Director’s Journal: Season’s Greetings

Rehearsal for Act II, scene 1. Puppet show chaos is about to erupt!

One thing I can say about these extremely short rehearsal periods is that growth happens in sudden spurts. Not that I should find it terribly surprising given we simply don’t have the luxury to allow things to sit and marinate. We had a couple of rough days and after the Thanksgiving respite, I was anxiously anticipating Friday’s run through - the first run through of the entire show. Before we began, I reviewed a couple of short sections and then ran through the two most difficult portions of the show: the puppet show and the Snakes and Ladders sequence. The actors approached the sections with a nervous energy lacking in confidence which led to slow cue pick-up and an uneven pace. It was not what I was hoping for.

I took a deep breath, there was nothing to do but be encouraging, remind them to pick up the cues, to stay focused, and be confident.

We set up for Act I with all the little makeshift props we had gathered over the past week - empty water bottles, paper coffee cups, and other bits of garbage that were being endowed into puppets, wine glasses, Christmas ornaments, and fine china. I braced myself for the run. In all honesty, Act I was what I had expected given we hadn’t approached the material for about a week. The blocking ran smoothly and some of the moments really clicked - Phyllis’ ill-fated seduction of Clive and Rachel’s constant lurking around corners stood out as particularly memorable moments. While the pace was slow and sometimes uneven, I could see the shape emerging and felt very encouraged that we were on track.

Act II was another story entirely. It clipped along at a breezy pace and built to a logical comic climax. After the first run of the puppet sequence earlier in the evening, my hopes were not high - but that section came together with a ferocious energy and a good sense of the overlap. It was all a bit magical quite honestly. Something seemed to click for the first time. I could see the elements gelling together nicely and the continuity of the show.

Clive (Steven Peirick) tries to let down Rachel (Rachel Hanks) gently while Bernard (Phillip Bozich) tends to his beloved puppet show.

And now it’s time to throw more complicated elements into the mix. Yesterday was spent working through sound cues which will help bring the Bunker’s holiday home to life. The sound designer, Robin Weatherall, is meticulous and extremely skilled in adding that layer of realism into the world of a play. He came with an appropriate television underscoring and a wonderful selection of saccharine holiday pop music. I’m very eager to add this in at tonight’s rehearsal.

Construction of the Bunker home.

Tonight will also be a huge step forward as it means our first night in the space! I could jump up and down I’m so excited to see everything on the stage with levels, doors, and real props. No doubt this will lead to complications and problems to be solved … but that’s my job. We are at a good place in terms of characterization and movement on the part of the actors. Time to take that next leap forward!

Director’s Journal: Season’s Greetings

One of the unsung heroes of the show.

For those who don’t work in the theatre, the process of making a play can seem rather mysterious.When people hear what I do for a living, they tend to ask the same types of questions. Last night, spending Thanksgiving with a lot of new faces, the questions cropped up. What do you do all night? How is the show going? Is the show going to be good? Have you ever had to fire an actor? Do the actors just do what you say? What kind of director are you? How was rehearsal last night? How do you get actors to do what you want? Am I going to like the show?

Let’s face it, I have kind of a weird job. I take an imaginary world constructed by a playwright I have never met, draw out narratives and emotional content from words on a page, and imagine my own version of that world. Then I spend each evening attempting to get other people to communicate the visions I have about imaginary people for the purpose of manipulating the emotions of paying customers. It’s a weird job indeed. It requires the focused and energetic collaboration of an ensemble willing to work and play together. At their best, rehearsals can be an incredibly satisfying period of growth and creative discovery … at their worst, they can be torturous and unproductive exercises in frustration.

In my experience as an actor and a director I have been involved in rehearsal processes ranging from extremely short (a few days) to over six-weeks long with everything in between. No matter the length of a period, the processes all follow similar arcs with the same outcome of a looming opening night date. Rehearsals are about growth and the shape of a show taking form. Quite honestly, sometimes this can be a painful process. Rough rehearsals happen. People get frustrated. Problems arise. And yet out of these bumps in the road, solutions develop and bonds forge within the ensemble.

This particular process is shorter than I get when I direct university theatre, but it has experienced the same feelings of excitement when things go well and satisfaction when moments take shape between characters. It has also experienced the same bumps in the road that happen in more lengthy processes - actors getting sick, scheduling conflicts, and frustration in dealing with tricky bits of staging. It can be slightly terrifying when the plan for the evening does not run as smoothly as imagined, however, there is nothing to do for every person in the group but shake it off, work harder, and move on.

The cast faces their greatest nemesis: Snakes and Ladders.

For the most part, the process of Season’s Greetings has run fairly smoothly, but the unplanned illness of an actor through a wrench in the works. It happens. Like I said, there is nothing to do but move on and find other ways to be productive. The other major challenge has been what I will put under the category of “actor confidence” over a couple of difficult scenes. The human element of making theatre is simultaneously exciting and terrifying because of the amount of trust one simply has to put in the hands of others.

The cast at large was nervous about two particularly challenging moments in the script: the Snakes and Ladders scene and the puppet scene. In both cases, the challenges lie in the way that Ayckbourn has woven together two separate but simultaneous scenes with different characters. When it works, it’s amazingly naturalistic and funny. When it doesn’t, it’s disastrous. It requires of the actors intense focus and listening to two scenes at once. It also requires them to know their lines and cues absolutely cold. Without complete confidence in words and action from every performer in the room, the chipper rhythm of the scenes break down and it’s difficult to recover. At some points during these difficult rehearsals I could see the paled panic on their faces, but there was nothing to do but repeat, repeat, repeat to work though the moments again and again.

