"Entertainment in the Age of AI"

 

[The following article and two sidebars appeared in the Summer 2022 issue of SAG-AFTRA (11.3), the quarterly magazine of the union that represents actors in television and film. 

[Readers should note that I have published past posts on the subject of the use of computer and advanced technologies in TV, film, and theater.  I refer to “Theater and Computers,” posted on Rick On Theater on 5 December 2009, and “Computers and Actors,” 4 and 7 October 2021.

[For those who aren’t part of the performance industry in the United States, SAG-AFTRA, the result of the merger of two formerly independent unions, stands for Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists.]

Imagine waking up to find you are the face of a new advertising campaign — and it’s a product you don’t want to be associated with. That was played for laughs on an episode of Friends, when Joey did some modeling and then, unbeknownst to him, ended up the face of an STD campaign [“The One Where Underdog Gets Away”; Season 1, Episode 9; 17 November 1994].

As technology has evolved, artificial intelligence-powered software has made it possible to create realistic audiovisual, video and audio content known as “deepfakes.” It makes the above scenario not only possible, but a real threat to those who sign broadly written non-union contracts that allow for unfettered use of a performer’s image or voice.

In 2018, SAG-AFTRA magazine reported on the growth of digital replicas’ threats and opportunities. At that time, it was still a relatively niche technology, but in the last few years it has gone mainstream. Nonconsensual deepfakes remain a problem — one the union remains vigilant about — but the underlying technology has many legitimate uses that can provide exciting new opportunities for members.

AI-Generated Content Is Growing

In recent years, there has been an explosion in the number of artificial intelligence, or “AI,” content technologies, and the quality of AI-generated content has improved exponentially.

AI tech has been used in large- and small-budget entertainment projects to virtually age and de-age characters in a way that is cleaner, cheaper and more believable than traditional visual effects, and without countless hours in the makeup chair. AI can simplify performance capture, potentially eliminating the need for capture suits and head rigs altogether. It can even be used to enhance the work performed by stunt performers, which can provide safety benefits.

In dubbing and ADR [presumably automated dialogue replacement, a post-production process in filmmaking], AI technologies can help match an actor’s mouth and facial movements to the dialogue they are speaking. It can also be used to dub the films themselves. In the context of projects originally produced under SAG-AFTRA agreements, it could open new revenue opportunities by providing members an opportunity to negotiate for their voices to be used in the foreign-language release. On the other hand, distributors of foreign content who would otherwise hire SAG-AFTRA members to do dubbing work might find it preferable to use AI-generated audio of the original actors. Although this has not yet happened on a widespread scale, there are companies proposing these business models as the technology improves, so the union is monitoring this closely.

Outside entertainment, AI-generated audio can be used in digital assistant devices, customer service, speech assistance and countless other applications, opening new areas of work for professional voice performers.

AI technologies have brought historic figures back to “life” in education and museum settings, typically with the help of an actor who provides the performance capture that animates the digital person.

This field is full of exciting innovations, and a lot of performers are eager to work in these new areas and potentially generate new income through their AI voice or avatar, but it’s important to understand both the technology and the pros and cons of working with it.

“Technological innovations have historically provided incredible new opportunities for our members,” said SAG-AFTRA Executive Vice President Ben Whitehair. “But we must, as we always have, be deeply mindful of the associated risks, and ensure that our digital performances and likeness are protected.”

Know What You Are Agreeing To

Anytime you grant rights to use your name, image, likeness and voice, you should have a clear contract in place governing the use. This is even more important in the digital context. But, even on traditional entertainment projects, performers are often asked to grant rights to use their voice, likeness, and performance well beyond what is necessary for the specific project.

You might have heard about a lawsuit filed by a Canadian voice actor against the company behind TikTok. The performer had done voice work for a Scotland-based company, but the voice files were allegedly used without her consent in the popular app. The case illustrates the risks for actors, particularly when working without the protection of the union behind you. Being branded as an app’s voice and being involuntarily associated with content that you cannot control can impact your image and ability to attract other voiceover work.

The nonunion AI contracts SAG-AFTRA has seen have very one-sided terms and are often with companies based in foreign countries. Many of these contracts give broad rights to use your likeness or voice irrevocably and in perpetuity — this means they have those rights forever and you cannot cancel the permission. There typically is no case-by-case approval over how your digital self is used, and no form of residuals or use-based payments no matter how long or widespread the use is.

“There are contract templates floating around that AI companies and industry players claim are performer-friendly, but a close look at the terms reveals a lack of crucial protections,” said Senior Assistant General Counsel, Compliance and Contracts Danielle Van Lier [see a related article by Van Lier below].

Rights of publicity — the laws that protect your name, voice, image and likeness — can potentially help against unauthorized uses of your digital self. These laws and others do not provide a remedy when you sign a contract granting away the rights. Without a union contract covering your work, your only potential recourse is costly litigation.

The entertainment and media industry is always evolving, and as technology advances, it seems that the pace of change is ever-increasing. SAG-AFTRA members and staff are continually working with tech firms, attending conferences and staying up to date on all the latest information in this emerging field to ensure members are protected.

“Artificial intelligence is opening new frontiers in digital manipulation, and while it is new territory, it doesn’t have to be scary, as long as we stay informed about the potential hazards,” said SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher. “As we move into this bold new future together, your union will be standing by your side.”

*  *  *  *

SAG-AFTRA and AI

SAG-AFTRA has been working on issues relating to digital avatars and voices since long before AI was being used to create them.

THE UNION has several staff members with considerable experience and expertise on name, image and likeness rights, as well as on AI technology and its applications, deepfakes and other related topics. They have presented to a global audience on these subjects, hosted panels and discussions with experts in the field, and have written and been interviewed for numerous articles related to AI. SAG-AFTRA also participates in a multi-union workgroup on AI with British Equity and ACTRA [Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists]. 

Anticipating the rise of digital replicas, SAG-AFTRA has added or negotiated language into many of its promulgated and collectively bargained agreements prohibiting the creation or use of digital replicas without both the union’s and the performer’s consent, including those covering audiobooks, video games, podcasts, commercials and corporate/educational content.

“SAG-AFTRA HAS been advocating for rights of publicity and name, image and likeness rights for decades. This includes supporting critical legislation as well as writing amicus briefs in cases that could impact how laws relating to these rights are interpreted,” said SAG-AFTRA General Counsel Jeff Bennett. SAG-AFTRA drafted and was instrumental in California’s and New York’s civil laws against unauthorized digital nudity, as well as the passage of New York’s new right of publicity law, which includes prohibitions on using digital avatars of deceased performers.

FOR SEVERAL years, SAG-AFTRA has been in conversation with AI technology companies about the ethical use of this technology and the fair compensation and protection of performers who allow their voice, image or performance to be used in the development and use of an AI voice or avatar. 

“SAG-AFTRA is committed to ensuring that our members’ rights are safeguarded and that they are paid what they deserve whenever their work is exploited, regardless of the technology employed or the nature of the exhibition platform,” said Senior Director, Strategic Initiatives Sue-Anne Morrow.

All SAG-AFTRA contracts for work in the AI space include these critical terms:

•  Safe storage of the performer’s voice, likeness and performance, and the products and content created from them.

•  The right to consent — or not consent — to uses.

•  Explicit limitation on use of the content.

•  Appropriate payment for use of the content.

•  Any exclusivity must be clearly noted and fairly compensated.

•  The right for a performer to control or opt out of continued use and production.

*  *  *  *

What You Can Do

SAG-AFTRA is actively engaging in discussions with companies creating AI content, and has crafted contracts that are relevant to this new work area, are easy to use and provide protections for both the performer and the employer. But your help is critical in establishing a strong foothold in these emerging spaces.

Don’t work off the card: Many AI companies have websites through which anyone can submit their voice or likeness and sign up to be an AI “spokesperson.” Working in this space without a SAG-AFTRA contract is not only a dangerous move for a professional performer, it also impedes the union’s efforts to set fair terms and protections. [“Off the card” refers to the union membership card.]

