Something I read while meandering the interwebs struck me recently. I thought it was from this poster, but I guess I'm reading/latching on to way more inspirational garble than I realized. Anyway, the sentiment that struck me was something along the lines of, "Do what you love and the money will follow."
I suppose it makes since that a thought like that would stand out to me, as I've been back in New Mexico for about a month and a half, and did not expect to be jobless and adrift for so long. (Being jobless and adrift is why I left New York, people!) So you could say I am currently deeply ingrained in the process of figuring out how to make the money follow and, if we're being totally honest, what exactly I love in the first place.
Upon reflection, here's what I think: if I had read this in New York, I would have been angry, because doing what I want to do without working about the money was a luxury I simply didn't have. I wished I had it a million times over, every time I saw an internship I couldn't apply for, a volunteer opportunity I couldn't make time for, a class I couldn't take. And now I do have that luxury. Having that luxury is a big part of why, at almost 30, I moved back in with my parents.
So why am I worrying so much about getting a job?
With that in mind, I've been thinking about things that I could do, would do, if I weren't worried about making money. It's time to change my attitude. Full speed ahead.
About Me
- Leigh Hile
- I'm an NYC-based director, and this is an outlet for my various musings about theater and about the city of New York. Sometimes the subjects run together, sometimes they are entirely separate, but between the two they comprise the most fitful, most intense, most trying love affair of my few years. They fill my head, my heart, my mouth every hour of every day; they could fill a book.
Showing posts with label taking risks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label taking risks. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Closing Doors
On Saturday, September 25th, I shut the door and switched off the lights for the very last time in the place I've called my home for the past four and a half years.
After we left, Andrew and I stood on my roof quietly for a moment, watching the lights of Harlem twinkle in through the dark patches created from the neighborhood's newly-constructed high-rise condos.
My roof. I had my 25th birthday party up here. I brought up milk crates, and we sat on them in the glow of a string of twinkle lights and some cheap tap-lights from the 99-cent store. I brought my sisters up here to watch the fireworks on the 4th of July that they visited. I drank beers here on a blanket with my best friends. I did yoga up here. We kissed up here once, on a grey day after we saw St. John's Cathedral. In the dark I could still see its massive silhouette on the hill, stacked on top of us.
"I've never left something so permanently before," I told him. "Really?" Andrew said. I kissed him again, like I did on that grey day, and we went back downstairs.
Since leaving, I've experienced a curious mixture of grief and elation. Sometimes I'm struck so intensely by the strangeness and the sadness of the fact that I'll never again enter that room, with its bare window, cheap Ikea daybed and the TV tray doubling as a nightstand. Other times, I think about the fact that I'm utterly unattached, unbeholden to that space, to its particular dust and clutter, its mice and its rent - and the thought makes me giddy.
I always meant to buy curtains, replace the TV tray with a real nightstand, but somehow never got around to it. It wasn't a priority. During my tenure in NY, I encouraged in myself a sort of monk-like asceticism; I had neither the money nor the space for a lot of stuff. But as I shut the door on on my room for the last time, a thought came to me, spontaneously and unbidden: never again.
Never again do I want to live so impermanently, in the empty expanse of a space I always meant to make my own. Never again do I want to live the the shadow of promises I've made to myself.
It's funny. Through my self-imposed asceticism, I thought I was cultivating an appropriately monastic spirituality. New York, I thought to myself, was teaching me how to detach from materialism. I thought about the spiritual lessons New York was teaching me a lot. Patience. The value of hard work.
In hindsight, though, I wonder if these things that I thought were teaching were actually tearing down: all those moments waiting for a subway or walking behind someone slow were wearing down my patience to a tiny, raw, nub. All the times I had to work so much harder for what I wanted than I would have anywhere else... maybe it just made me tired. And I wonder if my bare personal space actually set me adrift in some way. I wonder if we need things in the same way we need stories - to tie us down, to tell us who we are.
I go back and forth like this, wondering if New York strengthened me or unmoored me - or maybe both. I guess I'm about to find out.
After we left, Andrew and I stood on my roof quietly for a moment, watching the lights of Harlem twinkle in through the dark patches created from the neighborhood's newly-constructed high-rise condos.
My roof. I had my 25th birthday party up here. I brought up milk crates, and we sat on them in the glow of a string of twinkle lights and some cheap tap-lights from the 99-cent store. I brought my sisters up here to watch the fireworks on the 4th of July that they visited. I drank beers here on a blanket with my best friends. I did yoga up here. We kissed up here once, on a grey day after we saw St. John's Cathedral. In the dark I could still see its massive silhouette on the hill, stacked on top of us.
"I've never left something so permanently before," I told him. "Really?" Andrew said. I kissed him again, like I did on that grey day, and we went back downstairs.
Since leaving, I've experienced a curious mixture of grief and elation. Sometimes I'm struck so intensely by the strangeness and the sadness of the fact that I'll never again enter that room, with its bare window, cheap Ikea daybed and the TV tray doubling as a nightstand. Other times, I think about the fact that I'm utterly unattached, unbeholden to that space, to its particular dust and clutter, its mice and its rent - and the thought makes me giddy.
I always meant to buy curtains, replace the TV tray with a real nightstand, but somehow never got around to it. It wasn't a priority. During my tenure in NY, I encouraged in myself a sort of monk-like asceticism; I had neither the money nor the space for a lot of stuff. But as I shut the door on on my room for the last time, a thought came to me, spontaneously and unbidden: never again.
Never again do I want to live so impermanently, in the empty expanse of a space I always meant to make my own. Never again do I want to live the the shadow of promises I've made to myself.
It's funny. Through my self-imposed asceticism, I thought I was cultivating an appropriately monastic spirituality. New York, I thought to myself, was teaching me how to detach from materialism. I thought about the spiritual lessons New York was teaching me a lot. Patience. The value of hard work.
