Orcas Island (where I live) is a retirement community (and tourist destination in the summer) of about 3,000 people in the winter and lots more in the summer. I think I read somewhere that the average age on Orcas is in the 60’s!

In my experience, there are three types of actors (I use the phrase “actor” to include both male and female actors).

First are the naturals. Those who just have it. Maybe they are born with it, maybe they develop it early in life. The Bravo channel on TV has a series “Inside The actors Studio” where Jame Lipton interviews famous actors, writers and others involved with movies and the stage theater. I have learned from this show that the overwhelming number of famous actors had a childhood that was not happy and supportive. Something must happen internally during that period that gives them the tools they need to inhabit other people. I’m an example of someone who had a great childhood and isn’t (and will probably never be) an above average actor.

Theatrical directors will never miss a natural. You can see it a mile off.

I’ve talked about it before but I want to revisit it:

Sometime around 2005, I saw a presentation of the second play in the King Arthur series: “Arthur: The Hunt”. I was so impressed with the play, I sought out the playwright and got a copy of the first Arthur play: “Arthur: The Begetting”. I loved it. I can’t tell you how much I loved the story. It was (and still is) one of the two or three best scripts i have EVER read!! I mean it was really good!! Get the idea???

It is the story of Igraine, Arthur’s mother, from her teen years until Arthur is born. The last line in the play (I still remember it after all these years. Emrys (The Merlin) faces the audience and says:

“And the next year, in early summer, to Uther and Igraine, a child was given, a child she and I knew would be the hope of the people, a king like none before him.

When the boy was but a twelve-month old, she came to me, and on that same hillside, she gave me him to raise, and bade me call him…Arthur.” That is the first time in the entire play that the word “Arthur” is used.

Jeff Berryman, to my great joy, writes love stories with a strong female lead. Igraine in the first play, Arthur’s half sister Morgan in the second play and a new character, Sinead, in the third.

As you can see from the above, the language is uses is just beautiful: Rich in sound and tone. Fun to say and fun to listen to.

In “Arthur: The Begetting”, Igraine is married to Teyrnon, in love with her childhood lover Emrys and meets Uther Pendragon. For two hours we watch the story unfold.

Anyway, I knew I needed a special woman to play Igraine. I didn’t have that actor. I had a couple coming along that might have been able to pull it off, but they needed more experience. The trouble was that, for a number of reasons, they kept moving off island. After waiting for five years with this play burning a hole in my heart, I decided to go ahead and do the play with what I had. I hoped that out of a couple young women, I could find someone to play Igraine. I had lots of options for the rest of the cast. So I announced auditions.

This is an aside: Every time I start to write something, I keep having to back up and tell you something else before I can continue my story. I feel like I’m telling the story backwards. Remember this journal started out to be about the play I’m directing right now “Love Song”. I have the feeling we will end up at the Big Bang before I’m done.

Anyway, I need to talk about auditions. I hate auditions. Actors hate auditions. Actors hate auditions because they are going to be judged and, most likely, rejected. I hate auditions because I am going to have to tell many people that I did not choose them. I need to have a reason why I rejected them (Well, technically I don’t HAVE to tell them why, but I feel I owe it to them). And many times there is no reason other than a gut feel that one actor will do better than the other. These actors have become my friends and it is very hard to tell them they didn’t get the part.

There are many other considerations besides acting ability that come into play: I’m going to spend hundreds of hours with them over the next three months. Is this a person I want to spend that much time with? How is this person going to fit into the ensemble I’m going to build? Can I trust them? Will that person walk through fire for me? (There are always parts of a play that the actor isn’t going to be comfortable with: Kissing, sexually suggestive scenes, partial (or once total) nudity. Are they going to go outside their comfort zone for me? It’s always a risk. I try to explain it to them before we start but they’ll say anything, agree to anything to get the part. Then reality sets in. “Arthur: The Begetting” required Igraine to profess her love to three different men. Lots of effort to build three sets of sexual tension. Really hard for young women in their 20’s to handle. Most plays have a leading character. Once that character is selected, it constrains my choices for the other characters due to age, height and so on. In “Love Song” (see I haven’t forgotten) I have a brother/sister combination. The ages need to be believable.

