citizens have an equal voice, I think power is not something we spend a great deal of time focusing on. Or at least it's not something that is acceptable to openly discuss in specific terms. But being conscious of it can really sharpen the conflicts in our story.<br />
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When we talk about power, it's important to also talk about status. Status is often a result of your lot in life, whereas power is your a ability to effect it. Status tends to be quantifiable - your rank withing the military, your title within the company, your net worth. Status can certainly effect the power you have, but it is not the only determining factor. Sometimes power and status align, and sometimes they don't. Which is to say, the king can be young, strong, smart, and conniving (having both a kingly status and the power to genuinely rule the kingdom)...or he can be a complete idiot who just happened to be born to the right people at the right time (having only the title, but otherwise being a puppet for those around him). If status is the cards you're dealt, power is the way you play them to your advantage.</div>
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One summer I worked as an actor at a Renaissance Festival. As part of our rehearsal process each of the characters were ranked according to status. Whenever you encountered someone of a higher status you had to bow or curtsy. The greater the difference between your status and the other character the deeper your bow was supposed to be, such that when the beggars encountered the queen they would lay prostrate on the ground. It was fascinating to have such a visceral experience of status. Suddenly, for the interactions you witnessed, you had an immediate visual picture of who was supposed to be top dog, just by the way the characters greeted each other. And for the interactions you were part of, you had an immediate context for where you fit within the world.<br />
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Status gets interesting at the point where it intersects with power. Power can come in many forms - money, information, social connections, sex, physical strength. Humor can be power. Intelligence can be power. Anything that attracts or repels is power. It can come in the form of friendship ("Hey, we've been buddies for a long time. Would you help me out with this?") or it can come in the form of a threat ("You better do this, or else."). Anything a character can use to affect the action of another character is power. When you are aware of all the different ways a character can have power, it provides you with a wealth of tactics to pursue your objectives.<br />
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One type of person who is likely to be particularly attuned to the different tactics for acquiring influence, whether intentionally or unconsciously, is the Alpha. I think of Alphas as being the natural leader of a group. These are the people who emerge as the dominate voice in an otherwise equal peer group. They tend to lead the tone for the group for better or for worse. They are the true head of the snake, so to speak. Obviously, this "Alpha quality" is something of a sliding scale. There are varying degrees of sophistication and effectiveness and it is relative to context. If you cast someone who does not naturally relate to the world in this way, in a role that calls for it, you will need to pay special attention to developing that dynamic.<br />
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The Alpha doesn't yell to make their point. They don't have to. Yelling is a symptom of having to struggle to be heard. Similarly, they don't <i>have</i> to move. Their world moves around them. While they might have the ability to physically intimidate others, they know that in the long run they are better off having a range of options with which to control those around them. With physical strength, it is only a matter of time before someone bigger, faster, or stronger comes along. The book <i><a href="http://smile.amazon.com/NurtureShock-New-Thinking-About-Children/dp/0446504130/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1459186132&sr=8-1&keywords=nurture+shock" target="_blank">Nurture Shock</a></i> devotes a chapter to discussing how the most socially savvy children, the ones who have the biggest circle of friends, tend to exhibit the highest amounts of social bullying. Their ability to understand the psyche of their peers initially helps them make friends and subsequently allows them to manipulate those relationships as they see fit.<br />
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While power certainly isn't the only was to look at a story arch, it can be a really great tool to explore as part of a rehearsal process, especially if the arguments ever feel "one-note".<br />
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Thoughts? Questions? Comments? Post them below. The more, the merrier.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7107512224000573947.post-74774429674472949542016-02-27T22:49:00.000-08:002016-02-27T23:00:59.353-08:00A Nice PersonalityThere are certain actors who I regard as "plug and play". They are very serviceable. They give a lovely, dependable performance. But I'm never surprised by their choices and I never find their performances to be terribly personal. It's this kind of performance that feels like it could be duplicated by any number of other performers without adding or subtracting to the final product.<br />