In hindsight, though, I wonder if these things that I thought were teaching were actually tearing down: all those moments waiting for a subway or walking behind someone slow were wearing down my patience to a tiny, raw, nub. All the times I had to work so much harder for what I wanted than I would have anywhere else... maybe it just made me tired. And I wonder if my bare personal space actually set me adrift in some way. I wonder if we need things in the same way we need stories - to tie us down, to tell us who we are.
I go back and forth like this, wondering if New York strengthened me or unmoored me - or maybe both. I guess I'm about to find out.
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
The Lab is Over, Alas for Mankind.
The Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab has come and gone, and after doing nothing but wrangling with Strindberg's A Dream Play for three weeks straight, now that it's over, it already feels, ironically enough, like some kind of strange dream. People keep asking me, "did you learn a lot?" and I honestly don't know the answer. I certainly took in a lot of information - now time will tell whether or not I'll synthesize it into anything useful. Anne Catteneo, the Lab's relentlessly hard-working director, says that it could perhaps take four years to really process everything that you learn in these three weeks. It was director boot-camp, there's really no other way to put it. Exhausting, challenging, frustrating, eye-opening, and leaving it behind is bittersweet. As we came toward the end, I was running on fumes. The countdown became my mantra: "Three more days. Two more days. One more day." I don't think I moved on Sunday after it ended. But now, I keep thinking of my little yellow ID pass, how I wish it didn't say, "Expires July 17th" so that I could walk through the Lincoln Center stage door again, head to the rehearsal rooms in the basement, and go again.
But Strindberg himself, I think, said it best:
In the moment of goodbye,
When one must be parted from a friend, a place,
How suddenly great the loss of what one loved,
Regret for what one shattered.
Oh, now I feel the agony of existence!
So this is to be mortal...
One wants to go, one wants to stay.
The twin halves of the heart are wrenched asunder.
And I've found that, whatever my difficulties with A Dream Play - and I have many - Strindberg often says it best.
I'm sifting through all my notes, re-typing and summarizing the experience, in an attempt to get a handle on it all before it slips away. I'm hoping to have some more detailed blog posts about it in the near future too - but more on that later. But while I'm processing all that, if I learned anything from the experience it would be:
1. Trust your actors.
2. Trust your collaborators.
3. Always say yes before you say no.
More later. For now, back to attempting to pick up my life where I left it a month ago.
But Strindberg himself, I think, said it best:
In the moment of goodbye,
When one must be parted from a friend, a place,
How suddenly great the loss of what one loved,
Regret for what one shattered.
Oh, now I feel the agony of existence!
So this is to be mortal...
One wants to go, one wants to stay.
The twin halves of the heart are wrenched asunder.
And I've found that, whatever my difficulties with A Dream Play - and I have many - Strindberg often says it best.
I'm sifting through all my notes, re-typing and summarizing the experience, in an attempt to get a handle on it all before it slips away. I'm hoping to have some more detailed blog posts about it in the near future too - but more on that later. But while I'm processing all that, if I learned anything from the experience it would be:
1. Trust your actors.
2. Trust your collaborators.
3. Always say yes before you say no.
More later. For now, back to attempting to pick up my life where I left it a month ago.
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Ajax In Iraq
Flux Theater Ensemble's Ajax in Iraq closes on June 25th, so you still have time to catch this earnest, provocative and visually stunning play.
Ajax in Iraq tells the parallel stories of the eponymous Greek hero of Sophocles' tragedy Ajax and a young female soldier in Iraq named AJ. Ajax, gripped by jealousy and anger and driven mad by the goddess Athena, slaughters a herd of livestock in a violent rage. Meanwhile, in contemporary Iraq, AJ experiences horrors that begin to wage another internal war against her own mind. The two stories weave in an out of one another as both Ajax and AJ lose their grip on their sanity and then their struggle to come to terms with what that loss means.
Themes of our inherent, animal desire for cruelty and brutality as well as the frailty of the line that divides attacker, victim and passive bystander pervade the play. Athena, played with force and charisma by Raushanah Simmons, narrates the play and is the driving force behind it. A force, we discover rather quickly, not to be messed with. Equal parts vicious cunning and disturbing volatility, she is gleeful of her colossal power and ready to turn (against you) on a dime. Here, Athena represents the mind in all its immense power and terrifying vulnerability - its capacity for trickery, treachery, and devious second-guessing. The only thing that stands between us and the disturbing portraits of inexplicable violence we're watching, Athena warns us, is her. That is - the luck and happenstance that has thus far allowed us to keep our frail minds intact.
The play is directed with expertise by August Schulenburg, who maintains an evocative and striking aesthetic from start to finish. Story aside, the play is thrilling to watch for its gorgeous visual tableaus and dynamic uses of sound, rhythm, movement and space. But moreover, Schulenburg builds a lively and compelling momentum that persists even through apparently tangential scenes. One of the most haunting moments of the play is as an unnamed soldier recounts an incident of incredible brutality. The scene is beautifully staged; his confusion and disorientation by the rush of adrenaline and fear, the cover of night, and the distortion of the night-vision goggles are viscerally felt. Because of the strength of this moment, in the fury of the unnamed soldier we understand better the turmoil of both Ajax and AJ.
For the most part, the ancient Greek narrative and its contemporary counterpart work well together. With testimonials from modern-day soldiers in Iraq and the use of direct address, McLaughlin crafts a structure that echoes and evokes the Greek chorus of the original story.
The device of the parallel stories, however, begins to lag as the story progresses. The audience can see from the very beginning that AJ's story will mimic the Greek hero's, so the fun (if you can call such a grisly story "fun") becomes watching the particulars of why and how AJ's undoing will unfold in the context of the modern world.
Problematically, though, the play is too heavy with, well, just a lot of other stuff. There is the concurrent Greek tragedy to contend with, as well as certain unnecessarily political non-sequitors (a prime example: after Ajax/AJ's penultimate moment, the action cuts jarringly to a PSA for a shelter for homeless veterans). The result is that we only meet AJ and come to understand her struggle superficially, perfunctorily. Because the audience spends so little time with her, the horrors she endures feel more like devices, means to a forgone end, than a real journey. AJ is the heart of the play, and she is to often brushed aside.
