Religious Drama

by Kirk Woodward

[Once again my friend Kirk Woodward has submitted a fascinating piece of theater writing, a discussion of the work of French dramatist Paul Claudel and specifically his 1910 play, The Tidings Brought to Mary (L’Annonce faite à Marie).  It’s Kirk’s entry into a broader discussion of religious art, particularly religious drama.  Needless to add, it’s a worthy addition to ROT, and I thank Kirk for allowing me to share his thoughts with readers of ROT.  ~Rick]

I never thought I’d get to see a production of a play by Paul Claudel in the United States. Yet I’ve not only seen a production of his play The Tidings Brought to Mary, but even worked a little on it. (I was one of two rehearsal pianists.) As a result I have a different view of the possible relations between theater and religion than I did before.

So, first of all, who is Paul Claudel, and why should he matter?

Claudel lived from 1868 to 1955. I have been familiar with his name for two reasons. One is that he is taught in theater history classes as a major French playwright of the Twentieth Century and, more particularly, as a “religious playwright.” Eric Bentley, writing in In Search of Theatre (1952) about a production of another Claudel play, Partage de Midi (The Break of Noon, 1906), calls Claudel “one of the two or three outstanding French playwrights of the past half century.”

The other reason I have been familiar with Claudel’s name is because of a famous passage in W. H. Auden’s poem “In Memory of W. B. Yeats” (1939):

Time that with this strange excuse

 

Pardons Kipling and his views,

And will pardon Paul Claudel,

Pardons [Yeats] for writing well.  

Auden later became uncomfortable with this passage and deleted it from his collected poems. Which of Claudel’s views did Auden have in mind? There are, to my knowledge, two possibilities. One is that in French politics Claudel was a conservative. Not only a French patriot, he became a diplomat and represented France with distinction, including a five year stint as ambassador to the United States (1928–1933, in which capacity his picture was on the cover of Time magazine in March 1927).

Because of a poem Claudel wrote praising Marshal Philippe Pétain (“Paroles au Maréchal” [“Words to the Marshal”], May 1941), the Prime Minister of the Vichy government of France that collaborated with the Nazis, it is sometimes assumed that Claudel was not only conservative, but that he had Fascist sympathies. This appears not to be the case; Pétain was greatly admired as a hero of France when Claudel wrote his poem, a distinction later muddied when Petain headed a French puppet government that collaborated with Germany. Claudel wrote scornfully about both the Nazis and about anti-Semitism, beginning at an early date, and he seems to have been closely and suspiciously watched by the Germans during World War II.

Another possibility is that Auden, who did not rejoin the church he had first left until 1940, was thinking about Claudel’s fervent Roman Catholicism. Claudel had a “conversion experience” at the age of 18, and remained an active Roman Catholic the rest of his life. His plays are infused with his religious beliefs. But how, exactly?

The relation between religion and art is a real brain teaser. Because I’m a playwright – feel free to see my plays listed at spiceplays.com ­­­– my examples come from the theater. Any art offers equivalents. Consider the following possibilities (which in reality are not mutually exclusive).

Since we’ve referred to Paul Claudel’s “conversion experience,” imagine a play written for the explicit purpose of converting people to a particular religious belief. We would, I imagine, agree that this is “religious art.”

Imagine a play with the same purpose – to convert people to a particular religion – but written by an avowed atheist, who hates religion in all forms, but who has been paid to write the play. It’s a product of pure cynicism on the part of the writer. Does it matter to the work that the artist is completely unreligious? Should the knowledge of the author’s relation to the material make any difference in our evaluation of the play in religious terms?

Suppose the play actually achieves its purpose and “converts” a number of people. Do we then consider it a “religious” play? For religious people, can any information about the author outweigh the play’s work of salvation?

What if our “religious” play is excellently written, and yet “converts” no one? If it fails in its purpose, can it be called a success? Or the opposite: what if the play has a great effect on people, and yet is by any reasonable aesthetic standard a piece of garbage? How do we value that piece? Can it be both bad art and good religion – or, for that matter, the reverse?

These questions have real-life instances. For example, Eugene O’Neill wrote both Days Without End (1933) and The Iceman Cometh (1939). Days Without End is generally considered to represent at least a momentary reconciliation between O’Neill and the Roman Catholic church. The Iceman Cometh, on the other hand, presents not only a world without God, but a world whose inhabitants survive only through their illusions.

From the aesthetic point of view, few would claim that Days Without End is a superior play to The Iceman Cometh. What should the Roman Catholic verdict be? Ought it to prefer the play that supports the church, even if it’s almost universally considered a much lesser work?

And what about plays that have no “religious” content at all? Should Neil Simon’s The Odd Couple (1965) be considered a bad play by religious people because it has no religious significance (assuming it doesn’t)?

Here are some possible ways of looking at the issue of the relation of religion and art, starting with the most straightforward:

If it says it’s about religion, it’s about religion. If it says it’s religious art, it’s religious art.

This point of view has the virtue of ending pretty much any argument. Whatever anyone says, goes. If I write a play about Jesus, it belongs in the religious column. If I write a play about Oscar Madison, it doesn’t. If Oscar breaks down at the end of the play and prays to God to save Felix’s soul, it moves over to the religious column. If a bitter atheist writes a play about how wonderful God is, religious folk say God bless ‘im. One more for us.

