At the ’62 Center’s new Summer Theatre Lab, students hone their craft alongside Play talented alumni professionals who By William B. Patrick get to fl ex their own

Photography by Kevin Bubriski Except where noted creative muscles.

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This fi rst morning of the lab, after six the CenterStage in front of a two-story Act I: Casting Call auditions, Jay joins Kevin and the stu- brick wall as the playing space for every “Don’t just play it angry,” Jay dents in the glass-walled seminar room single presentation. His only direction Tarses ’61 tells Lauren Hester ’07, who outside the CenterStage. The students’ is that the lighting plot be simple but is auditioning for the role of Amanda in anxiety is almost palpable as they wait to elegant. Jay’s teleplay-turned-stage play, Harry learn who will play which role. But this playing space was designed Cobb’s America. Lauren is the fourth stu- “Hey, listen,” Jay begins. “The audi- to be raw. Floor, walls, grid, I-beams, dent this morning to interpret Amanda, tion process is one of the most diffi cult pipes, railings, stairs and ceiling are all and the furrows in Jay’s brow have deep- things there is for an actor. You come a fl at, industrial black—relieved only ened with each audition. in, the director wants you to make small by the brick and some risers with dark Jay leans forward and knits his fi ngers talk, and all of a sudden he’s ready to chairs. There are hardly any sets or cos- as Lauren trades dialogue with actor hear you read, and you’ve got to say, tumes to create much of an environment Kevin O’Rourke ’78, who is playing her ‘Oh, OK,’ and get right into character. for the actors, so the lights will have fi ctional ex-husband Harry, a fl aky, self- It’s very diffi cult, and I want to thank to do almost everything. And Becky’s impressed TV journalist whose hit show you all for what you did today.” not exactly sure what Kevin means by is loosely based upon On the Road with “We’re taking the long view on casting “elegant.” Charles Kuralt. decisions,” Kevin says, trying to soothe The fi rst presentation is Heightened It’s the fi rst day of the fi rst-ever the group’s collective nerves. “We’re Senses of the Blind, by actor and writer Williams Summer Theatre Lab, where, working on a lot of shows, and we need Adam LeFevre ’72. The short play for the next six weeks, 12 students and to do a lot of different jobs, and most involves two actors who mostly sit on a 18 professional actors, writers, direc- everyone is equally capable of doing all wooden pallet and talk, which is a snap tors, musicians, producers and a lighting these jobs.” to light. But Becky also has to plan for designer—all of them Williams alumni— Then, with a few instructions to the Harry Cobb’s America, to be performed will gather in the CenterStage of the new students about lunch, Kevin and Jay are next week, with eight actors in different ’62 Center for Theatre and Dance to gone, hurrying toward Kevin’s offi ce as locations moving around a lot. She has develop and create experimental dramatic they debate casting decisions. only today and tomorrow to hang all pieces as a working theater company. “I thought Katie did the best reading the lights for both productions, focus The summer lab, based on the O’Neill for Amanda,” Jay says. them at the right angles, get dimmer Theater Playwrights Conference, is the “So did I,” says Kevin. “But Jess could numbers assigned to the correct chan- brainchild of Kevin and Rob Baker- do her, and so could Annie.” nels in the computer, train everyone and White ’80, chair of the Williams “It can’t be equal,” Jay interrupts. do the fi rst lighting rehearsal. theater department. In addition to giving “Just like in real life. Like in show busi- Katie Edgerton ’08, Edgardo “Eggie” students a chance to hone their craft ness. You have to break some hearts.” Costas ’07, Zoe Fonseca ’08 and alongside talented theater professionals, LaVonna Bowen ’06 are already setting it provides a safe haven for alumni to fl ex pipes. None of them has done much tech their own creative muscles. With Harry Act II: Staging crew, and a couple of them aren’t too Cobb’s America, Jay, a TV writer whose Becky Phillips ’06 is the only student crazy about heights. But the close-knit credits include The Bob Newhart and in the Summer Theatre Lab not working mesh of the Eisenhower grid, which is Carol Burnett shows and The Days and as an actor. She signed up, in part, for like a trampoline about 20 feet above Nights of Molly Dodd, is experimenting the chance to work with Julie Seitel ’94, the stage, makes everyone feel a little with writing and directing for the stage. her fi rst Williams design professor and safer. There’s no way a person or even a Later in the summer, fi lmmaker Stacy now a New York City lighting designer. light can fall through. Cochran ’81 will try her hand at a one- Today Becky faces a substantial chal- Becky has given the crew the basics: act play. lenge. Kevin has designated a corner of Empty your pockets, unless they’re

