Tuesday 4 – June 19th

It hasn’t been my fault I haven’t posted for two days. The great internet computer has been so busy that I haven’t been able to log in.

Interesting walking to LCT. Today the mothers were out in force pushing every size and type of stroller. At one end there are the big units with tires that would fit a car. Some are almost the size of and look like HumVee’s. Then there are the twelve wheel, four axel two seat models. Some older kids have little tricycles with a long push handle on it.

Sight of the morning: A woman comes out of an apartment on West End Avenue with a little dog in her arms. She sets the dog down on the sidewalk and starts to take the dog for a walk. The dog sits down. The woman goes back and picks up the dogs rear end and starts to walk again. The dog sits again. The woman goes back and picks up the dogs rear end again and carefully aligns the dog with the sidewalk. She starts to walk again and the dog sits again. The woman picks up the dog and carries it off.

Today was another busy day. Our days are getting even more hectic as our days remaining winds down. We are now having brown bag sessions during the lunch and dinner breaks. These are sessions the group decided to hold so we could talk about common problems.

Our day started off with 90 minutes talking to Andre Bishop, Artistic Director of LCT.

He described the start of the Non Profit theaters in the late 1960’s. At that time theaters were all doing the old standards and new material came from touring Broadway shows. By the 1980’s the regional theaters were looking for new works but most came from playwrights living nearby. In New York, Playwrights Horizons was trying to support all playwrights by giving them support including readings and productions. Playwrights Horizons had fallen on hard times when Bishop took it over. He narrowed the focus and concentrated on the most promising playwrights: Wasserstein, Finn, Durang, Gurney.

He said the diversity of what is happening around the country is truly astounding. Millions of people go to American theaters each year to see new plays. He is not sure the current new play production model is outdated but it may have become too big.

Last season, for the first time in his life, he did not have any new plays or playwrights to work with. They are in school, have commissions to work with other theaters or are otherwise occupied. “I don’t know if I get the play, but I get the quality of the writing”.

The landscape of theater is changing again. Theaters are being forced, in a good way, to open their doors for a new generation of playwrights. He said he expected to spend the rest of his life working with the writers he grew up with.

He said writers get trapped by tying themselves to second rate directors. They have to be willing to cut the string when the time is right. There are many, many, many more plays today so the competition it tough.

LCT has the only thrust stage in NYC. Remember that thrust stages work well for majestic productions not walls and doors.

In response to a question he said that failure is more interesting to talk about than it is to go through. He said he is not certain that writers, directors and producers learn much from failures because a defense mechanism sets in. He said that he thinks the some of their failures were some of the best work they’ve done.

He doesn’t pick a season. He picks work as he finds good material that appeals to him.

American Theater needs good directors as much, if not more than, it news new playwrights.

He said that the best way for a young director to move up is to work with a GOOD director who can recommend them for a job that is right for them.

He said the best thing about drama schools are the friendships that will last for the rest of your life. He said he is leery of directors coming out of schools who have been taught by bitter, out of work directors.

We spent time talking to Ben Cameron in the afternoon. He used to be the Executive Director of TCG – the national organization of the nonprofit professional theaters. A really interesting speaker. The first speaker who got a standing ovation from us. I’m too tired to include all my notes – maybe another day.

We had asked LCT to put aside some time so we could talk to each other about who we were as directors. We did the speed dating thing: Sit across from another director and have 60 seconds to tell them what kind of work you do as a director. Then they get 60 seconds. Then you have 5 seconds to change seats and do it all over again – 60 times. It took 2 ½ hours and the noise level was unbelievable and we were all hoarse by the end of the night. It wasn’t very successful for me because I didn’t have time to write down what the others did.

Long day. Today was even longer but that is for another day.

Monday 4, June 18th

Ten days till I go home.

I love New York.

I feel guilty because I keep falling behind in my blogs.

Back to the weekend. I finally found that there is human life in New York City. For the first time ever, someone spoke to me on the street. First: how it came about. There are five main streets between 80th and Lincoln Center. On the east we have Central Park West (very seldom take that one). Then moving west we have Columbus (lots of businesses) , Amsterdam (wall to wall restaurants), Broadway (all sorts of businesses including some restaurants), West End (residential) and Riverside (the park to the west, mostly residential to the east). Except that Broadway curves eastward. At 80th Broadway is east of West End Avenue but by 72nd street it crosses Amsterdam and by 65th (Lincoln Center) it crosses Columbus. So I can take a number of walking routes to get to LCT. On Sunday I was walking on West End Avenue – you know just taking in the scenery – human and otherwise – when another pedestrian (a woman) actually looked at me. NO ONE in New York ever looks at someone else. Not only did she look at me – she talked to me. She said “nice hat”. I said “thank you”. I was wearing my straw hat so I probably deserved the compliment but it was totally unexpected. It reminded me of Lopez where everyone waves – just to remind everyone that there is a real live person in this hunk of metal that is approaching you. When I tried to explain it to my friend Hank tonight, he was surprised that I thought that someone in NYC might actually have time to talk to me or even look at me.