This point of view isn’t interested in whether the art is good or bad – whatever that may mean – only that the work of art is on Our Side. One thinks of agitprop dramas of the Thirties, about which the question frequently asked wasn’t “Is it a good play?” but “Is it on our side?”

The problem with this perspective is that, without any counterweight of an artistic standard, what’s created from this point of view tends to be pretty deadly. After all, anybody can write it; all they have to be is sincere. The catalogues of all the major dramatic publishing companies contain page after page of “religious” plays.

Most of them – I’m pretty sure – you wouldn’t want to see. (I’d be interested to read the exceptions.) They shine, so to speak, with borrowed glory: because they’re about God, they claim special merit. But they are seldom produced except for audiences of partisans.

By the way, what about Muslim drama? There is such. Presumably that’s religious drama, too, but do non-Muslim religious folk endorse it, or do they limit “religious” art to their own religion?

Related to the preceding approach is that the role of art is to serve God, and therefore art is to be judged by how well it does God’s work. Tolstoy adopted this idea in later years; he found himself unable to see how purely aesthetic interests mattered, when God’s work is so important.

By this standard, categories of “good” and “bad” art are acknowledged but irrelevant; what matters is how well the work does God’s work. There are traveling theatrical troupes that perform religious dramas in churches for church audiences. According to the approach just presented, it doesn’t matter if they are excellent artists, or if they’re duffers – they’re evangelical, and that’s what matters.

A problem with this approach is that it tends to be adopted by censors, fanatics, and dictators, who have their own ideas of what the good is and who also have the means to impose their standards on others. Religious organizations seldom act well when they acquire power – quite the contrary. I wonder if there are many Roman Catholics in the United States today, for example, who would want to see the return of a powerful Catholic Legion of Decency (known as CLOD – honestly), telling them which movies they should and shouldn’t watch.

Another problem with this approach is that, with religious art and practically any other kind of art, a work that’s created with a teaching purpose tends to be dreary. How can it help being second-rate? There’s no joy of discovery in creating something that’s already figured out what it wants to say. Think, not of religious, but of political art – for example, the paintings of Stalin’s era, with strong muscular workers looking toward the Socialist future – surely one of the best examples of dead art.

The opposite approach, which we might call the aesthetic approach, says that there is no such thing as religious art at all. There’s only art, whether good or bad. Art takes as its subject whatever it wants, whether it’s religion or politics or love or whatever.

This approach also ends all arguments, because it makes ideas of religion irrelevant. Whatever one’s aesthetic standards are, they’re the ones that apply in the realm of “art for art’s sake”. Obviously many critics favor this approach, because it means they don’t have to take religion seriously. Even overtly religious poetry like the later poems of T. S. Eliot and Auden can be evaluated in a purely “artistic” way.

This approach eliminates the difficulty of making sense of a work of art in religious terms, but also eliminates a great deal of human experience in an arbitrary way. It also has the potential to falsify the nature of the work being considered: one can read, say, the book of the prophet Isaiah as poetry, but it wasn’t written as a poem; it was written as a challenge to lead different lives.

We can take an anthropological approach and say that works of art reflect the ideas of religion held by people at the time. This approach looks backward into history, noting, for example, that the ancient Greek tragedies were performed as elements of religious festivals. The approach also looks beyond Western art, to non-Western cultures, looking at the way different cultures present themselves, often without making value judgments on their beliefs or art forms.

 

A limitation of this approach, again, is that it tends to trivialize religion, and whatever else it may be, religion is not a trivial matter. If we see that everyone believes something, it’s easy to decide that no belief is really important. That may be so; then again, it may not.

A new version of the anthropological approach is to assert that modernism has destroyed the coherence of works of art so that it’s meaningless to say that a work is “religious,” or for that matter to label it in any other way. A post-modernist, reveling in deconstructionism, would go even further and say that no matter what its intention, a work of art can only reflect the oppressive power structure of its time.

This approach negates the experience of art, particularly the distinction between greater and lesser works. Deconstructionism asserts that art is fatally limited, and certainly that is true of poor art, whether new or old, but great art gives us a vision of coherence and of liberation. There are academics who would deny that it does; all I can say is that I feel sorry for them, and I wonder why they bother to teach, since they dislike their subject matter so much.

We can go in the other direction, and say that on the contrary, all art is religious. I have promoted this approach myself elsewhere, in my not-yet-published book Two Worlds, One Lord: 

An effect of art is to make us experience the temporal in relation to the spiritual. Li Po ([Eighth-Century Chinese poet] translated by Ezra Pound) puts it this way: 

That art is best which to the soul’s range give no bound;

Something besides the form, something beyond the sound. 

Even the most negative, pessimistic works of art make us feel the absence of the spiritual world in our temporal lives, whether the artists consciously intend that effect or not. 

The distinction between “secular” and “spiritual” art is not particularly important. Any work of art – for that matter, any activity of our lives – illuminates life in the temporal world, or in the Spiritual world, or, most frequently, in the areas where the two worlds interact.

This viewpoint would be irritating to an atheistic writer, because it says, “No matter what you are trying to do, you are still reflecting spiritual issues – you can’t help it.” A limitation of this viewpoint is that if everything is religion, then nothing is – what’s the point of talking about religion at all, if what we mean is “life”?