Let your union help: If you are approached to do this kind of work, ask your employer to consider hiring you under a union contract. SAG-AFTRA staff is happy to talk to them and make the process of becoming a signatory simple and easy.

Talk to your peers and students: Let your peers know that their best protection, when working with AI technology, is a union contract. If you teach classes to or mentor actors who are early in their careers, warn them of the risks discussed in this article. 

Communicate with your representatives: Ask your professional representatives if they are current on the technology and understand the risks associated with it, and let them know that you aren’t interested in venturing into this space without your union behind you.

*  *  *  *

[The article above from SAG-AFTRA magazine included a note at the end that SAG-AFTRA Senior Assistant General Counsel, Contracts and Compliance Danielle Van Lier provided guidance for lawyers who are representing performers in connection with AI-generated content in the May 2022 issue of Los Angeles Lawyer magazine.  I’ve decided to append that article to this Rick On Theater post.]

Practice Tips:
PROTECTING ARTISTS’ RIGHTS IN THE AGE OF AI
by Danielle S. Van Lier

[Van Lier’s article appeared in the May 2022 issue of Los Angeles Lawyer (45.3), the magazine of the Los Angeles County Bar Association.]

Two years ago, in this magazine, another article was published about the rise of deepfakes and their potential for abuse. At that time, California had recently enacted Civil Code Section 1708.86, which created a civil cause of action for individuals who, without consent, are digitally depicted as “giving a performance they did not actually perform” in “any portion of an audiovisual work that shows the depicted individual performing in the nude [as defined] or appearing to engage in, or being subjected to, sexual conduct.” The article discussed the potential harm to, among others, performers when they are involuntarily depicted in the nude or as engaging in sexual conduct without their consent. A lot has changed in that short time.

“Deepfake,” a portmanteau [a blend of words in which parts of multiple words are combined into a new word] of “deep learning” and “fake,” has become the most prevalent term used to describe audiovisual and audio content created using artificial intelligence (AI). These videos typically depict someone doing something they did not do, or saying something they did not say. The term originated in connection with nonconsensual pornography and, from its onset, some have questioned whether the term is overused and its definition too amorphous. For purposes of this article, use of the term “deepfake” is limited to nonconsensual content or that created with the intent to deceive, while using “AI-generated” to refer to content created consensually.

Deepfakes remain a problem and a threat. No matter how seemingly benign, nonconsensual deepfakes can harm the individual whose voice and/or likeness is used. These concerns go beyond nonconsensual sexual content to uses in a commercial or even creative setting. It can harm the depicted individual’s reputation, mislead viewers and consumers, or foreclose job opportunities.

For all the potential harm deepfakes cause, the underlying technology has many legitimate use cases. However, even authorized use can go too far if one is not careful in the contract process. SAG-AFTRA has been closely watching the development of these new technologies and the agreements being used in the space. A number of issues have surfaced under this review, which have resulted in the formulation of some questions to ask if a client is approached to work on an AI-project.

Growth of AI-generated Content

There has been an explosion in the number of AI technologies, like the ones used to create deepfakes, and the quality of AI-generated content has improved exponentially. Companies offering AI-generated people and audio have proliferated in recent years.

The technology has potential for positive applications. In the entertainment industry, for example, it can give independent producers with lower budgets some of the same capabilities as the major motion picture studios. It can help match an actor’s mouth and facial movements to dialogue in foreign-dubbed films, or even to dub the films themselves. In a recent episode of The Book of Boba Fett [streaming Star Wars series on Disney+, 2021-present], the effects team reportedly used AI to de-age a character quite effectively. This came on the heels of criticism over poor de-aging effects using more traditional techniques in The Mandalorian [source series of Boba Fett, Disney+, 2019-present].

Outside the entertainment industry, AI-generated audio can be used in digital assistant devices or to allow those who have lost their ability to speak to communicate in their own voice. It can even bring historic figures “back to life.”

In the last few years, the technology has advanced from requiring hours of processing time, hundreds of photographs or video samples, and a computer with reasonably advanced graphics capabilities, to something that can be created on your cell phone with a single selfie. Last August, reports surfaced about a tool that can even create deepfakes in real-time for streaming video. It’s likely that in the short time between the writing and publication of this article, additional technologies will be released.

Consent, consent, consent

Consent is particularly important in the context of digital humans, both in the original creation and any subsequent uses. The use cases described above require the consent of the person depicted, particularly in the case of professional performers, whose likenesses and voices are key to their livelihood. Civil Code Section 1708.86 provides a civil cause of action for non-consensual use of AI-generated sexual content. However, what about non-sexual content?

Last May, a Canadian voice actor sued ByteDance, Inc., the company behind TikTok, alleging that the company had used her voice in its text-to-speech tool. According to the complaint, Beverly Standing had performed voice work for a Scotland-based company “purportedly for Chinese translations,” and apparently without a written contract. The voice files were allegedly obtained by ByteDance and used for TikTok’s text-to-speech feature. Standing expressed concern that being branded as TikTok’s female voice, and being involuntarily associated with content she felt could reflect poorly on her image, would impact her ability to attract voiceover work, particularly for commercials, because she already would be associated with TikTok.

Standing sued on multiple theories relating to the unauthorized use of her voice, including violation of her right of publicity, false endorsement under the Lanham Act, and multiple other claims relating to unfair competition. There is precedent holding that the unauthorized use of an individual’s voice and/or digital likeness gives rise to at least a right of publicity claim, although the false endorsement and unfair competition claims might be more difficult in noncommercial uses.

Although this case ultimately settled, it illustrates some of the risks for both actors and content creators that are inherent in this space. More importantly, it illustrates the significance of clear contracts, particularly why it is important for creators to obtain consent and why performers need to carefully consider the scope of the consent.

Beware Granting Rights

An increasing number of reports and inquiries have been received by SAG-AFTRA from performers, agents, attorneys, and even other unions, regarding terms they are seeing in contracts for digital scanning and audio recording for AI-content. Even on traditional entertainment projects, performers are being asked to sign blanket releases granting rights to their voice, likeness, and performance well beyond the scope of what is necessary for the specific project.

Attorneys and others representing performers, models, or any other person for audio or performance capture should pay particularly close attention to these contract terms. This is as true if the contract is for traditional entertainment projects utilizing digital scanning techniques as it is for work specifically in the AI space.

Many of the companies currently working in the AI voice and video space are offering standard form contracts with very one-sided terms, often governed under the law of the foreign country in which the company is based. The contracts tend to have blanket grants of rights to use the performer or model’s likeness and voice irrevocably and in perpetuity. There is no approval right and no form of residuals or use-based payments. Some ask that the performer or model indemnify the company. Furthermore, some have morals clause with vague language.

Following are some questions to consider when reviewing clients’ contracts (both old and new) in light of these new innovations. Many of these questions seem innocuous or obvious, but they take on new meaning in this evolving space.

• What rights has the client granted or are being granted with regard to the use of the client’s voice or likeness? Does the grant of rights allow use beyond the current project? Do the intellectual property rights in the character allow use of voice or likeness in subsequent works?

It has always been important to have clear rights grants, including appropriate fences around use, in contracts that grant rights in a performer’s voice or likeness. The Standing case illustrates how much more important it is in the context of work using AI. It was largely the lack of a contract covering these terms that gave rise to multiple claims; an over-broad rights grant might have precluded them.

Actor contracts typically have a provision allowing the use of the performer’s likeness in character for purposes of merchandising. As expected, the producer retains all rights in the character. However, the increasing use of technologies that allow the creation of characters that are wholly digital, or even digitally enhanced, means attorneys need to pay closer attention to how likeness and voice rights grants are drafted, both in connection with the character and in merchandising.

The scope of any provision granting rights in a client’s voice or likeness, especially those relating to merchandising, is all the more important with the rapid growth of the metaverse and associated technologies. As the entertainment industry starts to experiment with nonfungible tokens—or, in common parlance, NFTs—attorneys should be sure their clients are protected from exploitation and have the right to control their likenesses in these new spaces.

