'Last Out: Elegy of a Green Beret'

 
“RETIRED GREEN BERET SCOTT MANN
ON ‘LAST OUT: ELEGY OF A GREEN BERET’”
interview by Jim Sciutto 

[I was watching the news on CNN Friday afternoon, 7 July, and Jim Sciutto of CNN News Central did an interview with a retired Special Forces lieutenant colonel named Scott Mann.  I’d never heard of him, although he’d been the subject of considerable news coverage for the past several years.

[Mann served in Afghanistan (among other posts), and he had trouble adjusting when he left.  He found that many other returning vets did, too, so he compiled a play based on his and his fellow vets' stories, Last Out: Elegy of a Green Beret, which toured the country and was filmed.  (I'm leaving out several steps along the way.)

[Below is the transcript from CNN News Central of that 7 July segment (from ca. 1:50 to ca. 2 p.m.).  Mann talks about the play, and I’ve added to the interview text an article about the retired Green Beret from Stars and Stripes, followed by a review of one of the performances of Last Out while it was on tour.]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN HOST: It is hard to believe it is nearly two years since the Taliban took over Afghanistan. U.S. troops withdrew.

For many American troops, it feels like time has stood still in terms of the trauma and horrors of the nearly two decade-long war and all the pain from that withdrawal.

My next guest knows it extremely well himself. He’s a combat veteran who also wrote and now stars in the play “Last Out, Elegy of A Green Beret,” which helps veterans and their families not just deal with the fallout of the war but to try to leave it behind.

And they also know him for setting up Task Force Pineapple. It’s a volunteer group of U.S. veterans who helped evacuate so many Americans and Afghan allies in the chaotic days after the U.S. withdrawal.

He is joining me now, Lieutenant Colonel Scott Mann.

Always good to have you on, Scott.

LT. COL. SCOTT MANN, AUTHOR: Hey, Jim. Thanks for having me. And I just want to say our condolences to Nasrat’s family and his wife. All of us in the Special Operations community are busted up over this.

[Nasrat Ahmad Yar, a native Afghan who was a Lyft driver in Washington, D.C., shot and killed in his vehicle Monday, 3 July.  His death was the subject of the previous segment of this CNN News Central.]

SCIUTTO: Understood. I wonder how – you’re busted up, the loss of life and, particularly, the special heartache, right, of having escaped the danger there to only to find more danger here.

MANN: Yes, it really is something that is plaguing our Afghan brothers and sisters. And it is one of the reasons we’re doing the play, Jim. It’s not just to honor the service of our veterans and our military families, but also our Afghan partners.

SCIUTTO: Tell me how it stands in your view, the effort to get those Afghan partners out. You know as well as I how many thousands are still waiting the chance to leave Afghanistan despite their service and despite being under genuine threat from the Taliban.

MANN: Yes, it’s slowed to a trickle, Jim. There’s still some effort to get folks out, and some are meeting success. For the most part, there is a huge backlog.

SCIUTTO: Let’s talk about the play here. I watched some of the scenes from it. It’s a powerful message here, which I know you take to heart for soldiers suffering. And it seems you’re encouraging them to leave it behind if they can.

MANN: Yes, this story is about letting go of the pain. You know, there’s so many of us, whether we served or not, are holding onto the pain.

My service, the things with it, Jim, it nearly took me out, I nearly took my own life. And it was storytelling that saved my life.

And six years ago, I decided to use storytelling as a way to help Americans understand the impact of war while simultaneously validating the service of those who lived it.

So I wrote this play, “Last Out: Elegy of a Green Beret.” It’s an all-veteran military member cast. And we’ve traveled to something like 28 cities now performing it.

And it is a very, very healing program of storytelling and shared experience.

SCIUTTO: You’ve done a good job in telling your own experience and letting so many people you know who have suffered with mental health following their service. You’ve done such a good job of speaking openly about it and without stigma, right, to get folks to seek the help they need.

How important is that?

MANN: Oh, it’s so important. That’s why my wife and I founded the Hero’s Journey, where we focus on helping warriors and their families find their voice and tell their story.

Because Jim, we had 80,000-plus calls to the V.A. hotline in March alone.

SCIUTTO: Wow.

MANN: I mean, we’re sitting on a tsunami. Mental health is this moral injury as the Afghanistan, post-9/11 war comes to a conclusion.

