It has been weeks and weeks and weeks since I have left Ithaca and the crew at the Hangar Theatre. My last two weeks were so packed with my producing duties that I never got the chance to do a final blog post during my time there. After leaving Ithaca, I traveled to Tampa Florida to direct a show. This job was a direct result of my Drama League Fellowship. This amazing gift that I received this summer is already paying dividends!

I am actually really glad that it took me this long to get back to my blogging duties. I really needed to gain some perspective from my experiences in Ithaca. I’d love to say that everything went perfectly, but that just isn’t the case. I came up against things that challenged me and sometimes I didn’t live up to the expectations that I had set for myself. I made rash choices based on fear, I didn’t always utilize my time effectively, and there are a bunch of moments in my work this summer that I wish that I could have an adolescent “do-over” on. All of that being said, I wouldn’t trade a minute of what transpired for anything on earth. I learned, I grew, and I came out a better artist, person, and leader.

As a person, I am afraid that I usually focus on the negative in any situation or production. It is just how I look at my world and my work. What I have to remind myself is that so much went right this summer! I directed 3 shows that I was proud of, helped lead a company for the first time, and got to see so many people grow exponentially in many different facets, both on stage and off.

I got a chance to engage the community at large and try some things that I would have been too afraid to experiment with anywhere else. I made some amazing friends who I will keep in touch with and stand by. I also picked up a few talented collaborators along the way. People that I will STRIVE to work with in the future. There is so much to be grateful about. I have to hold on to that. I challenged the Lab Company, at the beginning of the summer, to have a long memory. I have to do the same when the going gets tough. I have to remember what I learned at the Hangar, sometimes begrudgingly, when I get scared or stressed.

I found out that I love to work at a fast pace and relished being challenged by different classifications of shows. I worked on a TYA show, a musical, a new play, and something from the classical cannon. All new experiences for me. However, if I learned one thing this summer it is that I love “the classics” above all else. I had never even touched Shakespeare before and now it is all that I want to do. It challenges and scares me more then anything else. Probably a good sign.

As far as accomplishing what I set out to accomplish, I did that. I reaffirmed that I want to artistically lead a large regional theatre some day. Artistic Direction is in my theatrical DNA. I have the tools necessary to accomplish this, but I have a LONG way to go before I reach my goal….and that is ok. The Drama League and the Hangar staff have given me a great opportunity/start, but I have to keep building on that.

I wish I had the opportunity to thank each person who was in Ithaca this summer for making this experience the amazing epoch that it was for me. Everyone from Peter Flynn to Sparkles played an important role in my maturation as a leader and a director this summer. It was one hell of a ride. Thanks for being a part of it.

Last week I directed Joe Waechter’s HIDDEN PEOPLE: PART ONE for Hangar’s Pilot Reading Series.  It was a joy.  First, I love the play.  Second, I loved the people in the room.  And third, I love directing new play readings. 

Joe and I had our first phone conversation at the beginning of the summer.  We discussed (what I believe are) the necessary questions that garner a successful reading…Why did you write this play?  What was the inspiration?  What do you hope to find in this reading?  Is this the first reading of the play? And so on.  It was a great conversation.  Joe is a lovely, witty personality that I couldn’t wait to work with. 

After speaking with Joe I knew that I wanted to enliven the theatricality and rhythm of the play.  This presented a special challenge in scene two – the “Beginning of the World Song” sung/chanted by forty-nine twelve year olds that have never taken a bath (yes, it’s hysterical).  Although HIDDEN PEOPLE: PART ONE had a few previous readings, none were ever given substantial rehearsal time.  Therefore this song/chant had never been put to a consistent rhythm.  This was my charge.

I’ve previously used rhythm exercises to teach actors how to write songs during devised projects.  Since our lab company actors are musically inclined, I thought this would be a great opportunity to get them invested in the text.  I built rhythm exercises and devising time into our rehearsal schedule.  I was nervous to share this scheme with Joe – we had not worked together before and playwrights can be (not surprisingly) protective of their text.  However, Joe was the most open playwright I’ve had the opportunity to work with and allowed me to try whatever I thought was best.  So that is what we did.