These questions are of particular importance if the performer is being digitally scanned or providing likeness or voice for AI use, when digital assets are being created and will be owned and controlled by the producer. To the extent possible, counsel should seek to limit usage of the assets only to the current project, so they cannot simply be reused and repurposed without appropriate compensation.

Of note, if the work is done under a SAG-AFTRA agreement, SAG-AFTRA takes the position that any reuse of scanned content created for one project and used in a subsequent production falls within the reuse provision of the applicable agreement. SAG-AFTRA also aggressively objects to scanning contracts and other likeness and voice grants that extend beyond the individual project for which they are intended; with limited exceptions, the union’s agreements do not allow the producer to obtain reuse consent at the time the work is done and it must be separately bargained. These are important protections for performers, ensuring they are fairly compensated for their work and can control how their voice and likeness are used in the future.

• If a client is being scanned for motion or facial reference, such as for animation or video games, does it allow use beyond reference? For example, can the client’s likeness be used in the end product?

Actors, particularly those doing voiceover, are sometimes asked to do facial or other performance capture, ostensibly so that animators working on the project can capture their movements for character reference. Nevertheless, actors have reported that the use goes beyond simple reference to use of their likeness in connection with their characters. Performance capture technologies that are AI-driven can now do this by simply recording a client’s performance as it is delivered, without complicated rigging. Even if the employment contract is silent as to this point, counsel should look to ensure that a client is protected from this practice.

• Does the contract allow digital manipulation of a client, whether through AI or otherwise? Can the footage, itself, be manipulated even if the client cannot?

Digital manipulation goes beyond aging or de-aging a character, to things like depicting the person in a scene in which he or she did not perform, possibly even in a way the person would have objected to had he or she been present. California Civil Code Section 1708.86 provides a cause of action if that depiction involves nudity and sexual situations, and it would not apply to other manipulations. In the context of commercials and ads, in particular, if the producer has the right to alter a client or the footage, it opens up the possibility of creating completely new ads, potentially for a different product, without the client’s consent.

• Is there security around the audio and video recordings and the associated data? Do they have provisions in place to avoid unauthorized use or access? How is the content protected? What are the steps if there is a data breach?

Both the recordings and digital files of a client should be protected from unauthorized use and access, in the same manner as any personal information. Not only can an unauthorized use of a client’s voice and likeness harm the client’s brand or earning potential, in the hands of a malicious actor, the high-quality digital content can be used to create sexually explicit content, commit fraud, or spread disinformation. It is also worth determining if the content will contain any embedded technology that the producer can use to track content and if the producer will similarly assist the client in the event of unauthorized exploitation.

• If the project is an AI project, what control does a client have to approve or deny subsequent uses? Is the client comfortable with the fact that his or her voice could be used in an advertisement or other content for something the client might oppose?

These questions are particularly important for actors who work on commercials or who have other brand affiliations. Exclusivity is a critical component of many brand deals—an actor, spokesperson, influencer, or any other recognizable person cannot simultaneously be associated with, let alone be the face and/or voice of, two potentially conflicting brands. If a client lends his or her likeness or voice to a company that provides AI spokespeople or characters, without any approval rights or constraints on usage, the client risks foreclosing entire segments of future work.

Many of these platforms may engage talent to do this work early in their careers, often before they have engaged professional representation. They might be excited to work in this new space and not yet have an understanding about how this could impact their future job opportunities and earning capabilities, particularly if they are hoping to do commercials or have brand deals. The perpetual grant of rights, coupled with lack of control, is a significant risk for any performer but particularly for the performer just getting started.

• If the company does not allow project-by-project consent, does it at least have an ethics policy relating to how a client’s likeness or voice will be used? What rights does the client have if it changes?

Many of the companies developing these AI technologies come from the technology sector, rather than the entertainment sector, and they lack the types of protections or approval rights actors have come to expect. Many lack any approval rights at all. If the company lacks approval rights or will not negotiate them, it is important to determine if it at least has an ethics policy regarding how the content might be used and what rights a client might have to remove content from the company’s site should that policy change. While an ethics policy will not give a client control over his or her likeness or voice, it at least will give some reassurance as to how the client will be depicted.

• What indemnification has the client agreed to? What is the client receiving? Are there content carve-outs?

Unlike most acting work, a client likely will not have a copy of the script that will be used for a digital counterpart, and therefore will not be able to object to troubling, offensive, or even legally problematic content. One way to address this is to include carve-outs or consent requirements for certain types of content, such as profanity, sexual content, religious content, or the endorsement or advocacy for political positions or candidates. This can be coupled with indemnification for, at a minimum, content that is defamatory, casts the client in a false light, or is otherwise unlawful. At the same time, the indemnity the client is granting should be narrowly tailored and not extend to the content.

• Is the client a SAG-AFTRA member? If so, is the project signatory to a SAG-AFTRA agreement?

Voiceover and recorded performances in many of these new and evolving areas are within SAG-AFTRA’s jurisdiction, and SAG-AFTRA has been actively working to ensure its contracts keep up with technology. For the media professionals SAG-AFTRA represents, it is important to understand the implications of working on a non-union project in these areas. It not only risks running afoul of SAG-AFTRA’s Global Rule One but also means not having the union’s protections and support in the event of a dispute. SAG-AFTRA’s contracts in these areas recognize that these are evolving technologies and business models and have a degree of flexibility while still providing the types of minimum protections that have been discussed.

There is a rush to work in this exciting new space, but performers and models need to stop and think about the short- and long-term implications and risks that go with it. Is the upfront payment and excitement worth the potential long-term risk of overexposure or being associated with a product, company, or cause they do not support? Attorneys representing talent similarly need to be aware and keep apprised of the changing technology to properly advise their clients. As illustrated by Beverly Standing’s case, if a client does not maintain control over how his or her voice and likeness will be used, there is a risk it may be used in ways least expected.

[Danielle S. Van Lier is assistant general counsel for intellectual property and contracts at SAG-AFTRA in Los Angeles.]

"Design & Tech: The Magic Of Design," Articles 8 & 9

 

[The final two articles on the AT series on stage design and technology are largely about recognition and invisibility—and both use Broadway’s Tony Awards as the context in which to examine these issues. 

[In her article, Pamela Newton spotlights costume designers, though her points, and those of the artists she interviewed, can clearly be applied to set, lighting, and sound designers as well.  John Gromada has a somewhat different point to make with respect to sound designers, and I’ll have more to say about his article below. 

[As I have throughout this series, I suggest that ROTters make a point of going back and reading the foregoing seven articles in this collection.  None of the nine pieces depends on any of the others for comprehension; they all cover different aspects of the arts and techniques of theatrical design of production. 

[The result, though, is that the Special Section of the AT design and tech issue taken as a whole provides a panoramic view of stage design and tech, one of the least-well understood facets of play production among most theatergoers.  (I have already admitted that theater tech has always eluded my grasp.)  This is a good opportunity for readers who haven’t been following along to see what the design and tech fields are all about nowadays.

[To remind you all, Articles 1 through 7 were posted on 9, 12, 15, 18, and 21 September.  You can read the five posts in any order.]

“THE BROADWAY SEASON WAS DIVERSE OFFSTAGE TOO, NOT THAT YOU’D NOTICE”
by Pamela Newton 

[Newton’s report, which wasn’t published in AT’s print edition, was posted in the website on 7 June 2016 as part of the feature “Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion,”]

The invisibility of stage designers cuts both ways: They lack for recognition (see this week’s Tonys [Sunday, 12 June 2016]), but they can also build diverse careers—if they get the chance.

NEW YORK CITY: The Great White Way has never been as ill-fitting an appellation for Broadway as it was this past season. Shows all along the district have presented a wonderfully diverse range of voices and experiences, from The Color Purple [10 December 2015-8 January 2017] to Allegiance [8 November 2015-14 February 2016] to On Your Feet! [5 November 2015-20 August 2017]. And this is all happening under the giant shadow of Hamilton [Broadway: 6 August 2015-Present], with its rapping founding fathers and a cast that is almost entirely African-American, Latino, and Asian.

