Interview | Stephen Sanders, Original Developer on The Last Goodbye

Williamstown Theatre Festival's Artistic Assistant Stephen Sanders is one of the unseen, unsung members of the festival's year-round staff who knows the festival inside and out. In addition to his integral role in keeping WTF up and running, he also has a special affiliation with The Last Goodbye--as one of its producers and an original developers of the piece, before it was ever slated to come to Williamstown. He sat down with dramaturg Kristin Idaszak to talk about the role of producers in non-profit theatre.

Kristin Idaszak: How did you first get involved with The Last Goodbye?

Stephen Sanders: My first summer here was 2007. I was the Assistant to the Artistic Director and General Manager, and I met Lauren Fitzgerald, who was working as the Publicity Manager that summer. We had a great summer and became fast friends. The same thing also happened with Kris Kukul, the Music Director here. So the relationships were in place before anything ever happened.

Fast forward to last October of 2008. Lauren and I work in the same building in New York and we’ve remained close, and she started working on this project with Michael during that summer while I was gone. When I got back to the city and I saw her on the elevator and she said to me, “Let’s take a walk; I have something I want to talk with you about.” We walked from our offices on 42^nd and Eighth, to 46^th and Eighth where they were having auditions for the first reading they were about to do. So between 42^nd and 46^th she told me about the whole project, and that Michael’s wife was pregnant and had the baby early so they needed extra help producing the reading. By the end of those four blocks I said, “Sure, let’s do it,” having no idea what I was getting myself into.

I walked into the first rehearsal and introduced myself to Michael, and then sat down and started reading stage directions for the first reading of the play. And that’s how it happened—I just dove in. And we all worked really hard to produce that reading in the East Village.

There’s a great sort of unspoken rule about producing:  always work with your friends because you need that level of passion and trust from the people you’re working with. And I learned that really quickly working on this project. We had no idea if this was going to succeed—it hadn’t been anything yet. It was just a group of friends working on something we believed in.

KI: What has been the best thing about working on this show?

SS: I think just having a dream or idea and seeing it fully realized. Initially it was just the four of us talking about it and working on our own, and now it’s here and I know that we created that—the four of us worked together to create it. And now I get to help give them what they need to fully realize that initial vision. That’s really my job—to make sure they have everything they need. And that’s what I like about producing in general. You’re like the invisible hand making sure everything is in place. It’s also about cultivating relationships and seeing a show through to production, and anything I can do to help attain that goal, whether it be big or small, is what I enjoy most about the process.

KI: So what’s your official role now?

SS: The four of us are calling ourselves “Original Developers.” In the first two incarnations of the piece—and here for us, too—in non-profit theatre the role of a producer is different than in for-profit theatre. It doesn’t mean necessarily financially backing a project; it’s about putting the pieces together and the organizational and developmental aspects of producing a show. In the commercial world the producer’s role is augmented by the money and the investments, though there are definitely still developmental responsibilities as well. We got The Last Goodbye on its feet!

KI: What does that entail in general for non-profit theatre?

SS: In non-profit theatres every institution has a unique producing model. It’s an umbrella title—we do a little bit of everything. Producers have to be jacks-of-all-trades. You’re working with a limited staff and with limited resources for that staff, so you really have to be able to help them do their jobs efficiently and keep things moving along. And actually, my position here at the festival as Artistic Assistant was really designed to be a catch-all. I’m around everywhere, I try to know about everything that’s going on, I’m trying to stay in the know about every project’s particular needs so that if there’s ever a problem I’m totally informed and ready to jump in at a moment’s notice and help push that project through to the end. And it’s not only the big things. The small things add up.

KI: It seems like the producer is the person who has to see the forest through the trees but also know where every branch and leaf is too.

SS: Exactly. And it’s so easy to get bogged down in the details but you also have to be able to pull yourself out and see the big picture. But that’s also what I like about it—getting to do both of those things.

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Interview | Stephanie Polhemus, Props Master for Our Town

by Sarah Slight, Dramaturg

I caught WTF Props Master, Stephanie Polhemus, on an afternoon that she wasn’t in tech to find out about her job and specifically props for Our Town. 

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Interview | Fitz Patton, Sound Designer After the Revolution

by Rachel Lerner-Ley, Dramaturg

I recently caught up with AFTER THE REVOLUTION sound designer Fitz Patton to discuss the pre-show and transitional music that he created specifically for the show. The music features embedded historic texts from the likes of McCarthy and Malcolm X.  

After listening to some of the pieces, Fitz and I got into a fascinating conversation about the power of rhetoric, how we think about history, and the use of sound design within the world of the play. Here are some highlights from our chat:

Rachel Lerner-Ley: Why combine speech and music?

Fitz Patton: When you embed text in music, you take away the speaker's command of time. You strip away the moment in which they're operating, and you connect with the way they use language. Music has this funny way of imposing a kind of objectivity where you can really evaluate what the experience is of listening to this person. You can strip away the decisions we make about history: the good, the bad, and the ugly. This music has the ability to put McCarthy and Martin Luther King together, and you can appreciate that on some weird level, they're actually equal in making their case.  When you go straight to the voice it's really an amazing thing because what you learn is that when you compare McCarthy with Martin Luther King or to Malcolm X or Huey Newton who founded the Black Panthers, you see that all of these people have an incredible command of language. It's a power in as many ways as it is a synergy between a kind of zeitgeist and the capacity of someone to rise and harness it. You realize the power of oratory to drive social movements.

RLL: It's easy for us to talk about McCarthy, but forget about what the horror is of actually listening to his words, of seeing him in action. But listening to the track you just played for me and hearing him, I was like "Oh my God. He can really suck people in"

FP: He's totally mesmerizing.