Related to the preceding approach is the concept that the purpose of art is to celebrate God’s creation – in Auden’s phrase, to “praise all that is for being.” On this line, as above, even a skeptical or atheistic viewpoint still reflects the creation of which it is a part.

The objection to the previous viewpoint would apply to this one as well.

I have presented these various approaches to give some idea of the range of issues involved in the relation of religion and art. How does Paul Claudel approach the question?

He wrote The Tidings Brought to Mary (originally, in French, L’Annonce faite à Marie) in 1910, and revised it, particularly the prologue and the last act, over another couple of decades. The poetic nature of the dialogue and the difficulties of translation are probably reasons that it has seldom been performed in the United States.

It was first presented on Broadway in 1922; its next New York production, as far as I can tell, was by the Blackfriars Repertory Theater (sponsored by the Dominican order) in 2009, revived in 2011. (The Blackfriars followed Tidings with a production of Claudel’s The Satin Slipper.) But I have not been able to find records of other productions in this country.

Union Congregational Church, in Upper Montclair, New Jersey, makes some adventurous choices in the theatrical productions it presents (for example, a version of James Joyce’s The Dead). Director Elaine Molinaro brought the idea for Tidings to the church, which produced it in association with her production company Culture Connection Theater. Molinaro wrote in the program notes for the production, which ran from November 8 through 16, 2013:

I have dreamt about [Claudel’s] play for over 20 years of my life ever since I first saw it performed in Paris when I was a study-abroad student there. It has always been my dream to direct this work of art.

The repetition of the word “dream” in her remarks is appropriate. The play (in an imagistic if unwieldy translation by Walter Fowlie) creates a dreamlike atmosphere. Set in the Thirteenth Century, its events take place at the time of the battles of Joan of Arc and the crowning of Charles VII at Reims.

Molinaro staged the play in the church sanctuary, in front of a series of backdrops (by Rich Silivanch, executed by Ashley Petix) inspired by the French Santon nativity scene figurines of the early 1800s; costumed the play (with designs by Jonathan Green) in styles from that same period (in contradiction to its Medieval setting); and included music by Jean-Philippe Rameau, Maurice Duruflé, Igor Stravinsky, Gabriel Fauré, and others, sung by a choir of eight.

That same choir added to the dreamlike effect of the play by representing, at various points in the play, servants, trees, and angels, as part of a staging that combined the formal – even the emblematic – and the naturalistic in surprising ways.

Similarly the acting varied from the realistic to the highly rhetorical – in a witty stroke, Molinaro had more than one character “happen” to end up behind the church’s pulpit just in time to deliver a particularly long and complex speech. The result brought Brecht to mind, but also in spirit seemed genuinely Medieval.

The play takes place in the Tardenois region of agricultural France, where Violaine Vercors, the older daughter of the family, is spotted by her envious sister Mara kissing Pierre, a leper, as she tells him goodbye. Mara uses this information to ruin her sister’s engagement to Jacques, the foreman of the farm, while at the same time Violaine develops leprosy herself, and leaves home for a life of isolation and shame.

Mara marries Jacques and they have a child, who dies, and Mara brings the infant’s body to Violaine insisting that she bring the baby back to life. Violaine pleads that only God can perform such miracles; in fact the baby does live again. Violaine dies, forgiving everyone and giving them a greater idea of God’s love and power. In the course of the play, Pierre is also reported to have been cured of his leprosy – by Violane’s kiss.

How does The Tidings Brought to Mary relate to the attitudes toward “religious” theater described above? It certainly makes a clear claim to be a piece of “religious theater,” and I doubt that an audience member would miss its overt intention to participate in the work of proselytizing. It is full of comments on God’s power and on what God can do.

But I would assert that it’s not only a “religious” play, but a good play in its own right. Why? Well, its characters are interesting and well-drawn, the story is dramatic, the world of the play imaginative, the language evocative. But the same could be said about other plays, many of them definitely not “religious” in intent. To see what makes The Tidings Brought to Mary a piece of religious art and a good play, we can start by looking at its title.

We might think, from the title of the play, that it tells the story of the birth of Jesus as narrated in the gospels of Matthew and Luke. As we have seen, it does not (although the climax of the play, at the end of the third of the four acts, does occur on Christmas Eve). Why did Claudel choose that title for the play?

The answer goes to his dramaturgical approach to his story. Rather than directly base his plot on stories from the Bible, he creates a new story that uses Bible stories as its building blocks. Principally, the play dramatizes a powerful situation: what must Joseph have thought and felt when Mary told him that she was pregnant – and that he was very definitely not the father?

But rather than use the characters of Joseph and Mary for his play, Claudel presents a parallel story – how Jacques feels when Violaine tells Jacques that she has contracted leprosy he knows must have come from Pierre. The conflict, the dramatic value, the depth of feeling that must have existed, are parallel. The situation is strong and vivid. The Biblical narrative is implicit within it.

