ISTA Scene Dec 09 20/11/09 17:30 Page 1

Creating worlds through theatre www.ista.co.uk

sceneTHE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF THE INTERNATIONAL SCHOOLS THEATRE ASSOCIATION 2009-10 DECEMBER ISSUE 2

In this Issue: New York, New York ISTA Scene Dec 09 20/11/09 17:30 Page 2

ISTA – A Who’s Who Contents

Board of Trustees 2 On The Threshold: The Calhoun Laramie Project David Lightbody – President By Marjorie Duffield Independent Producer, UK Based in the UK Dinos Aristidou 4 Theatre Group Dzieci and an Interview with Development Officer for Education and Learning, Matt Mitler Arts Council South East Freelance writer/director/consultant Based in the UK 12 A Practitioner’s Pathway Alex Clifton By Matt Mitler Theatre Director Senior Acting Teacher – RADA Based in the UK 13 ISTA and the American Museum of Natural Anthony Cunningham History High School Theatre Teacher at American School of the Hague, The Netherlands 15 Sound and Music in Theatre Susan Davenport By Greg Pliska Development Consultant Currently Interior Design Student Based in the UK 17 Interview with Kate Wetherhead: Ian Pike A New York based actor Freelance Script Writer Based in the UK Jen Tickle 18 Interview with Randy Ellen Lutterman of Arts Coordinator at the International School of Azerbaijan SpringboardNYC

Honorary Life Members 20 Student Scene: Introducing Broadway Space Dinos Aristidou – UK By Carla Weiss Doug Bishop – Taiwan Ted Miltenberger – France Mike Pasternak – Switzerland Editor: Sally Robertson

Artwork: Jo Doidge Global Patrons Print: Headland Printers, Penzance American School of the Hague, The Netherlands Encore! Ensemble Theatre Workshop, USA Cover photo: By Beth Griffin of Sarah International School of Azerbaijan Feinstein, a consumer at Cerebral Palsey, New York. International School of Geneva, La Chataigneraie, Switzerland International School of Geneva, LGB, Switzerland Back page photos: From Encore! archives provided by Susan Burke. International School of Hamburg, Germany International School of Luxembourg To submit material or comments for future issues please email Sally Robertson on [email protected] Regent’s School Pattaya, Thailand Shanghai American School – Puxi Campus, China © International Schools Theatre Association (ISTA) 2009-10 St Julian’s School, Portugal ISTA and its editors accept no liability for the views, opinions and Taipei American School International Thespian Society advice contained in this journal. The editors reserve the right to edit any materials submitted for publication. Personnel ISTA Contact Information Sally Robertson – Chief Executive Officer International Schools Theatre Association (ISTA) [email protected] Watchbell, Old Hill, Helston Del Hayton – Operations Manager TR13 8HT Cornwall, UK [email protected] Email: [email protected] Jo Webb – Finance and Admin Manager Website: www.ista.co.uk [email protected] Telephone: + 44 (0) 1326 560 398 ISTA Scene Dec 09 20/11/09 17:30 Page 3

Snippets Editorial from our two 2009-10 December Issue 2 New York events – October 2009 While ISTA has no time for the occasional romantic From Tim Reid, Clarkstown dalliance, its 30-year history has nevertheless been High School North, USA marked by passionate affairs with a few special I wanted to thank you for the places. Stratford-upon-Avon was our first love – where tremendous TaPS my students else than the home of William Shakespeare would a and I experienced in New York. theatre organisation first fan the flames of passion? What a wonderful first for ISTA Like many first encounters, those embers are now and for us. The ensemble dead and dormant, with ISTA turning more to a sessions were great, the theatre marriage of convenience in London while the RSC performances thought provoking, theatres have been closed for renovation. Can love be and the master classes were rekindled next year with their re-opening? inspirational. I marveled at the Bali began as a holiday fling in 1997, but soon way that all the ensemble work, became a yearly assignation for TaPS and teacher workshops, until newspaper master classes, and theatre headlines and the spotlight of international attention forced us from public view. After experiences fitted together with letting things cool for a few years, and despite assurances that “we’re just friends,” the IB Theatre curriculum and the ISTA has been sniffing ’round Bali’s door yet again in hopes of reviving the yearly TaPS, goals set forth by the ensemble if only for the sake of the children. leaders. Sherri included a But the real story is one of new love, young love – October 2009 and for the first Macbeth scene in her ensemble time New York. This one we had to shout from the rooftops. With wonderful work, which the students opportunities for students (both from the U.S. and Europe) to explore incredible theatre, watched that evening and then encounter a new world of practitioners and experience the sheer presence of the Big experienced physical theatre with Apple as a backdrop – we are planning a very long engagement indeed, with New York members of the cast the TaPS every year and IB Theatre training for teachers. following day. Incredible! The All metaphors aside, as an organization that literally takes place across the globe, we students were abuzz with ideas have been indelibly marked by our geography. Stratford seemed such a part of ISTA in and enthusiasm when they the early years – defining our work, reinforcing our commitment to teacher conferences returned to school. Even as a and TaPS, the quiet calm of the place lending itself to wonderful intimate student work. chaperone I was able to garner And yet, there was always the canonical question looming – did we want ISTA placing some great ideas from the Shakespeare so emphatically at the centre of its programming? Perhaps we’d outgrown workshops and the informal Stratford as an organization – in any case, the intervening time away has allowed us to sessions Rob was kind enough develop and explore a number of alternatives, ones that just may allow us to return to to provide to share ideas and Stratford as a very specific tradition, rather than as a model for IB curriculum. address questions and concerns. Bali was one such alternative that came to embody a new direction for ISTA, away from the West, and in search of other traditions. ‘The real stuff’ as Rucina Ballinger said From Greg Varner, Director of when I first met her – not the tourist traps, but observing morning ceremonies, eating in Upper Arlington Community the homes of puppet makers, visiting and working with mask makers. A highlight for of Theatre (UACT) me was the year Rucina promised to give us the Kecak group that had just won the I recognize that there will be a prize for best Kecak on Bali: the ISTA group gathered in the gardens of our hotel and in follow-up survey coming, but I came three vans with hoards of people on each – she had literally shipped in the whole wanted to drop you a line to tell village to perform for us. It is a tremendous boon to ISTA to have Bali back on its map. you that the Level 3 training was, More recently, with our strong IB push into North America, it seems entirely hands down, the best appropriate that we turn our attention to New York, every bit London’s rival and peer as conference I've attended in 21 centre of world (and world-class) theatre. But if London’s West End has come through years of teaching. What a for ISTA and TaPS in the past few years, can we see different possibilities in New York? brilliant, practical, motivational, What about models outside the commercial and subsidised theatre? Rob Warren relevant, etc. etc, experience we (Atlanta International School) indicated early on that if we did TaPS anywhere in the had with Dinos and each other. U.S., it should be New York. Surprisingly, a number of European schools this year And the context of the museum opted for New York TaPS over the typically popular London venue. was miles beyond the experience To celebrate young love, we are dedicating this issue to New York, New York. In it, we would have had in a theatre. we have compiled a collection of interviews with artists working in the industry, an in- Rob Steiner generously depth look at a cutting-edge theatre company and a pair of resource packs from the provided vouchers for those of New York TaPS. We also offer some insight into one of our most recent and unique us who were able to return to partnerships – with a beloved institution, the American Museum of Natural History on the museum on Sunday for a Central Park West. leisurely visit. I would urge future [With thanks to DG for help with the metaphor.] participants to plan on the extra day specifically for this purpose. It was good to have quiet time to process and to dream. So thanks to all who put this training together. It was Editor, [email protected] remarkable!

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ON THE THRESHOLD: THE CALHOUN LARAMIE PROJECT I By Marjorie Duffield

This fall marks the “revival” Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act,” a Matthew, and the characters in this production of The Laramie Project at The bill she has been championing for years. town. They connect with the idea that Calhoun School on the upper west side (This measure expands the 1969 United this could be them, or their town, or a of Manhattan. The Laramie Project States federal hate–crime law to include dilemma they could face – to stand up to originally opened off-Broadway in 2000 crimes motivated by a victim's actual or something or to look away. Of all the and the show really made a name for the perceived gender, sexual orientation, plays I have directed at Calhoun, this one company that created it: Tectonic gender identity, or disability and was just is the most “desire” based. Since Theatre Project. I was fascinated by the passed on October 28, 2009 after years students connect to it on a deep and documentary/ ensemble style of the and years of effort.) In addition, individual level, their empathy for certain piece and by the way it was devised. Calhoun’s LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, characters really serves the truth and The Tectonic company collected bi–sexual, transgender, queer/ nuance the play requires. With both this interviews from the townspeople and questioning) population has become production and the one in 2003, I then edited/dramatized them in various really active, so the subject of the play explored that connection and had the ways – including finding the central once again creates an incredibly relevant students choose their roles. I asked them “moment” of the piece. teaching moment for our school. Finally, to write about their choices; explain who I first directed this play in 2003 during the Tectonic Theatre Project returned to they felt most strongly about playing and my first year as the theatre teacher at Laramie last year and they re–interviewed why; discuss which roles would be the Calhoun. I knew a few of the original cast a number of the original subjects of the greatest challenge to them and which members which created an opportunity piece. This new play The Laramie character would be the most difficult to for my students to dialogue with them Project: 10 Years Later premiered at play. After they submitted their choices, about the play and the devising of new Lincoln Center on October 12th, 2009 – the math worked – both times! With 24 work. In addition, the story of the play – 11 years after Matthew’s death. 150 students I found I was able to give them a community’s response to the hate theatres from New York to Los Angeles one of their first choices, and often their crime and murder of Matthew Shepard, to Madrid to Hong Kong simultaneously second and third choice as well. (Most a 21 year old gay University of Wyoming hosted staged readings of the piece. students have between two and four student – created an important teaching Without losing any of its former power, roles in this play.) moment around issues of hate in society. The Laramie Project became relevant in This “revival” production showed me Also, there are over 60 roles in The a new way. It was back in the news and that there is something particularly Laramie Project. Frankly, what theatre that gave me another excellent reason to poignant about high school students teacher doesn’t need lots of roles for lots produce it again. performing this play. They are just at that of kids? And of course, I needed a play with threshold, that moment before – before There are a number of reasons I lots of roles for lots of kids. they leave the nest, go to college, go out wanted to produce the piece again this Actually, having all those roles is into the world. They still exist in that year. Last spring I heard that there was a great. But, there is a real secret to the precious time where it seems we can good chance we were going to bring piece and why it is a terrific piece for protect them. Their being on this threshold Judy Shepard to Calhoun to speak. Mrs. high school students. The kids feel it. It creates an even more moving portrait of Shepard (Matthew’s mother) had been requires real empathy and offers terrific the town of Laramie and its inhabitants. making the rounds recently to speak acting moments for everyone in the I think it is important that theatre about the “Matthew Shepard and James ensemble. They care about the play, and teachers create opportunities for the hard

In rehearsal for the current production...