RLL: And I can totally see why we had another red scare and why people were turning in their neighbors, their friends.

FP: And what's weird is to make it effective with regard to the music you heard, the music has to get behind it. It doesn't do anything to paint a skeptical frame through the music because what you really want to do is get at the speech. And the skeptical frame comes from other experiences outside of the music.

The other thing that's interesting about these pieces is that they are really musical events sculpted around a person's spoken series of ideas in solving a political moment in their life. The cameras are on them, the microphone is there. Whatever they say now is going to change the direction of everything they've been working on and they speak with incredible concision and you really can feel it.

RLL: And how did you go about finding the texts?

FP: They're online. Because people are so passionate about them, they've organized them into archives.

RLL: How long does it take you to compose one of these pieces?

FP: About four or five hours each. I've made about 10 or 11 of them. It's a chunk of work, but the speeches just inspire the music. The music is entirely responding to the person speaking. And so, the music comes very, very quickly. If someone is singing to you, you can write the accompaniment because they've already made the song.

RLL: So how do these compositions work within the play?

FP: Rather than illustrate or decorate the play or solve the play's technical problems of getting furniture moved around, the music can actually flow in independently of content and inform the way we see what is happening in the play without the play really acknowledging that it is there. It's truly theatrical. It's truly why this is a play and not something else.

This music also re-tensions the arguments inside the play. Because the play is so intensely personal and somewhat provincial to the family, the music gives you a window into what is driving them into the arguments and that, in a way, puts extra muscle onto the bone of the play.

Amy [Herzog, playwright] is really staggeringly brilliant to have seen the epic social storylines behind events mentioned in the play. And then not to have offered any answers to them. The role of dropping the music into the play is similar. I hope to find resonances with the text but not to answer it or reduce it in any way or narrow the message of the play.

This type of sound design is asking bigger questions about plays. Plays are produced as entertainment, but maybe plays should really be an event. The play occupies a point on a landscape of ideas. And so, if we have this preshow music that drives this world and then we flow that preshow world into the play itself, then maybe we'll think of the play as part of something larger, as a point on a landscape of ideas.

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Interview | Antje Ellerman Six Degrees of Separation Scenic Designer

Kristin Idaszak: You mentioned during your design presentation that you and Anne Kauffman [Six Degrees of Separation Director] started off talking about a blank stage, an empty void. But the set is actually quite elaborate. How did you get to the design we have now?

Antje Ellerman: We didn’t linger very long in the void. I know this play has been done in a more minimal or abstract way, but we wanted to do something different. We wanted to create a more specific environment for the characters, which could then be fragmented.

I looked at the architecture of the Upper East Side—these apartment buildings and mansions—to get a sense of layout—where the front hall is, how the living room is situated in relationship to the rest of the apartment. I wanted to understand the logic of it so I could come up with our own version. I started with a very traditional theatre ground plan of a box set, and played around with different ways to fracture that and move it. I felt that the way it moves is equally important to where it lands. We didn’t want for pieces just to slide off or to fly, but to break apart the set in a more three dimensional way.

Once I figured that out and showed Anne, it really became about adjusting the ground plan—making it more intimate, figuring out the spacing of the entrances. A lot of the work happened in our heads. We didn’t slog through a whole lot of models; it was more about thinking about it carefully and then trying to put it together.

KI: That’s fascinating. One of the things that struck me about your design is what a striking manifestation it is of the psychological reality of the play, that there is this sense of fracture.

AE: What I wanted to do was start with something that seemed simple and then open that up. One thing that informed the design was that John [Guare] said he was interested in the way Ouisa’s and Flan’s lives cracked open when Ouisa discovers the hustler in her house. It’s something she doesn’t expect, this horrible thing that’s happened in the sanctity of her home. This couple is very well-established and comfortable with themselves until this event unsettles her and changes her life. So we wanted there to be a fissure in the set. Also, the play at times feels farcical with all these entrances and exits, everyone constantly coming and going, so I wanted to create a way for people to enter the space that might not be through a door or in a conventional way.

KI: Absolutely. Something else that John said in rehearsal was that this play is about discovering that unknown country within ourselves, and the set really reflects that.

AE: Thank you. There’s a line in the play—Ouisa says that every person is a door into a new world, and I wanted to create these different views and different openings for people to appear.

KI: What about the artists mentioned in the play—of course there’s the large Kandinsky onstage, but otherwise, did they enter into your process at all?

AE: I knew I needed to create an environment in which the Kandinsky could exist, but I didn’t feel it was about the particular artwork so much as the emotions behind it. I think it provides a context for the environment and the characters. I felt like it was unnecessary to comment on that with the set. With the costumes, the people themselves onstage will be the focal point, and the set will really be a canvas for them. For this design, I was more influenced by architecture than the modern art in the play. I did research, because I was curious, the double-sided Kandinsky, and whether that was a real piece of art [which it’s not]. I discovered that Kandinsky’s work is very colorful, but I decided to just let that be what it is.

KI: This is your first time at Williamstown, right?

AE: Yes, and my first time working with Anne. It’s going to be an adventure! I met Anne a few years ago when I was working with Les Waters. He recommended that I get in touch with her, and we had a really wonderful first meeting about nothing in particular. So I was thrilled when the opportunity to work with her came about!

KI: Well thank you so much. I can’t wait to see what the set looks like when it’s actually built and loaded into the theatre!

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Video | Samuel J. and K. director, Justin Waldman

Samuel J. and K. director, Justin Waldman tells us about why he wanted to direct this play.

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Video | Samuel J. and K. actors, Justin Long and Owiso Odera

Samuel J. and K. opens this week--check out this video interview with the play's actors, Justin Long and Owiso Odera.

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Interview | Michael Rico Cohen, Production Stage Manager for Samuel J. and K.