The play meets further trouble in the way the two stories ultimately play out. In the end, AJ's story is just too similar to Ajax's. It left me wondering, as the two collided at the play's climax, why I needed to see the same story presented to me twice. The play would be stronger if the stories ran apart from one another a bit more - enough to appreciate their differences as well as their similarities. Or, if the conceit of the dual story were dropped altogether and the play instead focused on simply a modern retelling of Ajax. (Although I would be very sorry to see Ajax's side of the story go - Athena is by far the most exciting character in the play, and the dialogue in Ajax's scenes some of the most beautiful, leaving me with a very profound appreciation for playwright Ellen McLaughlin's poetic command of language.)
Still, despite the room for improvement, Ajax in Iraq is a passionate, genuine, and innovative examination of the atrocities of war - a story that needs to be told. Furthermore, the story is brought to justice with an immensely talented cast. In addition to Simmons, there were notable performances by Tiffany Clementi as a distraught wife of a solider suffering from PTSD, and Christina Shipp, in a sensitive and vulnerable portrayal of AJ.
With haunting eloquence, Ajax in Iraq somehow links past and present, tormentor and tormented, and pulls us from our comfortable chairs a little closer to the sting of the desert and the terror of battle. You'll leave rattled a little and questioning a lot.
Ajax in Iraq tells the parallel stories of the eponymous Greek hero of Sophocles' tragedy Ajax and a young female soldier in Iraq named AJ. Ajax, gripped by jealousy and anger and driven mad by the goddess Athena, slaughters a herd of livestock in a violent rage. Meanwhile, in contemporary Iraq, AJ experiences horrors that begin to wage another internal war against her own mind. The two stories weave in an out of one another as both Ajax and AJ lose their grip on their sanity and then their struggle to come to terms with what that loss means.
Themes of our inherent, animal desire for cruelty and brutality as well as the frailty of the line that divides attacker, victim and passive bystander pervade the play. Athena, played with force and charisma by Raushanah Simmons, narrates the play and is the driving force behind it. A force, we discover rather quickly, not to be messed with. Equal parts vicious cunning and disturbing volatility, she is gleeful of her colossal power and ready to turn (against you) on a dime. Here, Athena represents the mind in all its immense power and terrifying vulnerability - its capacity for trickery, treachery, and devious second-guessing. The only thing that stands between us and the disturbing portraits of inexplicable violence we're watching, Athena warns us, is her. That is - the luck and happenstance that has thus far allowed us to keep our frail minds intact.
The play is directed with expertise by August Schulenburg, who maintains an evocative and striking aesthetic from start to finish. Story aside, the play is thrilling to watch for its gorgeous visual tableaus and dynamic uses of sound, rhythm, movement and space. But moreover, Schulenburg builds a lively and compelling momentum that persists even through apparently tangential scenes. One of the most haunting moments of the play is as an unnamed soldier recounts an incident of incredible brutality. The scene is beautifully staged; his confusion and disorientation by the rush of adrenaline and fear, the cover of night, and the distortion of the night-vision goggles are viscerally felt. Because of the strength of this moment, in the fury of the unnamed soldier we understand better the turmoil of both Ajax and AJ.
For the most part, the ancient Greek narrative and its contemporary counterpart work well together. With testimonials from modern-day soldiers in Iraq and the use of direct address, McLaughlin crafts a structure that echoes and evokes the Greek chorus of the original story.
The device of the parallel stories, however, begins to lag as the story progresses. The audience can see from the very beginning that AJ's story will mimic the Greek hero's, so the fun (if you can call such a grisly story "fun") becomes watching the particulars of why and how AJ's undoing will unfold in the context of the modern world.
Problematically, though, the play is too heavy with, well, just a lot of other stuff. There is the concurrent Greek tragedy to contend with, as well as certain unnecessarily political non-sequitors (a prime example: after Ajax/AJ's penultimate moment, the action cuts jarringly to a PSA for a shelter for homeless veterans). The result is that we only meet AJ and come to understand her struggle superficially, perfunctorily. Because the audience spends so little time with her, the horrors she endures feel more like devices, means to a forgone end, than a real journey. AJ is the heart of the play, and she is to often brushed aside.
The play meets further trouble in the way the two stories ultimately play out. In the end, AJ's story is just too similar to Ajax's. It left me wondering, as the two collided at the play's climax, why I needed to see the same story presented to me twice. The play would be stronger if the stories ran apart from one another a bit more - enough to appreciate their differences as well as their similarities. Or, if the conceit of the dual story were dropped altogether and the play instead focused on simply a modern retelling of Ajax. (Although I would be very sorry to see Ajax's side of the story go - Athena is by far the most exciting character in the play, and the dialogue in Ajax's scenes some of the most beautiful, leaving me with a very profound appreciation for playwright Ellen McLaughlin's poetic command of language.)
Still, despite the room for improvement, Ajax in Iraq is a passionate, genuine, and innovative examination of the atrocities of war - a story that needs to be told. Furthermore, the story is brought to justice with an immensely talented cast. In addition to Simmons, there were notable performances by Tiffany Clementi as a distraught wife of a solider suffering from PTSD, and Christina Shipp, in a sensitive and vulnerable portrayal of AJ.
With haunting eloquence, Ajax in Iraq somehow links past and present, tormentor and tormented, and pulls us from our comfortable chairs a little closer to the sting of the desert and the terror of battle. You'll leave rattled a little and questioning a lot.
Friday, March 4, 2011
Dog Act
Two weeks ago, I had the pleasure of being introduced to the Flux Theater Ensemble, a group whose work I had never seen before. I caught the last performance of Dog Act, and I'm glad I did. I was impressed with the integrity of both the work that I saw and the work in general that Flux endeavors to do.
