More Theater Odds & Ends

 

[Here’s another compilation of short pieces from various outlets—this time, two Washington Posts and a New York Times—all about some aspect of theater.  Some of these—most of them, really—I filed away some years ago (these are all from the 2010s), and I’ve enjoyed rediscovering them.  I hope you find them interesting.] 

“THE LEAD HAS A BROKEN ANKLE?

GET THE ARTISTIC DIRECTOR!”

by Rebecca Ritzel 

[The following article was originally published in the “Style” section of the Washington Post on 12 February 2014.  It was previously posted on the WaPo website as “Backstage: For Theater J, breaking a leg for real leads to 'Yellow Face' recasting scramble” on 11 February.]

“Call the understudy, I can’t go on tonight,” is the closing theme from the cult television comedy “Slings and Arrows.” The show about backstage drama at a theater company debuted in Canada in 2003, but in the ensuing decade, the refrain has become a bit dated.

[Slings & Arrows was a darkly comic TV Series, aired on Canada’s Movie Central cable channel and The Movie Network streaming service in 2003-06, and in the United States on the Sundance Channel, 2005-07.]

These days, it’s not “call the understudy,” it’s “text the assistant stage manager.” And post-recession, there may well not be an understudy to call.

Jessica Soriano, an assistant stage manager at Theater J, got the dreaded text message [Tuesday,] Feb. 4. The actor sending it was Al Twanmo, one of the leads in the play “Yellow Face.” He was at the hospital, being treated for a broken ankle after falling on black ice. Soriano then e-mailed (still no phone call involved) the production team with the bad news.

[Yellow Face, a 2007 play by David Henry Hwang, played at Theater J in Washington, D.C., from 29 January to 23 February 2014.  It was directed by Natsu Onoda Power; at the time, Ari Roth was the artistic director of the company. (Roth was fired in December by the theater’s parent organization, the Washington DC Jewish Community Center, for protesting the DCJCC’s cancelation of a series of controversial plays about the Middle East (some of which were critical of Israel). See my post on Rick On Theater “The First Amendment & The Arts, Redux,” 13 February 2015.]

With little deliberation, Wednesday night’s show was canceled (ticket holders received refunds), but the actors were called to the theater. Director Natsu Onoda Power had an idea to make sure the show would go on sooner rather than later.

First, she re-blocked the entire play, allocating many of Twanmo’s lines to the four other actors in the ensemble who play multiple roles. But replacing Twanmo’s main character was going to be tricky. David Henry Hwang’s “Yellow Face” is a satirical comedy about racial stereotypes. The lead character is Chinese American, as is his father, who Twanmo was playing. The only Asian actor Theater J found who could read for the role on short notice was, in the words of artistic director Ari Roth, “30 years too young.”

Undeterred, Power turned to Roth.

“There was just one person who knew the part, who is not Asian, and who the audience would accept in this role, and that’s Ari,” she said late Thursday night after Roth, a 50-something Jewish playwright, made his professional stage debut playing an elderly Chinese American banker.

Roth maintains that he wasn’t actually acting, “I did this as a reading, everyone else was up there acting,” he protested, adding that he was “doing Al” and did his best to match Twanmo’s cadence.

The part of the father is written in broken English, with lots of stubborn humor, given Twanmo’s character is an immigrant who worked his way up from a laundry worker to the chief executive of Far East National Bank. Before his fall, Twanmo had received praise for his work in “Yellow Face”; Post critic Peter Marks called his performance “beguiling” in his review of the show. Roth will not be nominated for a Helen Hayes Award [the Capital area’s local award for excellence in theater; Helen Hayes (1900-93), the “First Lady of the American Stage,” was a native Washingtonian] for his one-night stint as a substitute, but what he will take away is a bouquet of yellow roses, and some insight into life outside an artistic director’s office.

“I have never spent so much on my personal grooming,” Roth said, “At 5 p.m., I stopped doing my computer work and started preparing for the show.” Those preparations included both streaking his hair with gray and spending some time in front of the mirror trimming nose hairs. He came away not only with more respect for his actors but also for the stage managers and others working behind the scenes at Theater J.

“I have been running this theater for 17½ years,” Roth said, “and I’ve never been backstage watching for an entire show.”

When Roth did come out onstage, it was in a wheelchair, a change Power kept when Twanmo returned to the stage Saturday. In Act II, the script calls for an ensemble member to play the father’s doctor. In Power’s revision, the doctor (played by Mark Hairston) will always wheel Twanmo out. But there’s still a major challenge that they’ll have to deal with until the show closes Feb. 23: a massive set of file cabinets surrounds the stage, and only one entrance is wide enough for the chair.

“The scenery is not wheelchair-accessible,” Power said.

Casting a wider net

Theater J learned its lesson in staging accessible theater the hard way, but several other theaters in the Washington area are deliberately seeking to be more inclusive in their casting, and are succeeding artistically as a result. At Studio Theatre, Nina Raine’s play “Tribes,” about a deaf son in a dysfunctional family, has been extended through March 2. Out in Herndon [Virginia], NextStop Theatre Company is mounting a well-reviewed production of Shakespeare’s “Richard III” with a deaf actor, Ethan Sinnot [sic; Sinott], starring as the murderous monarch.

Also worth noting: Deaf actor Hector Reynoso is a company member at Synetic [a physical theater company located in Crystal City in Arlington County, Virginia], and next month’s World Stages international theater festival at the Kennedy Center will include Israel’s ­Nalaga’at Theater for deaf and blind actors.

Locally, the two leads in “Tribes” and “Richard III” share an interesting connection: Sinott is chairman of the theater program at Gallaudet University [prestigious university in Washington, D.C., for the deaf and hard of hearing], and James Caverly, who plays the lead in “Tribes,” is one of his most successful graduates. Yet until he drove out to Herndon recently for a dress rehearsal, Caverly had never seen his former professor act. Caverly loved the concept – and the performance.

“It was brilliant!” Caverly wrote in an e-mail message. “For so long, I’ve thought of Richard III as it was written in the text: a hunchback, hobbled, and writhed villain who’s sole ambition was to destroy those who had more power over him. I never perceived him to be deaf. And it does make sense when you correspond it to a real-life scenario. Most of the royal court chose to seclude him because of his deafness, which eerily echoes with the daily basis of deaf people everywhere. . . . This is a big step for the DC theater scene, and [I’m] proud to be part of something bigger.”