I’ve tried several different ways to hold auditions. All are okay, none is perfect. For “Arthur: The Begetting”, I decided to just have people sit around a big table and read from the script. My plan was that every ten minutes or so, I’d switch the actors to a different role.

Anyway, I always start auditions, rehearsals and performances on time (actually three minutes late). My motto is “If you are ten minutes early, you are on time. If you are on time you are ten minutes late.” First, it is inconsiderate to the rest of us to wait around for the last one to arrive. Secondly, I never have enough rehearsal time and every minute is important. The other side of the equation is also true: I will let the rehearsal out on time. Period.

So about a dozen of us (ten actors, my stage manager and me) are sitting around the table just about to start.

In walks a beautiful young woman. (Photo of her as Igraine casting a spell is attached). She had never been on stage before it but always wanted to try. I had already passed out the scripts for the first group of readers. Some of the actors were doing well. The heightened language threw some of them.

After about fifteen minutes I re-distributed the scripts for others to read the parts. This new woman got to read for Igraine. She was a natural. Never been on stage before. About three minutes into the reading the other actors started looking at me. It was a really big “WOW” moment. A natural. I couldn’t have found a better actor. Not only was she a great actor, she was a leader of the cast: hard working, serious about her work. That cast was one of the best ensembles I have ever worked with. Turns out she was 37 with four children.

All this to talk about “natural” actors. Those who are borne with it. Not many of them but they are sure a wonderful find.

Next time I’m going to talk about actors who get there with a lot of hard work.

The photo below is Igraine casting a spell during the performance.

I will get back to “Love Song”.   Really.

But first, I need to finish the discussion of two person plays and honoring the playwright’s intent.

A few years ago, I heard about a two person play by  Cindy Johnson: “Brilliant Traces”.  The play was written around two characters in their 20’s: He was a hermit who had given up on life and lived in a cabin in the wilds of Alaska; she ran away from her wedding in Arizona, got in her car and drove and drove until her car broke down.  You guessed it:  At his cabin in the middle of a blizzard.  For the next ninety three non-stop minutes we watch as these two lost souls struggle with the changes in their lives.  The playwright calls for a suggested, simple set.  The play is very popular on the college circuit since the ages are appropriate and the set is simple.

I heard about the play when I talked to a director from a nearby university who had just finished a very different approach to the play:  Five universities from Boston to Washington State, rehearsed the play at the same time.  Then the female actors went to another university for the performance.  Think about it:  When the female actress opens the door of his cabin, she is on a set she has never seen before, facing an  actor she has never met.  Knowing her lines but having no idea how the blocking (movement) will unfold.  Imagine how scary that would be.  The next weekend the actresses went another university until, on closing weekend, she was finally back home acting in the play she had rehearsed.  A wonderful concept – something I have tried to figure out a way to do it locally but maybe on a smaller scale.

Anyway, I got the script to see what it was about.  I really liked it but . . . I saw a very different play than Cindy Johnson had in mind when she wrote it.  First I saw older actors, actors tho had a lifetime of experiences to bring to their characters.  Actors who have experienced more than a pair of 20 year old actors could ever experience.  I also saw a very real set.  The raw wood boards that make the walls, a small cabin where someone could hide from the world.  I knew that if I went forward with the play, I would have to be true to my vision of the play.  I’ve attached a photo of the set and actors.

I passed the script on to a woman around 60 years old to consider the female role and suggest a man she would like to work with.  She recommended an actor in his mid 60’s who had attended several acting training programs but had never been in on stage before.    We got together and read through the play a couple of times and I loved the way the two actors worked together.

