Unify the Stage

So recently, a new play I worked on was selected by the Humana Festival. I just did one workshop of the play, and it had been developed long before that. But, the writer and I had a sort of kinship and I love the play in a way that doesn't happen all of the time. But, the Humana folks don't know me, and I'm certainly not a known quantity in the larger theatrical world (outside of Chicago), and they picked someone far more known and prestigious than I to direct. It was a tough blow. I thought I had a chance for five minutes and really just wanted to do the play. But I had a feeling that they would need someone else, and at least I lost to a shiny, quasi-famous director and not to a peer. So it wasn't anything I could take personally. And I had only done a week on it. I wondered how I would feel if I had been there from it's conception, and really helped midwife it to this level. I know this happens sometimes. And then I was at dinner with a good playwright friend w...

P. Carl, an amazingly smart person and the founder of HowlRound recently posted this article on deciding whether or not to get your MFA. Carl makes a lot of really interesting points in this, and I agree with most of what they say. Although I continue to believe that our lives are all very different and our "careers" in this field (yes, quotes are necessary for that) are all over the map. I read this article on the heels of a couple of things going on in my mind... The first is that I, as a teacher of undergraduates, think a lot about the value of education. We had a faculty meeting yesterday, our college now costs students 22,000 a year. Without room and board. I went to the same school, it was half that much when I went there. Even less my first year. And lots of students are dropping out because of cost. And lots of students are taking out exorbitant amount of financial aid without even realizing what they are getting themselves in to. And then they blow off classe...

As found on Huffington Post. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/artinfo/twelve-female-directors-t_b_2200474.html?utm_hp_ref=arts

For those of you who know me, you know I do both. Or at least I try to. And the two art forms, while similar in foundation of competition on a stage, creating a unified world with design and acting, etc., are also incredibly different. So this may be the first of a series of blog posts dedicated to considering those differences. I had a meeting the other day with some really nice people who run Wolf Trap Opera company. They happened to be in town for their audition tour, and they were kind enough to put me on their schedule. And Kim Witman, the General Director of WTO asked me what is one of the most important questions to ask someone who is primarily a theater director who has directed some opera: "What, to you, are the challenges or things you do differently when you approach an opera." Awesome question. I think about this a lot. I think about the challenges that the best theater directors can't seem to overcome when they bring themselves to the world of opera. Obv...

Theater in India! Shah talks about his theater company in Mumbai, among other things... http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/31/a-conversation-with-actor-naseeruddin-shah/?smid=tw-share

The opening of La Tempesta. 1978 production.

Everyone says that they don't have enough time. That they wish they had a few more days before opening. That if they only had another week... well, it's sort of a joke how much we all wish that. We also all have subscribed to an art form with a definite dead line: opening. The day the critics come and the show is immortalized in print. The day that the director puts down her pen and stops giving notes, making changes. On a new play, the day no more script changes will be made. There are rules about these things. But time is the essence. And this is particularly true in Chicago if you're ever comparing an equity show to a non-equity show. I've been lucky enough to direct a lot of equity theater in the past year. Most of it in small equity situations, or big houses in which I'm directing the small project. And then I've gone back to do some non-equity theater. My first show after a year and a half of equity was small, it was The Receptionist at Steep Theatre. ...