Saturday 2 – June 9th – Day Six

A different day today.

We didn’t need to arrive until 11 am today so I picked up my laundry. Good to be back in shirts, socks and skivvies.

First, we had the fifth of the five plays that they have been rehearsing. It was a 65 minute play titled “Minor Gods”. A very interesting premise: A man has developed a test that will tell if a fetus will turn into a gay or lesbian. The man is seeking government funding to find a “cure” for those for those fetus’ who may turn gay.

What could have been a very heavy play was lightened considerably but some very well done humor. Nevertheless the play at times seemed disconnected and talky. There were some very long passages that need to be shortened.

Of particular interest is that the cast spent 2 ½ weeks at the table and only three days on their feet. Also of interest, the play takes place in a motel room and on the three days they were on their feet, the set designer changed the size of the hotel room. The actors liked the challenge.

But – – – again they spent most of the time working on rewriting the script.

This afternoon, we split up into groups of 25 with some directors, some actors, some playwrights and some designers. They gave us a page with a lot of questions on it. Most related to how things worked with the playwright in the room. I offered my thoughts on how the process went was roundly criticized. (What’s new?) I still think I am right. What I heard over and over was that the process produced a far better play than before the rehearsals. Duh! Hire professional directors, professional actors and professional designers and spend three weeks working on the script and it should get better.

The question in my mind is whether that was an efficient use of resources and my answer is no. Remember that the initial question proposed by Lincoln Center was how to bring a new play to the stage in the four week rehearsal period allowed. If they took 2 ½ weeks to get up from the table we are looking at a seven or eight week rehearsal period.

The schedule for today listed “Reflections on what we’ve learned so far” as the topic. So I spent a couple of hours writing out my thoughts. I’ll post them after this. Remember you read up .

After this talk back period we had cookies and soda and said good bye to the actors and playwrights. I will miss Roy Thinnes and several of the playwrights. Tomorrow the designers go home after we spend a couple of hours looking at their work. Then we’re down to 58 Directors for the next two weeks.

After dinner all the Directors got together and introduced ourselves although we already know many of them. Got out early tonight: 9 pm.

That’s all for today.

Now I have to type my comments.

Friday 2 – June 8th

All in all a good day today.

Our first session was cancelled since the speaker couldn’t make it.

We didn’t need to get there until 2 pm.

I took another load to the wash and fold. I put the claim check in my wallet so I won’t lose it. I’ll pick it up tomorrow – supposed to have showers tomorrow – there must be some tie between my picking up my laundry and rain. Have to think about that one. I wonder if there is a play in there somewhere?

I talked to Rob O’Neill today and we’re going out to dinner on Monday. He said to say ‘Hi” to everyone on Orcas. I told him that everyone on Orcas says hi to him (and Lisa Benner).

Now to the rest of the day.

Last things first. The evening session (7 to 20 pm) was very different. We were broken up into small (7 person) groups. Each group was headed by a playwright who gave their group ten pages of a script he was working on. The play he is working on is a one man opera. Really! It is based on the true story of a Chinese man who was trapped in an elevator in NYC for three days. We listened to a couple of songs from it and they weren’t too bad. Not high opera – just a musical where every line is sung. By definition that makes it an opera.

We read parts of it aloud then we spent an hour talking about it and our ideas on it. Here we have a guy trapped in an elevator – not a whole lot of room for blocking. Wrong!!! One of the guys in our group is a costume designer but also does set design. He came in with a possible design for the set and it was REALLY great. It gave the directors a lot to work with and we just brainstormed. It was really good. The playwright is coming to Seattle next week to have a reading (singing) of his play at The Theater Off Jackson.

That reminds me of something I’ve been meaning to mention: My biggest revelation so far is the important part Designers play in the play presentation process. Each type of designer brings something different to the process – far more than what we are used to on Orcas. Of course these guys get paid big bucks. This guy tonight was talking about a show he is currently costuming. He analyzes each character and knows more about the character than the playwright or director. He even put a medallion in the pocket of a costume because he decided that the characters mother had given it to him. Not mentioned in the script anywhere.

After we finished with the opera, we talked about working with playwrights in general. It was a really good discussion and one of the best I have been involved in since I got here. We had actors, the designer, the playwright and four directors all participating. It was an amazing discussion.

Before this session, we had the fourth of five plays that they have been rehearsing. This one was called “Green Zone” after the name of the American compound in Baghdad. It was a comedy/drama and poked a lot of fun on the American Army and the civilian support people but also had a more serious overtone. A fourth play very different that the others.

It was also the first play that effectively used the new collaboration model with great success. The actors, designer, director and playwright all felt that the more interactive model provided a much better product. It was funny and well done.

The first session today was cancelled because the expected speaker could not be there.

We start an hour late tomorrow so I have time to get my laundry.

Good night. It’s 11:20.

Thursday, June 7th – Day Four – Part Two

One final (maybe) thought on “Only Children”:

Of the three plays I’ve seen (including the one I saw Thursday but have not shared yet), Only Children was by far the most fully realized. Blocking, singing, relationships, etc were all pretty well done. To have accomplished all of this in three weeks is truly a Herculean accomplishment.