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Calhoun Laramie 2003 production In rehearsal discussions – in this case about hate and the next year, conducted more than 200 murder THE LARAMIE PROJECT is one difference and hate of difference. This interviews with people of the town. From of the most performed plays in America play can be a powerful teaching tool for these interviews they wrote the play The today.” an entire school community. Recently I Laramie Project, a chronicle of the life of With thanks to Carla Weiss discovered that Matthew Shepard was an the town of Laramie in the year after the for her editing work on this article. international school student, and a theatre kid. (He finished his primary Marjorie Duffield is a librettist, playwright, director and theatre educator. She is education at The American School in currently the Upper School Theatre Director at The Calhoun School in New York Switzerland in 1995.) I already City and has worked as a theatre educator for 20 years with many organizations sympathized with this story and play on including the Metropolitan Opera Guild, the Women's Project, BETA and ISTA. Her so many levels but this truly brought it play ICE ISLAND: THE WAIT FOR SHACKLETON was produced off–Broadway by home. Matthew was one of ours. The Melting Pot Theatre Company. Marjorie's other credits include SIT–IN AT THE From the Tectonic Theatre Project FIVE & DIME (developmental residencies from the New Harmony Project, Voice & website: “In October 1998 Matthew Vision and a presentation at Barrington Stage – music by Janice Lowe), IN A Shepard was kidnapped, severely beaten LAKE OF FIRE (Williamstheatre – music by Greg Pliska), winner of the Moss Hart and left to die, tied to a fence on the Award and Finalist for the Richard Rodgers Awards, LUCKY HANS (White Bird outskirts of Laramie, Wyoming. Five Productions – music by Danny Ashkenasi), and CYBER–ALICE (Lincoln Center weeks later, Moisés Kaufman and fellow Directors Lab at HERE – music by Sunmee Cho). Marjorie is a graduate of members of the Tectonic Theatre Project Williams College and NYU's Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program. went to Laramie, and over the course of

Letters from Jakarta and Bangalore… Each TaPS event is a unique experience for students and 2010. We are not going to even try to focus on the performing teachers alike; and often one that sits firmly within a wider arts of the region after Bali...that would be an exercise in futility! cultural context. I was delighted that ISTA returned to Bali this Instead I am bringing in an eclectic range of artists to focus on year. Just as we hope to return to New York in October 2010; 'the cutting edge of contemporary theatre… from a more we will, for sure, be returning to Bali in October 2011… A date western perspective'. So I hope to see many of you here in for your diary? Jakarta next year to continue those incredible discussions we From Tom Schulz and students at Jakarta International have been having over the years...more to follow on that soon. School (JIS) A huge round of applause and standing ovation to Rucina Dear Kindred Spirits, and to ISTA staff Liane, Jeff, Moira, Joachim, Darren and For the JIS contingent this event was a reaffirmation of the Maggie! magic of Bali. Jaded by too many trips to Kuta, many had lost With heartfelt thanks. the feeling that Bali is 'special'. Thanks to Rucina and her From students at The International School of Bangalore husband, and the incredible support of the wonderful people For the TISB students our recent experience at the ISTA they drew together to host us, we returned to Jakarta feeling TaPS workshop was one that will remain etched in our blessed to live in such an incredible country. Many of my memories forever. Often associated with beaches, trends, zest students are Indonesians, and I have already heard from and fun we felt it time to discover the artistic side of Bali, and appreciative parents, thanking ISTA for providing their students this workshop was the ideal platform. From Kecak, Topeng, with this amazing, important experience. The range of Balinese and Gamelan to Shadow Puppetry, each event outshined the performances and workshops were of the highest quailty I have other. The heavy influence of culture, music and dance in experienced in my 16 years in the country. theatre was intriguing to us students. After this trip we I echo the sentiments of the teachers and ISTA staff who understood our approach to the Theatre Arts more uniquely found deep and meaningful Professional Development in those and believe that the workshop was of tremendous inspiration four days, thanks to Jeff Aitken and the collegiality of all for our future assignments. Each one of us has returned involved. I came back to school not only with a greater rejuvenated and having gained a better understanding of understanding of the design and delivery of the IB curriculum, various aspects of theatre important for the IB curriculum. We but a vast array of practical approaches and exercises I can put would like to thank ISTA for organising this workshop and into immediate use with my students. My students got the providing an amazing insight into Balinese culture. same from their work with the ensemble leaders. We would also like to offer our sincere thanks to Rucina and I am so energized and inspired that I immediately launched to ISTA staff Maggie, Lianne, Darren, Jeff, Moira and Joachim! into detailed planning for when JIS hosts TaPS in November of Their constant support made this experience impeccably smooth.

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THEATRE GROUP DZIECI AND AN INTERVIEW WITH MATT MITLER Dzieci presented master classes and their performance of Makbet at both the student TaPS and at the Level 3 IB Theatre (Diploma) teacher workshop in New York in October this year. The company has previously worked with students at Atlanta International School and sincere thanks to Rob Warren for introducing us!

name, Dzieci, but they couldn’t come Dzieci (djyeh-chee) is an international experimental theatre ensemble up with anything better. We had one dedicated to a search for the “sacred” through the medium of theatre. Polish actress in the company at the Using techniques garnered from such theatre masters as Jerzy time, she liked the name. Grotowski, Eugenio Barba and Peter Brook, ritual forms derived from Native Later, while Dzieci was going American and Eastern spiritual disciplines, and an ethic based securely in through its initial agonizing growing Humanistic Psychology, Dzieci aims to create a theatre that is as equally pains, I regretted the choice myself, as engaged with personal transformation as it is with public presentation. it seemed I was cursed to work with a Towards this aim, the ensemble balances its work on performance with company that would be eternally work of service, through creative and therapeutic interaction in hospitals and childlike and never mature. Fortunately, a variety of institutional settings. Dzieci believes helping others generates a that didn’t last forever. profound healing effect that not only serves the patient but also strengthens Dzieci’s performances in hospitals the ensemble’s work. have been described as the Dzieci is firmly dedicated to process. Our theatrical creations come ‘marrow’ of your work. How did organically over a long period of time, and a relationship with the world this work begin? How has it around us is essential. Therefore, public demonstrations of the work in evolved? progress are offered along the way, along with para-theatrical workshops, The element of service in Dzieci which invite participants to experience the work underlying our most current predates my earliest interest in theatre. investigations. I need to emphasize that this work we “Dzieci” is the Polish word for “Children”. do in hospitals is in no way altruistic, Taken from Dzieci website – http://www.dziecitheatre.org/ we do it because it has a purifying effect on ourselves; it helps us find the When was Dzieci group together herself. way to approach our craft as an act of created and how We agreed to begin by offering an service. That people are comforted, or did it come open all day workshop and see who empowered, or even healed, is a most about? might want to continue after such an welcome result, but it is not the aim. I was teaching experience. I think almost twenty I began working with a series of master participants came at first, many from disadvantaged communities in my classes at the other countries, and by the following adolescence; summer programmes, Michael Chekhov week we were down to twelve. A week camps, etc. I had an aptitude for fine Studio in NY, and or so after that, we had six and then I art, so much of the work I did at first one of the brought in a few of my own contacts fell under the category of Art Therapy, students, Yvonne Brecht, came to put us at nine. but there was a whole social aspect to up to me at the end of the sessions This was in the early part of 1997. the interactions. In High School, I and said, “I want to work like this all We started taking the group seriously began to study Psychology, which the time.” And I said, “So do I.” She sometime in the spring and began to presented a clearer perspective of asked me how that might be possible search for a name. I wanted something what I was engaged with and what and I told her that it wasn’t. I said that evocative and because of my theatrical might be the potential. I began to I’d had a group once in Europe, but lineage, Polish, I proposed, “Dzieci.” It experiment, being drawn to “difficult” that Europeans have an entirely means, “children”, conveying innocence, personalities, and found that different orientation, and I didn’t think a play, creativity, not simply in describing empowerment was key to growth and group like that could be created here in ourselves, but also a way in which we integration. At this time, such work the states. Yvonne, a Swiss immigrant, wished to engage others. And it conveys was highly fulfilling for me, and I was asked how many people would I need the notion of beginning anew, always keenly aware of its personal for a group. I told her at least six but it being a novice. There is no mastery; therapeutic value. would be best to start with ten or there are only new levels to begin at. I am suspicious of what motivates twelve, and that she’d have to put the Anyhow, no one seemed to like the people, including myself, and

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absolutely boisterous high-energy encounter, whereas the bed to work is very delicate, very subtle. None of this is alien to our process; the hospital work is the same work that we do amongst ourselves in building and strengthening the ensemble. Some of these elements may be glimpsed within our public performances; certainly the level of encounter, between ourselves and the Cabrini Medical Centre Hospital work patients we serve, is identical to the particularly so of artists. There is I think our hospital work (in fact, all level at which we meet a public something about depriving the usual of our work) has become more intuitive audience. The effort is to retain the gratification due to the performer, over the years. I’ve engaged with every purity of the interactions of the service applause, laughter, adulation; that calls population there is: blind, deaf, work in order to approach the public into question what I wish to serve, schizophrenic, geriatric, children with work with that same integrity, to make what I make my God. This is a process aids, prisoners, you name it. Part of my performance an act of service. of negation; first I must see what I do aim in Dzieci is to offer such There is this back and forth, this serve, what I automatically, perhaps experiences to the members of the beginning again and again and again. even pathologically serve. I must make company, for them to find for Work in hospitals, stillness, work on it conscious. Is it a need? A need for themselves what is necessary under the street, stillness, work in the theatre, attention? A need to exhibit myself? these conditions. Again, the first step stillness, working silly, working Am I lacking some inner quality that I is often finding out what is not rationally, in daylight, in darkness, in must desperately fill from outside? Do I necessary. But one of things I’ve workshops, in private, stillness, have any choice in the matter? And witnessed is that we become less and stillness, stillness. Always returning, am I willing to suffer the truth? less muscular, more trusting of the circling back, and every time we return, The hospital work is an unrelenting, unknown, allowing something new to there is something new gained, unsparing battleground. It is the basic unfold, and this something new is something deepened, there are training for Dzieci and it is the often initiated by the patient/client. It is revelations and moments of grace that prerequisite for all our other work. It important to note that this is not so are almost impossible to describe. separates those who truly wish to different from our work with other We have returned to Fools Mass dedicate themselves to this practice populations, actors included. annually for eleven years now. Can you and those who may only think that’s Which leads us to the next imagine living with a production in that what they want. question(s). way, eternally rehearsing? And beyond The patients we interact with (there What are the main differences and this, there are our own relationships to is no “performance” per se) are naked, similarities between your work in each other in the group, sharing a without artifice. They may be suffering hospitals and your performance history of experience as varied as if we in some form or other but their work; with reference to were daring adventurers. essence is manifest. Any mask I may a. Content and material have is magnified in their presence, so b. Relationship to audience I am called to drop that mask. I am Well, I’ve just said that there is not called to be authentic, to be naked as much difference between Dzieci’s well. As we work in a group, there is hospital work and performance work then a process of blending amongst with respect to the relationship with our ourselves, moving more deeply audience. As far as content of material towards something essential. Listening. is concerned, there can be many This is a process of sensitizing. At elements that are dissimilar, just as from the same time, it is a study in energy hospital to hospital, and community to management. If we spend six hours in community there are differences. It is a hospital, singing, healing, going from the similarities, which interest me the bed to bed, we have many most, but I can say that in a hospice opportunities to see how our own situation or with the elderly, we will go energy ebbs and flows. So, there is a from bed to bed, and sing hymns and work on attention beneath everything. chants. We will sing even if the person A self-study. This is the key to all of our is in a coma. With children in a work and it is this, which begins to psychiatric hospital, let’s say, we will guide us. I see that if I am attentive, create an environment where we can there is an energy in myself, which can initiate some sort of tribal rite, which can become more refined throughout the then transform into trust exercises. At a day. In fact, I may even be left at the certain point, these trust exercises end with more energy, with a finer might lead to role reversals, where we energy, than what I came in with. And have staff leaping off of tables into Makbet fight scene that is a blessing. children’s arms. This becomes an