[Rebecca Ritzel is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in more than 20 publications in the United States, Canada, and the U.K.  Ritzel regularly contributes arts and entertainment articles to the Washington Post, the Washington, D.C., City Paper, the Chronicle of Higher Education, and the Raleigh, North Carolina, News & Observer.  Washington’s Theater J, founded in 1990, produces plays “that are part of the Jewish cultural legacy.” 

[I have posted performance reports on three plays by David Henry Hwang (“Golden Child,” 9 December 2013; The “Dance and the Railroad,” 17 March 2013; “Kung Fu,” 8 March 2014) and a performance by the Nalagaat Deaf-Blind Theater Ensemble of Tel Aviv (Not by Bread Alone, 12 February 2013) on ROT.  Earlier, my friend, the late Helen Kaye (1934-2020), who reviewed theater for the Jerusalem Post, sent me her own review of Not by Bread Alone, which I posted in “Dispatches from Israel 1,” 23 January 2013.

[Coincidentally, Ari Roth’s experience filling in at the last minute in a stage role happened to me once, years ago.  I happened to think of it just the other day.  I was in college—May 1967, the second semester of my sophomore year.  I was taking a directing class, the final exam for which was to direct a one-act play.  I had finished my final rehearsal for the presentations the next day and one of my classmates, who’s rehearsal was scheduled to follow mine in the university theater, approached me.

[One of his cast members had been taken ill and wasn’t going to be able to do the show the next evening, and my classmate asked if I’d fill in.  Well, I couldn’t let him down for his final grade, so I agreed to learn the part—it was relatively small, even for a one-act play—but he and his cast would have to help me out.

[I said I could learn the lines and the blocking for the next day after the one rehearsal that night, but the rest of the cast would have to keep to the lines as written, especially the cues, and the blocking as rehearsed—no ad libs or improvisations when I was on stage.  I wouldn’t be able to handle deviations.

[I don’t remember who the director was, or the play, and I don’t know what grade he got on the project—but we made it through and, as far as I could tell, no one knew what we’d had to do.  I do remember being totally keyed up for the whole scene in which I appeared, which was only a few minutes but seemed like at least a half hour to me. 

[I’m sure I collapsed as soon as the curtain came down—and I probably found a drink somewhere as soon as I could get to it.  (In Virginia, where I went to school, you couldn’t buy a drink in a bar or restaurant at that time.  You had to by a bottle in a state package store and keep the booze at home.)]

*  *  *  *

“WITH TRAINED NARRATORS,

BLIND THEATERGOERS FIND A SIGHTLINE”

by Caitlin Gibson 

[Caitlin Gibson’s report ran in the Washington Post on 5 May 2016 (sec. C [“Style”]) and was posted on the paper’s website on 4 May as “'He's picking his nose': How volunteers help the blind 'see' a theater performance.”]

‘Describers’ bring onstage action to life

On the brightly lit theater stage, the first scene of Robert Schenkkan’s Tony award-winning play “All the Way” is in full swing: President Lyndon B. Johnson [1908-73; 36th President of the United States: 1963-69] is pontificating behind a podium. A large desk is wheeled into the spotlight. An agitated secretary darts into view.

[All the Way is a 2012 play by Robert Schenkkan about President Lyndon B. Johnson's efforts to enact the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It was commissioned by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, where it premièred 25 July-3 November 2012. The play was produced in 13 September-12 October 2013, at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the production premièred at Broadway’s Neil Simon Theatre from 6 March 2014 to 29 June 2014 (27 previews and 131 regular performances). It won the 2014 Tony for Best Play and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Play.

[The Arena Stage production of All the Way in Washington, D.C., ran from 1 April to 8 May 2016 on the Fichandler Stage (the arena theater). Jack Willis played LBJ; he was nominated for a 2017 Helen Hayes Award as Outstanding Lead Actor in a Play.]

Steps from the bustling action in the Fichandler Stage at Arena Stage, about 20 audience members are not actually watching the drama unfold. They sit silently, some with their heads bowed, others with their eyes closed. They are all blind or visually impaired; they either can’t see the stage at all, or it appears as little more than a haze of light and shadow.

But these theatergoers aren’t missing the action: Through the headphones clamped over their ears, a woman’s voice is explaining everything happening onstage, in detail, in real time.

The voice belongs to Rita Tehan, a veteran theater describer for the Metropolitan Washington Ear, a nonprofit organization that provides audio services to the blind and visually impaired in the Washington region. Tehan sits behind the crowd in a dark, elevated sound booth as the fast-paced plot — depicting the efforts of Johnson and civil rights leaders to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964 — unspools below.

Tehan speaks crisply into a plastic audio mask linked to a large radio transmitter, explaining what’s happening on the set as vividly and efficiently as possible.

“He waves her away, and pats her on the rear end,” she says when Johnson abruptly dismisses his frazzled secretary.

“LBJ is picking his nose — really deep,” she says during one of the show’s comic moments, raising her voice slightly to be heard over the audience’s laughter. “Hoover is watching.” [That’s J. Edgar Hoover (1895-1972), the first, and longest serving Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (1935-72).]

Tehan points out when Johnson turns from one character to another mid-sentence: “He’s talking to the tailor now,” she quickly interjects. She makes sure that her listeners don’t miss the joke when Johnson, frustrated by his strict diet, swipes a bite of Sen. Richard Russell’s [1897-1971; Democrat of Georgia (1933-71)] dinner. (“LBJ stabs a pork chop on Russell’s plate and pops it in his mouth,” she says. “Russell’s eyes widen.”)

She continues for well over an hour, until the stage lights dim and Act One comes to an end.

“This is intermission,” she says. “It will be about 15 minutes.”

Then she lowers the mask and exhales.

An art in itself

Tehan’s preparation for “All the Way” began weeks before the May 1 matinee, one of more than 50 annual performances with description services provided by the Ear. Describers typically see a performance at least once or twice before they narrate it live, to familiarize themselves with the script and note important visual cues.