Claudel uses the same strategy throughout the play. Among the elements found in the Bible that are echoed in The Tidings Brought to Mary are:

The Sermon on the Mount

The parable of the landowner leaving his home, to return at an unexpected time
The Last Supper
The miracle of bringing a child back to life
The parable of the Good Samaritan
The parable of the Prodigal Son
Peter’s betrayal of Jesus
Paul’s farewell at Ephesus
The famous passage in Ecclesiastes – “To everything there is a season . . . .”

None of these are referred to directly. Instead, they are embodied in the plot of the play. An audience member unfamiliar with the Bible passages involved can experience the import of the material based entirely on the way it is presented in the play. No special knowledge of the Bible is required. An audience member will experience the impact of the various episodes from the scriptures while watching an involving play.


I am grateful to Elaine Molinaro and the Union Congregational Church for providing an opportunity to see a play that sheds a light on the important issue of the relation between drama and religion, whether or not that was an aim of the production.


Claudel’s approach to “religious theater,” as represented by The Tidings Brought to Mary, is by no means the only approach possible. But the play carries its approach out so successfully that it sets a high standard for other writers who wrestle with the same issue, and it presents one solution, not in the form of an essay or a theory, but in the form of a living play.

 

[Kirk, among his other talents, is a playwright and as he’s invited readers to visit his website, I want to provide the link to it: http://spiceplays.com/.  There you will find his plays available for production, including his musicals and his plays for audiences of children.  Perhaps unsurprisingly, Kirk also has a selection of “religious” plays for consideration.  Please take the time to check out Spiceplays: I guarantee you’ll find his work surprising and engaging.]

 

Stage Hands

[In recent months, the stage actors’ union has run articles about some of the work its members do in production other than playing characters on stage.  Equity News published a profile of the indispensable backstage professional, the stage manager, the company’s drill sergeant.  Following that, the newsletter ran an article about the work of the dance captain, an important member of the company for musicals.  Since most people, especially if you don’t actually work in the theater, don’t know what these pros do (or, I suspect in some instances, even that they exist), I decided to post them on ROT for everyone’s edification.  If Equity News runs more such pieces as time goes on—along with actors, Actors’ Equity represents chorus dancers and stage managers—I’ll keep posting them as well because not only is it useful to know about these backstage workers, but it’s really interesting to learn what they do during rehearsals and performance.]

“Stage Managers Wear Many Different Hats”

by Michael Sommers

[On Monday, 20 May 2013, Court Theatre stage managers give a tour of the Court Theatre facilities to AEA members. This is the first of the Central Stage Manager Committee’s new event, “The Booth Series.” AEA stage managers across the city of Chicago are opening up their facilities for tours to other local stage managers. The stage managers are welcomed into the stage manager booths, walk the stage, peek backstage, and visit the different shops and offices of Equity theatres. Another Booth Series took place in late June or early July.  Michael Sommers is an actor, acting teacher, and acting coach who works on stage and in TV and film.. This article ran in the June 2013 issue Equity News [Actors’ Equity Association] (volume 98, issue number 5).]

Stage managers agree that their job encompasses far more than just running the show.

Parent, psychologist, interpreter, scheduler, documentarian, communicator, enforcer, collaborator, administrator, diplomat and problem-solver are among the many different hats that stage managers wear in their constantly shape-shifting role as the theatre’s ultimate character performer.

“You are the one backstage that people depend upon to address whatever their immediate issues may be,” says Malcolm D. Ewen, a resident stage manager for Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre who is the First Vice Chair of AEA’s Central Regional Board. “Boil it all down, you are the main one there to support the actor,” says Ira Mont, production stage manager of Broadway’s Rodgers + Hammerstein’s Cinderella and Third Vice President of Equity.

Depending upon the particular theatre situation, stage managers also assign dressing room berths, coordinate increasingly advanced automation systems, supervise safe and sanitary procedures, and, among many other duties, in some cases sweep the stage. “Equity does not define the role of the stage manager because the job varies so much from theatre to theatre,” notes Ewen.

Stage managers’ responsibilities include handling a never-ending blizzard of paperwork, starting with developing a production’s “bible” and other documentary references during the rehearsal period and continuing all the way through a show’s run with maintaining a daily log and filing various reports on every performance. Then there are the hurried pre-show conferences with dance captains and other department heads to make certain that everything and everybody is in place when the curtain rises.

And, oh yes, they also call the show cue by cue with assistants or sometimes alone. Should an accident occur, they are the arbiters responsible for “making the proper decision about what to do – without ever panicking,” says Ewen.

It is a complex job. “Stage managers need to be facile in all the different disciplines that it takes to make a show happen and to have a significant vocabulary in order to communicate with everybody involved,” says Mont, who teaches graduate courses in stage management at Columbia University. “You are usually the first person in the building and the last one to leave,” remarks Gary Mickelson, a stage manager who is now readying the pre-production aspects for First Date, a new Broadway musical. “You really have to be a total multi-tasker,” asserts Hethyr Verhoef, resident stage manager for the Pasadena Playhouse, who adds, “I especially like the give-and-take of doing it all.”

Nobody knows how far back stage managers go in theatre history, although it can be assumed that for the original Medea in 431 BC somebody cued the entrance of the chorus while signaling the crane for the deus-ex-machina. Historically, stage managers have been members of Equity since its founding. In those 1913 days of stock companies, actors often performed stage manager duties while stage managers played small parts so it seemed a natural fit that they would join forces together in a union.

