 Greetings and welcome to Behind the Curtain. Here on Behind the Curtain we're going to look at the world of community theater. I'm your host Susan Harrington. Today we are being joined by Karen Durvin. Karen is an actress and a director. Welcome Karen. Thank you for joining us. Thank you. I'm so happy to be here. Well I want to ask you of course a few questions obviously like I always have something. You're an actress and a director. How does one inform the other for you? Well I started out as an actor and it I think the easiest way to explain it is as a director you're sort of responsible for the big picture moments and as an actor you're sort of only responsible for your lame. You're responsible for interacting with other actors but you're responsible for your part of your part only and as a director having had the experience of that piece of it I had to then expand. So it was much easier to go back to acting after directing than it was the other way around because as a director having worked with actors I learned all of the things that I really liked about actors as a director and all the things that I thought huh I don't really enjoy working with people who do that. So the next time I was an actor I said I'm going to remember that as a director I didn't really like that so it made me a much better actor after directing. I found that I was a lot more specific in my choices when I started as an actor. My starting point was a lot more specific knowing that a director could then shape those choices. I also was a lot more polite to the other folks who worked behind the scenes having worked as a director because you see how much goes on other than just what you're doing as an actor. I find that actors in general being one myself tend to be much more selfish. We're only interested in what we're doing and what others are doing and the tech folks and directors have to be much more aware of everything how all the pieces work together and so once I had directed as an actor I found myself being a lot less selfish and a lot more aware of how everything else was working around me. As a director I found that I was able to use what I enjoyed as an actor getting from a director so specifically directors give actors notes. Here's how this beat this moment can be improved. Here's how the overall arc of the story can be told differently. So I used what I liked from other directors as an actor getting as an actor to inform my directing. So the things that I liked I then translated into being a director but what I also learned the best directors that I have worked with in my career find a way to tailor their directing to each individual actor. So they look at an actor and they say okay this actor needs a lot of positive reinforcement. They need lots of hey you're doing a great job so they give them a lot of positive feedback. They look at another actor and say okay this actor doesn't really need that they need very specific I need you to do this I need you to do that I need you to do that and so they kind of tailor it to that and so seeing directors who are able to do that really well and being an actor who kind of needs different things depending on what show I'm doing. I informed my directing with those types of things and I hope I have been somewhat successful at it but it's a learning process and every actor every new actor I work with informs being my being a better director and every new director I work with changes me as an actor as do my fellow actors. It's the best part of being involved in theater which I think you know as well as the collaborative process the the people that you work with it's it's not a solo endeavor it takes a lot of people to put a play together truly a village it does and as a director the best thing that you can do is surround yourself with really talented people and when you choose wisely the process is a wonderful experience as an actor you're kind of at the mercy you don't have that control you're at the mercy of the people that are chosen around you so you just have to make the best of what you're given but with as a director you have so much control over who gets chosen in that process with the producer and that collaborative process is what makes it worthwhile. Okay because here's the funny thing I was going to say to you uh well when did you begin acting and what drew you to it but some of them you've kind of already said yeah when did you begin I mean was it I was three okay so uh yeah I think at a very young age my parents were like okay what do we do with this child clearly she needs an outlet let's put her on the stage um so I went to nursery school and the uh my first I have this vague memory of like being on the stage and like singing and like dancing with like you know pieces of cloth and um and just loving it just loving the experience of um applause obviously when you're that young but just like being with people that you love and and creating something together um and I did it all throughout grade school and junior high school and high school and um and it was what drew me to it consistently was storytelling the ability to tell a story right like to be part of that storytelling when you're young it's usually fairy tales right like remember we did like Bambi like first grade or um and then as I started to get older I noticed that you know in grade school much of the storytelling was centered around male characters and boys um and when I was younger I got to play those male characters and boys because I was the one who always put their hand up first and said well I'll play the biggest part they have no problem doing that and when you're younger that's not a problem right you're a kid and they don't care it doesn't matter it's a fairy tale or you know so you can play the boy you can play the girl nobody cares um and in junior high school I had a wonderful drama teacher Mrs. Boni Udo and she recognized fairly quickly that I was a character actress and not a lead actress um because lead actresses when I was young were uh Angenous that was our choice we didn't really you know the the character parts were male parts um there weren't a whole lot of female character parts you were femme fatale or you were Angenous or you were mom that was basically it um and she recognized very quickly that that was not my niche um and she put up something at hubby that said or some shell that you were doing he said thank you for casting me as the Angenous it was usually an Angenous gone bad those I often had an opportunity to to play um but because she recognized that and she instilled in me the idea that there was still value in playing characters that weren't just pretty you didn't just have to be pretty um that kept my interest um and then unfortunately I went to high school and we had a an awful high school director who only put on like the traditional plays and yeah that and and so that um sort of showed me that we needed to expand the stories that we were telling um and and how how would we do