And you know what we found? A lot of these veterans, they don’t need therapy. What they need are connections with their neighbors, to have their stories heard without judgment, and then walk the path of healing with their neighbors.

That’s what this play does, what storytelling does at a community level. It’s a way, frankly, for civilians to get beyond “thank you for your service” and really get involved with bringing our wounded home.

SCIUTTO: There’s a threat here that goes back to the wake of Vietnam as well and the play, “Tracers.” Of course, Gary Sinise sponsored your play. He had involvement with it then.

[Tracers was a 1980 play produced by the Vietnam Veterans Ensemble Theater Company.  It was presented Off-Broadway at New York City’s Joseph Papp Public Theater in January through July 1985 for 186 performances, winning 1985 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Sound Design for sound designer and director John DiFusco and a Theatre World Award for cast member and co-writer Richard Chaves.

[The play was conceived by DiFusco and co-written by Chaves, DiFusco, Vincent Caristi, Eric E. Emerson, Rick Gallavan, Sheldon Lettich, Merlin Marston, and Harry Stephens, who also initially appeared in its Los Angeles première.  The writers and the cast were all Vietnam veterans and the script is about their individual stories.]

And the shared experience, right, to those decades ago, soldiers who came home after a difficult war to uncertain receptions here and a whole host of issues. What is the importance of that tie?

MANN: It’s hauntingly similar, Jim. You know, Gary Sinise, I can’t say enough about him and his foundation [The Gary Sinise Foundation. a charity and veterans service organization, founded by the actor in 2011]. He watched the film version of our play on Amazon Prime [streamed in 2021] after the Afghanistan collapse, and he was so moved by it that he called me out of the blue, and we spoke.

He said, “You know, this is what we did with ‘Tracers’ in post-Vietnam.” I said, “Yes, this is the modern-day evolution to ‘Tracers.’“ He agreed and he helped us put this thing on tour. He sponsored it. And we are taking it on tour across the country in October with him.

And we are going to keep going. We’re going to keep pushing this show into every community that will have us.

SCIUTTO: More power to you. I’m going to do my best to help you spread the word. And I know it’s a great service to veterans like yourself and others.

Lieutenant Colonel Scott Mann, thanks so much for joining us.

MANN: Thank you, Jim. And thank you for standing up for our veterans. It means a lot.

SCIUTTO: Happy to help.

[Scott Mann is a retired lieutenant colonel in the United States Army Special Forces (Green Berets) with over 22 years of army and special operations experience around the world.  He’s deployed to Ecuador, Colombia, Peru, Iraq, and Afghanistan and is the CEO of Rooftop Leadership, a professional training and coaching program he launched, and the founder of The Heroes Journey, a nonprofit organization committed to helping veterans tell their stories in transition.

[Scott regularly speaks to and trains corporate leaders, law enforcement, and special operations forces on best practices for going local and making better human connections.  Scott’s frequent appearances on Fox News, CNN, and other national platforms as a thought leader on countering violent extremism, building organizational relationships, and restoring trust in our communities.]

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“RETIRED GREEN BERET SCOTT MANN EXAMINES 
‘HOLISTIC HORROR OF WAR’ IN ‘LAST OUT’”
by Brian McElhiney 

[The following article about the development of Last Out appeared in Stars and Stripes on 2 July 2023.  Stars and Stripes is a daily U.S. government-published newspaper reporting on matters concerning the members of the United States Armed Forces and their communities, as well as national and international events, directed at service personnel serving outside the U. S.  It operates as a function of the Department of Defense, but is editorially independent from it.]

Storytelling helped Army Lt. Col. Scott Mann deal with post-traumatic stress after serving in the Afghanistan War and retiring in 2012. A decade later, it’s helping him — and others — deal with the fallout of that war all over again.

In August 2021, as the Taliban took over Afghanistan and the U.S. scrambled to evacuate its allies and citizens, former Green Beret Mann was busy launching the film version of his play, “Last Out: Elegy of a Green Beret,” on Amazon. The play, written by and starring Mann, tells the story of a Green Beret who is trapped between his family obligations and his mission in Afghanistan as he struggles to ascend to the mythical warrior afterlife of Valhalla after getting hit with a roadside bomb.