For more than 60 years, however, stage managers were employed under a standard actor’s contract. Then an ugly dispute over Mass Appeal – a 1980 showcase production that intended to transfer to Broadway without compensating or taking along its original stage manager — led to the development of contracts specifically designated for stage managers.

During the same period, increasing internal demands for greater representation in the union resulted in the establishment of two Council seats for stage managers in 1982. A decade later, when Equity reorganized into its present decentralized governance system, stage managers were duly represented on its regional boards and Council. A stage managers’ committee, which addresses needs and concerns, is operative in every region. According to the union’s latest statistics, some 5.6 % of all Equity jobs relate to stage management.

Although stage managers usually conduct brush-up rehearsals and direct players who join long-running shows, that traditional task – particularly on the Production Contract – has been increasingly assumed by resident directors or other management supervisors. Yet the stage manager still remains “the eyes and ears on a nightly basis,” as Ewen puts it, whose responsibility is to keep the production on its toes. “Even the best performers need input for the maintenance of their show,” says Ewen, who believes in offering the artists “gentle guidance.”

Dealing effectively with the actors, crew and backstage personnel can be tricky. “We are there to protect union rules and members,” says Zoya Kachadurian, a veteran currently preparing a revival of Tennessee Williams’ The Two-Character Play for Off-Broadway. “It is always a challenging tightrope for us to walk.” By the nature of the job, patience also is necessary. “You have to check your ego at the stage door because when people need to vent you are going to be their first stop,” says Alexis Shorter, a Cinderella stage manager.

Calling the production cue-by-cue can be an art in itself. “You have to ride that extremely fine line of being a drill sergeant and letting the show breathe,” observes Gary Mickelson. “It is exhilarating when you understand how to make everything work onstage and backstage in concert,” says Verhof.

It all makes for a long work week. “I think that stage managers have an affinity for going that extra mile and accept to a certain degree that we are not being compensated for every hour spent on the job,” says Mont, who believes that producers often are unaware of stage managers’ multiple responsibilities. “Although we don’t view it as a burden, they should realize everyone believes we are 24/7 on call,” he adds. “You have to do a lot of work on your own time because it simply has to be done,” explains Shorter, a view that the other stage managers share.

The flexibility inherent to being a stage manager is helpful as they currently adapt their personable craft to the theatre’s growing reliance upon automation and complex technology. “We are learning all this on our feet,” says Mont, who contended last year with the astonishing stagecraft for the Broadway musical Ghost. “Stage managers have to reinvent themselves for every show they do,” says Kachadurian. “Just like the actors, we are professionals who constantly evolve.”

*  *  *  *

“A Day in the Life of a Dance Captain”

By Jennie Ford, Equity Councillor

[This article appeared in volume 98, issue number 7 of Equity News (September 2013).  Jennie Ford is a dancer and choreographer whose last Broadway show was the 2012-13 revival of Evita for which she served as dance captain.  Ford was assistant choreographer for Dance of the Vampires (2002-03) and dance captain for All Shook Up (2005) and The Music Man (2000-01)]

It’s almost impossible to write about “a day in the life of the dance captain.” It wouldn’t capture the full scope of what we do to write about one day. Every day is different from next. It might be simpler to ask, “What doesn’t a dance captain do?” Not only do you have to dance, but you also have to be a clear communicator, a teacher, a mediator, an organizer, a quick thinker, a problem-solver, a confidante, a multi-tasker and a good listener.

Here are some typical expectations ranging from rehearsal to after opening:

Making a Show Bible: You find some stage diagrams to start notating the staging and choreography so you don’t forget the details. You try to learn everyone’s names quickly to notate where each actor is placed at all times. This can take weeks or months to perfect.

Tech rehearsal: The choreographer is working on a number and some actors don’t remember where they go. You are asked where people were in the studio. You look at your bible and tell Sally she was “stage right 7 with heels on the track.” The choreographer decides it could be pictured differently so every actor gets moved to a different place on the stage. You quickly notate those changes.

An actor has to go for a costume fitting during the afternoon and the swing has to step in for the first time. You work with the swing to make sure he or she is comfortable. You make sure they know where to go and grab their partner to help them work together for the first time.

Rehearsals during previews: The creative team tried a new number for three days and now thinks it doesn’t work. They want to go back to the way it was but the actors don’t remember. You are glad you didn’t throw out your old notes, because you are asked to remind them what they did before.

“Noting” the show: The creative team has left. Now it’s time to make sure their vision is maintained and every audience gets to see it as if it was opening night. You watch the show and notate what needs to be fixed. At intermission, Beth tells you Greg keeps kicking her in one number but she doesn’t know why. You write it all down on your note pad for tomorrow.

Giving out notes: You arrive an hour and a half before the show because you have 25 notes to give out. You tell Steve that he could turn his head a little quicker to match the others. You tell Sally her extra head movements look great on her, but she is now the only thing you watch onstage. Judy rushes in and although you have five things that she could work on, you give her one for her performance for tonight. (Then praise her tomorrow for doing it and give her the next.) As you go from room to room, Lilla tells you that she doesn’t feel safe in a lift. The rest of the notes wait while this becomes priority. You find her partner and rehearse the lift until both are happy. You look at your bible to see why Jim is out of the light. He is on the correct number but has migrated downstage. You tell him that if he took a big step upstage, he would be lit and all his terrific acting would not be lost. The rest of the notes will have to wait.