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discuss where they feel the play’s power resides. Then Professor Bernie Bucky, former chair of the Williams theater department, asks about its implied homosexuality, sparking a lively conversation. “The sense that we got read- ing [the play],” Eggie says, “was that this was probably the biggest confrontation that the brothers were ever going to have, and then, for Billy, it was kind of like, ‘If I’m ever going to bring this up, it BEN RUDICK might as well be now.’” zippered; hook your tools, which are New England town. It’s just before dawn An audience member in the attached to a phone cord, through your on a chilly autumn morning. front row jumps in. “I wonder, though, belt loop; make sure every single light is Dr. William Beasley, Cal and Billy’s if it doesn’t have something to do with secured with a safety chain. Suddenly, father, was buried yesterday. Suicide. why Billy’s the favorite son. I also just as Ilya Khodosh ’08 and Matt Terminal cancer. Now these two brothers wondered if it wasn’t the fi rst time you Wilka ’06 walk in down below, there’s sit and talk and wait for the dawn to mentioned it to Cal, and I thought that a bang, and Mary Pfi ster, the program arrive on the morning after their abusive made the scene a lot more interesting.” manager and resident mom to the com- father’s funeral. “I think a few of the lines at the end pany, yells “Heads up!” But Cal has brought along his dead are like that, statements that will test That’s what you shout if anything father’s shotgun, the one he used to how the relationship stands,” Eggie falls through the grid, and Becky can see shoot himself, and Billy’s upset—“It replies. “If Cal can take this, well, then now that somebody let slip an unsecured seems real inappropriate.” And Cal tells everything else is going to be fi ne. I actu- safety chain that slammed into one of Billy that his little eulogy, yesterday, ally saw it as one of the moments when the chairs underneath. Good thing there “That was inappropriate,” as if the old the two characters are closest and most wasn’t an audience member sitting down bastard wasn’t a cold, unfeeling alco- honest with each other.” there. “That’s why it’s heads up,” Mary holic who beat his wife and his kids. “You don’t think it was too much, in scolds the crew, and lighting day sud- Then, the reversal. We thought Cal 15 minutes, to try and get all that stuff denly feels even longer. was the one who helped Dad die. He’s in there?” a man in the back row asks. the angry, estranged son, after all, the “I really don’t think so,” Eggie says. son the father begged for help over the “It’s diffi cult to have so many emotional Act III: Presentation phone. fl uctuations as there are in those 15 Darkness. Two lights. Then two men “Sorry, Pop. Gotta go,” Cal said. minutes, but I actually think the writer sitting on a pallet. Eggie Costas blows It was Billy, the son who had stayed creates an interesting challenge. And I a duck call. Dav Wright ’08 says he’s home, who saw his dad’s tumor move don’t think it’s impossible, or even unre- wasting his breath, all the duckies are from spine to neck so, by the end, he alistic. I’m going to assume most people still dreaming. could hardly make a fi st anymore, it was have been in a situation where some- Dav plays Cal, a bitter man about 40, Billy who steadied the gun. times you just kind of start an avalanche and Eggie plays his brother, Billy, who’s In the talk-back after the presentation and things snowball. You open yourself younger. Cal and Billy sit together in a of Adam LeFevre’s Heightened Senses of up to saying one thing … and then other duck blind by a little lake near a small the Blind, the actors and small audience words just keep tumbling out.”