Our second day of rehearsal began with rhythm exercises – breaking down beats and baselines, and using tempo, repetition, and pitch to convey mood.  I then sent half of the cast away to create the beat for one section of the “Beginning of the World Song” while Joe and I got the first scene up and running in the rehearsal room.  One hour later the actors returned to share what they created.  I held my breath knowing that if this didn’t work I would have to move on to plan B…  It was brilliant.  Joe loved it.  I loved it.  I sent the actors away again to finish the song. 

We had four days of rehearsal.  The reading came together and we were able to lightly stage the play with music stands, portray the story, and get the action of the play up to full momentum.  Although the entire reading was a hit, the song is still being sung a week later.  I’m overjoyed by Joe’s willingness to trust myself and the actors with his text, the actors’ ability to take risks, and our investment in this project.  I never imagined I would use devising exercises for a reading rehearsal.  Yet, I did.  I’m extremely happy with my choice and I learned a ton from the experience.

I have officially closed all my shows here. MACBETH, THE EMPTY OCEAN, and DISH AND SPOON have all gone by the wayside. They have been shuttered. I’ve got some great memories/lessons and a handful of photographs to show people what my time at the Hangar was like…….but I also have two weeks left here….
This time will be spent producing STARRING ELIZABETH TAYLOR. I’m throwing my all into it. I want this show to be amazingly well attended, but I must admit that I am a bit sad to no longer be working as an artist here. It has been a hard thing for me to come to terms with, until I realized that as an artistic director this is some of the greatest time in one’s year. I have the opportunity to build the organization and work to make someone else’s art happen in the best way humanly possible. In all honesty, how awesome is that?
This also got e to thinking about how “bogged down” artistic directors can become. What happens if they have to direct/produce/grow an organization all at the same time? How is that conducive to a healthy lifestyle and what can organizations do to help their leaders have time to focus on their personal art at points and have time to grow an institution when they are not directly working on a production? The fact of the matter is that at some point the needs of a producer can contradict the needs of an artist who directs. Imaginations can become constricted when there is too much of an emphasis placed on product. So what can be done to combat these issues?

I personally believe that there needs to be separate, out of the office time given to an artistic director for reflection and reading time. Also, when an AD is in production it is important to have a separate schedule and expectations for him. Lastly, giving this person more advance time to plan projects in collaboration with other artists is HIGHLY prized at an institutional level. Also, a sabbatical, based on the university model, isn;t a horrible idea to prevent burnout.

Isolation also seems to be an issue. The regional theatre movement of the 50′s was an amazing step forward in terms of the decentralization of the arts out of NYC, but directing is a lonely art and can become even more so when at the head of an organization with a complex structure. We need to stay informed about the work that is happening all over the country so that we can better understand the national identity of who we are as a group of theater artists, but also be aware of different work being done and how we can help facilitate that work even from afar or bring it to your community. We can also try to grow our artistic offices so that there are peers around us to help with all burdens; artistic and otherwise.

There are so many things that can be done to ensure stability in an organization and the best way to do that is to keep the leadership at your theatre  happy and challenged. What better thing can an institution do then continue to allow an artistic leader to nourish an individual artistic identity within a theatrical organization.

I have finished the majority of my major projects here.  I directed my KIDDSTUFF production of The Little Mermaid, produced Jess’ Wedge production of Happy Days, and just wrapped up my Wedge production of This is Our Youth.  I am headed into my administration rotation where I will spend the week meeting with the staff and administration of the theater to get a deeper look into the workings of this prolific theater.  After that I will spend my final week teaching a master class to the lab company and directing a reading of Tim Pinckney’s A Perfect Blendship.