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Then there are the performers who seem to mesh who they are with who the character is resulting in a blend that is in keeping with the story but unique to who they are as a human being. These are the performances where we can't imagine anyone else in the role. These are the auditions after which no one else is even in the running.<br />
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There is a universal component to our emotional experiences which allows us to relate to what happens to a character. But it's the specificity of that experience which helps us really believe that the character is having this experience. Love is an experience we all know, but we each experience love specifically. We fall in love with the way someone smells, or the funny way they laugh, or the way they pronounce the word "tortilla". We hate specifically, becoming riled by the way our nemesis breathes, the way they shuffle their feet when they walk, their choice of syntax. Personality is a short cut to specificity. Integrating some of our own weird little quirks into the mix with the character we develop (as long as they don't contradict the givens of the script) helps flesh out everything that the playwright couldn't squeeze on the page. This mesh between character-as-written and actor is what creates a layered, three-dimensional performance.<br />
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A lack of personalization can obviously happen in any piece, but I think some works are more prone to it than others. When there's a preconceived notion of how the piece should be done - based on previous productions, or even just general concepts relating to the time period of the piece - it can become a shortcut to playing a generalization rather than forming our own vision of the piece. Classical work often suffers from this. People form a notion of how classical work should sound or move without first answering for themselves how they would specifically respond to these circumstances. Similarly when something is well known you can fall into unconsciously repeating the choices of previous productions, instead of forging the path for ourselves. For example, with something like <i>The Last Five Years</i>, which for a decade had only one recorded version, it's easy slip into imitating Sherie Rene Scott or Norbert Leo Butz because the interpretation that they arrived at (by really personalizing their roles) is so rich.<br />
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The other place where I think it can be difficult to find personalization is in broad comedy. In things like farce and slapstick where the physical comedy is such a key component, the specificity of that physical routine becomes choreography. It's not dance choreography per se, but each movement has distinct requirements of which body parts should be where and a tempo at which it unfolds. The trick is to get the choreography to feel honest and true to the characters. And while this is specific and detailed work requiring impressive technical skill, I don't think it stems from who the actor is as a person. Assuming the show has been well choreographed by both the director and the actor and goes on to be well executed by the actors, the physicality does the work. Which is fascinating given that verbal based comedy can be almost entirely tied to personality, where jokes that kill for one comedian fall totally flat for someone else. Broad comedy is one of the few types of theater where we're not looking for the characters to be three dimensional where as stand-up demands a more personal product.<br />
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The range of roles an actor can be called on to play are almost infinite. When we look at the types of performances for which actors get Tony nominations (in theory, reflecting the performances the theater industry considers impressive), they tend to fall into two categories: roles that are technically impressive (e.g. the actor plays a zillion characters) or emotionally impressive (e.g. the actor develops a vision of the role that is rich, layered and unique). Certain roles allow for more personality than others. Certain roles demand more technical skill than others. Both of these are essential. To the extent that it's possible, I want as much personality as possible.<br />
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Thoughts? Questions? Comments? Post them below. The more, the merrier.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7107512224000573947.post-4402494868626217772016-01-31T19:09:00.005-08:002016-07-08T12:57:51.969-07:00Relevant<div dir="ltr">
I've been thinking a lot about <i>Les Mis</i> recently.</div>
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I read an article a few years ago about one of the conflicts in the middle east (I don't remember which conflict) and the fact that many Americans couldn't understand why the local populations would fight against the American soldiers who came to free them. The author's point was that the luxury of morality (and fighting for the "good guy") is hard to maintain when your family is starving. In those circumstances, you fight for whoever will give you a bag of rice.</div>
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I should specify; I've been thinking about how <i>Les Mis</i> has always seemed like a pretty story rather than something with present day relevance, despite the fact that the overarching concept of <i>Les Mis</i> - a country in the middle of a revolution and the lives it affects - strikes me as incredibly timely. The theme of societal conditions making it easier or harder for a person to do the right thing, is one that I imagine will always be relevant. But, for me, rooting the story in Paris during the French Revolution somehow distances me from that. I keep wondering what it would be like to stage a production of <i>Les Mis</i> in the present (or close to it) and in the Middle East.<br />