18 | WILLIAMS ALUMNI REVIEW | JANUARY 2006 Act IV: seemed angry, John. That one First Draft note all the way through, that It’s the fourth day of rehears- anger, and I think before, in the als for Prostitutes, a new stage other rehearsals, it wasn’t, to me, play by Stacy Cochran ’81, and so literal.” her actors simply aren’t “get- At that, John nods, takes his ting it.” TOM hat off, rubs his right Actor John Feltch ’80 (who palm across his forehead and plays Tom, a suicidal john), starts pacing slowly. “I know,” Caroline Taylor ’04 (who he repeats, “I know what you portrays Lisa, a remorseless mean.” hooker), and Eggie Costas (who’s Lisa’s 14-year-old son, Ray, or a club kid, or both)— BEN RUDICK Act V: Rewrite are having trouble understand- imagination. And yet they came from my So if you’re the writer and ing their characters’ motivations. Without imagination via real people, and, in the director, and your actors think your play specifi c motivation, it’s hard for an actor end, is this someone’s dream? Is it Tom’s isn’t working, what do you do? If you’re to “physicalize” a role—to know how to dream? Is it his creative process in his Stacy Cochran, you re-write the play. tell the story with his or her body. moment of dying that built this structure? “Listen, in terms of what worked and Admittedly, Prostitutes isn’t too easy Or not? It isn’t that it is reality; It’s that didn’t work, the fi rst one didn’t work to get. It’s an intentionally dreamlike it’s about reality.” particularly, so that’s the end of story,” one-act play in 11 scenes—most of them Rehearsing a scene set on the edges of a she says three days after the ill-fated shorter than a page and three of them just makeshift coffee shop near Penn Station, rehearsal, a new text in hand. a series of stage directions that read like John, all 6 feet 4 inches of him, wearing a “If there’s an opportunity to do some- shot descriptions for a movie. That’s to hat that says TOM in block letters on the thing that tries to work with the mini- be expected, though, because Stacy—who front, shoves his frame menacingly against mum number of words, this is a venue wrote and directed Boys, the 1996 com- Caroline’s Lisa. He locks his gaze on some to try it in, right? It’s a workshop, so I ing-of-age movie starring Winona Ryder, middle distance, grabs a good handful of thought, why write something that’s like Lukas Haas and John C. Reilly—has spent her hair and yanks her head back. a calling card? Why not try something most of her career writing and directing “Try to remember. What was I wear- completely new? It’s not like I didn’t want fi lms. ing?” Tom demands. the fi rst draft to work. But each little After the fi rst cold reading of the play, “Let go of my mom!” Ray pleads. nugget of that version, because it was so a student asks Stacy what Prostitutes is Lisa fi nally gives in: “An orange minimal, had to be so precise in its small- about and what she wants the audience to sweater.” ness. It had to work perfectly or it maybe get out of it. Now Tom lets go. “That’s right. You do wouldn’t work at all.” “That’s the sort of question that some- remember,” he says, grinning. The second draft of Prostitutes includes one else should answer,” Stacy says. “No “OK, OK, that’s good,” Stacy inter- a series of long monologues that guide the matter what I say, I’m going to regret it. rupts. “It’s absurd to say, but no matter actors toward motivations for their char- This was something where three distinct how tragic the scene is, when you guys acters. These new, quirky solo speeches characters were created and, by their very make me laugh, I feel like there’s some illuminate their inner desires and tor- nature as being characters in a play, are blood coursing through it.” ments in unexpected ways, so viewers can fi ctitious characters. So all these characters “Yeah, yeah, I know,” John agrees. almost empathize with the characters. are not people, but they’re about people, “But somehow that’s not happening “I’m excited now,” Stacy says. “This and they’re creations that came from my here. I wasn’t laughing at that. You just is also a whole lot easier to talk about in

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He edited the interviews into “a collage or a ‘re-memberment’ of my journey,” he says. “I become 22 differ- ent people in the play, and I use … their actual interview words, though I shaped them for performance into monologues.” With only a table, a chair, a coffee mug and a box of Kleenex on stage with him, Marc recreates each character “physically but minimally, with a gesture or accent or some small identifying mark. … So I’ll cross my legs and sit straight for one character, or jump up and pace around for another, use a Southern drawl, stand in front of the table, sneeze and blow

