WORKING WITH PLAYWRIGHTS

One of the things that I love about my job is the opportunity to collaborate with the living playwright. My passion for directing new plays began in Graduate School. Directing a new play is risky because new plays are produced without a safety net of tradition…there is no production history to fall back on. Everything involved in doing a new play is done from scratch. The success of a new play is invariably founded on the successful collaboration of the artists involved. This is what we do at the Contemporary American Theater Festival…we develop and produce new work with the playwright. And this experience really turns me on.

Last week I had the opportunity to meet with Michele Lowe (INANA) and Max Baker(EELWAX JESUS) while I was in New York. We looked at preliminary set designs and discussed production concepts etc. Hearing their ideas and feedback was incredibly important. It is exciting to collaborate with these writers during this important pre-production period.

I have been in constant communication with J.T.Rogers RE: WHITE PEOPLE and Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig (LIDLESS) and I have been trading emails RE: my directors concept for her play. Frances is in China doing research and J.T. is in Afghanistan working on his latest play BLOOD AND GIFTS. Our conversations have been stimulating and productive.

All five of our 2010 playwrights will be in residence in Shepherdstown at various time throughout the rehearsal and performance process. They are an important  part of the creative process. They play a vital role in developing their plays at our Theater Festival. We are a playwright inspired theater and we listen to our playwrights. We encourage and welcome their ideas and suggestions. We involve them in every step of the creative process. For example: Yesterday… Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig and I were  discussing the Sound Design for LIDLESS. I emailed her my idea to create a percussion soundscape of “cell doors/cage doors/locking doors opening and closing.” I also suggested using “birds” in the soundscape. Here is her response:

“I really love this bird idea, and it makes me think about nature soundscapes as a whole–and using sound as an element that provides different information from what you see visually. For example, since the grays, the chain-link fence, is already suggesting the entrapment, the getting stuck/being in a cage is already expressed visually, I wonder if the soundscape would be effective focused around things like birds, ocean, wind, static, etc. It is interesting to me that the ocean is something that can always be heard at Gitmo, and that white noise is used to disorient, and that white noise often sounds very much like the ocean, played at a different pace…And then of course Bashir talks about how he always found ways to change terrible things(i.e. moans and screams) into wind whistling through trees, etc…So that could suggest something too that any noise that sounds ominous has a transition point to a nature sound, etc…So maybe since visually we are getting the chain link fences, the harshness, the metal, that an organic soundscape could open things.”

I asked Frances if she heard any specific music in her play. She offered this intuitive suggestion for me to consider in the Sound Design:

“If there is any kind of music/tonality, I imagine that perhaps it is used during Bashir’s hallucinations, and when he talks to his daughter…perhaps the acapella voice of a woman singing a Pakistani ballad/lullaby. Without instrumental accompaniment. We never feel the presence of Bashir’s ethnic heritage in language, etc…so maybe there is a subtle way to integrate it into the soundscape. This could also be used to add a haunting element, as Bashir is haunted by the past he left and  that is gone forever to him…(his dead wife, his young daughter.)”

As you can imagine…this is terrific feedback from the writer. Her intuitive ideas are something that I can really run with. I can integrate her suggestions into my concept for the production. It gives me a starting point as I begin my collaboration with the Sound Designer.

This is one example of the kinds of conversations that I have with our writers. I am interested in hearing your reaction to this playwright/director conversation. Please share your comments on this blog.

Ed Herendeen