ATW - SDCF Masters of the Stage

In 2002, Lincoln Center dramaturg Anne Cattaneo moderated a One-on-One discussion with prolific British theatre, film, television and opera director Richard Eyre. He talks about directing "The Crucible" in the 1970's and in 2002, and how he sees the story as a fable rather than as a metaphor for the McCarthy Era as a result of growing up outside the country. He tells his audience about the importance of casting good actors, and his rejection of the idea of "concept" directing. They discuss running the National Theatre, dealing with input from producers, audience and critics and the difference between life as a freelance and artistic director. Other topics include theatre vs. film directing, Peter Brook's production of "King Lear" and how Eyre's knowledge of chemistry has informed his theatre. This eighty-minute interview is full of inspiring advice that aspiring directors will be quoting for years to come.

In 2002, Arthur Penn sat down for a One-on-One conversation with SDCF Executive Director David Diamond to discuss his triple-threat career in theatre, television and film. He tells the story of his launch into theatre from the army, followed by an early career in TV and the Actors Studio. He talks about his relationship with Bill Gibson which launched two of his biggest successes: "The Miracle Worker" and "Two for the Seesaw", and shares humorous anecdotes about working with Lillian Hellman, Sammy Davis, Jr., George C. Scott, Henry Fonda and the geneses of "The Golden Boy", "Wait Until Dark", "Sly Fox" and his film "The Left-Handed Gun". Mr. Penn discusses his approach to directing, the importance of casting and his embrace of Stanislavsky's Method for both theatre and film. Other topics include the shrinking audience for theatre today, the self-serving nature of Hollywood, and his early inspirations in Elia Kazan and the Group Theatre. Mr. Penn's positive attitude about both the highs and lows of his career is inspiring, and this ninety-minute discussion with the legendary director should not be missed.

In June 1995 three-time Tony Award-winning director Gene Saks spoke with David Diamond in a One-on-One Interview about his journey through the many aspects of his directing career. Topics of this 90-minute conversation include the challenges of directing comedies and musicals, working with writers, and the differences between directing theatre and film. He talks about the use of spectacle as cover-up for story and about the ideal collaborative process in which good ideas come from all members of the creative team. Full of humorous anecdotes featuring Henry Fonda, Neil Simon, Angela Lansbury, Lucille Ball and Jule Styne, this interview highlights Mr. Saks' wonderful storytelling ability and touches on all aspects of the directing profession.

In this One-on-One conversation with Lincoln Center Dramaturg Anne Cattaneo, Mabou Mines founder and famed director JoAnne Akalaitis shares her wisdom with a full room gathered at Arts Connection in November, 1995. They discuss her days with Mabou Mines and the experimental theatre of the 60s and 70s, and the desire for a broader audience that motivated her transition to regional theaters, where theatre was part of the community. Akalaitis encourages young directors to do their own work and to see the work of others as the basis for any discussion about directing, and expresses the need for entrepreneurship among young artists. Other topics include her approach to a play, the role of an artistic director, and how seeing "Frankenstein" changed her life. Full of eloquent insight and sage advice, this 90-minute interview will inspire listeners of all ages and professions.

At the 2003 SDC Directing Symposium, Scott Elliott, Artistic Director of The New Group and Callaway Award winner for Excellence in Directing, spoke to a room full of young directors for 90 minutes about his transition from acting in Broadway musicals to becoming an award winning director and artistic director of a successful Off-Broadway theatre company. He describes paying rent with charge cards in order to be creatively ambitious in his early directing days, and the element of chance that led to the New York Times showing up for one of his first shows and in so doing, changed his career forever. He speaks of his experience directing "The Women" for Roundabout on Broadway at the time of 9/11 and the decision to continue rehearsing and open the show in October. Other topics include choosing scripts and collaborators, the state of Off-Broadway theater post 9/11, and his collaboration with Arthur Miller on "The Ride Down Mt. Morgan". Mr. Elliott's interview provides a sneak peek into the world of a remarkable theatre artist who built his career from scratch, which should be of great interest to any aspiring director or artistic director.