I had a chance to interview, Michael Rico Cohen, Production Stage Manager for Samuel J. and K. about what exactly is the stage manager’s job.

Sarah Slight: From what I observe, the stage manager seems to be involved in everything related the production he/she is working on. Is that true? What is your job?

Michael Rico Cohen: The stage manager is involved in many facets of a show, but primarily serves as a communication gateway, who organizes and coordinates a production. Specifically, the stage manager communicates with all of the designers, crew, actors, and management/staff of the theatre to ensure that rehearsals, tech, and performances happen successfully. Some other specific stage manager tasks include creating rehearsal schedules and a ‘prompt book,’ which serves as an archive of the show. It is important to note that there are also production managers, company managers and general managers who handle many things that the stage manager is not responsible for, such as contracts, budgets, transportation, housing, payroll, and more.

SS: What is a typical day of rehearsal like for you?

MRC: A typical rehearsal day for the actors in Samuel J. and K. is 11am-5pm. (Many shows with larger casts rehearse 10a-6p) However, I always work before and after that designated time, as the stage manager is responsible for setting up and striking the rehearsal space. In addition, at the conclusion of every rehearsal, I send out a ‘rehearsal report’ which details all of the work done that day as well as a ‘daily call’ which is the schedule for the following day.

SS: What changes once the play moves from rehearsal to tech?

MRC: When a show is in tech, we move from the rehearsal space to the stage, and slowly work through the play incorporating the lighting cues, sound cues, costumes and scenery. During tech, the stage manager is the one who is coordinating, or ‘calling,’ the cues and ensuring that all of the components of the show mesh together well. This task must be taken seriously, as often times the safety of the people onstage relies on specific cues happening at very specific times.

SS: And from tech to performance?

MRC: When we shift to performances the show doesn’t usually change much after that, and the actors and stage manager are then focused on maintaining the show as it was when we opened.

SS: Do you get to pick the shows you want to work on?

MRC: Sometimes you just want to work at a specific theatre, and they pick the show for you. And sometimes you pursue a show itself.

SS: You've been to Williamstown before--what do you like about being here?

MRC: It’s my third summer at Williamstown, and what keeps me coming back is that everyone who works at WTF is here only because they love it.

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Interview | Cathy Parrott, FORUM Costume Designer

ramaturg, Rachel Lerner-Ley, sat down with A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum Costume Designer, Cathy Parrott, to discuss inspiration, collaboration, and the magic of elastic. 

Rachel Lerner-Ley: First of all, I’m so excited you have your binder with you because that was actually going to be one of my first questions.

Cathy Parrott: Oh good!

RLL: Which is: you get the FORUM script, you read it, you laugh a lot—I certainly did. And then how do you start to approach it as a costume designer?

CP: Working very closely with the director. We’re doing an all-male cast. Jess’ vision was going to be a little different than past productions. So it was really seeking out her vision and seeing where she wanted to take it. And the biggest piece of the puzzle has been figuring out the courtesans. How are we going to shape our men into women?  So it was about really nailing down the concept of the production.

Jess and I worked really close for the first month. We kept sending images back and forth to each other. We’d literally be e-mailing images everyday. Because she’s been working for months on the idea, I really wanted to pick her brain to see if there was anything that she was thinking visually even before I came on board. I wanted to jump on her bandwagon.

RLL: And what kind of sources did you use for research? Where did you start looking?

CP: We started looking online and, funny enough, I actually started looking at a lot of modern influences to inspire me and not necessarily get locked into Roman togas. We wanted to have a little bit of freedom especially with our courtesans. My first month was internet research and then I had access to the university library where I was. And the costume designer there has her own fabulous costume book library so I was able to pull images and resources from there. And send that back to Jessica.  We were able to tie all that in, from actual period garments from drawings or pictures of sculptures to modern day influences to have a slight little twist on our courtesans.

Back in New York, I went to the Met, as Jess had done a week or so before me, as they have this huge wing on Roman and Greek statues so I could see the detailing in the costumes and jewelry. It’s a wonderful primary research source which doesn’t happen most of the time. We are very lucky, to have this collection of Roman art right in our backyard.

RLL: Can you walk me through your binder?

CP: So this is my bible that I’ve been working from. (Flips to a section with sheets of measurements) So about a month and a half ago all the actors came in for body measurements and I was able to get a good sense of their height, weight, and you know every other measurement from there. Anything the shop may need as these people are making custom-made garments. (Flips to a new section with photos) Then we take body shots. We take a front view and a side view and a back view and then we take the headshots and send them off to the wig designers. (Flips to next section with sketches, photos, images) And then we came up with our research board. So for each of the characters I come up with an inspiration board through my collaboration with Jess. I’d send her an image and she’d respond negatively or positively or we’d put something together like “Oh, I really like the drape on that.”  “Let’s do the simplicity of this one.”  Then we come up with our own color palates. And color theory—in terms of what different colors mean to a modern day audience. So that’s where the magic happens.    

RLL: Now, there are so many characters in FORUM and also we’re doing it with doubling so I can imagine that there are many, many costume pieces that are flying on and off. So do you have to make charts for that? How do you keep track of it all?

CP: We do. That’s what I’m wrapping up today. I’ve been working on it for about a month. (Cathy pulls out many sheets of charts) But this is kind of the short version. It’s broken down by act and scene and then character. So here’s act one. It’s broken down by act and scene. In terms of some of the characters like Jeremy Shamos’s who’s playing Vibrata and Senex, he’s Vibrata and then several scenes later, Senex. But then at the end here you can see how he has to change…

RLL: Oh my goodness. That’s all in one scene!

CP: And then in Act 2, it’s just as crazy for him. On, off, on, off, on, off. So that’s kind of how we set-up the tracking so everybody can see it visually how many changes there are in one scene.