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are the conditions and that change can be constant. Interestingly enough, comes slowly and that the best I can the more I pay attention to that, the do is work equally with everyone from more constant that becomes. a place of non-judgment. In your performance of Makbet you I have made a point over the years take inspiration from the gypsies of not to find out any background on who Scandinavia and Eastern Europe. I’m working with. I don’t want to know How did this come about? a patient’s diagnosis. I don’t even want This is a perfect illustration of our to know who’s a patient and who’s process in general. Makbet is a staff. Or who is a lay minister, and who steppingstone for Dzieci. We have an is a Roman Catholic priest. Or who is area of inquiry and as we delve into this in High School and who is a film star. area, we begin to pave a pathway. We When someone new comes to work find that certain tools become with Dzieci, I don’t ask for his or her necessary, but we need to create those resume. I don’t want to know anything tools sometimes. The initial investigation about their history at all. Who they are began with an exploration of “Trickster”, in the present moment is all that the trickster myth. We felt a need to find concerns me, and from that place of a way to inhabit such qualities in meeting, anything is possible. ourselves, both in performance and in Dzieci has attracted certain our personal lives (the two are never In rehearsal communities who request our services. disjointed in Dzieci anyhow). We had We seem to spend a great deal of time spent so much time with our Fools This is why it is sometimes hard to working with clergy and religious characters from Fools Mass, which are use the word theatre; we are really institutions. Work of this nature is so innocent and vulnerable. We needed engaged in something else. Some may immensely gratifying. The people we a complement to that. do theatre for the sake of theatre; we make contact with are deeply We focused at first on Loki of the do theatre for the sake of our selves, questioning, there is little or no Nordic mythologies. This led to a study for our salvation. superficiality, something is at risk. The of the ancient saga of, Ragnarok. We Your brief spans that of: demand for us to be present and felt that Gypsies could be a • Working with the elderly, ill or responsible, to reveal ourselves, is all representation of trickster in human dying the greater and the rewards form, so we became Gypsies telling • Working with staff in commensurate. the story of Ragnarok. Ragnarok is institutions We move easily among religious Nordic, so we began to learn hymns • Working with religious and spiritual institutions. Because and chants from Scandinavia. But the institutions Dzieci is essentially non- fantasy Gypsies that we were creating • Workshops denominational, and inter-spiritual, with were Eastern European, so we also • Performances the group seeking out and participating learned music from that geography. How comfortably do these in a wide array of ceremonies and And then we hit an impasse. different facets of Dzieci’s work sit rituals, we can be accepted, even Ragnarok was too sprawling a tale, too with each other? embraced by communities as diverse epic. We had started with the fable of More and more the work becomes as Benedictine nuns, Kabalistic Jews, Loki and the death of Baldur, but the basically the same. The different kinds and Peruvian shamans. Again, the deeper we went into Ragnarok, the of populations, from dying patients to commonality is what is of primary more we felt the need to encompass its clergy to young actors, all become interest. entirety. And more. Especially after simply human beings. And by “simply”, For hospitals and healing centers, 9/11, when we decided that we I mean what’s at the core of being the work with staff is a practical matter. needed to take the story through to the human, the essence. Not that I know How can change have any continuity end, the complete destruction of the what that is, but that I embrace the without empowerment? But staff rarely world, and beyond into the birth of the mystery. And as I approach the work in volunteer for our creative encounters, new age. But now we had a concrete this way, I find that elusive element so we have to be clever about it, theme to work with: Holy Destruction. within myself, which corresponds. altering the group dynamic almost All the while, we were creating We are non-verbal in our hospital invisibly, until they are drawn in or until interactions as Gypsies, in hospitals, work as a way of meeting on this very they just can’t say, No. I wish that on the street, finding the freedom in basic level. We are also non-verbal in Dzieci could work more directly with that role. We had been studying our workshops for the same reason. staff in the helping professions, from healing and intuitive work for some Our typical rehearsal day is equally my earliest days of studying time as well, and this now took on a stripped of superficial behavior. psychotherapy; I have been a major Gypsy flavor. But if we were going to Years ago, I was teaching at an proponent of institutional reform. The create Ragnarok from scratch, through institute for schizophrenia in Poland, best reform is initiated from the seeds improvisation (as was the plan), then and during a workshop with staff and of human encounter. we needed a preliminary project to get patients, I was shocked to see the staff Within this spectrum of workshops, us into shape. Fools Mass had served express themselves negatively, even performances, hospital work, a similar purpose in developing our violently, during certain improvisations. specialized trainings and retreats, there adaptation of The Devils of Loudun. It took some time to accept that these is a possibility of seeing what in myself Fools Mass ended up with a life of its

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Fools Mass own, (in fact a longer life than Devils). govern the process. And that process nurtures my growth. At any rate, we were familiar with is a source of transformation. As Dzieci has developed have you creating projects in order to serve I feel now, six years from our initial taken Grotowski’s work in any new more distant projects. foray, that we are just beginning to directions? Have his original ideas But we needed a piece that bring this production of Makbet to life, been adapted/developed in any involved text. Since working on Devils, and that more and more, it is fulfilling way? Or is it important for you to everyone was in agreement that if we its original objective. Projects chosen in stay as ‘true’ as possible to his were to work with text, the text had to Dzieci must be able to lend themselves original ideas? be of the highest value, beyond our to unending investigation. We know One aspect must be made clear: measure. Something out of reach, that that if we take a project on, it is a the work is a continuum; it is a path, a we would have to rise up to meet. marriage. direction, an aim. Even to speak about Devils used a collage of classical and You are based in New York – are Grotowski in terms of “new direction”, sacred sources, and Shakespeare fit your actors mostly North American there is only the direction. If we talk this category perfectly. With the idea of or do they hail from different about Grotowski’s efforts in the 60’s, it Holy Destruction in mind, and Gypsies places? How important is an is the plasticity of the body, the Holy singing Eastern European and international approach/perspective Actor. If we speak about the 70’s, it is Scandinavian chants and folk songs, I to your work? something more communal, the proposed Macbeth. I had worked on My aesthetic is international, cross- Paratheatrical experiments. The 80’s Macbeth at various times in my life, cultural, inter-spiritual. It is important to brought The Theatre of Sources. If we (traditionally, comically, and in one case me that the work has enough richness isolate any period of experimentation, with a cast of children), and had to be appreciated by audiences that we are the fabled blind men describing already created a number of scaled speak other languages, or no language; the elephant. There is then a problem down versions of the text. that the work resonates equally for the that is of equal concern, regarding We all agreed and began with one of blind as for the deaf. Our approach is transmission: teachers bringing a my adaptations, subtracting and adding classically related to the experimental frozen moment of history. No moment as needed. This process alone took the theatre of Europe in the 60’s and 70’s can exist frozen in time. Even as our better part of two years, during which but also has influences that range as richest memories are perceived only time we learned all of the lines by heart far back as the ancient Hindu tutelary through the haze of history, no through a process of oral transmission. deity, Bharata. teaching can truly live without the No one was given scripts until they had My personal development is most relationship to what has preceded it. learned the lines from someone else’s informed by international theatre, And what is to follow. lips. This is the same way we learn all of particularly Polish theatre, and I aspire If you were to represent me by our music, but we hadn’t taken on the to participate in this realm. From its presenting one of my workshops from practice with text before. inception, Dzieci has attracted thirty years ago, I would be made a I spoke earlier of the need for a participants from a variety of cultural fool. Yet, within that past workshop complement. Complementality is backgrounds. Company membership would be the seeds of what I am doing crucial for Dzieci. We have periods of changes over the years but has always today, and without that prior intense effort, but these are counter remained diverse. This applies as exploration, I would not be here now. balanced by being still. We created much to geographic origin as it does Both the work of 1979 and the work of Fools Mass, which was highly to individual spiritual discipline. 2009 are needed to begin to improvisational, with no text, and We do not actively seek this understand where the next steps may followed that with Devils of Loudun, arrangement, but the company began lead. It is the continuum that defines which had densely layered text and in this fashion and has continued to the path, and it is the path that is the every single moment on stage attract in such a manner, though the real teaching. meticulously choreographed. (There is current makeup is predominantly North So, do I take Grotowski’s work in no “off stage” with Dzieci anyhow.) American. new directions? I am not Grotowski. I Makbet is wildly spontaneous, but I wouldn’t say that an international appreciate and honor Grotowski. I am the text anchors us. I would be foolish approach or perspective is important in influenced by Grotowski. I also to predict what Ragnarok will be, I the work, because it is the work. It disagree with him and that never predetermine the outcome of my can’t be otherwise. It is my own disagreement has in no small part work, but I know that it will follow orientation; it is what interests me, fueled the direction that Dzieci has certain themes, certain laws, which what gives me pleasure, and what taken. But I feel there is an aim, which

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Grotowski stayed faithful to, and I York Theatre scene? believe I have been faithful to a similar I like movies. Honestly, I find most aim. And there are principles in theatre painful to experience. I have Grotowski’s work, which are sacred seen some glorious productions in New principles. These principles have been York, don’t get me wrong. Even on around for millennia, and I am an Broadway, The Seagull last summer, adherent to these principles. Steppenwolf’s Grape’s of Wrath some There are also practical matters years ago. Or at BAM, Peter Brook’s where I find myself synonymous with Hamlet. But for the most part, I am Grotowski. Certainly my studies with his unmoved. I have no interest in multi- company, and in particular, with his media, or cleverness, or showcasing. Cirkus lead actor, Ryszard Cieslak, have left There are actors who I have followed, me with forms that have been useful to who I have found worthwhile, and support that. Ideally, we are seeking follow. I have adopted the term playwrights, sometimes set designers, transformation, an arising. Authenticity. paratheatrical to describe Dzieci’s but the whole package rarely comes Freedom. We find that working in a workshops and those workshops are together for me. I am interested in group is a great help in this process, always non-verbal. We offer marathon questions, in the work that evolves and that placing ourselves under certain sessions that are similar in nature to the from a question, not the work that conditions (sometimes creating those Tree of People Project, we practice postulates an answer. conditions), allows for the possibility of beehives. We also make direct contact Grotowski said that he wasn’t being acted upon. Something is still with each other when exercising, work interested in making plays to teach required from us, certainly, but the aim on acrobatics and yoga. We use others what he already knew. I saw a is to be acted upon. candles a lot. In performance, we are great deal of theatre in Poland when I What are the key elements of the quintessentially Poor Theatre. There was living there in the late 70’s and Grotowski’s work for, say, 17 year is rarely a set or a lighting design, there early 80’s, not only Grotowski’s olds learning about theatre today? is no proscenium, no curtains, barely astonishing work, and a great deal of Again, I can only speak about any props, and we gravitate towards what I saw then still lives within me myself. I didn’t become interested in intimate and, when possible, sacred today. Perhaps I am spoiled by those theatre until I was seventeen and it spaces. Or take a pedestrian space experiences. In fact, I know I am. was a revelation for me. I was and make it sacrosanct. From our experiences of working particularly taken by the Most of these forms came out of with your company at TaPS expressionistic, existential, and my own explorations, not as an effort recently, your workshops are more absurdist playwrights, but it was all a to emulate The Polish Theatre experiential than overtly wonder. A year later, I encountered Laboratory. Some were in my domain instructional. Why is this approach acting as an experimental process. The before I ever went to Poland, and most suitable for the content do people I initially trained with all had a some I came to organically, as I you think? relationship to Grotowski and his followed my own line of inquiry. Again it’s as much a matter of teachings, (some had studied with him People witness Dzieci’s work and personal choice as anything else. It’s personally), and I had read Peter find parallels to Grotowski. I realize that what worked for me, what still works Brook’s, The Empty Space, so I had even in using the word, “witness”, I am for me. I can analyze the approach and some reference myself. I moved on to following Grotowski. How much of say that experience is the only teacher. Towards a Poor Theatre and then, what I do is influenced in this manner? That more than skills, what we wish to three years later, I moved on to Poland How much am I not even aware of? impart is a way of learning, a way of for the direct experience. Certainly Grotowski is not my only being with others. But the truth of the Just as the student of painting influence, but when it comes to matter is that the process has evolved studies Realism, Impressionism, theatre, his name is the one that intuitively, with understanding being an Cubism, Modernism, and the student of reverberates. Am I true to Grotowski? I after effect. Now I know that the key religion studies Catholicism, Judaism, can’t answer that nor do I really care element is to provide conditions for Islam, Hindu, Buddhism, and more, so to. I am true to myself. And if I am seeing oneself. That real study is self- should the student of theatre have as sincere, I have to thank Grotowski, in study. But what will I say ten years large a platter as possible from which to large part, for that. from now? feast off of. That Grotowski represents I must make mention of one radical I was initiated into this form of (and not only for me), a lineage that difference with Grotowski, but in theatre, the Holy Theatre, as Brook represents theatre as a sacred practice, keeping with our idea of describes it. This was my catechism, places all the more importance on his complementality. That is that Dzieci though I didn’t know that at the time. inclusion in the canon. also performs on subways and street All I knew was that some part of me When I first journeyed to the Polish corners, and we move quite was benefitting from working in this Theatre Laboratory, they were calling comfortably from cathedrals to way and that some part of me was their method of training, Actor’s burlesque houses, and from drama to being changed forever. Therapy. What is most vital about this slapstick. We dare to practice Holy In referencing change, there are two approach is that it proves to be of Theatre under the guise of fools and forms of change we discuss: change of value for the non-actor as well as the idiots, and have made a serious study state and change of being. The latter is actor, or more pertinently, it is valuable of comedy. what we value in Dzieci. The whether or not one ever even What are your views on the New methodologies we use have proven to becomes an actor.