But Mann soon switched gears, founding Task Force Pineapple with other veterans to help more than 1,000 Afghan refugees escape Kabul.

“It was all-consuming until my wife had my best friends stage an intervention somewhere around October after the collapse, and I stepped away from it and got myself healthy again,” Mann said recently from his home in Tampa, Fla. “I was not in a good place . . . coming out of the Pineapple experience, and even writing the book (“Operation Pineapple Express,” published in 2022 [Simon & Schuster]) because interviewing all of those folks that made it, those folks that didn’t, the veterans. I have interviewed just hundreds of veterans — iconic special operators — and watching them weep in front of me and telling me that they’re never gonna let their son join the Army, and just the moral injury that I felt and so many of my peers who fought this war for 20 years felt and the families. So there was a lot of just heaviness coming out of that.”

Around this time, Mann got a call from actor, musician and veterans advocate Gary Sinise. Sinise had seen the film version of “Last Out” through mutual friend and songwriter John Ondrasik, better known as soft-rock piano balladeer Five for Fighting.

“He was struggling, Scott, with . . . what did we do and why did we do it, and he was losing friends who were committing suicide, and terrible different things were happening,” Sinise told Stars and Stripes in May. “Much like the guys back in Vietnam — the veterans that I met back in the ’80s who wrote a play called ‘Tracers’ because they were struggling with their own service and coming home from that war to a divided nation and a nation really that had abandoned them. The healing play that they’d made was very, very positive for them, and Scott did the exact same thing.”

The partnership with the Gary Sinise Foundation has led to a summer tour for “Last Out” that kicked off with performances in San Diego and Phoenix, and continues through October with stops in Sioux Falls, S.D.; Franklin, Tenn.; Milwaukee and Topeka, Kan. Along with a preview show at Sinise’s Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago — where Sinise presented the Vietnam-era play “Tracers” in the early ’80s — these are the first performances of the play since COVID, and more significantly, since the end of the war in Afghanistan. [Sinise directed a production of Tracers that ran at Steppenwolf from 24 January to 7 April 1984.]

“When Gary called me and said, ‘You know, Scott, this reminds me a lot of Vietnam,’ I was walking in the driveway . . . and I just kind of fell apart on him,” Mann said. “And I’m like, ‘Gary, it is a lot like that. And if we don’t do something, we’re on the front end of a mental-health tsunami.’ I mean, I told Congress this when I testified to the House Foreign Affairs Committee about Pineapple. I was like, you guys don’t understand; I mean, you’re talking about 73% of the Afghan War population feels betrayed. This is really bad, and on top of all, the suicide rate. So coming back to the play, when Gary brought that up, we both agreed that this was a preexisting asset that could be put into play right now to help veterans make meaning out of their lived experience while simultaneously showing politicians and civilians the impact.”

Mann wrote the play over several years and premiered it in Tampa in November 2018. At the time, Mann and his team of actors and crew — all veterans and military family members with little to no theater experience — “thought it was a one-time thing,” according to the play’s website. But audience reaction led Mann to mount a 16-city, 28,000-mile tour out of a U-Haul van in 2019 through his nonprofit, The Heroes Journey.

“Last Out” was originally developed as a one-man show with Mann starring as career Green Beret, Master Sgt. Danny Patton. But as the story progressed, Mann knew he had to involve other characters — namely, Patton’s best friend and fellow Green Beret Kenny Suggins (portrayed by Lenny Bruce, also a former Green Beret who served in Afghanistan with Mann), wife Lynn (Heather Corrigan) and son Kaiden (Cooper Mann, Mann’s son).

While not directly autobiographical, much of the play is based on Mann’s own experiences. Suggins is based on Clifford Patterson, one of Mann’s closest friends who was killed on 9/11 at the Pentagon. And Lynn Patton takes inspiration from Mann’s wife, Monty Mann, and her experiences at home while Mann was in Afghanistan.

“I started asking my wife questions about what happened when I was gone, what happened when I was deployed, and at first she was resistant — almost agitated about it,” Mann said. “At this point I’d been retired for seven years, and she’s like, ‘Why are you bringing this stuff up? I don’t want to talk about this.’ And there were times when we would kind of go at it. And then finally she told me, ‘Babe, I had to keep all this from you to keep you alive; I really don’t want to do this.’ And I said, ‘Well I think if we can put this out there, it’s going to validate what you and a lot of other family members did.’”