To say that this is an immersive experience would be an understatement.  It is a true lab for artistic leadership.  Sometimes we find ourselves wrapping up a conversation with the design team then going straight into a production meeting for someone else’s project only to swing by a rehearsal for a main stage to check in on the actors from the lab company.  All while answering the dozens upon dozens of emails that need to be answered so the summer can bounce along smoothly as well as develop our own projects that are coming up for each of us after we leave Ithaca.

Needless to say there are moments when tensions run high due to the lack of sleep, the ever present deadline, or the desire to do our best when limitations and obstacles inevitably come up along the way.  This work is personal and we are required to pour ourselves into each and every process and that means that the stakes often feel very high.  So how can we manage the stress, the stakes, and the pressure?

I think we have to cultivate our joy.

I know.  It sounds cheesy.    Except it might be one of the greatest gifts we can bring to our collaborators.  Joy is infectious.  It permeates a room and infiltrates a process.  Bringing joy into the room does not mean forgoing rigor.  It means bringing in your love and excitement, humor and playfulness, so that the rigor, focus, and commitment can occur with ease.  If people feel personally invested and feel integral to the work they will go as far, deep, and personal as you require for the work at hand.

There are a lot of obstacles confronting our work: shrinking budgets, lack of opportunities, time crunches, collaborative challenges.  We can choose to let these obstacles take away our pleasure in our work or we can confront these obstacles together with a mutual understanding that we all want our work to be as good as possible.  We can bring in our joy to enliven the process so we are in conversation of the challenges not at the whim of them.

How we behave in a process is a choice.  We choose to panic, lash out, or become incontrovertible.  We also choose to be excited, playful, silly, and, yes, joyous.  This summer has been a boon to my joy for this work.  It is a privilege to be a collaborative artist and it is a gift each and every time we have the opportunity to create.  Bringing in joy to a process creates the safety to connect with our fear, our anger, our sadness, our lust, our most intimate self — all the things we need to articulate the full scope of the human experience that is embodied on the stage.

At the end of the day we do this work because it connects us to the basic human need to create, imagine, and express.  We do this work because we cannot imagine doing anything else.  It is an obsession, a calling, a necessity.  It is a joy.

Time may be the biggest gift and obstacle to our work.  When we hear the numbers of hours we have available it makes us balk, either at the gift of having what we deem enough time or the trouble of having too little or even too much.

We get a greater sense of how much time it takes us to do things as individual artists and once we are in the room we learn how much time the group needs to move throgh the process.  Our time is managed into 55 or 80 minute intervals of work.  Into straight sixes and 10 out of 12s.  We have run times that need to be tightened up.  We have timing for light cues, timing for laughs.  We have real time and metaphorical time.  We have calendars upon calendars to make sure things are getting in on time, happening ahead of or behind the agreed upon time structure.

We live inside an expansive architecture of time, at all times.

When we first arrived for orientation we got the big news: 48 hours of rehearsal time over six days before tech for both the KIDDSTUFF and Wedge seasons.  Wait…what?  Six days?  48 hours?  24 hours x 2?  But how?  We have full plays to do!  Some with music and dancing!  Some with verse!  Some are devised!  Some are Beckett.

Suddenly time became a major part of the conversation.

I would be lying if I said I wasn’t worried.  I was WORRIED.  I’ve just come out of a program where we had weeks upon weeks to rehearse and here I was feeling like we only had a few hours.  So what do you do when you think there is simply no time?

Well, you prep.  You decide what’s most important to the production so you can ensure that you are managing your time to make those things happen.  You encourage your company of actors to get off book as quickly as possible.  You and the stage manager make a solid rehearsal plan.  You throw out that plan in the moment because the actors need something different.  You trust that the available resources are the appropriate resources.

I never thought I could work so quickly and, yet, I am.  Rehearsals for my Wedge show, This is Our Youth, began Monday.  We had our designer run on Saturday and we were ready for it.  We were at a point where we needed an audience.  Now we are ready to begin tech on Tuesday.  I am so in awe of the work everyone has done in such a compressed schedule.  The designers are getting quicker and quicker.  The short hand we have all been developing is in place and propelling us forward.  The actors are coming in prepped and hungry for their work.  The directors are getting clearer and clearer about how to use our processes and what we need to come in with to make the experience fulfilling.

