 Good morning everyone. Welcome. Good afternoon. My name is Zachary Michael Muzzi. I'm the Arts Association Coordinator here at Actors Theatre of Louisville. I'd like to welcome you once again to the 39th annual Man's Festival of the American Plays. We have a really exciting panel for you this morning. It's called the Path to Production. And to give you an introduction for that, I'd like to introduce Megan Carter. She is the Director of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation. This afternoon presenting this panel for ATL and the SEC Foundation, for those of you who don't know, develops and promotes directors and choreographers at all stages of their artistic lives with the friendships, fellowships, awards. And a huge part of what we do is simply having conversations like the one that's about to happen, about what directors do and how they contribute to the field. Back in the fall, Meredith McDonough, who's the Associate Executive Director here at ACL, Laura Penn, who's the Executive Director of SEC, the Stage Director of the Choreographers Union. We were sitting in a restaurant in Chicago talking about new state development and the role the directors played. And I was like, hey, why don't we do a panel about that at Humana? And Meredith said yes. So here we are having an intimate conversation with Giovanna Sardelli, who has done a gazillion new plays. I'll just mention one, Animals Out of Paper with Rajiv Joseph, which she was involved in several stages of. Kimberly Senior, who recently did Disgrace with A.I. Akhtar, and Jeremy Cohen will be moderating. Jeremy is the Producee and Autistic Director at the Playwright Center in Minneapolis. I'll set this up a little bit. Because directors are not in the spotlight in new play development, often their contributions are not talked about. So we thought it would be an excellent time and place here to talk about everything that they do along the road to production, because new plays go through readings and workshops and more workshops, first productions, second productions. So we're hoping to have a big conversation about all of those parts of the process. So I'll turn it over to Jeremy. Thank you. Thanks so much, Megan. Good morning, everybody. How y'all doing today? I guess it's one o'clock, so it's not morning. It's Peter morning. I'm Jeremy, and I'm going to hang out with me for about the next 58 minutes and have conversations with these two incredible artists. And I wonder, should we move that thing so that these people don't have a whole big old thing? No directors, you don't have to move that thing. This is what you're just looking at. 40 years of directing experience doesn't happen right there. What's happening? How can I bring your voice out? They're a vision. If I move this over here, then I'll be chained in the room. Oh my God. How many people? I'm just curious. This is your first time ever coming to the Incredible Humanity Festival. This is your first time. Oh, welcome. Welcome, Virgins. Welcome. We're so happy to have you guys here. I just want to say that this, you know, today, kind of what Megan was talking about, Meredith and Les and I have been talking a little bit about as well, is that we really wanted today to be a kickoff to a larger conversation that this weekend of work really speaks to. So we really hope that today this really kind of just initiates and ignites a conversation that y'all will have over the course of the weekend as you respond to the work and kind of take on the incredible new theater work that's happening here all weekend long at the Humanity Festival. I'm going to jump right in just because we have about 57 minutes left and I'm making sure to look at my phone for two reasons. One, because I'm a director which means I didn't print out my notes and I don't want to say I'm totally screwed. And you're from the restaurant and you just got on her red eyed plate. So that's what the director panel looks like. And the other thing is maybe it's 107 and we really do need to clear here at two o'clock so that they can turn over for a play shortly thereafter. So I would just invite us to talk for a little bit. We're going to have a chance to do a little bit of a question and answer towards the end. And then I would just ask that at two o'clock when we go, we then kind of move the conversation out to the lobby and beyond over the course of the weekend. So I think one of the things that we want to start with is the idea of what does a healthy director playwright relationship look like. Not what does the director playwright look like. But in your mind, and I think with the different writers that you guys have worked with as individual directors and also in your experience of kind of seeing other work and seeing what that's looked like with other folks, what does that mean when we say like that was successful or that that relationship went well? Gio, can we start with you? I think for me, I've been very lucky in that there are a few playwrights I've worked with numerous times and part of the reason is there's no question about the mutual level of respect which is they respect not only that I'm the person who's going to tell their story, I respect their story. We agreed upon all the players who will be telling the story so that we're in it together. There's never a moment where somebody starts to play the blame game about why something might have gone wrong as it often does when you're doing a play. I also think you have to be able to ask each other questions and not challenge your questions and not feel, not take them personally, not feel disrespected because you're both in it to find the best answer to every question that's posed and so I think healthy discourse, healthy conversations and really this feeling that you're in it for each other and you're in it together is really important. From the beginning, from the outset. And you can tell instantly if that is the relationship you're going to have. You really, you really can. It's like, I guess speed dating, any healthy relationship, right, like mutual respect seems like something we should have for one another in a relationship and in a healthy relationship. But the also the sense of the I think a measure of its success to sort of enter that part of it is about it kind of going a distance in terms of like deepening and becoming more meaningful and which really starts with a place of trust and maybe like a shared vocabulary or developing a shared vocabulary or aesthetic that makes sense. But then there's also the sense of like the past few years we've done together is like we'll both like