The Ear’s roughly two dozen volunteer describers serve more than 250 blind or visually impaired people at seven local theaters every year. They take special requests, too — a couple of years ago, a describer accompanied a blind fan to a Lady Gaga concert at Verizon Center.

“It takes a very special person to be a describer, someone who can think fast on their feet,” says Neely Oplinger, the Ear’s executive director. The people who sign up — and pass a rigorous audition — tend to stick around; many have been volunteering for 10 years or longer.

Tehan joined the organization in 1992, but she had practice long before that: Her father went blind from diabetes when she was a teen, and she used to describe his favorite television shows to him.

“They are so dedicated, and most of them really know theater,” Oplinger says of the group’s volunteers. “But it takes a lot more than knowing theater.”

They also have to know the rules: When describing a performance, you have to slip all the description into the gaps between dialogue. You shouldn’t make judgments; instead of concluding that a character looks “disappointed,” you note simply that he frowns and his shoulders droop. You must capture any movement that’s essential to the plot. And — as with any live performance — if you make a mistake, you have to keep going.

These guidelines were created by Margaret Pfanstiehl, who founded the Metropolitan Washington Ear in 1974 to improve the lives of the blind and visually impaired. Pfanstiehl, a Virginia native, suffered from a degenerative disease called retinitis pigmentosa, which eventually left her almost entirely blind.

At first, the Ear was a radio reading service — still a core part of its identity. The Silver Spring, Md.-based nonprofit has nearly 400 volunteers who read newspaper and magazine articles over closed-circuit radio, and the organization offers a dial-in service for listeners to hear recordings of articles from major publications, including The Washington Post, the New York Times and many others. About 5,000 people in the Washington area use the service.

But Pfanstiehl, who died in 2009, was also a devoted opera fan and theatergoer who longed to find a way for blind audience members to enjoy live performances.

“I always wanted a little voice to tell me whether it was a gunshot or a slamming door onstage, if the villain was walking across the stage with a dagger, and whether or not the lovers were facing each other,” she once told Reuters.

In 1981, Arena Stage approached the Ear about making live performances accessible to the blind. Pfanstiehl — then Margaret Rockwell, a divorcee — recruited longtime Metro spokesman and radio pro Cody Pfanstiehl as the first volunteer describer.

They watched dozens of movies together, says Oplinger, and he described the scenes unfolding onscreen. “Together, they devised what they called ‘the art and technique of audio description,’” says Oplinger. “And in the process, they fell in love.”

The couple, who married in 1983, went on to develop a comprehensive training system, teaching hundreds of volunteers to capture live performances for the blind.

Of course, the human mind is not a camera, so the description process is perhaps more like translation — an art in itself: The word choices matter, as do the pacing of the narration, the tone of voice and the clarity of enunciation. A secretary doesn’t just run into view, she gallops. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. doesn’t touch his wife, he gently strokes her arms. The describer has to engage in a sort of verbal dance with the actors, gracefully avoiding overlap or interruption.

And like any art, it’s imperfect. Sometimes details are missed, or a describer talks over a character, or the audio sounds muffled. But even with minor hiccups, the effort makes all the difference to a blind member of the audience, says Freddie Peaco, president of the Ear’s board of directors.

“You can hear the voices, but you don’t know the setting of the stage. The audience gives a great gasp, and you don’t know why they’re gasping,” she says. “With the describer, all of that comes to life, and I can’t tell you how meaningful that is.”

The show goes on

For a describer, Tehan says, “the moment the curtain rises, you’re on your toes” — and so she is as the second act of “All the Way” begins. She stands in the dark booth, her eyes trained on the stage.

“House lights are fading to black,” she says.

After the show, her listeners will praise her performance —“You did a great job, a great job!” one man will gush, grasping her hand — but Tehan won’t be entirely convinced. Even now, halfway through, she’s frustrated by details she couldn’t capture, by how little time she has to speak between the actors’ lines. An artist is never satisfied.

But the show goes on. Tehan cranes forward to follow the actors, her glasses reflecting the glow of the stage lights. She raises the mask to her face. In the seats just beyond the booth windows, all ears are on her.

[Caitlin Gibson is a feature writer focused on families, parenting, and children.  She joined the Washington Post in 2005.] 

*  *  *  *

“INVESTING IN THE THEATER

CAN GET A CHILD’S FOOT IN THE STAGE DOOR”

by Liz Moyer 

[Liz Moyer’s report appeared in the New York Times on 27 May 2017 (sec. B [“Business Day”)].  It was posted on the Times website on 26 May as “To Invest in Your Child’s Theater Dreams, First Invest in the Theater.”]

Dean Roth, the owner and president of a New Jersey company that makes parts for the tool-and-die industry [William T. Hutchinson Co. in Union, New Jersey, a third-generation family business], admits he has utterly failed to talk his teenage daughter out of pursuing a career in musical theater.

Instead of watching helplessly as she bounded down an uncertain career path, he became a Broadway investor to get an inside track: He said his initial $1,000 outlay [equivalent to $1,400 today], in the 2011 revival of “Godspell,” was “tuition for me to find out what the business was like.”

[The Broadway revival of Godspell, conceived by John-Michael Tebelak, who wrote the book based on the Gospel of Matthew, with music and new lyrics by Stephen Schwartz, ran at the Circle in the Square Theatre from 7 November 2011-24 June 2012 (30 previews and 264 regular performances).

[The production was directed by Daniel Goldstein and choreographed by Christopher Gattelli, with scenic design by David Korins, costume design by Miranda Hoffman, lighting design by David Weiner, sound design by Andrew Keister, and projection design by Daniel Brodie.]

Since then, he has invested in 22 other shows, with six returning profits so far. And he and his daughter, Kim, now a musical theater student at Syracuse University [see my note following the article], have come to an understanding about where to draw the line between meddling parent and struggling artist.

Like so many parents juggling feelings of pride and concern as their children step into adulthood, Mr. Roth said he wanted his daughter to understand the risks — as well as the rewards — associated with a career in the arts, and the only way he could see doing that was for both of them to get closer to the business.

“I wanted her to go into this with open eyes and know what she was getting into,” Mr. Roth said.