Dog Act is a daring show - not your typical theater fare. Abstract, absurd, and almost densely poetic, it packs a lot of strange into a fairly straighforward two-act structure. Strange world, strange people, strange words. Strange choices, even. A man who voluntarily elects to live life as a dog? It reminded me at first of the men I once saw on Maury (I was in high school, okay? Don't judge me too harshly on questions of taste) who choose to live and behave like infants. And while Adams' Dog, in an understated and sweet performance by Chris Wight, is not nearly so horrifying in that train-wreck side-show kind of a way, they do both raise the same questions: what must be going on inside a person to make him relinquish is right as a human being to autonomy, to self-sufficience, to choice? When (and why) does free will stop being a gift and become a heavy burden?
Adams' use of language to explore these questions was, without a doubt, my personal favorite part of the play. Liz Duffy Adams has a truly impressive ear for language. Simply reading the playwright's note in the program gave me an idea of the Dylanesque lyricism I was in for. But while Adams' language is very pleasingly sonorous, what really makes it noteworthy is how she uses that language to draw distinctions between characters and explore ideas about identity and belonging. Dog, for example, sometimes slips and uses words a dog has no business knowing, words that betray his former life. And JoJo, Vera Similitude's savage little sidekick (played with ferocious charm by Becky Byers), travels with the Vaudevilleans, but her own language closely resembles the explosive, caustic speech of the scavengers; whether or not she belongs with the Vaudevilleans is an item of much contention. All the members of the traveling vaudeville act seem in search of belonging of some kind or another and all, for all the actions they choose (or choose not) to take, fall somewhat short of the mark. In some, like Vera (an able Liz Douglas), a survivalist at all costs, this only strengthens their resolve to take more decisive action. In others, like Dog, it causes them to forswear active choice altogether. Adams adeptly uses language to weave together these themes of identity, belonging, and choice.
I have to admit, I didn't fall in love with Dog Act. There was much about the play I didn't understand, and more still I simply didn't like. Dog's story of redemption, for example - how he ultimately reclaims his power of choice - I found somewhat predictable, for all its linguistic splendor. Still, Dog Act was a brave and provacative play, just the kind of work I want to see and see done. It was in stark contrast to Good People, which I saw on the same day, and found tame, routine, and painfully on the nose - but more on that later.
In the meantime, I'll finish by saying that not only is this the kind of theater that should be done, but it was done well. Kelly O'Donnell managed Adams' dense prose with a deft hand and the production values, though minimalist, were splendid. The cart with which our fair hero Zetta travels, the majority of the set, was truly marvelous. After this performance, I'm looking forward to what's next from Flux Theatre Ensemble. With Dog Act, they mounted a work that was both bold and well-crafted, and did so with considerable elegance. I must admit, I'm also a little taken with the way Flux structures their seasons - all explorations of a central theme or question. All this points to a smart and skillful group of artists. I'm looking forward to what's next.
Dog Act is a daring show - not your typical theater fare. Abstract, absurd, and almost densely poetic, it packs a lot of strange into a fairly straighforward two-act structure. Strange world, strange people, strange words. Strange choices, even. A man who voluntarily elects to live life as a dog? It reminded me at first of the men I once saw on Maury (I was in high school, okay? Don't judge me too harshly on questions of taste) who choose to live and behave like infants. And while Adams' Dog, in an understated and sweet performance by Chris Wight, is not nearly so horrifying in that train-wreck side-show kind of a way, they do both raise the same questions: what must be going on inside a person to make him relinquish is right as a human being to autonomy, to self-sufficience, to choice? When (and why) does free will stop being a gift and become a heavy burden?
Adams' use of language to explore these questions was, without a doubt, my personal favorite part of the play. Liz Duffy Adams has a truly impressive ear for language. Simply reading the playwright's note in the program gave me an idea of the Dylanesque lyricism I was in for. But while Adams' language is very pleasingly sonorous, what really makes it noteworthy is how she uses that language to draw distinctions between characters and explore ideas about identity and belonging. Dog, for example, sometimes slips and uses words a dog has no business knowing, words that betray his former life. And JoJo, Vera Similitude's savage little sidekick (played with ferocious charm by Becky Byers), travels with the Vaudevilleans, but her own language closely resembles the explosive, caustic speech of the scavengers; whether or not she belongs with the Vaudevilleans is an item of much contention. All the members of the traveling vaudeville act seem in search of belonging of some kind or another and all, for all the actions they choose (or choose not) to take, fall somewhat short of the mark. In some, like Vera (an able Liz Douglas), a survivalist at all costs, this only strengthens their resolve to take more decisive action. In others, like Dog, it causes them to forswear active choice altogether. Adams adeptly uses language to weave together these themes of identity, belonging, and choice.
I have to admit, I didn't fall in love with Dog Act. There was much about the play I didn't understand, and more still I simply didn't like. Dog's story of redemption, for example - how he ultimately reclaims his power of choice - I found somewhat predictable, for all its linguistic splendor. Still, Dog Act was a brave and provacative play, just the kind of work I want to see and see done. It was in stark contrast to Good People, which I saw on the same day, and found tame, routine, and painfully on the nose - but more on that later.
In the meantime, I'll finish by saying that not only is this the kind of theater that should be done, but it was done well. Kelly O'Donnell managed Adams' dense prose with a deft hand and the production values, though minimalist, were splendid. The cart with which our fair hero Zetta travels, the majority of the set, was truly marvelous. After this performance, I'm looking forward to what's next from Flux Theatre Ensemble. With Dog Act, they mounted a work that was both bold and well-crafted, and did so with considerable elegance. I must admit, I'm also a little taken with the way Flux structures their seasons - all explorations of a central theme or question. All this points to a smart and skillful group of artists. I'm looking forward to what's next.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Application Post-Mortem
I took a pretty protracted break from blogging/tweeting/reading/well, pretty much breathing anything other than the Lincoln Center Directors' Lab application this past week, which is really too bad because I had stuff I wanted to write about.