read the same book that has nothing to do with either of us and then kind of like find a way to talk about the work that's not our work and so it's like how can we how can we kind of develop that language in a broader world that isn't just about that way. When it's a relationship with someone that might be your first time working with them or your uncertain so part of it is that new dating experience and maybe you guys can also articulate a little bit the difference between I'm working with someone for six days in a workshop versus I'm working in the sort of production and rehearsal sense so the designers that are involved the actors that are involved the set that the stage space the relationship to the audience the way you're going to tell the story does that differ both in terms of if it's a new relationship versus a long-term one because it's great when you keep working together and then also how does that differ between truly unique development versus we know this is heading into a production and how we're going to work longer. It's about knowing the mission statement of what you're setting out to do like you're in a six day workshop so it's like what what is it what's our goal here coming up with that shared goal and then finding a way to do that and also knowing that just like every director works differently and every actor works differently every player has a different way that they like to work considering part of establishing that mission is like what's going to be most useful meeting especially when you're in a shorter workshop period that there you're really there to work on the play right you're not you're not going necessarily towards production so okay what are the goals are we we want to look at our name the ending is that this characters are for to identify what that thing is and then what are the different ways we're going to go about attacking it when I first meet somebody one of the first questions I ask is what would make you very happy and what could I do that would make you very unhappy because I want to make sure that I can please them because it's not fun to show up to work and have a sense that you're disappointing someone so right off the bat I always know why I'm the mission statement not only collectively and artistically but personally because there are playwrights whom I love and respect so much if they wrote a piece of crap on that then I said will you direct this I would say yes I will I will direct a piece of crap and happily and we will make it shine because my I invested in them then for other people from who I don't have that relationship yet I invested their story and I always want to make sure that I want to tell the story they want told because I think what can lead to an unhealthy relationship or an unpleasant developmental experience is if you're if I'm trying to make something happen that isn't what the playwright wants to have happened or if I'm disappointed in a turn the story takes I have to know why I'm there and who I'm serving and so that's part of it is really figuring out but why why am I here what is my job one of the questions too and I'm really curious for all of the brilliant writers in the room that I'm looking around and saying too is and this obviously varies artist to artist and collaboration to collaboration and yet when is because this is as a sort of panel from sdc foundation when is when is it useful for a director to say I'm not disappointed because I just wish the story were being told differently but sort of where that dramaturgical relationship happens for a lot of you play directors and how kind of woven in what when do you not be your heels and but when do you say I still hear what you're saying I will absolutely move the production this way when do you as a collaborator kind of stick in with it and say like I still here's what I think is happening and I want to give that to you because I want you to see it and I also want to still have the conversation how does that how does the party navigate that it's tricky it's a I'm really quickly kind of get to where the tension is because we can talk a lot about success but I think that's sort of like fail do it fail do it sister do it do it do it I mean it didn't have to be a fail play that work done called the who in the what which was also written by ad octar this the it's a comedy and we were in a workshop of the the play and the first scene was good and it was working but the second scene was like way funnier like it was just so hilarious the hilarious scene and so I and since the scenes in time chronologically happen at the same time I had suggested to ad like we need to teach you know from where I'm sitting and you teach the audience how to watch us play the last play that you did was not a comedy and so people have come in because they want to see some serious discourse about Islam and actually this is a family comedy and they don't know that and so the second thing is so funny and they happen at the same time why don't we just look them in fact we just need sort of refer to each other there's like a text conversation that happens so that you know that they're having the same time he's like well that's not the way I wrote it and I said but I want to teach the audience how to watch us play like why aren't you listening to me they don't know it's funny or you need to write more jokes I'm going to talk about like hold the music of it and I was like the scene was even dunking right I was like it's so much better and we tried it for a few days actually the heart of the story is more important to teach than the comedy of the story but it took us kind of he wasn't he wasn't really able to articulate why the scenes need to be in order they were aside from like that's the way that I wrote it until it made sense to me at the time which is of course a perfectly valid answer but and in my effort to try to like shape and craft the best experience possible for our audience I was like trying to shoehorn something where my focus was on the wrong thing but that what I love that what I love about that story is first of all that I was wrong and second of all that we tried we did try and that that's like the best part about is that we tried for a few days and kind of kept talking about it and kept attempting to and then we actually learned something about the play from the exercise so which was also great so like he ended up being right but we needed to do the exercise so that it wasn't a question of right and wrong it was it was just a question of like yeah sort of why that didn't even happen I'll share my failed story I