That seems to be exactly what has happened. Audiences, often made up of veterans and family members not just from the recent Middle East wars, but stretching back to Vietnam, Korea and World War II, participate in “talkbacks” at the end of the show, sharing their own experiences with Mann and each other.

“We had the sister of a Green Beret sergeant major, she stood up and she said, ‘You guys told me in two hours what my baby brother has been trying to tell me for five years,’” Mann said. “And so you see these families sitting together looking at the war from each other’s perspective, because the way the play works is the protagonist, Danny the Green Beret, he’s stuck between his living room and his fire base after being severely wounded, and so he can’t ascend. And so you see both, and the audience is affected by that in a very profound way because a lot of the home front stuff, no one really understands or knows.”

But the play also was written for civilians to help them understand “the holistic horror of war,” as Mann describes it.

“I’m a father of three boys. My oldest son a few years ago told me he was gonna join the Army and he wanted to be a Special Forces guy, and that just hit me right between the running lights,” Mann said. “Because at that point we were over there, we were in this war that — most people didn’t even know that we were there. . . . I can’t tell you how many times people would say to me in airports, ‘We’re still in Afghanistan?’ And now my son’s gonna go fight a war that I didn’t finish. That for me became something that I felt like that had to be fixed, that had to be adjusted.

“. . . My vision was that I could tell a story kind of like ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ with body armor, in a way that the audience could really go for the ride and feel what it’s like to say goodbye to your wife at the airfield, to feel what it’s like to hold your buddy in your arms in his final moments because he did what you asked him to do,” he continued. “The things that go with combat that most people don’t know. To see a military spouse watch a news report with no dialogue in a scene, and just fall to her knees and scream — I mean, it rocks the civilians to the core.”

That mission seems even more important now with veterans struggling with how the Afghanistan War ended. Mann hopes to continue touring the show in partnership with the Gary Sinise Foundation, and plans to film the show in a live setting, a la the filmed version of “Hamilton.” [The 2020 Disney release of the filmed version of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s stage musical Hamilton was a live stage recording edited from three performances at Broadway’s Richard Rodgers Theatre.]

“The irony in all of this is that we’ve been telling stories — warrior storytelling — since we’ve been fighting wars,” Mann said. “I mean, if you look at most of Shakespeare’s plays, that’s what they do. And civil society has used storytelling as the primary way to bring veterans home from war, in every civil society on the planet, and we’ve lost that.”

[Brian McElhiney is a digital editor, podcast editor and occasional reporter for Stars and Stripes.  He’s worked as a music reporter and editor for publications in New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, and Oregon.  One of his earliest journalistic inspirations came from reading Stars and Stripes as a kid growing up in Okinawa, Japan.]

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“IN THE MOMENT: ‘LAST OUT’ BY THE HEROES JOURNEY”
by David Siegel 

[Last Out: Elegy of a Green Beret went on an extensive tour of the United States, subsidized by the Gary Sinise Foundation. (Sinise, now a nationally-known film and television performer, was a longtime member of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company of Chicago, which hosted a special presentation of the play, two performances only on 20 and 21 January 2023 in the troupe’s Downstairs Theater.)

[Below is a review of one of the performances on the road.  From the website DC Theater Arts of 28 May 2019, “In the Moment” covers the show which ran at the Richard J. Ernst Community Cultural Center in Annandale, Virginia, from 24 to 25 May.]

Last Out is a raw emotional journey with no illusions as its core value.

It is an intense confessional about military service and the effects on family, told from multiple perspectives. It is no sanitized, pretty TED Talk with nifty projections from practiced narrators. Last Out, a short-run, touring production, begins with trigger warnings about its content; the least of which is its strong earthy language. Last Out is a unique wartime tale not about those first in to where few tread, but those last out, with a military spouse front and center to the unraveling story about sacrifice.

Last Out is also centered upon a newer generation of military service members who are largely yet to be depicted on stage with the long war in Afghanistan a central focus. After all, Gulf War-era veterans now account for the largest share of all U.S. veterans, surpassing Vietnam-era veterans. Last Out also has a stated goal to cross the military-civilian gap. A recent Pew Research study indicated that a smaller share of Americans currently serve in the U.S. Armed Forces than at any time since the peacetime era between World Wars I and II.