I saw Flux's Dog Act, and then Good People at the Manhattan Theater Club (both in the same day, actually), one of which I liked and one of which I really didn't, and wanted to write about both of them. I also have a two-thirds completed post on an interview with Jenna Weinberg that has been sitting in the cue for an embarrassingly long time. I suppose the easy thing there would have been to just type out a transcript of the interview and post it intact (I've read and enjoyed many an interview blog post that worked that way), but two weeks ago it seemed really important to communicate what inspires me personally about her. And then at somewhere in between pages of frenziedly scrawled notes on Taming of the Shrew and several mad dashes in vain search for an open post office, my loving hand became less of a benefit and more of a hindrance.
That actually happens a lot. So now my dirty little secret is out. I am an embarrassingly slow writer. Nothing prolific whatsoever going on here.
So back to work on all the above projects, a day late and a dollar short. But in the meantime, some quick thoughts on my lab application process.
I've applied to a lot of labs and workshops over the years, but I've never known any quite so grueling as the LCT directors' lab application - which I knew going into it, because I've applied once before, about two years ago. (I was rejected on the grounds that I was not far enough along in my career - here's hoping two years have made the difference).
What I remember most vividly about applying the first time around was how specifically and explicitly I was asked to describe my understanding of theater as an art. I had already written countless "artistic statements" that asked me to describe my process or my sensibilities, but Lincoln Center wanted to know what directors I admire and why, what shows I've seen and appreciated and why, what kind of theater I aspire to do and why, what I do to prepare to direct a show and (everybody, now) why? Et cetera, et cetera. My overwhelming feeling after having completed the application the first time around, was of having learned something. The process helped clarify a lot of ideas about theater and directing that I thought I had nailed down but which I realized, when called upon to describe them in such detail, that I had only a vague grasp upon. I came out of the process feeling like I could be a stronger and more focused director because of it.
I learned something this time around too, although this time it was more about me than the art. Despite having grown stronger as a director since last I applied, I still get very, very tripped up over questions that ask me to describe my process or discuss methods. I panic a little, start thinking things like, Method, what method? Do I have "methods"? Should I have learned this in school? Am I even a real director?
I have a friend who happens to be working on a prospectus for her undergraduate creative writing thesis, and it soothes me to know she is equally confounded by the idea of justifying/explaining what she does. In her words: "Uh. I find it effective to sit at my computer and type out sentences... grammatically acceptable sentences, when possible. Ideally those sentences eventually form a narrative." And she's a legitimately talented writer. So basically, her confusion and trouble pleases me. (I'm a good friend).
But anyway. There were plenty of "describe your method" questions on this application, and I stumbled through them, as I always do. But then, in its demand for specificity that I remember and love, the application asked me to pick a particular play and explain in detail how I would prepare to direct it, and what I would do in the first week of rehearsal.
The good news, and probably the best thing to come out of the whole application process, was that I discovered I didn't really have a problem at all detailing how I would approach the play, both in preparation and in rehearsal.
"Huh," I thought to myself, "I guess I do have a method after all." If the first go-around helped me to be a stronger and more focused director, the second helped me realize I am a strong and focused director.
The bad news: I'm not super-proud of what I wrote. The application asked me to choose a play I don't have a fully formed grasp of and I think I took not-fully-formed-grasp part too much to heart. Without boring the world with too much detail, I submitted an unusual interpretation of Taming of the Shrew that I'm not sure would actually work, and now feel terribly embarrassed for having written several pages about an idea that probably won't work.
Not to mention that as empowering as it was to discover my own process, LCT made it very clear that the intention of the prompt was not to learn about my process in general, but to learn about the specific questions I would ask about this show. Well. I know what the main questions I would ask - some broad questions about what the story in my interpretation is really about and whether or not that's a worthwhile story to tell - but I don't know the answers to those questions yet and, given that, delving into deeper, more incisive questions proved somewhat difficult. The whole proposal felt a bit circular, vague, and redundant to me.
I probably should have chosen a play that I had really, really, studied and had a lot of interesting ideas about, and a few, more specific questions that had yet to be answered. As opposed to the broad question I was asking, "Does this even make sense?" But alas, that does not exist for me right now. I haven't found a project that's really, really pulled me into it in a long time.
And maybe that's for the best. Or, to clarify, it's for the best that feel I answered the question inadequately precisely because I don't have any strong opinions about plays or projects right now. Perhaps if this were the right time for me to do this Lab, I would have a project like that. I desperately want to do the LCT Directors' Lab, but I want to do it at a point when I can really get the most out of it. LCT used a lot of, well, let's call it severe language about what kind of directors they expect to apply to the lab - where those directors are and where they see themselves going. So severe, in fact, that it almost scared me off. A lot of that business of where I am and where I'm going is still unclear to me. I know I want to do this for the rest of my life - beyond that, everything is sort of fuzzy. At first I thought to myself, "Maybe this ISN'T the year for the Lab," and then I thought, "Well, let's let them decide that."
So now they decide.
I saw Flux's Dog Act, and then Good People at the Manhattan Theater Club (both in the same day, actually), one of which I liked and one of which I really didn't, and wanted to write about both of them. I also have a two-thirds completed post on an interview with Jenna Weinberg that has been sitting in the cue for an embarrassingly long time. I suppose the easy thing there would have been to just type out a transcript of the interview and post it intact (I've read and enjoyed many an interview blog post that worked that way), but two weeks ago it seemed really important to communicate what inspires me personally about her. And then at somewhere in between pages of frenziedly scrawled notes on Taming of the Shrew and several mad dashes in vain search for an open post office, my loving hand became less of a benefit and more of a hindrance.
That actually happens a lot. So now my dirty little secret is out. I am an embarrassingly slow writer. Nothing prolific whatsoever going on here.
So back to work on all the above projects, a day late and a dollar short. But in the meantime, some quick thoughts on my lab application process.