actually am doing a production right now and it's with the playwright with whom I've never worked but who I dearly admire and she wasn't around a lot in the production it's in a word by Lauren Yead it's an incredibly beautiful play and very funny but probably what I should have known is that it's hysterically funny but that's not how I write up a play and it's not how the scenic designer responded to the play it's about a family coping with a child who's gone missing so we saw the emotion and the beauty of the play and some humor and with I've never worked with her before and she came back three days four days into rehearsal and was disappointed and I've never had that I've never disappointed the playwright and it was profoundly painful to have to say what am I what do you want to see and then when she described it to have to say to her oh I'm not your girl that's not what I can actually do that with this story so lucky you you have a rolling world premiere so someone will but what I can show you is this part of your play I can highlight the heart and the humor that is in bounds for me and it was it was a really interesting moment to have to say this is what you get like about a healthy relationship right but also like knowing and being able to tell you who you are and what you can bring with what your strengths are and you're like this is this is the way I see it this is like what I and you'll have that to your conversation so oh yeah when I tried to please her it was um it was one of those moments where I was like I think I might be doing 60s feminist theater or something like this is so not my aesthetic that I actually will kill your play like I will hurt your play and I said watch me I'll do your scene the way I think you want it so she watched I went oh yeah no let's not do that and it was and it's interesting because when the reviews came out one of the first things it's a it's a lovely review thank god and our choices were vindicated however they do say that we didn't know how to start the play and they're right so that was a starting place it's really hard it's really hard the first 10 minutes of any play and the reviews that might level two was out the first 10 minutes it's just how do you educate an audience to what they're going to see true to the story and they're not ready to laugh because all the press material has said it's about missing child and family coping with this it's really hard to get a you would have to prosecute yourself for a laugh but I was just not prepared to do so we all know as audience members like that's when we're either hooking in or not we're probably gloober sensitive to that like oh yeah that we know they're such great people we also know we have to get them invested as let it happen honestly it took every ounce of restraint I had not to sit there the first preview and go hi just hold up the sign they'll go to laugh um I want to stick sort of in this in the sort of the kind of emotional kind of tenor that you guys are in a little bit which is to talk about how do you as a director and Kimberly and I have talked to this thing for about 20 years or longer how do you as an individual artist find your voice and kind of place your voice in a process or with a writer on the new play as you're developing in either towards production or not and in real honest terms how do you take care of yourself in a relationship in which maybe that play is going to move on and have a huge commercial life maybe it's not and because there's a lot of tenderness in that relationship and I think a lot of the tension and how it's manifested itself as we've seen with different iterations of well not unions but how contracts happen and ownership that's a real sensitive place in the world of new play development between directors and writers I'm wondering if you guys can call it illuminate for us sort of and this is again you know these are a couple of artists thoughts so again please take these and have your own and respond to them and come talk with us and talk amongst each other all weekend long but how do you how do you hold yourself there I mean my answer just gonna like come from that like sunny optimism land which is just what's guided my entire career is the like oh I'm just gonna be here now and I'm just gonna do the best work I can on this play in this moment in this version like at this second and if it's like meant to be it will be I mean that the when um when I first started Directing Disgrace in Chicago in 2011 I was told at the time that just so you know we're probably gonna bring a show to New York and just so you know you're probably not going to direct it and I was like okay thanks for letting me know why would you hire me you don't know me you haven't seen my work you don't I mean we're like in this new that I was like this is a new thing we don't know what it's gonna be so I'm just gonna like be here now with the thing and do everything that I can and who knows what like this they will have this is the first play this guy ever wrote you know and it needs some work and um you know who knows what whatever that's gonna end up and so all I can do is just like be in this moment and then to get to move on with the plan then also have a production that I did direct that happened and to be able to kind of see it's very specific to this play and anyways because I have a like a political agenda with this play about like furthering the conversation about the content is in American theater that I think Disgrace is achieving in a really cool way that I'm very proud of and so and proud to have been any small part of so it's this like I love being able to go to London and see the play there and see the conversation and be in the lobby and that like no one in the lobby had any idea anything to do with the play and to be able to kind of like listen and hear that conversation in another country and there's a quite moving actually and I also learned just technically about the play like oh there are moments that is exactly how I did that like well that must be how that moment works because someone completely independent of the conversation we had had like came up with that and then there were other things where I was like my brain's better yet and the way that the violence was then it made me go back and say to Aya like why and what happened where it was like our breakdown conversation about it and it was almost because he and I were so close and I was attempting so much to take care of him it was very vulnerable thing for him to put that violence on stage and so I deferred to him when I should have been I should