Don’t be shy about giving out the good notes! It goes a long way. There are endless notes of improvement that go out daily but it’s important for the morale of the company to remind them what they are doing right and how amazing they are!

Running auditions: You go to the studio from 10 am-6 pm to audition 300 actors who want to be in the show. You teach the combination and then dance with each group to help give them the best chance of remembering it. You dance full out many times to “save face” and then you go home and take an epsom salt bath before the evening show.

Cut-shows: The stage manager calls you two hours before the show and says four people are out sick tonight adjustments to make. You grab your bible and see who could be cut in each number, who manages what props and how you can get through the show. You let the stage manager know what you need to rehearse before the show to make it work. You go to the show early to tell everyone what their alterations will be for that show. because the flu is going around. There aren’t enough actors to cover the show so you have to figure out what adjustments to make. You grab your bible and see who could be cut in each number, who manages what props and how you can get through the show. You let the stage manager know what you need to rehearse before the show to make it work. You go to the show early to tell everyone what their alterations will be for that show.

Scheduling: To create a weekly schedule, you look at what the understudies need to learn, what the swings need help with, who is going on vacation and how to be prepared for that, and if you need to rehearse specific areas of the show that can’t be fixed with notes.

Teaching replacements: You go to the theatre for five hours and teach Tiffany’s replacement. You teach where she enters and exits the stage, where to grab props, where to change, where to stand onstage, traffic patterns, director and choreographer’s intentions and other tips. There will just be you, the pianist and her. You find yourself singing and dancing all the parts to help her. It makes for a lot of knowledge to be stored in your head or easily referenced in your show bible. It helps to look at every actor as a multi-alented person who is always trying to do his or her best. It’s hard to get a note when you are trying your best, so it’s important to be kind and never let your ego get in the way. A dance captain’s day is never dull!

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“One of my favorite things is working with all ranges of people: 8 to 68 years old, sensitive to tough. To make a company happy you must learn the details early, stick to the integrity of the piece and listen to all sides of the story when dealing with a situation. Being a dance captain is a big job, so the extra effort to get details is crucial for the success you have with your company.”  — Antoinette DiPietropolo (dancer, actor, and choreographer in regional theater, upstate New York)

“Someone took me aside and said he was really upset that I noted him on his ‘attitude’ and he hoped he never gave off bad energy. It took me a second to realize what he was talking about and then I couldn’t stop laughing. He misunderstood my note on his ‘(leg) attitude.’”  — Sarah O’Gleby (dance captain for How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, 2011-12; Promises, Promises, 2010-11)

“The most interesting part is figuring out what the choreographer wants from you. Some don’t want to be bothered by small details and want you to clean the choreography and make decisions. Some want you to note any questions and check in with them before locking things in. Talk to your choreographer; if you’ve never worked with them before, and find out what they want from their dance captain.  — Ariane Dolan (dancer, actor, and choreographer in regional theater, Illinois and Pennsylvania)

Nobody Wants to See a Tired Bat on Stage

by Oona Haaranen

[Oona Haaranen, a Finnish-born dancer and choreographer who came to this country 30 years ago, was a graduate student in a dance program whom I tutored in writing in 2007. I then began editing her writing and coaching her when she worked on the staff of the Dance Notation Bureau as education director.  (English, she’s quipped, isn’t her second language.  It’s her fourth!)  She’s not only a performer and a choreographer, but she teaches and directs dance, both to adult professionals (New York Theatre Ballet) and children, and she teaches and writes about Labanotation and several other notational languages as methods of documenting and creating dances. 

[Oona performed as a child for other children in her school in Finland and also performed a play for children with professional actors at the Finnish National Theatre when she was about 12 years old.  She also danced in shows with children who studied ballet in private school for a children’s story ballet company.  Later, Oona performed in professional productions for children at the Helsinki City Theatre where she did musical and dance productions as well. In addition to her professional dance credits, performance for and by children is something Oona knows well from direct experience.

[Oona’s been taking a memoir writing class and her goal is to document in a written form the important life experiences of her husband, her son, and herself.  “Nobody Wants to See a Tired Bat on Stage” represents a very recent memoir by Oona Haaranen which she wrote up in April, May, and June 2013, just weeks and months after the experience itself. Since she and her husband are older parents, she says, she hopes that her stories will be around to answer some of Sebastian’s questions about their lives.  She says that she thinks it’s nice to learn to write, and it’s been interesting to learn about the art of memoir writing, which is very different from writing about her usual subject, dance theory.

 [This is Oona’s first attempt to write about Sebastian’s important early life experiences.  (I’m personally delighted that theater is counted as one of them.)  Earlier, Oona wrote about her and her husband’s earliest days with their son.  “I am also curious about when I write something and what I remember,” she told me.  “I felt it was important to write about [Sebastian’s] first theater experience and, luckily, it was a very positive experience not only for Sebastian, but also for me and my husband!  I think we all loved it!”]

The middle of March 2013 had been an exciting and busy week with the Oysterponds Public School’s production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs presented by the Missoula Children’s Theatre (MCT) from Montana. The children had their fantastic performance at the Greenport School auditorium on Saturday, March 16.