We’re at the midpoint of our time here and I think that my biggest lesson might be just how much you need to trust yourself, the process, the actors, the designers, and the time.  Sometimes you have the luxury of building that trust and sometimes you simply have to make the choice to trust.  We could have all said “there just isn’t enough time” but instead we have all said “how can we use this time most effectively to get what we need?”  We’ve decided to trust the time, the process, the resources.  The work that has been borne out of the trust in this time has been thrilling and the growth is evident.

The available resources are the appropriate resources.  And that includes the time you have.

This week has been totally devoted to creating my KidStuff production, The Adventures of the Dish and the Spoon. I have never, EVER had the opportunity to work on a show that was geared toward children and I have to say that I am enjoying the opportunity immensely. If I were at any other theatre/in any other program I know that I would not get the opportunity to stretch so many different creative muscles. I feel incredibly blessed to be here at the Hangar and to be given this opportunity by the Drama League.

This week got me thinking about why I have never tackeled the challenge of a TYA show before. Was I scared? Did I not seek out the opportunity? I came to realize that it was neither one of those reasons. I had just never been asked because a TYA show would not normally be considered a “Patrick Walsh-type of show.” What does this mean exactly? Frankly, I am always asked to direct shows that somehow deal with damaged, lost souls adrift in the world.

Just to be clear, i did not come up with the above description of my work. Rather it was thrust on to me when someone took a look at my portfolio.

The great thing about the Hangar Summer Residency is that I have the ability to work on all the things that I love. Classic theatre (Macbeth), New Play (The Empty Ocean by Anton Dudley) and a TYA musical (Dish and Spoon). I fear that when I leave here that I will no longer be able to hit all of my theatrical bases, because I will be pigeon-holed into doing the same type of show over and over again.

It is such a challenge as a young director to make a name for ones self without being known to be able to direct a certain kind of play. That life is not one that interests me. I want to hit all my bases when I want to. I think this is part of the reason that I am so drawn to being an Artistic Director. I have SO many varied interests and I would love to find a community that embraced my tastes and was willing to go on a journey with me (as the curator of the artistic conversation) no matter what the genesis of the story was.

I am just hopeful that when I leave this “artistic paradise” that I am able to find a place that will allow me to stretch and grow. A place that will not force me to conform to their idea of what I can or cannot direct. I’m not sure if I can find it, but I know that after leaving the Hangar that I am far better equipped to take the leap.

One of the assistant directors interviewed me today for a college project, and one of his questions was about “voice”. “How do you cultivate a voice?” I thought that was a really interesting question. I’ve gotten the assignment as a writer to “write the blurb for the back of your novel”, which is the closest I’ve come to attempting to articulating voice. But as a director, what do I think voice is?

A playwriting friend of mine, Tammy Ryan, suggests that all artists have their “stuff”, topics that they keep coming back to again and again. Themes that intrigue them, that they will never fully uncover. And for directors, this relates to the themes of the plays we choose.

But is this voice?

Then there is aesthetic. The WAY you choose to tell a story. They kind of plays I am attracted to are either hyper-theatrical or hyper-realistic. This comes from the need to put something on stage that is unique only to the theatre and could not be done in film/tv, and in my opinion this means highly abstract worlds or incredibly realisitc ones where you believe you’re in the room with these people. But “I do both very abstract and very realistic plays” is hardly a definition of voice. Try putting that on you back-of-book blurb.

So I began to think of artists I think of as having a clear “voice”. I think of Mary Zimmerman: mythological, large cast, big and pretty – aha! It’s a Zimmer piece. Or Sarah Ruhl: poetic language, off-kilter humor, sex and death – aha! Ruhl. Or John Doyle’s actor-musicians. I connect voice to a fingerprint, something about the work that is the calling card of that artist.