have been stronger and said like no but this is what you wrote so this is what I'm gonna put on the stage even though you're giving me as something softer so yeah it's a lot of things. Well early on in my career I got I think a very important lesson about losing a play that you spend years of your life working on. Rajiv Joseph is most well known for Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo and up until that play our careers had we were moving along exactly in a parallel career and I was very naive and I thought of course that's what happens and then he wrote Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo and I did two years of development on that piece and then I learned that I would not be going forward with it and it was a really interesting moment in my life to go well huh so I have this is where I arrived a place where I'm in a personal decision in my life never to move forward in bitterness life is too short and also my I love this man so truthfully I'm going to celebrate what my dear friend has done and I'm going to cry to my sister I will throw I gave myself two hours of misery I mean I'm Italian so it was good and then I said what's really important to me it's not this play it's this man it's this playwright it's this story and I realized when it was when I went to see it my biggest fear was not was actually personal was that I was going to sit on in a Broadway theater with a production of Moises Coffin had directed and go oh shit I don't know how to do that and ten minutes in I went he's doing a lot of what I did or I mine was better or that's fantastic I wish I had done that but it was no different than what I had been doing and for me it was an incredible moment in my life as a director when I went oh I complained with the big boys and it doesn't they hate your participation and I mean ultimately like again Pollyanna speaking that that there's like a sense of that the work is bigger than we are and that like that that thing little tiger that you saw you're in it you're imprinted on it in a way that we can't measure or put a dollar value on or understand the actual property or any of those things but that like doesn't the same way that actors contribute to and then another actor does it and then they take that work and turn outside and look at it and do it in a new way and then they've add their fit to it and like eventually the thing has to like live when the work is great and like it's in a matter down the road is that like we've all been a part of this thing it's bigger than any one of our single contributions to it so it's funny because I in having that lesson so early I also learned I was amazed at how many people said to me well I I can't believe he did that to you and I said what did he do to me he got him he he got this fantastic offer who would I be to not celebrate that the play the story my friend and it's so funny because I look back and if I had if I had acted in pettiness my career would be very different because I have done eight shows with Rajeev since then because the relationship it was bigger than any single show and and so anything in this business loses a show you you just do I think part of the paradigm to the interest added there is what is the position of a playwright in all of this conversation because I think for a lot of a lot of writers that scarcity of opportunity is huge and how that relates to dollars and insurance and just actual survival so what happens in those moments for writers who I spend a lot of time talking with writers who will come in my office or call me whatever and say I need to have a conversation about this because I want to approach this relationship with integrity and I want to appreciate the input the respect the value of the investment of the director in that process and also what I'm being told is they can't afford I just this just it's happening this week and again and I was acting downstairs and after having sent flowers there's a world career of a play happening opening in 24 hours of play that I developed for a while that happened at a theater with me down there and then they said to the writer we can't afford the director so it has to be someone here and you can take it and she went through a battle and at some point actually for us what it was was the conversation where I said you're a playwright you don't have 62 of these opportunities that happen all the time I am I couldn't be less interested in holding this up I appreciate what you've done in place of work for me please go make this play happen and and as I think you guys are articulating at the right moment at the right time that will happen it happened like now and a week later we got an offer to go do it in DC which we're doing and it's sort of like out right there plus that's all that doesn't always happen but just I do want to factor the writer into this conversation as well and where that place is for them I have something that work sometimes gets better the more like people who kind of come in and touch it so like yeah that writers like maybe something out of this production now that then when you guys don't do it again like this other layer well been brought into it and you know we just have to I mean look also with with writers they you know oftentimes they do have like a partnership with the same director that goes on and on and on but like I mean I don't know right now I'm like I'm dating a bunch of different writers we it's it's there are lots of writers that I'm in rooms with and that that relationship is not as often singular work like someone from the other side um it is singular so I just want to say I'm open to dating a lot of writers I want to talk to you my name is not agonized over the moment when they have to leave behind a director and I think it is petty for a director to hold anybody back or make them feel bad about an opportunity they have for their work it is it is hard to do and yet you simply must and I'm now I'm the director of new works um at theater works so in my valley and I'm in the uncomfortable position of having to say we need a staff director or I for when it goes to Broadway I hope it's the two of you but I can't do that and I to be on that side of it is really uh it's not seen for everyone involved it's really it's it's a very difficult conversation and you want to be as respectful as you can and as honest as you can I want to make sure we have time for to get a couple of questions from you guys as well I would just say was there is there anything if you had kind of looking back is there anything that you feel like and you shared some of