Before I get to Sunday, just a minute about today. Today was our day off. I took off at 10 am, walked to Times Square (38 blocks) with a few stops along the way including LCT. I stopped because I wanted to print out version five of a scene that is troubling me. I know what I want out of it but I just can’t seem to get there. Anyway, LCT has a computer lab that we get to use. I wasn’t sure they would let me in but there was no problem. I think I was the only person in the whole compound. I printed out the latest version of the scene. It still doesn’t work. By the time I get to Times Square, it is noon so I try the Olive Garden – I have my usual (in Washington) – soup and salad. I particularly like the Toscana soup but it is very bland. That is my take on food in New York – it is all bland – except hotdogs from the street vendors – they are really good. During lunch I worked on the scene – still not there.

Then I went down to Bryant Park – a nice park – New York has a lot of very nice parks. Worked on the script. The reason I went there is that I had a 4 pm party for an English director who had to leave a week early to start work on a play she is directing next week. Not her choice. I had come to know her and think a lot of her. We’ll here from her later in life – although maybe in England.

My social life is getting busy. Today I had the going away party at 4 pm, dinner with Hank at 5:30 and a birthday party for another lab director at 8 pm.

Now back to the reason I’m here.

On Sunday we had another session with David Grimm on play writing. When we left him on Saturday, he asked us to think of the worst thing that could happen to the character we developed Saturday. I wrestled with lots of things but when I was walking to LCT on Sunday morning (just before the lady complimented me on my hat) I passed a residential home for those with Alzheimers. I decided that would be the worst thing that could happen to her. When I was writing the scene, the salty language turned out to be an early indicator of Alzheimers. Nice closure.

Anyway, David took all the stuff we had typed up from Saturday and selected stuff that we will present on Tuesday. He picked two of the thing I had written. I’ll share them with you someday.

After lunch each playwright (remember that we are really directors) cast his or her play from the other directors. I was lucky. Of the ten in our group there are seven women and three men. Of the three men, I’m the only one with English as their first language. Matteo is Italian and Michel is from The Netherlands so I got cast a lot. We will read them Tuesday.

Matteo is a cool guy. He wears black. Black suit, black shirt, black tie. But he pulls it off. It really looks good on him. Michel is a composer of music. Both really nice guys.

David Grimm is a guy we need to get to Orcas.

So much for the last two days.

Saturday 3 – June 16th – Day 12

As Anne Cattaneo explained on Friday, the first week of the lab we examined the roles of the playwrights and directors and designers and actors in bringing a new play to the stage. We spent the first part of this week looking at the actor – director role and relationship (pretty basic and redundant for most of us) and over the weekend we are going to look at the director playwright relationship. To do this, LCT put an experienced playwright with a group of ten directors. We are collectively to write a play (of whatever we are moved to do) and present it to the whole group on Tuesday.

Our group worked with David Grimm who teaches play writing at Yale. This guy is absolutely top drawer in getting us to put pen to paper and come up with something. I selected this group because he is working on character development. We spent six hours with one short break writing and sharing with each other. We sat around on the floor. And we wrote. And we wrote.

He started us off by having us think about our favorite play. Then he gave us a half hour to write it. I picked Enchanted April. I know I can’t write it in thirty minutes so I strip it down to the essentials: Two women find the advertisement and decide to spend a month in Italy. Rose has a melt down, Frederick arrives and Lottie has a closing monologue. About fifteen minutes into he tells us we have five minutes to write the ending to the play. Then we share the work.

Next is a “Rant”. Pick something in our lives that is really pissing us off and write about it. Don’t think about what you are writing just put the words down. If we get stuck, just write the last word over and over till we start again. Then we share them. Wow!!! What writing and what problems we all have.

We kept doing writing exercises that gradually built a character and then we had a dialog with that character. When we broke for lunch with instructions to write down dialog we heard from other people. We all felt like spies. When we got back we read the snippets and David made a list of phrases we heard. Each of us then picked one and wrote some dialog that included that line. Great fun.

Then he put a lot of small objects. I picked a small highly polished stone. We then described the object then transferred those attributes to a character. We then put the character on one side of a door. The character wanted something that someone on the other side of the door had.

Anyway, the whole day went like that. It was wonderful. I couldn’t imagine a batter day. THis one day (with the promise of Sunday) was worth the cost of the entire trip. Not that it’s the only day I have felt like this.