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it is possible to create a blaze. have made up our ensemble. Along So, you won’t find Apocalypsis with this progress is a delicate Cum Figuris in the The Best New Plays movement of interest in what we are of 1969. You won’t find Grotowski doing, an amassing of attention, from getting an OBIE Award. But if you have select communities and individuals an interest in theatre as a discipline who posses a certain special quality of with a potential for the evolutionary introspection. From this, a larger development of humankind, then community is beginning to become Grotowski must be given his due. And manifest along with a feeling of the fact that I, and others like me, increasing support, of affirmation. continue on this path as a direct result I have faith that we will continue to of our encounters with his work, and evolve and that the future of Dzieci will that we have had our own influence on be completely unpredictable and countless younger practitioners, proves absolutely perfect. that the line of transmission which Grotowski was a part of, remains An appendix… unbroken. From the Theatre of Bharata Foolsbread What are your goals for Dzieci for And account of the First Founding The practice of finding trust by the foreseeable future? of the Theatre facing fears, of breaking down When I think back to what I According to Divine Transmission personal barriers, of nourishing that imagined Dzieci becoming when we 4th or 5th Century B.C. within ourselves which is related to first began, it isn’t what it is now. What Having produced the essence. Training in this lineage (and I it is now is not simply beyond my knowledge of the theatre, the great include Dzieci here), is a rite of expectations, it is in a wholly different father said to Indra, the powerful: passage. What better age to begin sphere than I could have ever “These myths which I have such a practice than seventeen? imagined. Yet, the present incarnation generated within myself must be How do you view Grotowski’s of Dzieci comes as no surprise. It all transmitted to the gods. ‘tradition’ of theatre within its seems rightful. In the beginning, I “You must communicate this historical context? thought we’d have a production up sacred knowledge called the I’ve mentioned a lineage. I am not and running in a year. That took two, theatre to skillful beings, beyond versed well enough in history or and it wasn’t even the production I the fire of knowledge, who walk anthropology to present a fully was aiming for. I thought The Devils of with daring, and who have educated commentary, but I believe Loudun would be ready in two years, conquered inertia.” that the tradition we refer to here is the that we’d bring it Off-Broadway, and To these words uttered by source of sacred ceremony. When we become instant international Brahma, Indra, the powerful, use the word, theatre in this context, sensations. It took six years; we joining his hands and bowing, we are talking solely about the Holy brought it Off-Broadway, and barely replied to the great father: Theatre. Grotowski is not alone here, made a ripple. I imagined Dzieci “The undisguised truth is that, he himself cites Stanislawski. We know touring many world theatre festivals; the gods, O blessed one, are not the influence Grotowski has had on we have been to none. We have capable of grasping, retaining, Peter Brook and Eugenio Barba. But participated in one international event, understanding, and animating this the real tradition goes back to the The Parliament of the World’s Religions science. They cannot be entrusted sacred dances of the Essenes, it goes in Barcelona. It wasn’t a theatre with the tasks of the theatre. back to Bharata and the ancient Vedic festival, and we were the only theatre “But there are prophets who practices, it goes back to the first time company invited to perform. know the mysteries of knowledge, somebody made a fire and chanted to At this point, when other theatre who have perfected their bows; the stars. companies proudly announce that they they will be able to grasp, apply, What was theatre in its origin? What are playing Edinburgh or Lincoln and keep this teaching in their did Stanislawski search for at the end Center, I find myself glowing about an memories.” of his life? What is a Catholic Mass? A engagement at The Cathedral of Saint Sufi Zikker? A Native American Sweat John the Divine or The Abbey of Further articles/reading on Dzieci: Lodge? Grotowski was steeped in Regina Laudis. When someone flashes • Profile Dzieci Theatre by Elizabeth philosophic, religious, and spiritual a New York Times review, I pull out our Cawns studies. This informed his theatrical mention in The Encyclopedia of In Ecumenica, a journal of theatre research more than anything. He Religion. But it would still be nice to and performance. In Volume 2.1, stripped away all that was unessential, get a review in The Times, and tour a Spring 2009 the Via Negativa, to find what remains. few festivals, and have funding and http://www.dziecitheatre.org/dzfiles/ Under the charred crust of a lifeless answer those particularly pressing dzieciecumenica.pdf form, he found a burning ember. Again, material concerns. • Essay on Grotowski, ‘the total act’, this ember is not the property of At the same time, I continue to be and Dzieci’s work by Vanessa Boss Grotowski, you could say that it nourished by this process we have Student at Atlanta International belongs to all of us; it is our birthright. undertaken and have seen the steady School, USA. May 2010 But we rarely consider its existence, let growth not just in the work itself but http://www.dziecitheatre.org/dzfiles/ alone seek it out. And from this ember also in the individual practitioners who boss.pdf

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TaPS MASTER CLASS – potential members who may wish to There were others in the room, they join the work. were engaged in the same meditation. New York, October 2009 Dzieci was the only theatre group I felt their presence; as well, I felt the “I and Thou – A Paratheatrical chosen to present at the 2003 presence of the clock, and my Exploration with Theatre Group Parliament of the World’s Religions in creeping relentless panic. The Dzieci” Resource Pack Barcelona, and is profiled in The knowledge of the clock, and by Dzieci Paratheatrical workshops are Encyclopedia of Religion. Mr. Mitler extension, the time, it was hanging on essentially non-verbal and and Dzieci are also featured in the my shoulders. I was dizzy when the improvisational experiences, with anthology, Working on the Inside: The first one stood up. guidance gently provided by the Spiritual Life Through the Eyes of Through some signal, a breath ensemble through sound and gesture. Actors. sound started, she was making a noise Employing elements of ensemble The following is an excerpt from at the end of each breath. Then a theatre, meditation, psychotherapy, a lyrical essay by a past workshop forceful pushing of breath, three for and ritual, the event flows in participant: each exhale, pushing out the lung in accordance with the nature of the It wasn’t the words, words were three hard bursts, reaching farther into participants and leads towards a meaningless. It was all in the eyes, the room for air on each inhale. The heightening of consciousness and round, clear, deep pools. It was a humming inhalation that began to my deepening of community. coaxing out of my humanity, a breaking left, maybe, by others, the humming a Each workshop begins with a apart of the robot of me. trigger for the uncurling of legs, the theme based on a current inquiry for The small and plain room, empty taking of feet, we did it each in our Dzieci. Past themes have included: In except for cushions on the floor. It was time, seemingly guided, but without the Country of the Blind, where blind dark. She led me to a cushion, with any signal that there was a charge and seeing participants worked her hand, she suggested I sit, in directing us, directing, it was me alone together in absolute darkness; The silence, opposite me, she began to standing and feeling the prickling light Hero’s Journey, employing tribal rites breathe. Matching my breath to hers in of blood rushing down. And then there and archetypical narrative; Circle of meditation, she raised a V with her was a circle. We were a circle, looking Fire, exploring Native American ritual; fingers, directing my gaze to hers. I and breathing into the blank shape and Maraton, a 24 hour total stared straight into them and we between us. We stepped to the right, immersion in ritual creation which continued to breathe, breath was the then the left, taking steps forward and Dzieci offers annually each winter. only thing. I fell in and out of narrow back, the side and the center, we After decades of investigation and focus on her eyes; noticing the moved together in our spot, each in practice, company director, Matt Mitler, impossibility of staring into both at his own spot, breathing. has developed a methodology that once. I got lost in the shifting focus I kept moving, fighting for the right allows for both primal and spiritual from one eye to the next. She looked steps, and wondering whether this had interaction, forsaking the masks of so sad to me, I felt as if her gaze was been a mistake. And there was a man habit and personality. With a filled with pity for me. I felt bad, I felt suddenly in the center, adding notes to background in experimental theatre sorry for her having to stare into my the breathing adding a song to the and psychology, and an intensive pain. I began to feel a panic. I took a steps, a song like a prayer to the wind spiritual training, Mr. Mitler deep breath refocused my attention to or a god with most unusual ears. He communicates to the core of being her physical eye. I tried to stop stalked the circle with wild eyes, open through direct transmission. thinking, just be a breath wave, I could and howling. He was reaching out Along with his company, Mitler hold it for only a glimpse then I would around the circle, reaching and brings this work into hospitals and lose attention and fall back into grabbing with his eyes, searching for institutions that serve marginalized and thoughts, most of them a body fear, a someone to join him. His song was disadvantaged communities who have silent sadness forming a stone fierce and strong, it bellowed and deep therapeutic needs. He also works between my shoulder blades. So it boasted, it asserted itself; it was a with professionals and students in the was breath; clear, focus, sadness, self thing in the air, a form in the room. He fields of religion, psychology, art awareness, self consciousness, fear, took the hands of a woman, her eyes therapy, and theatre, serving all who panic, deep breath, breathe, clear, seemed very far away, she shook her seek a creative communal environment focus, again and again, the same head forcefully holding her eyes on that is challenging and inspiring. circular bumbling dance of mind. The him, passing the cup, but he refused Dzieci has been hired to create limitations of contact between two to let her flee, she entered the circle specially designed workshops for such people, between two minds, and met his howl with a soft high note diverse clientele as: arts therapists, insurmountable; through this lens my that played out like line from a kite, theology students, psychiatric staff, heart was breaking. My shyness came tight and urgently moving upward, out. youth in crisis, clergy, and actors. to mind, my inability to open, just be She was there alone, and we all kept For participants, the workshop is a human creature, without pretense. The moving and breathing into her circle as chance to work intimately with the urge to talk wasn’t there, in fact, words the note climbed on its current. company, while exploring the essence were against the rules. The rules, who There was a thunder over her note, of Holy Theatre, a line of transmission, told me the rules? I read up on the a joining in, she turned toward it, she which includes the evolutionary workshop before I went, I knew the embraced it, that high reaching investigations of Jerzy Grotowski and name of Jerzy Grotowski, I knew became harmony, became lightening in The Polish Theatre Laboratory. The something, I thought I knew another sky, she came near to him, her workshop also serves as an entry for something. lips almost against his, only the

