This blog entry was featured on Theatre Talk in the Columbus Dispatch on the second day of performance for Noel Coward’s Hay Fever, which I directed at Bread & Circus Theatre Company. It was also picked up by the USA Today Index. Since I’ve now decided to try my hand at blogging in general, I thought it would be a good “first post.”
Every once in a while you open your mouth and say something you had no intention of saying. What I said to the Bread & Circus Artistic Director was, “I’d like to direct. Do you think I can?” I was quite surprised at myself, but twice as surprised when the answer came back, “Yes, you can.” That was the beginning of my journey from actor to director. Now here it is, more than a year later, and the journey is about to end. What a trip it’s been!
The Play as Puzzle
The biggest challenge? Having a vision that you want to see on the stage. I’ve acted in a number of productions, and seen them come together, like live-action jigsaw puzzles, over the course of a rehearsal period. The actor’s puzzle box can be blank on top, with only some of the pieces in it. As an actor, you can work with bits and pieces without “seeing” the picture right away. Your understanding of your part can unfold over time. The director’s puzzle box, though, must have all of the pieces and a picture of what the finished puzzle should look like, before the box is even opened. Because the director is, in essence, painting the picture on the box and cutting out the pieces. Even now, it makes me giddy to know that for Hay Fever, the picture on the box is one that I created from reading the script, researching the playwright and the time period, listening to live performances…then weaving that in with my own ideas of who these characters are and what the story is and why anyone should care.
Painting the Picture
I had worried about that vision – the picture on the puzzle box – for months. Because I really didn’t have one. I’d shut my eyes and try to “see” the set, to “hear” the lines. And I couldn’t. I just knew that as a director, I was doomed. But I’d forgotten about the actors. At the first night of rehearsal, as they read their scripts, they gave birth to their characters, and my vision of the play was born. From then on, I knew how I wanted this play to look and feel. Because I knew how I wanted each actor to envision his or her place in the story. I learned that night that no matter what anyone thinks, it’s not the director’s ideas or the actors’ interpretations that make a show good. It’s the synergy that sparks between the two factions that counts.
How It Feels
Bread & Circus Theatre Company is known for providing opportunities. Opportunities to try acting or tech work, opportunities to do behind-the-scenes work, opportunities for to try your hand at directing. For Hay Fever, most everyone in the cast and crew knew from the start that I was a “newbie.” I worried that I couldn’t be an effective director since everyone knew it was my first time. I needn’t have. Actors need a director – even a novice – as much as a director needs actors. As an actor, I do my best to give the director what he or she wants. It’s what you do as an actor. And now, as a director, I realize how incredible that is. I have nine actors, a three-person crew, and an assistant director – and they all actually give me what I ask for. With enthusiasm! Even as my vision of the play unfolds – and changes and changes and changes – they’re right there with me, along for the ride and working hard to make “my” vision of Noel Coward’s words come alive. Now that I understand how much that means to a director, I think I’ll be a better actor. Or at least easier to work with.
The Final Piece
So, the set is up, the costumes are made, the props are ready. The actors all know their lines. Now we need but one critical element: an audience. Noel Coward called Hay Fever his favorite of all of the plays he’d written. I hope everyone who comes to see “my” Hay Fever will go home thinking it is one of their favorites, too. Whether they do or not, though, I know that the experience of being a “first time director” will live in my heart forever.
No Pennies Needed 