I've applied to a lot of labs and workshops over the years, but I've never known any quite so grueling as the LCT directors' lab application - which I knew going into it, because I've applied once before, about two years ago. (I was rejected on the grounds that I was not far enough along in my career - here's hoping two years have made the difference).
What I remember most vividly about applying the first time around was how specifically and explicitly I was asked to describe my understanding of theater as an art. I had already written countless "artistic statements" that asked me to describe my process or my sensibilities, but Lincoln Center wanted to know what directors I admire and why, what shows I've seen and appreciated and why, what kind of theater I aspire to do and why, what I do to prepare to direct a show and (everybody, now) why? Et cetera, et cetera. My overwhelming feeling after having completed the application the first time around, was of having learned something. The process helped clarify a lot of ideas about theater and directing that I thought I had nailed down but which I realized, when called upon to describe them in such detail, that I had only a vague grasp upon. I came out of the process feeling like I could be a stronger and more focused director because of it.
I learned something this time around too, although this time it was more about me than the art. Despite having grown stronger as a director since last I applied, I still get very, very tripped up over questions that ask me to describe my process or discuss methods. I panic a little, start thinking things like, Method, what method? Do I have "methods"? Should I have learned this in school? Am I even a real director?
I have a friend who happens to be working on a prospectus for her undergraduate creative writing thesis, and it soothes me to know she is equally confounded by the idea of justifying/explaining what she does. In her words: "Uh. I find it effective to sit at my computer and type out sentences... grammatically acceptable sentences, when possible. Ideally those sentences eventually form a narrative." And she's a legitimately talented writer. So basically, her confusion and trouble pleases me. (I'm a good friend).
But anyway. There were plenty of "describe your method" questions on this application, and I stumbled through them, as I always do. But then, in its demand for specificity that I remember and love, the application asked me to pick a particular play and explain in detail how I would prepare to direct it, and what I would do in the first week of rehearsal.
The good news, and probably the best thing to come out of the whole application process, was that I discovered I didn't really have a problem at all detailing how I would approach the play, both in preparation and in rehearsal.
"Huh," I thought to myself, "I guess I do have a method after all." If the first go-around helped me to be a stronger and more focused director, the second helped me realize I am a strong and focused director.
The bad news: I'm not super-proud of what I wrote. The application asked me to choose a play I don't have a fully formed grasp of and I think I took not-fully-formed-grasp part too much to heart. Without boring the world with too much detail, I submitted an unusual interpretation of Taming of the Shrew that I'm not sure would actually work, and now feel terribly embarrassed for having written several pages about an idea that probably won't work.
Not to mention that as empowering as it was to discover my own process, LCT made it very clear that the intention of the prompt was not to learn about my process in general, but to learn about the specific questions I would ask about this show. Well. I know what the main questions I would ask - some broad questions about what the story in my interpretation is really about and whether or not that's a worthwhile story to tell - but I don't know the answers to those questions yet and, given that, delving into deeper, more incisive questions proved somewhat difficult. The whole proposal felt a bit circular, vague, and redundant to me.
I probably should have chosen a play that I had really, really, studied and had a lot of interesting ideas about, and a few, more specific questions that had yet to be answered. As opposed to the broad question I was asking, "Does this even make sense?" But alas, that does not exist for me right now. I haven't found a project that's really, really pulled me into it in a long time.
And maybe that's for the best. Or, to clarify, it's for the best that feel I answered the question inadequately precisely because I don't have any strong opinions about plays or projects right now. Perhaps if this were the right time for me to do this Lab, I would have a project like that. I desperately want to do the LCT Directors' Lab, but I want to do it at a point when I can really get the most out of it. LCT used a lot of, well, let's call it severe language about what kind of directors they expect to apply to the lab - where those directors are and where they see themselves going. So severe, in fact, that it almost scared me off. A lot of that business of where I am and where I'm going is still unclear to me. I know I want to do this for the rest of my life - beyond that, everything is sort of fuzzy. At first I thought to myself, "Maybe this ISN'T the year for the Lab," and then I thought, "Well, let's let them decide that."
So now they decide.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Inventive or Gimmicky?
I don't know if this is a legitimately interesting way to stage a piece, or just a big old gimmick, but I really wish I had found out about The Rubber Room before today. The idea (in case you don't feel like following the link) is that the same play is given to 5 different directors, each with an entirely different 5-person cast, and no communication between casts. Each night, one person from each cast goes on, never having performed with the other four before. The idea (presumably) is that each night is a fresh and totally unique depiction of five characters who really are meeting for the first time.
I would have liked to know whether it added new dimension to the text - and I think it could have - or if the concept was just that: concept-y and distracting. I'm also sort of fascinated by New York's rubber rooms and the multiplicity of two-sided stories that arise from them. The rubber room idea itself is a two-sided story. You can't just - for example - fire a teacher who's been accused of sexual misconduct without a fair inquiry, especially given how easily and carelessly a particularly manipulative child could throw around those accusations. But you can't very well keep them in the classroom around children either. So... what? What are the options there? And the concept works for the subject matter; five people with stories that can be seen from a host of perspectives merit a host of perspectives in the the interpretation of the play. Right? But did it actually work?
I'll never know. Regardless of whether it turned out to be a gripping piece of theater or a hokey gimmick, I would have loved to have seen it, would have loved to have been involved with it. Damn, damn, damn.
I would have liked to know whether it added new dimension to the text - and I think it could have - or if the concept was just that: concept-y and distracting. I'm also sort of fascinated by New York's rubber rooms and the multiplicity of two-sided stories that arise from them. The rubber room idea itself is a two-sided story. You can't just - for example - fire a teacher who's been accused of sexual misconduct without a fair inquiry, especially given how easily and carelessly a particularly manipulative child could throw around those accusations. But you can't very well keep them in the classroom around children either. So... what? What are the options there? And the concept works for the subject matter; five people with stories that can be seen from a host of perspectives merit a host of perspectives in the the interpretation of the play. Right? But did it actually work?