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This is not something I've thought very far down the road with. At the moment, it's just a fleeting question that won't leave me alone. I'm not exactly sure how well a shift of the setting would intersect with the script and score. I don't imagine Schönberg and Boublil were seeking to make any particular social comment in adapting the novel into the musical. But I do feel safe saying that Victor Hugo was most definitely wrestling with many of the social issue of his day. So, in that sense I feel like it becomes of an interesting question; what if your concept strays from the intention of the adapters but is closer in spirit to original source material?</div>
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Then there is the consideration of sides. Within the context of the show, the establishment (the law, represented by Javert) is the villain and students are, if not the hero per se, certainly the good guys trying to win liberty and equality for the people. If you were to set it in the recent Middle East, you would have to pick a side as the oppressive establishment and another as the visionary revolutionists. A move which couldn't help but be seen as a political statement - something which I would want to avoid, given my ignorance as to the subtly and complexity of the situation. Making a statement you intend to make is one thing. Making a statement purely out of ignorance is another and should be avoided when possible. And even if you could somehow avoid naming names in that regard, there is still the issue of a flag. The barricade and its accompanying flag are significant visual aspects of the story. Removing the flag from that image would significantly reduce the emotional impact of that moment of the show. And making a completely fictional flag, or something "vaguely Middle Eastern" seems like an option that could quickly become offensive.</div>
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My next thought was perhaps you could do it in a neutral time and place, a la the recent Broadway production of <i>A View From The Bridge</i>, and let the audience draw it's own parallels. It doesn't exactly solve the flag issue, but perhaps something could be established purely with colors, much like the way sports fans rally around their team's colors. The more distant a story seems - the harder it is for the characters to seem like they overlap with your world in some way whether it's that their struggles are your struggles, their words sound like the way you speak, or their clothes look like things you wear - the harder it becomes for the story to feel immediate. Perhaps by adopting a more neutral design palate, you could allow the audience to feel closer to the story, by virtue of the set and costume not highlighting the fact that these events took place hundreds of years ago.</div>
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When I watch a show, one of the primary things I want from a show is an emotional connection, ideally an empathetic, emotional connection. Any time I hear someone say they don't like musical theater (or Shakespeare), I always take that as an indication that haven't seen a production that allowed them to relate to the characters in a meaningful way. So, as a director, I'm always looking for points where an empathetic connection can be strengthened, ways to highlight the relevance of the story being told. Sometimes that comes in the form of adding something, sometimes it come in the form of stripping something down. I'm not sure if this concept would be at all effective. But I'm curious.<br />
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Questions? Comments? Concerns? Post them below. The more, the merrier.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7107512224000573947.post-87997467198700630622015-12-29T11:35:00.000-08:002015-12-29T11:35:38.954-08:00Ladies, All The Ladies.This post is a response to the production of <i>Henry IV</i>, directed by Phyllida Lloyd, which was recently at St Ann's Warehouse. Since this was my first time seeing a performance of <i>Henry IV</i> (and this production took the liberty of combining parts 1 and 2) I didn't feel like it made sense to make this post about those texts. But I am interested in looking at one of the most notable things about this production - its all female cast. One of the things that I aspire to do as a director is to advocate for more and better roles for women. Shakespearean plays can be particularly uninspiring from this vantage point. Often, you'll have 3 women's roles to 15 men's roles, and the size of those roles is significantly smaller in scope. And while Shakespearean plays are something of an open invitation for various conceptual ideas, it's rare to see an all female production at this level. So, without further ado...<br />
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<b>No apologies.</b><br />