Tidbit: Discussion has the same root word as percussion – not a soft and gentle word. Dialog is.

Tidbit: Process and product are tied together. If you are not satisfied with the product, look at the process to see what isn’t working right.

So far I’ve seen three plays and talked to the playwright of a fourth (out of five). In every case (with the possible exception of The Maestro’s Garden where the playwright had to leave for a family emergency) the playwright has made a conscious decision to turn direction of the play over to the director rather than do it themselves. One playwright told me that while he was fumbling around trying to direct he couldn’t see the big picture: How the play was working. He wanted to be in his role of playwright so he could watch the play, see where the problems were and work on rewrites to solve them.

After all my words last night about directing styles, the director of today’s play “This Bloody Mess” said that she got the actors up the first day to look at some things in the play that may have needed work. Two actors complained about that: having to put the work up for people to see (even if it was just the people from that play) without doing all the table work they were used to which helps them find the character.

This Bloody Mess is an interesting type of play: 5 Acts, probably 50 scenes in 2 1/4 hours. That makes the average scene just a couple of minutes long. Added to that was jumping back and forth in time. All in all the play suffered from the short scenes. We know we lose the audience when there is a scene change and it takes several minutes to get them back into the play when the next scene starts. What happens when the next scene is not long enough to get them back?

My take on this play is that it would make a good screen play.

The story is about a young woman who leaves her home and child to go to an unnamed country to do good work. She goes for a short period of time but stays several years. We watch her but also the effect on her family back home. Like most plays, this one would be considerably better if it were shortened (except for my plays of course).

One closing comment: The ending of the play almost made me cry and I’m not one who cries easily.

Our evening session was made up of the same group we worked with Wednesday night. The goal is to have everyone in our small group do something other than what they normally do. In our case, we were directed by a playwright, Roy Thinnes was the playwright and I was an actor and so on. Our task was to put the play up on it’s feet then answer two questions about the play: What is the “action” of the play and what is the play about. First no one knew what was meant by “action” and we never did figure out what the play was about. Well we couldn’t agree on what the play was about. Each of us had a different idea. Our playwright playing director was not in charge of what happened so we just sat at the table for two nights talking (arguing) about the play. For people who want to try to figure it out, the play is “Woman at at Threshold, Beckoning” by John Guare.

One final comment before I get on with today:

Play writing is a solo sport. Directing is a team sport. Since I’m not a “real” playwright, I can’t talk about playwrights in general. But a successful director needs to be a leader. Don’t tell LCT I said this but he needs to be a benevolent dictator. Someone has to be in charge. It had better be the director if you are to get anything done.

The personalities of the few playwrights I’ve met here do not go to being the leader. If an aspiring director does not have strong leadership qualities, he is not going to be successful. If a playwright does not have strong leadership qualities, he is not going to be a successful director either. I’ll keep watching but that is my first thought on having playwrights direct.

Time to get to work.

Thursday 2 – June 7th – Day Four

Woke up this morning at 6 am with two things on my mind: The play we saw yesterday and the discussion I had with Mark about directing styles.

First, the play from yesterday. Roy Thinnes called it pornographic even though he really liked it. The young, opinionated director in our group hated it (not surprising – she hates anything she didn’t do) plus two others were greatly offended by it. One young woman said she was surprised at how puritanical she was. Looking back on it, was I offended? Mildly. I was taken in by the drama of the play and the high quality of the music. Do I think it was pornographic? No. But if they cast it with young kids (12 to 13 years old) rather that the 20+ year old actors they used, it would be. It would have been if there was any nudity, but there wasn’t. I do think they were far too graphic with the sex scenes but they didn’t rise to pornography.

What was the play about? The sexual pressures on 12 year old kids from advertising, from TV and movies, from their parents as they grow up. We saw a 12 year old girl become a prostitute. A 12 year old boy think he was gay and kill himself, a 12 year old boy rape a girl on a date and kill himself – all graphically represented on stage.

BUT the important thing was that this play moved us. No one was neutral about it. We are still talking about it today.

I may have been offended but I will look at the world differently now. Isn’t that what great theater is all about?

One more thought: As I said last night, the purpose of these plays is not to present new plays but to test a hypothesis: Will having the playwright direct the play make it possible to present a better product (play) in a short period of time?

If they had selected some Neil Simon type of play, the playwrights as directors wouldn’t have to face the hard issues of working with actors in these hard scenes.

Issue number 2: My discussion with Mark yesterday confirms what I thought about my directing style when I got here: I need to work with some other off island instructors to see how they work.
Whatever directing skills I possess were learned from other directors (mostly local), reading books and the school of hard knocks. I need to find a director to work with or just observe it is done in the professional theater.

As I have said before, I spend very little time at the table going over the script while most directors spend a lot of up front time at the table. I could prepare the entire play before the first rehearsal – I have a good idea what I want out of each scene and how I plan to achieve it – but I don’t prepare to the extent that I could go page by page through the script and spend 30 to 40 hours doing it. The advantage that I see to my current method is that I can make adjustments as I see them without throwing away a lot of work.