As with practically everything in New York, especially the insular world of Broadway, connections mean everything. Being a child of an investor in a show doesn’t secure a part or even an audition, but it can create opportunities that open doors.

“Getting to know a director and having the opportunity to observe a rehearsal or a script reading to get a deeper understanding of the business, that is a definite advantage,” said Pippin Parker [b. 1969], a playwright and the dean of the drama school at the New School in New York City.

Ken Davenport, a Broadway producer [the current Gypsy with Audra McDonald and the upcoming Othello with Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal; he’s produced two Tony-winners] and blogger who raises money for shows and has worked with Mr. Roth [the 2011 Godspell] and other investors, said he has seen more parents invest in shows to encourage a passion they share with one of their children or to bolster the child’s career prospects.

“The parents don’t have the friends or relationships, so they do it the old-fashioned way by writing a check,” he said. “All that check does is get you in the door. It’s up to the kids to prove themselves.”

Of course there’s no substitute for talent, Mr. Parker and others said.

“Investing is a wonderful and glorious activity, but unless you know what you are doing as an investor, the best you can hope for is a glass of Champagne with Bette Midler,” said Peter Cooke, the head of the drama school at [Pittsburgh’s] Carnegie Mellon University, which sends many graduates on to Broadway careers.

The only career path he can see, he said, “is being well trained.”

There are different ways productions raise money, but for many shows, affluent individuals play a key role. Typically, these are people with at least $1 million of investable assets — what the finance industry calls an accredited investor, who is presumably able to swallow the considerable risks associated with this type of investing.

Producers raise the money by putting together pools of investors, who tend to give an average of $25,000 to finance a production in a Broadway theater. Sometimes there are different investing tiers, and those who give more can get perks like having their names printed above the show’s title on posters and Playbills, or getting an invitation to a dress rehearsal.

The investor pools are usually organized as a limited partnership, like a private equity investment fund. Very often these investors are people who know the show’s insiders, including the actors, writers, directors and others bringing it to the stage.

Tim Speiss, a former board chairman of the Abingdon Theatre Company, a Broadway production group, said he once auctioned an item for a production in which the winning bidder could get his or her child a small speaking part in one performance. “There are some very clever ways to raise money,” said Mr. Speiss, who is a wealth adviser at EisnerAmper, an accounting and advisory firm based in New York.

Once a show gets up and running, the investors might get their money back, proportionate to what they put in, plus any profit after the show’s expenses are covered.

Many shows are money losers: Just one in five will end up being profitable, and even fewer are runaway successes. But Mr. Davenport points out that those odds aren’t much different than those of any other alternative investment in which a high-net-worth investor might dabble. As far as privately held start-ups — a favorite of private equity investors — some 50 percent of new companies fail after the first four years, according to labor statistics.

Linda Huber, an executive at a financial services company in New York, began investing in Broadway a few years ago when her daughter, now a high school senior, showed an interest. Her daughter, Claudia Lopez-Balboa, gives her advice on which shows to bankroll. So far she has invested in four, including “On Your Feet,” a musical about the lives of Gloria and Emilio Estefan [Marquis Theatre, 5 November 2015-20 August 2017], a story that resonated with her daughter’s part-Cuban heritage.

“For art that’s worth making, it’s the responsible thing to support these endeavors — it’s a thing to do together,” Ms. Huber said.

Her daughter is about to graduate from St. Paul’s School, a New Hampshire boarding school, and plans to go to the University of Michigan in the fall to major in finance and minor in arts management.

Ms. Lopez-Balboa said that Broadway had captured her imagination since she saw the show, “Bring It On” [St. James Theatre, 1 August-30 December 2012], as a middle-school student — she recalled skipping all the way home afterward.

“I wanted to produce a show that would make you leap in the air,” she said.

She reached out to Daryl Roth, a 10-time Tony-winning producer (and no relation to Mr. Roth, the tool-and-die executive) to seek out an informational meeting about the business.

Ms. Roth recalled that initial meeting and said she was impressed by Ms. Lopez-Balboa’s energy and interest — enough to hire her as an intern for two summers.

Ms. Roth, the lead producer of the show “Kinky Boots” [Al Hirschfeld Theatre, 4 April 2013-7 April 2019], said she understood where Ms. Lopez-Balboa was coming from because her son Jordan had also dived into the theater world. “I wanted to help Claudia learn and be excited about working in theater,” Ms. Roth said.

For Dean Roth, the industrial company executive from New Jersey, the first $1,000 investment got him and his daughter invited to a cocktail party at Sardi’s, where they mingled with other investors and met the show’s director, Danny Goldstein.

Some of those contacts advised Kim Roth on whether she should pick college or an acting conservatory (she chose college), gave her tips for getting started in the business, and helped answer other novice-level questions.

Ms. Roth, who interned for Ken Davenport one summer, has one year of study left at Syracuse before setting out for what she hopes will be a career as an actress, singer and dancer on Broadway. [She got her BFA in 2018; see below.]

“Living so close to the city just getting to make those networking connections is definitely helpful,” Ms. Roth said. [Westfield, New Jersey, where the Roths lived at this time, is 23 miles from New York City—a 35-minute drive or an 85-minute train ride.] “Knowing someone doesn’t necessarily help, but it doesn’t hurt.”

[Kim Roth (b. 1996), originally from Westfield, Union County, New Jersey, completed her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in musical theater from New York’s Syracuse University in 2018, and is now living in Lake Hopatcong, New Jersey.  She’s had additional training at Shakespeare’s Globe in London, on whose stage she’s performed (The Merchant of Venice, 2016).  Acting, singing, and dancing are her passions.  Roth is a member of Actors’ Equity Association.

[Liz Moyer is a journalist with experience reporting and writing about finance, markets, public policy and consumers.  She was most recently a reporter at Barron’s; she was previously an editor at the New York Times and a reporter at the Wall Street Journal.  Moyer has a Master of Science in journalism from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism (1991).

[My friend, and a generous contributor to this blog, was, with his late wife, a small investor in a Broadway musical (Memphis, Shubert Theatre, 19 October 2009-5 August 2012).  It won several awards, including the 2010 Best Musical Tony! Read about his take on being a “Broadway Angel” (by Kirk Woodward, 7 September 2010).]