Last Out (full title is Last Out: Elegy of a Green Beret) is not [. . .] the usual testosterone-fueled derring-do tale of brave men taking on an external enemy. It is a production full of heartbreak. Preshow music such as Simon and Garfunkel’s “The Sound of Silence” gives hints of what may be in store for audiences. You remember that line, “Hello darkness, my old friend/I’ve come to talk with you again.”

Last Out is about a modern-day warrior caught up fighting battles “that range from Afghanistan to his own living room” as the corrosive gears of war “affect his family, his integrity, and his very soul” as the production’s program states. “He discovers that combat can be fueled by vengeance or by love . . . it just depends which price you are willing to pay.”

Over the course of the one-act play, scenes dissolve somewhere in the here-and-now and the afterlife framed by the endless war that is Afghanistan. In a back-and-forth time frame covering over 25 years of time (1989-2015) it resembles an ancient Greek tale about warriors and heroes’ journeys–but in this case an American warrior, a Green Beret.

Last Out has intense, gut-wrenching direction from Ame Livingston. The production is ably and sympathetically performed by a diverse cast of four, with three actors playing multiple characters. Three of the actors are retired military veterans who saw combat and upon leaving military service became trained professional actors. The fourth is from a military family.

The actors and their main roles include Scott Mann as Danny Patton, a Green Beret killed in action in Afghanistan and now caught between life and the afterlife. Patton is no simple “gung-ho” trigger-happy man with an M4 Carbine. Rather he is a complex, sensitive man with a heart and soul. Ame Livingston portrays Lynn Patton, Danny’s long-suffering wife. (There is a scene in which she hugs her stage husband that puts the final hug in the movie “An Officer and a Gentleman” [Lorimar Film Entertainment and Paramount Pictures, 1982] to shame).

Bryan Bachman is Danny’s senior sergeant and friend who also portrays a Special Forces Officer at terrible odds with Danny. Danny has a nuanced view of the Afghan population while his commanding officer sees things in black-and-white terms. Len Bruce is Kenny Suggins, a close friend of Danny’s killed in the Pentagon on 9/11. He also plays an Afghan Pashtun Elder.

The set design (Mark Hartley), Lights (William Glenn), Audio (“Big Bob” Ballas and Mark Prator), and Film (Kevin Lang) bring [the] emotions to the audience. The design includes boxes and objects that turn into more than props, including a silent spinning red light that alerts the cast and the audience when the chaos of battle is near.

Last Out: Elegy of a Green Beret is a production way beyond war as combat or magnificent speeches such as Henry V’s St. Crispin’s Day call to arms. It is about war’s effects that few know firsthand–its effects on home life and family, or the one with the initials PTSD. While the Last Out performance presumes some knowledge and relationship with military service, none is necessary. It is uncompromising, intense and intimate, and for those open to see a different side of those who serve.

War is a horror. Based upon true stories, Last Out more than suggests, there is never a “last one” out from the burden of war. The legacies, of whatever dimension, continue through generations. Last Out aims and succeeds at showing that to those open to it.

Last Out: Elegy of a Green Beret, presented by The Heroes Journey, played three performances on May 24-25, 2019 at the Richard J Ernst Community Cultural Center – 8333 Little River Turnpike, Annandale, VA. Running Time: About 90 minutes, with no intermission.

[Some other critical remarks about Last Out include:

• “This is the most emotionally compelling play  I’ve ever seen – and is well ahead of most war movies and books.  Hemingway came to mind as I drove away” (David Phillips, Adjunct Researcher at RAND Corporation; “Last Out: A Brief Review of Scott Mann’s Amazing Stage Play,” LinkedIn, 26 May 2019).

• “With unnerving sound and visual effects — gunfire, explosions, and a disorienting swirl of conditions and events — it’s as if the struggles being encountered by the war-weary soldiers are our own” (Ben Miles, “Theater Review: ‘Last Out: Elegy of a Green Beret,’” The Beachcomber [Long Beach, CA] 3 June 2021).

• “Last Out packs into a U-Haul and has been rolling around the country on tour to reach as many veterans as possible. It builds into a tight, practical set with sound and lights that shake the theater with the intensity of a combat zone” (Maggie Yates, “Review: ‘Last Out: Elegy of a Green Beret,’” Santa Barbara [CA] Independent 29 January 2020). 