that how would we find ways to do that um but I still had opportunities like we did Peter Pan and I played Nana the dog I was gonna say yeah in full dog costume I did my own barking very proud of that um and I played a pirate so um but that was the type of thing that I was relegated to because I couldn't play Juliet or Ophelia or the young Angenous not that those aren't wonderful roles for the right person but that isn't who I am um and so I had to sort of forge my own path so well then okay so then what what drew you to begin or why did you begin I think in a way you may have already kind of alluded to it to directing so that's why um it's you you kind of decide to take control of your own destiny right like how do you how do you get these stories told and the and the way you get them told is by telling them yourself um there are so many scripts out there especially now but even then that have female protagonists that have that are stories that are not centered around white men that can be told um and I decided that I if nobody else was gonna do it then I guess I was gonna have to be the one to do it well you know you've been on the the uh a play meeting committee with me uh yes Cindy Armstrong says well we know where Karen's going we know what's gonna we got an idea what's gonna be on her list and sure enough you did not you did not fail no boom boom boom boom boom no so well it's you know it here's the thing like for for hundreds of years thousands of years we've had one perspective right so um and people always say to me why do we have to do a season that has three shows with all these women in it I said because for thousands of years we had all these shows with men I'm just looking for a parody at this point like it's it's when you look at the pool of people who audition for us it's probably four fifths cis women non-binary trans and one fifths cis men so shouldn't the the stories we tell and the roles available reflect that as well I mean that kind of makes sense to me well there's a there's a uh a frame at the footlight club that shows I use a cast of some show and I'll never forget someone says geez they're not very pretty women are they and I go because they're not women it was all these men that were playing the female roles it's a female role but they had guys men doing it yeah and um you know the late Bill Dasha I remember he gave me a statistic once that said something about 60 or 70 of the plays that are written or written by men and the casts are 80 or 90 male yeah and then there's Karen who says and it's you know to me it doesn't sound revolutionary right like when we when we look at the population it's like shouldn't shouldn't art reflect the people who are going to come and see it and shouldn't if we are telling the stories that are interesting to humanity shouldn't we include all of humanity in that it doesn't seem revolutionary to me um and I don't think that I am the only person who can tell these stories I just saw that there was a gap to be filled and I thought okay I'll I'll step up yeah I was gonna say one of the few that stepped up so then so then what would you advise me to someone starting out I'll say with the acting first because I almost cannot see somebody oh I'm gonna go into directing and they haven't acted before um I so I think it's strangely enough I think it's being a critical audience member is a good step because we absorb so much content right like we watch tv we watch movies we watch plays and we know what we like everybody has different opinions but we know what we like and oftentimes the story is a lot of what we like because it resonates with us on a certain level but when you start breaking it down into like why did you like that actor you know um why does viola davis resonate with you what did she do what is it about her performance that that resonated with you um and you start asking people those questions even someone with no acting experience can say to you well she was really believable like I I knew who she was and every role she plays she makes a connection to the material you believe that she is who she is whether it's you know how to get away with murder or fences or you know those are very different characters in very different time periods but you believe that she's that person when you're watching her what is it about that um so when you when you're watching something and you're thinking about I'd like to try this acting thing look at that performance with a critical eye and figure out what it is that they're doing that you're enjoying um and we talk a lot about like in comedies like comic timing like what is it what is that comic timing thing um and it's the way that someone delivers a line you can tell when someone has the ability to deliver a line in a way that makes you laugh right like there's certain people who just do it perfectly um and when you see it you know it um and when you start listening to a rhythm and you pick up on the fact that oh there's something about like the pace of that I always say to people faster is funnier there's something about that quickness um so you can learn a lot just by being a critical audience member um and then to go into community theaters and not only be an actor but work behind the scenes that was good I was about like be a stage manager do the props do the costumes like work in all those different aspects because you think that well how's that going to help my acting and I'm like because you're you're being a part of all that process and the collaboration and your um you know absorbing things and you don't even realize it yeah and you get to see things in some cases if you're working props or you're working set or crew you get to see it over and over because there's certain things I think that oh I didn't see that Thursday or I didn't see that Friday night but then you know because I was doing less and so but you saw it happen in Saturday or Sunday and it's just I mean that's why some people read the same authors over and over but they don't like a different so then in in acting what were some of your favorite roles because I don't want to miss that wow um you know it's funny it's the the ones that stand out for me are always the it's so much of it is the the collaborative process says as well as the role itself um and I always the the more recent ones of course always jump out at you so um just last year I did a play called El Amosinary um and it's yeah it is it is so those of you don't know it's only three people and it's it's very wordy yeah very and it's intense and it's uh it's a story about um three women and it's a generational family story um grandmother mother granddaughter um and so it's uh the language is gorgeous it's poetry but it's challenging um it has its own inherent rhythm um the characters are so well defined their relationship is challenging so playing those connections and figuring out those connections um the the lack of props and sets to help you right because it's very spare and the