Evaluating A Director

by Kirk Woodward

[Kirk Woodward has been a major contributor to Rick On Theater since its inception in March 2009—which isn’t surprising because Kirk suggested to me that I start the blog in the first place and, being an IT guy in his day job, helped me find the host site.  A playwright, director, actor, composer, lyricist, and teacher, he’s written on many topics for ROT, including non-theater subjects.  He’s written about directing in several of his posts, starting with “Kirk Woodward’s King Lear Journal” (which gets a mention below), posted on 4 June 2010.  Later contributions on this subject are “Directing Twelfth Night for Children,” 16 and 19 December 2010, and “Reflections On Directing,” 11, 14, 17, and 20 April 2013.  Of course, Kirk’s knowledge of directing has come into play in many of his other pieces for ROT, but now he’s coming back to the blog with a slightly different perspective on the craft: how to assess a prospective director for potential employment.  “Evaluating a Director” is based on Kirk’s recent experience applying for a directing position with a theater company in the New Jersey suburb where he lives.  The process was an unusual experience—Kirk described it for me when it started and I agreed that I hadn’t ever heard of one like it—but (as with most of Kirk’s experiences, I’ve discovered) he found it instructive.  So here my friend shares with ROTters what he gleaned from the evaluation process he went through; I know you’ll find it revealing as well as interesting.  ~Rick]

A recent experience has given me an interesting opportunity for thinking about what a director does and how a director does it, and to change my own mind about an aspect of it. The following is a journal, tracing my thoughts, such as they are, or my stream of consciousness, about the experience as it went along.

(12 December 2016)

I recently applied to direct a play (not yet chosen) for the St. James Players of Montclair, New Jersey (www.stjamesplayers.org), a community-based theater in my area that performs one Shakespeare production a year – that’s their whole season. I sent them a cover letter and my resume.

I received a cordial reply thanking me for my application, suggesting a date for an interview, and mentioning that part of the interview would involve my staging a short scene in front of the board of directors, with a cast including members of that same board.

This surprised me; I’ve never before staged a sample scene as part of a directing job interview. I told my correspondent that the date and the procedure were fine. To be honest, I saw no reason to worry about it. At first glance the request seems fine.

If you were interviewing someone for a job as, say, a church pianist, you wouldn’t be satisfied with looking over resumes; you’d ask the applicants to play something for you. If you were interviewing portrait painters, you’d at least like to see their portfolios. If you were interviewing wedding bands, you’d at least want to hear some recordings, and maybe hear them play a song or two live.

My application to direct had been forwarded to the group by one of its members whom I had recently directed elsewhere. Hopefully he didn’t think I was too bad as a director; at least he apparently didn’t blackball me. Many times a theater will choose a director based on a recommendation, or perhaps on a production that several people saw. In desperate situations they may even select a director based solely on a resume. Interviews are a standard practice. (I first met my wife Pat when she interviewed me for a directing job!)

Still, though, surely a better procedure is to watch a director direct? Seems logical. But that request did start me wondering what such a procedure could actually demonstrate.

One obvious answer is that watching a director work with people may answer the question: is this applicant someone you could endure for an entire production?

It seems unlikely that an applicant could disguise an abrasive personality for an entire working session. (And after all, for a chance at an unpaid and strenuous directing task, who would try?)

An aside on auditioning – the fact is that the “thumbs up, thumbs down” of many – I would guess nearly all – interviews is decided, not even in the first few minutes, but in the first few seconds of an interview. I have never talked on the subject with a director who didn’t confirm that her or his mind was made up about each actor within a very few moments of the first encounter with the actor.

I see no reason why the same shouldn’t be true about interviewing directors. My guess is that the board of the St. James Players will have decided whether they’re willing to consider me for the job before I’ve finished walking through the door. That’s how it works, and if you are skeptical, audition a group of actors (or directors!) for a play and see for yourself.

How is this possible, this practically instantaneous reaction and evaluation? The answer appears to be that, consciously or unconsciously, the interviewer has in mind a desired result – an image, a picture, a conception of what the interviewee ideally will be like - before the interviews start. Match that image, and you’re in, or at least further in. Fail to match it, and you’re out.

Actors often don’t realize that it’s almost impossible for them to “win” or “lose” a role because of talent or skill. Of course someone may make a favorable impression and then cancel it out, for example by turning out to be crazy. (I have seen that happen.)

Or the reverse may occasionally happen, with a bad first impression followed by something overwhelmingly fine that changes the interviewer’s mind. The casting director and teacher Michael Shurtleff, in his invaluable book Audition (1979), says that Robert De Niro, the outstanding actor, could hardly bring himself to speak in initial interviews because of shyness. Obviously he had the talent to overcome this obstacle, but most of us don’t.

Both situations are rare, however. Usually first impressions rule. Auditioners and interviewers have ideas of what they want to see, whether those ideas are conscious or subconscious.

Back, now, to the upcoming interview. A complication in the present case, of course, is that the decision on me and my fellow directors will be made, not by an individual (as far as I know) but by a board of directors. That complicates matters but probably not too much; generally the board ought to be able to determine, essentially, whether they like me or not.

What beyond that? What does the board hope to see from me as a director, and what can I show them?

I’m told that I’ll be sent the scene I’m supposed to stage in advance, which I think is appropriate. A director is supposed to prepare before rehearsals (leaving the question of “prepare what?” unspecified for a moment).

If you ask a director to prepare and she or he doesn’t, you’ve learned something problematic about that director . . . or have you? We will return to that issue.

I haven’t been sent the scene yet and don’t know what it will be, or how long I’ll have to work on it. My feeling is that it won’t matter much whether I get it a month in advance or the night before. For better or worse, I should be able to do the work on it that I need to in whatever time is available.

Will it be a scene from one of the plays the theater has already staged? These include:

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

The Tempest

Twelfth Night

The Merry Wives of Windsor

The Taming of the Shrew

Macbeth

I’m pretty sure the scene will be from a play by Shakespeare, since the theater does only his plays. This has both advantages and disadvantages, which is where we start getting into more specifics about this process.