In 1999, after receiving SDC's "Mr. Abbott Award," director/playwright/actress Vinnette Carroll spoke with SDC Executive Director David Diamond about her life as the first African American woman to direct on Broadway. She describes her mother's intense desire for her children to be cultured and how she encouraged Carroll to pursue the arts. She speaks about breaking into acting with a production of "Ceasar and Cleopatra" and the joy she eventually finds as a director in collaborating with playwrights and choreographers. Other conversation topics include the mentorship she received from Erwin Piscator and Stella Adler, the influence of choreography and other art forms on her directing style, and her close relationship with Langston Hughes. She tells how Hughes helped with her one-woman shows, which she did because there were no parts for black women at the time, and how that led to the beginning of the Urban Arts Corps which existed to give work to young minority artists. Evident throughout the interview is her passion for the people she worked with: how they were the reason for her persistence in the arts, the satisfaction she experienced from working with others, and the feel of being part of a greater whole. An incredible story for anyone passionate about the lives of American Theater's great women.

In this Directors Training Symposium from 1996, Lincoln Center Theater's artistic director Andre Bishop talks about his responsibilities as an artistic director, the qualities he looks for when hiring a director, his belief that many young directors lack knowledge in certain areas, how theatre as a whole can and must develop the next generation of directors, the key difference between commercial productions and the not-for-profit theatre, and why not-for-profit theatres must do more than simply produce shows.

In May of 1988, Peter Van Zandt moderated a talk with director and Lincoln Center Theatre artistic director Gregory Mosher, just weeks after the opening of the Broadway production of David Mamet's "Speed-the-Plow". In a conversation that focuses on Mosher's longstanding relationship with Mamet, and Mosher's leadership of Lincoln Center Theater since 1985, topics include Mosher and Mamet's first meeting in Chicago in 1974; the ambiguity of "Speed-the-Plow"; Mamet's preference for working with the same company of actors and Mosher's desire to open up the casting to a broader range of actors, including the casting of stage neophyte Madonna in her Broadway debut; the issues involved in releasing an actor; why Mosher loves producing perhaps more than directing; how the then-new Lincoln Center membership model compares with the classic theatrical subscription model; whether he believes Lincoln Center Theater should have a resident acting company, as it did when the Vivian Beaumont opened in the 1960s; the process of moving "Sarafina!"; and what he had learned from his new partner at LCT, Bernard Gersten.

In January of 1987, noted director, educator and SDC Board Member Mary Robinson met with directors Mark Lamos and Nagle Jackson to discuss running regional theatres. At the time, these two men were the Artistic Directors of Hartford Stage and Princeton's McCarter Theatre respectively. The conversation begins as many of SDCF's one-on-one interviews do, with Lamos and Jackson outlining the origins of their careers as directors, and specifically as Artistic Directors. We find that both men transitioned from performance to direction, and as Lamos puts it "were the kind of actor's you saw and said 'it looks like he should be a director'". These two master artists talk about the lessons they learned in the various posts which they've held at America's leading regional theatres, including: A.C.T; Arizona Theatre Company, Guthrie Theatre, Milwaukee Rep and others. We learn that though there are issues unique to each theatre and community wherein they reside, there are common obstacles and rewards that face all artists and administrators who work in regional theatre. Lamos and Jackson speak about how they've dealt with enhancing subscriber bases, choosing a season, working with Boards of Directors, finding new audiences and engaging their communities, and reaching out to communities that are not regularly exposed to theatre. This is a discussion not to be missed by anyone who's ever had the goal of running or starting a theatre company.

In May of 1988, esteemed Shakespearean acting teacher Ada Brown Mather discussed the bard's work with three of its contemporary master directors: Zoe Caldwell, Gerald Freedman, and Stuart Vaughn. Mather first introduces us to the work of the panelists, and then she begins a discussion framed by the questions "why do we get so excited about how Shakespeare is directed from age to age?" In this two-hour long session the audience gains access to insights on rehearsal practices, the directorial techniques and approaches of the panelists, and the debate on the American aptitude for producing good Shakespeare. We learn that there is one idea that unites the panelists, and perhaps all great technicians of Shakespeare, and it is to try at all costs to be true to his text.