RLL: And how many dressers do you have working backstage on the show to help? Or is it happening on stage?

CP: All the changes happen off-stage, well most of them. So you won’t see all that. And I believe that we have 7 dressers at the moment. It’s what we were shooting for.

RLL: An army of dressers! And because there are so many fast changes happening, do you want to give our audiences a little peek into the magic that happens? Can you give me an example of how one of the fast changes works? Or would you rather keep that a secret?

CP: The magic of snap tape and zippers. (Laughter) And a little bit of underdressing. So if you see something shiny and blue underneath a costume…

Laughing

RLL: But of course they won’t be seeing any of that.

CP: Of course they won’t because we’ll have it all figured out by then!

RLL: It always just amazes me how quick changes happen.

CP: In addition to zippers and snap tape there’s a lot of elastic.

Laughter.

And that obviously wouldn’t have been the case in Ancient Rome but in order for our theatre magic to work it allows them to pull it up really quick and rip it off really fast.

RLL: Oh that’s so smart.

CP: And all their drapes are nailed at a point so all they have to do is lift their arms up, the dressers put it on, and send them on out.

RLL: And do the guys have basic costumes that are underneath everything? That everything is piled on top of?

CP: The courtesans will because of our quick changes. So everything is built off of that. And then the rest of the silhouettes are tweaked to adapt to the costumes underneath. So there are some of the base costumes that have some shoulder decorations so we have to put a shoulder pad on the side of the other costumes so he doesn’t look like a hunchback.

Laughter

So there’s definitely theatre magic happening backstage. It’s not fashion. It’s not a runway show. It’s making everything functional for our actors.

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Video | The Last Goodbye

The Last Goodbye creator, Michael Kimmel, and music director, Kris Kukul talk about the show.

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Video | After the Revolution

Another video interview! This one is with After the Revolution playwright, Amy Herzog.

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Video | Samuel J. and K.

Check out this video interview with Mat Smart, playwright of Samuel J. and K.

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Video | It's Jewdy's Show

Check out this video interview with writer and actor, Judy Gold and director, Amanda Charlton.

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Interview | Kate Moira Ryan and Judy Gold of ITS' JEWDY'S SHOW

Kristin Idaszak, Dramaturg, had a chance to interview Kate Moira Ryan, playwright, and Judy Gold, co-writer and performer about the creation of It's Jewdy's Show.

Kate Moira Ryan: So are you Jewish?

Kristin Idaszak: No, I was raised very Roman Catholic.

KMR: Me either. But it’s kind of like Stockholm’s Syndrome. So what do you want to know about us?

KI: First I’d love to know how you two started working together.

Judy Gold: We’re friends. Years ago, she met my ex at a party—

KMR: When Henry was eight months old—

JG: And my ex said, I met these really cool people, we’re going out to dinner with them. We went out for Mexican food and had like 400 margaritas. So that’s when I knew Kate and I were going to be friends.

KMR: If we didn’t have alcohol, we wouldn’t be friends.

[laughter]

KMR: We were in Chicago—

JG: And I was doing the clubs and Kate was in town—and we were at this party, where there were free martinis, but I was working so I wasn’t drinking, and I said, Kate, I can’t do the clubs anymore—

KMR: You’d had a martini. You were done for the night.

JG: I’d had a martini.

KMR: And I said, why don’t you do a one-person show—

JG: No I said, I want to do a one-person show.

KMR: And I said, let’s do it about Jewish mothers.

JG: No, you asked what my act was about. It was about my mother, and I was getting ridiculed by the Jewish press for playing into stereotypes.

KMR: So I had another martini and said, well, why don’t we interview Jewish mothers and find out if the stereotype is real. We came up with 25 questions on the back of a cocktail napkin. So she called me the next morning and said, I’m so excited to get started. I asked, on what? Because I’d had too many martinis—

JG: And I’d only had one! But then we started working on 25 Questions for Jewish Mothers, and that was very successful.

KMR: It played in New York for nine months and toured around the country for three years.

JG: We just finished that a year ago. Then I started this project—and this is more standup-y—with my friends Eric and Bob.

KMR: Then Judy called me and said, "I want to go in a different direction." I asked her what she wanted it to be. She said, "I want it to be about my quest for a sitcom and why it didn’t work out." And her relationship with comedy and how that transformed her life. As a child she was bullied because she was different—she was very tall at a very young age, and a little geeky, right?

JG: A little geeky?

[laughter]

KMR: And she wanted her own sitcom because when she was a kid she really lived in this world inside the tv set. I said, let’s write about that. We took the structure that Bob and Eric had come up with and then I stripped it down and we really made it into what she wanted it to be about. And it’s great because every process is really that, a process. A lot of cooks went into the pot. And we worked furiously to rewrite the show for three months.

KI: So what is that process like? Obviously, Judy, it’s your life. What’s it like for you, Kate, to write about someone else’s life—how do you do that?

KMR: Judy and I are so connected. I provided the structure but Judy was really interested in helping shape it. We write really well together. She’ll get up and do something and I’ll watch, so the writing really takes place in the rehearsal room. And we’re always cracking jokes together and having a great time. I love writing with her, and I love writing for her. Of course sometimes we want to kill each other, but that’s not often. I mean, we had such a great time at Stop n’ Shop last night—but we’re also rather demented. I was chasing her down the aisles trying to run her over with the shopping cart. It’s not that we don’t have deep conversations—sometimes we do—but mostly we really just enjoy each other’s company.

KI (laughing): That’s fantastic. And you’re also a well-known playwright in your own right. How does this compare to your other work?