it today I feel already but is there anything outside of respect integrity hubris is there anything else that you feel like you've learned about the relationship between not just you as a director but also directors and writers because I think we all have a relationship with STC and with the great love and respect for writers in particular around the sort of um the traditional way that plays get written and dramaturged and developed when you're talking about writers and I'm looking around there and also seeing writers who don't who write and refer to ensembles or you know Greg Moss and the piece that's having with big iron or quarry symbols I'm looking at writers who also spend parts of their career writing with companies and creative work that way do you think there's any more or less for a different perspective where it shifts the conversation in any way when it's not just the writer or the director that's how that looks oh completely um I've got a bunch of devised work at NYU and also then shepherded some and not as a director but again facilitating and I think the conversation is broader how you how inclusive you have to be how playful you have to be and also again um there has to be a rigorous structure and goal in mind so that there's a container for all this magnificent input and so I think um and not that new plays can't be like that with actor and designer contributions but when it's a company it feels uh there's such a different level of commitment in the room to the whole and I think and I just I love that kind of work I can't I'm so excited to see it over the weekend um yeah one of the things we talk a lot about I think that you were talking about how well it's one of the things that we were belong uh at the player center in addition to you know sort of making 70 plays a year but really thinking about what the relationship is between development and production and I think kind of moving into the next generation of conversation because I think you can get very static and very stuck if we don't sort of say what if we actually came from a play for we assume that individual artists or institutional artists or whomever and institutions together both wanted the best thing as you guys are I think sharing today what if we all wanted good for this process what if we all wanted this to be um cleaner more transparent more clear more understanding of what ownership looks like all of the respect and value I think that you're talking about how to be at player center I know for us we constantly have that conversation about how can we connect with what does it mean for the magic theater or cutting ball to do that in the Bay Area at that budget level versus ACT or Berkeley CREV I'm just going to be thinking the Bay Area since you're mentioning and how do those relationships where does the institution help and where does it challenge where does that challenge go and so really how can we be a hub and a bridge for those conversations between writers and directors and artists instead of the theme just about a play and getting stuck in the machine or a pipeline or god knows all those things being comfortable answer right is that every not only is every playwright I want to be worked with differently and is their own unique singular self but each play requires something different and so it's so hard because what happens is we the institutional pipeline all those words blah blah blah they're trying to find a way a method a formula and like it's so to trust like the intangible and to trust that like sometimes someone write the draft of a play and it is like ready for production and sometimes it takes somebody with 11 years and 712 drafts to write a play and both are valid and sometimes the same playwright that did 712 drafts their next play right out of the gate they sit down they write it the two weeks it's done it's ready to go and like that's we have to trust that there's not like a method that you can that you can put on a thing or a I mean I remember like just kind of trying to study new play development and reading everything I could have talked to a bunch of directors about it and really wanted to do it and get into a room with fantastic playwright kikas was a chicago playwright fantastic amazing brilliant man wrote a steady rain and many many many other plays and we're in there and and we love each other we have this great conversation when we're having coffee that's wonderful and then we're in the room and I'm like something's not right it's not it's not working they're not we're not getting along and I just finally say to him like what is happening here you know and he's like well why are you going to stop asking me so many questions and I said well as soon as you start collaborating with me like I couldn't I've been told that like asking questions was the right thing to do and keep you know he essentially are taking in that conversation to me like I wrote something at home alone in my room and like you being able to put it in three dimensions is is that's all I need right now like I actually don't want to talk about it I just want to like move the thing from here to here and then we can talk about it and and that was different than like the player and I worked with prior and that was a really like great you know experience and I mean that and that anecdote is probably like 15 years old and he's still like he'll send me a play and be like I need seven million questions you know but that was like that was really important because I thought that questions were like the magic answer nuclear development right this life we'll just ask lots of questions ask like you know just ask questions and make sure that your opinion is not in them just a bunch of unbiased questions it's like I practice them at home a lot of my room and then you can practice in the mirror at home and kind of euphemism are the death of new plays of America you know I'm gonna dig the shit you know well you know I'm actually involved in this struggle personally as I said if I'm new to my role and so I'm noticing how there is a trajectory that makes sense to people with money to people with buildings the way they need to see a product and understand that they should invest in it and then it will go forward um so I I'm right now wondering how else can I do it what other ways can I serve writers and I don't have answers right now because the model is in place how it does work for a lot of writers but a lot especially I look at who goes through your your center and who gets lost because then you can't quite fit into that model so I'm open to ideas and thoughts and