Another digression:  Rehearsing a play.  For the most part, amateur play production rehearse around an hour for each minute of the play:  A ninety minute play will have ninety hours of rehearsal.  (Professional plays may have two or three times as much rehearsal time).  The larger the cast the longer each rehearsal can be.  In a two person play an hour and a half to two hours is about it:  The actors begin to tire.  In a large cast play, rehearsals can stretch to three or even four hours.  We decided to rehearse two afternoons a week for two hours each time.  (I had other plays in rehearsal at night so that option was out.)

We started rehearsing in the fall of 2008 without having a firm performance date.  We were going to rehearse it until it was ready.  In early 2009, we set a performance date in the fall of 2009.  By the time the show opened, we had almost 300 hours of rehearsal.  Our small 60 seat theater set an all time attendance record with this play:  We had an average audience of 71 people.

In 2010 we rented a theater in Seattle and did nine performances there.

Did I honor the playwrights intent?  I think so.  I think the ultimate intent of a playwright is to write a play that moves people.  “Brilliant Traces” definitely did that.

I have directed somewhere around 80 plays; “Brilliant Traces” is one of my five favorite plays.  “Enchanted April” is another.

Maybe we can get back to “Love Song” tomorrow.

Doug B

I’ll get back to “Love Song”.  I promise.  But first i want to talk about another play.

I think the hardest play to direct is a one person play.  I have never had the opportunity to find the actor/play combination that would work.  First, the time commitment of the actor in a one actor, 90 to 120 minute play is monstrous:  Memorizing the lines, finding ways to make it visually interesting and most importantly the ability to become all the other characters in the play makes the challenges almost insurmountable.  In a multiple person play, the actor has someone on stage with then they can rely upon if they go up on their lines or lose their place in the play.  It’s a whole different situation when you are on stage by yourself.

I have directed a couple of two person plays and find them really challenging.

I need to digress for a moment.

One of the rules for directing required the director to honor and illuminate the “intent” of the playwright in presenting the play.  In some cases (“Arthur:  The Begetting” and “Torso”, for example) I have built some degree of a relationship with the playwright and can ask them when I have questions as to their intent in a specific part of the play.  Other playwrights are too important for me to bother (Me?  Call Neil Simon?  Never happen.)   And still others are dead.  (Hey Will (Shakespeare), what did you mean in this scene?)

In 2007 I directed the play “Enchanted April” by Matthew Barber, from the novel by Elizabeth von Armin.  Here we have a double layer of interpretation:  My interpretation of Barber’s interpretation of the von Armin book.  I went back and read the book and I disagreed with some of Barber’s interpretation of the story.  What do I do?  In this particular case, I had seen two other productions of the play:  One at a very small theater in Olympia, Washington and one at a large  community theater in Ocala, Florida.  In both cases, their interpretation of a specific part of the play was the same but I thought then and still think seven years later that their interpretation was wrong.  Not just a little bit wrong but, to me, wrong enough to ruin the impact of the play.

I know I’m wandering from my main point but I want to follow this thought.

Enchanted April takes place in London and Italy in the 1920’s.  Four women, who all have major troubles in their lives meet and spend a month in Italy, ultimately solving their personal issues that make the play tick.  One of the women, Rose, had become distanced from her husband for (initially) unknown reasons.  In his loneliness, he socializes a lot without his wife.  He has met a beautiful, young woman (Lady Caroline) who, unknown to him, is one of the four women going to Italy.  In the first act (which takes place in London), we see the growing distance between Rose and her husband.  We see that he, at least, loves his wife very much but together they are unable to bridge the growing distance between them.  In the second act, we see how sad Rose is and how much she misses her husband and how unhappy she is.  One of the other women (Lottie) assures Rose that her husband will come to Italy to be with her.

Now to the point of all of this:  Late in the second act (just before Roses husband arrives to meet with Lady Caroline), Rose tells Lottie that the reason he won’t come is because she (Rose) can’t love him.  Rose bases this on the fact that they had a child that died.