KMR: I’m really eclectic. I’ve written several adaptations—I wrote an adaptation called BeeBo Brinker Chronicles based on lesbian pulp novels from the 40s and 50s, and a play about four women rehearsing Chekhov before they’re executed, called OTMA. I do travel a lot to Eastern Europe, mainly Russia. That’s my fascination. But I do really almost anything. Sometimes it’s successful, and sometimes it’s not. But that’s what a life in the theatre really is. You put it out there and you keep moving forward.

KI: Is this your first time at WTF?

KMR: I was actually here with Bart Sher—about ten years ago now—we did readings for a of a few of my plays.

KI: And you were here last summer at the cabaret, right Judy?

JG: Yes. It’s a very creative, productive, positive atmosphere. You really feel like you’re in the middle of major creativity. And I love the apprentices—they’re so wide-eyed and eager—

KMR: They’re so enthusiastic—

JG: And I just want to go up to them and whisper into their ears, “Get out.”

KMR: “Get out while you still can.”

KI: So I have one last question for you—what’s your drink of choice?

KMR: What is your drink? You like red wine.

JG: Coffee. Black.

KMR: That’s not a drink.

JG: Yes it is. She asked what my drink of choice is. Any drink, right?

KI: Right.

JG: Coffee. Black, strong coffee. I also like ice water. Ice water and coffee.

KMR: Well I like Diet Coke. And I like tequila. But I don’t drink tequila during the day.

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Interview | Maria Aitken, Director of QUARTERMAINE'S TERMS

When I was told I would be assisting Maria Aitken on the upcoming production of Quartermaine’s Terms, I was thrilled! I feel that she serves as a strong inspiration to many female directors in this industry, including myself. I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Maria about her relationship with playwright Simon Gray, the journey of Quartermaine’s to WTF, and the beautiful reflection of humanity in this upcoming production.

Kimberly Faith Hickman [Assistant Director on Quartermaine's Terms]: Is this your first time at Williamstown Theatre Festival?

Maria Aitken: Yes, it is. I only knew about it because I met Nicky Martin when I was doing a play in Boston, and then he departed for Williamstown, and I became very aware of it suddenly because I much admire Nicky.

KFH: And then he invited you to come and do this?

MA: Well, what happened was - actually, I was sitting in a restaurant next to Jefferson Mays [playing Quartermaine], between Jefferson Mays and David Richenthal, and Jefferson said to me – he named a certain theatre – and said, “They’ve asked me to do any play I want!” And I said, “God how marvelous! What have you chosen?” And he said, “Well, it’s play called Quartermaine’s Terms.” Well, I owned the rights to the play for three years in England, and I could never find the Quartermaine that I wanted, so I gave the rights back again.

So I said to Jefferson, “Look, I’m sure you have somebody in mind already, but just in case you don’t, would you think of me for directing it?” And he got up from the table, and ran out into the street! I said to his wife Susan, “Oh heavens, what did I…was I too pushy? What did I do?” She went after him, and when she came back, she said “No it’s all right. He’s crying with joy.”

KFH: Ohhh! That’s so sweet! How long did you know Simon Gray?

MA: Well I think I was twenty-two when I was in a Simon Gray play, a television play, called In The Style of the Countess, and I met him first then. That was in his drinking days, so he in fact doesn’t remember it. I then met him much, much later. I figured rather, unglamorously in one of his diaries, because he’d overheard me making a rude remark about one of his plays. And [the diary] said “This West End star dismissed it”…or something or other, and that was all me, and there was about a page of rant about that. And then I met him in someone’s dressing room, and reminded him that I was the poisonous West End star and we got on like a house on fire.

Then I directed Japes which is a play of his, at Sag Harbor. I directed Quartermaine’s Terms on the radio and wanted to do it on the West End, but the casting is so crucial, and the two people that I wanted to do it were not available. So I thought that was that, and it never really occurred to me that an American could be such an exquisite Quartermaine. And the definitive one, I believe, Jefferson’s going to be. But there was also a problem in England, which was that the man who created the role, Edward Fox, was so perfect, that actually no actor wanted to follow him. Even though it had been so long ago.

KFH: He set the bar so terribly high?

MA: Yeah, he did.

KFH: So this is the second production of Quartermaine’s that you’ve done?

MA: Well, if you count the radio, which I do…

KFH: Right.

MA: It is the second time. But it was a slightly different version. I have seventeen versions of this play in a tin trunk marked “Simon Gray” in my home in London.

KFH: And what brought you to doing the version that we’re doing?

MA: I asked him shortly before he died, because it’s always a bit of a nightmare with Simon’s plays because there are, always are, so many drafts, and you can end up with kind of insane patchwork if you’re not careful. And I asked him which one he wanted us to do and he said that he would like me to do the most recent one that toured in England, but rather ominously added – “because there were lines in it I hadn’t heard in a very long time.” So when we came to doing it here, I did in fact cut some of those lines again, with the permission of the estate and his widow.

KFH: Have you worked with Jefferson before this experience?

MA: No, I’ve just always wanted to, and I’ve asked him several times to do things. I think he’s a magnificent actor. Oh, that’s not quite true! I worked with Jefferson on Japes. He didn’t play it but we had to workshop it, in order to see if we were going to do it. And so Jefferson did that workshop for me, when he was in the middle of playing the marathon I Am My Own Wife one-man show. He so sweetly came and did two whole days of workshopping with me, and was superb. So I knew he was a Simon Gray person.

KFH: Have you worked with anyone else in the cast before?

MA: Well I taught Steve Kunken [playing Mark Sackling], so I know him from long ago. I’ve worked with Simon Jones [playing Henry Windscape] as an actress, myself as an actress, in sort of [Monty] Python type stuff. His wife used to manage the Pythons over here, and in London we did at least one television together with some of them. And Ann Dowd [playing Melanie] worked for me when she was in her twenties…the first thing I ever directed in America, which was The Rivals in Chicago, and she was a superb Julia, which is a really difficult part. I’ve taught all over America since then at Yale and Juilliard and Washington and so on. I always teach The Rivals, and I can still hear Ann Dowd. I can still hear the way she played a particular, and very difficult, speech.