An obvious advantage, if the play does turn out to be by Shakespeare, is that I’ve read various articles and essays about all of his plays; I’ve read most of the plays themselves; I’m substantially familiar with many of them; and I’ve directed a half dozen already. That’s on the advantage side.

The disadvantage side – possibly – is that directing Shakespeare’s plays has its own specific problems, many of them problems of language. As a result I would never begin staging a scene in one of his plays without first having the cast do it in “paraphrase” – putting  the text in their own words – at least once, and possibly several times, and then using that paraphrase work as a basis for staging the scene.

A number of times I have seen actors speak Shakespearian verse in confident tones that masked their complete incomprehension of it. (I give an example of this in my report in this blog on directing some of King Lear [see “Kirk Woodward’s King Lear Journal,” 4 June 2010].) I don’t want to direct on the assumption that everyone already knows what all the lines mean.

To sum up, questions about the interview scene I’ll be directing include:

1.     What expectations does the board have about what I’m going to do?

2.     Does the board have a fixed idea about how a director ought to work?

3.     Should I approach the scene as though I’m really directing it, or as though I’m giving a demonstration of the way I direct? Should I possibly narrate my process as I go along (for example, “At this point I’d have the actors use paraphrase on the scene”), or is this a “real time enactment” in which I really try to bring the scene along to a particular point?

4.     In that case, what point am I supposed to bring the scene to? So it’s ready for the next rehearsal? Ready to perform before an audience? Or something else?

5.     Is the board’s real desire to see how I stage the scene – in other words, how I arrange the movement of the actors? Is that what they’re looking for?

6.     How much time do I have in which to direct this mini-scene? Will the next interviewee be outside, waiting impatiently if I take too long? Is the board watching to see if I can direct quickly? Is speed of the essence in their minds?

7.     Do the actors (some or all of whom are board members) know the scene already, or are they starting from scratch? Do they have it memorized? How familiar are they with it? Is it a scene they’ve already performed, perhaps from their most recent production?

8.     For that matter, are the board members in the scene actually actors?

I will probably come up with other questions, and I doubt that I’ll actually ask most of these before the interview, but I think these do show that the idea of directing interview scenes is not as simple as it may appear at first glance.

My hope would be that the board would want to see a “snapshot” of my directing – to watch how I handle a specific moment in the directing process, whatever that moment might be. I suspect that such a “snapshot” would tell the board about as much as they can learn from the interview beyond what my resume and recommendations tell them.

Their request has made me realize how much directing is a cumulative process. It’s not a matter of doing “A,” it’s a matter of helping a cast move from “A” to “Z” in a solid way by opening night.

To take one example, I mentioned the possibility above that the board might be looking at how I stage the scene – how I “block,” that is, physically arrange, the actors. I have no problem with that – I certainly don’t always think my blocking is brilliant, but I’m glad to do my best.

But the director doesn’t direct a play in the abstract. There’s always some kind of set and setting, whether it’s an elaborate system of levels on a stage or a couch in a living room. Blocking that works in one location probably will not work in another.

What’s more, while some directors may block their plays and never change their blocking again, that’s not my procedure. If necessary I’ll change my blocking up to, and once in a while during, the last week of rehearsals.

As rehearsals go on I may see a better way of staging something. As the actors and I get to know each other and the play better, we may mutually find that there are ways of doing things that fit their abilities and personalities better. I would be foolish not to want to take advantage of that.

So a director is not necessarily a magician who says a magic word and – poof! – there’s a completely staged play. I’m not.

Every director works differently, anyway. Some directors are brutal tyrants with their actors – and sometimes those tactics result in brilliant productions. On the other hand, some directors want to work with their actors, not over them. (I believe and hope I’m one of those.)

There are even good directors who don’t prepare much. That might seem unlikely, but take the example of the legendary Broadway director George Abbott (1887-1995). As William Goldman reports in his splendid book about Broadway, The Season (1969):

Abbott is known in the business for not doing a great deal of homework. Once, when a new scene was about to be blocked, he called to the stage manager, “Where are the doors?” That was really all he wanted to know. “I do less than anybody, I think,” he said. “I shock everybody with how little I do to prepare. I could make designs of actors’ crossings, but if I did, I wouldn’t use them, so I don’t bother. Blocking’s unimportant anyway; just so you get things to look natural.”

Goldman’s entire chapter about Abbott in The Season, incidentally (it’s called “How Are Things in the Teacher’s Room Tonight?”), is one that any director would get something out of.  [Kirk discussed this book on ROT: see “William Goldman’s The Season,” 30 April 2013.]

I’d say that there are more and less effective ways of doing things as a director, but not “right” ones and “wrong” ones. The only “proof of the pudding” is the final result, the play as it’s ultimately performed.

Even then a director may not achieve every intention. Harold Clurman (1901-1980), in his classic book On Directing (1972), says that he felt good when he achieved sixty per cent of what he hoped to achieve, and he was no slouch as a director, either.

Does the board know any of this? What are they looking for? We’ll see what happens.

It’s terribly tempting to adopt a persona for the interview. One friend suggested I wear a scarf, a coat hung on my shoulders like a cape, and a beret, and bring my own director’s chair. Another said, “I'm not sure if you should try ‘Louder, faster, funnier,’ or, ‘Could you make it more like rainwater?’”

(21 December 2016)

Since the theater apparently hasn’t decided on a play for next year, it occurs to me that I ought to suggest a few I’d be interested in directing. To be honest, I’d direct anything they asked me to, and in fact I’d prefer that they choose the play themselves.

The reason for this is that I don’t know what their company is aiming for. Do they intend, eventually, to stage every play Shakespeare wrote? Or do they feel their audience insists on lighter and/or more familiar fare? They ought to know their audiences better than anyone else.

They did stage Macbeth, which is a tragedy; but it’s an accessible one, while others offer additional well known difficulties. And are they interested in the history plays at all?

Needing something to say, I suppose my suggestions would be (not in order of preference):

As You Like It (I’ve directed it before, but it never runs dry)

Two Gentlemen of Verona (not a great play, but fun)

The Comedy of Errors (same)

The Merchant of Venice (major interpretive issues and a tricky fifth act; breathtakingly topical)

The Winter’s Tale (glorious; a huge undertaking)

Much Ado about Nothing

All’s Well That Ends Well

Love’s Labour’s Lost (conceivably)

If for a change they’re looking for a history play, I’d suggest doing a combination of Henry IV Part I, Henry IV Part II, and Henry V – several of these exist. And I have a Shakespeare compilation of my own that I may throw in the pot if the opportunity arises.