Progress was made. Character growth occurred. Pacing improved. It’s all part of that mysterious process. We took last night off for turkey and Thanksgiving shenanigans. Tonight we resume with a run through of the entire show. I have pretty thoroughly examined all the pieces of this machine … now it’s time to reassemble to see if it will fly.

My Three Angels: Historical Background and Design

One of the added bonuses to directing a play is the opportunity to learn things that I may never have otherwise run into. While a deep knowledge of the history of early 20th century French Guiana isn’t necessary to enjoy My Three Angels, a little background information is helpful in grasping some of the power dynamics and references.

Set in Cayenne, French Guiana in 1910, the action of the play is impacted by the relative
“freedom” with which the paroled convicts from Devil’s Island can move around the town. The history of settlement and colonization of French Guiana also provides an intriguing background to one of the major contrasts I see in the play (the “civility” of French culture contrasted with the island’s harsh tropical conditions).

French Guiana was originally settled by the French in the 16th century. It was first “discovered” by Spanish explorers, but passed over for colonization because they felt it was too hot and too poor to be worth the investment. The initial French effort to colonize in 1763 was a spectacular failure when only 2,000 of the original 12,000 settlers survived life in the tropics. It was, in many ways, Hell on earth- hot, humid, and disease-ridden.

Devil’s Island, the location of the penitentiaries off the coast of French Guiana.

A small trio of islands off French Guiana’s coast were established as penitentiaries in 1852 by Emperor Napoleon, III. The island group became known collectively as “Devil’s Island.” Conditions in the prisons were extremely harsh. A penal colony from 1852-1951, it is estimated than fewer than 10% of the over 80,000 inmates sent there survived their entire sentences. Prisoners were exported from France for a variety of offenses from petty repeat-offenders, to murderers, to political prisoners.

After having served their time in one of the island prisons, convicts were “freed” into the mainland prison colony where they were forced to stay in French Guiana for a time equal to their original sentence, or in the case of sentences longer than 8 years, for life. This hopeless reality for paroled prisoners like the three “angels” accounts for their fearless attitudes. There is nothing that Henri or anyone else can do to intimidate them- they are already serving life sentences and know that they are extremely unlikely to ever see France again.

Set designer Cristie Johnston has many challenges in placing this French-colonial setting in Gas Light Theatre’s intimate stage. As we are discovering in rehearsal, this is a play about entrances and exits, sneaking around, and the clever movement of props. This is a lot of ask for in a tiny acting space. One of the solutions, as demonstrated in her model, was to build up and take advantage of the Gas Light Theatre’s vertical space.

From a platform vantage point, the “angels” can looks below and watch the family as they repair the roof. The space also has to accommodate a variety of unseen off-stage spaces such as Marie-Louise’s bedroom, the shop, the kitchen area, Felix and Emilie’s room, ad the rest of the house. It’s going to definitely be tight, but workable. Actually, moving into that space will seem incredibly roomy after blocking and working in the extremely close quarters of our teeny-tiny rehearsal space.

The cast has been doing great work this week as we are hashing out the show’s intricate blocking and beginning to work through the beats of the play little by little. Tonight, we will block the show’s final act leaving us a solid week of working rehearsals and runs before tech next weekend. This is admittedly an incredibly FAST process, but I couldn’t ask for a more prepared, focused, and willing cast of actors to work with.

Wonderful comic and poignant moments began to develop in last night’s rehearsal as we worked through scenes with the “angels” and Paul and between Jules and Emilie. My goal is to develop the sweet and the salty aspects of the script and I am seeing great progress on both ends.

My Three Angels Director’s Journal

St. Louis: Home of the Cardinals, the Arch, Anheuser-Busch, and the St. Louis Actors’ Studio.

On Thursday afternoon my rad life will be taking me back to one of my favorite places in the world to do one of my favorite things in the world. Last summer, after ten years, I visited my college friend and St. Louis native, Peter. I had an amazing trip to this wonderful city. The food, the culture, and the unforgettable Heritage Brewer’s Festival have stuck with me these past months and I am eager to return. When the opportunity to direct at the St. Louis Actors’ Studio came my way, I jumped at the chance.

I was offered to direct the quirky 1955 comedy, My Three Angels by Sam and Bella Spewack, this coming fall. I had admittedly never read the script before, but in my research found that the play has long been a frequent fixture in regional rep houses. Based on a French play, La Cuisine Des Anges by Albert Husson, the play tells the story of a kindly family living on French Guiana in 1910. Their lives take unexpected turns when they become entwined with three convicts who have been hired to repair the roof on a blistering hot Christmas Eve.

The family is naive, the convicts are witty and charming, and the story is darkly comical, but somehow heartwarming. The play is like a delicate French dessert- it’s light and pretty to look at with structural complexity beneath its sugary exterior. After my past two directing gigs (a brutal and bloody outdoor production of Macbeth and an emotionally wrenching version of Kushner’s A Bright Room Called Day) I’m definitely ready to take a taste of some lighter fare.

I will share my director’s notes and discoveries here as I work on developing this piece for the stage. I am so lucky in my life to have so many opportunities to what I am passionate about and to have such wonderfully supportive and loving friends and family. I can’t wait to take on this project. A new challenge in a new space and a new theater.