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vibration of song between them. Hand drawing in the air of gold and copper Towards a Poor Theatre (last chapter – to hand, fingers entwined, they moved breasts which beat together their 'Statement of Principles') – Jerzy out of the circle and into the center. His thumping exhalations using us as Grotowski voice was a deep baritone but fleet and spandrels she built a tower to heaven. The Theatre of Grotowski – Jennifer agile it waved and spun long notes. I was breathing, pulling lustfully at Kumiega Each sound caressed his face; his stare the rope of air, stomach against spine Between Two Silences: Talking With was a thousand polished river pebbles. with each exhalation, the stone in my Peter Brook – Dale Moffitt & Peter Brook A perfect work, a confluence, the shoulders becoming a current, I was a Liberating Rites: Understanding the love of pure light, simple gain and melted gun, dumb and blind and my Transformative Power of Ritual – Tom simple surrender; it doesn’t take into legs carried me around, carried the F. Driver account audience just raw completion; circle as it rattled and shook, The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic a solitary madness. It sings about expanding to entropy and we were not Life of Property – Lewis Hyde itself. He washed over me; his gold getting old, we were dancing on each The Art of War – Sun Tzu coral tree and I pulled into it, waved other, reaching out with our eyes The Gospel of Thomas (from The Nag and fluttered around it I broke over his lighting candles of touch. My wrist Hammadi Library) baritone with a quavering banshee passed over forearm, breast and back, Films moan. I was an old woman, my voice the back of my hand over cheeks, salt My Dinner with Andre – Louis Malle palsied and crying, I was my hair tangled in my fingertips. I spun Resurrection – Daniel Petrie grandmother with nothing left to do but and slid among and around, meeting Meetings with Remarkable Men (the wait for god, but I wasn’t waiting. It eyes, staring into the hollow of last 15 minutes) – Peter Brook was not my lungs, a trembling washed collarbones, soaking in sweet and Links over my hands, my legs, a twisted, rhythm. But there was no music, just On Makbet: twisted, twisted willow shimmering breathing. Hell is chattering, the I'm Seeing Green: The Unnamable within, and my voice was fire and wet shedding of words like blood. The Play at the Old Stone House smoke, all the waters of the earth. I murder of meaning. The drum beat http://dziecitheatre.org/dzfiles/foodcoo opened my eyes, I was in the center wore a beard, she touched her particle-april2008.pdf and I was scared, I reached out for shoulder to my chest, the drumbeat Rockaway Artists Alliance Hosts help, I reached around the circle at the stroked my open throat, she grabbed Dzieci's Makbet | www.rockawave.com eye repeated, curly hair and young me underarm and tossed into the air, I | Wave of Long Island face, drawn and pale woman with hung and spun, she smiled, the drum On Fools Mass: cheep yarn hair, bull with face stubble beat spoke, she swore, she sang, the http://www.dziecitheatre.org/dzfiles/en vainglorious and sympathetic. I looked drumbeat charged around the room, cyclopedia2.html away and cried again, vomiting sound. she offered both hands to me, we On Dzieci: A porcelain and blond voice next to spun around the fulcrum of the heart. http://owendaly.com/jeff/Sacrifice_ the flames, was reaching into the circle James Chris Fields 2009 Dzieci.pdf into old worried woman me. I smiled Resources and Follow Up Material KadmusArts - where culture speaks » into her, taken by the throat of her Reading List (in no particular order) Blog Archive » Interview: Matt Mitler hands and turning sweetly, spinning How Can I Help? – Ram Dass & Paul http://www.wnyc.org/shows/soundche gently, greeting grace with my own Gorman ck/episodes/2003/01/07 humble offering. She was lifted, each Practical Intuition – Laura Day On Grotowski- foot on steady grounded point, dipping The Mystic in the Theatre: Eleonora http://owendaly.com/jeff/ her whirl of gosling feather intoning, Dusa – Eva Le Gallienne grotows2.htm drifting on a bubble beach. She was Stanislavsky in Rehearsal: The Final http://www.rtjournal.org/vol_4/ dancing. Palms spread upward Years - Vasily Torporkov no_2/lavy2.html

Quotes from Atlanta International School students attending the New York TaPS:

“ISTA New York was an amazing experience. I will go “The ISTA TaPS New York was an unbelievably back to the classroom with a better understanding of IB phenomenal experience for a developing theatre artist. I Theatre. Awesome!” Jonathan Winston have been greatly influenced and inspired.” Vanessa Boss “A different, enriching and motivating trip which I know will help me further my IB Theatre career. I loved all the “A motivating, inspiring, and enriching programme that different experiences and liked how the three days were gave me experiences that I could never have gotten in so varied from seeing performances, to performing, to the classroom!” Amy O’Halloran listening, to experiencing the theatre of New York.” Anastasia Owen

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A PRACTITIONER’S PATHWAY I By Matt Mitler I have often said, the shortest distance It is impossible to weigh the joys and ticket. between two points is a straight line, but sorrows of life and know where the We went to Poland in 1977. It was still it’s not very interesting. I will attempt to balance lies. All I know is that I was in a Soviet ruled. It was grey and dismal and encapsulate a life that remains in process, hospital, conscious enough to hear that I oppressed and the creative spirit soared. I sketching a trajectory as a stone skips would likely die. And I know that my had never before seen art of this level, or over the surface of a pond. For any recovery, which was slow and painful, has witnessed a people so downtrodden, deeper resonances, one will have to given me a rather personal view of what behaving so compassionately. We submerge without my assistance. being disabled is like, and also that the performed, we worked in hospitals, we I was not a still child and asked those service work which I have dedicated became national figures. And we studied classically uncomfortable questions about myself to, even to this day, is no accident. with Grotowski. More specifically, with his God and life and death and infinity that But the shock had its consequences, lead actor, Ryszard Cieslak. I have had bring silence to the lips of most adults. questions that had furrowed my juvenile the good fortune to study with many For some reason, I seemed to show an brow returned with a vengeance. I was masters: Eugenio Barba, Jean Huston, aptitude for fine art and, at the age of five, adrift and alone. I sought salvation but Elizabeth Cogburn, Michel de Salzmann, was placed in a private course for children had no idea where to look. I happened Carl Rogers, R. D. Laing, but Cieslak was much older than myself. This training upon a notice in the local free paper, an my first, and I returned to him before his continued far into my teens and left me audition for a new theatre company. Two death. with a visceral appreciation for creativity, words stood out: Gestalt and Holy. Work in Poland led me to a guest which eventually yielded an understanding I was the youngest in the company. position teaching at the University of of the transformative power of art. We worked for five or six hours straight, Psychology of Warsaw and many And more questions. Why do we two or three nights a week in the open contacts in the more humanistic and create? What is served? Who am I? Fine sanctuary of an old church. I was brought radical realms of psychotherapy. My art crossed paths with psychology and I to the brink of my abilities, the precipice of dream had been to join Grotowski’s began to work with disadvantaged my fears, and yet I stuck with it. This time company, The Polish Theatre Laboratory, communities as a junior art therapist. I understood that I needed this work. I but when the offer came a year later, I Psychology, at this time, was not a key needed it for my survival. In six months, already had my own company in toward some deeper understanding of something broke free in me, or maybe Amsterdam and was leading workshops myself. I was not so clear of thought and something broke that contained that across Europe. I had also seen behind the deed. I was erratic and troubled, treading which had been free all along. Whatever it curtain at the Theatre Lab. It seemed that, water without knowing how to swim. was, I became dedicated to the process. though the company members were Psychology was a lifeline. At the age of The process of self-discovery. ostensibly perfected beings in the shelter sixteen, I was chosen to be a participant When the theatre company of the theatre, they were somewhat less in a model program for peer counselors in disbanded, instead of applying myself to so in their daily lives. I found this to be High Schools. Training was provided by a further studies at university, I dropped out endemic in many circles, and began to two psychologists and a counselor from and began to audition for plays. Classical, wish for a process that would inform the Day Top Village (a ‘hard love’ drug rehab experimental, it didn’t matter. I joined personal life as much as the creative one. program). Encounter group techniques another company and was trained in Perhaps even utilize the creative life to provided the basic building blocks. I was mime and in a year I was directing and inform the personal. not to come across this sort of process designing programs for disadvantaged This led me to one the fathers of again until I discovered experimental populations in hospitals and other Humanistic Psychology, Carl Rogers, who ensemble theatre three years later. institutions, formulating the initial took me on a more internalized journey, a But I did discover theatre before that. methodology for a creative, non-verbal way of being rather than doing. And for a I’d been exposed to performance therapy. time, this took me away from theatre. throughout my childhood; plays, concerts, There is something about facing the What followed were searches that brought comedy. This too had its influence and the frontier; once faced it no longer exists, it me in touch with more mystical practices, art world often congregated with the becomes known. A new frontier must be with Shamanism, meditation, sacred theatre world and when it did, I was there. approached. Near death had its allure, so dance. Enough adventures for a volume I was terrified and thrilled by acting, but if did the far-reaching realms of creativity. I of essays. I have swung back and forth the world was a stage, I always kept one applied for a grant to study theatre in periodically since then, between inner and foot in the wings. Poland. I’d worked with people who had outer study, between therapy and theatre. I found a University program for studied with Grotowksi, I’d read Towards Self-study is not a school one graduates Psychology majors who would design a Poor Theatre, and I needed to go to the from. In the winter of 1997, Theatre Group their own programs and was accepted source. The program included studies Dzieci came into being, and with it, a with a concurrent study of art, film, video, throughout Poland and I took advantage confluence of all the themes of my life, and theatre, and a thesis: Sanity, of contacts I’d made at theatres and and a work on the self within community Madness, and Creativity. Then, a month government agencies to set up that utilizes art as a vehicle, not an or so before beginning my freshman year, performances when I got there. I also aim. But the path has not yet I almost died in a car accident. squeezed my performing partner onto the come to an end.

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ISTA and the American Museum of Natural History

October 15-17 2009 at the AMNH focussed on how the museum ‘manifesto’ for their teaching and saw a new collaboration for ISTA and deals with different types of for their practice of theatre. our first Level 3 IB Theatre (Diploma) audience from the ‘flash’ visitor to 6. Site Responsive Work: Exploring workshop. This workshop came about the one really interested. Space having met Rob Steiner at an IB 3. The Individual and the Museum: This took place in a very old Americas Workshop Providers meeting Collections, Collectors, Stories fashioned museum space – The two years ago. We talked about the and independent inspirations Northwest Coast Indians Room – possibility of collaboration and of Working in the Margaret Mead Hall and we looked at messages of holding a Level 3 workshop at the of Pacific Peoples. Looked at space, how we move through museum. A year later I visited the working with objects of individual space and how ‘flow’ of audience is museum to spend the day with Rob interest and the importance of created. Looked at physical theatre and talk further about how the independent work and working with devices. Each person chose collaboration might work; and what the your interest. Then looked at the random exhibits or points and we Level 3 workshop might look like. objects as part of a collection and looked at connecting them to Further dialogue took place with Dinos looked at the story of the create a through line. Introduction Aristidou, workshop leader, about anthropologist. Focussed on to approaching TPPP as a series of goals and session outlines; and finally context and how this relates to disconnected experiences that all our plans and ideas came to fruition world theatre practice, independent need a connecting thread. Concept as 20 teachers gathered on the steps project and how we organise ideas of TPPP as curation. of the museum... to tell a story. 7. MC: Behind the Scenes: INSIGHTS, INSPIRATIONS AND 4. Museum as Centre of Learning: Producing Museum Installations RESOURCES… Identifying Approaches to and Exhibitions The workshop focused on using the Research (see above) museum as a stimulus for creating 3 groups had to work on a research 8. Site Specific Work: Devising units of work, resources and models of project – one group focussed on Theatre practice. ‘The Building’, another group on This took place in the very Dinos approached the museum as ‘The People’ and the third group on atmospheric Mexico and Central a resource, an inspiration and a ‘The Museum’s Purpose”. They had America Room. The participants building. to develop a research strategy and discussed and looked at physical present their findings. This was representations of the purpose of related to RI and to TPPP as well theatre. They then worked with a as looking at IP and the challenges stimulus and worked on a concept. of working as a group with different They then explored the space and individuals looking into different looked at ways of responding to the areas. Opened up the types of stimulus and the space and staging research that you could do – a piece of theatre in this space. observation, survey, interview, Pieces were staged and discussed. documents etc. The entire museum This was linked to IP – collective was the site for this and groups creation- and PPP, developing a had to choose their location. concept from a stimulus. 5. The Museum as Performance & 9. Curating Experiences: Finding a Session Notes (from Dinos) Approaches to Reading Reflective Narrative 1. Introductions and Purpose – Performance We returned to self reflection and Theatre and the Museum Worked on approaches to looking the way we narrate experience, Focussed on clarifying purpose and at external productions focussing bring together random aspects, talk dealing with expectations. Exercises on the piece ‘Makbet’ we had seen about ourselves and our to build ensemble and to get the the night before and on ways we experiences. Each participant participants to reflect on themselves read objects and collections. designed a TPPP with the images and their programmes and their Strategies for linking performances viewed as objects and anchors of work. to all aspects of the course and for meaning in a collection. The 2. Tour: Museum Highlights individual inspiration. Did a lot of presentation focussed on how a Offered by the museum. This reflection on each participants listener is guided through a