Amid a panoply of directors, playwrights, and performers of color, it is easy to overlook that this [2015-16] is an unusually diverse season for designers as well. Emilio Sosa, who is black and from the Dominican Republic, designed the costumes for On Your Feet! Riccardo Hernandez, who is Latino, did the costumes and sets for the Gin Game [14 October 2015-10 January 2016] revival starring James Earl Jones and Cicely Tyson. Toni-Leslie James, a black costume designer, channeled the 18th century for Amazing Grace [16 July-25 October 2015], the short-lived musical about slavery and the eponymous Christian hymn. And this season there were two costume designers of Asian descent at the helm of high-profile shows: Anita Yavich for the revival of Sam Shepard’s Fool for Love [8 October-13 December 2015] and Suttirat Anne Larlarb for the Sara Bareilles-composed musical Waitress [24 April 2016-5 January 2020].

You may not see this backstage diversity reflected on Sunday’s Tony Awards broadcast, though, since only two designers of color employed this season were nominated for Tonys: Clint Ramos for Danai Gurira’s Eclipsed [6 March-19 June 2016] and Paul Tazewell for Hamilton, both for costume design. (Ramos also designed the set for Eclipsed.)

[Ramos won the Tony for Best Costume Design of a Play and Tazewell won for Best Costume Design of a Musical.  All the 2016 winners and nominees are listed on the Tony Award website at https://www.tonyawards.com/nominees/year/2016/category/any/show/any/; there’s search engine at the top right that allows you to go directly to the various design categories.]

Tazewell, a black costume designer for whom this represents a sixth Tony nomination, is excited not only about his nomination, but also about what shows like his say about the current state of Broadway.

“The possibility has opened up for a new way of telling a story, presenting an idea, presenting a musical,” he says. “It’s no longer as interesting to see a Broadway musical served up in the usual way.”

This is Ramos’s first Tony nomination, and even as he celebrates the diversity among this season’s design pool, he bemoans that designers aren’t more visible to the theatregoing public.

“There were quite a number of designers of color this year, but you don’t see us,” says the designer, who is of Filipino descent. “It’s hard for us to get any attention. A lot of people ask, ‘Where are the designers of color?’ And I always say, ‘We’re out there! We’re just as busy as other designers!’ But we work behind the scenes, so we can’t get as much attention as the people onstage.”

Although it is par for the course that designers of all backgrounds stay out of the spotlight—and many of them prefer it that way—Ramos thinks this invisibility exacerbates the diversity problem in design. Though there has been no demographic study about designers on Broadway specifically, a recent study from the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, which surveyed 1,000 cultural nonprofits, found that out of 346 theatre designers polled, 81 percent were Caucasian (the percentage was the same for the 1,676 technical/production staffers polled).

“There is a dearth of young artists of color going into design for the theatre,” says Ramos. “And part of that is because they don’t see themselves in it. I never saw people who looked like me. I was never exposed to them. I had to seek them out.” It creates a vicious cycle, he explains. “How can we address the problem when we can’t attract young artists of color into the design field?”

The answer may be to start at the institutional level. Cecilia Friederichs, the national business agent of United Scenic Artists, a union for designers and scenic artists, says that the stage design field is having a conversation now not only about racial equity but gender disparity as well. Apart from the category of costume design, women are woefully underrepresented in all categories of USA’s membership. And according to a study released last year by the League of Professional Theatre Women, men Off-Broadway outnumber women in all backstage disciplines save for costuming and stage management. The union has formed a diversity committee this year to address both gender and racial equity in theatrical design, and plan out action steps to promote both.

Still, on the production end, small changes can be made to highlight more of the creative team beyond just the directors and writers. Ramos believes that designers’ names should be included in the publicity materials for shows.

“It’s important that people see my last name there,” he says. “Because I think young artists will see a last name like that and think, ‘Oh, there could be a place for me there.’” He cites a trend about 20 or 30 years back that saw some female lighting designers using only their first initials and last names to increase their chances of getting hired in a male-dominated field. “I understand. They wanted to even the playing field. But I think it also didn’t serve a lot of women designers because it masked the reality.”

Tazewell believes that a big part of the burden for fostering diversity falls to the people at the top. “It will take forward-thinking producers and directors asking designers [of color] who are just great designers period,” he says. “Inviting them to design Shakespeare, inviting them to design Ibsen, inviting them to design a musical that’s all showgirls and sparkles.”

Tazewell’s résumé also includes a number of African-American-centered productions, which he is proud to have been involved in. But to him one of the great frustrations for designers of color is being told that they “should be working on a production that is specific to a diverse story.” It’s ironic, considering that audiences never see the designers. “There is no reason for Broadway or commercial producers to distinguish between designers of color and white designers,” Ramos says. “Unlike with casting, we have the benefit of the fact that it doesn’t really matter what we look like. If the design is good, it doesn’t matter.”

In this sense, Ramos suggests that the invisibility factor goes both ways: It may be harder to see designers of color than actors, but it’s easier to hire them based on skill—that is, if you can find them.

Over at United Scenic Artists, the diversity committee is working to address the disparity by urging established designers of all backgrounds to hire and mentor assistants from a more diverse pool. Explains Friederichs, “We’re interested in getting involved in encouraging people to choose assistants in a way that fosters a growth of diversity.”

There are also hopeful signs on the national level. Crowded Fire Theater in San Francisco, for example, provides grants and professional development to Bay Area designers and technicians under the auspices of its Ignite Fund, described in its official wording as having “an eye toward supporting the plurality of race, culture, class, gender, and age in our local design and technical community.” And Arena Stage in Washington, D.C.[,] has an internship and fellowship program for designers, technicians, and administrators, named after Allen Lee Hughes, a black lighting designer who has worked at the company since 1969.

Ramos also cites the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival as two companies that, in his experience, have made it part of their core mission to attract diverse theatre artists. The Guthrie offers internships and a job fair for artists on and offstage. OSF offers a fellowship and residency program, called FAIR, for theatre practitioners, including designers.

In spite of the headway being made on Broadway and beyond, though, it remains to be seen whether this season was an inspiration or aberration. There have certainly been other years when Broadway has offered daring fare and showcased underrepresented groups: Take 1996, when the proto-hipster musical Rent [29 April 1996-7 September 2008], August Wilson’s Seven Guitars [28 March-8 September 1996], and George C. Wolfe’s black history musical Bring in ’da Noise, Bring in ’da Funk [25 April 1996-10 January 1999] (with costumes by Tazewell) were all up for Tonys, and many thought it heralded a new age. But the next year it was back to the safety (and predominant whiteness) of A Doll’s House [2 April-31 August 1997], Chicago [14 November 1996-Present], and Titanic [23 April 1997-21 March 1999]. (Notably, there was a Broadway revival of The Gin Game that year as well, starring white actors Charles Durning and Julie Harris [20 April-31 August 1997].)

Both Ramos and Tazewell maintain a cautious optimism toward the current moment. “I think if you asked people of color, most of us have a guarded sort of stance,” says Ramos. “We think of it as a blip, something that may not happen again.”

“I am hopeful that this is the direction we’re moving in,” says Tazewell, “but history has proven that there’s a pendulum. The pendulum I think will start to widen, start to open up more possibilities, but it is bound to shift back, because that is the nature of the beast.”

Ramos pointedly cautions that the work is not over. After all, this has been a notably diverse season for designers only in relative terms.

“We’ve certainly made strides in terms of diversity on Broadway,” he says. “but for designers and people who work backstage, it’s still not as diverse as we want it to be.” For him, the key is to take the present momentum and keep on moving forward. “If we in the American theatre are really invested in diversity and the breadth of human experience, then it is imperative that we populate our industry with more designers of color who, just by the nature of who they are, offer a different worldview, with a different body of experience.”

[Pamela Newton is a freelance writer and college writing teacher living in New York City. 

[I don’t know if the diversity issue had progressed among theater designers in the ensuing five years since Newton wrote her report, but it occurs to me, reading “The Broadway Season Was Diverse Offstage” that the same points the author and the artists to whom she spoke make above are equally valid with respect to artists with physical handicaps—and I’d bet that they meet with the same discrimination and invisibility that women and artists of color have.]