Now my interpretation:  Rose can’t love him (in a physical sense, not the emotional sense) because she can’t stand the pain of losing another child.  Remember, this is in the 1920’s when birth control was no really available.  Anyway in both the Olympia and Ocala productions, the two actors were sitting on the floor in a remote area of the stage during this discussion (as called for in the script).  In my production I had the two actors standing at the very edge of the stage, as close to the audience as i could get them.  I had Rose, with tears streaming down her face,  shout her line:  “Lottie, I lost my child.”  Lottie used her thumbs to wipe away Roses tears as she assures her everything will be okay.  Of course, everything does end happily.

At the very end of the play, Lottie faces the audience and tells them “That they all gathered in Italy again the following year and . . . there would be a new child. . . .”    Without my interpretation that last line doesn’t mean anything.

A very different interpretation but who is to say that mine isn’t the way the author intended it?

When I direct a play, I spend two months in heavy study and analysis of the script, then two months of rehearsals then one month of performances.  For me to spend this kind of time on a play, it has to have a message that I MUST tell people.  It is that vision that I HAVE to bring to the stage.  It is the lesson the audience MUST learn.  That’s one reason that I read close to 100 plays in order to find one that moves me to the point where I HAVE to direct it.

King Lear is in that boat but I haven’t found the right actors to populate it and probably never will.  One Bucket List item that will never get checked off.

But enough wanderings for today.

Doug

Want to start out by talking about the play I am currently directing: “Love Song” By John Kolvenback

Over the past fifteen years, my taste in plays has changed. I’m the first one to tell you that making money is important. Art is great but without money, there is no theater and without theater, there can be no art.

I have always been good at picking plays to produce and direct. Early on they were comedies and farces – playwrights like: Neil Simon, Milmore and VanZandt and Michael Parker – people loved them and our attendance grew rapidly. I soon branched out into well known dramas: “Wait Until Dark”, “Enchanted April” and “Arsenic and Old Lace” to name a few. Again, popular pieces that have withstood the test of time. Our theater has become very successful (far beyond my greatest expectations) with plenty of money in the bank and great support from the community. (Our success is also a burden but that is a story for another day.)

Things began to change in 2006 when I saw the play “Arthur: The Hunt” by Seattle playwright Jeff Berryman. I was very impressed with the play which was the second play in a series of seven plays which tell the story of King Arthur. I tracked down the playwright and got a copy of the first play in the series: “Arthur: The Begetting”. It read far better than the second play was on stage. “Arthur: The Begetting” follows the story of Arthur’s mother, Igraine, from her early life until the birth of Arthur. What excited me about the play was the approach: A strong female lead wrapped around a three way love story. The two Arthur plays we have done to date are not the Camelot we have all come to expect. They have sex, violence, mysticism and difficult themes (like incest). The play broke attendance records.

Somewhere between presenting the two Arthur plays, I saw a play the play “Torso” in Seattle. “Torso” was also written by a Seattle playwright, Keri Healey. I attended it because I knew the Director and one of the actors. Had I known what the play was about I probably would not have gone: Two different stories loosely joined together. In one story, a brother and sister (Margo and Dominick) plan and carry out the murder of their other brother (Anson). Late in the play, Dominick returns from killing his brother, covered in blood. While we watch in horror, he is stripped naked and the blood washed off him as he graphically describes beating his brother to death with a baseball bat. WOW!!! Audiences stayed away in droves but those who came were enthusiastic and the play made money. There was not a single complaint about the nudity.

Shortly after “Torso” came “Tracers” a blood and guts story of soldiers in Viet Nam.

What we learned from these plays was that they appealed to a totally new audience: Younger people.

Today, the under 35 age group is the fastest growing segment of our audience.

I will get to “Love Song” soon. I need to present some background on how I came to select this play but that’s it for today.Photo from TORSO: