posted by Nick Childress, cast member of The Caucasian Chalk Circle
Nick Childress is a member of the A.C.T. Master of Fine Arts Program class of 2010 and is a member of the cast of John Doyle’s production of The Caucasian Chalk Circle by Bertolt Brecht. He writes about his experience rehearsing this A.C.T. mainstage production.
When I found out that I was cast in The Caucasian Chalk Circle, I was immediately shot up to cloud nine and spent weeks up there. Then one day a fellow cast member told me, “You’re going to have a lot of fun.” Now I am blessed to be a member of the M.F.A. program, which I am very proud of. But, I am also coming to the end of three years of having every ounce of work I have done be watched and commented on by a whole lotta faculty members, staff, and peers. So needless to say having ‘Fun’ is not often a word in my daily vocabulary when it comes to a rehearsal process.
“What? That cannot be right,” I thought to myself. I know what fun is. I mean I’m twenty-five. TRUST ME I know how to have FUN. And my idea of Fun isn’t exactly what I equate to the pressure of developing stories to tell in a medium where everyone has an opinion. Now don’t get me wrong, this is an enjoyable profession. But it’s also a job and people don’t have ‘Fun’ at work. Right? That just doesn’t happen . . . And then I went into rehearsal with John Doyle, Domenique Lozano, the rest of the creative team, our fantastic stage management team, this AMAZING CAST and realized that I’ve been incredibly wrong.
What’s interesting is that I have not had this much ‘Fun’ since I was a little kid hopping around the living room in a pillow case dancing to the Monkees. What’s also interesting is that the work I see being done on a daily basis is not only really good, but it inspiring for the sheer fact that there is so much creative joy in the room. John Doyle is like a walking artistic bomb shelter; he keeps all of the pressure and danger out of the room, while keeping the good vibes along with the joys of creativity in the room. And it’s efficient, effective, and productive with minimal stress.
Story and the show aside, The Caucasian Chalk Circle experience has taught me that there isn’t anything wrong with true Fun in the workplace at all. It fact, it makes going to work a breath of fresh air and it is something I am glad I learned so young and hope I will never forget.
Local director Mark Jackson is creating an ensemble-devised piece with students from the A.C.T. Master of Fine Arts Program class of 2010. He writes about his experiences during the workshop that took place in January as part of our First Look program.
I’ve just completed a week of work with the third-year students of the Master of Fine Arts Program at A.C.T. I’d worked with them for two days back in December to get to know them and identify a subject for the piece we are to devise together in April. Unsurprisingly for a group of young actors on the verge of graduating from an M.F.A. program, conflicting thoughts about transition, change, and fame were foremost on their minds. This triad will comprise the subject of our piece.
Picking up the process again in January, we explored our subject further through a combination of activities. We played games emphasizing rhythm in movement and language and analyzed the dramaturgy of our experiences with the games. What are the rules of the game? How do we play them well? How do we play them poorly? A performance is like any sport. The rules don’t change from game to game. But some games are exciting, and some not. Why?
We brought in objects that served as metaphors for our subject. One of the actors held up a wool cap and said, “This is change. It’s reversible. I wanted this change because a woman wanted it.” He then held up a guitar pick and said, “This is fame. It’s easy to lose. I have to buy more fame because I keep losing it.” Another actor held up an empty notebook and said, “This is transition. It makes me feel a little wary. It has many pages to be filled.” We noted the connections between the metaphorical objects and their subject that felt most magical and surprising to us. Perhaps these objects will become props in our eventual piece.
I handed them a long list of seemingly unrelated narrative ingredients and gave them 30 minutes to compose two short pieces. One group told the story of a reporter hiding in a graveyard to snap pictures of a presidential candidate whom he knew was coming to visit the graves of two women he’d supposedly killed. The reporter hoped this story would revive his failing career. But when he witnessed the politician dancing tenderly with the ghost of one of the dead women, his compassion was aroused and he opted not to expose the man. The other group told the story of a theater diva who refused to go on because a certain critic had not yet arrived. When her mousy stage manager insisted the show go on, the diva committed suicide. The director coaxed the now very nervous stage manager into the diva’s shoes, and when she stepped out onstage she blossomed into confidence. These characters and situations are seeds for our eventual piece.
I asked the actors to ask three other people four questions: (1) What was a major transition in your life, from what to what? (2) What was a major change in your life? (3) Who is a famous person you admire, and why? (4) Who is a famous person you do not admire, and why? The answers revealed motifs. Transition often involved travel. The difference between the journey of transition and the destination of change was difficult for many people to discern. Obama was often admired. Paris Hilton was often not admired. Interviewees most relished the opportunity to talk about people they do not admire. We combined the experiences and views of these interviewees with the characters we’d developed in order to give the latter more texture.
In these and other ways, we’re digging up a mound of ideas while sorting through our own thoughts and feelings about our subject. In April we’ll devise a short theater piece from the bits of gold that shine out to us from the pile we’ve amassed.
Devising a piece is the most physically, intellectually, and emotionally demanding way to work, I think, because it asks so much of everyone. As performers we must also be playwrights, directors, designers, critics, and audience. The accidents that surprise us in our work are often the most exciting things, and so we must be open to embracing these “mistakes.” It takes bravery and daring to put oneself out there like that. But isn’t that at least one reason why we make theater? To encourage bravery and daring in the world? To say, “Look. I step out onstage. And I don’t die. Even when I fail. We can do this. Life is possible.”
A.C.T. Associate Artist Domenique Lozano is creating a brand-new translation of Bertolt Brecht’s The Caucasian Chalk Circle with special permission from the Brecht estate. She writes about the process of facing this daunting task.
The experience of translating this beautiful play has been wonderful overall, but I sure am glad I didn’t know what I was getting into. By that I mean, I began the process by just taking one step at a time. I would do this one thing, and then the next, and I didn’t really think about the pressure of getting the script done. I didn’t dwell on the deadline, or the expectation of creating something that would have enough meat on it to feed the cast, stimulate the director, and keep the audience engaged. I would just think, “Well today, I’ve got to sort out the Simon/Grusche scenes.” No one at A.C.T. ever pressured me; there was only support from Carey, Michael, and from John Doyle. As if I’d done this before, as if they had absolute faith in me. So I never really sat in that place of doubting whether I could do this. I sort of wrote in a cocoon of bliss and support. Now that I’m on the other side of it, I think, I probably should have been more freaked out about the whole thing—after all, there is a fair amount of pressure and expectation riding on this—but I remain grateful that I was oblivious to it! As for the writing, there is a solitariness to it that I enjoy very much. At times dense and dry, other times it’s flowing and you’re sailing through it. This is German of the people, not in verse, not fancy in any way. It is a direct pulse, right into the heart of things. People say what they mean for the most part. Subtext is not Brecht’s forte in this piece.
I decided to approach the process of translating very directly. I first scanned the whole play into my computer and did a literal translation, aided by the Collins online dictionary and my mother, to whom I am so very grateful. After that, I worked through and did a first draft letting the language begin to sound like something a human would actually say, leaving the literalness of it. Then after John Doyle decided on the main casting for the roles, I went through the text again, this time allowing who was playing the roles to inform the language. Then John and I spent another weekend together, and we went through the text, thinking about who these people were even more specifically, and that shifted the language again. The whole process has been about layers revealing more layers.
The trickiest thing is translating something that is idiosyncratic, or very specifically German that has no English counterpart. It’s like trying to translate a joke in German to English—it never works. The Germans are roaring over that duck that smoked a cigar, and we Americans are going “Huh?” Some things even my mom didn’t know, so we would just make our best equivalent.
Working with John has been truly wonderful even from the first day in the room, auditioning the Master of Fine Arts Program students. There is something about him that allows people to do their best work. Something that simply and very clearly brings that forth. He is very direct, very kind, very present. He listens like no one I know. He makes me feel as if I know what I’m doing, and I’m doing it brilliantly. And that allows me to do my best work.
posted by Christina Poddubiuk, Scenic and Costume Designer for Phèdre
Christina Poddubiuk designed the set and costumes for Phèdre at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival and has reconceived the set design for the show at A.C.T. She writes about this rare opportunity to recreate the world of the play.
When as a set and costume designer you have the good fortune to work mostly in classical theater, sooner or later you’re going to get to tackle the same piece more than once. I’ve done two Hamlets, three All’s Well That Ends Wells, and four Much Ados. What almost never happens is to work on the same play in two consecutive productions, and to have the opportunity to reconceive the set design.
Phèdre was designed for the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, where it was performed in an old badminton court that is one of their four theaters, on a 60-foot thrust stage. The scenery was necessarily minimal, due to the surround of the audience. We focused on a long painted ramp, and a sculptural piece set far upstage framing the main entrance. The costumes were decidedly baroque, but the setting was nonrepresentational. The imagery was celestial—we painted the inlaid floor as if it were a reflection of the sky, and the “cloud” upstage, built on a metal armature and covered with steel mesh and a gossamer textile, recalled an elemental force that could have been sea, sky, or stone.
Moving the production to the American Conservatory Theater, we took the opportunity of restaging the play for a completely new setting to explore different possibilities. Now the actors are enveloped in a world we’ve created, instead of embraced by the audience. They enter at times through the house, much as they did in a thrust-type theatre, but they can also inhabit the depths of the world beyond the proscenium. Some of the physical elements of the design have been used in new ways: there is a metal mesh screen, and twisting steel tubing. There’s a painted floor that recreates our original “runway,” but the imagery is new. The pulsing music and the raw emotion, tautly sustained in the text, have been translated almost as body parts—as blood vessels and nerve bundles. They lend themselves to many interpretations. They provide a landscape, a force of nature, a divine intervention, or a tangled thread. My hope, at the same time, was to provide more ways, and more visually powerful ways, of bringing actors into the space. And at the time of this writing, I am very much looking forward to how our lighting designer, Jim Ingalls, will sculpt the space and define moments in the play.
January is new-play development month at A.C.T. Although we continue to work with playwrights on new works throughout the year, First Look heats up this month with a series of readings and workshops. The readings are not open to the public, but you can find more information about this program here.
One of this January’s featured writers, Philip Kan Gotanda (author of the A.C.T.–commissioned hit play After the War) shares his thoughts about making a career in playwriting.
Young writers: I would encourage working to cultivate relationships with theaters you respect. More specifically artistic directors. This is as important as the work itself. A playwright is someone who writes plays that are produced, not sit in someone’s hard drive. I think it wise to have working relationships with more than one theater. Ideally a larger, nationally respected institution, then a smaller black box experimental house, and finally, in my case, an Asian American–centric theater. They can’t individually serve all the specific aesthetic and political needs of your work, but collectively they can serve you more fully as a total artist and career playwright. A.C.T. has been my large institutional home and allows me to have the highest production values possible, access to the very best talent in the nation, and a launch that will receive national if not worldwide profile. The black box experimental house has been Intersection for the Arts: Campo Santo, which has allowed me to push my work to the edges without feeling I was not allowed to fail—artistically or in terms of audience attendance. In some form or fashion you have to go beyond your known aesthetic skin to grow, and that sometimes means failing. Not that you want to. It’s simply a by-product of making work that is inventively cutting new artistic territory for you. And, finally, the local Asian American Theater Company provides a place to return home—to help other young artists, pass on knowledge; to work with others who share a common social, political, ideological shorthand in hopes of expanding its definition and maintaining its relevancy to current times; and to remember one’s beginnings.
January is new-play development month at A.C.T. Although we continue to work with playwrights on new works throughout the year, First Look heats up this month with a series of readings and workshops. The readings are not open to the public, but you can find more information about this program here.
One of this January’s featured writers, Philip Kan Gotanda (author of the A.C.T.–commissioned hit play After the War) shares his thoughts about playwriting and his new work I Dream of Chang and Eng.
I have this thing where I sit on plays for years before I write them. I can literally feel them inside of me. It’s a kind of amorphous nonspecific locus of knowledge that bumps around inside of me sucking up whatever it deems necessary to building a particular literary house. And it pulls in stuff from every conceivable exchange or encounter, waking or sleeping. My play Ballad of Yachiyo waited around for a good seven years before a night in the hospital keeping company with my convalescing wife cracked something open. (She is fine!) Chang and Eng has broken all records, and I’d frankly abandoned any thoughts about writing it. See, I’ve been trying to write this play about the original Siamese Twins for some 20 years. Yup, 20 years. I have notebooks of research and errant drafts sitting around. But last year while codirecting my play Fist of Roses with UC Berkeley Theater, Dance & Performance Studies students, I began to write in spare moments. I didn’t go back to my notes; I decided to just let it go and not worry about anything that came before. Just let it go.
The title is a bit odd for me: I Dream of Chang and Eng. It intimates me, the writer, appearing in the work. The title came a few years ago and I used it, never thought anything more about it. Then yesterday I began to notice the title. Hmm, perhaps it’s my way of saying this is my version of Chang and Eng’s lives. That is, a telling with more regard paid to my necessary imagination than historical fact. And that is fine by me. I’m telling a story, my story, and I openly state that. And in fact, despite the fact that there is a wealth of literature out there regarding Chang and Eng, there is very little firsthand information, only a few letters and shopping lists of items for the farms. Almost all that you read is taken from reportage, secondary sources, and speculation. As far as authentic voice, from their primary point of view? Almost nil. All else is gleaned from other people’s versions of who they were. So I imagine them. I dream them.
Seana McKenna—a company member of Canada’s Stratford Shakespeare Festival, where she played the title role in Carey Perloff’s production of Phèdre—recently arrived in San Francisco, where she will reprise her performance in the A.C.T. production of Racine’s 17th-century classic. McKenna writes about her struggles in trying to get to San Francisco from Toronto for the first day of rehearsal.
This is my first blog. For a relative Luddite, this is a major step into the 21st century. A decade late, I know. But I have an 11-year-old son, so the last ten years are a bit of a blur.
As are the last few days. I have just finished my first week of rehearsal for Racine’s Phèdre at A.C.T. I left, or rather, tried to leave Toronto on December 26th. Yes, December 26th. My fellow cast member Tom McCamus and I were in the center of the maelstrom at Pearson International, when increased security measures resulted in delays of more than six hours, more than 100 cancelled flights, and lineups of hundreds and hundreds of people. We stood in one line for two hours to get luggage tags, then in another line for customs for three hours, for a flight that was to leave at 5:30 p.m., but was rescheduled for 8 p.m. At 7:30 p.m., we were told our flight was cancelled and we should all go home and reschedule our flight. Flights were booked for us the next day, by A.C.T.’s wonderful interim company manager, Tim Cole. We arrived four hours early for our noon flight to Charlotte, and then for a flight from Charlotte to Newark, and then from Newark to San Francisco. If you check a map, connecting those dots does not make for a pretty picture. We would arrive in Newark six hours after we left Toronto. And we were not driving. We would arrive in San Francisco at midnight our time.
We had various holdups in customs: we stood in line three times, being told to sign forms by one agent that were not required by the next agent (the wrong form was ripped in half before my eyes with what might be construed as relish). For reasons unknown to me, I was sent to secondary inspection. Perhaps it was my paperwork; perhaps it was my profession (did I detect disdain when I said “actor”?); or perhaps it was my confession of a box of chocolates in my suitcase. Tom’s agent let him through. Same paperwork, same profession, but no chocolates. That had to be it.
So, I sat in a room where no cell phones are to be used, for an hour, while three agents fingerprinted, photographed, and interrogated the 12 to 15 people in the room. My agent was very kind—a man with a Spanish accent who was intrigued by the play I was going to do. He asked me many questions about the plot, why Phèdre wanted to kill herself, why they thought my husband was dead, who was the stepson. He asked if he could see the play in Toronto. I said no, it had finished its run in Stratford, and we were recreating it in San Francisco. He seemed genuinely disappointed, wished me luck, and stamped my passport.
I was relieved and shaken. I met Tom and we made the flight. A good thing we had come four hours early.
The flight from Charlotte to Newark was delayed by an hour, and we were sure we would miss the connection to San Francisco. We booked a backup flight for 6 a.m. the next morning and imagined a nice dinner in Newark and a hunt for a hotel. Our flight arrived in Newark at 6 p.m., the connecting flight leaving at 6:15 p.m. We ran. We went through security again, as the gate was at the other end of the airport. When we arrived at the gate, no attendant was at the desk. We looked through the locked door, and banged on it. Two air attendants came to the door and took our tickets! Out of breath, we had barely sat down when the plane started moving. We arrived in San Francisco at 12:30 a.m., and, miraculously, our luggage had also made it onto the plane.
We were met by A.C.T. Company Manager Dianne Prichard, and arrived at our lodging by 1:30 a.m. Landed. I had sacrificed my cell phone to the gods, though. Must have slipped out of my vest’s half-zipped pocket when I was trying to spaghetti myself into some sleeping configuration in the middle seat of a three-seat row. But it was found, and was overnighted to the theater. From Philadelphia. Don’t ask. I didn’t.
posted by Omozé Idehenre, A.C.T. Master of Fine Arts Program class of 2010
Omozé bonds with the Carol kids during the annual latke party.
The word carol is defined as “a song of joy” and/or “to sing in a lively and joyous manner.” When I think of A Christmas Carol, I think of the chance to perform this particular custom during this special and particular period of time. Caroling is an opportunity to let go of all the stress you’ve retained throughout the year and put it to something useful before the New Year. It is a joy one is fortunate to receive when people take the attention off of themselves and give it to others. How great it is to know that, no matter what, we all can get the chance to let our hearts sing in a joyous manner again and again.
Participating in A.C.T.’s production of A Christmas Carol has truly been an incredible experience. I’ve been saying this A LOT, but it has felt like a vacation of sorts. Much of this, I feel, has to do with getting the opportunity to work with various generations of actors outside of school. Each of the M.F.A. students has a mentee from the Young Conservatory participating in the show, and in turn we are mentored by core company members and guest actors. The beauty of this is the incredible bonds we form with one another while performing on the stage of a professional theater. With the constant laughter and conversation, you really can’t help but let go and just be in the joy and festiveness of it all. Last week, for instance, the kids and their parents threw their amazing annual latke party. While sitting at the table, watching the kids perform, it occurred to me how incredible and all-inclusive tradition can be. Every individual is different, but the simplest act, song, plate of food, or gathering place can truly bind. It’s really difficult that I won’t be with my family this holiday, but being welcomed by another family truly ameliorates this. It’s been a blessing.
Lastly, I think one of the greatest things that I will take away from all of this are the relationships that I formed with many of the actors during this whole process. Coming into it, after a very long semester, I feel my mind was stuck more on the work of it all. But once we got into rehearsals with the kids, especially onstage, it became more about the play and one another. I love those kids!!!
Claire Lautier plays Aricie in Phèdre, a new translation of Racine’s 17th-century French tragedy directed by A.C.T. Artistic Director Carey Perloff in a coproduction between A.C.T. and the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Ontario, Canada. Presented at Stratford last summer, Phèdre arrives at the American Conservatory Theater in January. Lautier will travel to San Francisco along with many members of the original cast to revisit Racine’s classic drama at A.C.T.
As I write this, I’m sitting in a public place in the midst of squawking televisions, ringtones, a dozen cell phone conversations, background music, loudspeaker announcements, engines and horns, beeps and chirps, fluorescent lights, flashing screens, diesel fumes, and the rhythmic bouncing of my seat as the person down the bench from me jiggles his legs frantically while listening to an iPod and playing a video game. And I think to myself, I should write that blog entry for Phèdre. What should I talk about? I’ve never written a blog entry of any kind before (what would I say and who would care?). In this environment I draw an even bigger blank—my surroundings seem pretty incongruous with ideas about French court drama!
After a month in New York City, I’m pretty worn out from sleep deprivation. Somehow I managed to live here for 17 years without being overly affected by it, but after nine months in beautiful, blissful, and quiet Stratford, coming back to the city has been a rude awakening and I feel as if my nervous system is screaming for peace. So I’m REALLY looking forward to being at A.C.T., in San Francisco, a city I’ve only briefly visited. But mostly, I’m looking forward to sinking into the world I remember from this summer, which is Phèdre. It’s not that often you get to reexamine a piece a few months after a run, and in a radically different setting. During the summer, it felt like we barely scratched the surface; by the time I began to feel grounded, the run was over. In Stratford, we played on a rep schedule, so although we usually did eight performances a week, we were doing two or even three different plays in that week. It was usually several days between performances of Phèdre, which can be either refreshing or disorienting. I found it a real challenge to get underneath the material and stay there. I liken it to dropping anchor in a deep ocean, going to sleep, and waking up the next morning to find you’ve drifted off course somehow with your anchor trailing.
As I relive the play in my mind I have a full-body experience in direct contrast to my environment. My memories are of stillness: listening, breathing, light reflected by the water in the fountain, a bare stage. The words are spare and dangerous; they emerge from an ominous silence, reaching through the long expanse of space. We can only perceive silence because of sound; when we do, we notice that underneath the sound and ever present is the deep, deep silence and stillness. What finally emerges from that silence, from the primordial depths of our psyches, long suppressed, is what sets the events of the play in motion, inexorably, until there is only one possible outcome. I want to drop back into that kinetic stillness, that pure potential. I find that stimulating and profoundly satisfying—and a refreshing antidote to the modern world of pervasive, meaningless noise.
So I’m excited! I get to work at A.C.T.! I’m looking forward to reuniting with Carey and our cast and creative team, meeting the new cast members, and seeing what happens when we go from a long thrust stage to a proscenium. How will we do it? How will it affect the play? How will Aricie be influenced by it? In Stratford, the audience was so close and surrounded us; at A.C.T they’ll be “out there” and we’ll be “up here.” It’s the same play, but it won’t be the same play. It will be totally new!
Two Turkish figs (Isabella Ateshian and Rachel Share-Sapolsky)
in the 2007 production of A Christmas Carol.
“Too big to be a fig. Maybe an onion though,” says veteran A.C.T. Casting Director Meryl Shaw.
“Or even a plum?” offers A Christmas Carol Casting Consultant Greg Hubbard.
From outside the door of the casting office, I wondered what mystery fruit my two bosses could be discussing. Surely something exotic.
“Hey, Shelley, could you come help us with this produce?” Meryl called.
Expecting to see them peering over a small tropical fruit, I was surprised to see them huddled around the picture of a small adorable child. As the new artistic intern at A.C.T., I’ll admit there is a lot of casting terminology for me to learn, but I was highly perplexed by their farmers’ market vocabulary.
“It’s just that we have a zillion onions. I’m tearing up all ready,” says Meryl.
I furrow my brow and nod, playing along. Very pale and onionlike, I agree. Seeing my obvious confusion Meryl explained what anyone who has seen A.C.T.’s A Christmas Carol will all ready know:
the Ghost of Christmas Present reveals to Scrooge the “sensory delights of the holiday season” by showing him a delectable array of Spanish onions, Turkish figs, and French plums—all portrayed by students in A.C.T.’s Young Conservatory.
Cut to September 9, the day after initial A Christmas Carol auditions, when, after weeks upon weeks of preparation, Carol director Domenique Lozano, Meryl, Greg, and I find ourselves in the midst of a veritable fruit basket of auditionees.
I was astounded at the amount of, ahem, “raw” talent and professionalism exhibited by these young actors. In all seriousness, though, the kids showed an incredibly high degree of focus, commitment, and energy. We were all surprised at the skill level of these young actors, who brought in audition pieces as varied as Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde, and the Beatles. Seeing a young actor tackle the middle-aged and imposing Paulina from The Winter’s Tale with such mastery over speech and language was very impressive, to say the least. One of the more delicious highlights of the evening included a rendition of ye olde YouTube classic, “Banana Phone.” It was work you could really sink your teeth into. Meryl regaled us with favorite stories from previous auditions, such as last year’s Ilya (who played Boy Dick in 2008) performing both Gwendolyn and Cecily in a scene from The Importance of Being Earnest.
There are so many difficult factors that go into casting a show, like older actors who are a wee bit too “ripe,” or younger ones who might still be too “green.” Mentally, I found myself trying to keep up with Meryl and Greg’s observations, “Yes, yes. His portrayal of the onion has . . . many . . . layers?” I think. The acting work seems so . . . organic. Finally, after a marathon 14 hours of auditions, we decided we’d had enough of speaking “fig-uratively” because we were all, indeed, plum tired.
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