The good news is that he told us to type it up last night so he could have a hard copy. The bad news is that I can’t share a lot of it with you. Here’s what I can tell you:

The attributes of my stone were: Smooth, sculptured, strong, sensual, warm, true, important, soothing. I won’t tell you what I named my character but it was based on a woman I know. The thing that really surprised me was that the more I wrote dialog for her, the saltier her language became – (definitely not true of the woman I named her after) – by the end of the afternoon her language would make a sailor blush. Remind you of A.I.R.E.?????

Before I move on, here is David’s sure fire recipe for writing a play:

Act 1 Get the character up a tree.
Act 2 Throw rocks at him.
Act 3 Get him down.

During the evening, we met in small groups with low and mid level playwrights to explore how the process of bringing new plays to market works. There are a lot fo issues but everyone agreed that a personal relationship between the playwright and director is the single most important factor. We struggled to find ways to get playwrights and directors together.

On one hand, most theaters have a specific type of plays they do. At most they have one new play slot a year but even then it can’t push the audiences too far outside what they expect from the theater. On the other hand, most playwrights write far broader material and it make take several theaters to produce the varying works.

There is a real feeling the if a play if done outside of New York first it is dead to New York. No one wants to produce a play that has had it’s world premier in a regional theater.

I have pages of notes from our discussion but I don’t know that I’ll ever get to type them up.

Now to the fun part: Remember the laughing thing we did in the clown class? Remember that we (not that I was actually a part of the decision) decided to do it on the plaza in front of Lincoln Center Theater? Well, some warped mind decided that we should do it in Grand Central Train Station. So thirty of us hop the subway to 42nd street, change to the Grand Central shuttle and up to the main concourse of Grand Central (which is really a very pretty place).

Two of the directors from other countries made me promise to call their embassy’s if we were arrested.

We split up and spread out around the concourse in ones and twos. I started with John the laugher from Wednesday night. We were at the bottom of an escalator. I can hear people laughing over top of the background noise level of the station. John is next to me laughing his ass off. It makes me laugh too. For some reason we start to move together into a group – it’s so much more fun to watch the others laugh. In about five minutes four VERY large soldiers show up. No guns but these guys were big enough not to need guns. They didn’t do anything – just kept an eye on us. Then someone official came out and said we were disturbing people and we had to stop. As we move back to the shuttle our military watchers kept us in sight. We tried laughing on the subway but it seemed to make people uncomfortable.

We stopped at a bar for a beer for dinner.

Then back for the evening session then home at 11 and write up my stuff for today’s play writing session.

At least we didn’t get arrested. Lincoln Center would probably not be too happy having to come down and bail us out of jail.

I hate to be two days behind on my journal. I want to write about Saturday because that is what’s at the top of my mind but I have to talk about Friday first.

But at least I can give you a teaser about Saturday – actually two: First Saturday by itself was worth the whole trip. Of course this is not the first time this has happened but I have to tell you about it. Second, do you remember the “laugh in” we were going to have on the plaza? Well it happened but not like you might think. But those stories are for tomorrow. (Or hopefully later today so I can get back on schedule.)

Friday was a slow day. We had three sessions but still finished at 5 and got the evening off. There was a party at a house up in Harlem but it didn’t start until 11 pm and we had a full day on Saturday so I didn’t go. I guess some of those who went didn’t get home till 4 am. Too late for me.

The first session today was about devised works. Devised works are plays that are developed during the rehearsal process. There are a wide range of ways to make this happen but in general, each participant brings an object or text or something that is important to them or that they think should be in the play. Then during the rehearsal process the group makes decisions as to which objects will be incorporated and which will not. Then a script is jointly developed and the rehearsal process continues as usual.

It didn’t excite me but I was surprised how many people are doing it.

After that Anne Cattaneo who is the Director of the Lab did a Q & A. We talked mostly about her various roles at LCT. She was the dramaturg on The Coast of Utopia – she started with the principal actors six weeks before rehearsals began to educate them on the historical environment of the play. This is something that I need to be more aware of – Enchanted April would have benefited greatly to have had a resource like this available to us.

She said that she doubted that The Coast of Utopia would ever be remounted again. It cost $7 million to do – far more than most theaters are willing to risk. The play ran nine hours – actually three shows that were three hour each.

Her “main” job at LCT is to read plays, work with playwrights to find a venue appropriate for the play and in general serve as the creative advocate of the Playwright.