*  *  *  *
“TONY, CAN YOU HEAR ME?”
by John Gromada

[Gromada’s article, published in the “Opinion” feature of the print issue and posted on 6 June 2016 on the website, is a protest, born of disappointment. The Tony Awards on Sunday, 12 June 2016, omitted the contributions of sound designers.  The absence screamed loudly for Gromada, who had campaigned to have sound design added to the award categories; it was included in the 2008 awards.

[Gromada was nominated for the award himself in 2013 for Horton Foote’s The Trip to Bountiful, but the next year, he saw the Tony committee yank the award away again.  What he couldn’t know when he wrote his article, though, was that the Tony Awards Administration Committee would relent and on 24 April 2017, would announce that the sound design awards would be reintroduced for the 2017-18 season.

[I’ve decided to run Gromada’s argument anyway, even though the reinstatement renders his main point out of date, because the article is still an important examination of the problem theater design artists have fought since stage design became part of the theatrical landscape: lack of recognition.  As you’ll read, the work of designers is either overlooked entirely or considered the realm of technicians and craftsmen, not artists.

[That’s just among other theater pros like producers and directors; among theatergoers, the work is often not even noticed.  (I read a lot of reviews when I write my performance reports and it’s clear the review-writers don’t know what to say much of the time when it comes to the designers’ contributions.  If the reviewers mention them at all, it’s a few words at the end of the notice, almost as if they felt obligated to say something.)

[I said at the start of this series that I took several design classes in grad school in order to learn more about that part of the business.  That put me in a position later as a director to appreciate what designers do for a production—which goes far beyond making pretty pictures or sounds.  They also solve problems, smooth over glitches, and enhance the drama—or comedy—of the production in ways that actors, directors, and even playwrights never could on their own.

[And I never made the mistake of feeling that what they do is anything less than an art.  So John Gromada’s other point is right on target.  As Linda Loman said in another context in Death of a Salesman: “Attention must be paid.”]

The absence of sound design categories at the Tony Awards screams louder each year.

This year marks the 30th anniversary of my professional career in the theatre, where I’ve had the good fortune to make a life designing sound and composing music for numerous productions, many of them on Broadway. I have been privileged to receive one of the highest accolades in the theatre for my work: In 2013, I was nominated for a Tony Award for designing the sound for Horton Foote’s The Trip to Bountiful [23 April-9 October 2013].

Unfortunately, I am one of the few sound designers who have been recognized, or might ever be recognized, by the Tonys for their work; the following season was the last the awards were given. That’s because the American Theatre Wing announced that they were eliminating the Tony cate­gories for sound design, relegating any recognition in that area to the occasional special Tony.  [The Tony Awards Administration Committee made the announcement on 11 June 2014.] The reasons were enumerated in The New York Times: “Many Tony voters do not know what sound design is or how to assess it; a large number of Tony voters choose not to cast ballots in sound design categories because of this lack of expertise; and some administration committee members believe that sound design is more of a technical craft, rather than a theatrical art form that the Tonys are intended to honor.”

Suffice to say, the decision was an incredible blow to me. And I was far from the only one: The afternoon of the announcement, I started an online petition asking the Tony administration committee to reconsider, thinking that if I could get 1,000 signatures, it might persuade the committee to change their minds. In an hour, I had 1,000 signatures; in a few hours, the numbers grew to 5,000, then 10,000. In a week, more than 30,000 people from around the world signed the petition—including luminaries like Hugh Jackman, Stephen Sondheim, [director] Diane Paulus, and Lin-Manuel Miranda.

People from all disciplines expressed shock and dismay. What the Tony committee saw as a simple administrative adjustment demoralized thousands of people around the country who felt as if their role in the theatre had suddenly been invalidated. For so long we had fought for respect and recognition for our art. After many years of lobbying, we were able to get Tony categories for best sound design—one for plays and another for musicals—established in 2007 and implemented for the 2008 ceremony. It seemed that the battle was over. The Tony Award was the last of many hurdles our profession had faced in gaining respect, visibility, and the potential to make an adult living. Or so it seemed.

Getting sound design recognized as a legitimate career and art form has been a long and arduous process. In the late ’90s, we were able to convince United Scenic Artists [the union for artists and designers in the entertainment industry] to represent us, marking a major step for our profession. For the first time, working sound designers were able to have employer-based health insurance and could look forward to a pension upon retirement. And we began to close the pay gap between the fees we received and what other designers made, meaning that to make a living we no longer had to do twice as many shows as our colleagues just to get by. We could spend more time, energy, and thought on any given production, and maybe, just maybe, even think about supporting a family while engaged in this business we love.

Sound design is now such a necessity that most major theatre graduate programs in the country offer sound design MFAs, turning out scores of young bright designers looking to make a living in this field.

Meanwhile, most of the other major awards, in New York and elsewhere, have added sound design categories. When the Tony Awards joined in the trend, it was a monumental validation. As a nationally recognized and televised event, the Tonys finally gave us access to the highest level of visibility available to a theatre artist, and the potential to turn that visibility into a sustainable career. A designer with a Tony, or even a nomination, can command higher fees and respect, and use the honor to leverage all sorts of opportunities.

Now that opportunity for recognition is no longer available to us. The manner in which the categories were eliminated, and the way it was explained in the press, gave the impression that some kind of mistake had been made in adding sound design categories in the first place, as if previous sound design winners didn’t truly deserve their awards because, after all, Tony voters never knew how to judge what we do. I was told that many people on the Tony administration committee believed that sound design was nothing more than a matter of “Can I hear them?” and that to justify the continuation of the categories we would need to change that perception.

Of course, we had already jumped through all of those hoops back in 2006 and 2007 during the process to establish the categories—a process that included months of lobbying, education, and gentle persuasion. In 2006 after a preview of Lisa Kron’s Well, which I had designed sound for, producer Liz McCann [1931-2021; she died this past 9 September] came up to me and said, “John, I love so much what you’re bringing to this production. I think you should win a Tony Award!”

I responded that many in the theatre community shared her opinion that there should be a sound design category. She then offered to begin a process to make it happen. The conversation expanded to include several of my sound design colleagues, representatives of our union, and members of the American Theatre Wing who valued sound design and understood our place as partners in the process. Our allies on the committee shepherded the idea through the byzantine and opaque political process that shapes Tony Awards policy. They arranged for an education session in which David Budries, head of the sound design program at the Yale School of Drama, spoke to committee members and Tony nominators about what we do, and what to look for in judging sound design.

What Budries told them is that sound design is a discipline that defies concrete definition, and that it’s often best when it’s not noticed. Still, any perceptive theatregoer is equipped to vote on excellence in sound design. All it takes is simply to think a bit about what you’re listening to. It doesn’t take any more special knowledge than it takes to judge lighting design or orchestration or even costume design. Listen to the design and think: Does it serve the play and production? Is it distinctive in some way that is unique while helping tell a story? How does what you’re hearing make you feel?

Admittedly, we generally aren’t used to thinking about the sounds we hear, because sound is processed in a very different part of the brain than visual stimuli. Sound works on the unconscious, animal parts of our brain; we’re often not aware that it’s happening or what kind of effect it’s having on us. That’s why it’s both so potentially powerful as a design element and yet so easy to overlook.

Some heard and understood what Budries said, but others reportedly found it hard to break out of the traditional notion of what constitutes theatrical design. To them, design is what they can see, not hear, and sound design, as far as they could tell, was simply about making things louder. Still, after more than a year of work lobbying and gathering endorsements from theatre industry leaders around the country, we had enough support that when a vote was finally taken to establish the sound design categories, it passed in 2007.

I clearly remember that day; a producer on the committee called me excitedly with news that the motion had passed. There was no better evidence that sound design had finally come of age than the American Theatre Wing recognizing our art with a Tony Award.

For us sound designers, being considered for a Tony Award was a long-awaited vindication of an essential concept: that we were an integral part of the theatre world, and have been making invaluable contributions as artists to productions on Broadway and across the country for a very long time.

I first learned this myself 30 years ago in 1986, when I made my professional and Broadway debut designing the transition sound and music for Jonathan Miller’s production of Long Day’s Journey Into Night, starring Jack Lemmon and Kevin Spacey. I was 22 years old and a senior at Duke University, where producer Manny Azenberg had brought the production to try out. I had spent nearly four years at Duke doing this thing called sound design, inspired by Jeff Storer, a charismatic teacher/director who had thankfully steered me away from acting and into this relatively new discipline, where I could perfectly combine my musical ability and my love of theatre.

That semester I was doing an independent study in music composition that included work with one of the very first samplers—an expensive and rare instrument that few had access to. While in rehearsal with the show, Miller discovered that he needed some kind of music or sound to tie together the different scenes in his production and indicate the passage of time, and there was no time to bring someone in from New York to execute it. Friends who were interning on the production steered him to me, and I soon found myself in a room with Miller, who hummed for me examples of the tone-like music that was in his head. Overnight I composed a little sound score of pieces that pleased the director; they made it into the production and onto Broadway. Though a modest contribution, it was part of the glue that held the entire piece together. And I actually received a paycheck for it.

After Miller trusted me to compose transitions for his productions, I arrived in New York at a time when directors were just beginning to clue into the possibilities of sound, and there seemed to be a shortage of sound designers approaching productions as artists. I found myself working with forward-thinking directors—JoAnne Akalaitis, Michael Greif, Anne Bogart—and veteran designers, including [scenic designer] Ben Edwards [1916-99], [lighting designer] Tom Skelton [1927-94], [costume designer] Jane Greenwood [b. 1934], and [lighting designer] Jennifer Tipton [b. 1937]. They treated me as an equal member of the design team and understood how my work complemented theirs and how aural elements could be used to tell a story. And my skills were enough in demand that I was able to cobble together a living among Off-Broadway nonprofits, resident theatres, and a Broadway production or two most seasons.

In 1990, I found a home at the Public Theater during Joe Papp’s last year, where I composed the sound score for Grief’s landmark production of Machinal [25 September-25 November 1990] and won an Obie for it. I’ll never forget the thrill of being at my very first awards ceremony, feeling surrounded and embraced by a community of theatre artists. At that ceremony, and the others that followed over the years, I felt like I was part of a family of people all trying to make a go of it in this crazy collaborative business. What these awards have said to me is: We value you. You are part of the family. We understand and appreciate the hard work you are putting into our art.

That’s why in 2013, after having designed sound or composed music for 35 Broadway productions, it was so satisfying to finally gain validation for all those years of work from the Broadway community in the form of a Tony nomination for my work on Michael Wilson’s fine revival of The Trip to Bountiful. I understood the Tonys as a high-visibility marketing tool, but still thought that at their core the awards were about recognizing excellence within the Broadway family, a family that I have long felt a member of. As I partook in all the Tony events leading up to the ceremony, I sat at luncheons and cocktail parties with actors and producers and other designers with whom I’ve worked for years, and listened to members of the American Theatre Wing and Mayor Michael Bloomberg [in office: 2002-13] talk about how important theatre artists are to the life and economy of the city.

Most importantly, I felt I was part of a community. Had I won that year (my colleague Leon Rothenberg won for his sound design on The Nance [15 April-11 August 2013]), this is part of what I would have said in my acceptance speech: “Thank you to all of you out there for embracing me and my work as part of this Broadway family for so many years. I feel most privileged to have been able to make a life of this, creating art with you all. Thank you for listening. And thank you for your continued support of sound designers as part of the Broadway community.”

A year later, after learning the categories were taken away, I was speaking with a colleague on the Tony administration committee, asking him how this could have happened. He told me, “I’m so sorry. You guys were just beginning to come into your own.”

Just beginning? I thought. Haven’t you been paying attention to what we’ve been doing all these years? We’ve been here for decades. A sound designer’s job isn’t just to set the volume on the microphones. It’s to convey the world of a play or musical to the audience’s ears; it’s creating and structuring sounds that underscore text, choosing or composing music to facilitate a scene transition, or making the orchestra and singers sound as good as they can, even to the rear mezzanine.

And when sound designers are not recognized at the Tony Awards for our efforts, it sends a very clear message: that what we do isn’t creative, that we’re not true theatre artists, that we are a disposable member of a production’s team. All because a group of people won’t take the time to understand the creative and necessary work that we do. Somehow the voters for other notable awards—the Drama Desks, the [Lucille] Lortels [New York Off-Broadway], the [Laurence] Oliviers [professional theatre in London], the Jeffs [Joseph Jefferson Awards, for theater produced in the Chicago area], to name a few—have figured out how to determine excellence in sound design. Tony voters, of which there are more than 800, sell themselves short when they think they’re not equally equipped.

As Lin-Manuel Miranda said in a recent Rolling Stone article, “Set designers sculpt with physical materials, lighting designers sculpt with light, and sound designers sculpt with sound. They are responsible for your aural experience at a Broadway show,” adding that we create “literally the sound of Broadway.” It’s about time Tony voters learned how to listen.

[John Gromada (b. 1964) is a Tony-nominated sound designer and composer. He has designed 37 shows on Broadway and numerous works Off-Broadway and regionally.  He’s won many awards both in New York City and around the country.  Gromada also works in film, television, and radio.]

"Design & Tech: The Magic Of Design," Article 7

 

[This is the penultimate installment of the American Theatre Special Section on theater tech and design.  In Article 7, Tara Anderson writes about the technical problems of flying actors in the cast of For Peter Pan on her 70th birthday, Sarah Ruhl’s homage to her mother, who, as a teenager, played Peter in a school production of the original play.  In her article, the author reports on how the Actors Theatre of Louisville brought ordinary reality to new heights in their production. 

[Anderson’s report is from the “Production Notebook” of American Theatre’s July/August 2016 issue; it was also posted as “Taking Flight: How Sarah Ruhl’s ‘For Peter Pan’ Got Off the Ground” on the website on 20 June 2016.

[Though the nine articles in “The Magic of Design” all stand on their own, I recommend reading the whole series because each report examines a different aspect of the design and tech aspects of theater.  This is the fifth installment in the Rick On Theater republication of the series; the previous four posts were published on 9, 12, 15, and 18 September.]

“THE BEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING”
by Tara Anderson 

In Sarah Ruhl’s For Peter Pan on her 70th birthday, everyday reality takes flight

“And if it means I must prepare
To shoulder burdens with a worried air,
I’ll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up . . .”
      —Carolyn Leigh [lyricist, 1926-83], from the 1954 musical Peter Pan

WHEN IS A PERSON TRULY A GROWN-UP? 

Is it when they get a real job, when they have a child of their own, when their parents die? Is “never” really an option?

These questions are at the heart of Sarah Ruhl’s For Peter Pan on her 70th birthday, which takes the tale of the boy who never grew up for a new spin while telling a story about something we all have in common: death.

For Peter Pan, which ran March 8-April 10 [2016] as part of Actors Theatre of Louisville’s Humana Festival of New American Plays, was inspired by Ruhl’s mother, Kathleen, who played the character onstage as a teenager, and who is seen on the poster for the play looking perky in her green costume.

“When I was growing up, whenever I visited her family house in Iowa, there were these pictures of her as Peter Pan, in green tights, flying,” Ruhl recalled. “So it was part of my association with my mother, and also part of my association with what theatre was.”

The play opens with a 70-year-old Ann (Kathleen Chalfant), a sort of stand-in for Ruhl’s real-life mother, directly addressing the audience about the joy of performing the role as a child. Ann is the oldest of five, with three brothers and a younger sister, all of whom are dealing in different ways with the impending loss of their father.

Ruhl tells the story in three “movements” without an intermission [the play runs 90 minutes]: First is the vigil at the hospital; then the informal, whiskey-fueled wake around the kitchen table; and finally a fantasy sequence in which the siblings jump into the world of Peter Pan—or rather, a children’s play version of Peter Pan, but with their creaky knees and bad eyesight.

