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Q: Theater Alliance has put its creative direction in the hands of
a young artistic director. How have you redefined their direction or how has
the job redefined you?
A:
Very good question. The theater is very different now than it used to
be. It used to be run by a collective of people rather than one artistic
director. The Board was much more hands on as far as, you know, "you do the
marketing, and I’ll handle the press, and you build the set, and you’ll
handle the costumes." They did 2 shows a year with a $30,000 budget with no
full time staff. They were doing it because they really loved theater. Since
I came on, we’ve now finished our fourth season, and we’ve gone from 2 shows
a year to 5 shows a year, from a $30,000 budget to a $300,000 budget. From
no paid staff to 3 full time paid staff. From no assets to $60,000 in
assets, from a 50 seat theatre to a 120 seat theatre. The Theater Alliance’s
focus was always about doing shows that you couldn’t see in a larger
theater. That has stayed the same. The wording is different, but while we’re
focusing on plays that haven’t been done in DC before, we are also still
doing plays that you wouldn’t typically see in larger theatres. With very
few exceptions. Obviously shows like
Gross Indecency
or next season’s Blue/Orange – are very popular plays. But
mainly the shows we do are shows that nobody’s ever heard of. In the early
90s, theaters – other than African Continuum Theatre – weren’t doing plays
with black actors. They weren’t doing plays that dealt a lot with homosexual
issues. So Theater Alliance had a whole series called The Gay Play for
Grownups where every year they would do a gay play that really examined
homosexual issues. And every year they did a play with a predominantly black
cast. That’s obviously changed completely. Today, everyone’s got a gay play,
everyone’s got a black play.
Q: How has being artistic director changed you? Or has it?
A: I have grey hair, and a lot of people don’t like me any more. (Laughs) It’s
made me grow up very fast which is good and bad. Adele Robey is one of the
founders of the Theater Alliance, who along with her husband, Bruce, own H
Street Playhouse. She has given me an incredible opportunity to grow as an
artist. It’s easy to forget how lucky I am to be able to do whatever work I
want to do, whenever I want to do it, with a home to do it in. The first
four years in this position were really about earning this opportunity.
There was a lot of pressure. I wanted to do everything myself to make sure
that it got done; I wasn’t good about delegating responsibility But you do
that and after a while, you burn out. The quality of the work starts to slip
and slide. So now we’ve got our first Managing Director coming in, starting
on July first. Couldn’t be at a better time.
Q: Who is it? Can we announce it?
A: Melissa-Leigh Douglass. She’s currently the Manager of Institutional
Giving at Round House Theatre.
Q: You work out of town a lot. Tell us about some of those projects and how
they contribute to your work here.
A: Well, certainly my aesthetic was dramatically shaped by my work in Asia.
Definitely.
Q: You were in China, weren’t you?
A: I try to do Asia once a year. Last year I went to China and the year
before I went to Thailand. Year before that, Bali. Being someone who
traveled a lot growing up, I’ve been to a lot of countries, and I’ve been
to, like, forty-five of the fifty states, I think. What I love about Asia is
that it’s a shock to the system. And now I’m kind of addicted to that.
Whenever I go on vacation, if I don’t feel like I’m in a completely
different world, and it doesn’t completely push me out of my comfort zone,
then I don’t really feel like I’m traveling.
Q: You were giving a directing seminar in Norway, was it?
A: It was on how to produce your own work. For ten days. And that was great.
I find that one of the things that’s influenced me the most isn’t so much
the projects I’ve directed as much as it is the modern dance that I’ve seen.
I’ve found that aesthetically modern dance has taught me more than watching
other plays ever has, in terms of use of space and in terms of dynamic and
use of light. And the result of that – the design and use of light – is the
most essential tool that I have as a director. Certainly, going back
to the North Carolina School for the Arts replenishes the well. Last year, I
was with the third-year students, in Gross Indecency, and this year,
with The Laramie Project, I was with the same class again as
fourth-year students. I’ve never worked with a more incredible group of
people, and I’ve completely fallen in love with them. I feel closer to them
than I felt to my own class. They’re really remarkable. I love the fact that
in a month these 21 – and counting the directing students, there’s 24 total
– these 24 people are going to go out into the world and we’re all going to
work with each other again. That makes me excited again. I feel that while
there’s a big stigma to bringing outside people in to do DC shows, I feel
like it’s important and I feel like if we didn’t, DC would become a pretty
stagnant community. While I think it’s very important to use local artists
here in DC, I also think it’s very important for the artists in DC, who I
love, to work with the artists in Chicago who I love, and the ones in New
York who I love, and the ones in Atlanta who I love. They’re only going to
learn from each other and feed off each other. Any time you bring in somebody
from outside the circle, you infuse growth into that community.
Q: When you are working at the theatre, what is a day in your life like?
A: If I’m not directing a show, I’ll be at the office for about eight hours.