A few statistics: LCT has 46, 000 members with a three year waiting list to join. There are two theaters at LCT: the 1,200 seat Beaumont theater and the 300 seat Newhouse. They plan to build a third theater of 100 seats for smaller works but are having problems finding a place to build it. The Newhouse does three plays a year – usually a 4 ½ week rehearsal period plus a 16 week run. The larger Beaumont does 2 or 3 shows a year.

She said: Those in the field have a bad disconnect with academia. Academia is serving their own needs without knowledge or care of what is happening in the real world.

A final thought from her: Directing a play is like climbing Mt Everest: It takes a lot of support and help to make it happen.

In the afternoon, we had directors in our group from other countries tell us about theater in their countries. An interesting session.

An interesting statistic: On Broadway, the minimum wage for an actor in a minor (chorus) role in a musical is $1,800 a week. In England it is $671. Tickets to musicals in England are $130 – on a par with Broadway.

Some theaters in England have “Scratch Nights” where people can present a ten minute segment from their shows for free. They can be seen and picked up by the fringe theaters and ultimately by a major house.

An interesting day but not earthshaking.

Do you realize I’ll be home in less than two weeks? Good and bad.

Thursday 3 – June 14th Day 10

I was too tired to write this last night.

One thing I missed telling you about on Wednesday was one of the games during the “clown” session. He got five people to sit on the floor in a row. The first person was to get the second person laughing and the second person was to pass it on to the third and so on until it got to the fifth person who was to hit a ten on a 1 to 10 scale of laughing. Sound dumb? That’s being a clown. Anyway, the first group got everyone in the group laughing. I mean really laughing. I mean like pee in your pants laughing. And they kept laughing and kept on laughing and kept on laughing for minute after minute after minute. Every time the laughing slowed down, someone would start up again and in a second everyone was back laughing at full volume. This kept on and on. While they were doing this we were laughing too – it was just so funny watching the laughing start to quiet down then take off again. After several minutes the instructor pointed to three more to join them and then we had eight people laughing their asses off. In less than a minute he had the entire group sitting on the floor laughing. On my right was John – a director from NYC, on my left was Pia a director from London. They were both laughers. Just listening to them kept me laughing. After several minutes the laughing was slowing down except for the ones on either side of me. They were trying not to laugh but that made me laugh so off we were again – the whole group laughing . I don’t know how long it lasted but it was a long time.

Now there are a few misguided directors who have put together a plan for the whole group to do this on the plaza in front of the theater.

On Thursday we had the second days of the same three people we had on Wednesday.

Master Teacher Ron van Lieu.

As directors, we use adjectives as shorthand to communicate with our actors: Be funnier, sexier, bigger, softer. This puts the actors concentration on how to do that rather than what they are on stage to do. If the actors finds it themselves, they will own it and it will be more real to the audience.

When he was directing the actors in the scene from Streetcar Named Desire, he asked the actress playing Stella to describe the apartment after the party the night before. She described it in unbelievable detail right down to the way the room smelled (stale beer and man sweat). I was blown away by how much detail and how much work she had put into a room that was just a table and three chairs. Beware the next time I direct you in a scene!!!!

You (the actor) need to have your own opinions about statements made by the other actors. For example, In Streetcar, Blanch tells Stella that she went to Florida over Christmas. Do you believe her? Do you believe what she said she did in Florida?

To an actor: Before you do it for real, you have to throw it out there – over do it – make it over the top, so you can pull it back inside you and make it right. (Note: This is very different than the people I direct who keep taking baby steps and may never be big enough or over the top.)

There is a danger in complimenting an actor:
It puts an obligation on the actor to do it again
It makes the actor self conscious of it.

Compliment in general and correct specifically. (Don’t know if I can do this!!!)

“Lets do it one time badly.” Gives the actor permission to experiment and try things and do things that are clearly not right.

The actors who did Death of a Salesman on Wednesday were not available on Thursday so he invited another pair of actors. They did a scene from Ibsen’s Doll House. The guy in the scene was nothing to write home about. I was very under impressed with his first read through. Then Ron worked with them and they did it again. The guy was much better. I could see and so could Ron, that the actor wanted to do things but he was afraid to try. Ron gave him permission and they did the scene again. This guy blew my socks off. What a change just giving him permission!!! (Which is exactly what I would have done in that situation.)

In the afternoon we did more Clown stuff. I finally got up and worked but it just isn’t my thing. He kept saying “Commit to the stupid stuff”. Well, I’m sorry, I’m just not into stupid. I tried but I really didn’t enjoy it.

In the evening we did more vocal stuff. I learned one big thing. Telling an actor to be louder (ever heard me call “volume”?) doesn’t accomplish anything. It means that the actor doesn’t have enough support from the diaphragm and just trying to be louder with a chest voice just strains the vocal chords. Actors need to learn to speak from the diaphragm.