(16 January 2017)

“Hi Kirk – just wanted to confirm that we are planning to meet with you for the director interview this Saturday, January 21 from 9-10:15a at St. James Church.  I will be sending a final email with additional details beforehand, just wanted to make sure you had it confirmed on your calendar.  Look forward to meeting then!”

(19 January 2017)

“Dear Director Candidate:

“The Board . . . looks forward to meeting you this Saturday!  Please enter the church from the rear.  There is a parking lot behind the church, and you are welcome to park in any spot reserved for the church.  We will post signs for you to follow once you come into the building.

“After introductions, we will spend the first 30 minutes asking some questions we have prepared in an effort to get to know you.  You will then have 30 minutes to prepare/coach and run the scene below from Hamlet with two of our members (male and female with different levels of acting experience). 

“As they say. . . the floor is yours!  So feel free to exercise creative freedom and showcase your directing talent.  After the activity, we will leave 15 minutes for you to ask any questions you wish of the board.  See you then and please let me know if you have any questions beforehand.”

The scene is Hamlet, Act 5, Scene 1, the scene with the two “clown gravediggers.”

I will say that communication from the group has been exemplary.

I woke up Thursday night/Friday morning about 2 AM, thought about the scene and about possible questions they might ask me until 4, got up, printed out copies of the scene (just in case they might not have their own, although they almost certainly will) and my resume, and sketched out the blocking of the scene, which ran about 4 minutes when I read it out loud.

(21 January 2017)

The big day. I got to the church early, then couldn’t find a parking place and ran the risk of running over several people coming from or going to church activities. The first person I met was the one who’d sent the email messages. By the time everyone arrived there were eight board members present, in a smallish room with a space, clearly the acting area, between a board table and a circle of comfortable chairs and sofas, which is where we sat.

The atmosphere was friendly, even hearty. They had divided up the task of asking nine questions; some more questions emerged in the conversation, after one member gave a background on the group, saying that their purposes were to benefit the company members, the audience, and, by bringing people into the building, the church.

QUESTION: You saw our production of Macbeth. What did you think of it?

ANSWER: I thought it was GREAT!!!

I had tried to think in advance of as many questions as possible that they might ask me (like the one above), and what my replies might be (also above). This turned out to have been a good idea, since I was able to answer, fairly coherently, questions such as my ideas about directing Shakespeare (approach it as you would a musical; as much as possible, make the scenes continuous, eliminating pauses for scene changes; the emphasis in lines of iambic pentameter often comes at the end of a line) and my directing style (create a secure atmosphere, give goals for each rehearsal, expect a difficult rehearsal when new elements, such as lights or line memorization targets, are introduced).

Some of the group’s questions clearly reflected their own plans going forward. Did I need big sets, and would I consider staging the play in various alternative spaces? (All things being equal, no to big sets; I’ve directed in many alternative spaces – Midsummer in the round, As You Like It outdoors – and enjoyed it.) Suppose the board wanted to work with the director, as opposed to choosing the director and then disappearing? (Fine with me.) How would you work with people who had little or no stage experience? (Supportively, I hope.) What play(s) might you want to direct? (Maybe Much Ado About Nothing . . . but the theater ought to select the play based on what they know about their audience.) Would you be willing to work with us in selecting a play? (Absolutely.)

Finally it was time for me to direct two actors (one was a board member, one was not) in the scene from Hamlet. We got off on the right foot when I offered pencils if either of the actors needed them – “You brought PENCILS?” one board member said in amazement. Before we started the exercise I talked a bit about what would have happened in real life up to this point in a production – we’d have had a number of read-throughs, at first sitting down and then gradually standing and moving around, and we’d have done a great deal of work paraphrasing the lines, to make sure everyone knew what they were saying and to give a realistic foundation to the scenes.

Then I tried to ignore the board completely, facing the actors instead of them, and working as much as possible the way we would if we were putting a scene on its feet. I will say that I did not feel I did a brilliant job. “Blocking” rehearsals aren’t much fun under any conditions, and doing them with people watching is even less fun. Still, I figured the board ought to see the real thing, so we plowed on, I tried to work roughly the way I ordinarily work, and we did get through the material, even the song at the end of the scene. It was not a particularly smooth half hour. I can comfort myself by saying that blocking rehearsals seldom are.

Only afterward did I start to think of alternate ways I might have handled the demonstration. After all, we directors had been encouraged to “exercise creative freedom and showcase your directing talent.” Should I have shaped the scene with exercises, begun with an improvisation, perhaps guided the actors through a visualization? Maybe next time.  Those ideas, and others, are probably not what I’ll be doing as we’re blocking the actual show, should that moment come. Or maybe we will do those things. I reserve the right to choose my strategies. In any event, for better or for worse, for this “audition” I made the choice to work in a pretty conventional way.

In retrospect, what do I feel about the board’s request that each director stage a scene as part of the interview? As I’ve already indicated, I was initially skeptical. I thought of a couple of analogies. If the board were trying to select a psychologist to be on the church staff, would they say to each candidate, “As part of the interview, we’d like you to do half an hour of therapy on a board member, in front of the rest of the board”? Chances are that the psychologist would not be thrilled, and more than likely would have to turn down the request on ethical grounds anyway. And directors are in their own way psychologists – or they had better be.

Or if the board were interviewing artists for the job of painting a portrait of the minister in oils, would they say, “We’d like you to do a painting in front of the board first”? The artists would almost certainly say, “That’s not how my process works. I create a painting over a period of time. All you’ll get to see today is a bit of pencil sketching.” Directors, like many portrait painters, work over a period of time, or, again, they had better. The show doesn’t open today. It opens weeks or months from now, and not until then can it be judged. This is why the audience is seldom invited to rehearsals.