Usually the first couple of hours are spent responding to e-mail, and then
the next hour is responding to voice-mail, and then I get to the stuff I’m
supposed to do that day. Which inevitably gets interrupted by all the things
I didn’t know were going to happen that day. And then I go home. I’m always
working on publicity stuff. Like right now, certainly, I’ll spend a good
part of the day working on our season brochure, and press releases for next
season and casting next season, and hiring next season and staffing next
season. And then I go home about eleven and then I get up and start all over
again.
Q: When a show is in production, are you in rehearsal, or -- ?
A: Right now a huge part of my time goes towards working the box office.
There was a period when we hired somebody to do box office and I started
feeling completely out of touch. Once Colin (Associate Artistic Director
Colin Hovde) came on, he helped with administration and box office, and now
when Melissa comes on in July, it’ll be three of us. So there’ll always be
some administrative face talking to people and being available and all that
stuff. I’m looking forward to having more time to read scripts. Once the
Managing Director comes in she’ll start working on and improving a lot of
the fundraising efforts. She’s going to take over a lot of the audience
development. So that I can really start focusing on reading the piles and
piles of plays that have been sitting here for months and months. And seeing
more shows, not just at other DC theaters but also – it’s pretty inexcusable
that I only see probably one show a year in New York. For someone who runs a
theater company that’s not good. And then I really feel like I should get to
London at least once every other year, because a lot of the plays that we do
start in London.
Haroun and the
Sea of Stories started in London. The Dispute and
Blue/Orange started in London.
Slaughter City
started in London.
Tales From Ovid
started in London.
Q: Toronto’s probably another good city for you to include.
A: Yes it is, actually. I was just there in March. That’s where we got The
Monument, which we’re doing. I was in Toronto when that play was given
to me, and I wouldn’t have gotten that play if I hadn’t gone to
Toronto.
Q: With the developments happening on H Street, you seem to be in the right
place at the right time. Tell us where you see Theater Alliance being in
five years.
A: Our goal is pretty straightforward. We want to be fully operational out of
the H Street Playhouse so that we don’t have to rent out to other people any
more. And we want to really, truly make it feel like we’re a home for the
community. And this is an important distinction. I’m not after being a
“community theater.” And I’m not after having extensive community
programming. We have programs like the Free Theater at H Street program. I’m
after doing the best shows in Washington and our neighbors feeling a part of
that. I’m after people feeling like we’re their theater. Like the Washington
Nationals is their baseball team. They know the shows that are going on,
they know me by sight, that they know my name, and Melissa’s name, and
Colin’s name. That they know that they can walk in and they’ll always have a
seat, and that they enjoy the works that we do but still feel challenged by
them, that it’s welcoming, that we’re like a neighborhood bar. And that’s
starting to happen. Our Free Theater at H Street is starting to catch on.
We’re just so understaffed that we can’t take as good care as we need to
of the people who are already coming and giving. So the second part of our
five-year goal for me is to take better care of the people who are already
coming and giving. While I’d love for the number of people coming to grow
and diversify our audience make-up, all that’s great. But I really want to
take care of the people who are already coming. They’re the reason, in a
way, that everything’s happened so far.
Q: What advice would you give young actors, directors and playwrights?
A: I believe 100% – and it might sound as though I’m being hypocritical – but
that the desire to do a certain thing by a certain age is completely
ego-driven. We’re in a profession you don’t retire from. You do it until you
die. Or until you can’t stand it any more. I really, truly believe that if
you are talented, and if this is something that you want to do, you will
find work. Because you have a whole lifetime to do it. I have so many
friends who are, like, “If I don’t make it by age thirty, then I’m done.”
That, to me, just doesn’t make sense. Because, if you love it, if you really
want to do it, it may take you till you’re thirty-five or till you’re sixty.
I truly believe that if you have something to say, the time will come. You
will get the opportunity to say it. That’s true, I feel, of the playwright,
the director and the actor. The people who stop doing theater are the people
who decide to do something else. Or decide that they don’t have anything
more to offer. So – don’t live by timelines, and don’t get caught up in the
whole “I want to be the youngest person to do this, that, or the other
thing.” Because that’s just ego. What matters is whether you get to do it.
Q: If you had unlimited resources, what – you have a choice on this question
– what play would you produce, or what would you change about Theater
Alliance?
A: Unlimited resources? We would build a rehearsal space. I would pay
everyone better. Even though we’re the smallest theater in town, I’d make us
the best-paying theater in town. Which I think would be a lovely dichotomy.
I would produce a lot more diverse things – like, we’re taking a stab right
now, with the Pangea Project of producing dance for the first time. I would
love to continue to pursue that, because I love dance so much. I’d love to
have a company of eight actors, a company of eight dancers, and a company of
eight musicians. And the actors work independently, the dancers work
independently, and the musicians work independently. And do their own shows
and concerts, but they would also collaborate. And put them all on salary.
They could work for other places, but they would be required to do a certain
number of projects for Theater Alliance every year. Independently in their
own company or as part of a collective involving all three groups.
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