In the fall of 2012, the Oysterponds Elementary School’s PTA parents were talking about bringing a professional theatre company to Orient, New York, in Suffolk County, Long Island, for the second time to work with the kids at my son’s school. (MCT was at Oysterponds School the year before but Sebastian was in pre-school at the Orient Congregational Church. Oysterponds did not have pre-school at that time, though they do now, so Sebastian was not eligible to participate until this visit.) My hand went up because this was exactly what I was looking for for my son. It’s not easy to find this kind of opportunity in the North Fork. Parents who have time and can afford to, travel long distance to take their children to certain activities; they just aren’t available locally.

My six-year-old son, Sebastian, and I looked at the calendar and I told him that the theatre week at his school started Monday. He’d been counting days and nights until this special week started. Sebastian asked, “Mom, when are we going to see the performance?” I said, “No, you’re not going to see the performance—you’re going to be in it.” With a funny voice and face, he repeated, “Be in it?” “Yes,” I said. He didn’t quite know what that meant because, though he has seen ballet performances since he was three years old and has been observing rehearsals in ballet, he’d never been in nor even seen a theatre performance.

The Missoula Children’s Theatre, which I’d never heard of before, has been touring for 40 years from their home base to Japan (and beyond) and just during this year alone they’ll visit nearly 1,200 communities. As their flyer says: “A tour team arrives in a given town with a set, lights, costumes, props and make-up, everything to put on a play . . . except the cast.” The actors would come from Oysterponds Elementary School’s student body. (The performers in MCT shows are usually from five to 18 years old, but in this show, they were only between ages 5½ and 12 because Oysterponds only serves grades K-6.) The whole show was put together in six days.

Monday, March 11 (day of the audition) – Day 1

The gym at Oysterponds Elementary was filled with children, excitement and loud noise.  I didn’t want to stay because I felt that this was Sebastian’s time and experience and I didn’t want him to be conscious of me watching him. Before I left, I gave Sebastian my first professional advice for the audition. I told him to “have fun and show them what you can do!” I was very nervous and went home. I came back for the parents’ meeting in the end where other parents told me that Sebastian did well with the audition and that he was going to be one of the Bats. They also told me that my son had a really great time in the audition. When we came home that day, Sebastian asked, “Do I have theatre practice tomorrow?” I said, “No, Bats don’t rehearse on Tuesday.” He couldn’t wait for the Wednesday practice.

Wednesday, March 13 (three days before the performance) – Day 2 for Bats

When I picked him up from the theatre practice, Sebastian wasn’t feeling well and threw up when we got home. I had heard that a virus was going around Kindergarten this week; I hoped that this wouldn’t mean that his career as a Bat was over, since he seemed to enjoy being a one.

Thursday, March 14 (two days before the performance)

I called the school nurse and told her that Sebastian had gotten sick yesterday, but that he was feeling better today. Sebastian insisted that he wanted to go to school and that he was feeling “fine.” The school’s policy is that if a child does not attend school, he is not allowed to attend the after-school activities. The nurse told me that due to the performance they were going to be more flexible with the rules this week and to bring him in later that afternoon if he felt okay. Sebastian couldn’t wait to go back to school and then take the bus to the big Greenport High School auditorium nearby.

I observed a little of the end of Thursday’s practice and all the Bats seemed confused. I saw that the children had a hard time getting adjusted to being on stage, since the previous rehearsals had taken place in the school gym; now they were lost with directions and placement on stage—something that also happens to professionals. It is not easy to remember all the lines and movements in the play, especially when you’ve changed practice space. When I picked Sebastian up, however, he was skipping out of the rehearsal and was very happy.

Friday, March 15 – Day 5 (day 4 for Bats)

On Friday morning, Sebastian asked, “Do I have practice in the Greenport School? I said, “Yes, and costumes, too.” He jumped in the air and said, “With Bat costumes!” “Yes,” I repeated, “with Bat costumes.”

I was able to see a little bit of the end of rehearsal on stage. Sebastian’s practice didn’t look so good. He was not doing everything fully out, but was mostly marking his movements and seemed a bit confused.  I asked Sebastian, “Why wasn’t it good? What was wrong today?” He said, “Because I was tired and that’s the reason I was slow.” I offered my second professional advice: “No one will want to see a tired Bat on stage. If you’re tired, you really can’t show that in a performance!” I remembered the countless times I was tired of smiling during a show, especially when I’d performed the same thing over forty times.

Saturday, March 16 (day of dress rehearsal and performance) – Day 6

Saturday morning we drove to a piano class. After class we picked up muffins and a lunch from Eric’s Restaurant in Southold. I noticed the local newspaper, the Suffolk Times, and found an article regarding the Snow White production. I showed it to Sebastian and he said, “Look, Mom, my head is in the newspaper!” I’m not sure it really was his head. We went home and I told Sebastian to relax, rest and play because he had a long fun day ahead at the Greenport School dress rehearsal and performance.