Despite all that, looking back at my interview today I can see I’ve fundamentally changed my mind about the idea of directing auditions, for a simple reason. I know that as an interviewee, I did a good job today. I talked charmingly and knowledgably about directing and theater. I showed that I was reasonably likeable and reasonably smart. (All right, let’s assume that I did those things. I tried to.) But does that mean I can direct, or does it just mean I can talk? How do I – how does any director – deal with actors when they’re actually face to face with the director?

I think that’s a legitimate question to ask, and odd though the board’s request strikes me and everyone I know who’s heard about it, it seems to me that that there are more plusses than minuses in the idea. In addition to hearing my answers to questions, the board saw a reasonable if not exhaustive sample of me at work. Ultimately, if it turns out they don’t like the sample, it shouldn’t make any difference to them how well I talked. Hire me for a workshop, maybe. But hire a director for the show who demonstrates that she or he works well at a practical level.

It may even be that the limitations of the sample – restricted time, borrowed actors, searching eyes – may actually compel a more accurate estimate of a director’s real skill, or lack of it. And I have to say that most of the questions I listed above about the process resolved themselves without fuss. Here are my questions again, with comments on how they worked out:

1.     What expectations does the board have about what I’m going to do? How much does that matter? I could have provided anything specific they asked, if I’d had to.

2.     Does the board have a fixed idea about how a director ought to work? Again, should I care? Either I’ll be a good fit for them or I won’t.

3.     Should I approach the scene as though I’m really directing it, or as though I’m giving a demonstration of the way I direct? Should I possibly narrate my process as I go along (for example, “At this point I’d have the actors use paraphrase on the scene”), or is this a “real time enactment” in which I really try to bring the scene along to a particular point? I decided to narrate the process, and they were fine with that.

4.     In that case, what point am I supposed to bring the scene to? So it’s ready for the next rehearsal? Ready to perform before an audience? Or something else? Not a realistic question, since as it turns out, I only had half an hour, and you can only do so much in that time frame.

5.     Is the board’s real desire to see how I stage the scene – in other words, how I arrange the movement of the actors? Is that what they’re looking for? Once more, what’s the problem? If they don’t want to see the scene staged, what DO they want? They’re adults; they can tell me.

6.     How much time do I have in which to direct this mini-scene? I was given this answer – one half hour – in advance. Will the next interviewee be outside, waiting impatiently if I take too long? The next interviewee WAS outside, probably relieved that I’d taken as long as I did. Is the board watching to see if I can direct quickly? Is speed of the essence in their minds? If so, then so. It’s an audition. Let it be.

7.     Do the actors (some or all of whom are board members) know the scene already, or are they starting from scratch? Do they have it memorized? How familiar are they with it? Is it a scene they’ve already performed, perhaps from their most recent production? This question strikes me as logical, but in practice it didn’t matter, because we were starting the scene at such an early stage of work. One production seldom resembles another much. If they had the scene memorized, they didn’t show it.

8.     For that matter, are the board members in the scene actually actors? One was; one possibly either was not or was pretending not to be, perhaps to see how I’d deal with someone who hadn’t acted much.

(22 January 2017)

Waiting time. It occurs to me that I didn’t ask when they’d notify candidates, and they didn’t say. I’d think they’d have to tell us this month, because they indicated they’d like to select a play in February.

I don’t think I’ll be too upset if I don’t get the job. It is, after all, a great deal of work. The final question I was asked yesterday was, “Considering that this job involves lots of time and effort for no pay, why on earth do you want it?” All I could think to say was, “Because I love directing and I love Shakespeare.” After my wife Pat, a wonderful director, choreographer, performer, and teacher, died four and a half years ago, I lost my interest in directing. Little by little, it appears, I’ve gotten it back.

There doesn’t seem to be any harm in thinking ahead to what I might say if I did by any chance get the job. The following ideas evolved out of comments during the interview:

·         The board wants to have at least one assistant director – read “trainee” – work on the show. I told them I’d started directing in that way (on a production of King Lear, an experience about which I’ve written in this blog) and would gladly support such a program. It strikes me that we should choose the AD (or AD’s) early so they can participate in the meetings that will precede the rehearsal period.

·         As soon as the play is selected, I’d like to wander around the church with the board and identify the different kinds of spaces in which the play might be performed – the sanctuary, obviously, but also other possibilities.

·         I wonder if the board would like a series of pre-audition workshops on Shakespearian verse. This would have the dual advantages of handling some of the language work early, and of letting me familiarize myself with many in the acting pool ahead of the auditions.

(24 January 2017)

I wrote thanking the board for the opportunity to interview with them, and received this reply:

“Thanks for your kind note Kirk!  We had a pretty full day of excellent candidates Saturday. We very much enjoyed meeting you as well.

“The board is still deliberating and giving time to follow up with a few internal folks who applied, but we hope to circle back by next week.

“Thanks again and look forward to being in touch again soon.”

Does not sound terribly positive, but you never can tell.

(31 January 2017)

“Hi Kirk – hope all is well with you on this snowy day!  Sorry for the delay in getting back to you, but we all needed to run after our day of interviews, and were not able to meet/deliberate until this week.  

“I would very much appreciate the chance to speak with you by phone in the next day or so about next steps.  I am available today after 5p, tomorrow/Wednesday from 9:30-11:30a or after 7p.  Please let me know what works for you.  Look forward to connecting soon!”

(2 February 2017)

So I did get the job – we’ll be doing As You Like It – and in the process learned a great deal from the experience. As Sherlock Holmes says in “The Red Circle” from His Last Bow, “Education never ends, Watson. It is a series of lessons, with the greatest for the last.” Directing is a fascinating activity. It calls on us to continue to work on doing it better. Hats off to the St. James players!

[Rehearsals for Kirk’s As You Like It will begin on 30 April and the show will run the first two weekends in September.  Performances are at St. James Episcopal Church, 581 Valley Road, Upper Montclair, New Jersey; telephone: (973) 744-0270.

[For other posts on ROT by Kirk Woodward, which are now too many to list here, I suggest using the blog’s own search engine (in the upper left-hand corner of the site) and simply search for “Kirk Woodward,” or use the “Labels” below and click on Kirk’s name.  His contributions have covered many aspects of theater, including playwriting and reviewing, as well as music, pop culture, and some fascinating personal and family memories.  (There are about 65 posts—including several multi-part pieces—to choose from!)]