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collection of experiences and how dramatically expanding its leadership unique opportunity to deepen their the images are used to construct a and thinking about science literacy and content knowledge, to learn authentic narrative of experience rather than a museum learning experiences in a science, to interact with working narrative of the course. whole new way. scientists and master science 10.Gathering, Identifying and In a world increasingly shaped by educators and to gain valuable Closing technology, the Museum recognizes resources for use in the classroom. Sharing resources and activities, that teachers and students must have In this manner, Seminars on answering questions, identifying access to scientific knowledge in order Science is leveraging one of the learning and discussing aspects of to actively contribute in the 21st world’s preeminent scientific, cultural the programme. century. The Museum sees this mission and educational institutions – an [This schedule also acted as a model as not just an opportunity, but also its institution that includes 45 permanent for the participants on how to use a unique responsibility to encourage exhibition halls, a scientific staff of over range of museums in their own locality.] community and civic engagement. The 200 and 32 million specimens and Museum’s National Center for Science cultural artifacts – and making its Literacy, Education and Technology expertise and resources available to an The AMNH and IB has, for more than a decade, been audience well beyond the physical By Rob Steiner creating online resources and web- walls of the Museum. Since its founding in 1869, New based experiences for students, The measured, thoughtful York City’s American Museum of teachers and the general public. development of the program, coupled Natural History (AMNH) has advanced Through a unique partnership with its careful national evaluation, has its global mission to discover, interpret between IB and the Museum, one of allowed a process of trial and revision and disseminate information about these programs, Seminars on Science, to occur over several years, resulting in human cultures, the natural world and provides online professional a program that has consistently been the universe. Long celebrated for the development to IB teachers well-received by its participants and depth of its collections and the scope customized to the needs of IB and its that has garnered several awards from and beauty of its exhibition halls, the teachers. In addition, the Museum professional organizations. The Museum has continually been at the provides opportunities for IB to take evaluation of the program, by forefront of scientific research, sharing advantage of its physical setting in Inverness Research Associates, its discoveries with the public through New York City for IB professional indicates that teachers overwhelmingly a wide-reaching program of education development workshops – including learn significant new science content, and exhibition. Approximately five the recent ISTA workshop. gain insight into the process of real million visitors come to the Museum Seminars on Science: Online science, gain valuable teaching each year to explore 25 buildings and Professional Development resources and prefer Seminars on 45 permanent halls, on a journey from Seminars on Science, the online Science to other professional the outer edges of the observable teacher professional development development programs. The full universe to the inner core of Earth to program of the American Museum of evaluation is available at the great diversity of life on our planet. Natural History, is currently completing http://www.inverness-research.org. The Museum was founded by its first decade of operation. Begun in Partnerships with eight higher Albert Smith Bickmore (1839-1914), 1998 and supported by two education institutions, the National after his proposal for a natural history consecutive grants from The Atlantic Science Teachers Association and the museum in New York City won the Philanthropies, the program has International Baccalaureate support of prominent New Yorkers broken new ground in the leveraging of Organization are enabling the program who shared with Bickmore the vision of museum-based expertise and to leverage other institutional strengths a great center for research and resources for scientific research and and to disseminate these offerings to a teaching in the natural sciences and education through online education to national and international audience of anthropology, an institution where both support professional development for current and future teachers. scientists and the general public could science educators. There are currently More information on Seminars on come to learn. The Museum currently eleven online courses in the life, earth Science – including course syllabi, employs more than 200 scientists in and physical sciences. Each course is partnerships, sample resources and vertebrate and inverterbrate zoology, six weeks in duration and provides correlations to the National Science anthropology, paleontology as well as flexible access for K-12 teachers Education Standards – can be found in earth science, astrophysics and across the globe. The courses include at http://learn.amnh.org . cosmology. These scientists participate original essays by Museum scientists, Portions of the description of the in more than 100 research expeditions compelling imagery, powerful videos, American Museum of Natural History each year and are the stewards for the interactive simulations and rich appearing here have been museum’s 32 million specimens and discussion that provide educators with excerpted or adapted from its cultural artifacts. both scientific content and classroom Official Guide. From the day the Museum was application. Each course is co- founded, education has been central authored by a Museum scientist and a Robert V. Steiner, Ph.D. is to its mission. With dynamic on-site team of professional developers and Director of the Online Teacher programs, increased partnerships with educational technologists within the Education Programs at the schools, and the efforts of the Museum’s National Center for Science American Museum of Natural Gottesman Center for Science Literacy, Education and Technology. History Teaching and Learning, the Museum is The courses provide teachers with a

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Sound and Music in Theatre I By Greg Pliska

The following Resource Pack was that inform the designer’s work. own particular point of view. produced to support and extend the The stages of the sound design Practical Considerations and master class delivered by Greg at the process align closely with those of the Resources: Where will the production New York student TaPS. other designers, as well as those of the take place? What kind of physical space OBJECTIVES production as a whole. They are: is involved? Will the sound and music • To introduce students to the art and • Reading the play. be produced live or be pre-recorded, or process of sound design and • Meeting with the director (and both? What technical resources composition for the theatre, producer). (speaker, mics, sound board, computer, specifically with regard to the use of • Determining technical (and financial) etc.) are available? What music and sound in dramatic works resources. instrumentation? Where will the sound (i.e., not musicals). • Research (period, location, style, effects be produced or gathered? These • To deepen students’ understanding etc.). and many other questions are as crucial of the elements that inform the • Creating and presenting rough drafts to the designer’s work as the creative decision-making process of and sketches. conceptual and creative work s/he and the sound designer and composer. • Ongoing production meetings the director will undertake. A great vision • To broaden students’ understanding (designers, director, producer). that cannot be realised is perhaps more of the work of all theatrical design by • Meet-and-greet (entire company); ineffective than a bland design that is, at analogy with the work of the sound presentation of musical sketches. least, practical. designer. • Rehearsal process: providing Research: Designers must research • To enhance students’ appreciation necessary elements for actors to the play, as written, as well as the world for the way effective sound design, in rehearse with; completing cues; of the play as envisioned by the director. conjunction with the director’s revising cues based upon rehearsal If, for example, there is a phone ringing, concept and the work of the rest of discoveries (timing, additions/cuts, the sound designer needs to learn what the design team, can help inform the etc.). kind of phone it is and how it would audience’s understanding and • Load-in and sound tech, including sound in the context of the period and experience of a play. cue-to-cue rehearsal. place of the play. Is there a musical WORKSHOP PROCESS • Technical rehearsal with actors world suggested by the location or time I – Introduction (enormous practical considerations; period? Listening to opening music from a revisions). Rough Drafts: Composers – like variety of productions, we will discuss • Previews (ongoing revisions). costume, set and lighting designers – the intent of the sound designer (and by • Opening (show is frozen). typically present rough drafts of their extension, the director) in each case. We will focus primarily on the first work to the director well in advance of Key questions include: portion of this process and the kinds of the beginning of rehearsals. These • What does the music suggest about questions the designer must ask as he sketches help crystallize the vision of the period, style and location? or she develops the sound and music: play and will not only inform the • What expectations does the music Reading the Text: Designers, like director’s work but also that of the other give to the audience about the piece all other participants in the production, designers and, ultimately, the actors. they are about to see? must first read the play and form their III – Practical Work • Music sets up an emotional world, a own impressions of it. Each designer Having looked at the process of two mood, but it also helps establish sees the play through his or her different sound design/ composition character – what does this piece of particular lens, but they are all asking approaches to Twelfth Night, we will use music suggest about the characters the same questions: What is this play the first five short scenes of the play we are going to see? Knowing the about? How can I help tell this story? Vigil, by Morris Panych (which the play it opens, what character do you How can I focus the audience’s students are seeing in the evening) as think the music most connects to? experience of the play? raw material for the students to engage • What would you expect the set to Working with the Director: in their own creative process. look like? The lights? The costumes? Designers must collaborate closely with After reading the scenes, students What do you think the director’s the director in crafting a vision of the will break into small groups to discuss concept for this play is? play. Sometimes directors bring a very and develop music and sound choices II – The Sound Design Process specific vision regarding period, place, for these five scenes. Students will be Using recorded music from two emotion, concept; at other times the given some practical parameters different productions of Shakespeare’s director has only a general feeling about (performance space, technical Twelfth Night, we will discuss the the play and its meaning. In either case, resources) but will be asked to develop various stages of the sound design the designer needs to buy into the their own directorial concept and process and, by extension, the elements director’s vision, bringing to it his or her approach to the play (based only upon

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the limited understanding they have via Web Resources: Writing Program. the five scenes). http://www.slideshare.net/jsamarro/soun That education work, along with Once they’ve determined a d-design-for-the-theatre extensive experience working with directorial vision, concept and emotional General overview of the sound design students of all ages creating work with approach, they will then brainstorm process. companies like the Metropolitan Opera, possible music and sound approaches http://www.richmondsounddesign.com/ helped me hone my understanding of to these scenes. Specific questions to index.html the craft of composition for the stage. ask include: Includes extensive “Community” section The breadth of styles and genres in • What does the text itself call for? with bibliographies, articles and other which I worked also gave me a great • What does it actually require? resources. appreciation for the many ways music • When will music and sound be used http://www.jjlee.com/tsound_ring.html and drama can work together. in these scenes? Theatrical sound webring. My work at NYU led me in 1999 to a • How will it be used? http://www.sounddogs.com/default.asp band, Hem, for whom I became the • What sound and music is diegetic http://www.hollywoodedge.com/ arranger and orchestrator. Hem’s work (within the world of the play) and http://www.sound-ideas.com/ can be heard on their many albums, as what is non-diegetic (external to the Downloadable sound effects and well as on Liberty Mutual TV characters’ experience, informing the royalty-free music. commercials. We were asked in 2009 to audience)? http://www.stageresearch.com/products write music for the Shakespeare in the • How will the sound design reflect this / SFX6/SFX6.aspx Park production of Twelfth Night, a CD distinction? Stage Research’s SFX software, the of which is due to be released shortly. Students will fill in a cue sheet, listing industry standard in computer playback. My work scoring and music-directing the sound and music cues, the http://figure53.com/qlab/ also led naturally to work writing scene/page they are in, the cue line for Mac-based multimedia software, with an incidental music for plays. These the beginning (and ending) of the cue, array of pricing options. included new work such as Ice Island, a specific placement of the sound in the Practitioner’s Pathway story of the Shackleton expedition to space, source for the actual cue and My path into sound design and Antarctica, scored for solo double bass, any other notes about the character of composition for theatre began in and Oy!, a comedy based upon Yiddish the cue. (If time and resources permit, elementary school, when an inspiring words, scored for klezmer clarinet and students will be able to select specific piano teacher of mine encouraged me cello. I twice returned to Williams sound cues from a sound library.) to try writing music. A number of College as visiting professor, and The entire group will reconvene and compositions, performed by additionally as artist in residence, students will share their work, classmates, followed, and I continued producing scores for Euripides’ discussing the various approaches to playing and creating music up until high Bacchae, Brecht’s Caucasian Chalk the play and how their concepts school, when I discovered acting. I Circle, an evening of Beckett plays, and affected the choices they made spent my high school years on stage, Shakespeare’s As You Like It. regarding sound and music. We will also and arrived at Williams College In 2007 Juilliard hired me to write broaden the discussion to investigate expecting to continue. music for two Shakespeare plays in how each designer – costume, lights, While I had some opportunity to act repertory: Twelfth Night, to be performed set, make-up – must go through a while at Williams, I discovered that there live entirely by a cast of semi-musical similar process. were many others more gifted on stage actors (plus one classical guitarist), and CONCLUSION than I. I also discovered that my love of Winter’s Tale, mostly pre-recorded MIDI I will present some artifacts of my music – and skills as a pianist and orchestral tracks. Both shows also creative process for this play, including composer – could be wedded to my required a number of sound cues, so I early drafts of the music, the cues used love of theatre, and I began composing became de facto sound designer. for the scenes studied by the students, musicals and incidental music for plays. At the same time, I’d moved my and cue sheets and other notes. I hope I had the good fortune to work with compositional focus to film and also to present a sample of the opening some excellent theatrical practitioners, television, seeking new opportunities to theme from an earlier (and very different) and was given great leeway to create explore my craft in a very different field. I production. Finally, students will see the and explore as a composer while built a modest home studio where I play itself, followed by a talkback with working on plays such as Tom Paine, produce mock-ups of all my live scores, me, the director, and perhaps the Tales from the Vienna Woods, and and MIDI/sample compositions for lower- actors. original work of my own. budget TV, film and theatre scores. I’ve RESOURCES Out of college, I continued working had to teach myself new software, new Books: in musical theatre, and came to New hardware, new technical skills, and Bracewell, John L., Sound Design in the York where I began having work understand an enormous amount about Theatre. New York: Prentice Hall College produced. I was ready to do just about the mechanics of sound generation. Division, 1993. anything, and found myself jumping My work today combines all these Kaye, Deena, and LeBrecht, James, between readings of new musicals, skills and knowledge: compositional Sound and Music for the Theatre, Third cabaret performances, avant-garde and craft, orchestration technique, sensitivity Edition: The Art & Technique of Design. experimental theatre and off-Broadway to character and drama, theatrical Burlington, MA, and Oxford, UK: Focal plays. I had an opera commissioned by practice, computer audio technology, Press, 2009. a company in Philadelphia, learned on and more. And each new project brings Leonard, John A., Theatre Sound. New the job about the pleasures and pitfalls with it new skills to learn, new York: Theatre Arts Books/Routledge, of orchestration, and landed a teaching challenges to meet. The journey 2001. job at NYU in the Musical Theatre continues.