I want to find a way definitely a theater works to serve an artist to figure out what you need and then how what is programming that can allow for that and it is really tricky if there is like some writers want to like write a big step in the room some writers I need a day off between rehearsals some writers are like we're going to do five days in row and then I'm going to go away for a month and then every different kind of thing is like it becomes really complex when the lights but I need to put a line item yeah like how much housing do you need like what do you mean a day off between the thing like I'm going to pay for the theater game you're not in the hotel room that I'm paying for and I don't understand like there it becomes it becomes complicated like you can't like you know we can't understand like the rhythms of the human heart you know and that's like that's what this is it doesn't follow a logic and I think that a lot of what the director's job that becomes is is becoming a translator of attempting to understand like this is the way this process is going to work and how do we program with institutions to help make that make sense for them and for their staff and how do we program the other artists working on it to help that makes sense to me a lot of it is about you know protecting your playwright's process and and what is it being able to kind of tease out what that is and being ready to know that's an ever-changing thing and being cool with that and I just want to say too I realized I forgot to mention at the beginning both Robert O'Hara and Juliette Carrillo were two of my favorite directors in the world also were meant to be on this panel but the storms of the America have taken over the America and so they are not here we are not we're in little tucky so they they're not equal to be where I have this wish that they were watching it live like some other people and texting us things like you didn't talk about this we love you Robert get here soon I think I'll wait for one more kind of conversation here and then I really like to open up to the discussion with you all as well can you share and again really specific to you something that you have learned over time if you were to say to someone who's just starting out they're like I really want to I love you play and I want to be a new play director and you're like great what does that mean can you think about something that you as a director or that you've seen other directors do that is really unique to who you are as artists or what they brought to the table that have shifted the trajectory of a play or shifted a way of thinking for a writer or a way of how the art has manifested something really unique that you have brought to the table I think I can remember I took the red eye so I may have lost the thread of your question what's awesome about you that's interesting my I began my career as an actor so my mfa is actually been acting from the gratifying program at NYU and so I think one of the things that I I think I'm a very good translator between the people who will be telling the story and the story of playwright would like told and I'm pretty good at getting people to play big and bold and quickly so that a writer can see what they have and there's one the one specific play where I feel like that what I was able to bring to a play and knowing what my skills are knowing what I can do it was the fourth collaboration with Rajeev so we had in mind you we've never been working together for years and I really felt my job was to ask questions but ultimately to do what you wanted do what you wrote and during animals out of paper I don't know how many of you know animals out of paper but I think it's an incredibly beautiful play one of my favorites and it's actually one of his least favorites of his play and he's going to kill me for saying this and of course I'm gonna is he really maybe now he does but he really really didn't know what he had written he didn't know it was it was a more gentle play than he was used to with female protagonists and he didn't know what he had written and he kept burdening the lead character you know he didn't feel it was enough drama so every day he'd come in and hit her dog back and then he'd come in and he'd be like she lost her job and I just kept doing it and watching what was happening to the actress and one day he brought in changes and for the first time ever in our relationship I said yeah I'm not gonna put these in and then he he said what and then that had never happened and I said okay not today because I don't understand give me a day so the next day we rehearsed and I still didn't put them in and so afterwards he said hey you didn't put those changes in and I went yeah I don't think I'm gonna and he got really angry and I said I will tell you what will happen to your actress you will burden her so profoundly with despair and desperation that you will paralyze her she she will have no forward momentum and your play is beautiful and I'm gonna protect you from yourself and I but I would never have said that before that moment and I earned to the right and those pages never went in that play never and to prove my point once we were previews I just said to the actress what would you think of your character and I've listed them and she went oh my god that was just I mean why don't you get up in the morning and so that's a that's a moment where I I look at beautiful play that's out there and they oh good I protected his story yeah I love that it's unfortunate we're not honest and clear with each other why would I even get up in the morning it's like yeah there's something about because you said that's part of the question like what would you say to someone who's starting out and I would say like speak up because because it is true right that when you're working on your work it is it is kind of that key top thing of like I had a thing in this dimension and you're going to make it in this one and we want to kind of see that thing that this playwright happens amazing you know Richard Nelson in great address you talked about like they're right don't write words they write plays and that that is I think a really important distinction about that they're not just responsible for the text right there's a whole play there's a whole world there that where they are sort of how to realize and facilitate and shepherd and nurture and get crushes on and do all that so but the thing about speaking up is that we also have your unique perspective that comes from you and only you I mean and I particularly struck it with a female character and