• “Last Out delivers on its promise to give the audience a powerful and moving experience that you won’t find anywhere else” (Amy Forsythe, “LAST OUT: Elegy of a Green Beret Delivers on Authenticity and Hits Home for Many Veterans,” Medium [website] 10 June 2023).

[In addition to the film adaptation of Last Out: Elegy of a Green Beret, there’s also a back-stage documentary, Last Out: A Voice Never Heard, that recounts the birth of the play.]

Interviews with Two Theater Pros: Theater Photographer & Dance Captain

[When most people who aren’t part of the theater world—whom one of my teachers fondly called “civilians”—see a play, I suspect they think of actors, singers, dancers, and maybe playwrights, directors, or occasionally choreographers if they’re famous.  Playgoers may see the sets, the costumes, the lights, and all the parts of the show known as “spectacle” or “production values,” but I think most just figure they get on stage by some kind of magic.  

[(When I was teaching and directing in middle school, my boss called this “magic-wanding”—the way kids that age, and often their parents as well, thought all that stuff happened.  Part of my job was to disabuse them all of that notion.  Apparently, I think it still is!)

[The artists and technicians who create, build, maintain, and handle those important aspects of a show and those who manage, promote, and administer them are often entirely unknown outside the business.  I like to post articles on Rick On Theater that define, describe, or explain the efforts of theater workers about whom most theatergoers know little—or even nothing at all.  

[On 14 January 2014, I posted “Stage Hands,” a description of the work of stage managers and dance captains; in “Two (Back) Stage Pros” (30 June 2014), I ran articles  that profiled set designer Eugene Lee and wig-designer Paul Huntley; on 28 November 2015, I posted “Broadway’s Anonymous Stars,” an article about actors who replace original stars on stage.  On 9 March 2016, I ran a collection of pieces about swings and on 22 August 2018, I posted an interview with Tony Carlin, a Broadway and Off-Broadway understudy or stand-by.

[I even ran a whole series on lighting designers and their work called “‘Light the Lights” in October and November 2018.  Now I’m going to leave the stage briefly for an interview with Teresa Castracane, a theater photographer, the professional who takes the pictures for publicity, press coverage, and, occasionally, program covers.  Then I’ll return to the stage artists who do the practical work on and back stage with another piece about a dance captain, an interview of Michael Callahan.]

“IN THE MOMENT: INTERVIEW WITH THEATER PHOTOGRAPHER TERESA CASTRACANE”

by David Siegel

[The following interview ran on the website DC Metro Theater Arts, “Washington, DC’s most comprehensive source of performing arts coverage,” on 13 November 2017.]

Often, images of a theatrical production help establish the initial interest and expectations for a potential audience. Photographs can draw an audience into a production even before reviews or word-of-mouth. Pictures can capture the essence of a production or of a particular stage character.

A theater photographer is responsible for creating a production’s visual record. The best theater photographers aim for emotion in their work. And to tell a visual story without a word spoken. This is way beyond mere snap-shorts or flat emotion-free images.

In the DC area, Teresa Castracane is one of the go-to photographers for a number of theater companies. Wanting to learn more about Teresa and her photographic work, I decided that an interview was in order.

So, let’s get right to the good parts; the interview with Teresa Castracane. And please enjoy the pictures, all taken by Teresa, of recent DC area productions.

David Siegel: How did you become a theater photographer?

Teresa Castracane: In my first (and continuing) career, I’m an actor.  At some point during the search for the supplemental work that would keep me happy, I turned my love of photography into a business. I started with actor headshots, and soon after, production photography. It was a natural direction for me to go in, and one which has dovetailed well with my acting work.

Do you read the script before deciding what shots to take? If so, why?

As a theatre artist, I’m often familiar with the scripts of the shows I’m shooting. But if I’m not, I do not read the script ahead of time. Part of my job is to capture the story as its being told at this moment in time, by this particular group of artists. I usually get all the information I need by giving my full attention to the work in front of me,

David: Why are theater photographs important to marketing a particular production?

Theatergoers attend a play in the hope of having an emotional reaction to it. If an image of mine can create an emotional response, then the viewer has an impetus to go find out what’s happening on stage.

What makes a theater photograph emotionally memorable?