BEN RUDICK my nose a lot, shout, swear, sit still. It depends who I am.” retrospect, since this draft is something he was frustrated with the roles he was As the students watch, Marc trans- everyone’s having an easier time with. being offered. And he thought that if he forms himself into a woman he portrays But I don’t even know that it was writ- changed career paths, he’d “probably near the beginning of his play: able without having gone through the get involved in something political, try I feel like I’ve gone down Alice’s rabbit troubles of the fi rst one. Dramatic writ- to create some social change,” he says. hole in Alice in Wonderland. Yeah, yeah. ing is a funny combination of team col- “I was a poly sci and theater major at The fi nal descent. I think so. It’s build- laboration and solitary effort. It’s crucial Williams, and those are the two things ing up to this, but nothing appears to that the piece be one voice, but I couldn’t I’m most passionate about.” be what it seems to be. I don’t believe have gotten my own singular decisions to But Marc realized he’d miss theater— anything the newspapers say. Oh, oh, the point where they ended up without “a lot”—and decided to combine his I, I read The New York Times, and I the collaboration. interests in what he calls “documentary- believe it, but I think the truth is just “It was nice to have two drafts of based theater.” buried under fl uff and propaganda, and something like this, because it gave His fi rst play was Another American: you have to know what you’re looking everybody a shot at having a new fi rst Asking and Telling, about the “don’t for, and you have to carefully read it, and day. We had one fi rst day that went for a ask, don’t tell” policy—“the whole issue that’s new. week, corkscrewing down with problems of gays in the military,” he says. He He plays her with an almost brusque we uncovered—not personal problems, performed it as a one-man show from the Brooklyn accent, even though, he tells the but creative ones. This new draft had mid-90s through 2001. On Sept. 11 of students, the woman lived off the coast the benefi t of making us all feel like we that year, he was in Seattle. of Washington State. started over, together. That’s a good “When the terrorist attacks occurred,” “I love the documentary form,” Marc thing, I think.” he says, “I decided to drive back across says, “because the audience becomes the country to my home in New York me, in a way, and gets to interview the City, and the structure of my new people I met. It’s an intimate experi- Act VI: Character play, The Road Home: Re-Membering ence. … All they see is this white guy Ten years ago, Marc Wolf ’84 almost America, is based on interviews I did on stage, playing different people—men stopped acting. As he tells the students with random people I met as I drove and women, old and young, blacks, during week four of the summer lab, home for two months.” whites, Native Americans, Malaysians,

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a German tourist—so they very personal. That’s where have to listen carefully to the work is for any actor: To how these people talk and say, ‘This isn’t a poem; this is not just label them, and I like a piece of text that I’m going that.” to use as an actor to create a world and to fi nd a life and to use as my words about Act VII: Finale this moment.’” Haloed by a single light, Alex says Williams the- in a door-shaped opening ater made her into an actor that suddenly morphs into and that the ’62 Center “has a balcony, LaVonna Bowen that same feeling, like it’s my speaks the last three lines of home.” a Wordsworth sonnet: Her classmate Martha in his hand, Williamson ’77, one of The

The thing became a BENSON ROBERT Sonnet Project’s actors, trumpet; whence feels the same way. “Truly, he blew The Sonnet Project is actor and direc- everything I learned about how to run a Soul-animating strains tor Alexandra Neil’s brainchild. Alex show and how to make creative decisions alas, too few! Neil was Dianne Thompson when she started right here at Williams, because Composer/musician David Barnes ’81, graduated from Williams in 1977, and they give you the opportunity to make hidden downstage right, blows a long, her career has included a generous bal- the mistakes you need to make before soulful riff on his blues harp. The lights ance of TV and theater, most recently you can get it right,” says Williamson, come up full on the stage. Eggie Costas in the three-character play Match, with who spent nine years as head writer and strides in from downstage left in army Frank Langella and Ray Liotta, on executive producer of Touched by an fatigues and a dark gray T-shirt, wearing Broadway in 2004. Angel. “Williams is famous for letting a backpack and carrying a worn port- But Alex has always loved poetry, and you fail successfully.” I folio under his left arm. He crosses in she felt poetry was something unique she front of the audience, saying: could offer the students. “Nobody had William B. Patrick’s published work We do not speak like Petrarch really talked about language, and nobody includes screenplays, a radio play, two Now Zoe Fonseca, back on the bal- had talked about speaking in verse, books of poetry, a memoir and an cony, hollers down: which is a huge thing for an actor when award-winning novel. His latest book Or wear a hat like Spenser you get out in the real world,” she says. is Saving Troy, a creative nonfi ction Katie Edgerton sashays along the So she showed up for her two-week account of his time working with walkway above, saying: stint at the summer lab with 50 sonnets fi refi ghters in Troy, N.Y. and it is not fourteen lines she loved and asked the students to help like furrows in a small, carefully her whittle them down to the 22 that Photos by Kevin Bubriski were taken plowed fi eld appear in the play. during the summer lab. Photos by Ben Dav Wright, Lauren Hester, Ilya “The hard part about turning a group Rudick ’08 were taken during dress Khodosh, Matt Wilka and the oth- of sonnets into a play is that you don’t rehearsals for “Emerging and Returning ers deliver their lines from “American want to be up there reciting poetry,” Voices: A Celebration of Williamstheatre’s Sonnet” by poet Billy Collins. And The Alex says. “It could be really dead and Past and Future,” presenting summer lab Sonnet Project, the fi nal presentation of boring, so the hard part is getting the productions during the kickoff of the ’62 the Summer Theatre Lab, is under way. actors to live through it and make it Center’s inaugural season in October.

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