KFH: How funny!

MA: It is funny, isn’t it?

KFH: It’s great. And you’ve never worked with John Horton [playing Eddie Loomis] before this?

MA: No, but what a find!

KFH: Yes! I thought because he’d known Simon, and you’d known Simon… I thought surely…

MA: Well that is a very extraordinary thing you should mention. When I auditioned him, he never said this until the audition was over, and I was completely in love with him, and determined to have him, and he then revealed that he was a life-long friend of Simon’s, and that he’d been given a copy of this play when it was in its very, very first draft, when it was called The Language School, which he still has…carries it about, and tries to make me give him new lines.

KFH: (laughs) I thought that was really cool, that he still had that, because how many actors…

MA: …keep those things, I know.

KFH: I mean, how often do you get to have a relationship with your playwright, as you guys did? But to be able to hang on to all of those…treasures…in a way. That’s really great.

MA: Well I spoke to Simon the day before he died about this play.

KFH: This specific production?

MA: This specific production. So I really feel, that somewhere…on the side, you know…

KFH: Definitely! And what is it about this play that speaks to you the most?

MA: I know no other play like it. I mean, not only is it quintessential Simon Gray… It’s – it’s more Simon Gray than anything else Simon Gray wrote. Perhaps it’s a little more benign than many of his other plays, but he… people use the word “Chekhovian” about it, and I wish I could think of a better one, but this is creating an absolutely believable society, for a play, about people whose lives we really have no experience of. And making them more and more and more and more believable as a group, until…. I don’t think American audiences are going to be put off by the fact that it’s so English.

KFH: Oh no, I don’t think so.

MA: It’s a bunch of eccentrics. Well, not even eccentrics. Just odd people, misfits, failures in a staff room.

KFH: Which we all are...

MA: Which we all are in some way, and kind of seems to me to represent a span of humanity. I kind of feel I’m in all of those characters somewhere. Or they are in me somewhere, and I think most people will feel that they recognize some aspect of themselves. It’s one of the reasons people laugh… is that they recognize some rather unattractive aspect of themselves. And of course the quality of the language, the style of the writing, the precision of the punctuation, the way he manipulates language and the cadences of real speech. He’s an extraordinary writer, I think.

[graphic design] Art Direction and Design by Iris A. Brown Design, IABDNY.com. Illustration by Kristin R. Spix Design

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Interview | Jake DeGroot, Lighting Designer for CAROLINE IN JERSEY

Sarah Slight: I really wanted to interview you because I feel like people, myself included, don’t know a ton about lighting design. It would be really interesting to hear you talk about the different ways you think about it. I imagine you think about realistic lighting but you also enhance theatrical moments. What is all the thought that goes into lighting design?

Jake DeGroot: Well, for me lighting is all about story-telling. That is the essence of it. Just as the actors are telling a story through their actions, gestures and intonations, lighting is doing the same things. It has the same powers. It completely varies from project to project. The lighting should always serve the play. Just like any design, it should never work against anything the director is trying to do. There are plays in which the lighting will be memorable where it is a big part of the storytelling, big gestures, important things are happening. There’s nothing wrong with that. There’s an idea that if people notice the lighting then you are doing a bad job and I don’t think that’s always true. I think there are situations where, just like any other production—there are some instances when a character’s funny voice will be memorable yet other times you want their voice to not be a big deal—its whatever the text calls for. Lighting will serve the text.

I think it is important, like every other element of theatre, to have strong collaboration, talking to the director and figuring out exactly how the piece is going to be approached and figuring out how to best enhance the show with light. Like you said that may be very much based in reality. It may be about time of day or passage of time, really defining space, figuring out what the environment is like, where the characters exist and how to make it feel that way, how to augment scenery. It might also be about emotion and about telling the story of what the character is going through. It may feel really isolated, so they’re in some sort of lighting to cut them off from the rest of the world. I hate to give cliché lighting examples but there are all sorts of tricks of the trade we can use to communicate emotion, using color, using angle, all the elements of lighting—color, angle, texture, intensity, movement and timing. All these things. And it also has a lot to do with rhythm.

One of the coolest parts of lighting is that it's both visual like scenic or costume design but it is also rhythmic like sound design. Or like speech or music. You’re creating pictures and switching between the pictures in time with the play, in time with the action, in time with the movement and emotion of the play. So the cuing, which is natural switching from one state to the next, is a huge part of lighting and how that influences the audience’s perception of the passing of time during the play or how actors build emotion. Lots of facets of it, both the visual and the rhythmic and the technological too. The next step is how to accomplish all that. What are the tools we need to make it happen? And that’s where all the technology comes in.

SS: When you read a play for the first time, do you think right away about what the lighting would be like?

JD: I can’t help it. When I read a play the first time, I always try to read it—that’s the only time I am going to experience it as close as possible to how the audience experiences it. I try to do an uninterrupted read in a comfortable, non-distracting setting where I can really focus on the play and not take notes, not be writing in the margins. Maybe I’ll underline words if something really jumps out at me or highlight stage directions or highlight illusions in the text that really strike me, but I try to experience the play for the play the very first time. The same goes for the first run through that I watch in rehearsal. I try to watch that and not really take a whole lot of notes, try to experience the play for what it is. The moment you finish reading the play for the first time, you’re involved in it and you’re never going to have an unbiased perspective on it again. The first read is important.

SS: It would nice to hear you talk about what your process is like, specific to Caroline. How much of your work is done before actors start acting?