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The single most striking element of this production was to see women in roles where there was no apologizing, no softness. In roles where they were initiating action, rather than just responding to what life threw at them. It was thrilling. An actress friend of mine had the opportunity to play Peer Gynt when she was in college. She summarized the difference of experience by saying that female roles are about being female, where male roles are about being human. Which sounds bold, but is actually very true especially with regard to females characters who are under the age of 40. Stories where there is a female protagonist are the minority. When they are the protagonist, their character arch typically revolves around love - falling in love, surviving love gone wrong, etc. And when they manage to avoid the love trap, they tend to be about responding to what's happened to them - a parent has died, they've been diagnosed with cancer, a rebel droid won't leave them alone. Female characters who pursue their own agenda are often portrayed as villains or deranged or both. I don't find that to be an accurate representation of my life or the lives of the women I know. But when you hear all these stories and none of them reflect the reality you experience, you start to think it doesn't really exist. So, it was refreshing on a really profound level to see these women have free reign to be fully human.<br />
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<b>I forgot.</b><br />
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There were moments during this production where I forgot I was watching women, moments where I saw them as men. I find this fascinating, especially given that there was no attempt made by the production to disguise them as men. Because of the conceit of this production, that the story was taking place inside a women's prison, all of the women playing male characters were dresses in grey sweats and t-shirts. But no effort was made to pass them off as men. Breasts were not taped down. If they had longer hair, it was simply pulled back in a pony tail. In an interview with <a href="http://playbill.com/news/article/i-was-fed-up-the-180-degree-decision-to-stage-shakespeare-with-only-women-370143" target="_blank">Playbill</a>, Lloyd mentioned that she had really encouraged the cast to use space the way men use space (ie. to take up more of it) and that shift felt very palpable. I love when you can do the heavy lifting of your story in an organic way rather than through special effects. If we want to impress people, special effects are great. But if we want people to be able to relate to us, it's better to use our own facility.<br />
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<b>The least interesting...</b><br />
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I found the two female characters of this production (Lady Percy and Mistress Quickly) to be the least interesting. I'm not entirely sure why that was. Certainly, they are among the smaller roles and are not intricately involved in the plot. But I wonder if having an all female cast contributed, in part, to that dynamic. In a production with traditional casting, these roles could display more masculine characteristics - Percy can be blunt in telling people exactly what she thinks, Quickly can crass and bawdy - without ever being in danger of confusing the issue of whether they are playing men or women. I don't think these roles were intentionally pulled back, but they just didn't standout. It's worth thinking about how you distinguish your female roles from your male roles (and what function they serve) when your entire cast is female.<br />
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<b>Still different.</b><br />
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I read an article recently that talked about the word "equal". Its point was that we've begun using "equal" as a synonym for the word "same" and that we should strive to avoid that. Equal refers to a fixed quantity. Thus, men and women are not equal. They can have equal rights. They can be paid equal salaries. They can have equal intelligences. But they are not the same items. And when you replace one with the other, while many things will remain the same, there will be a shift in some things. One of the things my husband remarked on with regard to this production was that he missed the genuine affection and comradery between Hal and Falstaff that he had seen in more traditional productions. Which makes sense. The bulk of the interaction between these two revolves around Hal publicly humiliating Falstaff, a dynamic which is all in good fun among a group of guy friends. But among women, that dynamic doesn't exist. Among women, that behavior is malicious and signals a major breach in the relationship. And since the women where not disguising themselves as men, this change of dynamic altered their relationship and significantly reduced the impact of Hal severing all ties with Falstaff in the final moments of the production.<br />
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Questions? Comments? Concerns? Post them below. The more, the merrier.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7107512224000573947.post-49344148907267375172015-11-20T13:35:00.001-08:002015-11-22T11:29:12.064-08:00Grey It UpI love me a grey character. What I mean by that is I love a character who really makes you weigh how you feel about them. The hero who isn't the nicest person or doesn't always do the noble thing. The villain who stirs our pity with a relate-able motive. Some people might call these characters complicated. But the word complicated implies something difficult to understand. I think of these characters as human. They are doing what they feel they have to do. For my tastes, the hero would be as flawed as the villain and the villain would be as right in his argument as the hero. Because then you have a match between two worthy opponents, a match either side could potentially win. Every now and again, you get lucky enough to meet characters who are written like this on the page. These are scripts that I consider to be virtually actor-proof. You could cast almost anyone and as long as they commit to saying the lines, the story will still be compelling. But more often than not you have to do what you can to try to blur the edges.<br>