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INTERVIEW WITH KATE WETHERHEAD: A NEW YORK BASED ACTOR At what age did are the greatest challenges? profession nowadays? you realize that Deb in Adam Gwon’s new musical The answer I always give is this: you wanted to be Ordinary Days. redefine success for yourself. When you an actor? Best thing about the role: She lets first start, it can’t be all about getting I was six years me show all of these different colors. I the job. That’s not to say you won’t get old. My mother have a clearly defined arc. the job, but it helps if you keep things in informed me after Best thing about the production: perspective as you navigate the dicey school one day Adam’s writing. He’s going to be a waters of the acting biz. Make sure to that we would be significant force in musical theatre. give ample weight to things like seeing a Greatest challenges: maintaining compliments, callbacks and production of honesty in my performance. We conversations. The people you meet, “West Side Story” that evening (a perform in a small blackbox theatre in along with the reinforcement you community theatre production). I which there are only 62 seats. Anything receive from them, help confirm that remember being skeptical when she false will be detected immediately. you are on the right track. described the plot to me – I thought it What kind of roles do you normally Most actors spend considerable sounded boring! – but once I was audition for? In what kind of amounts of time ‘not-acting’ and sitting in the theatre, it took all the productions? doing casual work to help pay the restraint I could muster not to leap onto I usually audition for teenage bills. Is this typical for yourself? If the stage and join the cast as they characters. Playing Deb is the first time not how have you managed to danced and sang. I’d been bitten hard (in New York) that I’ve had the chance secure consistent work and is this by the acting bug, and from then on to play an adult. Productions range atypical in New York? there was little else that captivated me from period to contemporary pieces. I catered, I ushered, I hostessed and in the same way. And I love to do straight plays, but I did coat check at restaurants… What was your journey from school end up doing more musicals. Fortunately, I haven’t had to work a into the profession? If you could pick out one role that survival job in over four years. But I was I moved to New York to attend a 2- has had a real ‘special’ quality to it in the trenches for a long time. year training programme at Circle in the – what was that and why was it so What is your view of the current Square Theatre School. Aside from important to you? Theatre scene in the city? receiving the benefits of rigorous That’s a tough one. I have to choose There seem to be two halves of a training, I felt that having immediate three! Deb has definitely joined the ranks circle: the commercial, big-budget, structure and an established social of ‘special’ roles. The other two are celebrity-driven side, and the Little- network (my classmates and teachers) Anna in Sarah, Plain and Tall and Percy Engine-That-Could side. The trend of would help ease my transition from in The Spitfire Grill. Deb feels the most finding celebrities to headline shows is college (Wesleyan University, CT) to close to the vest. Anna and Percy are certainly frustrating to the thousands of New York City. At the end of the two these incredibly damaged characters stage actors who struggle and work so years, my class presented a scene who have a beautiful strength in them. hard to secure decent employment. But night for industry types – it was The way they overcome their pain is then there seems to be a (relatively) because of this event that I started truly inspiring to me. steady flow of shows that are just so working with a manager. Almost Young people, of course, choose to good, even if their budgets are small immediately, he started sending me out become actors in every major city and their casts are made up of not-so- on auditions. The six months following in the world. What are the major famous actors, that they cannot be my graduation from Circle in the Square challenges to being an actor in New ignored by the community and end up were really challenging - emotionally, York? becoming smash Broadway hits (In the financially and professionally. But I New York is the most competitive Heights comes to mind.) managed to secure my first Equity job place to be if you wish to pursue What production is top of your list doing a Theatreworks USA tour of A theatre professionally. There are so as a favourite? And why? Christmas Carol, and slowly, haltingly, many talented people, the bar is set so Another tough one. There are many, my career as an actor began. high... It takes a lot of tenacity to stay but I’ll go with a recent favorite What role are you currently here. because, not only is it wonderful, but it playing? What is the best thing What would your advice be to a also supports what I said in my about the role/production? What young person wishing to enter the previous response. There is a new play

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called Next Fall which recently premiered Off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons. A small INTERVIEW production, it featured an amazing cast of actors, none of whom would be considered celebrities. The play WITH RANDY itself is beautifully written by Jeffrey Nauffts examining religion, family, love, uncertainty and acceptance. The show received fantastic reviews, ELLEN and will be moving to Broadway in February. A Little Engine That Could! Who would you love to work with LUTTERMAN in the future? Oh, lots of people. People who love the collaborative process. People who think making theatre is FROM SPRINGBOARDNYC fun. People who understand that What is SpringboardNYC? readings, we tried to see all we’re not fighting a war, so let’s not SpringboardNYC is a sorts of new actors. We had a take it too seriously. People who two-week college-to-career lot of work to do, and wanted want to pay me a lot of money! transition program that takes to meet as many new people place each June in New What personal challenges do out there as we could to help York City. Designed for make new work happen. After you have for your future work as serious students looking to a time, we realized we were an actor? take the plunge into the seeing hundreds of emerging I am a petite, 5'2" actor with a New York theatre world, young artists who were distinct voice and a youthful looking SpringboardNYC prepares desperate for their five minutes face. But I’m not a kid anymore, and the next generation of in the audition room, who playing kids naturally becomes more theatre artists for working life in wanted to work, who had skills, challenging as I grow older. Playing New York. Taught by industry but for all intents and purposes had Deb is a real blessing, and I wonder professionals, sessions include audition fallen out of the sky after college or if this role will help me to transition training with directors and casting university into the middle of New York into more adult roles or whether it’s directors, and seminars with industry's and didn't have a sense of what to do a temporary gift. I anticipate that the leading agents and managers, as well as next. SpringboardNYC came to be as a greatest challenge I will face in the intimate conversations with working result of seeing a gap between what kids next few years is convincing actors. Participants have the opportunity seemed to be learning in college or a to work on-their-feet, training in sessions conservatory setting and what the people that I can play real designed to help them find jobs in the theatre world would ultimately expect women’s roles. New York theatre community, and from them. We started talking – introduce them to living in New York. producers, writers, directors, Kate is currently starring in SpringboardNYC also gives hands-on choreographers, dramaturges – about Ordinary Days at the practical guidance on how to survive in what was happening in the room. Why Roundabout Underground in New York while pursuing a theatre weren't these kids able to be the best New York. Broadway credits career. I like to think it is the ideal version of themselves in the five minutes include Legally Blonde: the transitional program, giving emerging they had in the room with us? One by Musical and The 25th Annual artists information and contacts that one, we started talking about all the Putnam County Spelling Bee would otherwise take them years to things that we wished we had when we (original companies.) Off- cobble together on their own. came out of school and thought surely Broadway: Wood (2008 NYMF How did SpringboardNYC come to someone should be able to help make Award for Best Performer), be? that transition easier. The answer to Sarah, Plain and Tall, Tatjana in One of my jobs as Executive Director those questions ultimately evolved into of Musical Theatre Works was to create the SpringboardNYC program. Color, Cam Jamsen and The and develop programs that would help Currently in its eighth year and now a Summer of the Swans. the emerging young artist in NYC. The program of the American Theatre Wing, Regional: Emmett Otter’s theatre was devoted to commissioning SpringboardNYC continues to teach Jugband Christmas (world and supporting writers of new musical young actors how to make the choices premiere, Goodspeed Opera theatre, but in fulfilling that mission we that will prepare them for a life in the House), Sarah, Plain and Tall were in contact with new artists of every theatre even if they decide to stop (Dallas Theatre Center), Steel kind: actors, budding choreographers, acting. Magnolias (Paper Mill beginning directors, dramaturgs, book As well as the intensive theatrical Playhouse), Almost, Maine, writers, composers and lyricists. For component of the program you also (Saint Michael’s Playhouse) and each project, we worked to provide help young people “deal” with life in The Spitfire Grill (Skylight opportunities for new creative artists to New York. What are the particular Opera Theatre). Kate is also work alongside seasoned professionals. challenges here? the voice of Nemo on the cast In this way, we thought we would broker Well, we try to address the work on new relationships as we created on-the- recording of Disney’s Finding many levels. We want our kids to job learning opportunities in our arts understand that who you are in the room Nemo: the Musical. community. and what you bring to the room will As a result, as we would cast our define the kind of work you get to do.

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The point of the program is to help them undergraduate community. For me the students, the narrative changes as you peel away all of the other stuff to get to program is a success if a Springboard begin to retroactively understand the who they are as an artist. Someone will student starts to think of themselves as choices you made over time. That’s the come in to audition and all you’re getting having an active role to play in defining beauty of a long life in the theatre – you is the full-on anxiety of life in New York: who they will be as an artist. And frankly, get to reinvent yourself, and to a certain “Where am I living?”, “My roommate's for some students this means the extent your story, as time goes by. check bounced,” and “Why is the tap realization that they are not meant to be I am a Canadian who went to the water brown?” The big message of a performer. And I think that’s great, too. United States for university. I graduated Springboard is, be clear about what If, as a part of learning about the many from Brown with a double degree in you're trying to do. Certain things will wonderful working parts of this creative Theatre Arts and Comparative Literature. make that more possible, and certain business, you come to see that there I moved to Toronto to pursue theatre, things will impede your progress. You may be a different role for you to play, I and did theatre, film and television. I had can't control everything in the business, say terrific. Good for you! Make a the good fortune of being cast as a but here are the 10 things that you can different choice. But whatever choice you series regular for television where I got to control. make, make it from a place of participate in some story consulting. Some of it has to do with the understanding the expectations and your Through that experience I began to write uniqueness of the size and pace and options. for television, all the while continuing to expense of New York City. We work with Obviously there are theatre act, and also to coach actors. When a our students to give them the resources communities in cities all over the few years later I won my Green Card in a they need to help find their first world, what do you think are the lottery(!), I picked up and moved to New apartments, their first money jobs, even unique features of the New York York City. I began to work and audition their first theatre internships and jobs. theatre scene? as an actor, but continued to write and But mostly we give them the tools to Certainly every city has a different then to produce. I kept on producing begin asking and answering the right vibe when it comes to theatre. I come and writing and coaching, initially as a questions – so that they start working from Montreal where the bilingual theatre way to support my life as an actor, but at faster, and better, once they get here. scene brings with it some amazing a certain point some of that work What journey or transition would you opportunities as well as distinct became more compelling to me. When I hope young people make while with challenges. New York’s theatre scene is was offered the opportunity to produce you for those two weeks? amazing in another way. Much like British comic Eddie Izzard’s first As Director of the SpringboardNYC London I suppose, it is truly the center of American show in NYC, I jumped at it. program, my goal is to help students be the work being done around the country. From that point on, producing the best version of themselves they can At some point, if you want to do this opportunities became very interesting to possibly be as an artist. This is a work at a certain professional level you me. particularly challenging thing to do as an will likely find your way to New York City. I joined Musical Theatre Works as a emerging artist in an audition situation What is most inspiring to me about consultant and then came on full time as when so many other elements are being the New York theatre community (and I Executive Director because they were brought to bear. I am looking for a think what is most surprising to my launching a very ambitious Resident student to understand the vocabulary students) is that New York while Writers program and I wanted to be a and complexion of the business once seemingly big and scary, is actually quite part of making new work happen. It had they leave us. And for that same student available in many ways. I think New York never been my goal to run a theatre, or to understand the differences between in every way values excellence, and as a to work in the non-profit sector, but I was the work they may be doing at school, result the theatre community, while large excited by those challenges as well. and what is now expected from them as and varied, is also always looking for the Through the process of working at MTW, a working member of this creative next wonderful talented thing. And that I launched a series of educational business community. means truly talented people are always initiatives to help train new artists and You know, school is a very different needed, and embraced. I also think SpringboardNYC was one of those animal. There is no sense of how to live once you step inside it even a little bit, efforts. And then bringing by yourself as an artist when you're not that the New York theatre community is SpringboardNYC to the American working or someone's not calling you not that mysterious. And that because Theatre Wing has made it possible to into rehearsal or a class. There is no of the size of the place, there is room for grow the program in many important sense of what an audition room in New all kinds of different work to be done. At ways. Throughout all of it I have York is and how it's different from a Springboard we spend a lot of time continued to coach actors, through the rehearsal room in college. For some of listening to the narrative of our mentors’ Springboard program, and us who were undergraduate theatre stories – not just because it's inspiring, independently. And while I imagine my majors, we could work for six weeks on but because it’s completely and totally full-time life as a performer is over, I a piece and have two performances. In a varied. You can make several choices, as continue to work as a voiceover artist, real-world audition, you need to know long as they’re clear, and the community and sometimes when the project and that in three minutes you have to have a is going to say, “What do you have to timing is right, as an actor. grasp of the material, you have to make give us? We’re interested in what you The fact is I learned an important clear choices, and it helps to have some have to offer.” New York loves talent and lesson somewhere along the way. New understanding of what the people across isn’t afraid of it. If you can do many York is a city where many opportunities the table are looking for. There is a things well, all the better. will present themselves, and the key for difference, if nothing else, in the timing of You have had a varied pathway to me was staying honest and open to life once you are out of school—in the date, can you provide us with an what felt the most interesting, what way that you have to be a self-starter, in overview of your theatrical journey would be the most creative, what would the way that you have to set goals. On from leaving school? be the biggest new challenge. At some some level you have to work on yourself Whew! How much time d’you have? point I realized that it was my job to as your own best product, which is All kidding aside, I can give you a version remain open as an artist and as I certainly not the way you're thinking of the pathway from graduating from constantly tell my students, to “Choose about it when you're coming out of an Brown University to date. But as I tell my the Next Best Adventure.”