I'll never know. Regardless of whether it turned out to be a gripping piece of theater or a hokey gimmick, I would have loved to have seen it, would have loved to have been involved with it. Damn, damn, damn.
Friday, February 11, 2011
Connectivity and Possibilities
I saw Better Left Unsaid this past weekend, right from the comfort of my own couch, and it got me thinking about a lot of things.
The live-streamed play was, to put it simply, just really cool. It was a totally unique way of seeing a performance, and it was executed extremely well. The streaming was smooth and high quality, and the use of the three cameras that shot the production was engaging and dynamic, but unobtrusive enough that I never lost the feeling that that I was watching a play as opposed to another filmed medium.
The interactive features were great touches; the Twitter comments worked well, and I loved getting a tour of backstage, and watching the chats with the actors and tech people.
And, I have to admit, it was really, really nice to be able to support my colleagues from the comfort of my own home.
Watching the production ignited some flames of ideas that had been kindling since taking part in the #newplay discussions: one of the things that excited me most about the discussions about collaboration and connectivity that came out of the convening was the possibility of using new connective technology to collaborate across geographical boundaries. I touched on this briefly in another #newplay post, but Better Left Unsaid has got me considering the actual, specific ways to use this technology to our advantage as artists.
Because as exciting as internet connectivity is to me, it leaves me with a sort of conundrum. What I love about theater, what sets it apart from every other art form, is the liveness of it. There is nothing quite like actually being in a room with the art as it's being created. There's an immediacy to it, and a sense of community that is inherently lost when you put someone miles away and behind a computer screen.
It's definitely an amazing thing to join in a nationwide, or even worldwide conversation about art. But what about actual making and experiencing of the art? The question of how to reconcile the possibility of connective technology with theater's need for immediacy intrigues me, so I started jotting down some ideas.
This is all really rough - nothing cohesive or fully formed about any of it yet. But I thought I'd start thinking and sharing nonetheless.
A couple of shows I remember hearing about that have connective possibilities:
The Lysistrata Project. Does anyone remember when the Iraq war first started and, in protest, schools all over the country participated in performing Lysistrata at the same time? I remember because both my old high school and my college participated.
The recent performance of Antigone that I read about, but didn't see where they used Facebook, Twitter and/or YouTube as the chorus.
Some other ideas.
Oh man. I didn't expect it, but I'm actually really excited about a lot of these ideas. There is definitely a project in here somewhere.
If anybody has any stories of a collaboration over distance that worked out well, or other ideas to keep building on, I would absolutely love to hear them. Or, if anybody is interested in thinking more about/putting into motion any of the above ideas, I definitely want to talk to you.
The live-streamed play was, to put it simply, just really cool. It was a totally unique way of seeing a performance, and it was executed extremely well. The streaming was smooth and high quality, and the use of the three cameras that shot the production was engaging and dynamic, but unobtrusive enough that I never lost the feeling that that I was watching a play as opposed to another filmed medium.
The interactive features were great touches; the Twitter comments worked well, and I loved getting a tour of backstage, and watching the chats with the actors and tech people.
And, I have to admit, it was really, really nice to be able to support my colleagues from the comfort of my own home.
Watching the production ignited some flames of ideas that had been kindling since taking part in the #newplay discussions: one of the things that excited me most about the discussions about collaboration and connectivity that came out of the convening was the possibility of using new connective technology to collaborate across geographical boundaries. I touched on this briefly in another #newplay post, but Better Left Unsaid has got me considering the actual, specific ways to use this technology to our advantage as artists.
Because as exciting as internet connectivity is to me, it leaves me with a sort of conundrum. What I love about theater, what sets it apart from every other art form, is the liveness of it. There is nothing quite like actually being in a room with the art as it's being created. There's an immediacy to it, and a sense of community that is inherently lost when you put someone miles away and behind a computer screen.
It's definitely an amazing thing to join in a nationwide, or even worldwide conversation about art. But what about actual making and experiencing of the art? The question of how to reconcile the possibility of connective technology with theater's need for immediacy intrigues me, so I started jotting down some ideas.
This is all really rough - nothing cohesive or fully formed about any of it yet. But I thought I'd start thinking and sharing nonetheless.
A couple of shows I remember hearing about that have connective possibilities:
The Lysistrata Project. Does anyone remember when the Iraq war first started and, in protest, schools all over the country participated in performing Lysistrata at the same time? I remember because both my old high school and my college participated.
- What if you live-streamed all of the productions at the same time? Or had a website where you could access all of the productions at any time?
- You could coordinate with other productions in other areas to realize same artistic vision in multiple places.
- Or the opposite: connect w/ other creative teams in other places to make each production distinctly different. Or some combination of the two, e.g., certain ideas or design elements are agreed upon by all creative teams, but within the structure, a certain degree of creative autonomy? Or - each team charged assigned a different approach to design or given a different theme to explore within the same work.
- Really like the idea in general of presenting the same show in tandem across the country for the purpose of making a particular point or reaching a goal.
- Like! What if - if we were talking about Lysystrata, say - you could tweet to the White House or your representatives while you were watching it, or there were links shown (on the website, or even live too) about how to get involved. Or a hashtag, to create a dialogue, with a running account of the conversation?
The recent performance of Antigone that I read about, but didn't see where they used Facebook, Twitter and/or YouTube as the chorus.
- Imagine it was all scripted and taped, but is there anyway to use that as a connecting point? A greek chorus, say, streamed in from 12 different parts of the world?
- Relatedly, what about the possibility of exploring characters or story elements that that can be told/seen/experienced remotely?
- Or! The same story, told from two different points of view, in two different places - in both places you see one angle live, and other live-streamed, and vice versa... does that make sense?
Some other ideas.
- Two shows in repertory in two different places: the first one is live, the second, live-streamed.
- The same show, but some scenes or acts shown live, some streamed from different places.
- You could do it exquisite corpse style, where each creative team gets the script (or maybe just a portion of the script) w/ no communication and see what happens.