In March of 1994, not long after the close of her hit Broadway production of "The Secret Garden", Susan H. Schulman sat down with Director Melvin Bernhardt to discuss her life in the theatre. Ms. Schulman walks a captivated audience of early-career Directors and Choreographers through her career to date, spanning neighborhood shows on her family's Brooklyn stoop as a small girl through her most recent Broadway production. We learn that it all began for her in the garage studio of 'Miss Harriet's School of Ballet' in Brooklyn, leading her to matriculate as the (self-labeled) "worst dancer in the class" at New York's prestigious High School of the Performing Arts. Her directing career stemmed from years as a performer at Hofstra University as an undergraduate. After being told that women could not apply to the Yale School of Drama graduate directing program, Susan attended Yale as a playwright for her graduate studies and kept directing none the less. This yearn to direct at any costs won her productions first in Buffalo, then at the Equity Library Theatre in New York, and then a season of musicals at the Civic Light Opera house in Pittsburgh. Susan explains how she came to direct musical theatre so masterfully and on such a grand scale, while not initially being able to read music. Her method understanding the music: taking children's piano lessons. Equally impressive are the unlikely circumstances under which she moved her York Theatre company production of "Sweeney Todd" from a school gym to a Broadway home at Circle in the Square Theatre. This 90 minute interview continues with insights on the collaborative process, Susan's opinions on the American Musical, and advice to the young theatre makers in attendance. It is a conversation not to be missed by any artist interested in the work ethic necessary to make it to Broadway.

In this discussion with Director-Choreographer Lynne Taylor-Corbett in February of 2000, listen to a two-time Tony nominee share her research into the complex history and techniques of competitive swing dance. She tells about the improvisation and experimentation involved during her workshop process to adapt this dance form for the Broadway stage in the 1999 production of "Swing!" We also get a glimpse of the stories that influenced her career; from her first encounter with a professional dancer in her hometown of Denver that propelled her to New York, to her work touring Africa and the Middle East with the Alvin Ailey Dance Company, as well as her first Broadway experiences choreographing "Chess" and "Titanic". She explains how she built her career from the joy she feels for the theatre audience's enthusiasm for watching dance. This ninety minute interview ends with a frank discussion of the Director-Choreographer relationship, in which she describes the best collaboration as being a fluid, non-threatened relationship built on trust. This insight into the life of an undeniably talented theatre maker is a revealing glimpse into the strengths and struggles of a working Director-Choreographer, which should command the respect of any theatre professional.

For decades, Marshall Mason and Lanford Wilson have been seminal figures in the theatre industry. Their artistic partnership spans nearly forty years and is recognized as being among the most enduring in the American Theatre. Their work together - from "Balm in Gilead" to the more recent "Book of Days" - stands as some of the most beloved in the American canon. In 2002, New York's Signature Theatre devoted its entire season to the plays of Lanford Wilson, including the New York City premiere of "Book of Days" which was directed by Mason. On the eve of that premiere, the SDCF was privileged to host Mason, Wilson, and long time collaborator and co-founder of Circle Repertory Company, Tanya Berezin in an in-depth One-on-One Conversation exploring their extraordinary careers, the craft of stage direction and the secrets behind their legendary director-writer collaboration

In this ninety minute discussion with Arthur Penn, catch a glimpse of the artistic processes which make this legend of directing such an artistic triple threat. To date, he is still the only individual to be nominated for a Tony, an Emmy and an Oscar for the same property - "The Miracle Worker". In May of 1987, Penn sat down with Melvin Bernhardt for this candid discussion on his style of directing and its application to stage and screen. We learn that Penn's direction is one of calculated chaos, never telling one actor what he says to the other and staving off, for as long as possible, wedding the action of the scene to the actual words of the text. It is a style that has worked brilliantly, but has also engineered conflict with those not willing to fully embrace its method - specifically Henry Fonda on Penn's Broadway debut, "Two for the Seesaw", about which he speaks frankly in this interview. He also tells of his artistic development, learning to direct for the stage through working in live television. Penn reminisces on the Broadway of the late 50's and 60's and the sense of artistic community which no longer exists in the same manner it once did. This is a discussion we enlightens us to the artistic aesthetic of one of entertainment's most prolific auteurs, and the steps he takes to create his unique imprimatur.

World renowned designer for the stage Ming Cho Lee spoke to a crowd of early career directors and choreographers in April of 1999 at SDCF's annual Symposium. The focus of this discussion was working with Shakespeare, and in this ninety minute address Ming explains why he will go anywhere to work on the Bard's cannon. With wit and humor he tailors his remarks to fit his audience, explaining how he communicates with directors. He speaks of his love of teaching, and of why the basis for his first-year design course at Yale is a foundation in directing. Ming then intricately evaluates and describes his process of design for some of his favorite Shakespearean works and productions. This is a lecture characterized by one man's passion for his work, and the "endless reservoir of knowledge and experience" that can be gained through engaging in Shakespeare.