JD: Well with Caroline, I read the play before I found out I had the job and was able to talk to Amanda [Charlton, WTF Artistic Associate and director of Caroline] about the play in an initial meeting and whether this was a good play [for me] to be working on, whether it was going to be a good fit. Very early on in the conversations I was already doing visual research and thinking of images that were pertinent to the story and the atmosphere I was thinking of creating. Amanda and I had those to discuss.

Images are really great way to talk about light because light is very ephemeral, very hard to describe in words. Sometimes easier to describe in hand gestures. But its important to find some kind of common ground through which you can discuss ideas and looks with everyone on the same page, director and designers. I find that visual research can do that. You just need to be careful that it is not taken too literally. This is not what it is going to look like on stage. This is reminiscent of what we’ll see on stage or suggestive of what we’ll see one stage. After looking at images, we talked about color palette, mood and atmosphere in pretty general terms.

Amanda and I also got to talking about what the play’s about. That’s the most important thing. What is the play about? Who’s story is this? You know, the basic dramatic questions everyone in the process asks. What do we want to focus on? What is the location? Amanda and I had lots of discussion about those things, about little quirks in the text. What are some of the rules of Will? What can Will do? What can’t Will do? How real is Will? Who sees Will when? Things like that. Or what does PETZ! look like? The actual show. What’s in David’s head about all that stuff? Figuring out where the characters are coming from and trying to get into the story is kind of the first step.

And then as we move forward, well before the show has been cast, I’m re-reading and we’re talking about transitions. We’re talking about how the play is actually going to come together. Amanda wants to be prepped going into rehearsals about how the transitions are going to work. So she is talking to the designers, getting a handle on that so when the actors are in rehearsal she is able to address those things and its not the first time its coming up.

Throughout that process of months before rehearsals start, I’m mentally compiling a list of things I want to try and incorporate into the show. I want to make sure I have a way to do that moment. I want to make sure I have this system of light to tell the story of this time of day. And then it gets more formal as I have to start turning that into a plot. The light plot is due around the beginning of rehearsal so certainly before I’ve seen a run through and before the show is blocked so the light plot is really based on the space, the set design and how the space is likely to be used. I look at what Andrew [Boyce, Scenic Designer] has created and what he and I have talked about and I try to tell the story we want to tell without have specific knowledge of how the play is going to be blocked. There might be a specific moment or two where Amanda and I have talked about “I know this is going to happen right by the fridge.” We might be able to have some specificity that way but I also want to leave myself open in the light plot so that when the majority of my work happens, I am able to adapt, which is during tech.

The lighting designer’s primary job happens live in the room during tech rehearsals. So once I turn in my light plot, the electrics department is able to look at it and go to work on it, getting all the supplies in and hanging the lights during changeover on Sunday [August 2nd]. And then we start tech on Monday night [August 3]—that will be the first time we are turning these lights on. I have a picture in my head of what its going to look like, and while there are some ways to predict, you never really know how its going to look until you first turn those lights on and you start creating.

Each of the other designers processes happens outside of the room in a studio somewhere where they are able to focus and draw and research. For lighting its all happening live in the room. Its all happening with a whole room of people waiting for you, so pressure’s on. First turning those lights on and writing those cues, seeing things work or not work and taking notes happens very quickly here because the tech schedule is so short. You don’t have a lot of time to respond to changes. In a typical tech situation, in a regional theatre, where you have a week to tech a show you have more time to do notes. You’ll work on the show at night then generate a list of notes, come in and do them, then tweak things and refine even through previews. Here we are doing that in a matter of days, so you want to be working very fast, taking notes quickly and fine tuning and polishing as much as you can, so you can put it up in front of an audience.

SS: One more question: you are also the co-lighting supervisor here, what is that job? You are designing a show, but what else are you doing?

JD: Well the lighting department is a big department at the festival, about 20 people all-in-all, staff and interns. We support everything from Cabarets to Workshops and Fridays @ 3 straight up through the Main Stage and Nikos Stage shows, Fellowships, all of it. So we keep very busy. Lighting sort of has a reputation for working very hard, keeping long crazy hours and really not having a lot of free time. Everyone is here as a lighting designer. All of our interns, all of our staff are hear because they love the art, they love theatre and they love what we’re doing here, so they can’t really get enough of it.

Managing all of that stuff is a full time job in and of itself. In fact for two people, Carl [Faber, Co-Lighting Supervisor] and I both dedicate ourselves to making that run as smoothly as possible. That has a huge range of responsibilities, everything from scheduling all the people to deciding who will design each Workshop show and assist on each of the Main Stage and Nikos Stage shows to supervising everything they are doing, all the drawings, all the paperwork that is being created to interfacing with all the guest designers on the other shows that are not being designed in house like Caroline is, receiving drawings from them, making sure they have the most up-to-date information and also upholding all the standards of the Festival, the safety standards, making sure everything gets done correctly and well and that everyone is happy and able to get at least a couple of hours of sleep each night, so its managing people, managing scheduling, a lot of preplanning.

Also a huge part of what we do is our seminar series. Usually we do about 2 seminars a week plus a talkback with the lighting interns. We schedule those all summer long with guests, industry professionals from all other aspects of lighting and of theatre, trying to work all that in the schedule in order to make this as great an experience as possible for the interns, so that doesn’t stop. That is still going on during Caroline and while its great that Carl and I are able to—when we get busy, we are able to pick up some of the other's slack. There is certainly plenty of work to go around.

SS: I’ll let you get back to it. Thank you very much.

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INTERVIEW | Steve Lawson, writer and director of BLANCHE AND BEYOND

As the staged reading of Blanche and Beyond nears, I wanted to know more about it, so I grabbed an opportunity to talk with Steve Lawson, writer and director.