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Obviously one of the places where you can work to balance out a character is in the casting. Casting against type can be a great way to amp up the humanity of your characters. The caveat here is that you don't want to cast some who is completely wrong for the part. But there's often a wider range of actors who could do the role successfully than we consider. Do a quick analysis - what one thing must the character have in order for the story to be believable and what one thing is glaringly absent from the character as it's written? Does the character really have to be a certain race? A certain gender? A certain age? Especially when you're working on new work, these "givens" can be much more flexible (and thereby become more interesting) if we allow them to. I think the point where an actor/character intersection becomes the most interesting is when you can find someone who understands (and can deliver) on the one thing you need, but who lives in the world of the one thing that the character is lacking.<br>
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Another point where characters can be greyed up is in their interpretation. If we're working on a script that we can't change, we don't have the option of adjusting the arguments to be more balanced. But we can shape the behaviors and influence the motivations in and around the text of the script. We don't react to events, we react to what we believe about events. Which is to say, it's not the act, but the context of the act that shapes how we feel about it. As an act, we can agree that killing someone is generally perceived as wrong. But if we believe that someone was killed by accident or in self-defense, how we feel about the killer can shift considerably. As an act, promoting someone might be seen as a nice thing to do. But if one person is promoted in order to smite someone else, suddenly the promotion isn't as generous an act as it was before. Even if we don't agree with why someone has done something, knowing why they're doing what they're doing goes a long way toward making them feel more human.<br>
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First and foremost, we want our characters to be honest and we want the story to make sense. But that's really the bare minimum. Once that requirement has met, we want to be interested. And when we look around, real life is chock-full of interesting. Things are rarely, if ever, purely black and white. Who is a hero and who is a villain is a constantly shifting landscape. To some degree, we are always a bit of both. Even the "right" answer to any problem leaves a trail of pros and cons in its wake. We own it to ourselves to reflect that in our work.<br>
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Thoughts? Questions? Comments? Post them below. The more, the merrier.<br>
<br>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7107512224000573947.post-36644503418831557762015-10-31T06:11:00.001-07:002015-11-22T11:30:33.148-08:005 Seconds of Caring.When I was a kid, my mother had this phrase - "Five seconds of caring!" - which was constantly being deployed around our house. What it referred to was the fact that it only took "five seconds" to put away the shoes that were left by the door or wipe down the counter where we'd left crumbs from our sandwich. The moral of the story being that it only took a moment to give a damn.<br>
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I'm in rehearsal for a show at the moment. It's a big project with lots of moving pieces and our director isn't able to be in the room with us at all times. For one run in particular, we were left in the hands of our stage manager. I'm involved in a large fight sequence with wooden staffs that are about 5 feet long and just over an inch thick. During the fight, my opponent accidentally landed a strong blow to my fingers. Her staff should have hit my staff, but somehow, my fingers got in the way. There was no blood but it was a severe enough hit for us to have to stop and regroup. I know someone asked it I was ok (I think it was my opponent), to which I replied, "We'll find out". We finished the fight and the remainder of the scene that followed it. Following that, I was released from rehearsal. Since my character is killed in the fight, and our director was not in the room, there wouldn't be notes and there was no reason for me to stay.<br>
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I left rehearsal feeling less than thrilled, to put it mildly. I expected that our stage manager would check in with me to make sure everything was fine, but there was only, "Great. Cotton, you're released. Moving on to the next scene." Granted, I'm an adult and no bones were broken and no blood was spilled. But I was hit in a rehearsal with enough force to leave purple bruises on my fingers. The fight choreographer did follow me out into the hall to make sure I was ok and ask if I thought we needed to rework anything to make it safer, which I sincerely appreciated. But the person in charge did not take five seconds to investigate the extent of the injury that happened in their rehearsal.<br>