that you're a woman and maybe that was something you hadn't said into and that the opportunities where I found that I have trusted my instinct to suggest something opposite or different again it's fine to another question too you had over the tensions lie but I find that I actually do work best with people who come from a we've no things in common that we believe that makes work great but that who we are is actually different so that we're able to kind of have that oh actually the way that I see this is this and I might not always be right but to me that no one can be wholly like the expert or the master of every single moment of everything yourself the actor's playing the role the playwright we all need perspective on our lives just like we seek that from our friends and our families and our spouses and our children that like and to know that you're still in a vital place where you can perhaps offer just that key or another way of looking at something that's going to actually take the planet in a really marvelous direction I'd love to open this up to you all to see if you have any questions or thoughts or kind of response to it but in particular for this panel of folks and Zach is going to be joining me under the microphone so stand up raise your hand and he'll come to you yeah hi there I'm wondering when you need to stop getting new pages when you're making a production and the playwright says this character is not arching enough I need to give her under the monologue blah blah blah and when are the actors who used in my experience of actors don't like to change that much close to the table I think I think that's a really tricky again I think each situation is different um I myself I mean there's a moment when press comes when you freeze so I always I like to set a date where you say let the actors take it let everybody take it but it's a mutually agreed upon date but I it I know certain playwrights well enough now to say you have until this day and other playwrights I say I think let's stop a few days earlier let me catch up to you let the actors catch up to you but I always think there has to be a few days if possible depending on your rehearsal and preview period where it's just left alone because otherwise no one will ever own it and so I think it is very important to have that period yeah I would agree it's a day to play freezes but I think in response to the like the change thing it's also about starting out with like the very first day saying we're a new play development this is like a kamikaze free for all like chaotic go with the flow this play is like a living thing that's gonna like take on a life of its own and so like it may turn left when you want to turn right and we're just gonna have to either figure out how to wrangle it or just go with it or you know and sort of like kind of create the environment where those things are always we told German story earlier about with disgrace in its third year of new play development after it had already won the Pulitzer Prize like this is a play that we continued working on to the day the play grows we ran rehearsal that afternoon if you had a rehearsal I was like all right well okay one afternoon were you in rehearsal the last preview no it was the day the play froze so there were sort of four more previews before opening which then the press would come over that weekend so we were so we have a rehearsal to like you know five and then we're gonna clear the stage we're gonna have dinner and they were gonna show back up at seven twenty for five dollar whatever it was and so really now that so that in our relationship is changing now and we're not gonna be like up on the stage making changes and doing this stuff but we'll still be talking about our experience with the previews and we'll still kind of we're just gonna change the relationship a little bit and um it was past the first 10 minutes right so then I'm walking around the city and I'm pounding the pain with my headphones in and just I don't know thinking about how this would come my life because it's exciting and then you have those moments and then I realized that uh the play did not need the first eight lines doing my restraining order right now and it's like it's like Paul and I'm like yeah yeah he went like abandoned coming to previews like weeks earlier because he's just not there watching us over time so the playwright you know how like this has been where we put literally 60% of our rehearsal energy over three years I just figure out what it is we don't need the first eight lines and I explained to him why and uh there were a bunch of reasons and he was like okay we'll try it I was like you guys come by and he was like nope and I was like all right I'm in the gym or something oh you know true there she is at my home yeah she's on the stage again you know I'm there so and then like the stage manager was like I think he was probably just on the lines right what's interesting about both of these months I think that the question is that they and then both when you're talking about that moment for you too is that it seeks to the long-term investment with them between artists that you've earned a certain place but and also the actors were like yeah like because they have been a part of trying to solve that problem with us like you know we spent days our solutions I think there should also be a whole panel not only actors who do new work because we have this incredible community of stage managers and anyway um you talk about developing relationships with playwrights um do you actively seek out to try to develop relationships with new writers you haven't had before and say if you find a play you really like whatever how if you went to a reading or somebody recommended you read it if you really like it you then try to initiate a production of that play yourself or mostly you get hired to do stuff um I'll give up kind of all of the above um definitely I'm always seeking out playwrights new plays if I see a play I love oh yeah I think director I I want to be very respectful about who directed it and their relationship uh so that's always a tricky thing but I approach the playwright and say I love your work I love this play I'd love to um I'd love to take it to theaters once this is run its course when it's open for other productions uh something like that because I know I mean I can walk into parties with certain playwrights and want it's like sharks circling up and now I'm comfortable enough that it doesn't bother me but I used to notice that I go oh look at everybody coming over here um look at that look at that