Here’s an interesting tidbit:

The copper and silver bracelet I wear is shiny when I wear it at home. When I got to NYC it started to tarnish until it looked like it was a million years old. In the past three days it has become shiny again. Wonder why????

Another interesting tidbit: The subways are a study in acoustics. When you first hear the train coming all you hear are the very lowest frequency sounds. Since they spread out so rapidly, you have no idea which direction the train is coming from. As it get closer there are more and more higher frequency components which let you determine which direction it is coming from.

It’s 11:30 and I’m tired.

Have to finish this tomorrow.

Wednesday 2 – June 6th – Day three

Lots of energy today – I must have adjusted to the schedule.

Plus I went back to Gatorade – I think the sugar helps keep my energy up.

Up at 7:00 out of the room by 8. The weather is nice in the upper 50’s in the morning. New Yorkers are complaining that it is cold. Supposed to hit the 90’s by the weekend.

I walked to Lincoln Center today – it takes about 20 minutes – at a good pace – without running into a lot of people – the sidewalks are full of people in the morning. Stopped at a drugstore to get some toiletries and a bottle of Gatorade.

I got there at 9 am – a full hour before the start and there were lots of others there also.

Had a real good chat with a director from California and I was asking him if his casts spent a week or more at the table before they get on their feet. He said it varies but between 1/4 and ½ of his rehearsal time is spent at the table. I told him I get them up after six hours. I asked him what he does with the 30 to 50 hours. He does the same stuff that I do but I do it during the rehearsal. He goes through the script page by page asking the actors “where are you coming from?, How do you feel about entering? What do you want in this scene?” I do the same but I do it one scene at a time.

We had our second (of three) sessions on ‘Collaboration” today. What a waste of time. We spent the first hour and a quarter reviewing what we did yesterday. Here are a couple of valuable comments I heard during the session today:

In every production someone is in charge and someone is the leader but they may not be the same person.

We talked about the first day of rehearsals and what people covered. The best comment related to establishing “values” for the production. These are set by and agreed to by all in the production. An example is “One of our rehearsal values is being on time.”

A side note: Many of the directors here are confident to the point of arrogance. My guess is that their ability is inversely proportional to their arrogance.

Building a consensus is a subset of Collaboration. Here is what one group said about consensus:

Consensus is dangerous in art because you tend to lose the edges and the edges are what makes art.

One of the good things that comes out of the morning sessions is the small group work. The larger group is broken up into small groups of 3, 4or 5. He rearranges the groups so we get to spend time with and get to know many other people here. Today I spent time with a playwright from the University of Connecticut and a Director from Washington D.C. Really nice people. The playwright has a play he wrote that is running now and he leaves this weekend to see the final week of it. He had a lot of questions about how we, as directors, interpret the work of the playwright. His problem was that the Director had made interpretations of his play that weren’t consistent with the playwrights. Both of us agreed that it is our responsibility to present the playwrights vision of the play as long as the playwright was reasonably available. We could have talked for hours more.

The afternoon program was another of the five plays they have been rehearsing. Yesterday was The Maestro’s Garden. Today was a full fledged musical called Only Children. Roy Thinnes summed it up tonight at our session with him: It would never make Broadway – it is too close to pornography. The musical is about the sexual exploitation of 12 year old children. Pretty graphic in word, deed and song. The 12 year olds were played by young actors in their 20’s. Even the young people in the audience felt “surprisingly Puritan” over it. It was offensive but it did make us think which means that it was good. Remember the comment from the first night that “If everyone in your audience thinks George Bush is great and you present a show that says George Bush is great, what have you accomplished? One of the adult actors said he would not have done the play if he had read it first but “you don’t say ‘no’ when Lincoln enter calls.”

Lincoln Center told us they had picked plays with an edge. I think most people lost sight of the purpose of these plays: To see how the production process works if the playwright is directing the plays assisted by an experienced director. This play went right to the center of my main issue: How does a playwright direct the difficult parts of plays if he has no experience in directing? Interestingly, in this case the playwrights (two – one for music and one for words) did not try to direct. Somehow the Lincoln Center message got translated into “The playwright is in charge of the room.” Many of the sexual scenes would be terribly hard for ANY actor to do and it would take a real caring hand on the part of the director to get the actor to where he/she needed to be.

Definitely, not a play for Orcas – or Doug for that matter but it DID make me think.

We had another three hours with Roy Thinnes tonight in our small group. They gave us a play by John Guare to rehearse for two nights. We have directors, actors, playwrights and designers in out group. We were all assigned roles out of our specialty. For example a playwright was director, I was an actor and so on. It was indirectly about 9/11 which triggered a lot of feelings from those who were in NYC when it happened. Most of the people stuck their noses into the script and read. I scooped and did well. I was able to make eye contact with the others.

A lot of good discussion and a lot of fun. Roy is a great cold reader.

Finished off the beer when I got home tonight. Got to get some more tomorrow.

Damn: I’m calling the hotel room home. Must have been here too long.

Good night. It’s 11:45 PM