To make the final part work, some technology would be necessary—you can’t do Peter Pan with everybody’s feet on the ground. Louisville happens to be the home of ZFX Flying Effects, a company that handles everything from building equipment and harnesses to aerial choreography for productions around the world. (Cirque du Soleil, for one, gets all their black steel cables from ZFX, whose technicians developed a coloring process that makes wires invisible onstage.)

“I had always thought the flying would be a metaphor and we wouldn’t actually be able to afford flying one character, much less five, around the stage,” Ruhl admitted. But director and longtime collaborator Les Waters—whose first order of business when he took over as ATL’s artistic director in 2012 was to commission a new play from her—had other ideas. He told Ruhl, “Oh, we’re flying them.” [Waters left ATL at the end of the 2017-18 season.]

Because the script in the fantasy section calls for the characters to fly rather suddenly, the actors couldn’t be taken offstage to clip into their flying lines. So the decision was made to allow the mechanics of flying to be seen, along with other elements of the stagecraft.

“Seeing those moments then allowed us to make the general decision that the crew can be seen manipulating and setting scenery and props whenever necessary during the metatheatre parts of the play,” said scenic designer Annie Smart.

Brian Owens, senior flying director and lead trainer at ZFX, worked with the creative team to determine where and how the flying effects would work. While Owens has worked on massive productions, including the Arabic version of “American Idol,” For Peter Pan allowed him to work on a much smaller scale.

“The biggest challenge was coming up with a way to tell the story so that the flying effects supported the rest of the script and didn’t just become this thing we did,” explained Owens. “It was really just this artistic process, this collaborative art form that I so dearly love, of saying, ‘Well, what about this idea?’ or ‘What if we change this moment a little bit?’ It doesn’t matter where those ideas come from, whether it was me or Les or Sarah.”

In January, most of the cast gathered at ZFX’s cavernous rehearsal space for some flying practice. Chalfant and Lisa Emery, who played younger sister Wendy, were the only two actors who would wear harnesses and fly in the production; both said that the opportunity to fly was a huge draw for them to do the play. Chalfant had never flown onstage before, though she spent years in the role of Hannah Pitt being jealous of the Angel in Angels in America. [Chalfant played the role from October 1993 to December 1994.]

“It’s sort of everything you imagine it will be, and it feels absolutely safe,” said Chalfant, after coming down from pirouetting 15 feet in the air. “It’s one of those things that’s only fun.”

“Except when you’re trying to turn,” added Emery, laughing. She described the experience of flying as “ecstatically beautiful.”

Meanwhile, though the brothers—played by Scott Jaeck, Keith Reddin, and David Chandler—didn’t fly individually, they did clamber onto a bed that became a pirate ship and was hoisted aloft.

The play’s initial read-through also marked the first official day of work on the 2016 Humana Festival, as the entire Actors Theatre staff, along with a few donors and volunteers, gathered in the rehearsal room for a kickoff and family photo. There was a festive feeling as everyone introduced themselves. When it was Ruhl’s turn, she said simply, “I’m Sarah and I wrote the play,” and the room burst into applause.

Surveying the energetic whirl as the space was being set up for the reading, Ruhl said, “There’s something surreal about writing a play in your solitary room, and then there’s all these people and dogs.” (A canine in the play’s second section is triple-cast.)

Another production of For Peter Pan would go up May 20-July 3 [2016] at California’s Berkeley Repertory Theatre, with the same cast save Emery and Jaeck, who had other commitments. “The wonder of doing a new play in a theatre like Actors Theatre, and knowing that it will go on to Berkeley, is that there’s a long period of development,” said Chalfant. “A play like this, which on the page looks quite simple, is in production going to be pretty complex. And it’s wonderful to know that you have the time to realize it.”

At first glance it does look pretty straightforward on the page: lots of silence amid ongoing conversations, mostly good-natured family meandering, all the characters in one room together. But then you may notice some of the details Ruhl tosses in: 

◾ A suggestion that the siblings might “form a ragtag five-piece band with trumpet and accordion and sing and play ‘When the Saints Go Marching In,’” or a marching band might enter, at the end of the first section. In Louisville, actual marching bands—six different local high school bands taking turns over 20 performances—were hired to perform the song as the set changed behind a classic red velvet curtain.

◾ The aforementioned dog—the ghost of the family pet, to be precise. In the production the role was assayed by a rotating cast made up of a golden retriever, an Irish wolfhound, and an English sheepdog. The sheepdog was fired after a few shows for sleeping on the job, but the golden did so well she landed another role, as Crab in The Two Gentleman of Verona, at Kentucky Shakespeare through August [2016].

◾ A splashy sword fight between Peter Pan and Captain Hook in which Peter is slain, then revived by audience applause, in a neat twist on the Tinkerbell tradition.

◾ As we said: flying.

In short, For Peter Pan isn’t as simple as it may seem. For one, as Smart noted, the entire design had to factor in the flying from the beginning. What’s more, the differences between the three sections presented a design challenge.

“In many ways, Sarah has written something she imagines very pared back—a studio show, a black-box event, something intense and intimate—for parts one and two of the play,” Smart said. “And then within that, she imagines the sudden and delightful appearances of traditional stage curtains and flying drops—the trappings of an old-fashioned touring house.”

Smart built a two-walled hospital room using rolling units that could then become the family home, creating the enclosed space of the first two movements. In part three, the walls cleared to make way for a giant nursery window, creating a more expansive-feeling fantasy sequence while paying homage to the traditional Peter Pan aesthetic.

Lighting designer Matt Frey also chose to approach the first two sections differently. “We were trying to start in a very real place as much as possible, and then show signs of de-evolution as the play proceeds and shows its cracks of magic, humor, and nostalgia,” Frey explained. “By the end we are in a very different place than where we began.”

Actors Theatre’s Pamela Brown Auditorium has some built-in limitations that restricted what could be done: The grid ceiling is less than six feet above the lights, so a flying actor could not be lifted out of sight, nor could scenery be flown in. Adding to the complexity, at Humana For Peter Pan played in daily repertory with Wellesley Girl by Brendan Pelsue, the stage floor for which was installed beneath the floor for For Peter Pan—i.e., trap doors were also off-limits.

[A note on theater jargon: You can say that a character in a play “flies” and it’s perfectly understandable to even the least experienced member of the audience.  You can even say, as director Waters does, “we’re flying them,” making ‘fly’ a transitive verb with an object, and everyone will know what you mean. 

[But in theater, ‘fly’ is the word used to mean ‘hoist aloft’ or ‘lift out of sight,’ usually into the ‘fly space’ or ‘fly loft,’ the space above the lighting grid, out of the view of the spectators.  Hence, “flying in scenery” and “flying drops” mean to raise or lower objects—including humans—from or to the stage by mechanical means.]

Flying complicated Frey’s job as the lighting designer as well. “You have performers moving on a whole new axis,” he said. “In addition to stage left/stage right and upstage/downstage, we now add up/down. So we try and account for that by addressing all the possibilities of where they might be.”

As director, Waters had some adjusting to do as well.

“How do you rehearse that in a rehearsal room, where you pretend somebody is 10 feet above somebody else?” Waters wondered. The answer: You just have to pretend until you can get into the theatre.

At a run-through about 10 days before opening, the rehearsal space was packed with observers, including Actors Theatre’s troupe of acting apprentices. Even without costumes, sets, or a flying apparatus, the show had several observers openly weeping by the end. A burly twentysomething guy turned to me, a stranger, with tears in his eyes and asked for a hug.

When I shared this moment with Ruhl after the rehearsal, she said, “I think that anyone who’s lost someone in a family can relate, but I also think that for people who’ve been in theatre, it sort of ends up being a love note to what it means to work in the theatre. I think that’s partly what the tears are about.”

During rehearsals, before Chalfant even put on the famous Pan costume, she transformed into the classic character with her posture: back straight, chin up, one foot slightly in front of the other, arms akimbo. She is elegant and slim, with short hair, and she waggled her hips as a taunt to the lumbering Captain Hook.