And yet isn’t our job as director to interpret what the play wants to be? Or at least listen to our feelings about what the play wants to be? Doesn’t that mean letting the words of the playwright dictate what the world wants to be, and in essence being a middle man between the text and audience?

For me this asks a much larger question about whether the director is an interpretive artist or a creative artist, an argument that is being had quite heatedly right now in regards to copyright. Does the director interpret a text as a conductor interprets a score, or are they in fact creating something out of nothing, much like a painter with a canvas?

Certain directors have a more clearly defined fingerprint and are more clearly a creative artist, a painter of ideas. While others work in many styles and aesthetics, letting the text dictate their world, and jumping from aesthetic to aesthetic.

Perhaps voice becomes more apparent as your body of work grows. However, I think the only way to cultivate voice is to keep prying into a text or idea until you’re deeply emotionally connected to it, until you know why you’re telling the story and are consequently able to communicate that to your collaborators and then your audiences.

Perhaps voice is simply your “stuff” coming through while you were busy focusing on something else. Is it the job of the director to actively cultivate voice?

In just two weeks I started and ended directing HAPPY DAYS by Samuel Beckett.  This was perhaps my most challenging directing experience to date.

We began rehearsal last Monday.  We took a full day for table work.  This was important to me as I wanted to make sure Beckett’s dense text was clear – what is she saying here, what is the action, why long pause here verses maximum pause there, etc.  The following day this study paid off as we worked through Act 1.  At the end of the day, attempting Beckett in an abridged rehearsal process seemed totally doable and I felt confident we were going to have a solid production.  Then…Peter Flynn walked in.  I instinctively felt like I was in a school classroom and the principal arrived unexpectedly.  Peter asked if he could speak with me in private.  He then told me that they received a letter from The Beckett Foundation in regards to my cut of the play (all Wedge productions are expected to be 65 minutes or less).  After conferencing with Hangar’s artistic staff, Peter decided that we should simply do the full HAPPY DAYS text.  He was confident given the team – from the actors to the designers – that we could pull this feat off with just one added day of rehearsal.  As I made the announcement to the cast and production team, I felt both confident and terrified.

The following week presented a number of successes and challenges.  On the bright side, the actors were perfectly cast and brought an enthusiasm and sense of play that lent itself beautifully to Beckett’s absurd world.  On the bleaker side, the actor playing Winnie now had an additional 30 minutes of monologue to memorize in an extremely limited amount of time – coupled with the start of staged reading rehearsals in her only down time.  She was unsurprisingly overwhelmed. 

We only had three nights of tech before opening, and on day one Winnie still had pages, about 20 minutes of monologue, left to memorize.  She was exhausted, quick to break down, and beginning to subscribe to the fact that she couldn’t do it.  The situation seemed hopeless – one of those moments as a director when you are the positive cheerleader on the outside, yet terrified on the inside.  The next morning I sent an email to the Hangar powers that be stating my concerns for the actor and the production.  Peter called me soon after.  He reminded me of the strengths of this production – a solid design team, a unique lens on the play, and a Willie unlike any that have gone before.  He reminded me to keep my faith in the big picture and celebrate the good.  So that’s what I did – I stopped by the grocery store and went back into tech armed with bags of candy and words of sincere gratitude for the production team.   

For the next two days I devoted every spare minute to line drilling, creating mnemonics, and confidence building with this young actor.  There was not a second to breathe as we hit opening day with our fingers crossed.  The first time Winnie was successfully off book was during our final dress run hours before our opening night performance.  I had a backup line calling plan up my sleeve just in case she needed to call for help during the performance, but it all magically came together. 

This challenging experience pushed me to flex directing muscles I have little used and am thankful to have had this fast and dirty learning experience.

MACBETH has come and gone and it was a very intense experience. We had 6 days to tackle Shakespeare. It was short, hard, and at times, brutal. We all strecthed ourselves farther then I would have thought and did some great, amazing work. Although we didn’t fully solve the play, there are few times that I have been more proud of a group of actors I have worked with…especially considering that we lost power before the final performance and were forced to do the first 30 minutes in emergency light…..but that is a story for another day…..