Sarah Slight: What made you want to create these two works surrounding Tennessee Williams' life and writing? What draws you to him as a writer and as a person?

Steve Lawson: I'd met him twice in Williamstown - 1979 and 1982 - and years later read a just-published volume of his correspondence. It struck me that the letters would make a powerful theatrical piece. The Williams Estate gave me permission to adapt them, and the success of the first play led to a sequel.

I've always thought that no other American playwright has consistently written so wonderfully for actors. For all the tumult of his later years, he was a very funny man - and many of the letters capture that. Like his plays - and like the man himself - the letters are an amazing blend of rollicking humor, darkness, and raunchiness.

SS: Are Blanche and Distant Country part of a larger series? (If not, any plans to do another?)

SL: Richard Thomas and I have been hoping that Al Devlin, who edited these first two volumes of correspondence, would tackle Tennessee's last years in a third collection. Right now, it's looking good. How great if someday, somewhere we could then do all three shows in one day - talk about a marathon!

SS: 1982 was near the end of his life--how much was Tennesse Williams around for Celebration? What was his response? What was it like to be around him?

SL: Tennessee was in residence for the entire three-week rehearsal period. I was lucky enough to be part of the creative team that put the two-night, six-hour production together, so got to work hands-on with him. He'd become a fan of WTF and then artistic director Nikos Psacharopulos after seeing Camino Real, which he stated publicly was the best version of the play he'd ever seen.

And he loved the Celebration. He'd stopped drinking by that time so was incredibly focused and funnier than ever. One night a bunch of us were talking with him, and he asked if we wanted to know his favorite four-letter word. Well, sure we did. He leaned in and intoned, very slowly: "W-O-R-K." And he meant it! He was just chock-full of life, which is why it was so shocking to lose him just seven months later.

SS: Is there anything else you want to us to know about the play and the project before we go see it?

SL: The built-in advantage of this piece is that - unlike Distant Country, which dealt with Tennessee's obscure younger years before anyone had heard of him - Blanche and Beyond covers the time span of what we think of as his greatest achievements. It's the period of Streetcar, Rose Tattoo, Camino, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, with letters to people like Elia Kazan, Gore Vidal, and Jessica Tandy - even New York drama critics. (Imagine that happening today.) So I think the audience will relish the roller-coaster ride of a famous man trying to hold on to his success and his art in the face of intense pressures - some external, some engendered within himself - interpreted by an outstanding actor. And to fill in any gaps, Richard and I will be doing a Q-&-A right after the show, and there are always a lot of questions.

By Literary Associate, Sarah Slight

[photo] T. Charles Erickson

[pictured] Steve Lawson, Richard Thomas

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INTERVIEW | Sarah Gosnell, Asst. Costume Designer

I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Sarah Gosnell, assistant costume designer on The Torch-Bearers.

[Dramaturg] Amy Lipman: How does a costume designer usually begin their process?

Sarah Gosnell: The very first thing people get around to is discussing with the director and other designers the look, feel, and period that they’re going for in the production. The next step is to solidify with everyone how you’ll begin to research that period or time. Or, if it’s coming from something that’s not historical, inventing that period or time or place if it’s in some kind of fantasy situation, or other world. After research comes the beginning of sketching. It’s really nice if you know or recognize the actors. It makes everyone appreciate the sketches more and when an actor walks in and sees themselves, it really makes everyone comfortable and excited about the clothes they’re wearing.

AL: What was the research like for TB?

SG: Ilona [Somogyi, Costume Designer] did the research, and for this show, we were doing 1922 outside of Philly. We were establishing that most of the women were pretty well off, and with the men, some were and some weren’t. It was an interesting dynamic with these women who had lots of spare time to become involved in theatre, and the men may have been retired or had jobs that allowed them to participate in social activities outside of work. That’s a really nice contrast because the men in the theatrical troupe are of that sort and Mr. Ritter…the whole time we’ve been looking for his navy suit? We’ve been looking for a businessman’s suit. So it’s really nice that those can juxtapose against each other, and also to have him be so astonished with all these people in his home, doing this show.

AL: What’s been your role as an assistant designer?

SG: It’s a pretty unique role here. Williamstown hires me to assist designers that come in from New York. So, Ilona spends some time in New York fabric shopping, doing other errands, and I’ve spent time with her there pulling costumes from rental houses, or going shopping. I’m kind of like the liaison up here to represent Ilona and her design and to be someone in the shop that people can ask questions to about what they’re building, and I coordinate a lot of the fittings, rentals and purchases.

AL: Are you assisting more than one designer this summer?

SG: Not this summer. Torch-Bearers is our big period piece, and it also has the largest cast, so while other assistants can work on a Nikos and a Main Stage, this summer I’m just assisting on one. Earlier this summer, I designed Free Theatre so I got to put on my designer hat and work on a production on the same stage with a very different feel.

AL: Is this your first summer at Williamstown?

SG: This is my second season here. Last summer I was the first hand in the costume shop.

AL: What challenges have come from working with the size of the cast and the historical period of The Torch-Bearers?

SG: The big challenge is that the 1920s is one of those periods where if we have the actual piece from 1920, it’s almost one hundred years old. So our rentals have taken us internationally, and that’s been interesting. We’re building all of the dresses. It’s a really fun period to build and most of the dresses from 1922 have a really loose shape, it’s before traditional flapper style and it still has some Edwardian and even Victorian elements to it. So it’s fun for the shop to build that kind of loose and kind of androgynous style. There are also some pieces in the second act of Torch-Bearers that will have bustles and corsets, so it’s been nice doing a little bit of everything. This period is an incredible challenge to work on. And it’s been great.

[photo] Sam Hough for © WTF ’09.

© [Costume Design | Ilona Somogyi] 2009

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