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I don't mean to imply that our stage manager wasn't sufficiently doing her job. I honestly think it was just a moment where she made the assumption that everything was fine. But the keystone of people feeling cared for is that tiny bit of extra concern. And when things are really starting to get hectic, it's easy for that to get pushed aside. Not caring is the default of caring, much like chaos is the fault of order.<br>
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When you are the one who's actually in charge, when you are the one left in charge, when you somehow get stuck being the face of an organization, it's your job to care. Set the tone. Set the expectation. How you lead will greatly impact those in your charge. Patients sue doctors not because they have actually received inferior medical care, but because they feel they have been slighted. Military personnel when asked why they risked life and limb to save a fellow soldier in battle often respond, "they would have done the same for me". If we want a team of people to give us their everything, they have to know we really care about them. Not just when it's easy or convenient, but at every turn. Give the five seconds.<br>
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Thoughts? Questions? Comments? Post them below. The more the merrier.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7107512224000573947.post-9154496667960372312015-09-16T08:22:00.002-07:002015-12-29T12:13:01.516-08:00Play The Cards You HaveI'm a big fan of Malcolm Gladwell, and specifically his book <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/David-Goliath-Underdogs-Misfits-Battling/dp/0316204374/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1442415956&sr=1-1&keywords=david+and+goliath+malcolm+gladwell" target="_blank">David and Goliath</a></i>. <i>David and Goliath</i> is a case study about playing the cards you're dealt to the best advantage possible. It explores the possibility that the thing everyone else views as your weakness may in fact be the root of your competitive edge. I love this concept on many levels, but I think it's a great thing to remember in the realm of directing.<br />
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There will always be limitations and things you don't have - not enough time, not enough money, no say over who gets cast in certain roles. Very rarely will we ever have carte blanche. And I think that's a great thing. Embracing our limitations can really help us get clear on what is most important in our story and get creative with how we accomplish that. Dream your dreams about who you would cast or what kind of crazy effects and costumes you would have in your ideal world. Then take a step back and look at the essence of that ideal. Get creative with how you can manifest that essence. Talk to you team in terms of those essences.<br />
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If your ideal set would be a magnificent castle, what is the importance of that castle? Is it to convey the cold, stark environment of being surrounded by stone? If so, can you convey that in a stripped down space and a desolate color choice? Or maybe a looming throne made of cinder blocks? Or maybe even harsh florescent lighting? Is it to convey the grandeur of being a royal? Could that be conveyed through some choice costuming and one really luxurious element, like an enormous stained glass window?<br />
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If your ideal leading lady is sexy, what are the ways the woman who's in that role is sexy? And how can that integrate with the character? On some people, it's their intelligence that makes them sexy. On others, it's their sense of humor. On still other people, it's their drive. Comedians talk about how the material that one comedian can kill with can fall completely flat with someone else. Both comedians are funny, but they're only funny in their own style of humor.<br />
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If your show calls for a big dance number and you don't have a single dancer in your cast, choreograph to the level that your cast can do. There are dance moves that look easy which are actually very hard and dance moves that look hard that are actually pretty easy. The best ones will always be the ones your dances can do. And a lot can be done to make arm movements and moving within certain patterns look impressive. If George Balanchine can choreograph for elephants, surely something can be done for those that happen to have two left feet.<br />
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Look at what you have at your disposal and work from there. As artists, we're always looking to see how we can tell our stories in new and compelling ways.We're always asking what unique interpretation we can bring to the mix. What you can't do (or what you don't have) is a great way to force yourself to think of other solutions. The core of creativity is being able to generate an array of strategies and perspectives. Any time we become fixated on solving the question in only one way, we're selling ourselves short. Knowing what is essential in order for the pieces of your story to click, and being able to talk to your team in those terms will help everyone have a clear picture of the end goal is and help you get there in a way that's unique to your production.<br />
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Thoughts? Questions? Comments? Post them below. The more the merrier.<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0