um but you know if I have a play I love I always ask permission from the playwright to say I I have a great relationship with blank theater I'd love to take your play may I do that so to me I just always keep that dialogue open yeah this is a two-part question obviously new plays not yet to check off Shakespeare but relatively new plays for whatever reason the playwright isn't going to be around during your whole production of it uh tree opening um that's and and how do you deal with that when in fact you feel you need to drop the first eight lines or other fairly significant changes you feel are important second question is what do you do again playwrights either there or not there and you've got and you all have the most kinds of actors who say you know I just think that my dogs should die in the first half or and so and so you're dealing with an actor or more than one actor who's being very very obstreperous about this or her role well you know what if the player is is living even if they're even if it's like the eighth production of their play I found that they're really always open to you know hopping on the phone with you or changing an email or like I just directed by Gina Jane Frito called back for Mr. Burn and Gina and I like met up and had a couple meals and she was available for questions by email and that was and she became this amazing resource and partner I mean she wasn't working on the play anymore so but that they that that relationship can continue and I actually think um that that's really exciting for playwrights to continue to sort of see the play as a living thing out the world because that's the world changes and as new people come in and begin interpreting the work that that it continues to keep the thing alive like no one wants to play in a glass case you know preserved for antiquity I mean you said it's an adjacent checkup and I'm like no new place too right like you know so it's like that's there's that kind of attitude about it in terms of the actor I mean that's like a totally almost different that's like actor management as a whole other yeah a whole other thing but I think in terms of the actor suggesting something a play I'm in rehearsal for right now called Inanna by Michelle Lowe has had a couple of productions and when I was slated to direct it you know I I was like I love this play and I wanted to do this play and when Michelle and I first spoke we had this really lively dialogue and I said you know I I signed up to director play as it is and I love it I also have a couple of thoughts and if you want them I'm happy to share them but also we can just totally ignore the conversation before I love her play so much I can't wait to do it and she she really looked like five years ago and she's changed and world events have changed and so then she ended up coming in for the first week of rehearsal and just sent new pages yesterday and like and a lot of that was and then when she'd come in for rehearsal she met the actors who were doing it and was like oh now that I hear this actor's voice I kind of want to is it okay if I change this scene too even though we didn't talk about it and so man I think that there's a lot of positives that can grow out and I said I keep using the phrase living thing but I really need it right but that's what the gift of they'll play the living thing each night because the audience is different so to kind of keep that spirit of the thing and let that and be infused through everyone that's working on it I think helps keep those conversations positive. You've talked for one more question uh yes way up there oh we have time for yeah go ahead you don't don't fight I don't know one of you yeah yeah do it do it go for in your experience what skills professional professionalism tools have you found most productive or valuable actors to support your relationship as an intermediary with the playwright assuming a playwright is still alive well so the question is what tools do I look for in an actor oh I call it the Sadowski effect Tommy Sadowski uh what I look for in most of the playwrights I work with who tend to write very broad not broad but very theatrical shows I like brave actors I like actors who walk in and say yes I'll try that I you I watch how actors work if they mess up a line or something goes wrong I like to see somebody go oh that was terrible I'm gonna start again because that that's how you'll be working with them so I think uh somebody who's flexible brave says yes um is fun thinks is curious and engaged so they're hungry for an answer I think is is huge and then transformational really somebody who um there's so many fantastic actors like that mostly yeah I'm gonna say the opposite I'm mostly feeling like actors are getting a better I'm very incredible and they're mostly that but yes they are predominantly actors are incredible bold and flexible brave it is the job requirement it's so funny because often in a new play you uh it's very you know like this character must have this flavor or you're playing either with very specific or very broad strokes and so part of it is the job of the moment but it's true this is what I mean my experience of actors is this is what you get most of the time and a partner and a participant and like a completely yeah I think one thing that dialogue is going back to this question too I mean I I know that I'm gonna conclude this now uh I just say that like I remember because we're here at Louisville I remember doing a show at the theater across the hall and um the every single day was not just the actors that were cast you know out of New York or but also all the acting apprentices that were part of the show and I kept saying can I add you into the show who can juggle who can play the ukulele who feels like they could swing from a road bike we'll get off their cell phone and just run across the stage and jump over each other and we just got as many people involved as possible because it doesn't matter if you're you know the sally wingerts and the Tommy Sadatsky's and the people that have been doing it for all these years of making new work where you're someone who's 22 and figuring it out bold and the ability to just be present I'm gonna come back to that end with Kimberly's be here now I think we're so lucky in this field to have so many artists who predominantly are all saying I just want to be here now I just want to be at this moment and I think that's why we're all here this week and I'm really excited to um take this out of this room and share the conversation going forward so I just want to thank you Montessor deli Kimberly