In performance, Chalfant as Ann wore drapey pants and a loose sweater in the first two sections; the attentive observer might have seen a sliver of green above her short boots when she crossed her legs. But when she at last doffed her pants, revealing patchwork shorts and green tights, donned that iconic green cap with the red feather, and released a raucous crow call, the applause was spontaneous.

Most of the cast enjoyed hamming it up in the third movement, as the entire production took on a heightened feel, with underscoring (selected and arranged by sound designer Bray Poor) and sharper lighting. Frey described his lighting concept as “a place that is fantasy, memory, and a community theatre from over a half century ago—sometimes one of these things, and sometimes all.”

Ruhl said she wanted that section to feel as if the characters were putting on a children’s play, but also as if we’re going “into their dream life or their unconscious. They’re both children and adults at the same time.” Accordingly the characters shift between acting their parts as the Darling children and commenting on their “real” adult lives. In performance the contrast was both jarring and funny.

Smart’s set for this section was dominated by the huge nursery window, which she made even bigger than usual so that the adult performers looked a little smaller and more childlike. At the same time, the window piece was constructed to be extra-strong so that the flying actors could hold onto it and use it as a midstage anchor.

“The window represents light and dark, the home and family, escape from such, and later becomes a closed and locked gate—the adult ‘children’ return to look longingly through it at the old house, now sold and owned by another family,” Smart explained.

ZFX’s Owens said the moment when Wendy flies up behind the window and looks in was a happy discovery during tech rehearsals. They didn’t plan it, nor did Waters or Ruhl.

“When we realized that we could pull that window farther downstage toward the audience and put her behind it, and have this really nice quiet moment after all these big flying effects, we all went, ‘Yes. Yes, that’s the thing,’” Owens said. “In my 10-plus years of choreographing and creating flying effects, that was quite literally one of my favorite pictures that I’ve ever seen on a stage.”

During one performance I attended, the pirate ship had a little trouble getting off the ground, and Ann-as-Peter had to urge the boys to “think lovelier thoughts” before it finally lifted up. A few minutes later, the action came to a halt as the stage manager announced that there were some “flying problems,” leaving Emery and Chalfant dangling in the air stage right, with Chandler, Jaeck, and Reddin perched on the flying bed.

A few crew members with headsets came out and stood underneath Emery and Chalfant as they were slowly brought back to the ground and unhooked from the cables, but the bed stayed aloft. It was one of those stage moments that was impossible to hide or finesse: At the most fantastical part of a fantasy, reality—and gravity—intruded.

“Anybody know a song?” Chalfant gamely offered. Someone in the audience started “When the Saints Go Marching In,” and soon the entire room—cast and crew and audience—was singing together. This unplanned reprise was the perfect choice for the moment.

In total, the action was paused for about 10 minutes; then Emery and Chalfant were rewired and the play was off again. At least one audience member I spoke to later was convinced that the entire “malfunction” was part of the play—that after going from a Midwestern dining room to full-fledged Neverland, maybe anything was possible.

After all the magic of the third section, I was surprised to hear from several audience members that their strongest reaction was to the “authenticity” of the first two movements, especially the handling of the family’s faith.

“I’m a Catholic, so I could relate to so many things,” said Suzanne Higdon, a frequent attendee of the theatre. “It was so similar to how they handle very serious moments in their lives and turn to prayer.”

“The death scene—like a lot of people, I’ve seen that room a lot of times, and it was really right on,” said Tom Hay, another Humana regular, who added that he thought the second section, set around the dinner table, was too slow.

Waters said that that second part is intentionally uneventful—that it’s meant to overturn a familiar trope of the American family drama, in which characters “get drunk and tear each other apart,” and “something will be revealed and someone will say, ‘Actually, I was abused by my father’s uncle’ or ‘I’m your mother,’ or whatever.” In Ruhl’s play, “It doesn’t—it deliberately doesn’t. It’s a reminiscence. So that is actually very tricky to play.”

Critical response was mixed though generally positive. In The New York Times Charles Isherwood called the cast and direction “superb,” particularly noting Chalfant’s delight in her role. Elizabeth Kramer at Louisville’s Courier-Journal also praised the performances and the direction, while writing that the marching band transition “disrupt(ed) the story and the mood.” Ashlie Stevens at WFPL, Louisville’s NPR station, also found that moment “cumbersome,” but thought that director Waters’s “knack for the darkly fanciful elevates Ruhl’s script.”

The delicate balance of family relationships that the actors developed would have to be adjusted for the Berkeley production, with two cast members being replaced. Speaking near the end of the Humana run, Waters said he wasn’t sure if there would be any rewrites, but he did think there would be some changes to the scene transitions.

Smart also said there would be more experiments in Berkeley with revealing the stage machinery rather than having changeovers happen behind the curtain. Owens said the theatre in Berkeley allows for slightly more room to fly, so he was hoping there would be more room for dynamic action than in Louisville’s more limited space.

For Peter Pan may have presented its production challenges, but for Ruhl it was all about audiences finding resonance with the characters and the universality of the story.

“I hope the audience brings their own personal experience to it, their own personal narrative about what it means to grow up, what it is to exist in a big family, what it means to lose the head of a big family,” Ruhl said. “The play is not a message play. I don’t think it reduces neatly that way, but I hope people connect with it emotionally.”

Chalfant certainly did. She joked in rehearsal that she would be “too old” to play the 70-year-old Ann by the time the show opened in Louisville: She just turned 71. “People who are 71 years old don’t usually get to fence and fly,” she said.

This wasn’t just Chalfant’s first time flying; it was also her first stab at swashbuckling. She has a vision problem that makes stage combat a challenge, and credits her fight partner, Chandler, with being extremely brave. “I’m almost blind in one eye, so I don’t have any depth perception,” she said with a laugh. “I can see where he is, but, you know—sort of.”

But the play’s main dimension is one Chalfant had no trouble perceiving.

“The depth of it, the fierceness of it, has been kind of a surprise that we’ve found,” she said. That sounds like a pretty grown-up discovery.

[Tara Anderson has an MFA in writing from Spalding University in Louisville, Kentucky, and contributing editor of WFPL, Louisville’s NPR station.  She’s the host and producer of Five Things, a podcast on WFPL and holds degrees in music performance and journalism from the University of Kentucky.  

[Anderson earned a master’s degree in communications from New York City’s Fordham University, where she was the assistant program director at WFUV, Fordham's public radio station.  In addition to American Theatre, she’s been a contributor to All Things Considered, the BBC World Service, and Louisville magazine; she’s also been heard on-air on WFPK and WUOL, both also in Louisville.

[“Bearable Lightness” is a report on a technical achievement on stage that was significant to the production of Ruhl’s play; so was “How to Build a Moving House Without a Turntable in ‘Rain,’” Article 4 (posted on 15 September).  Just to illustrate how important the effect of such an accomplishment can be, let me retell an anecdote I’ve related several times before on ROT.  Some readers may recognize it:

[When my family spent part of the summer on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, back in the mid-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 I was probably around 6 or 7. 

[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?’ I wondered.  The Melody Tent being an arena stage, with no curtain to hide behind, this all happened right before our eyes (albeit, in a semi-black-out).  It was impossible!  It had to be magic!

[Clearly, I’ve never forgotten that technical bit of stage sorcery.  (And, by the way, I still don’t know how they did it!)

[One last personal note: I’m not quite old enough to have seen the Mary Martin Peter Pan on Broadway (20 October 1954-26  February 1955); I was 7 and 8 during its run, too young still to come to New York City to see a Broadway show.  But I did see the TV version broadcast by NBC on 7 March 1955—though it was in black and white. 

[Curiously, I didn’t want to be Peter—I wanted to be Captain Hook, and I dressed as Hook for Halloween for several years after seeing the show.  To this day, it’s Cyril Ritchard’s voice I hear for Captain Hook, singing “Who's the dirtiest dog in this wonderful world?” (“Captain Hook’s Waltz”).

[Oh, and if you check “A Broadway Baby” (22 September 2010), you’ll see that I did make it to Broadway about four years later.]