Sebastian’s dress rehearsal at the Greenport School auditorium started at 2 p.m. There was a huge improvement since I’d seen part of the run-through on Friday. Every child and role had improved, like a miracle in just one day. All the children were quiet, focused and well-behaved. I didn’t see even one moment of that nasty stuff where older kids put down the younger kids. There was none of that; just the opposite: all the children were working together respectfully. The older students were helping and assisting the younger ones with costumes or escorting them to bathrooms.  This must be part of MCT’s philosophy—everyone works together to accomplish the project (that is, the play) and no one teases or bullies anyone else for mistakes or difficulties. Instead, those who know more, help and teach those who are new or less experienced. Those children who do not want to perform can become assistants to the directors, sharing the production responsibilities. There is a “role” for everyone. That’s how they can do this both so quickly and with only two (young) adult directors (who, incidentally, I think did a terrific job).

The dress rehearsal was followed by a pizza lunch during which the children socialized with each other. Sebastian told me to go away and leave him with his friends.  I helped the children with make-up while those who were waiting were doing a second run-through reading in the same room. From the make-up powder I applied on every child’s face, I remembered the numerous times I’d prepared for a performance. After the make-up followed a short photo shoot with all cast members. The children had twenty minutes before the performance would start at 6 p.m.  Five minutes before the performance, I ran to the auditorium, where my husband, Sy, was holding a seat for me. It turned out to be a fairly big crowd. I was very excited for the children and of course for Sebastian.

The performance went extremely well. Only at one point did one cast member forget lines and the storyteller, Witless the Woodsman (the only professional cast member), said, “Aren't you supposed to say something like. . .,” and the child remembered her lines and the story continued. There was another interesting moment when the audience heard a big bang from stage right. It was probably the evil Queen’s mirror set that fell during the exit and Witless the Woodsman shouted, “I hope everyone is okay back there!” The audience laughed and hoped the same thing and the performance continued . . . . The children were able to keep the performance together and the audience was very responsive to everything that took place during the show.

I’ve seen and performed in countless theatre and dance productions both as a child performer and as a professional performing for children and grownups. I must say that this was not a typical children’s performance during which you sometimes wish it was over. This was a high-level theatre production performed by amateur children. All the children were singing, dancing and acting very well. My husband and I, long-time theatregoers, were pleased with this experience and totally amazed how well the show was put together.

The only nitpick I had with this show was Snow White’s costume. It was a little bit baggy. I asked the young directors, Ashlan Stephenson and Melody Waters, about this. They told me that a ninth-grader usually performs Snow White’s role, but Oysterponds only goes up to sixth grade. Perhaps this was also a nice twist, that Snow White actually wasn’t wearing the usual “Disney” dress with a collar we’re used to seeing.

After the show, I asked Sebastian, “Would you like to be in another theatre production?” He said, “Yes, are we going to the Greenport School tomorrow for theatre practice?” I said, “No, the show’s over for now, but maybe in the future.” I hoped the Oysterponds PTA would bring the Missoula Children’s Theatre back to Orient or anywhere on the North Fork.

At nine o’clock Saturday evening after the performance, the tired Bat just fell asleep. I had asked Sebastian, “What book do you want to read before going to sleep?” “ Do you want me to read you Snow White?” “No, Mom, Cinderella. Look, Mom, Cinderella looks like Snow White!” Perhaps it was because of Snow White’s baggy and peasant-like costume in the show that he told me that Cinderella looked like Snow White. . . . I read him Cinderella. Usually we read three books at bedtime but by nine, the tired and happy Bat was asleep. No other books were needed, just music.

Two-and-a-half months after Sebastian’s theatre debut, I’m typing final rewrites to this ‘work-in-progress’ story while sitting in an audition for another Missoula Children’s Theatre production, Rapunzel at the Mattituck High School auditorium, a little farther west than Greenport. Sebastian is going to be one of the nine little Mushrooms in this June’s production while I’ll be a stage mom.

[“I am curious how different mediums act as a form of documentation,” Oona wrote me, “not just writing but the way photos can tell a story or music recording can tell a story of how Sebastian has improved from the first piano class.”  “I would love to mix mediums and find an interesting collage form in which I could mix photos, written words, sound recordings and video together, and perhaps also art.” She says that just before Christmas she wrote a new piece about how she came to the U.S.  “Since it was something that happened so long ago, it was very different to write” compared to “Tired Bat,” a very recent memory, Oona found.  “These were things that I haven’t been thinking about for very long, but Sebastian’s story is something that happened very recently and writing something recent is very different,” she observed. 

[I hope Oona will continue to send me stories of her family and her life as well as articles about her dance work, both as a teacher and as a choreographer.  I don’t cover dance much on ROT because it’s a field in which I’m ignorant, and I hope Oona will favor the blog with discussions of her art, especially her work with children—which, readers of ROT will know, is a subject I care about a great deal.  In the past, I’ve written on this blog about art in schools and theater by and for children (see “Degrading the Arts,” 13 August 2009; “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow: Children's Theater in America,” 25 November 2009; “Making Broadway Babies” [from Allegro], 25 November 2013; “Kids on the Broadway Boards” [from assorted sources], 30 November 2013.)  I also posted a report on the Missoula Children’s Theatre on 25 August 2009, which I urge interested ROTters to read in connection to Oona’s account of the company’s work on Long Island (http://rickontheater.blogspot.com/2009/08/missoula-childrens-theatre.html).]