What I look for as I’m shooting, and as I’m culling the best images afterward, is the moment of fullest emotional expression. So, in the same way that, if you’re photographing a ballet dancer doing a grand jete, the shot you want is the one where her body reaches its fullest height, and its fullest extension, the shot I want of an actor at work is the one where her body reaches its fullest emotional expression. For an individual shot, this might have a good bit to do with facial expression. If there is more than one actor in the shot, I’m looking for the fullest expression of the moment, of the event. This will have more to do with body language, and actors’ physical relationship to one another on the stage. Sometimes, set, light, or costumes will contribute to the feeling of that moment, and then you’ve really got something. I believe this applies to any genre, any emotion. There’s an arc upwards to the fullest expression – of joy, of grief, of ridiculousness, of rage – and then a release, a transition into the next moment.

David: Do you shoot during a final dress rehearsal, an actual production or by blocking a shot?

I normally shoot during a dress rehearsal. I prefer this to shooting during a performance when my movements are restricted because I’m trying not to annoy the audience.

David: What are some of the challenges shooting photography for theater?

Running around in a dark space while holding a black box in front of my eyes is definitely up there. Photographically speaking, the low light is challenging. But digital cameras become more capable every year, which is a great help.

I find the wide shots slightly more challenging because there are more elements that need to come together to make the image work. If you’re about to catch a dramatic moment, but actor #1 is blinking, or actor #2’s fly is down, or actor #3’s body language is simply not contributing to the moment being documented, you may have lost your shot.

Does it make a difference if you shoot is in color or Black & White?

I deliver all my production photos in color, as that’s the standard these days. But I’ll never not love black & white. A black & white image can feel more nostalgic, and more iconic than one in color.

David: Why do you enjoy being a theater photographer?

When I’m photographing a show, I employ the same emotional intuition that I use when I’m performing– there’s a heightened awareness of one’s fellow actors, and their emotional states. I know when to take the shot because I’m responding emotionally to the play – in much the same way, one hopes, that the audience will, once they arrive. I love letting my intuition take over from my reason for a short while, and I love the feeling of connection to the actors. It sustained me during the break I took from performing after my children were born.

What aspects of being a theater photographers do you think that theater-goers would be surprised to learn?

Possibly the fact that I might shoot, say, a thousand frames, but deliver only two hundred or so to the client. There’s definitely a process of elimination involved.

One last question. What play/comedy/musical would you like to shoot in the future?

A particular play doesn’t immediately come to mind, but I would love to find a situation where I can actually be on stage, photographing from among the actors, perhaps from each character’s point of view, to produce some really dynamic and intimate images. There would need to be real trust between the actors and me, and I would need to know the staging as well as they do. I’m not sure how useful it would be from a marketing standpoint, but the idea fascinates me. Maybe it’ll be my next fine art project.

[David Siegel is a freelance theater reviewer and feature-writer whose work appears on DC Metro Theater Arts and ShowBiz Radio, and in the Connection Newspapers and the Fairfax Times.  He’s a judge in the Helen Hayes Awards (the Washington area’s Tonys) program.  He’s a member of the American Theatre Critics Association (ATCA) and volunteers with the Arts Council of Fairfax County, Virginia.  Siegel’s been associated with theater in the Washington, D.C., area for nearly 30 years and has served as Board President, American Showcase Theater Company (now Metro Stage) and later with the American Century Theater as both a member of the Executive Board and as Marketing Director.]

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“INTERVIEW:

IT’S HIGH (STEPPING) ADVENTURE TIME FOR ‘ALADDIN’ DANCE CAPTAIN MICHAEL CALLAHAN”

by Lauren Van Hemert

[Van Hemert’s interview appeared on RDU on Stage (no date [11 September 2019]), “the leading source for North Carolina theater news and information,” based in Raleigh,, North Carolina.  (RDU is the International Air Transport Association [IATA] abbreviation for Raleigh-Durham International Airport.)]

When “Good Morning America” anchor Lara Spencer made a snide comment about boys and ballet, it was the proverbial shot fired at dancers around the world, including Michael Callahan, dance captain on the national tour of Aladdin.

“I think what worried me the most about that comment is that it was trying to normalize that it’s okay to make fun of a kid for doing something different,” says Callahan. “For me, young men should feel comfortable having the opportunity to explore whatever it is that interests them and, you know, whether it’s football or dance, I think they should be respected by all people the same way.”