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How did the different professional roles present themselves to you – was it luck, being in the right place at the right time, or was it through a personal desire to shift focus over time? I definitely feel that this notion of one job/one profession was not the way for me. Because I was shaped by each STUDE experience I had professionally, who I was making the next artistic or business decision changed as well. I feel that our INTRODUCING BROADWAY SPACE job as actors is to remain open to experiences and feelings, and also to keep ourselves current in whatever way is the I By Carla Weiss most inspiring. So, as I tell our students at Springboard, it’s your JOB to continue to learn after school is over. Waiting in a room for the phone to ring is both isolating and also makes for one dull actor with no life experience to draw on, and zero resources. I think the initial forays I made into other artistic fields – coaching, writing, even producing to a certain extent – were all simply ways for me to keep myself alert, intellectually challenged and engaged in the world, and of course to earn some rent money! Some of the opportunities presented to me resulted from being in the right place at the right time. For example the two years of producing Eddie Izzard came after I shared my opinion of a show I had just seen in Toronto with an Australian who turned out to be a New York producer thinking of introducing Eddie to American audiences. That chance encounter led to the next three years of my producing, as I made a name for myself as someone who could help brand a performer, could raise money for a show, and who could shepherd a project from the stage to a video product for HBO. And even when I had a desire to consciously shift focus, the stars were not always in alignment. I toyed briefly with making a “permanent” switch from producing theatre to television, but just as I was offered a new job in that exciting field we learned my father was dying of pancreatic cancer. I chose to stay a consultant to a theatre in lieu of taking on an 80 hour a week television gig so that I would be free to spend the remaining time with my dad. And ultimately, when the time was right, I joined that theatre as its full time Executive Director. I think things happen for a reason, and I have never regretted that decision. I don’t think the question should be “What do you want to be when you grow up?” I think the question should be “How do you want to grow up?!” As Ed Kleban might say, “It’s in the doing.” You have acted and coached actors, been a writer, creative consultant, producer, project director, Ken Davenport, the founder of BroadwaySpace, used to educator. Which role has given you the greatest spend about 35 minutes driving to his small high school in amount of satisfaction? central Massachusetts. While he was in the car he would Each in its own way has been so very satisfying. I love a blast music like The Complete Symphonic Recording of Les good story – building it, telling it, helping someone tell it, Miserables. As he got close to campus, he would hide the and finding a better way to share it. I think that while I have show music in his glove compartment and crank up the had a varied journey to date, what remains constant is my local Top 40 radio station. Once, when his best friend found love of making something better, clearer, and more possible. So coaching an actor is so satisfying – you experience the his cache of musical theatre recordings, Ken lied and said immediacy of the work you are doing. Producing, creative they were his mom’s! consulting, or directing a project is also satisfying as you Every once in a while, he was lucky enough to run into a create the environment for success. Putting together a fellow Falsettos fan, or someone who knew who Mandy project, raising the money for art, helping a non-profit board Patinkin was! But that was rare, and it was usually when he of directors see and support a unified artistic vision – all of was doing a show. Then the show would close, and he’d go these things are incredibly satisfying to me. And teaching, back to listening to Phantom in his room. helping to shape a new generation of artists, and finding Even as a successful theatre producer, many years later, ways to bring them closer to their best selves is he still found himself hiding his “musicals” playlist on his Ipod! perhaps the greatest feeling of all. Oh, and being a All this secrecy made him imagine a place where theatre mom! Who knew? The best. fans like him hung out all the time. A place where it always felt like you were doing a show, and that show never closed! Randy Ellen Lutterman is a Theatre Producer and A place where everyone loved The Complete Symphonic Educator; and Director, American Theatre Wing’s SpringboardNYC. Recording of Les Miz! So, he decided to create BroadwaySpace.com. A place

20 | Scene | 2009-10 December Issue 2 ISTA Scene Dec 09 20/11/09 17:30 Page 23 ENT SCENE trouble stalking Broadway stars and fans! Many Broadway Stars have pages on BroadwaySpace so you can follow their careers and get up-to-the-minute info on their concerts, special events, albums, appearances and latest casting news. Finally, BroadwaySpace and other social networking sites, are a great way to communicate with other like- minded individuals. Social networking can be used to your advantage as you plan for your future studies or eventual career. Not only can you connect with fellow ISTA members who you may have met at festivals and workshops, but you can also connect with people from around the world who where people from all over the world come to hang out in a share your specific interests and may have great information virtual Times Square, New York’s famous theatre district. A for you. Rather than spend all your time joking around on place where you can meet tons of like-minded, passionate Facebook, join a social networking site like BroadwaySpace theatre-lovers and discuss all your favorite topics no matter and compare notes on your IB project; find out about a killer where you live or what you do. audition song; download songs from an amazing new BroadwaySpace.com is like MySpace or Facebook for musical and volunteer to direct or produce its inaugural theatre lovers. It is the #1 social networking site for people production. Next time your parents tell you that you’re who love Broadway! After only 2 years on the web, spending too much time looking at screens and BroadwaySpace already has over 15,000 members. It’s a communicating in the cyberworld, you can tell them great place for theatre-lovers to meet, interact and hang out that you’re planning for your future! without actually moving to New York City and going to Don’t Tell Mama’s! On BroadwaySpace, you can make a customized page for yourself – just like on facebook or myspace - upload pictures, videos and weblinks, download widgets, post and respond to forum topics, and chat with other passionate theatre-lovers. BroadwaySpace castmembers start groups for shows and performers they love, and keep each other updated on the latest news. The forum has a wide variety of postings from news and gossip items to specific questions, lively debates and fun games. Castmembers can also chat live at any time with whoever is on-line. BroadwaySpace is a good resource for young performers and aspiring theatre professionals. The forum is filled with members looking for new shows to suggest to their school directors, asking about good audition songs, and seeking advice about places to study or how to start a performing career. Many of the members are going through the same experiences or have recently been through something similar, so you are guaranteed to have a lively exchange from an equally passionate responder. Reading the Q&A’s and longer-form articles gives BroadwaySpace castmembers an inside line on how the theatre business works and what it takes to be a professional creative person in the live entertainment industry. For those who are able to travel to New York, the site offers many ways to get discount tickets on Broadway shows as well as information about tours around the USA. If you’re not traveling to NY, no worries as BroadwaySpace has lots of fun contests and giveaways. There are always photo albums to peruse of what’s happening on Broadway - from the Tony Awards to special events to opening nights to first rehearsals. Video Blogger Ryan O’Connor gossips once a week about everything that’s going on in the Broadway world, and you can follow the adventures of BroadwaySergey the “Borat of Broadway” as he gets into

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ENCORE! Ensemble Theatre Workshop

Have you ever wished an ISTA Festival would last forever, • Find your voice? or at least a week or so longer? How about a month-long ...and not just your singing voice; tell your story by intensive theatre training programme where you’ll meet creating original work. lifelong friends, see amazing new places, work with dynamic • Work, play, & explore with your peers? staff directors. Think of Encore! as the ISTA Festival that …by exploring the markets of Antibes, the streets and never ends. We pack a lifetime into 4 weeks! cafes of Avignon, or pushing the envelope on stage, in the dance studio or in the music room. If you are an IB Theatre student, Encore! offers experience in a variety of theatre traditions, and the chance to share • Strengthen your English? experiences and viewpoints with students from a range of ...Encore! is taught in English. Many past Encorians for strong IB programme schools. Mask work, street whom English is a second or third language report performance, physical theatre, puppetry, Boal – all are their working English improved tremendously. Our among the rich variety of traditions and skills explored campus in Valbonne is also an excellent place to put during the month. You’ll generate loads of material for your your French to the test. journal and independent work, and log over 150 Creativity • Have a life-changing experience? and Action CAS hours. …The intense creativity and discipline required to build a highly proficient performing ensemble and create an Thinking about a career on the stage (or in the wings)? original work of musical theatre in one month is an Encore! is an intensive month-long programme, modeled experience like no other you are likely to have in the after ISTA’s approach to theatre education, in which years to come. The sharing, trust, discoveries, doubts, students form a professional-calibre performing ensemble. explorations, adventures, travels, mistakes, joys, fears, Our approach emphasizes discipline and dedication, disappointments and triumphs you will undergo pushing beyond the limits of your expectations, building together will allow you to forge an unforgettable bond strength and focus. Find out if the theatre is where you with your peers. Encorians! are never the same after should be working – or just come and have the time of your their summer in the South of France, making friends life, making friends you will keep for years, working and and building connections, both intellectual and learning in the South of France’s most beautiful landscapes. emotional, for a lifetime. Not much experience with theatre and drama before now? Not to worry – Encore! participants bring a variety of 2010 Dates: Saturday, 1 July - Sunday 1 August experience and skill-levels to the programme. In addition to Cost: $4950 program tuition, housing, meals actors, singers and dancers, we seek the creativity of poets and scheduled group activities and musicians, the inspiration of writers and painters, the Ages: 15-18 discipline and leadership of athletes. During our four weeks Location: Valbonne, France together everyone strengthens and adds skills – no matter (Nice International Airport) where they started. Participants learn from exceptional staff, Centre International de Valbonne from each other, from attending cutting- edge performances in Avignon and from performing themselves. Find out more and apply at: http://www.learntheatre.org. Do you want to Questions: Skype or email [email protected] • Push your boundaries? Phone: +1 941 306 3383. ...during four weeks devoted to theatre, with the freedom and time to try new things. Recommended by ISTA

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