- Or the opposite: extreme collaboration - skyping in to one another's rehearsals - online production meetings - maybe even live actors communicating with streamed actors on stage.
- That last one - live actors communicating with streamed actors on stage - could also be applied to the idea of telling the same story from two points of view in two different places.
- Live-streamed play readings or workshop forums via Twitter.
Oh man. I didn't expect it, but I'm actually really excited about a lot of these ideas. There is definitely a project in here somewhere.
If anybody has any stories of a collaboration over distance that worked out well, or other ideas to keep building on, I would absolutely love to hear them. Or, if anybody is interested in thinking more about/putting into motion any of the above ideas, I definitely want to talk to you.
Monday, December 13, 2010
My Last Play
So there's this new play, "My Last Play," that been getting a fair amount of publicity due to an intriguing article in the NY Times.
I'm completely sold on this piece; I cannot wait to see it.
As one who has spent, well, a lot of time recently pondering my place in the theater world and theater's place in mine, taking part this rumination on how a person could come to their last play is more than interesting to me - it seems necessary.
Of course, there's also the speculation that this might not actually be his last play, rather a gimmick or a complicated form of subversion. The NY Times article says that,
Which says-without-saying that this miiiiiiight not be as truthful as it's purported by its author to be.
And then, later, his brother comes right out and says it:
There have also been some grumblings, some general cynycism about the veracity of the piece across my twitter-feed. Someone likened it to a Joaquin Phoenix mockumentary type hoax.
Me? I really don't care.
I don't think it matters whether or not he ever writes a play again. The point is, he was there. Somewhere, at some point, for some reason, he sat down and looked at himself in the mirror and said, I don't have it in me to do this anymore.
And at the risk of sounding a bit melodramatic, that rocks you. It changes who you thought you were and what you thought you were capable of. Everything you ever believed about humanity, love, faith, life, is twisted up somehow in that passion for the art and when it leaves you, well, that means all the other stuff leaves as well. And what do you do when you come to that point? What do you believe in, who are you at all when nothing you understood about the world seems relevant?
In the end it doesn't matter whether you come back from that edge, just standing over it leaves you a kind of bereft that doesn't heal over too quickly. I know, because I've been there. And, what's more, I'm pretty sure almost everyone else in theater who's been around long enough has too.
It reminds me a pair of short stories in Tim O'Brien's astounding meditation on Vietnam, The Things They Carried. In the first, he recalls a memory of a soldier he killed, of the guilt and fear and horror he felt staring into the young enemy's dead face - no more than a boy, really.
Later, he confesses that the story was made up. He never actually killed a man while serving in Vietnam. But he might have. He would have. And he is left with "faceless responsibility and faceless grief." To imagine the man, to evoke the story wherein he pulls the trigger, is only to give substance to a truth he already feels.
"'Daddy, tell the truth,' Kathleen can say. 'Did you ever kill anybody?' And I can say, honestly, 'Of course not,'" says O'Brien. "But I can also say, honestly, 'Yes.'"
I would imagine if anybody were to ask Ed Schmidt if he's really done his last play, he might very well be able to honestly answer, "No, of course not." But he can also honestly answer, "Yes." And so can I.
I'm completely sold on this piece; I cannot wait to see it.
As one who has spent, well, a lot of time recently pondering my place in the theater world and theater's place in mine, taking part this rumination on how a person could come to their last play is more than interesting to me - it seems necessary.
Of course, there's also the speculation that this might not actually be his last play, rather a gimmick or a complicated form of subversion. The NY Times article says that,
If this all sounds overly self-referential (and it should) and maybe a little self-pitying and overwrought — Mr. Schmidt confesses in the play that his sister-in-law, a therapist, is fearful that he’s suicidal — well, hold on. A sly boots of a playwright and a gifted dissembler, Mr. Schmidt has been known to subvert traditional theater forms.
Which says-without-saying that this miiiiiiight not be as truthful as it's purported by its author to be.
And then, later, his brother comes right out and says it:
“I don’t necessarily buy that this is his last play,” Steve Schmidt said. “I see it as of a piece with the direction his career has gone. He’s playing very creatively with what is fiction and what isn’t and with ways of manipulating the audience.”
There have also been some grumblings, some general cynycism about the veracity of the piece across my twitter-feed. Someone likened it to a Joaquin Phoenix mockumentary type hoax.
Me? I really don't care.
I don't think it matters whether or not he ever writes a play again. The point is, he was there. Somewhere, at some point, for some reason, he sat down and looked at himself in the mirror and said, I don't have it in me to do this anymore.
And at the risk of sounding a bit melodramatic, that rocks you. It changes who you thought you were and what you thought you were capable of. Everything you ever believed about humanity, love, faith, life, is twisted up somehow in that passion for the art and when it leaves you, well, that means all the other stuff leaves as well. And what do you do when you come to that point? What do you believe in, who are you at all when nothing you understood about the world seems relevant?
In the end it doesn't matter whether you come back from that edge, just standing over it leaves you a kind of bereft that doesn't heal over too quickly. I know, because I've been there. And, what's more, I'm pretty sure almost everyone else in theater who's been around long enough has too.
It reminds me a pair of short stories in Tim O'Brien's astounding meditation on Vietnam, The Things They Carried. In the first, he recalls a memory of a soldier he killed, of the guilt and fear and horror he felt staring into the young enemy's dead face - no more than a boy, really.
Later, he confesses that the story was made up. He never actually killed a man while serving in Vietnam. But he might have. He would have. And he is left with "faceless responsibility and faceless grief." To imagine the man, to evoke the story wherein he pulls the trigger, is only to give substance to a truth he already feels.
"'Daddy, tell the truth,' Kathleen can say. 'Did you ever kill anybody?' And I can say, honestly, 'Of course not,'" says O'Brien. "But I can also say, honestly, 'Yes.'"
I would imagine if anybody were to ask Ed Schmidt if he's really done his last play, he might very well be able to honestly answer, "No, of course not." But he can also honestly answer, "Yes." And so can I.
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