“It ended up being a beautiful moment because all a sudden all of the male dancers, and the dance community in general, you know, just went up in arms,” he adds. “It was beautiful to see everyone and be like, ‘We’re not taking this anymore, our young men and our young women will not be bullied for being dancers. It’s done.'”

Fortunately for Callahan, who began dancing around 11-years old, his family was very supportive of him dancing.

“My parents were both athletes, so their deal with us as we had to try like every sport and every after-school activity to figure out which one was ours,” he says. “So, we did that, we tried every single one, and they were very, very surprised, but I took a dance class and c’est la vie.”

Callahan took classes and even went to a performing arts high school in his hometown of Louisville, Kentucky. But he says it wasn’t until a school theater trip overseas that he realized what he wanted to do with his life.

“I saw the original cast of Billy Elliot in London, and I just remember crying for like two hours,” he says. “I left and was like, ‘That’s it, we’re good, this is what I’m doing.’ That was the moment that I really knew.”

Callahan attended Elon University where he says he trained to do exactly what he is doing now.

“I always laugh with people that I was training to become a dance captain without knowing it because I was in this class of 17 unbelievably talented kids of my year, and we all specialized in something different,” he says. “I obviously was the dance specialist, so when we would have dance finals, I would be the one quizzing people, helping them get ready.”

“I was very proud to say that that ended up kind of being what I did, what I do, for a living,” he adds. “I teach people dance. I get them ready to be performers in this show or elsewhere.”

Now Callahan, who says he was always a fan of Disney parks and movies growing up, is living his Disney childhood dream touring around the country with Aladdin. He is not only the show’s dance captain and a swing but also the understudy for Aladdin and Iago, something he says gives him a chance to flex his funny bone.

“I never imagined like when I was in college even that I would be understudying like the funny guys, that’s not where I saw myself going, but it’s actually become like a through-line in my career since I graduated,” he says. ”It’s a blast to get to work that part of my ability as well, you know.”

“I’m dancing so much and teaching so much, and in the ensemble when needed, it’s nice to be able to go out and work that muscle that otherwise I would have to find elsewhere.”

Callahan says he is grateful to be part of what he calls a monster of a tour, certainly one of the largest national tours ever, and a cast of beautifully, ethnically diverse people. And while the show is steeped in nostalgia for many people coming to see it, Callahan hopes that now more than ever its moral message isn’t lost on the kids.

“Our show has a very strong voice about like being who you are and doing what’s right over what’s easy.”

“I hope that they [the kids] leave feeling like they’re capable of anything and that they don’t need to be someone else to achieve anything. They just need to be themselves.”

[Lauren Van Hemert, the editor of RDU on Stage, is a native of Miami, Florida.  Her love of musicals started at the age of 6 when her dad took her to New York City’s Radio City Music Hall to see a revival of the movie The Sound of Music.  Prior to graduating from Indiana University-Bloomington, she hosted her own weekly talk show on Public Radio WDNA Miami and worked as a production intern for the soap opera As the World Turns. 

[As the former contributing editor for the website Broadway World Raleigh, Van Hemert covered over 50 shows in the Research Triangle of North Carolina.   In January 2019, she launched the RDU on Stage website to expand coverage of the Triangle theater community.  She also hosts the weekly RDU on Stage podcast.  Van Hemert is a member of the American Theatre Critics Association.]

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[In my introduction to “Interviews with Two Theater Pros,” I said I believe that some spectators think some elements of theater appear on stage as if by magic.   I recall quite vividly a theater experience I had when I was very young when I thought just that.  (I wrote about this in “A Broadway Baby,” 22 September 2010.)  

[When my family spent part of the summer on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, back in the 1950s, we always went to the Cape Cod Melody Tent in Hyannis at least once during the season.  To this day, I remember being amazed at a production of The Wizard of Oz when, after the tornado generated by the tech crew with lighting and sound effects, the lights came back up—and there sat Dorothy's house, with the legs of the Wicked Witch sticking out from under one side!   How did that house get there?  The Melody Tent being an arena stage, with no curtain to hide behind, this all happened right before our eyes.  It was impossible!  It had to be magic!  I was probably 6 or 7 at the time, maybe younger.]