space that you did it in yes we did it in a very small black box so it's very intimate you can't escape you can't hide which is right there yeah so you have to be true yes you have to be very truthful people are right on top of you so they they can read you yeah you can't hide yeah any moment has to be very real um and so the the experience of working specifically with those two other women um the trust that you have to establish um the rhythm of it um the the young woman who played my granddaughter in particular Cassidy was just so delightful to work with we had a significant number of scenes together and um the who played the daughter uh her name was Britt Garner she was delightful as well um but I also just loved the character like she was larger than life but she was also so flawed um and she grew up at a time when um women were had very specific defined roles and she did not fit to that very specific defined role um and so to find your place in a world that was not built for you um is a real struggle um and so playing that character was a gift and to say those lines every night was a gift and that was one of the ones that I felt like I could have gone on forever playing that role so that one in particular really stands out so then and I'm not saying you know because it maybe had a good box office or whatever but what was one of your favorites that you had in directing oh wow so again when you think about you know collaborative process it was probably five women wearing the same dress okay um and uh who would you direct that for uh Burlington for the Burlington players um and uh those dresses go around to them they did they they made their way around um and again I think you know partly because it was a cast of mostly cis women um which I thoroughly enjoy working with um the story was you know fine but the it was the the process of working with a group of folks who were so committed to their characters their relationships to telling the story well um my assistant director Katie Gluck was outstanding um she was my producer on the last show I just directed and and she is if anybody gets to work with her she's a gem and everything she does just a true she was she did a show at festival or something and I said to her you're gonna win oh no I said you're gonna win this award oh so this is a stop so when she won I said well you didn't win that so give it to me but yeah she's terrific she has so much knowledge and so many different areas of theater and and she's not a person who stands up and says pay attention to me so she often goes under the radar um and it's great for those of us who know because we can grab her when we need her but she she brought so much to the table I almost always work with an assistant director when I direct because um I always feel like there more eyes on anything and more hands on anything is is good um I I never for me it always seemed strange that one person kind of wants to be in charge yeah that's a lot it is I always want more people to to have eyes and whispers in my ear and did you see this are you feeling that are you you know I was thinking this um any kind of challenge to like why did you pick that why did you pick that for me to have to justify my choices um means that I have to really think very deeply about why this moment is important why this character choice is important um and she was so great at that but the whole cast was was so strong I think that's when I was uh Becca shore Allie McCann uh Becca Leighton Healy uh Katie Pompeo uh Shane Daugherty Jennifer Shea so that Jen Shea yeah oh my gosh I love that woman yeah it was a it was a delightful group of people Becca sure she's something else yeah you know there's people that you go oh yeah they're pretty good yeah they're good and then you see them with something else and you go oh my god you didn't think they could get any better yep but yeah and Allie McCann sadly has moved up to Portland, Maine um but she does theater up there now and uh Becca Leighton Healy is now uh she's been away from theater for a bit because she has two little ones at home and and Becca shore is going to be going for a while I know she is a new little one at home so yeah but it's you know it's just such a a lovely group of people to work with so that was part of why that one stands out in particular so is there a role that you'd like to do down the road I guess I'm kind of combining my left is there something that's on your bucket list to perform and or bucket list to direct so when I was younger there were a lot of bucket list roles right because it was you know like oh all these things you know these wonderful roles as I get older it's more about being a part of telling really good stories because what you realize as you get older is that there are fewer and fewer roles out there as you get older this is again coming back around to that who tells the stories and what stories are available out there so it for me it's more about presenting uh the work of really excellent playwrights um such as Lynn Nottage oh okay Brandon Jacobs Jenkins um local unknown unpublished playwrights um I think we just did at the Berlin players uh an unpublished work although it's about to be published um and I think that that is one area where I think community theater sometimes falls short um I'm involved with the AAPC group here in Boston um I get to do their uh short play festival often in the fall and the burlington players are collaborating with them for a show coming up in february march um and there are so many wonderful local playwrights that I feel like community theater could very easily take one show in their season and and produce an unpublished script there are usually voices that we don't get to hear very often I'm happy to direct and or act I'm putting that out there right now and any of those I think supporting new work is really important so so my bucket list is to bring any lesser seen heard voices to the stage for whatever reason um okay people she's just being cute she's not going to give me any title well to be fair I mean we're doing a a a clip just a short from um Brandon Jacobs Jenkins play everybody for Vokes scene night okay um so that is a title that I think that people should pick up on uh it was a finalist for the Pulitzer prize so you think it would be more more well known um but no um why BIPOC playwright right um Hovey is doing appropriate so Huzzah um but I know Lynn Nottage's sweat is starting to make the rounds that's great yeah that's great um so I and listen I mean it's wonderful to see some of the big names like Sarah Rule and Lauren Gunderson some of these fantastic female playwrights are starting to be standard on people's um season lists that's wonderful to see we need more of that um but uh Larissa Fasthorse the Thanksgiving play that's starting to show up great more of that right so there we go Karen thank you for joining us here behind the curtain I'm Susan Harrington and our guest was Karen Durvin thank you thank you