Now I move on to a week of work on a staged reading of The Empty Ocean, a new play by Anton Dudley set in a dystopian future where the world has over exhausted it’s fish population. I am excited to do a complete 180 and go from Shakespeare to work on a brand new piece for the stage.

I have worked on a majority of new plays in my short career. The bond that forms, when one is workshopping a new piece, between a playwrite and director. When those two beings are working in confluence, it is truly a thing of beauty. That being said, I feel like I have only worked on READINGS of plays. with very few actual productions coming from said readings. I talk to my friends and they feel the same way. How can these plays actually get full-blow productions instead of always languishing in development hell?

This is a hard prospect. Everyone wants to find the next Death of a Salesman, but no one wants to take a risk to get there, because what if they are wrong? How do we let these new plays and playwrites have a production? What we do is for an audience so shouldn’t we allow them the experience of getting a new play to opening night and letting them make the decision about if it will be a contempoary classic or not?

I think that the investment that Signature (NYC) and Arena Stage make in their playwrites is a great model. Promise them productions no matter what they write. Give them the option to work on what they are interested in. That is how they will do their best work.

We should also look at the grants that are given away to new play development. Perhaps we should ear mark a certain amount of money from these grants to defray production costs, rather then putting these funds towards endless amounts of readings and workshops. I really do honestly think that nothing serves a play better then getting it up on its feet in front of an audience. How else will we know what works and what does not?

If you love a play, give it a life.

Tonight I start technical rehearsals for MACBETH. This is always one of my favorite aspects of any process. I love seeing all of the elements of a show coming together for the first time. Something beautiful and unexpected always comes from this time.

I have the equivalent of about 7  hours to tech my entire show before our dress. This is a very daunting process for me as I have never tech’ed any show in less than 15 hours. Let alone Shakespeare’s greatest achievement in portraying psychological descent into madness. I am just hoping that we move fast and that there are no large hiccups. No small request given that tech can be a beast onto itself. I have seen more then a few individuals (stage managers, designers, actors, and directors) break down under the rigors of a tense technical rehearsal.

This got me thinking about the process of tech’ing and preview periods for shows. They are also different from organization to organization, but once inside an organization they are pretty much the same. Why is that? No one can tell me that “all plays are created equal.” That just isn’t the case. So how do we in the theatre become more flexible about not just tech and preview periods, but rehearsal schedules as well. I mean do you really need as many rehearsals for KING LEAR as you do for BLACKBIRD?

I have worked on a few co-productions that are shared between two theatres. They pool resources and a play can be mounted twice (or more) given it a longer shelf life in front of an audience and allowing people longer for aperformances and understanding of the material to grow. A similar process could be made with a more commercial partner. More then a few Broadway shows have gone this route. We could also tour a production that sparks interest in a community. Much like the German model of producing theatre works.

As for tech and previews. I always feel like what we do is so much predicated on the audience and their response to it. I think we need to designate longer preview periods, as well as adjustment time, for shows. I also believe that every new play deserves this when it is first being performed in front of an audience. This is the first time that the writer and director are able to see how the audience is responding to their work. If they are not responding in the way that was thought, we need to give those people time to retool before critics come to review. It is a shame, but this opening night will largely determine a play’s legacy and future productions. Sometimes years of a playwrights toils are all undone in 2 hours that first night. We need to protect this investment we’ve made in our artists. Because if we don’t, what do we really have?

MACBETH

by William Shakespeare
Directed by Patrick Walsh

A soldier returns victorious from a long engagement in a foreign war. He is hailed as a hero, but how can he find his way in a civilian arena when the same rules do not apply? Especially when his past transgressions haunt him at every turn…
June 29 at 8:30pm & 11:00pm
June 30 at 8:30pm

Location: Ithaca High School P.A. Center, Black Box Theatre, 1401 N. Cayuga St.
Tickets: FREE – call 607.273.8588 x42 to reserve.